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Steve hears the keys go in the door of their apartment just as it's starting to get dark. Eddie's been out since breakfast so it's been a long day of moving stuff out of Gareth's garage. Steve had thought about offering his help too, but he'd known that Eddie wanted to do a whole farewell thing for the two members of the band that were heading off to college and they'd made moving a kind of impromptu session too as a proper send-off.
He'd worried when Eddie first shared the news that it would be a whole 'end of an era' thing for him, and that he'd be moping around the flat for a while, but instead Eddie had seemed really happy for them both. Steve had agreed with Robin that there was always a possibility it would hit him later, but that hadn't happened yet. Eddie's still writing and practicing and taking shifts at the music store. He seems content with his life in general, even though, with two band members down, the likelihood of Corroded Coffin continuing in any form was pretty low.
Steve is choosing to believe that Eddie is genuinely happy for them, it's been nice to hear him get excited about their plans for the future, to talk about keeping in touch and making a chart so they could all compete for the wildest story in their neck of the woods. Steve really doesn't want to puncture that mood by poking it to see if it's real or not.
"Hey," he calls back over his shoulder.
He hears sneakers shuffling on the carpet, and then a softer sound that suggests Eddie had leant onto the couch behind him. He's proven right when Eddie's arms hang down a few seconds later. Steve can see the shine of his rings, the grubby rounds of each knuckle, and the faint marks on his forearms that look like he was carrying something heavy enough to leave an impression.
He reaches over for the remote so he can mute the TV, which was still playing reruns of Battlestar Galactica. Eddie hadn't been surprised when he'd originally admitted to liking it, saying that it was 'basically Top Gun in space.' Then he'd called him a nerd and thrown a dish towel at him.
"How was it?" he asks, when one of Eddie's hands presses down on his shoulder.
"My long day of friendly camaraderie and manual labor?" Eddie groans and sinks deeper into the sofa back, until Steve can feel the tickle of his hair where the collar of his shirt is stretched open and thin. He smells sweaty, with a faint hint of beer, dust, and damp things. "The camaraderie was a blast, Gareth and Jeff are all set to head out tomorrow. The manual labor was not as much fun. The manual labor kicked my ass if I'm being brutally honest."
There's a quiet hiss to the words that has Steve twisting around until he can see him properly. He finds a tiredness to the stretch of Eddie's smile, which he was expecting, and an edge of discomfort to the rest of his face, which he wasn't.
"Hey, what did you do?" he asks. Because Steve is something of an expert at random and unexpected injuries at this point.
"I think I tweaked my shoulder, or my back, or maybe my shoulder and my back. Honestly, the whole–" Eddie makes a vague, annoyed gesture behind him, shirt stretching to show dirt in the sweaty creases. "Something with the muscle group that holds my arms on, that's a whole group right?"
Steve's wincing in sympathy, because he knows what that feels like. "If it's a pulled muscle you wanna put some ice on it. It helps with the inflammation."
Eddie makes a face. "Ugh, that's just a waste of good ice. I'm gonna go searching for some to go in my coke later and it's all going to be melted into my clothes."
"It's not a waste, dude, and if you've hurt yourself it should help." Steve knows the others tease him constantly about his need to fix problems, but this is something he actually has experience with.
"Is this secret sports knowledge you're providing me with? Am I learning jock secrets?" Eddie sounds way too excited about it. "After all this time, you're sharing the deep magics with me?"
Steve bats Eddie's hand away from where it had been gently shaking his shoulder.
"Yeah, you get the ice pack and you get the rubdown and then if the coach needs you within the next few days you get a massage." He's mostly joking, you only get a massage if you're in the big league and they actually care about you, or if you've fucked up a muscle and they need you for the next game.
Eddie raises an eyebrow and then leans down far enough to steal a mini-stack of Steve's pringles out of the tube in his lap.
"Wow, I was joking before but you really did get the all-star treatment," he says around the shape of them. Steve pulls the tube away from his grubby fingers before he can steal more.
"What, you don't get the ice pack and the rub-down after D&D?"
Eddie's laughing and covering his mouth to make sure chips don't escape. He fails, of course he fails.
"There is such a thing as time management when you're on a quest, Steve," he says once he's swallowed. "Not a lot of gyms in the Forgotten Realms either. Honestly, by the time you need a rub-down you're usually either dead or unconscious, so the helpfulness of that would be pretty limited. But I'll keep it in mind. Jesus, free massages for tossing the ball really well. I really did go through high school on hard mode."
Steve frowns. "I mean, don't be too jealous, a sports massage is no joke, they dig into your muscles like they're trying to touch bone. Feels good after though, and it suddenly occurs to me that might be because they stop making you feel as if you're a lemon being juiced."
"So what you're saying is…I should look up your old coach and ask him if he'll please contort me into a variety of shapes in the hope that my arm eventually feels better, and that lemons may or may not be involved? Steve, I'm not getting fun-time vibes from that, I have to say. Feel like you're giving me bad advice here."
Steve immediately regrets bringing the guy up, mostly because he knows that he'd have no time for Eddie's...for Eddie's anything.
"No, seriously, please do not look the dude up, he was a total asshole. But if it's just a basic massage on a strain then I can do it."
Eddie's giving him a funny look over the top of the sofa, sort of disbelieving, and Steve can't help but feel a little insulted by it. Because, yeah, he's bad at a lot of things that Eddie's into but he does have some skills of his own.
"We used to get them after swimming too, it can be tough on the shoulders, depending on which stroke you're doing."
Eddie's mouth stretches into a grin and Steve can see the entire sentence before it's even half formed.
"If you're straining your arm when you're stroking then you're going too hard, my friend." He curves a hand over Steve's shoulder and shakes him.
Steve reaches sideways for one of their threadbare cushions, he's a second away from swinging it up to smack Eddie before he remembers that he's currently injured. Instead he stretches off the sofa in his socks and gestures for Eddie to turn around.
Eddie grumbles but does as he's told. Steve gently takes his wrist and makes an L-shape out of his arm, rotating it slowly, during which Eddie grumbles complaint, quietly hisses at a press of thumbs, and decides that Steve is 'torturing him on purpose.'
"I haven't ripped a single one of your fingernails out, you baby," Steve counters, because living with Eddie Munson you kind of learn to joke about that shit. "Pulls are usually because you made the muscle do work it wasn't prepared or ready for. Strains are more from overworking it."
"Did we take into account that my muscles put in only a minor general protest, and that they were reasonably compensated in beer and take-out. It was only once overtime hit that they threw in the towel?" Eddie laughs at his own joke, and then makes an unhappy noise when Steve lifts his arm until his elbow is shoulder height. He makes no attempt to pull away though.
"This is gonna be a bitch tomorrow if you leave it. Why don't you take a shower and I can have a go at it when you get out."
"When you say 'have a go at it' that's not the lemon squeezing right? Because I will go to the principal if you bully me– and by principal I obviously mean Robin."
"I promise not to contort you into shapes, dude."
Eddie squints at him as if he's not sure whether to believe him or not, but he pushes himself to a full stand and stretches carefully. One side and then the other, shirt pulling up until there's a strip of bare waist in the gap between it and his jeans.
Steve's done the same move on a girl he liked and he can't help laughing at the way Eddie does it so casually, looking sweaty and irritated, dirt streaks on his face.
"I guess you couldn't make it any worse at this point. Could you please go back in time and tell my past self not to try and carry all the amps today, while Gareth and Jeff played VIP guests and parked their asses."
"As if past you would listen to me," Steve points out, because Eddie has always gone above and beyond for his friends. "We both know he's kind of an asshole, always thinks he's right."
Eddie's nodding before he's finished. "Hmm, ok, fair, you've got me there, past me guilty as charged." He strips off his t-shirt and throws it over his shoulder, before turning and heading for the bathroom. The faint curls of scar tissue that stretch round the soft edges of his waist are pink and shiny in the heat.
The shower's already running when Steve finds himself sorting through the cupboard by his bed for the oil that he sometimes rubs into his own calves and thighs after one of the morning runs. On good days they're a chance to enjoy the quiet, reliable working of his body in the open air; and on bad days they're a joyless but necessary patrol of the neighborhood, feeling like he's strung too tight. Robin and Eddie are both helping with that though.
The oil can be messy if he gets any on the sheets so he usually uses a towel. But it always leaves his muscles feeling nicely warm and stretched afterwards. So he figures it might help Eddie too.
He hovers in the doorway of his room for a moment, not sure if Eddie's going to want to do it on his bed or Steve's. They're both comfortable in each other's space at this point so it's a fair question. Even before they decided to share the apartment, they'd spent nights covered in bandages and medical cream, dosed up on pills and unable to sleep through nightmares, or pain, or a persistent nagging feeling that someone else would die if they stopped paying attention for a single second (that one was mostly Steve.)
Still, they're going to need a bit of room to stretch out and – oh that's a good point, Steve should get some towels to put down too. He picks the ones he uses after a run, the others are– he doesn't want to say 'nice towels' because he knows Eddie would mock the shit out of him for it. But they still have a few that have no bleach stains or paint from Eddie's miniatures on, which the guy in the shop had insisted was not oil-based, the goddamn liar.
The shower shuts off and Steve waits perched on the back of the couch listening to the sound of squeaking and dripping and faint swears when Eddie knocks something bottle-shaped down, probably while getting dressed. The door opens eventually though, the steamy interior telling Steve exactly how hot he'd made it, possibly in an attempt to ease the tightness of his muscles. He looks surprised to find Steve so close, clutching the towel and the bottle of oil.
Eddie's wearing black sweats and a sleeveless t-shirt, the logo of which is lost to time, all that's left being some pitted little flecks of the design and the faded shadow of a skeletal hand. He's scrubbing at his hair, the wet half-curls and frizzy ends crumpling and separating until he looks like a poodle.
"Wow, I didn't actually expect you meant that seriously?" Eddie says with the faintest huff of amusement.
"Why wouldn't I mean it?" Steve wouldn't have offered unless he was ok with it. "Look, I know what it feels like to be messed up and hurting after a tough game…or, y'know, a day lifting shit for your friends." Also a day fighting interdimensional horrors, but joking about that casually can be hit or miss.
"So you're genuinely offering me a massage?"
Steve's expecting a laugh but instead there's a frown, almost suspicious, as if Eddie still thinks he's messing with him for some reason.
"Yeah, dude, but if you're not interested I'm not gonna be pissed about it. Just say no and I'll take my oil and my talented hands back to my room." Steve straightens off the couch and throws up his arms. "I'm not gonna wrestle you to the floor and make you or anything."
The frown on Eddie's face relaxes into something less pinched.
"No, dude, I didn't mean it like that, I just didn't expect it." His eyes drop to the towel and the bottle again. "You're really serious about this, huh?"
"Only if you want me to." Steve isn't going to push but he is going to give Eddie a heads up about how to give himself the best chance of not waking up feeling like he slept with his arm under a bus. "Though it will definitely hurt more tomorrow morning if I don't. So promise you'll at least get some gentle stretching in before you sleep."
Eddie drapes the towel he'd been using to dry his hair over his shoulder, and Steve would complain that the damp material is going to leave his shirt wet, but water is already soaking into it around the ends of his hair.
"Where do you want me?" Eddie asks, one side of his mouth pulled up in amusement. It feels flirty but Steve's more than used to it by now, so he ignores it.
"My room's probably easier for it," he offers.
"Less in the way of cassettes, loose paper, paint pots and empty pringles cans on the floor?" Eddie guesses.
"I was going to say better light, but you know what…you know what, yeah." Steve gestures back through the apartment and then follows Eddie – after retrieving the towel he leaves over the back of a chair and tossing it into the kitchen sink for now.
When he gets in his room he finds Eddie hovering, he waves at the end of the bed when Steve catches up.
"You want I should sit on the end or..."
"It would probably be easier if you lay on your stomach, so I can get fully around your shoulder."
"And you're not gonna fuck it up worse?" Eddie says. He sounds more than a little dubious and Steve chooses to be insulted by both that and the eyebrows of suspicion.
"What, you don't trust me?"
Eddie's mouth works for a second, before half a smile creeps onto it.
"You know what, I do, and that may not be wise of me; but, I think if you were the type to kill off a roommate you would have done it already by now. I can be really annoying–"
Steve whaps him with the clean towel, lightly enough that he's still laughing, hair fluffed up on one side.
"Get on the bed Munson or I'm gonna rethink the whole not turning you into a pretzel, thing."
"I like pretzels," Eddie reminds him, but he's knee-walking up the bed, sweats slipping where he hasn't quite pulled them up high enough on his hips. Not that it really matters since Steve's probably going to drag them down a bit more when he sits on him anyway. He puts the towel down under him before he lets him lie down, face smushed into Steve's pillow. Whatever he's complaining about is too muffled by the material so Steve ignores him in favor of opening the oil and shuffling up the bed behind him.
Eddie lifts his head up and rests it on his arms.
"So, this stuff's going to soak in, right? This isn't a baby oil situation where I'm going to be slipping around the apartment leaving greasy handprints on everything until I go in the shower again?"
Steve puts a hand on the back of his head and nudges him down.
"Yeah, it soaks in, you big baby. I use it on my calf muscles after a run."
"Just checking." Eddie settles his chin on his folded hands and Steve can feel the bed shaking a little as he rolls his feet back and forth behind him.
Eddie's back mostly escaped the bats, there are a few lines that creep over his shoulder, like cracks, on the right side. The left is almost entirely clear until you reach the curve of his neck and find the scatter of scars that spider up over his jaw and into his cheek. The last time Steve had touched them himself had been almost a year ago now, but he knows what they feel like because he has his own. The slowly healing skin going red and sinking slightly, stretching out as they heal more and fading to pink. The scars aren't old enough to be white yet, that's going to take years, but they have the silky smoothness of new skin. Steve also knows that they're going to be sensitive in places and almost dead of sensation in others.
"Tell me if I hit anywhere that's too sensitive, or anywhere that doesn't feel good to touch, ok?"
There's a snort from Eddie and Steve can already hear the comment forming. He decides to cut it off, smacks his hand gently against the back of Eddie's head, then finishes by gathering his wet hair and pushing it to the side, so it's laying across the pillow rather than down his back. He can always turn it over if it's still damp when he goes to bed.
"I'm talking about the scars, you dick."
Eddie's still laughing where he's half-buried, but Steve can hear him agreeing to let him know as he tips the bottle, lets a puddle of oil form in one hand before he rubs it into the other, palms and fingers going shiny.
"I'm gonna start gently. If it really hurts then tell me and I'll stop, but if it's a strain it should help ease it off if I dig in a bit deeper. It's gonna have tightened up though so it's probably going to be uncomfortable to start with." Steve settles both hands on Eddie's back, feeling the muscle rise to meet him almost instinctively. He's warm and still damp from the shower, skin pale enough to prove it never sees the sun. Steve pushes upwards, towards the base of his neck, dragging oil with him, the skin glistening under the slow pressure, before turning outwards to gently roll over his shoulders, and then pulling back down his ribs.
He isn't surprised when Eddie's low rumble of laughter cuts off and a surprised sound of appreciation cracks out of him instead. Steve repeats the movements, this time a little harder, to test what Eddie's comfortable with, thumbs turning and pressing down when he reaches the waist of his sweats on the third pass.
The tightness that had been there originally fades as Eddie realizes that nothing awful is going to happen to him. Nothing except the slow, hard pushes of Steve's hands. He rolls them over Eddie's shoulders again, watching the shine of oil spread down his arms too. Steve had never actually done this for someone who wasn't a teammate, and recently it's only been his own muscles he's squeezed and stretched and pulled into submission. It's different to be doing it to someone he's close to, watching the way Eddie's arms flop out either side of him when Steve gently raises them there, working slowly around the shoulder joints and his biceps and the soft bend of an elbow.
"How are you so good at this?" Eddie sounds somewhere between bewildered and demanding. "Were you taking secret night classes? Were you practicing on our friends?" He shakes wet hair out of his face so he can squint back at Steve. "You know what, never mind, I don't care, this is amazing, I can't feel my legs."
"It's because I'm sitting on them," Steve points out.
"Who needs legs anyway," Eddie mumbles. The laugh that comes after breaks for a groan that perfectly follows the movement of Steve's hands. He can feel the moment Eddie's body relaxes completely, and the murmur of surprise that comes with it. The whole line of his back long and smooth under his hands, though that might just be the fact that his sweats have slipped all the way down to the very top of his ass, leaving Steve more area to work on. Eddie has the faintest scatter of freckles across his shoulders, and a small, white, non-bat-related scar in the middle of his shoulder blade.
"That's so good, how are you doing that?" Eddie's voice is barely intelligible where it's muffled by the pillow. It's followed by a punch of sound from his throat when Steve pushes up, putting his weight on his arms as he follows both sides to Eddie's neck, fingers drifting high enough to tuck into the damp curls of his hair.
He works slowly into the injured shoulder once he reaches it again, being more careful when he stretches outwards and loosens up the muscle, before going back down the length of Eddie's spine and pulling upwards again. It's actually pretty relaxing to do this, and he hopes it feels significantly better than some of the pummeling he was subjected to every time he tweaked his hamstring or twisted wrong at the shoulder.
"How are you doing?" Steve asks.
Eddie rolls his head to the side.
"Ugh, so good, feels stretchy, I think you're gonna make me two inches taller." A ragged noise of appreciation cuts off the thought and there's something so honestly pleased in it, completely unselfconscious, that Steve's going to take it as a compliment. "Can that happen? Because I'd really like to break six feet. It's a dream of mine."
Steve huffs an amused "extra inches are a waste if you don't know what to do with them," and then gently presses down into the middle of Eddie's back before he can reply, thumbs pulling outwards. That move gets him another groan and a mangled curse.
"Holy shit, you're wasted on minimum wage jobs, Steve, seriously. You could make a killing twisting people into unnatural shapes. I've seen the light, man, pretzel me."
Steve has to stop for a second to laugh, shuffling down so he's sitting more on the back of Eddie's thighs.
"Is it helping though?"
"Ngh, keep doing it for another hour or so and I'll let you know."
"I have other stuff to do tonight you know." That's a lie, Steve's entire plan for the evening had been to lie on the couch and do nothing, throw together some pasta, and then watch TV until he fell asleep.
Eddie lifts a hand and waves behind him. "There's seven bucks in my jeans pocket, if you keep going it's all yours." He thinks about it for a minute. "Might throw in my Hollywood Video card if you do a really good job."
"Just be glad this isn't a sport's massage or I'd have already tweaked two bones in your spine, slapped your ass and told you to suck it up for the next game."
Eddie's laughter is half muffled by the pillow but it goes on for a while.
"Oh my God. Don't make me picture that."
"I'm not even kidding, and honestly, I get how you can hate it from the outside. If you have literally no interest in competitive sports a lot of it is kind of shitty and demeaning."
Eddie pushes himself up on his arms and Steve notices the movement is already easier than it had been before, gives himself a pat on the back.
"Well now I feel like I should go through it, for solidarity. I would hate to miss out on the traditional massage techniques of the jock establishment. Don't tell me when, it can be a surprise." He's snorting into the pillows like he finds the idea funny, which just proves he's never had one in his life.
"I don't think anyone actually enjoys them." Steve had debated it once with Robin, who was insistent that it was purely a humiliation technique for people that didn't put their all into the team.
"Oh I guarantee someone enjoys them," Eddie mutters. The rest of the sentence is lost when he buries his face in his arms, though Steve's pretty sure he catches something about 'being pummeled into shape by an authority figure,' which is closely followed by something that Steve really wants to call a giggle.
He looks down, to where the waist of Eddie's sweats has dipped low enough to show off the dimples on his back, before the fabric pulls tight over his ass and honestly how is Steve supposed to resist that? For old times' sake if nothing else.
He fakes a sigh, if only to lull Eddie into a false sense of security, grumbling as he pours more oil into his palm and gets into the soft skin at his sides, where his fingers and thumbs start to stray across the branch-like ends of his scars. Then, when he sits up straight, as if he's going to readjust for another pass up, instead he leans back and drags the top of Eddie's sweats down, all the way to the lower curve of his pale, completely bare ass, and then he slaps the meat of it with one slippery hand hard enough to get what he is absolutely going to describe as a squeal.
He's holding a laugh as he folds over Eddie's back, one hand curling around the back of his neck and gripping tight, mouth right next to his ear.
"Better shape up sport. You have a big game tomorrow."
Steve can't help laughing then, as Eddie makes coughing noises into the pillow, burying his entire face, arms dragging up as he squirms like he's trying to shuffle his pants back up, which would be easier if Steve didn't still have his fingers in them. He can feel the warmth of naked skin against his knuckles and he's trying really hard not to think about how good it feels.
"You asshole!" The words are garbled into the pillow, breathless and strained by the laughter Eddie's barely holding.
"I'm sorry," Steve says. "Weren't you the one that just told me you wanted the full jock experience?"
"That was not–" the next words are lost in fabric, possibly because Eddie's biting it, "–what I meant, Jesus."
"Surprise me you said," Steve points out.
There's another strangled noise and pieces of "don't you know that I just say shit sometimes," floating out on a laugh.
Steve can tell that he's not only embarrassed now, can tell that he hit something that was playful in a very different way for Eddie. He knows that the right thing to do would be to apologize for the joke and tell him he's going to behave now. Because anything else feels like it would fall into that weird space where messing around becomes leading him on, which is a brand new headspace to be in with a guy friend. But Steve is enjoying this far more than he expected to. The slippery width of Eddie's body under his fingers, the red mark on his bare ass that matches his own hand, the way he sounds flustered and embarrassed but not angry, not even close to angry.
The way that part of Steve wants to know how far he can push.
Not because he thinks he can win or anything like that.
He just wants to.
Because it turns out that he really likes the way that Eddie looks between his knees, and the way he laughs, and the feel of his waist under his hands, and the fan of dark curls on his pillow. He's starting to think that maybe this can be something else he knows about himself.
Steve leans down into him again.
"You don't want to spend the next match on the bench, do you?"
"Oh my God, stop." Eddie buries his face in his arms and Steve knows him well enough to know that his cheeks are probably bright red right now.
"You know sometimes if a teammate does really well, everyone slaps him on the ass before the big game...for luck." Steve offers that little bit of information with a tug of fabric, more than pleased by the grunt and the little bounce of ass it gets.
"That's not true," Eddie grumbles. He still hasn't pulled his head up, but he hasn't asked Steve to stop either.
"It's absolutely true," Steve says. "You give them a little smack before the game." He gives the material he's still holding in his knuckles another tug and the noise he gets from Eddie is just a punch of air in his throat. "Eleven of your teammates lining up to give you a smack, imagine how that feels, running around with that hot little space on your ass, still stinging as you're waving for the ball."
"Fuck."
"You want another?" Steve adds that in the same tone of voice he might use to throw a practice ball, or pass a towel.
"Steve!"
"That's Coach Steve to you," Steve says thickly, trying very hard not to laugh, and Eddie's making sounds under his breath that Steve has never heard from him before.
"Oh my– no, I am not calling you Coach Steve." There's a laugh though, a garbled snatch of sound in the pillow, and Steve knows a dare when he hears one.
He straightens up and lifts his hand, brings it down again with a ringing slap that makes Eddie yelp into the bed and his head finally comes up.
"Holy shit." There's so much hair in his face that Steve can't see him at all. "Ok, ok, I don't know if you've missed it but this is...so far past friendly horseplay right now. So I'm going to need you to either quietly leave the room and let me get my shit together, or to..." Eddie does nothing but breathe heavily for a second, before he gives up, as if he doesn't know what the alternative is.
"Or to lock the door?" Steve suggests.
The breath Eddie had obviously been holding comes out all in one go.
"Steve..." The word breaks on a croak of air. "Steve, you're killing me here."
"Do you want me to?" Steve asks.
The way Eddie's mouth works for a second, Steve knows there's a yes there, fighting against something that's probably a much more sensible no. Something about how they're friends, and they've never had a problem living together and they have history and family...and so many reasons not to fuck with their dynamic. Not to mention Steve is barely in the home stretch of realizing that maybe he's more into the idea of messing around with a guy than he ever thought, Eddie in particular. Which is becoming more obvious the longer he goes without pulling his sweats back up, watching the way his ass moves in tiny jolts and stretches every time he shifts to look over his shoulder.
"Do I want you to? Steve, since when–"
"Umm, short answer, since you got half naked and laid on my bed."
Eddie squints at him. "Long answer?"
Steve sighs and rolls his eyes. "The same but you make me talk about it instead of continuing this excellent massage and offering up more suggestions about how the coach is going to get you ready to sweat on the court."
"Is this really happening?" Eddie demands. He seems to be mostly talking to himself.
"Eddie."
"No, no, I am seriously debating whether I slipped in the shower and hit my head– ow, you asshole."
Steve squeezes Eddie's waist with the hand he'd just pinched his ass with and leans down over him.
"Ok, I'm going to pour more oil on my hands and get back to work. You can say no whenever you want."
"So what, you're just a friend helping a friend out?" The words come out fast and a little strained, as if he thinks Steve's going to change his mind once he realizes how gay it all is. As if maybe he hadn't noticed or something.
"If you like," Steve says calmly, ignoring the excited stutter of his own pulse. "Because we're friends, and you know how much I like to help."
"Ok, ok, ok." Eddie says nothing after that for long enough that Steve has slippery hands moving on his shoulders again by the time he finally finds a thought. "Ok, so, say that I...say that I was down for that. I've never had a friend that I fool around with before, how does this even work?"
Steve isn't exactly an expert here. Eddie's the first person he's wanted to make that line messy with.
"Same as it usually does, I guess. We do friend stuff but there's extra stuff too if we want." Steve can't help watching the way he'd pulled his hands low enough that his thumbs were slowly sliding down the small pale curves of Eddie's ass. He's never wanted to say something so much in his life, and he can't think of any reason not to, so he lets his mouth do what it wants. "I mean, right now I'm thinking a lot about fingering you until you come."
"About– holy shit."
Steve watches Eddie's back flex, the briefest press into the bed suggesting he's looking for pressure.
"But only if you want that," Steve says, hands smoothing down Eddie's lower back, and not at all accidentally pushing his hips into the mattress again.
"Yeah," Eddie says immediately. "Yeah, holy shit, I do now, and I can't believe I'm actually asking for that."
"It's important to ask for what you want," Steve tells him. He's a little breathless at how quickly Eddie agreed to that, still catching up. He thinks he's doing an amazing job of hiding how he's very close to out of his depth here. But the fact that the evening is suddenly and unexpectedly sliding in this direction is absolutely ok by him.
Steve pours more oil into his hands and works it into the long plane of Eddie's back, taking his time on it now, digging in his thumbs and sliding his fingers where Eddie's ribs curve in and then out when he takes a breath. He slips under the sweats to get the lowest curves of Eddie's ass, fingertips grazing his thighs and then dipping into the middle where the waistband pulls them together. He can feel the damp space where Eddie balls are, oils there for a second, more than long enough to leave the waistband shiny.
Eddie takes a long slow breath. "Shit, you're going to tease me now, aren't you?"
Steve decides to be honest. "You're my first guy, you're not going to give me a minute to get to grips with how you feel?" He digs his fingers in on the last few words and Eddie gives a short groaning laugh into the bed.
"Ok but now I'm going to look like an asshole if I say no, aren't I?" He stops with a sigh when Steve hits a good spot, then lets his forehead smack into the back of his hand. "Fine, fine, explore your sudden and unexpected interest in dick while I just lie here and die, I guess."
Steve really wants to take pity on him, but if he's being honest he genuinely is enjoying letting his hands tug Eddie's sweats lower on every slow pass. He's never undressed another guy before and it's new in a way that he'll admit is exciting. It's new in a way where he gets to see the long bare length of Eddie's thighs, and the softness of his leg hair, and the dimples above his ass. He thought it would be different, but it still feels a lot like those evenings in his room, bedding slipped to the floor, unbuttoning a girl's skirt, or jeans and working them down her hips– only Eddie is a stretch of scarred muscle and broad shoulders and a few scattered freckles across his back that Steve had never seen. Finding small, intimate pieces of Eddie outside of a hospital room is different enough that he finds that he's stiffened up in his jeans, which are absolutely going to be more uncomfortable than the sweats that he's slowly shifting down. But he doesn't want to stop to see to himself yet.
The fact that there's no underwear isn't helping at all and he wonders if that's part of the reason why Eddie had been so hesitant to sprawl out on his bed, knowing that he was wearing the sweats and nothing else.
The thought's enough for Steve to tuck both hands in the waistband and drag them down lower in one slow pull. He has to laugh when they briefly snag on Eddie's dick and he makes a shaky sound of irritation and lifts his hips. They come down all the way to Eddie's knees and Steve has to actually get off him to take them all the way and toss them off the side of the bed.
Eddie's legs are as pale as the rest of him, the hair fine and straight and as dark at Steve's. The soft curve of his ass is small but Steve still can't help straddling his thighs again and pulling still slippery hands over the faint handful on either side.
"Oh." The word comes out breathy, the touch making him clench briefly, and Steve can feel that in a way that makes him want to smack it again. It's not a massage anymore when he slides his thumbs down the crack and slowly eases him open. Eddie gives a shocked whine and Steve is tempted to join him when he gets to see the spread of him, faint scattering of dark hair, pink hole curled shut at the center.
"Fuck, Steve, stop." The words are choked out, hot and embarrassed.
Steve lets his hands slide away, leaning back at the word, only for Eddie to make a frustrated noise, pulling all his hair the wrong way to cover his face.
"No, I didn't– I want you to. I just didn't expect you to stare right at my fucking asshole." He huffs a laugh that still sounds embarrassed. "It was kind of hot though."
"It was hot," Steve agrees, his voice suddenly deep. "I wanted to look...wanted to more than look. I was thinking about touching you there, if you'd like it. Thinking about how you'd look all shiny and wet with my fingers inside you." He can't believe he's saying that. It feels as if his face is on fire and some sort of quietly shocked noise comes out after it. He briefly wonders if he should apologize, because that was...that was a lot.
There's the faint sound that Steve might suspect is someone gnawing the bedcovers.
"You can't just say shit like that," Eddie tells him, and it sounds a lot more like a plea to have mercy on him than a genuine complaint. Steve's laughing again in a way that might be relieved, he doesn't even know anymore.
"I know I said earlier, but do you want me to do that? Because I'm not gonna lie, I really want to do that?" His hands are on Eddie's ass again, squeezing gently and then digging his thumbs into the give on each side. Steve spreads him open, more slowly, and this time Eddie doesn't tell him to stop. His thighs tighten and he swears and draws in a breath like it might be his last. "Can I do that?"
"Yeah, oh my God, yes," Eddie says, too fast and then makes a sound like he wants to shove all his hair in his mouth, as if his enthusiasm might be a bad thing. When it's exactly the opposite, when it's making Steve a little crazy. "You can put your fingers in me," he finishes anyway, knees shifting on the bed.
Steve lifts the bottle and pours more oil into his palm. He knows he should start slow, he'd tried this with a girl once, when she'd suggested it as an alternative to losing her virginity (which hadn't made sense to Steve because he would definitely have called it sex when he was getting her ready.) But after three fingers she'd decided she wasn't into it and she'd jerked him off instead.
All he does to start with is rub his fingers down the crack of Eddie's ass, making slow passes over his hole, pressing the hair flat and making the skin shiny-pink.
Eddie's whole face is buried in the pillows and Steve leans up the bed, pushing a hand up under Eddie's hair and carefully drawing it to the side until he can see one red cheek, threaded at the jaw by scars and a closed eye.
"Come on man, you gotta tell me if I'm doing a good job," Steve whispers in his ear and he feels the shiver and the insult Eddie throws at him.
"Asshole, your fingers aren't even in me yet and I'm already losing my mind," Eddie points out. "It's like...nerve endings and stuff. Stupid." He bites his lip and spreads his legs wider in a way that makes Steve feel a little wrecked. "Unh, I'm going to need you to remember that friends don't judge each other for having a damn hair trigger. It's not my fault your hands are– oh fuck!"
Steve had turned a sliding pass into a push while Eddie was talking, finger sinking in to the second knuckle and he feels the way Eddie's hips try to push back, body squeezing around him in a surprised clench. Steve's heart is pounding an excitable rhythm at how lewd it looks to have his finger pressed inside him, but the fact that it's Eddie somehow makes it better, familiar Eddie with his jokes and his smiles and his sleeveless shirts and dramatics over their dining table every D&D night. Eddie who's thrown an arm over his shoulders on warm days, smelling like sweat and beer and the harsh mint of his cheap shower gel. Eddie who's now naked on his bed making hot little sounds while Steve fingers him. He sinks in a bit more on a gentle push, feels the silky-damp inside of him and Eddie's head falls gently to the side, panting a soft breath and letting it happen.
It's easy for Steve to slide his finger all the way out and press in with another, feeling the slow tight stretch of him as he twists and eases deeper.
"Steve, fuck, Steve." Eddie's voice drags out of his throat, low like he can't believe this is happening.
Steve's still in enough of a lean that he can curl into Eddie's back, mouth to his cheek, it's almost a kiss, might be if he was braver.
"This ok?"
"Yeah," Eddie breathes. "Yeah, it's good, feels weird, feels like a lot, the stretch is kinda tight and achy but in a good way."
Steve grunts agreement, because it's the truth, he is so tight. He leans back to watch his fingers slide into Eddie over and over, pulling his rim open, watching it squeeze his fingers when he adds more oil, the slow push becoming squelchy thrusts that have Eddie groaning embarrassment and arousal in equal measure.
"You want another?" Steve asks, hoping he says yes.
"Uh huh," Eddie says immediately. His hips are up off the bed now, braced to take the slow stretch of three fingers, pulling tight and wide around them until Steve pinches them together to push in deeper.
He's fairly sure he can make him feel good from the inside if he–
"Oh my God, Steve."
Hands full of rings fist in the bedding and Eddie's knees are spreading in the sheets, balls hanging soft below where he's working in and out of him, a whine building in Eddie's throat as he starts to rock into the pressure. His eyes are shut and his mouth is open and Steve has never known him to be so quiet.
"Are you gonna fuck me?" Eddie asks suddenly, voice breathless.
Steve's hand goes still, he can feel the heat of him and the steady constant throbbing demand of his own erection, the one he's been stamping down on to make Eddie feel good.
"I didn't know if you wanted me to be your first time," Steve admits. It's either that or say something about how he's been thinking about nothing else, how much he wants it, how much he wants to feel Eddie squeeze around his dick like he's doing to his fingers. The way he wants to pin him to the bed and fuck him open. How much he wants to feel the noises he'll make when he kisses the skin under his ear and sinks all the way inside. He says none of that, he swallows it and he feels Eddie's asshole clench around his knuckles and he waits.
"You're offering though, right? And I don't think there's anyone I trust more than you." Eddie shifts back into him, a short nudge of pressure into the fingers that slowly start moving in him again. "I'm pretty sure you'd make it good for me Steve. But if you don't want to, it's cool."
"If I don't– Jesus, I've only been thinking about it since the moment I saw your ass."
Eddie barks a laugh, his eyes are open, bright and wet and a little dreamy when they look back at Steve.
"Wow, they didn't lie, you really are a charmer," he says.
Steve slips his fingers free and reaches up for the condoms in the drawer, tearing one off and pushing his jeans down.
"How were you even maintaining blood circulation in those things?" Eddie wonders, one eyebrow hiked in amusement as Steve struggles to free his knees.
"Shut up, getting my fingers in your ass was something of a distraction."
Eddie wriggles around enough to watch Steve toss his jeans onto the floor. He's left tenting his briefs in a way that he thinks does a good job of pointing out how much he's into this whole thing and also showing off that he has something to work with. He thinks it's pretty damn hot personally. He's proven right when Eddie's eyes drop down his body and he swallows air. When Steve pushes the waistband down his eyes fix there, and then he's turning completely, reaching out with a warm hand to touch Steve's dick. It jumps at the circle of fingers and he's groaning a breath at how solid and real it feels after a whole world of visual stimulation.
"Oh shit, don't do that too much." He can feel his fists clenching, can feel the shape of Eddie's smile against his cheek.
"Can I..." The question doesn't register for a second but Eddie doesn't wait for an answer. "You know what, you've had your fingers in me, I'm going to."
Eddie kisses him, a wet press of lips that's soft and then hard. There's a bare arm around his shoulders, the nudging push of a dick that isn't his own against the side of his hip, smearing pre-come in a way that has him digging his nails into Eddie's naked waist and pulling him all the way in. This was the best idea he's ever had. The kiss is messy and not as coordinated as it might have been. The slow, dry movement of a hand on his dick only makes everything feel sharply immediate. Eddie must get it too, because he reaches up and tugs at Steve's shirt.
"Lose this too. If you're popping my cherry like a good friend, I want to feel your chest hair against my back."
"Fuck." Steve nearly brains himself pulling the damn thing off.
Eddie turns, shifting up the bed until he's over the pillows before sinking again. He puts himself so on display that Steve nearly sends the almost empty bottle of oil off the bed. He tears the condom open and rolls it down a second before he's working two slippery fingers back into Eddie, where he's soft and warm and open and probably not ready yet but Eddie is tugging impatiently at his wrist.
"Come on, put your dick in me."
Steve hisses a breath, grasps himself at the base and settles the head where his fingers have just slid free, thumbing Eddie open and then pushing.
Eddie flattens a hand on the wall and lets Steve lean into him. He watches the head, shiny-wet, slowly squeeze its way inside. He watches Eddie's body stretch and open and take him and Steve has a moment to worry that he's not going to fit, because Eddie is so tight and there's so much of him and then Eddie's body gives and he's sinking inside, slow but steady. He finds that he has no air left because he didn't expect them to be having sex today, but now he's all the way in, holding Eddie tight about the waist and the hips, hands moving to find a place to grip that makes him feel like he still has some control over the situation.
Eddie must feel it too because his nails are tight in the wrist closest to him.
"Oh fuck, oh that's a lot, that's your whole dick in me." He gives a breathy laugh and then clearly regrets it, holding his body still while Steve resists the urge to grind in deeper. "How do I feel?"
"Really good," Steve says breathlessly. "Really, really good, tight, warm."
"I was going to ask you to just go for it, but I'm rethinking my greed."
"How about we go slow to start?" Steve suggests.
"Sure, sure, sounds good," Eddie pants. "Slow is good."
Steve draws back carefully, watches Eddie's rim pull tight and hot around him and then he's sinking in again. Eddie tenses, breath catching in his throat, like the movement surprises him, but then he's relaxing, shifting position and giving a tiny backwards push.
"Ok, ok." He hums a breath, lowers onto his arms and braces himself for the next series of slow, deep thrusts.
It takes a minute but Eddie's breathing faster, spine bending, slippery and open enough for Steve to drive into, and then he's groaning when Steve hits something good. He tries to keep the position they're in, tries to keep nudging into that same spot. Eddie is so naked and so hot around him, his whole body bouncing under Steve's, and he's kind of really fucking into it.
Eddie's hand shifts from the bed to wrap around his dick and Steve watches him squeeze himself twice and give a shivery squirm when he sinks in a little harder. He's clearly trying to hold himself up and take Steve's enthusiasm at the same time, but he's mostly failing at it. Steve winds an arm around his waist and holds him up so he can jerk himself off, he'd like to help with that but the angle is weird, all he gets is the soft rasp of Eddie's forearm against his own. Even that's good somehow, snatches of touch that he can't imagine not having again. He still hasn't touched Eddie's dick for more than a few seconds and he's halfway to writing out a explanation of why Eddie should let them have a next time so he can.
"Oh shit." Eddie bites his lip and the rest comes out in pieces. "Oh, I could come like this. Steve, go faster."
"You want me to...?"
"Yeah, come on, fuck me properly," Eddie breathes.
He immediately gives a startled cry when Steve picks up the pace, hips smacking to the spare curve of his ass. His elbow starts moving faster too and the idea that Eddie is going to come on his dick is suddenly everything Steve has wanted in his life up to now.
He leans in, presses down, his mouth open at Eddie's neck, chest sweaty against his back.
"Steve."
Steve is still driving into him hard when Eddie tenses up, arm moving quickly and then slowing and then stilling on the ragged shape of his name, his body clenching down tight on the slide of Steve's dick. The breathy noises he makes after sound overwhelmed and Steve slows too, claws his way back from the edge.
"Don't stop," Eddie chokes out, arm moving again in slow stroking passes and Steve knows that his bed is going to be sticky-wet under them. "It's still good, it's– fuck it's a lot but it feels good."
Steve holds Eddie to the sheets, where he's gasping and moaning under the steady slaps of their bodies meeting. It's so good and he nearly goes blind when Eddie begs him to come, urges him into a pace that feels bruising and it's too good to hold for long. All he can do is bury himself inside Eddie until he falls over the edge, pressed close enough to smell the oil, and sweat, and sex, and that edge of minty shower gel in Eddie's hair.
They end up kissing at the end, mouths awkwardly turned into each other as Steve goes soft inside him, and then slowly slips out. He reaches down to feel the silky open warmth of Eddie's body after, letting his fingers ease back inside him like he can't help it. He feels the way Eddie huffs a laugh against his mouth and gives a little "miss me already?"
Steve strips the condom off and drops it in the direction of the trash, before pushing Eddie into the wet spot because "you made it, come on, man." He worries it's going to be awkward but Eddie refuses to let it be, he's smiling next to him, completely naked, cherry freshly popped and he looks thrilled about it.
"So, ok, I have to give you this, you are an excellent friend. I feel very successfully fucked. Ten out of ten."
"All ready for the big game tomorrow," Steve says, because he can't help himself.
"No, fuck you." The words come on the end of a laugh. "Don't even try it."
"How about I wear the whistle next time? I can blow it every time you have to drop and give me twenty."
Eddie fishes the pillow out from under his head and smacks him in the face with it.
When Steve pulls it away he's grinning.
"Hey, that was your bad arm. See, I told you I had great hands."