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The steady, wall-shaking thrum of the baseline vibrates beneath Steve’s feet and into his being while Eddie’s hair flies wildly in all directions as he shreds out the melody, and an ice cold beer makes his fingertips go numb. For the first time since before Steve knew the world could get flipped upside down, since before he knew that love is wrought in pain and sacrifice, not roses and letterman jackets, he feels completely fucking happy .
Eddie invited him to his band's show. Not him and Robin, not him and the kids, just him . It slams into his skull like the beats Gareth is pounding on his drums, sticks inside it like Eddie’s mouth against the microphone, shout-singing his heart out. All the people at this gig are Eddie’s friends. Not a single one of them knows Steve or would have any reason to want him there, but Eddie had invited him anyway.
He’s dressed in one of Eddie’s shirts, a faded black one that says the name of some band Steve’s never heard of. It’s a little too small, riding up at his hips and hugging his biceps. He thinks maybe Eddie chose it on purpose. But at least he doesn’t stick out like a sore thumb. No one’s really talking to him, either, but Steve doesn’t mind. All he cares about is watching Eddie sling his guitar around with a strength Steve knows first hand; all he cares about is the way that Eddie catches his eyes from the make-shift stage and tosses him a wink.
That little smirk on Eddie’s lips, that little waggle of his brows, it’s all for Steve and, goddamn , if that doesn’t make him feel fucking lucky. He allows himself to enjoy it, to smile with all his teeth and wink back at Eddie.
Still, Steve is about four beers in and is feeling the need to break the seal. He reluctantly has to tear his eyes away and make for the restroom. It’s down a hallway on the right and the door is covered with stickers and graffiti. Steve goes inside and does his business, but as he’s washing his hands and checking his face in the mirror, he recognizes bleary eyes and feels the world spin around a bit faster than he’s accustomed to. Yeah, he’s definitely drunk, but he’s actually having a great fucking time , so he doesn’t let himself worry about it the way he normally would.
The skull-penetrating descant of Corroded Coffin’s set comes to a grinding halt as Steve is drying his hands, and he can hear a raucous round of applause being hailed at Eddie and his friends. He chuckles to himself, a feeling of pride that, by all accounts, shouldn’t belong to him swelling beneath his breastbone. It’s not like he did anything but stand there and watch, anything but take Eddie’s dick like a champ and stay mostly quiet during “creativity time”, but he’s elated as though he’d wrote and played the goddamn songs himself.
Making his way back into the parlor of the run-down house that some dude Eddie sells pills to, now turned into a venue for shit like this, Steve scans the room. Jeff is talking to a group of girls that dress a lot like Eddie, or El during her rebellious phase, but that Steve would call pretty nonetheless. Matt is laughing with a couple of other guys that also dress like Eddie and gesturing to his bass guitar a lot, explaining something to them; Steve’s sure he wouldn’t fit in the conversation.
His eyes are instinctively looking for the only person here that he really cares to talk to anyway, if he’s honest. He doesn’t see Eddie in the room so he heads off towards the kitchen area, only wobbling slightly on his feet, which he should get credit for considering how very sideways everything feels.
Reaching the archway into the dining room, Steve spots Eddie leaning against a wall, talking with Gareth and some other guy Steve has never seen before. He’s wearing that fucking thousand-kilowatt smile that makes Steve weak in the knees and reaching above his head to twist his sweat-soaked hair into a bun. Steve feels drawn to him, like a moth to a flame, like he’d rather burn alive than not be near Eddie’s light.
“So what’s the deal with you and Harrington ?”
Steve stops short at the sound of his name, at the disdainful way Gareth spits it out. He slips into a corner and closes his eyes, intent on hearing whatever comes next. Eddie had asked him here, after all.
“Yeah, what’s that asshole even doing here? He sucking your dick or something?” The other, unknown guy asks, laughing meanly, like it must be some kind of joke, like Steve is a joke.
Eddie gets a wicked glint in his eye as he sticks a cigarette between his lips and lights it. As far as Steve knows, amongst this particular crowd, Eddie is out loud and proud. At least, as much as one can be in rural Indiana. Steve doesn’t even feel nervous, his heart just kind of leaps into his throat and sticks there. Eddie’s gonna tell them. Eddie’s going to tell them and it’s all going to be okay.
“Nahhh, man, it’s not even like that,” Eddie says, shoving at the unknown guy’s shoulder, the words startling Steve into opening his eyes again. What isn’t it like? “He’s just a very satisfied customer.”
The words slash through Steve’s stomach and sink in, twisting and slicing, angling upwards and crunching right through his ribs to get at whatever semblance of a heart he’d had left. Just a very satisfied customer . It’s not even like that. It fucking evicerates him.
He inhales deeply, slowly, willing his chest not to ache, willing himself not to just fucking vomit because he feels so sick. The way he’s always hid Eddie, denied him, it really makes no sense for Steve to be this fucking angry. But Eddie had invited him to this stupid fucking gig at some stupid fucking loser’s house and Steve had actually gotten drunk enough to forget it was all pretend. He’d forgotten that Eddie invited him here, so obviously, so fucking obviously , so he’d have a convenient fuck available. They have scorching hot sex, and that’s all it is.
There’s a girl with black lipstick and too much eyeliner standing near a fridge that doesn’t work, pulling a bottle of tequila out of a red cooler and pouring it into a line up of shot glasses on the kitchen counter. Steve makes a b-line for her, crossing the room with a little too much power in his steps, but he isn’t stomping so he doesn’t know why he sees Eddie’s head jerk toward him out of the peripherals of his vision.
“Yeah I’ll take some of those, thanks,” Steve barks at tequila girl, swiping up two shots in each hand, and she gives him a look that reminds him why people hate him. Each one sears his throat and makes him cough but he keeps tossing them back until they’re gone and grabs a fifth.
“Woah, dude.” Tequila girl holds her palms up, her face shifting from annoyed to frightened. And that’s fucking funny. Steve has never frightened anyone, not even Jonathan Byers. Mostly people just tend to find him pathetic. He’s more than sure that Eddie does. That’s why he… that’s why he does all those things to him.
“Woah is right.”
A heavy hand clamps on to Steve’s shoulder and he glances to the side to see chipped, black nails polish and heavy silver rings. Of course. Of course . Eddie wants to tell him what to do? Now? Fuck that . Two can play at that game.
He spins around and slams the shot glass back down onto the counter, causing the remnants to slosh onto the counter. Eddie is right there, in his space, too close and so fucking gorgeous. Kind of sideways. Kind of upside down . Steve reaches for him, let’s a hand trail down his chest, mapping over the familiar lithe cut of his torso. He leans in, nuzzles his face right against Eddie’s and kisses his jaw. “Well, hey there, mister. Where’ve you been all night?”
Eddie isn’t rough, to Steve’s surprise and disappointment, he just places a firm hand over Steve’s heart and delicately moves him away. His dark eyes flit around the room, to the tequila girl and various others. “What are you doing, man?”
Steve hiccups a laugh. He doesn’t know what enrages him more, rejection from the only person that’s ever made him feel close to wanted or the way Eddie calls him man - not baby, or sweetness, or angel, but fucking man . Maybe it’s the way several sets of eyes are now trained on them, including Gareth and that other nameless dickbag. Steve swallows the lump in his throat and fights the way the corners of his lips want to curve downward, the way they want to tremble.
“Same thing we’re always doing, man ,” Steve sneers, putting his eyes on anyone’s but Eddie’s.
Despite the ringing in his ears and the ache in his chest and the way the shots kick in, making him feel fucking underwater, he reaches out to touch Eddie again, grabbing for the front of his shirt to pull him back in. Eddie smacks down his hand and his hopes. “I don’t know what you mean, Steve , but maybe we should go talk somewhere private ?”
The laugh that bubbles out of Steve sounds manic, bordered on all edges with rage and grief. He doesn’t think he’s ever made that sound before, feels like he’s hearing it from somewhere else. “Yeah, private . That’s the only time you can touch me, huh?”
“ Steve ,” Eddie warns, voice low.
He takes a step forward and Steve is the one that recoils this time, gripping at his own middle like he can pick all his guts up off the floor and stuff them back inside, if only he can keep pressure on the wound. Tears prick his vision and he hates himself for it, among other things.
“Fuck you, Munson,” he scoffs, taking another shot from the counter and tossing it back. He can’t even feel the burn anymore. If he drinks too much, if he lets the poison deep into his insides and numbs all the pain, killing him in the process, it would hurt so much less.
“That’s enough.” Eddie slaps the back of his hand, sending the shot glass hurtling back to the counter, and Steve hears it break. He’s reminded of the window, of the wrench.
Eddie finally touches him, but it’s to grasp the back of his neck and begin hurtling him through the house. Not many would guess it by looking at the guy, but Eddie is fucking strong . Steve is stumbling, everything fucking spinning now, and Eddie’s hand is probably the only thing that’s keeping him from faceplanting as he’s dragged toward the front door.
He rights his posture just short of the door and pulls back against Eddie’s hand, even as it tightens. “Where d’you think you’re taking me, Eds?” He asks, and forgets to keep that pressure on the wound, his gut falling wide open at his own use of the nickname, and he wants to take it back.
Eddie swings the door open, the red, rickety thing nearly hanging off its hinges. He moves behind Steve and places both hands on his shoulders, pushing him forward. “Outside. Now. Let’s go.”
**
The night is virtually black, save for the pale moonlight that glints off the tops of cars and the driveway gravel. Even with the low visibility, Eddie manages to manhandle a very, very drunk Steve off to the side of the house, tucking them away where no one can see them, not that anyone would come looking. He shoves Steve hard, and Steve barely keeps his footing, bracing himself with a hand on the wood siding.
Sure, maybe he could have done this differently, taken him home and sobered him up before they talk, but Eddie’s had a few, and the rage is bubbling under his skin. The need to lash out and remind Steve who is the one that denies who and who the fuck said they had to have all these fucking limitations is eating away at him, taking giant, juicy mouthfuls of his being and chewing them all to bits.
When Steve turns to face him, Eddie pokes a finger at his chest. “What the fuck was that shit in there?”
Even in the dark surrounding them, a faint blue glow illuminates the sharp angles of Steve’s face, seemingly incandescent where it highlights his lips as he wets them with his tongue. A familiar yearning tugs low in Eddie’s belly, but only for a moment before Steve is in his face and shoving violently at his chest.
“Why don’t you tell me, Munson? Huh?” Steve shoves at him again, this time causing Eddie to take a step back. “You asked me t’ this fuckin’ shit and what the hell for? So you could laugh with y’r buddies ‘bout me?” Another push. “C’mon, fuckin’ fight me.”
Eddie casually pulls a pack of smokes from his back pocket, slides one out of the pack and places it between his lips. He grabs his lighter from the opposite pocket and gestures widely with his hands before flicking it to life. “I’m not going to fight you, Steve.”
When he puts his lighter away, it makes a heavy clink against something else in his pocket, the heavy, black steel set of dusters that he’s kept on him since before the town of Hawkins wanted his head on a stick, since grown men started recognizing the flag he sports for what it is and wanting to kill him for it. Steve hears it, too, it seems and his eyes snap down to Eddie’s hand at his side.
“Why don’t you take those out?” He shoves at Eddie’s chest once more, making him stumble just enough to jostle the pack of cigarettes from his hand. They hit the ground with a muffled sound and Steve steps on them in some kind of display of defiance. “Unless y’r afraid those won’t help you. You afraid uh me? Not so powerful when ‘m not letting you, huh?”
Eddie forces his own arms down, pins them to his sides, digs his nails into his thighs. He knows what Steve is doing, knows he’s trying to provoke Eddie, to make him snap, to let the freak off its leash. Even though he’s well aware, that beast inside him raises its hackles, itches to hurt, to punish, to whip this little brat into shape, to show him his place. But Steve is wasted. Like, really wasted. And apparently fucking stupid because as much as Eddie loves riding the high of walking that exquisitely thin line between pleasure and pain, he would never hurt Steve. Not like that.
He narrows his eyes, exhaling swirls of smoke that stand out against the chilled atmosphere, dancing in hopeless patterns towards the sky that would be as easy to grasp as this fucking thing between him and Steve. “You think I’d do that to you?”
Steve tries to spit at his feet, his eyes sharp like daggers, or claws , but it comes out as this pathetic dribble that gets caught on his lip and flows over his chin. There’s enough of it to drip onto Steve’s shirt but none of it gets enough momentum to go much farther. Eddie chuckles. Steve thinks he’s a lion but he’s a goddamn pussy cat. He looks like he’s fucking drooling and that same familiar tug in Eddie’s belly pulls him towards Steve, towards whatever inevitable gravity that always leads him here. A kitten makes fine prey for a beast.
“If you’re going to spit on someone,” Eddie growls, flattening a palm to Steve’s chest and pushing him back and back until his back hits the side of the house, “you might want to do it right the first time.”
He gathers saliva on his tongue, warm and sour like the shitty beer they’ve been drinking, and crowds into Steve’s space. Removing the cigarette from his mouth, he launches the spit directly at Steve’s face. There’s only the moon and the glowing ember of his smoke to light the space between them, but Eddie can tell it’s landed, the reflection of silver light and burning ash bouncing off the wetness.
Eddie’s mouth curls into a satisfied grin. “Like that.”
He doesn’t know what reaction he expects, maybe Steve bursting out in laughter, more likely him quietly conceding with a yes daddy , but certainly not what actually happens. Certainly not Steve shoving his chest with one hand and bringing the other around in a closed fist with a wide hook, knocking Eddie square in the jaw.
Eddie reels from the punch, dropping his cigarette and hunching over sideways, bringing a hand to his jaw. He rubs his fingers over the blossoming soreness and opens his mouth wide to crack it. That fucking hurt . His eyes stay trained on the ground but he doesn’t really see it while his mind adjusts to what just happened.
“You think ‘m just your fucking toy?” Steve is sneering from above him. “Think you can jus’ do that t’ me and I’ll take it? Fucking asshole .”
Something dark and wild slots into place inside of Eddie, unlocking the cage and letting the beast roam free inside him. When he fights himself and looks at Steve again, he knows he must look fucking insane. His heartbeat slams in his ears and he bares his teeth, a warning. “You’ve always taken it before. You beg me for it . Always willing to swallow whatever I put in your mouth.”
Steve gapes at him, like he hasn’t heard this shit a thousand times, but only for a moment before he’s balling his fist and cranking it back again. This time, Eddie sees it coming. He cranes the upper half of his body back just as Steve’s swing passes him. Steve stumbles, headfirst, and nearly falls, but Eddie catches him with an arm around his waist.
“ Stop trying to hit me ,” Eddie grants him the courtesy of another warning, attempting to pull Steve into his chest, the way he holds him still whenever he’s in a bratty mood. But this isn’t that, Steve isn’t playing. Steve is actually fucking pissed and Eddie can’t sus it out, can’t stop the sloshing of alcohol in his head long enough to think .
“Don’t touch me!” Steve shouts, loud enough that anyone could have heard it, once again forgetting his own rules. He rights himself and tries to pull back from Eddie, hammering two fists against his chest. “Y’ didn’t care enough to touch me in there! Don’t fucking pretend anymore, Eddie! ‘M fuckin’ tired of it! But y’ don’t give a shit right? ‘M just a customer , right?!”
The logical part of Eddie’s brain, the one he could access if he weren’t so fucking drunk and so fucking angry , would remind him of Gareth and Hank, of lying to protect Steve’s precious reputation for him, of telling his friends that Steve is nothing to him when in reality Steve is fucking everything ; Eddie can’t even remember how to breathe without him.
But right now, with Steve struggling to get out of his hold and the audacity that he’d had to insinuate that Eddie doesn’t give a shit, all Eddie sees is red. He releases his hold on Steve and rears his ringed hand across his chest before swinging it down and clocking Steve right across the mouth with the back of his hand.
Steve’s knees hit the ground and Eddie is right on top of him, twisting that same hand into his hair and yanking it hard, craning Steve’s face up to look at him. There is an ugly crack at the corner of Steve’s mouth, staining it blood that looks inky black in the darkness. Eddie hates himself, he really fucking does, because only a monster could do something like that to the man they love and pop a fucking boner for it.
“That how you think you’re gonna talk to me? Accuse me of stupid shit? Try to hit me ? Who the fuck do you think you are, Steve?” He twists harder on Steve’s hair and grabs his jaw with the other hand, digging his fingers into the hollows of Steve’s cheeks. “Or did you forget your place?”
Steve’s top lip curls up in revulsion and he jerks his head back to get his jaw out of Eddie’s grasp. He straightens his back to get taller, closer, and spits at Eddie again. This time, it lands. The warm splat of liquid sticks just below Eddie’s eye and drips downward over his cheek. Steve lets out a maniacal laugh, sounding out of his fucking head. “Got it right that time.”
Eddie isn’t laughing this time. He closes a solid fist and beats it against Steve’s face once, then again. Steve’s head wobbles a bit but Eddie’s grip on his hair keeps him upright. Unfurling his fist, Eddie uses his first two fingers to scrape the saliva from his cheek. “ Are you stupid ?” he mocks before he presses the two spit-coated fingers to Steve’s lips. “Open your slutty little mouth or I’ll hit you again.”
A whimper escapes Steve’s throat as he unlocks his jaw and opens up for Eddie, just like he always does, just like he’s supposed to. Even in the low light, he lips look stained pink, like he’s been sucking on a goddamned lollipop, sweet and inviting. Eddie shoves his fingers inside, forcing Steve’s own spit back onto his eager tongue. “Suck on them,” Eddie orders, though he doesn’t recognize his own voice.
Steve closes his mouth around the intrusion, hollowing out his cheeks and pressing his tongue firmly to them. Eddie groans long and low in the back of his throat as he fucks his fingers in and out of the welcoming wetness surrounding them. The world is tilting further onto its axis as the last ounce of blood in his skull heads south for the winter.
He releases his hold on Steve’s hair to unzip his fly and shove his briefs down just enough to free his erection, and he doesn’t miss the way Steve’s eyes catch on it, hooded with lust, as it hangs heavy and hard in the space between them. “Yeah, can’t keep your eyes off it can you? Fucking whore.”
Steve shakes his head, spitting out Eddie’s fingers. “‘M not.” His words don’t reach his eyes though, which are glassy and trained on Eddie’s cock. “What’re you gonna do, Ed’s? Make me suck your dick?”
Eddie clicks his tongue and grabs hold of Steve’s hair once more, drawing him in closer as he leans down to speak right into his ear. “Oh, no, no, baby. You’re gonna open up for me like a good boy, take my dick all the way down that tight little throat of yours and let me come inside it. And then you’re going to say thank you. Unless you want me to keep kicking your ass. D’you really think you can take me, Harrington? Really ?”
“I’ve fought down monsters scarier than you.”
The words are out there before either of them can shove them back in or stop them from happening, and Eddie feels the beast inside him claw through his gut, his tendons, his skin. It snaps its jaws. “If you’re not going to shut your mouth, I’ll fucking shut it for you.”
Digging his fingers back into Steve’s jaw, Eddie wrenches it open once more, thrusts his hips forward, and pulls Steve closer by his hair. Steve’s eyes are ablaze with defiance, something Eddie’s only instinct is to fuck out of him, but he lets his tongue loll out over his bottom lip anyway. Even nonbelievers pray when they think they’re dying.
Eddie is stumbling blindly towards the line, and he crosses it. The filthy, gorgeous warmth of Steve’s mouth envelops him as he sinks in. He doesn’t wait for Steve to get used to the weight or taste; he just keeps moving until he meets the exquisite resistance of Steve’s throat, pushing back against the head of his cock. Steve gags on it, coughs as Eddie pulls back out.
“Relax your fucking throat. I won’t ask again.” Eddie shakes Steve a little and thrusts back inside, quickly breaching the back of his throat again. This time, Steve, his sweet, stupid Steve, actually puts in some fucking effort, breathing deep through his nose and working against his gag reflex. Eddie admires the way drool pours from the corners of his mouth, causing his split lip to run anew, the liquid catching fragments of light as it rains on the ground beneath them.
“You couldn’t take Jonathan Byers, couldn’t take your little boyfriend Tommy, couldn’t take that Hargrove shithead,” he continues, moving back and thrusting back into that tight little treasure trove at the back of Steve’s mouth with the annunciation of each item on this fucked up list of his. “And now, you can’t even take me. You’re pathetic. Nothing but a weak, sad little cumslut.”
He buries himself impossibly deeper, holding Steve’s face against him, burying it in the dark curls at the base of his cock. Steve’s throat muscles flutter around the head and Eddie’s voice gets huskier, more broken. “That’s why you’re too much of a chickenshit to let anyone know about us. Afraid of what they’ll say about you because you’re too much of a pussy to take it. Couldn’t stand if everyone knew Dick Harrington’s boy is a fag .”
Steve sobs around Eddie’s cock, and tears spill heavy over his cheeks to mingle with the drool on his chin. He chokes and Eddie pulls back, allowing him to gulp the night air. “You did this t’ me,” he rasps, digging his hands into the backs of Eddie’s thighs. “You make me this way, make me do these things.”
“Oh, I fucking make you?” Eddie slaps Steve across his already bruising cheekbone. “Shut the fuck up.” He pulls Steve forward again and fucks back into his mouth, hissing at the way Steve’s teeth rake over his cock because he isn’t ready for it. “You came to me. You asked me for everything. I never made you do a goddamn thing, Steve. You’ve always been this filthy, deep down. You came to me begging to show you what you are. A fucking whore . A fucki—”
Eddies hips stutter and heat pools in his belly as Steve whimpers around him and yanks Eddie’s thighs forward, pulling him closer, trying to get more when Eddie is already fucking into his mouth at a brutal pace. Combined with the sight of Steve, soaked in drool and tears and blood, looking up at him through dampened lashes and his mouth all extra pink and swollen, it’s too fucking much. Eddie will swear he’s seen the face of God after tonight, that he’s beheld a glimpse of the greatest deceiver, promising eternal salvation if only Eddie would give up his soul.
A whine escapes him, high and desperate, as he feels his climax building. He releases his hold on Steve’s hair to cup his face on both sides, holding it too tenderly in contrast to the way he’s slamming into it relentlessly. “F-fuck, you’re so pretty ,” he stutters, and then he’s coming down Steve’s throat.
Steve swallows, and swallows, and swallows, humming quiet, satisfied sounds between each spurt of Eddie’s seed. Eddie’s legs are trembling, barely keeping him upright as his body quakes with aftershocks, overstimulated but unable to stop himself from fucking his softening dick into Steves mouth a few more times before he pulls out.
“Fuuuuck,” he groans, letting go of Steve to shove his junk back into his pants and zip up. “You took that like a fucking champ.”
But, then. His eyes meet Steve’s and they’re still fucking flowing with tears, cascading over broken skin and quivering lips. The split at the side of his mouth looks fucking angry, Eddie can see the redness even out here in the dark. A feeling of dread like a fucking ball of lead sits heavy in his stomach, weighing down his insides. The beast inside him crawls back into its cage, sated and smug. Without it to guide him, Eddie’s head starts spiraling. What the fuck did he do ?
Steve wipes at his mouth with the back of his hand and winces when he hits the break in his skin, smearing the blood sideways over his cheek in a way that makes him look likes he’s wearing some kind of macabre half smile. But he isn’t. He isn’t smiling, he’s sobbing, taking horrible gasps of air that make his chest heave and his shoulders jerk. Eddie doesn’t know what to do with it, not when the alcohol in his gut is still fucking with his head and not when Steve did this to them. If he’d never begged Eddie not to tell, if he’d never treated them like a secret, if he’d never whispered words like need you or love this and then asked Eddie to pretend he never did, they wouldn’t be here right now. Eddie wouldn’t have done this. The beast would have stayed locked in its cage where Eddie could feed it scraps and bits and keep it from devouring them both.
Now, all Eddie can do is stand in the wreckage, unsure if the ground beneath his feet will hold or crumble, sucking them both into the earth, into the flames of hell itself. Turns out, Eddie wasn’t seeing God after all.
“Little help?” Steve’s voice is coarse, like he’s swallowed knives, which he might as well have, as he extends a hand up to Eddie.
Eddie stares at the hand, at long elegant fingers, a wide palm, and slender wrists. He knows the warmth of it, the taste of it, the way it taps out rhythms on kneecaps when Steve is nervous. But Eddie can’t bring himself to take it. The alcohol and, fuck, everything else has soured in his stomach and he can’t even look at Steve, doesn’t want to see the ways he’s hurt him or his big, wet, pleading eyes.
He turns to walk away, gravel crunching beneath the soles of his sneakers, the sound of it deafening. He’s almost rounding the corner of the house when a memory leaks out of his brain, drips down his spine and finds its way to his heart. You take care of me now? Yeah, baby, I take care of you now.
It burns inside Eddie, like someone is holding a brand to his chest, pressing in until the skin caves and the muscle sears through, delving deeper until he’s been speared clean through, cauterized on either end but bleeding in the middle. He turns on his heel and walks back to where Steve still sits, scrubbing at his face and failing to stop himself from crying.
Eddie swallows his fucking pride, because at the end the end of the day, Steve is his whole fucking world. Nothing that happened here tonight changes that, for him at least. He taps Steve twice on the shoulder, gently but he startles anyhow, and extends an open palm to him. He ignores the way Steve flinches away from it before he realizes what’s happening; he doesn’t care to linger on what that means for too long.
“Let’s just fucking go,” he mutters towards the stars, his eyes trained the farthest away from Steve’s that they can manage.
Steve’s hand slots into his own and it’s freezing. Eddie’s never felt it so cold. He hauls Steve to standing and releases it immediately, not wanting to keep contact any longer than he has to. He’s taken his liberties with Steve’s body far enough for one night. For an eternity’s.
For his part, Steve keeps quiet. He follows Eddie down the drive and back to his van. They leave the party together, but Eddie drops Steve off at his mc-mansion before heading home alone.