Work Text:
"At least there's a wood stove," Eddie says, shivering dramatically. He's playing it up, of course. It's really not that cold, with the fire going, even with all the lights out and the sleet lashing against the roof.
"At least I know how to light it, you mean," Steve counters. He's adjusting the logs in the stove. He looks peeved. It's not Eddie's fault that the first thing he'd done when he'd pulled the tarp off the woodpile on the porch was drop a log directly on Steve's toe. "Stay in my cabin for the weekend, Hopper says. It'll be great, he says. Good thing one of us was a boy scout, is all I'm saying."
Eddie salutes him. "And I thank you for your service."
There's a pop and a roar and Steve shuts the wood stove door, letting the handle clang into place. Then he sits back on the floor, crosses his legs at the ankles, and picks up the latest issue of Outdoor Life from the coffee table and begins to flip through it.
"That's it?"
Steve looks up. "What?"
Eddie waves his hands impatiently. "That's it? You're just gonna fucking... sit here and read a magazine?"
"What else would I do?"
"I dunno," Eddie says. He wants to stamp his feet. He's 21 years old and he wants to stamp his feet. "You don't want to, like, crack open a can of spaghettios and cook them on the wood stove? Or whittle a duck?"
"Why would I whittle a duck?" Steve turns the page of his stupid magazine. "If you're hungry, you know where the spaghettios are, man."
"I thought that's what people do, when they're trapped in a cabin with the power out," Eddie says. "How can you read that?"
"Fire's pretty bright," Steve says. "Listen to this. Ten hot new ways to tie flies. This'll be good."
"You don't even fly fish."
Steve hits him with a look. "I'm not allowed to read about things I don't do?"
"That's not what I'm saying," Eddie says, drawing out the last word and rolling his eyes. "I'm fucking bored."
"What do you usually do when you're bored?"
Eddie thinks. He didn't bring his guitar, which was a stupid mistake. He didn't bring any of his notebooks, either, but he could cobble together a passing facsimile of one of his campaign ideas if he tried hard enough. "Okay, for context, you need to know that there's a half-orc who grew up in a cave sixteen miles outside of the village," he starts.
"There we go," Steve says, going back to his magazine like a traitor.
"I'm going to keep narrating out loud," Eddie tells him.
"That's great, man."
"I'm warning you," Eddie warns him.
"Uh-huh."
"Alright, man, you asked for it." Eddie waits a moment, just long enough for Steve to register a final complaint, but no complaint comes. "Anyway. The half-orc's name is Glorfinda, and she's like a regular old mountain woman, right? She's spending her days gathering herbs and making potions in her cave and picking off scouts that come up river from the keep."
To his credit Steve is nodding along, looking for all the world like this interests him, and that just makes Eddie want to kick it up a notch.
"So Glorfinda's developed a way to rend human bones into divination tools, and that's where our party comes in. Because she's, like, the best bone-thrower around. But they don't know that the bones are human bones, so when they get up there after battling through the cave system it's a big shock."
He's pacing, moving across the floor trying to stay on one floorboard the whole time; when he gets to the part about battling through the caves he mimes the paladin's sword cutting through a line of goblins. He can see it perfectly in his mind's eye, the way his bard would look as he buffs and bluffs their way through the final cave encounter. He can't wait to show this one off to the boys, when Jeff comes home from college and Gareth stops being in class every day like a fucking wiener. He swings his imaginary sword again, giving the imaginary goblin a kick in the nuts for good measure, and then wheels around and stops dead in his tracks.
Steve is still sprawled on the floor, legs still crossed, leaning back on his elbows, and the firelight is glinting off his face, and he's just staring back at Eddie, and Eddie completely loses his thread.
He's reduced to silence, for the first time all night.
"Cat got your tongue?" Steve asks.
"Uh," Eddie says, eloquently.
"Remember that one day in English class when you were reading MacBeth and doing all the voices for the witches?"
Eddie does remember. He remembers very clearly, in fact, because that little incident was the final nail in his coffin that year, The Incident that failed him. "Yeah?"
"And she kept telling you to stop, and you kept going, and we were all egging you on? And you got up on the desk and started monologuing?"
Oh, Eddie remembers alright, remembers the way O'Donnell rolled up her grade book and started thwacking him across the knees with it, hissing at him to get off the table. He remembers tossing his book to the floor; he'd memorized it weeks before, didn't need it anymore. Thane of Glamis, Thane of Cawdor, all hail, that shalt be king hereafter. He was drunk on the power of the bard, and O'Donnell was ready to shove him down the hallway to the principal's office, and someone at the back of the room spoke up and shouted—
"Let him speak," Steve says, here on the cabin floor.
"That was you?" Eddie asks.
Because he hadn't been paying attention to the back of the room, to the bleacher seats; oh, no, he'd been focused entirely on O'Donnell's book, on getting his feet out of the way of her corporal punishment, and he hadn't really noticed which one of the peanut gallery had started the rallying cry, but by the time he'd cut his feet and leapt to Jennifer Milton's desk the whole class had taken it up, was shouting as one, "Let him speak! Let him speak!"
"Oh yeah," Steve says, grinning. "I got detention for it and everything. I don't think you noticed."
"Definitely not," Eddie says, flustered at the oversight.
"For what it's worth, you made a great set of witches."
"Thanks."
They stare at each other, the light hypnotizing them both, Eddie assumes. He weighs the options, considers the outcomes, then makes a decision, crossing the room in a few giant steps and ending up right in front of Steve's crossed legs.
In the past few weeks they've gotten close, is the thing. Close to touching. Close to touching, mouths open. Moments drawn out like a sustain on a chord, looking at each other, close to touching, mouths open. But they're always interrupted, and until right now that's been the saving grace, helped him keep it compartmentalized. But tonight there's a fire in the wood stove and the power is out and they're all alone and he sinks to his knees, straddling Steve's legs, and ever so slowly lowers his hand to Steve's thigh.
The look on Steve's face is inscrutable, but he's not stopping him. He does reach a hand out, though.
Worst-case scenario, Eddie walks back into Hawkins in the freezing rain. He's experienced worse.
Instead of punching him, Steve's hand spreads across Eddie's thigh. He shoves downward until Eddie takes the hint and sits.
"Are you gonna kiss me or what," Steve asks, impossibly.
Eddie lets out a high-pitched giggle of disbelief.
Steve's hand is still on his thigh and he squeezes, hard enough that Eddie knows he's not dreaming. Here goes nothing, he thinks, and he surges forward and smacks his mouth into Steve's.
He gets three quick seconds of open-mouthed action before he loses his balance and flops right onto Steve's stomach.
"Uff," Steve mutters, lifting Eddie by the armpits. "Heavier than you look."
Like a jumpy cat Eddie scrambles backwards, trying to swing a leg over and smacking his knee into the coffee table instead. "Sorry, shit."
"Absolutely not," Steve says, grabbing him by the front of the shirt and yanking him back down. "You're staying down here with me."
"Okay," Eddie squeaks. Their mouths are back together, teeth clacking, tongues pushing against each other like intrepid explorers. Steve's hand releases its death grip on his shirt and winds its way up along the skin of his neck, pausing to give him goosebumps before it winds its way into the hair at the nape of Eddie's neck.
They press together, filling the negative space between them, glueing their bodies at the pressure points, clutching and pulling and moaning and humping, undignified and messy, frantic yet sweet.
With a word and a glance Eddie catches Steve's meaning, untangles long enough to stumble to his feet, to haul Steve up with him, and they make their way unsteadily to the couch, collapsing back into each other mouths first.
"This," Steve says, pulling back for air, "is what people do when they're trapped in a cabin with the power out, by the way."
"Cool," Eddie says, chasing after Steve's lips and finding them again, wet and shining with his own spit. They've got the whole night to do this, he realizes; neither of them have anywhere to be until tomorrow afternoon. He won't be getting any sleep at this rate, but he figures he won't mind. "Thanks for letting me know."