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In Lafayette, the promoter lets them crash in the parking lot after the show.
“Alright, gentlemen,” Eddie announces, setting his empty down at the curb and pausing to smoke the last drag of his cigarette. He flicks it away and blows smoke over his shoulder. “It’s that time of the night where nothing good happens. I’ll bid you all adieu.”
The rest of the band is still standing around, loitering, trying to decide if they want to continue drinking beers in the parking lot or go next door to the 24-hour diner.
Steve catches Eddie’s eye over Gareth’s shoulder and mouths a confused “adieu?”
“Farewell, goodbye, parting is such sweet sorrow,” Eddie explains, hamming it up. He raises his eyebrows earnestly as Steve laughs and rolls his eyes. “All that fucking shit. What I’m saying, Harrington, is goodnight.”
Jeff heckles him, calls, “Get the fuck out of here, Munson! See you at breakfast.”
“And as I said to you, adieu,” Eddie says, pretending like he’s tipping a hat.
He doesn’t stop to get into the bit -- just turns and waves over one shoulder as he makes his way across the parking lot. The van looks like heaven from here, practically glowing between the damp September pavement and the streetlights above.
Eddie unlocks the rear doors and cranks one open. This is the fifth month in a row they’ve been touring around Indiana on the weekends, and it’s all starting to feel very familiar. Eddie putters around, tossing his cigarettes on the bed, taking his jacket and boots off. Living out of the van with Steve is one of the small new pleasures in Eddie’s life.
He’s sitting in the open door frame counting their payout from the promoter when Steve comes over, having finished drinking his beer, brushing his teeth, and peeing in the alley.
“Freak’s thinking about walking down to the gas station,” he greets, breaking Eddie’s concentration. “He said he hasn’t been able to pull for three weeks, so he’s gonna go buy a porno and jerk it in the gas station across the street.”
Eddie snorts and goes back two bills to recount them. “Well, don’t shake his hand tomorrow. It’ll get you pregnant.”
“Hilarious,” Steve replies, giving Eddie’s shoulder a shove.
Eddie goes back to the money, but sighs. “I do try to entertain.”
He finishes counting and stashes the wedge of bills in with everyone’s gear, not bothering to put his boots back on as he stands in his socks on the concrete outside. He’ll divvy up the money tomorrow over breakfast.
Steve is making noise at the front of the van, going through his nightly production of climbing in through the passenger door. Eddie does his part, heaving himself up into the backend of the van and pulling the double doors closed behind him.
It takes all the light away, and Eddie fumbles around for the little battery-powered lantern Dustin leant them -- being very very clear that it was something he regularly took to summer camp, and neither Eddie nor Steve should lose or break it under any circumstance.
“That’s better,” Eddie murmurs. The light isn’t very bright, but it warms the back of the van up in a hazy yellow glow. He and Steve don’t like the very-dark all that much. Steve climbs into the passenger seat up front, familiar creak of the door shutting behind him. “What’s everyone else doing?”
Steve bends in half, awkwardly trying to unlace his sneakers beneath the dashboard. “Freak left, and I think Gareth and Jeff are like, for-real fighting.”
“Still with the peanuts?” Eddie asks, bewildered.
This has been a hot topic of the night that apparently started over a basket of bar nuts. Steve pokes the dome light on. “Currency of the realm.”
They fall into a comfortable, familiar silence. Eddie peels out of his clothes and balls them into the foot of the bed so he can stretch out and read Misery in his underwear, and Steve sits in the front passenger seat with the mirror flipped down as he washes his face with a wet wipe.
“Gareth’s light went out,” he says, ten minutes later.
Eddie yawns and tosses the paperback to the side, then tips his head back so he can watch Steve squeezing himself between the two front seats. He’s down to his socks, underwear, and the tour shirt Eddie bought when he saw W.A.S.P. play Indy in ‘85.
“I heard some girls talking earlier,” Steve says, dropping to his knees on the bed. He looks down at Eddie and raises his eyebrows. “They were big fans.”
Eddie’s hand goes up to Steve’s bare waist as Steve strips the W.A.S.P. shirt up over his head and tosses it into their pile of dirty laundry. “Dirty” is a loose descriptor, specifically in the sense that Eddie will likely pick that shirt up and wear it tomorrow since it’s on top of the pile.
“Big fans, huh…” he trails off, hand skimming under Steve’s belly. Eddie’s fingers go right down to the front of Steve’s underwear, and he tugs on them, pulling the waistband away from his abdomen and the fabric away from his semi. “Did they say anything memorable?”
Steve shuffles closer, looking down at Eddie as Eddie pulls on the elastic.
“It started off like, super normal.” Steve runs a hand through his hair, knocks it forward, all over his forehead. “Talking about music. They really liked the new song -- totally average girls.” Eddie raises his eyebrows and keeps going, tugging, showing himself the stubbly hair under Steve’s belly button that goes all the way down to his balls. “Then they started talking about you and one of them goes, ‘I want him to rearrange my guts.’”
The elastic snaps back as Eddie lets go of it in surprise and starts laughing.
“You can’t be serious,” he cackles.
Steve angles a pointed look downwards, one hand rubbing over where Eddie snapped him. “They asked the bartender to give you their numbers.”
“The bartender?” Eddie asks, making a face.
Steve nods again and Eddie laughs a little more, unable to wrap his head around it. A couple of girls running around an aging metal bar asking for his number, because Eddie is apparently a Lafayette 10? With a cheeky grin, Eddie drops his gaze back to Steve’s belly. He rubs his hand from Steve’s pec down over his stomach, then prods his fingers in.
When Steve gives him a weird ?? look, Eddie cuts a smirk in his direction. “Just seeing what it looks like.”
Steve laughs, flexes his muscles so his abs tighten, and then shoves his belly out until it’s round.
“What about this,” he says in his normal voice -- conversational -- the same tone he uses when he’s talking with Robin on the phone, or to the guy in the gas station when he buys Eddie’s cigarettes. “I heard this is what happens when you nut in someone too much. Think those girls want this from you, too?”
Steve says it like he isn’t cracking open the door and flooding light over something Eddie doesn’t even understand about himself, this congenital need that was both born and buried in the way he squirmed -- some weird type of turned on only Steve ever made him.
A shaky breath stutters out of Eddie, and it’s the truth when he says, “Dude, I’m gonna like, chew your toes off or put my dick in your eye or something.”
Steve laughs and lets his stomach flop itself back to normal, pink flush down his throat.
“Well, if you’re looking for something to do…” he teases, pushing his underwear down.
It is the joy of Eddie’s life to take Steve Harrington’s dick down his throat. He grins, totally pleased with himself, and reaches for Steve’s junk without a second thought.
Sucking dick is a performance in the same way touring with a metal band and playing table top games are. Eddie keeps his mouth wet, suctions his cheeks and closes his eyes, and wiggles his jaw from side to side until his nose is in Steve’s pubes. When he’s all the way down he tilts his head so he can look up, and there’s Steve’s beautiful face, slack and stupid, chewing on his lips and staring down at Eddie.
The blowjob lasts no more than five minutes and Steve’s dick doesn’t come out of Eddie’s mouth one time after going in.
When Eddie pulls off, he wraps a hand around Steve’s dick and follows it after his mouth, twisting all the spit and cum up to where he can suck it off the head.
“Definitely rearranged my gag reflex,” Eddie reviews, voice busted.
Steve takes over squeezing himself, lower belly still heaving as he tries to catch his breath. He rubs the head of his dick against Eddie’s chin, the stubble that he missed shaving at the edge of his mouth. “You don’t have one of those,” he manages after a second, making Eddie laugh. Steve moves from rubbing his dick against Eddie’s chin to the bow of his lips.
While Steve kneels there in a stupor, pressing his dick all over Eddie’s face, Eddie sticks a hand into his underwear and starts jacking off.
It doesn’t take long and the closer Eddie gets to finishing, the jerkier and more off-rhythm he gets, hand squeezing and twisting as his toes curl up and his calves flex. Jerking it is such a process he feels total release as he tips over the edge and comes. He already fucked Steve once today and it changes the way this nut feels -- it’s deeper.
Steve groans and then Eddie feels a hand join in loosely around his dick.
“I can’t believe I’m going to be the one to say this,” Eddie pants, pausing to sloppily return the open-mouthed kiss that Steve hunches over to give him. “But tomorrow, we gotta find somewhere to shower.”
Steve laughs and sits up, wiping a rogue streak off Eddie’s belly. “I’m not making it to Gary,” he agrees.
“Yeah. Jesus christ. Come here.” Eddie holds an arm out, and even though his underwear is still full of cum, he wants to cuddle Steve before they proceed any further. “As soon as I wake up tomorrow, that diner across the street is my first stop.”
Steve makes a soft noise of agreement and rolls into his side. “I have to call Robin. She has some test on Monday and she’s really nervous about it.”
“Academia,” Eddie sighs dramatically, stretching out, and then look at that, Steve’s on the cum underwear thing and he’s helping, trying to get Eddie’s waistband down one-handed. “Did she go on her date with that chick from the radio station?”
The grin Steve throws back over one shoulder is ludicrous. It makes Eddie’s heart flip.
“She went on Friday,” he says, as he gets the underwear down over Eddie’s sloppy dick. Eddie helps by lifting his hips. “They fucked and Robin ‘accidentally’ left your demo tape at her house with her work stuff.” He does the finger quotes and everything, then tosses Eddie’s underwear towards the dirty pile.
Eddie cracks up laughing, rubbing at his chest. “That’s my girl.” He stretches one arm out, waits for Steve to lean in. “I’ll eat some pancakes in her memory.”
“Great,” Steve comments, “I’m gonna need a side order of something with nutritional value,” he says, which isn’t a surprise, because he’s the one who’s always trying to cut up hot dogs into the macaroni and cheese and add vegetables to their Hamburger Helper. “And coffee. God.”
On cue, Steve yawns, and it makes Eddie smile. He curls Steve closer with the arm around his shoulders that are twice as big as Eddie’s.
“I love you very much,” he whispers, softly, into Steve’s hair.
He feels Steve’s smile pressing into him, teeth against the side of Eddie’s neck.
It takes Steve a minute but he says it back, “I love you,” every time.
*
Eddie jerks awake to a loud blast in the distance.
“Jesus fucking christ,” he grits, knocked out of a deep sleep.
His wrist is all curled up to his own chest, and he shifts that first as he blinks his eyes open, bare feet tangled in the blanket, Steve’s thigh up over his hip. He lays there for a second, eyes mostly closed, brain sleepy and slow even though his heart is racing.
Steve shifts next to him. One big brown eye blinks open, all of Steve that Eddie can see because of the way he’s face-down ass-up in the pillow.
“I think a car backfired,” he says after a minute. Eddie blinks back, drowsy.
It’s stupid, but every now and then, something will happen that scares Eddie in a way he didn’t have the capacity to feel fear for before. Flapping birds’ wings, loud noises, muddy waters. There are a whole bunch of newly malfunctioning circuits in his nervous system, and sometimes it feels like he’s just standing there using his finger to plug the leak.
Steve understands him anyway.
He lets his eyes drift closed again and must doze back off. When he comes to, it’s because Steve is shifting around. Steve is capable of waking up in a way Eddie can’t comprehend -- he says it’s because when he was a kid, he was up every morning at 4:30 to swim. Eddie blinks his sleepy eyes back open and watches quietly as Steve breaks out into an aggressive stretch, hands banging into the back of the driver’s seat as his whole body goes rigid and taut.
“Guess we’re awake,” Eddie mumbles, rubbing a hand over his face.
Steve makes his way over to Eddie next, wrapping him up in a big hug that is accompanied by a bigger yawn. Eddie entertains it even though he’d rather have a cigarette, lays with his cheek squished into Steve’s throat, lump of his stubbly adam’s apple pressing against the shell of Eddie’s ear. When he feels Steve lift a hand up and mess around with something above Eddie’s head, Eddie starts laughing.
“Fucking hair,” Steve complains, spitting.
Eddie’s slowly waking up now. “My beauty can’t be contained,” he says into Steve’s throat, voice grumbly, still sounding like he sucked dick. He’s also half asleep, and it isn’t a full thought that comes out when he adds, “Not like the wig of a mere mortal.”
Then he also has to bring a hand up to pinch a stray strand of his own hair off his tongue.
“I wonder what time it is,” Steve says, stretching his free hand around, fumbling down along the side of the bed. Eddie’s cigarettes appear in front of his face, and he happily takes them, clutching them against Steve’s chest. “Where the hell is my watch?”
Eddie is more helpful after he’s been awake for a couple hours. “No clue, sweetheart.”
He one-handedly opens his cigarettes and sticks a new one between his lips without picking his head up from Steve’s chest. The lighter takes more effort, and he has to shake the pack in effort to disrupt his BIC from where it’s still comfortably wedged in from last night.
Steve must find his watch, because Eddie feels him lift both arms up and fumble around with something behind Eddie’s head. When Steve puts his arms like that it makes his boobs squish together, so Eddie briefly removes the cigarette from his mouth and turns to press his face into them instead. Warm, hairy, Steve.
Even though Eddie knows they should get up, he takes his time lighting his cigarette, and Steve lays under him, twisting his fingers through Eddie’s hair. The nicotine helps. A few minutes later, he’s more awake than he was, and lets out a final sleepy yawn as he stretches to dump his cigarette into an empty.
As Eddie lays back down, he brushes a little bump of ash out of Steve’s chest hair.
“I wasn’t kidding around when I said I needed that shower, Munson,” Steve murmurs, voice low and rumbling in his chest. Eddie’s hand has found its way down to Steve’s butt cheek and he grins as he feels Steve inch his pelvis forward. “I feel like Slimer’s weird human brother.”
Eddie laughs, a stupid hyuk hyuk he can’t control.
“That’s life on the road, baby.” He says it with a grin as his fingers tilt into the dip of Steve’s tailbone, and Steve starts chewing on his lip, staring up at Eddie as Eddie trails his fingers down. He feels Steve spread his legs a little, so Eddie gets close, nose to nose as he brushes his thumb over Steve’s balls. “Wanna stop and see the world’s biggest bucket of paint?”
Steve grimaces up at him. Flexes his pelvis. “Why would anyone wanna see that?”
“Novelty, intrigue,” Eddie replies easily, adding a little bit of dramatic flair to his voice. He trails his fingers back, presses them into Steve’s ass. “When I was nine I saw the largest ball of twine and it changed me forever, I don’t-”
He cuts himself off abruptly.
“Don’t say it,” Steve warns, shoving Eddie away by the forehead. Eddie goes with it, head banging backwards, laughing uncontrollably. “Do you know how hard it is to take a load when there’s only one bathroom every 100 miles, dickhead?”
Sometimes there are moments in Eddie’s life where the love he feels for Steve is emphatic and all-consuming. It hits him stupid, like getting bricked in the side of the head, and he never knows when it’s going to happen until he’s standing there staring back into that crabby expression and those big beautiful eyes.
“Jesus fucking christ, Steve Harrington,” Eddie passionately declares, holding Steve’s shoulder down with his forearm so he can push two fingers in this time. They stare at each other, Eddie absolutely raptured by the love he feels, Steve’s mouth dropping open at the sensation. He’s still wet from getting railed after last night’s gig -- Eddie gets so hot so fast, he feels faint. “Thank you for your service,” he says sincerely, shaking his head. “An American hero.”
He’s about to break into “oh beautiful for spacious skies” when Steve shoves him off with his whole body, sending Eddie crashing to the side in giggles and an almost-there dick.
“Pancakes. Robin.” Steve demands, pointing a finger down at Eddie, the authority in which is lost by the way he has to hunch over because of the low ceiling, and how he is now trying to get both legs into a pair of underwear. “And then we get out of here.”
Eddie stretches both arms up over his head and grins at Steve happily.
“Steve Harrington,” he sing-songs, disregarding everything that was just said. Steve starts climbing back over the seats, and Eddie cranes his neck back, trying to get a good look at the back of his underwear. “I love you very much, I think you’re very wonderful.”
Steve ignores him and gets a Corroded Coffin t-shirt over his head, which also sends Eddie’s dick into orbit, and the last thing Eddie gets is a middle finger before Steve cracks open the passenger side door and slides out into the parking lot barefoot and without pants.
*
“A pancake stack,” Eddie says twenty minutes later, crammed into one side of the booth and answering the question ‘and what can I get ya, darlin?’. He holds his hand palm down, about a foot off the table. “This big.”
She nods at her notepad, scribbles Eddie’s order down and cracks her gum. Looks at Steve next.
Steve is sitting across from Eddie, shoulders wedged in between Gareth and Jeff. He shoves a hand through his hair -- apparently thinking about this for the first time.
“Uhhhh.” He squints at her painfully. “Coffee?” God, from this angle Eddie can see the spot under Steve’s jaw where he sucked a hickey just for fun. Steve arches his eyebrows. “And some eggs? Maybe with hashbrowns?”
She nods, scribbles. Asks, “Sausage? Ham?”
“Sure, yeah,” Steve agrees, making Eddie smile.
Everyone else orders. Before the waitress leaves, she relocates a second ashtray from the table opposite theirs to directly in front of chain smoking Freak.
“Alright, noblemen,” Eddie announces, leaning to the side a bit so he can dig one hand into the front chest pocket of his jacket. “Time for per diems.”
He tugs the money out and starts counting piles onto the table, licking his thumb as he doles everyone’s cut out. Steve sold over thirty bucks worth of merch last night, which means they won’t be driving to Wabash on a prayer.
“For you, and for you,” Eddie says, sliding each pile across the table. He drives Jeff’s between the rack of tiny syrup bottles and a porcelain dish full of individual jams. Steve gets his last, and Eddie shoves it a little further across the table, smiling when Steve takes it by putting his fingers right on top of his. “There we go. That’s tacks ‘til tomorrow, gentlemen.”
The waitress comes by with a fresh pot of coffee and refills everyone’s mugs.
Eddie settles back in his seat, very happy with his life, and smiles across the table at Steve, who is thanking the waitress and also mopping up coffee that dripped out of the carafe with a napkin. He knows Steve misses everyone at home when he comes on the road, but Steve’s also told him he would miss Eddie differently -- in a way that feels like more.
“So Freak, did you get it done last night?” Jeff asks, settling back in the booth. “You were gone for a while.”
Freak rolls his eyes. “I didn’t get laid, if that’s what you’re talking about.”
“Steve told us you were going to buy a skin mag so you could jerk it in the bathroom at the bar,” Gareth supplies, and Eddie starts laughing.
Freak looks scandalized. “Dude!” he exclaims, throwing a sugar packet across the table.
Steve is appropriately apologetic. “I didn’t know it was supposed to be a secret!”
“You pull all the fucking time, man,” Gareth sighs. “Must be nice.”
Steve gives him a weird look. “Me?”
Eddie hides a grin behind his fist, and then drops it to straighten his expression and drawl, “You should tell them about the girls last night, Steve.”
“Okay, stop,” Steve announces, holding one hand up. “This is like, a family establishment.”
The waitress brings their plates all at once a few minutes later, four stacked along each arm, and they help her unload them to the table, switching orders around when they get set down in front of the person they don’t belong to. Steve gets his plate full of eggs and hashbrowns and two sides of meat, and Eddie gets a stack of pancakes higher than he’d held his hand.
After they eat, Eddie brushes his teeth in the glass of water on the table, and Steve walks up to the front of the restaurant to call Robin from the payphones there.
*
“Gremlins.”
“Sssss… Some Like it Hot.”
“You took too long, but I’ll give it to you. Tommy. Obviously.”
“Young Frankenstein,” Steve immediately replies, no hesitation.
Eddie makes an appreciative face at himself in the rear view mirror. They’re only an hour out of Wabush, but the highway is busy for mid-day, congested with lots of semis and trucks that have horse trailers attached.
“Night of the Living Dead.” It’s a no-brainer. Then he scoffs and adds, “Nightmare on Elm Street.”
Steve makes an angry buzzer sound in the back of his throat. “No dice, Munson. You got cocky. I believe Nightmare on Elm Street begins with an ‘A’.”
“The student has become the master,” Eddie concedes, reaching for his coffee, which is jostling along with them in the cup holder underneath the radio. “I believe that’s five points for you.”
Corn fields fly by at a rapid rate as the last dregs of Lafayette fade out into countryside. Steve’s in the passenger seat with a pencil twirling between his fingers and his notebook cracked open over one thigh. “I believe that’s five points for me,” he agrees. “Bringing me to… ahh, the best number out there, in my humble opinion. Sweet ‘ol seventy five.”
“Remind me what happens when one of us cracks a hundred again?” Eddie asks, carefully navigating the coffee towards his mouth.
Steve looks over at him, head tilted against the back of the seat, and easily recounts their agreement, which is, “If I win, I get to suck on your ear.” Eddie compulsively brings his shoulder up to shield his ear from Steve’s tongue, spilling his shitty coffee in the process. “If you win, which you won’t, because you haven’t even hit fifty yet, I make you brownies.”
“With a special ingredient,” Eddie tacks on. Specifically, “Not semen.”
Steve looks over, dumbfounded. “Semen?”
“If you’re making a deal with the devil, you gotta let him know your terms and conditions,” Eddie shrugs, stretching out to set his coffee cup back in the holder.
Steve kicks his sock feet up onto the dashboard and points his pencil in Eddie’s direction. “We’ve both had a lifetime’s worth of bad monkey paws -- let’s not involve Beetlejuice.”
“Beelzebub,” Eddie corrects. “What’s our exit again?”
He glances in the rearview as he asks -- and there’s Gareth, rumbling along behind them, a two part metal convoy. His mom’s van has so many bumper stickers on it they’ve begun to leech around to the front windshield, which tickles Eddie and horrifies Steve.
“It’s still pretty far off.” Steve holds up their tattered copy of Wanderin’ Guide to Indiana. “This book says there’s a truck stop ahead that has laundry and showers.”
Eddie whistles and looks over. “That’d solve all our problems. And you know I’m always happy to sit around with you in your skimpies, Harrington.”
“I wear shorts,” Steve corrects. “They’re like, super appropriate.” For a second Eddie thinks he’s going to leave it at that, but then he grimaces and adds, “I played basketball in them, for god’s sake!”
Eddie raises his eyebrows. “Oh, I know.”
There were many gym classes held in Hawkins High between the years of 1982 and 1985 that had skinny ‘ol Eddie Munson sitting on the bench, flexing his calf muscles until he gave himself a charlie horse because that was the only way to distract his dick from getting hard about sweaty, muscular Steve Harrington running -- nay, BOUNCING -- across the squeaky hardwood in tiny green shorts and a thin t-shirt that did nothing to contain his musculature.
“Like you care about anyone’s modesty,” Steve grins. “Most of all mine.”
Eddie reaches for his cigarettes. “Don’t let me be the one to hold you back, sweetheart,” he starts, sticking a filter between his lips. “I mean, shit Steve, feel free to bring the ‘ol jockstrap out.” He glances over as he tosses the cigarette pack back on the dash, eyebrows raised. “Just let me have it when you’re done.”
Steve smacks him and cackles, “Jesus christ, shut up,” but Eddie sees it, the flush that makes his cheeks hot, the way he adjusts his collar when he takes his hand back.
Eddie keeps grinning as he lights his cigarette.
“That bucket of paint or whatever is in here too,” Steve says a few minutes later, when Eddie is halfway through his cigarette. “It’s actually pretty close to the truck stop.”
He glances over, gets a glimpse of Steve’s profile against the rolling corn fields, notices how tan he looks in the daylight, the stubble on his jaw from going a day without shaving. He’s looking at the book intently, and when Eddie moves his gaze down, there it is, a full-sized picture of the biggest bucket of paint in Indiana laying right there against Steve’s junk.
“Let’s pull over up here and tell Gareth,” Eddie decides. “Cape Fear.”
Steve scoffs. “Road House.”
*
Steve does in fact bring a little bit of Hawkins to the truck stop just outside Erie, Indiana.
“I still can’t figure out if it’s better to have a shower and then do laundry, or do laundry before I have a shower,” he muses, propped up against their dryer.
He is, as Eddie suspected, wearing tiny gym shorts. Even his sneakers have gone in the wash.
“The mysteries of life, baby,” Eddie replies, distracted.
It’s only the two of them in here, even though a dozen machines are in use -- turns out noon on a Wednesday isn’t a popular time to sit around the ‘ol Scrub-n-Dub. Eddie’s laying on a crappy wooden bench in boxers, the dirty W.A.S.P. shirt, and his leather jacket.
He’s two chapters deeper into Misery when he feels Steve’s bare foot gripping at his calf.
“ET,” Steve says in his best alien impression.
In Eddie’s haste to yank himself away from Steve’s foot, he almost rolls off the other side of the bench. His book goes flying and he holds his forearms up to his chest as he tries to kick Steve’s foot away with his foot.
“Get out of here,” Eddie cackles, kicking a few more times, smacking Steve’s hairy ankle with his hand then turning his head away so he doesn’t get one of Steve’s toes in his mouth. It grazes his chin and he spits, eyes squeezed shut as Steve laughs stupidly. “Harrington-”
Steve lifts his foot up again and this time Eddie can see right down his shorts as he flexes his toes like a claw in a claw machine.
“There’s no escaping it,” Steve warns, still cracking himself up. “I’m coming for your ear first, Munson, and next time, it’s gonna be this foot in your mouth.”
The truth is, Eddie has been letting Steve win at movie titles. Of course he knows the correct reference is A Nightmare on Elm Street. Every time he goes into Family Video, Steve and Robin have musicals stocked in the drama section, and nothing is ever alphabetized. One time Steve said his favorite scary movie was Gremlins -- unironically.
“Oh, Steve Harrington,” Eddie chides, sitting up and knocking Steve’s foot away. “You’re going to get what’s yours.”
Eddie will sacrifice his ear for the greater good, but not this.
Steve can somehow separate his toes so there are finger-sized spaces between them. He ignores what Eddie just said and laughs, “Hold it like it’s my hand,” instead.
“Next weekend, please bring Buckley with us.” Eddie gets up off the bench with a sigh and wipes his face off with the belly of his t-shirt. “I’ll even spring for a hotel.”
Steve says, “I’m trying,” just as the washing machine beeps. He bends over to pick up Eddie’s copy of Misery and as he hands it over, adds, “She said she doesn’t want to see your penis.”
“I can keep it in my pants for two days,” Eddie scoffs, hopping up onto the machine beside the one that has their laundry in it. Steve opens the door on theirs. “Give me a little credit, jesus christ -- I mean, can you?”
He pulls his cigarettes out as Steve dumps all their wet clothes into a metal basket.
“She doesn’t care about mine,” he shrugs, peering up at Eddie as Eddie lights a cigarette.
Eddie gives him a wry look. “I’m sure she’d feel differently if it was hard as tacks and dripping jizz.”
“Don’t say jizz,” Steve counters.
It takes a couple flicks to get the lighter going. Eddie dips his cigarette into the flame, takes a drag, and arches an eyebrow at Steve as he exhales and asks, “Ejaculate?”
“How about let’s stop talking about my dick in relation to Robin,” Steve suggests, shoving their little laundry buggy down the aisle, towards where the dryers are. He looks back at Eddie over his shoulder. “Including what comes out of it.”
Eddie hops off of the washing machine and hurries after Steve, grinning and holding his cigarette away from their bodies as he gets an arm around Steve’s chest and presses up against his back.
“Steeeeeeve Harrington,” Eddie says into the shell of his ear, keeping them pressed together for two steps before he pulls himself back -- just in case someone walks in. He hops around the front of the basket, sticks the cigarette in his mouth, and mirrors Steve’s pose. “Can I talk about your dick and what comes out of it in relation to my mouth?”
Steve grins but glances back over one shoulder, then peers over the other.
“Dude,” he manages, reaching out to shove Eddie by the chest. Eddie grins and falls backwards dramatically, still smoking his cigarette. “You’re being such a bad influence right now.”
Eddie keeps the shit-eating grin plastered on his face as Steve rolls by with a smile. He does look around and grab his ass one last time, though. Unfortunately the shorts are so tight he barely gets a squeeze.
*
They get to Wabush two hours before doors open.
Steve, with his hair still damp from the pay-by-the-hour showers they had after finishing their laundry, carries boxes of merch while the rest of them load in gear. Eddie always leaves his guitar in the van until last, when he’s ready to sit at the bar and have a drink.
Which is exactly what he does after they’ve sound checked and tested the shitty old spotlight.
“Hey,” Steve greets, jogging up to Eddie and his beer. His chin is still a little red from when they fooled around in the shower earlier. “The dude out there just said doors open in five.”
Eddie signals for the bartender. “Is it that time already?”
“I want the same thing you have,” Steve adds, so when the bartender turns to look over at them, Eddie just points at his beer and then points at Steve.
The house lights are still up and someone has been paying for Zeppelin tracks off the jukebox since Eddie sat down at the bar. Steve steals some of his bar nuts while they wait, and when the bartender brings Steve’s drink over, Eddie points at Steve again and says, “This one’s on mine all night.”
She adds Steve’s beer to Eddie’s tab and ignores Eddie’s guitar taking up an entire seat.
“I saw some people lining up outside already,” Steve says, nudging him. He shaved at the truck stop and his skin looks fresh, even the spot on his neck he nicked with his razor. “They asked me if I could get them backstage passes.”
Eddie grins, charmed already. “What’d you say?”
“I asked them if they wanted to buy a shirt,” Steve admits, making Eddie bust out into laughter -- a real laugh that has Steve looking back over one shoulder with a grin.
When Eddie’s laughter dies down into giggles, he shakes his head and looks back at Steve.
There are so many things he wants to say but can’t, and it’s so hard not to touch Steve in public. Sometimes carrying the weight of love breaks Eddie’s back.
“I think you’re great,” is what he manages, and Steve grins back at him warmly, because he knows what Eddie really means -- I love you very much, Steve Harrington. “The business man doesn’t fall far from the business tree.”
Steve laughs at him again, and they stay like that for another minute, until Steve says, “Okay, I have to go,” and Eddie follows his line of sight to where the doors are opening and a few people are starting to stream in. Steve picks up his beer and looks at Eddie seriously, direct eye contact, those big brown eyes that Eddie writes every single song about. “Have the best show.”
It makes Eddie smile again. He murmurs back, “Every night, baby.”
Steve mouths “bye” before he turns around and disappears, beer bottle in one hand, and Eddie’s band’s name stretched tight over his chest. Eddie watches him go for as long as he can, until the house lights dim and the acoustics turn towards the sound of people chattering and laughing.
“Alright, sweetheart,” Eddie says, much louder this time, wrapping his hand around the neck of his guitar as he stands up. “Let’s do what the man says.”