Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

He spends the morning wondering if he should, then calls the number as soon as he gets home from work.

“Thank you for calling Family Video, where every new release comes with a share-size bag of M&Ms,” a monotone voice states. “This is Keith. How may I help you today?”

Ian squints down at the classified ad, making sure he got the right number. “Uh, hi. I was hoping to speak with Eddie?”

“You and half the National Guard,” Keith snorts, sounding unimpressed. “What’d he do this time?”

For a second Ian stares at the wall with an open mouth, not knowing what to say.

“Uhh…” Maybe trying to find a new band from the classifieds is a fool’s errand. “He posted an ad, and I was just responding to it. This isn’t his number, I take it?”

Like a dickhead, Keith repeats himself. “Thank you for calling Family Video.”

“Right.” Ian makes a face into the phone. “Well, do you know where I can find him?”

*

Ian takes his skateboard over to Forest Hills, which he hasn’t been to since before the reconstruction.

His mom’s friend used to live over on the side closest to the fairground, and as such, Ian has hazy memories of a few summer days spent out here, playing with the neighborhood kids and then falling asleep in the car on the ride home.

Everything has been rebuilt since the disaster, but it’s hot enough today to remind Ian of those memories anyways -- especially because some things are still the same, like the grass, dead and brown and crunchy underfoot, and the pavement piping hot and smelling like tar. It’s kinda nice, kinda nostalgic, and as he coasts down the street, he enjoys the sense memories that roll along with him: wet baking pavement, honeysuckle, dust and grass…

Keith was a total dick on the phone but he did give pretty good directions. Ian rolls around one more corner and then he’s pretty sure he sees the right lot, marked by the van parked in its driveway.

He doesn’t even see the two guys out on the lawn until he’s already at the curb in front.

Ian kicks his skateboard up and starts walking down the little path, friendly yet awkward smile on his face.

As soon as Ian’s close enough, one of the two guys calls, “Salutations!”

They’re each sitting in a folding lawn chair and they both have their bare feet in a plastic kids pool full of water. Ian comes to a stop on the other side of it. They guy who said ‘salutations’ has rolled his jeans as far as they’ll go up his calves, and the other guy is wearing normal enough looking shorts that leave exactly nothing to the imagination.

“Hi,” Ian greets, looking at the first guy, and then the second. “Are you Eddie?”

The smile grows on the face of the guy wearing jeans. He taps his cigarette into the ashtray balanced on the arm of his lawn chair, and mysteriously states, “Depends on who’s asking.”

“Oh my god,” the other guy says, rolling his eyes. He shakes his head and goes back to the book he’d got open against his calf.

Ian, still holding his skateboard on the other side of the pool, says, “Well, me. I’m Ian. I saw your ad in the newspaper.”

“Ian!” The guy exclaims, like it means anything to him. He shifts forward, kicking pool water everywhere, and holds a hand out that Ian has to awkwardly stretch forward to reach. “In that case, nice to meet you.” He smiles sweetly. “I am indeed Eddie.”

They part ways again and Ian feels the need to explain, “I called the number you had in the ad, then Keith told me to come here.”

“Keith is bad at being a store manager but really good at being my secretary,” Eddie says, which makes the other guy snort again, but not drag his attention away from his book. Eddie grins up at Ian, about a million watts worth, and exclaims, “And here you are because of it!”

Eddie stabs his cigarette out, sets his ashtray down in the dead grass beside his chair, and starts getting out of the pool.

“This is my old lady,” he says off-handedly, gesturing to the guy in the other lawn chair as his feet splash out of the water. The guy doesn’t look up but he does give Ian a wiggly-fingered wave, then Eddie’s up and walking away. “Come in and I’ll get you a tape!”

Ian hurries after him, leaving his skateboard against the trailer steps as he goes.

The bug screened front door swings closed behind them, and Ian comes to a stop just inside, not sure if he should follow Eddie as Eddie takes off down the hallway and disappears around a corner.

While Ian’s standing there he looks around the living room. It’s cozy, with a big tartan plaid couch, knee-breaker of a wooden coffee table, and wildflower patterned arm chair all positioned around a newish looking TV. He edges towards the TV to check out the tapes stacked on top of the VCR: The Naked Gun, Pumpkinhead, and E.T.

He can hear Eddie moving around in the other room. Ian, not sure what else to do, pivots around on his heel and looks back out the front door. The other guy’s still sitting in his lawn chair, head looking down at his lap.

“Here we go.” Eddie loudly comes back down the hall. “Had to dredge it up from the archives.”

Ian turns back around and grins as Eddie holds a tape out. “Thanks, man,” he says, taking it and then flipping it around to look at each side. It’s not mass produced, just one from the blank packs of six you can get at the electronics store. It’s got CORRODED COFFIN written in black pen on one side. “I can’t wait to give this a listen.”

“We’re going back on the road soon,” Eddie explains, sticking both hands in his back pockets as he talks. His jeans are still all yanked up around his calves. “Our other guitarist recently succumbed to the call of heteronormativity and would rather marry his girlfriend than go on to live in rock legend status.” Ian can’t tell if he’s joking or not but thinks he must be. Eddie raises his eyebrows and emphasizes, “So we’re really looking for the right guy to replace him.”

All of a sudden there’s another voice, and Ian jumps. “He’s not succumbing to anything.” The other guy from the front yard is abruptly coming in through the bug screen door. “And Lisa is great.”

“Lisa,” Eddie tisks disdainfully.

Now they’re all in close quarters and things seem to be moving along, the guy holds his hand out to Ian and says, “I’m Steve, by the way.”

“Ian,” Ian says automatically, shaking Steve’s hand. “Nice to meet you.”

Steve tosses his book on the coffee table and asks, “You want a beer? You hungry?”

“Oh -- a beer would be great,” Ian says honestly.

He watches Steve walk over into the kitchen, where there’s a compact little set up of counters, cupboards, appliances, and a sink. Everything looks new, outfitted with that trendy honey oak lacquer his mom is always talking about. Steve opens the fridge and pulls three cans of beer off the door; holds them all in one hand and grabs a bag of chips from the cupboard with the other.

“Unfortunately for you and I, all the band’s equipment is under wraps at our drummer’s house, and will remain that way until we go back on the road,” Eddie is explaining, unceremoniously dropping down into the couch. Ian awkwardly sits in the arm chair as Steve hands him a beer. “Minus my Warlock, which is for these hands,” he holds them up and wiggles his fingers until Steve knocks a beer into one of his palms, “Only.”

Ian nods. “I should have brought mine.”

“Well, let’s meet up tomorrow,” Eddie says, glancing over as Steve sits down beside him. He looks back at Ian with a smile tipping up the corners of his mouth. “Go home, listen to the tape, and bring your guitar back if you’re interested.” He raises his eyebrows. “I’ll be here.”

*

Ian has much to think about as he skateboards home with the tape in his pocket.

It’s entirely possible he’s been to one of these guys shows before. The scene isn’t that big here in Indiana, and the more he sat there talking to Eddie, the more familiar the whole thing seemed.

His roommates are already there when he gets home, so Ian sits around in the living room with them, half-watching the new episode of Roseanne on TV. It’s only when he retires to his room for the night that he pulls the tape out, sliding it into his Walkman as he gets ready for bed.

The songs are heavy. One gets Ian rewinding back to the beginning before it’s even over. He listens to the tape all the way through, twice, and knows exactly what he’ll be saying to Eddie about it in the morning.

*

This time, Ian is prepared.

He rolls up with his guitar, a tape of the band he used to play with, and a bag of donuts.

“Oh Ian, as I live and breathe!” Eddie grins at the door, wearing jeans but no shirt or socks.

Ian sets his skateboard down in the same spot as yesterday and bounces up the steps to hand the donut bag over and say, “The tape, man? Wow.”

“Wow?” Eddie grins back at him. “That’s -- coalescence.” He shoves the door all the way open and waves Ian inside. “Come in. Make yourself comfortable, man. My house is your house, or whatever the French say.” He pauses his dialogue to hold up the donuts and ask, “Mind if I take one to Steve?”

Ian drops his guitar bag off his shoulder. “Dude, as many as he wants.”

“Oh, you’re getting it already,” Eddie grins, and Ian doesn’t even parse what he’s said until he’s already gone, walking down the hall in the same direction he went yesterday.

Sure, there are things Ian is excruciatingly bad at -- like long division, throwing a ball, and holding any kind of baby -- but he’s not stupid. He’s picked up every clue Eddie’s laid down since he introduced Steve as his old lady yesterday on the front lawn. Ian’s not homophobic. He’d throw up and catch it in his hands before he ever kissed a dude, but aside from that, it’s whatever. If Eddie and Steve want to live together in a trailer park and be in a touring metal band for the rest of the year -- well, Ian can think of worse things people are doing.

Eddie comes back with the donuts in one hand and his guitar, held by its neck, in the other.

“These,” he shakes the bag by its rolled up handle. “Are divine.”

Ian shrugs. “My roommate got a job at that new bakery that opened on Mulberry. Those are fresh out of the deep fryer.”

“Well, that would explain that,” Eddie says to himself, as he lays his guitar down on the couch and then turns to Ian, face a little unsure. “I swear this’ll only take me a minute. How many people do you live with?”

Ian doesn’t even know what Eddie’s talking about until he starts unwedging an amp from where it’s kind of angled back behind the couch. It’s unplugged, all its cables rolled up and haloed on top. On the side of the amp, MUN-SON is stenciled in big box letters.

“I live with three of my friends,” Ian says, watching. “We moved in together this summer, actually.”

Eddie unspools the cable and stretches it out, arm wingspan looking extremely wide when he’s got an end in each hand. “Well, that’s cool,” he says. With the way he’s all stretched out, Ian notices the chest tattoos for the first time. “Communal living is definitely a thing.”

Ian shrugs. It’s whatever. Living on the road will be an extension of what he’s doing now.

A door opens down the hall and Ian hears footsteps, then another door opening and closing. A few minutes later, the water clunks and it sounds like a shower turns on. Ian zones out watching Eddie plug his amp in, only sitting back when Eddie abruptly pops up out of his squat and bounces around the coffee table, reverently picking his guitar up before he crashes down to the couch with it in his lap.

“Let’s just see what happens, shall we?” he asks, flipping his hair back off his face and giving Ian a look as he plugs the amp into his guitar.

*

The rip of two electric guitars rattles Steve out into the hallway like a bug falling out of a crack.

Ian and Eddie are most of the way through Hot for Teacher when Steve appears, hair damp, still looking half asleep. The Van Halen shred is crazy and pulls most of Ian’s attention, but he still notices Steve coming in and sitting down on the other side of the couch beside Eddie.

It catches Ian off-guard when Steve adds in the dramatic, “Oh my god,” like they have on the record at exactly the right part. It totally breaks his focus and makes him laugh.

Eddie finishes out the track alone because Ian’s been left in the dust, then sing-song drawls, “Goooood morning, Harrington,” as the amp crackles and he leans forward for his cigarette, still burning in the ashtray. He gives Steve a shifty look over his bare shoulder. “The mortals are delighted you’ve joined us.”

Steve stares back, unimpressed, and they do that thing Ian’s parents do sometimes, where they have a whole thing without talking. After a minute, Steve flatly says, “I’m gonna make coffee,” and abruptly gets back up.

When Ian sees the look on Eddie’s face after that, it’s no question who he wrote all those love songs about.

*

The rest of the summer rolls on and Ian spends a lot of it in their trailer at Forest Hills.

It’s interesting to go so fast and deep into someone’s personal bubble and then spend an extraordinary amount of time there. He and Eddie are on the couch together for about eight hours a day as Ian learns all the Corroded songs. Steve comes and goes, mostly by himself, but sometimes with friends who get introduced to Ian, too.

He learns Steve works for the band, dealing almost exclusively with backend stuff like booking tour dates and talking to promoters on the phone. One day Ian and Eddie can’t play until Steve finishes up a call with some guy he’s arguing with, which he clearly has no compunction about doing.

“Are you actually kidding me right now?” Steve demands into the phone, eyebrows arched halfway up his forehead. He listens to whatever the guy’s saying, mouth hung open as he does, before he rolls his eyes and switches his tone, going for placating, cooing into the receiver as he says, “Oh, you know so many other metal bands? That’s so great. You should go and book one of them. Yeah, and tell them Steve Harrington called your booking fees bullshit while you do.”

Ian, flabbergasted, looks over at Eddie, who’s grinning and pointedly staring down at his fingers brushing over the guitar strings.

“In what world do I give everything away for free?” Steve muses to himself, crashing the phone receiver back down into its cradle. He grimaces and adds, “Some of these people are criminals. Jesus Christ.”

Eddie starts strumming the melody to Prowler still with that little smile on his face. He finally looks over at Steve sitting at the kitchen table and says, “Hey Harrington, we should order pizza.”

“Pizza?” Steve asks, eyebrows raising up his forehead. Eddie raises his back and nods. “I could go for pizza.” Steve goes back to the phone, hitting one of the speed dial buttons as he brings it up to his ear. “I’ll go pick it up, whoever they have on delivery hasn’t made it here with the cheese still on the -- hi!”

Fifteen minutes later, Steve leaves to get their food and Ian and Eddie rip through a new song Eddie’s tentatively calling Battalions. Then after that they sit there quietly while Ian sips on a beer and Eddie prepares a joint while they await Steve’s return.

“Can I ask, how’d you get to know each other, anyway?” Ian says out of nowhere. “You and Steve.”

Eddie raises one eyebrow and continues rolling the joint on the coffee table. “Depends on who’s asking.”

He and Steve have never come out and walked Ian through the nature of their relationship… not that it’s any of his business to hear about. It’s just interesting, watching them constantly toe the edge of something that is so very obvious yet eternally the gigantic, life-endingly large elephant in the room.

“Me,” Ian says simply. “What if I was asking?”

Eddie gives him a look, lips pressed together, eyes blank. They’ve been spending so much time together it’s disarming; Ian was under the assumption they’d become friends. But maybe not.

“If I were to say to you there was once a place where good boys and good girls wore little blue shorts and striped tops while casting off to a sea of many different flavors,” Eddie perilously begins. “What would you say in return?”

Ian looks at him flatly. “I’d say that sounds like the ice cream place that was in the food court before the mall burned down.”

“Yes indeed. This boy,” the twisted end of the joint goes between Eddie’s lips as he talks around it, “Before he was a man, would visit that shangri-la of nautical puns and wares simply to ask one Steve Harrington for a taste test of every flavor under the dome.”

That’s so not what Ian was expecting. “So you met at the mall.”

“Well.” The joint comes out of Eddie’s mouth, back between his fingers as he gestures around with both hands. “Technically, we met in high school. But only ever from afar.” The joint goes back between his teeth and he talks around it as he picks up his lighter. “We made first contact, true contact, at that shrivel-spooned dairy wagon. Then, you know.” He pauses to light the joint, sucking it solidly before taking it back out of his mouth with a shrug. “We went our separate ways after he graduated high school, but we had a reunion of sorts not long after.”

Eddie’s words have abruptly lost their decidedly flowery flair. He stops talking maybe because the story’s done and maybe because he just doesn’t want to say anything else. He takes another drag of the joint right as Steve comes clattering back through the front door.

“Robin’s coming over when she’s done,” he announces, holding a pizza box with two movie rentals stacked on top. “Her shift ends at 11.”

Eddie dramatically sighs, “Oh they work her to the bone,” and holds the joint up for Steve.

Steve comes over, still holding all the stuff, and stoops down, curling around Eddie’s elbow so he can take a drag of the joint. He inhales, cheeks all sucked in, lips pressing into Eddie’s fingers, then stands up and silently hands the two movie rentals down as he holds the smoke.

“Let’s see,” Eddie muses, blindly holding the joint out for Ian to take as he accepts the tapes from Steve with his other hand. Ian stretches forward to grab it. Steve exhales back over his shoulder and Eddie looks up at him with a deadpan expression on his face. “Look Who’s Talking and Wes Craven’s Shocker.”

Steve sets the pizza box on the coffee table, flips it open, and takes the first slice. “Dude, Kristie Alley is so funny in that. And the talking baby? Come on.”

“The baby doesn’t talk,” Ian reasonably states, stretching for the pizza. Steve lifts up a foot and toes the box closer to his side of the coffee table. “We can just hear his inner dialogue.”

Eddie’s face is decidedly sour. “God, I dislike both of you,” he grimaces, taking the joint back.

*

Two things happen in August.

First, Eddie buys a ‘68 Travco he refers to as The Dodge Mahal. It appears one morning in the grass alongside the gravel patch where Steve and Eddie usually park, and Steve spends a couple hours before lunch under it, just his bare legs sticking out, then a couple more hours in the afternoon inside of it. Ian doesn’t see him much, just notices evidence of him being there, like the pile of stuff on the lawn and the can of beer that keeps moving locations.

The second thing that happens is the band has a “we’re going on tour soon” front yard BBQ.

“It sleeps eight, dude,” Eddie’s telling Freak, leading him up the stairs with a cigarette in hand. He yanks the screen door open. “No more crashing on couches or freezing our asses off when it snows.”

Ian’s been helping Steve at the grill. Steve’s got no shirt on and he’s wearing shorts that are short enough to see his underwear poking out whenever he crosses his legs or squats, but what Ian’s come to know about Steve is, despite appearances, he’s more of a metalhead than the majority of the dudes Ian meets who have big hair and ripped jeans. Steve can name any guitar solo, knows you can’t play Van Halen without riding the whammy bar, and describes most Sabbath tracks as cathartic.

“Dude, where’s your plate?” he asks Gareth, wrinkling his whole face up.

Gareth is holding his hot dog bun, open, in one hand. “Don’t need one.”

“You guys are animals,” Steve sighs, genuinely disappointed. He tips his elbow in Gareth’s direction and tells Ian, “Dog him.”

Ian obediently stabs a hot dog with his fork and transports it to Gareth’s bun as Steve goes back to flipping burgers. Gareth eats his hot dog standing up and then retrieves another bun, and Ian silently dogs him again, right as Eddie and Freak come crashing back out of the RV.

“Burgers are ready,” Steve tells them, halfway through stacking patties on a plate.

Eddie comes right over, rubbing his hands together like a cartoon character. “Oh there is nothing I love more than a hamburger on a hot summer’s eve. Gets you feeling real American, am I right?”

“What’d you think?” Steve asks Freak, ignoring Eddie and squinting towards the RV.

Freak accepts the plate Eddie hands him. “So cool, man. I call the bunk beside the bathroom.”

“No one else is gonna want the bunk beside the bathroom,” Gareth says.

Eddie’s using both hands and all his fingers to delicately stack his hamburger toppings but glances up at the conversation. “Choose wisely, gentlemen, for once a bunk is called, it shall be yours forevermore.”

Ian finishes putting his burger together and diligently carries his plate of food and beer over to a folding chair. As he sits down an older couple walk by, the lady cranking a set of hand weights and the guy smoking a cigarette.

“Hey! You two hungry?” Steve calls, pointing a thumb over his shoulder. “We got lots of food.”

Their names are Iris and Jerry, and Ian learns they live down at the other end of the road in a double-wide with their adult daughter and her kid. The two of them stand around chatting with Steve and Eddie in particular for a few minutes, and they decline Steve’s offer of food but they appreciate when Eddie tells them there are a few more people coming over and that if the music’s too loud, all Jerry’s got to do is give the house number a call.

“Iris really likes Robin,” Steve laughs as he finally sits down in a chair, almost tipping his beer over when he sets it in the grass. “She keeps inviting her to bingo night.”

Eddie shakes his head and genuinely laments, “I am so jealous of the Buckley bingo invite.”

*

The first set of dates are in three cities: Indianapolis, Louisville, and Cincinnati.

“The days of bar gigs are long gone,” Eddie says one afternoon, on the I-65 between Indiana and Kentucky. So far he’s done most of the driving, bent over the steering wheel as they thunder down the highway. “We are firmly, fully in the new era now.”

Ian, in the passenger seat, stares out the window, peering into all the cars below them.

There’s a hint of -- something -- in Eddie’s voice, nostalgia or melancholy or something else all together. It’s not a feeling Ian can relate to; he’s full of the ebb and flow of nervous excitement, looking forward to his first show while also dreading the moments of fear he knows will come.

“Is that a bad thing, or something?” Ian asks anyways.

Eddie immediately shakes his head. “No, not bad,” he says, but he draws the vowels out. “I am well aware of how thankless this may sound, but there have already been moments where I’ve missed my van and the,” he tisks and shakes his head with a wry grin, “lifestyle it afforded.”

Ian can’t figure that one out right away. He brings a hand up to shield his eyes when the highway curves and all of a sudden they’re getting blasted by the sun.

“Jesus christ,” Eddie spits, reaching up to flip the visor down.

This is so not Ian’s seat to be sitting in right now. He waits another minute and then unclicks his seatbelt and preemptively flips the passenger side visor down as he stands up and climbs out of the big captain chair. The back of the RV is quiet, Freak and Gareth in their bunks with the curtains open and Steve stretched out on the couch with the copy of Mad Magazine Eddie got at the gas station.

As Ian makes his way back, Steve’s gaze pops up over the top edge of the page.

“What’s up?” he asks flatly.

Ian shakes his head. “I gotta lay down for a bit, I think I’m carsick.”

Steve gives him another look, more suspicious this time, but Ian just keeps it moving, walking through the body of the RV to where all their bunks are stacked in the back. On one side there’s Freak, Gareth, and Ian, and on the other, Eddie and Steve.

Ian is unsurprised when Steve tosses his magazine to the side.

Ian climbs up into his newly appointed bunk, where his still packed bag is in the footwell and the pillow he grabbed off his bed this morning is up by the little dome light. Yesterday he went to the mall and bought some things, mostly underwear and socks and the new Danzig tape. That’s what he listens to, and what he falls asleep to, waking up to someone calling “piss break!” as the RV rumbles over the shoulder, throwing gravel and dust as they slow down.

Ian doesn’t need to pee enough to do it roadside, so he stays in bed, rewinding his tape as he sleepily looks out the window.

The screen door bangs open, metal on metal, and then Eddie busts out, followed by Gareth. The two of them are mid-conversation, laughing at something as they hop the shoulder barricade and walk a few yards out into the dead and dusty field.

Ian lays in bed and dozes as he listens to Lucifuge all the way through a second time. He’s still awake when they pull back off the shoulder, RV rumbling underneath his laid down body, but he’s in and out until his tape clicks and he jerks awake as it starts to rewind.

They’re listening to Van Halen up front, and Ian hears Gareth laughing, which means Eddie’s in a better mood.

By the time Ian hops out of his bunk, Steve’s behind the wheel and they’re a minute into Panama, Eddie in the passenger seat and Gareth sitting on his arm rest. The RV rumbles down the highway, tape blasting from the deck, someone’s lit cigarette in the ashtray and Steve’s bare arm hanging out the window. Gareth is banging the drumline out on his knees and Eddie is singing, fist pumping with one hand and smacking the other against the dashboard.

“Hey, you’re awake!” Steve calls when he notices Ian in the mirror.

Gareth tilts his head back over his shoulder and adds, “You snore!”

“Dude!” Ian defends himself, sitting down beside Steve’s still discarded magazine, flopped open to a Gremlins parody comic. “No way do I snore.”

Eddie laughs and says over his shoulder, “The man, unfortunately, does not lie.”

*

The marquee outside the venue says CORRODED COFFIN / TONIGHT / 8PM and Freak’s the one who spots it first.

“Holy shit!” he yells, banging his forehead on the window. “We’re famous!”

Everyone -- minus Steve and Eddie -- climb onto the couch next to Freak to look out the windows.

“Jesus H fucking christ, Harrington,” Eddie says from the passenger seat. “Look at that.”

Steve doesn’t reply, just laughs, and then they all bounce as the RV bangs up over a speed bump on their way into the parking lot.

*

“I gotta talk to the guy,” Steve says vaguely, screen door slapping closed behind him.

Ian sits on the couch with Eddie, who still hasn’t fixed his face since they saw the marquee sign on their way in.

“Now I’m getting nervous,” Ian admits. He squeezes his knees with his fingers. “How many people did you say this thing holds?”

Eddie’s chewing the edge of his thumbnail, gaze locked on the door Steve left through. “Oh, somewhere between one and three thousand people,” he manages after a second. “Goddamnit.”

“Hey,” Steve announces, abruptly yanking the door back open and sticking his head in. Ian and Eddie both jump, Eddie’s finger flying out of his mouth. “Come with me.”

Whatever that is, it’s not an invitation for Ian. Steve’s looking at Eddie only, doesn’t even spare Ian a glance as he stands there, staring and waiting. Eddie doesn’t hesitate either. He’s up and following Steve outside without even asking why.

Ian sits there, and tries to take deep breaths in, and watches Steve and Eddie through the window as they walk off together, shoulder to shoulder.

Chapter Text

The first night they have the Travco, Steve parks it outside the trailer and they eat dinner in it.

“This is crazy, right?” he asks, laughing. “We’re like, double home owners.”

Eddie raises his beer up to clink Steve’s with a grin. “We officially own two bathrooms.”

That makes Steve laugh, because Eddie always makes Steve laugh, he’s like the funniest person Steve even knows. He’s still smiling at Eddie over their noodles and wontons as he sets his beer down and picks his chopsticks back up.

“Gonna have to expand the souvenir collection,” Steve muses, raising his eyebrows as he navigates a mouthful of noodles up from his plate. “I’m no longer limited to just a dashboard, now we’re talking magnets, mugs, shit, wall hangings…”

Eddie sighs deeply. “Speaking of the dashboard, ergo, the van,” he laments, stabbing a wonton as Steve just barely holds himself back from rolling his eyes. “I would be remiss to not mention how much I’ll miss her.”

“I’m going to miss the van too, man, that’s like, a given,” Steve says honestly. “Like, the amount of nights we’ve spent in the back of that thing?”

That turns Eddie’s frown upside down. And the thing is, it’s true. Until they bought the trailer, the van is probably the place Steve would have considered home. Eddie’s eyes crinkle up at the corners as he grins and they look at each other again.

“It’s pretty crazy, right?” he asks softly, leaning back in his side of the booth as he sentimentally gazes at Steve, lips pursed in a thinking-a-thought smile. Steve eats another bite of food and reaches for his beer. “I gotta say, Harrington, sleeping in a bunk just isn’t going to be the same as waking up on carpet with your sweaty limbs all wrapped around me.”

Steve, immediately offended, screws up his face and throws his crunched up napkin across the table, which Eddie catches unflinchingly and with a smile.

“Alright,” Steve counters, raising his eyebrows. “Well, at least I won’t be waking up with your hair up my ass.”

Eddie cracks up, genuinely laughing with his head thrown back, and Steve bites down a smile, trying to keep the serious look on his face as Eddie rights himself and reaches for Steve’s hand, linking their fingers together beside his plate. “I love you so very, very much,” he says softly.

“Watch it,” Steve crabs, giving him another look.

They go back to eating but Eddie keeps his hand on top of Steve’s.

As Steve chews, he looks around the interior of the RV. It doesn’t feel like theirs yet but sometimes Steve has this weird ability to see the future, and for them, this thing is in it. He got the same bug up his ass about the trailer lot when they saw it for the first time, even though back then it’d just been grass and dirt with a plain FOR SALE sign hammered into the ground.

“We can probably both fit in one,” he says thoughtfully, considering the bunks

Eddie peers back over one shoulder and then looks at Steve seriously. “Oh, we’re both fitting,” he agrees, an eyebrow raised. “We just need to make some… agreements about when the fitting will be happening.”

Steve gives him a look. “On some level they have to know already.”

“Sure, but, ‘wow, Steve and Eddie are such good pals, they spend so much time together!’ is a lot different than, ‘jesus, what’s that sound?’” which is when Eddie takes his hand back to make a, frankly bang-on slapping sound with both palms. “‘Oh, hark, it’s Eddie going dick deep in Harrington.’”

Steve rolls his eyes. “Don’t say hark.” He crunches his face up, too. “Don’t make it into a weird bit.”

“It’s hardly a bit,” Eddie smirks, leaning back in his chair.

Steve stares back across the table, jaw working, trying not to smile. He closes his eyes briefly to get himself straight and then demurely agrees, “Sure. It’s not a bit.” He licks his lips and Eddie starts grinning again, dimples and everything. Steve raises his eyebrows. “It’s a whole lot.”

Eddie gestures with his hand, a swooping ‘thank you, m’lord’ as he goes back to the chow mein.

“Anyway,” Eddie continues after swallowing. “I was imagining one day we’d just show up with a kid,” and he says it so genuinely honestly, it makes Steve bust out laughing. “After we buy our mansion and all its wares, of course.”

Steve can’t help grinning the way he does. “You’re right, in the grand scheme of things, picking out a china pattern is pretty up there.”

Eddie gives him another smile, sneakier this time, like he can see the future too, and it makes Steve melt into a puddle.

*

He figures out how to turn some of the overhead lights off and get a tape into the built-in TV/VCR.

“Ooh,” Eddie muses, cigarette hanging out of his mouth. Steve glances back over his shoulder as Eddie picks up the rental case of Earth Girls Are Easy he left on the counter. Eddie talks around the cigarette, gaze popping up to meet Steve’s. “This one’s been on my list.”

Steve starts pushing the channel button a million times to get it to the right input because they can’t find the remote. “Robin said it was great,” he shrugs, staring into the fuzzy screen. “Super funny and, I quote, grade-A kitsch.”

Eddie’s standing there, scratching his bare belly with one hand while the other holds the tape as he reads the synopsis on the back. “God, I love kitsch,” he says belatedly, setting the case back down on the counter.

While Steve finishes getting the TV figured out, Eddie flips the kitchen table into a bed, which is really just two couches with a board laid over them.

“This is so stupid,” Steve laughs, genuinely cracking up as he watches Eddie squirm around, trying to get comfortable. “Let’s just fuck in the bunk and then go watch this in our living room like normal people.”

Eddie makes a scandalized noise. “Steve Harrington, where is your sense of joy and whimsy?”

“I’ve never had that,” he answers flatly, making Eddie laugh.

Still grinning, Eddie holds one arm out in an attempt to get Steve to lay alongside him.

Steve rolls his eyes but can’t deny the gravitational pull of Eddie lifting his arm up. He climbs in and stretches out, one arm looped around Eddie’s middle and his cheek squished on a pec. Eddie smiles sweetly down at him instead of watching the TV, and Steve feels his heart squeeze because it never, ever stops. Every time Eddie looks at him, it puts Steve right back to that first week, when it felt like the universe was playing tricks on him every time Eddie wanted to kiss him or hold his hand or say something nice.

It had to be a trick because when did Steve ever, ever get what he wanted like that?

He and Nancy had a good friendship now, but their romantic relationship sucked, and later, when Steve realized how many times he’d heard her say “I have to go” or “I can’t” or “No” or “You’re an idiot” in the year they’d dated, he’d wanted to crash his face into glass. Every person he’d ever been with told him no, or don’t, or I can’t, or we shouldn’t. Nobody ever loved him right.

“You know, Harrington, I don’t think we have to watch the whole thing,” Eddie says five minutes in, disrupting Steve’s thoughts. “I can’t even see anything. This might as well be War of the Worlds.”

Steve starts laughing again, hand sliding from Eddie’s belly button over to his hip. “Oh yeah? Where’s that joy and whimsy you were talking about, Munson?!”

“I think those things are only supposed to last for like, a minute, max,” Eddie says seriously, as Steve shoves himself up onto an elbow. Eddie wrinkles his nose. “Like poppers. Or whip-its!”

Steve looks fondly down at Eddie’s face and brushes his fingers through his bangs. “This is over,” he announces, looking at what his fingers are doing first, and then back down at Eddie’s eyes. “Let’s go fuck in the coffin so we can watch this normally.”

“I’ll fuck you in a coffin anyday, my love,” Eddie promises.

*

“Which ones do you want?” Steve asks, turning his head when he hears Eddie walking down the hall behind him. “Probably bottom and middle, right?”

Eddie holds him by the hips. “I was thinking Gareth, Freak, and Ian on one side, and then me and you here and here, with Robin up here,” he stretches one arm out over Steve’s shoulder to pat the very top bunk on their right, “when she visits.”

“She’s so ready to quit the station,” Steve tells Eddie. “She might join now she knows she doesn’t have to sleep with us in the back of the van.” He yanks his t-shirt up and over his head, immediately feeling Eddie’s mouth attach to his bare shoulder. “Hey,” he elbows backwards as he folds his shirt up. “Strip.”

There’s one more kiss to the side of his neck before Eddie pulls away. Steve tugs on the drawstring of his shorts and tosses them and his t-shirt into the middle bunk before sliding back the curtain and crawling into the bottom.

Eddie gives him about ten seconds to get comfortable before he stoops down and does a dead roll in, body not stopping until he thumps into Steve’s.

“Mmm,” Eddie immediately announces, wrapping them together. “Packed in like two little sardines, just how I like it.”

Steve laughs and reaches over Eddie’s hip to tug the curtain away from where it’s bunched up against the wall, and then all the way across. It’s pretty private. There are little velcro spots on the walls on both ends to secure it closed.

“It’s not that bad,” Steve reviews, stretching his legs all the way out. The soles of his feet butt against the bottom panelling but that’s it. He can feel Eddie’s hand rubbing up and down his back and Eddie’s face crushed into his chest. “What do you think?”

Eddie makes a content noise. “I think that I’m a little mouse in a little mouse house with my little mouse wife,” he says, making Steve laugh. “We have a fireplace and a bed and enough food to get us through the winter.”

“We have little wire glasses and slippers?” Steve asks.

“Oh my god,” Eddie groans. “Of course we do.”

Steve’s grin fades into a smile, and he tugs Eddie in with the arm around him, rolling himself back as Eddie leans in and follows. The first kiss is cute and sweet and a very good kiss, and so is the second, and then the third is suddenly deeper and less sweet.

“I feel like I have to flip over,” Steve says around Eddie’s tongue in his mouth.

Eddie’s palm slides down his body, from where his fingers were clutching the side of Steve’s jaw, down his neck, along the back of his arm, and then down to his hip and butt. He wraps his fingers around the back of Steve’s thigh and tugs his leg forward, bending it half up as he does so.

“We need to think of something that’ll be…” Eddie trails off and stares down into Steve’s face as he thinks. “Sonically reduced.”

Steve raises his eyebrows back. “Guess you’ll just have to fuck me slow.”

“Oh sweetheart,” Eddie gives him a knowing look. “You and I both know ‘slow’ and ‘quiet’ aren’t going to be buddies when it comes to the sexual proclivities of you and I.” Steve gives him a look for using the word ‘proclivities’ and then digs his head back into the mattress when Eddie pushes on the back of his thigh. “Try again.”

Steve’s dick is already hard at the way Eddie is shoving him into a pretzel even though their underwear is still on. “Well, fast and hard is how we get,” he pauses to copy what Eddie did earlier, squelching his hands together.

“We’re going to have to participate in some good old fashioned trial and error,” Eddie grins.

They get Steve’s underwear off, Eddie awkwardly navigating it off the leg he’s got in the air and leaving it bunched around the other. Steve already knows neither of them brought lube from the house so he spits on his fingers and reaches down under his thigh.

“How am I going to do this quietly,” Eddie muses under his breath, in the same tone Steve’s heard him talk to himself in when he’s writing himself out of the corner of a new campaign, or searching for the melody in a song. Steve shoves more spit into himself and brings his hand back to his mouth right as Eddie humps him and says, “Maybe we should bring the van with us. As a back up.”

Steve digs his head into the pillow as he starts fingering himself. “We’re not bringing the van,” he argues, a little out of breath. “Get your fucking dick out, Munson.”

Eddie does so, wiggling his boxers down to his knees before he spits into his palm and reaches down for his dick. Steve swallows but it goes down like a gulp as he lays there, fingers in his ass and knee squished up to his chin.

“No lube, Harrington,” Eddie reminds him, and Steve swallows again, nodding, because there’s been a few times where they haven’t had any where Steve’s acted like they did anyway.

He feels Eddie dragging his dick around, pushing the head up under Steve’s balls and then back, riding the sweaty heat and spit there. Steve brings his hand up for one more mouthful, and this time when he reaches back under his thigh, he grabs Eddie’s dick by the head and shoves it in.

It’s not more painful without lube but he feels it in a different way -- the amount of force it takes to get it in him, the spike of adrenaline, the drag of wet but not slippery skin. It always makes him pant and shake and react with his whole face.

“Jesus Christ,” Eddie bites out into his ear, pressing down into his thigh with one hand and shoulder with the other.

Steve, still not breathing right, pulls Eddie in by the head, mouth open before Eddie even gets close enough to kiss him. Eddie comes in with tongue, no hesitation, lips moving to kiss after they’ve already got their mouths together. But then he starts dragging himself out before he’s barely gotten halfway in.

“Fuck me all the way,” Steve says, breaking their kiss. “Come on.”

Eddie pulls away to spit in his hand and then his dick is wet and pushing back in, and fuck, Steve squeezes his eyes shut, trying to swallow all the noises that tighten up the sides of his throat.

The night Eddie figured out what angle to nail him at was up there on the list of critical junctures in Steve’s life, which included discovering the upside down. Steve feels him shifting around, and then it starts, Eddie dropping his weight and fucking him properly.

“Fuck fuck fuck,” Eddie swears where he’s got his face squished into Steve’s neck.

Steve’s pinned under Eddie’s weight and his own knee shoved up to his chin so he just lays there and takes it, shoves an arm up above his head to keep himself from getting bashed into the wall and slides his other hand down to his dick to jerk off.

Because the bunk mattress is plastic they do travel, and it’s not long before Steve is actually crumpled between Eddie fucking him and the wall above the bed with his arm all bent up between them. He doesn’t even realize how far up they’ve moved until Eddie yanks him back down and then drops over him, staring down with a smile.

“Fast,” Eddie says, and then does it, laughing breathlessly when Steve makes a noise and throws his head back against the pillow. “Quiet,” Eddie says next, and drops his forehead to Steve’s, breathing hard into his face before, “Hard,” and goes back to fucking, railing Steve with his whole dick and staring down at him as Steve’s mouth drops open and he starts to clench and flex, especially when he knows what’s coming next. “Slow.”

Eddie always says he can tell when Steve’s about to come. Now he grins, not changing a thing, just going slow and deep, quiet other than the slap of their skin connecting. They stare at each other as Steve stops jerking his dick and squeezes it instead, pelvis flexing, insides spasming, until he feels himself starting to come. He goes back to jerking it, head shoving backwards into the pillow as he jacks off all over his belly.

“Ugh,” Steve manages, shoulders and neck relaxing, hand still flexing around his dick

All of a sudden Eddie tries to get up onto his knees and bangs his shoulders and head into the bunk above them, which makes the loudest crashing noise of all time.

“Fuck,” Eddie swears, still trying to change the angle by moving Steve’s leg around. “Jesus H fucking Christ,” he continues to bitch, trying to pull both of Steve’s legs up around him as he continues to fuck.

Steve grabs the back of his knee with one hand and squeezes his dick with the other. He can feel it, the way Eddie’s hips are doing all of the work now, short little humping thrusts that do nothing but get his dick deeper and harder into Steve.

When Eddie comes he jams his face into the crook of Steve’s neck, nose digging in, hips fucking recklessly as he unloads and then squirms around chasing the aftershocks.

They lay together for a minute, and then, “Dude, imagine if someone had been standing on the other side of the curtain,” Eddie immediately says into the side of Steve’s head, panting and completely out of breath. “That was downright pornographic.”

Steve brushes his fingers through Eddie’s hair, over the spot on his head where he banged it on the ceiling, and rests a leg around Eddie’s back.

“Guess we need to do more trial and error,” Steve muses, tipping his head back as Eddie worms in tight.

*

TWO WEEKS LATER

After the show in Louisville, word gets around that the band likes to party, and by midnight, the RV is standing room only. There are familiar faces, like the guys from the opening band and a few of the people who worked at the venue, and a bunch of people Steve doesn’t recognize, including the girls Freak and Ian picked up after the show.

Steve opens the fridge and gets another beer out. They didn’t even buy booze today -- everyone just keeps bringing it to them.

The show was packed. Ian said he heard a rumor about an A&R guy from Elektra being in the crowd. Steve sold out of demos halfway through the show, and almost all the shirts. Then two kids snuck backstage and nobody even knew until they ran out mid-show, bolted across the stage, and jumped into the crowd. The whole thing was a mess. It toed the line of danger.

Now, Eddie’s running on adrenaline, beer, and cigarettes -- Steve can see it in the way he affixes the manic smile to his face, and how his eyebrows just creep higher and higher up his forehead with every new person he talks to.

“There you are,” he says to Steve, coming up next to him while he’s in the fridge. “How you doing?”

Steve hasn’t stopped sweating since they got to the venue. He’s great. He’s exhausted. He hands a beer to Eddie and grabs another one for himself before closing the door.

“Growing pains,” is all he can say, especially when one of their guests jostles into him from behind and he jerks forward, Eddie’s hand automatically coming forward to steady him. “It’s fine. How are you?”

Eddie’s still giving the laughing girl who knocked into Steve a dirty look.

“Oh you know,” when Eddie uses that voice, draws his letters out like that, Steve knows exactly what he’s really saying. “Living the dream.”

“Yeah. Let’s get some air,” Steve says, tipping his head towards the door which has been slamming open and closed for the last half hour.

Eddie follows him through the crowd even though he has to stop a few times as people recognize him and pull him into conversation. Steve never gets too far ahead. He waits and smiles whenever he makes eye contact with whoever is shuffling past him or staring at him from the other side of the bus, and pretty soon he and Eddie are both outside, warm summer night feeling cool compared to the stuffy close-talking humidity of inside.

“I’m happy,” Eddie states as they beeline across the parking lot. “We’re playing bigger venues. We almost have a tour bus. We’re booking dates. I’m happy.”

Steve plops down on the first bench he sees and looks up at Eddie lurking around in front of him, buzzing with energy, shoulders hunched up to his ears.

“I’m going to say something and you’re going to gloat so hard,” is how he starts, finally cracking open his beer. Eddie stops pacing and looks down at him curiously. Steve drinks his beer and shakes the foam and condensation off his hand as he settles back, legs crossed. He stares up at Eddie seriously, mouth a flat line before he admits,“We should have brought the van.”

A grinch-like smile curls its way across Eddie’s face once he parses what Steve just said. They stare at each other and Eddie starts to laugh and Steve rolls his eyes, going back to drinking his beer when Eddie starts bouncing around, pretending to spike his beer can onto the ground like a football.

“I am so sorry,” Eddie says after a minute, holding one hand up to his ear. “Can you say that one more time?”

Steve rolls his eyes again. “Suck it.”

“God, from your outrageously perfect lips to God’s ill-begotten ears,” Eddie moans, staggering towards the bench like Steve shot him in the shoulder with an arrow. He collapses next to Steve and cracks his beer, spraying it everywhere because of how shaken up it is. “I can totally do this,” he nods, and this time he actually sounds like he means it, especially when he looks sidelong at Steve and adds, “But not without you.”

Even Steve can feel how big the grin is that splits his face in half. He leans over and bumps their shoulders together as Eddie suckles extremely loudly at his foamy can.

“Come on, Munson,” Steve teases, knocking their shoes together, too. “Did you forget about the kid and the mansion plan already?”

Eddie is in the middle of chugging his beer but stops himself to pull away, voice tight from the bubbles as he says, “They’d have to scientifically remove those thoughts from my brain.”

Steve gives him another look, hot and good inside, and goes back to sipping his beer.

*

Their beers are gone in ten minutes but they sit on the bench for a very long time.

The RV gets louder, more packed. A few people squeeze inside by standing in the door and on the front metal steps he and Eddie chased each other up the first time they went inside after buying it. Eddie smokes a cigarette. They watch people through the windows. It’s a different post-show routine and it’s not the same as what they used to do in the back of the van.

Eddie runs out of cigarettes so they walk down the street to 7-11 to get hot dogs for dinner, plus two beers even though there’s a fridge full of them on the bus. Eddie gets his Marlboros plus some Twizzlers for later.

By the time they get back to the venue parking lot, the party has thinned out -- earlier there was talk of another after hours show at the bar down the street.

Eddie re-enters the RV looking less disheveled, less like he’s on a hair trigger that ends in a screaming rant or flipped table. Gareth is sitting on the couch with a few people Steve recognizes from backstage at the show, and Eddie perches himself on the arm beside him, wrapping an arm around his shoulders with a grin as he chainsmokes and effortlessly joins the conversation.

Now that the whole place has come back down to earth a bit, Steve looks around at who’s left, and wonders if any of them know anything about the guy who was rumored to be from Elektra.

*

“Jesus,” Steve mutters to himself.

These numbers are insane. He totally expected to be busy tonight but he was NOT expecting to run out of cassettes. He’s also not going to have enough shirts for the show in Cincinnati tomorrow, which pisses him off.

He rebunches the pillow under his head and shifts around, trying to find an angle for his book that gives him the most light from the little dome in the ceiling of the bunk. There are still a few people out there, drinking and hanging around; Steve can hear the thunk of the fridge opening and closing, and Gareth talking to some girl about nerd stuff.

A minute later Steve hears the scrape of Eddie’s bunk curtain opening. Steve stares at the inside of his own curtain and waits for it to rip open, but it doesn’t. Instead, he hears Eddie roll out of his bunk and land on the floor, then the sound of his bare foot steps on the ground as he walks to the bathroom and closes the door.

Steve yawns and folds his merch notebook up and tucks it into the edge of his bed. He and Eddie went to their own bunks like 20 minutes ago and that seems like a reasonable enough amount of time to wait. Right? He leans back more, eyeing the crack of light between the end of his curtain and the edge of the bunk. 20 minutes is totally enough time.

He’s about to reach for the edge of the curtain when it is abruptly, violently yanked open from the outside. Steve jumps, startled, and watches as Eddie bumbles his way in, trying his very best to move quickly and silently at the same time.

“Close it,” he hisses, digging himself into Steve and making his shoulder small.

Steve gives him a look but reaches over, yanking the curtain closed again, making sure it attaches to its little velcro spot on the wall this time.

“Ninja shit,” Steve whispers, barely audibly, doing a slow motion karate chop with his hand.

Eddie is already trying to unzip and get inside him. He jams their legs together and wraps one arm around Steve’s bare chest, face dug between the pillow and the back of Steve’s arm. Steve leans in slowly, nose first until they’re eye-to-eye, and stays there for a minute, watching Eddie’s pupils dilate in the dim bunk light.

“Bunks,” Eddie starts, in possibly the quietest voice Steve has ever heard him use. “Are not meant to be enjoyed alone, Harrington.”

Steve grins, gaze flickering over Eddie’s face. “I’m pretty sure that’s exactly what they’re for.”

“No.” Eddie is still barely audible. “This is totally a couples thing.”

Steve makes a face and dramatically mouths, “Okay,” and then they’re grinning and kissing, going in way too hot and noisy at first which they both immediately walk back. Steve doesn’t know how to kiss and not make the wet sounds but he tries his very best as he feels Eddie using both hands to shove his underwear down, fingers clawed into his butt cheeks.

“Need,” Eddie starts muttering to himself. “Need need neeeeed…”

Neither of them can sit up or bend down far enough in the bunk to get Steve’s underwear all the way off. Eddie gets them as far as over his butt, and then Steve takes over and shoves them down his thighs as far as his fingers can reach, but then that’s it, so they stay there, elastic all twisted up and pulling at Steve’s leg hairs.

Steve reaches for the lube, passes it to Eddie and rolls over, one hand holding his butt cheek open.

“I wanna put my tongue in you,” Eddie sing-song-hums into the back of his ear. “Sooooo bad…”

The way Eddie’s voice sounds when he says it and how Eddie keeps his mouth pressed open against the back of Steve’s ear rails right through Steve and down to his dick. His whole body tightens up and he shoves his face into the pillow as Eddie pushes two fingers into his ass, knowing exactly the angle and pressure Steve loves.

All Steve wants to do is beg. Please fuck me screws his face up and please please please jams his jaw together and please don’t stop fucking me has him bending his pillow up and shoving his face into it as Eddie finger fucks him, twisting his wrist around and pressing his knuckles together exactly how Steve likes. Steve can’t get a full breath in because his belly is rolling, muscles flexing as Eddie nails him unrelentingly.

“Hot fucking ass,” Eddie’s muttering into the back of his head, nose dug into Steve’s sweaty post-show hair. Steve can hear and feel him trying to get his dick out of his boxers with his free hand.

It’s been two days since they fucked last and Steve can feel the stretch, the pointed way Eddie’s fingering him and then the wet bump of his dick as he rests the head of it there too. Steve goes to reach between his legs to -- something -- but Eddie’s already taking his fingers out and pressing the tip in, gentle pressure and then the release. As soon as it happens Steve’s upper body rolls forward, eyes squeezed closed and mouth hung wide open.

Eddie exhales through his nose, not even halfway in before he starts to pull out again, and Steve suddenly clamps both hands over his mouth -- because this is always what gets him, absolutely turns his brains to fuck goo -- Eddie deep stroking him ‘til he speeds up into fucking.

“Can’t -- smack,” Eddie pants out, and Steve can’t tell what the fuck he’s talking about until he realizes Eddie’s not going all the way in, not fucking him until their skin slaps together like normal, until Steve can feel and hear his ass banging off Eddie’s pelvis.

His eyes roll but his hands do a good job of keeping his mouth shut as Eddie silently rails him, not having to sacrifice speed with how he’s only fucking Steve halfway deep.

Steve feels Eddie yanking at one of his arms, but Steve shakes his head urgently, because he can’t, if he takes his hands off his mouth who knows what kind of crazy shit is going to come out of him, but Eddie tugs again, except right as he does he crashes his hand under Steve’s, and then Steve realizes what he’s doing and drops his hand as Eddie takes over covering his mouth.

Everyone agreed jacking off in your own bunk was totally acceptable so that’s what Steve does, one hand around his dick as Eddie sinks himself all the way deep and starts to grind. Steve’s face crumples against Eddie’s palm and he starts jerking himself off quickly, Eddie breathing hard against his shoulder, breath coming in little huffs and cut off breaths as he goes so slow and deep Steve can taste it up his nose like lake water.

He can feel himself starting to get tight inside, abs flexing, and he makes it through twenty more seconds of Eddie’s deep dick grinding before he comes, yanking his other hand out from under Eddie’s to slap it on top and hold his mouth tighter. He shoves his head back against Eddie’s shoulder and lets his eyes roll back as he jacks himself through it, trying not to sound too wet.

His body is still rolling, pelvis flexing up against his hand, and Steve can feel how much cum he got everywhere, all over his fingers and his belly and up across his chest. Eddie’s hand starts getting tighter around Steve’s mouth as he goes back to shallow fucking, faster and shorter and with the intent to come. Steve pulls Eddie’s hand off his mouth and tilts his head back, taking a few deep breaths as he remembers where they are and realizes there are still people thunking around out there.

“Gonna nut in me?” Steve asks quietly, voice so soft it’s barely audible.

He can hear the shakiness in Eddie’s breathing pattern, can feel how twitchy Eddie’s fingers are getting as he grips at Steve’s hip. Eddie starts nodding his head, staring dead at him from over Steve’s shoulder, and Steve stares back, yes yes yes yes yes yes. Eddie suddenly goes off-rhythm and Steve squeezes his own dick, squirming as Eddie unloads.

“Jesus christ,” Eddie shakily breathes, resting his forehead on the back of Steve’s shoulder.

They lay there for a minute, and Steve just listens. The sound of the fridge opening and closing, beers inside rattling both times. The squeal and bang of the door as someone bounces up the steps from outside. Eddie’s breathing slowing down, and the little noise he makes when he pulls out halfway and pushes back in. It’s not the van. It’s not home. It’s new.

“Do you need anything,” Eddie whispers, using his fingers to wipe off Steve’s belly.

Steve shakes his head and looks down, watches as Eddie wipes Steve’s cum off on the leg of the boxers still shoved down around his own thighs.

“No,” Steve says normally, so tired he accidentally uses his regular volume. “Just you.”