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In Steve’s new place, he streams for three hours, give or take. Then, in seven hours, give or take, 5up is in his doorway kicking off his shoes while trying to fend off Steve’s mouth.
He isn’t doing very well. He can barely get a word out, between the kisses and his own laughter, but he manages out a strained, “I get it! Hello! Hello! ”
“My baby! ” Steve exclaims, swinging 5up back and forth. He stumbles like a ragdoll, the grocery bags in his hands dropping unceremoniously to the ground. He should probably thank 5up for the delivery, but he’s too busy. “My baby boy! My sweet cherub, who arrives in a heavenly light to deliver prophecies unto me—”
“Your prophecy is a carton of eggs that are probably broken. Look what you did.”
“Oh. Oopsie.” Steve reluctantly peels himself off of 5up’s side to inspect the dropped goods. None of the eggs are cracked, which proves Steve’s original theory about heaven and divine intervention, and also makes 5up tell him to shut up and leave the room.
He can’t catch much of a break, here. 5up takes one look at his empty fridge and turns around with an accusatory glare.
“ What, man?! I barely got here! You’re my delivery boy, you’re all I have!”
“Doesn’t mean you have to live like- like- like a caveman! What is this shit?!” He shakes his head and puts his hands on his hips, leaving no room for argument. “Disgusting. Actually disgusting. I guess I’ll just have to feed you.”
“I can cook, man. Look at the remnants of my conquest.”
He gestures at large to the oven tray that’s still on the counter. 5up grimaces.
“Steve, you put frozen fries in the oven. You’re not even cooking. The oven is.”
“What?! That’s- You can say that about literally anything! No one has ever cooked ever if you use that logic!”
5up ignores him and primly begins to stock the fridge.
When he’s done insulting Steve for the way he lives, 5up’s all-powerful decision for food of choice is pasta carbonara. Steve remembers vaguely mentioning wanting 5up to make him carbonara, and he’s touched.
He hovers while 5up works, but doesn’t really do much. Steve is useless in the kitchen and according to 5up (and Koji, and Scott, and DK, his chat, his parents… ), should not be trusted around food. 5up delegates him to errand-boy status and bosses him around, holding his hand out and just calling for ingredients. Any other time (and the instinct is still there, honestly), Steve would heckle him and overdramatize every action, but.
There’s something about it that just makes him smile dumbly and follow along. Something about watching 5up stand in his kitchen like he belongs there, like there’s no question about it.
It’s certainly not like Steve belongs here. He’s too big for it, not patient enough, wouldn’t know his way around it if he tried, but 5up slid in and planted himself firmly in Steve’s space like it was his.
Maybe that’s what it is. Somewhere in Steve’s home that is irrevocably 5up’s, no matter how far away he goes.
The thought makes his chest warm, the urge to touch hold feel rearing up, and Steve isn’t one to deny his instincts. He’s a wild animal of a man, he is. He ignores 5up repeatedly asking to be handed cheese in favor of suddenly grabbing him from behind, snaking his arms tightly around his waist and burying his head in 5up’s mess of curls.
5up startles, settles, and then laughs. “ What are you doing?”
Steve inhales deeply. He can really only smell the meat on the stove but he starts snuffling around in his hair just to make him laugh again. He can feel the light shaking of it through the top of his head.
“I’m a pig looking for truffles,” He finally answers, half-muffed. “Sniffing out my sweet treats. I know they’re in here.”
“You’re so dumb.” 5up’s voice is so affectionate it hurts. Steve would do anything to hear that tone if he had to. He squeezes him once, probably a bit too hard, and again once he squirms in protest. “ So dumb!”
Despite his fond scolding, he sets down the whisk he was trying to use to turn around in the bracket of Steve’s arms and face him. There’s barely any space between them but 5up presses closer anyway, reaching his arms up to link around Steve’s neck, tucking his head snugly under Steve’s chin.
Steve wants to burst into flames. Instead, he settles for rocking them both sideways and back, pulling 5up along with him.
If 5up is even surprised at Steve’s sudden burst of affection, or pissed that Steve isn’t giving him his damn cheese, he doesn’t show it. He sticks close and follows Steve’s motions, rubbing idle circles on his neck, and only says, “You’re funny.”
“What? I didn’t do anything.”
“You’re just funny.” 5up leans back enough to kiss him on the cheek and let his head rest there for a moment, speaking close to Steve’s ear. “You good, noodle boy?”
“I’m not noodle boy!”
The moment was brief but it soothed Steve’s impulses. 5up is good as doing that. He lets him go, hands him the cheese, and that’s that.
The pasta is fucking delicious. Possibly the best pasta that has been made, ever. Everybody knows it and everybody has been talking about it. Steve tells him that, wrapped in a blanket on the couch with a plate in his hands, 5up wedged between his legs, and he gets a smug I know .
On the TV, reruns of Hell’s Kitchen play while they eat. 5up yells and gripes at the screen and turns around to yell and gripe at Steve whenever he says something like “It looks fine to me!”
“You don’t get it,” 5up stresses when Steve purposefully pretends not to understand the depths of how horrible this soup or whatever is, “It’s so watery. It’s actual sewage. It’s literal sewage water. It’s poison, it’s just poison.”
“They should poison Gordo Ramsay,” Steve advises seriously, “Spice things up a little bit.”
“Did you just- Did you just call him Gordo? ”
“We’re on a nickname basis. I guess you wouldn’t understand, since you’re not a true chef.”
5up turns off Hell’s Kitchen after that, just to make Steve beg for forgiveness.
He does turn it back on eventually. They watch that, and also Kitchen Nightmares, and some of Hotel Hell but 5up thinks it’s boring so they move on to movies. After The Thing and halfway through Howl’s Moving Castle, the jet lag visibly catches up to 5up and his eyes start closing for longer and longer with each blink. When his head starts tipping and he still refuses to admit he’s tired, Steve loudly declares that he’s so fucking tired that he’ll die.
“I don’t want you to die,” 5up mumbles while Steve almost drags him to his bedroom, “It’d be sooo annoying. Oh, your room sucks. Unpack your boxes.”
Steve ignores the comment, because he will not be unpacking these boxes. “Just annoying? You’re fucked, dude. You want me dead. You want me gone.”
“Nuh-uh.” While Steve pulls off his overshirt by the collar, 5up invites himself into Steve’s wardrobe, pulling and throwing shirts aside until he finds one that catches his eye. He holds it up to the ceiling and inspects it, reading the words aloud. “ El futuro es femeninx? ”
“I love women. You like it? If you say no, you’re sexist.”
5up snorts while he trades out his jumper for it, shaking it out as it hangs loosely around his frame. “Those are big words from you .”
“What the hell does that mean? 5up? 5up, answer me. 5up. 5up, stop.”
5up doesn’t say a word.
“You always do this! Come on, man! I’m so sick. I’m so sick and tired. You’re slandering my name and-”
5up looks at him, expression faux-bored. “Can you turn the light off?”
Steve makes sure he looks exceedingly sad while he does so, and also makes sure that 5up screams exceedingly loud when he runs full speed and shoulder checks him into the bed.
Hours later, in the dark, Steve can’t sleep.
The reason is completely irrational and kind of stupid. 5up’s not going anywhere, he’ll still be there when Steve wakes up, but still he’s staring at the ceiling awake, not wanting to do anything but savor the moment.
5up is asleep, at least, a warm presence on Steve’s arm and curled close to his body. He sleeps like a koala, both legs wrapped around one of Steve’s, and if it wasn’t so fucking cute he would maybe be mad that he can feel his limbs losing circulation.
But it is so fucking cute. He can barely look at 5up’s sleeping face for too long without going into hysterics.
Instead, he looks at his phone screen with his free hand. He tries to be quiet while he does because he would rather die than bother 5up, but he curses a bit too loud when he loses his third life on this dumb sudoku site, and 5up rouses slowly.
“Steve,” he mumbles sleepily, lips moving against Steve’s bare shoulder. “Steve? Huh?”
“Nothing, baby. Go to sleep.”
“Why are you awake?”
“I suck at sudoku.”
“Mmm.” He hums in acknowledgement. “Let’s see.”
5up makes no comment about being bothered or rudely awoken. The only thing he does is raise his head to get a better view of the screen and point out spots where a number should go.
Even half-asleep, 5up is easily better than him, and it takes just a few minutes to move on to the next level and finish that one, too.
“How are you so good?” Steve asks, plucking the phone from his hands to squint at it like 5up was somehow cheating at- Steve looks at the site name real quick- Free Sudoku Game Puzzle Online. “I’m so ashamed. I got sudoku-cucked.”
“It’s okay. I love you even if you are a cuck.” 5up informs him, very generously, and lets his head drop onto Steve’s shoulder. “Was that the last level?”
“Yeah, honey.” Steve ruffles 5up’s hair and pulls him close by the back of his head to kiss his forehead. “Thank you for your giant brain.”
5up’s voice is sleepy but pleased. “Just happy to be here.”
It wasn’t the last level. Steve stares at the screen when 5up dozes off again, thumb tapping at the screen but not filling in any spaces. Eventually, he clicks the phone off and throws it onto the nightstand.
He’ll leave the final level for the morning, when someone else can do it for him. In the meantime, he traces imaginary lines where his hands lay on 5up.
His fingers move featherlight from neck to the small of his back. He imagines a grid, rows and columns, but here, each space is five five five all the way down.
