Chapter Text
You drum your fingers on the dash of the van, waiting for one of the guys to return with room keys. It’s been a long night, and you’re all too far from home to make it back if you want any sleep. Late-night concerts sometimes did that. It wasn’t the first time, and it probably wouldn’t be the last time.
As you waited, you stared down at your sticky shirt. Someone had spilt their water bottle with gods know what in it all over you. They were a little too drunk, and you were too close to the stage. You couldn’t wait to get your room and shower it off, even if you didn’t have a change of clothes afterwards.
“So I’ve got bad news.” You jump at Bako’s return, having been too distracted by your shirt.
“Yeah, dude? What?” Eddie grunts, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.
“We got the last three rooms.”
“Alright… how many beds?” Eddie presses, arching an eyebrow at him.
“Enough. This is for you two,” Bako says, shoving a key in his hands and nodding his head to you. He doesn’t wait for an argument, simply rounding the van to get the rest of the band their keys.
“Well, whattaya say? Think ya can stand sleeping in the same room as me tonight?” Eddie grins, jingling the key.
“I think I’ll live,” you laugh, shaking your head to hide the pink of your cheeks.
You rarely shared rooms, and if you did, all of you were in the same room. Splayed out across couches and the ends of beds, sometimes on the floor - desperate times call for desperate measures. Apparently, today wasn’t as desperate, but there was no secondary option of the van if you got uncomfortable as it was chock full of gear and instruments. At least it was only Eddie.
Eddie’s still bouncing from the performance that ended roughly thirty minutes ago (after an hour-long encore). He bounds around the van, making sure it’s locked, before finally heading up to the second-story room. You trail behind him, letting him unlock the door and hold it open for you with a dramatic hand flourish.
“After you,” he giggles, grinning widely.
“Thanks,” you laugh, giving him a smile back before shuffling inside.
You have to physically stop yourself from grimacing when you notice that Bako had given you a room with only one bed. You swear you were going to curse him to the high Hells if he admits he did it intentionally. That’s what you get for letting it slip that you were pining something fierce for the eccentric metalhead. At least he didn’t tell him (that you know of), but still, this feels worse.
“Oh, shit. Uh, this is awkward,” he chuckles, stepping in after you, the door still open.
“Yup,” you say, lacking a better response.
“I can stay in the van if you want,” he instantly offers, surprising you as he holds out the key.
Fuck it. This is probably the last and only chance you’re ever going to get to do this.
“You and I both know the van is too full to do that. You’ll never get any sleep, and I don’t know if you realize this, but you don’t let others drive your van. I’m not letting our only driver nod off behind the wheel.”
“Are you sure? I can sleep anywhere; it wouldn’t be a problem.”
“Eddie.”
“Alright, alright, floor it is then,” he concedes, holding his hands up in defeat. He kicks the door shut with his foot.
You decide if you want to argue about sleeping on the floor, you could wait until you are clean.
“I’m going to go shower. Hopefully, this place has hot water,” you decide, already reaching for the hem of your shirt.
“Enjoy,” he says in a sing-song tone as you walk off.
You just smile and shake your head, tugging your shirt off as you walk away from him.
The bathroom was exactly what you’d expect from a motel on the side of a road. Tiled floor, a shower-tub combo, a toilet that definitely needs to be cleaned, and very fucking cramped. Muttering to yourself about how gross your clothes are, you strip down and turn on the water, finding instant relief as you wash the sticky substance from your skin.
Singing to yourself, you recall the concert. The way Eddie had looked on stage, complete and total concertation on his guitar. His fingers had flown across the strings as he joined in for vocals and stretched his solo on for far longer than usual. He had that wild smile on his face that you always wished he’d have when he looked at you. As if there was nothing else he loved more in the world. Scrubbing your hands over your face, the water rinsing the soap out of your hair, you mentally scold yourself. Now was not the time nor place for any of this. It never was.
A sudden knock on the door makes you jump.
“Just leaving you something,” Eddie says, stepping into the bathroom.
“Alright,” you chirp, cursing yourself for how squeaky it came out.
It feels like centuries as he does whatever he’d come in to do. You find yourself torn between wanting the curtain to be translucent or completely opaque but not daring to look. When the door finally shuts again, you let out a breath you hadn’t realized you’d been holding in. Gods. You are hopeless.
When you finally feel clean again, you toss the curtain open only to find an almost comically folded shirt. The same shirt Eddie had been wearing. Down to the little hole on the sleeve from where he’d nicked it on a tree branch while walking in the woods.
You know it’ll probably smell like beer and sweat, but you could care less. It wasn’t your sticky shirt, and it was… okay; maybe you just really wanted to wear his shirt. It wasn’t the first time he’d lent you some of his clothes; his vest or jacket was handed over when you were particularly cold. He gave you a shirt once when you’d stayed over at the trailer to plan a joint DnD game and forgot a change of clothes, getting pizza all over your shirt because you’d been too focused on planning to notice the wall before you walked into it.
It wasn’t the first time. Or at least that’s what you told yourself when you pulled it on and looked in the mirror. It smelt like weed and old spice. Okay, maybe not as bad as you’d thought before. Definitely not as bad as a slight musk clung to it that reminded you of Eddie. The same scent that clung to the van walls and followed him around; only noticeable if you were close enough to him.
Not bothering with your pants because the shirt hung low enough, you gather your clothes and nudge open the door. He’s lounging across the bed, flipping through the TV channels, shirtless. As you step out, he looks up, eyes flickering over his shirt before he meets your gaze with his usual unreadable grin.
“Shower’s free if you want one,” you state, lacking anything better to say.
“Awesome,” he says, jumping up from the bed and lazily meandering to the shower.
You watch him go. You know you shouldn’t, but the way his skinny jeans clung to his hips and his exposed back was too much to drag your eyes away. You know he probably felt your eyes on him as he shuts the bathroom door. Intent on distracting yourself, you sit down on the bed and mimic his previous activity. Flipping through the TV channels.
There’s a two-minute delay between when the water shuts off and when he finally emerges. If his jeans hadn’t been bone dry, you would’ve thought he’d showered in them. Honestly, you wouldn’t put it past him.
“Anything good on?” he asks, flopping down onto the bed next to you.
“It’s either the news or jeopardy,” you answer, still flipping in hopes you’d find something good.
He nods his head, going quiet for far longer than he usually does, which is entirely worrying as Eddie was never quiet. Ever. He was the opposite of quiet. If quiet had an arch-nemesis, it would be Eddie.
Chancing a glance in his direction you freeze when you catch him staring at you. He lights up like a Christmas tree as your gaze meets his, and you’re pretty sure you’ve invented a new shade of red on your very face.
Neither of you says anything as you both abruptly turn away from each other. You skip the channel again, and the opening intro of Blade Runner comes on.
“Oh fuck yeah, look at you, found the damn jackpot,” Eddie laughs, grinning from ear to ear as he leans back against the headboard of the bed.
“You good if I stay up here until it finishes?”
“Fine by me. You were the one who said you were sleeping on the floor,” you shrug, returning to a sense of normality as you set the remote aside.
He makes an overly dramatic point of getting comfortable on the bed, and you shake your head to disguise an amused smile. You settle down next to him. Not close enough to be weird, but enough to be comfortable.
You’re both practically half asleep as you watch the movie, and it’s longer than you’d remembered. Of course, you could fall asleep at any time, you’ve seen it at least five times with Eddie, but you persisted. Not wanting to fall asleep and make anything weird.
Eddie slowly shuffles lower and lower on the bed until he’s lying down more than sitting up. You don’t mind, barely paying attention to him. It’s not until he slumps to the side enough that his head lands in your lap that you genuinely notice he’d been moving.
“Eddie?” you whisper, not wanting to talk over the movie in case he was still watching it.
“Mm?” he hums, barely awake.
“I can turn the movie off if you need to sleep,” you offer, already preparing to grab the remote.
“‘M still watching,” he mumbles, his body twisted so that his legs were spread across the bed.
You know you should probably turn the TV off and let him sleep… yet something compels you to lean back and leave him. So you do. Going back to watching Blader Runner as Eddie “Freak” Munson rests his head in your lap. You, of all people.
You don’t even realize you’re carding your fingers through his hair until you force yourself to focus on the movie. Missing how his shoulders sag the moment you pull your hand away.
His hand wraps around your wrist, slowly placing your hand on top of his head.
“I know this is gonna sound pretty pathetic, but… could you keep doing that?”
“Play with your hair?” you question, startled at the request.
“... yeah. You don’t have to if you don’t want to, but it felt kinda nice and helped with the whole brain noise. Kinda too overwhelmed to sleep - from the concert and all, plus the session I get to run for Hellfire tomorrow is going to be so good that my brain just…” his voice trails off as you slowly run your fingers through his hair.
This time, you see his shoulders relax as he all but melts from your touch. You don’t dare stop until the movie’s over. He’s too peaceful like this, his eyes closed for everything but the climax, which he’s always insisted on watching in silence. A silence he’d always break by rambling about how good some parts were but how shit others were. This time, he’s quiet. Absolutely silent as he leans his head back against your hand.
“Do you mind if we stay like this a little longer? I’ll get up and sleep on the floor eventually, but I… I may have forgotten what this feels like,” he admits, staring at the TV screen rather than looking you in the eyes.
“Just stay up here for the night,” you suggest before you can stop yourself.
“You mean that?” he asks. This time he’s looking at you, disbelief written across his face.
“You were the one who said you were going to sleep on the floor. Not me,” you point out, carding your fingers through his hair.
His eyes flutter shut for a moment, following the sensation of your fingers against his scalp. When he catches himself, there’s a flush of red on his cheeks.
“You’re probably going to think I’m a freak for what I’m gonna ask next.”
“I don’t think you’re a freak, Eddie. Nothing can change my mind on that,” you insist.
“I really hope so,” he whispers, pushing himself to sit up. You tentatively keep your hand in his hair, watching in case he moves to push it away. He doesn’t. Instead, he slowly reaches forwards and cups your cheek, thumb brushing against your lip.
“Can I kiss you?”
Words truly escape you. You’d been prepared for a million things, yet not this. Everything but this.
So, you rely on actions rather than words. Guiding him forwards by the hand on the back of his head until he catches on and meets you halfway, pressing his lips against yours. The kiss is anything but demanding. It’s slow and soft. As if he was trying to commit every little detail to memory. As if it was the only chance he’d ever possibly get to kiss you.
When you pull apart for air, the kiss doesn’t feel long enough. Something he remedies by pulling you closer again, kissing you until he can’t possibly ignore his lungs any longer. He tastes like the shitty gas station mints he’d gotten to mask the smell of beer on his breath, and the chilli dog you’d all told him was a bad idea to get that he’d gotten anyway.
“Why didn’t you tell me I could do that sooner,” he says when he finally catches his breath.
“I didn’t think you wanted to,” you admit, kicking the covers back so you can get underneath them.
“Worth the wait. So worth it,” he declares as he tosses his jeans into a heap on the floor and climbs under the covers with you. “You look so good in my shirt. Like defeating the villain after a really hard fight good.”
“You’re a nerd,” you laugh, letting him tuck you into his arms.
“Yeah, but so are you. Who else watches Blade Runner till three in the morning?” he points out.
You decide to win this argument by running your hands through his hair. He melts into you, going completely boneless with a content sigh.
“We’ve had a long day; get some rest before I kiss you until you forget how to speak.”
“Maybe I want that,” he challenges with a smile.
“Tomorrow. When it’s not three in the morning.”
“‘M holding you to that,” he mumbles, cuddling you closer to get comfortable.
“Goodnight, Eddie,” you whisper.
“Night,” he barely manages to slur together as he drifts in and out of sleep.