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Steve spends the night at Eddie’s place. He hadn’t planned to, but they’d smoked too much, and he and Eddie ended up falling accidentally, uncomfortably asleep all bent out of shape on the lumpy old couch halfway through whatever movie they’d decided to put on.
When he blinks his eyes open, Steve is immediately assaulted by the too bright static on the television screen in front of him, but trying to twist away from it makes something sharp twinge in his lower back, and Steve just stills and shuts his eyes again. The volume, thankfully, is low, and Barely Awake Steve is grateful that Sky High Steve had the foresight for that at least. Even if it wasn’t necessarily an intentional choice.
He gives himself a moment before he slowly peels his eyelids open again. Then he sits up. The crick in his neck makes itself known, and Steve winces and bites back a groan, drawing his hand out from beneath the blanket tucked over his lap to rub at his nape. He stretches his neck and twists it to the right, then to the left. It pinches again, but his eyes settle on Eddie, where he’s hunched in on himself beside Steve, his own neck dangling to the side, head practically resting on his own shoulder in a way that looks like it definitely will hurt worse than Steve’s does.
Eddie’s mouth hangs open stupidly, and Steve can hear the soft little snuffles he’s making as he breathes. A little louder and they’d be proper snores. Steve wishes he had a camcorder to capture it — Eddie would never believe him if he told him he was snoring.
Their shoulders aren’t touching, but they’re still close in other ways. Steve can feel the warmth from Eddie’s thigh, pressing into his own, from his calf where it’s twined around Steve’s. The blanket across Steve’s lap is half in Eddie’s too, and the fingers of Eddie’s right hand are curled into the hem of it, just inches away from Steve’s leg.
Steve stretches carefully, so as to not disturb Eddie, but then he brings his wrist in front of his face and glances down at his watch. All semblance of preservation goes out the window, though, when he sees the time. 9:45. Shit . His shift starts at ten, and it takes at least five minutes to get to the damn video store.
“Shit, shit, shit,” Steve hisses, throwing the blanket off of his lap. He thinks he might accidentally elbow Eddie in the ribs in the process, but he doesn’t have time to apologize as he disentangles their legs, nearly tripping in his haste to stand and step over him. Steve’s hand flies out to grip Eddie’s knee, jostling him but steadying himself. It’s gone just as fast, though, as he hurries down the hall to look for his clothes — which he’d exchanged last night for something more comfortable from Eddie’s closet.
“What the fuck, dude,” Eddie grumbles, wiping his hand down his face and blinking slowly as he reorients himself with the room and the waking world and the whirlwind that is Steve right now. He twists against the sofa to watch Steve disappear into his bedroom.
Steve rushes out of Eddie’s room with his clothes bunched in his hand, and he drops them over the back of the couch and starts to strip. “I’m late,” he says, throwing Eddie’s shirt to the side and pulling his own polo over his head. He does up the few buttons quickly, but doesn’t notice the collar sitting askew. “Fuck, I’m so late.”
Something funny crosses over Eddie’s features, but he wipes a hand down his face and pinches at the corners of his eyes and seems to shake himself awake. When he lowers his hands, it’s gone.
“What time is it?” He asks.
“After 9:45,” Steve answers.
“Shit, yeah. You are late,” Eddie concurs, scratching at his arm.
Steve huffs and pauses just long enough to send Eddie an annoyed look. No shit. Then he’s shucking Eddie’s sweatpants off of his own legs and reaching for his jeans.
That seems to Eddie into gear, too, though.
While Steve tugs his jeans up his legs and hops from foot to foot as he pulls on his socks, Eddie putters around in the kitchen. Steve doesn't know what he's doing in there, but he he thinks he hears the toaster pop. His shoes are by the front, next to Eddie's, and he grabs them. Doesn't bother with the laces as he shoves his feet inside. He figures he can fix them once he gets to work. He'll have time then.
Another glance at the clock and Steve really has to leave now. He barely has time to shove the piece of toast Eddie, so graciously, made for him (crisp, but not too crunchy, and definitely not burnt, with just the right amount of butter spread thin across the top) into his mouth before he’s running towards the door.
He’s about two steps away from it, hand already reaching for the knob, when Eddie catches him by the belt loop and pulls his back. Steve stumbles, bumping into Eddie, and he tries to twist around to see what the hell Eddie’s doing. But then he feels one of Eddie’s hands at the small of his back, trailing lower and lower, and he freezes , his already racing heart beating even faster. He doesn’t have time for this — whatever this is— but his breath catches in his throat, and all protests die on his tongue as Eddie’s hand creeps down past the hem of his jeans.
Steve has just enough sense left to croak out a “Wha…” before he feels a tug on his shirt, and it only takes a second for his brain to catch up and realize that Eddie is just tucking the tail of it into his jeans, because he’d been in such a rush that he’d missed it himself. Oh .
Eddie’s hands ghost up Steve’s back again and land on his shoulders. He gives them a squeeze, then spins Steve around and reaches for his collar next, fussing with it until it’s straightened and flat. He pats Steve twice on the chest and gives him a smile.
“All set now,” he says. Then, “have a nice day at work.”
Steve, at the complete whim of his scrambled brain, smiles back, tells Eddie thanks, glances at his watch, curses under his breath, then leans in to kiss Eddie goodbye.
Then, just as quickly, he’s out the door and in his car and finally on his way to work.
It isn’t until he’s halfway there that it hits him what he’s just done.
He kissed Eddie Munson .
Steve isn’t so sure how he makes it the rest of the drive to Family Video without crashing. It’s all kind of a blur, how he manages to operate a whole entire vehicle in the state he’s in once it hits him. Because after it does his brain is just one big broken record of IkissedEddieMunsonIkissedEddieMunsonIkissedEddieMunson — absolutely no regard for speed limits and traffic lights and, god forbid, other cars .
He enters the store with his eyes glazed over and a faraway look on his face. Robin, of course, clocks it immediately, and she’s worried for all of thirty seconds before Steve just blurts it out:
“I kissed Eddie.”
Robin raises an eyebrow, the rest of her slowly relaxing when she realizes it isn’t actually anything life or death (even though it certainly feels that way to Steve). “That's good, right?” She asks. “You’ve been crazy about him for months , Steve. It’s actually kind of painful how head over heels you are.”
Steve scoffs and ignores the dig, but he fixes his wide eyes on her. “It's not good, Rob,” he grouses. “I didn't mean to .”
Robin scrunches up her face. “Huh? What do you mean you didn’t mean to?”
“I mean it was an accident ,” Steve tells her.
“An accident?” Robin repeats, amused. “Like — like you accidentally tripped and caught yourself with his mouth?” She laughs. “I don’t—”
“ No ,” Steve hisses. “An accident like I wasn’t thinking and I just did it .” And then Steve explains it to her, tells her exactly what happened this morning. How Eddie had grabbed him, how Steve had gotten so caught up in the moment, how he hadn’t even hesitated, just leaned right in for a kiss like it was something they did every day.
When he finishes, Robin is quiet for a moment. Two. Three. Then she laughs. Hard . Like, doubled over, clutching her stomach, wiping tears from her eyes hard.
Steve smacks the back of his hand into her shoulder and whines her name. “ Robin , be serious! I'm freaking out here,” he says.
“I'm sorry, I'm sorry,” Robin says, swallowing down the rest of her laughter and schooling her face into something more sedate as she gathers her wits. “Look, Steve,” she starts, grabbing his arm, just above his elbow. “I really don't think there’s anything for you to worry about. It’ll be fine. You just need to talk to him.”
Steve frowns. “I don’t even know what to say to him.”
Robin narrows her eyes at him. “You could always, mm, I don’t know, try telling him how you feel,” she suggests gently. Tilts her head and smiles a little playfully. “I mean, accidentally kissing him goodbye is a pretty good excuse to finally get around to it. Y’know, since you’ve been putting it off for so long.” She shrugs. Grins.
Steve huffs out. He knows she’s right. She usually is. “Okay, but how do I even do that?” He asks.
Robin sighs softly and shrugs again. “You’re asking the wrong person for that,” she says. “I’m hopeless. You know that. But you’re not.” She knocks her shoulder into his, snatches up one of the tapes from the counter and gives it a little shake. “And you've got the next eight hours to figure it out.”
It’s going to be a long shift.
The second Steve’s shift — his long, tortuous shift — is over, he’s out the door. Hurries straight to his car and drives right back to Eddie’s place.
He parks, kills the engine, then just sits there. Staring at the door of Eddie’s trailer. Psyching himself up.
When he finally gets out and walks the short distance across the dirt and climbs those few front stairs, he stops on the doorstep. Hesitates again. His stomach feels like it’s twisted itself into knots, but he pushes past that and knocks before he can talk himself out of it.
It feels like years before the door finally swings open. And there’s Eddie.
“Steve,” Eddie says, and he sounds surprised to see him.
“Eddie, hey. Uh, can I— can I come in?”
Eddie just nods and steps aside so Steve can shuffle past him.
They sit on the couch together, side by side. It’s a little awkward, a little stilted, the slip up from this morning clearly at the forefront of both of their minds. Neither one of them seems to want to be the first to acknowledge it.
But the silence is unnerving , and it grates on Steve enough that he finally just blurts out, “I kissed you.”
Eddie snorts, but instead of making some brassy comment like he usually would, he just parrots back, “you kissed me.”
It gives him nothing, is the thing. Eddie has been very stoic, since letting Steve in. His face, usually so open, so expressive, has been carefully blank. Not giving anything away. Like maybe he’s just as nervous about how this conversation is going to go.
It’s a bit unsettling. Steve has no idea where Eddie’s head is at. So, he figures it best to start with an apology.
“Sorry,” Steve tells him, and that must surprise Eddie, because his head jerks up, eyes flickering over to Steve. The skin between his eyebrows pulls together briefly before smoothing back out, but Steve catches it. He sees it.
Eddie chews on his lip. Studies Steve from his sideways glance. Then very slowly, very quietly says, “you don't have to be.”
“Oh?” Steve says.
Eddie shrugs, shifts a little so his shoulders are squared with Steve’s a little more. “I just mean... I didn’t— mind it.”
“Oh,” Steve breathes.
“You could... you could probably even do it again,” Eddie says, blinks over at Steve through his eyelashes. “If you wanted.”
“ Oh .”
Eddie laughs then, soft and fluttery from the leftover nerves of his confession. “Jeez, Harrington,” he starts, “is that all you know how to—”
He doesn’t get to finish that thought, though. Because Steve cuts him off with a hand to his jaw, curling beneath his chin, drawing him in, and then he’s kissing him again . Properly, this time. Not some fleeting, accidental thing, but a firm, purposeful one.
Eddie sinks into it, and Steve kisses him the way he’s always wanted to — slow, sweet, deep enough to curl his toes.
When they break apart, Eddie’s eyes stay closed, but his mouth chases Steve’s, body swaying after his. He’s breathing a little heavy, and Steve has to bite back a grin. He did that .
Eddie blinks open his eyes, big and wide and dazed . “ Oh ,” he says, and Steve laughs.
The apples of Eddie’s cheeks are rosy, and they’re close enough that Steve can see the faint freckles that dot the bridge of his nose. They pop against the pretty pink of his blush.
Eddie shoves at Steve’s shoulder, huffing out a laugh of his own. He doesn’t let Steve go far, though, fingers curling around his bicep, holding onto his arm.
“Jesus,” Eddie says, laughing again, this giddy little thing, and he wipes a hand over his face, tries to hide his smile behind it.
Steve grabs his hand, pulls it back down so he can see it. He loves the way it lights Eddie’s face up.
“That was nothing like this morning,” Eddie says.
Steve shrugs. “Wasn’t really thinking this morning,” he replies. “I just, y’know, did .” He thumbs over the side of Eddie’s hand, likes how their palms feel pressed together. “I guess I got so caught up in the moment that I just — didn’t hold back. I just let myself do what I’ve wanted to do for a really long time.”
The corners of Eddie’s mouth twitch and his dimples come out to play as he tries to stop himself from grinning even bigger. It doesn’t work, and Steve doesn’t keep himself from brushing his thumb against one of them.
“Y’know,” Eddie says, catching Steve’s wrist. “It’s kind of dangerous, what you did this morning.”
Steve raises an eyebrow. “Is it?”
Eddie nods. “Oh yeah, real dangerous. ‘Cause I could really get used to that,” he tells Steve. “Makin’ you breakfast. Fixing your shirt. Kissing you every morning on your way to work.”
Steve’s heart skips a beat in his chest as he pictures it — waking up tangled in the sheets with Eddie. Sharing toast and coffee and sleepy smiles over the table, playing footsie under it. Almost making himself late because Eddie keeps pulling at the clothes Steve’s only just put on, trying to get him to take them off again. Hurrying out the door, but not before he stops to give Eddie a kiss goodbye. A kiss see you later . “A regular little housewife, now, aren’t you?” Steve teases, chuckling.
Something sparkles in Eddie’s eyes, and he leans in close. “Darlin’ if you kiss me like that every time, I’ll be anything for you.”
And isn’t that a promise?
What better way to seal that promise than with a kiss?
So Steve does.