Work Text:
Steve is stacking the fucking turtles. Again. For the third time today, he’s had an unsupervised toddler bodily slam into the stack of stuffed animals, scattering them across the gift shop floor. He and Robin just look at each other across the sea of tourists, making the deadened, haggard eye contact that only retail employees can ever really master, before Steve sighs and sets to work replacing them.
As he fixes the mess, he goes through the usual circuitous logic with himself - what would happen if he just walked out? Well, first of all, he’d leave Robin high and dry and that simply wouldn’t do. They’ve been through too much together since they met on Robin’s first day at Scoops Ahoy on Wabash three years ago. Plus, they live together. That would be one hell of an awkward confrontation once Robin got home.
Okay, so he can’t walk out. Bummer. He sighs heavily and stacks the last few turtles, turning back to Robin. She’s taken care of the line at the cash register and the aquarium gift shop is mostly empty. It’s around lunchtime and people are probably downstairs in the cafeteria. Robin looks at him and her eyes soften a little bit.
“D’you wanna take a fifteen?” she asks, cocking her head. “I feel like that was almost your thirteenth reason.”
“I just… I can’t clean up vomit today, Rob. I can’t do it.”
“Take the fuckin’ fifteen and go look at the sharks or something. You love the sharks.”
Steve does love the sharks.
They’re in rare form today, bothering the shit out of Steve’s colleague Anna as she scrubs algae off the pipes on the floor of the tank in full diving gear. The nurse shark is practically begging for pets, rubbing against her leg like a strange wet cat. Anna waves at Steve as he comes up to the glass and he waves back, then points to the nurse shark. Anna shakes her head, then gives it a little scratch. It swims off, satisfied, and Anna returns to her maintenance.
It’s just past noon, so the shark exhibit is less packed than usual. Steve’s favorite shark, Chester - a hammerhead with a wonky eye - swims right past him very close to the curve of the glass. A few people who are lined up around the curve on the other side of the tank startle backwards. One person doesn’t step back as Chester does his drive-by, eyes wide and a childlike expression of awe on his face. Steve wonders if his face is a little distorted by the aquarium glass or he’s actually that handsome - because he’s like, arrestingly gorgeous. The guy has a long brown shag cut and big dark eyes, plush lips, and the hints of tattoos creeping up his neck from underneath the collar of his jacket.
Steve slowly makes his way around the curve of the tank. He has to know. He has to see this man’s face without the water’s icy blue glow giving his skin an unnatural pallor. Steve sidles up to the plaque on the guy’s right and pretends to read it. He’s extremely grateful to Past Steve for thinking to leave his Shedd employee vest in the back room of the gift shop - he doesn’t want to be asked questions or to look out of place milling around. He lifts his gaze from the plaque and sneaks a glance at the man. His face isn’t pointed in Steve’s direction, so Steve allows himself to really look at him.
Fuck, he’s gorgeous. Even prettier than he’d seemed through the glass. He’s chewing on his full lower lip absently as he seems completely lost in the aquatic scene in front of him. His hands are in the pockets of his jacket - it’s denim and the back of it is absolutely covered in patches. One of them is a picture of a guillotine, another is a cop car on fire. A third says ‘queer as hell’ with a little demon dancing in front of a fiery cauldron. Steve could probably spend a while just reading every patch. His eyes catch at the stitching around the edge of one of them - these are all hand-sewn. It must have taken him hours.
The guy turns a little bit and walks toward Steve, who freezes in place. He moves to stand right fucking next to Steve and reads the plaque, completely oblivious to his existence. Steve’s heart is hammering in his chest. The man is almost exactly Steve’s height, maybe a tiny bit taller from the Doc Martens he’s wearing. Steve stands there for a number of seconds that he thinks is probably socially acceptable before slowly stepping backwards until he’s behind the guy. At that point, he books it back to the gift shop. He’s probably over his fifteen anyway.
“Why do you look weird?” Robin immediately asks as he comes out of the back room, shrugging his employee vest on. “You look like your stomach hurts.”
“I’m fine.” Steve straightens his vest but avoids her gaze. Robin, who misses nothing, pokes him in the shoulder. Hard.
“What fucking happened to you? You didn’t even take your full fifteen. It’s only been twelve minutes.”
“It’s so stupid,” Steve moans, and slumps onto the stool behind the cash wrap.
“It usually is,” Robin scoffs, but there’s fondness in there if you peel back the derision.
“I saw this guy in the shark exhibit,” Steve mutters like he can’t believe he’s even saying it. “Like the hottest guy I’ve ever seen in my life. Not that it matters, he’s probably a tourist and doesn’t even live here. But fuck, Rob. He was gorgeous. Ugh. It doesn’t matter. Guys that hot don’t tend to spare me the time of day, so I don’t know why I even care.”
“That’s… a lot,” Robin says carefully.
“Sorry,” Steve says quietly.
“Hey, no, that’s not what I meant.” Robin punches his shoulder, almost tipping him off the stool. “I just think you’re overcomplicating things. Like, you’ve just decided that he’s out of your league when you know just as well as I do that you have no concept of how good-looking you actually are. And how do you know he’s a tourist? You have no way of knowing that.”
“Fuck,” Steve sighs. “I’m overthinking again, aren’t I?”
“Yeah,” Robin sighs back. “Okay, let’s try this - no thoughts, head empty. You see a hot guy. What are you gonna do about it?”
“Shoot my shot. Talk to him. Ask him out or give him my number.”
“Take your lunch break. Go find shark guy. Follow your own advice.”
“Are you serious?” Steve grins at her. Robin punches his shoulder again in the exact same spot. Steve’s wince is for real this time.
“Yeah, dipshit. But hurry up. I want chicken tenders before they’re all gone.”
Steve practically sprints back to the shark exhibit, twisting and squeezing through throngs of people. It’s a little more crowded than before, and to Steve’s dismay, that curly head of hair is nowhere to be seen over all the school groups. He threads through the whole exhibit to no avail. Well, at least he’d tried. And at least he’d actually intended to do something about it. He circles through the adjacent exhibits with no luck either, and he heads back to the gift shop to morosely eat the sandwich he brought with him for the remainder of his break.
“Sooo?” Robin says over her shoulder as she checks out a family.
“Couldn’t find him. Checked everywhere I could think of,” Steve says, and closes himself in the back room to eat quickly so Robin can get her chicken tenders.
The next day, a dreaded Saturday, Steve is completely overwhelmed by crowds. Weekends are usually pure hell for museum staff, and this one is no exception. There are no school groups, but they’re putting on some event in the Wild Reef section and people are packing into the Shedd like it’s a holy pilgrimage or some shit. He and Robin are stuck at the cash wrap all day with their coworkers Ivy and Julian. They take lunch one at a time, relishing the few minutes they spend in the tiny office with their aching feet up.
“Hey,” Robin hisses at Steve as they’re slammed by the post-lunch rush. She’s stuffing a plush eel into a shopping bag but she motions to one of the shop windows. “Is that the guy?”
Steve whips his head around - it is. The guy from before is back, this time in a leather jacket and a beanie over his long hair. He’s putting away a wallet on a chain, having just come from Guest Services, and is headed for the exhibits.
“Yeah,” Steve says to Robin as he cranes his neck to see where the man is going. They both know it’s futile; the line is several people deep and growing. Steve can’t leave now.
“Sorry,” Robin winces. Steve shrugs - maybe it just wasn’t meant to happen.
Steve has one more day until he’s off, but it’s a Sunday, which turns out to be almost worse than Saturday. Thankfully, Julian takes pity on him and offers to clean the spilled drink in the corner of the store so that Steve can take his lunch break, and Steve accepts gratefully. He goes all the way down to the cafeteria to harass Argyle, one of his good friends and a line cook at the Shedd kitchen. Argyle is busy, but hucks him a chicken sandwich with extra fries (Argyle says in no uncertain terms that those are for Robin specifically) and tells him to meet him for a smoke break sometime this week.
Steve saves a few fries for Robin, who immediately corners him when he gets back.
“I saw him again,” Robin pulls him into a corner of the store and starts restocking shirts as she talks. “But this time he was leaving and you were down in the kitchen.”
“What?” Steve says, tucking the bag of fries into her vest pocket.
“Oh my god, thank you. Is Argyle working? Tell him I love him and if we weren’t the wrong flavor of queer for each other, I’d marry his dumb ass.”
“He knows,” Steve says, digging into the cardboard box full of clothes and filling in any missing sizes on the shelves. “He was here again? Three days in a row?”
“Yeah, dude. What is this guy’s deal?” Robin muses. “D’you think he’s a local? Or maybe this was just a long weekend in the city for him?”
“I don’t know.” Steve thinks. “He had this patch jacket but I don’t think any of the patches were Chicago stuff.”
“Weird.” Robin shakes her head. “I’m gonna go eat these now. Cover me?”
Steve’s Monday off passes in a blur of errands and cleaning up after himself and his cat Mitzi. He luxuriates in an evening Trader Joe’s trip and picks out a suitable microwavable meal to eat with a glass of reasonably priced white wine and nods off on the couch. His alarm wakes him up on Tuesday and he’s still on the couch. He has a crick in his neck and a bad mood evident in his expression by the time he turns up to the aquarium. They’re not open to the public yet and Robin has to lift up the store gate for him to scoot under.
“Dude. Ivy just told me he was here again yesterday.”
“Good morning, Steve. How was your day off?” Steve mocks her.
“I saw you passed out on the couch this morning. I know how it was. You’re saying you don’t want my information?” Robin raises an eyebrow.
“Please accept my apology in the form of this wildly expensive coffee,” Steve holds out a Starbucks cup to her and her whole face lights up.
“FUCK yes. Thank you so much, oh my god. Okay,” Robin sips the latte (of course Steve knows her order like the back of his hand) and her eyes roll back a little. “Fuck me, that’s perfect. Anyway, Ivy said he came in for about an hour or two yesterday and left around one.”
“What the fuck is his deal?!” Steve hisses. “Why is he here so often? He has to live here, right?”
“I’d put money on him being local. And if he shows up today, you know you have to talk to him.”
“As long as you’ll cover me,” Steve nudges her shoulder with his. She nudges back.
“You know I’ve got your back, dumbass.”
As it turns out, Robin absolutely smacks the shit out of Steve’s shoulder around 11:30 and shoves him out from behind the counter.
“Go, dude. he’s here.”
Steve sees the back of the man’s patch jacket disappearing into the coral reef exhibit.
“Are you sure?”
“Uh, yeah? It’s a fuckin’ Tuesday. There’s nothing going on. Please, dude. We’re all desperate for some fucking gossip around here. Nothing interesting ever happens besides like, kids barfing.”
Steve keeps his employee vest on this time and heads into the Wild Reef exhibit. It’s mercifully almost empty and the guy is standing alone. Steve takes a deep breath, cracks his neck, and strolls over near him as casually as possible.
“Hey,” Steve says, and instantly curses himself for having the worst fucking opening line of all time. A fucking eel has more game than he does.
“Hey,” the guy says back, giving him a guarded once-over. “Uh, listen. I don’t actually have anything on me, so I’m not breaking any rules.”
“I- what?” Steve is completely baffled. “What are you talking about?”
“Aw, fuck.” The man scuffs his boot against the floor. “That’s fuckin’ embarrassing. I thought you were here to yell at me ‘cause I smell like weed.”
Steve laughs. He can’t help it.
“God, no. I’m like, the last person who would ever bust someone for weed.” He leans a little closer and the guy regards him curiously. “I smoke with the cooks all the time.”
“Oh, nice. Good shit.” He smiles and nods. “Then what can I do you for?”
“I… okay, this is fucking lame, but I work in the gift shop and I’ve been seeing you here like, every day recently. I was gonna ask you why you’re here all the time? Because nothing interesting ever happens here and I’ve started to form conspiracy theories in my mind to pass the time, but I think I get it. You’re stoned and you like watching the fish.”
“Yeah, man.” The guy laughs. “Simple as that. I’m Eddie, by the way.” He offers his hand for a handshake.
“Steve,” Steve says, and accepts. Eddie’s hand is warm and big against his, a cacophony of chunky silver rings and black nail polish adorning his fingers.
“So it sucks to work here, huh?” Eddie says, returning his attention to the shimmering coral reef.
“Except for this,” Steve gestures to the exhibit. “This slaps.”
“Yeah, it does,” Eddie laughs, a kind of punched-out giggle that only someone fairly fucked up would willingly utter. Steve is instantly thoroughly charmed. Pathetic. “You live in the city? Fuck. I mean, obviously you do. You work here.”
“Yeah,” Steve fights the smile trying to spread its way across his face. “I live in Roger’s Park. You?”
“Oh, nice. Uptown.”
“Nice,” Steve nods. “What do you do?”
“I’m a guitar teacher,” Eddie says, tilting his head back to look at a stingray as it does little flips. Steve’s eyes lock onto the edges of tattoos crawling up from the collar of Eddie's jacket on the pale skin of his neck and he has to make a concerted effort to tear his gaze away. “I play in a band, too, but the money’s in teaching rich kids how to play Smoke on the Water.”
“I bet. Those Winnetka moms will pay real money for the dumbest shit.”
Eddie laughs again. Steve could get used to this - making Eddie laugh, being the reason for that sweet little crooked smile.
“That is very true.”
“Hey, listen, thanks for solving my weird conspiracy theory. I gotta get back to retail hell, but uh, here. This is for you.” Steve holds out a folded post-it with his number written inside.
“Thanks, man,” Eddie says, eyes unfocused as he stares into the tank. He takes the slip of paper from Steve without even looking at it and tucks it into his jacket pocket. Steve bites his lip. What the fuck is that supposed to mean?
“Have a good one.” Steve backs away. Eddie nods and gives him a little wave, eyes just barely leaving the aquatic scene in front of him.
“He just put it in his pocket?” Robin crows.
“Yeah,” Steve says morosely.
“Well, that sucks. I mean, hey, you gave it your best shot. And now we know why he’s here.”
“Yeah.” Steve is even more morose.
“Listen, I heard Julian’s friend is single.”
“Robin, not this again.”
Later, on his train ride home, Steve’s phone pings. It’s from an unknown number.
Unknown: hey, are you in tomorrow?
Steve: I’m sorry, who is this?
Unknown: oh so im not the only person at the aquarium you gave your number to today?
Steve: Oh my god no, I’m sorry I thought you were a coworker whose number I don’t have saved. Hey Eddie. Yeah I’m in tomorrow
Eddie: just teasing you. I’ll see you tomorrow then. Sorry about today i was way too high
Steve: Never a problem, I wish I could have been myself
Eddie: hey treat yourself tonight, i hear theres a new dispensary in RP
Steve: Might just do that actually. See you tomorrow Eddie
Eddie: see you then :)
True to his word, Eddie shows up the next day around noon. But he doesn’t go to the exhibit halls - he comes right into the gift shop.
“Hey,” he greets Steve, voice warm. He seems a little more present today, posture relaxed but not boneless. He grins at Steve across the counter.
“Hey, how are you?” Steve lets himself smile back.
“Good, hey, are you free for a smoke break?”
“He is,” Robin says from right next to Steve, scaring the shit out of him. She hadn’t been there ten seconds ago.
“I mean, I guess I am after I get over this heart attack,” he snarks at her. She rolls her eyes but says nothing as he shrugs off his vest and leaves the store with Eddie.
“This way,” Steve motions, and brings him through a service door off the main atrium. They head into a stark white corridor behind the scenes. “Employees have a little outdoor smoke spot out back.”
“Nice,” Eddie says appreciatively and follows Steve. Once they’re outside, Eddie passes him a cigarette. Steve must look surprised when he accepts it, because Eddie laughs. “I wasn’t just going to hand you a joint at your job, dude. Good to know you’re down, though.”
“Hey, if it’s a slow day.” Steve leans forward as Eddie lights his cigarette, cupping their hands together. It’s an intimate gesture that Steve hasn’t experienced in awhile - not since college, smoking drunk outside of bars.
“Noted,” Eddie grins. It’s an easy smile, and Steve returns it before taking a drag. The head rush of nicotine is real when you don’t smoke often. “I did want to say sorry, though. For yesterday. It hit way harder than I meant it to and I feel like I was rude.”
“Nah,” Steve brushes it off. “I just kinda thought you either didn’t realize I’d given you my number or didn’t care.”
“I had no idea until I got home. That’s when I texted you.” Eddie takes a drag and blows smoke out of his nose. “For the record, I do think you seem cool. I didn’t mean to come off like that.”
“No offense taken, man.”
They lapse into easy conversation, talking about where they’re from, their education history, old jobs they used to work at, hobbies. Before Steve knows it, his half-hour timer on his phone rings in his pocket - he’s gone through his entire lunch break out here with Eddie. He doesn’t regret it for a second.
Robin positively accosts him when he gets back and he just smiles and lets her.
Over the next few weeks, it becomes a bit of a routine. Eddie shows up around lunch and Steve takes his lunch break and shares a cig with Eddie outside on the little bench by the dumpsters. Sometimes Eddie’s a little high and sometimes he’s fully sober, but never as fuzzed out as the day they met. They text often, sending each other memes, and links to Spotify song recommendations, and pictures of their cats - Eddie has a jet black boy cat named Ozzy, because of course he does.
Steve is… relatively happy with these developments in his life. Robin is always telling him he needs more friends, so this definitely ticks off that box. On the rare occasion that Robin’s been able to join them and snark at them, waving their cig smoke away from her face, she’s enjoyed his company too. Steve finds it’s nice to have a little bit of a break from the drudgery, an excuse to see the sky in the middle of the day, a new friend that Robin approves of.
It’s perfectly fine with Steve that that’s what he and Eddie are. Friends. Sure, he may not have been able to help himself and jerked off to a shirtless picture of Eddie when they exchanged Instagram handles, but he has that under control. Definitely. He reasons with himself that as long as he doesn’t let it affect their friendship, he can keep his attraction to Eddie to himself. It’s fine. Totally fine.
“So,” Eddie says one day at their little lunchtime spot, exhaling down in that practiced way that all smokers do when they’re trying to be polite, as if Steve hasn’t been bogarting his cigarettes just because they’re still wet from Eddie’s mouth. “Would you maybe wanna do something sometime?”
“Like hang out not at work?” Steve fights a smile and loses, feels it bloom over his face. “Yeah, man. I’d love to.”
“Uh.” Eddie fidgets with one of his rings and looks down as he passes Steve his cigarette. “I kinda meant more like a date.”
Steve blinks. All this fucking time and it was mutual?
“Are you- are you serious?” Steve stutters.
“Uhh… yeah. Unless you don’t want me to be.” Eddie tugs some of his hair in front of his mouth self-consciously.
“Yes, oh my god? I really want you- uh- I want you to be serious. I wanna go on a date with you.” Steve starts out incredulous and ends his sentence embarrassingly earnest.
“Good.” Eddie nudges his shoulder against Steve’s and just kind of… stays there, with his arm pressed against Steve’s. Steve knows he’s blushing, can’t hold back a smile, and pushes his shoulder into Eddie’s in return.
Eddie: so i was thinking
Steve: That never ends well
Eddie: for our date tomorrow, want to get high and go to the art institute? look at some cool art? then we can go back to my place and order like a shitload of food
Steve: Oh I love that. Let’s do it. I haven’t been there in ages
Eddie: meet me at the bean. ill bring the joints
Steve: Well that’ll be a first for me, getting high in millennium park
Eddie: honored to pop your bean cherry
Steve: Ew
Steve: See you there
Turns out, this was the move all along. Sober Steve appreciates art as much as the next person, but High Steve? High Steve loves art. He can practically feel the texture of the Van Goghs, see every dot in the pointillists' works. And the individual dots working together in a sea of colors and perspective, light and shadow? Fucking breathtaking.
“I get it,” Steve murmurs to Eddie, swaying ever so slightly in front of Nighthawks. “This is the most connected I’ve ever felt at a museum.”
“Right? It’s like… I get it. And even if I don’t really get it, like I don’t get what’s written on the little plaques, I still get something.” Eddie’s finger brushes against the side of Steve’s hand. Steve, against every single instinct in his body, doesn’t look down at the contact. He hooks his pinky finger into Eddie’s, and Eddie immediately laces their fingers together.
“You know what’s my favorite about Nighthawks?” he murmurs to Steve, leaning close and smiling almost shyly; it’s a sweet expression on someone with such a tough aesthetic.
“What?” Steve is genuinely curious.
“The artist never painted a door to the diner.”
Sure enough, as Steve scans the painting, he sees a door to the back room but no entrance or exit to the building itself.
“Could be the angle, you can’t see the whole building,” he muses.
“Yeah,” Eddie says slowly. “I guess. But I like imagining there’s a reason. Like Hotel California, you know? You can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave.”
Steve tilts his head and looks at Eddie, really drinks him in like he’s one of the artworks they’re poring over. His deep brown eyes are blown out from the weed but inquisitive, sparkling, and he seems genuinely excited to be here with Steve, sharing this with him. A giddy nervousness blooms in Steve’s stomach and he can’t help but smile.
“That’s a really cool way to look at it.”
“You think?” Eddie squeezes his hand, cheeks flushing a little. Steve absorbs that reaction greedily.
“Yeah.”
“Then come on, I want to show you something even cooler.”
They amble through several galleries and probably across most of the square footage of the museum on their way to the Modern and Contemporary wing, chatting and laughing as they walk. They talk about their weeks, their jobs, their cats, their friends’ drama. It’s such an easy dialogue that Steve doesn’t even mind that he’s sobering up. Eddie stops him in front of a painting with three broad strips of color across the canvas- a mottled bruise purple, a yellowish white that looks almost like it’s glowing, and a blood red.
“Here’s what I like to do with these ones that are all colors- I like to stand as close as I’m allowed and stare into them without blinking for as long as I can.”
“Okay,” Steve says, takes Eddie’s hand, and faces the painting, eyes open and not knowing what to expect. It takes a minute, a full minute of staring into the expanse of the bruised purple-black to feel it. Like the edges of the painting expand to fill his vision and Steve is falling face-first into a sea of the color mixture. It’s surreal and disorienting and he grips Eddie’s hand tightly.
“Holy shit,” he breathes, blinking as his eyes start to water and stepping back a little. “That’s gotta be better than watching fish dick around.”
“Well, I have my reasons for liking the aquarium.” Eddie says cryptically. “You sobered up a little?”
“Yeah, I’m pretty much through it, I think.”
“Then c’mere.” Eddie pulls him by the hand over to what appears to be just a pile of candy sitting on the floor in a corner. The wrappers are bright and shiny, all different colors. Eddie reaches out and sinks his hand into the pile, grabbing a piece. Steve almost jumps out of his skin - you’re not supposed to touch the art in museums! What the fuck is Eddie doing?
“Go ahead, Steve. You’re supposed to.” Eddie motions to the pile. A young woman with a very queer haircut gets down on one knee and takes a piece. Steve extends an uncertain hand and follows suit.
“What color’d you get?” Eddie holds his piece of candy out in his palm - blue. Steve’s is blue too, wrapper glinting in the gallery light.
“Before we eat these, can I tell you about this piece?”
“Yeah, of course,” Steve says. They step to the side a little, still in view of it but out of the way, near the floor-to-ceiling window and away from most of the patrons in the gallery.
“This one, I don’t like to be high for. That’s why I wanted to end with it. It’s by an amazing queer artist named Felix Gonzalez-Torres. It’s called Portrait of Ross. The pile of candy starts at a real specific weight – the weight of Felix’s lover, Ross, before he died of AIDS. People are allowed to take from it until there’s nothing left. Then the museum refills it and it starts all over again.”
Steve is stunned. The grief and commentary and impact of all of it is visceral. He’s at a loss for words - this isn’t the Art History 101 he’d been used to from college.
“I kinda think of it like when someone queer takes a piece, it’s like communion,” Eddie says softly, unwrapping the candy and placing it on his tongue. “Solidarity.”
“Eddie, that’s- that’s beautiful.” Steve follows suit. It’s very subtly flavored, something a little floral at the edges. “How do you know all this?”
“I dunno.” Eddie shrugs. “I spend a lot of time in museums and record stores and shit when I’m not teaching or playing. Spent a lot of my life hustling and selling my skills, and now that I’m doing okay, I kinda like just kicking around and learning stuff in my spare time. Getting high and looking at fish.”
“I kinda love that.” Steve nods. “So, what’s your favorite thing you’ve looked at today?”
Eddie laughs, cheeks flushing. “I have a fake answer and a real answer to that question.”
“Fake first,” Steve says, swallowing the last of the candy.
“Nighthawks.”
“Right on. Why is that fake, though? Nighthawks is awesome.”
“‘Cause the real answer is you.”
Eddie leans forward and presses his lips to Steve’s softly. Steve’s eyes flutter shut and he kisses back, opening his mouth to Eddie’s, arms coming up around his neck as Eddie pulls him in. Eddie tastes sweet from the candy and Steve pulls back, smiling. He wishes Felix and Ross could see this, could know that what they went through birthed a new, tender, wild hope. An unabashed display of queer romance right in front of a candied gravestone. Maybe someday he’ll tell Eddie this, but for right now, he keeps the floral taste of it tucked under his tongue.
“Good answer,” he breathes, and Eddie kisses him again.