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When they first started dating and Steve told him that his family was basically royalty back in his small hometown, Eddie had assumed he meant like, his dad was the town lawyer, or his family owned a few local grocery stores or something.
Not… this. Whatever this is.
“What is this?” Eddie asks.
He cranes his head around to get a look at the rising turrets of the house as they wind their way up the twisting drive. To even call it a house is like – an understatement on a level Eddie doesn’t even really have words for. He lets out a sharp laugh and turns to face Steve, who’s gripping the steering wheel with white knuckles, staring straight ahead with burning cheeks.
“Is that a fucking moat ?”
“It’s not a moat,” he says. He glances at Eddie for the barest moment, then rolls his eyes. “It’s a stream, it’s natural. It’s been there since the place was built. It was just for like… defense, or something. I don’t know.”
Eddie laughs again, shaking his head. “For the record, you literally just gave the dictionary definition of a moat,” he says. “The only thing missing is the alligator.”
Steve’s face twitches. “We have one of those, actually.”
Eddie raises his eyebrows. “Seriously?”
“His name’s Wilbur.”
And Eddie… honestly can’t tell if he’s joking or not. What he does know is he’s flown halfway around the world to meet his boyfriend’s family, and instead of the quiet, slightly awkward Christmas he’d been expecting, he’s apparently about to meet the fucking Queen of England or something.
( You’re not even English , Eddie had said when Steve first floated the idea of going for the holidays. And then, frowning, Wait… are you? You don’t have an accent.
And Steve had rolled his eyes. I’m Greek, technically. And I went to American schools, just – don’t worry about it .)
Don’t worry about it.
That had been easy enough when “worrying about” it had been an abstract question of why Steve’s parents lived in England when he was clearly not English, but it seems a little more complicated on this side of things, staring down the imposing facade of a castle with a literal centuries-old moat guarded by an alligator named Wilbur, apparently.
“It’s fine,” Steve says now. His hands clench on the steering wheel momentarily then drop down, coming to rest on Eddie’s thigh. “It’s going to be fine,” he says, like he’s trying to convince himself. “Just – promise not to make fun of me when someone inevitably curtsies.”