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They don’t plan to get snowed in.
Well – no one ever really plans to get snowed in, technically, it’s sort of in the definition, but…
Anyway.
Point is, it’s an accident.
And because it’s an accident, and because it’s unexpected, and because they hadn’t actually planned to spend the night anywhere, they find themselves facing down the single full size bed which is all that’s available at the motel they end up at when they pull off the road after the flurries turn into gusts, which turn into a near-white out.
Steve considers suggesting he sleep on the floor or in the armchair or something? Because that feels like the sort of polite, chivalrous thing he would do if it were a girl, but it’s not a girl, it’s Eddie , and suggesting it feels a little like he’d be calling attention to something he’d really rather they didn’t look at too closely.
Namely, that Steve has a big stupid crush and he doesn’t know what to do about it.
He doesn’t even know if Eddie is an option , really, and it would be stupid to risk what feels like a very fragile friendship as it is. After everything that happened in the spring and the hospital and the months of not being sure what to say around each other and now this, them, caught in a snowstorm halfway through a trip up to Chicago to see one of the bands that Eddie’s always wearing on his shirts.
The wind batters against the window, and the snow swirls outside, and Steve gives Eddie a sideways glance where he’s already sitting on the edge of the bed and bending to untie his boots and kick them into a corner.
He must feel Steve’s eyes on him, because he looks up and catches him staring, a little smile spreading across his face when he does.
“Are you one of those people who has really specific opinions about which side of the bed you have to sleep on?” Eddie asks. He raises his eyebrows. “Because I hate to break it to you, Harrington, but you’re going to have to pry the left side of the bed from my cold dead hands.”
And that seems to decide it; they’re sharing the bed.
Steve drops his keys on the little table that sits right inside the door and shrugs out of his coat, dropping it over the back of a chair.
“That’s saying something,” he says. “Coming from you.”
Eddie lets out a surprised laugh, bracing his hands on his knees as he gives Steve an appraising look.
“Dead jokes,” he says, squinting up at Steve. “Nice.”
Steve’s smile spreads slow across his face. “Anyway, I like the other side of the bed,” he says. “The right side.”
“Because you’re always right.”
Steve laughs, takes a step closer then back, fiddles with the cuff of his sweater. A little awkward, a little nervous. Eddie’s watching him with that big, easy smile on his face, and Steve feels something fizzle and go quiet against his heart, warmth blooming out through his chest.
“Yeah,” he says. “Exactly.”
They settle down after that, stripping to their boxers and sliding between the sheets to curl toward each other on the bed, icy limbs brushing together until they start to go warm.
He saw Eddie’s scars once before over the summer when he’d taken his shirt off to jump in the pool on a particularly hot day when everyone had been desperate to cool off and had all but pushed each other out of the way to get into the water.
This feels different, though.
It’s closer, for one, and back in the summer, Steve hadn’t quite wrapped his head around the fact that the way he feels when Eddie smiles at him is him wanting more, wanting to reach out and touch and taste and feel and –
“They got you pretty good, didn’t they?” Eddie asks, lifting his eyes from the patch of scar on Steve’s own stomach. His hand darts out toward Steve’s neck then stops, falls down to rest against the pillow near his own face. “I see this one all the time, but that one –” He takes a breath. “Damn.”
“Yours, too,” Steve says. He reaches out, and Eddie doesn’t give him any kind of a signal to back off, so he closes the distance between them to trace against the edge of one of the scars twisting over his abdomen. “I guess we match.”
His hand settles against the spot, palm covering it, and Eddie’s breath catches. Steve’s eyes lift to his face.
“Sorry,” Eddie says. He smiles, a little unsure. “Ticklish, I guess.”
And this is… ridiculous.
It’s ridiculous. If Eddie were a girl, Steve would have kissed him weeks ago. Months. And he gets that it’s different, sort of. He at least knows why he’s more nervous than he would be otherwise, but he’s also so sick of waiting . He’s so sick of waiting for Eddie to make a move, because that’s just not what Steve does.
It’s not who he is.
And so, heart kicking against his ribs, feeling a little shaky and a lot scared, he tilts himself closer, lifting his chin enough that their eyes line up, and –
“Steve?”
He smiles, searching Eddie’s face. “Do you not want me to?”
Eddie lets out a sharp little breath. “I want you to.”
And that – the nerves disappear in an instant, just like that. He feels himself relax, and he lets his hand tighten on Eddie’s waist, sliding himself closer on the pillows.
“Good,” he says, soft like a secret. “Then I will.”
Closing the distance between them is so, so easy after that – so easy that Steve can’t help wondering what the hell he’s been waiting for all this time.
Eddie tastes like peppermint and wintertime and a little like cigarettes, and when he sighs against Steve’s mouth, lips falling open, Steve crowds closer for another taste, and another, and another.