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"Holy shit, it smells so fucking good in here," Eddie says, letting his duffel bag (Wayne's, technically, borrowed for this trip because luggage falls somewhere well below a new amp on the Edward Munson scale of household necessities) fall to the floor as he pushes the door shut behind him.
"Take off your gross shoes," Steve calls from the tiny kitchen alcove.
"You don't know anything about the state of my shoes," Eddie retorts, but he leans down to tug the half-frozen laces loose anyway. He's pretty sure he's been carrying standing water in the toes for the last block and a half. Much as it pains him, it may be time to throw aesthetics to the wind and invest in a pair of snow boots.
"Yeah, it's been sleeting for like an hour, so I can guess." Steve steps out of the kitchen, finally. He's got a bowl tucked into the cradle of his arm and a smear of flour on his cheek, and he looks more or less like he stepped off the cover of Ladies' Home Journal, holiday edition, or some similarly wholesome publication. Then he smirks faintly, and he just looks like Steve. "That's what I thought."
Caught, Eddie laughs and kicks his shoes off, then peels his sopping-wet socks off for good measure. "It's the principle of the thing."
"Right," Steve says with one of his dramatic eyerolls, and turns back into the kitchen. Eddie follows him.
Steve and Robin's kitchen is a tiny, weirdly-shaped alcove overlooking the alley alongside the building. The metal fire escape ladder slants across the window, and Eddie can see snow just starting to accumulate on its rusted surface. Inside, it's warm and bright, the air redolent with sugar and baking spices. There's a tray of cookies cooling on the counter, only slightly singed at the edges.
"Where the hell did you learn to bake?" Eddie asks, fascinated, as Steve leans down to peer into the oven, curses under his breath, and fumbles a pair of oven mitts on.
"Oh, you know, here and there," he says breezily.
"He ruined three batches before you got here," Robin says, ducking her head in. "Hey, Eddie."
"Buckley. Always a delight." He grins as she comes close enough to bump shoulders with him: practically a declaration of lifelong adoration from someone as physically standoffish as Robin. He bumps her back.
"Okay, I didn't ruin them," Steve protests, and in all fairness the tray he pulls out this time looks perfectly done: golden-brown cookies in the shape of Christmas trees and reindeer on the battered metal. Smells amazing, too.
"Okay, well, answer me this: why did we end up feeding them to the pigeons?"
"It was just—"
"Because you couldn't even pawn those monstrosities off on Cheri Miller's kid, and he's like six. That's why."
"That kid has it in for me," Steve grumbles.
"And no wonder, if you're trying to poison him."
Steve throws up his hands. "The cookies were fine! Oh my god!"
"You didn't eat them either."
"Okay, well—" Steve waves a hand at the two trays now gracing the counter. "These cookies are fine. So get off my ass about it already."
"He wanted everything to be perfect when you got here," Robin says to Eddie.
"I just wanted it to be a nice holiday, okay, since you're stuck with us instead of—like, you know, family."
"Aww," Eddie says, but he actually is touched.
Steve rolls his eyes. "Yeah, yeah, get out of my kitchen."
"My liege," Eddie says with a deep bow that makes Steve clamp down on a visible smile, and goes to retrieve his bag.
Wayne has the Christmas shift this year. He offered to try and find someone to switch with him if Eddie really wanted, but they could use the time and a half, especially after all the time he took off while Eddie was in the hospital back in March. Besides, he got Wayne for Easter and Thanksgiving this year, so it's time to pay the piper. They exchanged gifts last night before Wayne's shift: the standard six-packs and new socks, because Eddie's uncle is a practical man at heart, and some new strings for his Warlock, because he's a good uncle at heart, too. Eddie got him a Garfield mug to replace the one that was lost when half the trailer collapsed into the Upside Down. He got gifts for Robin and Steve, too, feeling a little stupid about it; there just haven't really been all that many people for him to exchange Christmas gifts with in his life. Standing in their warm apartment that smells like Christmas cookies, because Steve wanted everything to be perfect for him, makes him glad he did.
He's pretty much resigned himself to this: the helpless flutter of affection and attraction that's solidified over the past several months into a truly mortifying crush. At least Steve seems largely oblivious.
There's a spindly, pathetic-looking Christmas tree in a corner of the living room, decorated with a random assortment of baubles. Some of them look like they might have been purchased at the dollar store; some of them are clearly handmade. Popsicle-stick ornaments with clumsy, childish handwriting on them; the nearest one reads ROBIN ELEANOR BUCKLEY 1975 under a picture of a tiny, beaming child in pigtails.
"That's fucking adorable," Eddie says, poking it with one finger. The glitter crusted on the popsicle sticks shimmers as it spins.
"I have like two boxes of them. My mom wouldn't even throw away the ones that were falling apart."
Eddie glances back at her. "Yeah?"
Robin shrugs, a lopsided little smile on her face. "She said I should have them now that I'm starting my new life in the big city. Her words."
"That's sweet. I mean it," Eddie adds, because sincerity sometimes sits awkwardly on his tongue. He pokes at a Christmas tree ornament made out of what looks like an old bottle brush spray painted green and doesn't comment on the fact that none of the childishly homemade ornaments seem to belong to Steve.
In the kitchen, Steve is still moving around, humming what sounds like Hall & Oates, because this is the man Eddie has apparently decided to lose his head over. He ducks his head into the living room a moment later and smiles, easy and wide, and Eddie's heart gives a stupid little lurch even though he definitely should have built up an immunity to that smile by now. "You hungry, man? We were gonna do Chinese for dinner."
They order Chinese, and when it gets there they spread it out across the living room floor to eat, since the tiny kitchen table is piled high with junk mail and various other detritus and only has two chairs anyway. Eddie starts and promptly loses a battle with Robin for the last pork roll while Steve leans back on his elbows and laughs at them.
It's nice. Homey. There's no discussion of why Steve hasn't bothered to make the trek back to Hawkins; as far as Eddie knows, his parents have been in Europe since July. Robin, it transpires, had to work today, which is why she's here.
"Besides," she adds. "My parents think it's sweet that I want to spend Christmas with my boyfriend."
"You make me sound like a venereal disease," Steve grumbles. "I'd be a fucking great boyfriend for someone who was actually, you know, into me."
"For now you're an excellent beard," Robin says, and leans in to press a smacking kiss to his cheek. Steve shoves her off, snorting laughter, then pushes himself up to his feet with that easy athletic grace that Eddie is still a little embarrassed to find attractive.
"Okay, okay, very funny. I'm getting a drink, you guys want something to drink?"
"Oh, there's eggnog!" Robin says, hopping up to her feet much less gracefully.
"Eggnog?" Eddie asks, laughing. "You really went all out, huh?"
"It's Christmas," Steve says, so earnestly that Eddie almost feels bad for teasing. "Besides, we have, like, beer and cola. And weed. If you'd rather."
"Okay, no, you are not smoking inside my apartment where I need to breathe the air, Steve—"
"Could just go drive around town and smoke up," Steve says, grinning at Eddie. And there's an appeal to that, certainly. It wouldn't even be the first time. They spent more than one summer night like that, after Eddie's injuries healed and before Steve and Robin put Hawkins in their rearview mirror.
Eddie's a little afraid of what he might blurt out if he has Steve all to himself right now, though. And besides. It's Christmas Eve.
"Tempting as that sounds, it would be churlish indeed to deprive Milady Buckley of our company on this festive occasion."
"Churlish," Steve repeats incredulously under his breath.
"Rude," Robin translates. "Mean-spirited. Surly."
"Yeah, I got that from, like, context clues. Or whatever."
"Or whatever."
"Okay, okay, okay, let me in the kitchen, come on, you guys can clean up in here," Steve says, and Robin cackles and steps aside. Eddie helps her clear up the detritus of their dinner, stuffing the empty containers in the garbage and piling up the leftovers for the fridge. Steve ducks out to take them, then brings out a pair of mismatched mugs and hands one to Eddie and one to Robin before going back for his own. Eddie turns his around in his hands, smiling, feeling stupidly warm. The eggnog has nutmeg sprinkled on top, and smells strongly of rum under the sweetness.
"God, you're fucking adorable," he blurts.
"Shut up," Steve says good-naturedly.
"No, no, I mean it. Should we see if we can get the Yule log on TV? Do you have any Christmas albums? Oh man. There's a Bing Crosby record in this apartment at this very moment, isn't there?"
"Robin'll smother me in my sleep me if I put it on, lucky you."
"You work retail in December and see if you don't wind up with a Pavlovian response of murderous rage to White Christmas."
"Point," Steve agrees as he ambles over to the stereo perched next to the TV, flanked by a pair of speakers that are way too nice for this little shithole. Steve must have liberated them from the house in Loch Nora before he left, and the odds are good that his parents still haven't been back long enough to realize.
Their loss. Not just the speakers. How two such clueless, checked out people could have produced a kid like Steve is surely one of life's divine mysteries.
"I mean it," Robin says ominously as Steve rifles through a stack of tapes. "I know where you sleep, and if I have to hear about decking the halls or baby it's cold outside one more time—"
"Look out the window at that storm," Steve warbles, surprisingly on-key. He ducks, laughing and cradling his eggnog protectively, when Robin hurls a throw cushion at him. "Hey! Jesus, you almost made me spill!"
She sniffs. Eddie hides his grin in his cup as Steve finally selects a cassette and slides it into the tape deck. "No Christmas music. I promise."
It turns out to be Texas Flood, which Eddie complains about for form's sake, but blues is one of the few places where his taste in music and Steve's overlap, and Robin seems content with anything that isn't Christmas standards. The sleet outside has gentled into a swirling snow that catches the streetlights as it falls, and Eddie cradles his eggnog between his palms as Steve drops onto the couch between him and Robin and hams up a truly terrible air-guitar solo to 'Pride and Joy', singing along until Robin threatens to smother him. Steve laughs and dodges her, which leaves him pressed against Eddie from shoulder to hip to knee, and even when Robin subsides back against the arm of the couch with a grumble, he doesn't pull back. The contact makes Eddie's heart feel like a kick-drum in his chest, but he doesn't pull away either.
The conversation is easy, a pleasant meander through the doings back in Hawkins—Will Byers has taken over the mantle of Hellfire in Eddie's absence, and Wayne has started making noises about retiring like he always does this time of year when the cold sinks into his joints and makes them ache. Eddie's got high hopes that he can talk the old man into actually doing it sometime in the near future, and maybe they can get themselves out of Hawkins too.
Robin is having a fling ("It's not a fling, don't listen to him, we're just friends—" "Yeah, friends who like to make out at parties") with a chick she met at the Gay Alliance on campus, and Eddie wonders at this, too: the ease, the teasing, about this thing that he never considered giving space to breathe back in Hawkins. Still doesn't, honestly.
But they're not in Hawkins right now.
Steve is quiet about his romantic endeavors, and Eddie has just enough self-preservation not to push. He's been bartending downtown but says he probably won't keep it up for much longer—the music and the strobes tend to exacerbate the migraines he started getting a couple of concussions ago, apparently. He's thinking about applying to something closer to the school anyway, maybe picking up a couple of night classes.
He looks happy. Not just happy, but settled, at ease in a way Eddie never knew him to be back home, in those short months when they knew each other. It's good to see, even if it makes him wistful.
Robin dozes off halfway through her second glass of eggnog, snoring faintly on the far end of the couch. Eddie catches Steve watching her with a fondness that almost aches before he leans in to rescue her drink and set it on the floor.
"She's been busting her ass with finals lately," he says in an undertone to Eddie.
"Ah, the rigors of academic excellence."
"Not really my department, I gotta tell you."
Eddie snickers. "Yeah, I think they only let me graduate to keep me from darkening the door of Hawkins High for a fourth year running."
"Nah, man, don't say that shit, come on. You earned it fair and square."
"With a lot of help. Pretty sure I still have those flashcards Wheeler made for me somewhere. You know, that woman was a machine. Scary as hell, but she got me through O'Donnell's final by the skin of my metaphorical teeth, and for that I owe her my eternal gratitude."
"Yeah, sounds about right," Steve laughs. There's a look of fond remembrance on his face that makes that drum in Eddie's chest kick sharply again. He drains his mug, licking the rum-sweet dregs from his lips, and straightens up on the couch.
"You talk to her much these days?"
"Nancy?" Steve asks. He scrubs a hand through his hair and straightens up too. "Yeah, uh, you know, we keep in touch. Or try to. Long distance isn't cheap."
"Right, right, she's up in Boston now, right?"
"Emerson, yeah. She seems happy."
Do you miss her, Eddie thinks, and doesn't ask. Because the answer is yes, of course, easy as anything. He misses her too, and he was never in love with her. Steve was. Might still be. Eddie's not sure he wants an answer to that question, though, even if it makes no damn difference as far as his chances are concerned.
Steve, mercifully oblivious, is leaning over to shake Robin's shoulder lightly. "Hey. Lazybones. Wake up."
"Ugh, let me sleep," she moans.
"Sure, okay, but fair warning, if you pass out on the couch, I'm gonna give Munson your bed."
"Ugh," she groans again, opening her eyes and blinking owlishly at the dim apartment. "What time is it?"
"Like ten," Steve says, gently teasing. "You were beat."
"Oh," Robin yawns. Then: "Oh, Eddie, no, you came all the way here and I just fell asleep on you—"
"Technically," Steve says, "you fell asleep on me."
"But we were supposed to show Eddie a good time. We didn't even eat the cookies."
"They'll keep," Steve says.
"Harrington’s been keeping me entertained, anyway," Eddie offers.
Steve huffs. Robin glances between them with a look Eddie can't quite get a read on, then puts a hand on Steve's shoulder to lever herself upright. Once standing, she muffles another yawn. "I'll be more fun tomorrow. Promise."
"She wants us to go ice skating," Steve translates with a world-weary sigh.
Eddie gapes. "On what planet is that a good idea?"
"That's what I said!"
"It's Christmas-y!" Robin protests. "I never really got to go as a kid because my mom always said the rink over in Great Bend was too far to drive, but there's one at the college that's, like, really cheap, and it's open tomorrow, so…"
"That is charming as hell," Eddie says, "and I wish you the best of luck, but I will not be ice skating. Happy to stand on the sidelines with a hot beverage while you two make fools of yourselves, though."
"I can skate," Steve says nonchalantly, because of fucking course he can. "I could teach you."
Eddie has a brief vivid image of being escorted around a skating rink by Steve, hand in begloved hand like some sort of mirror-universe Hallmark movie, and he kind of hates how much he does not hate the idea. Even though it would inevitably end in catastrophe and humiliation.
"I'll… consider it," he says, only slightly strangled.
Robin beams at him. "There you go."
She heads into the bathroom to brush her teeth and change into pajamas, and Steve levers himself up to turn off the tape deck. Without that low hissing noise, he can hear the whisper of snow against the windows. There's a low rumbling groan from outside, and Eddie nearly jumps out of his skin before Steve says, "It's just a truck. They hit the air brakes on the bridge every damn time."
"Right," Eddie says. Or squeaks, possibly.
Steve glances up with a wry little smile. "Came running out here with my nail bat the first time I heard it. It was like three AM. Robin about laughed herself sick, once she got over the panic attack. You get used to it."
"Right," Eddie says again, and that's a softer and more complicated feeling this time. Then Robin comes back into the living room, sleepy-eyed and wearing one of Steve's basketball shirts over her pajama pants. She ruffles Steve's hair messily, and he allows it, then comes to lean against Eddie's shoulder for a sleepy moment. Steve heads into the kitchen; the light comes on, and after a moment, cupboards open and shut.
"I'm really glad you came," Robin says, then yawns. "Steve is, too. Even if we're being, like, deeply boring about it right now."
"Yeah, well. Thanks for asking me."
"Mmhm," Robin yawns. She leans into him for another moment, then shuffles down the hall to her bedroom.
Eddie finds Steve in the kitchen, trying to fit the sugar cookies into a handful of mismatched Tupperware containers that have clearly seen better days. He pauses in the doorway, and Steve glances up and says, "Here, eat this, I don't have enough room for all of these, I don't know what the hell I was thinking," and shoves a cookie into his hand.
The cookie is really good, and Eddie tells him so around a mouthful of crumbs. Steve turns a gorgeous shade of pink and doesn't even bitch about Eddie's table manners, so Eddie drifts further into the room and snags another one.
"I mean it," he says, once he's finished it. "These are really good. And also, uh, thanks for having me. Seriously."
Steve secures the lid on one of the containers with a shrug. "Yeah, well, nobody should be alone on Christmas. Just, like—I know we're not, you know, family, but—"
"How many Christmases have you spent without your parents?"
"That's different, man, my parents are douchebags."
"Likewise." Though at least he has Wayne.
"Your uncle's not, though," Steve says, echoing his thoughts.
"Truer words, my friend." He glances out the window at the swirling snow, lit up yellow by the street lamps, and thinks wistfully of the pack of Camels in his bag.
"What is it?" Steve asks, following his gaze like he thinks there's gonna be something crouched on the windowsill.
"Nothing, nothing, I'm just dying for a smoke and contemplating the dire prospect of six flights of stairs to have one. Unless you think Buckley would let me get away with opening a window."
"Nah, she'd definitely murder you," Steve says lightly. He nods at the fire escape. "We can sit out there if you want, though."
Eddie raises his eyebrows. "We?"
"If you don't mind the company," Steve says. His ears are slightly red again.
"No, man, absolutely not. Cold out, though."
"Yeah, let me just…" Steve ducks out of the room. Slightly bemused, Eddie follows him into the living room, where he tugs a crocheted afghan that definitely came from the Buckley household off the back of the couch. He brings it into the kitchen, slings it over his shoulder, and pushes the window open. Snow swirls into the kitchen as he climbs nimbly out onto the fire escape. He turns there, crouched on the metal grating to raise his eyebrows at Eddie. "You coming, or what?"
Eddie laughs, feeling ridiculously, infinitely fond. "Yeah, let me just grab my shit."
He pulls the cigarettes and lighter out of his bag, snags a handful of cookies off of the counter, and follows Steve out the window. Steve sets the blanket down on the grating, but it's big enough to flip over their shoulders to offer at least some little amount of protection from the cold. It's not so bad now. It's chilly, but it's a light, airy kind of cold instead of the soggy mess that Eddie tromped through from the bus station earlier. The city looks pretty from up here, glittering with light and frosted with snow. Steve presses close, and Eddie knows it's just for warmth, but it's still nice.
There's not much of a breeze, but it still takes him a couple of tries to get his cigarette lit. Steve finally leans over to cup his hand around it as well, and Eddie finally manages to get the flame to catch. He draws smoke into his lungs and glances at Steve.
"Thanks," he whispers.
"Sure," Steve says back, almost as quiet, and settles back against the brick wall. Eddie hands him the cigarette. He takes a drag and hands it back.
They smoke in silence for a couple of minutes before Eddie finally says, "This is a really good place you guys have here."
"Yeah," Steve says quietly.
"Although—gotta be honest, Harrington, I always kinda pegged you for one of those guys who'd live and die in Hawkins. A true-blue hometown boy. Raise your kids in the place where you were raised, all that shit."
Steve laughs under his breath. "Yeah, me too. But, you know, Robin."
"Yeah."
"Like, she would have been fine on her own. She doesn't need me. But she couldn't stay there, man."
"Yeah, I know," Eddie says quietly. He thinks the same thing is true of himself. Steve could have stayed, probably. That town would have ground him down over the years just the same as any of them, but Steve could survive it. Not Robin. Probably not Eddie, either, in the long run.
"It's just…" Steve tilts his head back. In the glow of the street lamps, he seems golden. Snowflakes catch lightly in his hair, in his eyelashes, dusting the outline of his lovely profile. "My world was so fucking small in high school, you know?"
"Before the interdimensional horrors struck?"
"Yeah. But not even that. Like, I think if I hadn't… if none of that ever happened, if I hadn't gotten my ass kicked about what a douchebag I was, I think I would have spent my whole life in that same tiny, shitty bubble and never even thought about it."
Eddie nods, takes another puff of his cigarette, then holds it up, contemplating the glow of the cherry. "I should have brought weed. This is some heavy shit to be getting into sober."
"Sorry."
"I don't mind." He glances at Steve, then holds out the cigarette to him. "Honest."
Steve takes it. "Thanks."
"So what I'm hearing is, you've been expanding your horizons lately. Find out anything good?"
There's silence for a moment. Then Steve says, oddly weighted, "Yeah, I think so."
Eddie waits for him to keep going. When he doesn't, he says, "Well? You gonna share with the class?"
Steve ducks his head, laughing. "Yeah, okay. Just—you know, Robin, she joined the Gay Alliance pretty much the second she got on campus, and she started dragging me to their mixers because she's, like, totally incapable of going to parties by herself. At least until she met Angie—"
"This is the aforementioned 'just friends' chick?" Eddie asks. He feels slightly winded. Because. He's pretty sure he knows where Steve is aiming this particular conversational freight train. He's no intellectual, but he can follow a plot just fine.
Steve knows he's gay, is the thing. Eddie blurted it out months ago in a moment of reckless painkiller-induced honesty while Steve was helping him with his dressings, and Steve took a second to absorb the information, then nodded and said, okay, man, thanks for telling me, and went back to carefully smoothing down surgical tape around the edges of one of the bandages. Eddie hadn't known at the time whether to be miffed or relieved at the total lack of reaction, but eventually he chalked it up to the same constitutional equanimity that let Steve walk through hell and come out relatively normal on the other side. Finding out about Robin helped with the context, but now he's thinking there was probably a little more to it. More than Steve himself knew at the time, from the sound of it.
"Yeah," Steve says. He holds out a hand for the cigarette; Eddie passes it to him. "I don't think I ever even imagined something like that. You know? A place where people could just—be gay, and be around each other, and not have to hide."
"Yeah," Eddie says. He felt much the same the first time he hitchhiked to Indianapolis at age fifteen and ducked into a grimy little bar that he'd found from a flier at a metal show, hoping desperately that it was the right place. Terrible music, men dancing with other men, a drag queen in a glittering gown strutting her stuff on the tiny stage. The bartender who took one look at Eddie's fake ID, laughed, and brought him a cola instead of the beer he ordered but didn't kick him out.
Magical.
"It was really nice," Steve says. "Like, at first I was just going for Robin, but I, uh, met some people, and…" He trails off, then laughs sheepishly. "You get where I'm going with this, right?"
"Yeah, I think I'm picking up what you're putting down," Eddie says. He takes the cigarette when Steve offers it, nearly burned down to the filter. Takes another puff and then grinds it out on the cold metal. He breaks off a piece of one of the cookies he's still holding and pops it into his mouth, chewing and swallowing and giving himself time to think. "So, guys, huh?"
"Yeah," Steve says. He runs a hand through his hair, looking awkward, but like. Happily awkward. "Took me long enough to figure that out, huh?"
"Hey, man, we all reach enlightenment at our own pace." Eddie really wishes he were high right now. He takes another bite of his cookie. Chews, swallows, then says as lightly as he can, "So does that mean there's a boyfriend in the picture now?"
"No."
"No?" Eddie asks, trying not to sound too happy, or too—anything, about it.
"No, I gotta be honest with you there's been—" Steve glances over at him, takes a deep breath, and says, "I've had a lot of fun and all, but there's kind of this guy from back home that I'm hung up on."
Eddie stills. "Oh yeah?"
"Yeah. Feels kind of stupid, you know, because I should have said something before I left, but it took me a while to figure shit out. Just kind of. Hoping I still have a shot."
"Hm. Well. This guy, what's he like?"
Steve laughs, his eyes warm. "He drives like a bat out of hell, and he plays guitar in a heavy metal band."
"Sounds like a badass," Eddie says. He's trying to sound cool, but he absolutely does not. His heart is beating so hard he swears he can feel his ribcage vibrating with the force of it.
"Yeah. But he's sweet, you know? He tries so hard to be all big and bad, but deep down he's like a marshmallow. And he's so smart, and funny, and he's just—he tells the best stories, like, I could listen to him talk for hours about anything, even when I don't understand a word of it. And he's brave as hell, he helped save the world a little while back, and he didn't even get any of the credit."
"Steve," Eddie whispers.
"Great hair, too."
Eddie starts laughing. He drops his face into his hands, feeling giddy, feeling stupid, feeling young. "Steve."
Steve nudges their shoulders together. "I could keep going. Unless you wanna cut me loose here. No pressure."
"I don't want to cut you loose."
"Oh," Steve says softly. Eddie glances up. Steve is just watching him, soft-edged in the night, bleeding hope so visibly that Eddie doesn't know how he didn't see this coming.
"I'm just—shit, I could have said something too, man. Missed opportunities." All those summer nights, driving through Hawkins. Getting stoned at the quarry, in Eddie's bedroom, in Steve's backyard, arguing about music and bumping into Steve's space and wishing desperately that he had the courage to do more than that. Figures that Steve would be the one who's brave enough to finally put it into words.
"Are they, though?" Steve asks. He turns back toward Eddie, and that's a Steve Harrington special, that earnest look. Eddie wonders if that's always how Steve looks when he wants to kiss someone, or if it's just for Eddie.
"No," he admits. "I guess not."
"So can I—?"
"Yeah," Eddie whispers, and then he's being kissed.
It's sweet. Sweet like the sugar still lingering on his tongue; sweet like Steve, who cups his cheek in one big warm hand and kisses him like there's nothing he'd rather be doing than kissing Eddie Munson on a fire escape on Christmas Eve. It's the kind of cheesy that Eddie should probably tease him for, but he feels like he's full of fireworks and sparkles and everything bright in the world. Steve is warm in his arms, and his mouth is hot and soft, and Eddie doesn't want to do anything other than this for the rest of the night, or possibly the rest of his life.
A cold breeze whips by, scattering snow across them. Steve laughs against Eddie's lips, then kisses him once, twice, like he's sealing a promise before he finally pulls back. "You ready to go in?"
"I want to keep doing this," Eddie says, darting in for another kiss. Something about the moment feels magical, fragile, like it might melt in the warmth and light of the apartment.
"We can keep doing this inside where it's warm," Steve says. "If you want."
He's got a contrary impulse to argue, but another gust of wind whips through the buildings, pulling the blanket off of his shoulder and driving snow like needles into the side of his face, so he shivers dramatically, shoves the blanket off, and crouches up to pull open the window. It sticks. "Um."
"Here, let me—" Steve's hand lands next to his, shoving at the frame. For a terrifying instant, it doesn't move; then, with a creak of old springs, it lifts. The two of them tumble into the kitchen, and Steve shoves the window shut, laughing. "Holy shit. I thought we were gonna get stuck out there and have to have Robin buzz us up from downstairs."
"Your smoking corner leaves something to be desired," Eddie says, but he's laughing, too. His cheeks are starting to prickle in the warmth, his fingers chilled and clumsy. He sets his cigarettes down to rub his hands together, and Steve takes a step closer, folding Eddie's chilled hands into his big, warm ones.
"Better?" he asks.
"That's such a fucking move," Eddie complains, but he can't stop smiling. "Oh, here, you must be cold, let me warm you up. You do this for all the girls, Harrington?"
"Is it working?"
"You know it's working, you smooth motherfucker." He tilts his forehead against Steve's chest, but not before he sees the grin flash across Steve's face.
"Cool," he says, like a dork. He lets go of Eddie's hands to cup his cheek. "Hey, c'mere."
The kiss is even sweeter this time, if possible. It lingers, in the warm kitchen; the moment lingers. Steve's eyelashes dust his cheeks, and his hair is ruffled from the wind, and his mouth is faintly red when Eddie finally pulls back. It's a really good look on him. Eddie wants to make him look like that all the time, and he's starting to think that he might actually get to.
"This feels too easy," he says.
"Oh really?"
"Yeah. I'm, like, I'm cursed. I don't get nice things. There's got to be a catch."
Steve tilts his head consideringly. "Well, I mean, I'm totally gonna make you go ice skating tomorrow. How's that for a catch?"
"Ugh," Eddie groans dramatically, collapsing against him. He can't stop grinning. "Mercy, good sir, I beg of you."
"It'll be fun. I promise."
"You and I have wildly differing definitions of fun, my friend."
"I bet I can think of a couple of kinds of fun we'd agree on," Steve says. His cheeks are red; it's adorable.
"Oh. Is that so?"
"Yep."
"Just to be clear," Eddie says. "You're propositioning me, right? This isn't, like, some conspiracy to make me play basketball or something. Right?"
"Jesus, why am I so into you," Steve sighs, but he can't seem to stop smiling long enough to make it properly bitchy. "No, it was the first one. Unless you'd rather play basketball?"
Eddie laughs out loud, delighted, and leans in to kiss him again. "Option one is good. Just lead me to your lair of debauchery, milord, and—"
"Jesus Christ," Steve says, still smiling. He kisses Eddie again, then tugs on his hand, pulling him down the short hall that leads to the bedrooms.
"You're not really gonna make me go ice skating tomorrow, are you?" Eddie mumbles some time later. They're curled together in Steve's bed. The light is off now, and they're more or less clean, but neither of them has gotten around to putting clothes on. Eddie stretches luxuriously, then half-sits to grab at the blanket and haul it over them both.
Steve snickers into the pillow, then turns to pull Eddie into his arms. Eddie goes easily. He fits there easily he finds. It's inexplicable, but he does. Like everything with Steve, it feels easier than it should be.
"I'll talk you into it," Steve mumbles into his hair, sounding half-asleep already.
"The hell you will," Eddie retorts happily, but the fact is he knows Steve's right.