— something like a dream

“I made cookies.”

He glances at the cookies, then leans in and brushes his mouth over yours before grabbing one.

“Thank you.”

The cold seeps into your clothes and you note the heavy gray clouds moving in from the west.

“It’s already snowing over the mountains,” you say quietly. “I bet we get at least eight inches tonight.”

“Maybe more if you’re good.” The corners of his lips lift as he brings the cookie to his mouth.

“Did you just…make a joke? A dick joke?”

“You’re talkin’ about the weather,” he counters, taking a bite then holding it up to your mouth.

“Just thought you might want to talk about something…normal.”

You take the offered bite then watch him take another. A long moment passes before you rise to the challenge in his eyes and ask, “What are you out here thinking about?”

He’s quiet for so long the first flakes of snow start to descend, and you move the cookies out of the way to scoot closer to him, pressing yourself against his side.

“I’m scared.” His admission is all but a whisper and you tuck yourself closer.

He lifts his arm and curls it around you, the scruff on his jaw thick with days of unkempt growth and the coldness of his beard tickling your skin as he buries his face in your neck and breathes deeply.

You give him no reply because there isn’t one and when the cold finally chills you to your bones you both retreat, leaving whatever the future holds behind you as best you can.

The house is warm despite the chill still clinging to your body and when you come out of the bathroom to find him already in bed and waiting, it takes all your resolve not to throw yourself toward him.

He’s moved your discarded book to the nightstand, holding your page with one of his small knives. The thoughtfulness of his gesture makes a small smile play upon your lips.

He pulls the covers on your side away and holds them up.

“Are you okay?”

“I am now.” His voice softens to the tone he only ever uses with you, weakening your knees as he hovers over you and lowers his mouth to yours.

It’s a slow and gentle kiss but even so it heats you from the inside out and when he deepens the pressure you sigh into it, letting the rest of the world disintegrate around you.

Hours later, warm and sated, you lie awake in bed, the brightness of the blanket of snow outside the window making the walls in the room glow.

When you feel him shift and reach out you curl your body around his, and his arm wraps around your back and pulls you closer in a way that can only be described as instinctive, like he’ll be doing it for the next hundred years. You settle against his warmth and lay your head on his chest, above the most comforting sound in the world, his heartbeat.

You stamp your lips into his skin in good morning, and again because it’s a satisfying warmth on your mouth. He smells sweet, like your new body wash since he couldn’t find his last night. You decide you like the scent on his skin better than yours. 

The quiet is strange but the farthest thing from unwelcome. No neighbors or roommates or parents to wake to. Just the soft hush of rain against the roof and the swish of your ankles underneath the blankets. 

Your fingers chase the hair from Steve’s eye socket, your thumb perching behind his ear. His pupils shift under his eyelids and he sighs the softest little sound you’ve ever heard. 

It’s cruel to wake him, certainly. He did most of the heavy lifting yesterday and was up organizing later than you were. But you’re feeling especially selfish this morning, tickling him awake with a swarm of several more arm kisses. 

There are worse things to wake up to, you reason with yourself as Steve hums, his fingers curling against the sheet. He’s quiet for a long beat and you decide maybe it's better to let him rest. 

But his lips part and he rasps out, “Mornin’.” 

“Mornin’,” you parrot. Your grin is immediate, spanning ear to ear with an overwhelming sense of gratitude. 

He smushes your face to his bare collar, the heel of his free hand climbing up his cheek. 

You turn to watch his eyes unstick themselves of sleep and continue to wonder how you got so lucky. You press another kiss to his chin. Another to the coarse thatch of hair on his chest. Another to his shoulder. You just can’t help yourself today. 

“It’s so quiet,” he murmurs, hand crawling under your shirt in a long splay up your spine. 

You beam, weaving a leg under his heavy one. “I know.” 

“We have a house.” 

“I know.” You sound as excited as you can be without yelling. 

He hums, the corners of his smile creeping wider, a hand steady on your back. 

Your finger twists a curl at his nape idly. “What’re you thinking?” 

Steve’s gaze flickers from the ceiling to you, eyes like old pennies under the clouds coloring your room a gloomy shade of gray. “Nothin’,” he whispers, lips skimming the corner crease of your eye. “Just happy.” 

You hum, one part agreement, two parts delight. “Can we get a dog now?” 

He huffs out a chuckle, vibrating the place where your chests kiss. “I can’t believe it took you this long to ask.” 

“‘Cause you always say no.” 

“‘Cause it didn’t make sense before.”

“So, we can?” 

He has a hard time pretending to hate the look you show him. Your jutted lip and raised brows show no mercy. He wants to say yes, of course he does, but he’s not as impulsive as he used to be. He’s a homeowner. His responsibilities extend beyond just himself now. 

“Can we unpack the house first? Then we’ll talk about it.”

You flick his collarbone. “Excuses. Excuses.” 

If there’s a fond way to roll your eyes at someone, he’s figured out how to do it. Steve knows you’re all drama. And he knows you’re over the moon with or without the promise of a dog. 

You bend out of his embrace and regret sitting the second you’re up. Your back aches twice its weight, muscles sore with yesterday's labor. 

But Steve relishes his view. You're in nothing but underwear and one of his shirts, the dip of your lower back exposed where the hem has scrunched up. He might buy you new pajamas if he thought you’d actually wear them or if he didn’t adore just how lovely his clothes look on you. 

And he doesn’t give you a chance to ask, his fingers automatically massaging a path up your aching shoulder. You squirm but you love it. You kiss his hand in thank you and carry it around your waist to play with. 

“Don’t get up,” he says. Pleads, practically.

You face him. “But we have sooo much to unpack.” 

“It can wait,” he argues. He steals your entwined hands for a persuasive set of kisses. One to each knuckle and then a flurry up your arm. And his hands are an equally convincing force, coercing you right back onto his chest. 

You’re putty, melting into his hot hands like candle wax. You throw a leg over his waist and settle down in a more comfortable straddle. The possibility of you falling back asleep jumps an alarming percentage. 

You bolster your chin on his sternum and meet his eyes. “But I really want that dog.” 

“More than me?” 

You hum debatably into his puckered lips.

He smiles hard and forgets about kissing you, pinching your side until you yelp. Your giggles spill through twin smiles, overlapping each other in layers. “Might have to put the house back on the market if you keep being so mean to me," he says.

“I’ll be nicer if we go look at the shelter today.” 

“Mm. Not letting this go are we?” 

You shake your head.

He pecks the corner of your mouth. “We’ll go–”

You see the shift in his expression before he even says anything. Your eyebrows jump in excitement. 

“If,” he tacks on quickly, “we finish downstairs today. Hmm?” 

“Mhmm. Easy.” 

“Easy,” he repeats. But not one lick of him believes you. It wasn’t easy carrying so many of your boxes yesterday and it certainly wasn’t easy getting you to pack everything up in the first place. 

But ultimately he’s amused. And he thinks you’re especially pretty when you’re confident. So Steve kisses you like he has something to prove. 

He gropes the swell of your ass mid-kiss and while it’s not unusual for him to do so playfully, you can’t perceive it in any way innocent when you’re pressed up against his morning wood. 

“Steve,” you scold lightly. 

He hums against your mouth, a faux sound of innocence. He knows exactly what he’s doing. 

You break apart with a wet smack. “Gotta unpack.”

“Have all day,” he says, words all smushed together so he can sew his lips right back to yours. 

“Mm-mmm.” You turn your cheek, but the hands on your waist don’t let you go far. “‘S, like, ten-thirty already.” 

He works a slow line past your jaw, spending extra time on the sensitive skin around your throat. Devious. 

“Steve.” 

“Hmm?” 

You push off his chest until you're sitting upright on his thighs.

His heart tick tick ticks under the flat of your palm. His pupils are wide, mouth kiss-bruised a bright shade of red. He’s so, so dreamy, all flushed and starry-eyed like this. He’s got you wrapped around his finger just as much as you’ve strung him with yours.  

You sigh. “Why do I let you win?” 

He smirks that stupid victorious smirk you love so much. “‘Cause you love me.”

“You’re so annoying.” 

“Me?” he laughs. 

“Mhmm. And a hypocrite.” 

The hand clasping your hip pressures you back down, the other cradling one side of your jaw. “A hypocrite?” he whispers. 

“Mhmm.” 

He fills the tiny space between you, half-lidded and heavy-handed in a fervent kiss. He’s not rough but he is eager. Open-mouthed and persistent like he’s trying to weld his face to yours. 

You meet him with the same intensity. It’s instinctual. The push-pull of your bodies, like you’re more one entity than two. You’ve been dating Steve long enough to know what he likes and what he doesn’t. You’ve made out more times than you can count. And he’s a simple man. You’ve got him hard, properly hard, in a matter of minutes. 

His bottom lip is pinned between your teeth, your chests rising and falling in sync. You grind back on his crotch and his breath hitches. 

“Ahh,” he pants. “Can I…” 

You don’t know what he’s trying to ask but you nod anyway. It’s not hard to piece together, though; not when he’s fisting the fabric of your shirt like it’s causing him physical pain to see you wear it. 

You help him hitch it up your back and down your arms to be tossed out of the way. Steve quickly stops you from lying back down. His large palms spread wide against your tummy, thumbs kneading either side of your belly button. He roves up your ribs attentively, studying how your skin pulls and dips beneath his fingers. 

You swear you feel him down to the divots in his fingerprints, the slow speed of his hands tantalizing. 

His thumbs pause at your breastbone, sweeping up and around your nipples as if he’s never played with them before. They perk up easily, to Steve's obvious enjoyment. 

He’s told you a thousand times how pretty you are, naked and not. And he doesn’t have to say it now for you to know he’s thinking it. 

He stares at your chest, your tummy, the soft stretch of your thighs, each like they’ve been carved from marble, destined to end up behind a glass at some museum he’s never been to. 

You get shy eventually, needling past his hold to hide in the slope of his neck. Your mouth peppers lazy kisses where it can reach. Soft ones, not nearly as greedy as before. You work your way up, suckling long enough to leave a couple of red rings in your wake. 

Steve's hips shift under yours as you arrive back at his mouth. He’s getting antsy, the finger fidgeting with the hem of your panties no longer satisfied. So maybe you shouldn’t be as surprised as you are when he holds your hips down and bucks up into your clothed cunt. 

Your jaw slackens, a broken moan dampened against his mouth. 

“Can be loud ‘s you want now,” he assures. His hands roam, around your ass and back up your sides. Soothing, but so feather-light you shudder. 

“Still have neighbors.” 

He hums in half agreement. Yes, you have neighbors, but their bedroom wall isn’t attached to yours. He imagines you’d have to scream bloody murder for the neighbors to hear you here. 

You slink back up to sit and Steve’s fingers fall to your hips. Your pelvis rolls into his. Again when he shudders. 

“Shit,” he sighs. 

“Feel good?”

His eyes disappear behind his lashes, Adam's apple bobbing as he swallows. “Mhmm.” 

You continue to work him through his briefs, a slow back and forth forming a hot puddle between your own legs. With one hand propped against his sternum, you force your eyes over to the stacks upon stacks of moving boxes in the room. 

“Condoms… condoms.” 

Steve almost misses your mumbling– and to his credit, you’re talking more to yourself than him– but he blinks out of his daze and sighs vaguely at the nearest box. “Fuck. Bathroom, maybe.” 

Not ideal. 

“Think I have one in my purse,” you remember, swaying heavily to the side to scan the floor beside the mattress. 

Steve’s hands fly to your waist to balance you as he huffs. “You mean your bottomless pit?” 

“Don’t shame me. It comes in handy.” The bottomless pit in question is spotted, half buried under yesterday’s clothes across the room. “One sec’.”

Steve grumbles as you climb off of him. But his heart turns in his chest as you saunter off. His love for you is always there. It’s the shape of you as you crouch, how you tip your purse upside down and fan the contents out across the floor with a hum. 

“Aha.” You pop up, waving a glossy, square packet as you skip your way back. “My trusty bottomless pit saves the day.”

You clamber back on top of him clumsily, planting yourself in his lap like he’s no more fragile than the kitchen barstool. 

Steve groans under his breath. You’ve got him really wound up and his patience is thinning. 

Your hips roll into his again, the curve of his cock a strong silhouette through two sticky layers of fabric. You scoot back on his thighs and palm him with modest pressure. 

“Babe,” he shudders, thumbs pawing the sides of your underwear again. “Please.” 

“So impatient,” you tease. 

You watch him intently. How his nostrils flare the second you break the seal between his hot skin and the band of his underwear. How his eyebrows crinkle together as you push the cotton down his thighs. 

His cock bobs free before you take it gently by the base. Steve’s not just a pretty face, and he’s not cocky for no reason. He’s well-endowed, a dusty shade of pink blended tan into the dark curls at his hilt. 

“Fuck, baby.” 

He shifts his gaze past you because he’s certain if you make eye contact with him this’ll be the shortest sex of his life. And even the half-blurry blob of you in his peripherals is still too fucking enticing. He forces his eyes up at the popcorn ceiling and traces the shapes in his mind. 

You spread the pearl of precum down a vein on the side of his cock, using the slip to tug him a handful of times. The slick dissolves, and your hand catches twice before you’re getting ready to spit in it.  

But Steve whines, “Need to feel you.” 

Your hand stops but the pad of your pinky trails a sneaky line from tip to base. “My hands not enough for you, Stevie?” 

“Not gonna– mm– last.” 

“Well, we can’t have that, can we?” 

You mean it rhetorically but he quickly shakes his head no. You forget how much you enjoy being in charge until you have Steve squirming under you. 

You stabilize yourself on his chest, hiking one leg up at a time until you’re underwear have been flung to the floor. The slick between your folds is more palpable as you sit back on his thighs, hot skin to hot skin. 

His eyelids flutter closed as you roll the condom on. He’s flushed up to his ears, breath nimble off his open mouth. 

“Ready?” 

He nods like you’ve asked something outrageously silly. 

You guide the head of his cock up to your folds, sinking down in one tedious stride. It’s a good kind of ache, scratching the deepest part of your tummy. 

His hips jerk involuntarily as you release your full weight onto them, his nails leaving crescents on your skin. “‘M not gonna last,” he warns again. 

“I’ll go slow.” 

It’s not much consolation. No matter what you do to him, he’s not gonna last. You’re too damn irresistible for your own good. 

You rock your hips forward and back in a continuous cycle. The pace is indulgent, just slow enough to make things last. Your eyes unfocus, your head tipping back. Every drag squeezes the coil in your stomach tighter. 

Steve’s eyes flick to yours, his voice wavering as he mumbles, “Tease me too much.”

“I do?”

“Mhmm.”

You smile softly at him and his eyes jump away. He’s drawing loopy patterns into the meat of your thigh to distract himself. And it doesn’t help when you cover his hand and sweep your thumb across every digit. He’s so focused on not blowing his load that he can’t even speak. 

You pause your rhythm and hum to yourself before continuing. “Know what I just realized.”

“Hmm?”

“Forgot the shower curtain.”

Steve exhales hard, words sticking to his teeth.“We’ll get a new one.” 

“I really liked that one.”

He can’t think straight long enough to tell if you’re purposely trying to distract him or not and he doesn’t care all that much either way. He just needs you to be the same level of fucked that he is. 

His hand trembles over to your pubic bone, thumb snaking right up to your clit. 

You nod as he presses. Right there. 

He rubs slow circles, a spark of pleasure each time he closes a loop. 

“Fuck,” you drawl simultaneously. 

You laugh, blissfully unaware as your muscles clamp around his cock. 

But Steve’s fingers pause on your clit, his other hand tense at your hip. “Don’t,” he shudders out. 

You close your mouth, a soft little apology grin that sends Steve’s stomach flipping. He’s so fucking in love it’s not even funny. 

“Sit on my face.”

You hum, so high on cloud nine you’re sure you’ve misheard him. 

“Let me taste you.”

Your breath stutters. He’s serious. 

“Come here,” he’s pushing you up and off him before you have much of a chance to process it. “Wanna make you feel good.” 

Your cheeks burn a hot shade of embarrassment, your tongue suddenly too heavy in your mouth. You wriggle up his body, guided by the relentless hands on the backs of your thighs. Steve’s eaten you out, but not like this. 

“Steve,” you manage. 

“What?” He knows you better than he’s known anyone in his life. He feels your shaking and he hears the rampant doubts coursing your mind. “I want to,” he promises, pressing a long, love-packed kiss to the soft flesh of your inner thigh. 

You’re unconvinced. You’re certain you’ll break his face the second you sit down. You’ll be so mortified you’ll have to break up with him if he doesn’t first. You’ll have to sell the house before you’ve even unpacked–

“Please?”

He’s not trying to be pushy or even funny as he bats his eyes. He just so genuinely craves to see you unravel in the same way you’ve spun him around. And yeah, he has a sweet set of brown eyes. Sue him. He loves you too much to look at you with any less adoration. 

You nod emphatically. 

It’s been a long time since you’ve been this nervous about sex with Steve, but you’ve learned just about everything there is to know about him since. You trust him in every capacity, especially in bed.   

He nips his way up your thigh, pulling you lower and lower until his breath is hot on your cunt. Steve licks a wide stripe up to your clit, sucking before swirling his tongue around the sensitive hood. And then his mouth starts lapping you like you’re his last meal. 

Your fist jerks, fingers knotted through the hair on his scalp, and he moans. You don’t hear it over the wet smacking as much as you feel it, the vibrations sending pleasure through you like a pulse. 

His tongue drives you to a mess. He’d push you completely over the edge if you didn’t stop him.

“Okay, okay,” you gasp, pushing up onto your knees. “We’re even.” 

He smirks and strokes down the backs of your calves. “Are we competing?” 

“You seem to think so.” 

He shimmies to a sit with an arm around your waist and bestows you with a fleeting kiss, lips washed with the taste of your juices. “Lay down.”

How the fuck could you say no to such a pretty face? 

You scooch down, face up on the sheets. Steve parts you by the ankles and crawls up your body, planting kisses like seeds. His teeth graze the inside of your wrist before he stretches it up and flat against the mattress above your head. 

Your fingers thread through his, his other hand steadying his cock at your entrance. He swipes the head up and down your wet folds before sliding in with a groan. There’s less resistance this time, a fluid in and out to his hips. 

His thrusts are languid. He indulges more closely in the taste of your mouth and the balmy feel of your waist. 

The winding in your tummy resumes, your fingers naturally finding your clit while Steve rocks into you. A heavier thrust and your lips detach, Steve’s rehoming to the skin beneath your jaw. He picks up his pace, puffing and panting into your neck in short bursts. 

Your legs wrap around his, the heel of your foot digging into his lower back. “Mm– Steve.”

“Yeah?” he huffs. 

“Mhmm.”

If the sounds you’re making are anything to go by, Steve thinks he’s doing a pretty good job. And you know he’s just as close to cumming. You know his little sounds and twisty little expressions like the back of your hand. How his stomach tenses and his breath catches. 

You burn the entirety of this to your brain, rubbing yourself faster, more in time with his movements. 

“‘M close,” he says, desperate and hopeful that you are too. 

You nod, focused on the high climbing higher each second. 

His hips stutter when you clench around him. The coil releases and you come undone simultaneously. 

“Fuck, ah– fuck,” he whines, sharp but breathy in your ear.  

Your fingers slow and his thrusts wane and the pleasure softens. Steve wobbles down onto you as gently as he can, taking your interlaced hand between your bodies. Your hearts kiss with each rise and fall of your chests. Steve mouths over the most accessible bit of skin under your ear, thumb sweeping the gentlest curves around your face. 

You exhale into his crown, raking a hand through the dark mop of curls damp at his nape. Your other eases down his back, savoring the contraction of his muscles as he breathes. You travel down the curve of his ass and give him a firm squeeze. “How’s your ass? Still sore?” 

He huffs at you, nose crushed to your neck. “I fall down one flight of stairs and I never hear the end of it.” 

“I told you to be careful.” 

“I was being– whatever.” His thumb continues to caress your jaw, his lips idle on your neck. 

This is Steve’s favorite part of sex. To hold and to be held, easing off a high that’s miles better than a good smoke. There’s nothing greater. 

“Should I check for bruises?” 

“If you kiss ‘em better.” 

Your chest aches with the sweet swell of laughter. Steve’s your person. You realize it time and time again. 

He peels himself off like you're double-sided tape. His hair’s still crazy despite your finger-combing and his eyes are just as heavy as they were when he woke up. He slides out of you with a hiss, sitting back to knot the condom and toss it toward a pile of bubble wrap. 

He looks back at you fondly. “Shower?” 

You shake your head. “Just lay with me.” 

“Downstairs isn’t gonna unpack itself, you know.”

“Shut up.” You palm his chest until he lays and you throw an arm across his middle. “This was your evil plan all along.” 

Wrestling, tag, jumping up to touch ceilings, jamming himself in dumb places, climbing things, throwing shit– just shoving and smacking and being physically playful all the time. He’s covered in weird knicks and bruises constantly, because he interacts with the world and his friends so tactilely. 

Especially you, because you always play his games. You sling whatever shit he’s on right back at him, and he loves it. Two peas in a pod, duking it out happily.

Tonight wasn’t particularly different from any other night over the last year or so. He had come over to yours after his shift, where Steve and Robin were already hanging out. He’d walked in halfway through some terrible movie, reeking of the joint he smoked in his van moments prior. 

“Anyone wanna smoke?” He smiled with his whole face, not bothering with formal hellos as he pulled out another already rolled joint. General babblings of agreement had him lighting it quickly and passing it to Robin. With a new smokey warmth to the room as it circulated, he finally settled a little bit more, still not bothering to try and get hooked into the movie he’d missed so much of. 

So he talked through the rest of it.  

Throwing popcorn at the screen when the characters wouldn't turn around to see what you all could, treating it like his own personal Mystery Science Theater 3000. Although you feigned annoyance at first, shushing him and rolling your eyes, you were cracking up and riffing on the movie with him within minutes. Mocking and mimicking the lackluster line deliveries, pointing out the boom mic in shots. Reenacting the awful action sequences. All four of you giggling non-stop, but the two of you deeper in the shenanigans, as usual.

He started to smack your hand every time you reached into the popcorn bowl– like a game of Whack-A-Mole. 

You were cackling as a piece of popcorn threatened to come out of your nose, yet reached back into the bowl, assaulted with another flurry of slaps and grabbing. You smacked his hand back, hard, and he whipped his head at you with a fire in his eyes– like the opening gun shot of a race had been fired. He grabbed your wrist, and you grabbed his right back, and you were nearly instantly in a whirlwind of escalation. Steve nudged you off the couch subtly as you grappled, knowing where this was going. He didn’t feel like refereeing your daily wrestling match in his stoney state, the couch was way too comfy to be the mat tonight. 

“Hands off my fucking popcoooorn!!” he wailed, as he hooked his leg around yours and tumbled you both fully to the ground.

“It’s my– fucking– popcorn!” you grunted out as you leveled him next to you and locked his arm against your body. “You’re literally in my house!” you spat the sentence in the moment of reprieve you had from pinning him.

He wiggled and writhed, squirming right out from under you. “Slippery fucker…” you growled. The two of you rolled around like a tornado on the ground, knocking into the table, Steve and Robin occasionally yelling things you weren’t paying attention to. Though, you thought you caught a, “get his ass!” from Robin as you rolled over top again. 

Oh, you had gotten him this time. You had gotten him so good. 

You locked your other leg over him, successfully trapping him in the Full Nelson you were going for. You yelled in victory, squeezing him and laughing, your face nestling between his face and shoulder at this angle, a mocking “WOOO!” in the style of Ric Flair ringing in his ear. The entire back of his body pressed against your front. And he stopped squirming. Like… full body tense, not moving a muscle, stopped squirming. You weren’t even sure he was breathing anymore. You instantly let go of the pressure you had him with, all the silliness of the moment gone. It’s fun when you’re playing, but you feel like something went wrong.

“Whoa… dude, you okay?” you ask, working to untangle yourself from him. He comes back to in a funny moment, and starts fumbling and tripping and trying to untangle himself too. His frantic movements are making it so much worse though, and Steve and Robin start to question and gather too, uselessly trying to help unfurl the pretzel you two are in. You’re baffled as he’s kicking and thrashing, trying to scoot away while still half leg locked, anxious sounds falling out of his mouth now. 

Is he blushing? No, you’re sure you’re red in the face too from the match. 

But then you see it. 

He sees you see it.

Eddie’s got a boner.

The avalanche of words that comes tumbling out of him is barely coherent to begin with, and you couldn’t possibly fathom listening to a single word of it right now anyways. Robin is rambling back at him, their voices competing, and you’re sure she’s probably trying to help. 

You’re also pretty sure she has no idea what’s going on at all, because she might shut the fuck up if she had noticed. Or maybe she did notice and isn’t shutting the fuck up to try to divert some attention? Either way, you’re failing miserably to stop staring like you’re internally screaming at yourself to do. But your eyes are drawn like a moth to a porch light. You look back and forth between the tent he has pitched in his pants, and his completely feral and fearful face a couple of times. You open your mouth and close it again, not being able to push a single word out of your throat. He’s finally physically separated from you, gets out from under Robin’s momentarily immobilizing beratement of worry, and flees out of the room faster than you’ve seen him cross any frivolous finish line. 

You're literally slack jawed, still completely speechless. But you can feel your heart pounding, and the hotness of your now certainly blushing face. You’re not sure you’re breathing. Or you’re breathing way too heavily. You can’t tell. 

All you know is that it is the hottest thing that’s ever happened to you in your life. 

You make the mistake of looking over at Steve and Robin, who are all eyebrows and wide eyes. 

“What happened?” “What did you do?” their voices collide in your head. “Is he hurt?” “Are you okay?” They’re rapid firing questions, and you start to try to answer them with the nothing that you know.

“I don’t know, I don’t know! I DON’T KNOW!!” your voice starts out soft, but is battling their volume quickly. “I really don’t know I just– we were just– and then I– and he just STOPPED and–” it’s your turn to ramble. Your hands are flailing, and you swat at Robin who’s standing over you. She grabs your hand and yanks you up, and neither of you are listening at all while the heated and chaotic discussion continues. 

You can’t get the image of his jeans, so tight and bulging in the crotch, out of your head. 

You blink at Robin, realizing neither one of you had spoken for a few seconds. You look at Steve, whose eyebrows are disappearing under the flop of his bangs. And you swear there’s a knowing twinkle in his eye now. He’s been conspicuously quiet for a minute. He glances towards the dark abyss of the unlit hallway Eddie had scuttled into, then back at you, finishing his silent diatribe with a bitchy head bob. After a moment of processing, you stride towards the hallway. Steve rolls his eyes and pulls Robin back down onto the couch with him. At least he’s a good whisperer, nothing but an occasional hushed murmur from him. A louder “What?!” gets loudly and disbelievingly whispered by Robin, but Steve shushes her and keeps gossiping in her ear. 

You step into the rectangle of light on the floor of the hallway, half obscured by the darkness now. “Eddie..?” you call uncertainly.

“Please fuck right off,” he pleads from down the hallway to your left. You immediately take a few more strides in that direction, and as your eyes begin to adjust, you can just barely make out his fluffy headed silhouette slumped against the wall. “Fuck, seriously… Please leave me alone,” he says again, but you can hear how half hearted it is. At least you hope that’s what you’re hearing as you close the distance. You lean against the wall across from him.

“Dude… I… Are you okay?” you awkwardly ask. But it’s earnest. The sigh he lets out would sound dramatic in so many other contexts. But it’s earnest, too.

“No! Fucking, I mean… yes? Shit, I…” you can hear the embarrassment oozing off his tongue while he struggles to find words. “I’ve never been so embarrassed in my fucking life,” he finally mutters. If the hall lights were on you know he still wouldn’t look you in the eye right now, and you can hear him nervously shifting around. You can picture the way he might be anxiously playing with his hair.

“Hey man, it’s really okay. Shit happens. You don’t have to be embarrassed, it’s just… me… ” you offer, and you mean it, but it kinda stings to say it. 

It’s just you… You, his permanent buddy system. You, the heel to his babyface in your wrestling matches. You, his flirting sparring ring. You, his never anything too serious. You, his touchy feely best friend. And you maybe start to get an inkling of why that stung to say out loud… 

You, who is starting to realize that you may already be helplessly head over heels. You, who’s feeling like a real dumbass right now.

He huffs out a laugh. “Just you…” he says with a sadness wrapped in a little zing of sarcasm, and you think maybe he can read your mind while you stare at his shape in the dark. You can see the glimmer of his eyes now that yours have fully adjusted to the lack of light. The TV turned back on in the other room is a dull background noise compared to the pounding of your heart that feels like it’s rattling your whole skeleton. 

The next moments of silence weigh on you both heavily while your minds race separately. It’s like horses running a race next to each other– fit with blinders that keep them in their own lane, galloping hooves showing no signs of slowing. 

“I just–” you start, but you hear his voice at the same time and you both stop. Another moment of silence ticks by.

“Christ on a stick…” he mutters, and pushes off the wall to stand. He inhales and exhales deeply, and you’re literally waiting with bated breath. “We both know what happened,” he finally says, clearly working to have his voice come out somewhat steady. “And I’d be perfectly happy to never talk about it again.” His voice cracks a little on the word happy, but he musters the rest of the sentence. 

“I… wouldn’t be…” you say in a low voice, and you’re not sure if you actually said that out loud or not.

Something almost like a ‘huh?’ comes out of him, and he splutters through a few more sounds. He waits for an elaboration, which you deem totally fair. Where the fuck are you going with this?

“It’s just…” you hesitate, but you’re already this deep into it. “That’s the hottest thing that’s ever happened to me.”

Welp. That’s out there now, I guess. 

Your ears are ringing, but you’re picturing his straining pants again and think you might be suffocating in the silence. 

A breathy sound comes from his side of the hall. Then another. A rhythmic low toned sound cuts through the ringing, and you realize he’s chuckling. He’s chuckling at you right now. You just admitted this horrifying thought to him, and he’s laughing at you?

A few moments of mortification later, you’re starting to crack and chuckle too.

“What?!” you demand, but his laughter only gets more boisterous. The sound of it relieves you more than you were prepared for. Your shoulders relax a little, and you two are giggling almost like usual together.

“You tell me that me popping a boner while we wrestle is the hottest thing that’s ever happened to you, and you expect me not to laugh a little?” he teases you. 

“How are you turning this back on me?! You’re the one who popped a boner while being Full Nelson-ed, and I'm the one who’s being laughed at?!” You two slip back into your banter and bickering so easily, it’s one of the most natural things in the world. You hear what might be a laugh in the other room, and then a smack and more shushing, but neither of you pay it much mind. 

“It’s a little sad, honestly,” Eddie snickers.

“Sad?! What’s sad?”

“That something hotter than that has never happened to you.”

You gasp and scoff in offense that is half real and half exaggerated. “Like you’ve had it any better, loser” you quip.

“Oh, me and lefty have it better every night, thinking about you,” he coos. He seems almost entirely back to himself– the words are clearly a joke, but still a little more frantic and on edge than his usual theatrics. 

“A loser and a liar,” you laugh a little shrilly. Your heartbeat has not settled at all. Where the fuck is the line of joking and seriousness right now? You realize you’ve never wondered that– you, his never anything too serious. It’s only ever been a joke.

And he doesn’t respond– he just takes the one step closer that is still between you, grabs your face, and kisses you. That feels pretty certainly like not a joke. 

You absolutely scramble at the sudden unexplored contact exploding between you two. But for the first time since you stopped wrestling… Not a single fiber of your being hesitates. It feels like the missing puzzle piece. You wonder how you’ve spent so many nights with this boy not kissing him. His soft lips mashing into yours feels like the moment an orchestra tunes and reaches harmony. Clashing, sloppy, harmony.

He pulls away briefly, “not a loser…” he mumbles into your mouth and kisses you again, “and not a liar…” he kisses you one more time, and then presses his forehead to yours. You share heavy breaths for a few minutes. Giggling, and breathing hard, and smooching, and fumbling over each other.

“Maybe still a loser… But I like you that way.” He can hear the smile in your voice as you say it, and he smiles back, laughing some more.

Eddie Munson is a roughhouser… but he’s a surprisingly soft kisser. 

“Get adda here,” Eddie laughed, reaching out to intercept your hand and biting the air like he was going to eat it. You half-shrieked, half-squealed, attempting to wrestle your hand away only to giggle as he kissed up your arm instead.

Your laughter quieted as he laid your hand on his chest and covered it with his, pressing down just slightly to add pressure. Enjoying the weight.

“You think they're your best feature?" you mused, head dropping back onto the pillow. Still staring at them, loving how they remained on his face even when it was completely at rest.

“What? My labia?” he snorted.

His brows bounced suggestively, disappearing behind his scraggly bangs. Your eyes rolled and you dragged your hand out from under his to swat him with it, only making him laugh and smirk harder as he dodged it.

“C’mon, tell me. What do you think it is?”

Eddie hemmed a bit, his pink lips sputtering as he blew a raspberry and stared up at his ceiling.

“Uhh...some people say I have a nice neck?”

His eyes darted away and he shrugged, like he wasn’t even sure if that counted. You smirked.

“People, huh? You mean girls.”

Hopping onto your knees, the ancient springs of his mattress creaking with the sudden motion, you pushed your face in close to his. Teasing.

“That how you got ‘em in high school? Offer this thing up like an all you can eat buffet?”

You reached out and traced the hard lines of his, admittedly very nice, neck. Imagining all the girls who’d been distracted by it buying weed off him, who’d asked him if he minded them marking it up, painting it with dark and mottled bruises.

“Yeah, right!” Eddie snorted incredulously, “I had a better chance of getting a hickey from Gareth.”

He shivered when the tips of your fingers reached the bottom of his ear, his eyes ablaze with hunger.

“Your neck is nice,” you whispered, leaning in to let your lips brush along his jugular.

“Y-yeah?”

His breathy stutter of the word made you grin into his skin, relishing the way it made his blood pump harder under your lips as you made your way up.

“But I still like these better…”

You pulled back just enough to take in his face. Heavy-lidded eyes blinking out of the haze he had slipped under when your lips touched his skin; his mouth still parted from the soft gasp he let out.

With your thumb, you traced the lines on his face again, feeling where the shape of his lips met the graceful curve of his cheek. There were no sharp edges on him, only gentle roundness. Full lips, bulbous nose, eyes like giant dinner plates.

Even his jaw lost some of its hardness when he tucked his chin into his chest.

And even if other people liked his other features better—his thick neck or his big hands or his cute and slutty little waist—that was just fine, because those lines on his face would always be yours.

You would be the only one who knew he was always speaking in parentheses.

You realize then that he has faint freckles dotted on his cheeks. Over the bridge of his nose. You smile back like it’s the easiest thing to do. 

“Hi.”

He didn’t think this far ahead. Doesn’t know what to say, so he dips his head down and lets out a chuckle while praying his cheeks aren’t the dusty pink color he remembers his mother’s rose bed being when he was a little boy. 

“Sorry,” you murmur. “I can stop.” 

His brows lift a bit as if you startled him. He doesn’t have time to muster up a façade of nonchalance, so he rushes out, “No, it’s okay, you don’t have to. I don’t mind.” 

You bite your lip and tilt your head at him as you fight off your growing smile. “Okay.”

“Okay.” 

Next week at lunch, you mosey over to where he’s sitting by himself listening to music. 

Upon noticing you, he clumsily takes his headphones off and sets them on the table. He’s nearly halfway through his lunch. What he’s not expecting is for you to reach for the headphones and put them on your own ears. He shifts as if he instinctively wants to stop you but ends up refraining. 

Warmth rises to his cheeks. “It’s, uh, Metallica.” 

You hum. “Obey your master, huh?” you quote the lyrics back to him as they rattle in your ears. 

Eddie smiles sheepishly. 

“Are you doing anything after school today?” 

He blinks like he misheard the question, but musters up an answer anyway. “I—no. Not really...” 

You smile in a sweet way that makes his chest flutter. “Would you like to?” 

Shy!Eddie who starts seeing you outside of school more and more. At Lover’s Lake, the diner, the arcade, Family Video. You come to realize that turtles do come out of their shells. It’s easy to talk to him, and it helps that he’s cute. He feels the same way about you. 

You go to see him play at The Hideout, and wave at him from within the small crowd. You’ve listened to him practice in his room on multiple occasions, and there’s something gratifying about watching him do his thing in front of an audience of more than just you. 

Shy!Eddie who lets it slip that he’s glad he met you. 

One fateful evening, several months into this friendship, the two of you are sitting on his couch as rain patters onto the windows outside. There’s a sitcom playing on the TV, and even though you’re both looking at the screen, neither of you are paying attention. Over the span of thirty minutes, you’ve managed to press yourself even closer to his side without saying a single word. 

Finally, like he did back before you were friends, he musters up the nerve to peek over at you. The way you bite your lip makes something flutter low in his gut.

“Hi,” he murmurs, beginning to smile because he can’t help himself. 

You reach out to tug one of his curls. As you scoot even closer, your thigh presses against his. Eddie holds his breath when you close the gap between you to place a gentle peck on his lips. 

“Hey,” you whisper. 

Shy!Eddie who’s warm all over and can’t help but lean back in.

Thanks for reading ♡

NEXT

After you’ve managed to make it inside, he huffs out a relieved breath and your smile grows even wider. 

“Alright, you ready?” he asks, voice soft near your ear. 

“Yes,” you insist, bouncing on the balls of your feet. 

“Three…two…one…” 

He lowers his hands from your eyes. 

You blink a few times to orient yourself. After that, a surge of warmth is quick to travel through you. The Munson living room is tidier than you’ve ever seen it. Two heart shaped balloons grace the ceiling. Rose petals are sprinkled around the pink gift bag that rests on the coffee table. 

You take a few steps forward, but can’t help but turn around to look back at him where he stands. He’s chewing on his lower lip, hands shoved into his pockets. Nobody had gone through such an effort on Valentine’s Day for you since you were a little girl. He blinks at you with soft, anticipating eyes. 

“All this for me?” you ask. It’s the only way you can think to voice your initial surprise. 

He chuckles as if there could possibly be anybody else. 

“I’m just making sure,” you lightly defend before walking over to sit down on the couch. Eddie follows and sits down beside you. 

Your cheeks warm as he watches, fondness radiating from his gaze. “You’re making me all nervous, watching me like that.”  The pleasant, fluttery type of nervousness. Your eyes flick to him after pulling the bag closer to yourself. 

“Don’t be,” he says with a sincere shrug of his shoulder. “It’s just me.” 

“That’s the problem,” you murmur, almost petulantly. “You’re everything.”

Eddie huffs out a breath that’s caught somewhere between amusement and denial. But he doesn’t say anything as his own cheeks prickle, shaking his head. 

A smile stretches across your face as you finally reach into the gift bag. 

The first thing your fingers grasp are the drawstrings of a small velvet bag. It’s a deep, forest green. Upon pulling it open, your mouth falls open at the sight of two dainty steel rings inside. One has a small pearl accent and the other is shaped like a snake. You all but gush as you slip them onto your fingers. 

Eddie’s shoulders finally relax. 

“Now I’m more like you.” You make it sound like a good thing as you show him your hand and wiggle excitedly. Your nails are a pretty cherry red. “These are perfect, Eddie,” you sigh. 

Then you add lightly, “You really pay attention, huh?”

Of course he does. He always did—was glad to.

Naturally, when you began fawning over his rings one evening, he made a mental note to get you some of your own from the place he liked shopping at. They specialized in more intricate designs that contrasted the simple ones you gravitated towards before him.

This came, of course, came after you’ve already managed to bum a couple from his own collection. He could never say no when you batted your eyelashes and gave him sweet kisses to soothe over the fact that you were taking his belongings. 

“There’s one more thing,” he says, nodding to the bag.

This time, you pull out a cassette tape. A mixtape, rather. There’s a list of songs written out in his blocky handwriting along with little doodles. Most of them are titles he’s gathered are some of your favorites—What a Feeling, Open Your Heart, When Doves Cry, Manic Monday, Rock With You, Don’t Stop Believin’…—But the last track brings a wistful smile to your face. 

“Master of Puppets is on here too…” 

It’s the song he was listening to the day you worked up the courage to go sit with him at lunch. He’d taken off his headphones, only for you to promptly slip them on. His soul had left his body at the idea of you gaining further insight into his heavy music taste, but after a few seconds, you’d smiled at at him and begun bobbing your head. 

Now you know all the lyrics. 

You’re not exactly sure why tears spring to your eyes, but they do. And they slip down your cheeks before you know it. You chuckle despite yourself, and wipe them away with your thumbs. Eddie’s heart drops a little even though he knows you aren’t sad. 

He scoots closer and drapes an arm over your shoulder. “You okay?” he asks. 

You nod and nuzzle into his shoulder. “Thank you,” you murmur. 

“Of course.”

Later that night, after going out to eat at the diner, you find yourself sitting on Eddie’s bedroom floor and combing through a small box of his guitar picks. They’re all different colors. Some have fun patterns and designs.

You eventually pluck out a light yellow one that reminds you of springtime. You hold it up to Eddie, where he sits on the foot of his bed with his acoustic guitar in his lap. 

“Nice choice,” he says as he strums a pretty, nonchalant series of notes. 

“Thanks,” you chirp through a yawn. 

He hums and continues strumming. At first, you think he’s still warming up, but a proper melody emerges soon enough. It’s a soulful, almost folky sound. Nothing like he’s ever played at the Hideout, and you don’t recognize it as being a cover of any song you know.

His eyes remain on the fingerboard as he plays, and when he chances a glance down at you, there’s a certain weight to his gaze. As if the notes are saying everything he has yet to say.  

Suddenly, you’re wide awake. You can feel him in the notes. You can feel yourself too. 

You’re entranced and awed as you sit and listen. You watch his fingers and the concentrated furrow between his brows until the song eventually slows to a close. Just like that, his Bambi eyes drift steadily back to you. He holds your gaze for a few seconds until you feel compelled to stand on your knees and move into space to the space between his legs. 

Without so much as thinking, he brings a hand to your cheek and leans forward to press his lips to yours, ignoring the way his guitar gently digs into his chest. It’s a tender, weighted kiss. Eddie feels like he’s floating. 

“Did you write that?” you whisper against his lips after pulling back some. 

He nods. “What’d you think?” 

You’re quiet as you run your fingertips along the stubble on his jaw. “I might need to hear it again,” you say, but a smile plays in your voice. “And again, and again, and again…” you kiss him again, with more intention and eagerness. 

A small sound rises up Eddie’s throat, and he doesn’t have time to feel embarrassed. Because you part from him and stand, pressing a gentle hand to his chest in a silent request for him to lay back. After setting his guitar aside, he listens, scooting further up on the mattress so the lower half of his body is more supported.

His mind is so fuzzy that he doesn’t know what he’s expecting, but you crawl onto the bed and straddle yourself over his lap. It’s a bold move, even for you. But it feels like the next sensible thing to do. You’ve never felt so safe or drawn to another person.

“Is this okay?” you ask as you look down at him. 

Eddie surprises himself with a flustered laugh. You’re a pretty girl straddling him in your pretty Valentine’s Day outfit, and even he’s not immune to the warmth stir in his gut. And he keeps laughing. Because there’s a newer sense of intimacy to it all.

His hands buzz because he wants to touch you so bad, but he doesn’t know where. How much pressure to apply. Whether or not you’ll take it the wrong way. 

Lucky for you, he’s got just about the sweetest laugh of any guy you’ve ever heard. You can’t help but smile, even though you wish you could pout at him for laughing at a time like this. But something about the sound, as it rumbles through his chest, puts you at ease. 

“See, now I’m starting to second guess myself ‘cause of you.” You’re teasing, but Eddie’s eyes go a bit wide. 

“I’m not laughing at you,” he starts. “I promise. Never.” 

“No, it’s okay. I see how it is.”  You pretend like you’re about to move off of him. 

But his hands shoot out to rest on your waist. His hold isn’t harsh, but it’s firm and steady enough to let you know he wants you to stay. Butterflies flutter in your stomach. When a tell-tale smirk stretches across your face, Eddie lets out a helpless sigh.  

“I’m starting to think you get a rise out driving me crazy,” he says. 

“If it’s taken you this long to figure that out—”

A squeal escapes you when he gently squeezes your waist a couple times. You grip onto his wrists with an anxious grin on your face, and he brushes his thumbs over your shirt to let you know you can relax. When you let go, he lets his hands slip beneath the hem of your shirt so they can settle on your skin. You’re soft and warm. It feels like you’ve known his touch for a lifetime. 

You note the way he starts blinking slower, as if his eyelids have grown heavier. The way his breaths grow a bit deeper, steadier. His curls look beautiful splayed around his head. The cut of his jawline is handsome even as he’s lying down. You can’t help but think you lucked out with this quiet, charming, handsome boy. 

When you shift over top of him, he shifts as well. As if to counter whatever feeling you’ve caused to stir within him. But it doesn’t quite work out. Not really. His cheeks have flushed a rosy shade of pink at the intoxicating weight of you overtop of him. 

“Sorry,” you lilt coyly. 

Eddie shakes his head because, as new as this all is, he’d never trade it. Never in a million years. And as he smooths his hands back down your thighs, he swears he’ll handle you with care for all the days of his life, if you let him. 

“Don’t be,” he assures. 

Thank you so much for reading! And Happy Valentine's Day. Likes, comments, and reblogs are always appreciated ♡