And maybe he goes about it… not quite the right way. But hey, Munson looks ready to bolt every time they make eye contact, so Steve’s gotta do some groundwork first.

It’s like basketball, he thinks. Like swimming. He’s got an end goal, a championship to get to—he’s just got to put in the practice and the legwork. Running drills and laps ‘til he drops.

See, the thing is, they don’t interact. They haven’t spoken even once, much less bumped past each other in the halls. Maybe that was where Steve should have started, but Eddie had this thing about him that reminds Steve of the deer his dad had taken him out to hunt, once. Skittish. Might gore him with his horns or disappear into thin air.

So he goes down a different path.

Eddie’s always played music—Steve overhears the complaints sometimes, the shrieky metal of his guitar not to anyone’s taste but his own.

He finds The Hideout. It’s a dive, through and through, and they don’t even bother asking him for ID. It’s the kind of place his parents would have to fight a gag being near, and he loves it immediately. He loves it even more when Eddie clambers on stage with his band and belts out songs that would’ve had any of Steve’s old acquaintances bleeding from the ears.

He gets a clearer picture of Eddie, beyond the initial infatuation that draws him in. Something solid, something to hold on to when he goes looking for more.

He sees Eddie pin up a poster for the club Steve didn’t know he ran. Hellfire, with a caricature of a red demon in stark contrast to the white paper. He wonders if Eddie’s the one who drew it. Maybe he drew his own tattoos, too. Steve’s never been much of an artist—jumbled the colors in his rainbows in kindergarten and left them kind of square-ish—but he can appreciate the skill all the same.

It’s gone by lunch, and Steve frowns. He keeps a better lookout, the next time. Eddie’s put so much work into it. He wants to find out who takes it upon themselves to ruin it.

Eddie’s quieter at Wednesday lunches, Steve realizes. For the first five minutes, there’s no shouting or ranting or kicked-aside lunches. It’s interesting, and when he goes to check, he finds it’s because Eddie’s engrossed in the pudding the cafeteria only sees fit to give them once a week. Chocolate, because what else would it be. Steve doesn’t mind the pudding—finds it gives him something to look forward to when he’s trying to keep his eyes open in chemistry.

He thinks he’d look forward to Eddie’s smile more, enjoy his surprise more than any pudding.

Eddie deals out in the woods back behind the soccer fields, at the little picnic table no one even knows exists anymore. Besides Eddie and his… clients.

Steve finds him there, about a month and a half before prom. It’s good timing, he thinks, before everyone goes batshit about prom-posals and the world gets run over with planning and reservations and sold-out florists. He doesn’t know what Eddie might like, not for sure, but he’ll be damned if he doesn’t get it with time to spare. That’s what he’s been practicing for, hasn’t it? Endless drills with one championship game in mind?

However one wins at prom, Steve plans to do it.

He sits across from Eddie and feels the old bench bend under his weight. Eddie cuts his a withering glare that makes Steve grin, and before he can help himself, he’s asking, “Will you go to prom with me?”

Eddie stares at him, for a minute, and Steve stares back. From up close, just as he’s wanted to since what feels like forever. Eddie’s even prettier from here. Steve wants him even more.

The woods echo with Eddie’s shout, better acoustics than the shitty dive bar he plays at, but Steve will keep going all the same. He repeats himself, all but tingling with excitement, and then—and then Eddie’s grinning something sharp, something that looks like it could cut the pads of his fingers were he to try and touch.

“Tell you what,” he spits, and Steve’s helpless to do anything but lean in, closer, breathless with the way Eddie leans in, too, as he continues, “You get me a bouquet of roses as black as your twisted, festering soul, and I’ll wear a pretty little dress for you, too.”

Roses. Roses, roses, roses.

Does Eddie like roses above any other flower? It makes the romantic part of him thrum, excited and planning and thinking.

Black roses? Steve’s never seen them before.

“Do roses… grow in black?” Eddie swallows and sneers and Steve wonders if that’s something he should’ve known already. Maybe.

“I guess that’s for you to find out and for me to know, Harrington,” Eddie sneers. He gets up, snatches his lunchbox, and stalks back through the trees to school.

It’s the definition of left him hanging. It’s practically cruel, mean, waspish. Challenging, Steve thinks. Black roses. No problem.

But that’s what drew him in in the first place. Eddie’s acerbic, snappish, blunt, rude, at times. He doesn’t give a shit about what anyone else thinks. He doesn’t give a shit what Steve thinks, and Steve admires him. Likes the image it paints. So he says, to Eddie’s retreating back, “Benny’s at six?” and grins when Eddie tells him to go fuck himself. That’s how Eddie is, after all, and that’s what Steve wants.

The weeks leading up to prom go exactly how he wants them to.

He leaves his pudding at what he knows is Eddie’s spot at the Hellfire table and Eddie grimaces at him. It feels like the adrenaline of a buzzer-beater winning shot.

Win, win, win, something chants.

He catches the guy who keeps ripping up the Hellfire posters. Steve doesn’t know his name but he knows Steve’s—and he scatters into the crowded halls during passing period with his eyes downcast and a quick step.

He seeks Eddie out, ditching a class or two, and finds him smoking against the brick facade of the building. His curls frame his face, the smoke makes the light around them hazy. He looks good, and Steve finds the words slipping from his mouth without being able to help it.

He practices with the flowers, because, as the only florist in town tells him, looking at him strangely, no, black roses don’t exist, not naturally, but Steve can dye them, if he wants. She’s more than happy to sell him handful after handful of white flowers, however, and the first one that turns out okay—though not perfect—he drops through the window of Eddie’s van. It sits pretty on the seat, and Steve grins.

Eddie’s still grinning, one day, stumbling last out of the music room, and Steve can’t help himself—gets too close and murmurs something about his voice and his music, too fast, too distracted. He can’t quite remember what he said even minutes later, the shape of his smile and the memory of his fingers dancing over guitar strings seared into his memory.

A night that Steve can barely remember, plagued by nightmares and sleeplessness, he finds Eddie at the only convenience store that has the shitty coffee that actually keeps him awake. He trades a pack of smokes he can’t really tolerate anymore for one of Eddie’s beers, and they sit in silence. Eddie’s warmth, even with a inches of air between them, soothes something pacing and frantic inside him, and when he gets home, he sleeps the best he has in months.

It feels like injustice that just a few short days later Billy Hargrove decides he needs his head bashed in, but, well, it can’t always be coming up Harrington, right? And it doesn’t matter—it hurts less, because Eddie looks at him a few seconds longer, his mouth twists in something like concern when he sees Steve’s face, but not Billy’s, and that’s enough to numb the sting and grin right back at him.

That afternoon, he has to deck Tommy Hagan when he catches him out by Eddie’s van, pocketknife in hand, after practice has let out but not Hellfire, spitting obscenities and accusations about them both that make Steve see red. He learns later that he’s broken Tommy’s nose, but, well. Tommy should’ve known better.

...

Prom day comes, and Steve realizes—okay, maybe he’s a little dumber than he thought.

See, Steve’s not all that great with sarcasm. He’d like to blame the concussion that has a Billy Hargrove byline, but in truth, he’s never really gotten it.

Billy Hargrove’s plate definitely made it worse, though, and maybe Steve should’ve gone to the doctor but—who has time for that, anyway?

Anyway, the point is—maybe Steve overlooked some sarcasm in favor of being generally charmed with Eddie’s leaning-towards-asshole nature. That’s his fault.

Doesn’t make it hurt any less, though.

He’s at Benny’s at six. Like they’d agreed—like he’d thought they’d agreed. A few minutes before six, even, despite how he’d agonized for longer than he ever had before on what he should wear, what fit with Eddie, what he was supposed to wear for prom. Spent agonizing minutes on what felt like every individual hair so it’d fall in that way he liked, that he hoped Eddie would like.

But he’s there at six. Eddie isn’t. Figures, at first, that he’s late, maybe. Got caught up.

The clock on his dash creeps closer to seven, and then, Steve assumes, maybe Billy scrambled a little more up there than he’d realized. Had he said six? It’d probably been seven, right? That made more sense.

He’s half-asleep in his car when Eddie does appear—a result of even more nightmares and anxiety and maybe, possibly, though he’s terrified to admit it, brain damage. Scared the exhaustion is permanent.

But he jolts awake well enough when Eddie slams his fist on the beamer’s roof, loud metallic clang echoing through his skull like a gunshot.

“—your damage, Harrington?”

“Ed—Eddie,” he chokes. “Hi. Hi, Eddie.”

Eddie looks pissed. Angry, the same kind of frown that’d first drawn Steve’s eyes. “What the hell are you doing?”

Steve doesn’t really know how to answer, so he goes for honesty. It’s failed him in the past, but hell, what else can he offer?

“Um. It was—Benny’s at seven. I was waiting for you.” He’s never felt quite so nervous, wringing his fingers like a little kid. He spies the flowers out of the corner of his eye, lying on the passenger seat, wonders when would be the right time to present them to Eddie. “Didn’t mean to fall asleep.”

Eddie still looks mad. The same face he makes when he’s ranting and putting on a show and anything else Eddie.

“It was Benny’s at seven, right? I thought it was Benny’s at six, at first, but I can’t really keep dates straight up here, anymore,” he knocks against his head with a knuckle, like a moron, “All the pointless melon-splits of American sports, or whatever.” It’s one of the rants he’d managed to pay attention to, Eddie’s hatred of sports in general an easy topic to digest. At least he understood half of that one.

“It was at six,” Eddie huffs. “I didn’t bother showing up.”

“Oh.” Steve can’t keep looking at his face, with that acknowledgement, and notices—Eddie’s not exactly dressed for the occasion. Not at all, really, unless it’s another of his things to show up to prom in Garfield-patterned pajama pants and a dark band tee that Steve can’t make out the name of. He doesn’t really understand. Wouldn’t really mind, any way. “But you did. Now.”

“Yeah, well.” Eddie pulls away. There’s something properly bitter when he says, “Call it a lapse of judgment.”

Oh. Oh.

He can’t look at Eddie anymore, suddenly. Can’t stand it. Realizes, now, how it went over his head, but, again, doesn’t make it hurt any less. There’s black under the fingernails he’s picking at, and he feels so dumb.

But Eddie’s funny in that way. Funny in that it reels Steve back in like a fish too weak to fight a line. Unwilling, maybe.

Eddie doesn’t make fun of him for it. For being confused. For being dumb. Doesn’t make fun of him for missing something that would’ve been so immediately obvious to anyone else. But he does ask.

“What the hell was your plan here, Harrington?”

Steve’s helpless but to answer, like a fool. “Dinner, and then, you know, prom? Isn’t that how is usually goes?” It’s certainly how he’d been hoping it would go.

“You realize you’ve wasted your only senior prom on this dumb joke, right?” Eddie spits. Steve’s head spins. “And I didn’t even fall for it? Way to have your priorities in order, King Steve.”

The name stings, but something else burrows deeper.

“I’ve had the misfortune of having two, and I didn’t subject myself to either. So—”

“Wait, hold on,” Steve manages. Because now he’s confused, again, more, but it’s not clicking, either. It doesn’t make sense. And he’s dumb, but, still—he doesn’t get it. “It wasn’t—what joke, Eddie?”

Eddie’s face does something funny then. Still angry, but also a quiet kind of… devastation, almost. “You know,” he says, like it doesn’t matter, like it’s what should’ve been, “Lure me to prom. Dump a bucket of pig’s blood over my head or however that movie goes.”

What—what? What the fuck?

A stone lodges in Steve’s throat, prevents him from answering, and Eddie finishes, “Even I’m not that dumb, man.”

Steve’s world turns on its head. It feels comical, almost, like shaking a snow globe and then smashing it against unforgiving concrete.

“That’s fucked up,” he hears himself say, distantly, “There’s a movie like that? I wouldn’t—that’s not what I—”

“Yeah, I think I’m starting to get that.”

Steve stops. Can’t bear to speak again.

Eddie thinks… Jesus, fuck, working through what Eddie thinks of him makes Steve want to vomit. He can’t do it. He doesn’t know what to do, now, kind of wishes something would put him out of his misery.

“That was you, wasn’t it? With the pudding and the posters and the flowers.”

It’s not a question. Eddie knows, and Steve can’t bring himself to regret it, even though now it makes his stomach churn.

“I broke Tommy’s nose when I caught him trying to let the air outta your tires, too,” like he’s confessing a sin. It might as well be.

Something in his chest feels like it shatters, and it’s only a second later that he realizes that it was Eddie, instead, pulling open the passenger-side car door. He almost can’t stand to look at them but can’t see all the hard work he put into the flowers, for Eddie, put to waste, and they’re scooped up into his lap without second thought.

And then Eddie’s next to him, all of a sudden. “Okay,” he says. He breathes in quick like it hurts. ““I didn’t know you were being serious. I thought it was just a dumb joke.”

Something twists. “Yeah, I got that part,” Steve chokes.

“Those were for me, right?”

Steve looks up. Eddie’s not looking at him—he’s looking at the flowers. The goddamn flowers. They feel like acid in his hands, and he passes them over, even though he’s almost worried they’ll burn Eddie like they’re burning him.

“Kinda makes it worse, but sure. Yeah, they were for you.”

“Worse?” Eddie asks.

Steve laughs. Can’t help it. At least one person deserves to laugh over that stupid joke, right? “I thought it’d be funny. You said you’d wear a dress if I got you black flowers, but I—I didn’t mean it that way. I just wanted to get you flowers you’d like.”

He really did. He wonders if it looks like that to Eddie, or if it’s another joke Steve didn’t see coming.

Eddie touches the flowers like they’re something precious instead of poisonous.

“You’ve been… practicing these.”

Of course he was. How could he have given Eddie anything less than perfect flowers?

“First ones came out a really gross kind of green,” he admits. Like it matters anymore—like there’s anything to win anymore instead of being booted from the team. Stupid fucking sports metaphors—Eddie hates sports. What’d he been thinking?

“I don’t do prom,” Eddie says next. Steve wishes the car would swallow him.

“Yeah, I figured that one out,” he sighs. Can’t look at Eddie, but sees him press a finger to one of the thick thorns on the flowers’ stems.

“No, I mean—I wouldn’t have gone even if I’d thought you were being honest from the get-go. I don’t DO prom. It’s the death of counter-culture and individuality,” Eddie clarifies, but the words swim around in Steve’s head. He doesn’t understand them, and he doesn’t understand why Eddie is still in his car.

“I don’t know what that means.”

Eddie’s twitchy. Not in the same way he was just a few seconds ago. It’s impossible to keep the shreds of his heart from fluttering.

“What I’m saying is, I’m not gonna go to prom. Ever. That’s an invitation to douchebags like Hargrove and Hagan to split my skull open on the gym floor.” Eddie’s leg jumps, like he wants to run at the idea itself. From Steve, maybe. “I don’t want my last breath to be weeks-old jock socks.”

He ducks like he wants to see Steve’s face.

“But there’s this bar I go to,” he continues, “It doesn’t really check ID. I think they’d go out of business if they did. They let us play on Tuesdays.”

The Hideout. “I know,” he admits, like he could ever forget how Eddie looks up on that stage. When he looks up, it’s not the same Eddie that meets his eyes. A more breathtaking one, almost, wild mass of curly hair backlit by streetlights that make him glow. God help him, Steve still wants.

“That’s more my speed,” Eddie blurts, after a second of silence, like he can’t help himself. His fingers are tearing one of the thorns off of the roses Steve worked so hard on. “It’s… probably better than prom as a first date, anyways.”

First date.

“Really?” he breathes before he can help himself. It feels like a rope dangled over the edge of a cliff to pull him back up. “That’s—you’d wanna? Really?”

He’s gotta be a masochist, with the way his hope builds and withers and builds again, when Eddie responds, “I mean, not right now. I’m not really dressed for the occasion. But maybe, like… tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow,” It feels like a promise that’s a thousand miles away and in the palm of his hand all at once. “That’s soon.”

Eddie’s embarrassment is cute, the red flush climbing up to his ears hidden behind frizzy curls. “Or never,” he snaps, but it doesn’t hurt, this time. “That works too.”

Steve’s smiling, he thinks. How can he do anything else? He’s won. “Tomorrow’s good,” he agrees, and it’s the easiest thing he’s ever done.

Eddie mutters, “Yeah, well. Better be.” And he kicks Steve’s door open—Steve might’ve ripped anyone else a new one, but that’s how Eddie is, and that’s what Steve wants.

“See you then, Eddie,” Steve chirps, as Eddie backs out of the lot, old van clanking up a storm.

He’s gone soon enough, but Steve sits there a while longer.

It’s weird. Everything’s shifted, tilted on its axis, but… it’s almost like this is how it was supposed to be, from the beginning, and Steve had only been content with what he had before because he hadn’t known this was an option. It feels like he can see right through Eddie, to his bones and his soul, knows how to step around him and be welcomed. It’s different—no longer glances from across the room, hoping he won’t run, but a sure touch and knowing.

He hopes Eddie keeps the flowers. Forever, maybe—maybe tomorrow, after they’re a drink or two deep, music pounding so loud it threatens to give him a headache he’ll gladly ignore, Steve can tell Eddie how the florist explained that he could press the flowers, between two heavy books, and immortalize them. It’d be a good memory to keep.

~