"You trying to kill me, Munson?" Steve said with a very sleepy voice and shook his head in something that looked like disbelief. He then looked up at Eddie and saw him smirking at the other side of the table, looking back at Steve with his really dark brown eyes.
"You already know that, Harrington." Eddie scoffed at him. Steve rolled in his lips to a thin line, wondering if he should take that as a threat or Eddie trying to ease the tension between them.
"I can give you a ride home if you'd like." Steve looked around in the room and noticed the box full of stuff in it. He had a knot in his stomach telling him that Eddie would walk home, and he honestly didn't like the thought of that at all, even though he didn't look forward to sitting in his car with him all alone.
"Nah, I'll walk home." Eddie looked disappointed with something as he spoke.
"Oh shut it, dude. Just tell me where you live and I'll give you a ride." Steve looked at him and rolled his pink lips into a thin line. The hesitation in Eddie's eyes was really clear and it looked like he was standing on a decision between life and death in front of him. "It's no big deal." Steve added and looked him in the eyes with the best amount of confidence that he could build up in five minutes. He had actually no confidence at all sitting in his own living room with "the freak" Munson in front of him. Eddie stayed quiet for a short while, looking around and you could see him play with his rings under the glass table. Steve watched him carefully.
"Alright, then." Eddie sighed and stood up from the floor. Steve gave him a soft smile and pushed himself up from the soft couch, his body was all stiff and rough from sitting for too long, and he did his best to not stretch and put them both in a weird situation that none of them would know how to handle or get out of.
They walked out from the house in silence, the only sound that could be heard being the sound of shoes against the wet asphalt and the sound of Steve's keys playing around his fingers. They sat down in the car, Eddie clenching his grip around the box feeling more nervous than ever.
"The trailer park-"
"Where Max lives?"
"Mayfield? Yeah, yeah." Eddie closed the passenger door as Steve started the engine and started to drive out from the driveway. "It was her brother who died in that mall fire last year, right?" Eddie said, almost desperate to make conversation, but afterwards realized that it might just had been better if he had kept his mouth shut this time.
Steve swallowed, his grip around the steering wheel getting a little wetter and tighter as he nodded. "Yeah. That was.. Billy." He mumbled and kept his eyes on the road. He didn't like to talk about Billy because of their heavy past together, and he didn't like driving at night either. Sure, it could be fun sometimes but most of the times it was just scary.
"Oh, you were friends?" Eddie asked. It sounded like he had gotten interested at the topic and Steve couldn't help but to feel a relief inside his chest.
"Absolutely not." Steve chuckled softly.
"Oh.. you were.. lovers?" Eddie said somewhat anxiously. Steve felt taken aback and couldn't help but to snap a look at Eddie with widened eyes. Eddie looked at him with a serious face.
"N-No. Enemies, Munson. Me and Billy were enemies."
"Oh."
The ride to the trailer park (where most of the druggies in town lived) was quiet. Both boys felt relieved by the silence, after almost eight straight hours of screaming and being social. Just the sound of the wheels rolling over the wet asphalt, and the wind blowing outside the windows. Just Steve and Eddie. In Steve's car. Eddie the Freak Munson in Steve the King Harrington's car. The Freak and the King.
How did they end up here?
Steve thought about it and got confused about himself for a second. He knew he had changed the past two years - a lot - but even so, he had never thought about himself as the kind of person who would hang out with Eddie Munson. If that was what they were doing right now. Hanging out. Probably not, since he was just giving Eddie a ride home. Yet still, he was sitting in Steve's car with a box filled of toys and maps and whatever else was in that box, in his lap, looking out of the car window as if he was the main character or something.
"Right there." Steve didn't get to think about it thoroughly before Eddie interrupted his thinking. Steve nodded and parked the car outside a big container of a van with bluish colour on the outside and a small door with a two steps staircase. It looked comfy, and a little pleasing, but the surrounding just turned all of those feelings down and made it uncomfortable and scary instead. "Steve."
Steve's eyes snapped at Eddie in surprise, again. "Mhm?" He had no idea what was wrong with him, but hearing Eddie say his name like that made his breathing a little harder to cope with. He scanned Eddie's face up and down, all the way down to where his Hellfire shirt started, to where his skin turned into long, brown curls.
"I just.." Eddie swallowed hard. Steve could sense some kind of uncomfortable, scared and hesitant feeling in his eyes. "You're not scared of me, are ya?" Eddie asked, voice much more quiet than usually, and it looked like he did everything to avoid creating eye contact with the boy sitting next to him.
Steve felt taken aback by his question. Both because he felt sorrow about Eddie feeling like he needed to ask, and because he was worried of what Steve actually thought about him. Did he really care about his opinion that much? Steve couldn't see a reason why he would do such a thing.
"Of course not. W-why would I be that?" A part of him knew what Eddie was on about but Steve could not understand why he cared so much about it. They were barely friends, and had barely talked, but he still felt a sudden desire to care of Eddie, be with him and talk to him. Treat him like a friend. Cause no matter how fast Eddie had entered Steve's life, he could not escape from the fact that he had entered Eddie's life just as fast and suddenly. They hadn't even knocked on each others doors before they had entered each others houses, and it was so scary. In Steve's eyes, Eddie was still a stranger giving him the chills, but still made him want to know everything about him.
"You're so full of bullshit sometimes, Harrington. You know that, don't you?" Eddie laughed a little and finally let go of his grip of the box and punched Steve lightly on his arm with his closed fist. Steve smiled at him, grabbed his wrist before Eddie could open the car door. Eddie turned around to look at him, eyes confused and mouth open. Steve didn't know what to say or do, cause he had no idea why he had grabbed the boys wrist in the dirt place. But they just looked at each other with his hand wrapped around Eddie's thin wrist and it felt so peaceful. Quiet.
"I don't find you scary." Steve finally said with a shaky breath and his lips slightly separated and dry, begging him to lick them wet. Eddie's confusion turned into a unreadable, numb face with his eyes becoming a little darker and more interesting to look into. "I just felt like I needed to say it properly."
Eddie kept his eyes on Steve as he started to move around in his seat, obviously feeling a little uncomfortable about the older male holding his wrist like that.
"Thank you." He whispered, their eyes still locked with each other and their breaths shaky from the confusion and surprise of what they were doing at the moment. Steve couldn't help but throw a glance to Eddie lips before he turned around to face the steering wheel again. His heart was aching by his frustration about how much it was beating inside his chest and how lonely his lips felt at the moment. He knew that he wanted to turn to face Eddie again, lean forward and press his pink lips against Eddie's as aggressively as he could - like a really really thirsty man finally having access to water. It freaked him out.
He eventually let go off Eddie's wrist and took a steady grip around the steering wheel again. Eddie cleared his throat awkwardly and looked away.
"Well, thank you for the ride." Eddie opened the car door and struggled to get out of the car while carrying his box of D&D things at the same time. "I guess I'll see you around, fucker." He leaned down and gave Steve a smirk before he slammed the door shut and walked away like nothing had happened.
Like they hadn't looked each other in the eyes three minutes straight just a little while ago, and made Steve say cliche shit and most of all like he hadn't made him question things about himself that he had never even thought about before.
Eddie's heart beated like crazy however while he struggled to get out the keys from his front pocket, push it inside the key hole and open the door - knowing that Steve Harrington was just a few meters away from him. And he couldn't help but stand leaned against the door holding the box tightly against his chest, breathing heavily and question reality for a moment.
Steve, however, didn't give Eddie a second glance this time. He left the trailer park as fast as he heard Eddie close the door to his trailer, and drove straight home. He appreciated the dead roads more than he had ever done before, and when he got home, he got out of the car, stepped into the house, locked the front door, turned off the lights and got upstairs to his bedroom and threw himself on the king sized bed.
It didn't hit him what had happened inside of him until he had tossed off his socks with the help of his feet and crawled under the duvet, absolutely exhausted. Eddie was a real freak for making him feel this way. Making him question shit about himself that probably no one would understand, cause even Steve didn't understand what was going on inside of him at the moment.
Since when did he find a desire to kiss someone like that? And especially a boy?
He groaned and turned around in the bed, grabbed the lamp standing on his bedside table and turned it off.
"Faggot."