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#eddie is perfectly content to be smothered actually please and thank you
solarmorrigan · 5 months
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For the angst prompt if you’re still doing it:
“Don’t listen to them. Don’t you EVER listen to them.”
Please
Hello! I'm afraid this one might not have come out quite as seriously as the others (might be channeling all my Serious Angst Energy into my ongoing fic at the moment), but hopefully it's enjoyable, anyway??
[No warnings except maybe some unkind self-directed internal dialogue from Steve]
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“Y’know,” Eddie drawls, looking Steve up and down where he’s standing in the doorway, silhouetted by the light of the front hall, “correct me if I’m wrong, but you don’t look especially busy.”
Steve, caught out in a lie, clearly having been sitting around at home in his sweats when he’d specifically told Eddie that he couldn’t come over tonight because he was busy, does the only thing he can think of: he keeps lying.
“I am,” he says.
“Uh huh.” The way Eddie draws the hum of his agreement out says that he doesn’t believe Steve in the slightest. “And what, if I may ask, are you busy with, dressed in loungewear and sitting at home?”
Scrambling, Steve reaches for the first excuse that comes to mind, something he’d heard his mother say to someone over the phone years ago, when he was still a kid and she’d still made excuses to get out of social engagements and stay home with him.
“I’m washing my hair.”
Eddie bites down on a laugh so quickly and so visibly, Steve is surprised his teeth don’t go right through his lip.
“Are you?” Eddie asks, voice gone high and tight with mirth.
“Yep,” Steve answers.
“Well, damn, I don’t know why you didn’t invite me along to help,” Eddie says, grinning at Steve. “I feel like I’ve proven my skill in that arena before.”
Steve stares at Eddie, mouth working, feeling slow and useless and out of ideas. “Uh…”
With a sigh, Eddie lets his smile drop. “Look, can I come inside?”
The jig is up, so Steve just nods and steps aside to let Eddie in.
“What are you even doing here?” Steve asks as he leads the way back to the living room, where he’d been sitting on the couch and moping.
“Steve, I knew you weren’t busy tonight. You’re kind of a terrible liar,” Eddie says.
And that isn’t strictly true; Steve is a great liar – as long as he doesn’t feel guilty about it. He’s never been good at lying to people he loves.
They sit down; Steve shoves the magazines he’d been pretending he would actually be able to focus on out of the way (more proof of his pathetic attempt at a lie), and Eddie—ever blunt, ever direct—jumps right in.
“So I kind of feel like you’ve been avoiding me lately.”
Steve winces. “Not avoiding you, I’ve just been… limiting my time with you.”
Eddie looks stricken, and Steve would like to die, actually. Why did he phrase it that way?
“Did… I do something, or say something, or, like–”
“No!” Steve rushes to reassure him. “No, no, not at all, it’s nothing you did, you’re amazing, it’s not you, it’s…”
Eddie cocks an eyebrow at him. “It’s not me, it’s you?”
“I mean…” Steve sighs, running a hand through his hair. “Kind of, yeah.”
For a long moment, Eddie sits, brows furrowed, staring at Steve. Steve fights the urge to squirm under the intensity of his gaze.
“I’m trying super hard to figure out what’s going on right now, but I’m kind of coming up blank,” Eddie finally admits. “Are we… Are we breaking up?”
“No!” Steve blurts again, reaching this time for Eddie’s hands, as if he can keep Eddie from realizing what a goddamn idiot he is and leaving if he just holds on tightly enough. “Shit, no, that’s – I’m completely fucking this up, that’s the opposite of what I want to happen, that’s why I’ve been limiting my time with you.”
Though Eddie’s hands have turned in Steve’s grip, automatically holding onto him, he stares at Steve as though he’s lost his mind, which is fair. “Okay,” Eddie says slowly, “I admit you have a little more experience with relationships than I do, but isn’t the point to spend as much time as possible with the person you’re dating? Because you like them?”
“It’s… Usually, I guess, yeah.” Steve shrugs, suddenly wishing maybe that he hadn’t taken Eddie’s hands, because now he can’t get away, can’t duck out from under those dark, searching eyes. He settles for staring down at their joined hands as he speaks. “It’s just – I can be… kind of a lot? I like someone and I just kind of slam my foot on the gas and don’t look back and that’s too much, I know, so I’ve been trying not to, like, overwhelm you, because I really, really don’t want you to get sick of me, and–”
“Who the hell told you that?” Eddie cuts in sharply.
Steve’s eyes snap back up, finding Eddie looking so thoroughly offended that he’s not sure what to make of it. “Told me what?”
“That you’re too much,” Eddie presses, his hands going tighter around Steve’s.
“Uh,” Steve says, uncertain of what kind of answer Eddie’s looking for. The fact that Steve goes all-in too quickly is just common knowledge; the fact that it overwhelms and annoys people is kind of a general consensus.
Eddie shakes his head. “Never mind, it doesn’t even matter. Don’t listen to them. Don’t you ever listen to them,” he says, low and intense. “You’re not going to overwhelm me, Steve. I can’t get enough of you. I don’t think I’ll ever have enough of you, but the only way I’m gonna know for sure is if I get to have you around as often as possible for as long as you can stand me.”
The words, for a moment, don’t make any sense. No one has ever wanted Steve around that much; no one’s ever met him where he is in terms of hunger for companionship.
“You… want me around that often?” he asks, eyes flicking from Eddie’s face to their hands and back again.
“I want you around all the goddamn time. I want you when I wake up and when I go to sleep and when I’m having breakfast and when I’m doing shit around the house and when I’m playing a show and when I’m watching TV,” Eddie rattles off. “I’m not even exaggerating, it’s honestly kind of a problem.”
“A problem?” Steve asks, brows coming together in concern.
“It’s a problem because you’ve been limiting your time, thinking that I’m going to get tired of you.” Eddie disentangles their hands and reaches up to cup Steve’s jaw, palms soft and a little sweaty from their combined grip, but gentle—almost reverent—against his skin. “Sweetheart, I am never going to get tired of you.”
From anyone else, that would be hard to believe, but the way Eddie looks at him, dead-on and so fucking sincere, Steve can’t help but take the promise in with a hopeful flutter in his chest. He leans forward, pressing his mouth to Eddie’s, keeping the kiss chaste and slow before he pulls back to murmur, “Promise?”
“Promise,” Eddie answers immediately. “I promise, I promise, I promise.”
He tugs Steve forward after that, pushing and pulling him until he’s managed to lay out across the length of the couch and has situated Steve over him, lying on his chest like a weighted blanket. He sighs and wraps his arms around Steve, like he still wants to pull him closer.
“Perfect,” he says.
“Yeah?” Steve asks, balancing his chin Eddie’s sternum so he can smile up at him.
“Mhm,” Eddie hums. “Now I just have to figure out how to keep you this close all the time.”
“Might be kinda tough,” Steve says, fighting to keep his smile from growing to ridiculous proportions.
“Eh.” Eddie shrugs, ducking down to press a kiss to Steve’s forehead. “I’m willing to take the time to figure it out.”
And somehow, Steve thinks that might be the most romantic thing anyone’s ever said to him.
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