Boltedfruit Archive

He doesn’t mind so much.

He’s been on his own, alone for so long that it’s almost comforting. Coming back to an empty house, the things he left out changed in only slight ways. Things he never needed to worry about being disturbed, moved an inch or two to the right. A few spilled grains of salt on the counter after he wiped it clean. A cushion lightly squashed in the center as if someone had recently sat on the couch Steve rarely sits on because his mother raised him to be seen, not heard. That included not taking up unnecessary space, or more importantly, blowing out cushions.

So yeah, maybe he’s got problems. But thinking that someone uses the furniture is reassuring.

But whoever it is is sloppy. Steve isn’t sure how they haven’t been caught yet.

–

Steve stays up because he can’t sleep. Flips onto his side, his back, the other end of the bed, but can never get comfortable. Sleep has been hard for years, but it’s allowed him to become acquainted with every random sound the house makes.

He hears sounds in the attic sometimes. Ones he never heard before two months ago.

Sometimes the amount of peanut butter or cereal is lower than he first thought. Sometimes there’s a dish in the sink he doesn’t remember using.

It’s not his memory failing him. He’s got a hangeron. An invader.

He thinks it’s a guy. The girls he’s known wouldn’t do something like this. Sneak into someone’s house and live there in secret while it was already occupied.

–

Steve gets home late after a night out with Robin. He throws his keys on the table in the foyer and drops his Family Video vest on top before going up the stairs.

He hears a door shut a little too fast. A little too hard.

He detours from the hall bathroom, the glow of a light under the door going dark as he bypasses it for the en suite in his room.

He showers and heads back down for water. The bathroom door is open again.

Steve sometimes wonders if he’ll wake up to a knife hilt sticking from his chest. People who linger, who sneak in and hide, they’re a little weird. More than weird. If he ever brought it up, Robin would call it dangerous and then phone the police. Or she might just try and take care of the problem herself.

But it’s just something about the person. He never finds anything missing, just shifted around a little. And frankly, his house is big enough that a whole family could move in and he’d barely ever see them.

Why not use the extra space?

–

Sometimes he opens his eyes in the dark of his room because the floor creaks.

Once, he heard someone swear. A single, hushed, “Fuck,” he pretended not to hear.

Do they know Steve? Are they a stalker? He tries to study every person who walks into Family Video when he rings them up. Believes he might figure it out. But then, he never finds any VHS tapes he rents out in his own VCR. Maybe it’s kind of redundant, thinking the mystery could be solved so easily.

He wonders if it’s someone he went to school with.

–

Steve can’t sleep. His thoughts are too loud, his muscles too tense, another reason, and another. He thinks about having a drink from his dad’s liquor cabinet, but he doesn’t want to bother whoever is squatting. It’s kind of ridiculous.

He tries to lay there. Focuses on clearing his mind. On falling asleep.

He sighs in frustration and sticks a hand down his pants.

Steve closes his eyes. He just needs to relax.

He wraps a hand around his quickly stiffening flesh and starts a slow pace, from base to tip. He uses his other hand and spits on his fingers, adds it to the head of his cock. It eases the way into something slippery, something noisy. He cups his fingers and fucks into them, chasing the feeling of tighter, of wetter.

The floor creaks.

Maybe it’s his imagination, maybe it’s not when he hears the soft gasp from the darkest corner of his bedroom.

A soft sound leaves his throat. He bucks his hips, squeezing the head and hears it again. A breathy little thing.

Steve opens his eyes. Keeps thrusting into his hands, and finds the breadth of the person’s shoulders, the height. He knew it was a guy.

He stares into the darkness, eyesight slowly adjusting. He falls still only when he realizes he knows who he’s looking at.

Eddie Munson is staring at him, in just underwear, in his room, in the middle of the night.

In Steve’s house, where he’s been secretly living for months. Where he’s been watching him sleep.

And maybe doing other things too, judging from the way his underwear tents.

And Steve doesn’t care. He just knows Eddie’s eyes on him now are nothing new, and it strikes the flint in his gut. Makes him pulse. Sends him spiraling down to earth in a blaze.

He spills all over his hands, keeps stroking himself through the shock of it.

Eddie Munson licks his lips and just keeps watching. Orders, “Again.”