Boltedfruit Archive

It hurts.

A volcano erupted sometime around the moment Eddie’s lips touched his for the first time and Steve shortly imploded. His veins carry fire, a lazy lava flow of inescapable heat radiating from what feels like his very blood.

He can’t get away from the burn of it all. The way it hurts to take a full breath, wheezing rough on the way out. The way his eyes are dry and stinging, seeking relief despite the pain being at the point it’s past tears. He can only scratch and claw and moan pitifully as Eddie gingerly leads him to his van.

The only relief he has is the points of contact between Eddie’s skin and his. His hands and wrists, his elbows, the unyielding muscles of Eddie’s neck and shoulders where he guides Steve’s hands to rest as he struggles with the door. Eddie is a balm and Steve needs him. Needs more.

He comes to a second after his lips skim Eddie’s neck, just shy of his gland. Feels him go tense under his clinging hands, then scrambling to go faster with getting Steve in the passenger seat and buckled in.

Steve’s ashamed of himself—of his lack of control—but it’s hardly like it matters now. Not after the deal they made.

Steve takes a moment to thank his past self for agreeing to their silly terms. Agreeing to share a heat before he knew what it was like? That was easy to write off as something that was never going to happen. Something that wasn’t a big deal.

Only now he’s bleeding fire and flame and it’s not a big deal, is the thing. It’s still not a big deal, but in an entirely different way. A way that sends up a flare signaling Danger! Need help! He cares that he should care. Cares that he doesn’t.

“Steve,” Eddie murmurs, voice soft music to Steve’s aching ears. He leans in his direction, seeking warmth, seeking skin and soft lips—gets a tightened belt in response as Eddie offers him a sympathetic look.

“Huh?”

“I can hear you thinking from here. It’s gonna be okay, alright? I just—” His nostrils flare and Steve sees red flash intermittently. “I have to grab my gear. M–my guitar. Then I’ll be back and we—”

“Eddie, no. Please.”

His voice sounds foreign. Pleading and, god, needy.

But then Eddie is kissing his cheek, just shy of his mouth. Pulls back before Steve can meet him full on.

“Give me two minutes, sweetheart.” Another kiss, this time on his overheated forehead. The door shuts and Steve whines as he watches Eddie practically scurry back to the bar.

How will he survive this if Eddie never comes back? How will he manage? He drove here…but will he be able to drive back? From where Eddie’s van is parked he can see his car. The fog rolling in on his thoughts isn’t so thick it’s impenetrable just yet. Maybe if Eddie really has forsaken him to suffer here forever, he can just…roll out of Eddie’s van onto the cool concrete and all the way across the lot until he can crawl inside his own car.

It sounds like a tremendous effort. Too painful. He whines again, hating the heat pooling under his skin more than the pulsing ache settling in the core of him. Worse even the throbbing of his dick confined in pants he now wishes were a little looser. He’s hard, and he’s wet, and is officially an overripe, sweet-selling omega mess—

The driver’s side door rips open and Eddie is there, eyes dark and hair wild, as he hurriedly scans over Steve with hungry eyes. And he is hungry, it’s clear in his scent, the way his fangs barely show between his pink lips.

Eddie practically tosses his guitar case over the console and into the back and then he’s up and buckling himself in for the ride.

Steve whimpers at his nearness. Everything inside him is telling him to undo his own belt and crawl over the console, get in Eddie’s lap, grind down on him to relieve some of the gut churning ache roiling inside him.

But Eddie is jamming his keys in and suddenly Steve is overwhelmed by eardrum-popping metal from the radio.

Eddie shouts in surprise, hand fumbling for the volume. He smacks at his dash until the music just shuts entirely off and then they’re left in silence. Steve’s ears ring.

“Sorry. Sorry, oh my god this is—I’m already fumbling it aren’t I?” Eddie asks, grimacing, laughing nervously. “Sorry, sorry. Let’s uh. Let’s get you home, huh?”

Steve fights down the urge to rock his hips up into nothing but the empty air. He just—he can’t.

“Yours or m-mine?” he breathes out.

Eddie pulls out onto the main road and merges into traffic. Thankfully, there’s not many people out. Between that and their apartments being close enough to bus from, it’ll be minutes, maybe. Minutes until he’ll be somewhere he can rip off his clothes and crash face first into bed.

Panic flares inside him at the thought of going anywhere but his own bed. He has his things there. His—god, his nest. The one place he craves, knowing he’ll be safe and warm enough to fall apart, to pieces. If his heat has to happen, if he has to break into a thousand shards of whatever his omega is telling him to be, then he’ll do it where it smells like home.

Eddie is shushing him without him having to say a word.

“It’s okay, Steve. We’ll—I’ll get you home and in your nest in no time. You’ll see.”

“Eddie,” he gasps, the scent of him slowly filling the not inconsiderable space of his van. “Eddie, I want—”

“I know, baby. I know you do.”

“Touch me?”

Eddie’s eyes snap to his, and he swerves into the nearby lane for a dangerous instant. They both groan for very different reasons when he levels back out.

“Stevie, I need to drive. I–I can’t. Not yet.”

More embarrassing sounds spill from his throat. Needy and fragile and wanting in ways he’s never heard himself sound before.

“I know, baby. I know. I’m so sorry, I—”

Eddie squeaks a small sound when Steve grabs one of his wrists and shoves it down between his thighs. Eddie’s fingers bump against his dick and he keens, rocking his hips up to meet whatever scant pressure he can get.

“Steve.” Eddie’s voice has gone several registers deeper. Sounds dark and hot and wanting, just like Steve.

Steve makes a choice.

“Please, Alpha.”

Eddie licks his lips, eyes briefly flicking to Steve’s before focusing back on the road.

“Christ. Okay, baby. Okay, I can give you a little relief. Do you want that?”

Steve’s nodding the same moment Eddie’s fingers curl with purpose, slipping lower, groping him where he’s damp and warm through two layers.

“You’re already soaked, aren’t you?”

Steve grunts, fingers tight around Eddie’s wrist to keep him from going anywhere. He just needs more.

Eddie’s fingers curl, prodding at the center of him, where his slick is hidden away by clothing. He wants more. He needs it. He’s burning for it.

“More, more, please. Inside. Please, need you.”

Eddie’s hand slides up, ghosting over his hardness with a gentle squeeze in what Steve wants to call quiet appreciation, judging by the soft whistle Eddie gives him, and goes for his fly. He fumbles for a while until Steve, frustrated, simply pulls what needs to be pulled out enough for Eddie’s hand to have room to reach where Steve needs him.

Eddie’s quick. He finds his slit, fingers slipping through like velvet, index and middle dipping into the slick gathered there and teasing at the barest relief.

“Come on. Come on, I want it, Eddie.”

“Inside, huh? You want me to finger you while I drive? Want me to run us off the road?”

“Don’t care. Just need to come on your fingers.”

“Goddamn, Steve,” Eddie says, breathless, and pushes two fingers inside.

Steve shakes, clenching around the intrusion. Eddie’s still wearing his rings.

He moans, broken and heavy as waves crest through him, radiating up every nerve ending. Rocks in increments, back and forth, back and forth, Eddie dutifully slipping his fingers as deep as he can in their current positions.

“Fuck, you’re tight. I can feel you around me.”

“Not yet. Not where it matters.”

Then Eddie’s parking and pulling his keys free and—and they’re at Steve and Robin’s apartment. He didn’t even realize.

“How long…”

“You came for minutes, baby. I never…I didn’t even know you could do that.”

Steve tips his head back, loosens his death grip on Eddie’s wrist, but keeps him close anyway. Doesn’t want him going anywhere.

“I don’t, usually. Oh my god.”

When Eddie finally manages to get his arm back, Steve can feel the wet clutch of his fingers leaving him empty. And as he withdraws and holds his hand up, wet strings of slick cling thickly between his fingers.

Eddie hums, brings them to his mouth. He sucks them clean.

Steve feels another telltale pulse deep in his groin. Knows it won’t be long before he’ll likely be begging for another orgasm. For more. Always more.

In any other state of mind, he’d be a little disgusted with himself. Instead of thinking it obscene as Eddie eyes him, licking Steve’s mess from his fingers, all he can think is how he wonders what Eddie’s mouth will taste like now.

What does he taste like on Eddie’s tongue?

Steve swallows, still feeling the rippling aftershocks of his orgasm.

Eddie’s expression softens. “Feeling a little better?”

It’s one word, one inadequate word for the way he’s feeling. Warm. Safe. He feels good, but just knows even better is yet to come.

“A little. It’s like a fog. I was all hazy.” His abdomen is swiftly rocked by cramps. He groans in pain, laying his head back against the window as he angles himself towards Eddie. “I need–need more. It wasn’t enough, Eddie.”

Eddie’s fingers are pink and a little pruney. He wants to lick them.

Steve keens, feeling the clinging heat return in full force.

“Eddie–Alpha!”

Eddie’s out of his seat and across the center console in an instant. His fingers bury themselves right back between Steve’s thighs, and without having to split his focus between Steve and the road, he’s going for gold. he fucks Steve on his fingers, the rings adding even more pleasure, more weight behind his thrusting wrist.

Slick squelches fill the car and Steve moans, uncaring for the first time in a long time about what Eddie must think of him.

Eddie’s other hand finds Steve’s neck, brings him back to the present, has them locking eyes.

And in that uniquely alpha tone, Eddies commands, “Come on my fingers.”

Steve breaks, fills with volcanic propulsion. He falls into Eddie as much as he can and Eddie knows without Steve having to ask what he needs. Lets Steve bury his nose at Eddie’s neck, inhales his earthy scent straight from his gland.

Eddie keeps his hand in place, letting Steve keep rocking his hips in little waves. He sighs, overcome with the feeling of content. Twisting his fingers in the back of Eddie’s shirt, he keens, another orgasm crashing into him like the tide softly rising.

He could have had this all along.

It hits him all at once.

“Baby, don’t cry. It’s okay. I’ve got you.” Eddie withdraws his hand to instead wrap Steve in his arms.

Eddie murmurs sweet, beautiful things to him, half of them hardly registering.

This is what he could have had for years if his family hadn’t been so set on keeping his omega instincts under lock and key with suppressants, the patches.

His body is filled with light. Everything smells like the richest, most vibrant garden. He’s held in strong arms surrounded by soft, careful, loving words, and Steve cries. Can’t do anything to keep it at bay. Any embarrassment he feels at breaking down is muddled, distant and not important. Not now.

Eddie pulls back only when Steve lifts his head. Tears ceased but eyes still shining.

“S-sorry. I just, I don’t,” he stops. Closes his eyes and tries again. “I didn’t know.”

Thankfully, Eddie seems to understand, at least a little.

He shushes him, pets a hand gently over the back of his head, leaving it light at Steve’s nape.

“It’s okay. More than okay. I’ve got you.”

“I didn’t know, Eddie. I didn’t know.”

Eddie’s lips press warm at his cheek. Steve turns his face and meets Eddie in a tender kiss, breath stuttering a little when Eddie moans softly.

“Come on, I want to get you inside where it’s warm and we have a bed. How does that sound?”

“I’m,” he rasps, swallowing past his dry throat. He huffs, laughing a little at how bad he sounds. “I’m thirsty.”

“Then I’ll get you some water.” Eddie meets his eyes, waggles his eyebrows. “For the road.”

Steve laughs, lets Eddie untwine himself to grab his keys and jog around to his side and open the door. Even takes Eddie’s hand when he offers it with a little bow. Eddie, ever the charmer, seamlessly takes Steve’s weight when he stumbles, feeling off his feet. Eddie’s fingers are warm, steady beneath his.

Minutes ago, he’d ridden those fingers to three orgasms.

He swallows again, throat thick.

He can only imagine what waits.

–

Eddie doesn’t part from him as he makes toward the fridge. He makes himself at home, gathering an armful of water bottles and some leftovers Steve can’t immediately discern. He doesn’t care. If Eddie wants to do the heat-equivalent of wine and dine, then so be it. Steve just wants him in his bed.

Now.

Eddie gasps when Steve’s mouth finds his shoulder. He mouths the fabric, dampening it through, doesn’t care, knows Eddie doesn’t either. He just needs to feel him. Touch him. Steve needs more.

God, the heat is back stronger than ever.

“C’mon,” Steve grunts against him, hands finding the ridges of Eddie’s ribs, digging in just to feel him jump a little. “Come on, Eddie. Need you.”

His scene is bright flowers, deep, wet earth, the crackle of lightning before the boom of thunder as Eddie hums, swallowing so loudly Steve hears his throat click.

“B-baby, I’m trying here. How about we take this to your room? Your nest, remember?”

“Don’t want it. Need you. Now.”

He pulls at Eddie’s hands, makes his thoughtful bounty fall with a clatter to the tiled floor. He just doesn’t care. The heat swirling inside him commands an alpha to touch him, to soothe him, hold him close and kiss him better.

Steve gets Eddie turned enough to face him and kisses him deep and long, just how he’s been wanting to for weeks now.

Here, wet and hard and tingling at the very core of himself, Steve can admit that.

“Wanted you, Eddie. Alpha. Wanted you so long–”

Eddie hums, the sound a steady croon in his own mouth.

Eddie gasps when Steve finds him hard, fingers digging at the enticing outline of his erection in his tight black pants. He needs Eddie naked. Needs to feel his hardness against his skin.

Steve pushes at the waistline of Eddie’s pants and, finally, Eddie gets the memo. He takes over, gets his cock out, sighs like heaven as Steve wraps his hand around his hot length—finally, finally—kisses him silly as he makes quick work of Steve’s pants next.

He’s dripping, cock springing free and aching in the cool air of the empty kitchen. Eddie kisses him only for seconds longer before he falls to his knees. Meets Steve’s eyes for a heartbeat before taking Steve in his mouth.

Absolutely swallows him down, whole, pulsing at the root. Steve gasps, bucks his hips, and comes down Eddie’s throat.

Tears roll down his cheeks, freed by dazed blinking.

Eddie groans as he swallows all Steve has given him. Pulls off sloppy with a kiss to the head. Looks up at Steve ruddy-cheeked and lips parted, flushed and swollen from so little.

Steve cards gentle fingers through dark curls, revels in how Eddie closes his eyes at the touch.

Then something occurs to Steve. Clarity returns bright and stunning amid arousal and clinging heat.

“Oh my god, we forgot Penelope!”

–

Steve ends up in his room, looking for a good spot to place Penelope as Eddie arranges a truly impressive line up of drinks and snacks.

Steve isn’t sure how long Eddie expects them to be squirreled away in here. There are supplies for days. It can’t really last that long, right?

Eddie must scent his curiosity, the apprehension and nerves as Steve worries his bottom lip, bag of flour weighing heavy in his arms.

Eddie goes to him, noses at his cheek, his neck. Buries his face and takes Steve’s scent for his own. This small act of seeking comfort in turn comforts Steve. Makes him feel needed.

Eddie wraps his arms around his middle, holds him as he begins to rock them back and forth, side to side. Almost dancing. Steve might fall in—

Stop. Stop it.

Eddie presses a kiss to his neck, which turns into several more, turns into Penelope being taken from Steve’s clueless arms to be placed, facing the door, on the nightstand.

Steve snorts at the forethought.

Eddie turns back, takes Steve’s face in both hands. Smiles like the devil, and Steve wants to be ruined.

“Maybe our girl doesn’t need to witness this part.”

Steve laughs, happy, so goddamn happy. Forgets what it’s like to ever be sad, be lonely, be alone with Eddie here like this, holding him like Steve’s his.

Eddie’s nose barely wrinkles, a cute little scrunch that tells Steve he’s scenting his doubts. His self loathing.

Eddie pulls back. Holds his eyes for several long, heavy beats. Steve itches, the heat buried but only barely underneath the surface. Might as well be a fine layer of dirt and greenery where Eddie holds a well-formed spade. It’ll return with the slightest nudge.

But right now, this moment, he has his wits about him. Knows he can’t let Eddie on to how he feels. How he wants more.

“You’re beautiful,” Eddie whispers and gives him the softest, most tender kiss Steve’s ever had in his life. “You know that?”

The heat climbing his neck is different than the one roiling in his gut, his groin. This makes him shy. Makes him want to hide.

Eddie doesn’t let him.

“Can we talk for a second? Before the heat really takes over?”

Steve shrugs, unsure where Eddie’s going with this. “Yeah, sure.”

Maybe this is where Eddie will pull away. Say it was all a sick joke, how he offered to share Steve’s heat, to help him through. Maybe this is the moment reality comes crashing back in to laugh, cruel and sharp in Steve’s face, to remind him he really is alone.

A small, worried sound lodges in Eddie’s throat, half-formed. Ugly. He brings Steve in for a tight hug, holds him close, guides Steve’s face to his gland. Lets a garden of rare, strange things overtake his senses.

Steve inhales. Instantly feels a little better. A little more evened out.

“Are you sure about this, Stevie?”

It’s Steve’s turn to pull away. Flabbergasted is really the only word he can use to describe how incredulous that question is.

“Am I sure?”

Eddie nods, serious as ever. “I know we made that deal and everything, but heats can be rough. They can cloud your head. Make you think you want things you might normally not. Make you feel emotions you normally wouldn’t have.”

There’s still something not quite right with what Eddie’s saying. Something he’s holding back, maybe. Something Steve can scent on him, buried underneath everything else.

He chooses the direct route.

“Eddie, I can still smell my come on your breath. I think it’s a little late for take-backs.”

Eddie rolls his eyes. “You—I—Steve. A knot is a lot different from my fingers or my mouth.”

Oh.

“Do you…do you not want to?”

Hands, warm and grounding, find their way back to his face, squishes him a little. They lower to his neck, brace his shoulders.

“Honestly?”

“Please.” Steve huffs a small laugh. “Don’t think I can handle much else right now.”

Eddie takes a steadying breath, says, “Honestly, Steve, I’ve been wanting to do this with you for weeks. I’m in. All in. If you want that.”

“For my heat, yeah—”

“No. No, like.” He sighs again, frustration coloring his scent deeper, richer. More pungent. “It’s you I want. If you didn’t want to share your heat with me, then I still—I wouldn’t have minded. I would have waited. I would have—I’ll still wait, if that’s what you want. I just like you. A lot. And I don’t want this to fuck up our friendship. I don’t want these next however many days we spend together to ruin what we’ve already made. I want you, Steve, regardless of your heat or not. I want to be your alpha. Will you let me be yours?”

“Oh,” Steve says, because he’s useless, and his brain has chosen to shut off at the worst possible moment.

No one’s ever said anything close to what Eddie just has.

Nancy didn’t want to be his alpha. Didn’t want to be anything, really, beyond casual boyfriend-girlfriend. Which had been fine at the time. For a while.

But to be someone’s alpha…to be someone’s omega. That means bonding with them. It means shared bites, wearing scars for the world to see. To walk through life knowing a claim has been made and received in return.

And he knows Eddie is good. He knows Eddie is unlike any alpha he’s ever met. Ever seen.

He knows Eddie is a good person.

Eddie, who combined their last names into the caramel-soft abomination Munsington, and was completely serious about it. Eddie, who went through the trouble of outfitting their flour bag daughter and who chose her name. Who calls Steve her daddy. Who stands up for Steve, who protects him, who shows him off and backs him up without question or insult. Who Steve has spent long periods daydreaming about what it would be like to have real children with Eddie Munson.

Eddie Munson, the man who holds him like he’s made of glass, who kisses him like he wants to burrow into the hollows of his bones.

Steve lunges forward, accidentally cracks their teeth together. Hears Eddie mutter a pained ow, fuck before returning all of Steve’s ferocity.

“Is that,” he asks between kisses, “a yes?”

Steve parts from him only enough to say, “Yes. Yes, yes, Eddie, moron, yes—”

Eddie grins into the next kiss, lifts Steve off the floor and squeezes him tight before walking them back toward Steve’s bed.

He lands in a soft nest of blankets and scented clothing he’s been gathering ever since Eddie gifted him his own scent on one of Steve’s most well-loved blankets. He turns toward it now, seeking it out.

Without a word, Eddie knows what he wants. Finds it with deft hands a smile as he finds the blanket and uses it as a pillow beneath Steve’s head.

They’re still both naked from the waist down. Eddie’s been hard since the kitchen, maybe before. Steve’s hard, is wet again, seemingly incapable of flagging in his desire even if he wanted.

Steve tugs at Eddie’s shirt, gets it to his shoulders before Eddie separates only enough to let Steve pull it off. In a moment of pure indulgence, feeling free because he’s allowed, because he knows Eddie would never call it weird. He bunches the material and buries his face in it, drinks down the scent that is all wildland alpha.

Eddie growls, a rumble from deep inside his chest as he nips at Steve’s cheek. He takes it upon himself to rid Steve of his own shirt and then they’re bare to each other, the relief of skin on skin something that makes Steve’s heart soar, blood rushing loud in his ears.

He lets Eddie’s shirt fall away somewhere beside them. He doesn’t care, because Eddie’s warm, smells delicious, is heavy against the bend of his thigh, where his own cock twitches at the familiar weight. He’s never been with another man, never been with a male alpha. Has no idea what a knot is like, if it’ll hurt, but he doesn’t care, because it’s Eddie.

And Eddie will take care of him.

“I’m ready.”

Eddie hums, almost a question.

“You’re ready, huh?”

“For your,” he says, willing his heart to stop racing. “Your knot.”

Eddie keeps kissing down his body, pauses only to lap at one of his nipples, gets it hard and shining with spit before moving lower down his ribs, his stomach, his—

Eddie kisses the base of his cock, licks a light, nearly dry strip up to the tip. He kisses the head like he’d kiss Steve. Makes it wet, wetter than before.

Precome spurts slick and lustrous over Eddie’s lips. Looks almost like lip gloss. Makes him remember the first time he saw Eddie in eyeliner. How it made him want.

Eddie smirks, “I don’t think you are, pretty thing. I think you think you are, but these things take time. I want to make it good for you.”

He tongues at Steve’s slit, laps at the salt pouring from him in slow lines. He drinks it down, never shies away.

Then Eddie circles the base of Steve’s erection with tight fingers, holding him hard and still. Leaves the mess of his head to draw back, licking his lips.

“I’m ready,” he repeats, because he is. He’s so wet he’s dripping. He’ll likely have to change the sheets after all is said and done.

Another thoughtful hum, near teasing. “When’s the last time you had a knot, baby?”

“I—” It draws him up short. “I’ve never…?”

Eddie lifts his head a little higher, one brow echoing the sentiment. “You’ve never had a knot?”

There’s really no sense in holding anything back now, right?

Steve looks away, shame rising sharp and bitter in his throat. “I’ve never seen a knot. At least, not in person.”

Eddie blinks, owlish. His mouth forms a little o.

“Stevie—”

He feels desperate to explain then. Explain it’s not necessarily his fault. He’s just never had the chance. It was never about that.

“Nancy, she…she never let me see it. Never wanted that to be a thing between us. It just wasn’t. It was because,” he cuts himself off. Can’t think of what he’d even call it. “I don’t know why.”

Eddie’s eyes don’t lose their owlish quality, instead seem to grow a little wider.

“I think I have you beat.”

“What does that mean?”

“I’ve never,” Eddie says, stops, then blurts out, “I’m a virgin.”

The way he says it, sudden and jerky, is reflected in his grip he still has tight at the base of Steve’s straining cock. He squeezes a little, what Steve thinks might even be an accident.

And he ends up coming right then, there on Eddie’s fingers.

He lets his head drop, orgasm rushing through him and leaving him boneless in the most startling way.

He covers his face.

“Oh my god.”

“Stevie,” Eddie starts.

“Don’t.” Then, muffled, “Are you sure you’ve never done this before?”

“I’m pretty sure,” Eddie says, sounds a little awed. Steve feels him swipe curious fingers through the fluids collecting in his pubic hair.

“But you—in the car?”

“Never done anything like that before. Nothing close. Remember, I wasn’t Mr. Popularity. Nobody was exactly running into my arms asking me to show them a good time.”

Steve thinks this is his fourth, no, fifth? Orgasm of the night.

Effortless.

“Could have fooled me,” he mumbles, embarrassed from falling apart so easily, so fast. Again.

He hears Eddie laugh, feels the bed shift. Then it’s Eddie above him, peeling his hands from his eyes.

Steve glares at him.

“Am I that bad?”

Steve huffs. “Literally the opposite. How is that even possible?”

“Call it natural-born talent?” His smile is gorgeous. Annoying as hell. “I think it’s kind of sweet, y’know? In a way we get to be each other’s first.”

Steve could cry. Thinks he just might. Feels his lower lip wobble dangerously and blames his heat. It has to be.

No one has ever treated him so kindly.

“What is it, sweetheart?” Eddie asks, eyeing him a little cautiously. “Don’t tell me you’re having second thoughts. Which is completely fine if you are! I don’t want to make you—”

“Eddie.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m not having second thoughts. I’m definitely not, trust me. I just…I want it to be good for you. I know I had this reputation back in high school as this like, sex god or whatever. But it wasn’t like that, really. I dated a lot of girls, had a lot of sex, sure. But I never, you know. With a guy. With a male alpha.”

Eddie stares.

“And it’s your first time with literally anyone, and you must be expecting someone with a ton of experience. Who knows exactly what to do, and when, and where, but I don’t! Not exactly. I mean, I know how my own dick works, y’know? But what if it’s not the same for you? What if I’m not as good as you think? What if it’s a total let down—”

“Baby. Steve,” Eddie cuts in, soft and insistent. Steve sighs heavily, meeting his eyes. “I’m not exaggerating when I say this is the single greatest thing to ever happen to me in my life. And that includes when the band landed our first ever gig. There is not a single other person on this planet I’d rather do this with. This is a dream come true.”

Steve feels incredibly childish, inexperienced and naïve and stupid when he asks, “Really?”

Eddie leans down, kisses him once, twice. Kisses his nose.

“Really, really.”

Embarrassment is slowly flooded out with desire, the cloying heat returning with a vengeance as Steve links his hands behind Eddie’s neck as he deeps the kiss into something messy, something gross. He sucks on Steve’s tongue, and Steve concedes it really must be natural talent.

Eddie nips at his lower lip, sucks it between his teeth and tongues at the fleshy inside. He hums, growls really. Makes Steve gush.

Eddie pulls back with a pop, licks his lips, pupils blown wide. “God, do you know how good you smell? Here?” he asks, and Steve gasps when fingers find his slick entrance.

Eddie cups his leaking slit with his entire palm, slicks his hand, gathers it up and lifts it between them, as if showing off how wet he’s made Steve.

Steve can smell himself. The musky scent of wet cunt and semen. All mixed together in something altogether dark and heady and not something to be as appetizing as Eddie seems to think it is.

Then he slips three of his own fingers in his mouth and moans. Licks his whole hand clean.

“Can I?” he asks, when he’s done, voice several octaves lower, darker. Hits Steve right in the solar plexus.

“Yes, yes. Anything. Do whatever you want.”

Eddie hums, cheeky and happy and makes a home for himself between Steve’s thighs.

His mouth hovers suspiciously low over Steve’s groin. This is something new to him, too. No one has ever, ever, wanted to touch him where he’s wet. It’s always been about how big he is. How thick.

And that was fine. It was.

But this is something else. Something he never wants to be rid of. He knows what it is to come on Eddie’s ringed fingers, and he knows what it is to see him lick his hand clean of Steve’s own juices. And all he wants is more.

And Eddie obliges, hungrily, if not more so even than Steve.

He buries his mouth in Steve’s cunt and licks deep, drinks him down from the inside out.

And Steve forgets what being alive is, for a while.

–

“Again,” he orders, weak and butter-boned. He’s melted, is nothing but a bag of warm liquids sloshing around where Eddie feels fit to want him.

Eddie lifts his head, chin shining, neck and face flushed a deep red.

“How many is that, sweetheart?”

“Don’t know. Don’t care. Just more. Please. Please, Eddie. Alpha.”

Being eaten out is Steve’s newest favorite thing. A hobby, really. Something he thinks he and Eddie excel in equally. Thinks he might just spend all his free time right here, like this, Eddie’s beautiful head between his legs.

“I think we should take a break, Stevie.”

Steve snaps his head up, or he tries. Every movement feels about as fast as running through quicksand. Eyes Eddie blearily, knows he’s pouting.

“Betrayer.”

Eddie laughs. “You need to drink some water, love.”

Love.

Makes him bloom bright, untethered, caught only by the care, the sweetness with which Eddie treats him.

He makes a pitiful little sound in acquiescence and lets himself be situated into something near sitting.

The rim of a bottle touches his lips. He parts them, drinks cool mouthfuls until Eddie is satisfied.

It’s replaced by something dry, soft. He doesn’t have the energy to keep his eyes open, so he just opens his mouth and lets Eddie feed him. It’s dried fruit. Apricot, he thinks.

Eddie hands him two more slices and then the bed shifts. Steve is moved around. He blinks tired eyes and sees Eddie’s maneuvered them how people would normally sleep lengthwise, and not dangled over the edge for the purposes of more fun, wetter things.

“More, alpha,” he whines, because that’s what it is.

Eddie laughs softly, ruffles his hair with hot breath.

He leans over Steve and drinks some water himself, grabs a bag of chips.

“Rest, baby. I’ll be here when you wake up.”

He’s already drifting. Knows it in the strange stutter-hold-drop of his heartbeat. The quiet hang before sleep takes over.

“You’re so good, Eds. How d’you know all this?”

He can hear the smile in Eddie’s answer. “I just read a lot. Not everything useful comes out of a stuffy textbook.”

Steve snorts at that. Can’t remember anything else.

–

When he wakes, he’s starving.

For food. For Eddie.

And Eddie is right there, just like he promised.

And he knows what Steve wants. Scents it in his sweat, where he noses at the bend of his shoulder.

“Steve,” he groans, is hard against Steve’s ass.

Has he even come yet?

God, Steve is selfish.

“Come on, I want it,” he rasps, voice rough from sleep. “Want you to come on me. Make me messy.”

Eddie swears, thrusts against his backside. Steve pushes back, wants Eddie slotted where he’s warm, not as tight as he could be, is elsewhere. But enough for Eddie to get off. To take something for himself.

Steve angles his hips, wiggles until Eddie slides between his cheeks, moans guttural and broken against his nape.

“Steve, I’m gonna, I’m not gonna—”

Steve reaches back, blindly slapping for what he wants. He gets a handful of Eddie’s ass and squeezes, holds him tight, pushes him as close as he can.

Eddie falls apart, voice skipping along sweat-slick skin. Warmth paints wet stripes over his ass, his lower back. It feels like it goes on a long time.

Eddie calms, shaking along Steve’s back.

“Eddie.”

“Don’t wanna move.”

“Eds.”

“Can’t make me. I’m broken. You broke me.”

Steve laughs, turns in Eddie’s arms, doesn’t care he’s smearing come on the sheets.

Eddie is smiling when he turns. Kisses him hello, sweet and soft.

“We haven’t even gotten to the main event yet.”

Eddie snorts, hides his face in Steve’s neck. It’s his gland. Feels oversensitive, stings a little. It aches, wants something Steve is suddenly frozen for wanting.

Eddie could bite him. Could claim him. Bond them together.

He doesn’t. He won’t.

Not unless Steve asked.

He knows it how he knows Eddie’s drifting in his arms, tired all over again. Steve may be new to this, but he’s not new to everything. He’s got stamina. He remembers what it was like the first time he ever was this close with someone.

But no. That’s not exactly right.

He doesn’t think he’s ever been this close with someone. Not Nancy, certainly not anyone who came before.

His breath hitches, tight in his chest. Eddie kisses his bonding gland, lifts his head and kisses Steve’s cheek. Content to just hold him.

I’ll still wait, if that’s what you want.

Steve’s heart does a little somersault.

The heat is calm, for now. Sated for the time being, happy to be covered in Eddie’s wet warmth, happy to smell like him, happy in his arms, happy to rest for a while.

Eddie sleeps first, and Steve follows him soon enough.

–

Eddie is sitting up against the headboard and eating an apple when Steve wakes up.

“Hey.”

“Hey yourself,” he returns, easy, happy. “Missed you, thought you’d sleep the whole night and rest of tomorrow away.”

It’s dark outside, through the blinds. Wonders what time it is, how long they’ve been here, naked and pressed together.

The heat is back, circling low. He fidgets, shifting, feels slick gather between his legs.

Words feel difficult. Thoughts clutter together in his head, make him grind his teeth.

“Eddie, it’s…it hurts.”

The apple returns to the nightstand immediately. In seconds, Eddie’s over him, covering him with his lovely weight, settling Steve’s anxious bones in a way he never thought of wanting before.

He wants to sink, melt down into the sheets, mess be damned.

“It’s a lot, I know. It might be hard to talk, but I’ll take care of you, baby. I want to take care of you. Will you let me?”

“Alpha, please.”

“Stevie. I need you to say you understand me, okay? Do you trust me to take care of you?”

He nods.

“You need to say it, sweetheart.”

Steve groans, bucks his hips. Eddie returns it with a rumble, eyes flashing red for the briefest instant. Steve wants it. Wants more. Wants to be torn apart.

“Trust you.” Then, “Love you.”

Black consumes Eddie’s iris. He shudders, shuts his eyes a beat and then opens them again.

They’re red.

“Omega,” he rumbles.

And Steve, he chirps. Can’t summon the old embarrassment, the shame, the need to care. It all feels so silly, so far away.

He is happy, and he loves Eddie. He does. Maybe that makes him a fool who dives into things, his own feelings, too fast.

But Eddie is above him, is kissing love upon his skin and whispering promises along his tongue that taste like truth.

So he does. He trusts Eddie.

He’s ready.

“Want you, Steve. Need you, omega. Want to make you mine. Will you let me? Will you let me show you how much I love you?”

Steve keens, moans, grinds his hardness into Eddie’s own, wants him where he’s wet and warm and tight. Wants to bring Eddie into the clutch of his body and keep him. Wants to be filled up. To be bred, to be—

He comes, untouched save for the press of their bodies.

Love, love you, Stevie, I love you, an endless repeated mantra of Eddie’s lips forming the shapes and his throat sending breath to bring the words life.

And Steve feels it. Can scent it. Knows it’s not just lust or fever talking. It’s real.

This is real.

Steve gets an arm between them, a hand around the thick length of Eddie’s cock. He lifts his hips, meets Eddie’s eyes.

Watches them go wide, bright red flickering as Steve guides him into where he needs to be. Where he’s made to go.

It’s easy, too easy, maybe. Steve is so wet. There’s no pinch, no pain. There is only Eddie, the stretch of him, the weight, the heat, the fullness spreading him until there’s nothing left but them, together. Steve never wants to be apart. Only wants this feeling for the rest of his life.

Eddie trembles in his arms, words gone quiet, breath shuddering and careful.

“Stevie,” he whispers, voice splitting down the middle. “Omega.”

Steve can’t speak. He holds on tight, locks his calves behind Eddie’s, urges him deeper.

A broken moan punches its way free from Eddie’s chest.

He thrusts, hips pumping, and just like that neither can stop.

The fall isn’t fast, isn’t slow.

It’s perfect.

–

Steve expects Eddie to fall still when he spills, to have his hips crushed in a tight grip while he holds still, waiting for the telltale stretch and burn of a knot forming.

But it doesn’t happen.

Eddie keeps moving. Keeps spilling. Fills Steve so much, and then it just keeps coming.

And when Eddie comes a second time, muscles flexing, abs quivering, thighs shaking, he’s still hard. Doesn’t even waver.

He whimpers, pulls out and takes with him an absolute swell of white that flows out of Steve and more than ruins the sheets. But Steve doesn’t care.

He wants more. The need is beyond heat, beyond the clawing desire. It’s in his blood.

“Eddie?”

“T-this is. It’s my,” his throat works. His cock gives a kick, and he falls forward, buries himself as deep inside Steve as he can go. “I think you triggered my rut.”

“What?”

He laughs, breathless, maybe a little shocked. “I’m in rut, baby.”

He drives deeper on each thrust, the burn of it the best Steve’s felt yet.

He laughs, the following chirp high and joyous. “We’re a mess—”

Eddie licks and sucks at his neck, the side free of the risk of piercing his gland.

“We’re perfect. You’re perfect. You’re mine.”

And it goes on and on until Eddie fills him a third time. A fourth. A fifth.

Again and again until Steve isn’t sure where one ends and the other begins. Thinks it doesn’t matter as much as it should.

He just wants more.

Always more.

He’s lost count how much he’s fallen over the edge. Everything is a mess of fluids, of trembling aftershocks, of throbbing, pulsing need between the two of them.

“Want your knot. Give me your knot. Please, baby. Please, Eddie, alpha. Want it more than anything. Want you. Want your babies, want you to make me full, so full, so happy, want a family with you, want everything, Eddie, please—

Eddie bites him. Sharp teeth puncture and Steve shouts.

His neck. Not the side that would count, that would mean something, mean everything, but it’s a bite all the same. And when he does it, he shouts, sound broken and rough along Steve’s throat. He cradles Eddie’s head against him, wants him to bite harder, deeper. Wants to bleed.

He wants to be bit on the other side.

Wants it more than anything.

But even in the haze of heat, of rut, of shared belonging, Eddie won’t cross that line. He won’t take that choice away from Steve.

Steve loves him. He loves him.

That’s when he feels it.

It hurts a little. The stretch grows, burns, but it feels good too. Feels right.

And he’s flooded over and over again. An endless flow that never seems to stop.

There is a source, it ends somewhere. But Eddie keeps pulsing inside him, rumbling, purring so low and deep it reverberates throughout Steve’s chest. Shakes him apart in the best way.

Eddie withdraws and kisses the bite, lets his lips land soft, press soothing pressure over the wound. Can feel the barest scrape of sharp fangs, but he’s careful about scratching him.

Steve doesn’t mind the sting of it. Wants every bit of pleasure and pain Eddie can think to give him.

“Can’t believe it. Love you,” Eddie whispers. “Love you so much.”

And Steve hums, feels the heat recede, sated. Happy. Fulfilled.

–

Time ceases to flow. It’s a haze of ebb and stillness and rushing waves, cresting over sand, again and again.

They fuck, they sleep, they say things neither can take back and neither want to. They eat, they laugh, they make love. Because that’s what it is, Steve knows now.

And he knows he’ll never give this up. Not for anything.

–

He wakes clear headed and sore. Every muscle screams as he stretches, feels Eddie’s answering squeeze in the arm over his naked waist. He’s sticky, too wet. Doesn’t really mind.

Eddie mumbles something, voice muffled by the pillow.

He slowly lifts his head, winces and flops back down, an eye lazily trained on Steve as a smile curls his lips.

“Hey beautiful.”

Steve smiles in return. Loves Eddie more than he can say. Never knew he could feel like this. An all-encompassing passion buoyed by the man smiling at him with sleep in his eyes, love bites covering his neck and shoulders.

“What year is it?” he asks, fingers coming up to trail down Steve’s chest. He thumbs at a nipple.

Steve turns to face him despite the protests of his aching body. “No idea.”

“How are you feeling?”

“Like I got hit by a train.”

Eddie hums, thoughtful and observant as he draws in close to cuddle. Rests his cheek on Steve’s chest and purrs freely. “You sound better. Or you know. Less heat-brained.”

“Yeah. Yeah I think it’s passed? I feel a lot clearer. Can’t feel it simmering anymore.”

“What did it feel like?”

“Like I was at a low boil the entire time. Since the concert. Since you kissed me.”

Eddie’s hum then is nothing by smug. That ego Steve is so attracted to.

He would shove at him, flip them over, get his lips on smooth skin, but he can’t move. Doesn’t want to try.

“How are you feeling?”

“Like a train that went off its tracks, which is pretty normal. But in the best way. I didn’t know it could be like this. With someone else. With you.”

He feels lips skim his collarbone. Smiles into Eddie’s mess of hair.

“How often do you paint your nails?”

“Huh? Oh, I don’t know. A few times a week? Keeps me from, uh. It’s gross.”

“Grosser than whatever we’ve been marinating in?”

“Point taken. I uh. Bite my nails. It’s a nervous tick, I guess. Always had it. But if they’re painted, then I don’t want to do it so much.”

“Makes sense.” Steve dares move to find Eddie’s closest hand. Pulls it up to his mouth so he can kiss his fingertips. “I love you.”

Eddie rumbles in approval. Lifts his head and manages what they both can’t just yet. He kisses him, sound and full and Steve sighs into it.

“Love you more, Steve Harrington.”

–

It’s a while before one of them decides to breach the line and get up. It’s Eddie, of course, legs not quite shaking but nearly as he stands and coaxes Steve up after him.

He gets them in the shower, cramped though it is. Eddie washes him with Steve’s favorite soap, somehow feels more intimate than when he’d had his knot inside him. It’s slow, methodical. Kind. Loving.

Steve doesn’t like he can’t return the favor when Eddie finishes with his hair. Hates his arms can’t quite lift themselves up far enough without shaking and falling back to his side. He feels like a baby that can’t walk yet.

Eddie only shushes him, holds him close and waggles his eyebrows when he says, “You can reach other things, though.”

Steve does. At least he can do that much.

–

They’re sitting in mutually exhausted silence over toast and coffee when keys in the front door rattle the lock. It opens and Robin stands in the entry, stopped short.

They stare at her. She stares back, taking them in, taking the sight of Penelope sitting in the center, still lopsided but not as badly as before, nose wrinkling the tiniest bit.

She sighs and walks in, leaving the front door open behind her.

She goes for the porch door, sliding it open and then heads for the singular living room window. “You couldn’t think to open a window at least?”

Steve catches a scent of alpha, but not his. It’s rare he ever scents Robin like this, but he knows her well enough to know why she isn’t making this as big a deal as she could be. And probably should be.

“How’s Vickie?”

Robin throws him a haughty look over her shoulder. “She’s great, thanks.”

“Looks like you and I are in sync, Buckley,” Eddie calls, laughing lightly into his mug.

“Okay, one; never say that to me again in any form whatsoever. And two! At least we had the forethought to air her place out before I left. Because I’m not an animal, unlike some people I know.”

She comes back around to the table, leaning over Steve to press a kiss to the crown of his head. Then she goes to Eddie and pats his cheek, takes a piece of his toast and steals it before sitting down between them.

“I left you a note, just in case.”

“You did?” Steve asks. He doesn’t remember Eddie leaving his side.

They’d been in bed for two days.

It was a shock to realize, seeing the calendar, the news. But Steve wasn’t exactly thinking of Robin with Eddie so close. Had he really been so out of it?

If she’d come back and found them rolling around together…

He frowns into his coffee. He would have never lived it down.

“Very thoughtful of you, Munson. But to see the note would have required me to come back at some point, so.” She shrugs, smirking.

“You dog.”

“Shut up.”

She meets Steve’s eyes. Smile soft and knowing. Hears what she doesn’t say, the happy for you, dingus.

Steve smiles back.