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There is a guy in the shark tank.
Which does exactly zero to bring Eddie closer to what he wanted to accomplish, which was relax, thank you very much.
The visit actually starts pretty well.
He exchanges amiable greetings and a few platitudes with the lady at the ticket booth, then strolls down his usual route. It’s the afternoon of a warm summer day, so most people have other places to be than the local aquarium. Which is fine by him. He can do with some peace and quiet right now.
He forces himself to slow his steps, to take in the soft blue light reflecting off each and every surface, the way the water dims the sounds of the outside world. To focus on the colors and shapes and graceful movements of the small and large water creatures. To focus on anything else but that damn phone call still playing on repeat in his head. Dustin’s hopeful, excited voice.
“Say you’ll come, Eddie, c’mon, it’s been ages. Joyce and Hop would love for all of us to be there. It’ll be great, won’t it? Finally getting all the Party together again?”
He has just succeeded in pushing it all the way to the back of his mind, can feel how the tension is beginning to bleed from his shoulders, how the fucking anxiety is slowly starting to fade, when he rounds the corner and sees the guy.
He’s in full diving gear, complete with the face mask and mouthpiece and the oxygen tanks strapped to his back, the funky flippers that make him look a bit like a giant frog. Just idly floating around in the shark tank, the giant fake shipwreck looming behind him, silver bubbles rising from his mask and swirling all around him.
“Dude!” Eddie is at the floor-to-ceiling glass front before he even realizes he moved, nose squashed against the smooth, cold surface. “Are you insane? What are you doing?”
And he swears he’s a good aquarium-goer usually, knows not to pound on the glass, but he thinks that fucking divers in the fucking shark tank warrant an exception to that rule.
Diver dude flinches so hard he almost drops his rag — the rag he was just using to scrub at a particularly stubborn splotch of algae on the glass pane, because … Is he cleaning the fucking windows?
Evidently he is.
He has the rag in his right hand and something like a …handle … doohickey … thing in his left. It’s attached to the glass by two giant suction cups that he’s using to hold himself in place so that he doesn’t float away.
Which is good, because the second he whips his head up and sees Eddie, he just sort of … freezes. Stops moving his legs — nice legs, by the way; thick, muscled, perfectly biteable thighs impossibly defined in that tight neoprene suit — flippers hanging limply in the water. The whole scene is so bizarre, Eddie can feel a grin tugging at the corners of his mouth and a laugh building low in his chest.
Until a shape peels itself from the skeleton of the ship behind hot diver dude — a shape with eery black eyes and triangular fins and a maw full of needle-like teeth.
“Dude, watch out!” Eddie blurts.
Hot diver dude cocks his head at him. His hair fans around him like a floofy cloud.
“Shark! Right behind you, man!”
He can't really make out the guy's expression, what with the mask and all, but his entire posture speaks of confusion. He can't hear him, Eddie realizes with a surge of panic; the glass and the water are swallowing the sound.
“Like … y'know—” He tugs on his own hair in panic and frustration. Then, he throws out his arms in front of himself, curls his fingers into teeth, snaps them together. If he lets out a low, guttural snarl to accompany the gesture, that's neither here nor there.
Hot diver dude observes his antics, face unreadable through his mask, and then he finally turns, only to come face to face with the shark. Eddie wants to cover his eyes, but he can't move, he's frozen in place, and he's forced to watch—
To watch how hot diver dude lets go of his silly suction cup handle and casually reaches out a hand, like he's greeting an old acquaintance or something.
The shark swerves and swims past. Hot diver dude's fingers lightly graze its back.
It's rather anticlimactic, all things considered.
It's also, paradoxically, the sexiest thing Eddie has seen in a hot while.
Not as hot as Steve Harrington spitting out a mouthful of demobat blood after tearing one apart with his teeth, but close.
So maybe he has a thing for pretty boys dominating predatory hell creatures. Sue him.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” he murmurs.
Almost like he heard him, hot diver dude turns his head. When he sees Eddie’s gobsmacked expression, his shoulders start twitching. A cloud of bubbles shoots from his mask.
Oh great, now he's being laughed at.
“Yeah yeah,” he grouses, even though his limbs tingle with relief and his mouth is twitching treacherously. “You're such a fucking badass. No need to brag about it.”
He shakes his head exasperatedly and wiggles his fingers in an awkward little wave goodbye, turns to go, and—
Hot diver dude flinches again and paddles closer, pressing both hands to the freshly cleaned glass in a frantic gesture.
“Huh?” Eddie quirks an eyebrow. “What is it? You want me to … should I stay?”
He gestures to himself; points his open palm at the ground.
Hot diver dude nods animatedly. Spreads his middle and index finger into a V shape and swivels it between his own masked face and Eddie's puzzled frown.
“You …” Eddie hesitates. “You wanna look at me?”
He flips his hair over his shoulder in an exaggerated shampoo commercial move, then twirls in a slow circle. Wiggles his ass for good measure, suddenly glad for the tight pair of pants he put on earlier. When he turns back around, finishing the little number off with a dramatic ta-daa gesture, hot diver dude has slapped a hand to his forehead. He smoothes back his hair — even though it does exactly nothing in the water — and shakes his head exasperatedly.
Points at himself. Then at Eddie. At the ground in front of the shark tank. Slowly, like Eddie is a little bit dense.
“Ooooh,” Eddie realizes. “You wanna meet? Like, here? Outside?”
This gets him a nod and a thumbs up.
“I, um—” He huffs a disbelieving laugh. Is he being asked on a date? What the hell is going on? Random hot dudes don't just float by in shark tanks and ask guys like him on dates. This is too good to be true.
Then again, he's had a shit day and he deserves something good, doesn't he?
“Yeah.” He nods, almost bumping his nose against the glass, and when had he drifted so close to it? “Yeah, sure thing!”
Hot diver dude claps his hands — Eddie melts a little at how adorable it looks — then spreads his fingers wide and holds out his hand.
“Erm …” Eddie says. “Those are your fingers?”
The guy looks at his puzzled face, at his own hand, then shakes his head again. He gives his own wrist an energetic tap with two fingers, then holds out his hand again.
“Wha— oooooh,” Eddie says. “At five? I can do five!”
He checks his watch. It’s a few minutes to four, so that leaves him with a little more than an hour. Cool, that’ll be plenty of time to freak out and second-guess himself about twenty times over.
🦈
He’s back in front of the shark tank ten minutes early, having found that you can only pace in front of the penguin enclosure and fuss over your hair in the bathroom so many times. Maybe he should have invested into that long overdue haircut before coming here. Then again, how could he possibly have known he’d score himself a date?
He also has no way of knowing, it occurs to him, whether or not they’re actually meeting in front of the shark tank. But their ability to talk was kind of limited seeing how one of them was underwater, and nobody mimed anything to the contrary, so that is just what he is going to assume.
He forces himself to observe the sharks weaving in and out of the shipwreck, just so he won't check his watch for the hundredth time in five minutes or keep peering at the few remaining visitors like a creep. None of them look like they could be hot diver dude, either decidedly too young, or too female, or just … well, not remotely hot enough.
Maybe the water made him look hotter than he really is? Is that a thing? Like how the TV adds weight? Does water add hotness? What is he even thinking? Jesus fucking Christ, the things his brain comes up with!
“Dunno, you tell me,” says a voice somewhere behind his shoulder.
Eddie freezes, heart suddenly in his throat. He apparently said that out loud. Oops.
Out of the corner of his eye, he spots movement as somebody joins him in front of the tank. Okay, so his first impression is utterly and irrevocably ruined. This is fine, he can still do this. He sucks in a breath, plasters on his most confident smile and turns. All he needs is a clever reply, something witty, something funny, something—
“Shit!”
Steve fucking Harrington winces and rubs at his neck in an awkward, awfully familiar gesture.
“Okay, ouch,” he says. “It’s good to see you too, I guess.”
Eddie opens his mouth to reply. Shuts it again. Probably looks a bit like a curly-haired, tattooed fish. Steve doesn’t say anything, just crosses his arms at him and quirks a perfectly shaped eyebrow, lips twisting into that bitchy little scowl that Eddie knows so well — still knows so well, even though it’s been almost two years, and what the fuck, fate? What the actual fuck? What has he ever done to deserve this?
He came here to distract himself from his thoughts about Hawkins and all the things he left behind. Most of them horrible; most of them things he hopes he’ll never have to experience ever again. The horrors that still haunt his nightmares. The hatred and the bigotry of the fine townspeople. But also …
But also.
Also the only people he’s ever called friends. The ones who stuck with him and defended him, even when everyone else called him a freak and a murderer. Who not only dragged him out of literal hell, but stuck around after. When the mobs and the torches and pitchforks were gone, and the wounds were scarred over, and his name had been cleared, but the rumors and the looks and the goddamn whispers remained.
He’s been trying to forget about the past for two years.
And now it’s standing in front of him in skinny jeans and a striped polo, pretty and perfect and kissable as ever, measuring him with an expectant look.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” Eddie squawks.
It’s not much better than “ Shit,” admittedly, but it’s an entire sentence at least, so he’s going to count it as a win.
Steve scoffs at him. “Erm, meeting you? Like I said I would? I dunno what—”
“Wait, wait, wait,” Eddie blurts. “Hold on a sec, I never said I’d meet you, I didn’t even have a fucking clue you were here at all! I was waiting for hot diver dude from the—”
Steve crosses his arms and shakes his head. The gesture is all befuddled exasperation, but his mouth is curling into a smug smile. His stupid, floofy hair flops with the movement. His stupid, floofy, slightly damp hair … which is uncharacteristically disheveled, like he just toweled it dry after …
“Oh fuuuuck!” Eddie groans, and does what he does best: he turns and runs.
Or tries, at least. He has barely taken two steps when a hand locks around his wrist.
“Eddie, wait! Please!”
When he turns back around, heart in his throat, Steve is looking at him with large, pleading eyes.
“What?” he hears himself ask, and the way it comes out, all harsh and defensive and brisk, makes him want to kick himself. Steve averts his eyes; draws his pink bottom lip between his perfectly straight, white teeth.
“Listen, man. I dunno why—” He stops himself, licks his lips, tries again. “I mean, you never— Can we at least talk? Just for a bit? It’s been two years and I just … It’s just great to see you.”
The look he gives Eddie is all wary hopefulness. Eddie has a vivid mental image of a little puppy dog hesitantly wagging its tail, and fuck, how is he supposed to say no to that?
Not at all, that’s how.
“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah okay, I guess.”
Steve’s smile, it turns out, is also just as bright as he remembers.
🦀
They make their way through the aquarium at a leisurely pace, talking about the weather, about sports, about music — perfectly harmless, perfectly meaningless topics. Eddie keeps his eyes stubbornly trained on the fish tanks for most of it, but whenever he chances a look over at Steve, it is to find himself being watched. He’s quick to look away again.
“So, how’s Wayne?” Steve finally asks, just as they’re walking up to the touch tank. They’re alone, none of the usual throng of people surrounding it.
It’s the first time in close to an hour that either of them has so much as acknowledged their shared history. Eddie curls over the railing to look at the stingrays and colorful fish to hide the way his shoulders go rigid.
“He's alright,” he says. Almost manages to make his tone casual. “Back's been bothering him a lot lately. I keep telling him to cut down on work, but you know what he's like, the stubborn old shit. Not like he couldn't afford to, what with the hush money and the house they bought him, but—”
“I never quite got why they did that,” Steve says.
Eddie snaps his mouth shut mid-babble and glances over at him. Steve is leaning beside him, arms on the railing, eyes gazing at the ripples in the water.
“Why they made you relocate, I mean.”
Eddie huffs a wry laugh. Great, here they go. He never figured they'd have this discussion in front of the touch tank at the aquarium of all places. Then again, as far as he's concerned, he was kind of planning on never having it at all.
“Not exactly like they dragged me outta there kicking and screaming, big boy,” is what he says. “More like … they offered and I just kinda rolled with it. Not like anyone in that shithole was sad to see me go.”
“Oh, gimme a break,” Steve mutters. “That's not true and y’know it.”
And there it is again. That stupid flip of his stomach, this feeling of a million butterfly wings tickling against his ribs. Eddie bites the inside of his cheek, reaches out into the water so that he doesn’t have to look at Steve.
He's talking about the kids. Eddie knows this logically.
But that's exactly the problem, isn't it? Logic never had anything to do with this.
Logically, he’s always known that Steve is a tactile guy, especially with his friends. Logically, he’s always known that none of it meant anything. Not the reassuring pressure of Steve's hand on the small of his back when they were out in town and the murmurs picked up behind them. Not the lingering touches and looks while passing a blunt or a can of beer back and forth by the pool on warm summer evenings. Steve always liked keeping his friends close, and somehow, miraculously, they had become friends in the aftermath of it all.
Friends. Not anything more.
Logically, Eddie has always been aware of this.
But that's the stupid thing about love. It doesn't give a rat's ass about logic.
It's why he left. He could feel it getting worse with every passing week, every passing day, and he knew it was just a matter of time before he did something silly. Like reach out to pluck that blunt from Steve's lips and press his own to them instead.
“You're doing good though?” Steve's voice snaps him out of his thoughts. Eddie's stomach does a funny little somersault at the genuine concern in his voice. “Dustin said you're working at a record store or something?”
Eddie chuckles. Of course Henderson would've tattled, the little dipshit.
“Yeah, it's cool. Thinking of opening my own.” He shrugs, then turns to face Steve with a teasing grin. “What about you, though? How did you become the world's most metal window cleaner?”
Steve sputters. It's hard to be sure in the pale light, but Eddie imagines there's the trace of a blush coloring his cheekbones.
“I dunno about metal — those sharks are actually pretty docile. As long as you don’t make any sudden movements …” When Eddie just quirks an eyebrow in response, he shrugs. “Started out as a way of coping with all the shit that went down, actually. Robin called it exposition therapy, I think?”
Eddie nods vaguely; thinks of the lake, the gate. The vines pulling Steve under.
“Used to love water, before … everything, y’know?” Steve mutters. “Getting back in there, learning how to dive … that felt good. Felt like taking something back. I'm sorry, that makes no sense, does it?”
“Nah, makes perfect sense,” Eddie says, and Steve’s nervous little laugh dies in his throat. “That place, those things… they took things from us, right? And I think it's pretty damn cool of you to— Woah!”
One of the stingrays has made a beeline all the way from the opposite side of the tank to their spot and shoved itself under his outstretched hand, like a cat aggressively demanding affection. Eddie laughs and runs his fingers over the surprisingly rough skin.
“Wow, hey! Aren't you a cuddly little fucker?”
“He is, isn't he?” Steve reaches out and immediately, the stingray bustles over to claim more pets from him. “I call that one Dustin because he's so damn pushy.”
If Eddie’s neck has started to prickle at the way their fingers just brushed, it's instantly forgotten in the wake of the laughing fit that tears its way out of him.
“What the fuck?” he manages to snort between two bouts. He wipes at his eyes, but his fingers are still wet from the tank, and he ends up spreading tears and saltwater all over his face. “Does Henderson know you named a stingray after him?”
The sly little shrug and grin this gets him suggest that Henderson does, in fact, not know.
“So,” Steve says instead of an answer, “wanna meet the rest of the Party?”
Eddie gawks at him.
“Wha— Are they stingrays, too?”
“Of course not,” Steve says. “That would be silly.”
His tone is dead serious, but there’s something shining in his eyes — a boyish kind of mirth that Eddie remembers all too well, and wait … yeah, that definitely still makes his heart want to jump right out of his mouth. Well, fuck.
Steve, thankfully, doesn't seem to notice his uncomfortable predicament, because he has already turned and started walking.
“C’mon,” he says over his shoulder, sunshiny and bright and so, so tempting. “I’ll give you the VIP tour.”
🐠
Eddie can’t recall when he last laughed this hard. Not at any point since he left Hawkins, that much is sure. He’s almost doubled over with it, clutching desperately at his aching stomach, and he can just tell that he’ll be sore tomorrow, but he’s powerless to stop.
As the shivers start to subside and he actually manages to draw a lungful of air without breaking into more helpless giggles, Steve lets out a breathy little huff.
“It’s not all that funny, really.”
Eddie starts howling all over again.
“But it is!” he insists between two bouts. “It absolutely is! Max is a fucking octopus; I’m cracking up over here!”
“Because she’s smart and sassy. And also stubborn as fuck and a nightmare to actually handle.” Steve insists, like this is the most logical thing in the world. He crosses his arms and glowers at Eddie like he can’t understand why he finds this so funny, but there’s a distinct, amused glint in his eyes.
He’s actually assigned namesakes to every single member of their little flock of renegades. Besides Dustin the bossy stingray and Max the sassy octopus, Eddie has met Will and El — the cuddliest, most delightful pair of otter siblings in existence — and Mike, who is a fucking sea urchin, just sitting in a corner of his tank all mopey and prickly. Eddie is getting whiplash from alternately cooing and cackling over how accurate and adorable it all is.
He’s also finding out more and more about what Steve has been up to since they last met. Turns out he only moved here earlier this year, now that the kids are all grown and scattered over various colleges across the country. He shares a little apartment with Robin, because of course these two are still joined at the hip, and only took the job at the aquarium a few weeks ago, which explains why Eddie never ran into him on any of his previous visits. He’s saving up money to become a guidance counselor. It all sounds so ridiculously on-point, so ridiculously Steve, and Eddie’s heartstrings tug with longing (maybe just a little too much).
“Something on my face?” Steve's voice makes him drop back to the present, and shit, he must've been staring at him for a while. They've reached Eddie’s favorite spot, the underwater tunnel. Steve looks ethereal with the light reflecting off his face and hair, the colorful fish with their glistening scales in the background.
He also looks very confused. One hand is reaching up to ghost over his cheekbone, like he's expecting to find something there.
Eddie is quick to hide his incoming smirk behind his hand, pretending to gnaw on a hangnail.
“Erm, your hair, actually,” he says seriously. “You've got, um … a bit of seaweed there.”
“Ugh, not again!” Steve gripes, fingers carding furiously through his already mussed-up locks. “This always happens, I'm— Wait, what?”
Because Eddie, unable to keep it together any longer, has started laughing again.
Steve watches him crack up for the better part of a minute, frown getting gradually deeper, until his eyebrows almost meet in the middle. Then, suddenly, understanding dawns and his face blanks.
“There’s no seaweed, is there?”
Eddie shakes his head merrily.
“Nope,” he says, popping the sound for good measure. “But it’s good to see that The Hair still lives up to his nickname.”
“Asshole,” Steve grouses. He jabs him lightly in the ribs, but he’s smiling now, already falling back into their familiar pattern of teasing and banter, like they only saw each other yesterday. When Eddie dances out of his reach with an exaggerated whine, he sits down on one of the benches lining the tunnel walls and oh, okay, apparently they’re staying here. Eddie fidgets for a second or two before he finally plops down beside Steve, making sure to leave a healthy amount of distance between them. It’s just the two of them, now that closing time is drawing near. Eddie has never seen this place as quiet, without screeching children or babbling tourists around. One of the perks of working here, he supposes.
They lapse into silence for a while, just watching the fish and turtles swim by all around them.
“I really love it here,” Steve finally says. Eddie chances a look and sees him in profile, backlit by the soft glow of the water, just the tiniest smile playing at his lips. “It’s just so quiet and peaceful.”
“I know, right?” Eddie stretches languidly, craning his neck so that he can look at a school of fish above his head. His hand brushes Steve’s again and he is quick to pull it away. Out of the corner of his eye, he thinks he sees how that smile dims, just a little. “It’s like a different world, almost. Well, the good kind, obviously, not the fucked up, nightmarish, raisin-faced murder wizard kind.”
“Yeah,” Steve huffs a laugh, a short puff of breath that makes Eddie wanna lean closer so that he can feel it against his skin. “God knows we’ve had enough of that kind to last us a lifetime, huh?”
Eddie hums a vague sound of agreement and starts to fidget with his rings while they lapse back into silence.
Once again, it’s Steve who breaks it. “So, have you heard about the wedding? Joyce’s and Hopper’s?”
Eddie can’t help but snort at that, and Steve’s eyebrows disappear under the impressive swoop of his bangs.
“Boy, have I heard of it. Henderson called earlier today and chewed my ear off for the better part of an hour. You have to come, Eddie! Everyone's been missing you. It's been for-eeeever.”
He shakes his head fondly; twists a lock of hair between his fingers. Clears his throat awkwardly to return his voice to its usual pitch. “It's, um … it's cool that they're finally getting hitched after … after everything. Feels right. Like what you said, y’know? Reclaiming something?”
Steve nods. Shifts in his seat.
“So are you gonna?”
“Huh?” Eddie blinks at him. “Am I gonna what?”
“Get hitched,” Steve says flatly.
Eddie blinks again. Licks his lips; fumbles for words; spends a solid few seconds frantically pondering if Steve honest to God never clocked why this is so much very-not-an-option for him.
“Come to the wedding, dumbass!” Steve says, mouth curling into the ghost of a mischievous grin, and shit, how could Eddie forget about the sheer power of snark in that boy?
“Dunno, man.” He shrugs, suddenly very interested in the way the light plays by their feet: bright slivers meandering against the darker backdrop, shadows passing through whenever a larger fish glides by overhead. “Henderson's right about one thing. It really has been forever. That's sort of the problem, right? Would be weird to—”
“He's right about a lot of things,” Steve says. The words come suddenly, and a bit harshly, like he's been trying to hold them in but can't anymore. Eddie flinches to a stop. “Everyone has been missing you, y'know?”
And then, so softly Eddie nearly misses it over the sound of the water all around them …
“I've been missing you.”
Eddie thinks his heart stops. Not for long, just half a lifetime or so.
“Stevie—” he starts to say; bites down on his own tongue when the nickname slips out. It's too raw, too intimate, too close to what he's been lying awake thinking about for the past two years. “Don't do this.”
“Or what?” Steve says, and there's an edge in his voice, a steely glint in his eyes, a hard set to his jaw, that makes Eddie’s pulse rabbit in his chest. He tries to shuffle away, to reclaim this dangerously shrinking space between them. “You gonna walk out on me? Oh wait, you already did that.”
Eddie flinches, sucks in a breath to— to defend himself? To snap back? He doesn’t even know, really.
It also doesn’t matter, because the moment Steve sees the look on his face, his own expression softens.
“Sorry, I— That was uncalled for. I shouldn’t have said that.”
“‘s okay,” Eddie hears himself mutter.
Fleetingly, he wonders if the sharks would mind if he climbed into the tank with them and hid in the pirate ship for a while. He's still not entirely convinced of their alleged docility, and he probably wouldn't be able to hold his breath for very long, but somehow it seems widely preferable to enduring that unbearably soft puppy dog gaze any longer.
Holy smokes, he needs a break. Why is Steve looking at him like that? What the fuck is going on?
Steve breathes a laugh; shakes his head.
“It’s really not. You had every reason to leave; I know that. I have no right to be mad about that. It’s only… It all was so sudden. You just packed up and left without so much as telling m— telling any of us. Hell, I didn't even know where you lived until just now. I still don’t know your phone number. I mean, I knew that Henderson knew, but that little asshat has been refusing to tell me—”
“That's because I asked him not to, okay?” Eddie blurts, and great, now Steve is still looking at him like a puppy — a puppy that's just been kicked. That shark tank is beginning to seem more and more tempting.
“But …” Steve pauses, licks his lips again. His tongue leaves a light trail of moisture. The tiny, moving specks of light catch on it and Eddie feels the familiar sense of longing explode in his chest. “But why? I thought we were friends, I—”
Eddie groans.
“Yes, exactly. That's exactly it, Stevie. We were friends and that was great. That was super fucking wonderful, in fact, one of the best goddamn things that ever happened to me. So much better than I ever expected, especially after the clusterfuck it came from, and I couldn't risk that, don't you get that? I couldn't risk ruining that over—”
Two large, strong hands splay on top of his, gently disentangling his fingers from his own hair, and oh, he must've started pulling on it. Must've slumped in on himself on the bench, because now he's slowly being coaxed upright until they're face-to-face, entwined hands resting lightly in Steve’s lap.
“Over what, Eds?” Steve asks. There's an alarmed furrow to his brow, but the turn of his mouth is hopeful. The nickname hits Eddie’s chest like something solid, startling his heart into a rapid staccato of thumptumpthumps.
Over my stupid, unreasonable desires, Eddie wants to say. Over my entirely ridiculous, futile crush on you. Because things don’t work that way, not in places like Hawkins, not for people like me. Not with guys like you.
He wants to say all of that, but there’s a lump in his throat and a weight in his chest, and a pain inside his skull like tons and tons of dark, murky lake water pressing down on him, and he can’t. He huffs a frustrated breath; turns his head.
A hand touches the side of his face, large and warm, and gently forces him to turn back around. Eddie swallows.
“Steve?” he mutters, but Steve doesn’t answer. Just looks at him again with that determined glint in his pretty eyes, that resolute edge to his jaw, like he’s ready to fight monsters. His fingers glide up, up into the roots of Eddie’s hair until shivers trickle down from his scalp all the way to the base of his spine.
Eddie wants to run. Eddie wants to stay. Eddie wants to undo all the time he wasted and melt into that touch until he can’t remember where either of them ends and where the other begins.
“Steve?” he breathes. “What are you doing?”
“Reclaiming something,” Steve whispers and leans in.
It's soft and slow, but it's firm. Eddie always thought that kisses this soft couldn't be anything but hesitant and shy. Turns out he was wrong. There's nothing hesitant about the way Steve tightens his grip on his hair, nothing shy about the way he tilts Eddie’s head to seal his lips with his own. It's infinitely gentle, though. As if Steve can feel the panic and the confusion racing through Eddie’s mind; as if he wants him to know that he can pull away whenever he wants to.
Eddie doesn’t pull away.
Instead, he makes a hungry sound — not entirely unlike the snarl from earlier, when he was trying to mime a shark, but Steve doesn’t need to know that — and launches himself at Steve with so much force it nearly topples them off the bench. His hands fly up to tangle themselves into those glorious chestnut locks, and his tongue darts out to coax those perfect pink lips. Steve lets him in with a happy noise that makes two years of loneliness and longing and memories explode in his chest. They bubble out of him like a silver swirl of air in the water, and then everything gets sort of blurry.
When he regains his senses, he has Steve pressed against the glass pane behind the bench. He's flushed all the way from the collar of his polo to those perfect cheekbones, lips shiny and kissed full. His chest heaves in tandem with Eddie’s own, desperately trying to suck in air, but his eyes are sparkling and he's beaming up at him. A swarm of mildly confused looking fish hovers behind him. Eddie feels his own face ignite in an entirely unreasonable blush.
“What're you lookin’ at?” he snaps, and the fish scatter apart in a flurry of glittering colors. Steve laughs breathlessly as Eddie grabs him by the shoulders and hauls him upright.
He means to pull him up and let go, like a normal, civilized person, but apparently Steve has other plans. He uses the momentum to draw Eddie closer, looping his arms around the back of his neck, until they're almost in each other’s lap.
“Now …” He leans in to kiss the tip of Eddie’s flushed nose. “Was that so terrifying that you had to run and hide for two years?”
Eddie gawks at him.
“Wait, wha— what? You knew?”
Steve rolls his eyes at him, idly twisting one of Eddie’s curls around his finger.
“Dude, I’m not blind, I saw the way you were looking at me. I just …” He hesitates; bites his lip.
Now that Eddie knows what it feels like, what it tastes like, it takes all the self-restraint in his body to not kiss him silly all over again.
Steve huffs a frustrated breath, and this time, they’re so close that Eddie can feel it against his own skin. “I’d never been with a guy before, and … I was scared, I guess. Scared and confused and an idiot. I should’ve never let you leave. I’m sorry.”
And Eddie is rarely ever speechless, but now? Now his mouth is opening and closing, trying to give voice to the million-and-one thoughts whirling through his mind. Steve looks up at him through those impossible lashes of his and smiles, soft and bittersweet.
“Thought my mind was playing tricks on me when I saw you in front of that tank earlier. Can you imagine how that felt? Suddenly having you this fucking close, but not being able to get to you? I’ve never hated that stupid glass pane so much in my life! Would’ve shattered the damn thing if I could’ve.”
“Well, thank fuck you didn’t,” Eddie huffs. “That would’ve been a pretty wet and messy affair. Bitey, too, what with the sharks. Not to mention your bosses probably wouldn’t be all that amused if you—”
“Oh God, shut up,” Steve says, and pulls him in again.
Eddie gladly obeys.
He’s just pushing Steve’s lips apart for a second time when a loud, tinny gong echoes through the speakers above them. Steve groans and pulls away. When he sees the disappointed scowl on Eddie’s face, his mouth twitches into a grin.
“Sorry, closing time. I need to go throw out the last of the visitors, check the bathrooms and stuff …”
“Okay, okay, I get it.” Eddie rolls his eyes, but the positively painful grin splitting his face betrays him. “I know a sign to leave when I see one. Or hear one. Or whatever.”
He stretches his legs, makes to get up from the bench, but freezes when Steve reaches out to entwine their fingers.
“You’re not, um …” Steve’s face is fearful suddenly, and something in Eddie’s stomach lurches violently. “You’re not really leaving though, right? I mean … I’m gonna see you again? Preferably less than two years from now?”
“Stevie?” Eddie hums, and this time, the nickname slips off his tongue like honey, sweet and warm and delicious. He could get used to it. If the way Steve’s breath hitches and his pupils blow wide is anything to go by, he’s feeling along the same lines. “Is this your way of asking me to be your plus one for the wedding? Cause if it is—”
“That’s not it,” Steve says, and maybe he sees the way Eddie’s grin slips, because he’s quick to carry on. “You’re invited, you idiot, you don’t have to be anyone’s plus one. You’re one of us.”
The words make something warm and familiar bloom in his chest, something he’s been missing for far too long. Steve smiles and leans in just as the gong sounds for the second time. When he speaks, they’re so close that their lips brush softly.
“What I mean is … Wait outside? I’d like to continue catching up. Over a drink or two? Somewhere more private maybe?”
“Oh,” Eddie manages. The sound rushes out on a breathless little laugh. “Oh, yeah. I’d like more private.”
Steve’s answering smile is triumphant and soft and warm against his lips.
He was right, Eddie thinks as he strolls towards the exit, head still tingly and light. Random hot dudes do not just float by in shark tanks to ask people like him out on dates.
But, sometimes, the past does.