eddie munson was gay.

wow. shocking. you'd never see it coming. you were truly, deeply rocked to your core.

alright, maybe you were being a bit mean- but it was your internal dialogue, and you, as a fellow homosexual, had every right to tease him about how blatant it was- he wore vests, for god's sake.

even if maybe it was a little bit (lot a bit) your type.

you were his unofficial...thing- friend with benefits, even if those benefits were more than fucking.

such as his small gang of high school freshman who saw you, an adult man with his own place and a job, as god. they didn't worship eddie like one. he was just...part of the crew. you, however, brought snacks to hellfire meetings- which, since eddie's graduation and subsequent 20th birthday, had moved to either your place or eddie's trailer.

you were much better in the eyes of parents.

eddie was, in all senses of the word, clingy. hung off of you like a limpet when if at all possible- hardly even caring if you were alone or not. there were plenty of rumors, natural- but you were an adult. it was freeing, not having to care.

and you couldn't seem to get angry at him for it- neither of you had felt okay enough to sleep more than 5 feet apart since the end of the world and eddie's brief death.

all of this, and he'd yet to call you his boyfriend. what sick world is this?

eddie'd invited you over tonight. you were there most nights anyways, but tonight he'd specifically requested it. it felt different. heavier, somehow. you could practically see robin's shit-eating grin in your minds eye- as if she wasn't actively experiencing good luck, babe! with the eldest wheeler sibling.

anyways!

you were now sprawled comfortably across eddie's bed. his own trailer- though right next to his uncle's- was very...him.

and by that, obviously, you meant unfathomably cluttered. especially his room. boxes and plastic wrap and paper plates littered the floor- though you felt oddly honored he was relaxed enough to not panic-clean whenever you came by. practically marriage, in eddie's books.

he was pressed right up next to you, nose pressed into your throat and hair spread out on the pillow, not unlike a halo.

you were also both slightly drunk, and way too high.

he'd gotten his hands on some red wine- fancy, he'd called it, grinning wide as can be, even though he'd literally shoplifted it from kmart, specifically for this occasion.

it was half gone at this point, 99% done by him. which, as you'd discovered, made the already clingy man a hundred times clingier.

you'd also shared a joint, and he'd stuffed a towel under the door as to lock in the smoke.

he was glued to your side, leg slung over your hip as if he were the shorter one. bowie played faintly in the background- he'd gotten the man who sold the world specifically for when he was stoned- and he was ranting. talking about something you didn't exactly understand, because it was all being spoken into your shirt- that of which he was 'sneakily' trying to remove.

eddie froze for a moment. not very subtle, but in your baked mind, it didn't register. until he sloowly shifted, rolling onto his side in clumsy mortification.

"and it was, like-- like, stupid cool, because the bat was fuckin' alive, man." he cleared his throat, though his voice cracked nonetheless as he adjusted his sweats.

your brain, fuzzy from the high, groaned in protest to the sudden shock of cold- you'd been using eddie's body as a heater. it worked quite well.

you gave a bleary come back, in his direction, to which his face practically glowed red, bringing his knees up to his chest.

"can't," he said, voice lower than usual, but somehow a billion times more childish. "i, uh. really can't."

give him a break, he's but a man.