Exalted

Eddie flipped through his playlists as he entered his apartment and wandered back to his bedroom, finding what he considered a quiet one, perfect to fall asleep to - not an opinion most would share - and dropped into bed, still fully-clothed and alarmingly sober, and stared up at the shadowed ceiling while he walked through the night in his head. Robin and Chrissy had got along almost suspiciously well, and he suspected the frequent glances at him and Steve meant they had provided the entertainment. Well, at least that made it easier, and they’d had fun. 

He’d had fun, too, he thought. Steve was nice, and funny, and so interested in what Eddie was doing in school, what music he listened to, what he thought about the beer, the food - everything. The evening had passed by with Eddie only drinking two beers, and he’d barely noticed. Steve was so oblivious, too, to people being attracted to him - he seriously didn’t understand that the bartender really had been jealous, but Eddie had caught the look thrown his way when he’d walked out with Steve’s hand on his back, and it was all he could do not to cackle. It wasn’t just the bartender, though - there had been enough second looks thrown at Steve by people walking by for everyone at the table except Steve to notice.

The light had been low in the bar, but one of the stage lights was directed just right to catch Steve in the edge of its beam and raise that glow off his white shirt and chestnut hair again, and Eddie had to reel in possessive thoughts he’d never had before. Steve, though, had been charmingly unaware of any of it, including Eddie’s death stare at anyone who lingered too long near the table, and was focused on his conversation with Eddie - and Eddie had to be careful not to let it go to his head.

He hadn’t missed that Steve had taken the change in seating as an opportunity to tuck Eddie into the corner of the booth, or the way Steve had scanned the room every few minutes, still tuned into what Eddie was saying, but alert. Eddie knew what it was like to feel unsafe somewhere, but Steve and Robin had picked the place - they were comfortable there, obviously something like regulars, but that didn’t touch the wariness that was barely submerged under Steve’s skin. Eddie rolled onto his side, punching his pillow into shape and skipping a couple of songs to find something faster. That was the thing, he thought. Because Eddie had been jumped before, so he knew what that kind of watchfulness was about, and watching it settled on Steve like a weight he was so used to that he barely noticed anymore made Eddie unreasonably angry.

If Eddie was feeling an unprecedented sense of possessiveness, Steve seemed to be feeling an unnecessary sense of protectiveness, and it made Eddie’s brain buzz. The way he’d wanted to make sure Eddie enjoyed himself, that he liked the food and the beer, had kept a hand on his back as they’d navigated the crowd to leave, and had just sweetly agreed to help without even knowing what Eddie needed - there weren’t a lot of people in Eddie’s life that had ever taken care of him before. Wayne, Chrissy, a couple of guys he’d dated maybe right at the start, but not this kind of sweet warmth, and he wanted to just gather it up and hoard it away for colder days. 

Eddie fell into disjointed dreams about laughing eyes and strong forearms, wide shoulders and shy smiles, and woke to an alarm he hadn’t remembered setting. He squinted at his phone as he turned off the alarm, yawning so hard he felt like his jaw was going to slip out of place, then slapped the phone down and bolted for the shower when his eyes adjusted enough to read: “Steve, studio, 10AM. TAKE A SHOWER.”

He scrubbed the shampoo Chrissy had made him buy into his hair, reflecting that he should have known Chrissy would take the opportunity to make fun of him when she set the alarm for him as he drove her home, and it really could have been worse. He cocked his head when he heard the alarm go off again, and shrugged. It was early enough for the neighbors to not complain too much about a morning serenade, and it was smart to set a snooze alarm. Chrissy knew what he was like. He rinsed out the conditioner Chrissy swore would make his hair like silk - it didn’t, which was good because he didn’t even want that, it sounded gross, but it did make it smoother. And it smelled nice, so that was a bonus.

He hurried into his room in a towel, dropping it in the direction of the hamper as he dug into his battered dresser for clothes. He pulled on underwear and threw socks on the bed, finally getting annoyed with the alarm and turning it off. “You better be up already!” The alarm said, and he narrowed his eyes in suspicion. I bet she did, he thought, checking the alarms to find that yes, she had - there were five more alarms waiting for him, starting with: “You’re not going to have time for coffee,” going to “You’re going to be late,” “You’re going to be SO late,” “He’s already there, waiting for you,” and finishing with: “Don’t call me to cry if he doesn’t want to talk to you again. (Kidding, call me if you have to cry.)” He shook his head as he turned them all off. Sweet little Chrissy, even when she was calling him out.

He yanked a shirt over his head and scuffed his feet into beat-up Vans, grabbing his jacket and bag as he darted through the living room. The door banged behind him and he clattered down the stairs,  rushing over to his van and jumping in. He threw his bag into the passenger seat and spun out of the parking lot, cursing when he saw that coffee was going to have to be sacrificed for gas - he should have stopped and filled up last night, but it was late and, if he was completely honest with himself, he was too busy thinking about how solid Steve’s arm had felt when he squeezed it to be practical enough to get gas.

He heaved a sigh of relief when Steve wasn’t hanging around outside the block of studios, and let himself in. The studio spaces the school provided to his department were smaller than those the art students got, and not blessed with good natural light (his had the wall of another building a scant few feet away),  but they were blessedly sound-proof, big enough for what Eddie needed, and - most importantly - free. He hated having to share space with someone else when he was working on something, jostling for room on the table or being annoyed by the sewing machine when he was trying to sketch. He plugged his phone into his old laptop to charge, and laid out a new sketch pad and his bag of drawing stuff. Most people used a tablet, and Eddie had one - a gift from Wayne for his birthday last year, he’d waited until Wayne had gone to work and cried like a baby - but he liked the tactility of drawing on paper for the loose, beginning sketches.

Eddie was trying to clean up - where did all this paper even come from?  - when a tap on the door alerted him that Steve had arrived. He took a deep steadying breath and swung the door open, a beatific smile sweeping across his face when Steve held out a tray of coffees to him. “Hi,” Steve said. “I wasn’t sure what you liked, so there’s a few to choose from.” Eddie took the tray, leaving Steve holding a paper bag. “I brought some breakfast sandwiches, too. I overslept, and I can’t get going if I don’t eat something.”

Eddie grabbed a black iced coffee and took a long drink. “Angel,” he breathed out fervently. “I didn’t have time for anything, either, so this is a lifesaver, thank you.” He led Steve to the table, setting down the tray.

Steve took a latte for himself, and handed Eddie a wrapped sandwich. “They didn't have much left, but that’s ham and I have bacon, too, if you’d rather have that.”

“I will eat literally anything edible,” Eddie assured him as he perched on one of the stools at the table to unwrap the sandwich and took a huge bite.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Steve laughed, taking a more sedate bite and looking around. “I don’t know what I was expecting a studio to look like,” he said. “This isn’t as crazy as I was thinking.”

Eddie laughed. “It’s a school studio, so I can’t do anything crazy to it. It wouldn’t probably be insane if I could, so maybe it’s better this way, won’t scare you off.”

It’s as Steve’s turn to laugh. “I don’t think it would be that crazy, you still have to be able to work in it. I was expecting like drawings and mannequins or something.”

“I hate mannequins,” Eddie shuddered. “They creep me out like nothing else, especially the ones without faces.” He pointed to the wall next to him. “The guy over there has a bunch of them, he changes their wigs and stuff, and sometimes it creeps me out just knowing that they’re over there.”

Steve eyed the wall a little uneasily. “At least it’s concrete,” he said finally. “Mannequins probably couldn’t get through it.”

Eddie pulled a face and said: “Good point, Steve. Still creeped out being alone here too late at night.”

“At night?” Steve held up his hands. “Oh, fuck, no.”

They both laughed and finished their sandwiches, talking about the night before and Robin and Chrissy’s apparently blossoming friendship. Eddie found out that Steve and Robin shared an apartment - their parents didn’t worry about Robin so much that way - and that Robin had woken Steve up that morning by banging on his door and telling him he needed to leave in five minutes. He’d actually had plenty of time, Robin was just being a little shit about it, but it had gotten him out of bed in a hurry. Eddie, in turn, told him how Chrissy had taken advantage of him asking her to set an alarm for him while he was driving so he didn’t forget to instead of one set a ton, making fun of him. Steve deemed it a ‘rookie mistake,’ and Eddie had to agree.

“So how does making a collection work?” Steve asked at last. “I mean, I get that you need to have different pieces of clothing that go together, but how do you know what kind and how many and all of that?”

Eddie blossomed under the genuine interest, and went into what his brain tried to tell him was too much detail about his usual process, what the parameters of this assignment were, what big designers did - pretty much anything they want to, have you seen some of that stuff? I mean, when the best thing you can say is that something is ‘directional’ you know somebody has been reading their own press - before finally winding down with a nervous chuckle. “Sorry, Steve, that was way more than you asked for,” he apologized.

“No, I wouldn’t ask if I wasn’t interested,” Steve said earnestly, leaning his elbows on the table. “I did look some stuff up online, but I didn’t really know what I was looking for and got lost down a rabbit hole about whether a ‘design house’ is the same as an ‘atelier.’ People have very strong opinions about that, just so you know, but I still don’t know what either thing actually means.”

Eddie stared at him for a second, floored. He’d tried to look up something he knew Eddie was interested in? He’d done research to be able to talk to Eddie? When had he even had the time? Before they met up yesterday? After he got home last night - or, really, this morning? “That’s a long discussion for people who care more about the ‘fashion world’ than about the actual fashion,” Eddie smiled. “If you want to learn about the process designers go through, maybe try some biographies? I’m going to warn you, though, avoid Chanel.” He shrugged at Steve’s questioning look. “On the wrong side of WW2 history. Great construction, but - yeah.”

Steve wrinkled his nose. “Yeah, I can skip that. But if you can recommend any, that would be great.”

Eddie laughed. “I’m not sure about recommending books to a librarian, but I’ll see if I can find anything.” He pulled up a rubric on his laptop as he finished his coffee and grabbed a second cup from the tray, reading the scribble on the side. “Mocha?”

“The other one is peppermint mocha,” Steve told him, and Eddie switched cups.

“Unless you’d rather have the peppermint one,” he held it out to Steve, who shook his head. “I’m usually a black coffee person, but I like mint,” Eddie added. “As long as it’s not too sweet.”

“I have a sweet tooth,” Steve lamented, patting his - perfectly flat, as far as Eddie could tell - stomach through his yellow sweater. “Between that and working at the library, I started having to workout to keep up.”

Eddie swallowed, sternly telling himself to not try and picture that right now. “Good to know,” he said. “If I ever need to bribe you, I’ll break out the candy.”

“I would like to tell you that wouldn’t work, but Robin has been known to preface outrageous requests with chocolate, and she would rat me out.” Steve grinned. “Is that your project?” he asked, pointing at the laptop screen.

“It’s the assignment and the rubric,” Eddie explained. “Just like any normal project, I get scored on different things. Part of it is just the literal construction - how well made it is - but there’s also parts for cohesiveness of the collection, completeness, marketability,” Eddie scrolled through the different pieces. “It sounds really subjective, but they’re actually pretty good at not grading to their own bias.”

“I guess they’d have to be, not everything is going to be your own style, but you have to be able to tell if it’s good,” Steve said, as he looked over Eddie’s shoulder to read the screen, leaning on his hand for leverage, his chest brushing Eddie’s shoulder. I am dying, Eddie concluded. And that is fine. He smells so fucking good. “So what did you think I could help you with?” Steve asked as he settled back on his own stool.

Brain function restored, Eddie answered. “Well, I tend to work a little dark,” he waved at his once again all-black outfit. “I swear I do wear other colors, but there’s a theme.” He grinned. “Which means people expect a certain look from me, and I honestly don’t like it.”

“Don’t like the look, or don’t like the expectation?” Steve asked, and Eddie sucked his lower lip into his mouth to make an impish face.

“The latter,” he admitted, and Steve made an ‘I figured’ face at him. “Which is where you come in,” Eddie told him, nudging the mocha closer to him.

“You can’t bribe me with coffee I bought, Eddie,” Steve grinned. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve decided your true calling is designing what Robin calls ‘little librarian sweaters,’ because I will not believe you.”

“Not exactly,” Eddie said, a touch of nerves shading his voice. “If anything, I think it’s going to be the complete opposite.”

Steve’s face was impassive. “Slutty librarian sweaters?” He asked, and Eddie goggled at him for a minute before they both cracked up.

“No, but please tell Robin that it is,” Eddie wiped his eyes, still giggling. 

“What is the plan, then?” Steve asked, sipping his coffee, his eyes still twinkling.

“Well, I’m hoping you’ll model,” Eddie told him. “Not like just for the show, but as a fit model, too,” he waved his hand at the studio. “No mannequins, no dressmaker’s dummies - I’d rather measure and then fit everything on you.” He bit his lip.

“What exactly does it involve?” Steve asked, looking concerned. “I don’t want to agree and then not have time for it and affect your project,” he explained.

“There’d be time I needed you here - or sometimes I could go where you were, if that was easier for you - and then there’s the show and a mock-magazine shoot, but a lot of the time I would be sewing and would only need you for fittings and adjustments,” Eddie explained. “I’d know when the show and the shoot were in advance, maybe even get them on the same day, so it wouldn’t be too many days to work around. Is your schedule the same every week?”

“No, it varies. They’re pretty good about letting us change shifts if we need to. Would I be the only person modeling?”

“No, I would be, too - some people don’t, but I like to. Subverting the expectation for models, especially male ones, is a thing. Chrissy probably will, and maybe we could ask Robin, too. Chrissy’d love it.” Eddie grinned, knowing Chrissy would freak out. Payback.

“Could you get me the dates, and I’ll check at work tomorrow if there’s anything I can’t move?” Steve took out his phone. “Give me your number, then I can text you.”

They exchanged numbers, and Eddie promised to text him as soon as he talked to the professor. “I should already know, but I skimmed right over it,” Eddie admitted. Steve laughed and took a drink of coffee, and Eddie squinted at the cup. “What does that cup say?”

Steve looked at the cup. “Mocha?” He said in a questioning tone.

“Not that side, the other side,” Eddie mimed turning the cup.

“Oh,” Steve looked at the cup and blushed. “Um, I think it’s a phone number.”

Eddie stared at him. This man is a menace. “Some poor barista slipped you their phone number, and you didn’t even notice?”

“I was in a hurry, I didn’t want to keep you waiting,” Steve protested. 

I am going to lose my mind, Eddie decided.