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The air is heavy with the promise of snow. Against a grey sky, the last stubborn leaves cling to the tips of branches. They of all things know it won’t be long: gnarled fingers will start to tap at the tin roof, moved by the wind to keep rhythm with the birdsong. Winter will come next, bringing silence with it.
A small clearing separates the back of the house from the tapered edge of the woods. Dusk arrives early here, most of the visible world shadowed by tall pines except for the small garage tucked back in the bramble. Golden light pours from a filmy window. Once in a while, Steve will catch a dark figure moving around inside and could swear that the warmth has reached him, too, despite the distance. He’ll forget to breathe life into his fingers until they’re bitten by a chill. He’ll wonder why he’s standing out here. He can only smell a woodfire—can’t feel it.
But he’s patient. It doesn’t hurt him to wait. When the reason eventually brushes against his leg, demanding his attention with a yowl, he isn’t surprised by it.
“What, no mice?”
Emmet circles regardless, his glowing eyes watching him from the ashy streak of fur.
The cat is scooped into his arms, relief escaping him with a puff of breath. Don’t bite the hand, don’t trip the feet.
The house smells like home: a roast in the oven and a fire in need of stoking. Before anything can happen, he sets out a bowl of cat chow. They’re at the mercy of each other, him and Emmet Otter. Steve knows it instinctively.
Emmet isn’t a pretty creature—graceless, patchy, and battle-scarred—but found by Eddie and named by Eddie, he completes an image of home in a way. In another, he offers a glimpse into the past that Steve is all too lucky to have, long before home was a possibility.
He didn’t know Eddie in childhood. No pictures or keepsakes had been spared for reintroduction. Now it’s easier to imagine the boy because of the man’s cat, his dirty knees and sunny laughter, a toy guitar, the glow of the television screen, a beloved Christmas story.
Watching the animal, the half-fanged mouth shoveling his meal as if it will be his last, a smile crosses Steve’s face.
His husband wipes his boots at the door. With a guitar case in tow, he squeezes inside to keep the cold out. “Fuckin’ A,” he declares with a sniff. A shiver. He doesn’t move as quickly now that he’s joined Steve in the kitchen, keeping his coat on while he finds a place for his instrument.
“Can I see it yet?”
Eddie calls back from another room, “Almost!”
Funny how it came to him out of order, Steve thinks. The garage, the cat, the toy guitar and, now he remembers what he wanted to check on, the real one: Eddie’s work in progress. It will stay hidden in a case until it’s done. Superstitiousness keeps him from sharing until then.
“It’s cold in here!”
The guitar, the roast, the fire. Before he can be blamed, Steve slinks into the living room to add a log to the hearth. He blows on the dying embers until the fire has been revived.
When they meet again, Eddie is freeing his hair from under the collar of his jacket. Coarse and staticky, it sticks to a ruddy face and makes it hard to tell where his beard begins and ends. Almost as long as Steve has known him (as long as he has known him since meeting again), one side of Eddie’s face refuses to smile. The other side grins so brightly that it must hurt his cheek, and a hand can’t help but reach out in an effort to soothe. Whether necessary or not, the gesture is accepted with a pat.
Something relaxes.
“Where’s your glasses, Steven?”
Never in order, is it? The kitchen is a rosy haze around them. The shapes making up the yard were indistinct.
“Trick question,” Eddie says. The glasses are plucked from his shirt pocket. “Don’t worry. You’re just as handsome with them on, if not more.”
“Shuddup.”
“Here.”
With a click of the tongue, he accepts them from him. The problem isn’t his ego. He breathes on the lenses, rubs them against his sweater, and blinks into focus. The left side stays smudged. “How much time we got on that roast?”
“Fifteen.” Eddie’s checking on it now, though it’s hard to say if he opened the oven door to update on the status of dinner or to warm his face. He shrugs off his coat and for Steve to hang. “Going on half an hour, I’d say.”
“Smells great.”
“Fingers crossed,” he mutters. There’s no need. Cooking is just one of his many talents—the one he cares least for actually doing, which does nothing to soften his self-critical nature. Unfortunately for him, they had been jonesing not only because of the change in weather, but because of that undeniable, unshared knack of his. If Steve went out and got all the ingredients then Eddie would be happy to make it. Happy, he swore.
He shuts the oven with a huff, his mane zig-zagging on a hot gust of air.
Steve sits at the breakfast table. Now that Emmet has gotten his fill, he lounges by the room’s source of heat, an accident waiting to happen. He’s invited over to the table with a pat on the lap, which may not be accepted, but at least it gets someone’s attention.
When Eddie nudges with his toes, the cat rolls onto his back. Steve swears he catches a flash of smugness.
Stepping around, Eddie sits across from him with a contented sigh. He’d been on his feet since morning. Steve rests his chin on his hands, waiting for dark eyes to flutter open so he can meet his gaze. Once they do, whiskers twitch with his smirk.
“Yes?”
“How’d you learn to cook?” He asks because it’s suddenly apparent to him that he doesn’t know. As long as they’ve lived together, he never thought to question it.
“My mom.”
Steve nods. Clearly as he can picture this, he never thought to imagine that scene before, either: the boy and his mother in a kitchen like this one, spitting images of each other, then and now.
“She actually knew what she was doing.”
“What was her name?”
“Elizabeth.” They mirror each other then, Eddie leaning forward on his elbows. “When cooking got to be too much, she’d tell me what to do and I’d just follow orders. ‘Course it never came out the same. I guess she didn’t mind as long as there was food on the table, but I sure as hell did. I still have dreams about that meatloaf…”
“That’s why you’re always worried you’ll fuck it up.”
The observation surprises a laugh out of him. A twinkle appears in his eye, committed to memory and held close to the heart.
“Well,” Steve says, leaning back in his chair, “thank you, Elizabeth.”
Eddie hums. He’ll admit after the leftovers are put away and the dishes are washed that he had outdone himself.
They watch the snow fall until nothing can illuminate it against the black night. Soft clusters tick against the windows and roof, building steadily toward dawn as the house gives in to sleep.
The world could be sitting in someone’s attic, covered by a white sheet to protect it from time and its dust. In the late morning, daylight struggles to break through the pinewood canopy, and as the branches sway, broken beams only manage to catch a few glittering specks before they reach the virgin ground.
Snow crunches underfoot. Paused, it melts between slipper and skin. A single streak arches across a vast blank canvas from the woods to his feet: a deep red, too deep to exist.
But the blood has already stained the cat’s chin black. Hours after he should have, Steve remembers to feed him. Then, minding the brittleness of his spine, he finds a shovel and returns to break the hard earth beneath powder. There in the soil, where a garden should grow next spring, the mouse lies curled up as if just cold. Just sleeping.
Death doesn’t have to be a sign. It can only become one if the witness lets it—and, as always, this is as deep as Steve lets the thought dig its claws in. They talk often about Eddie’s past and what it could mean for the future they share. The subjects of false identities and cold cases haunt their conversations as if being found, alive, is an inevitability. They know it isn’t. They know what is.
Though his husband is just waking up when he returns to the house, he must realize right away that the routine has been disrupted. The man hovers at the bottom of the stairs for a moment, bathrobe pulled tight to the chest to keep in warmth while the tinder is being lit. After good-mornings are exchanged, he thinks twice before asking for coffee, tip-toeing across cold hardwood to pick up wherever Steve had left off.
Aching hands are balmed by the crackling hearth, then by a steaming mug. The latter is offered with a kiss that lingers in thick waves of silver.
This is as close as they’ve come to an acknowledgment.
“Looks like our mouser’s trying to earn his keep.” A slanted grin is revealed by the fire’s glow. Then a grimace.
It would make sense to explain it, he thinks—maybe not at first, but Eddie understands him. That’s only because he’s willing to.
“At least he didn’t leave anything behind.”
Steve nods, once, twice, slowing into uncertainty by the third. “Actually, I buried it,” he admits, straightening his glasses. “That’s what took me so long. Sorry.”
He rubs the back of his neck in thought. Sits down, sips his bitter coffee. “Your back?”
A shake of the head answers him.
“Where?”
“Near the maple.”
His voice has lost the gravel of deep sleep, nothing but softness: “All for a little mouse.”
Something twists in Steve’s expression, warning him of the reaction to follow. Nodding again, he turns to the fire until the water in his eyes is nothing but a dwindling sting. “Yeah,” he laughs. In hindsight, the kinder thing would have been to leave it for another animal to find, to bring home, to feed its young. What was Emmet doing if not trying to take care of them?
“You’re a good man, Steve Harrington.”
Maybe the cat had heard the compliment being directed elsewhere, or maybe he had just sensed the shift. Whatever the motivation, he hops up onto the brick ledge and sniffs at Steve’s drink. All evidence of the slaughter has been washed off of his face.
“The kind I’d bring home to mother.”
Corralling Emmet onto his lap, petting until he’s calm enough to rest, Steve finds himself retracing his steps through their conversation. Skips and leaps back, Eddie’s mother must have been mentioned. He wonders what of her son is hers: round eyes, wisecracking smile, warm voice? So much of him seems to come from his father’s side, having only seen his uncle to confirm that. Photographs of the two of them are easily found here, in this house that he and Eddie once shared.
“What was Mrs. Harrington like?”
People ask him that sometimes—mostly coworkers, sometimes well-meaning students. Mrs. Harrington.
When he glances up again, his husband is skimming the newspaper, pretending to make nothing of this test. Hiding his face. Curiosity has him questioning it again: What of her son?
“Ah,” he realizes aloud, relieved to have hesitated. He was asking about that Mrs. Harrington.
“I don’t think I ever asked you her name, either. Or I don’t remember. But she was an important lady, right?”
“Beverly was very important.”
His head bobs behind the flipping of pages. He can’t be reading. Every turn comes faster than the last until he settles on a section, pausing only to speak. “I thought so.”
“The Mayor of Hawkins,” he goes on. “Close friends with a few of them, so I guess she basically was.”
“What about after Hawkins?”
Shrugging his shoulders, he can just feel the beginnings of soreness. He shifts slightly, careful not to disturb the sleeping animal as he heats his back. His pain isn’t the cataclysm it used to be. If he stays careful, that should be enough. “She had a nice condo down in Florida. Stayed busy with her book club.”
That piques his interest so sincerely that the paper has to be set down. “What did Beverly Harrington like to read, I wonder.”
Steve chuckles under his breath. “I’m not sure,” he says. That’s a shame. “I never asked.”
“Did your dad have any hobbies?”
“Can we talk about something else?” A tired smile is slow to fade. It undermines the anxious urgency pushing the request. He channels it into his fingers, scratching under the cat’s chin. “Rob has a million hobbies. I’ll tell you about those.”
“Sure…” Eddie drawls. “But I already know her.”
“It’d be nice to know that I still do.”
No longer close to; this is the acknowledgment. It comes without concern or preamble. It’s sapped enough energy from them already.
He doesn’t look at Eddie. He’d rather not notice him giving in, following suit. “That’s what we’re doing, right? Well, if it’s a matter of freeing up space–” He ignores the sigh across the room, continuing under a grim huff of laughter: “–my old man and his ‘hobbies’ can be the first to go. Trust me, Ed, I couldn’t care less.”
As he says it, though, a sudden heaviness sinks to the pit of his stomach. His dead father’s work number can be recalled down to the extension, which is no more useful to him than the address of the last mistress he knew of, or the steps required to fold footballs and planes out of paper. He should be so lucky to hold onto these things, clutter and all, for safekeeping. No one else has.
“Steve.”
He nods, watching Emmet’s breath ebb and flow in his slumber. When that isn’t enough to prompt him on, his attention cuts to the man in his armchair—sitting forward, hands clasped over his knees, the finer details of him taken in until the right lens joins the left in haziness.
“It’s okay.”
“It’s gonna have to be.”
The cat hops down then, seeking a more peaceful corner of the house. “Steve,” close enough to whisper as his arms pull him even closer, “do you know I’d do anything for you?”
“And if I stop being me?”
Eddie hushes him.
“He might not think to say this, so I’m giving you permission. Just take me out back and make it quick.”
Even a bad joke can land under these circumstances. There’s a sharp exhale near his ear: laughing at something he knows he shouldn’t be allowed to.
“Promise?”
He squeezes his shoulders, massaging tenderness as he meets his eyes. “I’d have to take you out with me.”
They won’t acknowledge it again.
Steve is never quite attached to his name unless it can be whispered. Never feels responsible for it until it’s said with a crooked smile. Never more alive than when his body is pressed against another’s: safe, warm, and protected from the uncertainty of a cold house.
A simple pattern. An easy rhythm. A constant presence makes it so.
But yesterday had started too late, and today too early. When a hand reaches into the night, finding nothing but an unmade bed and a pair of glasses, it must be time to brave the uncertainty. Sleep can wait until this wrong has been righted. As if navigating a cave, his fingertips never leave the wall as he follows the invisible path—first toward light, and then toward sound. Trembling hands remember the glasses hooked to the collar of his t-shirt, more afraid to ignore the presence of agony than to lose his tether.
Up ahead, hidden behind a slow-moving dust cloud, a shadow bends before a dark and glittering sky. Closer, bends under the flickering source of light. Closer yet, bends over a kitchen sink. Water batters the bottom of a metal basin, drowning out the other noises until they can be contained, the faucet dripping, the shadow sniffling.
After a pause, chaos returns to muffle the pained wailing that had brought him here, and he senses that this is no accident. Though the world makes little sense to him, it operates under a set of unspoken rules. If he’s thrown into the dance enough times, he’ll learn the steps. He’s encouraged by the pitter-patter that approaches him.
So simple, even a cat knows. It butts its head against him expectantly.
Palm returning to the smooth surface of the wallpaper, he leads himself down the hall and into a bedroom bathed in moonlight. Speckled by falling snow, its blue glare stripes across a neat checkered futon, onto the Afghan rug where his new friend sits, and points him toward the black canvas of a long, bottle-shaped bag. This stands upright in the corner until he picks it up by the handle on its side—lighter than it looks.
At the back of his mind, he compares its weight to the hardwood he must have been expecting. Eddie liked his music loud. His guitar should be solid-body. Maybe there was a softer side to him that he would never get to meet.
A creaking floor signals his return to the kitchen. Suddenly, the shadow before him has a face, and Steve is as relieved as he is heart-stricken. The man surprised to see him is as much Wayne Munson as he is Wayne’s nephew. In either case, Eddie’s guitar is a small consolation for all the fear and grief. He holds it out for him to take.
“What are you doing up?” The rasp is cleared from his throat, his face dried with the arm of his bathrobe. “Are you okay?”
Closing the distance, fingers uncurl whorled fingers, transferring the handle into a sturdier grip. Once Wayne has thanked him, Eddie brings him back to bed.
By morning, his guitar is lying on the table, cleaned and finished with a glassy coat of lacquer. Waves of black woodgrain stretch along its polished surface, like sand marked by a gentle tide and frozen under ice.
Steve isn’t alone with it for more than a few minutes. Though he wants to tell Eddie to go to sleep, that the day will go according to plan so long as nothing throws it off, there’s a somberness in the air that neither of them can shake. He can see himself in his husband’s eyes, as dark and shining as the secret project left out in the open. Letting his focus drift back, he cracks a smile, hopeful for that to be mirrored as well. “It was worth the wait!”
Crookedly, the pride on his face is returned. “Came out alright. I’ve got to clean it up a bit, but I figured I didn’t have to stay cooped up in the garage to do that.”
So the reveal had been premature. Last night—whatever it exposed—is the reason.
Like clockwork, Emmet joins them in the kitchen. Steve prepares to shoo him when he comes near the instrument, but Eddie is calmer. Practically indifferent. It isn’t until little teeth pluck at a high string that he lifts him off the table, holding him as long as he allows himself to be held. The note rings out beautifully through it all.
Steve pours them each a cup of coffee. He builds their fire. Once the house has been warmed from a gloomy chill, daylight breaking over the surrounding woodland, they fall into each other on the sofa.
“I’ll get to hear it, won’t I? Or did Elizabeth teach you how to play?”
“Oh,” Eddie says, “you’ll get to hear it.”
“You didn’t answer the other thing.”
There’s that short breath through the nose, a laugh in spite of it all. “She did.”
“What else don’t we know about each other?”
“Plenty, I’m sure. Ask me anything.”
A normal day. They would make up for lost time.