#hey y'all!! I've been in amsterdam getting extremely high and wandering around museums for the last 10 days instead of writing

[laundrybiscuits]

(Hanahaki AU tag)

They pull out of the parking lot in a kind of nearly-comfortable silence, the radio crackling with some Heart song. It’s not Eddie’s favorite, but it’s a hell of a lot better than Madonna or the Bee Gees, so he finds himself humming along. He drums on the steering wheel a little, letting the I-43 take up all of his conscious mind for a spell. 

The road curves, and they’re out of the suburban sprawl, nothing but scrubby green trees and long gray warehouses on either side; it’s a straight shot all the way to the hazy hills on the horizon. Eddie takes a deep breath, and it’s like his lungs are expanding all the way up to the sky, like he can breathe in the slick blue heavens and the road dust being kicked up in their wake all at once, like the whole sun-baked world is flowing through him.

It’s a beautiful day, he thinks, and then scoffs at himself, at how mundane a thought it is. This could be—this is the last summer he’s ever gonna see. Every day had better be fucking beautiful. He’ll wring the beauty out of the world with his last breath.

———

They get far enough out, eventually, that the wildlife starts to look a little different. Eddie’s gotten a lot better at identifying Indiana wildflowers over the last few weeks, but he’s seeing more and more stuff he doesn’t recognize. He always sees black-eyed susans before too long, though. Seems like they grow wild pretty much everywhere he looks, like they’re following him around or something. He doesn’t stop to pick any more, even though the ones in the van—the ones not coated in spit and bile—are starting to get a little funky. It was such a dumb idea to have them around, like that would help at all.

They stop for the night in Salt Lake at a motel for once, because they really can’t go too much longer without showering, and Eddie chucks out whatever plant matter he can find in the van. Maybe he’s ruining the local ecosystem or something, but he doesn’t care.

Steve helps. He’s obviously a little bemused by this development, but he doesn't ask any questions, just fishes rotting stems out of the footwells before they head over to reception. 

The woman behind the desk is probably thirty or so, with a dirty blonde ponytail and an ankle-length skirt; she looks deeply unimpressed with two grubby young men showing up in a beater van around sunset. Too late, Eddie thinks he probably should've sent Steve in alone to work whatever vestiges of charm have survived through the funk of having slept in a van for the last few nights. Even in a pretty innocuous t-shirt, faded enough that the ACCEPT logo and tour dates are barely legible, disreputability wafts off Eddie. The long hair, the visible tattoos, and something indefinably Munson is more than enough to make the clerk's face twist like a skunk just wandered in through the door. 

"Hi," says Steve, bright and oblivious, somehow coming across as clean-cut country club despite the stubble growing in. Definitely should've sent him in solo. "Can we get a room? Two queens, if you've got 'em."

The clerk looks them up and down, taking her time about it. "You boys know where you are?"

"...Salt Lake City?" Steve looks adorably confused. "We're just passing through, ma'am."

"Might be worth passing a little faster. We don't have any vacancies right now."

Steve very obviously leans back to glance at the lit VACANCY sign outside and the utter dearth of other vehicles in the lot. "What, seriously?"

"Sign's broken," she says, cool as ice.

Eddie rubs at the bridge of his nose and pushes in, leaning his elbows on the counter. "Listen, lady, we're just. Two pals on a little roadtrip through these great United States, trying to see some nature and shit, okay? We just want a couple beds for the night, that’s all. Not looking for any trouble.”

He sees the instant the penny drops for Steve, because Steve’s face goes all flushed and scandalized and kinda mad. Eddie kicks his ankle, hard, so Steve doesn’t get all bitchy about it. 

The clerk can’t be more than ten or fifteen years older than them, but she sniffs like she’s some kind of embittered dowager empress. 

“Maybe I can find something,” she says. “But I hear even one single complaint, you two are out. No refunds.” 

"Copy that, yep, won't be anything to hear." Eddie counts out the cash quick before she changes her mind, and steers Steve back out by the shoulder, nice and neutral. 

"What the hell was that?" Steve bursts out as soon as they clear the door. "What was—"

Eddie drops his hand from Steve's shoulder and squints at the chipped number on the keychain. "You see a Room 5 around here anywhere?" 

"Eddie."

"Steve."

"I'm serious."

"So'm I. Gotta pull the van around once we find it."

Steve subsides grumpily, folding his arms and peering around in the growing dusk for the door numbers. The lingering glow of the blood-orange horizon picks out the contours of his face in a hundred warm caresses, brushing copper along his cheekbones and igniting molten honey in the depths of his eyes.

Eddie will say this for Utah: it sure does have some pretty sunsets.