Sing Me to Sleep

Steve cackles at the second-hand mortification and clear disbelief in Eddie’s voice over his tapes collection and teases easily, smoothly, “What, you don’t want me to sing you to sleep and then leave you alone?”Eddie blinks at him like a cat lost in the hazy, drugging warmth of a sunbeam slanting across a cold winter floor and murmurs, “I-you-wha?”Steve plays along with Eddie’s flustered tone and the gauzy, still-day-dreaming look in his eyes and quietly sings the second verse to Sleep without really being asked, without really thinking about why, “Oh c’mon, dude, like you don’t know? Sing to me, sing to me, I don’t want to wake up on my own anymore…”_______Or, the one where Eddie is clearly high on drugs & hitch-hiking along the highway to parts unknown on a swelteringly hot day, and Steve sees him and demands he gets in the car. The rest of the afternoon/night is spent nursing Eddie back to miserable sobriety with a bubble bath and a much-requested lullaby.