Work Text:
Oh, pour me another drink
And punch me in the face
You can call me Nancy
Every man wears a symbol
And I know I have mine
I've got my right hand stamped
In the concentration camp where my organs scream "slow down, man"
He’d let himself hope. That was the worst part of it.
It was hard to pull one over on Eddie Munson. He liked to believe that.
He was street smart, wary, a true-born skeptic. Had it written in his bones, he knew how to steal and swindle before he knew how to walk. Didn’t trust people easily, didn’t like to dream past the next day. He had no illusions about how things were supposed to play out for folks like him. Optimism was reserved for assholes who could afford life insurance.
But no, four months out from the near-apocalypse, one new, mostly-functioning kidney, and twelve painstaking conversations of varying length about it, and he’d still let himself hope.
It’s the hope that kills you. Someone said that once. He doesn’t know who. Maybe Wayne would. He has a weird affinity for those “quotes to live by” books. He could ask when he gets back, though maybe it’d be better if Wayne didn’t see him in this, uh, state. But yeah. The hope killed him. The hope chewed him up worse than those bats, stabbed straight into that fresh-healed gut.
So now he’s letting himself drink. It’s not exactly admirable, no. There’s a part of him that thinks he should get some kind of pat on the back for not dealing with it the way he would’ve three years ago (seventeen year-old Eddie would’ve used a concerning amount of Special K). He’s doing it in public too, just in case. That’s a good sign, he thinks. You’re not supposed to drink alone. You’re also not supposed to drink at 3pm on a Monday but he’s not sure he can stick to that many rules given his current situation. Plus Bev will take his money cause she’ll take anyone’s money so long as they’re not upchucking on the counter or swinging at the pool sharks. So he lets himself drink.
Eddie wonders if she could love him right. The second time around.
That’s the second worst part of all this. He can’t even begrudge Wheeler for it. He likes her too much. She’s badass and knows her shit and has this mean snark to her that it seems no one besides him really appreciates. Any guy would be lucky to have her. Eddie just wishes it wasn’t him. He fucking goddamnit-shit hoped that it wouldn’t be him.
They’d been close, since the apocalypse. Eddie and him. They’d gone to war together, after all. Who wouldn’t fall head over heels for the battalion leader that carried you out of hell? But Eddie was gone long before that.
He’d been gone on him for years. It was fantasy at first, hallway roaming, the Red Sea parting and a spare glance. And then Eddie pressed a bottle to his neck and learned Henderson wasn’t totally bullshitting him it became a pipe dream.
And then he pulled Eddie out of Hell and charmed his uncle who hated anyone who lived west of Prospect and he stopped by the trailer for a smoke because Buckley was always on his case about it but he figured Eddie couldn’t judge and it seemed like a flimsy enough excuse to hang out that it made Eddie’s stomach twist. And then they hung out more nights than not. And then Eddie would call when the ceiling started to crack above him and he would drive over and talk him through it. And then he’d pass out on the couch. And then he’d pass out in Eddie’s bed. And then Eddie would watch him snore softly, lying in that too-small bed from the safest distance he could muster, heart rate down but pumping blood all the same and his brow would twitch and Eddie would wonder what he was dreaming about. And then yeah, somewhere in there, it became hope.
He gets the idea, real wise, about nine PBRs in. So he shuffles through his pocket and, shit, he definitely does not have enough cash for another beer but he does have enough to do this.
He’ll leave a message. He’ll put it all out there. Eleventh hour and the clock won’t stop ticking. And he’ll explain it all real logical like, you can’t be with her because I’m, well, you see I’m in love with you and I think you’re in love with me at least a little here, because you almost kissed me the other night and I’m pretty damn sure if Wayne hadn’t gotten home early from work maybe you would’ve and actually we’ve almost kissed a few times but that time we were dead sober and it still almost happened and anyway that wouldn’t be fair to her to date her when you nearly kissed me.
And it’ll work. Because it’s a great idea. Because it’s gotta work.
Bev lets Eddie keep his change, offers the phone in the back. She’s got a grudging soft spot for him, even when he shows up thirty minutes before they open looking like someone “took a massive dump in his cornflakes.”
The rotary turns like a player piano. He doesn’t even register he’s the one dialing. Just watches the glint of metal fingers motion the muscle-memory number. The receiver hooks cold on his ear. He leans into it. He’s woah– he’s really drunk. Shit. But the cold is nice. Even Mrs. Harrington’s tedious answering machine message will be nice. Maybe.
The phone rings once.
The phone rings twice.
The phone ri–
“Harrington residence.” He says.
“Oh.” Eddie says.
That was not supposed to happen. Huh. Must’ve done that wrong.
Eddie hangs up. Redials. This time he’ll get the machine.
“Harrington residence.” He says again, annoyed in a way where Eddie can picture the crease crinkling between his brow. Maybe a half of an eye roll thrown in there somewhere. Eddie loves getting under his skin like that. Right now, though, it’s kinda making him wanna chuck himself off a cliff.
“…You’re there?” Eddie stumbles.
“Jeez. Hello to you too, Munson.”
He yawns like he always does. He’s probably stretching like he always does. Maybe a bit of stomach is peaking out from under his polo. Eddie’d bet the house on it. “–But yeah got home thirty minutes ago. Had an early–”
“–Early shift. R-right. Monday. Shit.” This was a bad idea. Eddie would like to disown his former self of three minutes ago. He was an idiot, a buffoon, nay, a wazzock! He had no contingency plan. Fuck. Don’t drink and call, kids.
He pauses, tinny through the half-busted payphone, “What day did you think it was?”
Fuck fuck fuck. This was not how this was supposed to go. Eddie tries to remember his speech. What the fuck was he going to say? He thinks and he thinks and he thinks and then he realizes he’s been quiet for waaay too long because on the other end of the line Eddie can hear him start to panic.
“Eddie? What’s wrong? Did something happen?”
“Ne-Nah.” Eddie stumbles. Well. Nothing like that.
“You’re drunk.” He clues in, says it like he’s a bit amused.
“That’s what they’re callin’ it th’se days?” Wow. Great recovery Munson.
He laughs bright and every part of Eddie burns. Not the way it usually does, that warm bonfire-glow. No no no. God Forbid. This is kerosene on skin. This is self-immolation. “Yeah, yeah. That’s what I’ve heard.” He pauses. “So what’s up, man? Are you home? Do you need a ride?”
“Mm at th’Hideout.”
“The Hideout?”
“Ya. ‘m hidin’ out.”
“Oh yeah. Hiding out from what?”
“Frm you.” Oh. Eddie wasn’t supposed to tell him that. Well.
“Doing a pretty shit job of it, Munson. You just told me where you are.”
“Shit. Yeah. Guess I did.”
That part is really funny all of the sudden. Makes him keel over laughing. Drops the phone so it clangs against the wood panel wall. He’s so fucking bad at this, huh? Can’t even nurse his broken heart without calling the guy who broke it.
Steve Harrington. Shit.
That’s his name. Steeeeve Harrington. He’d been avoiding it so far. Just cause– well, it seems pretty fucking stupid to be drinking himself into oblivion over Keg King Steve Harrington. Basketball Captain Steve Harrington. Full Closet From the Gap Steve Harrington. He needs to maintain some kind of dignity. His sixteen year old self would’ve disowned him over this.
So Much Hairspray He’s Single-Handedly Putting a Hole in the Ozone Layer Steve Harrington says, “Why are you wasted at– Jesus, Eddie– at 4pm on a Monday?”
Eddie shrugs. Steve can’t see it, probably. “Bev let me in.”
“Eddie.”
“T’strue.”
“Whatever, dude. Just, like, stay where you are. I’ll be there in twenty.”
It’s raining when Steve’s car pulls up. 'Course it’s raining. Stupid pathetic fallacy-ass weather.
Eddie’s kinda a pathetic fallacy himself. Big boisterous mistake.
“Hey.” Eddie says.
“Hey.” Steve says.
He squinges into the car. Hair stuck wet to leather seats. He feels like one of those dogs that’d always hang around the trailer park, mangy and scruffed and always sporting some mysterious disease that no one could afford to fix.
Steve is, well, he’s beautiful as ever.
He’s glowing. Golden. In the chaos of the call, Eddie’d kind of forgot there was a medieval torture device stabbing iron rods straight into his heart. Now he feels like he can barely breathe. Steve is this impossible thing. The apple he’s reaching for, turned to dust as soon as his fingers brush it. He keeps reaching for it anyway.
It’s awful to hope.
“Sorry.”
Steve glances at him cautiously. “It’s okay, dude. It’s not like I want you to uh– but like, it’s Upside-Down shit right? You know I get it.”
“No.” He sniffs.
“No?”
“I’mma— I’m a fucking m-ess.” Eddie wonders if he sounds more pathetic than he looks. Who knows. It’s probably a tight race to the finish.
“Hey. Hey.” Steve is looking at him all cow-eyed and concerned. And yeah, the rain on his skin is fuckin’ kerosene. “Just– uh. Don’t sweat it. I’m used to it, man. Nance is like, a really messy drunk too.” Steve shrugs it so casual, like he didn’t just bull his way into the china atriums of Eddie’s heart and shatter everything with a single name.
The car is making him dizzy. This whole thing is making him dizzy. “Oh’is she?”
“Yeah.” Steve says with a grin. Then his eyes go all bright and glazed. “My girl cannot hold her liquor.”
My girl.
Eddie might actually hurl.
But they’re buddies right? They’re just two dudes hanging out. Talkin’ about chicks. That’s all Steve ever wanted to talk about anyway. Nancy Nancy Nancy.
I think her and Jon are done. Like kaput. I want to give her some space, right? Like I shouldn't go in there, guns blazing. But there was definitely a spark in March, right? I’m not like, crazy? We had something then. Dustin said it and Robin and even you, man. That’s gotta be something.
(Eddie would like to disown himself from four months ago, for the record.)
If Wheeler was what Harrington wanted to talk about, who is he to not oblige? He always obliges doesn’t he? They are bros after all. They should talk about it like the good pure-beef medium rare Americans they are. So he waggles a brow and spits out E. coli, “Bet shesa great fuck, too.”
“Hey.” Steve slows the car. Rain coming down in harder now. It’s a warning.
But Eddie’s never been one to not get the full suspension, so he slurs, “Soam I. Fr the r’cord.” Oh god, he’s really gonna hurl.
“What?”
“Imma great fuck.” He begs. If he doesn’t puke he’ll probably start crying. “Nothing but stllar r’views.”
Steve had never told him, but he’d been so sure– too goddamn sure that Harrington was one of those rarefied bisexuals. The type you hear about in the zines they hand out at that dyke book store on Mass Ave. That type everyone rolls their eyes at because they’re really just closet cases too scared to step all the way out.
And yeah, maybe Eddie used to think that too. But then Steve would, well, he’d always make these little comments. Like they’d walk past one of the guys who were back in town for the summer and Steve’s tongue would flit out at his upper lip and he’d say, “Ritchie Duncan got really hot, huh?” and then he’d say the exact same thing about Diane Kennedy a minute later.
And then there was the time they ran into Jack McCormick who Eddie only knew from his coke habit, but Harrington idolized, apparently, because he used to be swim captain when Steve was a freshman, and McCormick squeezed his arm and said “You look good, Harrington.” and then Steve started to stammer and full-on blush and Eddie felt like he was in Bizarro world.
Or there was his Matt Dillon thing, which Steve insisted was “So not a thing, Munson. Since when was it a crime to appreciate a handsome leading man?” but then they’d get high and watch The Outsiders or Rumble Fish and Steve would er, readjust himself a not-insignificant amount of times.
But maybe he was wrong.
Maybe years of too-close observation of the male of the species had turned his compass all screwy. There was also the distinct possibility that Harrington was just, you know, like that. Purposefully designed to give guys like Eddie something meaningful to delude themselves about. Maybe he was one of those universe tricks, where they get you just close enough to the top of the mountain, the peak just within reach, just for the rope to snap and for you to lose your grip and tumble miles down to an icy death. ‘Cause it's just so much more tragic that you almost got there. It makes the story tug better.
“Eddie. Shit.” Steve looks so disappointed in him. “Is this– this is about Nance?”
He’s never really thought too hard about being a boy.
He knows that it’s tough for lots of people. People from the bars in Indy who are planets away from whatever letter was circled on their birth certificate. He’s just never been one of them. But right now. Right now he wants to take it all back. Let go of every version of himself right up to contraception. Retry over and over again til they come up with two Xs. Maybe they wouldn’t be here if he’d been born a girl. No hold ups, no reason to get disowned by a trigger-happy Richard Harrington. But fuck, maybe it wouldn’t even matter if Eddie was a girl. Maybe it only matters that he wasn’t Nancy Wheeler.
He makes a miserable noise, “What if you pretended I was her?”
Steve pulls over to the shoulder and blinks his hazards on. It’s dangerous in this weather, summer rain starting to pour down in sheets. It’s reckless. Eddie feels reckless. Steve is blinking wide-eyed at him, “Eddie.”
“You could just pretend I’m her. Nancy.” He repeats it small, clear. He feels so goddamn wretched. He feels the worst he’s ever felt. And that’s saying something cause he died like, less than half a year ago.
Steve’s face is all twisted up. It’s pity. Eddie knows it. He’s been getting it from rich fucks like Harrington his whole life. The good, liberal ones whose soft frowns are infinitely fuckin’ worse than those WASP snickers. He keeps opening his mouth to say something but trips up every time, like he’s scared to land on the wrong thing. In the end, he just shakes his head.
“Munson, you look like you’re about to puke.”
And Eddie shrugs, “‘Prolly cause I am.”
Perma-jock Steve Harrington is quick. He flips off his seatbelt, shoves over Eddie to get the car door open. Eddie registers the click of the handle. The sliver of gleaming skin he cannot touch because he’s not her. Most of the puke (and there’s a lot of it) does not end up in the bimmer.
Steve smudges tissues on the vomit that didn’t make it out. He forces him to stand in the rain. Eddie’s been a very bad dog. He pukes three more times.
They’re both soaked to the bone when they get back in. Harrington’s perfect hair sitting limp at his shoulders. It should defeat him, take away his superpowers, like Samson or some shit. Should make all the awful, stabbing longing poof right out of Eddie’s heart. Maybe it would’ve, when this was still a fantasy. And when it was a pipedream, Eddie would be fucking frustrated that he still looks beautiful anyways, even with his hair sticking out in all different places.
And now that it’s hope, that thing with feathers they only stick on you when you’re stripped naked and drenched in tar. That thing they parade you around town square for, gawk at you because you have the audacity to believe in something? Now that it’s hope, Eddie would take him hideous and want him all the same.
He’s sobering up, but the thought makes him want to heave again. Not that there’s much left in his stomach.
He thinks back to the other night. A week ago but lifetimes now. A smoke on the trailer roof. He’d offered Steve a joint and it was refused with the swipe of his hand and not much explanation besides. So he lit them both Camels and they shot the shit for an hour.
The conversation had fallen back to Wheeler. It always did.
“It felt like I’d been cruising. Going through the motions, you know? And then Nancy Wheeler stormed into my life and suddenly it was like, shit. I actually wanted things for myself. I wasn’t even sure what they were but like, I– It was like this giant thump on the head. Rang right through me. Made me realize I was fucking hollow, man.”
Eddie hummed, “You still feel hollow?”
He thought about it for a beat longer than Eddie’d been expecting. He was careful with his answer. “Sometimes. Not really. I mean– I have all the little twerps to look after and I have Robin and, um, yeah– I’ve got you too.”
He’d stumbled on that last part. It had made that god awful hope swell right up through Eddie. Like there was a reason Steve had made the distinction, right? There had to be. So Eddie leaned in, nudged a teed shoulder. “You sure about that, Harrington?”
Steve put his hands up, just teetering on annoyed, “You can be kinda flighty sometimes, dude.”
He wasn’t wrong. Steve had had to bully his way into Eddie’s life that first month post-apocalypse. He didn’t exactly uhh, deal with it well. Once the dust settled. But, hey, turns out being around people actually helps.
“Fair enough.” He’d said, taking a long, considered drag, then repeated, “So you still feel hollow sometimes?”
“Yeah, I mean. You guys are my family. You are. But I want someone to share a life with– is that crazy? Like, a totally bonkers thing to ask?”
I want someone to share a life with. It wasn’t the first he’d heard of that particular dream. Steve always wore it so raw, made Eddie jitter around its edges. “It’s not crazy.”
Steve put his head in his hands, sighed the kind of breath that holds a whole world in it. His gaze flicked to Eddie, “I feel like I’ve only got one actual shot. One shot at real love.”
And there it was again. Yellow in the moonlight. Hope. Far too big for Eddie to catch in his palms, to squish under his boot. No. It was consuming him, not vice-versa. He looked at Steve, bare calves dangling off the low roof, a summer creature through and through. And Steve looked at him, saw something pale and too-clothed and all winter. And he said, “And that’s her, man. It’s always been her. It has to be.”
Eddie’s ears started to ring. A low rush of blood like the world had stopped around him. Just the rot of dreams turning black.
He tried to find some kind of tin-roof footing. “C’mon Harrington. We both know that’s not true. Plenty of people trip over themselves daily just so you’ll like, glance their way, dude.” And Eddie would know. He was the guiltiest of all of them.
“Blegh.” Steve said it in a distinctly Bucklinian flavor. “Yeah. Okay. People who like the idea of me. Because they like my hair or they’ve heard I’m great in bed. But once they actually get to know me– I don’t know. It’s like they want the version of me that was still hollow.”
“I don’t want that.”
“What?” Steve blinked.
“I don’t want that shitty, dollar store easter bunny version of you, Steve. He had this sneer that, like, totally screwed up his pretty face. Always fuckin’–” Eddie did his best Joe Montana, hurled an air-ball into the dark night. “–chucked it at me in the halls. That is, whenever he deigned to acknowledge my existence.”
He nudged the words playfully into Steve’s side and tried not to relish the way Steve didn’t swerve the touch.
“Msorry.” Steve said it tight and on instinct, rammed in from years of apologizing for being well– a total douche.
“Hey, man. All is forgiven.”
Steve poked at him, “I’ve got a pretty face, huh?”
“Bad form, Harrington.” He shoved a bony shoulder into Steve’s. “Gotta throw me some better bait if you’re gonna fish like that.”
Steve rolled his eyes and scoffed, but then he went quiet for a long time, floated just under the surface. When he came up for air, he was shaky. “You think I have another shot? That someone could love me– the real me, other than her?”
Fuck. There it was again. The roach he could never seem to kill. He wanted to wring it by its neck but it's got a mean grip on his. So he couldn’t really do anything besides smile wide and say, “I mean you’re a total pain in the ass. And you’re needy. And you take stupidly long showers–”
“Jesus, that was one time!”
“Tell that to our heating bill, man.”
“I paid you back, asshole.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Eddie grinned, gestured big and in Steve’s face just to see if he’d call uncle. “Oh– and you have this really annoying habit of pretending to be sooo irritated by everyone. Just to hide that you care about them so damn much. Care more than anyone I know.”
Steve hung his mouth to argue.
“Nuh-uh-uh, that’s a good thing, Stevie. It like, fucking astounds me. You just rip out your heart and throw it at people like you don’t need it in you." He flicks a nod, "You make it look real easy, too.”
Steve quirked his head, like he’d never even considered it before. “Really?”
“God yes. I’m like, a relatively good person–”
Steve snorted, “Debatable.”
“Whoa there, Carver.” Steve scrunched his nose. It was sweet. Eddie was maybe fucked for life here. “But you make me feel like, shit– like I don’t think I realized how much of a selfish closed-minded asshole I was till I met you.”
“Huh.” Steve realized, “I was your thump.”
“Jesus Christ, man. Don’t call it that.” Eddie said it shrill. Got all his energy out before he took a shaky breath. “But yeah, sure. You were my– God, don’t make me say it, Harrington.”
“Thump.” Steve nodded.
“You were my thump.” Eddie relented with a groan, “Made me realize there are some things worth hoping for… You’re the– You’re the fucking sun, Steve. You’re generous and you’re bright and you’re–”
“–super hot?” Steve rattled, smiling easy with clacked teeth. They’re close now. Leaned like old pillars. Eddie hoped the light was too low for Steve to catch his blush.
“Yup. All gas in that massive head of yours, man.” Eddie flicked his cheek, would’ve aimed higher but he knew Steve’s too-concussed temples couldn’t handle the pressure. Steve swatted at him, but he caught it, fingers tight around that gold wrist. Steve's pulse tapping quick under calloused fingers. Eddie looked him straight in the eye. Tried to be as sincere as he could possibly muster, “She’s not your only shot at this, Steve.”
“You believe that?” He said again, “Someone else could love me?” Steve was eyeing him all over, like he couldn’t quite see straight. Like there was no ground below him.
“Yeah.” Eddie said. Steve’s gaze flicked down, almost too dark to catch in the 2am moonlight. But Eddie caught it all the same.
“Yeah?” Steve’s mouth formed the sound, Eddie let himself watch it, let himself stare. Let himself hope.
He was inches away from Steve’s lips, stuck in place but Steve kept getting closer. Impossibly closer, close enough that all those sharp features had started to blur, close enough that he could nearly taste Steve’s soft breath. He whispered:
“Someone else could.”
Wayne’s headlights shone bright as he pulled up.
It startled them apart. The moment gone like it’d never happened at all.
“I’m gonna ask her out tomorrow.” Steve had said, after.
The buzz in Eddie’s ears turned deafening.
Steve pulls up in front of the trailer. The rain was mostly stopped now. The sun’s just starting to peek through and he’s rolled down the windows, couldn’t take puke-reek from the passenger seat for another second. The fresh air doesn't help much, it’s thick and mucky, and summer storm-rich. Eddie is hopeless as ever.
There’s this sickly sheen coating his skin, it makes him feel like he’s dredging through mud. He knows he should get out of Steve’s car, clomp back to his home, and never talk to Harrington again. He knows that. It’s the least he could do. It’s what any decent person would do in this situation. But Steve was right. He is, debatably, not a good person. So he asks, “Would it’ve been me? If it wasn’t her?”
Steve bites the inside of his lip. Looks all strained and sad. Fuck.
“Actually, don’t tell me. Changed m mind.'' He watches the trees in the distance, swaying, heaving. Watches them shift and blur. He thinks about Steve leaning in that night, the moles on his cheeks becoming streaks in Eddie’s sightline. “But I didn’t imagine it all? Right? Fuck. Did I imagine all that shit?”
“No you didn’t, um–” Steve scratches at the back of his head, looks up at the car roof. “You didn’t.”
“Oh.” Scratch everything he said before. This is by far the worst he’s ever felt. “But you chose her?”
Steve takes a breath, shrugs sheepish and guilty. “She’s my shot.”
They’re not really looking at each other, both gazing out the windshield, like anything besides a sidelong glance would hold an unbearable amount of weight. “She already broke your heart, Steve.”
“Yeah, but it’s different now. I’m– I’m whole now.”
“You don’t seem so sure there, Harrington.”
“I am.” There’s a grit between his brow, Eddie catches it out of the corner of his eye.
“Well, shit.” Eddie smiles and leans back. “Then I’m glad you’re happy.”
Steve’s shaking his head, “Don’t be an ass, Munson.”
He wonders if Steve will have his big movie protagonist moment. The one where he realizes he should’ve never gone for the prom queen, where he figures out the girl next door was the one for him all along. Except, well. That’s Wheeler, isn’t it? Eddie’s part is loveable sidekick. Maybe he gets some kind of heroic death at the end, tells Ponyboy to stay gold. But, shit, he’s already done the death thing and it didn’t stick, so he goes off-script. “I’m not gonna wait around for you. Just so you know.”
This gets him somewhere. The hurt in Steve’s voice is palpable. “Why the– Why the hell would I expect you to?”
Fuck it. Eddie lets himself look. Lets himself turn to face Steve. Lets himself feel a bit angry about this whole thing, “Dunno. I’m drunk. You’re fuckin’ like, stomping on my heart. You gotta let me get a few kicks in here, Steve.”
Steve backs off immediately, “ I’m sorry.”
“You almost kissed me.” Eddie sniffs. His finger floats accusingly in front of him. “You almost kissed me that night.”
“I know.”
He looks at him then, all golden in the haze. He’s never been unmoored like this before. Never let anyone get close enough to put a hand on the wheel, steer him straight into the storm. He can’t stop his mutinous fuckin’ heart. He is so stupidly in love with Steve and he missed him by a second, by a change of the winds. It’s miserable, it’s pulling him right under. So he tries to turn tattered sails, because he has to, he tries to grasp at splintered wood.
“Kiss me now? Make up for it?”
Steve cringes. “Eddie, you're wasted.”
“Not as bad as I was...” He mutters. He’s desperate to stay above water. He’s not even that sure why. Maybe cause the ship’s already been wrecked. It won’t matter how much worse it gets. “Please? Like a consolation prize. Miss Congeniality.”
Steve seems just as miserable as Eddie does, probably. He wonders if his heart is all splintered too, “I don’t know if– I can’t do that to Nance.” Steve says it firm, sure, “I could never do that to anyone.”
He crashes into it one last time, biggest, most selfish idiotic tsunami he can muster, “It won’t have to mean anything. I swear. I just. If this is til death for you Steve, I’m not– I don’t want to ruin that. Really. I know that the valiant display of my upchuck reflex today might beg to differ. But I wanna be happy about this. Wanna be happy for both of you. I just— it’s closure, I guess. That’s what I need from it. Permission to leave it behind.”
Steve looks at him for a long while. He shakes his head. Mutters fuck under his breath
“I’m gonna tell her, right away. All of this– Eddie. You know that, right?”
Oh. Did that mean. Oh. He wasn’t expecting that to. Oh.
The kiss tastes like rainwater and puke. It’s perfect. Electric. He comes out of it breathless. Steve does too. And he’s wearing the look from before, the one from that night. Like he can’t quite see straight. Like he can’t find the ground below him.
And Eddie, well. He lets himself hope.