Too much love from the wrong person
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Transcript under cut
What are you?
[The question feels rhetorical, but the inquiry dissipates as I feel the cold caress my cheeks, a shiver rippling head to toe.]
A: You know the answer to that.
B: I know.
A: Then why ask?
B: Because you're not familiar, you're colder everytime we collide. I don't know who you are
A: What's that supposed to mean.
B: You're not like him.
A: He's just as cold, Bad people feel cold.
B: So why-
A: Forget I said that. I'm just cold, that's all.
B: ... Maybe you're right, maybe I've just forgotten, it's been so long...
A: Don't dwell on Him, it's not good for you.
B: Right. It's just...
A: Enough.
B: Kay.
-
B: What is this feeling???
A: It's my love.
B: Love shouldn't be so...
A: Comforting? Why not?
B: No... No not at all, it's... I can't move, I'm numb.
A: That's what it's supposed to feel like silly.
B: This isn't what He felt like
A: Can you stop talking about Him, His love felt wrong, that's what He felt like.
B: Your touch is drowning me.
-
[I'm drowning, and he won't listen, he argues with me, and it turns into a game of tennis, his ball shoots into my court, and I refute him, but his ball always comes back. I'm scared that I'll drown before I reach the surface, but I can't see the surface, or maybe I can, maybe I don't want to leave.]
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B: I can't breathe.
A: You're overexaggerating.
B: No I'm not, I can't breathe, are you not lis-
A: Stop saying that, you're fine.
B: Please- I...
-
lots of "I'M FINE"s in a gif
-
PLEASE
Please...
You're...
SUFFOCATING ME
Stop that.
You're fine.
(forgot to add this initially sorry 😭)
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45 for ask game? 👀
Content note: mention of period-typical homophobia
Can be read as taking place between this one and this (NSFW) one if you want, but I think it stands alone okay.
I know we’re supposed to be just friends / Miss Temptation I don’t think you know / you keep me waitin’ / know you like to take it slow / Miss Temptation you never let it show
Eddie always hammers away at the back door like she’s trying to break it down. When Steph finally gets to the doorway, Eddie’s hopping up and down with her hands jammed in her armpits.
“Jesus, Harrington. Took you long enough,” she says, pushing past Steph to the living room. “I was freezing my tits off out there. Please tell me that fireplace works.”
Steph rolls her eyes a little, because it’s not that cold out. It’s only just started snowing, big damp flakes melting in Eddie’s hair.
“I don’t know,” she says. “Never tried it. There’s some wood in the crate, though.”
“Never—seriously? C’mon, let’s figure it out, I bet we can get it going.”
Steph could point out that she’s got central heating, and that Eddie will warm up if she just waits like two seconds, but instead she just grins and leaves Eddie to it while she goes to pour some drinks.
A few minutes later, she hears Eddie crow in victory. She comes back in to find Eddie with her jacket discarded and the sleeves of her flannel rolled up, jabbing a poker cautiously at a crackling flame.
“Hey,” she says, tapping the wineglass gently against Eddie’s forearm. “That was fast.”
“Ah, you know. Wayne likes to go camping.” Eddie beams up at her. “Let’s turn off the ceiling lights, it’ll be nicer.”
It is nicer. Steph settles in next to Eddie, not touching but close enough to feel the warmth of her body, and sips her wine. The firelight makes Eddie look lit up from the inside; like all that golden warmth is coming from under translucent skin still flushed from the cold. Her red flannel shirt is open at the neck. It looks like something she might’ve inherited from Wayne, oversized and worn soft as silk, crumpling at the collar.
Steph wishes there was some music playing, but somehow it feels like getting up to put something on would be too much. It would be the kind of dumb thing she’d do to set the mood with a guy, and that’s not what Eddie’s here for, obviously.
As far as Steph knows, Eddie’s never had a boyfriend.
It’s not a huge surprise. She’s never exactly been popular, plus she dresses like some burnout guy, all baggy shirts and jackets and beat-up jeans.
Of course people call her a lesbo all the time. But that’s just normal teenage stuff; even Steph gets teased like that whenever she has a bad hair day or does well in volleyball or whatever. It’s just something people say, and then you say it back to them, and it’s normal.
Lately, Steph has been trying to remember if there’s ever been anything more to it. Rumors, that kind of thing. Anything someone might’ve seen or heard that would make it more than words.
Steph’s always known gay people exist, she’s not stupid, but before Robin she’d thought of it as a city thing. Whenever there was something in the paper, her mother always used to say that it’s a real shame that in the city, boys who don’t have their families around can run wild. She never said exactly what running wild meant, and she never said anything at all about girls, except once, when she’d paused and squeezed Steph’s shoulders, bussing her hair, and said at least we don’t have to worry about that with you, darling.
Steph doesn’t even know how it works, with girls. She can’t picture it. Maybe Eddie would tell her, if she could find the right way to ask. If Eddie even knows—and there she is back at the beginning again, nothing figured out, just going round and round.
So she doesn’t bring it up. Doesn’t even really know why, except that this way, nobody has to worry about anything.
Beside her, Eddie drains her wine and draws her legs up, folding her arms over her knees. It pulls her flannel over her shoulders in a smooth line, like maybe she’s not wearing anything underneath. Which would be so stupid in this weather, honestly—Steph can’t imagine going out with just a layer of worn cotton and that leather jacket Eddie loves so much between the biting cold and bare skin.
“You’re sleeping over tonight, right?” she says. “You’ll freeze to death if I let you head back out tonight.”
“If you let me, huh?” Eddie grins. “Can’t have my death on your conscience, I guess. Sure, Harrington, we can have a sleepover. You can braid my hair and tell me all about whatever cute guy you’ve got your eye on nowadays.”
That’s about as good an opening as she’s likely to get, if she can just find the right words.
“Or you could tell me about any cute guys you’ve got your eye on,” is what she settles on.
“Please,” Eddie snorts. “The unwashed miscreants of Hawkins should be so lucky. Like I’d ever want a boyfriend—uh, from around here, anyway.”
“You don’t…get lonely?” Steph asks. It comes out a little soft around the edges.
Eddie leans her chin on her arms. After a moment, she murmurs, “I didn’t say that.”
Steph could probably say something back, she thinks. Some kind of response. Anything.
They sit there, watching the fire as it slowly turns the logs to ash, for a very long time.
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