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flowercrowngods · 1 year

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hello i’m attempting something for steddie week too, but it'll be one large thing probably @steddie-week

day 01: pining

2 new messages

eddie The Problem munson: —steeb —esteban —stefano —stevie —love of my life apple of my eye pls pls tell me i can call you —i am very chill etc etc —no i’m not —let me call youuuu —😠🥺🙏

Steve snorts as he picks up his phone and reads Eddie’s messages that keep coming in his usual spam of consciousness, a giddy feeling spreading in his chest as he snorts and goes to answer.

— Call me then, coward

Not a second later, his phone rings. Steve picks up immediately, even though he considers making Eddie wait; just to be difficult. Just to calm his racing heart that is always so lively around Eddie.

“What,” he says, attempting to sound bored and annoyed — in vain, because even he can hear the smile on his face. Traitor, he thinks to himself.

“Steve,” Eddie sing-songs, drawing out Steve’s name like he does every time he’s happy. “Steve, Steve, Stevie.”

“Ed, Ed, Eddie,” he sings back, relaxing into his couch and shutting the laptop. Lesson planning can wait, he decides, shuffling all the loose pages into the text book and placing his laptop on the pile, trusting that physics won’t betray him. “What’s got you so happy, hm?”

“Why do you think I’m happy?” Damn idiot has a smile on his face as he asks that, Steve can hear it. It makes his own grin widen and he huffs into the phone.

“I literally know you, babe.”

Babe. His heart flutters every time he says it — and he tries not to, because it’s meaningless, it’ll never happen. But Eddie picks it back up every time, and Steve is weak. God, he is so, so weak.

On the other end, Eddie hums and Steve basks in the sound for a moment. It’s always so contagious, Eddie’s happiness, and he wants to soak it all up. Wants to be the reason for it. Wants, wants, wants.

“You do,” Eddie says, his voice so light and fond it makes Steve’s whole body tingle. And his heart flutter. And it fills him with such happiness that he feels like he could take on the entire world right now, just with the way Eddie’s voice went all soft on him.

God, he’s hopeless. So, so hopeless. But he’s also weak. An addict, leeching off Eddie’s attention, getting a kick out of the smallest dose, and absolutely certain he couldn’t survive if it were taken from him. He needs it. Even if it kills him a little bit, because—

“She said yes.”

Steve blinks. “Huh?”

“Chrissy. She said— She said yes, Stevie. We’re getting married.”

He says it and he sounds so happy. So, so happy. And Steve is the world’s worst best friend for the way he freezes, the way he almost drops his phone if it weren’t for the vice grip he has on it, frozen in time and space because his heart has stopped beating. It has stopped, surely, because no beating heart can hurt this much. No beating heart can crack open and still work the way it used to three, five, seven seconds ago.

Eddie, bless his entire soul, laughs to fill the silence, and it’s the happiest sound. A boyish one, like there is no pain in the world and not a worry on his mind. A bit hysterical, too. Like he can’t believe it himself yet. Like this is the best day of his life and saying it again has reminded him of it. At least that’s what Steve imagines it feels like when someone wants to be married to you. He wouldn’t know, of course, as the only person he would ever ask is already engaged to someone else. Apparently.

Eddie is engaged.

Engaged and laughing and so, so happy.

And Steve feels nauseous. Dizzy. Breathless. His eyes begin to sting and the hand that’s holding his phone begins to tremble, his grip so tight it hurts.

Steve feels… too much. His hands tremble and he tries hard not to cry.

“You’re getting married.”

“We’re getting married.”

They’re getting married.

Fuck.

Someone has to tell Robin. Because in true Platonic Soulmate manner, Steve and Robin fell in love with the two people who are in love with each other. Like the chaotic mess they are.

“Sorry I didn’t tell you about it sooner,” Eddie continues, a bit more sober now. Sounding genuine and sufficiently awkward about it, in true Eddie-manner. Like the big old softie he secretly is. “I would have, but…”

But I know you’re in love with me and didn’t want to burden you with the love I carry for someone who isn’t you, Steve’s brain auto-fills helpfully. But you keep flirting with me and there was never room for someone else when I was with you.

But, but, but—

He swallows and drags in a deep breath past the pain in his throat where all the words he can never say are forming a massive lump.

“Hey man, don’t worry about that, we all know I suck at keeping secrets,” he offers. And it’s a lie, because he has kept this one thing secret for years and years. This one thing, this huge and all-encompassing thing that he can feel in the tips of his fingers when he is texting Eddie, and on his tongue when they are talking, and in his heart even when he is sleeping.

This one thing, this one secret, is his never-ending love for Eddie.

And he will add another one to that, a lovely little friend for it. To keep it company. That other secret, of course, will be the way his heart has shattered into a million little pieces and will remain that way until he can’t even look at Eddie anymore. And even then will he look at Eddie and smile at him, and Eddie will smile back and the pain will flare up again.

Again and again and again, for the rest of their lives. Possibly even beyond that.

“You do suck at that,” Eddie chuckles, though it is quieter this time, almost private. Fond. Gentle. Always, always like that. It used to mean something once. And if Steve closes his eyes, he can imagine that Eddie smiles his secret smile, the one Steve has only seen directed at himself. It almost breaks him.

Eddie’s I have known you for a whole eternity and love you beyond words, silly, but you also make my life so much harder-smile. That’s what he has dubbed it because that is what Eddie had said the first time he smiled like that when Steve was drunk off his ass.

But. But, but, but—

It’s no use to think of that now, to reminisce and imagine what might have been if… Well. If Steve weren’t Steve.

And that sure is a dark path he doesn’t want to trudge now, not in the face of the even darker path of Eddie getting married that he sure as hell will have to walk down for the rest of his life.

He sighs and tries to think of something to say. Something good. Something that is not Please don’t marry Chrissy. Please don’t take yourself away from me. Please. Please don’t get married to anyone who isn’t me. Please open your eyes and see me, please listen to me, please understand what I say when I say I love you. Please.

He kind of spaces out for the rest of the conversation, not really listening to Eddie’s words over the ringing in his ears and the pumping beat of his shattered heart.

Eddie speaks softly to him, the undercurrent of happiness and contentment still in his voice, and it would give Steve life, it would be contagious, it would be so very precious if it didn’t also drive the knife of pain ever deeper into Steve’s entire soul, slicing him apart with no one around to put him back together again.

Splitting him in half. One half that just wants Eddie to be happy, to sound like he does right now for ever and ever. And the other half, loathing that Eddie’s happiness is not inspired by him, not because of him, not in any sort of relation to him.

It’s not fair. And Steve is torn. So he shuts himself off and lets Eddie ramble, tells him that he is tired after pulling an all-nighter again and wrangling the his difficult seventh graders that were particularly hard on him today when the other man asks him if he is all right.

“Steve,” Eddie sighs, and a traitorous tear rolls down Steve’s cheek at the caring exasperation he hears there. “How often do I need to tell you that sleep is important? You’re gonna wear yourself out at this rate. And the kids just suck.”

“I know,” he says, and sniffs, willing the tears to not fall. Not until Eddie has hung up on him.

“Aww. That emotional, huh?”

At that, Steve sobs out a laugh and gladly accepts the way out. “Well, excuse me, my bestest friend whom I love very much is getting married soon! Or, well, I hope it’s soon, nobody has time for all that suspense. Anyway, I am allowed to be emotional about this!”

Eddie chuckles again and sighs gently. “Yes, you are. I’m glad you are. Thank you, Stevie.”

Don’t thank me. Not for this. Not over this, please, don’t thank me.

“Don’t thank me,” he says with a grin, and it hurts his cheeks from how forced it is. “Thank yourself for being brave enough to actually go through with the proposal! We both know you’re chicken shit.”

Just like me, he thinks. Just like me.

They laugh and it sounds hollow to Steve’s ears. He just wants the phone call to end, wants this to be over with. Wants them to not get married. Never, ever, in this life or the next.

He wants… he wants Robin. No, he needs his best friend, his soulmate. He can’t cry alone, not about this.

Eventually, Eddie hangs up, that smile still so audibly his lips, and that painful happiness still very clear in his voice. Steve wants to share it. But he can’t.

All he can do is stare at the phone in his trembling hand before he closes his eyes and lets himself cry, his head falling back against the couch until he slumps over to one side. He stares and he cries until he can’t anymore.

Eddie. The love of his life. Is getting married. To Chrissy, the other, platonic love of his life, who is like a sister to him. Who, coincidentally, is the love of his real platonic soulmate’s life.

Fucking hell, the mess they find themselves in!

After a while of pitifully staring at the wall, all cried out and feeling thoroughly pathetic, he lifts his phone and speed-dials Robin.

“Stevie?”

He sniffs, and it must sound as awful as he feels, for her next words are, “I’ll be right there. Alcohol or ice cream?”

“Both?” he whimpers after a moment, and Robin hums right back.

“I’ve got you. I’ll be there in ten.”

She hangs up before he can say anything more, and he is overcome with all the love he holds for her.

As he waits for her to come over, he does not move from the awkwardly half curled-up position on his couch, the lesson plans for tomorrow forgotten completely. This is his life now. His Eddie-less life. His engaged-Eddie life. His loveless, hopeless, endlessly pitiful life.

come back tomorrow for: bittersweet & angst | read here

#steddieweek2023 #steddie #steddie fic #steve harrington #eddie munson #dio words #listen idk if this'll be a whole thing but I hope it will (but also I've written almost the exact same premise for the Witcher once before #so if you feel like this is too familiar I swear I am not plagiarising this is just me again with a hallmark typcial trope dont yell at me #please 🤍#it’s technically not day one for me bc it’s 3:42am but eh

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