"Look, Steve, I don't have any bad feelings towards you," Eddie says, has been saying, talking nonsense, like he and Steve weren't anything more than fuckbuddies, like he isn't breaking Steve's heart. "I used you too, y'know?"
It's then Steve rears back like he been slapped. Or punched. It feels more like a gutting. Joke's on him, he supposes. Once again, he wants more than the other person. He wanted a boyfriend, Eddie'd wanted sex. Why does he keep trying? When Steve finds his voice to speak, it comes out flat and dead and not really like a question at all. "Used me. Like you think I've used you?"
Eddie shrugs, looking for all the world like he's not bothered by that statement. "We had fun, right? So it's all fine in the end."
"Fine," Steve repeats, hollow. They're in his house but Steve feels the need to leave, to run before the reality of how unlovable he truly is sticks inside him forever.
"But I think we should stop while we're ahead," Eddie continues and Steve wonders if Eddie is listening to him at all, or just saying his piece before he goes. Can he not hear Steve's heart breaking? "I want to... I want to find someone to love."
If Eddie's previous words felt like being gutted, these ones feel like cement. Heavy and solidifying. Trapping in the truth of Ever Unlovable Steve. He doesn't even feel heartbroken anymore. Just numb. Dead inside. He should say something encouraging. Let Eddie know that all he's wanted was for Eddie to be happy and loved. But words seem impossible, so he gives one jerky nod of his head. An understanding.
"Right," Eddie says, returning the nod before turning away, towards the door, "I'll just go now. Umm, see ya later, Harrington."
Facing the horrors of the Upside Down should feel like the scariest thing he's ever done but it doesn't. Watching Eddie walk away does. Steve should be able to hold it together long enough for Eddie to leave. He's the tough one. He can hold himself together no problem-
"Why can't you love me?"
Eddie whips back around, an expression on his face like confusion and anger mixed.
It's only then that Steve realizes he spoke. He hasn't meant to. He was going to let Eddie walk away but now his voice has been freed from the cement. His heart has shut down his brain it seems because he just keeps talking, voice flat and hollow, "why can't you love me the way I love you? What is so broken and wrong within me that no one loves me back? My parents, Nancy, now you. Why can't- I thought that we were- where did I go wrong?"
"What?" Eddie asks, and the anger is gone from his face but now he just looks horrified. Which is understandable. It's horrifying to be loved by Steve Harrington. "What did you think we were?"
Boyfriends. Together. Going steady. At the very least, dating without labels. But none of those very reasonable, normal answers come out of Steve's treacherous mouth. Because Steve can't seem to be a reasonable, normal person. He's got to be too much, too soon, too clingy. So, instead, he says, "In love."
Eddie looks like he's just received the worst news of his life. In fact, he looks a little sick. "Oh fuck. Jesus Christ. I can't- I thought- Fuck!"
Steve just nods along. He hadn't actually said I love you to Nancy that night at Tina's Halloween party, but he imagines if he had, the beginning of the bullshit conversation would have sounded much the same as Eddie does now; like anger and regret, the starts and stops. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have- if you want to go, you should go."
Eddie crosses the room back to Steve in half the steps he took when he first walked away, hands reaching to grab Steve's face between them. He speaks quickly and sounds panicked now. "No, no no no. I fucked up, misunderstood. I don't know how I got it so wrong. I don't want to go. I never did."
"What?"
"I am in love with you, sweetheart. I just- I didn't know you loved me back. I thought you didn't- that we weren't..."
"I thought we were boyfriends."
"Jesus, please let me fix this. Let me stay and make it up to you. I'll be the best fucking boyfriend you've ever had."
Steve thinks if he had any shred of self-worth he might step back, make Eddie explain himself, but as it is, he steps into Eddie's space and kisses him, hands pulling him as close as he can get. He doesn't want to think about the cruel things Eddie's said, about using each other. Maybe one day they'll have to hash that out, have that conversation, but Eddie says he loves him too, and that's all Steve's wanted.
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Ok now that the initial shock has faded and I'm much more grounded. This chapter is good actually. Everyone knew Sukuna was going to die and to some extent I knew his death was going to be anything but glorious. It's jjk people rarely get good and respectful death let alone a grand and glorious one but yeah Gege took me out again with how he closed Sukuna's arc. Was it underwhelming? Yes. In jjk if you don't adapt, don't change you're doomed to fail and Sukuna no matter how much physically strong he was always emotionally fragile and in the end his own lack of self awareness became his cause of demise. Kenjaku the biggest villian of the series (for me, the heinous acts he has done is way more than mass murder) got a pretty satisfying end for him because he was open to see and connect with Takaba. Sukuna never did that and died a lump of flesh. And honestly it's not humiliating or pathetic. At first glance it did seem like with him becoming a slime but he didn't die begging for his life rather still being the no 1 hater and his pride mostly intact (he did looked overwhelmed but when after 1000 years you actually lose it's given) also as hypocritcal as ever (mocking Yuji and others for fearing death but he himself felt that too) His death was neither like a glorious warrior nor truly pathetic like Mahito's. For me he just...had a simple and quick death. Though Yuji holding his remains and finally telling him something that he always unconsciously craved for was very bittersweet maybe this is what Yuji had told him on their stroll time things could've been...better? His 'you're me' moved me honestly. They both are the different sides of a coin. It was sad how Sukuna (the man who never cared for any identification or title) for the first time out of everything chose to identify as a...curse really showed how hollow his sense of self was actually. But no matter how much Sukuna denied it he was still...a human not a god not a curse and he died as such and with the only family he ever had at that (maybe if you see he died in the hands of the only family he ever had) and though a direct parallel to Mahito it wasn't hate that Yuji felt and I think neither pity but empathy genuine empathy. Wishing a place where Sukuna could get someone like he had his grandfather, Gojo had Geto and Megumi had Him....
Rip Ryomen Sukuna very few other characters had me itch my brain with their duality.
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