Alt version of this post bc too many people asked for both <3
It's Saturday night and, like almost every Saturday night, Eddie wishes he didn't have to be at some jock party. The flashing lights, the scent of cheap mixed drinks, the incredibly mediocre loud music... And worst of all, the fucking jocks. Everywhere.
'Eddie!'
He looks up to find Steve, with a dopey smile on his face, basically skipping towards him and throwing his arms around his neck. Oh. He didn't know Steve still went to parties like those. Hadn't seen him at any of them in a while. But as soon as he gets wrapped up in an enthusiastic full-body hug, he decides there's one jock, and one jock only, that he doesn't mind running into at those parties.
'Eddie, what're you doin' here?' There's an unfocused look in his eyes and he wobbles on his legs a little bit, grabbing tighter onto Eddie for support. The touch burns through Eddie's t-shirt and he tries to ignore the shiver running down his spine.
'I didn't know you liked parties!' Steve drops his voice, slurring: 'I thought you hated the jocks.'
Eddie can't help but smile. 'I hate all jocks but one, big boy,' he tells Steve. 'Not here to party, only to get some cash.' He rattles with the metal lunchbox in his hands to illustrate his point. 'Can you let me go now so I can get on with my business, pretty please?'
'Noooo,' Steve says with an exaggerated pout. 'I'm too happy you're here! Dance with me!'
Eddie chuckles. 'I don't think you're in any state to dance right now. Jesus, Stevie, I don't think I've ever seen you this wasted before. Thought you were planning to pick up a girl tonight?'
'I was,' Steve says, suddenly sounding oddly serious. 'But it doesn't matter. Just needed to forget. The rum helped, too.' He frowns. 'Til you showed up.'
'Forget what?' Eddie asks, trying to make sense of this drunken string of words.
Something happens; something that's been happening quite often lately. Steve's eyes flash downwards, just for a second, right to where Eddie's lips are.
Eddie's heartbeat involuntarily picks up speed.
'What did you need to forget, Steve?' Eddie asks again.
'Can't tell you,' Steve mumbles so softly that Eddie can barely make it out over the loud music. 'I don't wanna make you feel guilty. I'm not judging you, y'know. 'S fine.'
He abruptly lets go of Eddie and takes a step away from him, stumbling right into some girl who pushes him back with an annoyed scoff; if Eddie weren't still standing right behind him, he would've fallen on his ass for sure.
'Alright, you're not making any sense tonight, big boy, but I can't in good conscience let you stay here by yourself. How 'bout I'll drive you home?'
Eddie glances at his watch. If he hurries, he can probably still be back to do what he came here for before the good part of the party is over. He does kinda need the cash.
'Can't,' says Steve. 'Can't go home with you.' Something in his voice is breaking and suddenly there are tears in his eyes, and Eddie still doesn't understand what's wrong; he feels like he's overlooking something huge, something that should be obvious.
'Let's just go outside to talk, then?' he suggests.
'Can't. Dance with me, Eddie.'
But when Eddie starts gently tugging Steve towards the open door leading to the garden, Steve easily lets himself be led outside. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath when the cool night air reaches his lungs, as if one gulp of fresh air will instantly make him sober up. But he's still swaying on his feet, making Eddie grab onto him tighter.
Eddie likes to think of himself as moderately strong, but unfortunately, hauling 180 pounds of muscled jock around is starting to take its toll on him. He spots a bench in a secluded corner of the garden and guides Steve towards it.
'This better?' he asks.
'Yeah,' Steve breathes out. Even now that they're both sitting down, Steve keeps clinging onto him. 'Look at the stars, Eddie.'
Eddie looks up at the scattering of lights twinkling far above them - but he can feel Steve's eyes still burning into his face.
When he directs his gaze back to the guy sitting next to him, Steve's face is even closer than before. The starlight is reflected in his hazy eyes, tiny specks of silver hidden in various shades of brown and black.
'I wish I could kiss you,' Steve whispers, looking at Eddie with nothing but admiration behind that glassy drunk gaze.
Eddie almost forgets to breathe. He knows that it seemed like he and Steve were headed exactly toward something like this for a while now, but he still can hardly believe that it is real. That Steve Harrington is really looking at him like he's just as precious as the stars in the sky above them.
He brings up a hand, gently caresses Steve's soft cheek.
'Maybe you don't have to wish,' he whispers back, unable to stop his eyes from flashing towards Steve's beautiful lips for a moment. 'Tomorrow. When you're not drunk anymore. If you still remember this.'
'No.' Steve shakes his head, so fiercely it makes his hair flap in all directions and his complexion at least two shades paler. 'Can't.'
'Why do you keep saying that, Steve?' Eddie asks softly.
'Cause.' For a moment Eddie thinks Steve is gonna grab his ass, but then... he randomly frees Eddie's handkerchief – the one with the skulls – from his back pocket.
'Cause of the Russians.'
Eddie can only stare at him in confusion.
'They tied me up,' Steve all but whispers. Eddie hates how small and broken his voice suddenly sounds.
He has always known – broadly speaking – about what happened to Steve and Robin miles beneath Starcourt last year. He's never actually heard Steve talk about the details, though. All he knows is that he and Robin were captured by Russian spies and somehow made it out alive. He could always see how difficult it was for Steve to talk about it whenever it came up, but he never wanted to pry. And now here they are, at some goddamn high school jock party of all places, and all of a sudden Steve willingly brings it up.
'I was with Robin,' Steve continues, still in that scared and broken voice. 'And they tied us to a chair. We couldn't move. And they – they hurt me. They hit me. 'Til I was bleeding all over. I thought I was gonna die. Robin thought I was dead.'
'Jesus Christ, Steve,' Eddie breathes out, tightening his grip around Steve's torso.
'So I can't,' Steve mumbles, holding up Eddie's handkerchief as if it's some kind of logical explanation for whatever it is he's trying to tell Eddie.
'Wh- What?'
'I know what it means, Eddie,' he says, as if he's even remotely making sense right now. 'You know John?'
'Who the hell is John?' Eddie only keeps finding himself more and more lost in this conversation.
'My cousin,' Steve says, like it's obvious, like he's ever talked about some cousin named John to Eddie before. 'The one in New York. He knows all about that shit, right? He sends me the good magazines sometimes when my parents aren't home. That's how I know.'
'Know what?'
Steve only waves around with that stupid handkerchief again.
'You're flagging, aren't ya? You like pain. Like BS... BM...'
Eddie feels his jaw drop.
'What the fuck are you talking about?' he asks. 'It's – this is a metal thing. It looks metal. I literally have no idea what you're – flagging?'
Now Steve's face finally mirrors the confusion Eddie has been feeling for the past ten minutes.
'Are you serious?' he asks, for one second showing more clarity in his eyes than Eddie has seen all evening.
Eddie nods.
'So it's not...' Steve stops himself, swallows, frowns. 'You're not into, like, hurting people and shit?'
And finally, it all clicks together in Eddie's mind: the repeated chorus of I can't, the story about the Russians, the goddamn handkerchief... Flagging. BDSM.
'Why the hell would I get off on hurting you, Steve?' is all he can get out of his mouth.
And Steve honest-to-Satan starts giggling; it sounds so relieved that Eddie kinda feels like giggling too, scary metal image be damned.
'I dunno, it's more common than you think,' Steve mumbles. 'I wouldn't judge you, alright? But I knew I could never give you that. No matter how much I like you. And then you'd get bored of me.'
'Oh, Steve,' Eddie whispers out. 'You don't need to worry 'bout that, I swear. For all I care, we can have the most vanilla sex in the world forever. Or never have sex at all. As long as it's with you... I'm good.' Eddie cringes as soon as the words leave his mouth: it sounds too cheesy, too sincere. He kinda hopes Steve will have forgotten this particular part of their conversation tomorrow morning.
But Steve doesn't look at him like he thinks it's stupid at all: his eyes are wide and he's smiling a soft smile.
'You sure? You won't get bored?'
Eddie chuckles. Now that he's being too goddamn cheesy anyway, he might as well double down on it. 'I can't imagine getting bored of getting to hold this body in a million fucking years. In any way you'll have me.'
Steve heaves out a relieved sigh before he buries his head against Eddie's chest.
'Can I bring you home, now?' Eddie asks.
There's a twinkle in Steve's eyes when he lifts his head again.
'Ooohhh... You wanna have the most vanilla sex in the world with me now?'
A chortle escapes Eddie's lungs.
'Um, maybe tomorrow, when you're not drunk off your ass,' he answers with a wink. 'For tonight, just lemme get you to bed, 'kay?'
'Okay, big boy,' Steve answers, and Eddie can't help but laugh before he presses a kiss against Steve's forehead.
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"Great Alastor Altruist* died for his friends!"
This scene has been spinning in my brain since Thursday. Like a lot of other people, my first thought was that this was an indication that Alastor had grown to care for Charlie and her friends at the hotel. And it's not because of the words he says. Even if you're watching without subtitles and don't see the quotations around that phrase, it's pretty obvious that he's laughing at the very thought.
"Me? Alastor? Dying for them?"
"Ridiculous."
"Absurd!"
"Utterly laughable!"
No, what makes me think that there might be a kernel of truth there isn't the words by themselves. It's the look on his face as he says them.
This is the part where Alastor's angry snarl breaks and he begins to look genuinely afraid. He clutches his chest. He digs his fingers into his scalp, drags his hand down the side of his face. And that's a perfectly reasonable reaction to nearly dying! It's very human! But I think it's very telling that this expression doesn't settle on his face until he's talking about dying for someone else. Before this he looked more angry than anything, and he lapses back into anger up until he begins talking about trying to find a way out of his deal.
Now, don't get me wrong, I understand why anyone would think otherwise. The thing about Alastor is that, despite how blatant it is, his mask works. Like I stated earlier, I find myself searching every word, expression, and gesture from Alastor for double meaning. Ostensibly, there's no one here for Alastor to lie to**. No one he has to put up an act for. But his smile, which he's already fully admitted is faker than fake, remains firmly in place. I wonder if putting up an act is so second nature to him at this point he can't help but do it even when he's alone. Maybe he tries to fool himself as much as other people.
I believe that he has come to care, but I can't fully believe it. I won't be surprised to be wrong. But there are some scenes that just don't make sense to me if he really doesn't care at all.
His chat with Niffty the night before the extermination, for example. Niffty isn't really someone he needs to trick. He has power over her, whether it's because he owns her soul or because of her blind devotion to him. It's telling that while everyone else is hanging out together, sharing drinks at the bar, Alastor keeps his distance and positions himself above them. At this point, Alastor seems to care about them the way we, the audience, care about them; as entertainment. He's enjoying watching their story unfold up close, but that's all there is to it. He admits to Niffty that one could get accustomed to being with them. Not him though! He's above all that.
Then the battle happens. At first, Alastor's role in the battle didn't require him to assume too much risk. He was on crowd control, limiting the number of exorcists the rest of the hazbins have to deal with at once. And he slayed a not insubstantial number of angels in the process***. But then Adam broke through Alastor's shield and singled him out. It would have been reasonable for Alastor to put some distance between himself and the Lead Exorcist. Charlie did say it was his job to deal with Adam, but as I've already discussed, Alastor really had no hope of winning that fight alone. Maybe if he'd escaped right then and there, or fought Adam alongside Charlie things would have turned out differently. Granted, I don't think his pride would have allowed him to take either of those options.
Regardless, the end result is that Alastor did come very close to dying for a cause that wasn't his. Considering what Adam did to the hotel, Alastor's pretty damn lucky he's not in two pieces here.
Now, I don't think this means Alastor is immediately going to turn around and integrate int o the hazbin family. Immediately after this line where he mocks the idea of dying for Charlie's cause, he gets angry again, leans further into the Radio Demon persona and starts contemplating ways to escape his contract. I think, that like someone recoiling after accidentally touching a hot stove, Alastor's going to pull further away from them. One thing I am certain about is how Alastor feels about his leash; he hates it. He wants to be rid of it. He doesn't know how to do that yet, but he's working out a plan and having Charlie in his corner is part of that plan. Giving a genuine shit about her or the other hazbins is not part of that plan. It's another leash, not as literal as the one connecting him to his patron but just as binding.
Alastor realizing he might actually care about these people may just make him more dangerous to them than if he just didn't care at all.
-
(*The word 'altruist' here being used as a title, not a name. Like something you'd see in a newspaper headline, or on a headstone.)
(**There do seem to be some odd eye motifs in the environment, but at no point does Alastor give any indication he is aware of them or acknowledge their presence in anyway. And I highly doubt he would have said certain things if he believed his patron was actively watching him.)
(***Taking this opportunity to go off topic a bit to call the Vees out on their hypocrisy. For all their bluster about 'taking the fight to Heaven' and how 'pussy' the older Overlords supposedly are, I didn't see any of them on the battlefield. Alastor was. He fought as long and hard as he could. There was nothing cowardly about him living to fight another day.)
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