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straight4joekeery · 1 year

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Teach Me How To Love In Your Own Lyrics

(Part nine)

Prev. Part one

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“Question,” Robin says putting the last sweater on Ozzy.

“For me or the cat?”

“You dingus. Did you end up getting tickets to Eddie’s concert in Indy Saturday?”

“No, and I feel really bad. My plan was to, like, show up outside so he thought I was there the whole time.”

“… um well that’s sad. But lucky for you, that’s not happening! Vickie’s sick and won’t be able to make it. So she told me to give her ticket to you.”

“I can't just take her-“

“Yes you can. And you are. Okay? Also this is the best outfit for him,” she said Turing Ozzy around in a tiny yellow raincoat.

“Sure. And are you positive Vickie is okay with this?”

“Yes, Steve,” she rolled her eyes, “She’s the one who suggested it.”

“Okay… well you better get home. Don’t you have a sick wife to care for?”

“She’s not my wife,” she whined. The funny part was he knew everything from both sides. He helped Vickie pick out a ring in March. She got too nervous and said she just needed to find “the right time”. In Robin’s case, he helped pick out a ring a year ago.

“Not yet because you guys are too dense.”

“Yeah okay, we’re done here. Be at mine at three and we’ll leave at six. Goodbye,” she said walking out of the door.

“Uh huh love you too.”

After the big realization that Eddie may or may not like him back, things have been different. He’s been happier. Less mopey, but also simultaneously sadder in anticipation to see him again. He’ll see him next Saturday and then after two weeks, he will be back. Permanently.

~~~~~~~~~

It was Friday, and Steve was panicking for many reasons. For starters, what if Steve does something wrong? Messes up. What if Eddie doesn’t like him back and he does something stupid and ruins their friendship forever? He needs to do something. Something to ‘wow’ Eddie.

He thinks back to the other day when he painted random objects. He found a small gift bag to put his gifts in. He put the ring tray and the guitar pick inside.

Hm. There is no way this is enough. I mean sure, yeah, it's the thought that counts, however… go big or go home right?

After an hour of thinking, shopping, and thorough consideration, he had gotten 3 more things. He knew Eddie’s two favorite things were d&d and music, so he felt he should include things that represent them. He started by making a mixtape. It included songs that Eddie loved and songs that he hated (aka Steve’s favorites). He also threw in some songs that had meaning behind them. Songs that reminded Steve of Eddie. Songs that just had good memories attached. Eddie will probably make fun of him for his song choices, but he knows he’ll secretly love it. At least he hopes so.

The next item was a customized set of dice. They were red, black, and a little bit of gray. They almost perfectly matched the pick that he wore around his neck (Jesus this dude is going to drown in guitar picks).

And now we’re on the last (but CERTAINLY not least) gift. Steve needed something to be the cherry on top. When he went out shopping he spent hours looking for something. He knew what it would be when he saw it. $175 later, he had it. It was a thick silver ring with a heart on it. Yes, yes, it was indeed very corny and Steve knew that. But he didn’t care. Instead of the heart having a bow, it had a dagger going through it (it felt kind of dark, but it’s Eddie were talking about). Now while that was a top tier gift, it wasn’t good enough, he deserved more. So Steve paid an extra hundred to get an engraving on the inside. It said ‘HERO’ with bats on both sides of the word.

Second step: clothing. Now normally he would just throw on whatever felt right in the morning, but this was no normal event. He set out a new pair of black ripped jeans that he did not buy just for this occasion. He looked through the stack of new band tees that he got at the mall. After 30 minutes of debating, he chose the Dio shirt. He saw the pin on his vest (which of course, he was also going to wear) and it had the most color. He topped it off with a pair of doc martens Robin had insisted on buying to match hers.

Next step: pep talks and panic attacks. It’s going to be fine. Everything will be perfect. But what if-

Last step: sleep.

~~~~~~~~

Swipe, swipe aaannndddd… done! After applying his (he will admit it now) makeup, he spent another good 15 minutes checking himself out. I mean yeah, not for him to be, like, super egotistical buuttt he looked amazing. And for once he hoped Robin was right. Well not literally, he certainly did not wish an aneurysm upon Eddie, but he did want a positive reaction. So for now he tried to rush out of the house. He checked for everything at least five times. Keys: check, wallet: check, gift: check, and most importantly Ozzy: check. Steve was going to just blast the music to ‘prepare’ himself (let’s be honest he would have turned the volume up four notches), but Ozzy would have gotten mad and he didn’t really want to deal with that. Fortunately, he didn’t make a sound the entire ride.

After he gathered his things and walked up to their door, he was greeted by Vickie. “Ozzy!” she said cheerfully reaching out for the cat. She sounded completely fine. Not a hint of illness in her tone nor her face. She must've noticed what he was thinking immediately, “Oh um,” she cleared her throat and fake coughed. Like very sadly fake.

Just then Robin sneaked up behind her, “hey Steve,” she said looking between the two of them.

“You little bi-” he started but was interrupted by a fit of giggles from the girls. “Why?”

“Sorry,” he glared at her, “sorry! I mean it. But let's be honest you would enjoy yourself way more than I would there.”

“But-”

“Nope. No arguments. You are going whether you like it or not. Plus, you need to shoot your shot,” she winked while imitating a basketball player.

“Ew, gross,” he rolled his eyes, “never do that again. But thank you”

“Of course, now go help Robin. She’s been staring in the closet for an hour.”

“Hey!” Robin shouted, “it has not been an hour… maybe 45 minutes at most! But yeah I do need help so c’mon now.”

He went to the spare bedroom quickly to drop off his bag and the gift, then ran to Robin’s. He briefly glanced through her side of the closet before picking out an outfit. Say what you will about Steve, but when given a style, he has a great fashion sense.

“Great! Perfect! Now follow moi,” she said, handing him (more so throwing it at his face) a makeup bag. She sat down at her vanity and smiled. “What? Stop looking at me like that. It’s not my fault you're better at it than I am!”

“I didn’t do anything,” he said, raising his hands, “I feel honored.”

He got about halfway done before Robin started again, “How did you get so good at this anyways?”

He sighed, “short story or long?”

“We have hours.”

“Okay, so I was about seven, I think, and my parents just decided to start trying the whole neglect thing,” Robin gawked at him. Okay maybe not funny, “But they knew I was still a little kid so they hired a babysitter. Stephanie. They switched babysitters about every other month, until I was eleven-ish. She was the only one who was actually nice to me. They had been gone for about a week when she decided it’s a lot of work to drive back and forth, so she just started to stay at the house. And I should mention that Stephanie was the me of the ‘70s.”

“A total slut?”

“I am not a slut! …but yeah I guess,” Robin snorted, “stop moving! So anyways, she was on dates constantly.”

“Steve, that is the textbook definition of a slut.”

“Shut up! So one time I was following her around just watching her get ready for the date. And then she started curling her hair, and ,of course, doing her lovely makeup. So I started asking about it, and she ended up doing mine. That was the reason my dad fired her by the way. I loved it though. It made me feel like a different person. One day I asked if I could do hers and… I definitely did it. She ended up going on the date looking like… Frank-n-furter on steroids. The guy got one look at her and left.

“I just started practicing after that. On her, myself, and even Carol. So yeah. Now we’re here.”

“That wasn’t really a long story.”

“Yeah, but it was uninteresting.”

“I don’t think so. I thought it was sweet.”

“I guess,” he glanced at his watch, 4:49, “we have about an hour, what shall we do?”

“We shall go get something to eat. There’s a new diner downtown. It supposedly has, like, no wait time.”

“Are our outfits diner appropriate?” he said, gesturing at himself.

“We’re in Indianapolis, Steve,” true.

“We should probably get going then.”

“We shall,” she stood up and bowed down, holding out her hand.

“Shut up,” he said, grabbing her hand.

For a product of Indiana, the diner wasn’t that bad. And yeah, the service was fast (but a little too fast). They ended up going to the venue extra early. There were already hundreds of people there. Keep in mind that the concert started at 7 (it was currently 5:32). They started to walk around the general area of the arena. They giggled as they saw a group of girls that were jumping up and down discussing their massacre crushes on all of the members. (“Ooh Steve look out, you might have some competition”) They spent the remainder of their time, sitting against a wall, gossiping. “I knew I never liked Julie. She was always oddly obsessive over things. I was also friends with her ex at a random summer camp, waaayyyy to good for her.”

“Thats kinda what I thought. To be completely honest, the principal hates her. She's probably going to get fired soon.”

“Good,” he face randomly lit up, “Oh. My. God. Steve! I forgot to tell you!” Robin gasped grabbing onto Steve’s hands.

“What?”

“Nance called the other day. It finally happened!” she shrieked

“What happened… oh. Oh my god really?” he immediately knew what she was talking about. Around ‘89 all of the older teens/ young adults all started placing bets on when they thought Will and Mike would get together. (Nancy and Argyle: 2-4 years, Jonathan: 2-4 months, Eddie: 10-13 years, and finally the winners Robin and Steve: 6-8 years)

“Yes! So we won! What does that make the ‘queer count’ now?”

“Too many.” From their knowledge the count was around 7 (assuming yes, Eddie was gay) but it was most likely way more. They looked around and saw that everyone around them was walking inside the arena now. They followed them and after about 10 minutes of waiting in line, they were inside. And oh my. It was huge. Their tickets were for the general admission, so he grabbed onto Robin's arm as he tried to push his way to the front of the crowd. They managed to make it and held onto the metal barrier like their lives depended on it. They were not moving no matter what happened. Now they just had to wait. Again.

“How y’a feeling?”

“…fine? Why?”

“Oh no reason. Maybe that your husband is finally coming back from war and you get to do something else besides staring out the window in self pity,” she said, clasping her hands over her chest, before immediately grasping back on to the barrier.

He rolled his eyes, “Weird analogy, but no. I feel fine. I mean, I’m more excited for the two weeks to be up. He’s only going to be here for two days.”

“Sure, but still. I’d be bouncing off the walls if it was Vickie.”

“Yeah, but you’re Robin. We are not the same.”

“I feel like that was an insult,” she turned to face Steve, “how much longer?”

“About twenty-ish minutes,” Robin groaned and buried her face into his shoulder. They stayed just like that (minus the constant “time?”) until a group of people came out to test and prepare a few things on the stage. 6:53. At this point neither of them were standing still. Most of the lights were starting to turn off when the staff walked off the stage. 7:00. “Ready?”

“Maybe?” She said, grabbing onto his arm. Then just like that, there they were. More specifically Eddie. Eddie was back. Eddie was here. The whole crowd started to go wild. If they were this loud, wait for the music.

Eddie walked up to the main microphone, “Feels good to be home,” again, insanity erupted from the crowd, “okay, I assume you guys know the drill by now, so tonight is my dedication. I’ve decided to dedicate this concert to my best friend, Steve,” the band all gave him disapproving looks. Oh wait.

He turned to look at Robin, who was already looking at him, “That’s me!”

“That’s you!”

“So yeah,” Eddie continued, “uh he’s been there for me when I needed it, and if I don’t stop talking I’m probably going to cry. Anyways love you Steve and let’s get this party started!” Steve chose to ignore that comment for the time being. Robin decided otherwise, grabbing his shoulders and jumping up and down.

“Don’t have a chance my ass,” He went to shush her, but the music did that job for him. Yep. Loud. It was amazing though. He was completely mesmerized by the entire performance. Especially the last song. It was a lot softer, he liked it. But then he really listened. He immediately knew the meaning. It was beautiful. How could Eddie never tell him about this? It was perfect. He remembers the whole conversation that it was based off of too. It was just because of something dumb Dustin said that set him off. He told him every last detail of his life that day, and that’s where the infamous Invisible Man sprung.

Before he knew it, it was over. “That was amazing,” Robin said gawking at him, “but we should definitely talk about how he-”

“Later. But, agreed. Worth the migraine, ten out of ten.”

“Well, let’s go find your man,” she winked at him. She was so weird. But it’s not like he didn’t run around to the back to find him.

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UHH FINALLY???? Took me long enough. I am so so so so sorry abt the delay. If y’all didn’t see the post, my metal health declined for like a singular day and then I just kinda gave up with motivation for a bit. But then I did finish, and I went to copy it to paste it here and I deleted the whole thing. But I do think it was for the better bc this is way better then it was. But yay? I just now realized it’s kinda long. I wrote like the majority of it yesterday and today sooooo kinda rushed. I also only reread it once because I feel horrible for not posting. So sorry if it sucks. But y’all liked the incorrect quotes so I’m glad for that. I really do want to personally thank every single one of you. You reading means the world to me. I could not be happier. And the first part is also now up on AO3! I’m going to wait til the end of the fic to post on there. But yay! Hope you guys enjoyed!!! Comment or reblog if you want to be tagged!

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