"I'm sorry."
It's the first thing Steve says after everything.
After getting Vecna Cursed. After nearly dying. After a hallucination of Eddie saved him. After running through a looped forest. After finding sanctuary in Steve's memory of that Starcourt bathroom. After Eddie reveals himself as Eddie.
It's the only thing he can think of. It's not big enough to fit everything, but it's the only thing that fits in his mouth.
"Don't be."
Maybe that's the only thing Eddie can think of too. The only thing Eddie can bear to say.
Because don't be can't stop Steve's eyes from watering when he sees the vest in his closet. Don't be can't stop Steve's feet from dragging him to the cemetery every evening to clean Eddie's graffiti-covered tombstone. Don't be can't stop Steve from sitting beside Wayne and listening to him talk about the Eddie he remembers. Don't be can't stop Eddie's body from showing up in Steve's dreams, nor Eddie's corpse from his nightmares. Don't be couldn't keep the pain away enough, didn't stop Vecna from latching onto it while Steve was walking alone in the woods.
Don't be isn't enough for what Steve wants to hear. But even stuck here waiting, hoping, for someone to get Steve out, there just isn't enough time.
"I miss you."
"...Why?"
Eddie says it back so quickly, so quietly, like it's just unfathomable to him. Maybe it is, considering their last memories. But their eyes meet and he looks just as sad, just as longing, as Steve.
"You were my friend."
Steve can't help but say it like that. Like they were friends for years instead of days. Like Eddie was that important to him in their final moments. Like his heart really aches for Eddie every second of the apocalypse.
Can't help but say it like he means it.
"I wish we could've had more time..."
Steve's voice cracks a little there as he turns away, hiding. It's all he wants. It's all Vecna used to entice him with. It's all that's keeping him going, to finally fulfill the last request Eddie made. It's all he has left to feel close to Eddie.
The Eddie that's sitting right next to him, silent, his sight weighing on Steve's skin. Conscious and aware and the real Eddie. Trapped in Vecna's head as a backup power source, yet who still risked everything to come save Steve. Who Steve will never see again because killing Vecna means killing Eddie for good, and his heart doesn't want it, is begging for another solution...
But for once, his broken head overpowers his shattered heart.
"Maybe we did."
Eddie takes Steve's hand. Meets Steve's surprised look with his own small smile of hope. They're both suddenly tearing up, eyes glistening with life in this gray stall.
"Maybe in another world, we got a second first chance. A first second chance. Maybe even a third, or fourth. Maybe in a different life, we had everything we wanted. Because you, Steve Harrington, are too good for me to be doomed to meet just once."
And for a moment, Steve sees it. Feels it. Versions of them connected through the universe.
Little kids playing in the lake. One with bruised skin and shaved hair, loud but unfathomably lonely. One with a bruised heart and soft eyes, timid but stubbornly hopeful.
A rockstar with glittering chains, center stage in the spotlight. A set of eyes in the crowd or behind the curtain, watching only him.
A werewolf and a vampire, two cryptids of horror, meeting in the dead of a full moon night to feel safe with the only other one who understands.
A future where they won, where the only death was the one that mattered. A process of healing and learning, coming home to a family every single day.
A world without pain, without their hell, where two high schoolers found freedom from their shackles and company in each other. Hiding away together in the dark corners of the town.
Steve even sees other versions of them. Versions that he knows were originally never supposed to meet, yet forces so much greater than them pulled them together.
A metalhead drug dealer, constantly getting into trouble with one nail-bat-weilding cop.
A criminal's fugitive nature leading him to a rugged trailer park, and the dangerous owner within one such home.
An eccentric king in an old coliseum, always choosing one particular warrior as his champion.
A young programmer being pulled away from his work by sobs above his apartment, running upstairs to check on the law student that recently moved in.
Two actors, finding an easy friendship in the months of filming one season of a show that would change their lives.
In that moment, Steve's overwhelmed by the closeness he suddenly feels with the soul beside him. Falling into tears, he pulls Eddie into a tight hug, holding him so so close to convey everything he can't say. Feeling Eddie hold him back, hearing everything Eddie can't say in return.
Familiar music comes on outside the stall. Robin's voice calls out to him, telling him to come home.
And when he does leave, Steve hopes that someone out there will understand that he never can. Because here in Eddie's arms is the only place that will ever truly feel like home.
"Thank you... for everything, Eddie."
Thank you, Steve. For everything and more..."
--------------------
- List of AUs, in order, after, "Versions of them connected through the universe": Childhood Friends / Rockstar!Eddie / Werewolf!Steve & Vampire!Eddie / Eddie Survives / No Upside Down & High School
- List of Multiverse Steddie AUs, in order, after, "...yet forces so much greater than them pulled them together": Eddie x Gator / Baron x Michael / Geta x Sean / Keys x Eric / Quinn and Keery
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My mom has this awful friend, Cynthia. My loathing goes deep enough that I’m not even going to change her name. If she ever finds this she knows what she did.
On multiple occasions my mom asked this horrible irresponsible chicken brained woman to watch after our animals while we were away. I don’t know why once wasn’t enough, because the first failure was so spectacular that anyone in their right mind would know she couldn’t be trusted with any level of responsibility or direction following.
You might be thinking to yourself, FFS, this level of antipathy is surely unwarranted! But you’d be wrong.
To set the scene, we were living in downstairs of our house when I was about fifteen. My mom has always wanted more animals than can reasonably be kept indoors which is how we ended up with three cats. When she wanted to kick them all outside I protested, and so all three cats lived in my bedroom with no access to the rest of the house.
That really wasn’t great, so in an attempt to give them options we made a window cutout with a cat door in it to give them access to the outdoors. Looking back on this as an environmentally conscious adult it’s wretched, cats should be indoor only, but at the time I was desperate to give them some freedom because one bedroom is too small for three cats.
So my parents and I went on a week long trip to visit family out of state. We told Cynthia to come feed and water the cats, and to scoop the litter box. Most importantly, don’t lock the handle of the door, because we only have the key to the deadbolt.
I’m sure you can see where this is going.
Cynthia locked us out. We arrived home after 12 hours on the road, desperate for the comfort of our own beds. We were met with an unyielding door. With a sigh I volunteered, “I can punch in the cat door and climb in the window.”
I slipped behind the bamboo outside my window and pushed in the cutout. A horrible insidious reek wafted out at me. I paused, prickling with foreboding. But I had a job to do, and by god I’d see it through. I hefted myself up into the window and my hand immediately landed in something wet.
Skin crawling, I pulled myself up and surveyed the darkened room as a miserable odor of decay and suffering poured out of the room around me. I could see dark shapes littering the carpet and it didn’t take a genius to guess that the cats had taken up hunting in a big way during my absence.
I pulled my hand out of the pile of vomit it had landed in and dropped into my onetime bedroom turned now into a hellpit of decomposing wretchedness. I turned on the light. I wished I had not turned on the light.
My eyes scanned across the floor, tallying as they went. Two dead birds, a dead baby rabbit, five dead mice, and one dead snake. I paused on my alarm clock, perplexed to see a stain of white on it. I stepped closer and saw a furtive movement.
The tally suddenly contained also: one live bird that had shit in several places, probably in pure terror to find itself trapped in a room littered with decomposing woodland creatures, which honestly, fair. I coaxed it out the window and finished the survey with five discrete piles of vomit.
I unlocked the door and let my parents in. They exclaimed in disgust at the horrible smell. We stood together in my doorway floored by the magnitude of neglect. The unscooped litter box was a subtle footnote in the tangible reek my living space. I disposed of the parade of ecological disaster, cleaned vomit, and scooped the box after a brutally long day on the road. The cats were fine, and happy to see me. They had a huge dish or food and water so Cynthia’s neglect at least hadn’t harmed them.
Then I slept on the couch while my bedroom aired out, the windows flung wide to dispel the uneasy ghosts of the hunted. I spent the whole night cursing Cynthia’s name for this evil she’d visited upon me. When my mom asked her, "Cynthia, didn't you see the dead animals?"
Cynthia responded, "Yes, they smelled so bad, I just ran in and out as fast as I could." I fully don't believe she did any caretaking, and I'm personally of the opinion that she locked herself out on the first day and never came back.
The next day my room had returned to a habitable level of smellscape and I gratefully crawled into my bed that night. I stretched out and froze as my foot brushed something cold and wet?
The final indignity: one last dead snake, inside my very sheets.
Fucking Cynthia.
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Make me write purple hearts swirl for me 😆
💜💜💜
Hiii! Sorry it took me a while to get to this, but here it is!! I hope you enjoy! 🥰
💜💜💜 - I wanna hold your hand
"You look like you're three seconds from passing out," Buck said as he locked the door.
"That's cause I am," Eddie replied, fingers curling into Buck's shirt so he wouldn't fall over.
"Do you want food first or sleep first?" Buck asked, slipping an arm around Eddie's waist to help support him.
Eddie sighed, dropping his head to lean on Buck's shoulder. "Sleep," he said, just as his stomach grumbled loudly.
With a quiet chuckle, Buck took Eddie's bag from his hand and set it on the floor before guiding him over to the couch. Eddie didn't protest, though he wasn't sure that sleeping on the couch was the best idea, and obediently sat when prompted to do so.
"Have a nap," Buck said, gently brushing some hair back from Eddie's forehead – Eddie immediately closed his eyes and tipped his head back, sinking into the sensation. "I'll go whip up some food, and then after we've eaten we can both have a sleep."
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