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flowercrowngods · 1 year

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part 1 | part 2 (these make one big story, you won't understand this part without the others)

day 03: first kiss

a/n: not sure if I vibe with this part, but I hope it's okay. also don't think you're getting fluff

A broken heart is such a thing that will make you live either in the past or in the future; never in the present moment. Lovesickness feels like a virus is attacking the very fabric of your universe, distorting time and space and leaving you floating; directionless and hurting.

That is how Steve feels as he goes through the motions of his life, getting his kids ready for finals, for their oral and written exams, or planning end-of-year school trips. While school provides a great distraction and he has mastered the art of switching into teacher mode almost effortlessly, he feels like he’s just an inch or two beside himself. Beside where he should be.

He’s dwelling in the past or mourning dozens of possible futures, an infinity of them that will end up unrealised, unlived, unloved. His heart is heavy all the time, his head hurting, and his phone chiming with an endless string of messages that go unopened, unreplied.

It’s been a few weeks since the engagement party, since he last saw Eddie — who asked if he was okay, who has been asking to see him again, to hang out, have a drink, just catch up. But every time he does, Steve just hurts, and he finds excuses.

— Sorry, it’s finals season, I’ll be spread thin for the next few weeks :(

Eddie had replied with a litany of sad, brokenhearted emojis that were at equal measures ridiculous as they were exactly what Steve was feeling. Is feeling. Will probably always be feeling, for the rest of his life and beyond.

So far, Eddie hasn’t asked him to be his best man. Steve sort of doesn’t want to give him the opportunity for that. He’s cowardly enough to wish he could avoid Eddie forever if only that meant he wouldn’t have to see his face fall and crumble when he tells him, No.

No, I can’t be your best man. I can’t make it to the wedding. I can’t make it, I can’t do this, I can’t stand by and watch as you show me and the rest of the world that your dream life is not with me. Never with me. I can’t hand you over when all I wanna do is hold you. Hold your hand. Walk you down the aisle and then sweep you up in my arms, just to run out, run away; anywhere, as long as it’s with you.

It doesn’t make sense. There won’t be an aisle, there won’t be any sweeping, there won’t be a future for them. Never has been. Not like this.

Although there was a brief moment in time where their futures almost aligned. Almost. The timing was never right, though, stumbling through the motions and currents of two lost boys’ emotions. But it was almost there, almost enough.

And it's what's been on Steve's mind all week, playing and replaying, tearing at him from the inside out, leaving him with a jigsaw puzzle of infinite pieces of could have beens, would have beens, and what ifs.

"You know," he tells Robin one evening, who has practically moved in now, claiming that broken hearts are best nursed together. "I was actually Eddie's first kiss."

To her credit, Robin doesn't drop the carton pizza at Steve's non-sequitur. She just swallows hard and looks at him in that careful way she has now, where she's trying to read him and ask his eyes to tell her what it is that she should say next. It's frustrating. It's the greatest kindness anyone has ever shown him. It makes him want to punch a wall, and it makes him want to wrap her in the warmest hug and never, ever let her go.

"You were?"

Steve just nods, his lips trembling as his throat closes up again.

"No," she says in the gentlest voice, taking his hand as she guides him to the living room couch. "I didn't know that. Do you wanna talk about it?"

He shakes his head, tucking his feet under her thigh and leaning sideways against the backrest of the couch. His head is heavy and he's tired. He's always tired, even though he doesn't cry as much anymore. It's been four weeks since the engagement party.

"No, I just, uh– Just wanted to say that."

She nods, her eyes boring into him for two, three, four seconds before she finally turns to her pizza.

He looks past her, his eyes unfocused as his mind travels back to that day when they were still in high school.

~*~

The day that Eddie told him he was gay. And Steve had asked how he knew, because he'd been wondering about his own sexuality.

"I don't know, I just know."

"Well, have you ever kissed a boy?"

And Eddie had blushed a little, charred with his feet in the dirt like he always did – still does. "No."

"Okay."

And Steve, ten years ago, had thought, why not kill two birds with one stone. "Would you like to?"

"Huh?"

"Well, I mean, I'm kinda on the fence about it? Sometimes I think I might like guys, but then other times not so much. But I've never kissed one either, so," he shrugged. "If you, like, want to? We can."

"You want me to kiss you?" Eddie sounded incredulous, but his eyes were very big, very dark, very vulnerable. And it was not a no.

"Only if you want to."

A grin split Eddie's face then and he raised his eyebrows suggestively, but there was something forced about it. "Well, what If I fall madly in love with you, Steve Harrington, hm? What then?"

"Oh, please," Steve had only snorted; the thought that Eddie would fall for him out of all people was just too absurd.

And then something had shifted between them, the air turned into something sizzling as Eddie's smile fell and he stepped closer to Steve, raising one hand to his cheek.

"Here goes my first kiss," he murmured.

"Ever?"

"If we discount Lisa from kindergarten, then yes."

Steve huffed, looking down at Eddie's lips, the moment strangely intimate – but not uncomfortably so. Being this close to Eddie wasn't something new, Steve was used to his friend's tactile nature. "Fuck Lisa from kindergarten."

"I'd really rather not," Eddie smiled before finally, finally leaning in and capturing Steve's lips in a kiss.

To this day, Steve is not sure why he went and deepened the kiss like he did. Was it because he knew this was Eddie's first and he wanted to make it good, make it last? Was it because something deep inside of him knew that he liked boys, too, and that he liked Eddie, even though that realisation wouldn't come for another year at least?

He doesn't know why, but he feels it on his lips still, the memory of their first kiss. Their only kiss. A spectacular one that ended with twin smiles after Steve showed Eddie how to move his lips, how to tilt his head, how to open his mouth to let him in. How to capture the little sigh that he would make.

Eddie had looked at him, a little dazed, and Steve grinned at him, delighted at his expression more than at the kiss itself.

"A-And did you," Eddie started, pulling his hands away from Steve and shoving them deeply into his pockets. "Did you get any closer to, uh, to finding out?"

"If I like guys?"

Eddie nodded.

Steve thought about it; about the kiss and how it wasn't as soft as making out with Nancy or Allison. How he would swallow their moans and run his hands along their soft bodies. Eddie wasn't like that. Eddie was just Eddie.

"I think I'll just stick with girls for now," he shrugged with a smile, patting Eddie on the shoulder and squeezing lightly when the other boy began to sway a little.

"Suit yourself, Harrington," Eddie said, shoving him a little. "But you're missing out."

Years later, Eddie had drunkenly confessed to him that he'd had a crush on Steve back then. For years. And Steve had wanted to ask about it, ask if it's still there, that crush, that connection on a deeper, closer level; but then Eddie told him, "Remember Chrissy? We're official now."

And all the words had died on Steve's lips. All those questions, or the confession that, Yeah, me too. Though Steve's crush on Eddie was much later, years after their first kiss, – and it never really ended.

Still hasn't. And it's not a crush. It's more. It's everything.. He's in love. In it. Caught, stuck, trapped inside, while Eddie and everyone else is on the outside, just watching him struggle.

~*~

Later that night, on his umpteenth re-run of the First Kiss Episode that's keeping him from falling asleep, leaving him frustrated and sad and wondering, his phone rings. Eddie's name pops up on the screen, the impersonal Eddie Munson feels like a knife through his heart. He couldn't bear any of the silly nicknames that Eddie's always had in his phone, and needed to go back to a clean slate.

It hurts, though. He watches, considering to let it go to voicemail – but he hasn't talked to his... to Eddie in four weeks. Barely even talked to him on his engagement party.

And even though there's a chance opening for Eddie to ask him or to talk about his wedding, Steve answers the call.

"Stevie," Eddie says, somewhere between a sigh and a hum, and immediately takes away Steve's breath.

"Hi," he rasps. His heart is racing, his hands begin to tremble and he's shaking even under the thick, warm blanket.

"Did I wake you?"

He hums a negative, not trusting himself to speak, and it comes out a pathetic croak, because God, he missed Eddie. Part of him was missing – part of him will always be missing now, he knows –, and it makes him cry. It's not a sob, not a wail, not anything that Eddie can hear or something that would alarm Robin in the other room.

They're silent tears, and he presses his face into the pillow. He should hang up.

"Stevie?" Eddie asks again, his voice so small, so gentle, so worried. "Are you okay?" And after a moment of Steve being unresponsive because he can't catch his breath without gasping, Eddie asks, "Are you crying?"

And just like a kid that tries to be brave through the pain after falling down, but breaks the moment someone asks if they're hurt, Steve lets out a tiny, broken little sob.

"Oh, Stevie baby," Eddie sighs, and he sounds so sad, so compassionate, Steve never wants to hear his name like that ever again. "Do you want me to come over?"

"No," he croaks pathetically, hitting himself once, twice, three times for not keeping it together. For not being strong enough.

I can't do this.

"What do you need?"

"Sleep," he sniffles, stupidly.

"Okay. Then I'll stay here and be silent company, yeah? Don't need to be alone. Is Robin there?" He hums again, affirmative. "Good. Want me to say something? Read to you, tell you a story? Play you some music or–"

"Eddie," Steve manages. I love you. "Just silence? But you don't have to."

"Nah, I'll stay with you," Eddie says before Steve even finished his objections. "Until you've fallen asleep, yeah?"

Steve just nods into his pillow, even though Eddie can't see or hear it.

He's watching the seconds turn into minutes as the time passes. He's so tired, but he doesn't want to let go yet. Not when Eddie is right there. Not when there's still the phantom feeling of his lips capturing Steve's, a memory that is ten years old and still as strong as the very first second.

He should have known, then. Should have leaned in for another kiss, should have told Eddie that he knows he's into boys now, too, and ask Eddie to keep kissing him.

He shouldn't have taken years.

He should have created a new world just for the two of them, with an infinite amount of futures, and all go them happy. All of them SteveAndEddie.

But he didn't. And he wants to apologise. For being so slow, for not knowing until it was too late. For pulling away these past few weeks when that's the last thing he ever wants to do. For not being strong enough; for being too weak.

I'm in love with you, he thinks. Over and over and over. Mouths it voicelessly into the silence between them. Says it out loud when after almost two hours, Eddie hangs up with a quiet, "Good night, Stevie. I miss you." He says it when Eddie's gone, the beep of an empty line the only response he gets before that cuts out, too.

And then he's all alone again.

tagging: @sexymothmanincarnate @mcneen @livsters @eddiemunchondeeznuts @abstractnaturaldisaster @steddie-as-they-go @hyperfixationgoddess @goodolefashionedloverboi @stxrcrossed186 @imzadidragonfly @eddiemunsonswife @bidisastersworld @ghost-ly-s @romanticdestruction @walkingaftermidnight07 @anaibis @rainydays35 @mightbeasleep @sunfloweringstories @korixae and thanks to everyone who said nice things about this 🤍🌷

come back tomorrow for: here come the tears (and hurt/comfort, maybe) | read part 4 here

#steddie fic #steddie #steddie week fic #steddieweek2023 #maybe I'll write the first kiss scene as one later. when my eyes dont hurt and the thought of posting doesnt make my brain eat itself #will I ever post a steddie week thing not around 2am?? -- unlikely #the emotions are dulled unless they are sharp because heartache is fun like that (and so is anxiety can I get a wahoo)#dio words #I hope I got all the tags I dont think there were any requests in reblogs but if I missed them pls dont be mad 🥺

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katelynsimpsince2016 · 22 days

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Daniel, Louis and their “strange alliance”

this quote from eric from a pre-season 2 interview has been rattling inside my brain for far too long so i want to break down a scene from season 1 that has gained some newly-found importance.

in 1x02 daniel and louis sit down to have dinner as louis recounts an experience of attending the opera with lestat and its bloody end. what’s most interesting about this sequence is less so to do with what happened at loustat’s opera date but more so this surprisingly touching moment between louis and daniel.

it starts off with louis mentioning how the dessert served for him and daniel is taken from a off-handed remark in daniel’s memoir.

this suggests A LOT. it seems to imply that louis has attentively read daniel’s memoir and likely has a genuine vested interest in daniel as a person outside of what he can do for him in relation to rejigging his jumbled memories. you can’t tell from this screenshot but he almost seems embarrassed that he went to such lengths with making sure to serve up this exact dessert that daniel mentioned. and the fact that it was an “offhanded remark” also drives me insane. he either read through daniel’s memoir and specifically noted down this mention about the dessert or realised that he wanted to share a meal with daniel and proceeded to scour his memoir in order to find mentions of food he likes. there is also the possibility that he asked one of his servants to read through the book again but we know for sure that louis read daniel’s memoir himself at some point. whatever the case louis went to the effort of making sure daniel would get to eat something familiar and that he most definitely liked. he did that to make daniel feel comfortable.

this is especially significant as louis chooses to eat this dessert alongside daniel, despite the fact that it tastes like “paste” to him. he is actively choosing to eat something that tastes like gruel to him essentially and for what?? to appear less monstrous? to comfort daniel? maybe show that he still has some humanity left in him. it’s important to mention that this is in the aftermath of daniel confronting louis about how human readers likely won’t be sympathetic to louis and lestat’s need for blood to survive. however, it doesn’t come across as a calculated move to appear more appeasing to potential readers. this seems wholly for daniel’s sake.

louis - for whatever reason - is intentionally presenting himself as approachable and human to daniel.

this is followed up by daniel seemingly picking up on louis’s offer for connection and opening up about the woman that’s on everyone’s mind currently: alice.

daniel details how he proposed to alice in paris in a cafe (which lines up with the story he tells in 2x02) and names the street that it was located on. louis recognises this and verbalises it.

this is yet another grasp for connection, of understanding, between louis and daniel. louis wants to show daniel that he’s genuinely interested in his story, in him as a person by showing that’s he actively listening to him.

now, what we’ve all been waiting for.

this moment is the whole reason why i want to tear this scene apart!! this is probably up there with daniel offering louis a break in 2x01 as one of the most sincere and vulnerable moments we’ve gotten from daniel, a typically cold and sarcastic character. whatever you think about the alice-armand parallels and who exactly he is truly talking about here, daniel is fondly speaking of someone now estranged from him. he remembers the little details about her, an insecurity that she was ashamed of that he completely adored! he loved her for who she was, imperfections and all.

and to top this all off daniel closes his laptop! he ends the session! he likely does this out of a mixture of embarrassment that he’s rambled about his ex-wife live on tape but also maybe a sign to louis that he’s taking this seriously. that he’s appreciative of him trying to meet him on his level. that this moment was real. by stripping away the symbol of the supposedly strictly professional nature of this reunion he may be signalling that this conversation is indeed important to him.

and the fact that daniel is able to even have this vulnerable moment with louis at all, reminiscing over his lost love (whilst louis is doing something very similar with lestat) is so intriguing! obviously louis and daniel are most definitely not strangers to one another but they aren’t best friends either. they haven’t seen each other in decades and for daniel especially this has been a very abrupt reunion. whether he likes it not, daniel likely relates on some level to louis’s complex feelings towards lestat, his lover. like louis, daniel may not miss his relationship with alice in relation to the toxic dynamic they shared (slight guess here but the revelation that she initially rejected his proposal suggests to me that their relationship was a bit rocky at least) but he most definitely misses her as a person and the memory of their time together.

finally, what closes off this scene is this… odd expression from louis. not entirely sure if i’m being too optimistic when i say that louis may be sympathising with daniel here but admittedly he does seem a little confused as well. but if this truly is meant to be a look of contempt i feel like it would’ve been more akin to louis’s more obviously disgusted reaction to the coven’s play in 2x02. instead, in this scene, i think louis simply did not expect daniel to so openly accept his offer of connection and is just stunned to hear this bristly old man reflect his own feelings so accurately. he’s finally found someone who understands his situation with lestat. someone who understands this dichotomy of longing and anguish all at the same time. obviously, their situations are not a 1:1 but this scene has always stood out to me as a parallel between daniel and louis’s previous relationships.

a key part about this whole daniel and louis form a “strange alliance” thing is that it seems to stem from the two men realising that they have a lot more in common than they initially believed. that’s why it’s “strange”: because it’s unexpected.

although in recent episodes they’re definitely at odds with each other, this scene combined with other sprinklings of subtle moments of connection suggest to me that daniel might become a genuine friend to louis. it is a strange friendship but they both want to get to the bottom of louis’s memories. no one else in dubai is able to tell louis how it really is and is able to actually push him to question the lies he’s been fed (and that he’s fed himself). intentionally or not, daniel is looking out for louis and is indirectly helping him to accept his past mistakes. maybe he sometimes pushes him too hard or says some stuff he probably shouldn’t but ultimately daniel is the catalyst for louis actually remembering the truth. without him louis would not have come as far as he as over the course of the series

#first proper post in this fandom so pls don’t kill me #ALSO THE MUSIC IN THIS SCENE IS INSANE #ITS SO SAD #interview with the vampire #amc iwtv #daniel molloy #louis de pointe du lac #louis iwtv #iwtv #iwtv meta

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