It’s a little after eleven when Eddie finally manages to get Tarja to bed. It’s hard for her without her plushie. And really, Eddie is very thankful having a hyper-fixation with her toy seems to be the only ‘consequence’ of having divorced parents Tarja seems to have right now. He always worries if having two homes and constantly moving between them is good for her or not. Especially with Tommy being Tarja’s other dad, but against all odds, he’s good to her. So their kid is doing just fine. She’s happy. And if she’s happy, Eddie is happy.
He’s getting ready to open a beer and relax when there’s a knock on the door. He smiles, assuming is Steve bringing Toothless over and almost knocks his beer to the floor when he opens the door.
Steve looks… well he looks amazing, dressed to the nines. Must’ve been date night. But his eyes are red and puffy, his face covered in dark blotches, and his lips are swollen like he’s been biting them too much.
He’s hugging Toothless to his chest and he smiles at Eddie when he sees him, but he looks so sad it breaks his heart.
Eddie throws the beer behind him, sure it will land on the couch and cradles Steve’s face between his hands, “What did that asshole do?
Steve leans into his touch and shuts his eyes for a moment before sighing and stepping away from him, walking inside and sitting on the couch still holding Toothless like a lifeline.
“Nothing, he was just-” Steve shakes his head and chuckles darkly, “He’s just so mean,”
Eddie drops to his knees in front of him and dips his head to look Steve in the eye just like he did that day in the park.
“Break up with him,” he says.
“I can’t.”
“Tommy doesn't deserve you, Steve. You are worth so much more than what that asshole makes you feel. You deserve better. More. Everything,” Eddie pleads, placing his hands on Steve’s knees and squeezing, “If it’s because of Tarja, we’ll figure something out, ok? Lots of people keep in contact with their parent’s significant other after they break up” He rushes, the speech he didn't have quite prepared last week coming out of him in a single breath, “We are friends, right? So you can still visit and see her. Visit me. You don’t have to stop being a part of our lives.”
Steve is staring at him right now like Eddie just gifted him the moon and he’s so beautiful it’s kind of hard for Eddie to keep eye contact, but he squeezes Steve’s knees again to ground himself and does. Steve needs to know he’s very serious about this. About him.
Eyes shining, Steve takes a deep breath and nods slowly, a tear falling down his cheek that Eddie follows with his eyes and watches until it hides under Steve’s v-neck shirt.
“Hey, even I didn’t put up with Tommy's shit for Tarja’s sake and I birthed her,” he jokes awkwardly, trying to make him laugh and feels like doing a little victory dance when Steve snorts cutely,
“Okay,” he hiccups.
“Yeah?” Eddie smiles back at him, relieved.
“Yeah,” Steve sighs, “Fuck Tommy.” And drops back on the couch, looking exhausted, “Can I stay here tonight?” he asks in a whisper, like he’s afraid Eddie will say no. As if.
“Yeah, of course,” Is what he answers, and has half a mind to invite him into his bed but knows it’s a terrible idea. So he lends Steve his favorite flannel pajamas and sets blankets and a pillow on the couch and they say their goodnights.
And if he does a little dance when he closes the door to his room, no one is there to see.
In the morning, Steve stays for breakfast. And attempts to kill Eddie by making his heart explode, cooking it himself from scratch with Tarja’s help, who is so happy she won’t stop running around the kitchen making Toothless fly and sing about ‘happy family breakfast time’.
It’s actually hard to tell if she’s happier to have her plushie back or that Steve is there. Eddie, on the other hand, knows exactly what he’s happiest about. Death by tenderness. Is that a thing? He amuses himself thinking about a couple csi’s with sunglasses saying it,
“He died because he witnessed something too cute,”
“Ah yes, death by fondness. I’ve seen it before.”
After, Eddie walks him to the door and Steve smiles sweetly at him, and holds his hand, squeezing it once before letting go, “Well, see you. I guess,” he says bashfully and there’s a moment there, a second where time stops and Eddie thinks he should kiss him. Wants to kiss him, needs to kiss him.
But he doesn’t. Because Steve is still dating Tommy, and just because he said he was going to break up with him doesn’t mean he wants to start something new with Eddie.
Eddie himself called him his friend for the first time last night for christ sake. ‘Fucking chill’ he thinks to himself.
🧸
And then a week goes by without hearing a word from Steve. But Eddie doesn't hold it against him.
At first, he figures he needs time to think but then he starts to wonder if he really is going to break up with Tommy. Four days in, he gets paranoid about it. Maybe Steve got brainwashed into thinking Eddie is bad for him. Maybe Tommy told him Eddie was putting ideas in his head, that he shouldn’t talk to him anymore… With him telling Steve to break up with his boyfriend and all...
He’s well aware of how manipulative Tommy can be and has seen the way he belittles Steve to keep him around, so he knows it’ll be hard for Steve to actually go through with it.
And he can’t exactly show up at Tommy’s and steal Steve away, no matter how appealing the idea might be. The only thing he can do is just think of Steve, wish him well, and send him strength to do what he needs to do. At the end of the day, it needs to be his decision. His choice.
As Tommy’s week with Tarja approaches he starts getting more and more anxious, wondering if it’ll be Steve or Tommy who picks her up.
When the day finally arrives, and the doorbell rings, Tarja runs to open the door and Eddie peeks his head through the hallway.
“Daddy!” Tarja screams.
“Hey, Tata! You ready?” Tommy says and Eddie steps into the hall to greet him too.
“Not yet!” Tarja chuckles and Tommy smiles at her,
“Okay, go get ready. I’ll wait here,”
Eddie walks to the door and leans on the doorframe, “Hey,”
“Hi. Long time no see,” Tommy says and then adds, “You look great,”
“You don’t,” Eddie answers, because it’s true. He looks like shit. Greasy hair, bags under his eyes, chapped lips, wrinkles on his clothes, “What happened?”
“Steve broke up with me.”
Eddie’s eyes go wide and he smiles, he doesn’t even try to hide it, “He did?”
“Don’t smile, fucker,” Tommy says but there’s no heat behind it. He knows he deserves it.
“Sorry,” Eddie says, not sorry at all.
“Stop,” Tommy whines because Eddie’s smile is actually getting bigger,
“Sorry,” he repeats and then clears his throat, “Did he tell you why?”
“Because I’m a horrible person,” Tommy groans.
“Hey, the first step is to ad-”
“To admit it, yeah, yeah. I know” Tommy interrupts him, groaning again.
Eddie sighs, and punches Tommy’s shoulder lightly, “Look, Tommy, I’m just going to say this because, well… you are pathetic. You need to do better.” And then he points to his back, to where Tarja’s disappeared to get her stuff, “She’s going to grow up and realize you are an awful person and she’s not going to want you in her life. And I’m not going to dissuade her from it, because I already don’t want you to be in mine, you know that, right?”
Tommy looks at him seriously and then nods once, fast and hard. Like he gets it. Like he agrees and is determined to change. And Eddie hopes for Tarja’s sake he is. But knows, deep in his heart, that either way, she’s going to be fine.
“Also, just a heads up. I’m in love with Steve and I’m going to ask him out,” he adds in a rush when he hears Tarja running up behind him.
“You are shitting me,” Tommy whispers, shocked and clenching his teeth.
Eddie laughs, “Nope,” he says, closing his lips loudly around the P.
“Eddie,” Tommy warns him like he’s waiting for Eddie to say he's joking.
“What? I hear he’s single,” Eddie smirks.
“You motherfuc- Hey Tata!” Gathering Tarja in his arms, Tommy drops the subject but he glares at Eddie as he kisses Tarja’s cheek goodbye and murmurs ‘unbelievable’ as he’s leaving. Eddie closes the door and starts laughing at the look on Tommy’s face.
He needs to call Steve.
He tries a couple of times but he doesn’t pick up and he starts worrying Steve might not actually want to talk to him, and then there’s a knock on the door but Eddie, too preoccupied with his anxiety, opens without looking, thinking Tarja forgot something.
When he doesn't hear her, Eddie looks up from his ‘ignored calls’ screen to see nonother than Steve standing there, looking nervous and like a fucking dream with a bouquet of flowers in his hands. A fucking bouquet of flowers. For him. For Eddie. All different shades of red, because he knows is his favorite color.
Eddie just blinks at him a couple of times and Steve flushes even more and drops the hand holding up the flowers, scratches the back of his neck nervously, “This was stupid, the flowers were fucking stupid. They are stupid. I’m stupid, right?”
A laugh bubbles out of Eddie and he grabs him by the scruff of his shirt and pulls him inside. He closes the door once they are both in and slams Steve against it, crushing their lips together. Steve circles his arms around Eddie and holds him close, instantly returning the kiss with fervor.
They kiss as if it were fate. They kiss until it's hard to breathe and Eddie pulls away only to kiss him again, and again, and again.
“Not stupid,” he murmurs between kisses and feels Steve’s smile against his lips.
Eventually, Eddie takes a step back and lets Steve into his home properly, “Hi,” he says cheesily.
“Hi,” Steve says back grinning, then he lifts up the bouquet again, which is now completely ruined by him still holding it strongly while they made out like crazy, and his smile drops,
“Shit,” he pouts cutely, god Eddie wants to eat him. He laughs and takes the flowers anyway, putting them in an empty glass bottle, because he doesn’t own a flower vase, because he’s a normal human being. ‘Who the fuck owns a flower vase?’
“Come here,” he says, holding out both hands for Steve to take and follow him.
Steve takes his hands but doesn't move, instead swings them from side to side, “Wait, let's talk,”
Fuck, yeah. They should. That’s a good idea. Fuck. Damn, Steven Whatever-The-Fuck-Is-His-Middle-Name Harrington and his sensible and very logical choice…
Eddie huffs exaggeratedly making Steve chuckle and redirects them to the couch, where they sit still holding hands, “Alas,” he says dramatically, “You are right, we should talk. I actually wanted to ask you out properly, not debauch you the second you walked through the door. Sorry about that” he lies, not sorry at all, again.
Steve blushes and smiles, drawing little circles with his thumbs on Eddie’s hands, “Yeah me too. I wanna do this right. Ask you out. Go on dates. I think we should take this slow,”
Eddie makes a face and groans at that. He doesn't want to take it slow. He wants Steve to move in right now or something. Steve rolls his eyes amused at his interruption and keeps going,
“I came here to ask you out the right way because I want you to know I’m committed. But we should think about how this will affect Tarja… and Tommy too. We should go out a few times, spend some time alone, and I want you to meet my friends and my parents and I want to meet your friends and your uncle too and just do this properly and-”
Eddie interrupts him with a kiss, he can’t take it anymore, he’s been dying to kiss Steve for months now and he’s so sweet and thoughtful it makes Eddie insane, makes him feel like he needs to ruin him, but in a nice way, like with devotion and love.
Steve lets go of his hands to wrap his arms around Eddie’s waist and hoists him until he’s straddling Steve. Eddie leans his elbows on Steve’s shoulders, and buries his hands in his hair, pulling and messing with it.
“Okay but have you considered having hard, hot, wet sex, and then maybe we do what you said?” He asks panting against Steve’s lips and actually feeling how that punches the air out of him.
He hugs Eddie closer to his chest and whines, “Yeah okay, we can do it your way,” and gets up, lifting Eddie with him as if he were weightless. Eddie squawks and laughs all the way to his room.
🧸
They spend the week together, talking, eating, drinking, laughing and fucking. Except it’s more than that because when Eddie is inside Steve, with his tongue, his fingers, or his strap, it feels like more. It feels like love. Like fate.
Steve, still determined to take things slow, doesn’t stay there all the time, going back to Robin’s where he moved back to after breaking up with Tommy. He actually brings her over one day and the three of them spend the afternoon together. Eddie decides they are going to be best friends immediately because Robin is hilarious and merciless. When Steve gets back the next day he kisses Eddie so good and hard his knees almost give out on him and tells him he has Robin’s seal of approval. Something he knows Tommy never got.
When the week passes Eddie says goodbye theatrically as if they were cross-star lovers in a bad soap opera and Steve chuckles and calls him ridiculous but kisses him so passionately that Eddie drags him right back inside and they say goodbye again a few hours later.
They had decided to wait until Eddie talked to Tarja about her feelings over Tommy’s and Steve’s breakup and whether she still wanted Steve around or not before having him over again.
But when Tarja gets back home she’s gloomy and silent. She hugs Eddie in greeting when she arrives and then spends the rest of the day lying face down on the floor and occasionally sighing loudly, obviously trying to make Eddie ask her what’s wrong.
And really, Eddie shouldn't find it as funny as he does, but he thinks about calling Wayne and telling him he gets it now when Wayne used to tell him he had too much personality.
Eventually, he lies on the floor next to her and asks. Tarja looks at him with big sad eyes and says, “I haven't seen Steve in a million years! And Daddy said he is not his boyfriend anymore! So I’ll never see him again and I miss him”
Eddie coos at her, “I’m sorry you miss him little dragon, but you can totally see him again! Would you like me to call him? Since he’s my friend too?” Already trying to strategize on how to tell her they are more than friends.
Tarja lights up and jumps off the floor and onto Eddie, punching the breath out of him, “Yes! Yes! Call Steve! Steve smiles more when he’s with you than he did with daddy anyway. Why don’t you boyfriend him instead?”
Well… that was easy.
He chuckles and shakes his head, “That’s a great idea sweety, go grab my phone,”
Tarja runs and grabs Eddie’s phone off the table and hands it to him, he doesn’t bother getting off the floor so she kneels beside him listening attentively as he dials Steve’s number.
“Hi, handsome, you talked with Tarja already?” Steve greets him after it rings twice.
“Yeah about that, turns out Tarja talked to me, actually,” he chuckles, “Hi, by the way”
“Hi,” Steve repeats lovingly and laughs, “What do you mean?”
“She had this awesome idea!” he says winking at her and she covers her mouth with her tiny hands to hide her giggles, “That, since you are not with Tommy anymore, you should be my boyfriend instead,” he continues, voice going soft and chuckles when he hears Steve's breathless ‘oh’ on the other side of the line, “Come over?”
“Of course, gimme an hour? I'm with a client” Steve hums and Eddie whispers he’ll give him anything he asks for and hangs up.
An hour later Tarja is still lying on the floor, only now it’s with papers and crayons spread all around her when the doorbell rings. She looks up at Eddie excitedly and he nods at her, “Go on then”
Tarja runs to the door and opens it wide to reveal Steve standing there as beautiful as ever, giving Eddie a deja vu of the first time he saw him.
“Papa Steve!” Tarja yells and jumps up to hug him.
Steve gasps and falls to his knees with her in his arms and looks up at Eddie with shocked wet eyes.
‘So much for taking it slow,’ Eddie thinks with a smirk.
Fin.
☝️first part
☕🥐💕?
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my stand in ep 4 thoughts, feelings, etc
WOW WA WE WAA THAT SURE WAS AN EPISODE HUH - happy to report i went back through the episode slowly this week and took notes and really tried to gather everything i wanted to say (but i will inevitably forget something)
🌸 ok disclaimers because i have a lot of them for this particular episode 🌸
i'm just a silly guy on the internet, i'm not an expert in mental health, psychology, body language, whatever. most days i can't even take care of myself. i'm just saying things recreationally.
PLEASE do not put novel spoilers in my replies, reblogs, or tags without a warning notice. i've got an itchy blocking finger for it these days.
i am treating ming and joe and everyone involved in this show as if they were real life human beings. ming was not born some mustache twirling villain sent from hell to make joe miserable. joe is not some pure angel descended from the clouds to do no wrong. everyone in this show exhibits very human behavior and that can be distressing under certain circumstances. i'm just going to comment on them as humans. i'm not interested in a round table discussion on why a character is irredeemable, the scum of the earth, etc. i'm just putting my thoughts out there and you can take them or leave them.
🌸 alright yucky disclaimer time over 🌸
the episode really just picks us back up where everything left off - and yet joe still made ming breakfast, and ming isn't stupid (well right now at least,) he knows something is off.
i am confused why tong needs to get married on this specific day. and like bro how fast are you getting married? relax. the whole thing is just unstoppable force (trajectory of this producers career) meets immovable object (tong's fuckass stubbornness) and the collateral damage is massive.
and then there's the question of did joe ever want to play a lead? or did he let his impulsiveness and hurt put a target on his back? (only emphasized by the fact that everyone assumed joe would turn down the role)
i DO apologize for all my doubt surrounding wut. he, ja, and may are the only people in this show with any god damn sense. maybe jojo and yim. we'll see.
getting into the confrontation at joe's work, i really don't think it's that surprising when we keep in mind ming genuinely has no fucking clue what is going on. all he knows is joe woke up, was acting weird, didn't come home, and then told him to pack up his shit and leave with ZERO explanation. like, joe's completely in the right, but i'd also be confused as fuck. (i wouldn't go to someone's work about it but, y'know, we know ming acts in extremes.)
and to me this is where it really became obvious that joe has always been able to overpower ming, to get away from him, as we have seen joe's physical prowess, we've seen what he's capable of, but he never uses his body to move ming away from him - that's not who joe is, he's not someone that would put his hands on another person like that. it's just another way ming and joe are the direct antithesis of each other.
it's my thought that the argument escalates because ming is used to getting everything he wants - except for tong, and now joe. when joe begins to push him away and deny him his substitution for tong i think ming lashes out in his hurt with a thought of "it's happening again, why doesn't anyone want me?"
i will say while i do believe sol has good intentions for the most part his white knighting is getting a little irksome. while convenient, it just shows how much he's still hovering and laying in wait for a chance with joe - he, too, is not respecting joe's wishes. no is a complete sentence, sol.
and then things continue back at home and joe finally, finally throws ming's words back at him: if i'm so terrible to be with, if you're so great, why are you wasting your time with me?
and ming doesn't have an answer. what ming DOES have is another back embrace, arms wrapped around joe as he asks "don't you love me anymore?" but is he asking joe or tong?
"although i'm not as good as tong" even now joe's rampant self worth issues are still at play but at least he finally knows he's worth more than whatever this is.
then the phone rings and to me, ming looks skittish. he looks shaken. he's never seen joe so angry and he's scared and as the call progresses that fear morphs into rage when sol calls joe. and the thing is, regardless of who played the main role, ming was never going to be happy. it was either going to be joe or tong playing opposite sol and neither of those things would have been acceptable.
and then i said, out loud, in my quiet office: OH! and promptly lost my shit in the group chat.
ming doesn't look wholly present after his act of violence. his face is vacant, like he isn't completely seeing or grasping what he's just done. i get the impression that ming isn't mentally well; stress and fear and anger have a way of making people do really fucking stupid things and as these things happen you risk falling into the sunk cost fallacy - you've already gone this far, you can't stop now - which all aligns with the obsessive behavior we've seen from ming in the past.
as joe wakes up and they talk once again joe doesn't blame ming, he blames himself for not seeing the writing on the walls even though it was written in invisible ink.
"all these times we were together did you ever love me?"
"you can't tell?"
again, so much of the blame and emotional responsibility of their situationship is put on joe and ming refuses to communicate any of his feelings, perhaps because he doesn't know how to after repressing everything for so long.
WE DIDN'T GET HOT KINKY CHAINED UP SEX THOUGH, WHY DOES GOD HATE ME SPECIFICALLY
but the way joe looks at ming as they linger there in the wake of joe's request looks like a goodbye, the way his eyes soak in every detail of ming's face. despite all of this and the nightmare it has turned into he did love ming, perhaps still does, and he does have some of those good memories he was so desperate to keep.
though like.. joe.... maybe we could consider a different career path??? instead of just jumping to risking our lives? like sure food service sucks, cashiering sucks, etc. but you aren't in danger of falling off any cliffs, you know? and let's be real, he could just go into modeling with those looks.
it's my impression that when ming calls joe he looks haggard, like he's lost numerous nights of sleep (and we really don't know how much time has passed) but either way it does seem like he's at least done some amount of reflecting. his voice comes across soft, subdued, and sincere.
and after everything, back in the present, we see ming. he's still in the apartment, desperately calling joe's name all these years later, still unable to sleep and waiting for joe to come home just like he asked him to years ago.
maybe ming never wanted to enter the entertainment industry before, but he has now. perhaps it was never for the attention or the money, maybe he chose to promote those watches because it was a reminder of the gift from joe. and maybe this job, in this specific industry, is the closest he can feel to joe now. and maybe with new influence and connections ming can find out why he was never able to tell joe he loved him before he lost him.
WHO KNOWS, NOT ME, CAN'T WAIT TO FIND OUT THO
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