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hitlikehammers · 3 months

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Steddie Wrong Blind Date AU 💜

what if you meet the wrong love of your life?

He doesn’t know how the fuck he got here. At a very nice bar in a very nice restaurant.

Sitting alone.

Or well: he knows. It’s more that he can’t believe he let it happen.

Again.

Because Steve had finally (finally!) made sufficient enough threats logical arguments to curb Robin’s attempts—well-meaning, dingus, well meaning attempts!—to set him up with so-and-so’s cousin or whoever-the-fuck’s roommate. The blind dates had actually been his first successful method to ultimately shoot down, on the basis that they weren’t just fucking humiliating: they were goddamn degrading.

For reasons such as his current situation.

And of all the things Robin desired for him, they both knew she’d never knowingly cause him pain. So that left him working with awkward introductions at parties, sometimes at completely random places even, like too-weird-to-be-coincidence run-ins at the grocery store and shit, where Robin just so happened to be shopping when both her targets were there. It was borderline frightening, but. It was very Robin. And Steve adored her more than anything and struggled too much to stay mad at her—he’s definitely tried his damnedest, more than once—so. He knows her intentions come from the heart, regardless of how disastrously they pan out in reality.

Which is why Steve is allowing this once—and only once—because he’s not stupid, but. He appreciates the ingenuity.

And getting your girlfriend to make the blind date pitch was…technically honoring his rules.

So. He’s allowing this to slide once. Once. One time.

One. More. Time.

And he’s already got his justification, fucking iron clad too, to call it on sight. Failed attempt, the guy’s already twenty minutes late and that’s…that’s past fashionable, really, especially for a set up like this. He glances at his phone, just to see if he’s got anything from Chrissy as an update—Steve loves her, and Robin adores her, and that’s the only reason he’s not spending the minutes he waits, sipping stupidly-slow at the same tequila sunrise, plotting revenge against her for being so gullible, so willing to not merely enact Robin’s last-gasp efforts but to participate, actively, because apparently tonight’s ’perfect match, he’s so your type!’ was Chrissy’s suggestion—but there’s nothing. Just the last message from an hour ago reassuring him against backing out in the first place:

he’s tall, dark, handsome, 100% your type. maybe a little *theatrical*: you’ll LOVE him 💕

Steve didn’t, and still doesn’t, understand what she means by theatrical, and honestly he’s kinda wary for it—he doesn’t like playing games when it comes to romance: he’s too all-in, and too quickly, for any of that.

Which also means that, as much as he thinks it’s a fucking laughable sham to have agreed to this, and as much as he’d walked in knowing that, knowing he was entertaining the farce against his own will: it still…doesn’t sting, exactly. But it definitely squeezes uncomfortably in his chest for no good reason that he’s been fucking stood up and yeah, yeah, that means it’s time to—

He reaches for his drink and notices it’s empty. Just another sign, really, so he move to gesture the bartender over to pay but—

Someone’s got a better angle, actually gets the guy’s attention before Steve can even try—a someone sitting two empty chairs down who lifts his glass for another, then gestures the exact same way with an empty toward Steve’s sad glass of ice.

“On mine,” he tips his chin Steve’s direction before the bartender grabs Steve’s glass along with the stranger’s and makes for refills, then it’s just the stranger turning the whole of his body around on the stool to face…Steve.

“For the handsome nobleman,” and he says it with a stilted lilt that’s somehow not disingenuous, and it’s odd, to put it mildly, paired with a little bow of his head that definitely matches the affected voice but also definitely gives the stranger a perfect window to run his gaze up and down Steve’s seated frame—it’s a good move, Steve can’t even deny it, no matter how…weird.

But…also, there’s a warmth in it? Maybe in the gaze, something that’s not just heat, or maybe in the tone that’s not just putting on a show.

Something.

“In fact I do say the very handsome nobleman doth sit alone beyond comprehension,” the stranger seems to correct himself, and the way his lips curl, wider and then pull back a little, like he hesitates, like he’s maybe bolder than this in other situations but is reserving himself just a touch for here and now—and goddamn but this is pretty fucking bold already, whatever it actually is:

“And he deserves plentiful libations,” and Steve didn’t even notice the new drink on the counter until the stranger reaches, tips precariously on his stool, and slides the glass closer before nodding toward it, almost like another little bow: “in his tarrying.”

Steve stares wordless for a second because, outside of that weird fucking Renaissance Fair thing the kids dragged him to, he’s never heard anyone talk like that. So the setting’s all fucked up because this is Manhattan, at a not-particularly-inexpensive bistro type venue, definitely devoid of turkey legs.

Plus the guy in question doesn’t quite look the part—gorgeous curls to the shoulders, facial structure to kill a man, legs for days draped down the stool and dressed in shades of black top to bottom, from the button up in charcoal fucking silk, to the weirdly-suited boots that might have a steel toe hiding or might just be playing, the only color on him the pout of his lips and the slight flush visible in the low bar light brushed over his cheeks before he leans a little closer, eyes maybe the darkest thing about him and kinda goddamn mesmerizing for it, especially for how they somehow tiptoe along a fine line between almost disorienting focus on Steve and Steve alone, and something close to hesitant, or maybe more bashful when he clears his throat and asks:

“Perhaps this very handsome nobleman would also enjoy some company,” and his tone’s not even playing coy about being hopeful, before he full-on lays a palm to his chest in old-fashioned apology as his lashes flutter a little and he goes all self-deprecating, and genuine in it, as he adds in that same bashfulness:

“Even if only that of a humble bard, such as myself?”

And Steve’s not above being wholesale dumbstruck for a good second, like his hearing goes tunneled and his pulse echoes for the narrowing: this man is unreal.

Very…theatrical. One-hundred percent his type. Two-hundred percent, even. Jesus.

So Steve’s quiet for a second, but he’s not known for his charm because he can’t bounce back quicker than average, certainly quicker than risking that gorgeous face falling for the dashing for the hope painted open all over it, not a stroke of artifice in sight.

Steve’s not even trying when he fucking feels his own automatic walls start to slip as he leans, meets the man move for move so they can hear each other close as the bar starts to fill a little more:

“Only if I can get the next round,” and if Steve purrs it, it’s a reflex; if it darkens those already depthless eyes, well. He’s close enough to appreciate the swell of the pupil, the deepening of the flush on those cheeks.

If Steve’s heart jumps a little, there’s not a soul who can call him out for it; tree in the woods with no one to hear it fall.

But it does. It so does.

The man does an adorable little shimmy across the seats between them, taking the one closest to Steve and then doing a little scootching of even that to settle all the closer, and it shouldn’t be endearing, but Steve feels like he can bet on his ribs being sore by the end of whatever this is, or ends up being, just for the swelling beneath them already underway.

“If my request is being so highly honored, so as to join you,” the man takes a little bundle of his curls and drags them across the corner of his lips before tucking it back and…Steve has the immediate urge to have done it for him instead, what the hell, too fucking soon, man—

“Does his majesty have a name?”

It takes Steve a couple long seconds to register that the man means him, though it doesn’t escape Steve that the reference, while it took a while to land? Never for an instant felt like it did in high school, or even shortly after. It felt…warm.

“Steve,” he says with a smile, more twisting his palm than extending his hand to shake given their proximity; “and you, my,” Steve licks his lips then presses them tight around a grin before choosing his words: “very odd but very endearing bard, was it?”

“It was, indeed,” the man lights up near fluorescent; “I’m Eddie.”

Maybe it’s the way he says it, or the way he takes Steve’s hand. But…Jesus.

It’s…a really good name.

“Then tell me, Eddie,” Steve doesn’t let go of the hand in his, their touches just slowly slide apart and it feels…like a loss but not a crushing one, Eddie’s still close enough to feel the heat of him.

“Unless I’m totally off, I think I know from exposure, not playing, that a bard’s a musician, yeah?” Or is it a storyteller, or maybe both, there’s a good fucking reason he never have in to playing the nerd game—

“Tell me what makes you introduce yourself like that right off the bat, then.”

And Eddie glows for the opening, the invitation, and the thing is? He doesn’t stop; he’s like a star unto himself, shining and bathing Steve in the glimmer as he talks about music, about growing up in a house of it, about it being tough sometimes but his mother took him to live with his uncle, the three of them and then it was easier and there was also more music, new music, and he tells Steve about bands he’s played in, joined and left, guitars he’s loved and lost, the whole shipping boxes he has piled with full notebooks of lyrics and ideas from years upon years; and then he pivots, or maybe that’s not even it, because what he really does is test the waters around where Steve thought the bard reference came from in the first place—the nerd game. Steve confesses he was a mostly an unwilling bystander but it was probably more because he didn’t get it, and honestly his reluctance was more for show than anything, he loved what his kids loved at the end of the day, what made them happy—which left Steve explaining the kids, explaining Robin, explaining his family in a way Steve hasn’t done in relationships that lasted months, let alone first conversations on very first dates.

He should be terrified. He isn’t.

He should be terrified of the isn’t. And…and yet.

“My turn for a question,” Eddie fills the first soft lull in conversation, one that stretches taffy-sweet and almost kinda giddy; Steve doesn’t even know what he’s feeling because he doesn’t know if he’s ever felt it before, like, ever—all he knows is that it’s kind of fucking fantastic, like something he already never wants to let go of. So of course he nods, welcomes Eddie’s turns for a question even if it doesn’t seem entirely necessary; the back-and-forths sliding so natural, so balanced.

“Why the choice of drink?”

Eddie nods at the glass almost empty in his hand while Steve squints and laughs a little.

“What?” Steve asks because he doesn’t understand, sure, but also because the unpredictability, alongside the sheer earnestness of this man is…it’s disarming in the best fucking way. Like maybe Steve’s falling but he never wants to stop and—

Too soon, too fucking soon even if that’s not what he meant, exactly; he thought it, and it’s too fucking soon—

“Everyone has a reason for ordering a drink,” Eddie explains with a grin that pops those delicious dimples; “habit, by which there’s a story of the first time you tried it,” he ticks off on his nimble looking fingers, the rings on them catching the lights; “spontaneity, by which there’s a tale of what inspired it,” and fuck, they’re so long, those fingers, Steve kinda wonders how many knuckles he could fit in his mouth; “memories, by which there’s something poking at them.”

Eddie pauses, takes Steve in, no doubt sees Steve hanging onto, damn near salivating over his every word even as he swallows and takes a breath to collect himself as discreetly as he’s capable; it just makes those dimples divot deeper.

“I could go on,” Eddie offers, a little sly in his smile, the knowing kind, but his tone is soft, like maybe Steve’s not the only one feeling…things. And maybe Eddie wants him to know it. Maybe so that he’s not alone. Maybe because they both fucking like it. Maybe—

“Habit,” Steve answers, unable to keep from smiling around the rim of his glass when he takes a sip. “I got sick on shots and swore off straight tequila, but I was always up for the, y’know, frou-frou drinks,” he swirls the maybe-two-swallows left for show: “so long as it tasted good I didn’t give a shit, y’know, and then a,” Steve pauses a second, wonders how best to describe that particular figure from his past before settling on:

“An old friend, told me once,” and then Steve pauses again, this time because he can feel the rush of heat to his cheeks because oh, shit, now he’s backed himself into having to say it—

“Oh, now you have to share,” Eddie coaxes, a singsong in his voice and a wide-eyed wonder to him, something like genuine investment in what comes next, what’s next in something solely about Steve, that almost soothes the embarrassment;

“Unless you’re displaying the answer with this,” and Eddie only just brushes the flat of his fingernail to Steve’s cheekbone, too quick to appreciate the shiver it sends down Steve’s spine, through his fucking veins, that’s not helped one bit by Eddie murmuring, a little sensual, but somehow also a little dazed, a little starry-eyed when he breathes out:

“Blush like the sunrise.”

And if he wasn’t already, fuck knows Steve is now.

He misses Eddie’s touch against it, too. Even so fleeting. Wishes he were bold enough, or foolish enough, to grab Eddie’s hand and let him feel what he’s doing, the heat in him. The way his blood rushes.

He’s not, because that’s fucking insane and way too much too soon, but.

Wanting doesn’t play by those rules.

“Almost,” Steve picks up the glass and swirls it again; “he said I was like sunshine,” Steve recalls with a little grin—it’s a softer memory now than it used to be. He laughs a little and downs the last of what’s left of his drink. “Think it was more because of a yellow sweater I wore way too much at the time, but,” and he places the empty down and so he doesn’t see it coming until it happens: Eddie’s hand. On his hand, on the glass.

“No.”

Steve looks up, barely breathes. Eddie has soft hands.

“No, I think it was more than that, Sunshine,” Eddie tells him, honest and certain and a little breathless and Steve’s of two equal minds: he’s never been so aroused. But he’s also never felt so seen.

And wanted.

“Another?” Eddie asks, but his eyes don’t leave Steve’s to look at their drinks, to be anywhere but in this moment, here with him.

“You’re sure?” Steve makes himself ask it, doesn’t bother forcing himself to sound anything but pulling for one answer and one answer alone. “Don’t have somewhere better to be?”

“Wouldn’t have asked otherwise,” Eddie does look away then, but down at their hands, strokes his thumb a little down where Steve’s wrist starts to curve. “And I’m struggling just now to think of anywhere better than right here.”

And then Eddie’s placing his fingers between Steve’s, just resting them in the middle spaces: they’d fit. So well.

They…will. They will fit fucking gloriously.

“My round, then,” though Steve’s lost count if they’re even, how many drinks they’ve actually had—not too many, he’s pleasantly buzzed at best and maybe more on the company than anything else if he’s honest, but he likewise doesn’t know how long they’re been there, sipping between baring their fucking souls in the most mundane ways that…

That Steve thinks have started to kindle something in him. Started to breathe life into a part of him he didn’t know was dormant, forgot he could feel until it started unfurling like this, deep in his chest.

“Need something to cut through the sugar,” he says idly, but he doesn’t miss the way Eddie’s breath catches when Steve tightens his fingers to catch Eddie’s before letting go, sliding the glass forward so the bartender can see and then he orders: “The Glenlivet 14,” he points; “neat,” then he glances at Eddie’s glass of melting ice—he’s been on Black Russians the whole time;

“Keeping at it, or something new?”

“You make a compelling argument for easing up the sweet,” Eddie cocks his head, taps his chin consideringly; “especially when you’re agreeing to remain as my company,” he shoots over a heated glance and a smile too big to be as wicked as Steve thinks Eddie might have aimed for but it doesn’t matter, it has the same bewitching, pulse-stuttering effect either way.

“Bulleit Rye, on the rocks,” Eddie taps his glass with a certain finality.

“A man after my own heart,” Steve comments with a nod; it’s a good order. He doesn’t think about the words themselves before they come out.

“And if I wanted to be?”

And then Steve thinks about the words with every goddamn cell in his body, like his blood repeats them and the electricity that works his brain as much as his heart is making little lightning storms around the comment, then the question, and then the implication because Steve…

Steve’s never wanted anything more. Steve’s never been offered anything even close and here’s this man? And he can’t be saying what Steve..thinks he has to be saying because what else can those words mean—

“Too quick?” Eddie pulls back the slightest bit and Steve misses him immediately; “I usually am, I’m so—“

Steve misses him, and will not have him doubting because Steve knows that feeling intimately, knows this man deserves none of it, and knows it’s anything but warranted when Steve’s heart, the one Eddie might want to be after, just took up leaping in his fucking chest like a goddamn gazelle.

So Steve doesn’t think, at all, when he grabs the hand Eddie placed on his a few minutes ago and cups it to his chest, the best proof he knows that can’t be overthought, or rationalized away.

Eddie’s eyes are confused, for a second, until he feels it.

And then: but, fuck.

Steve’s never watched a flower blossom all at once before but…that’s all he can think of with the slow crawl of a smile, the bright gleam of something like wonder in eyes that get impossibly wider, a chest that rises and falls heavy abd quick under the silk Steve wants to unbutton a little, see more of that milk-smooth throat save now that he’s looking, he can see enough to take note of Eddie’s pulse there: riotous.

It’s too good. It’s too much.

But Eddie feels it with his own hand. Steve sees it with his own eyes.

Here they are.

“That’s usually my line,” Steve finally exhales, tries to make it a joke between them, an understanding and maybe it works, maybe they’re both too distracted by the hinting promise of maybe never needing to have such a joke again:

“Not too quick.”

And Eddie stays there, riveted, beaming something blinding and Steve just…feels his own heartbeat. Under a hand that doesn’t seem inclined to want to move.

Not too quick.

Eddie blinks at him, almost like he’s waking up from something he wasn’t even aware he’d been sleeping through, or walking through half-dazed. Like he’s seeing something real for the very first time. His breaths are fast, a little shaky, and then he’s standing, pulling Steve’s hand from his chest up to Eddie’s mouth and kissing his knuckles, watching Steve every second as Steve’s own breath hitches, and then pulling away, but not letting go yet. Like he’s reluctant to.

“Let me hit the head real fast, throw some water on my face to make sure I’m not dreaming,” Eddie whispers to him, breathless still and looking almost like he’s trembling; “while he gets those poured,” he tips his head toward the bar where their drinks are still waiting their turn.

Then Eddie’s brining Steve’s hand to his lips again and whispering there, and yeah, the man’s shaking a little as he breathes, almost shy:

“Don’t go anywhere?”

As if it’s even a question.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Steve promises with all he’s got, because he thinks…it’s insanity, but he thinks maybe he walked so reluctantly into this bar however many hours ago and somehow, by some act of benevolent fate, he’s…found the man who’ll prove to be the love of his life?

Steve could not be moved for anything.

Eddie walks half-backward for how much he turns to look back at Steve, and Steve waves a few times, makes a few stupid faces just to see Eddie struggle not to giggle, and it’s…

He did say his chest was gonna be sore by the end of the night but, Jesus. He doesn’t know if he even has ribs left, or if they’re all broken, crushed to smithereens, for how full his chest feels. Nothing so common and simple as the bones of him could stand up to this and not be changed.

He smiles as he pulls his phone out—when was the last date he had where he didn’t look at his phone? Has he ever been on one before?—and he registers they’ve been sitting here, sharing themselves in a way that feels more like laying a foundation, deliberately, and that’s, that is…

Steve’s spent a very long time wishing for someone who’d want that, with him of all people. He was pretty sure he’d made his peace with never finding it. And then: here he is.

He bites his lower lip, lest his grin crack his face, when he thinks of texting Chrissy real quick and just…thanking her. Because, yeah.

Steve did, in fact, end up loving him.

Like…too-soon-but-for-real-pitter-patter-heart-skipping-beats shit.

So he thumbs open the chat and sees…unread messages.

He doesn’t full-on frown, too high on, just, everything, so he opens the texts before he can assume the worst of someone texting him during a date they, you know. Played a key role in setting up:

he may be running late for traffic, if you haven’t left please STAY I promise he is WORTH IT 🙏🏻💞

Steve’s not even sure Eddie was late, maybe they’d been sitting a few stools away for twenty minutes: it feels like a lifetime ago, now, and—

Then Steve sees the timestamp. Sent…like two hours ago.

He’d been at least two tequila sunrises in, with Eddie versus on his own, by then so, what was Chrissy even talking about—

He scrolls to the most recent message.

Seventeen minutes ago.

omg Steve I’m so sorry and *he* is so sorry, he’s absolutely cut up about this he’s still in traffic but he says he’s determined to try, he’s got flowers for you and everything he’s SUCH A GOOD GUY STEVE I swear I wouldn’t have done this if if I didn’t think he’d treat you like you deserve and this isn’t his fault, I even checked waze and it’s a mess but he understands if it’s too much and—

“Everything okay?”

Eddie’s already taken his seat, and is looking at Steve with polite interest, not leaning to see what’s on his screen like so many people do on instinct, but there’s actual concern underneath, and investment in it. Like whatever’s wrong, Eddie wants to help fix it.

Steve, reeling over the way the puzzle pieces are slotting into place—namely that, by all accounts, the earliest his intended date could have arrived was maybe ten minutes ago—looks up at Eddie, turns his phone screen-down on the bar and clears his throat, bites the bullet.

“This may seem like a,” Steve takes a deep breath, because he has to ask even if he is almost dead certain of the answer; “a kinda out-of-nowhere question but.”

And then Steve meets Eddie’s eyes square on, lets them wash over him and fucking hell: they steady him. Already, they’re an anchor for him in the worst of storms.

“Were you, by any chance, here for a blind date?”

Steve watches Eddie’s face cycle through maybe the five stages of…shock, more than grief given the context, he guesses, but they’re somehow closer to one another than Steve would’ve thought, definitely considering they only just met, though then he’s gotta consider that it feels like Eddie’s burrowed safe in his chest amidst all the blossoming joy, all the warm fullness like he lives there to be kept inside it always and also to maintain it, preserve it, as its sole cause and reason to be: but Eddie—Eddie looks at him with eyes that go wide, that fall with the rest of his face and then shutter a little, and that tears into Steve the hardest, to see something come up like barrier when Eddie’s the reason Steve feels so raw right now, and alive for it; he can’t let Eddie feel less than that, feel the need to pull back from that, from him—

Then he’s placid. Calm. Accepting.

But he deep wells in his eyes: they’re wet. They’re devastated, somehow.

And…no.

But before Steve can move, can speak: there’s a bright, colorful thing that stands out in his periphery—he catches it, flowers near the hostess stand—and his eyes flick to the person holding them, looking dismayed and definitely out of breath; attractive, brunet, weirdly familiar, and then he’s gesturing just so and…

Oh. Oh, that’s…

Steve made the comment two weeks ago, after the show he and Robin had gone to at the Gershwin, that he’d climb the lead like a goddamn tree. She’d groaned, pushed him into a nasty-ass wall that’d earned her the bill for dinner and drinks—but she’d had that look in her eye. And he’d ignored it but now—staring said lead, out of costume, still very handsome even while so fucking distraught, wilting more by the second as Steve tries not to stare too obviously, but then add in that Chrissy knowing half the standbys, that her being the reason they even got tickets, and Robin’s look—well.

“Theatrical” being…fucking literal, like a little clue, suddenly makes a whole lot of sense.

“Oh, shit,” Eddie says it under his breath but there’s…way more disappointment than their objectively-brief encounter should merit as he processes, eyes already having followed Steve’s, and puts the pieces together: no matter how late, Steve’s very-probable blind date’s entered the building.

Which—if Eddie answers the question the way the resignation making its home on his face suggests he will—makes Eddie…

“No, sweetheart,” and Eddie’s gathering Steve’s hands slowly, gently, and his face is mostly lax and his mouth tries for a smile but it’s just this side of a grimace as his eyes, god, they’re so bright, like maybe if you can’t stare you won’t see the hurt but Steve doesn’t have to look long for it to burrow into his own chest and flay at his beating fucking heart.

“No, I wasn’t.”

And Eddie looks down at their hands, like he did before, and the tenor to the staring is wholly different, now, subdued and mournful, and Steve’s mind’s already made up but, if it hadn’t been?

The unthinkable reality of witnessing this beautiful man’s heartbreak would seal the deal entirely.

“You know what?” Steve grabs Eddie’s hands back, and squeezes them tight as he makes to stand:

“Neither am I.”

Eddie’s lips part, and his brow furrows, eyes cutting to the front entrance, to the flowers, to a man who isn’t him as if that man could ever somehow be preferable, be more…more anything—

“But,” Eddie tries to protest, confusion undergirding the heartbreak, holding it still. Like…like breathless waiting, held in a frightful uncertainty, like weighing hearts against feathers: some cosmic importance in the balance.

Steve honestly couldn’t agree more. He just already knows how this scale tilts.

“You wanna get out of here, continue this conversation at any of the hundreds of other bars nearby?” Steve says, buttoning his blazer and reaching out a hand, hoping it stays steady; praying Eddie will read his conviction, his certainty, his heart and want to reach back.

And all the slow-rotting sickness in his stomach trying to climb upward and puncture all the buoyant joyful wonder in him for for every second that ticks by without Eddie’s hand in his, it’s all wiped away, burned by the flame of wanting and then getting, of Eddie’s hand in his properly held and Steve was fucking right.

They fit together gloriously.

“It would be my heart’s-sworn honor, my liege,” Eddie breathes, like maybe he’s afraid to hope and Steve won’t have that; and he thinks he knows what Eddie’s saying, knows what the fanciful words mean but he needs to be sure, so he lifts a brow and waits until Eddie grins again so his dimples start to show and he huffs, relief in it:

“I’d fuckin’ love to.”

They down their drinks in one go, gather their things and leave double their bill, barely paying anything so much as a glance when they could look at each other and marvel instead. They walk out opposite the flowers, paying neither the blossoms nor their holder any mind. The thing blooming between them, in Steve’s chest all the bigger and full and brighter for every step he takes with Eddie’s hand in his: it’s so much more than anything with stems and leaves, that grows in the ground. Like Eddie’s glow is more than a star could even hope for. Like the sunshine that’s maybe not Steve at all, that’s really just this feeling, and the way that it grows—it’s beyond explaining. It’s held between their hands alone.

And maybe Steve will text Chrissy and explain, ask her to send his regrets to the theater guy. Tomorrow.

Then Eddie tugs him closer unexpectedly, his laughter all music as he brings Steve’s hand to his lips again, then to his chest where this time, Steve catches the wild gallop of his pulse as proof.

He doesn’t think either of them have a fucking clue where they’re headed. They have every option in front of them, and want nothing more than the touch of the other, and the promise it holds inside.

So Steve does the tugging, now; curls one hand around Eddie and draws him in, his hand caught between their chests so perfect and tastes the coffee liqueur beneath the rye on his tongue and thinks of nothing else, not texting, not set-ups, not waiting: because he’s here. Right here.

And Eddie’s heartbeat feels like home somehow already; the taste of him is nothing short of divine. They’re fully clothed on a New York street and this is the most intimate thing Steve’s maybe ever felt, after the most meaningful evening he’s maybe ever spent with anyone. At a bar. Drinking tequila and grenadine.

He starts laughing, right against Eddie’s lips, right into Eddie’s mouth, so maybe some of the joy will trickle down into his chest, inside his heart so he’ll know even just a fraction of the joy that’s making Steve feel not lighter than air, or dizzy with the speed of it all—but again, maybe for the very first time: real. Solid. Worth something this momentous.

And maybe—increasingly likely, even, as if that’s not the most incredible, unfathomable, heart-starting thought he’s ever entertained but he thinks maybe he might just actually have a shot here, or can even already say just a little bit that he’s—

Loved.

Fuck. Fuck.

Scratch maybe sending a text by tomorrow—he’ll process getting ahold of Chrissy (and that conniving girlfriend of hers) to invite them to the goddamn wedding.

Because right now? Steve’s kissing the man he’s gonna spend the rest of his life with, the man he’s going to live and die learning to love better with everything he is and ever could be: one hand pressed between both their chests, and it’s not too much because Eddie’s pressing them together tighter, body to body and hanging on like he’s trying to hold Steve’s heart in from the back of his ribs just in case; and it’s not too soon because it feels like every single goddamn thing he’s waited for his whole life, beating and clinging and gasping and melding into place finally, finally because it’s…everything. This is everything.

They are everything.

For @starryeyedjanai, who requested 'Wrong Number/Wrong Blind Date AU' at my HOBBIT-STYLE BIRTHDAY MONTH PROMPT FEST and incidentally also for @steddie-week for the Day Three prompt 'Long' (which is employed in a couple of abstract ways here)

✨permanent tag list: OPEN (lmk if you want to be added/removed): @pearynice @hbyrde36 @slashify @finntheehumaneater @wxrmland @dreamwatch @perseus-notjackson @estrellami-1 @bookworm0690 @imhereforthelolzdontyellatme @nerdyglassescheeseychick @swimmingbirdrunningrock @goodolefashionedloverboi @sanctumdemunson @theheadlessphilosopher @lawrencebshoggoth

divider credits here

ao3 link here ✨

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steddieas-shegoes · 5 months

Text

cw: mentions of scarring, canon-typical violence, flashback (not graphic), minor body horror (again, not graphic, mostly just emotional feelings about scars)

♦️♦️♦️♦️♦️♦️♦️♦️♦️♦️

Everyone gave him weird looks when they walked in, quickly schooling their features when they noticed he was awake and watching them.

He didn’t know exactly what that was about.

They had him on a lot of good drugs.

But eventually he got weaned off them, and he noticed the pull of bandages on his side, and his arm, and his neck, and his face.

He was still unable to get out of bed. Still couldn’t even reach his arms above his chest for more than a few seconds.

But he damn sure reached up to feel the cloth and plastic surrounding his cheek. How had he not noticed for days? How had no one bothered him about it?

Maybe they had and he just didn’t notice. The morphine was one hell of a drug.

Wayne was soft, patient with him. Saw him touching it, saw the way his eyes filled with tears. He’d never been particularly vain, hadn’t cared much about what he looked like to others, but this felt bigger than that. This felt like he was changed in a way that everyone could see.

Add it to the list of things people could bully him for.

He cried himself to sleep, Wayne’s hand in his, silently comforting in the way he’d always done.

When he woke up again the next morning, he was alone.

It was the first time he’d been alone since the boathouse.

He could swear he heard bats outside his door, screams coming from the attached bathroom, flashes of someone dying on the ceiling.

He felt the sharp sting of teeth puncturing his skin.

He felt hopelessness creep into his bones as he gave in.

Maybe this time they would finish the job.

“Eddie!”

Steve Harrington’s voice broke through the thoughts, panicked enough to bring Eddie back to his hospital bed within a second of hearing it.

“Shit, are you okay?” He continued, hand brushing against Eddie’s bandaged cheek.

Eddie nodded once, closed his eyes, leaned into the touch.

He could blame it on any number of things if Steve felt weird about it. The morphine, the flashback, the loneliness.

“You’re okay, Eddie. I promise. Won’t let anything happen to you,” Steve whispered.

Eddie believed him.

He fell back asleep with Steve’s hand gently cupping the mangled side of his face.

If Steve could still touch him there, then maybe it wouldn’t be so bad.

♦️♦️♦️♦️♦️♦️♦️

Steve came by every day, sometimes in the early morning, before visiting hours officially started, sometimes well after Wayne had left to get some sleep. He always smiled when he walked in, a genuine one, not the one everyone else gave that was so fully of pity and pain he couldn’t bear to make eye contact. He sat down on the side of the bed, not the chair like everyone else, not scared to be close.

And every single day, without fail, he would run his finger along the edge of Eddie’s bandage on his face, watching his own movements and cataloging any changes.

Eddie sat quietly, still, scared to put words to anything happening. Scared to tell Steve what it meant to him to have someone acknowledge his pain in this way. Scared to think Steve could mean anything by it.

It was easy to pretend Steve was doing this because he cared.

Maybe he did care.

But he didn’t care the way Eddie wanted him to, needed him to.

So he stayed quiet, still.

He watched.

He fell asleep while Steve talked about his day, the kids, what Joyce made Hopper do around the house.

He woke up alone most days, but that was okay, because Steve would be there eventually.

♦️♦️♦️♦️♦️♦️♦️

“You ready to get that thing off?” Wayne asked, gesturing to the bandage.

“Oh. Today?” Eddie suddenly didn’t want to ever be without the bandage. Removing it meant he’d see what was under it.

It meant seeing how much that place had ruined him.

The pull of the stitches hadn’t been as obvious with the pull of the bandage masking it.

But now it’s all he felt.

The nurse smiled at him as she put some antibiotic cream over the area, saying he would probably still have to keep it extra clean for the next week or so while the stitches did their job.

Wayne smiled at him in the way that meant he didn’t really want to smile at all, but knew Eddie needed him to.

Steve didn’t come.

Eddie didn’t sleep.

♦️♦️♦️♦️♦️♦️

He woke up with panic in his chest and a silent scream in his throat.

He woke up with Steve’s hand on his face.

Gentle, soft, but a strong comfort.

“Promise I washed them first. They said we have to be careful about germs,” Steve said quietly.

“You don’t have to. I know it’s…it’s gross. It’s ugly. I’m ugly.”

Steve shook his head. “No. Not gross. Not ugly. Alive.”

“Steve-“

“You’re alive, Eddie. You could have your entire face held together by staples and you would still be a miracle. You’d still be the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

Well, Steve’s charm wasn’t an exaggeration, was it?

He wasn’t even sure if the skin barely pulled together could blush anymore, or if the heat that should be on his cheek was burning on the outside the way it felt like it was on the inside.

“It’s gonna be awful when it heals. I saw it in the mirror.” Eddie could feel every stitch in his jaw, the few that spread across the corner of his mouth and bottom lip, the ones that were nearly up to his ear. “I’ll always have a crooked face. The scar will always be huge. It’s all anyone will see.”

“Then they aren’t looking.”

Eddie bit his lip, eyes searching Steve’s. “But you are.”

“No. I’m seeing. There’s a difference. I see you. I see what you’ve survived. I see the mark it left on you. I know it wasn’t just the scars that cover your skin.” Steve leaned his head down, touching Eddie’s forehead with his own. “We all have them. And we’re all still here. Your heart’s beating. That’s all that matters to me.”

“Who knew you were so good with words?” Eddie smiled sadly.

“Robin says I’m just good at not having a filter.”

“She’s right as always.” Eddie wrapped his fingers around Steve’s wrist, turning as slowly as he could to kiss his palm. “You’re not scared of it.”

“No. Are you?”

“I’m scared that you’ll change your mind when it’s always there as a reminder of what happened.”

Steve kissed his nose, making him smile for the first time in what felt like years.

“I’ll have the reminder that I got you out of there. That no matter what, the bats couldn’t finish the job. That you were stronger and you made it.” Steve let his hand drop, but quickly laced his fingers with Eddie’s. “I know it’s a lot to ask of you to trust me, but will you? For today?”

“Just today?”

“I’ll ask again tomorrow.”

“And what? Every day after that?”

Steve smirked.

His eyes were glistening with tears, but Eddie could tell it wasn’t sadness or fear.

“If that’s what I have to do.”

They hadn’t even talked about feelings, not really. Nothing that made any sense to Eddie, nothing that they could define. A part of Eddie was still convinced he was in a coma and dreaming this entire conversation up.

But even the nurse had noticed the way Steve watched him, how he touched him, how he fought for him. She said he’d been a firecracker from the moment he carried him into the hospital, dripping blood on the tile, staining the halls with his demands for help.

Wayne said he barely left his side the first day, only doing so when the doctors had told him they would call the cops if he didn’t.

Erica even noticed how things had changed between them, stating that she refused to watch her babysitter and the only DM she had respect for make out.

But Steve held Eddie, made him feel like he could get out of the hospital bed and live a life that wouldn’t keep him running. Steve was there.

Steve might even love him. If not now, then some day.

And Eddie could trust him today.

He could probably trust him tomorrow.

“Kiss me?” Eddie probably shouldn’t. The stitches tugged when he talked, and another mouth anywhere near his wounds was just asking for an infection.

But Steve would be careful. He knew what Eddie could handle.

It was barely a kiss. A graze of the lips at most.

But it was the best kiss Eddie had ever had.

At least until tomorrow.