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"It's not a big deal!"
Eddie's crush on Steve was a secret both short-lived and ill-kept. His first mistake was telling the band. Well, no, his first mistake was forgetting that Gareth and Will were dating and that Gareth had the physical inability to keep his fucking mouth shut. But Eddie telling his closest, most trusted friends about the guy he liked was definitely Up There on the list of mistakes.
Which was how Eddie found himself mildly hungover drinking black coffee in his living room while Dustin paced up and down the length of the trailer, berating him for not confessing his doomed love to his alleged "favorite child" sooner.
"HOW is it not a big deal, Eddie?" Dustin said, just a few notches too loud for Eddie's looming headache.
"Because it's not! He doesn't like me! He's never gonna like me! I'm an adult, dude, I have critical thinking skills. I know how to pick my battles."
"It's not- Eddie," Dustin suddenly went stone faced. "It's not about your chances with him. You're moving in with him . He deserves to know."
Oh yeah. There was that. Robin was starting college and there was no way she wasn't taking her Emotional Support Pretty Boy with her. The only place they could find was a 2-bed just slightly out of their budget, and had asked Eddie if he wanted to join them, finally striking out on their own in the city. The agreement was that Steve and Robin would share the bigger bedroom, and Eddie would get the smaller room to himself. Their move-in date was less than a week out when Eddie made his inebriated love confession at his quote-unquote Going-Away-Party.
"It's not about what he deserves, man!" Eddie said, sinking back into the couch. He rubbed his eyes hard to try and relieve some of the pressure building in his head and sighed. "If I don't say anything to him, nothing changes. If I tell him, everything changes!"
"Oh, please. Steve's an adult too, dude , if we tell him you like him but you're well aware that he doesn't like you, he won't make it weird!"
"Wait wait wait, hold up. Rewind. We? Who is we? "
"You and me!" The boys stared at each other in bewilderment for a moment. "Oh come on, Eddie, we both know that if I don't sit here and watch you do it, you're just gonna lie and say you told him when you actually just hid under a blanket listening to Metallica and wishing you had the balls to-"
"OKAY!" Eddie yelled, loud enough for the very shock of his volume to trigger his headache in full force. "Jesus H., kid, you don't need to call me out like that. Fuck. Fine. I'll do it right now, how about that?"
Eddie pulled his phone out and Dustin dropped down hard on the couch next to him, arms already crossed, smug expression already settled on his face.
"That's what I'm talking about!" Dustin scoffed. "Here's what you should say-"
Eddie held up a hand to cut him off. "I'm not listening to you anymore. You had one long distance girlfriend ONCE, you're not some kind of Cassanova here… oh, son of a bitch."
"Son of a bitch what?" Dustin asked, scooting closer to read over Eddie's shoulder.
"I can't do this right now… The last thing I sent him was asking his opinion on the D&D movie and he hasn't responded yet."
"What the absolute fuck does that have to do with any of this?"
"Well I can't be like hey what's your opinion on this movie you know I love because I'm the one who told you to watch it, also I'm in love with you but it's no big deal. Like, what the fuck is that?"
"Oh… Yeah, you have a point." Dustin shifted back away from Eddie, covering his mouth with one hand in concentration.
"I mean… It can wait-"
"It can, but it shouldn't, dude! Shit… I mean, I could tell him, if you want."
Dustin had expected an outright "no" and was shocked when Eddie paused, apparently seriously considering the option.
"Actually… Yeah, could you?"
"Sure, but I'm not letting you see what I say until after I send it."
"You drive a hard bargain…" Eddie said, drumming his fingers on his knee. "Fine. Go for it."
Eddie stood and grabbed his coffee off the table, wandering slowly towards the kitchen, both to find some ibuprofen and to quell his temptation to watch Dustin quickly type a message to Steve.
"Okay. Sent. Now you can look," Dustin announced, beckoning Eddie back over as he downed the medicine. Eddie felt like he'd never moved so fast in his life. The message read
Eddie wants you to know, before you move in together, he has a crush on you. he won't make it weird if you dont
As Eddie read, the three dots that meant Steve was typing popped up. Suddenly Eddie regretted ever agreeing to this, and pushed Dustin's hand and phone away so he wouldn't have to see Steve's rejection first-hand.
"He responded… Do you wanna know what he said?" Dustin said. Eddie was leaning hard against the armrest of the couch, staring into nothing, imagination running wild.
"Yeah, hit me," he said.
"Oh, alright. Thank you for telling me," Dustin read. "I don't feel the same way about him. I assume you talked to him about telling me."
"So he gets back to you right away but he won't tell me- oh. Never mind. He just responded to my text." Eddie was doing his best to not feel completely devastated by Steve's frankly predictable response to Dustin's text.
"So… What did he think of the movie?"
—
"Uh… Rob?"
"Yeah?"
"Um… Come here and… Just read this."
Steve and Robin were taking a break from packing up Steve's childhood bedroom in preparation for the move when Dustin's text came through. She quickly chugged the last of her soda and came around to Steve's side to see what he was seeing.
"Oh," she said, not bothering to conceal her surprise. "I mean… We knew this was a possibility."
"Yeah, I guess , but… What do I say? I don't like him like that."
"Then say you don't like him like that, dingus. He's probably breathing down Dustin's neck right now waiting to see what you say."
"Yeah, you're probably right…" Steve said. He typed and backspaced and typed something else until Robin got sick of watching and grabbed the phone out of his hand to answer Dustin's text for him.
"Just trust me!" Robin said, actively walking away from Steve as he sputtered indignances, chasing after her halfheartedly. As soon as she sent the text, she turned and shoved the phone roughly back to Steve's chest.
"Oh… Yeah, okay, that makes more sense than anything I was trying to say…" Steve conceded, reading the text Robin sent on his behalf.
—
Steve, Robin, and Eddie saw each other next when they were loading up the U-Haul. No one said anything, and Steve tried as hard as he could to act like nothing was different. It put Eddie's mind at ease while simultaneously driving Robin nuts.
Since Dustin sent the secondhand confession, the only thing Steve had on his mind was Eddie, and how he definitely didn't reciprocate Eddie's feelings, how he was definitely bisexual but Eddie… Eddie wasn't his type. He was pretty, sure, but he was so… Himself. He was loud and unapologetic and into things Steve had never even heard of. They had nothing in common besides their love for the kids.
But Robin saw it coming a mile away.
"It" finally came to fruition a month after they had all moved in together.
It turned out, Steve and Eddie were practically the same person. Same sense of humor, same taste in TV, they even took their coffee the same way. They really only differed in their music tastes, fashion, and theater snack preferences.
Robin got the text in the middle of her French class.
shmuck: i think i have a crush on eddie
bobbin: FINALLY. please just kiss him and put me out of my misery
Steve came out of the kitchen, bag of chips in hand, to see Eddie just as he'd left him: cross-legged on the couch, demolishing a bag of Sour Patch Kids to the tune of the Criminal Minds theme music. He tucked his phone into his back pocket and rejoined his maybe-crush to watch trash TV until Robin came home.
He didn't know why he was so nervous. He knew Eddie liked him. There wasn't a chase here, he didn't have to flirt or try to win Eddie over… He just had to say yes and Eddie was his. It was different from any other relationship he'd ever been in. Maybe that was why it was so scary. Because it was new.
They watched the episode and bantered back and forth about it, same as always. But before the next episode could start, Steve hit pause.
"Bathroom break?" Eddie asked, hugging a throw pillow to his chest.
"No, uh…" Steve started, unable to even look Eddie in the face. "No… Can I… Can I kiss you?"
Eddie didn't answer right away, which finally inspired Steve to really look at him. His expression was completely unreadable.
"Uh… Yeah, I mean. Yes, absolutely. Um. But what happened to you don't like me like that? " It was such an Eddie response, Steve could almost laugh.
"I, um… I guess I spoke too soon," Steve laughed, trying to be cool and suave and everything else people thought he was in high school. Eddie brought the pillow up to hide his expression.
"Really?" he asked, muffled behind the pillow so that Steve almost couldn't hear him.
"Yeah, really. Just… Since you told me-"
"Dustin told you," Eddie corrected.
"Whatever… I dunno, I guess it put the idea in my head and now… I haven't been able to stop thinking about it… About you- what?"
Eddie was giggling quietly behind the throw pillow, gently rocking himself back and forth as Steve talked.
"Nothing," Eddie mumbled into the pillow. "Go on."
"You're such a pain in the ass, y'know that?" Steve laughed again. "Can I kiss you or not?"
Eddie slowly moved the pillow away from his face to set it aside, revealing himself to be smiling like an idiot as he turned slightly to face Steve better.
"You understand I've been uselessly pining after you for like, two months now, right? Please kiss me, oh my god."
—
Dustin's phone lit up with a Snapchat notification; a message from Eddie to the D&D group chat. He expected a meme, or for Eddie to ask Jeff for a ride somewhere because his van broke down again.
Instead, it was a picture of Eddie looking smug, leaning against Steve's chest. Steve, apparently unaware he was having his picture taken, had his fingers tangled up in Eddie's curls. The text overlay simply read "hey guys guess what."
The first reply came from Gareth, a picture of him leaning against Will in the exact same position as Eddie was with Steve. "Gross," it said.
Dustin rolled his eyes. Eddie was about to get so much more insufferable.