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Steve is happy for Eddie. Really, he is. Has the whole rockstar thing figured out. On the cover of Rolling Stone, booking late night slots on television, getting recognized in public spaces, and selling out stadiums. It’s the life he’s always dreamed of. It’s what he’s wanted since he was little.
So why can’t he be happy, too?
He thought that, by now, he’d have some part of his life figured out. Now that he’s entered his thirties. That he’s got some sort of college degree. A reasonable resume. The social connections needed to climb certain ladders. Yet, he’s not satisfied. Not pleased the way Eddie is.
The house they have is…too much. Lavish and big and bright. Hard earned, but hardly comfortable. It’s not cluttered like the Munson’s trailer was, it’s not warm and welcoming and the definition of pure and utter comfort. That was home, to Steve at least. It was a change of pace from the house he grew up in—alone and scared and desperate for attention he couldn’t find, instead sprawling between empty rooms that had too many windows and cleaning a pool too big for one person. This new house he now resides in is just that. A house.
By now, he thought that he’d be happy. That he’d be waking up refreshed and ready to greet each morning. That he’d be fine talking to Eddie over the phone, waiting around for those late night rings, trying to catch all the messy postcards in the mail. The postcards that come in random intervals and never actually reflect where Eddie is. It makes Steve anxious that he can’t pinpoint where Eddie is most of the time—left to bite his fingernails until he hears Eddie’s voice, and even then…sometimes he’ll call and won’t get an answer. And it’s no use to leave a message, it’ll be a hotel staff member or a person that’s now paying for the room.
All he does is wait and sleep and eat expensive food. He twiddles his thumbs. He’ll take a car to work, met with the smiling faces of herds of kids he teaches, and then he takes the silent drive home. Where he sits on an uncomfortable leather couch, satin pajamas that replaced old sweatpants a few years ago, staring off into nothingness that’s as ice cold as his chest feels.
He hates the waiting around, though.
Sometimes, he just wants to get up and leave. Search for something else.
But he loves Eddie too much, he knows. He’s not going to do that.
The front door opens and the thud of suitcases is heard. Steve leaves their bedroom, red eyed and face puffy. Wipes his nose on the sleeve of his pajama shirt, hands shaking with relief. Relief and anxiety and desperation and…terrible longing.
“Stevie!” Eddie crows, greeting. Arms open wide. Whip-wild smile on his face, eyes big, unshaven jaw. His hair is thrown up into a ponytail, bouncing with his boisterous immediate attitude. “Baby, baby…I have so many stories to tell you. It’s been such a good tour! I can’t”—he stops himself abruptly, arms falling back down at his sides. His voice that was previously so loud, echoing to their high ceilings, now softens. “What’s wrong, sweetheart? Did…did something happen?”
Steve shakes his head. No, he thinks, it’s not Vecna. It’s not the Upside Down. It’s just me.
He takes a step forward, then several, and the last couple until he’s five feet in front of Eddie. Oddly, he feels small. Like the kid that greeted his parents when they came home from long business trips, already angry, already disappointed. He wants to curl up into a ball and keep crying, never admitting out loud what’s wrong. Feels that innate, incredibly deep urge to climb out one of the many windows and just run away. Like he tired to do so much when he was younger, heavy lopsided backpack on his little body, discarding letters of anger under his parents’ door so they’ll know he’s gone, and his mind set on a friend’s house—typically Tommy. Sometimes Carol.
But his friend that he’d go to now, Robin, she’s several state lines over. He can’t just up and leave now. He can’t just pack up his car and go. Eddie’s money is Eddie’s money. And even though they made an agreement that the cash is shared, it still would feel wrong to take some of it just to…abandon all that he has now. Which would probably include Eddie. And he doesn’t want to think of that.
His chest is concave and heavy, yet empty—hollow. Like it’s been for months. For years at this point. He takes a deep breath, ignoring how it shutters through him, makes him half-form a hiccup in the back of his throat. “I’m not…happy, Eds,” he admits in a whisper.
Eddie’s eyebrows raise slightly. Eyes growing bigger and concerned. The corners of his mouth pulling down. “How so, sweetheart?”
Steve can’t look him in the eyes. Looking at the floor below his bare feet. The cold hardwood that resembles too much of his parents’ house. He takes another steady-ish breath, almost gasping with it. Rubs his hands together below his stomach, like a nervous kid about to be caught.
“I hate it here,” he chooses to start. “I hate this house. I hate the way it echoes when I talk into it sometimes. I hate having to…” Steve looks up to Eddie. Merely avoiding his eyes, focused on the tip of his nose instead. “…I hate trying to figure out where you are because sometimes you won’t answer the phone, or maybe the postcard you sent doesn’t come in time. I hate that I even have to call you to figure out how you’re doing.
“I can’t just turn over in bed and ask you how your day was. I can’t look you in the eyes when I talk to you because you just aren’t there. I’m so lonely, Eddie. I’m so…I feel just so…Empty.”
What follows that is a tense silence that even the sharpest of knives wouldn’t be able to cut. He doesn’t think flames would melt the tension. Nothing could get through it.
“You’re not happy…because of my work?”
He didn’t say that exactly, but it feels like the truth. Steve nods. “I’m happy for you,” he says, “I am. But your dream isn’t my dream. I honestly don’t even know what I want out of life, but I know this isn’t it.
“I’m just so tired of waiting around. Makes me feel like I’m waiting up for my parents to come home. And you know how that was. You know how I felt being there. Like I had to earn their attention, their love…whatever.” He shifts from side to side, still nervous and stomach turning. His eyes ache from drying out after all the crying earlier. He never thought that being honest would hurt so much. Steve swallows hard. Softly, he confesses, “I’m not going to beg you to love me. I don’t want to do that. But I don’t want to live like this either.” He looks back into Eddie’s eyes, finally. Met with the same miserableness that’s twisting inside of him. It makes his heart drop to his stomach. “So, if me being…if my current feelings get in the way of your dreams, I think we better…y’know.”
Steve doesn’t know, not really. Isn’t sure where he’d go right now. If all of this just falls through. He’d probably have to relocate his job, and he doesn’t want to say goodbye to his class of kids. Maybe he should’ve just waited for all of this to go down.
Instead, he’s met with a soft touch to the small of his back. Eddie leads them into their too spacious living room, on that uncomfortable leather couch, huddling in close to one another.
“Stevie,” Eddie whispers, “look at me, please.”
Hesitantly, he does.
“There you are,” Eddie coos. Soft hands envelop Steve’s right. Thumbs working into the hard points of his knuckles, nails gently tracing over old scars. “Baby,” he speaks softly, “I want to first of all say, thank you for telling me how you’re feeling. Okay? I like knowing things like this, sweetheart. Where you’re at in your head. Where you’re at with our everything. And I need you to know that none of what you said affects our relationship. None of it. If anything, it makes me understand you more. Makes me realize what isn’t working for us.
“But you are my first priority, always. Always, Steve,” he speaks firmly. “And I have to be honest here, too. I’m starting to hate the work that I do. I love creating music, I love working with smaller artists, I like getting out and seeing the world. But I hate doing it all the time. I hate that our days out sometimes gets interrupted by people on the street, or paparazzi cameras in our face. I hate that when we call, you sound so fucking tired from your day at work, waiting for me to answer the phone. I hate that I can’t get mail back from you, already gone before it’d come in the mail.
“I hate this house, I do. Even if we’ve had our fun with it”—he wiggles his eyebrows at that, eliciting a tiny snort from Steve—“it’s too big, you’re right. It’s uncomfortable to me, I gotta be honest. This couch we’re sitting on is fucking ugly and really trashy, even if it cost a pretty fucking penny. None of this us, I see that especially now.”
Steve sucks in a slow breath through his nose. Murmurs, “What are you getting at, Eds?”
Eddie brings up his left hand to Steve’s right cheek, gently cradling it in his palm. Thumb swiping reverently on the dried tear tracks there, the sticky hot skin. “I spoke with the band. With my agent. Told ‘em that this was my final tour. That I quit,” he confesses quietly, “that I’m going to sell this stupid fucking house. Move somewhere more remote, smaller, homelier. Somewhere we can be close to our real family, our friends. Maybe even somewhere we can get married one day. I told ‘em, loud and clear, that I’ve got love waiting for me back home that I know for certain I’m not going to find anywhere else.
“Being in love with you, Steve, has been more of an accomplishment, a brighter dream, and a fucking blessing compared to my first dream. You are why I keep going most days. And I don’t want to lose you over something we’ve both come to hate.”
He blinks at Eddie. Blinks and blinks and blinks. “You want to leave it all behind? Just to be here with me? Babe, that’s…that’s kind of insane, you know that?”
“Uh-huh,” Eddie hums. Eyes giddy and warm. “Guess you could say I’m crazy in love with you, sweetheart. I’d rather be with you. I’d rather stay in a home we put together with our hands rather than picking from some stupid catalogue. I’d rather water our plants while you make a classroom of kids smile. I’d rather greet you at the door, kiss on the cheek, taking your briefcase, ready to make us some warm dinner so that we can watch trashy television shows in our underwear, kiss until we’re fucking gasping, and then be able to wrap myself around you in our bed. Every fucking night. That sounds like more of a dream come true than anything.”
“You’d really leave it all behind, though? Just to be with me?”
Eddie rolls his eyes playfully. “Yes,” he swears. “Yes, sweetheart. A million times—yes! If I have to tell you every day that you’re worth staying for, then so be it. But you’re worth everything, you’re worth more than any riches I make from this crummy career.”
Steve squeezes Eddie’s other hand still wrapped around his. “Okay,” he whispers.
He lets Eddie dote on him, soft and sweet and languid.
And later that night, wrapped around each other in bed, Eddie stroking the bridge of Steve’s nose, Steve’s fingers working circles into Eddie’s hip—they’re content.
“Can we get a dog in our new home?” Steve asks.
Jokingly, Eddie murmurs, “Now you’re asking too much.” He boops the tip of Steve’s nose. But there’s a big, foolish grin on his face. Eyes too soft to mean anything malicious. “I’m kidding, sweetheart. Maybe we’ll go to the humane society in the morning?”
Steve, for the first time in a long while, smiles. “Sounds like a plan, Eds. I love you.”
“Sweetheart, I love you until the universe fucking explodes. And then some.”