Chapter Text
The parking lot glowed yellow under the weak, too-clean light of sodium lamps. Steve could feel the heaviness of dinner, the weight of words spoken in tight voices, still clinging to his skin. Tighter than his button-up.
He sank into the passenger seat of Eddie's car like a man escaping the gallows, exhaling one long, soul-emptying breath as he ran both hands over his face.
"Jesus fucking Christ," he muttered, his voice muffled behind his palms.
Eddie gave a short, clipped nod.
"Yeah. Big time."
Steve made that dissatisfied horse-noise through his lips, something absurd and small that cut through the thick air in the car.
He reached across, resting a hand on Eddie's knee. Warm through the cotton of his slacks, grounding.
"Thank you. For being there," he said, turning his head to look at him. Eddie's eyes stayed locked on the windshield like it had something better to offer him than Steve ever could.
"I'm sorry it was so fucking insane." Steve squeezed his knee once.
"S'okay." Eddie nodded and gave him a small, strained smile. One of those tired ones that barely made it halfway up his face.
"I love you," Steve said then, plain and simple, like the words were just another heartbeat. He leaned in and kissed him. Soft, unhurried.
When he pulled back, he was still smiling.
"Love you too," Eddie murmured, and this time the smile was even smaller, almost vanished before it fully formed.
He turned the key in the ignition. The car rumbled to life. The moment slipped quietly out the window with the summer breeze.
***
The door to Eddie's apartment creaked open with the familiar, domestic sound of keys hitting the counter, sneakers scuffing tile. Steve's voice came through instantly, already mid-rant. He'd been going the whole ride home, barely pausing for breath.
"—And the fact she made me apologize like we were in a goddamn family sitcom and all we needed was one tidy, teary scene and everything would be—what? Fixed?" He stood there, watching Eddie pop the fridge open and grab a beer, the amber neck clinking against glass as he shut the door with his foot.
"And he just sat there," Steve went on, voice rising in pitch, "like—like he was doing me this huge favor by saying sorry. Like he condescended to apologize, and then expected a goddamn medal for it."
Eddie didn't answer. Just drank, his back still turned.
"I mean, was that their plan? Ambush me in a restaurant so I had no choice because it was too fucking embarrassing? So I couldn't call him a bastard in front of the waiter?"
A pause. Then:
"Why are you being so quiet?"
Eddie's voice came low, almost distant.
"I'm listening."
Steve rolled his eyes.
"I know you're listening—you're just not saying anything." He moved across the space and wrapped his arms around Eddie from behind. Steve kissed the back of his neck, nuzzling into the soft spot behind his ear.
"You okay?" he asked, voice gentler now.
Eddie didn't turn.
"Why'd you turn it down?"
Steve blinked.
"What?"
"The job in London," Eddie said, still staring straight ahead.
"Why did you turn it down?"
Steve gave a breathy, dismissive laugh.
"Because I didn't wanna go?"
"Why?"
"Because I didn't want to."
"That's not an answer," Eddie said, tired.
Steve was still smiling, pressing kisses against his neck, rocking him slightly back and forth.
"It is, actually," he mumbled.
"It's a perfectly valid reason."
"Not if you're lying about it."
Steve dropped his hands, stepping back.
"What?" His voice caught a little.
"Jesus, I'm not—"
"Then tell me honestly," Eddie said, turning to face him now.
"Why did you turn it down?"
"I am being honest!"
"Steve."
"Because it's fucking far," Steve snapped.
"That's it."
Eddie looked at him like something inside him had just gone out. Like the wind had blown too hard through the fragile part of him.
"Don't look at me like that."
"I'm not looking at you like anything."
"You are."
"I'm just trying to understand."
"There's nothing to understand," Steve said sharply.
"I didn't want to go. End of story."
"It's not though, is it?"
Steve exhaled hard, turning on his heel, pacing. "I literally don't want to talk about this anymore."
"Of course you don't."
Steve whirled around.
"I don't know why you're so—annoyed about this."
"Annoyed?" Eddie's voice cracked.
"I'm not annoyed, Steve, I'm—worried."
"About what?"
"About you making decisions you can't take back."
"Jesus, it's not that deep—"
"It is that deep!" Eddie's voice rose, hands flinging out like the words had too much pressure behind them.
"You turned down something huge. Something that could change your whole life."
"I didn't want it!"
"Didn't want it or were scared of what it would mean if you did want it?"
"Oh my fucking god, what's the difference?"
"The difference," Eddie said slowly, eyes wet now, "is whether you're gonna wake up six months from now and look at me like you made a mistake."
Steve froze. Like someone had grabbed him by the throat.
"I wouldn't do that."
"You say that now. But people do it all the time. They fall in love, they stay, they give things up, and then when shit gets hard, they start keeping score."
"I'm not keeping score."
"No. But you might. And I can't be the reason you don't go after something huge just because we're figuring this out."
"So what, I should've just gone? Been more like you? Said—fuck this, see ya and get on a plane?"
Eddie didn't even falter. Just leaned there, back against the cabinetry, his expression unreadable. His arms were braced, knuckles grazing the granite like he needed it to remind him what was solid.
"I just got back," Steve said, still moving, not really looking at Eddie.
"I haven't even unpacked my bag from the last trip. And they want me to fly halfway across the world to sit in some cold little office and write about postmodern themes in contemporary verse? Fuck that."
Eddie didn't argue right away. His voice, when it came, was low, almost tender.
"I mean—yeah. Isn't that what you've been working for?"
Steve let out a laugh that didn't reach his eyes. His hands moved too much. Running over his face, through his hair, down his arms again.
"I've been working to graduate. That was the finish line. Everything else is—bonus content."
Eddie didn't move. He looked like he was holding something in. A breath. A thought. The last part of him that hadn't broken open yet.
"Steve."
Steve turned, already impatient.
"What?"
"You won," Eddie said softly.
"You wrote something incredible. You're being asked to go somewhere because someone thinks your voice is worth hearing. That's not bonus content. That's the main event."
Steve's expression twisted.
"Why are you doing this?"
"Doing what?"
"This!" His arms flew wide, restless.
"Pushing me to do something I don't want to do and I've told you I don't want to do!"
Eddie's eyes dropped to the floor for a moment, and then lifted.
"You do want to do it, though. I can tell."
Steve scoffed, pacing in a short, frustrated line.
"I want it in the sense of like—sure, if they asked me to do it and it was two hours away then yeah. Not in the sense I have to move to a completely new country for a year." His voice hardened, still.
"Does doing this mean absolutely nothing to you?"
Eddie looked stunned.
"What?"
"Like—is it just this disposable thing that you can pick up and drop whenever you want and feel nothing while it's happening?"
"Fuck you, that's not true," Eddie said, too quickly, voice frayed at the edges.
Steve turned to face him fully now, shoulders high with tension.
"I just got you back and you're pushing me to go away again!"
"I'm not pushing you, I'm encouraging you!"
Steve laughed bitterly.
"This is encouraging to you? This whole—attitude you have right now? This reads as encouraging to you?" His hands moved frantically in the space between them.
"Did it occur to you that maybe I don't want to leave you again? Or—that I thought about it and just figured you wouldn't want me to?"
"I want you to want it enough that it doesn't matter what I want."
Steve stared at him, stunned.
"What the fuck does that mean?"
Eddie threw his head back, exasperated.
"Oh my God."
"I'm not going. I don't want to go."
Eddie's voice was quieter now.
"Why are you saying it like it's a punishment?"
"I'm not. I'm just—I'm saying no. I don't want to go."
Eddie stepped forward now, off the counter, slower this time. Measured.
"Steve, this is a huge opportunity. You don't just turn something like that down because it's scary."
"That's not it!"
"I'll still be here when you get back. It's a year."
Steve's voice rose.
"Yeah, see, that's the part that sounds fake."
Eddie blinked, hurt flashing through his expression.
"What?"
"You're pushing me to go so hard it's like—I don't know—do you want me to go? Like, you won't say it, but it's like you'd be fine if I left."
"Steve—"
"Jesus, maybe you don't even care. Maybe you want space. Maybe you want a convenient ocean between us so you don't have to keep doing this!"
Eddie stepped back, like the words hit him in the chest.
"That's not fair."
"Oh, right. Because pushing me to take a job I didn't ask for, in a country I don't want to go to, that's fair?"
"I'm pushing you because I do care." Eddie's voice was quieter, but clearer than before. "Because I know you. And I know you'll regret this if you let fear decide."
"And what if I don't regret it? What if I don't want that life?"
"You're not even letting yourself find out!"
"You're not listening!"
"And you're not being honest!"
Silence.
The kind that shouldn't happen between two people who knew each other this well, standing in the same room.
Steve could hear their breathing, ragged and uneven, filling the space between them. The kitchen now felt cavernous. Too much distance. Too many things in the way.
Then Steve's voice cracked open.
"Jesus Christ, can you just stop talking like you know what's best for me?! Like you always fucking know?! You sound like my fucking dad!"
Eddie flinched like he'd been hit. His hands lifted halfway in reflex, helpless.
"I'm not—" he started, quietly.
"Yes, you are. You always do this!" Steve's voice was shaking now, almost pleading under the anger.
"You act like you're this selfless, wise guy on the sidelines just trying to help, but really it's just—controlling. It's still you deciding what my life should look like!"
"That's not what I'm doing—"
"You think I don't want this because I'm scared? Newsflash—I know fear. I live in fear." Steve's voice dropped low, his hands balled at his sides. "But I also know what I want. And I don't want to go to fucking London and pretend that doesn't cost me anything."
Eddie moved closer.
"Steve—"
"I don't want to leave you! I don't want to get on some plane and start over! I don't want some tiny, miserable flat in goddamn fucking Richmond or whatever!"
He stopped. Shoulders trembling. Chest heaving. His face flushed, red with frustration and something beneath it. Panic. Shame.
"You think this job makes me whole?" Steve said, voice breaking now.
"It doesn't. It's a trophy. And I can't—I can't smile and say thank you and get on a plane and leave behind the only thing that ever made me feel like I was real. If I'm really as good as they say, then there will be plenty of opportunities for me on this side of the world."
Eddie didn't answer. Not with words.
Steve reached into his back pocket, pulling out a folded piece of paper. He walked over and shoved it against Eddie's chest. Not violently. Not gently. Just firmly. Like something he no longer wanted to hold.
"Here."
Eddie caught it.
"What?"
"It's the stupid fucking poem about you that got me into this mess in the first place. That suddenly everyone has a fucking opinion about. Enjoy."
Steve turned, already walking toward the door.
"Where are you going?" Eddie asked, tiredly.
"Back to my dorm."
"You didn't drive here—"
"I'm getting an Uber." He didn't look back.
And then the door slammed again, harder than before.
Steve took the stairs two at a time, barely registering the slam of the apartment door behind him, his feet reckless on concrete, chasing a breath that refused to come.
The air outside hit him like something physical. Cooler, but no relief. His hands were already fumbling for his phone, yanking it out of his pocket like it had betrayed him. He opened the Uber app but couldn't see a goddamn thing through the blur in his eyes.
The screen glowed stupidly in his palm while his other hand wiped at his face, fast and clumsy and useless.
The tears weren't stopping. He swore once, twice, three times. All under his breath, all strangled. Then he started pacing, shoes dragging along the pavement in broken lines. One lap of the parking lot. Then another.
He could feel the heat of his shame rise all the way up the back of his neck, pulsing in his ears. His throat hurt, like something wanted to claw its way out.
He ended up halfway up the concrete steps that led back to Eddie's apartment and sat there. Not planning to, just collapsing there, like gravity made the decision for him.
The steps were still warm from the sun, but the air around him was turning cool and mean. He curled forward, elbows braced on knees, phone in his hand like it could anchor him.
He was crying now, full-body sobs that he tried and failed to smother in his arm. His chest felt like it was caving in, piece by piece.
And he didn't understand.
Not when he knew. Not when he'd been on the other side of this kind of longing. Not when he'd looked Steve in the eyes and said I love you like it meant something permanent. Like it meant anything at all.
Steve had believed him. That was the part that kept catching on something raw inside him. How much he'd wanted to believe Eddie. How he still did, even now, even like this, half-hunched on someone else's stairs, crying like something small and stupid and seventeen.
He thought Eddie was supposed to be the one who understood him best. Who didn't need it explained.
He thought maybe that was the whole point. That two people could meet each other exactly where they are. Flawed, afraid. Shaking in some vacant room between desire and terror, and still choose to stay.
Maybe Eddie really did think he was saving him. Maybe Eddie believed he was doing the kind thing by stepping back, by making Steve go where the world said he was supposed to go.
But Steve didn't want the world. He wanted Eddie.
In all his mess and misery. In all his hard-to-love ways. In the way he curled his lip when he was thinking too much. In the way he said Steve's name sometimes. Low and steady, like it meant something worth holding.
And Steve had waited. He had waited.
Through the silence. Through the false starts. Through every almost. Every night where he'd stared at his phone and thought, if he says come over, I'll go.
Steve wiped his face again. It didn't help. His breath came in sharp, uneven gasps. He looked down at his lap, the phone glowing dumbly there, the app still open, the map of the city stretching out like a dare.
He wasn't even sure where he'd go anymore.
He folded forward further, pressing his palm into his eyes.
He heard the apartment door creak open behind him, that familiar hinge that always stuck in the middle.
Then, soft, almost cautious footsteps on the concrete. He didn't turn around. Didn't need to. The presence was unmistakable. The quiet gravity of Eddie's nearness, the way he took space without trying to.
Steve could feel the shift of it, of him, the moment he settled on the step above, knees pressing gently into Steve's shoulders as he folded himself forward, arms winding around Steve's torso, forehead pressing into the place just under his ear. Warm breath there, a stillness that almost hurt.
Steve didn't stop crying. Couldn't. His breath stuttered against the weight of Eddie's body behind him, and when he tried to speak, the words came wet and fragmented, splintering between sobs.
Steve turned slightly and pressed his face into the side of Eddie's thigh, like curling there might hide the worst parts of him. Like if he buried himself deep enough into the moment, maybe none of this would be real. Maybe they were still back at the start.
"You have to stop making me feel this way," Steve said, voice shattering in his throat.
"I don't like feeling this way. Like—me not being around is so easy for you. It breaks my fucking heart."
"I'm sorry," Eddie whispered, and pulled him closer, the way you would try to gather water in your hands and hope it doesn't all spill out.
"It's not enough," Steve said, and the words felt like glass in his mouth.
"It's not enough when you make me feel like—I'm the worst person in the world for wanting to have a life with you in it."
"I didn't mean to make it look easy. It's not easy. It breaks my heart too. I just—" Eddie exhaled, long and measured.
"It's quieter. It always has been."
"You shouldn't be good at that."
"It's not about being good," Eddie murmured. "It's just what I know."
There was a pause. Just long enough to hurt.
"If that's true, then why do you act like I'm nothing?"
Eddie's arms stiffened slightly, then softened again, his voice hushed and hurried, like saying it faster might make it more true.
"I don't. I swear I don't. I don't mean to. I don't want to. You're not nothing. I'm just—trying to get rid of this mentality that if I let you go, it wouldn't feel like losing. Just choosing."
"You didn't lose me," Steve said, almost too quiet to hear.
"Not yet, anyway."
Eddie let out a short, bitter laugh.
"That's generous."
"I'm not being generous. I'm begging you."
Eddie's hold loosened. Something gave.
"Will you come back inside?" he asked.
Steve didn't move.
"Depends," he said finally.
"Are you gonna say something that's gonna make me wanna leave again?"
"I'm gonna try not to."
Steve sighed, wiped his face once with his sleeve.
"Fine."
They both got up slowly, bodies heavy with the effort of trying to keep everything inside.
Steve's limbs felt like they belonged to someone else. He didn't look at Eddie as they walked. Couldn't even bear the sight of the back of his head. Just kept his eyes fixed on the small stretch of concrete in front of him. One step, two steps, three steps.
Inside, everything was too quiet again. Steve dropped onto the couch and let himself sink, legs wide, hands clasped between his knees. He stared at the floor.
Eddie closed the door behind them and didn't sit. Just stood there, hovering like a half-formed thought.
"I really liked your poem," Eddie said after a moment.
"It's—I don't know. I don't know any of the smart words. But I liked it."
Steve didn't look up.
"Don't leave me," he said. Voice like something stripped bare.
"Just—don't."
"Steve—"
"No. Shut up. Just—fucking stop talking." He squeezed his eyes shut.
"Do not do this. Not now, not fucking ever. Not when I still feel like I've barely had you."
"You had all of me," Eddie said sharply.
"That's what I'm trying to tell you. I gave you all I had. That's the problem."
"Then just—give me what's left," Steve said, barely breathing.
Eddie's voice came back flat, hollow.
"The thing I'm scared of is that I don't think there is much left."
"Jesus Christ." Steve collapsed back into the couch, pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes.
"Don't act like you haven't noticed I've been scraping the bottom since I've known you. Trying to give you what you need and what you deserve." Eddie's voice cracked.
"I tried to give you all the good parts. Jesus, I gave you things I didn't even know I had. And there's a whole fucking life out there for you that could give you so much more."
Steve couldn't speak. Couldn't breathe.
"I don't know what else to do," Eddie said, and his voice began to crumble.
"I don't know how to be the person you want and also survive—this. I don't even know who I am when you're not looking at me like I'm worth something."
He paused. Then, quieter:
"So if there's anything left, I think I need it to keep myself standing."
Steve sat up slowly. Too calm now. Too still.
"So that's it?" he asked.
"You're gonna keep what's left and I just—go?"
Eddie's eyes shut.
"Don't say it like that."
"How else should I say it?" Steve rose from the couch, eyes shining with disbelief.
"Should I thank you? For everything you managed to give me before you got tired?"
Eddie flinched like he'd been slapped.
"It's not about being tired."
"Then what?" Steve's voice cracked.
"Then what the fuck is it? What the fuck is happening? Like—what is happening right now? Why is this happening? Do you know? Because I sure as hell don't." His words rushed out now, wild and desperate.
"I know my parents are—insane but, what? One dinner with them and it's dismantled our entire relationship because of one throwaway comment about a job offer? I only said it so my dad would shut the fuck up, okay? If I hadn't said anything at all—which was my intention because I don't care—you wouldn't know any different. And we wouldn't be having this conversation and everything would be fine."
"Okay, well now I do know different and I know what you're fucking capable of in this world! I mean—I already knew but now I know, know!" Eddie exclaimed, heat rising in his voice.
"You keep thinking I'm pulling away because I don't care. Like I don't want this. It's not that. It's never been that."
"Then what!"
Eddie exhaled like it hurt.
"I just—my brain is—it's fucked, Steve. It's not quirky or dark or tortured in a fucking tortured artist's way or whatever! It's a goddamn minefield. Like—every time I think I've found the exit, I trip another wire."
"And you—you don't see it yet. You're still looking at me like I'm whole. But you won't. Not forever. You'll stay a little longer and then you'll start to see it. The cracks and the shittiness like a fucking house that's falling down. The corners I can't clean. The rot under the floorboards."
Steve scoffed, dragging his hands down his face.
"How many times are we supposed to have this conversation, like actually. I'm getting fucking déjà vu." He laughed once, bitter and breathless. "I'm so—sick of this. I'm so sick of your excuses. It's like—you're fine for a while and then one thing happens and you throw up your little white flag and it's all over. Like my feelings aren't even considered."
"The truth of it all is that I saw you and I wanted to—" Eddie's voice faltered.
"I wanted to help you."
"Help me?" Steve echoed, bewildered.
"We're the same, Steve," he said, eyes locked on him like it was obvious.
"I mean the same as in—the same ache. Same anger. Same silence and the impatience for just something to change. You just wore it better."
Steve's mouth curled in disbelief.
"How profound. Really beautiful. Maybe you should be the fucking poet."
Eddie swallowed hard.
"It was like—watching myself—but it was just softer. Like—you didn't have to punch holes into walls or destroy your fucking insides with every substance known to man. You smiled more. You were kind. You made it all look manageable. And I thought—maybe if I pulled you out of it, it'd mean I could climb out too."
His voice trembled. His jaw clenched.
"But I couldn't. I watched you get better. Braver.
You lit up. You changed. And I didn't. I'm still fucking stuck."
He looked away. Like acknowledging Steve's presence was painful.
"You went away and did all of these—amazing things and you won a literal fucking award that's like some kind of stamp on your first-class future. Because you have something to say and something to offer the world. I don't. I stayed here and I just—did nothing. I stayed up too late watching shitty TV and drinking shit beer. I woke up with a hangover and went to work. I got covered in shit and oil all day and I came home to do it all over again."
His voice softened into something fragile.
"And now I don't know what to do with that. Because every day you're getting lighter and I'm still dragging chains behind me. And I love you—God, I do. If I'm pushing you away—it's not because I don't want you. It's because I do."
Steve's mouth went thin, nostrils flaring. His whole body tense, pulled taut like a bow about to snap. He shook his head, slow and hard, like the refusal had started in his spine and worked its way out.
"You don't get to tell me what to do," he said, voice pitched low and edged. Almost threatening, but more like pleading wearing its fiercest mask. "You don't get to look at me like I'm some goddamn fucking idiot for loving you. You don't get to decide that my life would be better without you in it just so it's easier for you to walk away."
His breath hitched, chest rising too fast. Eddie didn't move. Just stood there by the door. Arms slack at his sides like he'd forgotten what to do with them. His face was open, exposed, but unreadable. Like someone who'd braced for impact and still flinched when it hit.
"You—you keep acting like you're this curse I picked up along the road," Steve went on, voice catching in his throat.
"Like I'm just too stupid or too soft to put you down."
"You're not stupid—" Eddie began, quiet.
"I know what I'm doing," Steve snapped, cutting across him. His finger jabbed toward Eddie, trembling from emotion more than anger.
"I chose this. I chose you. Every fucking time."
The finger dropped, but his shoulders rose, chest heaving. Tears had already started again, but he didn't wipe them away. Didn't hide them. His hands just fell limp at his sides like they couldn't be trusted anymore.
"You don't want me to love you because you don't know what to do with something that doesn't hurt." Steve was breaking now, cracking open line by line.
"Because you hate yourself so much it means I should hate you too. You don't believe in things that stay. But I do. I do. I believe in you. Even when you don't. Even when you say these awful things about yourself and expect me to nod along like, yeah, you're right, Eddie, you're nothing, you're broken, you ruin people."
He laughed once, sharp and bitter. His whole body shook with it, not from humor, but from the force of keeping everything inside for too long. His eyes were red, wide. Raw.
"Why would I do that? Why would I—stand here and berate you and say mean shit about you when you're already sitting alone in a dark room talking to yourself like shit already?"
Eddie didn't answer. Just looked at him. Glassy-eyed. Drained. A man who'd run out of exits and stood still only because he couldn't go anywhere else.
Steve exhaled hard through his nose, wiping the wet off his cheeks with the heel of his hand, chest still trembling under the weight of it all.
"I'm not going anywhere," he said, softer now, but still fierce.
"So stop trying to scare me off with how shitty it gets inside your head like you're some fucking anomaly. Some psycho-freak that baffles scientists because you've got some new strain of self-hatred that nobody's ever seen before. It's weak. And you're not weak. You went through all that fucking shit just to be here right now and you can't even see it." Steve sobbed, voice thick and wet. Spit flailing as he spoke.
"I know it's hard. I know you don't think you're worth it. But you don't get to throw me out with the trash just to keep proving yourself right."
Eddie blinked, a tear falling, trailing fast down the curve of his cheek. He didn't move to wipe it.
"Of course I wanted to go to London," Steve went on, suddenly—blunt, almost laughing. He tipped his head back, the bitter smile twitching across his face like it didn't belong there.
"Of course I did."
He paced a small, desperate loop in front of the couch, hands gesturing like he was trying to sculpt something from air. Like if he moved enough, the truth would feel less unbearable.
"London was—it was everything I said I wanted. It was big and far and important."
He paused, eyes locking on Eddie's like he needed him to see it.
"But then there was you. And suddenly the dream felt smaller than real life and I didn't want it anymore."
He took one sharp breath, then another. His hands dropped.
"I could go to fucking London and write poems about loving you. Or I could stay here and actually love you. That's the difference. That's what made the decision so much easier."
He took a step forward. Not even toward Eddie, but into the truth.
"You keep acting like I'm giving something up. Like staying is some act of sacrifice. But I'm not losing anything. I'm just choosing something else."
Another breath.
"I want London. But I want you more. And that's not weakness. So what do I have to do to make you believe that?"
For a beat, there was silence. Not the quiet kind. This was loaded, full, like it had its own weight pressing down on both of them.
Eddie's mouth opened, but nothing came out at first.
His face had shifted. Creased, soft around the edges. He was crying now too. Heavy and slow.
"Jesus, Harrington," he muttered, voice hoarse. He laughed a little, bitter like a cut.
"You think I don't want that? You think I haven't dreamed about that? I want it so bad I can taste it."
He gestured loosely at himself, a half-limp wave toward his chest and arms, like he was gesturing to a mess he couldn't hide.
"But every time I let myself want something that much—"
He didn't finish the sentence. Just let it dissolve.
"You say I don't get to protect you," he went on, steadier, but not strong.
"But that's all I've ever tried to do."
"I know," Steve said, a whisper.
Eddie looked up at him, raw.
"I don't want to be another weight in your life you mistake for meaning. But the worst part is—you're right. You're fucking right. I don't get to choose for you. And I sure as hell don't get to send you off like I'm some—tragic asshole in a film you didn't ask to be in."
He took a shuddering breath. His voice dropped.
"So if you're serious—if you're staying—"
He shook his head a little, ashamed, defiant, terrified.
"I'll probably fuck this up. But I swear to God, I'll try not to."
Steve moved forward. One step. Then another. Each one slow and deliberate, like approaching a wounded animal, like getting too close too fast might make the whole thing shatter. He watched Eddie's hands. Watched his face. Watched the way his chest rose in stuttered waves.
"Yeah," Steve murmured.
"You'll fuck it up. And I'll fuck it up. Probably."
He stepped closer. Barely a foot between them now.
"But so what? You think I haven't already made peace with that? You think I haven't already imagined every single version of this where it ends badly? It doesn't matter."
He let the air sit heavy between them.
"I'm still picking you."
His voice dropped, hushed.
"You think I care about the version of you you keep trying to warn me about? That version already came to dinner with my parents when he didn't want to just for me."
Eddie looked away.
"Yeah, and he also left you."
"But he came back," Steve said firmly.
"He came back and he waited eight months just so I could take some time to—finish college and get my shit together. He listened to me when I was—upset over stupid shit and people who don't matter. He picked me up from the airport. He came to my graduation even though it's his worst nightmare. He made me feel like I could do anything when all I actually wanted to do was give up. When I didn't even want to fucking be on this fucking planet anymore."
Steve's voice was shaking, but the words were sure.
"I've met him. He's not scary. He's—hurting. And that's fine. Who isn't hurting? The world is—shitty and it sucks and—everything is awful all of the time. There's so much—awful shit going on out there and people are fucking mean and—AI is giving people psychosis because nobody thinks for themselves anymore, and we're probably all gonna get murdered by robots if nobody drops bombs on us first and wipes out the entire planet."
He choked on a laugh again. Desperate. Close to breaking.
"So let me have this. This one good thing I have in my life. Just for me. Away from all of that."
"I'm not staying because I'm noble and I'm willing to destroy myself because I think love's supposed to hurt. I'm staying because I want to. Because even when you make me want to scream, I still want you more than anything else. Because I want us more than fucking London. More than being brave somewhere else."
He didn't move anymore. Just stood there, tears streaking down his face in silence now.
"And if all you can promise me is that you'll try—"
He exhaled, like the last breath he had left was attached to the next sentence.
"Then that's enough. That's all I'm asking for. Try with me."
Eddie looked up.
"Okay," he whispered.
Steve blinked.
"Okay."
Steve pulls him into a hug so tight, it feels almost unfamiliar. Like his own body is trying to remember how to hold something without bracing for loss.
His arms wrap around Eddie with urgency, not ceremony, crushing him against his chest. One hand slides up, finding the back of Eddie's head, fingers weaving into his curls, gripping too tight, like he's afraid that loosening his hold might undo all of this.
He can't remember ever hugging him like this before. Not like this. Not with his whole body, with a desperation that curled in his stomach and trembled in his fingertips.
"And I know it's not a pissing contest, but technically, you're doing better than I am right now." Steve laughs, but it comes out uneven, soft-edged and watery.
"How?" Eddie's voice is muffled against his shoulder. His face is pressed into Steve's shirt, and Steve feels every syllable vibrate against his collarbone.
"I mean—I'm unemployed, about to be homeless, I have crippling debt. I have like—fifteen different complexes all courtesy of my parents who are frankly not good at first impressions. All my socks have holes in them. Plus you should see my fucking credit score. Jesus."
He pulls back slightly, just enough to see Eddie's face, but not far enough to let him go. His hands rest on Eddie's arms now, still holding. Still touching. Like if he broke contact, the moment might fold in on itself.
Eddie wipes his eyes with the back of his wrist, aggressive, like he's annoyed with himself for crying. For feeling.
"You can come and live here if you want," Eddie says, not looking at him fully, his voice just slightly rough.
"Could probably use someone with a little more life in them. Spruce the place up."
Steve laughs, leaning back just enough to breathe.
"S'pretty fast, don't you think? We've only been dating for, like—" he glances down at his watch, brows raising with mock precision.
"Twenty one hours."
Eddie lets out a pathetic laugh, sniffling.
"Yeah. You're probably right. And I was only made aware of it, like—three hours ago."
Steve shrugs, still smiling, still exhausted.
"Then again, I wouldn't say we're the most conventional couple. So—maybe it doesn't matter. Maybe I'll move in tomorrow, and then we can go on our first date afterwards or something."
"We already had our first date."
Steve frowns in exaggerated confusion.
"Was I present for it? Or did it come to you in a dream?"
"I took you for a drive. Y'know. In the parking lot."
"Oh, okay. Sure. Well—maybe next time we can do something less horrifying. Like, I don't know. See a movie or get dinner or something."
"That was some of my best work." Eddie frowned.
"Mhm. Yeah, I believe that." Steve chuckles again, lifting his hand to rub at his nose with the back of his hand, his entire face flushed from the release of it all. Everything that's poured out of him tonight, and everything that still clings to him.
***
The light in the bedroom is soft. Warmer than it should be from the one dim lamp on the nightstand, like it had softened just to meet them here, just to give them this.
Steve's in Eddie's bed. Eddie's new bed. The black, twirly metal headboard looked like something rescued from a half-haunted vintage shop or stolen from an old film set. It suited him. Offbeat. A little dramatic. Stubbornly romantic.
Steve lies back against the pillows, half-propped up, watching Eddie move across the room. He's doing something mundane. Turning off lights, pulling down the blinds. But Steve watches like he's watching something sacred. Because right now, that's what it feels like. This sliver of peace between the wreckage.
Eddie climbs into the bed beside him, joints creaking, body curling in toward Steve like instinct.
"Will you do something for me?" he asks.
Steve squints at him, suspicious, but there's no bite behind it.
"Okay, you're on probation right now after your little tantrum so the blowjob thing is on hold until further notice."
"Fair," Eddie huffs a laugh, pressing his mouth against the pillow as if trying to bury it there. "But no."
He hands Steve a folded piece of paper.
"What?"
"Will you read it to me?"
Steve raises an eyebrow.
"You already read it."
"I know." Eddie's voice is soft. Earnest.
"But—it probably sounds better coming from you."
Steve groans, tipping his head back against the metal headboard, eyes squeezed shut. Embarrassed. Shy in a way that feels too raw to joke about.
"I can't."
"You can."
He lets out a long sigh, fingers reaching for the paper like it weighs more than it should. His thumb runs along the crease, holding it closed for one more second before finally opening it.
***
Steve stacks the last of the papers with more care than necessary, aligning the corners, pressing down the creases.
The classroom has emptied out, the air still faint with the scent of coffee and dry marker. A lone pigeon lands on the windowsill, rustling.
The girl. The one with the round glasses and the ink-stained fingertips, is still seated at her desk like she's not sure if she's allowed to ask what she wants to ask.
She asks it anyway.
"Did you ever regret it?"
Steve doesn't look up at first. Just slips a folder into his bag with the reflex of someone who's been answering questions for most of his life but hasn't been asked that one in a while.
"What's that?"
"Not going to London?"
He pauses, finally meets her eyes.
The question lands softer than it could have. No accusation in it. Just curiosity. Something innocent in the way young people still believe all doors stay open if you don't close them too hard.
He exhales through his nose and smiles faintly, like he's already halfway amused at the thought.
"No. No. God no."
He leans against the edge of the desk now, relaxed in that way age eventually allows you. Pulls his sleeves up. The light through the window catches the grey in his forearms.
"They took on some guy called Caleb Roth. You've probably heard of him. His essays are on half the reading lists now. Won the Turner Prize a few years back. Got the Guggenheim, the National Book Award, one of those fellowships where they just give you money for being clever and sad."
She laughs softly.
"I read his stuff sometimes, and it's good. Objectively good. Cold, though. Like walking through a museum where everything's behind glass. Looks beautiful, but you don't feel anything. Not really."
He shrugs.
"Met him once."
"Where?"
"At a thing in New York—some panel where they thought it'd be fun to throw a few poets and essayists in a room and make them talk about craft. I was there by accident, I think. He was wearing this ridiculous scarf and had this—posture. Like he was always expecting someone to throw a punch."
She smiles again, eyes bright.
"What was he like?"
Steve tilts his head, eyes narrowed with memory.
"He was polite. Shook my hand. Told me he'd read something I'd written—didn't say if he liked it. I think he mostly just looked—miserable. Like he'd gotten everything he ever wanted and none of it tasted like he thought it would."
He takes a beat, then:
"He mentioned London in passing. Said it felt like the loneliest city in the world. Said he'd walk along the Thames at night just to feel something.
And I thought—Jesus."
He lets the silence settle like dust before brushing it off.
"But it's okay. I had my prize. Let Caleb have London."
Her voice is softer now.
"So—you literally don't think about it at all. Not going."
"Oh, well I didn't say that."
He smiles again, slower this time. The smile of someone who's lived with a thought long enough to make peace with it.
"No, I think about it all the time. But not like you think. Not with regret."
He looks toward the whiteboard as if it might hold some answer even now.
"I think about how quiet it would've been. Too quiet. How I might've spent the rest of my life in rooms full of people who call your work brilliant but don't ask if you're eating enough. I would've been alone in beautiful places. Which is a kind of hell. So no. I don't regret staying."
He pushes off the desk, walks slowly to the window and clicks it shut. The pigeon flies away with a relentless flap of its wings.
"London would've been a career. He was a life."
He glances back at her.
"Something to consider after your thesis year."
She looks down, her voice barely there.
"I'm not gonna do anything half as good as you."
He scoffs, not unkindly.
"I wouldn't be so sure."
She shifts her weight, hands clasped like she's holding something she hasn't figured out how to give yet.
"So, you stayed. Then what?"
Her knees knocked under the desk in that way students did when they wanted to be somewhere else but didn't want to leave. Her pen idle in her hand.
"Well, we moved in together pretty fast," he said, his voice already on a softer register, not the one he used for lectures but the one for evenings, for memory. He straightened a pile of ungraded papers like it gave his hands something to do. "We were a mess, if I'm being honest. No money, no plan. But we made it work. We loved each other like it was a full-time job. And eventually, it got a little easier."
She tilted her head, skeptical but not unkind. "And that was it? After that it was just—fine?"
Steve's mouth curved, not quite a smile, more like a bruise surfacing.
"God, no. It was hell."
The girl blinked.
"What?"
He looked up, eyes clouded with something both painful and deeply, painfully cherished.
"The man was insane," he said, and it came out almost fondly, like a confession you tell only once the statute of limitations has long expired.
"He had me begging to some god I don't even believe in for a sign if I should just walk away most days. Or a sign to stay. Depending on how I was feeling."
"Jesus." She exhaled.
"There were days it felt like being in a boxing ring with a ghost." Steve crossed his arms, leaned against the front desk like he was no longer in a classroom but somewhere else entirely. A hallway. A kitchen with the faucet dripping. A record playing low in another room.
"Fighting shadows, waiting for the bell to ring just so I could breathe again. He was loud and messy and brilliant and cruel in the way people are when they're hurting too much to be kind."
The girl frowned, pen tapping again.
"So why did you stay? If it was that bad?"
Steve let out a small laugh, hollow and warm at once.
"Because he loved me in that same unbearable way. Like it burned his mouth every time he said it. But he still said it. That's important."
"Important but unbearable?" she asked.
"It sounds like you're describing a medical examination."
"That's a pretty good analogy," Steve said with a grin.
"Underneath all that, he was the gentlest thing I'd ever met. Even if he didn't know how to show it. And on the days he couldn't say the right thing—he'd show up. He'd hand me a coffee without asking if I even wanted it. He'd put on songs I hated just to make me argue about it. He'd sit in silence with me for hours just so I didn't have to be alone."
He paused and turned to the window. Outside, the lawn was mostly empty, the evening folding the campus into its usual slow hush.
"Sometimes, it was so good it scared me. The kind of good that makes you ache because you know it can't last. Because nothing that alive ever does."
He stood up straight again, grabbing the dry eraser and scrubbing away his words from the day.
"So no. It wasn't fine. It was awful. It was loud. It was too much. It was everything."
"And then you just—started writing?"
"Yeah, pretty much," he said.
"I had no idea what was gonna happen. I didn't really care, to be honest. It was kind of a fluke."
He put the dry eraser back in its holder. The board wiped clean. He lifted a hand to scratch the back of his neck, a habit leftover from decades of trying to find a less dramatic way to talk about a life that had been made, and undone, by love.
"Critics hated me. Said I was too sentimental, too obvious. One guy said I was 'writing as though love alone were enough to make art.' Which—I mean. Maybe he was right. Maybe I wasn't that good. I don't think I ever wrote the kind of work that changes people's lives."
"I'm literally sitting right here."
He gave her a look over his glasses.
"No, you're just here hoping for extra credit."
She smiled but didn't deny it.
"I just wanted to write about him. That was all. I suppose that's repetitive to some people. But everything else just seemed pretty futile and mundane."
He sat down again, this time across from her, legs stretched out, the chair groaning a little under him.
"But people did write to me. That was nice. Quietly. Letters. Emails. Saying how much they loved my work. And in the end, I think that's the better story. Even if it never makes it into the syllabus."
Her voice softened.
"Do you think you'll ever write your own stuff again?"
He exhaled slowly, like he'd been expecting the question.
"I don't think so. I think I've said all I need to say. I started writing because of him. Seems fitting to have stopped because of him too."
He looked down at his hands. They were older now. Veined and dry. Still not used to being empty.
"But your work meant something to people. Like—the people you mentioned that wrote to you."
"Yeah. And I'm grateful. I really am." He didn't say it lightly. It landed like something worn soft by time, but still true. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees.
"You have to understand, every poem I wrote was me trying to understand him. Trying to hold him still long enough to study him like light through a prism. What part was the wound, what part was the weather. What part was me."
He paused, lips pressing together before he let the next line slip through, slower, lower.
"And when he died, it felt like language left with him."
"I tried after, really I did. Sat at a desk for hours waiting for a line to come. Nothing stuck. It wasn't grief-block. It was just—done. Like he was the whole damn reason. Made me furious."
As he spoke, his hand drifted up to his chest, fingers rubbing lightly at the spot just above his heart, as if something still lived there. A memory. A phantom ache. The kind of thing you reach for in your sleep.
The girl watched him carefully, quiet and still, not wanting to break whatever passed through him just then—but needing to understand something, needing to follow it to the end.
"But you teach. You still talk about poetry. You talk about his poems."
Steve smiled faintly. There was something in it that looked like surrender.
"Because that's all I have left. Because maybe if I say it enough times out loud, someone else will carry it for a while. Carry him. Keep him alive in some version of the world."
"When he was sick he used to make these endless jokes about how no one would remember him. He was so sure he'd just—vanish."
His voice tightened, just slightly, like a seam pulled too taut. She noticed it, but didn't look away. She held his gaze the way someone holds a hand. Steady and warm, so the other person doesn't flinch.
"But they do. Every time someone reads one of those godawful poems where I barely disguised his name. Every time I mention him in a lecture without saying it's him. He's still here. And maybe that's the best I could do. Not art. Not legacy. Just—my memories. Dressed up nice. Given to strangers."
"I think he'd be proud of that." She smiled.
Steve let out a soft huff, the closest thing to laughter.
"He would be completely mortified, first of all. And he definitely wouldn't say it. He'd probably roll his eyes and call me a sap. But I'd see it. He never could hide it in his face."
He leaned back then, folding his arms across his chest. The silence that followed wasn't empty. It was heavy with something unspoken and reverent, like they'd entered a chapel without knowing it.
The room felt smaller. The light dimmer. Something sacred had passed through it, and now it lingered. On the desks, on the air between them.
"A grave is a grave. Just a man-made thing to make the living feel better. Give them a place to go. But to me, he's not down there. He's just—everywhere. Some people leave and it's a wound.
He left and it became part of my skin."
The smile that followed was small, barely there, but deeply felt. Like the warmth that lingers in clothes left out in the sun.
"Can I ask you a personal question?" She asked gently.
"Course."
"You're not—lonely, are you?"
"No." Steve shook his head slowly, eyes still half on the window, as if he could see something beyond it.
"We had a good long life. We have kids and grandkids who won't leave me alone. It's good. It's a good life." He spoke as though he was trying his hardest to prove something to her.
"I think in a way I was always prepared for it. He always had a sort of fire burning under his feet. Some days it was just a kindling. But he always knew he'd leave before me. And I suppose I always knew too."
He looked back at her then, fully, and there was something beautifully resolved in his expression. Not absence. Not loss. But something steadier. A kind of peace.
"Anyway, I don't need to write anymore. Living was the work. Loving him was the masterpiece. Now I just have this. And you. That comforts me."
The girl smiled softly, pressing her pen flat against her notebook, like she didn't quite know how to hold all of it. The truth of it. The weight. The light.
***
The lock clicked with a tired groan, and Steve pushed the door open with his shoulder, the weight of his satchel pulling at his back.
The house welcomed him in its quiet way, the faint smell of the neighbor's jasmine bleeding through the open windows, the floorboards creaking like they were trying to stretch. And then, the sound that always came first. The low, persistent meow, sharp and expectant.
"Hello, you," he said, already smiling, dropping his keys into the bowl by the door with a practiced flick.
The cat, old now and always a little grumpy, circled his feet like a starved satellite. Steve leaned down and scratched gently behind its ears, his knees protesting.
"What do you want, huh? You want food?"
The cat meowed again as if to confirm it, brushing against his ankle before padding toward the kitchen.
Steve followed, flicking on the light with the side of his hand, the soft overhead glow illuminating the worn counter, the familiar clutter. Mail unsorted, mugs left out, Eddie's favorite spoon still buried in the drawer, as if it might need to be used again.
He reached into the cupboard, pulled out the kibble with one hand and the ceramic bowl with the other. The cat wove between his legs, impatient.
"Fat bastard," he muttered, fondly, tipping the food in with a soft clatter, the sound loud in the quiet house. The cat was already eating before the bowl hit the floor.
Steve watched him for a moment, then exhaled and walked back into the living room. The walls were still painted the shade Eddie had picked after a long and impassioned argument.
"Bone," he'd said with a flourish, "not beige, not cream, bone"—and the couch still sagged in the middle where they'd both insisted on sitting, too stubborn to buy a new one. He sat down slowly, lowering himself into that hollowed-out center like it still had a shape molded just for him.
The TV blinked to life with a soft whirr. He didn't even register what was on, some endless rerun playing at half-volume, enough to make the silence feel less like grief and more like routine.
He reached for the stack of papers in his bag, the essays from his second-years, all wide-eyed and overly confident, and pulled them into his lap. His red pen was somewhere in the couch cushions. He found it eventually, like always.
But before he started reading, he looked up. His gaze moved instinctively toward the coffee table, where the photograph sat.
It was one of the few things he allowed to stay exactly where Eddie had placed it. Their faces stared back at him. Steve with his hair too long, Eddie with a smirk like he'd just told a joke no one else heard. His arm slung over Steve's shoulder, possessive, proud.
The beach behind them, all wind and laughter. He didn't remember who had taken the photo. Maybe Robin. Maybe a stranger.
He didn't touch it. He rarely did. He just looked. The sound of the cat eating in the kitchen was steady, unbothered.
Steve turned his eyes back to the page, lifted his pen, and tried, for a moment, to remember how it felt to be loved like that—unreasonably, loudly, completely. A love so full it still echoed in the walls, in the slope of the couch, in the quiet that followed him room to room.
It was a good life.