#and then once i'm out of cards | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

rocknrollsalad · 2 months ago

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rating: teen? cw: swearing, relationship drama, trying to talk things out but failing, mentions of show typical horrors, mentions of migraines, hints of nightmares tags: established relationship, red string of fate, robin's pathetic love life, steve's a romantic, the boys are on two different pages, but they get it together, grand gestures of love word count: 3685

written for @steddiebingo's Kissing Booth Card "soulmates"

huge, huge thanks to @hbyrde36 for the push that got me to where I needed to be with this! you're the best!!

read it on ao3

In an unfortunate tradition forming in their house, Steve and Eddie laid in their bed not yet ready for sleep but knowing they both had early shifts tomorrow and should be sleeping. Since sleep wouldn’t come, they laid in the dark and stared at the ceiling. That got old fast and was always followed by Steve filling the air with his thoughts.

That was the best part, it made the insomnia worth it. Never did Steve speak so freely as he did when laying there in the dark. Sometimes it was an in depth analysis of why Han Solo really is cool and not a loser but other times it was childhood stories and big worries. Both were welcomed but Eddie liked the latter more.

They’d landed somewhere in the middle this time. A conversation that started out simple enough; Robin had been lamenting her “horrible” love life again. Steve was always trying to win the best best friend award because Eddie would have locked Robin and Vickie in a room by now and told them they couldn’t come out until they kissed.

He still might. If only for his own sanity because Steve brought this shit home every time Robin was feeling low about it.

Steve dutifully listened to every repeated worry she had. Never complaining. He was a good guy. Better than Eddie deserved, that was for sure. Probably better than Robin deserved but who was worthy of a guy like Steve? Robin and Eddie were the ones lucky enough to be picked by him.

Or, like Steve’s conversation led to, brought together by fate. Them being cosmically meant to be wasn’t something Eddie had expected tonight but maybe dating the sort of guy who could only drink store brand cola when his team played or else they’d lose was the kind of guy to have thoughts on destiny and fate and other made up magic made to sell things.

The skepticism wasn’t welcome and Steve asked, “So you don’t think we’re tied together?”

Eddie sighed, all too aware that this teetered on being a thing. The sort of the thing the other mechanics complained about on smoke breaks but Eddie didn’t understand fully. Until now, that is. If he didn’t say the right thing, there was going to be a problem.

If only the thoughts in his head matched the words coming out of his mouth. “No! How would that even work? What if you lived in China? We’d never find each other!”

“What if I decided to visit America and then I was a tourist going around Chicago and your band was playing that night but you and Jeff were bored so you wandered the town and we both got pizza at the same place? You’d invite me to your show, of course I’d be wowed, and no one would know why we ran into each other but we were supposed to.”

Steve came with that answer so quickly that all Eddie could do was stare at him in disbelief. Was that a dream he had? Why did he do that so fast? They also needed to revisit that some other time because those storytelling skills had other uses.

“What if you were a woman?” Eddie asked, prodding the issue a little.

“Then you’d figure out you’re bisexual a lot quicker than you are now,” Steve scoffed.

Again, he came with that too quickly. It brought up even more questions than the fairy tale Steve spontaneously composed. Namely what evidence did Steve have to say that in any universe. What did he know?

Rather than get into that particular discussion, Eddie huffed and pulled the blanket over his head. He took a moment to himself to think about all of these and maybe brainstorm a few ways to make Buckley’s life hell for dropping this on his doorstep.

It was one thing to whine and complain and pine but when that caused troubles in Eddie’s relationship, something needed to happen. Something more than pushing these hopeless lesbians together. Right now, Eddie’s only thought was getting Vickie dates with anyone else. Really make Buckley suffer.

Steve didn’t need Eddie’s participation to continue though. That’s how he always talked at this hour, it was what Eddie loved about laying here too tired to stay awake but too awake to find sleep. Steve would just fill the void until sleep came for one of them. Tonight, Eddie wasn’t sure if it was a good thing but he listened. Cautiously.

“I’ll wait for you to figure it out, it’s not a big deal. I’m not rushing you or whatever and it doesn’t even matter, right? Like, you’re not dating anyone else so who cares.”

Eddie groaned and tried to roll over to wrap himself up in the comforter completely but Steve must have been holding his end. There was no give in the blanket so Eddie flopped back in place and grumbled again.

“But Robin says she can feel it, the string that connects her and Vickie. There’s a pull or something and everything leads to Vickie. She was nothing but evidence. Mountains of evidence. No mountain ranges of evidence and I know how you nerds love your evidence but it was too much.”

“I’m not a nerd,” Eddie deadpanned. Another thing he wasn’t going to get into right now.

“You are but that–”

“So are you,” Eddie countered, the same thing he always said in this conversation. On paper, Steve was a way bigger nerd than Eddie was.

“Anyway,” Steve said forcefully. “I don’t feel that with you. I don’t think we’re connected by a string or anything else. Like it’d probably be chains or something but Robin says that’s not how it works. Plus, I guess, chains are usually a bad thing in relationships. I just thought they sounded cooler than a string.”

Oh, okay. Someone slapped the metaphorical television and now Eddie was seeing the picture clearly. This wasn’t another long conversation about Buckley’s miserable pining, this was about Steve and Eddie.

Well shit. Here Eddie was being a brat about the sentimentality and idea of yet another evening dedicated to Robin’s inability to make the first move. Only it wasn’t about any of that. Mental gears needed to be shifted and a bit of recovery was in order. Neither were easy right now.

To avoid the apologies part, Eddie rolled to his side despite the blanket not coming with him and tried to think this all through. All he could think about was meeting Robin in a back alley and thanking her with his fists. That wasn’t helpful but it was an enjoyable moment. No one caused more problems between Steve and Eddie than her.

“I’m not even sure how Robin knows she has one,” Steve said and the hurt in his voice stabbed Eddie right in the chest. This stream of consciousness was getting real serious, real quick.

“Motherfucker,” Eddie said as he shot a glare at the back of the comforter, emphasising the last syllable with every annoyed bone in his body.

“How’s she know the other end goes to Vickie? How would anyone know where the other end of theirs is? I mean, what if mine goes to Robin? I’ve called her my soulmate so many times before but that’s not the same as, like, you?”

Eddie knew those questions weren’t asked to have answers, they were part of Steve working this out. He was saying all the things he couldn’t ask Robin in a moment that was about her. Everything he’d held back to be a supportive best friend was spilling out here.

Not that Eddie didn’t want to be there to help him work things out. Sometimes his answers were better received outside of this sort of spiraling though. Eddie did shift back to his back, no longer trying to freeze Steve out here but he stayed quiet as his boyfriend poured out his worries.

“But also, why’s she so worried about soulmates? Can’t she just be happy we’re alive and that there’s anyone in town to even have a crush on? That’s really unfair of me to say, I know. I mean, look what I got, but it just seems like the only thing she wants is this whole big grand storybook thing.”

Eddie caught the wistful sigh, Steve was just as romantic as Robin was. If not more so. Sure it was different flavors of the same soup or whatever but they were the sappiest romantics Eddie had ever met. It was no wonder they found each other. Occasionally, that wasn’t a good thing. This might be one of those moments.

“And besides, if there were red strings attaching soulmates that people knew about then how come Mr. and Mrs. Wheeler are married? It doesn’t make any sense.”

“But you want one,” Eddie said, moving the blanket off his face. He easily ignored the comments about other people’s marriages. Loads of people didn’t marry for love but it was that romanticism, Steve thought everyone did. Despite a fine example of people not marrying for love were his parents.

“Do you think we have one?”

Eddie lifted his arm to dangle in the air and then yanked it as far away from Steve as he could without falling out of bed. “Did you feel that?”

“Yeah, dipshit, you shook the whole bed.”

Whoops, so that wasn’t the right answer. It was marginally better than talking about how dumb Eddie thought the whole concept was but still wrong. He could think of a million reasons that he and Steve were meant for each other, current conversation aside. Why did they need some silly stupid string to connect them?

The rant sitting on the tip of Eddie’s tongue was too lengthy, they were supposed to be sleeping and maybe part of growing up was learning not everything needed to be an epic speech. Still, Eddie was one breath away from flipping on the lights to explain everything he felt right now. It wouldn’t help anyone, though.

Maybe in the morning, Eddie would have a more coherent argument. He was sure if he got up now it’d be a lot of incoherent rambling. Angry, incoherent rambling that would probably lead to him sleeping on the couch.

Neither of them said anything after that. Steve tossed and turned a bit but eventually filled the air with his snoring. Eddie had a tougher time finding sleep as he replayed everything that happened over and over, practicing all the things he wanted to say.

Starting with a long winded explanation that there was no string connecting Robin and Vickie, Robin just needed to believe it wouldn’t crash and burn if she tried anything while giving herself a reason to not do anything. If they were connected by fate then they’d be pulled together when the time was right.

A wonderful thought that would lead to nothing. Eddie couldn’t take on the insurmountable task of explaining that to either of them though. It didn’t matter who believed in mysticism and bullshit meant to make marriage look better, what mattered was Steve believed this. He wanted a soulmate and, apparently, wanted that to be Eddie. A terrifying thought if ever there was one.

Steve should probably aim a little higher. Maybe find someone who believed there was a string tied between them.

The alarm rang out way too soon. Eddie hadn’t worked this all out or gotten any rest. Nowhere in Steve’s fairy tale version of being in love did it talk about staying up all night because of irrational worries one’s partner had. Or how life had to go on after some weirdness. Bills still needed to be paid.

—-

It’d been two weeks since Steve laid awake struggling over where his red string of fate was. They hadn’t talked about it again but it’d been a constant in the back of Eddie’s mind. Every idle moment it’d shuffle to the forefront and he’d grapple with it again.

Not that it’d been a fight between them, at best it was Eddie saying the wrong thing and they were used to that, but Steve was kind of right. Something Eddie was okay with admitting, he just had to find out a way to do it. There needed to be more than an apology but if Eddie was good at one thing, it was making a production out of something.

Soulmates hadn’t ever been anything Eddie was looking for in his life. He didn’t dream of a prince charming or even like rom coms. If the club tried to force romance into their quests then Eddie would kill someone’s character and get them back on track. He wasn’t sappy like the rest of them.

Every couple of months or so Eddie would fall into some sort of funk thinking Steve was going to wise up and get out. Even as he had his own little love story, he didn’t buy into it all the way. His invisible hand wasn’t tying strings anywhere, it was waiting to pull rugs out from under Eddie.

However, in the days since the subject came up, Eddie realized how almost unbelievable it was that he ended up here with Steve. There were so many points in their brief history together that one tiny decision would have pushed them apart. That over and over and over again fate stepped in and kept him in Steve’s Harrington’s path.

Which was all a little too serious for Eddie. He spent an entire day thinking about how sad it was that Steve was destined to be with him out of all the people in the world. Which was followed by several days of thinking about how fucking lucky Steve was. Not that his soulmate was right where he was but that it was Eddie!

So, yeah, they didn’t rescue each other from some tall tower to prove this was real but maybe there was a little something to Buckley’s stupid belief. The jury was still out if the other end of her string went to Vickie or not but as thanks for creating this mess in Eddie’s life, he decided not to point that out to her.

Once Eddie got himself on the right side of this debate, he started to think about ways to help Steve over this little hurdle. That brought up some other feelings and prolonged anything as Eddie struggled with it too. Not in the same way as Steve though.

Why wasn’t everything he’d done good enough to show they were meant to be together or that Eddie was very, very happy with Steve? Why did they need some mythical string tying them together when Eddie could pick up on Steve’s migraines before Steve could? Or that Eddie could make Steve’s favorite dinner better than anyone else? What about the fact that he didn’t hang up a sword on the wall in the living room?

There were so many things that screamed out love while Steve was looking for a whisper. In the recurring self doubt, Eddie realized it was a difference in language and sometimes he had to communicate in a way Steve understood. If this was something he needed then Eddie would wrap a string around the planet all so Steve could find his way back to him.

Unfortunately that wasn’t in the budget and after a few days of brainstorming and a couple of Girl Scout books from the library, Eddie found the answer. An infinity knot bracelet. It wasn’t complicated or expensive but when was a gesture of love about either of those things? It was well within Eddie’s skill set and did exactly what he wanted it to.

With his photocopied directions and practice string, Eddie got it worked out in twenty minutes. It’d have been faster but the directions were a little misleading. They made an incredibly simple thing seem like weaving a whole tapestry. Those poor little girls.

He made a matching set but made sure to make one end longer than necessary, that was the part that went on and connected to the other. Eddie road tested it one afternoon while Steve was at work and it didn’t get in the way. It was long enough to show it was deliberate but not to endanger them.

From there it was figuring out how to give it to Steve. Like someone waiting to propose, Eddie carried the bracelets with him everywhere he went, hoping Robin’s sad string would come up again or…well Eddie didn’t know what else. If the universe was so invested, it’d give him a good moment.

Instead, Eddie got a dead tired Steve who plopped himself face down on the couch to groan and whine about customers. Eddie brought in sodas and sat cross legged on the coffee table to listen to every complaint. They were always the same but if Eddie had to deal with customers he’d have committed a real murder and not just been accused of one. Listening to their crimes was the least he could do if it kept Steve (or him) out of prison.

“This can’t be the rest of my life,” Steve moaned, a sentiment so common it was baked into the apartment walls at this point.

Why that was the moment, Eddie will never know, but he sprung from his spot and ran to his jacket. Soda nearly spilled all over the entryway as he searched the pockets to grab that now familiar handful of red rope. Once he found them, he ran back to Steve.

Eddie launched into an answer despite the gap in time. “Look, whatever. Sometimes life is dumb, right? It gives you a stupid job and, I don’t know, fucking monsters man. It’s given us some shit, god, but it’s not all bad.”

Steve pulled his face up from the couch and looked at Eddie like he was speaking another language. A fair reaction, Eddie was sure that didn’t make a lick of sense.

“Okay, lemme try that again? I think the universe tells you stuff but you don’t know how to listen and I think it’s been screaming at you to go to college. You’re not supposed to work at a register all day, man. I really think you gotta do something else like be a teacher or, I don’t know, a hand model. Something really important.”

“Why’d you have to run around the house for that?” Steve asked after shifting to lay on his side.

“Oh!” Eddie shook his head and held out his hand. “Because you thought you didn’t have a red string like Robin. You thought we didn’t and if you can’t see what the universe is giving you, I’m going to make it undeniable.”

With that Eddie held out his hand, two tangled up bracelets tried to spring to life from where he’d been clenching them together after retrieving them.

Cautiously, Steve sat up and inspected the pile. He pulled one out and Eddie immediately tossed his to the side and snatched Steve’s back. A little too aggressively, he took Steve’s hand and slid the bracelet on before he pulled it tight. Then put his own on to hold up to Steve’s.

“See,” he said.

Steve sat there and turned his wrist back and forth, Eddie slid to the end of the table and tried to read this look he’d not seen before. Unsure if he’d done the right thing and was dying inside waiting to hear anything from Steve.

When he couldn’t wait anymore Eddie tried to help the situation. “I made these parts longer so you know that’s the part that’s connected to mine and stuff. I don’t know, man. I don’t think there’s any doubt in my mind that you’re the one for me but if you can’t see that, I’ll help you out. Always.”

Steve sucked in a few breaths so quickly that Eddie thought the guy was hyperventilating. Eddie put his hands on Steve’s knees, ready to launch into the “nightmares protocol” here but after a few of them, Steve started to breathe normally again.

“This is so fucking sappy,” Steve said, his voice choking on the words.

Eddie rolled his eyes. “Well you’d know. Good god, if there was an expert on the subject…”

With the weakest hand, Steve shoved at Eddie’s shoulder but instantly pulled it back to go back to staring at his newly decorated wrist.

There were a few beats of needed silence before Eddie leaned in and said, “I mean it though.”

Maybe he wasn’t the best at saying what he was feeling, even now when the moment called for it, but all Eddie could do was try. Judging by the way Steve looked right now, that was enough.

Butterflies filled Eddie’s stomach, the same way they did before him and Steve did anything. Back when they thought they’d just be friends and Eddie didn’t want to be in the same room as him because he couldn’t stop undressing Steve with his eyes. Or, in the stuff he wouldn’t admit, wanted to take him to the movies and fancy dinners and shit.

It was the sort of feeling that Eddie wanted to crawl inside of and make a home. And how did he tell Steve any of that? It was hardly a beautiful poem or whatever romantic people liked, though it would make a good song. One Eddie started mentally writing, wishing for a notebook nearby or something.

Steve struggled with his words too. Which was kind of nice, in a weird way. So they sat there for a long time, together and not saying anything. Until Steve dragged Eddie to the couch and curled up against him.

They didn’t bother with reruns or the nightly news, they just sat together. What else was there to do when someone made the proclamation of a life together forever? And there wasn’t a single doubt in Eddie’s mind that he would be with Steve until the day he died. Maybe the universe did know a thing or two. They just had to listen a little closer.

#i feel like i rambled too much with this one #but like i don't want to stress about that either??#i don't know if that's the right mentality #but this is the most i've written since december so i'm not going to be that picky about the out put #steddie #written for: steddie bingo #written for: the kissing booth card #(i'll get this on ao3 once i get a title)

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