#i may have cried a little writing this whoops idk i hope the emotions are there i'm not sure my words are back but this is the best i have

[flowercrowngods]

written for @steddieas-shegoes as a follow-up to this "can you read the letter for me" post-breakup scene (@artaxlivs wrote a wonderful version over here for you to read!) cw: drug mention, OD mention

Steve's body doesn't quite feel like his own as he walks to the playground with his breath lodged firmly in his throat and his heart trying out an old beat that used to be familiar. It's struggling, though, and Steve tries not to think about it. The cold breeze of the night hits his face, making him shiver for more reasons than one.

He hasn't been to the playground for years now. It used to be their spot when they couldn't sleep, kept awake by nightmares and memories and the worst of scenarios. They would come here and sit on the swings, steal glances at each other and talk into the night air, pretending like the other wouldn't hear, and hoping that he would.

He first took Eddie's hand here, swinging as they were, and Eddie had chuckled through his tears, and then his smile hadn't left all night – nor did his hand.

Maybe it's a bad idea, meeting him here. After everything. But some part of him thinks that it might be what they need. If Eddie really is doing as badly as he said, if he really does need a break of several weeks, a tiny part in Steve (the part that would always put himself last as long as it means that the other person gets the tiniest bit of comfort) wants Eddie to have this.

Their little bubble. Or the memory of it at least.

Steve is shaking as he sits down on one of the swings, one of his hands wrapped around the cold chain, the other balled to a fist in the pocket of his jacket. He feels oddly tethered even as the world begins to sway this way and that, even as the breath lodged in his throat solidifies into a lump and he feels as though he's about to cry.

Maybe that, too, comes with the muscle memory of swinging.

He spends an odd second envisioning himself from twenty years ago, laughing and squealing with his friends as they tried to do a looping, and then jump right up into the sky above, see who got farthest.

It brings a smile to his face and a nostalgia to his heart that he hasn't felt in a while.

He feels like he hasn't felt anything in a while. And that he won't until Eddie will apologise. Until he will explain.

The steady squeak–squeak–squeak of the swing is almost eerie in the quiet of the night, but to Steve it brings a certain calm; a safety that he knows is treacherous, but he feels it tingling in his arms, because–

Eddie is there. Slow steps approaching, the gravel crunching underneath his feet that makes Steve want to look up, but, tightening his grip around the chain, he refuses.

I’m sorry for being too much and not enough at the same time.

He knows the letter by heart now, and he wants to see. He wants to see how much space Eddie will be ready to take now, how much he'll let himself be this time. It's unfair, he knows; Eddie's not fine, he should take a step towards him. And he is. He's here. He has agreed to meet with Eddie and hear him out. He has agreed to allow himself a chance at mending his own heart.

Steve feels so torn inside, in more ways than one, that he feels paralysed and petrified and frozen. Part of him wants nothing more than to leap up and take Eddie in his arms, tell him that they'll figure it out, that they can do it, that they can make it work. That second chances are just a thing that happen in life. That it doesn't have to be one and done.

That's another reason he won't look up. There are so many reasons.

"Hey," Eddie's voice cuts through his racing thoughts, though it sounds so gentle and fragile that Steve wonders if it's not Eddie who's been cut.

The steps have stopped, the gravel no longer crunching, and Steve can see a worn pair of Chuck Taylor's in his vision. Not Eddie's usual armour. It throws him off, makes him want to cry, makes him shiver in a way he can't blame on the breeze anymore.

"Thank you," he continues, sounding even more gentle, and Steve squeezes his eyes shut, no longer wanting to hear that voice, not when it sounds like that. So bare. So raw. So vulnerable. "Can I sit with you?"

Steve swallows hard, and doesn't have to consider at all. He nods. Gravel crunches again, then twin chains squeak, the old wood creaking and groaning a little above them, but Steve knows it'll hold. It always does. While Steve is gently swaying, one foot anchored to the ground, Eddie remains impossibly still.

Maybe they're both about to break.

After a while, Eddie speaks up again with the words that Steve has been longing to hear for four years. "I'm sorry."

They're not nearly as satisfying as he always hoped. The world is still broken.

"Okay," he rasps, not really knowing what he's supposed to say. What Eddie wants from this. What he wants from this. If either of them still have the right to want things.

"I had this speech prepared," Eddie continues, still entirely still aside from the way his voice wavers, his laugh a bit breathless and bitter at himself. "But... I didn't... I didn't think you'd come, to be honest."

"Funny," Steve says before he can stop himself, cutting off the rest before it can leave his mouth and make it worse than it is. Coming from the one who left.

"I'm sorry," Eddie says again, and Steve is already tired of it.

So he says nothing, and his silence seems to mute Eddie.

"What does it mean?" he asks eventually, still not daring to look over at the man who used to hold his heart in his hands and then threw it down the quarry before leaving town without another word for four years. But he can feel Eddie's eyes on him. "That you're sorry, what– what does that mean."

"It means that I..." Eddie starts and trails off, considering his words in a way that makes Steve wish he wouldn't.

Just tell me. Take up space. Be enough. Be too much. Just tell me.

"It means that I wish I hadn't left, but that I know I had to in order to find out that living without you is not living at all. It means that I know that I broke your heart and your soul and your future, maybe, for this need of mine to just... find out. To run away. To be someone I could choose to be. And, God, it wasn't worth it. None of it. And still it happened, still I did it, still I know that I just... I had to do it. Being the person I was then, it... I just. I'm sorry. You didn't deserve this. None of it. And if I could, I would turn back time and just tell you. Or sleep it off. Get help, talk with Wayne, anything. Anything that wouldn't lose me the... That wouldn't lose me you. And I'm sorry."

When Eddie finishes, his voice is hoarse, and Steve can't look away any longer. He opens his eyes and prepares to meet Eddie's beside him even in the dark of night, but he finds that Eddie is looking up instead, towards the sky where the moon is busy painting a cloud in silver light as it moves to cover it incrementally, and Steve takes a second to look back down at Eddie and watch him for a second.

His hands are clenched around the swing's chain, and they're shaking a little – so minutely that Steve's not sure if he's imagining it at all, but he feels like he knows Eddie enough to know that he's shaking, too. That they're in this together still. His thick leather boots are replaced with the worn, dark red Chuck Taylor's, and he's wearing a pair of jeans that aren't ripped at the knees. His black denim jacket is plain, no pins, no patches, no rips or tears or any sign of Eddie.

It leaves Steve feeling bereft, untethered once more; and isn't that unfair. It's not fair for Eddie to come here looking like this, looking so open and plain and vulnerable – how is Steve supposed to talk to him now. To talk at him, knowing his words will only meet armour. Armour that will make Eddie leave again.

How is he supposed to say anything when Eddie might not leave again. Or when he never came back in the first place?

"What happened to you?" he asks, the apology forgotten at this need to know. This need to protect, even after all these years. This need to be Steve and Eddie. If only just for the duration of a question.

Beide him, Eddie huffs and looks away from the now covered moon, meeting Steve's gaze with those big brown eyes that look so much bigger now. So much... sadder.

"I've spent all my life knowing who I didn't want to be. Knowing what to be against. Knowing what to hate. And then I– Then I met you. And I got to be someone for myself, you know? You let me be that. And I didn't see, I never... I never quite saw that, Stevie. Because that sad, scared, angry teenager part of me still wanted to hate and rebel and to leave and to be someone. And it didn't matter who, what kinda person, just... Just someone. So I left, and I– God, I lost myself. That self that you brought out. That self that wanted a life full of, like, love, y'know? Not hate. Not anger. Not... Not battle vest, leather armour, sticking it to the Man. But when I realised, it was too late."

"When did you?"

Eddie breathes out heavily. "Last year? Friend of mine OD-ed. Lou. Found her in the hotel, just..."

He breaks off, and Steve can see him blinking away tears just as he blinks away tears of his own.

"I called the band in this, like, full-on panic attack. Told them it was over. Told them I didn't want this anymore. They– They talked me down, because they're great guys. Helped me through it. All of it. Jeff told me to send the letter. Said, 'If you wanna find yourself again, Ed, you gotta start where you last had it, and you gotta start sending the letters.' Best fucking guy I know."

Eddie is smiling through the tears, telling all of this like it's not worth telling at all – like they're not both crying silent tears at it.

Like Steve's not understanding what he's saying. You made me into someone I liked being. and I did write to you, I just never sent them.

"You wrote me letters?"

Eddie nods. "All the fucking time. Wanted you there with me. Stayed sober for you until I... Until I couldn't anymore, because I'd left you, and I left this fucking swing set, and I... God, I'm so sorry, Steve." Eddie is really crying now, hands covering his face, and it's not really a decision at all when Steve gets up to stand between his legs, wrapping his arms around Eddie's shoulders and letting him cry into his chest.

Eddie wraps around him almost instantly, and Steve holds him, running his hands through his hair, shushing him gently, just allowing Eddie to cry for as long as he needs.

And I got to be someone for myself, you know? You let me be that.

You let me be that.

"I'm sorry," Eddie repeats, over and over, and Steve finds himself saying, "It's okay, Eddie, it's okay. I forgive you."

They stay like that for a while. Until Eddie calms down enough to breathe normally again, and even longer still before Steve slowly, gently pulls away – ready to move back in and hold him some more. Even though he shouldn't. Maybe.

"I'm sorry that happened to you," he says at last. "And I'm glad you're taking a break. Glad you sent that letter, too."

"Mm-hmm, me too."

Silence settles between them once more as Steve finds his way back to his swing; and that's when he starts thinking again.

"When you left, I was devastated. And I couldn't even tell anyone, not even Robin. It's like... It's like when you left, you took away that part of me, y'know? I didn't know how to talk about you. The words were gone, or something. And then you... You wrote your songs. And it was double unfair, because not only you get to leave, you also got to talk about it? To, like, thousands of people? I never... I still– it's.... It's like I still don't know how to talk about it. About you. Or to you. There are things I wanna say, but... You said them all, I guess. You got to say them."

"Steve," Eddie breathes, and he sounds just as devastated as Steve feels. "I never meant to– I'm sorry. You didn't deserve that."

"No?"

"No! No, you... No."

Their eyes meet again, and Steve swallows hard again. "Tell me."

"What?"

"What you were gonna say. What you want to say."

Eddie breathes deeply and lets it all out in one long breath. "You didn't deserve that," he says at last. "You deserve someone who treats you right. Someone who lets you be who you want to be, too, and who will bring you flowers, and who will buy you an Winnebago and get you everything you could ever wish for. You deserve someone who's not broken, someone who'll do anything for you because they realise that you're everything they could ever dream of and more."

Steve sighs and feels frustrated again, because Eddie still doesn't get it, Eddie still puts him on that pedestal and made him out of reach for himself to the point where he had to leave because Steve was already gone for him.

"Eddie," he says, and his heart breaks a little when the other man flinches a little at his sharp tone. "I don't ask for that, I would never ask for that, God. I just... I just want a simple, sometimes complicated, sometimes dramatic but ultimately worth it life. I want a– a boyfriend who will say weird shit sometimes because he's a fucking nerd, and who will discover things about himself when he's with me, and go to bed with that smile that tells me he's safe with me. And happy. I don't want anyone throwing away anything, I don't need anyone giving me everything, I just..." I just want you.

But the words don't quite make it past his lips, too much history forcing them shut. It's been four years.

"I don't want to make you into someone. I don't want the weight of that, the responsibility that one wrong look could make someone's entire life fall in on itself. I just..." I just want you.

And that's when he realises what he's always sort of known. That Eddie doesn't even need to ask for a second chance for Steve to hand it to him on a silver platter.

He stands again and comes between Eddie's legs again.

"I forgive you. But I want to talk. About all of this. Not just tonight, but every night. I want to know how I can help you, I want to start over, I want it to be right this time. I don't want you to ever run away again. I want you to talk to me, Eddie. And to take me with you next time you need to run. Because you don't get to run from me, okay? You don't– You don't get to do that, Eddie Munson."

Eddie looks up at him, the moonlight catching on the tears in his eyes, making them look even bigger, and Steve wishes he wouldn't look so small.

"You– But... But I'm so... broken." His hands flail a little, an aborted motion that shows nothing of his usual energy.

Steve's hands find his way to Eddie's cheeks if only to stop him from running away again.

"And I'm not gonna fix you. But I can hold you through it, and stay right where you need me to. That's what people do when–" He cuts himself off before he can say it.

But Eddie understands anyway if the way his eyes widen even more, welling up against the moonlight, is any indication at all.

"Still?"

Steve nods, his thumb stroking Eddie's cheek tenderly, wiping away the fresh tears. "Still. All you had to do was come back."

Eddie falls forward, then, and buries his face in Steve's stomach. It's not running away. It's quite the opposite, actually, and Steve holds him as long as he can.

The night is filled with many more tears as four years of anger and sadness and lostness finally find words to express them.

It's dawn when he says goodbye to Eddie at Wayne's new trailer, waving at the man drinking his coffee on the porch. Eddie holds Steve in a tight embrace for a whole minute before either of them are ready to let go, and only with the promise of Same place, same time tonight.

It's not a new beginning yet, but it's the closure they both need before the new beginning will happen in due time.