so you don't get lost (steddie ficlet)
written for @steddielovemonth day 17
rating: T
cw: alcohol
tags: first kiss, clubbing, college au, platonic stobin
prompt: Love is about a hand reaching out to you so you don't get lost
“She’s totally into me, right?” Robin asks as they wait for their drinks at the bar, her smile a mile wide, and it’s been a minute since Steve’s seen her smile like that.
“Yeah, totally,” Steve agrees. The girl Robin’s been talking to all night is drifting back over to them even as they speak, the two of them like magnets since they first traded smiles on the dance floor earlier that night.
Robin glances back at her and bites back a wider grin. She bounces on her tippy toes and whispers to Steve, “If I make out with her it’s not gonna make you feel awkward, is it?”
Steve shakes his head. “Go ahead,” he encourages.
It had been a group effort to get Robin out tonight. Her university friends had enlisted Steve to help drag her out of the mopey funk she’d been in since getting broken up with two weeks ago, and it had taken an hour of Steve hyping her up while she kept crying off her attempts to do her makeup before she finally managed to make it to the club. He’s just glad it had been worth it.
“I don’t even know if I remember how to do this,” Robin mutters, a little nervously, as she and Steve grab their drinks and rejoin her friends on the dance floor. But it turns out, she has nothing to worry about. The two girls resume their orbit around each other, and the second the next beat drops and the lights strobe, the other girl finally pulls Robin into a heated kiss. Steve watches this, and he smiles fondly. She deserves it. He’s happy for her.
And he’s totally not jealous. Not necessarily of Robin, obviously, or the girl she’s kissing, but simply of the fact that they’ve so easily found a hot drunk stranger to make out with at the club and he…hasn’t. He can’t even remember the last time he’s had a decent kiss, much less scored at a club, though not for not wanting to.
Steve finds himself glancing at Robin’s friend Eddie, the tatted-up metalhead Steve’s felt a pull towards since the first time they’d met. He thinks about kissing him every time they’re out together, and maybe there was a time when Steve would’ve just gone for it, a time before he’d taken a few too many hits to the ego and developed doubts and insecurities, but now the thought just makes him nervous. Eddie makes him nervous.
He feels that nervousness now as Eddie catches him staring and he shakes those lovely dark curls out of his face and smiles at him. It bubbles in his stomach, flutters in his chest. Steve downs the rest of his drink and looks away. The alcohol floods heat through his veins and blurs his vision, but the ever-present thrum of anxiety just from being in Eddie’s proximity still isn’t dulled. He bobs numbly to the music, avoiding looking at anybody at all now, only staring at the floor or the wall or some super fascinating point just above everyone’s heads, sure he looks like an absolute freak.
It goes beyond just wanting to kiss Eddie; Steve’s not stupid, he knows the only explanation for this sheer amount of nervousness he feels around him is that he’s got an actual, proper crush. Because not only is Eddie super fucking hot, he’s also sweet. Steve is an outsider in this group and he knows it, the college dropout who only tags along because Robin insists on it, but Eddie never makes him feel like that. It’s always Eddie who makes sure he’s included in conversations, always Eddie who makes a point to loop Steve into the context of inside jokes and stories whenever Robin is too distracted to. Steve craves those interactions, gets a thrill every time Eddie so much as speaks to him. So he doesn’t only want to kiss him, he also just wants Eddie to like him, wants him to see him as a friend at the very least. But it’s not like they’ve ever even hung out outside of a group setting, and sometimes Steve fears Eddie’s just being nice and he doesn’t actually see him as anything at all.
Steve’s drifted so far into his own head he doesn’t realize his group is on the move, pushing deeper into the dance floor and leaving him behind.
“Steve!” Eddie’s voice calls out to him and snaps him out of it. Everyone else has been taken by the crowd, but Eddie hangs back, reaching his hand out to Steve.
Steve takes it, swallowing down the way his heart pounds as Eddie’s fingers curl around his hand. Eddie pulls him through the throng of jostling, sweaty bodies, and even though he maintains a tight grip on Steve’s hand, he still keeps looking back at him like he’s making extra sure Steve doesn’t get lost. Warmth blooms in Steve’s chest. Maybe he’s just drunk, maybe he’s just delusional, but all of the sudden he feels so very very cared for.
“Thanks,” Steve says, nearly shouting to be heard over the music.
“‘Course.” Eddie smiles as he turns around to face him. They’ve caught up to their friends now, but he’s still holding Steve’s hand. “I’d never just leave you stranded.”
Of course he wouldn’t. He never has before. Steve just smiles back and squeezes Eddie’s hand.
They’ve only just let go of each other when Robin and her girl, still kissing clumsily and staggering about the dance floor, stumble straight into Steve and knock him off balance. “Woah!” Eddie reaches for him again instantly, looping an arm around Steve’s waist to keep him from toppling over or careening into the crowd.
“Ah! Sorry!” Robin giggles before she’s whisked away again.
Eddie laughs. “Good for her, right?”
“Yeah, good for her,” Steve says, watching his best friend spin out of sight, and when he looks back he startles at how close he and Eddie are, suddenly very aware of Eddie’s arm around his waist and his hands on Eddie’s chest.
“You okay?” Eddie asks, his grip on Steve tightening like he means to steady him.
“Yeah, thanks again.” Steve regains his footing, but he doesn’t pull away. There’s something there, he thinks, in the way Eddie’s always reaching out to him so he doesn’t get lost, literally and figuratively, in crowds and conversations. It could just be friendly, it could just be nothing, but for the first time, Steve lets himself hope. He even thinks about leaning in right now, but then he thinks about it too much, and he doesn’t.
Instead, there’s a weird moment where they’re both just staring at each other. Eddie’s got this confused little smile on his face like he’s waiting to see what Steve will do, and when Steve doesn’t do anything, Eddie’s smile abruptly becomes more playful as if he’s trying to break the tension, and he starts theatrically swaying them to the music, even though it is most definitely not the swaying sort of beat. Steve laughs, his racing heart making it come out giddy and giggly, especially when Eddie drops his waist to grab his hand and twirl him around.
Eddie pulls him in close again then, and this time Steve doesn’t think at all. In fact, it’s unclear which one of them leans in first; all Steve knows is that their lips finally, finally meet in the middle and he finally, finally gets to tangle his hands in Eddie’s hair, and it’s sweet and it’s hungry and it’s absolutely perfect. Steve holds onto Eddie and he gets lost in him.
When Steve meets back up with Robin outside after the club closes, they exchange a celebratory, congratulatory high five, the both of them with matching kiss-swollen lips and dates set for next week.
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ok, I started writing this in response to someone in particular but it felt unfair to single them out when the reason I was moved say something was because they were like the seventh person saying the same thing in a day.
To all the people like me, who had never heard of those YouTubers. Yeah, I get the vibe. I'd never heard of him either! Or any of the others. But so what ? Firstly, someone else you like is probably doing the same thing, and Secondly, on this scale? You probably HAVE HEARD of him. You just didn't know.
As turns out, I HAD heard of him.
I was so sure I hadn't. Lucky me for being so disconnected from the internet zeitgeist that I am insulated from its fallout! lol. Except I had read @vaspider 's post rejecting his spreading of Leibowitz's statements about 'boring people dying of aids', someone who at the time was struggling uphill against public opinion. Someone else I follow had a Hannibal video plagiarized last year by a big youtuber who turned out to also be him. My wife and I love watching verilybitchie, guess who also got a video ripped off by somerton?
And, like, you're right about how the fuck did people not take more issue with the 'nazis so hot' shit. But lots of people believed him, and spread it wide enough that you might have seen it. I am sure I've seen other, less explicitly awful takes of his crossing my dash, even passed them on, takes that were not even particularly horrifying, just misleading or untrue or stolen and taken out of context. Takes that are distorting the narrative of queer history on tumblr, beyond.
I'm not pointing fingers, just worried the impact of the video is getting lost. I wish someone who could write better and sound less grumpy doing it had written this instead. I just hadn't seen anyone else say exactly this yet. Specifically that, like me, you probably have heard of him, or more importantly his influence. Lots of other people you like got their stuff stolen by him.
And if you really have never met him or the consequences of his actions. then you've met someone else just like him.
I'd never 'heard' of him. So what?
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