thinking thoughts about avoidant attachment steve (because try and tell me he isn't, with THOSE parents? get out) getting scared when he realizes he's in love with eddie because being in love is scary and hasn't gone well for him in the past. he's always been the one who loves harder, he's always been the one who puts others first, and never had someone do the same for him. now that he and eddie feel like they're on equal footing, he's fucking terrified of having that ripped out from under him. so, subconsciously he starts pulling away because when he's gonna get hurt he might as well be prepared for it, try and at least put up some walls so that when eddie breaks his heart he won't just be standing there obviously crushed like, y'know, the last time.
cut to eddie thinking he's done something terribly wrong because his previously sweet and warm and cuddly bordering on clingy steve is suddenly being so quiet and so distant, not really initiating any of the touches he usually does. he's not pulling away but he's definitely not doing that (annoying, but insufferably adorable) thing where he pointedly removes eddie's guitar from his lap to sit there himself and demand attention anymore. and yeah, eddie would always roll his eyes and sigh loudly at first, but he loves giving steve his undivided attention. he misses those moments already and it's only been like this for a week.
so, he confronts him about it. he tries to do so carefully, because he doesn't know what he did wrong and he thinks maybe it should be obvious or whatever. he's preparing for an, "are you serious, i really have to tell you?" but maybe he's a bit too vague about it because steve just looks like a deer caught in headlights for a second before his face goes cold, blank.
and steve's thinking this is it, this is eddie about to rip off the bandaid, and he's obviously trying to go about it gently and there's a tilt to his eyebrows that says he feels bad about it, so steve might as well just go and do it for him, y'know? says it's fine, he'll leave if eddie wants him to, and he's got his hand on the doorknob before eddie can say anything. completely misses the confused look on his face.
and eddie has to just about chase him out the door before he can reach his car because steve doesn't seem to be hearing when he's calling after him that what the fuck, no he doesn't want steve to leave, he's in– but he stops himself from saying that, because something is clearly upsetting steve and it's got to be his fault and now's not the fucking time. but he does manage to get his hand on the window of steve's car door before he can get in, hold it closed so that steve will finally look at him. so he can ask steve to please talk to him.
and you can imagine eddie's confusion and then shock when steve just starts mumbling (actually mumbling which is so out of place for him because he hates when others mumble to him, because he can't fucking hear) and he keeps cutting himself off mid-sentence and starting over and he won't look at eddie at all and this is all so out of character for steve, until eddie finally manages to piece together some of the abandoned sentence fragments into something that's starting to sound a lot like steve thinking eddie's going to get sick of him sooner or later, or sick of his bullshit (the look steve gets on his face on this word suggests there is more under the surface here, but again now is not the time) so eddie should just get it over with and that it's okay. but steve isn't looking like he actually thinks it's okay, in fact he's looking like he's trying so hard not to cry.
so, speechless for maybe the first time in his life, eddie just pulls steve into the tightest hug he can. hugs him until he stops his rambling, keeps hugging him until he feels steve's arms wrap loosely around his waist. only when he finds the words again does he pull back, doesn't even let go really, just moves one of his hands to steve's chin, makes him look at him.
"i'm not going to get tired of you, steve," he says, "i love you. i'm in love with you."
but steve doesn't look relieved or happy to hear it, not at first. no, he looks like he doesn't believe it, which is confirmed when he says, "don't say it if you don't mean it. i can't- i can't do that again."
and doesn't that just break eddie's heart into a bunch of little pieces, because here's possibly the best, most caring, bravest person he's ever met and yeah, maybe he acts a little bitchy sometimes but he's got a heart full of love for those around him. here he is, seeming utterly convinced that he's not going to receive that love in return. seeming like he's been shown time and time again he's never going to receive in return the level of love he puts out.
eddie's determined to show him otherwise, though, and he starts by repeating himself; in between soft, slow kisses at first (thankfully it's night time, and no nosy neighbors in sight) but the kisses get lighter and start to travel all over steve's face and by the time eddie's kissing the little space between his eyebrows, steve's smiling, he's actually kind of laughing. it's a nervous, i'm-not-convinced-this-is-real laugh, but it's there and eddie wants to hear more of that laugh and less of the sad, defeated mumbling he was doing earlier so he brings steve back inside where it's warm and he takes his time pressing kisses all over steve and telling him every single reason he loves him. he knows off the top of his head because he actually made a list of them all, he was trying to write a song about it, was planning on dropping the big L word with a grandiose gesture of flowers and candles and his acoustic guitar before steve started pulling away from him. oh well, he thinks he has some candles stashed away somewhere anyway.
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fanghua and sharing a bed
one detail i noticed earlier in my rewatch is that li lianhua, when he's sleeping/living by himself, keeps a small chest with a plant or two on his bed. it's in the corner by his feet and against the wall, and it's a convenient bedside table, given that the bed is quite large for one person and he doesn't need that entire square area. you can see that he sleeps with this setup perfectly fine when he wakes up from his nap in episode 1, and the chest is still there later as late as episode 12, when fang duobing and di feisheng are sharing the room upstairs (featuring di feisheng here sitting on the bed because apparently that's his travel spot when lianhualou is moving):
however, when fang duobing wakes up in li lianhua's bed in episode 13, that chest is no longer present.
and okay, sure, i can understand this. fang duobing is there because he collapsed from the gang qi and li lianhua had to carry him back to lianhualou. he probably didn't want his things knocked over, and fang duobing is sprawled out quite a bit when he's laying there.
when he wakes up again in li lianhua's bed in episode 15 though, unlike before, fang duobing hadn't passed out during the previous scene. i don't think it happened offscreen, either, given that he isn't groggy when he wakes up here like he was after fainting. the sheets are also pushed off of him/aside like someone else moved them before fang duobing got up, which doesn't look like what happens when he's unconscious. compare from episode 13, then episode 15:
in addition, it's the next morning in this current scene, as opposed to just later in the same day back in episode 13, which means that li lianhua had to sleep somewhere. it's possible he might have just taken the guest room, but if fang duobing wasn't knocked out, then he could have just forced him to move. he didn't bother doing that.
what's important to also note, though, is that the chest has not been placed back by its former corner of the bed.
since we're past there being an emergency situation, and li lianhua likes his lifestyle habits, there's little reason he wouldn't have returned his own bed back to its usual configuration... unless he actually needed the space on the normally unoccupied side. combining all that with the shoved-off state of the sheets when fang duobing wakes up, and it's not implausible to say that perhaps li lianhua was beside him in that bed the night before, then got up earlier the next day.
fanghua very possibly shared a bed in canon, at least for one night. love and light across the jianghu <3
UPDATE: as of episode 19, the next time we really see the inside of lianhualou given that episodes 17-18 followed qiao wanmian's wedding, the chest has been returned to its former position. it was only moved after fang duobing was gone and li lianhua was living by himself again for a stretch of time.
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