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goldenamaranthe-blog · 2 days

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Apple Seed 14: Almost There

13 Hours Into Labor

Charlie: (breathing heavily) Oh, sshhhhhhhhit!!! Contractions are getting worse! Where's that midwife????

Vaggie: She's on her way, babe. (under her breath) Or at least she better be. Your dad was supposed to call her hours ago.

Charlie: (groans into a cry of pain as another contraction hits and she crushes Vaggie's hand) Gah! Fuck! Fuck, fuck, fuck!!!

Vaggie: Hang on, babe. Just hang on. I'm going to be right back.

Charlie: (nods as sweat beads up on her head) Please, hurry back.

Vaggie: I'll be back before you know it. (kisses Charlie's hand and rushes to the door before nearly ripping it off its hinges) Lucifer! Where the fuck is that midwife?!

Lucifer: (eyes nearly pop out of his head) I FORGOT TO CALL SLOTH!!!

Vaggie: ¡Estúpido hijo de puta! You had one fucking job!

Lucifer: (fumbles his phone) I got it! I can fix this!

Lilith: (storms up to Vaggie, trying to get into the room)

Vaggie: (blocks the door) Uh, excuse you? Who the fuck do you think you are?

Lilith: I am that girl's mother. Who are you?

Vaggie: I'm her fucking WIFE, bitch! You're not going in there after being gone for several fucking years! You can wait out here!

Lilith: (shocked Pikachu face)

Lucifer: I made a call! She'll be here in a few minutes!

Vaggie: Good! Alastor, do something productive and get a container of cold water to help cool Charlie down!

-Hotel Door Practically Explodes Open-

Vaggie: What the fuck?! (looks over the railing) CARMINE?!?!

Carmilla: (struts in and up the stairs) Stop shouting, girl. Why are you surprised? Your father-in-law called me.

Vaggie: (glares at Lucifer)

Lucifer: (checks his call history) Oh.... I did.... shit..... I thought that was Sloth.... I'm TIRED, okay?!?!

Rosie: (tip-taps in) Hello, everyone!

Vaggie: ROSIE!!!!! Lucifer! Did you call her, too?!?!

Alastor: (holding a bucket of water) No, that was me. (tries to go into the room)

Lucifer: WHOA!!!! (blocks the door) What the FUCK do you think you're doing?

Alastor: I'm bringing Charlie her cold water. I think if anyone should be going into a blood bath, the prior serial killer overlord and father figure should be the one to do it.

Lucifer: YOU aren't going ANYWHERE near MY baby girl when she's at her most vulnerable!!!

Alastor: Hmmm.... (shadow phases along the floor and into the room)

Lucifer: SON OF A BITCH!!!!

Alastor: Charlie, dear! I've brought you some co- (sees Charlie laying on top of a mound of linens and towels with her legs hiked up, knees bent, and her lower half on full, bloody display)

Charlie: (panting, looks to the door, and her demonic features spring to attention) ALASTOR?!?!?! GET THE FUCK OUT!!!

Alastor: (faints and falls backwards out the door)

Lucifer: HA!!! TAKE THAT, ASSHOLE!!!

Rosie: Oh, my stars! Alastor! (drags Alastor out of the room and sets him up to recover on the floor, fanning his face with a kerchief) Alastor, Alastor, wake up. Deep breaths, dear.

Angel: Ha! Smiles is so pussy averted that even when he spots one in labor he can't stomach it.

Carmilla: ....... (steps over Alastor's body and walks calmly to the bedroom) How far apart are the Princess's contractions?

Vaggie: They're coming about every five or six minutes and last about fifty seconds each. (follows Carmilla into the room) Do we need to worry about pushing yet?

Charlie: (gets wracked with another contraction and growls demonically into an ear splitting shriek) VAAGGGGIIIIIEEEE!!!!!

Carmilla: I believe that should answer your question.

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steddio · 1 year

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steddie vegas au part 5

part 1; part 2; part 3; part 4; ao3

(throws angst at you and runs)

Eddie wakes languidly, comfortable and sated. Last night had been far more than he’d let himself dream of when he’d handed Steve those tickets. Performing for Steve had felt like performing for the first time again, every lyric more meaningful, every guitar chord more sensual. Steve was magnetic, beautiful, addicting. Not to mention incredibly hot in bed. This train of thought brings Eddie’s awareness to his morning wood, and he turns, reaching for Steve. Only to find the other side of the bed cold and empty.

His stomach sinks with a jolt, and he sits up, looking around for Steve in the bathroom, listening for him anywhere else in the suite. It’s empty, and Steve’s clothes are gone from the floor. Eddie tries not to panic. Maybe Steve is a morning person, maybe he went for a run. But there’s no note anywhere, and when Eddie checks his phone there’s no text from Steve.

He feels tears well and tries to force them away. This is fine. He’s woken up alone before. There could be a thousand explanations. It doesn’t mean that he wasn’t good enough, that Steve suddenly hates him, that he got what he wanted and left, that–. He interrupts his own catastrophizing, anchors himself in his breath (Sharon should be proud of him for using that CBT shit). He briefly debates letting himself wallow in bed but decides that will serve no one and goes to take a shower. As much as he doesn’t want to wash the traces of Steve off his body, he’s a little bit (ok a lot) gross from performing and sex.

When he emerges from the bathroom, wrapped in a delightfully fluffy hotel robe, he can hear rustling in the living room. He dashes out of the bedroom with a breathless, “Ste-” before he stops in his tracks, realizing that it’s Chrissy instead. She’s in her same clothes from last night and she looks at him with concern and worse, pity.

“Steve’s gone,” he tells her brusquely. She nods, like she already knows this, and touches his arm gently.

“Eddie, honey, there’s something you need to see.”

He tries not to react as his body fills with dread. Chrissy holds her phone out to him and he takes it. It’s opened to a tabloid site, and Eddie wants to scoff, because there’s no way the tabloids could do anything worse than how they covered every step of his addiction, his recovery journey, his messy breakup, and his relapse. He’s basically immune to it by now, just the counterweight to fame. But as he skips past the headline and straight to the photo, his soul leaves his body. Because sure, that’s him, whatever. But in front of Eddie, with his back to the camera, is unmistakably Steve. Dorky dad with a great ass, concierge, regular person Steve. Who never asked for all the shit that Eddie’s lifestyle brings with it.

“Jesus H Christ,” Eddie groans. “Did he see this?”

Chrissy just looks at him. Of course. Of course Steve had seen this. No wonder he’d run, why would he want this, no sex is good enough to be worth losing your privacy.

“I was, um, with Robin last night,” Chrissy tells him. He tries to paste on a smile, to congratulate her, and then realizes she’s not bragging.

“And?” Eddie prompts. “Chris, I can handle it. Just tell me.”

“Well,” Chrissy hedges. “Robin saw the photo and kind of freaked out. I tried to explain that this is normal, that the tabloids always do things like this, but she kept trying to call Steve. I think–” she trails off.

Eddie is on edge, but tries to keep breathing, to give her space. Finally, she continues, “I think Steve’s daughter saw the photo and recognized him. Robin wouldn’t say much, but she was freaking out about that specifically, said that Steve couldn’t afford another, um.”

“Another what?!” Eddie is full-on freaking out at this point.

“Well, fuck-up. Is the word she used.”

Eddie finally gives in and lets the tears that have been building fall. Of course Steve would think of him as a fuck-up. A mistake. Steve was so good, so clean. And it was Eddie who had pushed and pushed, trying to get Steve to drop the professionalism, to let go, to play with him. Of course he had pushed too far. It’s what he does, he can’t leave things alone.

Chrissy stands on the couch, wraps her arms around his neck, and tucks his head against her chest, making soothing noises. He can’t even muster the strength to hug her back, just stands there crying, probably ruining her shirt like he ruins everything. They stay like that for a long moment, Chrissy rocking him gently.

When the tears finally subside, Eddie feels raw and swollen, like an open wound. He wordlessly climbs back into bed and throws a pillow over his face, wanting to lose himself in the obliviousness of sleep. But of course, sleep doesn’t come easily. Instead he lies awake replaying every moment from the night before. The way Steve’s eyes had gone from huge in awe to half-lidded in bliss. The way the sweat on his neck had tasted. The hair on his belly, his large hands in Eddie’s hair, his toothy smile. By the time he finally drifts to sleep, he’s half-hard and more than half-hating himself.

He wakes up to Chrissy sitting on the side of his bed, handing him a chilled bottle of water. He forces himself to sit upright and drinks it all down in one go. His stomach rumbles in response and he realizes he hasn’t eaten since dinner last night.

“What time is it?” he mumbles to Chrissy.

“It’s nearly three,” she tells him. “I ordered you lunch, it should be here soon.”

“Have I ever told you I love you,” he says solemnly. Her soft smile sends a pang through his heart. What would he do without her? He reaches for his phone, hardly letting himself hope, but there’s no text from Steve.

“Do you think I should–” he starts to ask, then stops. Looks at Chrissy with pleading eyes. She shakes her head.

“I don’t know, hon. I texted Robin once I got back this morning, and she says that Steve might just need time.”

“Do you think he’s… okay?” Even hurting like he is, Eddie can’t help but worry. Chrissy is stopped from answering the question by a knock on the door. She goes to open it, then brings Eddie’s lunch to him so he can eat it in bed.

“I’ll be right back,” she tells him. “Eat.”

So he does. He swears a burrito bowl has never tasted so good, and he demolishes it in seconds, delighted when he realizes that Chrissy had also ordered him a churro for dessert. He’s just licking the cinnamon sugar off his fingers when Chrissy returns. Her brow is furrowed and he’s about to ask her what’s wrong when she blurts out, “Steve’s fine.”

He’s about to ask her how she knows when she says in a rush, “He’s at the concierge desk. He’s fine.”

The food he’d just eaten turns to lead in Eddie’s stomach. Steve is… at work. He’s fine, and at work, and he hasn’t texted Eddie. Because Eddie was a fuck-up. He wants to cry again but he feels numb, empty.

–

The numbness follows him through the next week. Through three video calls with Sharon, where they talk through breathing exercises and affirmations and mindfulness techniques. He’s numb through Saturday’s performance, through the massage appointment Chrissy set up for him on Sunday morning, and through five AA meetings.

He’s numb until he checks his phone on Tuesday night after their show and sees a text from Adrian, and is flooded with feeling, as if the dam holding back all the hurt and betrayal and anger and sadness finally broke. Adrian, his last boyfriend of nine months, who’d wanted so badly to be a fashion influencer, and who’d used Eddie as free exposure. Adrian, who three months ago, had gotten a contract with Dior and had promptly broken up with Eddie, telling him that Eddie was holding him back, that he wanted to follow his career, that he didn’t need Eddie anymore. Adrian, who had triggered Eddie’s relapse into drinking after eight years sober.

He almost deletes the text without opening it, but the masochist in him lets curiosity win.

Adrian: I see you’ve downgraded to someone who thinks light wash jeans are still cool. Pathetic.

Eddie hurls his phone across his dressing room. He feels pathetic, because the first thought that comes to mind is about how good Steve’s ass looked in those jeans. The second is a wave of self-loathing because Steve is anything but a downgrade. Steve is too good for Eddie, better than he deserves, a shooting star in the night that he was lucky to have seen.

It’s self-loathing that has Eddie jumping up, sliding into his shoes, and bending to scoop up his phone from the floor, relieved that it’s only cracked a little. He’s marinating in it as he leaves the room, steadfastly not thinking about when he had Steve pressed against the door, and he’s relishing in it when he starts making his way over to the lobby bar.

–

Steve opens and then closes his draft resignation letter for the fifth time in the last hour. He’d written it in a drunken blur on his day off yesterday, punctuated by crying bouts and skinny girl margarita straight out of the bottle. He loves his job, but if he has to spend one more day standing at a desk across from the elevator where he ruined his life he’s going to lose it.

He tries to mentally backtrack. It wasn’t the elevator incident that had ruined his life. Despite his initial panic about his family seeing the photo, they had been wholly accepting if not slightly amused that after so many years in Vegas, Steve had finally been caught in a mild celebrity scandal. No, the elevator incident had been a high point, an undeserved moment of bliss. What had ruined his life was Steve’s stupid fucking overreaction.

After leaving Eddie’s hotel room last week, he’d managed to drive himself home while dissociating and immediately called Nancy to apologize. She hadn’t picked up, and the longer he waited for her to call him back, the more he became convinced that the event that had driven him to Vegas, that had lost him his chance at a nuclear family, was happening all over again.

By the time his phone finally rang, Steve was curled in the fetal position on the floor. It had taken Nancy an hour to convince him he had nothing to apologize for and to coax him into bed, and she must have texted Robin, because he woke up in the early afternoon to Robin in bed next to him, stroking his hair. They’d facetimed Max, who, in her classic teenage way, had spent only a minute teasing Steve for the photo before rattling on about high school drama, reminding Steve that sometimes what feels like the end of the world is actually a minor, solvable issue.

He’d gone into work that evening determined to make things right with Eddie, but when Eddie finally came down to the lobby, he didn’t even look in Steve’s direction. When it happened again the next day, and then the next, Steve had resigned himself to the fact that Eddie wanted nothing to do with him. Maybe he’d even been glad that Steve had left in the morning, that he’d saved Eddie the trouble of asking Steve to leave. Who wouldn’t be embarrassed about their dirty little hotel secret getting out to the public?

He opens his resignation letter again. Changes the signature from Regretfully to Sincerely and then back again. He’s about to send it to the printer when the desk phone rings.

“Caesars Palace concierge, this is Steve, how can I help you?”

On the other end of the line, there’s a slight gasp and then silence. Steve waits a polite amount of time before repeating himself. When there’s still no answer, he breaks form and whispers, “Hello? Is anyone there?”

The only response is a hitch of breath. Maybe he’s delusionally hopeful, but Steve takes a chance. “Eddie?”

He hears a broken whisper in response. “Hi sugar.”

“Eddie, hi, sweetheart, are you okay? I’m so sorry I left, I freaked out, and then I wanted to talk to you, but I couldn’t get your attention, and–”

Eddie cuts him off with a pained “Stevie” that has every one of Steve’s parental instincts on edge.

“Eddie, what’s wrong?”

He hears Eddie take a deep breath. “I’m at the bar.”

Steve’s stomach drops. “Oh. Okay. Did you– Did you order a drink?”

There’s a long silence. Then, “I did. But. I didn’t drink it. I think–” Eddie stops. Steve wants to scream into the phone, to run to the bar and grab the glass, throw it on the floor. But he forces himself to wait, to let Eddie take the lead.

“I think I need to go to a meeting,” Eddie finally mumbles, and Steve is launching into action, pulling up the AA meeting list, the document that had started it all.

“Okay, absolutely, I got you.” He scrolls frantically to the meetings on Tuesday and miraculously finds one starting soon. “Okay, Eddie, there’s a meeting in half an hour. We’re going to get you there.” When there’s nothing but silence and background chatter on the other end, Steve asks, “Are you there, sweetheart?”

“I’m here,” Eddie says weakly.

“Okay, Eds, do you want me to walk you to the meeting? We can go together.”

“No! No, I can’t–” Eddie hesitates. Steve wants to smack himself in the face. Why would Eddie want to be seen with him? After all the embarrassment he’d caused already.

“Okay, that’s fine, no problem. I’m going to give you directions over the phone, is that okay?” Steve barely catches a quiet “yes” in response.

“Alright, Eddie, I need you to stand up. I need you to walk away from the bar. Can you do that for me?” Steve hears rustling on the other end, and then Eddie’s voice comes through clearly. “I’m walking out.”

“Great, sweetheart, that’s great. You’re doing so well, that was the hardest part.” Out of the corner of his eye, Steve sees a black-clad, curly-haired figure enter the lobby. He watches as Eddie makes his way slowly toward the front door of the hotel, looking determined, eyes never straying from his goal. His heart clenches in his chest like it does every time he’s seen Eddie from afar over the past few days, and it takes all his willpower to not run over to him.

“Okay keep going, Eddie, you’re going to go out the front door and turn left, and then walk two blocks.” Steve watches as Eddie follows his directions, listens to his quiet breathing over the phone.

“I’m outside,” Eddie tells him.

“How is it out there?” Steve asks to keep him talking. “Is it still hot as hell like earlier?”

Eddie tells him about the weather, about the slight breeze that’s picked up between the buildings now that the sun has gone down. For a moment his voice is drowned out by a siren, but when the noise fades Steve can hear his steady breathing and footsteps.

“Tell me where you are, Eds,” Steve probes gently. When Eddie tells him the cross street, Steve asks him about his surroundings, makes Eddie describe what he’s seeing to keep him grounded.

“Almost there, I need you to cross to the opposite corner and then turn right.” Steve can practically feel Eddie rocking nervously as he waits for each light, but he dutifully follows Steve’s directions, tells him about the older couple dressed like they’d walked out of the 1960s, about the mom pushing her crying baby in a stroller, about the glimpse of the moon he can see as he looks down a side street.

“You’re doing great, now we’re just looking for the rec center. It should be three blocks down on the left.” Eddie goes radio silent for a few minutes and Steve tries not to panic, listening to Eddie’s breathing to reassure himself.

Eventually he hears a quiet, “Steve? Are you there?” Steve tries to keep his relief out of his voice when he answers, “Yes, Eddie, I’m here. I’ll be here as long as you need me.” And he’s struck by how true that is, how he wants to be the person Eddie calls when he doesn’t want to be alone.

On the line, Steve hears a squeaky door open and then echoing footsteps. “I’m at the rec center,” Eddie says. “I see signs for the meeting, I’m going to follow them.”

“That’s, that’s good, sweetheart.” A moment later, Steve hears someone greet Eddie and usher him inside. He’s about to hang up, thinking Eddie no longer needs him, when he hears a sharp inhale.

“Sugar?” Eddie whispers into the phone. Before Steve can answer, he continues: “Thank you. Thank you so much.” And then hangs up.

Steve takes a moment to just stand there, still clutching the phone and holding back tears. Eventually he comes back into himself. Takes a deep breath. And drags his resignation letter into the trash.

continue to part 6.

read on ao3.

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#steddie #stranger things #steddie vegas au #i promise there will be a happy ending #we're almost there!#i hope you enjoy!!! ur nice comments keep me going #A writes

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