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mentalmimosa · 5 years

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long time no see (part ii)

First installment here: archiveofourown.org/works/19453189/chapters/46301899]

There are times, Steve thought, staring into the face of what might have been, when every mistake you’ve ever made becomes crystal clear.

Like the night before he left for basic training, when his best friend’s little brother had kissed him, wrapped his long, cool hands around Steve’s face in his parents’ backyard and laid one on him for the ages under the moon and the stars.

“What was that for?” he’d said stupidly, after, his hands somehow clutching Lo’s hips.

And Lo--a kid he’d known all his life, not a kid now; seventeen going on worldly with a soft, hurt look in his eyes. “Because I like you,” he’d said. “Because I’ve always liked you, Rogers, it’s just”--he stroked his thumb across Steve’s lips--“it’s never seemed liked the right time to say. And now there isn’t any more time, is there, so I figured why the hell not. The worst you could do would be to leave in the morning and never come back and you’ve sworn to Uncle Sam you’ll do that.”

“I’ll be back, Lo. In just a few months.”

Lo had sighed and tipped his head back, Steve’s vision suddenly filled with the strong, pale line of his neck. “Yeah, but it won’t be the same, Steve. You know it won’t be. Besides--”

Steve’s arms had slid around him. “Besides what?”

Another sigh, this one something Steve had felt in his soul. “Besides, I can’t wait around for you forever. Not anymore, you know? This is a sign, you leaving. That’s what I think. I need to get on with my life.”

How long? Steve had wanted to ask, his heart in a panicked flutter. When did you know? Why the hell didn’t you say? I would have--

Would he have, though? Hadn’t part of him always known?

The way that Lo had pestered he and Thor (technically Thomas, but that childhood nickname had stuck) when they were younger, when he and Thor were racing bikes or playing Nintendo or sneaking a beer in the basement, one stolen from Thor’s older brother’s stash--Lo had always been lurking in the shadows with his wide, ice-blue eyes, waiting, just waiting, for their acknowledgement, their attention, an invitation to participate, one that had rarely, rarely come: the bane of little brothers everywhere.

But in the last couple of years, Lo had pulled back, grown lanky and distant in his studied, disaffected way. He hadn’t chased after them anymore, hadn’t made a show of wanting to be included, but he’d still looked at Steve with what he realized now was a certain kind of hope, one whose tenor had deepened, and as he raced through life, those awkward years after high school, Steve had never taken the time to really look back.

If he had, he’d thought, holding Lo in his arms on the last night of his civilian life, things might have been very different.

“You’re thinking,” Lo said. “I can hear you.”

“Yeah.”

Lo had touched his cheek again and looked at him, all the affection gone now; only affection and something like tears left behind. “I’d rather you didn’t. I’d much rather you stopped that entirely, thank you.”

“Hmmm,” Steve had said, leaning into that shivering, overdue touch, “all right. How about I kiss you instead?”

They’d made love in the backyard, in the little shed Steve used for his painting, and that’s what stayed most vivid in his mind about that night, about his best friend’s little brother: the smell of paint on the summer breeze, the way the moon had slid in through the window and tangled itself in Lo’s long, dark hair.

“I’m sorry, Lo,” he’d whispered in between the greedy slap of their bodies. “God, I’m so--”

And Lo had kissed him and Lo had whimpered and Lo had come and there wasn’t room for apologies after that, for regrets, for anything in that moment except for the here and the now.

One night. That’s all they’d had. Because Lo was right, it wasn’t the same, after that.

“I swear to shit, Rogers,” Thor had said the first night he got back, “I hardly fucking recognize you. You should be on the Army posters, dude! You’re a new goddamn man.”

“Yeah,” Steve had said, tipping back his beer and pretending it didn’t bother him that Lo wasn’t in the shadows any longer, that he was up at college in Rhode Island and happier, Thor reported, than he’d ever damn well been. “I guess I am.”

*****

It was years before it happened again quite as clearly, before he’d walked into a moment that made him realize every turn he’d taken to get there was the wrong one. And that was the night he’d gone home with Bucky Barnes.

Buck was angry. He’d known that from the start. Angry with good reason, mind you; the war he’d been shipped off to fight in Afghanistan had taken a hell of a lot. But ten minutes in the guy’s company and it was plain as day, even to those swept in by his pretty face and dirty grin that even before the war, Barnes had been pissed off at the world all the damn time, like it was written into his DNA.

They’d met at a mutual friend’s house one Fourth of July: sparklers and steaks and too much whiskey. For Steve, a cupcake and a seriously off-key slaughter of Happy Birthday .

“Why the hell doesn’t it surprise me that a guy like you was born on the Fourth?”

The voice had come from behind him. Steve remembered swiveled, stared. Something in him had stuttered to a stop. Because the guy giving him shit was gorgeous, the stop dead in the street kind: tight black t-shirt and indigo jeans and a look on his face that gave the grill a run for its money.

Jesus, Steve had thought at the time. Jesus H. Fucking Christ.

“Careful,” the guy had said. He’d stepped up and cupped Steve’s hand, the one that was holding his cupcake. “Sam went to a lot of trouble buying that at Wal-Mart or some shit for you. You wouldn’t want to drop it, huh?”

His name was Bucky and he knew Sam from Kabul and he’d tasted like Pilsner and salt.

“Yeah?” he’d chuckled when Steve had said that in Sam’s tiny guest bathroom as Bucky’s fingers worked his belt and tugged firm at his zipper. “Well, give me ten minutes, cupcake, and you’ll be tasting something better than that.”

He’d taken Steve home with him, given him a helmet and stuck him on the back of his bike, and the whole way there, zipping through the loud summer air, the sky alight above them, Steve had known it was a mistake. He’d known as if he’d already lived it that whatever had brought them together that night, however good it felt now--going home with Bucky was a mistake. A blowjob at a party was one thing, but this--the bike purring beneath them, the asphalt hot beneath his feet at the red lights, the promise of something beyond just that night--was something else all together, something that felt dangerous and goddamn fucking arousing. But it didn’t feel right.

That first night, though, it sure as hell hadn’t felt bad.

He’d come on Bucky’s cock like a teenager, with a shout and the smell of spunk everywhere. He’d come again while Bucky lapped at his ass and cleaned up the mess his dick had left behind, stroking himself in time with Bucky’s long, languorous licks, with those guttural sounds of pleasure Bucky made that, even more than his tongue, made Steve squirm.

“That’s it,” Bucky had groaned when Steve spurted on the sheets, one last feeble gasp. “Good boy. That’s what you do best, isn’t it, cupcake? Give it up for me like that and come.”

In the morning, he’d woken up sore and painfully hard and they’d played with each other above the sheets until Bucky growled: “Steve, shit. Come on, cupcake. Stop holding out on me. Come.”

And he had, jesus had he. Over the three years they were together, no matter how bad things went, no matter how much they fought, Bucky could always overpower him with a firm squeeze of his dick or a hard slap on the ass and then, for a few minutes at least, an hour, Steve would forget what the fuck they were fighting about.

The world frustrated Bucky. Most people did, too. He wasn’t a violent man by any means, but he was the unhappiest man Steve had ever met.

And Steve, god help him, he’d loved Bucky beyond reason, practically from the first moment they met, even though those doubts in his head never faded. Somewhere, some part of him, knew that what they had together wasn’t enough.

“I love you,” he’d said to Buck at the end, shoving the words out through tears. “I love you, baby, but you hate yourself too goddamn much for this to ever really work.”

Buck’s eyes had found his, the blue burned down to ash. “Yeah,” he’d said sadly. “But I don’t hate you.”

They’d made love one last time, which had been a monumental mistake, because instead of walking away steel in his certainty, Steve had gotten into a taxi with his last suitcase with a tenderness in his heart that he’d forgotten, that the past, unhappy months had almost conspired to erase.

I love you, Bucky had written in a card that arrived the following week, a harbinger of all the ones that came after. I know I’m an asshole and a bastard and you did the right thing by leaving. You did. Weirdly, your good fucking sense just makes me love you more.

Slowly, slowly, Bucky had poured out the vinegar of his heart into Hallmarks, a hundred of them. And in time, the last rebar in Steve’s resolve had weakened, and he’d picked up a pen and written back.

A card with the skyline. I miss you.

Another with the moon, a scattering of stars. I can’t help it, Buck. I’ve tried to, believe me, but I can’t. I still love you, too.

Fireworks outlined in glitter, a fervent three AM scrawl: You’re the only person who’s ever made me feel like this.

“Dude,” Sam had said when he came into work in a serious mope. “I get that you guys had a thing, but it’s been over for like months now. You need to get over that shit.”

But it wasn’t really over, which was the precisely the problem, but he couldn’t quite tell Sam that, didn’t know how to put all the messy shit he was feeling into actual, not-for-Bucky words. So when Sam had suggested a blind date, a set-up with some guy he’d met at the gym, Steve had said yes because it was easier than explaining a no, and--

And in one night, he’d met someone that he clicked with right away at different level that just let’s fuck and then, what the hey, tossed it away when the biggest bad decision of his life had rolled in and upped the ante to and idiot that he was, he’d said yes.

And now, here he was in a bar seven years later, no ring on his finger and a badly-bruised heart and here was the road not taken, Tony, Mr. What Might Have Been, gaping at him like he had a hole in his head.

There are times, Steve thought, when every mistake you’ve ever made becomes crystal clear.

What a rare thing, then, to be granted--by god, the universe, and a dating app--a second fucking chance.

“So,” he said, tugging out a stool, “ah, Tony. You think I could get a drink?”

Tony stared at him a second longer and then threw back his head and laughed, a big wild thing that made Steve’s shoulders relax and something deep in his gut say, again: yes.

Tony signaled for the waiter, grinning. “Hell yes, man. Let’s make it two.”

#stony #stucky #wintershield #world's worst blind date

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radmarvels · 6 years

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five times eddie said “i love you too” and the one time he couldn't ( pt. 1 )

richie tozier and eddie kaspbrak are a dynamic duo. a friendship dynamic duo. richie wants to change that, well... the friendship part.

richie forced stanley to help him create a plan to confess to eds.

"i hate you deeply but i want you happy."

"love you too stanny!"

stan told richie that he should take eddie to see a movie at the aladdin.

"who's paying for that?"

"you dipshit!"

richie had dug all around his dirty house to find any sort of money to use for this little date. luckily he had found twenty bucks. thank god!

now the hard part comes. doing the actual act of asking eddie kaspbrak, poor germaphobic eddie.

richie jumped on his rusty bike, peddling faster than he ever has in his life. the sky hadn't gotten completely dark yet, with it being only 6:37pm. the streets were quiet. well. besides richies harsh breathing.

"call me eddie spaghetti!" he thought to himself as he wheezed going up the last steep hill to get the short boy.

richie jumped off his bike running to the door, knocking too many times to deem appropriate.

"eddie! go get the door!" the sweet (disgusting) sound of ms. kaspbraks voice was heard through the window. richies heart was beating rapidly in his chest. he was thinking of all the horrible possibilities. what if he says no? what if he laughs in his face?

"richie you look like you just ran a fucking marathon? are you okay?" eddies concerned laced voice floated through richies ears.

"you have to go to the movies with me, or...or", richie struggled with his words, "i'll tell bill that you had a crush on him in first grade." richie visibly winced when eddies opened wider than he even thought was possible.

"what the fuck richie? if you wanted to go to the movies you could have simply asked. i would go with you." eddie huffed out, rolling his eyes.

"just let me get dressed first."

richie absolutely did not think this far ahead. when eddie asked what movie they were seeing his mind literally collapsed. the movie didn't matter that much anyways. the confession was more important. so richie picked the first movie in his sights then grabbed eddies wrist, dragging him in (with lots of protest).

"let go of me jackass i can walk perfectly fine! have you even washed your hands? you're disgusting, set me free."

when they finally got seated in the theater eddie looked sideways at richie. richie looked like he had seen a ghost for christ sake! his face was pale, red cheeks, fidgety eyes, and shaky hands.

"richie, tell me the truth. what's wrong? you've been acting super fucking weird these past couple da-"

"i like you and i don't know how to tell you. i like you, like a l-lot and i don't know how to express this and i tried to plan a whole a date but i kinda dragged you out here with me and i'm sorry but yeah."

richie opened his eyes facing eddie after interrupting him. eddies face was as red as his signature shorts. his lips parted in complete shock.

"s-shit man you...for someone who says they cant express it, you sure did express it." eddie said with a voice crack.

"i like you too."

richie swears to this day that his neck snapped when he looked up at eddie.

"well...i love you." richie stated as if it were a competition.

"i love you too."

they looked at each other and started laughing. the old people in the front 'shushing' them but they didn't care. richie got what he wanted and that's all he really cared about.

they were 13.

II.

richie tozier and his boyfriend of two years are now 15, and in their sophomore year. they matured in different ways.

richies face matured. he had cheekbones now, still as skinny as ever. he got rid of his giant, dirty glasses too. still made inappropriate jokes at unnecessary times.

eddie kaspbrak did not grow an inch. still 5ft and stuck. his voice did not change either. sure he was sad about this, but richie still loved him so why should it matter. he stopped wearing his red shorts (richie is deeply wounded), and wears skinny jeans. he rarely wears his own shirts, they always belong to either mike or richie. the two people he's closest with.

eddie, currently in pre-ap english, was tapping his pen against the table making that unbearable 'tap tap tap' noise. he wanted to leave the class before james even attempts to talk to him. james is like richie but ten times more annoying and not as cute. he always bothers eddie and eddie is NOT here for it at all.

the bell finally rung and eddie took as large of steps as he could with his small legs before, sadly, james grabbed his arm.

"my eddie! how ya' been dude. it's like you're avoiding me."

"because i am dipshit, let me go." eddie practically growled, ripping his arm out of james hand and swiftly turning around.

eddie stomped out of school pissed. "what the fuck is wrong with james!" eddie thought to himself as he approached his friends.

"damn eddie! you look pissed. what's wrong dude?" beverly asked concerned.

"james wont leave me alone and i dont know why! i yell at him and i call him shitty names but he refuses to let me breathe!" eddie said all in one breath.

"who's james?" richie asked giving his boyfriend a kiss on the cheek. eddie instantly melted.

"a dipshit."

"i'll beat him up for you!"

"oh hush loser." eddie rolled his eyes. richie? beating someone up? funny.

"i will do it because i love you eddie spaghetti! i will fight for your honor!" richie said in a shitty accent from god knows where.

and that phrase always makes eddies heart a little happier. i love you. three simple words followed by four simple words from eddie.

"i love you too and don't call me that."

—

hey guys, this was in my wattpad drafts so i was like “maybe i should just post it on tumblr.”. so here i am hello. don’t hate me for this, i know it’s bad.

#my first kinda fanfic #reddie #reddie fanfic #reddie fanfics #eddie kaspbrak #richie tozier

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