My Antlantis, We Fall ~STEDDIE~

"What do you think, Eddie?"

For a few days after the kiss, neither Steve nor Eddie made any move to speak to each other. They were both stuck in their own little confused worlds, in their own heads, trying to make sense of what happened two nights ago. Eddie missed a Hellfire campaign afterschool, he made an excuse that he was sick and had to go home early, but Mike and Dustin had some sort of inkling that he was lying. Instead he went up to the parking lot and the field where it happened.

He parked in the exact parking spot that he did and sat in the backseat where he'd sat. But this time, he didn't have Steve next to him. He laid down in the backseat and rested his head against the armrest. For twenty years he'd tried to stop himself from overthinking, it never worked.

It was somehow engrained in Eddie's mind that Steve wasn't in the right headspace when he kissed him. He was drunk, or high, or the worst case- he felt pressured to because he knew Eddie liked him. He wasn't sure why he tended to deny love, or any version it. Any way someone could possibly show it, he wrote it off as just a one-off thing. He should have been jumping up and down at the fact that Steve fucking Harrington had kissed him.

And for a while, he did.

Steve left a while after it happened, after they engaged in a full conversation about the Outsiders. Perhaps they just needed someone to kiss, and there were no mutual feelings beyond it. A growing need to be held, and to be loved. Eddie didn't dare tell Steve that it was his first kiss, as he had convinced himself that Steve would've laughed his ass off or rolled his eyes.

He felt so guilty.

If he had any regular chance at being even friends with Steve, it was gone now. He'd fucked it up. He didn't want to admit it to himself, but he'd gotten the dreadful feeling that he had. It was a familiar feeling, he'd felt it many times before. This one seemed to be loaded. This was years of unrequited pining to now be faced. Years of his parents telling him that he'd grow out of it. His parents kicking him out when they too realized that he wasn't growing out of it. Swim meets, basketball games, the lunchroom, and underneath the school bleachers. Where he could hear Steve kissing Nancy and how he silently wished he could take Nancy's place.

****

In junior year, when Eddie didn't have the money to buy the sets of D&D characters, he would handmake and hand paint them in the art classroom. That was the only teacher he'd gotten relatively close with. Ms. Culven, she would sometimes even make up her own characters and sculpt them for Eddie. She was older, her hair was gray and she always wore it in a low bun. Her face was wrinkly, but her hands could execute such exquisite detail in all of her pottery and sculptures.

He learned how to sculpt, glaze, and Culven even taught Eddie how to put his own characters in the kiln. Normally, students weren't allowed in the kiln room, but Culven knew that Eddie would come into her room when she wasn't there, and she wanted to make sure he knew how to get them in there. One particular Monday, Eddie wore a plain black short sleeve shirt and black textured pants. He sat across from Culven with a headless Warduke the Fighter clutched in his hands. He'd spent three weeks working out the details and comparing the picture in his book to the clay he'd sculpted. He rotated the mini player in his left hand and looked over to Culven, who was sculpting Warduke's sword, as Eddie had broken his attempt multiple times.

"How are you going to present this one?" Culven asked, looking up at Eddie. Eddie thought about it for a moment, smiling as he came up with an idea for the campaign on the spot.

"You're almost at the end. Through battle after battle you've fought and you've won," He began, starting to get into his Dungeon Master persona. "In the mist and through the thick wall of dust you see one more standing," He picks up the figure from the table and holds it in front of Culven. "With ears on either side of his helmet and a skull imprinted in his shield," He pauses. "Warduke, the Fighter." Culven nodded, amused. "Of course he'll have a head, but you know." Eddie smiled as he grabbed the point chisel and got working on the complexities of the armor Warduke was wearing.