to everyone else in the room
written for week 2 of the @steddiemicrofic july challenge
prompt: years | wc: 444 | rated: T | tags: post Vecna, Eddie lives but no one knows, Steve refuses to give up hope despite everything, second chances, open/ambiguous ending | also on ao3
To everyone else in the room, he’s just a guy on a stage. To Eddie, he is a harsh reminder of the reality he’s spent years trying to forget. A memory he never completely managed to erase, now suddenly breaking free from where it’s been locked away. Flooding him all at once with the sorrow and pain of another lifetime he never got to fully live.
“Hey, uh,” the guy says and clears his throat. “This is a song about missing something you never really had.”
On the first strum of his guitar, his eyes fall shut, like maybe it’s easier for him to pretend that he’s alone in the room. And then he sings, lips caressing the mic as they spill bittersweet words that feel like they were taken straight from Eddie’s own heavy heart.
It's unfair how at ease he looks despite the melancholy he carries through the melody he plays, the softness of his features clashing so violently with the image that's been imprinted on Eddie’s mind.
Because the last time Eddie saw him, he was dressed for war. With deep worry lines on his face, wearing a scatter of barely healed scars and bruises from earlier battles like medals of dishonour, determined to fight and win no matter the cost.
The last time he heard his voice, it almost got lost in the ringing echo of another, choked-up and trembling with anger, before it faded into a pleading whisper against his ear.
‘Stay with me,' he'd begged but Eddie couldn’t make that promise.
Not because he didn’t want to but because they wouldn’t let him. Patched him up and shipped him off to bumfuck nowhere. New identity, new start, new chance at life – that’s what they promised him in return for his silence.
But here he is, Steve, and it feels like not a day has passed since they last stood across from each other, despite the years so clearly visible on both their faces. One singing about loss, the other finding himself again after all this time drifting through a life that wasn’t his.
The song ends on a when not an if, like a happy ending is inevitable.
And finally, their eyes meet.
To everyone else in the room, the guy smiling back at him is just one in a crowd of many. To Steve, he’s the missing piece to a life that never felt complete without.
There he is, Eddie, with tears in his eyes but alive. Just like Steve never gave up believing he was.
And now that he’s finally found him, he won’t let him slip through his fingers again.
