Work Text:
Steve still thinks about Eddie every single day.
It’s hard not to really, since they were together as dumb teenagers who thought the world was so easy and they planned the rest of their lives out together like it was just a given.
And it was easy at the time, like first loves are supposed to be.
He’d go to school, meet up with his boyfriend in between classes to makeout under the bleachers, play basketball after school, see his boyfriend again once Hellfire Club was finished, and follow him home so they could both cuddle up on the couch in his trailer.
They had a routine and everything was so easy between them.
Beautiful promises just flowed freely between them like drips of sweet honey.
“I’m going to mate with you as soon as we graduate, baby. I’ll get a real job and we’ll move in together, even if it’s just a tiny apartment. You’ll never have to see your parents again, Stevie. It will just be you and me… and our pups when we’re ready to have them,” Eddie had whispered in his ear damn near every night.
It caused him to smile. It gave him hope. It made him feel like there was a future for them.
“I can’t wait to be yours,” Steve had always replied.
He longed for a happy life with Eddie and their unborn pups, confident that things would work out simply because they both wanted it so much.
Steve believed all of it in a way that someone who’s never really been loved before believes anything good they’re told. There was only ever proof that Eddie loved him and cherished him, so that’s what he knew.
But then he disappeared completely.
One day, Eddie just didn’t come to school.
Steve worried. He fretted all day long until he was sick to his stomach about it.
As much as Eddie could be a bit of a slacker when it came to schoolwork, he didn’t miss class anymore. Not when this was the year he was going to graduate so they could leave Hawkins together. No, Steve had a terrible feeling that something was wrong.
So he skipped basketball practice that day, told Tommy he was sick, and he booked it over to Eddie’s trailer. He was so anxious, catastrophizing about every worst case scenario on the drive across town. Steve was fully prepared to burst in and find his boyfriend, his alpha, on the floor dead.
Instead, he found nothing.
The door was locked. The curtains were pulled shut. The cars were gone.
It was empty. Just a simple ‘For Sale’ sign posted on a stake in front of the trailer.
The neighbors he asked said they moved away in a hurry, leaving no note behind. All they knew was that the Munsons had left and they had no intention of returning to Hawkins any time soon.
That was the day Steve’s heart broke into a million tiny pieces. He left them all scattered on the stoop, praying that Eddie would find them and come home to him… that he would remember his beloved omega and all the promises he made.
But that was years ago.
Now, Steve only thinks about Eddie every single day. He only sees him in every beautiful sunset and he only hears him in every love song on the radio. There isn’t a moment of peace where Steve doesn’t remember how happy they were once.
He doesn’t move on, but he does give up.
His automatic response to his parents’ requests to arrange a mating for him has always been, “Never.” Firm. Unyielding. Set in stone.
There was no reason to entertain such a ridiculous notion when he had a perfectly good alpha.
As time slowly passes and Steve realizes that Eddie’s truly not coming back, that he’s going to be alone for the rest of his life and still holding onto a one-sided love… his “Never,” changes to “No,” which crumbles into a pathetic, “Okay.”
The Harringtons are ecstatic by his reluctant acceptance and they begin to work on finding him a suitable mate immediately. They tell him that his alpha must be smart, wealthy, educated, and from a prominent family. His parents are over the moon about his prospects.
Steve doesn’t care at all.
He doesn’t care about any of it, but if it makes them happy, he’ll comply. He’ll show up to a formal dinner and allow his parents to introduce him to Henry. He knows how to put on a fake smile, ask the right questions, and answer The Creels’ in return.
By the end of the night, they’re officially courting.
The wedding date is set for the next month. After all, there’s no reason to wait once it’s all announced in the papers. They only need to wait long enough for propriety sake and then they’re golden.
He doesn’t even pick out his own dress. His mother has him measured by a seamstress and she orders him one. This isn’t about what he wants. Not at all. If it was, Steve would be marrying the love of his life, not Henry.
Henry with his stupidly perfect golden blonde hair and serpentine smile. He’s someone’s ideal alpha, but he’s certainly not Steve’s.
The guy is mildly off-putting and more than a little creepy. And while he’s brought Steve flowers and wrote him poems as part of their courting, they’re not full of love or even the barest hints of affection. There’s no romance or love between them.
It’s all compulsory.
Just like this wedding.
Steve almost faked being sick that morning, but his mother was pulling him out of bed and rushing him off to the chapel before he could even try to call off the ceremony. She shoved him into an uncomfortable dress that made it hard to breathe, painted him in colors that made his own face unfamiliar to him, and sprayed him with every possible flowery perfume.
When he looks in the mirror, he doesn’t recognize himself.
There’s no happiness there. No remnants to be found of the omega he once was. And the only thing that stops him from crying is the knowledge that his mother will be pissed if she has to fix his makeup.
Steve wants to go back to bed.
He takes one last glance at the poofy dress that makes him look more like a cupcake than a human being and resigns himself to his fate.
Walking down the aisle feels more like a funeral procession, his bottom lip trembling as he realizes exactly how far this stupid ordeal has gone. It feels like he’s marching towards the guillotine instead of the altar. Henry stands there at the end with a smile, his ever delighted executioner.
Steve doesn’t want this.
“Beloved friends and family, we have gathered here today to join these two people, Henry Victor Creel and Steven Joseph Harrington, in holy matrimony and witness their mating bites.”
He shouldn’t do this.
“Love is a sacred thing. It binds us together and makes us whole. No love is more sacred than that of an alpha and an omega who’ve committed their lives to one another.”
He can’t breathe.
“Now, before we begin, is there anyone here who has a reason that these two wonderful people should not be bonded together on this day?”
He can’t—
“I object!”
Steve squeezes his eyes shut to try and block out the terrifyingly accurate figment of his vivid imagination. Eddie’s voice was so clear. It was a little deeper, a little louder, than he’s ever heard it, but it felt so real.
He wants it to be real.
“Young man? You have an objection? Surely you’re mistaken.”
Steve opens his eyes, looking around the chapel until he finally sees him towards the back.
There in the flesh. The most beautiful sight Steve’s ever beheld.
Eddie.
His alpha.
Eddie is here in this gaudy chapel. The love of his life, standing halfway down the aisle, dressed in an ill-fitting tux, and panting like he’s been running for quite some time.
“Not in this fucking lifetime. Actually, not in any of them. Steve is mine and I won’t be giving him up to some sleazebag,” Eddie announces as he sprints the rest of the way to the end of the aisle where Steve and Henry are positioned.
Steve drops the bouquet of flowers in his hands from the shock.
The alpha he’s been longing for drops to one knee in front of him and grabs his hands instead, holding them tightly and steadying the trembling in them so lovingly.
Eddie gives him a sheepish smile and says, “Please listen before you tell me to fuck off. I know you have every right to hate me still and I’d understand if you do, but don’t marry Henry. Run away with me instead, sweetheart.”
He’s lost for words, his brain still catching up to the fact that his ex just showed up for the first time in two years without a word of hello, crashing his wedding and asking Steve to hear him out.
It all feels like a hazy dream.
“I don’t…” Steve sniffs as he feels himself prepare to cry. “You left me.”
Eddie winces, but he rifles through his pockets until he finds a wrinkled up piece of paper and holds it out to him. Steve accepts it, unsure what he’s looking at.
“I only left because I was young and terrified of your parents. They threatened to send me to jail for selling drugs if I didn’t break things off with you immediately. And if I told you what happened, they were going to send you away instead,” he explains, gesturing towards the note written in Steve’s father’s handwriting that says exactly that.
His heart pounds hard in his chest and he glances towards his parents who are sitting in the front pew, irate beyond belief with them, but still scared that they’ll follow through on their threat even now.
“But, Eddie, they’ll—”
Eddie grins this time, cutting him off with a quick shake of his head.
“No, no they won’t. Statute of limitations on distribution of drugs in Indiana is two years. I already confessed to my crimes last week and cleared my record. I was coming back for you, baby. I was always going to come back to my home… my mate.”
The alpha reaches into his jacket and pulls out a velvet box, opening it so Steve can see the ring inside. It’s a simple gold band with a single humble diamond in the middle. Nothing like the tacky, ostentatious gem Henry had burdened Steve’s hand with as he tried to buy his love.
He thinks it’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen.
“Steven Joseph Harrington, I still love you more than anything in this world and I always will. I intend to fulfill every single promise I ever made to you— a house full of pups and a future filled with happiness. Will you do me the honor of marrying me and becoming my mate?”
Steve actually starts to cry this time, overwhelmed by the fact that the last two years of his life have been utter hell because of his parents. He is still loved by Eddie and he’ll be damned if he doesn't get the life he was promised because of them.
“Of course I will. I love you and I’ve never stopped loving you. Take me far away from here, Eddie, and make me yours,” Steve begs him, ripping off his veil and jumping into his alpha’s waiting arms as soon as the ring is placed on his finger.
Giggling the whole way like lovestruck teenagers, they make it as far as Eddie’s van before they exchange mating bites then and there in the parking lot. Impropriety and polite society be damned.
They don't need a ceremony or a minister to tell them they’re married.
They just need each other and the promises they made so long ago.