Steve and Nancy's relationship didn't work out because they had different wants and needs so when Steve starts dating Eddie he tries really hard not to have wants and needs of his own. Knowing that Eddie didn't reschedule Hellfire for Lucas doesn't help with this.
He goes to a few metal concerts even though he always gets migraines the next day from the volume, he lets Eddie talks about all kinds of nerd stuff even if it makes him feel stupid when he can't keep up.
It's not even like he's dragging Steve into things that are actively detrimental to him all that often. Just a couple activities things a week. But Steve also feels the need to hide some of his own interests, knowing that Eddie hates them.
Not that he doesn't love being around Eddie, but now that they're dating he's hardly not around, and it's hard to find time to keep up on the teams that Steve roots for. But it's... it's fine. He's happy with Eddie, so he can make the sacrifice to hide these parts of himself. It's fine.
Eddie doesn't realize this is going on because he's aware that he's pushing Steve out of his comfort zone, what he isn't aware of is how Steve far out of his comfort zone he really is, and how he doesn't want to bother Eddie with it, afraid they'll break up over it.
Then he slips up, just a little bit, when Eddie invites him to a concert on the same day he plans on watching a game. This isn't even the first time this has happened, but Eddie usually gives him more of a heads up for this kind of thing. He thought he was close enough to the date that he wouldn't have to worry about it getting disrupted, and it was a pretty big game, so his disappointment is higher than usual.
Eddie is talking about a metal band and is going on a small ramble explaining the context of where they sit in the metal scene.
"And they have a concert in Indy tomorrow," he grins, "and I really want to take you."
"Oh, I was gonna... Yeah, we can do that."
"You were gonna what?"
"It doesn't matter. It's stupid."
"Steve, it's not a big deal. It's not like I'm taking you to a Dio concert. These guys are actually pretty small and relatively local. I'm sure we could catch another one, it would just be kind of down the road."
"Eddie it's fine. We can go to your concert. Whatever you want."
Eddie gives him a look. "I don't want it to be 'my concert.' If you wouldn't enjoy it, I wouldn't want to just be dragging you with me. And I don't want it to be 'fine' I want it to be enjoyable!"
"I enjoy spending time with you."
"Ok, so what were you going to do tomorrow?"
"It doesn't matter."
"Obviously it does!"
They're fighting and this was exactly what Steve was worried about. If Steve could have just gotten over himself, cut the bullshit, they wouldn't be fighting right now.
"Eddie, it really doesn't. Can we just go to the concert and forget about this?"
"No. If you don't want to go, you don't have to."
"If I don't go, will you go without me?"
"Unless you don't want me to."
"I want to go with you, wherever."
"Ok, you know what, I just remembered I actually have to help Wayne with something on tomorrow."
"No you don't. Look, I wasn't gonna do anything. Can we please just go to this concert you want to go to?"
"Look, I have to go to school. I'm already over 2 hours late." With that, he's out the door.
↞⬡+¤+⬡↠
Steve's not sure what time the concert was even meant to be at, but if he could just get a hold of Eddie and convince him he wants to go, maybe they won't miss it. It's already fairly well into the afternoon and he hasn't heard from Eddie all day.
The first few times he calls, there's no answer, but when he finally gets an answer it's Wayne that picks up.
"You almost missed me," he says. "Make it quick, I gotta to get to work."
"Is Eddie there?"
"Nah, he should be in Indy by now. Did he not tell you? There's some concert down there."
"Yeah, I, uh... Thank you Mr. Munson."
So Eddie went by himself even though Steve told him he wanted to come, and he'd pretended that he didn't even want to go.
Steve watches his game that night, kind of miserable and guilty. He debated not watching it, almost as a point of honor, since he lied to Eddie and told him that he didn't really have anything planned today. They'd both lied about their plans last night and Steve is so ready for Eddie to come back and say that he had a much better time without Steve and it's time they go they're separate ways.
His team loses and he falls asleep on the couch soon after, the tv still playing in the background.
He wakes up in the morning to a knock at the door. Eddie stands on the other side.
"Hey, baby. Did I wake you up?"
"Um... yeah." He wants to bring up what happened yesterday, that Eddie went without him, but he's afraid it will just make things worse. He obviously wanted to go without him if he did so, and bringing it up might just start an argument about how Eddie doesn't need Steve's permission to do things (and he doesn't) reinforcing why he didn't want Steve to come in the first place. He wants to stay with Eddie forever and he's worried the relationship is starting to fall apart. "It's fine. I should be up by now anyway."
Eddie hums almost suspiciously. "Can I come in?"
"Of course." He moves out of the way.
"'Whatever I want,' huh?" he asks, as he walks through the doorway.
"What?"
"Nothing. We'll talk about it in a minute. A few things first. Come on." He drags Steve over to the couch. "So what did you do yesterday?"
"Tried getting a hold of you, mostly."
Eddie chuckles nervously. "Sorry. But did you do whatever it was you planned on doing before?" Steve tenses just a little bit. Is Eddie going to accuse him of choosing baseball over their relationship? He kind of almost did when he first opened his mouth after Eddie first suggest the concert. Is he going to call him out for that. "Relax baby, you don't even need to tell me what it was, as long as whatever it was you were doing wasn't a person."
"No, never!"
"I know, Stevie. I know you're history; I know you would never do that. So I'm not upset. So did you carry out your plans, whatever they were?"
"Yeah. It was disappointing."
"Well, I'm glad you did what you wanted anyway. And since you were busy and couldn't come to the concert, I went and brought you back a tape." He pulls a cassette tape out of his pocket. "You obviously weren't going to admit you didn't want to go, but I still wanted to share this with you, so here. This is yours."
Eddie's more attentive to when Steve seems hesitant to do something after that. Eventually Steve gets comfortable enough to bring up where his reservations stand regarding a lot of these things. Eddie switches up how he talks about his interests, trying to make it more coherent and gets Steve earplugs for concerts. He encourages Steve to talk about his own interests, even when Eddie doesn't fully get the appeal himself. He can go a little outside of his comfort zone too. For Steve, it's always worth it.
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It's Mumbo who approaches Doc. His suit is askew, and he's loosened his tie, which is generally a very bad sign. Mumbo, for all he's a very poorly put-together person, normally leaves his clothes well put-together unless things have somehow gone very wrong indeed.
"Tell me, Doc," Mumbo says. "After the whole Easter Egg thing that I heard about--"
"I was very normal, comparatively!" Doc protests. "I was very, very normal!"
Mumbo pauses. "You know, I left town, so I can't dispute that."
Doc nods vigorously. "You can't dispute it at all. And, eh, Ren, if you're going to yell about him, he didn't have any eggs. He was briefly False's pet dog, though. I think it, eh, traumatized him."
Mumbo looks faintly dizzy. "Right. That. How did we solve that again?"
"That was all Cleo and Jevin," Doc says. "I know Cub has some of the surviving remnants in his museum. Why do you ask? Oh no, don't tell me you secretly still have one of the babies! What if it's lost and alone?"
"No, no, nothing like that! It's just that you dropped several thousand dragon eggs on Grian's base, is all."
Doc smirks. "A cunning revenge--"
"You covered Grian's base. In eggs," Mumbo says, very slowly, as though Doc might be particularly stupid. Doc stares back.
"Yeah. It's karmic revenge for the chickens," Doc says back, equally slowly.
"Doc I wasn't there but remind me how Grian reacted last time to the eggs," Mumbo says.
Doc thinks about it for a moment.
Doc's eyes widen.
"Mumbo, please tell me Grian is not--"
"The good news is that I think the server would crash if they hatched," Mumbo says mildly. "The bad news is that I'm his neighbor, and I very much want to kill you now."
"You're joking," Doc says, struck suddenly with the vision of what it would be like to live next to a Grian who is attempting to get broody over thousands of dragon eggs at once.
"Die," Mumbo says, and pulls out an end crystal. Doc doesn't even move. He deserves this one.
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