Actions

Work Header

Rating:
Archive Warning:
Category:
Fandom:
Relationship:
Characters:
Additional Tags:
Language:
English
Series:
Part 2 of the most remarkable thing, and other b-sides and rarities
Collections:
Be Steddie My Heart - completed, fics that make me feral, sTranger things 😉, Every Steddie fic I’ve read so far, Steddie fics that made my cry and throw up, i am kicking my feet irl, Steddie because Eddie is alive, !! all the faves, screaming. crying. shitting myself., It’s RE-Read Season, very good steddie fics, TDH Stranger Things
Stats:
Published:
2022-08-20
Completed:
2022-08-20
Words:
3,850
Chapters:
2/2
Comments:
608
Kudos:
6,532
Bookmarks:
625
Hits:
42,334

frozen with joy right where i stand

Summary:

It’s 2004, Boy with a Bat has gone double platinum, and Eddie and Steve go to the Grammy’s. (a most remarkable thing timestamp)

Notes:

- in honor of some anon asks on my tumbles + most remarkable thing hitting 10k kudos (i’m sobbing), here is a brief timestamp of the boys at the ‘04 grammy’s; plays fast + loose with the order of events at said grammy’s, as well as with the IRL winners (apologies to outkast)
- once again, title from the mountain goats’s “going to georgia”

(See the end of the work for other works inspired by this one.)

Chapter 1: February 2004

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

When Eddie’s stylist had asked them what kind of looks they’d wanted for the Grammy’s, Steve had shrugged: he just wanted to look nice next to Eddie, so a simple suit, probably, maybe some cool shoes. Eddie and Sherri had looked at him and then each other, and the next thing he knew it was the day of and he was wearing two different types of brownish plaid and a cream colored shirt Sherri insisted he wear open practically to his navel while Eddie clapped in glee nearby and chanted, “Sternum bush! Sternum bush!”

Conversely, Eddie had asked to look like he was “loaded for bear,” tossing a wink to Steve who’d rolled his eyes and said, “Please, I’m an otter at best.”

“You’re both twinks to me,” Sherri had said and launched a pair of leather pants at Eddie’s head.

Eddie looked fucking good, though, Steve thought, as he followed behind him and the band on the red carpet (which he was vaguely disappointed to discover was actually teal at this particular event). He’d gone with the leather pants, as well as a sheer frilly blouse that probably didn’t look out of place in Prince’s closet and nothing under it to show off his tattoos and scars. He’d paired it with a velvet smoking jacket in a red that complimented Steve’s plaid, and a pair of heeled boots that put him a few inches taller than Steve. He’d pulled his hair into a loose topknot and, all and all, it was really doing it for Steve. 

He tried to spend the walk through reporters and cameras tucked into Eddie’s shadow, but this was the first big event he’d gone with to him and everyone wanted a piece of them, an openly gay couple at the 46th Annual Grammy Awards. Eddie was always careful about him getting photographed when they were out together — he knew it made him uncomfortable, to be so in the public eye — but this was one night when Steve was ready and prepared for it, if a little awkward when it came to the step and repeat. Robin and Madchen had come over the weekend before and made him practice his poses as they laughed hysterically at him.

This was an important night for Eddie, for the band, and even for Steve himself. Just last July, two days out from heading to Indiana to celebrate Terry’s first birthday, Eddie had sat him down in his recording studio in Seattle and played him the complete Boy with a Bat for the first time. It was, he’d told him, as much Steve’s album as it was Eddie’s, a goodbye and a love story and an open wound finally healing after all these years. It was a letter from Eddie to Steve, one that he finally knew was meant for him and no one else, one that he was happy to read again and again and again until the pages grew soft and brittle and he had the words memorized.

Eddie had smoked a blunt in the backyard while Steve listened in the studio, called Robin and shot the shit for an hour — he couldn’t be in the house as, quote, this album was his breast bone cracked wide upon and Steve listening to it was akin to him bearing witness to the bleeding mass of his heart.

Perhaps a tad overdramatic, as was his wont, but it wasn’t wrong. It had felt like that, to Steve, like he was seeing that and opening his own chest in turn, that first time and every time after. It was intimate and painful and beautiful, and he’d blushed to hear his own laughter on “Memphis, Indiana” as the Party argued and wept to hear Hopper’s voice one last time among the rest of their whispering ones on the instrumental “7.20 AM”. He’d rolled his eyes through “Boy with a Bat,” even if he loved every single moment of it, and bit his lip until it bled during “A Place to Keep Warm.” Eddie had written a whole ballad about fucking Steve, and he was taking it to the goddamn grave that it turned him on so badly he almost rubbed one out at the mixing table.Then, he had started crying again at “To Be In Hell With You” and didn’t stop until the final strains of “Tell the Wolves I’m Home” faded out.

He’d gone to the garden after, where Eddie was lying on his back and staring at the clouds. Steve had laid down beside him and reached out to take his hand.

“I loved it,” he’d told him, before he could ask. “I love you. Thank you.”

Eddie had rolled over on his side, their hands still interlocked. “What for?”

“For loving me,” Steve had said. “For loving us. For being you. For never giving up on me. For never giving up.”

“Baby,” he’d said, “I’d do it all a hundred times, the same way, if it meant being right here with you.”

The album had dropped on Steve’s birthday three weeks later, for which Eddie was mercilessly mocked by the Party, and it had gone platinum by the end of October, just before the nominations were announced, then double platinum  in January, and Eddie had practically been in shock in the weeks since. He’d only snapped out of it when Sherri had come round that morning with their outfits pressed and ready; Steve assumed the whole thing had finally become real when the leather pants had slapped him in the face.

After one last round of posing for the photographers, Eddie led Steve to their seats. When they arrived, Eddie was overjoyed to discover who was sitting behind them: the whole of Metallica were arrayed in their seats, grinning and waving at Eddie as they approached. "St Anger"  was up for Best Metal Performance that night, and Eddie quickly engaged his heroes about it while they congratulated him on his own nominations.

The Shotguns were up for four categories that night — the titular song of the album was nominated for Best Rock Performance By A Duo Or Group and Best Short Form Music Video, while “Memphis, Indiana” was up for Record of the Year and the whole album for, of course, Album of the Year — and they had a performance to boot. That wasn’t until a little later in the show, so they settled in for the opening performance, quietly chatting while the lights began to dim and Prince and Beyonce emerged to kick the whole thing off.

Steve wasn’t sure what he was expecting, when Eddie asked him to come. Most of the kids had gone, over the years, when he’d been invited or nominated in the past — he was still threatening to bring Joyce, and Steve knew she was flattered and actually considering it, for all that she rolled her eyes — and both Max and El, two of the toughest customers among them, had had great times when they’d gone. He knew he’d have a good time, if only because he was there with Eddie, but he did find himself really getting into it and enjoying it.

Plus, he fucking loved Beyonce. He wondered if Eddie could introduce them.

The first of the Shotguns’ nominations came around at the beginning — the music video — but Johnny Cash’s cover of “Hurt” took the award home and he wasn’t too bent out of shape about it. Metallica won their category shortly after, and Eddie leapt up to exchange a quick hug with the drummer on their way to the stage.

“I mean, I don’t know why I’m acting surprised,” he whispered into Steve’s ear. “They had that shit in the bag.”

They sat through more performances and speeches, as Eddie’s last nominations were at the end of the show, and about three-quarters of the way through, Eddie and the band slipped away to get ready for their performance. One of the Metallica guys leaned forward and made conversation with Steve during any lull in the action; it was probably because they liked Eddie and less that they wanted to know about the ins and outs of being a guidance counselor and basketball coach at a Chicago high school but the guy — James, he thought — was kind enough to let him talk his ear off.

One more speech and then the lights were changing, going dark, before a single spotlight lit up Eddie, seemingly alone on stage with the grandchild of his baby, another Warlock, this time in a purple so dark it looked black. He smirked, sidled up to his mic, and took a deep breath. 

“Swing, batter, batter,” he said and, with a great crashing noise, the stage lit up and the Shotguns burst into action as they performed “Boy with a Bat.” Someone from Metallica kicked his chair and Steve fought the urge to cover his own face. He loved watching Eddie perform, it was one of his favorite fucking things, but Jesus was it weird to know without a shadow of a doubt that the song he was performing was about him — and that the rest of the world knew too.

At least it wasn’t the sex song, he thought. He probably would’ve spontaneously combusted if it had been the sex song.

The performance blew the roof off the place, in Steve’s opinion, and Eddie rushed off stage after, no time to get back to his seat before the presenters for the next category came out. It was the second of the Shotguns’ nominations, too, Best Rock Performance By Duo Or Group, presented by none other than the man Eddie had compared Steve to a lifetime ago.

Springsteen and Zevon won, though, Springsteen walking to the stage alone and delivering a heartfelt speech that made Steve feel a little raw, himself well acquainted with loss. It was a well-deserved win, he knew; still, he hoped Eddie had at least gotten to shake Ozzy’s hand backstage. They’d met during rehearsals earlier in the week, and Eddie had said he was worried he’d fully black out on stage if he’d won the category.

Eventually, Eddie and the band returned to their seats, Eddie grabbing Steve’s hand to lay a quick kiss on it. He was sweaty and handsome and Steve hissed, “I hate you.”

Smirking again, softer than the one on stage, more pointed and personal, Eddie said, loud enough that it set off cackles from the rows behind and in front of them, “No, you don’t. You wanna bang me like a screen door in a hurricane.”

“Yeah,” said Steve, crossing his arms over his chest, “but that doesn’t mean I have to be happy about it.”

Record of the Year came and went, taken by Coldplay, and there was another set change and a performance. Eddie wasn’t feeling optimistic, Steve could tell — he honestly seemed more interested in watching Steve once again talk to James from Metallica about his students while the rest of both bands watched on in bemusement.

The camera came back around then to hover in front of Eddie, waiting for the Shotguns to be called as Faith Hill and Carlos Santana list out the nominees for Album of the Year. He was in good company: Timberlake, Missy Elliot, Outkast, and the White Stripes rounding out the nominees. Eddie had said when they were getting ready he thought Outkast would get it, though he was also a fan of Missy and the White siblings — Timberlake was more Steve’s speed, he’d teased.

Eddie gave a little wave, still paying more attention to Steve than the proceedings. Steve kicked his ankle, which was the wrong thing to do: Eddie retaliated by kicking back and then they were just playing aggressive footsie, both of them half-tuned out and giggling like asshole little kids at the back of the class, and nearly missing Hill intone, “And the Grammy for Album of the Year goes to — ”

“The Shotguns, Boy with a Bat,” concluded Santana.

As one, the room turned to look at them.

“What,” said Eddie. “What?”

“Get the fuck up, kid!” shouted James from Metallica.

The drummer — Lars, it was definitely Lars, he knew that, he thought — leaned forward and dragged Eddie up by the shoulders, shaking him as he stared, wide-eyed, at everyone staring at him. The rest of his band was cheering, hooting and hollering and pushing at his shell-shocked shoulders, and so was the rest of Metallica; and Eddie turned, wide-eyed, to look at Steve. He had half pulled himself out of his own chair, smiling fit to break his own face.

“Steve,” said Eddie.

“You gotta go,” he said.

“Steve, ” he said again. He grabbed Steve by the lapels of his plaid jacket and, in front of God, the Staples Center, and CBS, laid one right on him, fast and dirty and a hint of tongue.

The manic energy of the kiss, of the evening, of the man himself always, carried him in a sprint to the stage. He bounded up the steps, accepted a hug from Faith Hill that turned into him spinning her around in a circle, got clapped on the back by Santana, and then had a golden gramophone shoved into his hands.  

Then, when it was just Eddie up there as the producer and his two engineers that Steve could never remember the names of and always felt terrible about it, the energy gave out and he stood, blinking, at the microphone.

“Uh,” he said, staring down at the award in his hands. He looked up, wide-eyed, into the darkness of Staples Center. “Shit. I mean, what the fuck, right? Um, just, sorry, fuck, right off the bat, to the censors, you’re gonna have your fucking work cut out with me, man. This is — this is kind of fucking wild. I, uh. So, I’ve talked about this before, kinda, and I, um, I never thought I’d be here. And not just fucking here, physically, I mean here like — alive. When I was twenty, I was fucking army crawling my way to graduation and then — I couldn’t — I wasn’t.” He looked down at his hands again and Steve wanted to rush the stage, tears in his own eyes as he watched Eddie fight back his emotions. “I’ve alway wanted to make music, to, to, to create something that, like, reaches people. Means something to people. Touches them in some way. And when I was laying there, after — after — fuck, man, I just never thought I’d be anything at all. I didn’t think I was going to live. And now I’m here, and even just being in this room with all of you — ”

His eyes found Steve’s in the crowd, wide and wet, and he smiled, continued, “With you . I recorded all of the guitar and the vocals for this album while we waited for my partner’s father to pass. His voice is on there, along with the voices and the sounds of the family I found during the worst fucking week of my life, and it’s so insane to me to be standing up here with, with parts of them, having been able to share my heartbreak and my love and my life with everyone — sharing them with you, through my art. I, uh. When I played “To Be With You In Hell” for Jim, that first and only time — there’s the refrain, you know, in the song: you, you, you, I’d go to hell for you / just to be in hell with you. And Jim said to me, he said, he laughed, said Why the fuck do you have to be so dramatic all the time? Can’t you just tell someone you love them?  So: to the team at Vertigo, to my manager, to my team, to my fans, to my friends, to my family, to the band, to these guys behind me, to all of you, to my Uncle Wayne and to Jim, who I just know are cracking open cold ones together and watching, wherever it is we go after we’re done here — I love you. And to the boy himself.”

There was a camera in Steve’s face, and the guys and gal from the band were at Steve’s side, James from Metallica with a hand out to block the camera if he so much as gave them a look. There were tears on his face and he could feel his heartbeat in his ears, pounding like the ocean during a storm. People around them were crying too, moved, emotional, and laughter somewhere beyond that. But there in that moment, there was only Steve and Eddie on the stage before him, fifteen feet away, with tears on his face and a smile a mile wide.

“You’re the love of my fucking life,” he told him. “Thank you for never giving up on me either. I wrote six albums for you, and I will write you six more.”

Then Eddie ducked his head, raised the Grammy for Album of the Year, and leaned close to the mic one more time as the rest of the world rushed back in. “Thank you!”

His engineers pulled him off the stage, all three of them grinning and laughing, and the closing performance of the night began.

Someone slung an arm around Steve’s shoulders and tugged. He turned his head to see Lars smirking at him and saying, “C’mon, bat boy, let's go get your man.”

He let himself get hauled to his feet and pulled out into the aisles among the attendees also getting out of their seats, dancing and spinning and partying to the music. Metallica and the rest of the Shotguns buoyed Steve along, shuffling him towards the backstage where the crush of reporters and interviewers had set up stations to talk to the winners and presenters and guests of honor. 

Steve got mostly ignored. Some of his entourage peeled away as people grabbed them for questions, and one or two people from the old Seattle scene who’d come up with Eddie recognized Steve from when he’d been able to come to town for the early performances of the Shotguns. Dave from the Foo Fighters pulled Steve in for a hug, which startled him, and clapped him roundly on the back as he whisper-shouted an address in his ear, said, “Party at mine later, tell Ed!” before releasing him and putting a hand between his shoulder blades to push him back into the crowd.

Someone he didn’t recognize grabbed his bicep then — he got a glimpse of a headset, assumed it was a stagehand maybe? — and tugged him a little forward before the bodies in their way parted slightly and Steve could see Eddie, cradling the Grammy in his arms as carefully as he’d cradled Barbie or Scott or Terry.

As if sensing the movement at his back, he glanced over his shoulder, beamed at Steve, and held his hand out, reeling Steve in as soon as he was in his hold. He didn’t stop talking to the interviewer and her camerawoman, just tucked him in close and kept answering questions. Steve watched him, or the room, and oh, shit, Beyonce just smiled at him! Wait, was it him, or was there — oh, no, it was him, oh fuck, smile back! Should he wave? No, uh-uh, do not wave, he thought, do not be weird. Be cool.

Eddie elbowed him, shot him a little smirk and squeezed his hand. The reporter in front of them had disappeared but another was taking her place, so Steve just rolled his eyes and, anyway, Beyonce had moved on to her own interview with her armload of statuettes. He couldn’t wait to tell Robin about this.

Something like an hour and a half later, either they ran out of questions or Eddie finally got sick of answering and they broke away. They weaved their way through the crowd, still going strong, and eventually made their way outside into a loading dock or something. Steve didn’t get a good look around because as soon as there weren’t people around he was getting roughly pushed into the wall and Eddie was unceremoniously sticking his tongue down his throat; he wasn’t complaining though.

They made out like teenagers under the bleachers at the Homecoming football game — a not inaccurate description, he was pretty proud of that metaphor or whatever — for a while, Eddie’s left hand fisted in the lapel of Steve’s jacket and the Grammy hanging in his right at the side, one thigh between Steve’s legs, grounding. He had his hands cupped around the base of Eddie’s skull, just holding him.

Suddenly, Eddie started laughing into his mouth and broke away to tuck his face into the crook of his neck, cackling almost hysterically. He stared down at him, dropping one hand to the small of his pack.

“You okay?” he asked.

“I’m fucking amazing. I have a Grammy,” he said, wonderingly. “I have a fucking Grammy, for an album about grief and love and how I found inner peace and finally got to jump your goddamn bones . Holy shit!”

Steve kissed his sweaty temple, smiled against it after. He asked, “Wanna do it again?”

“What?”

“Apparently Dave Grohl is throwing an after party at his rental in the Hills and we’re invited,” he told him. “So, you wanna fuck me in the bathroom or what, Mr Album of the Year? There was lube in the gift bag.”

“That’s literally the most rock’n’roll thing that’s ever been said to me in my life,” said Eddie, “and if I blow my load, like, thirty seconds in you cannot blame me.”

“Baby,” Steve said, “I swear, you say the sexiest shit to me.”

He leaned back, took his face between his hands, and said seriously, “Sweetheart, I said it up there and I’ll say it again, as many times as you want: I wrote you six albums and I’ll write you six more, a fucking thousand, but right now that ass and this Grammy’s got me acting unwise and I wanna do shit to you in Dave’s guest bath that’s gonna make it hard for me to look him in the eye ever again. And, anyway, you started it, Mr Lube in the Gift Bag.”

“I know. C’mon, then. For old time’s sake.”

“Shit, if it’s for old time’s sake,” Eddie said. He grabbed his hand and, laughing, Steve let himself be dragged into the street and out into the night.

Notes:

(steve’s grammy look is from the prada fw 2003 menswear show; look 37)

Chapter 2: Track 8 - To Be With You In Hell

Chapter Text

What that we could be
What is it that you want from me?
Because I only want one thing

From here on out, alone or in-between
Forever is what I mean
Baby, don’t go where I can’t follow

You, you, you, I’d go to hell for you
Just to be in hell with you

I’ll take anything, everything
One smirk, one smile, one crooked look
Your breath in my mouth

All this sorrow, all this pain
C’mon, baby, take my hand
It’ll be worth it in the end

You, you, you, I’d go to hell for you
Just to be in hell with you