wanderlust and whimsy 🌜

Premise : Eddie's working at a mall. It doesn't have much of a food court, but he's eating out in the open bc his store has a small backroom and the manager is in a meeting back there. He's eating mei fun, which the mall definitely doesn't have. Steve recognizes him while he's busy eating, completely looking down and focused on those rice noodles and shrimp…"You always bring your own takeout to the mall?" A vaguely familiar voice interrupted Eddie's focus.

He'd barely swallowed the noodles as he answered flatly, "Yeah, the atmosphere is ten times better than home."

That earned him a chuckle.

Only after the body attached to the voice pulls back the opposite chair and sits does Eddie look up. He knows his eyes are normally already pretty big, so he's sure they each grow to the size of the moon when he realizes who's across from him.

"Steve?" He muttered, questioning moreso if his brain was playing a cruel prank on him than anything. After all, he'd been having dreams lately about them meeting up after all these years. Only Gareth knew how bad the yearning for someone he couldn't even find on Facebook was.

"Eddie," he received in return. The way Steve said his name, that teasing little smirk on his face, sent a shiver down the man's spine. Suddenly he really wasn't sure if this was real life or not. He was contemplating stabbing his hand with his plastic fork when Steve spoke again,

"So what've you been up to man? Haven't seen you since-"

"Since you graduated and moved for college," Eddie finished softly. There was no need to be harsh about it. They'd really just been school friends, never hung out without being surrounded by desks. And then Steve graduated before Eddie, being the more head-down kind of guy who wanted out fast as per his dad's wishes, and went to Indianapolis for college.

That was 16 years ago. Lots happen in that amount of time. Even Eddie had moved states a few times by then, only ending up in Indie himself when a big break-up and Jeff needing a roommate brought him here. There was no telling what Steve got up to.

Steve. He'd been thinking about him a lot again lately, thanks to that initial dream a month ago. When it was evident that thoughts about him weren't going away anytime soon, Eddie relented and tried to check his social media. The man was a ghost, he'd found. Nothing new in almost 10 years. Like he'd fallen off the face of the earth. The only information visible was where he'd gone to college - information which gave Eddie hope he'd see him again one day just to put an end to this torture. Hope that he tried to argue with, lots of people move away from even the big cities where they went to college after all. Hope that kept him people watching with misguided optimism from his post at work.

But here he was. More filled out than when they were practically kids. Hair a little shorter and more tamed, but still worthy of the attention it had always garnered him. Some scruffy facial hair that worked so well. Eddie could melt just looking at him.

"Since I went graduated and went to college, yea."

Steve repeating his words just as softly broke the trance Eddie didn't realize he'd fallen in. They stared at each other for a moment, those puppy dog eyes drowning Eddie. He was sure Steve was trying to find the right thing to say next, but was interrupted by Eddie's warning alarm going off.

"Fuck," Eddie whispered as he quickly shut the damned thing off. Standing and gathering his lunch, he looked across the table to Steve. "Uh, I gotta get back to work but…" He trailed off hoping something smart would follow.

Thankfully Steve was smart. He held out a torn piece of paper that he had apparently hastily written on.

"Text me when you get a minute," was the last thing Eddie heard as he took the paper, nodded, and walked off.

dear john

Nightgown #1 - Pen version

(Pen on paper)

“Hosea, Dutch and I”

An art series about little/young Arthur, 2/?