Dustin and Steve after Eddie's death, fighting about stuff. ("I GET IT, man, I miss him too!" Steve is shouting, but Dustin shouts angrily back- "YOU DIDN'T KNOW HIM." And it makes Steve pause, and reconsider everything he's done in the months following the Spring Break From Hell. The way he's noticed Dustin's self assured tone when it comes to things he's nerdy about, haunted by Eddie's words: "It's his tone, right?" Or the new tapes that ended up in his car before he noticed, the titles of Metallica and Dio catching him off guard when he opens the glove box looking for ABBA. The way there will be a break in the conversation where a well-placed and witty joke belongs, but Eddie isn't around to make it so Steve does instead. And he's standing across from Dustin, words suddenly knocked away because somehow he's right. Steve doesn't- didn't know Eddie: "I never got the CHANCE, DUSTIN! But he was clearly AMAZING for the short time I got to know him and now he's GONE and YOU'RE hurting and just- fuck, man." Dustin is shaking his head, looking at Steve like he's offended. "You don't get to say that- you never- he was always THERE for us but you NEVER took the opportunity to talk! Or- or- you didn't give him a CHANCE to know you! We were always with him and- you- I don't know! But you can't just say that! About him!" It boils in Steve's chest with a hurtful honesty. Because it's true, he never made any attempt to befriend Eddie before Chrissy- he was jealous. The kids suddenly had a new, cooler babysitter who was on their level about nerd shit- it was so, so endearing, the few times he saw them. Coparenting these stupid brats unwillingly with Eddie despite hardly speaking had made him feel so warm but now Steve is being plunged into an ice bath of realization of how much he misses it. How much he doesn't deserve to miss it. He stalks away with tears brimming his eyes because there is nothing else he can say to Dustin.)
