#Eddie talking about hollowing out his body to let Steve have a safe place inside him....is this peak romance? Asking for an aro person (me)

[carolperkinsexgirlfriend]

Steddie Upside-Down AU Part 117

Part 1 Part 116

Things should speed up after that, but they don't. Life drags, the way it always does when you're caught up on it—the minutiae of days slipping by in inches.

Eddie revels in it. Every day, at home, at school, in bed, at Steve's side. He revels even more when their school sentence is stayed for a few weeks of uninterrupted quality time. 

It should feel new. They’ve redefined the lines that lie between them, tied a red string of fate between both their hearts. 

It should feel new, but it doesn’t.

Not much changes, really. Steve was right. They were already everything, and this doesn't change that. The kisses are nice though, warm, and soft, and wanting in the morning light filtering in through the curtains.

They’re nice in the dark, too, fingers fumbling to try to find faces. Eddie likes all of it, everything, as long as it’s with Steve. 

Steve, who never takes the ring off. It makes something squirm in his stomach when he looks down and sees it there. He finds himself reaching out to touch it, spinning it around and around in quiet moments.

Steve always lets him, leaning into Eddie’s space like he likes it. Eddie’s always leaving spaces in his life for Steve and hoping he’ll fill them up. 

So, when Carol kidnaps Steve in the middle of a lazy afternoon spent twined around each other, Eddie waves a jaunty goodbye as Steve climbs into Barb’s backseat and gets to work. 

He starts with their nicest set of flannel sheets, some scissors, a sewing needle, and a dream. They won’t have money to replace them for a while, but needs must. 

It takes hours, long enough that he’s been periodically feeling for Steve’s location, checking he’s not on his way home. It takes so long that he’s starting to hate the red plaid of the sheets he’s transforming. 

He tacks them up, anyway, tucked back into what Eddie can loosely call a free corner of their bedroom, pressed up to the overflowing dresser. He tries to make it flow nicely, make the flaps he’d cut and sewn overlap just enough to make a hideaway, give them enough space to be entirely pinned back like curtains with the ties he’d sewn on. 

The Christmas lights are harder to pin down. He spirals them through the top of the curtain, liberally using safety pins to keep them in place, stretching the plug past sanity to get it to reach the closest outlet. 

For his final contribution, he rushes out to steal one of the cushions from the side of the couch, pushing it tightly into the small space. Hopefully it takes Wayne a while to notice its absence and come looking for it. 

The effect isn’t pretty. It’s misshapen, and wonky, and Eddie’s just glad the sheets are a dark enough red to hide the blood from his pricked finger. But when he turns off the light and climbs in, the lights are that same comforting white that bathed Steve in the Upside-Down. And they cradle him in their embrace, just the same as Steve’s closet used to when he’d had all his clothes hung neatly within it. 

Eddie’s bedroom isn’t big enough for a closet, but it’s big enough for this. 

Steve threw away his last Harrington key and in the process he’d lost the one bastion of safety he’d had in that house. If what happened on Halloween happens again, where will Steve run to?

He’d carve out a closet for him if he could, but he doesn’t have wood, or spackle, or whatever the hell he’d use to make one. He’d carve one in his heart if could, but Steve won’t be able to squeeze his way in. 

It’s ugly, and cheap, but he hopes it’s enough. He lets the sheet close around him, and settles in to wait for Steve to come home.

Eddie wakes up to Steve’s warm hand brushing his shoulder and gasps, momentarily breathless at the sight of his angel bathed in all that white light. Steve himself looks floored as he looks up at the lights safety-pinned to the roof of the little shapeless structure. 

“What is this?” he asks, reaching his hand out to brush the sheets delicately, as if afraid they’ll shatter.

Eddie pauses, suddenly terrified this is rude, somehow. Like pointing out Steve’s proclivities for small spaces  is a step too far. But then Steve smiles, the lights flickering against the gold in his eyes, and the gold in his hair, painting him with the holy light Eddie always sees in him.

“I don’t have any money,” is the first thing Eddie inexplicably blurts out. But, Steve’s still smiling, so he keeps digging. “So, sorry if it’s shitty. But my room’s not really big enough for a closet?”

Steve’s smiling, bright and angelic as he finally turns and meets Eddie’s eyes. “Did you cut up our warmest sheets to make me a fake closet?.”

Eddie grabs a curl to hide his lips as he nods, abashed when Steve paints what he’s done with such stark lines. “Merry Christmas?” he says, even though Christmas is still weeks away. 

Eddie’s hair gets caught between them when Steve leans in for a kiss. 

Steve spits it out of his mouth, and it lands wetly against Eddie’s own cheek, but he doesn’t care. He doesn’t care because Steve’s beaming as he says, “I love it,” and leans in to plant another one on him.

It turns out to be just big enough for two.