I will forever love seeing Luffy and Nami holding Zoro's swords. He's so protective of those three but it's not even because he fears something might happen to them, but because he's scared something might happen to the crew and himself if he doesn't have them with him. They're like extra limbs. The ones he uses to fight and protect and breathe. He feels uneasy whenever his swords aren't around him, and that is just a fact. You can't deny that he feels comfort in having them by his side at all times, knowing that he'll be able to protect the crew from any dangers. They're tied to his heart and soul in a way that if he loses sight of them he might actually lose himself too. So he does not enjoy seeing his swords in somebody else's hands. They can disappear, he will find them. They can run away, he will follow. They can break, he trusts them not to but if they do, he will keep going carrying their bond with him still. But he doesn't like seeing them in somebody else's hands because those are his swords. His limbs. His heart. His soul. It's just not right. It never feels right. But.
But.
But sometimes Luffy acts like he knows what he's doing and actually asks for permission instead of just taking what he wants. As if crossing Zoro's boundaries would be unforgivable, when he knows Zoro would give him anything he wanted to take from him. But he asks. He asks, with a careful, polite, deep voice Zoro isn't used to hearing. But it always ends with the softest of smiles and the petition reaches a place inside of Zoro's heart that he just knows has also touched his swords. So he lets him, because how could he not, and he runs his fingers through all of them. Amazed. Astonished. Respectfully talking to them as if they could hear him. And they can. Zoro knows they hear and feel and love and crave and long for his captain's touch. He knows, because he does too. Because who wouldn't? Luffy holds them in a way he never holds anything else- Carefully. Like they aren't his. Like befriending somebody he fears might reject him. Like taking hold of Zoro's heart and holding him so gently in case he might break him. He worships them as if he weren't the god in this relationship. He looks handsome, too. Not pretty. Not cute. Handsome. Mature. His hat covers his adventurous gaze but leaves his mischievous grin for the whole world to see. And yet, the swordsman trusts him enough. Without any look or any word. He knows Luffy's face by heart, he realizes, now that he can picture his eyes quite too perfectly under his hat. His skin glistens under the sun and his tender fingers hold the sword with so much clumsiness it looks dumb. He doesn't know how to hold them, yet they don't want to move away from him. It's clumsy but it takes over them. Maybe it's his haki. Maybe it's the effect the future king of the pirates has. Zoro thinks it's just him. Luffy. And his heart stops the second Luffy smiles, as if he had just heard the sword respond to him. He wants to kiss him. Bite him. Let him bite back and draw blood and eat him. Let him hold him the way he holds the swords but tighter. Closer. Maybe he's in love. Zoro. With Luffy. It's not a maybe. Who is he trying to trick? He knows he is in love. With the way he smiles and the way he holds and the way he wants but respects and loves. It's funny like that, the fact that Luffy keeps being so careful when Zoro would let him tear his heart apart and eat it if he so desired. It's funny that the swords love him with such gentleness when they often demand power. Perhaps kindness is the most powerful weapon of all or, at least, Luffy's most powerful skill. Zoro hates it when somebody else holds them because they don't own them. They don't own him. He doesn't even own his swords, anyway. Nobody can. They're his the same way he's theirs, just with a bit more dominance and respect. But Luffy isn't owning them. He's praying to them. Talking to them. Befriending them. Loving them. And they would bow to him if he so desired. Zoro knows they would, as fierce as they are and violent as they seem and as sharp as they cut. They'd bow to him because Zoro would too. The uneasiness does not exist when Luffy is the one to hold them because, if Zoro had to give out his soul for somebody to take care of, that would be Luffy. And if he has to be unprotected. Naked. Bare in front of a thousand soldiers. He will if it's Luffy the one fighting instead.
Sometimes Nami wants to hold them just to feel what it's like to be in Zoro's shoes. It's a stupid reason. He refuses to let her do it as an instinctive reaction at first. She doesn't seem as interested in following the protocol as Luffy is, but she knows where to stop and she knows what to say to get on Zoro's nerves, anyway. She's equally as fierce. Equally as sharp. He won't let her hold any cursed sword, but it's not like she wants to. She's smarter than that. Careful and respectful but not that interested in the swords and what they mean, more in how they feel. Zoro gets it. Kind of. Somehow. She says something about always letting them eat her precious tangerines, so he should humor her by letting her hold Wado at least. She isn't pushing him. He knows she wouldn't. She's just teasing because she knows. She always knows. She knows he will say yes. Because he always does what she says, although he keeps demanding a bit of respect to not be treated like a dog. But Nami never forces him to do anything. He could refuse. She would give up at some point. But there's just something about her- Stubbornness. Strength. Love. So much love and care and worry and anger. And Zoro likes her. She's selfish, too, like a pirate should be. Stronger than Zoro in the ways that matter. Smarter, too, even if he wouldn't admit it out loud. But she leads the way and he follows, not because that's a dog's job, but because he wants to. He trusts her. Something he never thought he would. But he does. She's smart. She leads the way. She knows where they're going. They somehow are the same and totally different at the same time. Zoro grounds Luffy when he gets lost. Nami leads them both so they won't. So there's something about her curiosity that makes him soften. He never knows exactly why he does what she says. Why he indulges her like that. But it's satisfying, for some reason he refuses to read within himself, the satisfactory and pleased grin on her face when he hands her Wado. She's careful with her. Awful at holding her. Bad posture. Great smile. Horrible movements. Beautiful eyes. It's okay, though, he thinks. Wado likes her because Zoro likes her. Nami loses interest within a minute, complaining about the weight and the sudden realization of "you always have this thing in your mouth" which makes her want to give her back. But she stares at her for a whole minute. It isn't her thing, but her eyes spark when the sword is returned to Zoro. Trust. A smile. Thankfulness. Her bangs are getting a bit longer and one strand of hair gets in the middle of her teasing smirk. She says she prefers her clima-tact, but swords are fine, "I guess". "She's pretty" she says. Zoro thinks she is pretty. Nami. In a way he can't quite describe because he has never really been good at that. But she is. Like a blade. Sharp. But in the right hands this time for her not to cut the ones she loves anymore. She hands him a tangerine next, every time he lets her hold his sword. An exchange. "I give you something that matters. You give me something that matters". Zoro wants to say it's not the same, but the tangerine is sweet. Juicy. His fingers then smell strongly of citrus. Almost as similar as steel. If he can feel Nami's heartbeat in every bite, he wonders if she has been able to hear his in the hilt of his sword. Calm. Peaceful. Safe.
Zoro doesn't like seeing his swords in somebody else's hands because those are his swords. His limbs. His heart. His soul. It's just not right. It never feels right. But.
But sometimes it does.
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cw: mentions of scarring, canon-typical violence, flashback (not graphic), minor body horror (again, not graphic, mostly just emotional feelings about scars)
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Everyone gave him weird looks when they walked in, quickly schooling their features when they noticed he was awake and watching them.
He didn’t know exactly what that was about.
They had him on a lot of good drugs.
But eventually he got weaned off them, and he noticed the pull of bandages on his side, and his arm, and his neck, and his face.
He was still unable to get out of bed. Still couldn’t even reach his arms above his chest for more than a few seconds.
But he damn sure reached up to feel the cloth and plastic surrounding his cheek. How had he not noticed for days? How had no one bothered him about it?
Maybe they had and he just didn’t notice. The morphine was one hell of a drug.
Wayne was soft, patient with him. Saw him touching it, saw the way his eyes filled with tears. He’d never been particularly vain, hadn’t cared much about what he looked like to others, but this felt bigger than that. This felt like he was changed in a way that everyone could see.
Add it to the list of things people could bully him for.
He cried himself to sleep, Wayne’s hand in his, silently comforting in the way he’d always done.
When he woke up again the next morning, he was alone.
It was the first time he’d been alone since the boathouse.
He could swear he heard bats outside his door, screams coming from the attached bathroom, flashes of someone dying on the ceiling.
He felt the sharp sting of teeth puncturing his skin.
He felt hopelessness creep into his bones as he gave in.
Maybe this time they would finish the job.
“Eddie!”
Steve Harrington’s voice broke through the thoughts, panicked enough to bring Eddie back to his hospital bed within a second of hearing it.
“Shit, are you okay?” He continued, hand brushing against Eddie’s bandaged cheek.
Eddie nodded once, closed his eyes, leaned into the touch.
He could blame it on any number of things if Steve felt weird about it. The morphine, the flashback, the loneliness.
“You’re okay, Eddie. I promise. Won’t let anything happen to you,” Steve whispered.
Eddie believed him.
He fell back asleep with Steve’s hand gently cupping the mangled side of his face.
If Steve could still touch him there, then maybe it wouldn’t be so bad.
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Steve came by every day, sometimes in the early morning, before visiting hours officially started, sometimes well after Wayne had left to get some sleep. He always smiled when he walked in, a genuine one, not the one everyone else gave that was so fully of pity and pain he couldn’t bear to make eye contact. He sat down on the side of the bed, not the chair like everyone else, not scared to be close.
And every single day, without fail, he would run his finger along the edge of Eddie’s bandage on his face, watching his own movements and cataloging any changes.
Eddie sat quietly, still, scared to put words to anything happening. Scared to tell Steve what it meant to him to have someone acknowledge his pain in this way. Scared to think Steve could mean anything by it.
It was easy to pretend Steve was doing this because he cared.
Maybe he did care.
But he didn’t care the way Eddie wanted him to, needed him to.
So he stayed quiet, still.
He watched.
He fell asleep while Steve talked about his day, the kids, what Joyce made Hopper do around the house.
He woke up alone most days, but that was okay, because Steve would be there eventually.
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“You ready to get that thing off?” Wayne asked, gesturing to the bandage.
“Oh. Today?” Eddie suddenly didn’t want to ever be without the bandage. Removing it meant he’d see what was under it.
It meant seeing how much that place had ruined him.
The pull of the stitches hadn’t been as obvious with the pull of the bandage masking it.
But now it’s all he felt.
The nurse smiled at him as she put some antibiotic cream over the area, saying he would probably still have to keep it extra clean for the next week or so while the stitches did their job.
Wayne smiled at him in the way that meant he didn’t really want to smile at all, but knew Eddie needed him to.
Steve didn’t come.
Eddie didn’t sleep.
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He woke up with panic in his chest and a silent scream in his throat.
He woke up with Steve’s hand on his face.
Gentle, soft, but a strong comfort.
“Promise I washed them first. They said we have to be careful about germs,” Steve said quietly.
“You don’t have to. I know it’s…it’s gross. It’s ugly. I’m ugly.”
Steve shook his head. “No. Not gross. Not ugly. Alive.”
“Steve-“
“You’re alive, Eddie. You could have your entire face held together by staples and you would still be a miracle. You’d still be the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
Well, Steve’s charm wasn’t an exaggeration, was it?
He wasn’t even sure if the skin barely pulled together could blush anymore, or if the heat that should be on his cheek was burning on the outside the way it felt like it was on the inside.
“It’s gonna be awful when it heals. I saw it in the mirror.” Eddie could feel every stitch in his jaw, the few that spread across the corner of his mouth and bottom lip, the ones that were nearly up to his ear. “I’ll always have a crooked face. The scar will always be huge. It’s all anyone will see.”
“Then they aren’t looking.”
Eddie bit his lip, eyes searching Steve’s. “But you are.”
“No. I’m seeing. There’s a difference. I see you. I see what you’ve survived. I see the mark it left on you. I know it wasn’t just the scars that cover your skin.” Steve leaned his head down, touching Eddie’s forehead with his own. “We all have them. And we’re all still here. Your heart’s beating. That’s all that matters to me.”
“Who knew you were so good with words?” Eddie smiled sadly.
“Robin says I’m just good at not having a filter.”
“She’s right as always.” Eddie wrapped his fingers around Steve’s wrist, turning as slowly as he could to kiss his palm. “You’re not scared of it.”
“No. Are you?”
“I’m scared that you’ll change your mind when it’s always there as a reminder of what happened.”
Steve kissed his nose, making him smile for the first time in what felt like years.
“I’ll have the reminder that I got you out of there. That no matter what, the bats couldn’t finish the job. That you were stronger and you made it.” Steve let his hand drop, but quickly laced his fingers with Eddie’s. “I know it’s a lot to ask of you to trust me, but will you? For today?”
“Just today?”
“I’ll ask again tomorrow.”
“And what? Every day after that?”
Steve smirked.
His eyes were glistening with tears, but Eddie could tell it wasn’t sadness or fear.
“If that’s what I have to do.”
They hadn’t even talked about feelings, not really. Nothing that made any sense to Eddie, nothing that they could define. A part of Eddie was still convinced he was in a coma and dreaming this entire conversation up.
But even the nurse had noticed the way Steve watched him, how he touched him, how he fought for him. She said he’d been a firecracker from the moment he carried him into the hospital, dripping blood on the tile, staining the halls with his demands for help.
Wayne said he barely left his side the first day, only doing so when the doctors had told him they would call the cops if he didn’t.
Erica even noticed how things had changed between them, stating that she refused to watch her babysitter and the only DM she had respect for make out.
But Steve held Eddie, made him feel like he could get out of the hospital bed and live a life that wouldn’t keep him running. Steve was there.
Steve might even love him. If not now, then some day.
And Eddie could trust him today.
He could probably trust him tomorrow.
“Kiss me?” Eddie probably shouldn’t. The stitches tugged when he talked, and another mouth anywhere near his wounds was just asking for an infection.
But Steve would be careful. He knew what Eddie could handle.
It was barely a kiss. A graze of the lips at most.
But it was the best kiss Eddie had ever had.
At least until tomorrow.
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