By The Time I Knew I Truly Loved You
Pairing: Steven Adler/Reader
Word Count: 800~
Info: No Smut, Fluff, Happy Ending, Emotional, Mentioned Drug Use, Post-Stroke, /reader in a way that you can imagine just about anyone as the narrator its VERY vague
Summary: The month I knew I truly loved you was cold. It was 1996, sometime around October, but after the stroke, every day seemed to blend together. I begged with God, pleaded that you'd wake up and remember how to live; to function.
Authors Note: another old one from ao3 because i have a bunch of shit i never reposted!! this was the first gnr fic i posted so yay for that, hope it isnt TOO corny
The month I knew I truly loved you was cold. It was 1996, sometime around October, but after the stroke, every day seemed to blend together. I begged with God, pleaded that you'd wake up and remember how to live; to function. I prayed that you'd remember to speak overnight. Everything was so hard now. We- you, communicated grunts and grumbles of vague words to which I would sob over in the middle of the night. We slept in different beds. Other people were always in our home because you needed caretakers, and yet I convinced myself to hold on.
The week I knew I truly loved you was hectic. You were frantic for God knows what reason, clawing at floorboards and yourself. I watched your mop of hair get more and more matted day by day as you adamantly opposed brushing it. You smelled of musk, a smell I once relished and showered myself in by wearing your clothes while you 'recovered' in the hospital. We had five different caretakers quit that week, so I had to resort to begging in the newspaper. Eventually, I found someone new, but what would have happened if I hadn't? One day, I realized you wanted your stash. You still had something, left forgotten in the floorboards, and you were determined to find it even though you had no memory of where it may be. We had to rip our home apart, piece by piece, to make sure you didn't find that stash- if it even existed, and yet, I convinced myself to hold on.
The day I knew I truly loved you, we had let the sunlight waste as we spent the whole day 'fighting', if you could even call it that. It was like arguing with a stubborn child, even though I knew you didn't mean to be childish. We sat at the dinner table; you at one end with a stack of blank notecards and a pen, me at the other with only my voice and frustrations. You had taken to writing so much better than you had to speaking. So far, this was the only way we had somewhat fluent conversations since the stroke. It was horrible. I missed the silly way you poorly serenaded me with love songs. I missed the joking debates we held together, arguing on why one superhero was wholeheartedly superior or something along those lines. I missed when I didn't have to monitor everything on the TV because your therapist told me anything could set you off into another relapse. I missed when it was just us in the house with no needed caretakers, and yet, I convinced myself to hold on.
The night I knew I truly loved you, I stormed away and sulked in what used to be our bed. You had knocked on the door at two in the morning. I groggily opened it to ogle at your disheveled form. You stood there; pajama pants barely hanging onto your skinny hips, a broken hairbrush outstretched in your hands, hair tangled to your ears with another restless night, and a quivering lip paired with the glossiest eyes I had ever seen. My eyes had pricked with tears when I saw you, really saw how scared, lost, and small you were. I spoke not a word, simply let you crawl into our bed. I needed no more convincing, I chose to hold on and never let go for as long as I could.
The moment I knew I truly loved you, I had just finished brushing out every knot and tangle from your mane as you sat between my legs. You turned toward me and stared for a couple of minutes before beginning to climb out of bed, but I stopped you. I needed you. You needed me. So, I simply held you. I held you for hours. Then, with as much force as you could muster you muttered three words that changed me.
"I love you."
The moment after I knew I truly loved you, I shrieked and sobbed so loud I swore the neighborhood shook. I tried to steady myself with the burst of pure joy that overwhelmed me, but I was over the moon. I wept and wept as I held your head to my chest and repeated how much I loved you, too. Those were the first words you spoke to me for months. Finally, you pulled away and I was met with your beautiful smile. It was so different, though. It was no longer a smile that showed for when you got your high, it was a show of love and gratitude. God, I was so lucky to have held on.
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breathe in the air
eddie x reader x steve. part i
foreword: this is part one/set up for a fic I’ve been chewin’ on. cw is for both parts and will get updated- no actual smut in this first one but please heed the tags anyway. +18 mdni as always. (@somnambulic-thing you inspired me to write from Eddie’s pov! 💖)
cw: smoking (weed and nicotine), R’s hair is mentioned but unspecified texture/length, also wears Eddie’s shirt, R has breasts + V, Eddie and Reader are both varying degrees of stoned while performing sex acts (please be safe IRL and don’t read if that makes you uncomfy!!), pt. ii will have: voyeurism (Eddie and R fool around and Steve watches), blow jobs, masturbation, both the boys being Down Bad™️
wc: 2.5k (part i)
_____
The sun has sunk low over Forest Hills, Eddie’s room cast in deep blue where the golden path of his bedside lamp doesn’t touch.
He’s lighting up a post-sex cigarette, one of the best things this shitty world has to offer, in his opinion- second only to feeling your warm body against his; writhing and wriggling with pleasure, neck craned to let him lick the sloping sweat from your skin- or times like now, when you’re calm and satiated, nude under the comfort of sheets and the weight of your head on his chest.
Casting a hand out to shuffle blindly through the bedside table, Eddie wraps his other arm around the sleepy length of you, pulling you tighter to himself; your response a wordless, happy little noise. His hand deep in the drawer catches on a stray cigarette, then around the hard plastic of a spare lighter. With a sigh of contentment, he kisses the top of your head before bringing the filter to his lips.
Sparks catch under his thumb, cherry of the cig burning red- like some sort of sleeper agent responding to the click, you sit up with a jolt, stealing the mess of sheets upwards, exposing Eddie’s lower half to the cool air.
Eddie swears, startled- thinking you were almost asleep, he’d been nearly careless with the open flame- tossing the lighter aside, he reaches towards your back that now faces him. “Jesus, babe. Give a guy some warning before you snap to attention like a damn general.”
Thumb pressed to the notches of your spine, palm wide around your lower back, Eddie can feel the quiet giggle that shakes through your ribs.
“Sorry,” you whisper once you’re finished, still staring at the far wall like you're trying not to break a spell. Your arms are crossed, sheets bunching around your chest- “Had a thought.”
“Must’ve been a good one,” Eddie muses, thumb following the line of your spine down, like he’s petting an oversized cat.
In true feline fashion your back arches into his touch, encouraging his palm to sweep up again, to your shoulder blade this time as you murmur, “I wanna go swimming.”
“Okay.” Eddie’s immediately agreeable, taking a long drag from the cig, letting smoke fill out the hollows around his lungs. “We’ll go to Lover’s Lake tomorrow. Heard it’s gonna be a hot one.”
Hawkins is having a record heat wave for the second summer in a row- as if all the damn underground monster shit and horrific earthquakes of last year weren’t enough already: global warming to top it all off. The sun has been merciless these last few weeks, peaking midday, nothing for it but to lie in a heated daze on the kitchen tiles of whoever’s house is the least amount of bitch to get to.
Not that Eddie’s complaining about you being half-naked most of the time. He thinks this is the year you might actually kill him, now that he can touch you, call you his- every curve of upper calf in those short shorts, every soft slip of stomach peeking out from cropped tops- he’s got enough spank bank material to last until his deathbed. (Which he’s decidedly allowed to joke about, since, ya know, the whole almost-dying thing last spring.)
Eddie moves on haptic memory to set aside his cigarette, searching pinky-out for the lip of the ashtray (ceramic, with a poorly-drawn Snoopy, the ears far too big- you’d laughed until you cried over it at the thrift store; he was fifty cents poorer that day but rich and dizzy off your glee).
“No, not the lake. And I wanna go swimming now.” There’s a hint of petulance in your voice, walking the thin line of childish whine that only appears these days after you’ve smoked, tongue and desires loosened and lax with the help of the finest hash stash in Hawkins.
There’s a smile threatening to split Eddie’s face in two. He’s been working at that hard-won wall of your solitude for ages now, showing rather than telling you it’s okay to ask for things, that you’re safe to make requests and hell, even demands, from him. Eddie’s not sure what he wouldn’t do for you, at this point- hasn’t found that line yet. Probably doesn’t exist.
A monster of my own design, he thinks, fondly, sweeping the hair from your neck so he can see the outline of cheek and jawbone, reflective with lamplit glow. “Baby, there’s nowhere to swim right now- it’s dark and that’s not real safe. Tomorrow I’ll make us some sandwiches- we can drive out to the lake, you can get stoned and I’ll play lifeguard.”
It’s probably too much to hope you’ve swallowed this bitter pill of compromise in silence, but based on the lack of response, it’s certainly possible. Eddie presses his thumb into the muscle where your neck meets shoulder, massage a silent apology for saying no when you’d been so good to ask.
Crickets chirp in chorus outside, sound dampened by the glass window- he needs to open it soon, get the hot air out and night breeze flowing (though he is loath to replace the heady smell of sex wrapped like a cozy blanket around his room).
He feels you shuffle under his hand, eyes popping open to watch- you’ve tucked your chin over the dip in your shoulder, looking down the slope of your own nose at him, an expression on your face that makes Eddie’s stomach flip (with nerves, fear, excitement, hard to pinpoint exactly).
Your voice is quiet but steady when you speak, Eddie’s massaging fingers freezing to a halt when you say, “I know a place, open right now, with a lit-up pool. And a lifeguard.”
A thin tendril of smoke from the ashtray floats into Eddie’s vision as he stares blankly at the ceiling for a moment. Then he sits up, crushing the cherry into Snoopy’s wavered outline (sorry, pal) before brushing arms with you, patient and stern with a headshake to match- “No way, sweetheart.”
“Why-y?” That petulance is back, Eddie’s heart kicking up in response; it’s your turn to give the physical affection, winding your arms in a closed loop around his neck, forehead bumping against his jaw as he works it back and forth.
His stitched-tight resolve quickly unspools as the wet plush of your lips track a path across his throat; he clears it before squeezing at your side again, one last argument to try and stick like cooked spaghetti to a wall. “You’re high.”
You snort, puff of breath sending goosebumps across his skin, rapidly cooling from lack of your affection- “Yeah, and you’re not. So you can drive us there, and then smoke again with me before we go in, and Stevie boy will keep us safe in that nice, heated, well-lit pool of his.”
Even as you speak, Eddie’s shaking his head, but it’s more in disbelief of his own weakness (namely: you). He slips a hand to your cheek, pulling back to take you in- mischief shimmering like twin stars in your eyes as you lock onto his gaze, lips parting pliant when his thumb swipes at your bottom lip.
“You gonna behave yourself?”
It’s less of a question and more of a check-in, the meaning behind the words an undulating variable, a riddle with a thousand different answers.
The one you do give is complimented by a wicked grin, punctuated with a quick kiss (awfully chaste, considering your bare front pressed against his), your mirthful delight at having won both unsettling and tantalizing.
“Guess you’ll have to find out.”
With a sudden push to his chest, Eddie goes down easy for you, hair spreading riotous across the pillow as you move with shocking fluidity to throw a leg over his hip. Your hands meet in the middle of his chest, just under the rippling ink of a crow in flight, settling your weight comfortably on his stomach.
Eddie’s sure you can feel his pulse, jack-rabbit fast, as you dip to kiss beneath his jaw. His hands automatically settle on your hips, grip tightening with each loving kiss you scatter over his collarbones, his sternum.
He’s half-hard under the sheets by the time your lips find the hitch of his ribs, stuttering and expanding to meet your mouth- can’t be faulted, really, not when your bare chest gleams in the low light, the top of your head imploring for the warmth of his wide palm to rest.
Just when Eddie thinks he’s in the clear, that the call of your needs (evident in the slickness pooling just under his navel where your naked cunt rests) will drive the call of your wants to distraction, you sit up again, using your planted hands as leverage to swing completely off and away.
The coldness of your absence is cruel and unusual punishment. Eddie groans, scrubbing a hand down his face, deciding right then that he won’t be above begging tonight- when you suddenly reappear with a clean beach towel in either arm, pulled from the bowels of his closet.
There’s youthful, honest enthusiasm to your movements- something that’s catching, apparently, ‘cuz Eddie’s tipping himself out of bed with a resigned sigh, pulling boxers over his flagging dick and answering your spree of questions about these new evening plans.
“Sure, bring a water bottle. No, babe, we don’t need sunscreen- it’s night. Yeah, I’ll bring more weed. How ‘bout you bring me that old shoulder bag and we can bring some stuff with us.”
As you work on digging through the mess of a combined closet to find something suitable for swimming, Eddie folds the two towels that you’d found along with a baggie of joints into the bag. You’re humming under your breath while getting dressed, and Eddie’s staring at all the leftover space- what does one pack for a nighttime high swim with one’s girlfriend and the guy you’ve both sort-of mentioned threesoming with?
He tosses in a well-loved edition of your favorite book of poems, figuring the Harrington abode will have plenty of snacks. Food for the mind, he thinks, then snorts at his own joke.
“C’mon, snorty.” You beckon from the doorway, an old t-shirt of his just swishing past the dark strip of your bikini bottoms, van keys held aloft.
At the front door, there’s a brief argument about coats (you think you’ll be fine without, Eddie disagrees vehemently) which Eddie wins, wrangling your arms into the sleeves of his oil-stained work jacket before locking the front door behind you both.
Eddie smiles, a secret, pure thrill watching you tiptoe gingerly across the gravel on bare feet (too stubborn to actually wear the sandals that hang from either hand). His coat is bunched up around your ears while your legs poke out like some sort of winterized bird with bare legs.
There’s a bright pang of love that suddenly hits hits sideways, a dizzying urge to sink on denim knees to the ground, sharp rocks be damned, just to kiss the tender spot behind your knees, to feel the hill of your calf under his tongue…
Your giggle breaks his reverie, impatient and pointed jiggling of the locked passenger handle clunking out into the quiet park. “Quit staring, weirdo. You coming?”
Hope so, Eddie thinks, spinning the key ring in looping arcs around his pointer finger. He bypasses the porch steps completely, boots hitting the gravel with a satisfying crunch. “Let’s blow this popsicle stand.”
Your cheery mood is sustained during the short car ride as you chatter animatedly about some coworker drama that you forgot to catch him up on, Eddie’s hand drawn like a magnet to your upper thigh while he drives.
But by the time he’s pulling the van next to Harrington’s beemer, your eagerness has waned, speech drifting off into silence once he’s parked.
“Hey.” His voice draws you back to him, a bit, your eyes too wide and roving for his liking, coat sleeves clenched around opposing fists as you hang onto his words. “Sweetheart. We don’t have to go inside. Can go anywhere- diner for some food, back home, the damn trash heap for all I care. Just want you to feel safe.”
“I do,” you counter, earnest but chest still punching a fast rhythm. “I feel safe. I just… you think he’s even awake?”
There’s a yellow glow coming from one of the second-floor windows. Your fingers twist harshly around fabric in the dark, breath loud.
Eddie nods, then kills the engine and grabs behind his seat for the Ziploc of pre-rolls, an offering held to you between two ringed fingers. “Want a bit of Green Courage before going in?”
The van windows are soon fuzzily obscured with a haze of smoke, sprinklers for the pristine lawn nearby hissing to an automated start at the turn of 11 PM. The weed coaxes your earlier state of relax to the forefront, this time with an added layer of giggles, which Eddie finds desperately cute.
He’s sure he’s high now, too, ‘cuz he’s unintentionally focusing really hard on your lips as you speak, and you’re letting him, corner of your mouth quirking when you ask, “Gonna take me inside, Munson?”
“Uh huh.” An automatic response, just so he can keep staring- when you pop the handle of your door open Eddie reaches, faltering before landing on your face, cupping the tilt of your cheek- “Meant it. Earlier. Just say the word. Take you anywhere.”
Weed fragments his speech but you melt with understanding, leaning into his hand, your lashes sweeping sweetly at the bridge of his thumb as you whisper, “Okay.”
You’re out the door and he’s left scrambling in the wake, hauling the strap of the packed bag over one shoulder and snapping up your forgotten shoes from the footwell. He locks the doors (nevermind that this is a nice neighborhood, can’t trust rich people farther than he can throw ‘em and Eddie has always been better at running over shotput on field days) and hikes it across the grass to where you stand, a beacon of beauty under the porch light.
“Ready?” he asks.
Your bare foot- flecked with wet grass- trails up the back of your opposing leg, veins at the whites of your eyes spidering pink with anticipation (and the fresh joint) as you turn to smile at him. “Yeah. Bring it on.”
“Your wish, my command,” Eddie says, winking, knuckles pulled into a fist to rap at the front door of one Steve Harrington.
___
[END: PART ONE]
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