#smitten recovering post S4 eddie

[hitlikehammers]

Post S4!Eddie Needs a Little Help

Good thing Steve's such an excellent nurse boyfriend? friend, huh?

I Could Be Your Nurse (or something)

Or: Five Times Eddie Has To Ask For Help, Plus One Time He Doesn’t Need It Anymore (but asks anyway) ✨ for @penny00dreadful 💜

🧊 one: drink 🧊

The first thing he clocks, when he surfaces back to the land of the living: he can’t move his fucking arms.

At first, he thinks he’s locked up, restrained somehow: cuffed, but he can’t even know that, he can’t even check because he can barely fucking move at all, he—

“Eddie,” he hears his name through white noise that’s tunneling his vision, that’s caving in with every blow his pounding heartbeat deals to the walls as they close closer—there’s beeping like a time bomb in the background but it’s not just his name, it’s the voice that speaks it: it cuts through. It bolsters the walls and shelters him from collapse as his eyes dart wild, seeking out the sound.

“Breathe,” plush lips and earnest eyes coax him, and Eddie feels his own eyes widen because: Steve goddamn Harrington.

Here.

“You can breathe, okay,” Steve’s saying and his eyes are bigger now, there’s a pleading in his tone and Eddie sees it happen before any sensation, any feeling comes with it: Steve’s got Eddie’s hand in his, cups it to his chest but never breaks from holding Eddie’s gaze and the first thing Eddie thinks he feels as a touch is the warm pressure of the chest under their joined hands lifting almost-too-strong, almost-too-full.

The things Eddie feels that have nothing to do with his five fucking senses—he’ll work those out later.

“Come on, with me, with me, yeah?” and Steve’s breathing deep and even and forced for it, keeping a punishingly intentional sort of time and Eddie realizes oh, hey, right: he does need to breathe and so the next thing that he feels is the tail-end of pain, sneaking up under a fog that hints at any to come when whatever’s blanketing the feeling gets lifted, taken away, but then Eddie’s zeroing in on Steve’s face again, gasping a little and fuck, but it hurts: but Steve.

Steve’s smiling at him, in a way Eddie doesn’t know he’s ever seen before; definitely never felt before for the way it points a direct hit to his sternum, all fuzzy and sunrise-gold, and he doesn’t know if it helps him or hurts him in trying to breathe, to get the rhythm back to is but it sure as shit kicks at his heart and he thinks that punches his lungs hard enough to do…something, because Steve’s smile just grows, and the warm-gold-glow starts to spread through Eddie as something bigger and brighter and fuller than the pain as Steve exhales once out-of-sync and Eddie feels it, how Steve presses his hand tighter to his chest for it and laughs a little around one single word:

“Yeah,” and then it’s back to deep breaths, carefully measured, and Eddie wants Steve to talk again, but his head’s getting clearer, his lungs remembering how to work right, and he feels things under his hand now where he didn’t before: soft sweater. Rabbit-quick heartbeat.

“Steve,” Eddie chokes it, drags the word across gravel and bleeds it out and he’s disgusted in an instant, horrified by the sound coming out of himbut before he can let the terror and the hurt swallow him, he sees Steve, who somehow found a way to grin broader, shine brighter.

“Hey,” he laughs it out with so much goddamn relief, so much feeling, that Eddie can’t help but melt into it; Steve must feel something in him, or maybe he just knows, because he’s gathering Eddie’s hand, flattening it as a palm against his chest to keep breathing, keep breathing, but then he’s reaching and there’s a gentle whisper of touch against Eddie’s left cheek, and it stings, and he knows he should feel more but it’s…it’s goodeven as it aches and he leans, fuck, he doesn’t think twice before he leans.

“God, it’s good to hear your voice,” Steve says and it’s so warm and honest and it’s fucking laughable because Eddie sounds goddamn abysmal, and his throat tries to push the laughter, even if it’s poorly placed, even if nothing really feels fucking funny about anything but the effort’s like sandpaper on glass, wretched and violent, and Steve’s eyes widen when Eddie flaps at his neck, but he’s already reaching for the side of the bed, and—

“Water?” He asks, holding up a pitcher and a clear plastic cup and Eddie bites his tongue, tries to remember breathing without Steve’s guiding hand and he almost manages as he nods and then tries to reach when Steve places the pitcher, cup in his hand but Eddie’s hand…

He can’t lift it right. His vision’s either totally fucked, or his hand is tremoring hard enough to make him dizzy. He can’t feel anything, again. He—

“Eddie?” Steve’s voice is careful, gentle, but it’s firm: like it knows it’ll find steel to press against when Eddie meets his gaze and makes himself listen: he wants the glass. He can’t…he can’t reach for it, let alone hold it, let alone get the water to his mouth, and not all over everywhere else for the shaking. He doesn’t know if he’d feel the width and weight of the cup, or the wetness of the spill: he’s a mess, he’s broken, he’s totally fucked, what even if this, what is he, is this what it means to have survived, what is wrong with him—

“Look at me.”

Steve’s got that tender-pressed iron in his tone, the command less grating where it would make Eddie seethe—still does, the slightest bit but so far beneath everything else; beneath a sense of being cared for, being held close and then Steve’s hand is reaching for Eddie’s face again, brushing along his cheek and oh.

Oh, tears. He, he was—

“We almost lost you, Eds,” and it’s Steve that sounds choked for it, his voice wet and weeping with it and eyes gleaming just a little too bright and Eddie’s pulse trips to see it: proof that he means something. Proof that the wild things Eddie’d let himself imagine in the past days, in what he was so fucking sure were his last moments at all: they might still be wild, but they might also be things he’ll get to touch just an edge of, a gentle mercy of the corner of the things he spun up in his head.

“We almost lost you,” Steve says it again, and it’s sounds just as gutted, fucking…heartbroken, and for what, for Eddie? He, it’s—

“And you’re on a lot of medications, and you have a lot of injuries, and some of it’s gonna just take time and some of it’s gonna take more work, but Eddie,” Steve tilts his head, leans in and Eddie can feel the body heat of him from the chest on out: “Eddie, we are all here to help you, okay? No questions asked, we’re here to help,” and Steve’s eyes are a piercing kind of starfield, deep-dark but lightened by the fire burning: kinda mesmerizing even before he speaks again:

“Because we love you, all of us love you, and we are so fucking relieved you’re still here,” and there’s no question in it, no hesitation or resistance: it’s wholly felt and believed and Eddie reels a little for it because how and why, and the idea of all of them, and of Steve being included in the all-of-them, and love, of any kind, but love being a word no one fucking uses for a thing that’s small, or weak, or fleeting and just, just…

“And it’s not charity, or obligation, or pity,” and it’s like Steve can read him, can see his soul, the worst endings to the story that had drowned him in an instant when he couldn’t feel his fingers, when he couldn’t grasp a goddamn cup, before he could even stop to consider that he was already in the best possible ending, either way.

Because it was one he was still here to see.

“Kinda the opposite, really,” Steve’s slipping his fingers between Eddie’s atop his sweater; “because it kinda hurts when we’re not here to see you being okay,” and it’s so earnest, so sincere when he says it, when his voice goes low and faint like he doesn’t want to tempt the universe by letting it hear an unthinkable possibility that they’d dodged to by the skin of their teeth, but by the skin on their bones as sacrifice, scars to match and all:

“It hurts to be anywhere but here, where you’re okay, when we were so fucking afraid you wouldn’t be.”

And doesn’t that fucking sear for the slap of it in his face; doesn’t that goddamn sing in his veins that still have blood pumping through them, Jesus H. Christ.

“So,” Steve leans forward, draws Eddie’s touch somehow closer, has to almost be painful when all Eddie can process above the fog and the warmth is the breadth of Steve’s chest, and the thrum of his heartbeat as real-real-real, and there for Eddie to anchor himself in as being real, too.

“Will you let me help?”

Eddie’s eyes dart to where Steve’s placed the cup back on the side table, and has a hand near it waiting: for permission. He’s giving Eddie a choice, and there’s a version of Eddie, in a version of events not so far from these, here, but then so far from these here, that would fight harder at the idea of being coddled, of being invalided and made purposeless, fucking pointless for being wholly ripped of his ability to care for his own needs and wants, but this…

This isn’t that version.

So he nods, and Steve lets out a sigh Eddie can map from inhale to release, and he smiles like it’s a gift to him that Eddie lets him do this, lets him lift the lip of the cup to Eddie’s lips, careful and Eddie can feel it rest on tender flesh, something torn there too like so much else of him, and he drinks like manna from a heaven he doesn’t believe in, save that he thinks there’s something angelic, something godly in the tenderness of Steve’s movements, of his eyes on Eddie, of his heartbeat under Eddie’s touch: just him, there, present.

Like all the idly musings he’d allowed himself in the dark of a hellscape, in the moments he’d thought for sure would be his last: like those fleeting little fantasies may not have legs for themselves, but could grow into something just as good, or better even.

Because maybe they’ll be something true.

“Thank you,” Eddie manages to say, and it’s a whisper but it’s not something out of a horror film, so it’s an improvement after five careful swallows and Steve’s deft hand to wipe his bottom lip.

“Thank you for letting me,” Steve’s foolish enough, perfect enough to say; “it helps me, too.”

How, though? How, and more: how are they here like this, in this moment? Just—

“How’d I get out?” It’s an easier question to ask, so he feints that way instead.

“We carried you out.”

Vague.

“Who did?”

Steve only blinks, but his heart thumps an extra beat against Eddie’s fingertips.

“I did.”

Of course he did. Of course it was him.

“You’re,” Eddie licks his lips, closes his eyes; tries to figure out if he needs more water to keep going: no. No, he can do this.

“You’re okay?” he turns his hand just a slightest bit, doesn’t want to stop touching Steve but wants to press his hand to Steve’s the other way ‘round.

“Bats,” he manages to mouth, and Steve’s got the water to his lips again, now, carefully portioning his sips as he answers:

“Getting there, but I’m fine.”

Eddie wants to roll his eyes. Eddie wants to hold Steve to his chest and check his wounds himself. Eddie wants…

“Everyone else? Dustin?” he follows up because he can guess; Steve wouldn’t be so calm if something terrible had come of the battle, but still. “And—”

“Healing,” Steve’s quick to answer the half-formed questions, knows what Eddie’s concerned with most without trying and maybe it’s obvious, probably yeah it is but it feels warm in him again, through him like honey, thick and slow and sweet. “Max has got a rough road ahead, and it’s touch-and-go, because we’re pretty sure the things that are still wrong with her are tied up in Vecna,” Eddie frowns; regrets it for the pull and why is sensation coming back for hurting; “we didn’t wipe him out entirely, we lost this battle,” but then Steve’s hand is closer against his cheek: he doesn’t know if he leaned in or his Steve moved nearer but it doesn’t matter because Eddie will hurt far more than this, will take feeling for all it’s highs and lows, will claim it back and clutch it close if he also gets to feel Steve.

“But maybe more it’s like a draw, really, because it could have been such a bigger loss,” and Steve’s voice catches, and so does his breath where Eddie’s hand’s still charting; his pulse trips and Eddie frowns deeper, fuck the pain of it and whatever real damage it does above the waves of heavy narcotics, Steve’s eyes have gone glassy and his throat’s working harder around something thick, difficult, and the hand holding Eddie’s to Steve’s chest is rubbing the skin at his wrist near-raw for how hard and how metronomic it’s digging against Eddie’s veins, and his mouth’s parted and he’s staring at Eddie like—

Oh.

Oh, that’s what he meant, about…bigger losses.

Well, shit.

“And there’s still hope, y’know?” Steve’s voice comes quiet in comparison to where it was before but it’s still music. Still beautiful.

Eddie tries to swallow, wet his mouth on his own but he can’t so he turns eyes that can’t possibly look short of pleading, now, and blinks toward the cup at the bedside and Steve’s on it in an instant, easing it to Eddie’s mouth and tipping gently, painstaking in its care until Eddie pulls back and steels himself to try again with words, because these ones, he needs the to come out strong, and right:

“We’ll win the war.”

It’s scratchy, and probably more motion than sound but: it’s there, and it’s full and solid and Steve fucking beams for it:

“Yeah,” Steve speaks it like it’s fact, or like in saying it he’ll seal it as law and Eddie believes it just as sure, too, so:

“Yeah, we will.”

They will. They will.

They sit like that for a while, and Eddie feels the exertion of doing very little at all start to creep up on him and he must shift, or make a sound he can’t quite pick up himself to notice because Steve’s quick to jump:

“What else do you need?”

And Eddie’s drifting, and he doesn’t want to be a bother, a burden—useless—but Steve’s looking at him…the way Steve is looking at him?

It kinda prickles behind Eddie’s eyes, so he closes them, which feels like such a goddamn loss because then he can’t see Steve and he, he just…

“Can you,” Eddie starts to bite his lower lip but the sting rips through at the first hint of pressure so he bites at the tip of his tongue instead, and Steve’s already settling him; he never sat up, not truly, but Steve’s making sure he’s laid flat and comfortable, pillows arranged just so and Eddie can barely manage to pat the mattress when Steve retreats, but Steve knows him for that innocent gesture, too: grabs for his hand and Eddie remembers breathing well enough, now, to sigh in contentless, in fucking relief for the touch.

“Couldn’t feel,” he rasps a little; “hands, arms, when I first,” and then he opens his eyes, and locks gazes with Steve and forgets, for a second; forgets again, about the breathing.

And it’s okay; he’s okay with forgetting.

“Would it,” Eddie struggles with the words, throat start to feel a burn in it for the strain; “okay if—“

“The answer’s yes, man,” Steve’s soothing him, but also kind of shushing him, all in one go: “whatever it is, okay? So just ask, don’t like, pull the punch,” then Steve’s squeezing his hand, and murmuring deep and smooth and almost like a purr, a source of pure comfort just to hear, and then to feel through the air between them:

“‘Cause it’s not a punch, yeah?”

And: okay. Okay then, he can; Eddie can do this.

“Can you keep,” he barely breathes, but it’s all he remembers so he goes with it, hopes it’s enough: “holding? I can feel, when you’re…”

He trails off, but it’s…fine. It’s fine, because Steve never lets go once, just readjusts the hold of his hand on Eddie’s, of Eddie’s inside his, and settles next to him quiet and steadfast and kind of fucking everything and Eddie fades into the feeling of it with the last of his words like a vow:

“I’ll hold it until you wake back up, if you want.”

And if Eddie knows anything as sleep claims him: he knows that he wants.

>>> two: wash 🧼🫧🚿

✨permanent tag list: OPEN (lmk if you want to be added/removed): @pearynice @hbyrde36 @slashify @finntheehumaneater @wxrmland @dreamwatch @perseus-notjackson @estrellami-1 @bookworm0690 @imhereforthelolzdontyellatme @nerdyglassescheeseychick

divider credits here & here

👾 title credit here

💫 ao3 link here

[hitlikehammers]

straw poll: How Many Times Can You Sleep In The Same Bed With A Guy Before It Starts To ✨Mean Something✨?

Because Steve's just there to be a good friend hold Eddie close through the night so Eddie knows what his breathing sounds like as he falls asleep help Eddie through the nightmares, right?(!??!)

or: just how many manners of sin does 'trauma' cover, exactly?

I Could Be Your Nurse (or something)

Or: Five Times Eddie Has To Ask For Help, Plus One Time He Doesn’t Need It Anymore (but asks anyway) ✨ for @penny00dreadful 💜

<<< two: wash🚿

💤🪦 three: sleep 🌗 🛌

Eddie shoots up in his bed, less afraid of choking on his own heart for its pounding than he is for gnashing it apart with his teeth, it’s surged so high and he can’t breathe, he doesn’t know if he wants to because it’s dark and he can’t see and last thing he did see was, was—

“Ed,” and it’s murmured so close, and the bed dips quick as warmth envelops Eddie’s frame, as a hand grabs one wrist, both wrists and crushes them between two bodies to feel, feel—

“Eddie, breathe, breathe, shhh,” and oh: that’s what he’d seen, what he always sees now: the images he remembers, and the things he’s been told of his own near-demise, but it’s not his body; it’s never his body and more, and worse, they’re always too late and he’s being told to breathe but he can’t, he can’t breathe because they failed, he failed and Steve’s not breathing, he’ll never breathe again—

“Right here, Eds, I’m right here,” and one hand lets go of him and starts carefully wiping at Eddie’s face, drying his eyes so they can focus and recognize not just the touch and the scent and the heat but the sight of the body wrapped around him.

“I’m with you, you’re okay,” Steve breathes, he breathes and Eddie can feel it, he can feel it and it makes no sense but it’s clear and it’s deep and deliberate and, and—

“Breathe with me, come on, just breathe,” Steve coxes a little like soothing a wounded animal and…that’s apt, Eddie feels small and skittish and he needs the warmth and the dawning truth of Steve’s weight against his bones; “it’s okay, everyone’s okay,” and yes, yes, that’s important, that’s so important but it’s not enough, there’s still blood pumping like it wants to leap from his mouth as he gasps because he cannot fucking breathe until—

“I’m okay.”

Steve says it as just part of an ongoing litany of reassurance, hopes to calm Eddie into, y’know, the basic needs of human survival, heart and lungs remembering how to move right but—

Steve’s okay.

It’s like Eddie heart and lungs had an agenda; like maybe they didn’t want to move right if the dream—a dream, a dream, just a dream, Steve’s chest lifts against him, falls, lifts again, and again, and again, real—but maybe neither was really invested in survival, if it all hadn’t just been a dream.

“We’re okay, Eds,” and Eddie doesn’t mean to gasp, to half moan and half whimper in something wreathed in pure relief, doesn’t plan to burrow into Steve like he does as Steve presses closer, closer, so it’s only logical, only the reasonable thing when Steve’s lips move against Eddie’s skin at the hairline, at the temple when he speaks, he’s just that close, y’know—

“Swear,” Steve murmurs, and he crushes their hands a little closer between both their chests, and his face is still so close because of it—no other reason, it can’t be any other reason—that his lips drag when he breathes, when he fucking vows:

“I swear we’re okay.”

Eddie nods, just nods; Steve keeps him tucked under his chin, safe: he lifts with his breathing, his heartbeat’s right there, taunt but true, realand maybe Eddie nuzzles there a little, so fucking sue him.

It’s been like this, though. Lately. More than just lately; it’s been like this for a while. Steve had always been around for the nightmares, and he always came to ease Eddie through them but he ended up back on the couch if Wayne wasn’t there, or in the chair in the corner, or the sleeping bag they’d found and he’d set up on the floor before Eddie could protest—and he never wanted to push too hard because, because…

At least on the floor, Eddie could hear him breathe.

But then, then the nightmares stopped being highlight reels of reality; then they turned, and they’re focused on…variations on a theme.

A theme of losing one Steve Harrington.

And then Eddie grew clingy, without even meaning to, or planning to, and Steve never fought him. It took a couple weeks before Steve didn’t only come to him as soon as Eddie started gasping, screaming and then stayed with him through the night, no: then Steve just started coming with him to bed and opening his arms to roll into, to wake up shaking against.

It didn’t make the nightmares go away but it made them…bearable. Because proof of the lies in them was there waiting to wrap around him, if he wasn’t already buried in that warm, fuzzy, living chest.

Where Eddie’s pressed tight, now. And he…he couldn’t say what tips the scales. What changes things when nothing is different. Steve’s heartbeat’s a little faster, maybe Eddie’s gasping heavier, more of Steve in his lungs than usual. Maybe it doesn’t matter.

Whatever the reason, Eddie lets his open lips drag along Steve’s collarbone. For proximity’s sake.

“Steve?”

And Eddie’s back to feel like his heart’s less a threat like the bat tails choking than it is for the biting in half where it’s caught on his tongue, like an offering, or else damnation.

Maybe both.

“Hmm?” Steve’s hum’s a little sleepy but he’s quick to maneuver them, to face Eddie and rove eyes over Eddie’s face with fully-wakeful care; concern.

Offering. His heart’s a manic wild thing thrashing on his tongue when he makes to speak but it’s…

It’s Steve’s. His heart is Steve’s and Eddie’s lost but in maybe the best most terrifying way imaginable; Eddie is beholden to Steve with all of him, and if the ungainly pulp shaking out of his ribs and up past his throat’s going to fall out with the words he has to whisper, well.

It’s Steve’s, and whether he feels anything at all in return, he’s been more than the word kind knows how to hold; maybe he’ll be gentle with it even in rejecting how it shakes, for him.

Kinda, just for him. Like this: just for him.

“What is this?”

He doesn’t move, doesn’t gesture or look anywhere but in Steve’s eyes but: their hands are still linked, and his fingers twitch without him meaning to move them at all but Steve.

Steve grips tighter. Steadies him with question; immediate.

“Trauma,” Steve huffs a little, humorless, but his breath’s so near, so warm: “or so they tell me.”

“No, I mean,” and Eddie’s shaking his head then because; “yeah, yes, definitely that, but,” and Eddie can be brave, he has to be brave because if he’s not brave this will maybe break him: the middle space without an answer, he needs some kind of answer—

“I mean this,” and now Eddie forces himself to tighten his fingers, and presses into Steve closer: Steve’s heart isn’t wild, but it’s not calm either. It’s not sleep-slow. It’s…untamed.

Eddie doesn’t know what it means.

But Steve looks at their hands, pulls Eddie’s fingertips through the curls on his chest, starts tracing Eddie’s nails from cuticle to tip.

“I’ve never been good with subtle,” Steve barely breathes, and his heart’s faster for it, where Eddie can feel; “or moving slow,” and then he laughs; it’s not humorous now either, more self deprecating, and Eddie…Eddie doesn’t like that.

Eddie loves this man too much.

“Kinda notorious for wearing my heart on my sleeve and all,” and Steve shrugs, only pauses the motions of their hands for half a breath, less than a heartbeat at the going pace. It feels too small for something so…significant.

Something precious like that.

“Easy to get stomped on,” Eddie finds the words tumbling out, almost aggrieved; he heard the rumors, even among their friends, their family but faced with it so stark like this, naked chest to chest, it’s…unthinkable.

It hurts, just to think of.

“Yeah,” Steve exhales; fucking…Eddie thinks that sounds resigned: “I know.”

Eddie doesn’t expect the whine that escapes him, a little jagged on the frantic pulse he can feel all in his teeth; he doesn’t expect it, but it’s not big enough. It’s not deep enough for the ache in him at that…acceptance, that expectation of hurt.

“I didn’t,” Eddie starts, desperate for him to know; however this plays out, Steve cannot ever, ever believe his heart isn’t…isn’t the most invaluable gift in, in—

In any universe. Any dimension. Across any existence at all worth knowing.

He doesn’t think the words he knows could do the sentiment justice, though. And words, shit: he should be good with those but, even if he knew the right ones. Hell just fought up his still-pounding heart with a flail and that’s…

He grabs Steve's hand tighter, fit to break bones: the need unquestionable.

He hopes the want, the devotion in him translates just as clear.

And then, oh holy fuck—then.

Steve holds back just as hard.

“I wanted to try to keep the ball in your court,” Steve exhales, shaky; and Eddie knows, he knows they’re on the same page. Steve’s heart’s so fast. Eddie’s is faster.

“I told you,” Eddie starts, more like he’s trying to figure it all out for himself more than arguing anything but, how could Steve had thought Eddie didn’t, how could—

Why would anyone trust Eddie with any kind of sports-oriented ball—

“With the shower, and—“

“I’m not that guy anymore,” Steve barely whispers; “you might’ve had a crush on me then but now I’m,” Eddie feels Steve swallow; hears his heartbeat maybe skip; “I think, I mean, I hope I’m a different person.”

Eddie has to breathe at the notch in Steve’s throat for a couple seconds, maybe minutes; this…this sounds like…like maybe…

“And just because the ball’s in your court,” Steve’s pulse kicks up, and up, and—

“Didn’t mean my heart wasn’t still held out for the stomping,” and he’s twirling Eddie’s hair, he’s twirling his fingers through Eddie’s hair while he talks about the impossible possibility of, of what: Eddie…not wanting, of Eddie doing the stomping—

Eddie can barely swallow.

“You saying you wouldn’t help bathe all your friends in similar circumstances?” he mostly kinda squeaks; he can barely hear over the rush of his own blood.

“I’m saying not all of them,” there’s a little smile in Steve’s voice, but his pulse is still knocking against where Eddie pressed into his neck; “but I wouldn’t be risking my heart for it either way.”

And Eddie…Eddie thinks he’s maybe dying, for real this time. He thinks maybe he’s never felt alive before this moment, ever.

He blames the confusion, for not thinking through his next words.

“Would it be too not-slow,” Eddie mouths against the pulsepoint jumping at him, fit perfect to his lips; “or unsubtle, if I said I thought I was in love with you?”

He might not think the words through, but hell if he regrets them for a goddamn second.

Not when Steve doesn’t move to pull away, doesn’t let go at all, holds on tight—but the pulse against Eddie’s lips redefines what it means to hammer, to race.

Eddie starts thinking about turning, looking Steve in the eye and hoping to find what he…what he thinks he’ll find but there’s still a part of him that’s scared, that’s not brave, that’s…

But then Steve’s moving, raising up to meet Eddie’s gaze: so bright in the middle of the night, in the pitch dark. Lips open, breathing heavy, their chests still flush but now Steve’s reaching, framing Eddie’s face and just…looking.

Nah, no: staring.

“Steve?” Eddie thinks it’s more a matter of his lips moving than of sound coming out, especially as he tries to follow the pad of Steve’s thumb as it traces the corner of Eddie’s lips, careful, so careful, like Eddie’s glass and wonder all at once and—

“I think I’m in love with you, too.”

And then Steve’s leaning in, then Eddie’s learning that Steve tastes like leftover toothpaste and some kind of spice they hadn’t eaten, that Eddie doesn’t know: thinks, believes is what dawn tastes like, the breaking of day itself in Steve’s mouth, his veins.

They move slow, slick, tongues less exploring and more kinda worshipping; Eddie’s been kissed harder and faster and deeper for the technical definitions of any of the terms but he’s never felt so dizzy, so spun from the axis of his world, the line that splits his heart in halves; never like someone was tongue his soul out gentle to weigh and bathe in, like, adoration.

Eddie doesn’t have a word for how it steals his breath.

“Hey,” he tried to gasp anyway when they break apart for air; “hey, Stevie?”

“Hmm?” Steve hums, running the line of his nose up Eddie’s jaw, and Eddie throws his head back, shivers when Steve licks at the fading scars as he goes. When he makes it to kiss Eddie’s temple—because now he means to, or maybe he always did and, oh, oh shit, what if he always did—then he leans back and looks at Eddie, and there’s…

There’s so much in those eyes. It makes Eddie feel…almost-brave.

“What if I took the ‘think’ out?”

Steve tips his head, fucking adorable.

“Whatcha mean?”

Eddie swallows, and soaks up that gaze some more: almost-brave.

“I said I think I’m in love with you,” Eddie exhales; “what if I said that, but I took out the part where I say ‘think’?”

And oh wow: he’d thought, he’d known Steve was some inexplicable light before.

He’s putting their whole galaxy’s suns, every one of them Eddie doesn’t even know—the way his eyes shine and his smile beams puts every goddamn one of them to shame.

And Eddie doesn’t expect it, exactly, when Steve gathers his hands again and crushes them to his chest just to murmur low:

“Then I’d say this is yours to do with whatever you’d like,” and he moves Eddie’s palms to cup around the beat that’s still so fast and hard but not pulled taut anymore, closer to sugar high, or a rubber ball ricocheting around the ceiling just for the joy in it; “stomping included,” and he smiles for it like a joke but…but Eddie would never so—

He leans in and this time he captures the lips, and he presses hard, dares to nip at Steve’s lower lip and bite out:

“Never,” and he meets Steve’s eyes, watching them dilate impossibly in too little light and he just, he just…

He falls into Steve, presses his cheek close and, and feels him. Somehow all of it’s new.

“You okay?” Steve eventually asks, but doesn’t pull away, just slides a hand up the line of Eddie’s spine to steady, to keep him like there’s a question of Eddie going anywhere but here every again; and then just leans into Eddie’s cheek, magnetic-like.

And okay is such a foolish, insignificant word. Eddie could hold the weight of the earth ten times over, he feels strong enough; Eddie could swallow the stars and it wouldn’t matter because he has his own sun right in front of him.

Eddie doesn’t know if he understood the word happy before this moment, and every synonym for it that means the exact same thing’s a lot like okay: just too fucking small.

“Yeah,” Eddie answers, and breathes Steve in so deep his lungs kinda shake for it before he breathes back out; “yeah, sweetheart,” and fuck, fuck—Eddie Munson’s not just in love.

Eddie Munson is loved in return. Eddie Munson loves, and is loved back. That’s…that’s just…

“I’ve never been better.”

>>> four: play 🎶🎧🎹

✨permanent tag list: OPEN (lmk if you want to be added/removed): @pearynice @hbyrde36 @slashify @finntheehumaneater @wxrmland @dreamwatch @perseus-notjackson @estrellami-1 @bookworm0690 @imhereforthelolzdontyellatme @nerdyglassescheeseychick @swimmingbirdrunningrock @goodolefashionedloverboi @sanctumdemunson

divider credits here & here

👾 title credit here

💫 ao3 link here

[hitlikehammers]

time for that age old question: is love enough to beat back the apocalypse?

Because Steve's right there to protect everybody like the self-sacrificing asshole he is help Eddie make the music he's not strong enough for yet help them all put Vecna in the ground for good this time, right?(!??!)

or: what's the song for your walkman, baby? does it even matter?

I Could Be Your Nurse (or something)

Or: Five Times Eddie Has To Ask For Help, Plus One Time He Doesn’t Need It Anymore (but asks anyway) ✨ for @penny00dreadful 💜

<<< three: sleep 🌗

🎧 🎹 four: play 🎶 🛡️

To tell the whole truth of it: it comes too quickly—Vecna’s last stand. Of course it does.

But probably, if he’s being fair: they’d never have been really ready. Not for this, and so maybe it’s best that they’re not fully healed, not at full strength when it all comes to a head, not least because that means Vecna and his petal-toothed brigade aren’t at full strength either. And that choice, for their side, is sloppy; the Party stands on the right-side-up against the attack because they have to. Vecna makes his move because—or else, Eddie’s fairly sure—because the sadistic ballsac is losing his fucking mind.

Which is terrifying, sure, but fuck if it doesn’t help their cause.

It’s actually over pretty quick, even compared to Spring Break which, while it felt like a lifetime for how much it changed Eddie’s own, it’s only been those handful of days—but it’s kinda like the grand finale at a fireworks show: everything all at once then, done. In the everything’s though: he might not like it, but Eddie’s not so foolish as to believe he’s not still too tender, still too deep in healing the finer points of being gnawed alive to be anything but a burden in the thick of it. He refuses to be sidelined, though, and he thinks it says a lot for the long-term health of this glorious impossible thing he’s…building? Yeah, he, umm, he, Eddie Munson, is building a real goddamn thing where he doesn’t even just let someone into his heart and treasures them there, no, he’s building a thing where he gives his heart and gets on new and soft and trembling in kind and they both get to work at the treasuring of something more precious than just their own vulnerable insides, but yeah, yeah:

Eddie thinks it bodes really fucking well for the hopes he has that lean hard toward forever, already, in Eddie’s chest at least when Steve looks his way as they’re planning the teams and he locks eyes with Eddie and Eddie doesn’t even get his mouth open to breathe, to plead don’t cut me out, don’t send me to Wayne to be ‘safe’ or ‘out of harm’s way’ or whatever, don’t leave me so fucking far from you my heart hurts just because it’s beating in the middle space unmoored and shaking around all bruised up with it for not knowing and I know I can’t do what everyone else can but it’ll be bad enough not being next to you please don’t push me far enough that I won’t know the moment you’re safe, just—

Steve meets his eyes, and Eddie’s breath catches before his heart trips, and then Steve speaks up—and he doesn’t, not all that often when the nerdiest among them are shoring up the battle plans—but he watches Eddie without blinking when he pipes up:

“Eddie’s on medical and audio, with Erica and Jon.”

And maybe it’s his tone—this almost wholly novel thing in Steve that’s steely and unquestionable but no one pushes, they nod and get back to work, totally seamless and, and…yeah. That’s all Eddie wanted. Best he could hope for. Just outside the gate they go through. Close enough to hold a hand on the way down, and reach for purchase on the journey back.

Steve swallows hard, and nods at Eddie before he looks away and starts gearing up, twirls his fucking nailbat so it catches the sunlight even thought the metal’s mostly rusted, now and just…Eddie hadn’t needed to say a word. And Steve wanted to send him to safety, the way his throat had bobbed made it real clear there was something heavy he’s held back but: he’d said what he said. He’d laid the line in Eddie’s favor. Eddie wants to hold him, wants to pull him close and feel him breathe, and—

Yeah. Eddie kinda feels like the way it goes is a really good sign for their future as a couple. A couple. Them. Together.

With an always on the other side of all of this that could be kinda fucking magnificent, maybe. Given the chance.

Point being: Eddie gets himself set up with at least a full ambulance’s supplies for first aid, definitely not acquired legally, and a stereo set up he really wishes someone had been kind enough to outfit him with in not-the-apocalypse, holy shit is it gorgeous, but since the strength in his hands is still a work-in-progress, he’s gotta be ready to crank up the noise as a distraction from arm’s-length. It’s actually driving him fucking crazy—or, was; it was, pre-active return to the regularly scheduled world ending—the whole not being able to make music, to translate the noise in his head into sounds on the strings but even that, even that’s been tolerable, survivable because of Steve—who he loves, he gets to love Steve Harrington holy fuck—but Steve’s not just there to be everything and more than the air Eddie goddamn breathes, to become the music just by existing, nope, he one ups that shit: he asked Eddie if it’d be enough to learn the chords he needs. So Eddie could match the words with the notes right, so Steve could be a—

“—kinda piss-poor substitute but,” Steve had shrugged for it with a crooked grin; “but even a bad translator gets a message across, and you’d know when it’s wrong so we can figure out how to fix it and—“

And Eddie’d grabbed Steve’s chin and yanked his mouth close to fucking consume that man like a soul goddamn starved.

“I’d be a shit teacher,” Eddie had mouthed against Steve’s lips after they were sucked well-swollen; “if I still can’t lift the fucking neck for more than a minute,” but Steve had heard none of it, just shot right back:

“You don’t think we’ve beat steeper odds than that?”

And in the face of that raised brow, those red lips parted, that pulse in that neck still a little bit visible like a tease: the fuck was Eddie supposed to do but dive back in and love on the man who’d somehow agreed to be his, and to claim Eddie of all people in turn?

Which is a whole other reason why everything’s gonna be fine: Steve’s gonna make music with him. Steve’s gonna be Eddie’s muse and the vessel for what he inspires. It’s gonna be like Greek fucking poetry, except it’s gonna be them.

So Eddie’s all stocked up, s’got everyone’s floaty-bone-breaky songs queued up on blast for immediate deployment as necessary, and Steve’s the last to go through—he always is, in Eddie’s experience, waits for everyone to be safely accounted for before he spares a thought for himself and it might kill Eddie one day but not fucking today, because it’s gonna be fine—

“Eddie.”

It feels a little like history repeating itself, the way Steve huddles him in a little. Henderson’s through, with Lucas and Hopper and the weird stray Russian, but it’s not like history repeating, because Eddie’s got different words to see him off with; so fucking different.

“Last time I didn’t have,” and Steve reaches, cups Eddie’s cheek, drags down to press on his chest as his voice strains hard: “and it almost killed me,” and Steve usually pinches between his eyes to keep his feelings in check but instead of using his free hand to hold back the tears he reaches for Eddie’s and laces their fingers as his voice cracks and he chokes out:

“Please,” and it’s for everything. For all the almosts from last time; for all the possibilities rife this time. For all the hopes Eddie thinks they share beyond how this shakes out.

“Exceptionally underqualified field med,” Eddie breathes, and squeezes Steve’s hand so, so hard like a promise, because it is; “exceptionally overqualified DJ,” and Steve chuckles, wet but real and it’s enough, because:

“I got it, Stevie,” Eddie bends his forehead to Steve’s to say better than with words that he’s not in this to be a hero, he’ll be right here the whole time, but that doesn’t mean he…that doesn’t mean he can help but to ask this time:

“Just,” and the breath in him punches out unexpectedly as he damn-near begs:

“Only bring me back the little things, yeah? That I know how to fix?”

And they both hear what’s said underneath it:

Don’t turn around and die down there, and kill me in kind..

And—if anyone’s keeping track—they turn out not to need it but: the way the kiss is a wholeass wartime farewell, man.

And then: Eddie waits, and fucks with the speakers for less than an hour before the earth shakes, and his heart drops, but then he hears it.

The fucking whooping of those shitheads echoing through the cracks.

And then he sees it, runs, grabs the first hand that’s clinging to the rope this time and pulls with strength he doesn’t have, is probably more a hindrance than a help but he steadies them each back on the ground and hugs them so tight, kisses more than one of them on the head or the cheek as he doesn’t pretend not to be sobbing through the laughter because they did it, they fucking did it, somehow it’s over and he loves these people and he’s so fucking happy they’re alive and safe and here and—

And the person he loves more, loves most, brings up the rear, a little bloodied, a little scratched up, dingy with the fucking air down there but smiling and Eddie…

Eddie falls into him so fucking hard they both hit the ground and just, just grab onto one another. Just hold and breathe and catch lips every few seconds like an afterthought because they feel each other’s heartbeat where their chests are pressed tight and it’s, they’re…

Steve’s got four broken fingers across both hands. None in a row. He’s basically giving a Vulcan salute by default for how they’re taped.

Eddie loves him so goddamn much it hurts.

And Eddie’d obviously known—once things start to settle in the days that’ve followed—that teaching Steve guitar with those Spock-y hands was on the back burner, but he does ask Steve to sit, and to rest, and to help hum back the tunes in Eddie’s head while Eddie jots lyrics with a hand that’s still shaky but steadying out more every day, and it’s kind of perfect, and Steve adds some things into the melodies either on purpose or by accident but they’re better for it every time and—

Muse and vessel, man. The light of Eddie’s whole goddamn life.

With fucking Vulcan hands still, though, so: excuse Eddie for being…bewildered when his boyfriend—boyfriend, that’s his boyfriend—but his taped-up-healing-Vulcan-handed boyfriend is propping the front door open and lugging in a long, not-recovery-friendly thing that looks close to dropping on his toes and—

“The fuck are you doing?” Eddie asks with a little more panic in his voice than he’d hoped for as he rushes as best he can to where Steve’s kicking the door shut behind him, fluttering his hands around uselessly as Steve maneuvers past him, leans across for a peck at the corner of Eddie’s mouth and calls—“It’s fine, it weighs, like, nothing”—over his shoulder as he settles the, the thing down on the coffee table in the living room they’ve started actually using for, y’know.

Living.

Eddie follows him in, though, because of course, he’s half-a-dog on that man’s heels, whole-caught-in-the-gravity-of-his-everything: but Eddie follows as Steve tosses himself backward with something in his hand, rolls and rucks up his fucking absurd Hawking Middle tee across the sweet curve of his hips, the way the soft give of skin tempts Eddie to run his tongue over the trail of almost-curls, like baby-curls where they lead under the waist of his jeans: Eddie would happily volunteer to survive on the taste of that musky-delicate space until the end of goddamn time—

But then Steve’s huffing a breathless ha from behind a chair where he’d been stretched to reach and a light catches Eddie’s eye from his periphery where he’d been staring unblinking just at Steve: the big long black thing on the coffee table. It takes a genuine concerted effort not to keep at the Steve-staring—not an uncommon state of Eddie’s existence, in all fairness—and check what’s glowing on the table: something turned on. Was plugged in, right, that’s what had Steve rolling on the floor without Eddie on top of or being deliciously pinned down by him.

The something being the big long black thing that Eddie takes in for the whole of it, now: a keyboard.

“Jon picked it up for me second-hand from the place next to Fox Photo when he drove down for his camera, and Rob vouched that it’s a good brand and like, really good condition,” Steve’s raised up on his knees, now with his hands braces on his thighs as Eddie studies the keys, fingers the ends of a every few of the naturals.

“Rob helped with those, too, so I’d know the right, like, chords,” and yeah: they’re stupa of masking tape stuck to the keys with letters in blue, black, and red pen, alternating so they don’t get mixed up, some with and arrow, Eddie assumes, to indicate a sharp.

“I only remember like half of one song from when my parents thought it would look good to have me take piano lessons,” Steve huffs in whole-ass judgment; “my mom wanted the endorsement of the guy who was stepping down from city council, and his wife taught private lessons, so, y’know,” Steve rolls his eyes; “super convenient leading up to the election.”

“What song?”

Steve blinks, tips his head in askance for what Eddie recognizes very clearly as something closer to a croak than a question, his throat all tight. He tries to cough, to clear it.

“What song do you remember?”

Steve snorts at that, leans back on his palms, and fuck is he beautiful.

“Clair de Lune,” Steve grins crooked; “the one song I was allowed to pick, instead of just being assigned.”

“Why’d you pick it?” Not that Eddie doesn’t like it or anything. It’s more that…he knew Steve could more than just drum fingers on keys, if only just, and that a baby grand used to sit in the corner where there’s a stereo cabinet now, but.

But: see, there’s like a whole half of his heart that’s dedicated to collecting new knowledge about everything Steve: his favorite food when he was 12 versus the now. How his favorite color became his favorite color. The story behind all the polos. The nitty-gritties about why he’s in a big-ass house alone for approximately 360 days a year, and how long it’s been that way. Eddie’s whole heart is basically Steve’s but every day that half overflows a little, and Eddie’s only keeping it relegated to parts filled with Steve-lore so he can feel the collection break containment every other day, this grand and joyous bursting under his ribs as everything spills over again, and again, and again until it’s all just Steve, and his heart has to burst or stretch, or both.

Eddie thinks both will be amazing.

And right now, in the interest of building toward that amazing-both: he wants to know why Debussy.

Steve chuckles to himself—better music than any dead French guy by a country mile—and eyes Eddie almost slyly.

“Do you remember Claire Reynolds?”

Vaguely. Like, very vaguely. He remembers…uneven pigtails. Very actual-cult-like vibes about her family as a vague impression and now that he’s bringing it to mind he feels a new wave of indignation: those Children-of-the-Corn motherfuckers were just fine but Eddie liked a board game and he was probably a murderer.

“When we were in like, first grade,” Steve’s continuing on; “she asked me every, single, day, to come over and see her sheep.” Steve looks up at Eddie and bites his lower lip, lets his gaze dance and lets Eddie fall into it for a few dazed seconds before he spells it out.

“She had these crazy eyes about it, it was kinda unsettling,” Steve nudges, but Eddie’s doesn’t get it until:

“And it’s not like I do now, because obviously I don’t, but I definitely didn’t speak a lick of French when I was eight.”

It takes Eddie a hot second before he snorts hard enough to hurt:

Claire, da Loon.

“I was eight,” Steve protests Eddie’s laughter halfheartedly even as he joins in, reaches to slap at Eddie’s upper arm which honestly: just makes him laugh harder.

“Anyway,” Steve fights through the last of the chuckling as it peters out between them, drags himself to sitting next to the coffee table and taps his hand to the top of the keyboard.

“I know it’s not the same as learning guitar to help, and I can probably only get the top and bottom notes with these,” he lifts his Vulcan-fingers his a shrug; “but I was hoping that’d be better than nothing?”

And, like, how Eddie was talking about his heart having to swell, for all the things he gets to tuck inside of it that come with loving Steve Harrington?

He might crack a rib, just now, because—

“This is for me?”

Steve purses his lips, lifts a brow:

“Well, technically it’s for me,” steve singles his fingers, which looks absurd with the splints; “but yeah. To help you get the songs out. I mean, once these are free again, you can help me with the guitar like we talked about, until you’re—“

And Eddie cannot be blamed, see: he cannot be fucking blamed for tackling Steve to the floor and kissing him hard enough to bruise because…

“You got hurt,” Eddie half-breathes between kisses; “you got hurt and I was so afraid I was gonna lose you,” and Eddie reaches for those taped fingers and kisses them, too: so gentle and Steve’s expression softens so quick:

“I was scared, too,” he whispers between them, cups Eddie’s face with his unloaded hand; “you were as safe as I could make you within the fucking city limits but I was still so goddamn scared.”

Cue more rib-cracking for the heart-swelling, because Jesus fucking Christ.

“And you,” Eddie exhales, slow and shaky; “you’re hurt, but you went and got,” he nods to the keyboard;

“I know it’s not ideal,” Steve’s quick to, to what, apologize? For being insane and perfect and—

“Shut up,” Eddie says, voice low and watery and he’s still kissing at Steve’s fingers, holding his wrist delicate but also like a lifeline.

“You’re hurt,” Eddie maybe kinda moans it because he hates it, as much as he’s so fucking grateful that’s it’s just this, no worse than this; “and you still—”

“I promised, didn’t I?”

And that…that’s one thing Eddie’s learned beyond reproach; that even to his detriment, Steve keeps his goddamn promises.

And he’d promised to help Eddie get his words out, to place the lyrics to the notes and help unclutter his brain so he didn’t lose his mind.

Holy fucking hell.

“Steve,” Eddie starts, shakes his head, needs to find the right words. “You’re alive,” the most important thing. “You are healing,” another most important thing, for Eddie to oversee and make sure of, even as Steve keeps an eye on the last lingering threads of the long haul on Eddie’s road to recovery in kind, his beloved mother hen.

“This is,” and he runs his fingers too light to draw sounds across the keys, hopes he sounds as awed and grateful as he feels; “but you, you’ve gotta test, you have to,” and Eddie shakes his head and lifts his eyes to just fucking ask it:

“Why?”

And Steve: Steve just studies his face for a few seconds, reads what he needs before he smiles kinda exasperated, mostly fond and answers so simply, while also breaking a few more of Eddie’s ribs when he just says:

“Because I love you.”

And Eddie’s heart’s not so overfull yet of all of Steve, it’s not fair that it just bursts right then and there, Eddie propelled into Steve’s arms to kiss him deep this time, like he’s searching out Steve’s soul to taste and maybe he is, save that he needs his heart to not have exploded for feeling if he’s going to keep the memory of it safe in his chest for always, he needs to patch his heart back up first but he’s too distracted, too drowned in the way love actually fucking feels, fucking shifts his cells around and makes a new version of him, lets his heart grow bigger except it went and blasted apart with the unprecedented immensity of loving and—

And then Eddie’s got Steve’s taped up hands on both his cheeks, and he remembers that night, in the shower, where Steve ripped the seams from his shirt so taking it off wouldn’t hurt him; notices how Steve is wearing that same fucking shirt in this very moment, all in one piece, like it never split apart in the first place.

Master seamstress, tried and tested and true; truer than anything.

So Eddie just dives back in and kisses with everything in him, thinks maybe when Steve tastes the pieces of Eddie’s blowout heart under his tongue while Eddie goes diving for the sweet lick of Steve’s soul:

Eddie thinks Steve’s mouth might know how to stitch up torn things, too. Especially the kinds that are ripped at their seams wholly for the sake of loving that fucking hard.

✨permanent tag list: OPEN (lmk if you want to be added/removed): @pearynice @hbyrde36 @slashify @finntheehumaneater @wxrmland @dreamwatch @perseus-notjackson @estrellami-1 @bookworm0690 @imhereforthelolzdontyellatme @nerdyglassescheeseychick @swimmingbirdrunningrock @goodolefashionedloverboi @sanctumdemunson

divider credits here & here

👾 title credit here

💫 ao3 link here