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hitlikehammers · 2 months

Text

could be something

rating: t ♥️ cw: softness, recovering from the upside down ♥️ tags: pre-relationship, post-s4, fluff, Eddie is having so many feelings, Eddie is not a strong man, but Eddie can be a brave man, Steve Harrington being a devoted caretaker to a T

for @steddielovemonth day seventeen: Love is when you look at his lips for half the conversation because you can’t stop thinking about kissing him. (@starryeyedjanai)

this definitely takes place chronologically after this one so: have the next little step toward these codependent knuckleheads figuring their big feelings out ♥️

When he put his mind to thinking on it—as in, thinking with thoughts versus general technicolor swollen-heart sighing of his whole fucking self, body and soul and just, all of it, the whole of him, when it comes to this: but when Eddie did focus on the thinking part, he thought maybe Steve was, like, a fixture. Like something that defined the home-feeling he has in this room that should be fucking sterile, no matter how long he’s populated it so far: it’s a fucking hospital. It shouldn’t feel…comfortable. Like: no part of this should feel anything but abrasive, and offensive to his sensibilities to the point of wanting; needing to get out at soon as humanly possible.

Which he does: he wants to get out bad. But, like, getting out will be good, for the obvious reasons, but also because Steve will still be there—which is why Eddie first thought Steve was like, a point of association. Eddie had his surviving guitar, some of his cassettes, a tape deck, his Monster Manual, the Corroded Coffin banner that’d somehow survived and was somehow allowed in a hospital room, photos of the band, of the sheepies who weren’t really sheepies were they, they were brothers-in-arms, then some of his new comrades, Wheeler Senior and Robs, and a drawing that’s recognizably from the campaign before Vecna’s Curse, for obvious reasons, but it’s from the mini Byers who Eddie barely knew, and who certainly wasn’t there for the campaign he’s illustrated, but the art was fucking sick, and there’s his mug from the trailer, the Garfield one, not the newer one but the one that’s missing at ear, and there’s—

Steve.

All of this together, he figures, makes it soft, and safe, and gentle around him at all hours of the night when nightmares try to grab him, or when the poking and the prodding got too much before it finally died down, once they were convinced he was going to survive and also not end up a weird otherworldly hybrid monster (which was why he wanted his Manual in the first place, so he could helpfullypoint out suggestions as to what these goddamn feds-in-white-coats must think was lurking beneath Eddie’s skin ready to fucking strike): and Steve’s always there to hides his laughter behind a cough in the corner when Eddie suggests maybe they think he’s sprout horns, or did they want to check for fangs again, he can open wide—just like he’s always there to grab Eddie’s hand and ground him, talk him down into reality again after the worst of the nightmares.

His hand, like that, is what…starts Eddie thinking a little harder about, y’know. Things.

The soft squishy stuff he’s been hiding from with all the excuses in the world that really…really can’t hold the tides back anymore, because this thing, this soft-squishy-warm-immense thing, is bigger than anything Eddie’s ever felt. Not lust, not hope, not pie-in-the-sky wishing, not even pain.

And Eddie’s recently become very fucking familiar with that last one. So that’s saying something.

But Steve’s hand is always ready for Eddie to grab, ready to hold and be held, ready to be an anchor or a touch to soothe and Eddie…

Eddie’s not fucking stupid, right, okay: Steve’s hand in Eddie’s hand makes him think about Steve’s hand in his hand, specifically: the one time Steve’s hand lifted Eddie’s hand to his mouth, to his lips.

Like: intentionally.

It’s when they decide to move him into a step-down room, like a rehab-focused ward or something—and that’s good, that’s like, reallygood, and Eddie’s just that step closer to getting the fuck out of this place, and so they’re taking down all the stuff to move with him, right, and Eddie expects it when he feels a little empty, a little stir-crazy, a little paranoid and startling easy sounds that should even be weird, should be commonplace now, but he tenses, sometimes he jumps, and sure his nerves feel all…pins-and-needly, of course, because the fixtures of home have been stripped away and the room’s just white walls and machines he’s not currently hooked to, and and IV pole-thingy he doesn’t even use anymore, and one single fake flower in a little green-glass vase with real water for no fucking reason and—

“Ready to blow this popsicle stand?”

And it’s in those sterile white walls with the fake flower in the water, with none of the touchings of home that Eddie looks up, meets those smiling eyes and realizes like a slap to his fucking face: Steve’s not a goddamn fixture, an associative suggestion of home.

Steve…Steve is the sun he orbits; Steve’s the gravity that holds him down. Steve’s not just home, he’s the only way Eddie gets to know home; if Eddie’s a planet, he gets to move in space because of his star; get to live and breathe for the light and the warmth that star gifts him, and, and—

Fucking hell.

Eddie nods, and that’s a fucking feat, and he lets Steve pull him to his feet even if he’d have been able to himself, five minutes ago, before his concept of existence at its core got turned fucking sideways and shit.

So Eddie moves rooms. And all his shit is set up exactly like it had been in the first room, and Eddie suspects Steve had a big fucking part in making that happen, because Steve? Steve is, is, he’s…

He’s Steve.

And Eddie’s world kinda starts to…narrow. Not like it did when everything was going dark and he thought it was the end, but it feels almost as desperate, arguably just as dire, just, like, really fucking different.

But Eddie stares: first at Steve’s hands; first where they lie together, where they tangle sometimes, where Steve traces along the lines of his knuckles, the blue of his veins. Then it’s Steve’s hands always: in his lap, shoving Robin playfully, ruffling Henderson’s hair, pouring water Eddie doesn’t need poured for him but hell if Steve will listen on the point, running through his own hair, fisting in it when he’s at loose ends, when it’s Eddie who reaches out wordless—not least because he doesn’t have the words for this at all—and fucking feelshimself brighten, feels something in him blossom new and fresh and joyous when Steve grips his hand back and sits: plays with his fingers, spins the rings he’s allowed to have now, knows where they go back when he meticulously removes them all and slides them into place again and if that shit doesn’t fry the wires in Eddie brain, if that motion and that feeling, with Steve’s fucking hands doesn’t send Eddie’s heart into goddamn convulsions, he’s—

That’s the state of things. When Eddie’s fixated on their hands.

But then…then it gets worse. Because Eddie remember the whole of it, the why for his being obsessed with those hands, and his focus shifts accordingly: because what did Steve do, what did he press sweet and soft and magnetic and like a fucking inferno against Eddie’s goddamn skin?

So, yes: of course it’s those goddamn lips.

Steve chews them when he’s thinking; not hard, and more like…like sucking and ain’t that a bitch for Eddie’s frayed-to-hell nerves. And he licks them almost for no reason, and Eddie so fucking lucky he’s not on that EKG anymore because holy hell, that’d be a problem.

And when he does those things, and then he talks, the motions are…they’re all wet and shiny and a little swollen and Steve kissed his hand, didn’t he, he definitely did, at the very least he brushed his lips there, twice, and didn’t make any motion to move away or cut it short and, and, he—

“Eds?”

Eddie blinks; he was looking at Steve already—has been, of course he fucking has been, because if Steve is here sure as shit Eddie wants to look, what else could be more important, more entrancing, more exquisite, more—

Eddie blinks. Steve’s watching him with the kind of expectation that almost always means words were spoken that…required some kind of answer. A response of some sort.

Eddie has no idea what the words Steve happened to have been saying…were, exactly. He knows they sounded beautiful, musical, because Steve’s voice is those things; he knows the lips they came out of are memorizing as fuck and—

“What’s wrong, Eds?”

And leave it to Saint Steve, to jump to worry, jump to helping, to scoot his chair closer and then give up, to just perch next to Eddie on his bed and grab his hands and—

Eddie’s not a strong man, y’gotta understand that.

“Can I?” Eddie blurts, no thoughts, no plans, just this… this need in him.

“Yes.”

Eddie blinks.

“You don’t even know what it is,” he protests against his own goddamn interests because Steve’s so…so casual. So sure and suave and just, just…

“I’d let you do just about anything,” Steve shrugs, and if the tops of his cheeks pink-up a little? Well, again:

Eddie. Is. Not. A. Strong. Man.

“Steve,” Eddie exhales in a huff, and then he chokes out something like a laugh; “Stevie,” and that’s a whine, nothing else for it, it’s a pleading sound, the kind you make as the hammer fucking falls; “you cannot just say that shit, man—“

“I’m not allowed to say shit I mean?” Steve tilts his head, and his lips quirk that tiny bit and he’s maddening, he’s stunning, he is—

“Steve,” Eddie almost wheezes his name, he’s so fucking breathless, his heart’s such a fucking riot in his chest—it is wholly humiliating and he can’t even care because Steve’s hand is still in his hand and Steve’s here and he’s—

“What do you want, Eddie?”

And now it’s Eddie’s turn to lick his lips, to chew the bottom one and suck on the top between his teeth because…

“You,” he starts, and that’s good, that’s a beginning, you gotta start at the beginning; “you,” repetition, so Steve, like, knows who Eddie is talking to among the no-other-people in the room; “on my hand,” and he moves his thumb along Steve’s hand in the spaces he remembers, will never fucking forget so long as he lives: the places on his hand that Steve graced with his lips and Eddie can be brave, he might not be strong but he can be brave, maybe, or else try–

“Did you—“

And they both turn, because the sound of footsteps is distant but approaching; the squeak of tennis shoes, it’s almost definitely one of the kids and Steve wilts the slightest bit, imperceptible really but Eddie’s watching, so Eddie fucking sees, and Eddie…

Eddie can’t have that.

So he pulls Steve’s hand to his mouth and he kisses at the heel of his palm, kisses at his wrist where the pulse is furious just lip Eddie’s, the most glorious gift of a touch that Eddie of all people gets to fit his lips around and not just feel, no: he gets to taste, and he has to pull back and let go fast, the footsteps are so close but Steve’s pupils are so big and, yes, yeah, okay: okay.

This could be something.

tag list (comment to be added): @pearynice @hbyrde36 @slashify @finntheehumaneater @wxrmland @dreamwatch @perseus-notjackson @estrellami-1 @bookworm0690

♥️

divider credit here

#steddie #steve harrington #eddie munson #fluff #pining #pre-relationship #softness #as in: I might have gone harder than even I normally go on the softness here #post-S4 #recovering eddie musnon #steve feels like HOME to eddie #but more than that: steve feels like the STAR EDDIE ORBITS AROUND #they HOLD HANDS #like they hold hands a LOT #there is MORE HAND KISSING this time #they are SO SOFT #steddielovemonth #love is when you look at his lips for half the conversation because you can’t stop thinking about kissing him #stranger things

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