Chapter Text
Steve woke feeling warm and a bit numb from the waist down. He shifted his arms and stretched a bit, letting his muscles shiver out the aches and pains that came with sleeping on a couch. He couldn’t remember how he had gotten here, though, just that he was warm and comfortable and that there was a weight in his lap that felt familiar from before he had drifted off. He squinted open his eyes, and almost leapt out of his skin.
Eddie was lying in his lap. Eddie, all bruises and blood, fast asleep, his good arm wrapped up and around Steve’s waist while the bad one lay awkwardly off to the side. And sitting in the chair opposite them was Robin, a bowl of soup held in her hands, watching the both of them with a look that was somewhere between fond and suspicious.
“Jesus, Robin,” Steve hissed, trying to keep his voice down to keep Eddie from waking, though he appeared to be sleeping the sleep of the dead, “How often do you usually watch me while I’m sleeping?”
“Oh, only every once in a while,” she replied airily, tucking her skinny legs up next to her on the threadbare recliner, “Reminds me that you’re human. All that drool and snoring, y’know?”
If Steve hadn’t felt so groggy and generally off-kilter, he might’ve flipped her off. But there was still the matter of Eddie, fast asleep, practically wrapped around Steve’s waist. He was still looking swollen and pained, but his bruised eye and cheek were fading from a dark purple to a sickening yellow. His breaths were snotty and ragged, coming through nostrils that were probably coated with blood and other unmentionable gunk. Steve winced, and looked over at Robin, wondering what she was thinking.
“Don’t give me that look, Steve. It’s whatever you want it to be. Of everyone you know, I’m pretty sure I’d be the biggest hypocrite to judge you.”
“I…” he petered off. He had told Eddie he needed to think. About what? Whatever had happened, whatever…this was, Steve didn’t understand it, and he felt like he was drowning in a sea of confusion. He had loved Nancy. And now he was falling for (at least, that was the only word he could find to describe it) someone who was different from Nancy in every possible way. Not to mention Eddie was, well…a man. God. Steve’s dad would flip if he found out.
“Hey, hey, no. No spiralling sexuality crisis while you have an injured and obviously enamoured man lying in your lap, Steve. Trust me, the spiralling sexuality crisis is way easier if you just skip it entirely and stop trying to deny whatever thoughts are going on in that clogged-up loser brain of yours.”
Steve squinted for a second. No one had so much as mentioned any sort of crisis until now. But as he thought about it, took stock of his mind and body, he couldn’t deny that Robin was probably right. He felt clammy and tense, even though he had just woken from a very deep and restful sleep. His breath was coming far too quickly, and his mind was jumping from one thought to another – every thought about Eddie, about the things he wanted to do to Eddie, and why he couldn’t possibly do any of them.
“I…um…” he tried again and ignored the way Robin rolled her eyes and kicked up the footrest of the recliner, “I don’t know what to do, Rob. I…fuck me, I just gave Nancy that big speech about kids and a fucking van, and now I have him here it’s like none of it fucking matters, and after years of trying to get Nance back as well…it just seems, shit Robin, it’s so stupid. Stupid, stupid timing. What the fuck is going on?”
Robin took a sip of her soup and twiddled her socked feet in the air. She gave that raspy little giggle, one of Steve’s favourite noises in the whole world, and cocked an eyebrow at him.
“Buddy, we’ve literally been kidnapped by psychotic Russians, travelled to an alternate dimension, and almost been killed by demonic bats and a fucking wizard who can suck your eyes out of your head and you’re only now asking what the fuck’s going on? Really, Steve? All you needed was a slightly attractive guy to make you start asking the important questions?”
Steve half snorted, then quickly quieted himself as Eddie shifted in his lap, untwining a hand from around Steve’s waist and bringing it up to his forehead with a pained grimace. Without thinking, Steve reached down and brushed the bangs back out of his eyes.
“Hey, go back to sleep. You need it.”
Without even cracking an eye, Eddie gave a mumble of agreement, sighed, and relaxed again like he had never woken in the first place. When Steve looked up, Robin was giving him one of those looks. The “I know something that you’re apparently too unaware to have figured out yourself yet” look. Steve hated when she did that. It was usually directly proceeded by her crowing in victory and telling him he sucked, in the most loving way possible.
“See that? That’s what I’m talking about. Just…keep at it. It’s obvious he likes you.”
Steve narrowed his eyes, waiting.
“…And, it’s obvious you like him too. Whatever bullshit excuse you might give me about being straight.”
“I am…”
“Obviously you’re not. And you don’t need to hide it from me, of everyone.”
Steve sighed. Robin was right, there wasn’t really much of a point. Never had been, if he was honest, but for some reason not even the Russian truth serum had been able to make him divulge that secret. Maybe it was because he hadn’t fully worked it out yet. He probably hadn’t properly worked it out until Eddie arrived violently and dramatically in his life, holding a shard of glass to his jugular and making his knees weak with a glance. Steve didn’t know much, but he did know that the only other person who had had that effect on him was Nancy Wheeler. And that meant it had to be something more than strong friendship he was feeling now.
“Yeah, okay,” Steve said quietly, the clamminess in his palms suddenly increasing, “I just…I dunno, Rob. I dunno how to do this.”
“I’d expect you’d probably go about it in the same way you went about wooing your many high school sweethearts. Don’t think you need to do much at all, to be honest. He’s been smitten by you since we first went through the gate. And besides, I’m not exactly the best person to ask. I’m the one here with the virtually nonexistent love life.”
She hopped up then, and returned a moment later, straddling the glass coffee table to hand Steve a bowl of soup and switch out the soppy, defrosted peas that Eddie had let fall away from his chest. The new ones were wrapped in a kitchen towel, and she tucked them up against where she knew the worst of the bruising was.
“Couldn’t leave him with a future dinner melting all over his clothes,” Robin shrugged, then gestured at the bowl of soup, “C’mon, I even cooked it myself, can opener and everything. And I don’t really remember seeing you eat the whole time I’ve been here.”
“I ate during the day…” Steve tried half-heartedly, but Robin immediately gave him a silencing look. They had worked together long enough for Robin to understand that this excuse usually meant Steve had taken three bites out of a banana before he got distracted by some more important task and left it lying around, never to be revisited.
“Look, there’s literally no way I could’ve fucked up canned soup. And there’s enough left for Eddie, if he wakes up anytime soon to have some. So stop worrying and eat it, please.”
Steve briefly wanted to make a comment about how he didn’t need a mum, but he knew Robin would see right through that as well. She knew far too much about how often his mother was home. And he also knew that he had acted as a pseudo-parent to her on multiple occasions. She probably just saw this as a way of evening out the score.
He took the soup. It nearly scalded his hand, and he had to do a bit of a juggling act to keep from dropping the bowl and spilling it all over Eddie’s head. How the younger man was sleeping through all this, he couldn’t fathom. He figured dumping boiling liquid on his already wounded head probably wasn’t something Eddie would be able to sleep through though, even with pain meds and the exhaustion of the last few days finally catching up to him.
“Jesus, Robin, are you trying to burn me alive? Christ…”
Robin cackled a bit, knowing Steve wouldn’t risk spilling, and returned to her spot on the recliner.
“It’s good for what ails you, y’know.”
“And what, exactly, is that?”
“Well, in this town the best answer you’d get is probably homosexuality. But I’d say it’s really the suckiness that’s waiting to do you in.”
Steve considered tossing the newly settled bag of frozen peas at her before reconsidering and reaching for the TV remote instead. That nearly went sailing across the room anyways when Robin enthusiastically (and loudly) encouraged him to pick something with “hot people” in it. But he figured violence could wait until Eddie was awake to back him up.
Eddie finally shifted and sighed a bit more loudly as the evening wore on. Steve was half dozing, watching the television with little interest. Robin had called her mom, let her know she was spending the night with Steve (who hadn’t ignored the sadness that flickered over Robin’s face when her mother had sounded irrationally happy). She returned to the couch and pointed with her chin towards Eddie, who sighed, bringing a hand up to his bandaged forehead.
“Mmm…hey, Stevie. Robin. How’s it goin’?”
Eddie sounded groggy and fuzzy, but his eyes were brighter and more aware than they had been since he’d been attacked. Robin grinned at the sight of him, and jutted her chin down a little bit to get Steve’s attention. He jumped, like his attention had been everywhere but the present.
“Eddie,” he crowed, when he appeared to have gotten his wits back, “How’re you feeling?”
Eddie frowned, and winced when the motion pulled at the cut on his head. He flexed his injured hand as well, stopped only by the splint Steve had put together earlier.
“Ouch,” he finally rasped, “That’s how I’m feeling. Sore and shitty. But…better than what I can remember from before. Little less…confused. Floaty?”
“Mmm. I remember that from the last time I had a concussion. Glad you’re feeling better. It’s the worst, huh?”
Steve felt shy, suddenly. Like admitting that having a concussion was shitty was somehow a big secret, something that he shouldn’t be sharing quite yet. And his nervousness wasn’t helped by the way Eddie was gazing up at him now, through dark eyelashes and around livid bruises, still looking somehow like Steve had hung the moon.
“Yeah,” he murmured back, “Yeah, it is. Such shit.”
They lapsed for a moment, during which Steve caught Robin with something between a smirk and a beaming smile on her face. She unfolded herself from the chair and made her way over.
“I made soup. You feeling up to it? It’s pretty late, it’s probably the best idea if you just have something to eat and then go get some more sleep in a real bed.”
Eddie threw a dramatic arm (the good one, luckily) up over his eyes, sighing like Robin had just asked him for an enormous and strenuous favour.
“That’s bullshit, Robin, I just woke up,” Eddie turned his bruised face on Steve, “You really gonna make me go back to bed, Stevie?”
Steve felt himself flush bright red at the same time that Robin’s head snapped up with a little cackle. He was grinning at him, all teeth and shiny eyes, eyebrows raised as though she was urging him on.
“Watch me,” Steve steeled his nerves and mustered every skill he had ever acquired in his years of (successfully, he liked to think) flirting with girls at Hawkins High, “I don’t think you’ll be able to do much about it right now, to be honest.”
He followed it up with a playful wink, to let Eddie know he was just joking. But the younger man flushed absolutely crimson, and sank back into the couch like all the air had been taken out from him. His eyes, which already looked a bit glazed from the concussion, fogged over a bit more, and Steve had to lean over, heart thudding from worry.
This was, apparently, all it took to snap Eddie back to reality. His face cleared a bit, the colour dying from his cheeks to a light flush in his neck, and he blinked a few times to reorient himself and probably also to get the room back in focus. He reached out a shaky hand to accept the bowl of soup Robin offered, though he looked at a loss as to what to do with it while he was lying down, simply letting the bowl come to rest on his chest.
“I’ll never be able to sweep you off your feet and into your bed if you don’t even manage to eat,” Steve teased, realizing a moment too late the connotations of his little joke but soldiering on all the same, “C’mon, give me that and I’ll help you sit up.”
Steve took the bowl off Eddie’s chest when he didn’t move so much as a muscle, then helped ease him upright. Eddie winced, sagging sideways into the couch and gripping his head in his hands.
“Hey, easy, you alright?” Steve placed a gentle hand on his shoulder, rubbing softly at the defined line of Eddie’s collarbone.
“Yeah…” Eddie whispered after a moment of heavy breathing, “M’just really dizzy. Like…really dizzy. Fuck. Thought it’d go away.”
“Here,” Steve leaned over and set the bowl of soup on the coffee table, edging around Eddie so they were sitting face to face, “Put your hands back down, I’m pretty sure one’s got a few broken fingers and moving it won’t help anything right now. There you go. I’m gonna rub your forehead, you okay with that?”
Eddie nodded, looking tired but a bit more put together. Steve’s thumbs found his bruised temples and rubbed at them gently, circling around the vulnerable spots on his skull – spots that seemed as delicate as birds’ bones in the wake of so much damage. Eddie sighed, murmured something, and leaned slowly forwards until his head was resting against Steve’s shoulder. Steve moved one of his arms around to caress and rub Eddie’s back, practically feeling the tension and pain bleed out of him as he sank fully to rest against Steve’s chest. Robin was working busily at the dishes, pretending to pay them no mind, but Steve caught her eye and reassuring smile over Eddie’s messy mop of curls.
“Shit, Eddie. They really did a number on you, didn’t they?”
“…Yeah. Guess so.”
“You good?”
“I think so. Less dizzy.”
Eddie didn’t make any move to sit up, though, so Steve let him rest, eventually maneuvering him to turn around, mostly sat up but supported against Steve’s chest, who was in turn supported by the armrest of the couch.
"Think you can eat something without puking everywhere?"
"I’ll give it my best try for you, Stevie.”
Steve’s heart did a little jolt, but he tried to ignore it and handed Eddie the bowl instead.
“Mmm. Bringing out the fancy dinner settings, I see, Buckley. Y’know these are too nice to put through the dishwasher, right?”
He waved the slightly chipped porcelain bowl in the air (Steve was sure he’d seen this exact set at a yard sale in Loch Nora a few years ago, and was sure Eddie had gotten a kick out of eating off the same finery as the bourgeoisie of Hawkins’ richest neighborhood), and Robin tossed a dishrag at him.
“I’m not running anything through that dishwasher. It was going when I got here and I’m pretty sure it nearly fumigated the whole place. Not to mention that it rattled the trailer so bad when it was slowing down I thought we were gonna tip right over.”
“Just wait ‘til you hear the laundry machine,” Eddie chuckled, wincing, and took a sip of the soup, “This is good shit. Thanks.”
Robin shrugged.
“What is the role of a platonic dear friend if not to care for one’s best friends whilst they’re grievously wounded?”
Eddie hummed contentedly and leaned back into Steve’s chest. He turned his head sideways a bit, so his ear was resting right against Steve’s heart, and looked up at him with big, brown eyes that were only slightly obscured by bruising and swelling.
“So, Harrington,” he said, much more quietly now, with a rasp that turned Steve’s stomach in a not entirely unpleasant way, “you said you needed to think earlier. Come to any interesting conclusions?”
Steve gulped, and Eddie smiled, though he looked hurt and uncertain, and his good hand was playing about uncertainly with the blanket Steve had pulled up over the two of them. He set the bowl between his knees and sighed.
“Don’t worry. Anything you said that you don’t want me to remember we can chalk up to the raging concussion still wreaking havoc on my neurons.”
“No! I mean, it’s good. No need to fake amnesia. You’ll probably scare the shit out of me, amnesia from concussions should be long gone at the point we’re at.”
“’Kay…” Eddie looked uncertain now, hands still twitching anxiously, pointer finger rubbing at the dead skin on his thumb. Steve reached down and took his hand, stopping the motion before Eddie started himself up bleeding.
“Don’t need you losing any more blood, Eds. Think you’d keel over and die. About earlier, though…whatever it is you’re sensing? Or noticing? Or feeling? It’s…well, it’s not just in your head. Whatever you want it to be. It’s not just you who wants it that way.”
Eddie wrinkled his brows for a moment.
“Stevie boy, you’re gonna need to speak English. I still feel like my head’s caught in a vice and whatever you just said made absolutely no sense to my poor old bashed up brain. Try again?”
Robin gave Steve a long-suffering look from the kitchen, and mimed shooting herself in the head. He took a deep breath, steeled himself, and started over.
“I like you, Eddie. And…well, if I haven’t read the situation wrong, you like me too. I guess it just took everything that happened over the past few days for me to really sort myself out and understand what I wanted.”
Once he had started speaking, Steve found it difficult to stop. The words just sort of tumbled off his tongue of their own volition, leaving him wide-eyed in the aftermath. His heart was hammering, and his breath felt like it was wheezing out of his constricted chest. He looked up at the ceiling, over at the coffee table, anything so he didn’t have to see Eddie’s reaction.
Eddie said nothing. He sat for about a minute in complete silence until Steve finally couldn’t take it anymore and chanced letting his eyes slide back over until their gazes met. When he did, Eddie burst out laughing – well, laughing as much as he could, he held his ribs and sort of wheezed, wincing and placing a hand to his head when he jostled a bit. Steve was torn between reaching out to help him and dislodging himself from the couch to run to his car and drive as far away from here as humanly possible. He had asked out a lot of girls. And none of them had ever laughed at him before. This really was a new low. He groaned.
“No, no,” Eddie gasped out, hand firmly clamped around his ribs now, face pale even though he was grinning through it, “Nah, Stevie, stop that. It’s not…what I meant! Just…took ya this long to figure it out…jesus, how much can one person repress themselves?”
Robin hummed in agreement from the kitchen, then went studiously back to scrubbing at a pan.
“I…I’ve known you like me…for literal months. Since Vecna. Fuck, since we first officially met. I don’t…flirt like this…with every guy, y’know. You’re…pretty…fuckin’ special.”
Eddie was well and truly gasping by the end of it, breaths heaving and then stuttering when his body rebelled against how much it hurt. He was so pale, and collapsed back, hacking weakly without even making an effort to cover his mouth. Steve, unsure and feeling like he’d just been run over by a whole truckload of feelings, stroked his hair softly.
“Hey, stop talking, idiot,” he said softly, as the reality of what Eddie had said finally hit him and a sort of giddiness washed over his whole body, “Lean back, there ya go. Jesus, never had that reaction from potential dating prospect before. Thought you were gonna kick me out. Or die. Always hard to tell with you.”
Eddie rubbed a shaky hand over his face. He looked exhausted again, dark circles under his eyes becoming more pronounced and a painful yawn cracking at his jaw. There had been a moment there when Steve had almost forgotten the concussion, the fact that Eddie was obviously in a lot of pain and probably shouldn’t even be sitting right now, let alone having important conversations. He kept rubbing Eddie’s head though, the younger man seemed to enjoy it, leaning back and sighing.
“Stevie?” He said after a moment, voice whispy and weak.
“Yeah?”
“Now…that we’re through all the confessions…and pining…m’head’s really hurting. Think we could go somewhere…a bit darker? Maybe rest my eyes a bit?”
“Shit, yeah, of course,” Steve cursed himself for not offering this solution himself; too focussed on his own feelings when someone else, someone important, obviously needed him, “Sit up for a sec, I can carry you back to your bedroom. No offense, but I don’t think you could make it there on your own right now.”
“Yeah…” Eddie agreed softly, bending forwards so his head was resting on the back of the sofa, “M’not feeling so good.”
“You’re okay,” Steve reassured as he slipped out from underneath Eddie, wrapping an arm around his back and his legs and pulling him up with as little audible effort as he could accomplish, “You just need some more sleep. The first couple days are always the worst, then the shitty symptoms like the dizziness and nausea will start to die down and you’ll be able to do stuff again. ‘Til then, just rest up and let Robin and I take care of you. ‘Specially Robin. She’s nursed me through more concussions than I care to admit.”
Eddie just hummed sleepily, and Steve shot a guilty glance over at Robin. He hadn’t thought how having a such an important conversation while Eddie was still disoriented and confused might have affected him. It had been stupid. Selfish. And now Eddie, who had been doing so much better, was suffering again. But Robin just shot him a returning glance with a slightly admonishing note to it.
“Don’t do that,” she whispered as he walked by, “He’s an adult. Perfectly capable of telling you if he doesn’t want to talk. I’m proud of you, dingus.”
Knowing Robin was right, Steve adjusted his grip on Eddie, who was heavy and limp in his arms, and tried to swallow down the guilt. It was a conversation that had needed to happen, and they both knew it. And Eddie was fine. Would be fine. Was getting closer to fine. That was what mattered.
Steve had to turn sideways to edge the two of them down the narrow trailer hallway without smacking Eddie into the walls, and he roused a bit, though mostly just to nestle his head into Steve’s shoulder with a contented little sigh.
“You wanna stop and brush your teeth or anything? Or just bed?”
Eddie seemed to consider it for a second before giving a tiny shake of his head, rubbing at his eyes tiredly.
“Just bed. Wanna get to this…mythical part of a concussion…where everything gets better. ‘N where everything else stops hurting, too.”
“God, you’re just pleading for sympathy, aren’t you?” Steve teased, making sure it was clear in his tone, “Don’t worry. You’ll be feeling so much better after a little sleep. And tomorrow you can get in the shower and get cleaned up a bit, and maybe we’ll go sit outside afterwards. Sound like a plan?”
Eddie cracked an eye at this, a shadow of his usual shit-eating grin spreading across his bruised and swollen face.
“You gonna come in the shower with me? Make sure…I don’t pass out ‘n stuff?”
Steve’s cheeks flamed at the implication – but it wasn’t the implication of getting in the shower with a man, perse, but rather getting in the shower with Eddie. Everything about this felt…right. Okay. It was just the normal jitters, same as he’d had before he’d slept with Nancy. Before he’d kissed her.
“Sure, Eds. No funny business, though, you hear me? Because I’m just there to make sure you don’t pass out and hit your head on the counter or some shit.”
“Loud ‘n clear, Harrington.”
Steve let Eddie situate himself under the covers with a poorly concealed groan while he went and pulled the curtains tightly shut, stumbling over to the bed himself and nearly tripping on what he thought was a guitar amp in the process. Eddie let out a raspy chuckle, and Steve could see his good arm extending in the darkness, beckoning.
“Y’gonna stick around?” He sounded like he was trying to keep the hope out of his voice.
“’Course, Eds,” Steve crawled into bed, not feeling particularly tired, but heart pounding just at the thought of sharing a bed with Eddie, of being there with him, something he hadn’t known he so desperately wanted and now couldn’t seem to get enough of, “As long as you need.”