Chapter Text
Consciousness comes back to Steve in waves. He feels like he used to back in high school when he’d wake up on a Sunday morning hungover from the party the night before. His body feels heavy, too heavy. His mouth was so dry that his tongue felt like it was made of cotton. His head was pounding and he was a little nauseated which told him he was on the “good stuff” as Dustin once called it.
Slowly he opens his eyes and blinks a few times, the fluorescent lights too bright for his eyes. He can hear a heart monitor beeping steadily.
*Okay, so I’m alive at least,* he thinks to himself as he tries to sit up.
Pain shoots through his body and he can’t hold back the hiss as he pushes himself the rest of the way up. Steve looks around and realizes that he’s in a split room. He’s not hooked up to a heart monitor, only the IV. There is a curtain separating the two sides of the room. Steve slowly slides off the edge of his bed. The cold tile of the floor sends a chill through him. He shivers. Why are hospital rooms always so damn cold?
He grabs the IV pole and slowly makes his way to the curtain. The fact that no one is in the room with him makes his stomach flip. Had something happened once he’d fallen? They had beaten Vecna and won, hadn’t they? He needed to know if the person across from him was one of his own and if so, were they okay?
He slowly pulls back the curtain and his knees go weak. It’s Eddie. Once again, Steve finds himself falling into place beside Eddie’s bedside. Once again, holding vigil next to someone who, 8 months ago, he’d have never thought he would call his friend.
Someone who loved him.
Someone HE loved.
Steve’s breath catches in his throat. He is in love with Eddie Munson. He had been for months now but didn’t quite know what the feeling was at the time. He knew that when Eddie looked at him, he always got butterflies, but wasn’t that just Eddie? He was charming to a fault. That charm had managed to pick the lock he’d firmly placed on his heart when Nancy left him. Eddie had wormed through the locks and taken a permanent place in his heart.
How else could Steve explain how quickly he dropped everything to come to Eddie’s rescue. Or how he had decided to fight like Hell to drag Eddie out of the Upside Down when he’d been determined to get left behind. Steve leans forward, his hand hovering over Eddie’s. If he takes Eddie’s hand, if he tells him that he loves him too, nothing will ever be the same.
Is he ready for this?
Eddie whimpers in his sleep and Steve immediately grabs his hand, decision made without further hesitation. He sits on the side of Eddie’s bed and leans further in, his stitches catching but he keeps leaning until his free hand is close enough to Eddie to stroke his hair, pushing it away from his face. Eddie whimpers again and Steve knows what it means.
“Eddie, shh, it’s just a nightmare. You’re okay,” Steve softly says trying to slowly coax Eddie to consciousness. Steve is familiar with the nightmares that come after, an old pro in fact, so he knows it’s better to gently come out of it than full stop.
Steve runs the back of his fingers own Eddie’s face, ”Eds, wake up for me. C’mon, you’re not getting out of this that easily. You can’t just tell me you love me and then sleep through the rest of it.”
Eddie’s eyes flutter open, “Hmm, ‘teve.” His speech slurring with sleep and pain meds. Steve watches as Eddie’s eyes come to focus on him. He smiles.
“I must have died and gone to Heaven if Steve Harrington is at my bedside,” he says, speech less slurred.
“Shut up,” Steve says, heat flaring in his cheeks.
“Is it over,” Eddie asks, wiping at his eyes.
“Seems like it. I think we won too.”
Eddie freezes, “I-uh...said some things. Momentary insanity?”
“Nope, you don’t get out of it that easily,” Steve says as he mindlessly strokes the top of Eddie’s hand.
“Look, Steve. I know I said what I said and I did what I did and you don’t have to feel the same. I thought I was going to die, no second chances this time, so I just needed to get it out. I have really liked being friends with you and I don’t want it to-”
Steve quickly quiets him with a kiss. Slower than their last.
The world wasn’t ending.
Not anymore.
Steve pulls back and Eddie is smiling from ear to ear. His pupils are blown and he sighs happily. For the first time since he ran back into the Byers’ house in 1983, Steve doesn’t feel like the weight of the world is on his shoulders. His life is his to live and he knows what he’s going to do first.
“You wanna know a secret, Eddie Munson,” Steve asks as he smiles.