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Elijah Leslie Pepperjack did not have a problem. He was perfectly capable of stopping whenever he wanted and did not need any help. At least that's what he was trying to convince Steve of, and, to a lesser extent, himself. Steve was not buying his bullshit excuses. "Okay Pepperbuddy, what time do you think it is?"
"I don't see what this is going to prove." Eli huffed, crossing his arms and leaning back on his chair. Steve didn't back down and he sighed. "Fine, eleven PM last time I checked."
"What the-Eli." Steve facepalmed, sighing heavily. "It is eight in the morning, on a Saturday the only reason why I'm awake is because Lawrence wants me to stop sleeping late and because I was worried since when I checked my phone it showed that you sent me a bunch of texts all night, none of them make any sense by the way."
Eli blinked a few times, adjusted his glasses and squinted at the time on the corner of his computer screen to see if Steve was right. He was. "I was working last night." He stated as if that should be obvious. Well it was with the mess of papers that surrounded him. "Those texts were theories that I had and I sent them to you in case I forgot to write them down."
"Alright, but how the hell did you stay up all night without noticing?" Steve asked, flabbergasted.
He shrugged "The curtains are closed and they're pretty thick so I didn't realize the sun coming up?"
"No I mean-! Aren't you tired?!" Eli sure as hell looked tired.
Once again Eli shrugged. "Well, I was in the zone, I was talking with Blinky and he was explaining to me how a Heartstone works and I was thinking about what possible elements make it up I mean people make faux gold and metals so I was wondering if maybe, possibly-"
"Wait, wait, wait, -pause." Steve cut in, making a referee motion for time out. "How were you talking with Blinky?"
"Jim and Claire have phones, plus Blinky got one before they left, Barbra had insisted on it." Eli explained.
"Okay imagining Blinky with a phone is flipping hilarious at the very least even more when I add you interviewing him over the phone; but that's not the issue. Does your mom know how late you're staying up?"
Eli shot him a deadpan expression. "Alright, bad question." Steve admitted, holding his hands up in surrender before crossing them across his chest once more. "But seriously Pepperbuddy, you're the responsible one between the two of us, hell between us and the Trollhunters. You're always the one whose first thought is 'we have to get the people out of here'. You're always the one going the extra mile on precautions."
Steve wasn't a man of words as he's stated before but Eli was listening, or he was just too tired to argue so he was going to make sure he got his point across. "And you not getting enough sleep definitely isn't taking precautions, if we had to go on a Creepslaying mission right now you would barely be able to keep up and that's dangerous Elijah." He wasn’t one to use Eli’s full name but he felt like the situation deemed it necessary.
"I know that," Eli muttered, scrubbing a hand over his face. "You think I don't know that? I know that."
"Then what's this about? You've never been this obsessed with your work before, not even after we helped Jim and the Trolls for the first time." Steve said. Eli fidgeted in his seat.
"I know." He repeated, looking to the side.
"Come on Eli, you need to stop, this isn't the way to go about whatever brought this-"
"Damnit Steve don't you think I know that?!" Eli snapped, causing Steve to jump. "I try to sleep and all that but I turn off the light and I lie in my bed and all I see is that huge battle that we were so underprepared for that it wasn't even funny! All those monsters and how everyone was in danger and we could barely keep our head above water even though we promised-!" Eli took a shaky breath, trying to calm his tremors.
"I know that this whole thing-fighting against monsters was mostly my idea and I wasn't even worried or anything at first because it was new and exhilarating but now that everything is over and the others are off to New Jersey and I finally have time to sit down and think- I just think of everything that could have gone wrong, what will go wrong now that Jim and the others left and-" Eli's voice cracked worse than usual, eyes watering, he wiped at his eyes and pretended to not notice.
"So it's just better to keep my mind busy you know? Because if I'm busy thinking of something else, or too tired to think," he chuckled sadly. "Then I don't see those things, I don't get a chance to imagine what could go wrong. And a lot could go wrong. I'm not strong like you, alright? You're strong, you can fight. I barely can, all I have to offer is my brains and ideas and if I can't even do that then what am I good for?"
A silence fell between them, Eli biting the inside of his cheek and clenching his fists and trying to not do something stupid like cry. His mother always said that there was nothing wrong with crying but he didn't want to cry in front of Steve. Steve on the other hand was silent as he watched the strongest person he knew fall apart and wondered how he had not seen it sooner. Eli was always calming him down and keeping him in check of his emotions but Steve had never-he had never imagined that Eli could need that too.
"Take a deep breath." Steve murmured. Eli gave a small 'hm?' in confusion, it sounded more like a whimper. "Like you tell me to do when I get worked up, take a deep breath." He explained.
Eli did as told and let it go shakily, still trembling. Steve shook his head and squatted in front of the boy’s seat and placed a hand on Eli's shoulder in reassurance. "Slowly, with me alright? One." He inhaled deeply. Eli did the same. "Two." He's exhaled slowly, Eli followed suite.
Steve didn't know how long they were like that, his legs were going numb but that didn't matter, all that mattered was getting Eli to a safer place, letting him know it was alright. Eli cried; he had told himself that he wasn't going to but his eyes betrayed him by letting fat teardrops roll down his cheeks. Steve didn't mention anything about it except for another 'It's alright.' They took a few more calming breathes even after Eli had stopped trembling and his breathing had evened out. Silence consumed them once more. Eli was too numb to be embarrassed yet.
"You know I've been sleeping with the lamp on?" Steve said after a few moments.
"What?" Eli croaked, he still has a slight lump in his throat.
"I've been sleeping with the lamp on." Steve repeated. "I've always used a nightlight to sleep but sometime after that huge fight I started having nightmares. Not right away, when everything died down I guess, I started having nightmares and switched to sleeping with the lamp on. It helped; I still have nightmares but when I wake up at least I know that I can see anything that might be there."
"Steve..."
"It's stupid I know, but it helps me. So does seeing you at school or when I go over to your house because I see you and I think 'Alright, keep it together, cause he can't do this by himself'." Steve admitted, scratching the back of his neck awkwardly. He really wasn't good with words. "I'm not saying that you need to change because someone else needs you, but you should take care of yourself because if not then the creepers win you know? Not just the creepers we fight but the ones that your mind makes up. So same way that we fight those creepers we have to fight these, best we can, in ways that are healthy. And it's not about being strong, it's about being able to adapt and you've been able to do that in any trouble we get into."
"Plus," Steve added. "If we're talking about physical strength then remind me who it was that was able to climb the rope, back-flip off, and nearly give Lawrence a heart attack in the process."
Eli broke into teary giggles. "What?! I'm serious!" Steve exclaimed, grinning at how he had gotten Eli to smile. "Who was it?"
"Me." Eli said, still giggling slightly. He sniffed and wiped his nose. "I didn't think that you had caught that."
"Hell yeah I did! I just never mentioned it because I didn't think I should have to tell you how awesome you are."
Eli smiled brightly before looking down at his lap, cheeks a rosy colour. Another bout of silence engulfed them.
"Hey Eli?" He asked. Said boy looked up at him. "If I… if I stay with you, do you think that you'd be able to take a nap?" He offered slowly.
"What?" Eli asked, looking startled.
He held his hands up "Just-since you haven't slept and you get scared, I figured that if I stayed then it could help? It was just an idea-a dumb idea but-"
"Alright." Eli cut in, halting Steve's rambling.
"Huh?"
"I said alright, yes, I would like you to stay." He replied, voice steady even as his face felt warm.
"Oh! Alright, cool!" Steve got up from in front of the other's seat, his cheeks hot as well and tried to wince too hard with how his legs protested the simple movement.
Eli got up out of his chair and was hit with just how tired he actually was. Okay, yeah, perhaps staying up as late as he accidentally had wasn't a good idea after all. He felt disconnected from his body, as if his mind was in one continent and his body was in the other. He felt weightless in a way, like how one feels when they lie down after spending the day at the beach, but the pit of his stomach felt like he had just swallowed a ton of lead that now sat there.
Steve, seeing how Eli was walking like a new-born fawn, put a hand around his waist and helped guide Eli to the bed. The boy plopped down onto his bed none to gracefully, finally letting a yawn escape him. Steve moved to go sit on the computer chair but a hand wrapped around his, stopping him.
"Stay?" Eli asked daring to sound hopeful.
"Move over, buttsnack." Steve playfully demanded. Eli smiled sleepily and moved so Steve could climb in as well. It was somewhat cramped in the twin bed but neither complained. Eli passed his glasses over for Steve to put on the bedside table.
"Should we cuddle while we're at it?" Steve teased.
Eli flicked Steve's nose, while he didn't have his glasses they were pressed close enough together that he could make out the faint freckles splattered across the bridge of his nose. "Turn around."
"And here I thought you would want to fall asleep looking at this face." He said but turned around regardless, back to Eli. No sooner had he done so was Eli pressed against his back, hand around his waist. Steve's face flamed crimson. "I was kidding Pepperbuddy!" He whisper shouted. Why the hell was he whispering?
"No take backsies." Eli replied, muffled slightly.
"Then at least let me be the big spoon!" Steve argued, Eli was practically a backpack like this.
"Nope." He said, stretching out the word and voice already somewhat groggy.
"I'm supposed to be the big spoon, it's a rule or something! I'm bigger than you!" He continued. Eli just gave an 'mm-hm' and nuzzled his shoulder, almost causing for Steve's voice to trip. "Besides, that way you can know that I'm here to keep you safe."
Eli paused, lifting his head up from Steve's shoulder, who couldn't see the red that dusted Eli's cheeks. He shook his head even though Steve couldn't see the movement. "I don't need you to keep me safe, I just need to know you're safe."
There was such a long silence that Eli thought that Steve had actually fallen asleep before he answered. "How about we keep each other safe?"
"That'll work." Eli knew that he was smiling like a fool and didn't care.
"You can keep doing that work that you were talking about in your texts, it seems interesting." Steve added. "But we work on it together. Someone has to make sure that you go to sleep and take breaks, you know, like a human being is supposed to?" Eli let out a huff of laughter. "I'm serious!" Steve laughed. "You are never getting rid of my ass!"
"Good, because I don't want to." He said matter of factly, as if he was stating that the sky was blue.
Steve tried to ignore how hot his face felt. "And I hope you know that the fabric of the universe is starting to collapse since you're breaking the unspoken big spoon-little spoon rules."
Eli laughed, the noise clear and bright in Steve's ears. "Goodnight, Steve."
"Hey," Steve began, voice just above a whisper. Eli gave another tired ‘hm?’ “Don’t keep this stuff from me alright? We’re a team. You always help me out so you better believe that I’ll do the same for you.” Eli didn’t verbally answer but Steve felt the arm around his waist squeeze him once. He put his hand over Eli’s and closed his eyes, sighing deeply as he waited for sleep to take the two of them.
No, not all of their troubles were magically solved by that one conservation, and maybe could not be completely solved even with a hundred. But they were managing, adapting to the chaos that were the laws of the Creepslayerz universe-of Arcadia. They were figuring out how to help themselves and each other, not solely relaying on each other but leaning on one another for extra support. And that was fine with the two of them. Just listening and talking to each other about everything that was happening in a way that only they would be able to understand. They were the only ones who knew what it was like to live how they were living, what it was like to have the responsibility that they put upon themselves without hesitating. They were still figuring this whole thing out, stumbling as they tried to find their way through the dark cavern that they entered since they started fighting creepers. So if they found a way to let in light, even if the other was the one holding the candle, then they were going to let that light in and protect it. But they still had to discover that what they were confusing for darkness was just their own shadows casted by the light all around them. That wasn't to say that there weren't things waiting in said shadows, waiting for one to lose their light just a bit, but as long as they had each other, then that light wasn't going to go out so easily.