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When Steve wakes up, the air in his room still feels stuffy and everything is still dark. After spending a little too much time-fighting spawns of hell, Steve grew to be a pretty light sleeper. It could be a pretty bad inconvenience from time to time, but he thought it was reassuring to know that he wouldn’t die in his sleep.
He blinks away the sleep in his eyes and sits up, listening for anything out of the ordinary. In the middle of trying to figure out what woke him up, he felt Eddie starting to shift.
After killing Vecna a few months ago, a lot had changed. Robin started to go out with Nancy, Mike found himself with Will, and Eleven had something going on with Max. As for Steve, well he made the realization that he liked Eddie in more than just a friendly way. Girls were great and all, but he’s pretty sure he always had a thing for guys too. He just didn’t really have much of a name for it and in a town like this, it was just easier to date a girl. After spending so much time with Eddie and nearly dying together, he didn’t seem to care too much about what other people thought.
They had their first kiss in Eddie’s trailer, the smell of weed in the air, and a shitty slasher movie playing in the background.
It’s been three months into the relationship, six months since Vecna’s death, and Steve doesn’t blame him for still having nightmares. He knows how bad it is and how bad it could be; he still had plenty of nightmares about the shit ton of trauma he went through.
“No come on, wake up! Wake up!”
Steve can see him shaking and can hear the panic in his voice. Steve reaches a handover and gently shakes Eddie’s shoulder, “Eddie. It’s not real, you’re okay.”
Steve feels like this is going to be one of those bad kinds of nights when the shaking seems to get worse and Eddie starts to get more panicked. Steve doesn’t know if this is a bad idea but he decides to lay back down, wrapping his arms around Eddie.
“It’s okay. I’m right here.”
Eddie lets out a gut-wrenching scream and Steve’s sure he can feel his heart shatter into a million pieces. It must have woken him up because Eddie was laying there silently, shaking and gasping for air. Steve has a loose grip around him; loose enough to let him pull away if he was feeling pinned but enough to give a grounding feeling.
“Steve?”
His voice is small, scared, and Steve has to fight back his own tears as he works up a strong response. “Yeah. I’m right here.”
“Chrissy…you…I couldn’t-”
A whimper escapes him as he turns around to get his arms around Steve. Steve hugs him tightly just as his boyfriend breaks down into sobs. Tears burn in his eyes as he rubs his hand gently on his back, whispering words of comfort. In between the sobbing, Steve could make out Eddie saying that he was sorry.
“I’m fine. You saved me.”
Steve would hope that he’d talk about it later, but he can guess what it was about. Some horrible mixture of seeing Chrissy and him both dying and being unable to do anything about it. Steve remembers the hellish landscape and then the sound of the guitar playing a song he knew too well.
“You saved me.”
The room was silent except for the pained sobbing. Steve doesn’t know how long they’re laying there for and even if he can feel the exhaustion creeping up on him again, he refused to fall asleep right now. He’d only be okay with closing his eyes when Eddie calmed down.
Steve keeps taking deep breaths and Eddie eventually starts to follow his lead. Eventually, the shaking doesn’t seem as bad as it was and the tears stop. Eddie takes a shuddering inhale, face still hidden in Steve’s neck.
Steve swallows the lump in his throat, “Hey…you with me?”
He’s trying to be the rock in this situation but the sadness in his voice is obvious. Eddie’s quiet for a long time before Steve hears a quiet hoarse reply, “Yeah. I’m with you.”
“Okay. That’s good.”
“Steve-”
“There’s nothing to be sorry about. Just please, tell me what you need right now.”
The room is silent once more and Steve realized that maybe Eddie didn’t know what he needed right now. He ran his fingers down Eddie’s back and went with something he could do without from this position, “I still have nightmares too, about all kinds of fucked shit. The Demogorgon, the demo dogs, Russians, bats, Lover’s Lake, Vecna-”
Steve stopped, feeling his eyes start to burn. He hung onto Eddie a little tighter as he cleared his throat, “The point is that…you don’t have to be ashamed of not dealing with it well because believe me, it’s fucking hard.”
He heard Eddie sniffle and it was not the reaction he hoped for, but at least he knows Eddie is listening.
“I have a new favorite song, just so you know.”
Even after Vecna’s death, the habit of just knowing each other's favorite song became a habit. It’s completely off topic but it does get Eddie to reply, “What is it?”
“Paranoid, Black Sabbath.”
There’s a long silence and Steve is still blinking away tears in his eyes but he feels himself smile in the darkness, “Aren’t you going to ask me why?”
“Because I convinced you to have a better taste in music?”
Steve can hear the sarcasm creeping into his tone and he’s honestly glad to hear it.
“It was the first song you showed me right when all this hell crap ended.”
As soon as he said that, he actually heard Eddie laughing against his skin and was pretty sure he got him to smile. It’s hard for Steve to not laugh along with him and soon enough, they’re both laying there laughing their asses off.
Eventually after they calmed down, Eddie’s the first to speak up, “Ex-Asshole Steve Harrington turns out to be the biggest sap I’ve ever met, who would have thought?”
“I’ll take pride in that, it won you over didn’t it?”
“You won me over when you bit into that bat, but yeah, sure, the sappy stuff makes me feel fuzzy inside.”
They could talk about the nightmare tomorrow. Right now Steve was just happy to see him in a brighter mood and hopefully could get him to go back to sleep. He pressed a kiss into his hair, “How do you feel about trying to sleep again? I think we can still manage a few hours.”
“I don’t know if I can.”
He sounds scared again and Steve wants to do everything he can to make him not feel that way, “You can. All of that bad shit doesn’t control you. Vecna’s dead and I’m here. I’ll be here in the morning and…”
He stops for a minute realizing he was about to say something he might regret later, “I’ll be here as long as you'll have me.”
“Is King Steve trying to confess his love to The Freak?”
Maybe he’s just a lovestruck dumbass but Steve did feel like he loved him the first month they were official. He held his tongue the majority of the time when it almost accidentally slipped out, the last thing he needed was for his newly functional relationship to go to shit. Right now though his face was hot and maybe he had been just a little too obvious to take it back.
“I do love you, but you don’t-”
“I don’t what? Have to love you back?”
Steve feels Eddie laugh against him, cold fingers dancing across his chest, “You're a literal badass and I'm just a simple man. How could I not love you back?"
Steve grins from ear to ear all over again and hugs Eddie a little tighter. He loved Nancy before in a previous chapter of his love life, but now his heart was with Eddie.
“I love you.”
“Yeah. I love you too.”
It felt really good to say that. They readjust on the bed still in the same position before Eddie mumbles, “I am sorry though, ‘bout waking you up. You look so tired all the time.”
“I told you no apologies. I’d feel worse if you didn’t tell me anything.”
He presses another kiss into his hair, “Try to close your eyes okay? I’m here if you need me.”
Steve felt Eddie nod against him, “I’ll do my best, Your Highness.”
“Asshole, stop calling me that.”
He heard Eddie giggling as he closed his own eyes and while it was annoying, he found himself smiling one more time.
Morning came without any more horrifying interruptions. Their legs were tangled together when he woke up, hearing Eddie still lightly snoring. It was maybe an hour more before Eddie woke up, sitting up to give him a tired smile. They both get in the shower to save time and then Steve makes them both breakfast.
His house doesn’t feel so empty with Eddie there.
They don’t really talk about the nightmare and Steve’s fine with that, he’s just glad Eddie looks better.