Chapter Text
Steve’s POV
Four weeks. Eddie had been unconscious for four weeks. Steve has barely left his side. The earthquakes closed Family Video for a while. Hard to rent out videos when the store sign fell through the building, so he’s been spending every waking minute he can by Eddie’s side. Once again, the government had paid everyone for their silence, so Steve knew he wouldn’t have to worry about working for a while, so he planted himself at Eddie’s bedside. The others had come in and out. Mike came back from California and as soon as Dustin had told him about Eddie, he had raced over to the hospital while El had sat with Max.
Mike had burst into the room and Steve was shocked to see the tears on the kid’s face. He stood there silently crying as he stared at Eddie, who was still bandaged covered and looking like death warmed over. Steve realized that had never seen Mike cry and it broke his heart as it reminded him just how young the boy is. He may be nearly as tall as Steve but he’s still just a kid. Steve stood and walked over to him and before he could say anything, Mike was wrapped around him, hugging him.
“I-is h-he o-okay,” he said between sobs.
“He will be. He will be,” Steve said as he hugged the kid. Yet another of his kids who had been through far too much for their young age.
Mike had sat with him for an hour as he’d told Mike what happened in Hawkins and the Upside down and Mike told him what had happened to them.
“Holy shit, Brenner’s dead,” he’d asked, still in shock that the man had even still been alive. Dustin had told him he’d been eaten by a demogorgon. Mike explains that Brenner died getting El out of the bunker, but he was still not absolved of all of his sins. Mike told him that El was the reason Max was alive. He wasn’t sure how she did it but when she’d woken up, she told them that she made Max’s heart beat. It was all she could do in the moment since she was so exhausted from 001. El joined them and Steve could see her hair was once again shaved close to her scalp.
“Oh kid,” he said as he once again got to his feet and enveloped another of his kids in a tight hug.
“You okay,” he’d asked her.
“Are you,” she asked back simply.
“Getting there,” he said hugging her again.
“Me too,” she said soaking in the affection.
They all sat together until Hopper and Joyce came to take them home. More hugs were given and Steve returned to Eddie and continued to hold vigil at his bedside.
Quickly the first week passed into the second week and still Eddie slept. Wayne had to go back to work, and school started back for the kids. So, while Family Video remained closed, he spent his days having a very one-sided conversation with Eddie. Eddie was a talker so it was very weird to get no response from him. Steve would talk and talk for hours and the only answer he would get would be the steady beeping of Eddie’s heart monitor. Wayne had helped him clean the dried blood off of Eddie’s body. He had to go to work before Steve could get to his hair.
So, Steve talks to Eddie as he gently washes his hair. He didn’t want it getting matted to the point that he’d end up looking like El and Eddie would kill him if he woke up to a shaved head.
“You know, it’s funny. I’ve asked you for months now to let me wash your hair. You’d always say no because you’d say I was going to “prep it up.” You had to keep it metal,” he says as he rubs the waterless shampoo through Eddie’s hair and massages his scalp. He washes away the blood and the grit and grime of the upside down.
“I just wanted to wash your hair and show you how to take advantage of the curls I know are there. I run my fingers through them regularly, babe, under that frizz is such soft natural curl. Hell, softer than Nancy’s hair ever was. So, I know how much your hair means to you, I’ll take care of it,” he pauses and gets his hairbrush and slowly brushes through Eddie’s hair.
Eddie lies unmoving. Steve would give just about anything to hear his voice again. But at least now, as he slept, he looked nearly back to normal if you didn’t pay attention to the dozens of bandages he was wrapped up in. Steve had gotten to see what was under those bandages after the first week.
It was bad. So, so very bad. Eddie’s chest and torso had taken the brunt of the attack as he must have gotten swarmed when they couldn’t get what they wanted from his arms and legs. He was a patchwork of stitches and staples, and angry skin where the doctors had literally sewn him back together. He had heard the doctor mention possible skin grafts if Eddie’s body didn’t recover properly, but that was a worry that Steve just didn’t have room for on his already eternally long list of present worries.
Gone were the demon and spider tattoo on his upper chest as the bats had ripped the skin away, taking the tattoos with it. Steve wasn’t sure which Eddie would be more pissed about, the tattoos or his entire nipple being gone. Steve assumed the latter as tattoos can be replaced. The tattoo on his side had survived but would have a scar running through it as the bats’ claws had slashed through it.
The ones on his arms had fared far better. Ironically, the bats were in one piece, appearing to be completely untouched, and his puppet master tattoo was only missing a few fingers on the puppeteer’s hand. He had watched as the nurses peeled each of the bandages away. It had almost made him sick to see the mess the bats had left Eddie in. That first week, they continually had a blood bag hanging as the doctor had said that Eddie had most likely gone into shock from the blood loss which is why Dustin presumed him dead.
Gareth’s mother had been the one to take care of Eddie and showed Steve how to clean and change the bandages. This way, if Eddie woke up and was discharged before they healed fully, Eddie could take care of him. Then week three had passed and Gareth’s mother didn’t mention Eddie leaving anymore. Steve knew what that meant. The doctors didn’t think Eddie would wake up. Steve had heard them tell Wayne that the longer Eddie was unconscious the less likely it would be that he’d ever wake up.
Steve wasn’t going to give up. None of them were going to give up on Eddie. At the end of week three, Steve had brought Eddie’s beaten-up copy of The Fellowship of the Ring. He would sit there and read aloud to Eddie. Stopping from time to time to complain about the names as he struggled to pronounce them.
“Seriously, Eds, how the hell do you say these damn elves’ names? Or the dwarves? At least the damn hobbits have easy names. And what the hell is up with this whole Tom Bombadil dude?” And like in the previous weeks, he’d get no response.
Still, he would read. He even started giving the characters voices and as he got to feeling better, he found himself pacing Eddie’s room, book in one hand, his other acting out the battle scenes. Now as they got mid-way through week four, Steve was rounding the end of The Two Towers. He definitely was not a fan of Shelob.
He already hated spiders, so he was sure this massive spider queen would find a place in his catalogue of nightmare material. He had slammed the book shut when he got to the part where Shelob attacked Frodo, poisoning him and Sam, always loyal Sam, had believed him dead. Yeah, that hit too close to home. Eddie had told him that, while he loved Merry and Pippin, and continually compared Steve to Aragorn, which would always elicit imagery of Eddie with elf ears in Steve’s mind, Frodo was his favorite.
He related to Frodo. Just like Eddie, Frodo had lost his parents and went to live with his uncle. Like Frodo, Eddie had his own little fellowship of loyal friends. And just like Frodo, Eddie had someone to love and care for him when he didn’t take care of himself. Reading this book aloud to Eddie left Steve imagining himself as Sam and Eddie as Frodo. Sam believing Frodo was dead caused his chest to ache.
He yawned and stretched as he had been sitting in the uncomfortable hospital chair for hours. He looked at his watch to see that it was well past 11. He wasn’t going home, the storm outside was way too bad to drive in and, after all of these weeks, the nurses had finally stopped trying to convince Steve to go home nightly. Instead, they just gave him sad looks.
Four weeks in and Eddie’s wounds were on the back end of the healing process, thankfully no skin grafts had been needed but the scaring would be bad. Steve chewed the pad of this thumb. He hadn’t slept well in weeks because he was used to sleeping with Eddie beside him. Robin had stayed with him until she had to return to school, Steve had tried sleeping alone for a few nights but sleeping alone left him with a brain he wouldn’t turn off. He’d lay there all-night thinking about all the ways things could have led to him losing Eddie. If they had been a few minutes later. If the vines had delayed them. If Jason and his goons had gotten their mitts on Eddie.
His brain hadn’t turned off since he’d carried Eddie into the hospital. So, Steve makes sure his bookmark is in place, still not understanding how Eddie could stand to dogear the pages, and puts the book on the side table. He lowers the guardrail of the bed and scoots in on Eddie’s less injured side. Eddie reeks of the hospital’s god-awful soap, but Steve still buries his face into Eddie’s neck. He drapes his arm across Eddie’s hips. By now he’s memorized where every patch of thick bandages is so he knows where he can put pressure.
“Come back to me, Eds,” he whispers into Eddie’s skin as he closes his eyes and is out in minutes.
He awakens to a hand in his hair. For a moment he forgets where he is and what’s been happening and nuzzles Eddie’s neck like he usually would in the mornings, desperate for a few more minutes intertwined with him.
“Steve,” he hears Eddie call.
Eddie. Eddie says.
Steve’s eyes shoot open as he sits up quickly, “Baby?”
Eddie looks up at him with his big brown eyes, so full of life again. He manages a weak smile, “Hey, princess. What did I miss?”
Happiness overwhelms him, tears coming to his eyes as he wraps one arm around Eddie the best he can and tangles the other into Eddie’s hair, “Oh, God, Eddie, baby. I thought I’d lost you.”
“I’m here, Stevie, I’m here. The pain tells me that much,” he weakly says.
Steve pulls himself away from Eddie and stands beside his bed, now afraid of hurting him, “Sorry, sorry. I just...I hadn’t been sleeping. I can’t sleep when you’re not there and you’ve been...gone.”
“How long,” Eddie croaks out.
Steve quickly pours him a cup of water and angles the straw for him to drink from, “Four weeks, baby, four weeks.”
“Jesus,” Eddie says, his voice a little clearer after the drink, “What happened?”
Steve sits on the side of Eddie’s bed and takes his hand, “Well, first of all, you decided to play hero when I specifically told you not to play hero.”
“In my defense, you told me to protect Dustin,” he said.
Steve sighs, “Okay, well, you did that. The kid’s fine but we almost lost you. Why did you choose to distract the bats? You could have just run to the winnebago.”
“No, I couldn’t. They were breaking through the doors and if I didn’t lure them away, they’d get through. They’d get the kid. So, I had to make a choice, Stevie, and I feel like you’d have made the same. I just didn’t come out as unscathed as you seem to,” he says as he looks at the scars on his hands and arms.
“Tell me the truth, Steve, how bad is it,” he asks.
Steve sighs and Eddie frowns, “Bad, huh?”
“The bats did a number on you. You saw what they did to me, right? Well, they did that tenfold to you. The doctors patched you up best they could. But you’re alive, baby,” Steve says.
“Yeah, but, I’m sure that I'm still a wanted man, Steve, and there won’t be much running in my future.”
“Ah, that’s where I can start telling you the good news. Hopper’s alive and well. Apparently, he was kidnapped by the Russians, long story. He and the government men we talked about, they swooped in and you, Eddie Munson, are a free man,” Steve says with a smile.