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It was just dinner.
At least, that was what you told yourself as you laid in bed, curled up with your dogs stretched out on either side of you like furry, snoring sentinels.
It was the same thing you always told yourself whenever you had to cancel plans at the last minute thanks to a random flair up of pain.
It was just a party. Just the mall. Just swimming at the lake. Just game night at a friend’s house.
But, in all honesty, that was just the excuse you told yourself to soften the blow. It never worked, but that never stopped you from trying.
Granted, some plans weren’t as major as others if you had to cancel them. Some were easy to shrug off, like going out to the movies with friends. Even if it was something you had looked forward to seeing, it wasn’t that big of a deal overall if you had to spend the evening in bed with Sadie and Alice instead.
But that really wasn’t the case tonight.
Tonight, you were supposed to have dinner with Steve Harrington and Eddie Munson.
And it wasn’t just dinner. It was actually a date.
While you had only been on three dates with them so far, things had been going really. Those dates were actually the best dates you had ever been on. Steve had tried so hard to keep them orderly, but he could only keep things orderly for so long with Eddie around. For one reason or another, all three dates ended up with the three of you sitting at an all-night diner all the way over on the other side of town until well into the morning, talking and laughing together until you were all red in the face.
But, as of right now, it had been a few weeks since your last date with them.
Tonight marked the fourth time you’ve had to reschedule your next date with them. While Steve and Eddie had been understanding about your reasons so far, you knew that wasn’t going to last for much longer. That was just how things usually went with people you were interested in. Even though you were always open about what the weather changes were going to do to you well in advance, it never seemed to do any good. A handful of rescheduled dates later and people took it as you simply not being interested and moved on.
Ever since the end of spring when that earthquake tore apart Hawkins, the weather had been incredibly odd. Summer wasn’t as hot as normal, with highs only reaching in the mid 60’s at its peak. Then the colder weather started even earlier, feeling like the beginning of winter already in September when the seasons were only just transitioning into autumn. As a result, your normal everyday pain levels had been all over the place for most of the year and was now flaring well beyond tolerable levels. It was all you could do to get through your typical day at work, much less have the energy to do anything else.
After you got off the phone with Steve, you thought back over the disappointment you could hear in his voice. He sounded the same way your suitors always did when they were reaching their limit. You had one more canceled date left, if that, before they gave up on you, too.
While you couldn’t really blame them for not wanting to be with someone already so broken, that didn’t stop it from hurting any less. If anything, this one hurt more since there wasn’t just one suitor involved but two. And you really liked both of them.
The three of you met a few weeks after the big earthquake, right around the time when Eddie’s name was cleared. The spark between you had been undeniable. You all clicked together as if you’d known each other your whole lives. But since Steve and Eddie had just recently began dating, you passed it off as a meeting of kindred spirits.
As time went on, and you spent more time together, their interactions with you became more playful and affectionate than just friendly. You began to notice that they had both started flirting with you. Figuring it was just in good fun and not anything that was going to go anywhere, you returned their affections. It was exciting, not to mention an ego boost, having two incredibly attractive men showering you with their attention and praise. It made you feel special, even if the flattery was only temporarily.
Imagine your surprise, not to mention delight, when they both asked you out.
And now your body was fucking it all up for you, like usual.
With a sigh, you turned over in bed, attempting to make yourself more comfortable. Sadly, it didn’t work. This was one of those flair ups where no matter what position you laid in, every single one hurt just as much as the last. All your movement did in this instance was rouse the dogs, then they had to get up and turn around a few times in order to get themselves comfortable again.
Luckily, it didn’t take too much longer for your medication to start working and begin easing your discomfort. Your thoughts started to feel fuzzy and watery, then your pain finally lifted some as your limbs grew heavy and relaxed. It never took long for the sedative like side effects to knock you out, but you still had enough time to lay there and wonder how the boys would end up breaking things off.
Would they call you and tell you the truth, that you were too broken for their tastes? Give you some excuse about no chemistry and then a half assed apology? Or would they simply fall off the face of the earth, resulting in you being ghosted again?
Only time would tell. The only thing you really knew for sure when it came to other people was, always expect the unexpected. When you think someone will do something, that’s when they’ll do the exact opposite.
Eventually, you drifted off into a dreamless, medication induced sleep.
Sometime later on, you were jarred awake by Sadie and Alice clamoring to get off the bed. Considering they were large breeds of dogs, both over fifty pounds each, there was no way to sleep through that. Nor was there any way to sleep through the excited clamor that began in the living room just a moment later.
While you loved your two girls dearly and spoiled them rotten, they were very easily excitable dogs. They could hear a plastic bag blowing down the street at 2am and would have this exact same reaction.
You knew this from experience.
“Girls! Shush!” you called out from your bed.
While you tried to use your sternest sounding mom voice, you just ended up sounding more like a tired mom rather than a stern one.
After they carried on for a bit longer, they finally quieted down.
Turning from your side onto your back, you carefully stretched then rubbed your eyes. While the pain wasn’t as bad now as it had been prior to your nap, you were feeling quite groggy. You glanced over at your alarm clock and saw it was just a little past 7pm. That explained the groggy feeling. You’d only been asleep for a couple of hours, not long enough to sleep off the more unpleasant effects of your medications. While they worked amazingly well, they tended to knock you out cold, and you always had to give yourself enough time to sleep off all the effects.
Sighing, you rolled over onto your other side, deciding to go back to sleep. You knew you would probably be out for the rest of the night, but that was fine. Sleeping was better than laying there miserable.
But, as you laid there with your eyes closed, trying to go back to sleep, you discovered your brain was awake enough to drift back around to the topic that made you sad before your nap. Your missed date.
Steve and Eddie were originally supposed to pick you up around 7. They had planned to take you out bowling, where they were finally going to settle their argument over who was the better bowler. While you couldn’t bowl yourself anymore due to some of your more recent limitations, you still enjoyed keeping score and watching others. That made this the perfect three-way date activity since you would be an impartial judge to their contest.
After bowling, it had been unanimously decided to skip any attempt at doing something fancy since it never seemed to work out. The diner had become your spot, so that’s where the three of you planned to head for dinner.
While that was the extent of what Steve and Eddie had planned for the evening, once they brought you home, you had planned on inviting them in to continue the evening. And then, with any luck, they would get to see the new lingerie set you would have been wearing underneath your clothes. While they had completely different tastes style wise, you were pretty sure you had picked something out that would easily appease them both.
As you were starting to imagine what their reactions to it would have been, you were jarred out of your thoughts by a heavy weight flumping down on the bed behind you and cuddling up against your back. You assumed this was Sadie coming back to bed since she preferred sleeping on that side in that particular spot.
However, you got very confused all of a sudden when something that felt like an arm wrapped itself around your waist.
Curiously, you turned your head a little to look over your shoulder and found yourself gazing into a pair of chocolate brown eyes that did not belong to either of your dogs.
“Hey there, Princess,” Eddie said, his eyes sparkling at you as he spoke in a soft tone.
You blinked a few times, staring at him in surprise.
“Eddie?” you asked, a dumbfounded tone in your voice. “How in the heck did you get in?”
It was the first thing that popped into your head to say. Things hadn’t progressed far enough with Eddie and Steve yet for either of them to have a key to your house, and you were far too paranoid of a person to keep a spare somewhere outside for just anyone to find. They only keys to your place were held by you and your dad, who had your emergency spare.
Eddie grinned at you.
“Let’s just say hot wiring isn’t the only illicit activity I know how to do,” he said with a wink, then burrowed in closer to you.
You blinked a few more times.
“You can hot wire a car?” you asked, surprise in your voice.
Eddie laughed, smiling at your surprised state.
“Yeah, I can, but that’s a story for another day,” he said, placing a soft kiss to your temple.
The fog in your brain was heavy enough it still took a few moments for it to fully sink in that Eddie really was here, but once it did, a big smile came to your lips, and you turned over in his arms so you could face him.
“Did Steve forget to tell you?” you asked, slipping an arm around him as he pulled you closer to his chest. “I had to reschedule our date again.”
“No, Stevie told me,” Eddie said, trailing his fingertips up and down your back. “We had a chat about it after you two got off the phone. We figure if we’re really going to be serious about this, serious about being with you, I mean, then we better start getting used to having date nights in.”
Now that was the last thing you ever expected to hear.
“What?” you said after a moment, blinking at him in shock.
Eddie chuckled.
“Well, this happens whenever it’s cold, right?” he asked, waiting until you nodded before continuing. “We don’t mind staying in with you. We really want to, actually. So, we thought tonight was a good night to get started.”
Once again, it took a few moments to fully process his words, but you still didn’t have an intelligent reply once you did.
“Steve’s here, too?” you asked dumbly as you lifted your head to look towards the door. “Where is he?”
“Letting the girls out to go potty,” Eddie said, starting to stroke your cheek. “We weren’t sure if you’d been up recently or not and thought they might need to go.”
Now you really didn’t know what to say. On the rare occasion that people came by to check on you during your more painful flair ups like this one, you’d have to ask them to let the dogs out or do it yourself. No one ever thought about them to take the initiative and do it themselves.
It was just one more reason why you found yourself falling for this pair. Not only did they think of you, but also thought of your babies in one fell swoop.
Before this heartwarming moment could turn any more romantic though, it was interrupted by the sound of eight paws running excitedly up the hall towards the bedroom. The girls came flying in soon afterwards, jumping onto the bed and into the cuddle pile with their human and their Best Friend Eddie.
There were lots of grunts and giggles as the both of you were trampled. Eddie did his best to shield your body from the chaos with his own, but there was only so much he could do. After a bit of excitement, Alice finally settled down next to you, while Sadie, easily the heaviest of the two, decided she needed to lay ON Eddie rather than net to him.
The sound of laughter floated over to the bed from the direction of the door.
“Of all the things I could’ve walked in on,” you heard Steve say, and looked over to see him leaning against the door frame, watching the chaotic scene on the bed with a soft smile. “A cuddle pile definitely makes me the most jealous.”
Eddie lifted his head and looked around at your queen-sized bed. Between the two humans and two large dogs, there wasn’t much empty space left.
“I hate to say this, sweetheart,” he said, looking over at Steve. “But I don’t think there’s any room for you.”
“I know,” Steve said, chuckling as he started to come around to your side of the bed. “And that’s why I’m jealous.”
Alice started to get wiggly as Steve stopped next to the bed. Resting one hand on the headboard, he leaned halfway down towards you, gazing into your eyes.
“Have you eaten today?” he asked.
You raised one hand in a so-so gesture.
“I had a peanut butter sandwich earlier when I took my pills,” you said. “But nothing since then.”
Steve nodded, a knowing look on his face.
“Good thing we brought dinner then,” he said. “We’ll give you a few minutes to finish waking up and get everything set up in the living room, okay?”
You nodded, unable to stop a large smile from coming to your face at how sweet they were being. Steve returned the smile, then started to lean down further towards you, moving in to kiss you.
Instead of you getting the kiss, Alice decided it was actually for her instead. She jumped up to intercept Steve’s kiss with one of her own.
Steve immediately stood upright, sputtering as he wiped his lips with the back of his hand.
“Bah, that was a tongue in my mouth,” he said, as he wrinkled his nose. “Gross.”
You couldn’t help but laugh at the disgruntled look on his face. He scowled down playfully at Alice then ruffled her ears affectionately. She happily wagged her tail up at Steve, completely unaware of her faux pas.
Eddie hadn’t seen exactly what happened as Sadie had kicked him in the ribs. So, when he heard Steve’s words, he lifted his head and raised an eyebrow at his boyfriend.
“Now now, Stevie, that ain’t nice,” he said, then brought one hand up to your chin and gently turned your head so you were looking at him again. “But, on the other hand, if he doesn’t want your tongue in his mouth, that just means more for me.”
As Steve protested Eddie’s choice of words, Eddie ignored him in favor of lowering his lips to yours in a slow, deep kiss.
This was the type of kiss that people write poems about. It was the kind of kiss that made the back of your head tingle and your toes clench. It was the type of kiss that made you forget how to breathe judging from the way you gasped for air when your lips finally parted.
Steve finally had to physically drag Eddie from your bed in order for you to get up, despite Eddie’s protests of being comfy in there with you. You giggled, watching the preppy boy wrestle the pouting metalhead out of the room, your dog’s excitedly accompanying them.
It took a bit to get out of bed, your limbs still sore and achy. They loosened up a bit as you moved around to get to the bathroom, but not by much. While a shower definitely would help, and you would have preferred to take one, with your low energy levels and slightly woozy head, that wasn’t the best idea. It was easy to fall while in a state like this and falling in the shower was not an experience you were keen on repeating.
Though, thinking about that did make an interesting idea pop into your head.
You could always ask the boys for their help with a shower.
At this point, you were pretty sure neither of them would mind, judging by how affectionate they had been getting towards you. While Eddie would start undressing before you even finished the question, Steve wasn’t quite as forward with you yet as his boyfriend was. He would definitely be the more shocked of the two. You might even get a blush out of him, but you certainly didn’t see him objecting either.
But, as thrilling as that idea was, tonight really wasn’t a suitable time for that. You wanted to feel much better first before getting naked with them for the first time. You settled for freshening up by brushing your teeth, putting on deodorant and changing out of the pajamas you’d been in for two days. Not feeling up to regular clothes, you just swapped them for a clean pair, but you did at least make sure these didn’t have stains or holes in them.
By the time you emerged from the bedroom, you felt a little more awake and a little more human. The smell of pizza hit you as you made your way through your small house, causing your stomach to remember you’d only eaten once today.
In the living room, Eddie and Steve had cleared off your coffee table, swapping the items on top with boxes of pizza and breadsticks. While Eddie was already relaxing at one end of the couch, Steve was bent over in front of your TV sorting through a few Family Video rental boxes. Your dogs were sitting next to the coffee table on the side directly opposite of the couch, staring intently at the pizza boxes as if they might try to escape.
The entire scene made your heart flutter. You paused in the doorway, a soft smile on your face.
It had been quite a while since someone went to this much effort for you. Years, even. Way back in the early days of your illness when the pain was just starting to reach levels that impacted your daily life. But when it didn’t get better, gradually worsening instead, it felt like everyone began seeing you as more of an inconvenience than anything else. Very quickly, your large circle of friends dwindled to just a mere handful of people you could count on.
Your smile then faltered for a moment, as your eyes flickered between Eddie and Steve. It seemed almost inevitable that they would start to think of you as an inconvenience too.
Fortunately, you didn’t have the chance to get stuck in that negative thought pattern. Steve stood up just then and turned towards the couch, holding a movie in each hand.
“Which one do you thi-“ Steve started to ask Eddie, then he looked up and saw you standing in the doorway. “Good timing, Y/N! We didn’t know what you would be in the mood to watch, so we rented an assortment.”
Steve started reading the titles off of the selections they brought as you made your way over to the couch. Eddie sat up quickly, moving his legs together so he wasn’t man spreading quite so much, and patted the cushion next to him with a bright smile on his face.
You sat down in the offered spot, thinking over the choices.
“Let’s go with Evil Dead 2,” you said, then chuckled. “Horror always cheers me up when I’m in pain, and I love that one.”
At that, Eddie threw a smug look at Steve, and Steve wrinkled nose at Eddie in response.
You couldn’t help but chuckle at them. They made a cute couple.
Once the movie started, the three of you settled in on the couch and started in on the pizza, with Steve clearing away the leftovers once everyone was done. The dogs supervised all of these activities very closely.
After Steve and the girls disappeared into the kitchen to put everything away, Eddie draped his arm around your shoulders and gently pulled you closer, so you were leaning into his side. You pulled your legs up under you, cuddling up close to him, and then reached up to pull a blanket down over you from the back of the couch. Eddie helped you spread it out the way you wanted it, then you settled in with your head on his chest and an arm around his waist. Both of Eddie’s arms were around you in a loose embrace, and he kissed the top of your head before resting his cheek against it.
Even though you always kept your house at a comfortable temperature, if the conditions outside were cold and wet, then that’s what your body responded to. But right now, laying against Eddie’s, you began to warm up even more. With the blanket trapping both his body heat and yours underneath it, and Eddie being a heat generator, you were soon comfortable and more at ease than you had been.
It didn’t take long for Steve to get everything put away. The girls came back to the living room first, each one carrying one of the large dog biscuits you usually gave them every night around dinner time.
The fact he even remembered you mentioning their dinner treats once in a conversation made your heart swell.
When Steve returned, he sat next to you on the couch, leaving only a little bit of space between him and you. Not wanting him to feel left out of the cuddles, you scooted your body down just a bit, closing the small gap between you, then stretched your legs out over his lap. He looked over at you and smiled, resting one hand on your knee and the other on your calf.
There was a small intermission between movies for bathroom and smoke breaks, then Steve and Eddie swapped places on the couch.
“You know,” Steve said, slipping his arms around you as you cuddled up to him now. “I could get used to date nights in if they all end up like this.”
“Really?” you asked, looking up at him nervously. “Won’t you guys get sick of just sitting around, doing nothing at my house?”
“I don’t think I could ever get sick of you,” Steve said, then looked over at his boyfriend. “What about you, Eddie?”
“Hell no,” Eddie said, standing up and coming back to the couch once he had finished putting in the next movie. “There’s no place I’d would rather be. If you’re stuck at home, Princess, well, then we want to be stuck at home with you.”
You couldn’t help but melt into Steve’s arms at their words, your heart fluttering once again.
Burrowing closer to Steve’s, you stretched your legs out across Eddie’s lap, enjoying this unexpected moment of intimacy.
And, for the first time in a long time, you felt truly hopeful about a new relationship.