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He’s careful about inserting the thermometer into Steve’s mouth. Even as the aforementioned guy coughs around it, jostling the little glass thing, nearly knocking it straight back down to the floor. But he’s prepared to keep it from crashing this time. No way is he going out to the store—again—to replace the damn thing.
“Breathe slow through your nose, sweetheart,” Eddie breathes, demanding lightly. “I know it’s hard to do right now, but we won’t get an accurate reading if you spit this thing out.” He cups his palms under Steve’s chin just in case, all too riled at the thought of having to be the catcher on the field. But it just ends up being a precautionary thing—as Steve, though rolling his eyes, does exactly what he’s told.
It’s a slow going process. The mercury inside working up, up, up as the time ticks away. A minute passes and Eddie knows that Steve is suppressing coughs. His eyes have gone watery and his cheeks, already flushed, glow a deeper and brighter terrible red. There’s got to be a huge wad of snot stuck half past and around the block in his right nostril, the feeble attempts at sucking in air are just that—feeble. And the deepest tell to Steve’s state is the awful, wet, raspy rattling croaking from his chest.
Inwardly, Eddie raises his fist at whatever god allowed the creation of the flu virus. And he shakes that fist for causing that damn virus to spread.
His watch beeps, two minutes up. And he gently pries the thermometer from Steve’s overly moist mouth, unlocking the hacking of his lungs, and the spray of his spit, and the miserable attempts to cover it all up with his elbow. Not like that would do anything, Eddie bitterly thinks, I already had this shit last week.
103 degrees Fahrenheit.
“Shit,” Eddie mutters. He sets the thermometer onto the coffee table. Reaches out for Steve’s shoulders and forces him back down onto his right side—half flopped already on the sofa, just needs to get his legs tucked back underneath him. And he pets a shaking hand over the exposed, goosepimpled, and overheated skin of Steve’s bicep. Usually, this muscle tank he’s got going on would be hot, but now it’s just…bleh. “Listen,” Eddie whispers, “if your fever doesn’t break by tomorrow morning, I have to take you to the hospital, okay?”
Steve gives a weak whine. Eyes closed, mouth twisted, shivering. “I don’t wanna,” he petulantly protests; but that’s not going to work on Eddie. Not this time, at least.
“I know,” Eddie murmurs, “I know, baby. But I’m serious this time. You’ve already been sick a while longer than I have. And you’re shaking like a leaf. And though you finally were able to keep down some crackers and soup—and water, thank god—you’ve barely had anything to eat. I’m just”—he sighs—“I’m worried, Steve. I’m worried this is something more than just the average flu.”
Another weak little sound, this time something like a sniffle. And when Eddie gets a clear look at Steve’s face, no longer buried into the soft throw pillow under his head, his heart begins to fracture. Tears streak Steve’s already ruddy, terribly warm cheeks. And his lips are quivering. And his eyebrows are quirked in an uncomfortable twist.
And Eddie hates this.
“Baby?” He calls to Steve.
“S-sorry,” Steve chokes out, “I don’t feel good.”
He brings his hand off of Steve’s bicep, instead cupping the back of his head. “Okay,” he softly says, “you don’t need to be sorry, baby. But thank you for telling me how you’re feeling. Can you tell me what doesn’t feel good? Maybe I can help fix it?”
For a long moment, Steve doesn’t say anything. Instead, he gets the last of his tears out of his system, lets Eddie hold him along his greasy hair, and continues to shiver through his whole body. Finally, he whispers, “Can you stay and…can you cuddle with me?” He doesn’t look Eddie in the eyes when he requests it. Doesn’t dare drag his sight off the loose threads of the throw pillows, strings that Eddie promised he would sew back straight when they were both feeling better. Steve takes another raspy, deep breath that physically pains Eddie to even hear. And then he tacks on, softer than before, “My mom used to when she still loved…” He sighs.
There’s not much to say to that, other than Eddie immediately and already agreeing. Because a cuddle with his boyfriend is as easy as breathing air for him. But they still haven’t touched on the sore subject that is Steve’s parents. Or Steve’s childhood, for that matter.
It’s not like there’s much reason to. Not when they’ve got a life outside of Hawkins now and have their own apartment and Steve hasn’t spoken to either of his parents in roughly three whole years. Not when they’ve learned to take responsibility for each other—both in the duty of making sure the other is safe and healthy, and in the sense that without the other, one of them just wouldn’t be. And it’s never time to talk about Steve’s parents when all they’ve done is push him aside, leave him second best to their work and social lives, and when they finally paid attention—they realized that having a certain type of kid (a word that they don’t repeat, an f word) hindered all the “work” they’ve done for the family they have.
Not that they’re family.
But they tried to act like one at some point.
“Of course, sweetheart,” Eddie whispers, “let’s get you to our room, okay? You want me to get anything else before I slip into bed with you?”
Again, Steve takes a moment of silence. Then, “I stole one of my mom’s blankets when we moved in here. It’s in the hall closet. Can I have that?”
“Yes, baby. What’s the pattern on it?”
Quietly, Steve answers, “My baby blanket. The blue one. It has my name embroidered on it.”
“I’ll grab it, I promise. Now, let me get you to bed and I’ll be with you in just a second.”
He easily and carefully picks Steve up from the couch. Not exactly light, but not heavy either. And shuffles the two of them down the hallway to their bedroom. Tucks Steve under just the top sheet, no comforter. Pushes hair away from his forehead and back behind his ear. Leaves a little kiss to his right cheek, the heat radiating onto Eddie’s lips.
Then, Eddie grabs what he needs: an ice pack from the freezer, a cold bottle of water, the container of cough syrup, and some Tylenol. It’s the baby blanket that’s harder to get. Not because it’s buried in the back of the closet. And not because it’s simply not there.
But it’s the way it lays between Eddie’s hands that really gets him.
It’s a pale blue. Something close to periwinkle. Has a light layer of fuzz and lint, as if it’s hardly been washed over the years. Too precious of cargo to run through the washing machine, and too hard to take away for a hand wash when Steve probably needed it all the time. The edges are frayed—strings loose, some of the stitching completely missing, a few tears that would never be sewn up to the original corner it’s meant to be. There’s a couple small stains on it, most likely from being dragged or even dropped in dirt. In the bottom right corner of the fabric is a name embroidered in off-white floss: Steve. Though, upon closer inspection, it appears one of the letters is missing. The only thing left in its wake is the shadow of what should’ve been an ’N.’ Like maybe it had been altered at some point.
The size of the thing pulls at Eddie’s heart strings, too.
Not a big one—like the quilt his mama made when he had turned three, though it wouldn’t fully cover him until he was ten (when she wouldn’t see him use it, but he tries hard not to think of that. Tries.). It’s not medium, either. No, this baby blanket is the perfect size for a baby; a newborn baby.
Underneath Eddie’s right index finger, he feels a soft tag on the back of the blanket. And when he flips it over, he spots exactly that. A tag. Not with care instructions like some of those store bought blankets—pre-determined with a name. No, it’s a screwy kind of tag. Made from obvious silk, scrap fabric, off-white, too, but yellowing from old age. And in a black, inky scrawl, it reads:
‘For you, my little prince. For my heart. I love you always.
-Mommy’
And he didn’t want to cry, but he’s close to bursting with the need to. So, he shoves that little bit of emotion back inside, puts the blanket in the crook of his left elbow, and carries his haul back to their bedroom. Where he finds Steve in the same position: curled up on his left side, hands tucked under his chin, legs bent and ankles crossed, the top sheet pulled all the way up to his wrists, eyes glazed and looking at the empty left spot of the mattress where Eddie should be.
He puts the ice pack on the back of Steve’s neck, even if he’s met with a slight hiss and a half-assed wriggle away. But, thankfully, the fight can be put off because Steve stops trying to get away. To that, Eddie eternally relieves a sigh. Twists the cap off of the bottle of water, but places it on Steve’s bedside table for him to reach later. The cough syrup and Tylenol go to Eddie’s table. But the baby blanket goes immediately to Steve, who takes it with quick, healthy movements.
Eddie can only lay himself under the top sheet, melting and softening at the sight of Steve bringing the blanket up close to his face, tucking one of the torn and frayed edges to his bottom lip. He runs the old fabric on his dry mouth, almost like he’s smearing kisses along the thing.
“Thank you,” Steve tiredly breathes.
Laying on his right side, Eddie has full access to Steve from where he is. He reaches out a gentle hand to the side of his boyfriend’s face, caresses his skin tenderly, and then pulls him close between his shoulder blades. Not quite tucked into Eddie’s warmth, but enough that they could share body heat. But he does tangle their legs together, just to give them contact, just to satiate some of what Steve needs.
Steve scoots even closer, though. Closer than how they should lay considering he’s got a temperature that nearly warrants a hospital visit. But Eddie lets him lay his head on his shoulder. Lets him puff warm air onto his neck. Lets him take.
“Eds?”
He hums questioningly.
A hard, yet slow intake of breath. “I miss my mom,” Steve admits quietly. So quietly, Eddie almost doesn’t hear him. But he does. Damnit, he does. “She’s not a bad person. She’s not…she’s not what my dad made her to be.”
“I know,” Eddie can only say, “I know, Stevie.”
“She love—s me.”
Eddie throws his left arm over Steve’s waist, brushes his hand over the small of Steve’s back. “Yeah?” He asks softly.
“Mhm,” Steve answers, “I know it.” Eddie can just feel the tickle of the baby blanket brush him. Like it’s being pulled even closer. “She made this for me. And she…she used to tell me stories. And she took care of me when I was sick.”
He has to bite his tongue, even as his fingers betray him—as they squeeze Steve at the utterance of those words. Because he knows better than to point out the ‘was’ in those sentences. He knows better than to make a point that Steve’s mom hasn’t even bothered to try and keep contact. Even when she was given a phone number—“For emergencies,” so Steve had said.
Though, that makes Eddie wonder if it was for emergencies at all.
Makes him wonder if it really meant, “Call me every once in a while. Don’t be a stranger.”
He can’t tell Steve, delirious and sick and sad Steve, that his mom is effectively a stranger now. Can’t do that. Can’t be the one to tell him that his mom is basically dead. And the evidence of that is her absence.
He can’t do that.
“Oh, she loves you so much, baby,” he lies.
Steve nods. His hair scraping the underside of Eddie’s jaw, dirty and heavy and prickly. “She does,” he agrees. Then, he goes silent again. His fingers running over the blanket, feet rustling under the top sheet, skin on skin, nasally breaths through a stuffed up nose.
“Doesn’t she?” Steve asks later, quiet and low. Unsure.