Work Text:
Steve hasn’t managed to get much sleep since Spring Break. It"s worse than it has been before, worse than it was even after the first time; he"d had nightmares, then, would wake up with the flare of Christmas lights burned into the backs of his eyes, until they"d become as routine as driving the kids to the arcade on Saturday afternoons.
But now, he barely sleeps long enough to realise it. In the dark, everything is too still, too heavy, and most nights he lies watching the time fall away on his alarm clock. Blinks and an hour has passed, if he’s lucky. Listens to the crackle of an empty radio channel until the battery runs dead.
He can’t have been asleep for more than a moment, doesn’t remember what time it had been when he closed his eyes, when he’s startled awake to an insistent knocking at the door, frantic and loud.
It’s coming from downstairs, and whoever it is isn’t letting up. The clock on his nightstand reads just past 2am, and Steve clambers blearily out of bed, reaching blindly for the baseball bat he’s shoved unceremoniously behind the headboard. He makes his way downstairs in the pitch-black of the night with distant trepidation set in his shoulders.
As he reaches the landing, the banging slows, seems to trail down the door and slump on the front step.
There’s a groan, then, “Harrington, open the fucking door!”
The bat slips in Steve’s hand. He steadies himself.
On the other side, there’s a dull thud, followed by a muffled, “C’mon, man.”
Hoisting his bat in the air, Steve unlocks the door and wrenches it open. Eddie Munson falls into him, up against his legs, half sprawled out across the step. Steve drops his bat with a clatter.
“Shit– fuck,” hisses Eddie.
His breathing is laboured, eyes wild, face pale and frightened. There’s dirt smeared across his eyebrow, and he grips onto Steve like he’ll keel right over if he doesn’t.
When Steve had seen him just two days ago, briefly as he dropped the kids off for D&D, he’d looked a whole lot different.
“What the hell are you–”
“Just shut the fuck up for a minute,” gasps Eddie. He lets go of Steve’s arm, pulls his hand shakily over his side. He’s grimacing, long hair casting a shadow over his face. Steve feels suddenly and violently out of his depth.
He grasps Eddie under his arms and helps him drag his legs in through the door, props him against the wall as he kicks it shut. Eddie looks up at him through foggy eyes, like he"s not really seeing anything at all.
“What happened?” Steve asks, and he kneels next to him. Eddie doesn’t answer, just keeps panting, keeps fucking staring, unfocused.
“I’m gonna need some actual words here, man.” Steve tries to keep his tone light.
“Okay,” says Eddie shakily, squeezing his eyes shut, pulling a weak, trembling hand over his face. “Okay. Shit, I, uh - I didn’t, I wouldn’t have come here under normal circumstances. I’m sorry, it’s just. It’s an emergency. Sort of? Fuck.”
Steve dithers in front of him, heart pounding. “Okay,” he says slowly. “What’s going on, Munson?”
Eddie pushes himself up stiffly, struggles like it’s the first time he’s ever moved - like bambi, Steve thinks, absurdly - and at first Steve’s not sure what he’s doing, eyes still on Eddie’s face, but then he pulls his jacket off, and-
“Jesus,” Steve feels the heat drain from his face, confusion giving way to horror. “Eddie, what the hell?”
Eddie’s shirt is soaked with blood, sliced through the middle. Steve peels it back, inhales sharply at the cut across his stomach. It’s impossible to tell how deep it is. All Steve knows is it’s bleeding.
“Sorry,” Eddie bites out.
“Don’t fucking– don’t apologize, I just– this is– this is crazy, even for -”
“I know.” Eddie looks agonized. “Fuck, shit, it’s so fucked up, I really don’t– I don’t want to dump this on you, but I am actually bleeding to death here so fucking help me fix it or shut up.”
“You’re insane,” Steve says through numb lips.
“Fuck you,” snaps Eddie, baring his teeth. It might have been intimidating if he wasn"t bleeding all over the floor.
“I’m– shit, I’m driving you to the hospital.” Steve starts to move, but Eddie grabs ahold of his arm again, grip unyielding.
“No,” he says, low and intense. “No hospital, man.” Steve sees something else in his eyes too. A hint of vulnerability. Of fear.
God, he could just - chew him out. Wants to tell him he’s insane again. But he bites his tongue. He can do that after all this is over.
He sighs. “Do you think you can get to the bathroom?”
Eddie sags in relief. “Mhm. Just… Just give me a minute.”
Eddie takes a few measured breaths, eyes more focused, decidedly clearer. And then, like an idiot, he tries to push himself off the floor.
“Woah woah woah, hold on," Steve says, offers him his hand, "Here." Eddie looks up at him a moment, hesitates, then takes it. Steve grunts as he hauls him up.
“Okay?” Steve asks.
“Mm.”
The walk to the bathroom is slow. Steve holds onto him, arm slung around his waist, and they take the stairs one at a time. Eddie’s not limping, exactly – more so dragging his feet along, scuffing the floor with his shoes, like he’s being weighed down by something.
“Your– your parents?” Eddie asks when they reach the top, winded.
“Not home,” Steve says tightly, and Eddie gives a short nod.
“Okay,” Steve mutters, mostly to himself, and shoulders the bathroom door open. At the loss of support, Eddie pitches forward, and Steve catches him in the crook of his arm.
“Shit. Sorry,” mutters Eddie, and he’s so close, Steve can feel his breath on his neck. He swallows, exhales.
“It’s okay,” Steve says, and Eddie rights himself, stumbles past Steve, and collapses onto the toilet seat as soon as he’s through the door. It must really be hurting him.
“What happened, man?” Steve asks again, and grabs for the nearest towel, runs it under the tap with one hand.
“Oh, uh. You know…” Eddie picks at his t-shirt where it"s stuck to his skin. “Just, typical trailer trash brawl, nothin’ to worry your pretty little head about.”
And Jesus, Steve will worry, never mind what Munson says. But he’s done this bit before. Could do it with his eyes closed. Had done, the time Tommy H had given him two black eyes over something he can’t even remember now.
He kneels down in front of Eddie, and his gaze follows him, eyes heavy. Steve swallows hard, looks away. Then, one hand steadied against his side, he reaches out to ruck up Eddie’s shirt. Lets out a nauseous exhale at the state of his stomach.
The first swipe clears away a lot of the blood, and when more doesn’t seep to the surface, Steve breathes out a sigh of relief. He can see now that the cut isn’t deep at all. Deep enough to look scary and probably sting like hell, but not deadly. Reassured, he lets his shoulders come down a little.
Eddie tips his head up to the ceiling. “Is it– bad?”
“Think you’ll live,” he replies, runs the towel over the cut again. “It might scar, though.”
“Ha.” Eddie bites out. “Figured.”
Water drips from the towel, and Steve holds it still. Feels Eddie breathing. Hears the back of his throat click.
“Okay?” Steve asks.
“My jeans are getting wet.”
Steve reaches up to open the cabinet, scanning for antiseptic. There’s surely some left; he only ever needs it when the world’s ending.
“Yeah, that"s really what you’re worried about right now?” He grabs it from the shelf, narrowly avoids knocking a bottle of aspirin out, and then grabs that too.
“They’re my best pair.”
Steve can’t help but laugh, exhausted and dry, adrenaline-high delirious. He pours too much antiseptic into the towel without paying much mind. Doesn’t warn Eddie of the sting as he presses it back to the cut.
“Ow– fuck, man.” Eddie jolts back, cuts him a seething glance.
Steve raises his eyebrows. “You wanna do it yourself?”
Glowering down at him, Eddie snatches for the towel, petulant. His hand trembles, but he gets a grip on it.
Breathing out shakily, he tries to lift his shirt, but his hands are shaking too hard, and he drops the towel.
“Fucking– shit,” Eddie bites out.
Steve catches his eyes, tries to hold them, reassuring. “If I do it, are you gonna like, punch me?” he asks, and Eddie looks at him, pain pinching the corners of his mouth.
Slowly, unsurely, he shakes his head.
“Cool,” says Steve. He grabs the towel from Eddie’s lap, and cautiously, with his other hand, pushes Eddie’s t-shirt back up. As careful as he can, he wipes antiseptic around the cut, and Eddie stays still, this time. Hardly moves at all, in fact, which might be a first.
Steve rinses the towel under the tap, then goes to clean the muck off Eddie’s face.
“I’m just gonna…”
Eddie flinches away, eyes blinking.
“Sorry,” Steve mutters, stills for a second, “I just want to get the…”
Eddie nods, eyes shuttering closed. He seems to hold his breath. After a moment, he shudders out an exhale through his nose, and opens them again.
“Perfect,” Steve finds himself saying quietly, as he wipes the dirt off of his brow. “Just keep breathing for me.”
Eddie does, in shuddering gulps. Steve feels his eyes boring into him, and he feels caught out, tries to fix his focus on the tile behind his head. Away from the face of something too familiar and too dangerous to look in the eye.
Reluctantly, Steve stands up, knees clicking, returns to the cabinet. He grabs the biggest dressing he can find - the kind he’d used on grazed elbows and bloody knees growing up; a faded box of steri-strips older than Will, he’s certain; and a roll of tape he’d used almost to its end. Nancy wouldn"t be impressed at all to know he hadn’t replaced it since last summer. But, it’s going to have to do.
Eddie pulls a crumpled packet of cigarettes out of his back pocket, and a lighter out of his front. Doesn’t even ask before he lights it with shaky fingers as Steve kneels in front of him again. Steve should be annoyed, probably. Thinks of his mom’s reaction to the smell of smoke in the curtains. The Italian linen fucking curtains. She"d be livid. But Steve doesn’t give a shit about the curtains. And so he lets him be.
Eddie takes a deep pull of his cigarette, blowing smoke up at the ceiling, and Steve slowly, gingerly, sticks the first butterfly stitch in place. They’re both quiet while he does the rest, and it’s almost meditative, even as the smoke stings Steve’s eyes.
“Okay, last thing.” Steve turns to retrieve the dressing, spends too long fumbling with the packet, trying to get his nails under it to rip it open. He hooks the tape over his index finger, and turns back to Eddie.
“Alright, can you like, take your… shirt off…”
Eddie’s sitting very still, hardly breathing, eyes dim. Fuck. Steve can tell instantly something’s very wrong. “Hey, you with me?”
Eddie doesn’t say anything, and Steve pulls the cigarette off him before it burns to nothing in his fingers. “Hey. Hey, Eddie. Eddie,” He puts a hand on his cheek, brushes his hair out of the way. “What’s going on?”
Eddie’s breath hitches, and he lets out this awful, rasping exhale. Squeezes his eyes shut, leans into Steve’s palm. He gasps, like something hurts.
“Shit, is it– does it hurt? I’ve got– aspirin.” He moves his hand away to grab the bottle from the edge of the sink. But then Eddie’s face screws up, and he shoves his hands over his eyes, whimpers around an inhale.
Steve puts a hand on his arm, and Eddie flinches away, slamming his shoulder into the wall.
“No– don’t, uh–” Eddie jerks up off the seat.
“Okay, sorry, no touching. Got it,” says Steve, falling back on his heels, holds his hands up.
And then Eddie’s shoving past him, out into the hallway.
“Wha– hey, where are you going?” And this is– fuck, Steve’s heart is in his throat.
Eddie doesn’t answer. Steve grabs the bottle of aspirin, hoists himself up and follows after him.
"Sorry, not– hurt, just– fucking shit, just don"t– You can’t– touch me, okay? I can"t– do that, can"t do that right now, just– I’ll be fine in a– minute, just– shit.”
Not hurt. Something else, then. Steve stops hesitantly at the corner, watches Eddie pace the length of the corridor. Like a wild animal, caged and clawing at the bars. Steve inhales, exhales, tries to shove the sudden pain in his chest away.
Eddie rubs his hands over his face again, roughly, says through his fingers, “Fuck, I– this is so– so fucking – embarrassing and– shit and I…I can’t breathe, you know? I just can’t… I’ll be fine. I’ll be fine in jus’...just I– I can’t, I–”
Steve has no idea what to do, how to help. He feels stupid, so completely useless, just standing here. “I’m here, man. What can I do?”
“Uhh, I’m not– I don’t know, I don’t know. I don’t know, man.” Eddie’s voice rises, and he pulls his fingers through his hair. “I– I don’t know why I’m like this, my skin just, I feel like I’m gonna, gonna die.”
Approaching carefully, Steve keeps his footsteps heavy and methodical. Tries to keep his voice steady.
“Okay. Okay, I can work with that. We can work with that.”
Eddie nods through his hair, “Okay.”
“The door to your left’s my bedroom, do you want to, like, go in there for– for a minute?”
“Yeah,” Eddie gasps, eyes flickering up at Steve, and then away again, like Steve’s something to be afraid of. Maybe he is. “Yeah, okay. Yeah, I can, uh, do…that’s– yeah.”
Steve takes a careful step around Eddie, pushes the door open, motions for him to follow. “You can like, sit on the bed, if you want?”
“Jesus, Harrington,” Eddie gives a quick, ill-fitting arch of his eyebrow as he steps into the room. “You should– buy me dinner first.”
“Yeah, alright Casanova, ask me when you’re not hyperventilating,” Steve mutters, and Eddie mumbles a meek, “Okay,” before he sits gingerly, right at the edge of the mattress. For a long moment it’s quiet, and Eddie looks like he’s gathering himself, like the panic’s abating.
And then he shoves his head into his knees, hair covering his face, takes this huge shuddering breath, and screams into his legs.
Steve swallows around the lump in his throat. He doesn’t know what to do.
“Shit, Eds…”
Eddie’s mumbling under his breath, “This is so stupid this is so stupid, this is so fucking stupid,” and Steve wishes childishly, for a moment, that Robin was here. Is sure she’d have more of a clue about– about any of this. Would be so much better at it than he is. And so he just sits, and waits it out, doesn’t try to help any more, because he clearly isn’t helping at all.
It takes Eddie a long time to stop muttering, even longer to catch his breath. Steve sits opposite, leant against the dresser.
When Eddie finally shifts, Steve says, “Um– do you want me to like, get you some water or–”
“No.” Eddie cuts him off, firm, and doesn’t lift his head from his knees.
“Okay,” Steve says. “Okay. I’ll stay.”
He looks at the discarded bottle of aspirin, grips the drying towel in his hands. It has to hurt, Steve thinks, especially when he’s curled up like that.
And then Eddie lets out this anguished, choking sob, and Steve forgets himself, reaches up to touch his hand. Eddie shoves him, hard, and Steve lurches backwards.
It’s Steve’s fault, of course it is, because Eddie said, Eddie said he shouldn’t touch him. But he bangs his shoulder on the dresser as he falls back, and this stupidly irrational frustration climbs up into his throat.
“What the fuck, dude?”
Eddie’s hands are clenched at his sides, chest heaving. He looks ready to face something horrible. Something much worse than Steve’s short temper. The throbbing in Steve’s shoulder fades with the anger, and a heavy guilt takes its place.
Shit.
He really wishes Eddie had gone to Robin. Robin wouldn’t have fucked this up.
“I shouldn’t have come here,” Eddie mutters, and Steve has the dreadful thought that he"s read his mind.
Eddie huffs, tangles his hand back in his hair, squeezes his eyes shut. The cut across his stomach is bleeding again, from all the commotion, but he doesn’t seem to notice. “Sorry. Fuck, this was, this was stupid. I’ll– I’ll go, I just– sorry, sorry, I’m sorry. Sorry, sorry…” he repeats it, over and over, seems to get stuck on it, like a broken tape.
And Steve just wants him to stop saying it, hates that word, because it"s always said in excess and never when it"s needed. Dustin"s learned by now not to bother.
Desperation claws at Steve’s chest. “Eddie, Eddie. Please. I’m sorry. I want you to stay. Okay? You’re just…” he sighs. “You’re freaking me out here, man.”
Eddie flinches at that, tenses impossibly tighter, eyes cast down behind his fringe.
“You want me here, Harrington?” he says, voice tight and cold and nothing like Steve’s ever heard it before. “Well this is what you’re fucking getting.”
Steve knows he"s fucked it up, he knows, but there"s something in the way Eddie says it that aches, and aches, and aches. Heavy tears spill down Eddie’s cheeks, and he’s looking at him with those eyes. Those bambi eyes. And they’re angry. And they’re so afraid. And Steve doesn’t know what else to do, because he never does. Not when it really matters.
Eddie scrubs at his eyes, hard, and he must have got blood on his hands somehow because now it’s smeared across his cheek. “I’m sorry– fo– for freaking you out.” he hisses, mean and sharp in all the places he shouldn’t be. And then all the fight in him dissolves into hiccuping breaths.
Steve isn’t sure what happens, really, but something like calm, something like good in a crisis, something like logic settles in his chest, because if Eddie keeps going like this then things are gonna get a whole lot worse.
“Eddie,” he says, careful, steady. “You’re alright. Okay? You just…you need to calm down. You need to take a deep breath.”
“I know,” Eddie says. “I know, I know, I know.” and then he just lies on the floor, right where he’s stood. Steve’s sure he feels his heart drop straight out of his chest, because shit. Shit. But Eddie looks up at him, mumbles, “M’okay.”
Steve hovers, for a second, and then lies down next to him. Eddie"s hair’s spread around his head like a halo.
Breathing still hitching, he keeps alternating between staring up at the ceiling with this vacant, glassy expression, and screwing his eyes tight shut. His hands are shaking more than they have been all night, and he clasps them together, locked over his stomach.
Steve twists his head. Just watches him. Watches the tension in his hands loosen. His eyebrows crease, and he blinks up at the ceiling.
“Aspirin is, uh. A blood thinner, Harrington,” Eddie says, after a long moment.
Steve balks at how calm he sounds.
“...What?”
Lips twitching upwards, he turns his head towards Steve.
“You got any, uh. Like, Tylenol? Or Codeine?”
Steve flounders. Feels like a fucking idiot.
“No, no way I’m giving you codeine,” he says. Knows he sounds too sincere. “But, like– Tylenol. Sure.”
He pulls himself up off the floor, “Just like, stay put.”
Eddie sighs up at the ceiling, all sarcasm as he says, “Gee, Harrington, I’ll do my best.” and Steve tries not to let the relief that floods his chest show on his face as he grabs the empty glass from his nightstand, and makes for the door.
“Oh my God,” he mutters under his breath, tugging a hand through his hair. “Blood thinners, Harrington? Really?”
There’s a handprint smear of blood on the door frame like some kind of crappy horror movie, and God that’ll be a bitch to get off. There’s blood on the floor, too, and Steve steps over it to pull open the cabinet.
He grabs the Tylenol off the top shelf, turns on the tap with his other hand and fills up the glass. His own hands are shaking, he notices. It must be catching. He swipes the tape and the box of steri-strips off the floor, and a new dressing. Grabs the towel too, and shoves it under his arm, tries to steady himself before he heads back in.
Eddie’s sitting now, back leaning up against the bed frame, legs sprawled out in front of him. He looks wrung out, sweat still drying on his neck, but when he sees Steve, he offers him a lopsided, dimpled smile.
Steve waves the Tylenol at him a little stupidly.
“Come to patch me up, Doc?” Eddie says, and it’s too quiet to really be funny, but Steve laughs anyway, relief making him kind of stupid.
“Only for the second time tonight.”
He hands the glass of water to Eddie, sets everything else down on the floor, and sits in front of him, cross-legged. Eddie takes a long sobering drink, then shoves the pills into his mouth and swallows, shoving his shirt up, eyes determinedly fixed on Steve"s.
He reaches forward, towel in hand, catches himself this time. Pauses.
“Are we okay now?”
“It’s… yeah. It’s, whatever.”
“I’m gonna need to, like–”
“Yeah, go ahead. I won’t, uh, bite. This time.”
Steve carefully puts a hand on Eddie’s knee, and when he doesn’t flinch away, he moves closer, apprehensive. “Still okay?” He asks.
Eddie nods, swallowing hard.
“Words, Munson.”
“Yeah. It’s–” gets this flare in his eyes, adds, “S’fine, Harrington.”
Steve wipes carefully, as careful as he’s been all night, and it feels intimate all of a sudden. Steve’s hands hover, like he’s forgotten what to do with them. He tries to think of something to say. To fill this gap between them that feels all at once gaping and pressed firmly shut. In the end he doesn’t have to.
“You ever get tired of just, doing the same thing every day?” Eddie asks, and what the hell does that even mean?
“Uh– not, not really?”
“I, uh. I used to. I was– in a really bad way, man. For a long time. For a couple years. You probably don’t remember, we, uh. We didn’t know each other.”
Steve remembers a fuzzy image of a boy with a shaved head as he pulls another steri-strip from the box.
“I think I do?” Treads carefully. “You had - you had your head buzzed, right?”
“Yeah,” Eddie says softly. “And no tats. Jesus. Deja vu.” He scrubs a hand down his face.
“Deja vu?” Steve asks, and sticks the strip in place.
“Uh, I. I had this uh, conversation with– Chrissy, before– before everything. She remembered me too.”
“Oh.”
Eddie twists his ring around his finger. “So, uh. I’m– I promise I’m– I’m good now? Despite– yeah, despite tonight. Mostly. I mean, my brain still gets uh, really fucking loud and there’s no unliving the uh, Upside Down or any of that, so…But I’m– I’m alive and honestly I’d like to keep it that way. But… but I get these days,” he rubs at his arms, like he’s getting cold. Steve itches to put his arm around him. Refrains. Tears open the dressing instead.
“Those days are, uh. So shit. Like, unbelievably fucked in the head shit. Every day used to be a bad day, but I got better. ‘S why it’s so annoying. I feel– fucking crazy and I get these. Episodes, fuck I don’t know what to call them. Like tonight.”
“Are they, like, always like this?”
Eddie shuts his eyes, screws up his face. “Well, normally I can’t uh, breathe, or think, or uh, talk, really? And, uh, most of the time I can, sort of, feel one coming? Something happens and it’s like my brain can’t understand I’m not in danger or– something. Like a rabbit, so fucking dumb. So I, I have time to get away, which is nice because it’s so fucking embarrassing. But, uh. Sometimes, it’s out of fucking nowhere. Nothing that - spooked me or, caught me by surprise, it just fucking happens and it’s so– God, not to be a baby, but it’s so fucking scary, Steve. It’s completely, and utterly...”
“Shit.” Steve summarises.
“Yeah,” says Eddie, chokes out this bitter laugh. He takes out his cigarettes again, hands shaking as he tries to light one. Steve takes the lighter off of him, determinedly ignores the way their fingers brush, and lights it. Eddie grunts his thanks. Steve"s not supposed to smoke in his room, either. He doesn’t have Italian linen curtains, though, and his mom isn"t here.
They’re quiet for a moment longer as Steve tears off a strip of tape.
“And...are they always this long?” he asks, and secures one edge of the dressing.
Eddie shrugs. “I don’t know, sometimes they’re, um, fifteen minutes, sometimes closer to an hour? And uh. I was stabbed tonight, so that was like a whole other thing to– panic about. It’s– fucked, I know.”
“I don’t know, man. It sounds…” Steve shakes his head, rolls the words over in his mouth. “Familiar, actually.”
Eddie looks at him with something like desperation. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
He sticks on the other piece of tape, smooths it with his hand, and Eddie looks down, gets this silly, tired grin on his face as he looks back at Steve “Excellent work, Dr. Harrington.”
Steve puts on a voice, overly stern. “You’ll have to remain here for observation, until you can be trusted not to get yourself stabbed in the middle of the night.” he says, and Eddie doesn’t respond, but his eyes scrunch up, like he’s trying not to laugh. Steve’ll take that.
Impulsive, rushing with something he hasn"t felt in a while, Steve plucks the cigarette from Eddie"s lips, puts it in his own mouth. Eddie looks kind of pleasantly surprised.
He takes a puff, exhales, takes another, and then passes it back to Eddie.
“You know I live with my uncle?” and doesn’t wait for Steve to nod. “You know that. Uh. So, I do that because my old man picked up and left when I was ten. And my mom, she had to– she had to do things. To pay for food, water…She did– everything for me. Wanted me to become something, not just survive like she had since, since forever.”
He swallows. Continues, voice rough, “To stay awake, to help me, she, uh. She took things. Shit that fucked with her mind. I– I remember this one time, I got home late and– she couldn’t recognize me. Told me to fuck off, get out of her house. So I slept out back, and the next morning she found me and...” He takes a trembling breath. “And she hugged me and asked if I’d lost my keys and I said– I said yes.”
Steve’s heart plummets.
“And you wanna know what?” Eddie says. He looks at Steve as he forces out from behind his teeth, “The person she lost her own fucking mind for - the person she carried the weight of the world for - turns fucking fifteen and starts selling drugs. Tell me honestly Steve, you ever met someone fucked enough to do that? Someone who’d do that to their mom? To her…to her memory?”
Steve swallows hard. Wants to tell Eddie that none of that could ever have been his fault. That it was on his mom, or…the system, or something else that might get through to him. But he doesn’t know how. Feels like an idiot trying to come up with anything, because what the hell does he know? In the end, he settles for, “I think it’s really shitty you had to grow up like that, man.”
“What?” says Eddie. His hand spasms in his lap. It’s like he’s babbling now, words just flying out of him. “Fuck, man. I know– tons of kids, same fucking situation. Yeah, a lot of them end up– fucked. But not all of them. Some of them made something of themselves. I just– I’m selfish, yeah? I just… wanted to be good. Spent so long just trying to feel alive. And I didn’t. And now. Now...”
Something opens in Steve"s chest, heavy and pulling. He doesn’t know what to say to that. Never really knows. Is realising more and more these days how little he knows about fucking…anything at all. He glances up and Eddie’s just looking at him, again. He feels almost dizzy, hurtling back from worry straight into something else. Something he’s shoved away and called wrong for as long as he’s known its name. But it doesn’t feel wrong, now. It feels safe.
Eddie dons this sardonic smile, eyes bright, “Take a picture, Stevie, it’ll last longer.”
Stevie. He hates that. It"s what his mom calls him, all superficial and sickly sweet. But he lets Eddie get away with it, thinks maybe it doesn"t sound so bad, coming from him. He huffs out a laugh, says “How many of these pick-up lines do you have, Munson?”
Eddie’s eyes scrunch again, this dead giveaway, this lipless smile, “A few. Why? No good?”
And Steve just grins, looks at him, thinks of the boy he’d never bothered to notice, the man he can’t help but notice now. Brash and loud and gentle and brave all at once. All that where Steve was immature and selfish and so, so stupid. All that in the face of everything else.
“I think… I think you’re a good person, Eddie.”
Steve tries to hold his gaze, tries to tell him just how much he means it. But Eddie looks down, rubs his hands over his face, and then looks back at him with this unwavering certainty, this defiantly woeful expression.
“The plan was always to, uh, leave, after graduating.”
“Is that… not still the plan?” Steve asks, and Eddie shakes his head. “Why?”
Eddie swallows. Looks down, “I think you know.”
Steve doesn’t know, not really. Isn’t that what he’s been saying this whole time? He hazards a guess, the closest thing to a reason he can find. “Your– uncle?”
Eddie’s nod is jerky. “Wayne. And– and the little sheep, I guess.”
And Steve does know that. That innate, desperate need to protect those kids. It might be the only thing he knows for certain. Eddie flickers his eyes up to Steve, gets this expression like he’s lost a battle. Betrayed at the last moment and left to die. “I fucking - this was - on top of everything – this was supposed to be the last time. Guy didn’t like that. So…” He makes a stabbing motion with his hand.
“The last time?” Steve can’t help but ask.
Eddie rubs at his eyes with one hand. “Yeah. I mean, uh…We still– we still need it, you know? The plant doesn’t pay my uncle worth shit. But. After, everything. After– Chrissy…” His throat jumps.
Steve nods.
“And everyone– I mean, uh, you know, right? You know that I’m– a queer. And I just– he’s gotta deal with that, too, on top of– everything else, now. Right?”
The dizziness comes back. That rushing, drifting, crashing feeling. And… maybe he did know that, too. Has known it this whole time.
“So, you know,” Eddie mutters, all bark, pushes on like Steve doesn’t get a say in the matter. “I appreciate the flattery, Steve, but I’d say I’m pretty fucking far from a good person.”
Steve takes a shaky breath.
“I don’t think… queer is something you deal with. And it’s not…it doesn’t make you bad. It’s something you are.”
And he’s thinking of Robin. Thinking of Eddie. Thinking of himself. Thinking of the monster he’s been hiding from all this time. The monster that isn’t a monster at all. Of how nice it must feel to be known.
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
Eddie’s expression is so open. No pretenses, no cheap lines to hide behind. His hair’s pushed back on his forehead, eyes clear, earnest. Just Eddie. Eddie, unaware of everything good that he is.
Steve is all at once exhausted. He glances at the clock. 03:40 blinks at him in fluorescent red.
“Steve?”
“Yeah?”
Eddie blows his cheeks up. Lets the air out slowly. “Thanks. For this,” he says, and smiles at him. Worn out, but genuine. Steve smiles back – can’t help it.
“‘Course,” he answers softly. And then he gets up, pulls a t-shirt out of his drawer and tosses it to Eddie.
“Swim Team "83, really?”
“Shut up, man. It’s really soft.” he says, and tries not to feel embarrassed.
Eddie grins, scrunches it between his hands, “Yeah, it is. Thanks.” and then reaches to take his own shirt off, finds he can’t stretch his arms high enough without pulling on the cut.
“I can -” Steve starts, moving towards him.
“I’ve got it, Harrington,” says Eddie, face hidden in his hair as he struggles.
Steve watches him struggle for another five seconds, until finally, Eddie huffs, slumping.
“You gonna make me sit here and live with my decision, or?” says Eddie from underneath his shirt.
“Right, no, sorry, I’ll, um–” Steve approaches, pulls the shirt up, fingers brushing against Eddie’s side, and Steve’s stupid brain lights up at the touch.
He gets Eddie’s arms untangled, and gets the clean jersey over his head. Eddie pulls his hair out of the collar, and Steve watches as it falls back over his face. Eddie blows his fringe out of his eyes.
Steve stands up, goes to sit on the bed, leant up against the headboard. Eddie watches him, seems to hesitate, eyes shuttering again.
“C’mere.” Steve says, pulls the covers up.
Eddie clambers up wordlessly, eyebrows pinched. All but collapses next to Steve, lays down under the quilt. His presence is a warm, buzzing thing.
“You okay?”
“Tired,” Eddie says, lets his eyes close.
And then he reaches back, grasps Steve’s hand in his, squeezes his fingers. Steve takes a breath, settles his head on the pillow, facing Eddie. He’s never noticed how long his eyelashes are until now. He reaches out, cautious, brushes a curl of hair out of Eddie’s face, and kisses him, gentle, on his forehead.
Eddie’s eyes blink open again, wide, and Steve worries, for a second, that he’s got this all wrong. But then Eddie tips himself forward, catching Steve’s lips in a kiss. Pulls away just as quickly. Steve shudders out a breath.
“Eddie…”
“Go to sleep, Harrington,” Eddie breathes, with this tired, beautiful smile, and he slumps back into the mattress, leaning into Steve"s side. Steve clasps Eddie"s hand tighter, heart thudding in his chest.
“G’night, Eds,” he murmurs.
And he’s glad to know this, he thinks. Of all the things he knows and doesn’t know, he thinks knowing Eddie might be the nicest of them all.