Steve very rarely gets sick. He prides himself on it.
But when Eddie spent three days in a row in bed with a fever, puking every time he got up, and coughing everywhere he could reach, Steve had no choice but to stay and take care of him. Which meant he spent three days in direct contact with whatever virus decided to leave Eddie bedridden.
Halfway through his shift at Family Video, he turned to Robin and said he was going to pass out.
She didn’t believe him, laughed it off like he was being dramatic. “You’ve been hanging around Eddie too much lately.”
So when he passed out five seconds later, she panicked. He opened his eyes to her frantically trying to move him onto his side.
“Robs, ‘s not a seizure.”
“Right, but what if you puke?”
“I’m just dehydrated.”
He wasn’t just dehydrated.
He was dehydrated and feverish and exhausted.
He was sick.
Robin called Eddie to come pick him up, rambling nervously over the phone about his symptoms. Steve couldn’t hear the other side of the conversation, but he knew Eddie was probably laughing at the situation.
“He’ll be here to get you in 10 minutes. Can you please not pass out again because I don’t think I can handle it.”
“Sure, I’ll just tell my brain to hold off until Eddie’s here.”
“Thanks.”
Steve rolled his eyes as he settled on the floor behind the counter. Robin wouldn’t let him stand up again in case he fell and hit his head, which was actually probably a smart move.
When Eddie arrived, he took one look at Steve on the floor and sighed, shaking his head in disappointment.
“I warned you, Stevie! I said ‘you’re gonna get sick, you shouldn’t stay’ and what did you do? Mommed yourself right into the flu.”
Steve didn’t dignify that with an answer, mostly because it would take too much energy to give one. He stood on shaking legs and made his way to the door.
He felt so weak, he barely registered when his knees started to buckle. Strong arms wrapped around him from behind and held him up.
“Jesus, Steve. Were you feeling this bad when you left home?”
Steve shook his head and let out an embarrassing whine. His head was throbbing, a dull ache set in shortly after he got to work, and only got worse after he passed out.
“Can you make it to the van or do you need me to carry you?”
“I can make it, just…help?”
Eddie kept an arm wrapped around Steve’s waist, supporting most of his weight as they walked to his van. He opened the passenger side door and helped Steve get seated and as comfortable as possible.
Steve let out another small whine when he realized he would have to move to buckle himself in.
“What’s wrong?”
Eddie was so nice. Maybe he could buckle him.
“Belt?”
Eddie wordlessly reached for the belt and buckled Steve in, his hair brushing along Steve’s cheek and chest as he pulled away.
Steve repressed another whine, though for a different reason, when Eddie’s hand brushed against his thigh.
His thighs were sensitive, even in jeans. Sue him.
Steve nodded off during the drive to his house, barely aware of Eddie singing along to something on the radio.
When they arrived, Eddie unbuckled Steve’s seatbelt and helped him out of the van. He was saying something to Steve, but his brain wasn’t processing any of it.
He could barely keep his eyes open while Eddie got him upstairs and into bed.
He could feel Eddie’s rough hands gently pulling off his jeans and shirt, but couldn’t offer much help.
Passing out really did a number on him.
“Yeah, I think it did.”
Oh. Steve said that out loud. Interesting.
“You don’t do anything halfway, do you? Get sick and it’s like your brain’s melted out your ears.”
Steve let out a giggle before relaxing against his pillow.
Eddie started to tuck him in, pulling his covers up to his chin and brushing a piece of hair away from his face.
“I’m gonna get you some water. You hungry?”
Steve felt his stomach turn at just the thought of food touching his mouth. He used all of his remaining energy to shake his head.
“Be right back, Stevie.”
**********
When Steve opened his eyes again, it was too dark to even recognize his own bed. It’s been so long since he slept with no light, he felt disoriented and scared that the power had gone out.
Just as he was struggling to sit up, he heard a grumble from the floor followed by a groan.
“It’s okay, Stevie. I’ll get the light.”
Before Steve could process who the voice belonged to, his bedside lamp turned on and covered him in a golden glow.
Eddie.
The room started spinning around him before he could say anything. He closed his eyes to avoid the disorientation, but it only made it worse.
“Open your eyes, sweetheart. I’ve got ya.”
And he did. Eddie’s arms were wrapping around Steve and pulling him against his chest, solidifying his presence in one place despite everything else in the room moving.
Steve melted into Eddie, breathing in the faint leather and smoke smell that never failed to make him feel safe.
“You just have no filter when you’re sick, huh?”
Eddie laughed softly, brushing his lips against the top of Steve’s head.
Steve didn’t give a response, not able to actually produce words when he wants to, apparently.
“You’re burning up. I got some Tylenol for you while you slept. You should take some now and try to rest.”
“Stay?”
Eddie didn’t respond, just moved to grab the water from the table and hand it to Steve. He watched as he took the Tylenol, telling him he did a good job before putting the water back on the table.
Just as Steve settled against Eddie’s chest again, he was moved away by strong hands.
The whimper he let out stopped Eddie in his tracks.
“Are you in pain? Robin said your migraines get so bad sometimes you can’t move. Is that happening?”
Steve shook his head, immediately regretting doing so when the room started spinning again.
“Stay.”
It only took a moment for Eddie to adjust them both so they could lay down together. Steve wasted no time in curling into Eddie’s side, and Eddie’s hand found it’s way to Steve’s hair.
His fingers gently pulled through some of the tangles, smiling to himself when Steve couldn’t hold back a shiver.
“Feel okay?”
“Mhm.”
“Can’t believe you let me get you sick.”
“‘S worth it.”
“You’re ridiculous. Go to sleep. I’ll be here when you wake up.”
“Promise?”
Eddie only hesitated a moment before dropping a kiss to Steve’s forehead.
“Promise.”
They hadn’t acknowledged the way Steve had acted when taking care of Eddie. They hadn’t talked about the cuddling and small kisses to his hair or cheek or nose. They hadn’t even been around each other since Eddie was feeling better.
But this felt like a turning point - no more ignoring the way they felt about each other. If Eddie was reading things right, Steve wasn’t just like this because he was sick and slightly delusional.
They’d have a talk when he was better, but for now, Eddie let Steve suction himself to his side and take the comfort he needed.
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Ok we should talk more about sokka and aang because these two dumbasses are adorable together! Underrated relationship
The gag with Katara and blind Toph in season 3 is still the funniest scene in the series lol
yeah their friendship very cute. i like how when they're left to their own devices their respective adhd tendencies combine, that feels very true to my relationships with my friends who also have adhd lol. it's also just really adorable how through aang's sheer lovability, sokka learns to loosen up a little and appreciate life (somewhat, sometimes) in a more relaxed, content way. aang is a really good and highly valuable influence on everyone around him, especially as he counteracts the logic of war and its necessity for violence, which is an ideology sokka not only heavily subscribes to, but to which he attaches his very personhood. aang reminds sokka that he is still a child (he reminds katara of this too, but it happens in the literal pilot, whereas sokka's journey to literally enjoying himself ever is far more gradual and grueling). aang reminds sokka that he is human.
that said, i do think that people tend to be reductive when talking about the value of their relationship. not to single you out specifically, but i do kind of take umbrage with the notion (perhaps unintentional) that all their dynamic is good for is being adorable and funny. calling them "dumbasses" because they can be silly and goofy sometimes, or scatterbrained and absent-minded. i genuinely think that aang and sokka constitute one of the most interesting foils in the entire show. normally when we talk about character foils, we talk about characters who are positioned in opposition to each other, but aang and sokka are fascinating because they're allies (and friends) who nonetheless approach the same problem with the same intentions and the same goals but from completely different angles.
in many ways, sokka is aang's most distinct opposite. but first, to address their similarities: they're both victims of a genocidal imperialist project that has burdened them with a responsibility to their people that they are too young and barely equipped to handle; they are both expected to shoulder this burden easily by those around them due to their nature as "gifted" child prodigies with distinctly unique skillset and an unprecedented ability to absorb and apply new information that they learn at a genuinely abnormal rate (remember that aang is not just the avatar, but an incredibly prodigious avatar at that; he mastered all four elements within less than a year by the age of twelve, whereas most avatars take at least another four years to master their elements); they are both the "leaders" of their small guerrilla militia of child soldiers, and they take turns giving each other guidance and trusting and following the other's lead; they both consider katara the central figure in their lives and love her with an almost obsessive devotion; they both repress their grief and other unpalatable emotions through humor and constant distraction, and sometimes even depersonalize entirely when they feel that their goal is more important than retaining their humanity (sokka does this more frequently, but when aang does it, it's more blatant); and of course, they both harbor massive guilt complexes for the devastating tragedies (largely beyond their control) that have shaped their lives, and are constantly replaying those moments of "failure" as that of acute shame to motivate themselves as they strive to rectify and "atone" for their past errors.
so, as you can see, reducing their friendship to "adorable dumbasses" is already not very interesting. to me, the best aang and sokka scenes aren't the ones wherein they are playing and goofing around together. those scenes are sweet and charming, of course, but the best aang and sokka scenes are the ones wherein sokka is positioned as the logical consequence of aang's grief. wherein present-day sokka becomes the worst case scenario for a hypothetical future aang. in many ways, their friendship is incredibly bittersweet, because it is also punctuated by moments wherein sokka threatens aang's entire value system and quote-unquote "innocence" through attempting to mold him into a Man Of War the way he does those hapless toddlers in his village. for all that sokka is remarkably open-minded and receptive to new ideas, he cannot see past the limits of the world he was born into and the mechanisms and assumptions of violence he was forced to internalize and embody. aang is, of course, totally unique in his ability to not only envision a world beyond the war (i would argue that katara has the ability to do this as well), but also to have actually experienced it. and so it is truly a testament to aang's resilience that he is almost entirely impervious to sokka's ruthless, militaristic logic, even as sokka constantly attempts to enforce it.
i have a much longer post in my drafts about how aang and sokka are positioned in "the serpent's pass" (one of their best episodes in terms of their dynamic, also just a highly underrated episode in general), so i'm not gonna get too much into it here, but katara's relationship to aang as paralleled with suki's relationship to sokka is really fascinating in this episode for the ways in which it also positions katara's grief over witnessing aang's attempt to detach himself from his grief to focus on his goals and aang slipping into "sokkahood," and the absolutely devastating implications of what that must mean for katara. i think there's a strong case, in general, for the reading of katara attempting to replace her lost childhood (with sokka) through aang as he represents a vehicle for her overly idealized nostalgia (much like how zuko projects onto aang and views him as a vehicle to return to that site of his overly idealized childhood), and thus, quite literally, replacing sokka with aang. to katara, aang possesses what sokka has since lost, or perhaps something he never got the chance to have in the first place. and that isn't to say that katara views aang as a brother, but rather that katara longs for companionship in any form, and what is aang if not the ideal companion? so aang's grief and rage scares her not only because it pains her to see someone she loves so deeply in so much pain, but also because it reflects her own pain back at her, as someone who has lost so much, including family members (also including kanna and hakoda) who are, ostensibly (at least physically), still alive.
one of the most fascinating scenes between sokka and aang in the entire show is when sokka straight up attacks aang for burning katara in "the deserter." katara is very clearly affected by this beyond simply the physical pain; being burned by the weapon that killed her mother is explicitly triggering for her, and she retreats into herself and sobs like a child (she is a child, but you know what i mean. an even younger child). and sokka in turn is triggered by katara being triggered, because his entire existence revolves around his oath to protect her, and she was just hurt by the one person to whom she stakes all her hope and pride and joy and affection above all. aang obviously understands the gravity of this accident immediately; it of course wasn't intentional, but he nonetheless takes full accountability and apologizes sincerely. but sokka only calms down somewhat once he knows for certain that katara is okay. and instead of going to find katara as she sobs, he spends all his focus on yelling at aang, throwing him to the ground, more furious than we have ever seen him. and in a way, it's clear that he's also furious at himself, for having let his guard down around and trusted aang, and for his failure to perform his primary duty, protecting his sister. the fulcrum of aang and sokka's relationship is, necessarily, katara. she is the force that brings them together, and the person who is most important to either of them, but she also person who connects them in her mind, and so our perceptions of them as the audience are primarily informed by her perception of them as the narrator.
moreover, sokka's advocacy for killing zuko (in "the siege of the north") and ozai (in "sozin's comet") constitute two more fascinating scenes with aang, for the way in which sokka does not even find the act of killing something to flinch at, let alone an absolute betrayal of core principles and values the way aang does. killing is simply not something sokka feels guilty about, despite the fact that he seems to carry guilt over simply existing a lot of the time. and that juxtaposition, between aang and sokka playing together, of sokka learning how to have fun and entertain his little friend, versus sokka chastising aang for refusing to commit murder, is what makes their relationship so compelling. when people reduce their dynamic to its most comedic and innocent mode, they are reducing their roles as they embody two opposing relationships to violence, and how that reflects their ideological positions as someone who has subscribed to imperialist logic insofar as his values have been shaped by war, as opposed to someone who knows through his own experiences to refute that logic by any means necessary. when we talk about aang helping sokka to regain his humanity, it is crucial to understand specifically how sokka lost his humanity in the first place, but also why aang specifically is so crucial in counterbalancing his logic in a way no one else alive actually can.
ultimately, if sokka represents the voluntary auto-dehumanization of the colonized subject, then aang represents the potential of preservation and even reclamation of humanity and the imaginative potential of a world[view] beyond those colonial limits. their ideological conflict is not simply one of what it means to be human within a colonized paradigm, but what it means to exist at all.
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