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hitlikehammers · 2 months

Text

feels like home

rating: t ♥️ cw: coming out, softness, recovering from the upside down ♥️ tags: pre-relationship, post-s4, fluff, hurt/comfort, Eddie is having many feelings, the main one being that Steve feels like home, platonic stobbin, supportive platonic soulmates coming out so Eddie feels safe to do the same, injury recovery, still-so-soft

for @steddielovemonth day seventeen: Love is about a hand reaching out to you so you don't get lost (@yournowheregirl)

this definitely takes place chronologically after this one so: have some of these codependent lovebirds as they start to figure their big feelings out ♥️

It’s weird, and probably unhealthy, that his hospital room—like this—feels kinda like home.

But he thinks it’s okay, to be fair, because it’s not like he thinks this place is home; the smell of antiseptic is still pretty sharp in the air even as he’s gotten disconnected from one machine, drip, or monitor every day until he’s largely free to toddle to the bathroom on his own as long as there’s someone to watch and make sure he doesn’t fall. Wayne’s there for that when he can be, which explains the home associations, but: the rest of the time, in fact—kinda more often than it isn’t?

It’s Steve.

And Eddie struck a deal with himself—no digging in to the fluttery-gooey-warm-chest-squeezy feelings while he’s laid up in a bed—but when he walks around even under supervision, it’s…feeling like he’s cheating.

Plus the feelings are getting kinda…kinda loud.

Because Steve is always there, sometimes he ever stays when Wayne comes, at least for a while. He leaves to keep an eye on the Party, leaves to check up on Max, hits the community hub: but it’s…it’s such a blip of time, honestly, in comparison to being here, with Eddie.

And when he’s gone, it doesn’t…it doesn’t feel at all like home, it feels kinda fucking horrible, so.

Eddie doesn’t even actually have to dig in to that train of thought. It’s pretty fucking clear as-is.

He’s surfacing from kind of, like, a light doze, not even a full on nap, and he’s gentle with the coming-to of it because he can kinda, like, feel Steve’s presence at his side and he’s talking really low anyway, even if he couldn’t, so Eddie definitely knows it’s him, and he could have guessed the other visitor pretty easy even if it wasn’t her voice that was the first to bleed through with actual words:

“She’s,” Robin makes a little stifled whine; “you’ve seen her.”

“Not my type but,” Steve’s saying from next to Eddie; “ I see your point, yeah.”

“She’s like a,” Robin’s voice goes kinda hazy, a little dreamy; “like a fairy creature, or! Or like a prairie woman with those, those hats—“

“A prairie woman who likes boobi—“

“Stop!” Robin hisses low, and Eddie can feel her knock his mattress a little, she must lean over like she wants to enforce her will somehow: “stop stop stop—“

“If you can’t say it you probably shouldn’t be touchin—“ Steve’s saying and god, his voice is so bitching, and Eddie think he kinda fucking lov—

Oh. Oh, well. Shit.

“I’m not touching!” Robin moans, but kinda frantic with it; “the problem is I am not touching!”

And Eddie, too, is not touching the thought he just had about those four fucking letters that are, that, that are—

“Also it’s a gross, immature word,” Robin’s going on and…oh.

Oh.

Okay, so like: even if he’s just kinda in that liminal space of awareness, they have to know he’s more awake than not; his two remaining monitors are different even when he’s calm and just resting, but as the words themselves sink in, now? His heartbeat’s betraying the hell out of him for the staccato it’s pinging on the screen as he processes it: Robin’s showing her cards, though Eddie’d always figured she might be a bird of his feather, but, like—

“Is it though?” Steve’s murmuring low and so, so judgmental; “seems more immature to not say it at all,” and he, he fucking tsks at her, then, and, and—

And then—

Then Steve’s saying words that make no sense at all, like: sure they’re words. In English. Eddie’s very sure of it. So that means he should definitely comprehend them. But…

“You should listen to me, Robs, seriously. I do still like boobies, too. I have insights.”

And Eddie—Eddie’s eyes fly open, he thinks out of shock? That makes the most sense, like he’s startled into full-wakefulness, that tracks as he blinks up at the water-stainer ceiling with his heart in his throat as he tries to find sense in those words, fails, tries again, fucking fails, all as the Corsican Twins cackle over word choice, good god, and then—

“Hey.”

Steve’s grabbing his hand at the wrist and covering it so gently, fucking…cradles it and stories his thumb over the insistent tap of his pulse and meets his eyes, so wide and honest and earnest and if Eddie’s heart wasn’t already primed toward racing it sure as shit would have started just with those eyes on him, and that touch on him, and:

“You okay, man?” and it’s so simple, and Eddie doesn’t fucking know what’s happening on his face, what kind of of shock or terror or something deeper still is seeping from his expression but Steve’s studying him, watching for long seconds that stretch for-fucking-everbefore his jaw squares and his head tiles, something resolute shining through in him and he moves so slowly, lifts Eddie’s hand in his so slowly and Eddie doesn’t even wholly clock what’s happening, let alone that it’s real, as Steve fucking pauses their hands by his lips, so Eddie can feel his breath so warm and he watches, then, waits, and Eddie doesn’t think through what it means when he nods, like it’s not actually a legitimate thought, exactly, he just knows that, that—

Whatever’s happening, and however terrified he thinks he is: he can trust Steve.

Because somehow: Steve’s home.

It’s still fucking earth-shattering when Steve does lean, when his lips brush against the heel of Eddie’s palm, still scrape-covered, and then he reaches just as slow again for Eddie’s cheek to cup, to fucking cradle that, too, and Jesus H. Goddamn Christ—

“You’re safe, Eddie,” is all he says and maybe, maybe Eddie’s reading into it way beyond what he should, but like, it doesn’t feel like Steve’s telling him he’s safe maybe from the lingering threads of a nightmare, or that he’s safe from the government, from the cops, or from the Upside Down coming for them because they all know it’s still fucking coming but Eddie has felt scared of it once, yet, not like this, not here, with—

But Steve’s tone doesn’t just hold that: it’s bigger. He means…

They had to know he wasn’t really asleep, and so, Eddie, Eddie thinks Steve means…

Yeah.

Fuck.

“You’re outta water,” Steve’s saying and Eddie didn’t even notice he’d been reading to pour Eddie a glass from the ever-present pitcher at his bedside then he’s standing, his hand leaving and fuck all if Eddie doesn’t lean into it before he can think twice but Steve just smiles, soft, as he walks out the door.

“We talked about it.”

He turns to Robin almost violently, head kinda snapping her direction with the speed and force he moves with.

“We weren’t gonna hide it from you, but like,” she mashes her lips together, Eddie can see she’s trying to find a way forward with the least possible rambling, but the clearest possible throughway so she can get what she needs to say out, before Steve comes back.

“You shouldn’t feel like you have to,” she hums a little; “be that, you know, open? With us, if you don’t want to,” her eyes are so big and sincere, and Eddie’s pulse is steadying if only slowing by a fraction, but she does help put him at ease, even as she trips a little over the rest: “if you had any thing that was, y’know, kinda private or, something,” she nods to herself and plays with the hem of her shirt: “yeah.”

Eddie nods to himself, and…he can’t, he can’t not ask her, not in this window, because she said they’d talked and if this wasn’t part of it she loves Steve fierce and he could be still a little fresh off death’s door, she’ll still tell him to fuck off if she needs to, so at least there’s that, at least he knows, like, he won’t be allowed to step where he’s not welcome, and—

“I’m,” and fuck, his voice is a mess, he does need a fucking drink but in the absence of one at hand, he clears his throat hard and accepts that consequences of it burning like hell; “he, umm,” Eddie bits his lip and gestures toward the empty door, eyes Robin kinda pitifully: “he said—“

Robin, thank fuck: Robin is merciful, has to see where he’s going, here, and she points to the doorway indicative of who isn’t in it, yet:

“Very both,” she says simply, then point to herself: “very…”

“Boobies?” Eddie suggests and Robin, she just groans.

“Not you too,” and…okay, shit, umm, well—

Eddie… maybe Eddie can be brave. Like, in small doses.

“Actually, ah, I,” he stumbled but then he makes himself take a breath, makes himself try:

“No, not me too,” he says in a rush and looks up at her through his lashes, so fucking vulnerable: “like, very specifically not, me too.”

And she smiles at him so warm and…like, almost welcoming, which is weird but feels, nice? And she pats his arm kinda affectionately and, just—

“Did you decide to take me up on my wisdom so we can actually accept she’s almost definitely into you, and move on to planning your wedding?” Steve slides back in and shuts the door behind him, getting to pouring Eddie some water before he even sits the fuck down.

His fingers brush Eddie’s as he passes it off and, it probably shouldn’t make Eddie all tingly, Steve did kinda kiss his hand? Like, a little?

But that don’t mean shit: Eddie’s all pins and needles and, like, sparkles.

“He’s the only help you’ve got here, Buckley,” Eddie screws his courage up one more time because…because Steve needs to know, too; Eddie wouldn’t put Robin in the position of not knowing whether she can tell her platonic soulmate something, make her keep a secret even by implication but so much bigger that that is, are—

All the things he doesn’t want to poke at, or dig up and examine, that he’s dodging on the excuse of convalescence: all those things taken into account: he trusts Steve. He feels…so much for Steve already, and he feels weirdly sure that whatever happens next, those feelings are only gonna find ways to grow, so—

Steve has to know, not just because Eddie thinks he suspects it, but because Eddie tells him—because it’s….’cause it’s Steve.

“Feels like it’d be foolish not to take the man up on the offer when he’s definitely the expert in the room,” Eddie pushes on, awkward but determined; “seeing as I don’t, umm, know about,” and his eyes flicker to Robin for a second, before they land on Steve to finish:

“About boobies.”

And Steve does say anything, doesn’t look any way save how he’d looked before: calm, and mostly-relaxed, and right next to Eddie, and Eddie’s eyes drop from Steve’s face and find the collar of his shirt, the peak of hair from in between and, shit, shit, he’s talking about tits and then there’s Steve’s chest hair and holy fucking wow he is staring:

“Umm, I mean,” and fucking fuck, now he’s talking—

“Like, not that kind, at least,” and then he forces his eyes down to the sheets over his lap and considers if it’s possible to dissolve into cotton if it’s startchy and uncomfortable as shit, and you happen to be mortified enough to sink into the fucking threads.

But then; then there’s Steve.

Because of fucking course there’s Steve.

And Steve?

Steve takes his cup from him when he could easily have leaned to put it down himself, but then Steve replaces the cup in Eddie’s grip with his own warm hand, like a tether, like a lifeline, like a…

Like a promise.

And when the conversation turns toward strategizing Robin’s approach for Vickie, Eddie’s, he, he just…

He’s home, y’know?

tag list (comment to be added): @pearynice @hbyrde36 @slashify @finntheehumaneater @wxrmland @dreamwatch @perseus-notjackson

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hitlikehammers · 2 months

Text

could be something

rating: t ♥️ cw: softness, recovering from the upside down ♥️ tags: pre-relationship, post-s4, fluff, Eddie is having so many feelings, Eddie is not a strong man, but Eddie can be a brave man, Steve Harrington being a devoted caretaker to a T

for @steddielovemonth day seventeen: Love is when you look at his lips for half the conversation because you can’t stop thinking about kissing him. (@starryeyedjanai)

this definitely takes place chronologically after this one so: have the next little step toward these codependent knuckleheads figuring their big feelings out ♥️

When he put his mind to thinking on it—as in, thinking with thoughts versus general technicolor swollen-heart sighing of his whole fucking self, body and soul and just, all of it, the whole of him, when it comes to this: but when Eddie did focus on the thinking part, he thought maybe Steve was, like, a fixture. Like something that defined the home-feeling he has in this room that should be fucking sterile, no matter how long he’s populated it so far: it’s a fucking hospital. It shouldn’t feel…comfortable. Like: no part of this should feel anything but abrasive, and offensive to his sensibilities to the point of wanting; needing to get out at soon as humanly possible.

Which he does: he wants to get out bad. But, like, getting out will be good, for the obvious reasons, but also because Steve will still be there—which is why Eddie first thought Steve was like, a point of association. Eddie had his surviving guitar, some of his cassettes, a tape deck, his Monster Manual, the Corroded Coffin banner that’d somehow survived and was somehow allowed in a hospital room, photos of the band, of the sheepies who weren’t really sheepies were they, they were brothers-in-arms, then some of his new comrades, Wheeler Senior and Robs, and a drawing that’s recognizably from the campaign before Vecna’s Curse, for obvious reasons, but it’s from the mini Byers who Eddie barely knew, and who certainly wasn’t there for the campaign he’s illustrated, but the art was fucking sick, and there’s his mug from the trailer, the Garfield one, not the newer one but the one that’s missing at ear, and there’s—

Steve.

All of this together, he figures, makes it soft, and safe, and gentle around him at all hours of the night when nightmares try to grab him, or when the poking and the prodding got too much before it finally died down, once they were convinced he was going to survive and also not end up a weird otherworldly hybrid monster (which was why he wanted his Manual in the first place, so he could helpfullypoint out suggestions as to what these goddamn feds-in-white-coats must think was lurking beneath Eddie’s skin ready to fucking strike): and Steve’s always there to hides his laughter behind a cough in the corner when Eddie suggests maybe they think he’s sprout horns, or did they want to check for fangs again, he can open wide—just like he’s always there to grab Eddie’s hand and ground him, talk him down into reality again after the worst of the nightmares.

His hand, like that, is what…starts Eddie thinking a little harder about, y’know. Things.

The soft squishy stuff he’s been hiding from with all the excuses in the world that really…really can’t hold the tides back anymore, because this thing, this soft-squishy-warm-immense thing, is bigger than anything Eddie’s ever felt. Not lust, not hope, not pie-in-the-sky wishing, not even pain.

And Eddie’s recently become very fucking familiar with that last one. So that’s saying something.

But Steve’s hand is always ready for Eddie to grab, ready to hold and be held, ready to be an anchor or a touch to soothe and Eddie…

Eddie’s not fucking stupid, right, okay: Steve’s hand in Eddie’s hand makes him think about Steve’s hand in his hand, specifically: the one time Steve’s hand lifted Eddie’s hand to his mouth, to his lips.

Like: intentionally.

It’s when they decide to move him into a step-down room, like a rehab-focused ward or something—and that’s good, that’s like, reallygood, and Eddie’s just that step closer to getting the fuck out of this place, and so they’re taking down all the stuff to move with him, right, and Eddie expects it when he feels a little empty, a little stir-crazy, a little paranoid and startling easy sounds that should even be weird, should be commonplace now, but he tenses, sometimes he jumps, and sure his nerves feel all…pins-and-needly, of course, because the fixtures of home have been stripped away and the room’s just white walls and machines he’s not currently hooked to, and and IV pole-thingy he doesn’t even use anymore, and one single fake flower in a little green-glass vase with real water for no fucking reason and—

“Ready to blow this popsicle stand?”

And it’s in those sterile white walls with the fake flower in the water, with none of the touchings of home that Eddie looks up, meets those smiling eyes and realizes like a slap to his fucking face: Steve’s not a goddamn fixture, an associative suggestion of home.

Steve…Steve is the sun he orbits; Steve’s the gravity that holds him down. Steve’s not just home, he’s the only way Eddie gets to know home; if Eddie’s a planet, he gets to move in space because of his star; get to live and breathe for the light and the warmth that star gifts him, and, and—

Fucking hell.

Eddie nods, and that’s a fucking feat, and he lets Steve pull him to his feet even if he’d have been able to himself, five minutes ago, before his concept of existence at its core got turned fucking sideways and shit.

So Eddie moves rooms. And all his shit is set up exactly like it had been in the first room, and Eddie suspects Steve had a big fucking part in making that happen, because Steve? Steve is, is, he’s…

He’s Steve.

And Eddie’s world kinda starts to…narrow. Not like it did when everything was going dark and he thought it was the end, but it feels almost as desperate, arguably just as dire, just, like, really fucking different.

But Eddie stares: first at Steve’s hands; first where they lie together, where they tangle sometimes, where Steve traces along the lines of his knuckles, the blue of his veins. Then it’s Steve’s hands always: in his lap, shoving Robin playfully, ruffling Henderson’s hair, pouring water Eddie doesn’t need poured for him but hell if Steve will listen on the point, running through his own hair, fisting in it when he’s at loose ends, when it’s Eddie who reaches out wordless—not least because he doesn’t have the words for this at all—and fucking feelshimself brighten, feels something in him blossom new and fresh and joyous when Steve grips his hand back and sits: plays with his fingers, spins the rings he’s allowed to have now, knows where they go back when he meticulously removes them all and slides them into place again and if that shit doesn’t fry the wires in Eddie brain, if that motion and that feeling, with Steve’s fucking hands doesn’t send Eddie’s heart into goddamn convulsions, he’s—

That’s the state of things. When Eddie’s fixated on their hands.

But then…then it gets worse. Because Eddie remember the whole of it, the why for his being obsessed with those hands, and his focus shifts accordingly: because what did Steve do, what did he press sweet and soft and magnetic and like a fucking inferno against Eddie’s goddamn skin?

So, yes: of course it’s those goddamn lips.

Steve chews them when he’s thinking; not hard, and more like…like sucking and ain’t that a bitch for Eddie’s frayed-to-hell nerves. And he licks them almost for no reason, and Eddie so fucking lucky he’s not on that EKG anymore because holy hell, that’d be a problem.

And when he does those things, and then he talks, the motions are…they’re all wet and shiny and a little swollen and Steve kissed his hand, didn’t he, he definitely did, at the very least he brushed his lips there, twice, and didn’t make any motion to move away or cut it short and, and, he—

“Eds?”

Eddie blinks; he was looking at Steve already—has been, of course he fucking has been, because if Steve is here sure as shit Eddie wants to look, what else could be more important, more entrancing, more exquisite, more—

Eddie blinks. Steve’s watching him with the kind of expectation that almost always means words were spoken that…required some kind of answer. A response of some sort.

Eddie has no idea what the words Steve happened to have been saying…were, exactly. He knows they sounded beautiful, musical, because Steve’s voice is those things; he knows the lips they came out of are memorizing as fuck and—

“What’s wrong, Eds?”

And leave it to Saint Steve, to jump to worry, jump to helping, to scoot his chair closer and then give up, to just perch next to Eddie on his bed and grab his hands and—

Eddie’s not a strong man, y’gotta understand that.

“Can I?” Eddie blurts, no thoughts, no plans, just this… this need in him.

“Yes.”

Eddie blinks.

“You don’t even know what it is,” he protests against his own goddamn interests because Steve’s so…so casual. So sure and suave and just, just…

“I’d let you do just about anything,” Steve shrugs, and if the tops of his cheeks pink-up a little? Well, again:

Eddie. Is. Not. A. Strong. Man.

“Steve,” Eddie exhales in a huff, and then he chokes out something like a laugh; “Stevie,” and that’s a whine, nothing else for it, it’s a pleading sound, the kind you make as the hammer fucking falls; “you cannot just say that shit, man—“

“I’m not allowed to say shit I mean?” Steve tilts his head, and his lips quirk that tiny bit and he’s maddening, he’s stunning, he is—

“Steve,” Eddie almost wheezes his name, he’s so fucking breathless, his heart’s such a fucking riot in his chest—it is wholly humiliating and he can’t even care because Steve’s hand is still in his hand and Steve’s here and he’s—

“What do you want, Eddie?”

And now it’s Eddie’s turn to lick his lips, to chew the bottom one and suck on the top between his teeth because…

“You,” he starts, and that’s good, that’s a beginning, you gotta start at the beginning; “you,” repetition, so Steve, like, knows who Eddie is talking to among the no-other-people in the room; “on my hand,” and he moves his thumb along Steve’s hand in the spaces he remembers, will never fucking forget so long as he lives: the places on his hand that Steve graced with his lips and Eddie can be brave, he might not be strong but he can be brave, maybe, or else try–

“Did you—“

And they both turn, because the sound of footsteps is distant but approaching; the squeak of tennis shoes, it’s almost definitely one of the kids and Steve wilts the slightest bit, imperceptible really but Eddie’s watching, so Eddie fucking sees, and Eddie…

Eddie can’t have that.

So he pulls Steve’s hand to his mouth and he kisses at the heel of his palm, kisses at his wrist where the pulse is furious just lip Eddie’s, the most glorious gift of a touch that Eddie of all people gets to fit his lips around and not just feel, no: he gets to taste, and he has to pull back and let go fast, the footsteps are so close but Steve’s pupils are so big and, yes, yeah, okay: okay.

This could be something.

tag list (comment to be added): @pearynice @hbyrde36 @slashify @finntheehumaneater @wxrmland @dreamwatch @perseus-notjackson @estrellami-1 @bookworm0690

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