#disabled eddie munson

[steddielations]

Steve helps Eddie learn to walk again after he heals up from the bats. Eddie’s supposed to practice taking steps outside of physical therapy too, with someone’s help or with his cane. He can be stubborn about using it, and his Uncle is working doubles to cover his medical bills, so he’s not always there to help. Eddie’s apart of the group now, he kept Dustin safe, and Steve just wants to do whatever he can for him.

Eddie’s always confident with everything but he gets frustrated sometimes, and Steve has found that it works best if he stands in front of Eddie, arms hovering at Eddie’s sides just in case, taking steps back while Eddie walks to him.

It’s one those frustrating days where Eddie has tears in his eyes and sweat on his brow, leaning heavily on his cane and clenching his teeth as he makes the final step and collapses in Steve’s arms. That’s when Steve can’t help it, he just hugs Eddie so tight and presses a kiss to his forehead without thinking.

Eddie doesn’t seem to mind, he starts to aim for it. Every time from then on, he makes it to Steve with a smile on his face, waiting for his forehead kiss, and sometimes he earns cheek kisses too. Of course, Steve knows Eddie is touchy with everyone, he thrives on little affections so it motivates him more.

Eddie’s working so hard, walking further and further everyday, Steve’s so proud of him that it gets to the point where a peck on the forehead and to each side of his scarred cheeks doesn’t feel like enough.

Eddie catches Steve’s eyes falling to his lips one too many times, and he’s so glad when Eddie smirks and says, “I think I earned a little more than a kiss on the cheek, Harrington, don’t you?”

“Hm… depends. Where else do I owe you one?”

He grins when Eddie plays coy, pointing to his lips.

They kiss, long and sweet until Eddie gets tired of standing and Steve lifts him up in a hug so they can keep on kissing. It feels more than earned.

#boyfriends who heal together #steddie #eddie munson #steve harrington #disabled eddie munson #steddie ficlet #steddie fic #eddie with a cane #rueswriting #my fics #steddie headcanon #mp #eddie munson headcanon #steveddie #eddie x steve #steddie fanfiction

[steviewashere]

In it For the Long Haul (And Then Some)

Rating: Teen and Up CW: Minor Internalized Ableism Tags: Post Canon, Post Season Four, Canon Divergence, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Hospitals, Hospitalization, Medical Conditions, Steve Harrington Has Head Trauma (Brief Mention), Amputee Steve Harrington, Amputee Eddie Munson, Disabled Steve Harrington, Disabled Eddie Munson, Whump, Implied/Referenced Depression, Steve Harrington is a Sweetheart, Eddie Munson is a Sweetheart, Steve's Injuries Actually Have an Effect On Him, Eddie Munson Calls Steve Harrington Pet Names, Medical Accuracies (Surprising, I Know), Tattoos, Implied/Referenced Sex, Getting Together

Guys, oh my god, my Apple keyboard has prosthetic emojis?! That's so cool.

🦾🦿—————🦾🦿 He thought it’d be another concussion that would put him out this time. It’s practically the stamp of approval left on his body by the Upside Down. Should be bright green and sticky on his forehead and in big bold letters for everybody to read. But it isn’t a concussion. And he’s not sure what to do with himself.

Maybe they should’ve taken him to the hospital to get medical treatment after the bat bites. It wasn’t just on his back and arms and stomach. The marks were on his legs, too. Even though he had tried to kick the demobats off, they still sunk their teeth in when they had the chance, albeit briefly. Considering, too, he also walked through that hellhole without shoes on. He should’ve seen a doctor. First thing, he should’ve seen a doctor. But he didn’t. And he had the infection to show for it. Except, his body hadn’t healed the way it was supposed to. His immune system didn’t cooperate. It didn’t keep up.

The infection spread through the muscle of his left foot. And when it didn’t go away fast enough, it worked its way through his toes, shot up his ankle, and into his calf. Right below the knee.

His pinkie and ring toes went first. They—and he wishes he could spare the gruesome details—turned purple and swollen and numb. That’s when he knew things would be different. As soon as those parts were gone, he had begun to turn his face away from the window of hope. Instead, he looked out at the deep ocean waves of regret and grief, and imagined himself as a sinking ship. Filling with water. Plummeting to the bottom. Rotting.

Robin and the kids would all come around. Flood into his room. Talk to him while he was delirious from anesthesia first, then morphine next. Spoke to him when he hissed through phantom pains. Looked away when he had to be wheeled into the all too spacious hospital bathroom. “Tug the red chord if you get stuck,” he recalls a nurse saying. “Don’t put pressure on this foot, it’s still draining,” another had said. And by the time he could stay out of the wheelchair, he forgot what it was like to pee without the reminders, what it was like to go to the bathroom and be able to stand on his own.

Because of his luck, though, he lost the whole foot next. The infection had worked its way into his tibia. Didn’t fall asleep willingly after he was taken off of medication. Just sat in his cramped hospital bed, staring down at the stump of where part of him once was, and wept. Hands curled over his thighs, nails digging into his flesh, lips tight against his teeth, unblinking and weeping softly into the silence of his room. The first night without morphine and without the foot, he sat in the dark. In the black ink of his room. Choking on himself. Uncaring towards his limp and greasy hair dangling in front of his eyes. And he didn’t sleep. Didn’t want to. Couldn’t take the glare off his absent foot.

He stopped flexing the other foot, stopped running it against his left leg when he did try to sleep, stopped wanting to use it all together.

It wasn’t until the calf was removed completely, leaving him with half a leg and just his knee, did he stop talking. He just sat in the bustling white noise silence of his room. Wide eyes that were dry and red and bloodshot staring down at the thin cloth blanket draped over himself. An even thinner hospital gown stuck to his sallow skin. Stomach rumbling with hunger, but he couldn’t eat in the presence of himself. He just sat and thought of blankness, of absence, and of loss.

He’s been in the hospital nearly a month—endless surgeries and endless bouts of infections—when Eddie finally visits. Steve barely glances at him. Notices his silhouette and odd gait and the hiding of his right arm, but nothing more. Goes back to his lap with a raw emptiness, gaping and pulsing the more and more he sits in this room. Still recovering. Not even at the point of physical therapy yet. Still trying to heal his, how he views it, now useless body.

Eddie sits down in the chair to his left. Grunting with the exertion. He releases a measured, deep breath. “I heard from Robin that you were up here,” he states conversationally. “Thought I’d come up and see you now that I’m not stuck in my own room.”

Steve doesn’t say anything. Just traces his thumbs over the hem of his blanket. He thought he’d be angrier at the mention of Eddie being discharged. Filled to the brim with bitter jealousy. But all that tinges in his chest is a beastly want. An ache. The sizzle of something dwindling out.

“Haven’t had the chance to thank you, Steve,” Eddie murmurs. “I thought I’d die down there. Figured it was the best option, y’know, considering my circumstances? But then you and Dustin did the whole tourniquet thing and risked your lives and welcomed me in like a friend. So, my mind’s been changed. Hate this town and how it hates me, but I’m glad to still be here with some of the best people I’ve met,” he says sincerely. “But—I, uh—I wanted to come keep you company, as a friend. Show you something, too.”

At that, Steve raises his eyes slightly. Enough to catch on where Eddie’s knees are pressed firmly against the side of his bed. Angled oddly to stretch out and wiggle his right arm in sight of Steve’s vision. That’s when his eyes catch on the limp sleeve of the flannel he’s wearing. How it just flattens to the bed, red and black, lifeless.

The sleeve rolls up to reveal the stump of Eddie’s arm. His hand, wrist, and half of his forearm completely gone.

“We match,” Eddie says. And it should be grim. It should be a devastating statement to make. But something in Steve starts to warm. A desperation sort of growth, one that comes from the want and need to be seen. Eddie continues, “And—Look, I know it’s not ideal. It really isn’t. If anything, this is like majorly fucked up for the both of us. But…We’ll figure it out, you know? Get prosthetics. Cut up our clothes to accommodate our limbs, or well, lack of. But you aren’t alone; that’s my point.”

Hesitantly, Steve raises his head. Finally looking at Eddie in his entirety. The palm sized scar on his cheek, pink and shiny and stark against his face. The ring around his neck and the other red raw scars that creep into the collar of his t-shirt. And his hair. It’s gone. Shaved down. Replaced by a bit of fuzz and one long scar that goes from the widow’s peak of his hairline, to where it tapers at his neck. Steve doesn't remember Eddie getting injured there, but it must've been from when he fell through the portal—limp and loose.

He realizes, looking down at himself, that there are swirls of scars from the back of his own arms, deep white lines on his knuckles, the ring around his neck surely present, and that doesn’t even include the ones that ache on his back. He looks back to Eddie.

Eddie reaches out a slow hand, cupping his cheek, wiping at something. That’s when Steve realizes that he’s crying. “Hey, oh, I’m sorry,” he murmurs, “I’m sorry, Stevie. I didn’t think that—“

“You get it?” Steve squeak-rasps. His throat throbs. It's dry and brittle and painful all the way through him; down to his stomach, into his sweaty palms, at the base of his stump. Phantom stings that make him twitch. But his voice...It's nothing like him. It's haunting to hear himself. And for a moment, he wishes he didn't speak. Eddie, however, startles and softens all at once. Eyes glistening at Steve, worried and concerned and cautious, but also enamored and welcoming and empathetic.

Nodding, Eddie says, “Yeah, sweetheart, I do. I’m still getting used to it, too.” He pushes up into Steve’s messy hair, swiping it away from his forehead. Doesn’t even grimace at how gross it surely feels on his fingers. “You don’t have to sit alone about this. ‘Cause I’m right here with you. And…” His eyes grow immeasurably softer. “…I may not have both hands, but I’ve got both arms to hold you," he breathes.

It’s easy to lean into Eddie’s hand. To close his eyes and let himself feel this. Sobbing quietly, muffled behind his lips. Shoulders shaking with it. He blubbers, “I hate this, Eddie. I hate this, I hate this, I—“ And cuts himself off with a loud, unashamed, explosive sob.

“I know, sweetheart,” Eddie is saying as he wraps himself around Steve. Tucks himself in close, to where Steve is able to set his head on his shoulder. He sits on the edge of the bed so that he doesn’t overcrowd. And just holds on tight. “You feel how you need to feel, Steve. Get it out, it’s okay.”

Steve groans harshly in the back of his throat. Gasping in short breaths, chest rattling with the effort. He slams his forehead into Eddie’s chest, over and over. Muffling into the fabric of his shirt, “Nobody else gets it. They don’t understand. They don’t…All of them.” Eddie doesn’t speak. Afraid that Steve will stop if he does. “They think I’ll just bounce back, but everything is different now, Eds,” he cries, “Everything.”

And he finds that he does mean that. He knows he's too quiet. Knows he's behaving too serious for his bones. Too mature for his lungs. He's hollow to his core, and bleeding between his teeth. There's something deeply fractured in him now, even if he were to ever show a sliver of who he was before.

He allows himself to cry for a few minutes more before slumping with exhaustion, but he doesn’t close his eyes. Doesn’t let sleep pull him under. Just shakes and shivers and twitches in Eddie’s warm hold. Until, Eddie pulls back. Arms set firmly on Steve’s shoulders. Eyes wandering his face, his hair. “You look so tired, sweetheart,” he murmurs, “When’s the last time you’ve slept?” Steve shrugs in lieu of a response. Eddie's eyebrows twitch down, a frown wanting to form, but he worms it away. Offering with a well-crafted small smile, “How about you sleep and I keep watch for you?”

He shakes his head. “They’ll take more of me if I close my eyes. They keep doing it,” Steve mutters. His voice is weak and slightly petulant.

“What do you mean, Stevie?” And Eddie's face drops again. Frowning through the floor.

“They come in here and tell me the infection spread. Tell me about how it goes bone deep. Or how my limbs are turning purple. Or how something doesn’t look good,” Steve rambles on, “Then, they have to take me back for surgery. And I have to let them because I get it, I do, because my body isn’t healing right. And it's not something I'll just make up for at home, so I let them. I let them and then...I wake back up and more of my leg is gone. I can’t let them take more from me. I can’t lose more of myself. I can’t, Eddie, I can’t—I can’t—I can’t—“

Softly, Eddie shushes him. Rubbing his remaining hand up and down Steve’s arm in long stripes, carefully avoiding his still agitated scars. “Shhh, baby, you’re okay. It’s scary, I know. But they said that you’re doing better. Treatment is working, Steve. You won’t lose anything else, okay?” His eyes are wide and imploring. Deep brown, enriching, swallowing Steve whole. “You won’t. This is it. They just need you to rest. I’ll be right here while you do so; I won’t let them do anything to you that you wouldn’t want. But you need sleep. You’re wasting away on me.” His hands push firmer on Steve's shoulders. Imploring again, searching and hoping for Steve to understand. He reiterates, “You’re wasting away.”

“I’m not,” Steve weakly argues.

“You are,” Eddie whispers, “You look like you haven’t slept in days, Stevie. And the doctors already told me how you’ve been refusing to eat. That’s not good. You gotta rest and get healthy, to a place they need you to be, so that you can go home.” Steve doesn't like that idea. Back to his big, almost always empty house. Eddie must read that, somewhere, on his face. He gently splays his hand over Steve’s chest, shoving at it with light force. Promising low, "Home can be with Robin or Nancy or me, Stevie. But you have to get better first. You have to. Just lay down and talk to me, sweetheart."

Hesitantly, Steve lays down with Eddie’s push. Head lolled on the pillow so that his face is pointed towards where Eddie sits. He stretches out his hand and weakly grips to Eddie’s fingers. “I’m scared,” he finally confesses. The words falling heavy from the tip of his tongue.

And though Eddie knows, Steve can see it in his eyes, he asks anyway, “What’s got you spooked?”

Steve blinks groggily. Wrung out from the tears. From the sobbing. The speaking. From existing the way he has been. “Of not being myself,” he answers, muttering. “I can’t drive now. I can’t work out the way I used to. Can’t even stand to use the bathroom. I’m not losing more of my limbs, but it’s like I’m gone.”

Eddie’s thumb pushes firmly into the back of Steve’s hand. And he looks straight on at Steve’s tired, tired, tired eyes. “I ain’t letting you go,” he swears. “We’ll find what works. We’ll find you again, I promise. Especially now that we have all the time in the world.”

“It’s going to take so long, though. You don’t want to be stuck with me during that.”

Simply, Eddie shrugs. “So, what? I’ll be figuring out myself again, too. And from what I’ve heard, you’re the kind of guy to take no shit. If anything, you’re going to be the one stuck with me.” His voice grows lower and lower as Steve’s eyes dip to a near close. “Go ahead and sleep, Steve. It’s okay.”

With a long, grieving sigh, Steve closes his eyes completely. Mumbles, “You’re a good guy, Eddie.” Voice slow and sticky. “I’m glad you’re my friend.”

As Steve’s grumbling snores fill the room, Eddie stands to lightly open the curtains. Soft sunlight pooling through the room. It makes Steve glow in yellows, his hair shiny and his skin glistening. He’s worse for wear, that much is evident to Eddie. But he can work with that. He’ll accommodate all that Steve is willing to give. And he’ll keep an eye and an ear out, too. Even if that’s all he’s allowed to offer.

He sits back in his original chair. Stretching himself so that he can lean over Steve's bed. And swipes the stray hair away from his eyes. “I’m glad you’re my friend, too, sweetheart,” Eddie murmurs into the white noise of the room. He stays until visiting hours are over.

And comes back every day until Steve gets to go home.

——— Their prosthetics don’t match perfectly to their skin (the prosthetic’s skin being a shade darker than what they’d usually have), but they make do with them. And they find a way to joke about it. To mingle with the still raw ache of what they’ve lost.

Steve ends up painting the nails of Eddie’s prosthetic hand to match his real fingernails, black and shiny. Eddie aids with changing out Steve’s sneakers so that they match his polos and sweaters. And they find it especially funny, when they get together and hook up for the first time, to be laying in a pile of limbs quite literally on Eddie’s bed—but to look off at his side table, their arm and leg are cradling each other. Just as they do. Holding one another on the worst days, through the phantom pains and the afternoons where they sob. It comes easily, being with one another.

It takes time, like all things do. Like watching paint dry on some days. Or waiting for water to boil on others. Prone to lash out, sure. Prone to stay stock still in bed with far away eyes. But they’re in it. They live it. And as time pushes, days grow to be normal. To be expected.

“We should draw tattoos on our limbs,” Eddie suggests one day.

“I can’t draw, Eds. But what do you have in mind?”

In it for the long haul, with a drawing of a hand, is put on Steve’s prosthetic calf.

And then some, with a leg wearing a Nike sneaker, goes on Eddie’s wrist.

“Can’t believe my first tattoo literally cost an arm and a leg,” Steve mutters later, admiring the work Eddie’s done. And all they can do afterwards is laugh until their stomachs hurt, air is impossible to catch, and their cheeks are wet with tears.

🦾🦿—————🦾🦿 When my mom was alive and, obviously, still used her prosthetic leg, she'd threaten to beat up my bullies by taking her leg off and whacking them with it. Also, her leg had a piece of see-through plastic on it where she could have something customized in it, it said "Kicking ass and taking names."

#stranger things #steddie #steve harrington #eddie munson #disabled steve harrington #disabled eddie munson #amputee steve harrington #amputee eddie munson

[formosusiniquis]

when you're fifteen

Even as he hands over the platter of chocolate chip miracles he makes, Steve sighs. It's a full bodied affair that makes Eddie nervous on instinct. "We need to talk about Mike."

It is and isn't a surprise.

Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson; Steve Harrington & Mike Wheeler WC: 4044 | Rated T | Tags/Themes: Good Babysitter Steve, Period Atypical Depictions of DnD, HoH!Steve, Disabled!Eddie Ao3

Eddie prided himself on his ability to manage a table. A forever DM, four years into a lifetime sentence, he can keep a story on track and, more importantly, keep tempers in check for hours at a time. 

He kept track of a thousand little details across notebooks, binders, and just trapped in his own brain. He knew everything about his NPCs, the world, his player’s characters, and the things that drove his players nuts. He had plans, backup plans, and vague ideas of shit he could do if things went completely and totally off the rails despite all of those plans. That was one of the things he held fast on his tongue the first time he failed senior year. Of course he didn’t pass. He’d taken on the mantle of Dungeon Master. He had to put together a story that took into account: Jeff’s high stakes backstory with the missing mother and bounty on his head, Gareth’s need to flirt with anything age appropriate that had a pulse, and Joey’s tactical mind when it comes to battle. Wasn’t it enough that he was going to class, he had to do shit at home about it too?

He didn’t like saying it. He liked to bitch about it a lot, actually. Eddie wasn’t really sure what he’d do with himself if he wasn’t The DM. It was like a core part of his identity.

It made the current situation he was in more world rocking than he really wanted to deal with.

He liked to think, if he couldn’t feel the remaining muscles in his side screaming in agony because he was sitting wrong -- or for too long or both -- and if his lower back wasn’t seizing and spasming for the same or maybe a brand new reason it had decided to come up with today, that he’d be able to manage this table just as well as he always had. Eight really wasn’t that different from three.

Except that combat is impossible to manage, each round took forever and that’s when everyone was paying attention. Except that there hasn’t been a satisfying story moment for Jeffrey the Jovial or Dustin’s Sir Rathington in the last four sessions. Except that Erica has been scribbling something in her notebook that probably wasn’t campaign notes since she hadn’t called him on the plot hole he caught session planning a month ago and hasn’t been able to fix -- and is more likely to have something to do with the way he noticed her looking at Uhura and Chapel when she was watching Star Trek reruns with Steve.

Except that Mike has been screaming at Dustin and Lucas for the better part of five minutes and Eddie really isn’t sure how to fix it.

“The plan is stupid. Did you even spend more than ten seconds thinking about it or did you decide that Will could just roll another character and we could save the resources.”

“Will could roll another character. It's not the first time he's rolled another character.” Lucas points out for what might be the third time, Eddie’s lost count.

“This whole thing is about resources, Mike.” Dustin snaps, “We’ll all be rolling new characters if we go into this stupid fucking fight while Gareth has no spell slots, Lucas is down to three arrows, Joey’s already used his second wind, and half the party is below half health.”

“It doesn’t matter, if we don’t go into the fight now Will is going to turn into some bloodsucking vampire spawn.”

Eddie knows this is the point that he should grab the reins again. He should prompt one of them to make a decision, or better yet, take the decision away from them entirely. But there’s a numbness in his thigh that has somehow spread to his mouth; it’s different from the pain the rest of his body is in, not really better or worse, and just as distracting. 

The rest of the table is quiet, boredom and annoyance plain on their faces. But they’ve also stopped looking to him to fix the problem. That’s the worst thing the Upside Down took from him, he thinks, even as his body is radiating pain from places he used to be able to forget he had.

“Or maybe it’s a trap,” Lucas points out. And it should be, but Lucas is a far better tactician than Eddie who already knows he won’t want to deal with the work it would take to do that well. “Y’know since you made all your weak spots pretty clear to Lord Ellias.”

“Or,” Dustin drawls out with a Harrington’s level of bitch and ire, “we could trust Eddie to turn this into a fucking story moment.”

“You guys are both so full of shit, just-” Mike has his nose curled and lip snarled, Eddie can feel the breeze of the blade swinging down to deliver the death blow to this campaign and adventuring party.

“Alright time to take a break.” Steve claps his hands, an angel come from on high to save Eddie. “Get up, get a snack, move your feet. Give my dining room some time to air out before it smells like nerd forever.”

Mike turns the full weight of his aggression on to Steve, who hopefully has a damage immunity or advantage on saves at the very least otherwise this is looking like a short talk, “We can't just take a break. Do you not get what the stakes are here? We've got to save-”

“Save someone who will still be in danger in twenty minutes.” Steve steamrolls over Mike’s argument with an unaffected ease. Eddie can feel the mood of the table lift just a bit, now that they’re about to be rescued.

“You just don't get it.”

“I get that it's pretend.” In a pre-Vencapocalypse world that would have been enough to get Eddie fighting on Little Wheeler’s side, but much as DnD is still his life. Fuck, it is all just pretend. “Go take a lap.”

“Ugh why do we even come over here. We could do this at my house without washed up jocks interrupting us.” Mike says but he gets up. Storming off to god knows where in the monstrosity of Steve’s house. Will, quiet as he always seems to get when he’s the center of one of these drag outs, trails off after Mike with an eye roll at the other two sophomores and an apologetic shrug for Steve.

And Eddie has his table again. Quiet and still, waiting for him to say something. Like there’s even anything to say when his very own Deus Ex Machina is leaving the room without so much as a backward glance at the poor schmucks he’s saved. “Well,” he says with a clap of his hands, “My blood sugar is dropping, so I’m going to shove as many of those cookies I smelled earlier into my mouth as I can in twenty minutes.” Because as much as they weren’t looking to him before, they need the DM to break the spell of the table. That’s how the whole thing goes.

And they scatter once it breaks. Eddie’s original Hellfire boys stay at the table, their ease at the Harrington house has been hardwon and the argument has rekindled something nerdy and skittish in them. Erica has headed off to the corner of the house Steve has let her claim as her own, nose still buried in her notebook. He doesn’t know where Lucas and Dustin are, but wherever they’ve gone they aren’t around to watch him struggle to pull himself out of his throne with his cane. He should just give in and let Steve raise the seat, half the problem is that it sits too low -- but knowing that and being willing to admit it at any point other than when he’s in PT levels of misery from pulling himself up are very different things.

Steve has his back to the door again, by the time Eddie makes his way to the kitchen. He has a bizarre semi-awareness of his surroundings that can be hard to predict. Sometimes it’s freaky how Steve can call out Dustin or Erica from a different room with an almost parental ‘eyes in the back of his head’ sixth sense. Other times his own soulmate can get the drop on him, managing to get her arms wrapped around his middle before he even realizes they’re in the same room.

It’s better to slam his cane against the floor a couple times. To let Steve feel the vibrations through the floorboards with his sock feet, that way nobody has to get hurt or feel guilty for doing the hurting.

Getting to see Steve’s grin bloom across his face as he flips that famous hair and catches sight of Eddie isn’t so bad either.

Next to Steve, it’s safe to prop his cane against the counter. He can rest his hips against the sure, solid surface and relax in the presence of his boyfriend while the blood returns to his limbs and a new kind of discomfort settles in. A hand, warm and sudsy finds the back of his neck. A strong thumb digging into a knot that had been there since at least last week with an erotic precision.

“You’ve got to stop letting them keep you in that chair for so long.”

"If we take breaks we'll just be here longer."

He shrugs, pulling his other hand from the dish water to pull Eddie into a gentle hold. "So be here longer."

"You'd get sick of the fighting. I'd get sick of the fighting." Actually it was probably better not to remind Steve of that. "You know I really did want one of those famous Stevie Henderson cookies."

Even as he hands over the platter of chocolate chip miracles he makes, Steve sighs. It's a full bodied affair that makes Eddie nervous on instinct. "We need to talk about Mike."

It is and isn't a surprise. "I know the yelling is a lot, Sweetheart, I'm sorry. You don't have a migraine, do you? I can talk to him and make him chill out a bit." That last part is absolutely a lie; he doesn't think he could get Mike under control right now if he had a stun gun and half a pound of Argyle’s primo Cali weed.

Not that it matters Steve has on his scrunchy faced 'you're wrong about something,' look, Eddie just needs to give him the minute it'll take to get his thoughts together. "You know I love you right?"

“In this dimension and any others,” Eddie supplies.

Steve smiles, feather soft, and runs a soothing hand through Eddie's hair the way he always does right before he says something atrociously bitchy. "I turn my hearing aids off the second you all start playing. If I had to listen to your game three different times, three different ways I'd drive my car into a portal."

He keeps going the way he does when he's afraid he's been too mean and wants to try to soften his edges for general consumption, like Eddie hadn't fallen in love with him the first time he called Dusin a butthead. "This way you and Dust can still use me as a sounding board for your plots and theories and I don't have to listen to my favorite nerds try to remember if 5+7 is 11 or 12."

“So what’s?”

“I’m worried about him!” Steve insists. Eddie might pride himself on his ability to handle a table, but he knows Steve is proud of his way with the kids. His relationship with each of them is rich and distinct, the way he handles each of them unique.

But it’s Mike.

Something must cross his face. He can only call it something, because he’s honestly not sure what emotion he’s feeling other than headache and how many cookies can I eat before they start tasting like nausea. But something else must have been there that causes Steve to cross his arms and glare.

“Yeah, of course, you’re worried about him. We are worried about him. Why are we worried about him, other than worried about what an asshole he’s been lately?”

That was not the right thing to say either, Eddie’s really rolling straight ones today. Steve’s glare shutters even further closed, and seriously it’s Mike. The same kid who called Steve a washed up jock not ten minutes ago. Who takes every single offered opportunity, and even some that he makes himself, to bitch and glare at Hawkins own #1 babysitter and monster hunter. 

“He’s a teenager with more trauma than a ‘Nam vet. But even if he weren’t he’s not an asshole for being barely fifteen and not knowing when to shut the hell up. Do you remember the kind of shit you were saying back then?”

Big brother Steve has successfully landed a critical hit. Eddie does remember the kind of shit he used to say. Just like he knows Steve remembers the kind of shit he used to say. And they both remember the shit that they used to say to one another. How Eddie called Steve a braindead future Reganite who wouldn’t know good taste if it spit in his mouth. How Steve had called Eddie a tryhard that was so desperate to be different because that was the only way he could hide having nothing to offer.

“So we’re worried?”

“I just don’t want him to say something he can’t walk back because he forgot the thing he’s getting upset over is pretend.” He runs a finger down Eddie’s splayed hands. A tickling sensation he can feel down the path it traces from the back of his palm and down his middle finger and, in a phantom mirror, down his spine. “I know you get into your characters, or whatever, I’m sure this is bringing up a lot of memories but he’s going to regret lashing out if it means he pushes away Dustin or Lucas or one of the other guys.”

“I notice you left out Will.”

“Yeah well, Will is more likely to get hurt by something he says when lashing out while they aren’t playing exposure therapy the game. I mean seriously, you had to kidnap him? That’s where your, ‘Stevie, baby, what should I do with them this week? They decided to do something stupid,’ bitching and moaning landed you?”

Eddie doesn’t even really have time to let himself feel the fluttery, squishy feeling he wants to feel -- cause Steve does actually listen when they’ve got their feet tangled on the sofa together, each working on their own things -- before it’s getting smacked by down by the paladin of his heart. “No, no, that isn’t where I landed. I had a perfectly acceptable diplomacy mission prepared, with a back up fight that they were supposed to run away from. What do you want me to do, Sunshine? I gotta give the game some stakes. It’s not exactly fun for Will if he knows he’s indestructible.”

Maybe, he thinks, he should just stop talking today. Just cancel the rest of the session entirely. Will gets carried off by the vampire spawn, half dead and unsaveable, the party on its last legs, unable to agree on a course of action; and actually that’s where we’re gonna end things come back next week and hope Steve even lets us in the house after the screaming we’ve all done. Why? Because he can feel every joint in his body and every one of them is in pain. Because there’s been the dull throb of a low grade headache beating an even pulse in his temples since he woke up this morning. But mostly because every time he opens his stupid fucking mouth to talk Steve stops touching him, and that sucks absolute balls.

“I maybe had an idea,” Steve says. His voice dips and slides while he keeps his hands small, quiet, and close to his chest. Something Robin told him, and he’s now noticing, means Steve has thought about this idea a lot, long enough that he’s convinced himself it’s bad. Eddie’s noticed that even when these ideas aren’t phrased well, they’re never bad.

“I know it’s like rule number one: don’t split the party,” Steve can’t help but roll his eyes when he says it, an instinctive bit of brotherly mockery of Dustin, he would guess. “But what if you split the group a bit. Mike can go after Will, I’m sure Erica would be down to kill some vampires. She loves a chance to test drive her new feats and shit. Then Jeff and Dustin and whoever else can finish up that thing? With the missing girlfriend or whatever? And once that’s done they reunite to do whatever’s next on the list, save the kingdom.”

Eddie sits with that for a bit.

Impulsive is still his middle name, but sometime between being eaten alive by other dimensional hell creatures and getting a thousand and six tiny, itchy stitches removed he’s started giving things second and even third thoughts. Though in this case the second thoughts are less ‘is this a good idea’ and more ‘will Steve bend me over that solid oak dining table and critique my DM notes while he rails me.’

As his stomach swoops, his lower body twinges in a much less enjoyable way. Letting him know that now he’d been standing too long, or leaning against the counter the wrong way, or maybe something else entirely that made his legs tired of doing one of the few things they were made to do. 

Figures he finally lands a hot boyfriend and he's got chronic pain keeping him from getting his dick wet.

“If you’ve already got another idea-”

“No,” he rushes to assure Steve, who needs to stay confident in his own ideas for all kinds of reasons but right now mostly so he’ll be willing to play into this new fantasy of Eddie’s once his body is willing to cooperate with the standing and the bending it’s going to require. “No, it’s a fantastic idea. I’m plotting as we speak.” 

And that isn’t a total lie. Forever DM, he can think about all the fun ways the love of his life and reason he’s still living could degrade his current campaign -- An oath of vengeance paladin questing to save a lost love, isn’t that a little played out. Oh wow, rat swarms in a dungeon, they’re never gonna see that coming -- and figure out how to trick the group into thinking splitting the party was their own idea.

“How long,” he asks his resident child expert, “do you think it would take Will to roll up a new character?”

The smile that tips the corners of Steve’s face is the best part of his day. “Will always has an extra character rolled up with the rest of his stuff in his folder."

Things are slotting together in his head now, and as Steve's hands come around to do something magical in a spot on his back that probably has a name but mostly makes his legs feel like they should really belong to a baby deer.

“So Will…”

“Can convince Mike, and get a chance to try out the new thingy he built. He’s been waiting to talk to you about it.”

Eddie’s getting excited now, hands shaking in the good way. He doesn’t even care that his knee locks as he tries to bounce on his toes, just lets his hands get out the excited energy. “And the band can go do the story side plot shit I’ve been putting off…” 

“With Dustin,” Steve reminds, “cause he’ll want to go wherever there’s the best chance to stir up shit. You already know Erica is going to go where there’s a chance to prove she’s the best at fighting, Lucas too. Not the fighting thing. He’ll go to round out the group, and so his mom doesn’t have to worry about keeping track of one more thing on the family calendar.”

“You’re a genius, Sweetheart.” He snags Steve by the collar, ignoring his bitching that the two fingered pinch he’s got it in is going to stretch it out, and pulls him close. Pressing a kiss on the corner of his perfect boyfriend’s pleased little smile. “I gotta go talk to Will about this character.”

“Send Mike down when you do?”

He’s surprised when he gets no argument, barely gets acknowledgement, when he finds Will and Mike in the guest bathroom and separates them. Mike slips from the room with nothing but a backward glance at Will, who smiles supportively. Once he clears the room, it takes next to zero prompting to get Will to talk about his backup character. The ‘thingy’ he'd been working on a tricked out ranger build that's going to annihilate. 

There's something fresh, brightening, about Will's enthusiasm for the character that infects Eddie too. It gets him excited, for the first time since everyone arrived, to sit down around their over crowded table and play the hour of set up it's going to take to get the party ready to be split. 

And Will doesn't duck his head anymore when Eddie pushes at him and his DnD expertise, he just pushes back. Together they work out a couple tweaks that will make the build fit better in the party, flesh out a backstory that they can integrate even if it doesn't end up going anywhere, and it doesn't really feel like time passes at all. Until Sinclair is sticking his head through the door, surprise artfully hidden at who he finds, as he asks if they're ready to go.

Mike is conspicuously absent from the table when Eddie makes his way to it, and that won't do at all. He's not an asshole, he's just 15. Something like shame crawls up the back of his throat as Steve's reminder sounds in his head. He remembers 15 and the things he said but more than that, as he looks around the table, he remembers being the last to arrive at a hangout of people you're already worried hate you only to find them having a good time without you. 

Eddie has always prided himself on his ability to run a good session. "Stevie, gimme back our paladin, do I need to bring in a hostage negotiator."

A cookie held in one hand while the other smooths down the ruffled fringe of his bangs, Mike re-enters the dining room. The back of his Hellfire shirt is bunched and, if that weren't sign enough he'd been on the receiving end of a perfect Harrington hug, he looks settled. A smile tugging at his face that Eddie hadn't realized how much he missed, he looks boyish and happy and if Eddie didn't before he understands Steve's mission to keep these kids kids by whatever means necessary.

"Alright, now where were we?” He says once Mike is back in his seat beside Will, “Ah yes, you all watch in horror as the vampire spawn, hastened, dash away from you all with the unconscious, but still alive, body of Sir William the Wizened." Before anyone can restart the shouting, and he knows there will be shouting now that they’ve all had a chance to look over their notes and their character sheets, he barrels on. “From the hill behind you comes a shot. An arrow flies, thwip thwip. It slices between you all, before sinking into the back of one of the spawn at the back of the pack. He stumbles to the ground and the rest of the pack leave him to die.”

“We can interrogate him!” 

“Worry about who’s behind us, dude.”

He doesn’t let Mike or Dustin derail him, Eddie continues, “As you turn the hill behind you is nothing but mist. You all know the range of an elven bow, but whoever fired it is nowhere to be seen. You wait, breath held, as a figure all in black slowly approaches. You get the feeling you see him now only because he wants to be seen.

“Will, describe your new character for us!”

#steddie #steve and mike #mike wheeler #good babysitter steve harrington #hard of hearing steve harrington #disabled eddie munson #its the mikes not an asshole he's just a traumatized teenager fic #yknow the one no one was waiting for #for my tag readers will homebrewed a prototype gloomstalker #and the author borrowed the hardwon vampire arc from naddpod #my fic

[voidpacifist]

you can be afraid

word count: less than 1,000 || pairing: steddie || content warnings: nightmares/panic attacks (very brief)

note: I haven't done a oneshot in a long time and I can never seem to do a normal list of headcanons without it being almost novella length or something (wish I was exaggerating lmao). hope you guys enjoy this one!

•

The room is balmy, drenched in moonlight through the window on an August night. Eddie’s fingering through a book on story structure, at a particularly boring chapter, when it happens. At first, it’s just small noises, little grunts that don’t mean much of anything. But then one of them is punctuated with a sharp inhale, with a whimper, and that’s how Eddie knows Steve is having a nightmare again.

Their relationship is anything but conventional — they met on a blind date eleven months ago, decided they weren’t ready for anything serious, then met again just days later at a costume party. It should have been the end of things, if either of them were more cowardly people. Luckily for the two of them, neither of them are cowardly. Not in the face of anything, be it medical bills, or how they look in public, or who their circles of friends are, or the number of times they’ve argued in a month.

Needless to say, almost a year of close proximity to a person is a recipe for being well acquainted with their quirks, including the kind of quirks that are more hindrances than anything. Steve, his rough-exterior, never-needs-help, scary-seeming boyfriend who wears metal in his face and casually has a baseball bat covered in steel nails hiding in their coat closet, has never been an easy sleeper. It took him a long time to warm up to the idea of staying the night together, afraid he’d fling Eddie off the bed in the middle of a terror, mortified at the idea of him not being able to get back in on his own while Steve’s busy fighting off things conjured by his own brain. It took him a long time, but soon a week of trial with little error turned into a permanent nightly residence in a shared bed. His wheelchair is close by if he needs to escape a mess of wild limbs.

Eddie knows what kind of nightmare this is. Steve usually has two kinds — the ones where he can see, and the ones where he’s in the thick of the fight that rendered him sightless. This is the first kind, the kind where faces come to him in flashes, like phantom memories. It’s been three years, almost four if Eddie remembers correctly, since Steve has seen anything clearly at all.

He gasps awake, then is immediately dry heaving over the side of the bed. It’s disorienting for him, having memories distorted by reality in such a visceral, jarring way. Eddie sets his book aside carefully as he moves closer behind Steve on the bed.

“I’m gonna rub your back now, honey,” he says, keeping his voice soft in a way he reserves specifically for his boyfriend. “You have to try breathing now.”

Steve careens back up into a sitting position, his eyes darting wildly about the room, seeking a light source but not landing on anything. It’s heartbreaking, the way they never still, the way they’re always searching, searching, searching. As though even if Steve has accepted for a long time now that he’ll be blind for the rest of his life, his body hasn’t followed suit. It still remembers too much of the way it used to be. Searching, searching, searching.

“That’s it, sweet thing. You’ve almost got it.”

Steve’s breathing is like a whistle inwards, taking huge gulps of air and expelling them with a tremble. His hands grip the blanket with such force that his knuckles are white, that his arms are shaking. Eddie doesn’t remove his hand from Steve’s back, still rubbing in light circles, clockwise and counterclockwise and in other vaguely round shapes. Eventually, his breathing slows, quiets down to the point where Eddie thinks he’s managed to calm himself down.

He turns his face to Eddie’s direction, and Eddie knows Steve is seeing a vague, dark splotch where his silhouette is against the nightstand lamp. His other hand takes the hand Steve has offered, a plea to be grounded. “I’ve never seen you,” Steve cries weakly, and Eddie can feel something in him splinter.

“It’s overrated,” he says before he can even think about it, in a shoddy attempt to add something lighter to the darkness their bedroom has suddenly taken on. The laugh it pulls out of Steve is dry, humorless.

“I just…” he sighs. “I’m forgetting people’s faces and it scares me.”

God, it would scare Eddie, too. He can’t imagine not being able to picture Robin’s face. Nancy and Jonathan’s faces. Wayne’s face. He squeezes Steve’s hand once, a sign between them that means he’s been heard.

“You can be afraid, Stevie.” He swallows, ruminates over his next choice of words for a moment before deciding fuck it and blundering through it. They’ve never really talked about this before — not in this context, not with this much post-nightmare tension still clinging to the air, or maybe that’s just the heat spike of late summer. Whatever. “But you don’t have to be afraid alone. Feel it, feel all of it. Fuck, honey, just never…if you forget anything at all, just don’t forget we’re with you, okay? I’m with you.”

Steve reaches for his face with a muscle memory so impressive, Eddie’s tempted to praise him for it. He doesn’t have time before their lips are mashed together in an ugly, wet kiss. When they pull away, Steve’s wiping streams of tears from his cheeks. “Thank you,” he says, voice less fragile than it was before. He sighs, deep and hewn with exhaustion. “I’ll try to hang onto that. The…not alone part.”

Just like that, Eddie doesn’t think he can splinter at all. “Love you, honey.” He plants a kiss on Steve’s forehead, quick like a punctuation mark, enough to seal it like a promise.

“Love you too, Eds.”

He thinks, watching Steve fully drift off, that perhaps he’s bored enough with his book, eyes drooping just enough that perhaps he’ll fall asleep easily this time. It works better than expected — he stops knowing anything except his and Steve’s breathing as he wraps an arm around him from behind, as his head hits the pillow and the warm light of the room fades into an inkstain behind his eyelids.

The room is balmy, and no nightmares come back to take them.

#steddie #steve harrington #eddie munson #steve x eddie #stranger things #steddie oneshot #steddie ficlet #blind steve harrington #disabled eddie munson #(second one is mostly implied) #disabled4disabled relationship #also #punk steve harrington #(also implied but i might elaborate more on that one later)

[sleepyeye17]

Disabled!Eddie Drabble

In which Eddie gets tired. (This was therapeutic to write.)

Words: 300

Warnings: none

Eddie was halfway across the bars when his elbows locked and he fell. Steve caught him fast, his arms tight around Eddie’s chest.

“I gotchu. There we go. You want a rest?”

“Yeah.”

Steve carried Eddie over to the chair and set him down. It wasn’t until he stepped back that Steve noticed the tears coursing down Eddie’s cheeks.

“Eddie, baby, are you hurt?”

Eddie shook his head.

“No. No, just a cramp.”

“You need the roller?”

Eddie had been doing physical therapy every day for two years now, so Steve knew the drill. Monday Wednesday Friday they did standard muscle building. Tuesday and Thursday Eddie did walking lessons.

Eddie just shook his head.

“I’m okay.”

“Tell me what you need.”

“I’m just… I’m so tired of trying, Stevie.”

“I know.” Steve brushed Eddie’s hair out of his face. I know.”

“I think I might… I might be done.”

“Okay. Let’s take a break. Ice cream?”

“I mean done for good.”

Steve went very still.

“Done with what, exactly?”

“Done with trying to walk. I think… I might just never do it.” Eddie’s chin crumpled and tears filled his eyes. “I’m sorry, I want to, but it’s just— I’m tired.”

Steve cupped Eddie’s face in his hands.

“If that’s what you want, I support you.”

“Would you— would you still love me— if I was in a wheelchair forever?”

“Yes.” Steve’s answer was fast and certain. “Yes, of course.”

“Would you love me if I could never walk with you, or go up or down stairs, or use regular public toilets?”

“Absolutely.”

“You wouldn’t… resent me for quitting?”

“Eddie. I love you. And I will always love you. If you keep going, great. But I see the pain you’re in.” He kissed Eddie gently. “You’re always going to be my hero.”

#eddie munson #steddie #joseph quinn #steve harrington #stranger things #joe keery #joe quinn #steddie fluff #established steddie #steddie drabble #disabled #physical therapy #disabled eddie munson #paraplegic Eddie Munson #quitting

[hargrove-mayfields]

New Hellcheergroveton Au ~~ Short Chapter Fic Coming Soon!

Premise: In a Post-Vecna world, Billy recently started using a cane to help with his developing mobility issues, while Steve, his boyfriend with partial vision loss, chronic migraines, and a TBI that affects his speech, has thought of a plan to help Billy feel more comfortable using it. That plan happens to involve Chrissy, who is blind, and Eddie, who is hard of hearing and uses mobility aids as well (a decked out, fully customized rollator or a wheelchair of the same punkness usually) to manage his fibromyalgia. Secretly they’re all definitely crushing on each other.

Small Preview of Chapter 1 below the cut:

His solution comes in the form of one Chrissy Cunningham.

Ever since she barely survived Vecna crumpling her like a paper ball, her vision never came back. They pinned together her bones and wired her jaw until it healed, but they can’t exactly get her new eyes that aren’t bloodshot and clouded milky-white. So she walks with a cane. It has a little round circle on the end to roll and feel more accurately where she’s going. She likes it better than the hard-ended tapping cane they gave her first.

And that’s a whole revelation.

A cane. Billy can use a cane.

He asks Eddie to arrange a ride for him, and the next day they’re at the pharmacy (thanks to Wayne. Billy loves that guy) buying him an adjustable, pretty cheap cane. There’s a choice between a harsh, eye-burning blue color that reminds him just a little too much of his old junked car, or a plain black one. It’s a pretty easy choice.

He’s just a little bummed that the one he gets is so… boring.

Billy’s second revelation comes in the form of Eddie Munson.

Why it didn’t come to him sooner, he isn’t sure. Eddie was literally there with him the day he got the damn cane. In his wheelchair. Totally decked out in patches and spikes and stickers.

Customized mobility aids. Billy didn’t even know that was a thing!

Well, obviously he did, but he didn’t think that was an option for him. Eddie Munson is so much cooler than him. They both went through hell, but only one of them had come out the other side passionately fighting against the systems that would make it impossible to pay for their meds and their aids were it not for the liability payouts they were owed by the assholes who made the monsters that tried to kill them. Billy admires the social reform shit Eddie gets up to in his free time, when the spoon drawer isn’t empty.

He calls it Cripple Punk. It’s a whole thing. Billy doesn’t like that word so much, but he likes Eddie a lot, and he likes what he stands for too. And honestly, he kinda likes the idea of having spikes on his cane like Eddie has on the back of his chair.

Just the idea makes Billy feel badass too and not so much like somebody’s old granny.

#c slur tw #reclaimed ableist language #hellcheergroveton #hellcheer #harringrove #my moodboards #my writing #ej writer #disabled billy hargrove #disabled steve harrington #disabled eddie munson #disabled chrissy cunningham #pardon my visually impaired ass for flaws in the edits for the moodboard or quality disparities #(that’s why I’m making these au hehe) #oh and also #i plan on adding alt text for the moodboard when I have more spoons btw #no promises on how soon the fic will start releasing but it should be before the start of the next hg week

[dreamwatch]

For the Spotify fic challenge: Steddie, and lucky #13! ❤️

I got this ask on December the 3rd!! It took me forever to come up with something for this, but I got there! I don't think this is as heavy as the tags make it seem, but please heed them @thisapplepielife thank you so much for the ask, it really got the old brain box working!

Spotify Prompt: Free Fallin' by Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers (yes, Tom Petty again!)

Word Count: 3623 | Rating: T | CW: Period typical homophobia, homophobic language, chronic pain, internalised ableism, brief mention of AIDS crisis | Relationships: Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson, Steve Harrington and His Parents | Tags: Protective Eddie Munson, Disabled Eddie Munson, Established Relationship, Meeting The Parents, Steve's Parents Are Trying, Not Beta Read

--

Eddie works fucking hard all week and he just wants to kick back on a Saturday, and do nothing. Feet up on the table, beer in one hand, pizza in the other. Maybe catch a film. Maybe watch a game with Steve. Whatever. It’s his time, he gets to choose how he spends it.

Instead, they’re sitting in the car outside the Harrington’s house, and Steve looks like he’s about to be fed to the wolves. Eddie’s never been brought home to meet the parents before. Usually, he’s never brought home at all. This is as hard for Eddie as it is for Steve. He’s deeply suspicious of Steve’s parents, of their suddenly wanting to meet the guy he’s shacked up with. To get a closer look at the guy who stole Steve’s chance for a good ol’ fashioned midwestern life, white picket fence, sweet wife, a couple of kids, briefcase and tie, trade in the bimmer for a Volvo. All that shit. All that shit that Eddie has no experience with, no desire for. 

Two years together, and this is the first time he’s been summoned. Steve says it’s because they finally believe him. They thought it was a joke at first. They stopped laughing, eventually.

Eddie doesn’t really know what to expect. Robin says his mom is sweet, his dad is nice enough but tough on Steve and there’s still tension there even though Steve’s in his twenties now. Dustin thinks his dad is a hoot, and somehow the idea of Dustin bonding with Mr Harrington feels like a betrayal. But Dustin doesn’t have the full picture, so. There’s that.

“We better go in,” Steve says, not looking at Eddie. Not really looking at anything. And that doesn’t really instil confidence in Eddie, about how all this shit is going to go down, because Steve has been telling him all week not to worry about it, it will be fine. But he’s sitting here looking like the world is about to end. And maybe it is. Maybe that’s exactly what’s about to happen, Steve’s world, that complex relationship with his parents that they cultivated with such tender hands, will just shatter once the reality of everything Steve has been telling them for the last couple of years manifests in their dining room.

Eddie might not have done this before, but he knows his part. Turn up, be polite, play nice. And above all things don’t bite if the other kids don’t play nice. Because Eddie will always be the one that gets the blame. 

He checks his hair in the rearview mirror one last time. It’s tied back, the tiniest bit of hairspray to tame it and stop any unruly hairs from escaping mid canapés. How uncouth. Picking clothes was a whole thing. ‘It’s not a formal dinner’, Steve said, no need to get gussied up, ‘I want you to look like yourself, to be comfortable.’ And Steve probably did mean that, truly, but it didn’t matter how many teeshirts and jeans combos Eddie tried on, none of them seemed to be the ‘Eddie’ that Steve was hoping to bring home to his parents. What followed was an argument, ‘You fucking choose then’, slammed doors, eased over with a kiss and ‘What about these?’ So now he’s in the Harrington’s driveway wearing a pair of clean black jeans, knees neatly hidden behind denim, and a long sleeve (always long sleeves) plaid shirt, which could almost pass for one of Wayne’s if it weren’t for the tiny little polo player embroidered on the pocket. He’s been permitted to wear a pair of Doc Martens he found in a thrift store in Indy, they’re clean and smart enough and they’re fucking comfortable and he needs that. Just one bit of comfort, one bit of him.

They stand on the doorstep and Steve knocks and it strikes Eddie as weird. He moved out of Wayne’s a while ago, but he still has his key, and if he knocked on the front door Wayne would ask Eddie what his last doorman died of. But he forgets sometimes that his upbringing is not the norm, that not every kid got saved from foster care by their uncle because their dad is in jail. 

Mrs Harrington answers the door, and Eddie’s seen pictures of her, he’s been in this house before (he’s done things to her son in this house that would definitely lower its market value) but she’s shorter than he imagined, and Steve bends over to hug her. It’s cute. 

Mr Harrington looms behind her and makes eye contact with Eddie briefly before moving to his son. Another hug, stiffer, with a manly clap on the back. But it’s not nothing, and some of that tension from before has already dispersed from Steve, he has some of his lightness back. A smile back on his beautiful face. Eddie’s not ready to let his guard down yet, he is after all the main course at this particular feast, and he’s just waiting for the cleaver to fall, the teeth to take hold (not teeth, not teeth, not teeth).

“Mom, Dad, this is…” Steve looks at him. Pleading. Loving. Accepting. Scared. “Eddie.”

“Eddie!” says Mrs Harrington, like she actually wants him standing in her hallway, god love her for trying. “It’s lovely to finally meet you.”

Oh God, he’s on now, isn’t he? Steve’s thrown him the ball and he needs to not fumble the catch, or something, he’s watched enough games now that some of it should be sinking in. 

“Mr and Mrs Harrington, it’s lovely to meet you both. Uh, thank you. For inviting me.”

“Amanda, please,” says Mrs Harrington, “and this is David,” and it’s pointed, a little spiky. Eddie likes that. David’s giving Amanda the evil eye and Eddie is trying not to smile about it.

“Eddie. Good to meet you,” the poor guy manages to spit out. And Jesus fuck, he holds his hand out to shake it, and Eddie has to resist the temptation to wipe his hands down the front of his jeans. He’s clean, every inch of him scrubbed and moisturised and cologned. Eddie doesn’t know why he’s sweating on this particular social norm, both Al and Wayne taught him the art of the handshake as a young boy. ‘Shake from the elbow, firm hand, and match their grip’ said Wayne. ‘Ain’t nothin’ worse than a weak handshake’ said Al. 

Amanda offers him the grand tour before Steve reminds her that Eddie’s been here before, only not when they were around. David bristles and walks away and that’s probably for the best all things considered.

They all walk through to the massive kitchen, and Amanda offers him a beer and he nearly breaks his fucking neck with the speed he takes it. 

“Dad thought because it’s such a lovely day we’d grill outdoors. How does that sound for a change?” Steve’s mom rests her hand on Steve’s back, and Eddie sees the movement, the slow comforting strokes. 

There’s a cough from the patio, and David Harrington looms in the doorway. “Why don’t you give me a hand, son.” Huh. Divide and conquer, and so early into the afternoon. Steve looks at Eddie and what is Eddie going to say? How dare you leave me to your mother so that you can bond with Daddy? I haven’t seen mine in years, hasn’t done me any harm. He’s a good boyfriend, so he nods and smiles, hoping that it conveys what he really means. We can leave whenever you need to. Just say the word. I love you.

Amanda bustles around in their kitchen, dicing cucumbers and tomatoes, making herself busy, keeping herself away from him. He’s propped on a stool at their breakfast bar because he needs to get the weight off his leg and he didn’t bring his cane because ‘I’m fine Steve, I don’t need it’, not because he didn’t want the Harrington’s to think he was weak or incapable of working, mooching off their son. Definitely not that.

“So, um, what do you like in your salad? Anything I should leave out? Steve didn’t really give me much to go on. I promise I asked.” She sounds like she cares whether he eats zucchini or not (not, decidedly fucking not).

“Ah, I’m not fussy, honestly. Just, you know whatever you guys usually have is fine.”

She looks over her shoulder, a little conspiratorially. “Not a big salad guy, huh? Don’t worry, neither is David. I know when I’m fighting a losing battle.”

Eddie returns the smile. He keeps throwing furtive glances outside, hoping he can just summon Steve to save him. He should be glad, to be honest, that Steve is still out there with his dad. If it was going badly he’d likely have returned by now.

Amanda keeps up the inane chatter, the small talk grating on him. This is so alien to him, so bizarre. He’s doing his best to keep up with her, though, because this isn’t about him. If they never accept him, never want to see him again, he’s fucking fine with it. But Steve loves them, and despite things being tense over the last couple of years Eddie’s pretty certain they love him.

Eddie’s sipping at his beer when he hears the knife slam against the marble countertop. 

Amanda spins to face him.“Look. I’m as uncomfortable as you, okay? So why don’t we just cut the shit.”

He puts his beer down, sits up and draws his shoulders back, ready for battle. He’s been waiting for this. Unfortunately, his leg decides to spasm painfully at the same time, kind of killing the image. He hisses, clutching his thigh and doing his best to massage the pain away as if that’s all it would take. He hates this, fucking hates that it happens in front of this woman of all people.

“Are you… are you okay?” Amanda makes her way closer, and she looks like she wants to reach out to him but can’t quite bring herself to do it.

Eddie takes a deep, calming breath. “It’s fine. I’m fine. It just… it happens. Sometimes. It’s fine.” It’s not even close to fine but he’ll be fucked if he’s telling her that. About his constant pain, about losing one job because he couldn’t keep up with the rest of the crew, about being shit scared he’s going to lose his current job for the same reason. About how he’s pushing himself so that Steve doesn’t have to carry the load. The Harrington’s don’t get to know any of that.

Amanda nods and creeps closer to him, finally pulling out a stool and sitting at the breakfast bar with him. 

“This is difficult for us. Steve and...” She gestures loosely at him, and he does his best not to tense up at that. “God I need a drink. Do you want another beer?”

He’s maxed out on his pain meds today, for all the good it did, so he really shouldn’t. Steve is particularly strict about that kind of thing. But Steve’s not here. So he nods and watches Steve’s mom pour herself a large glass of wine before returning with another beer for him. She knocks the whole thing back in under a minute.

“Steven’s my pride and joy. He was just such a gorgeous child. Kind, would scream with laughter, just so much happiness in him.” She plays with the rim of her wine glass, and swipes at the lipstick she’s left behind. “From the moment you find out you’re pregnant you think about the person they’ll grow up to be. You hope you’ll be a good parent, that you’ll do right by them. I had a life planned for Steve, in my head. He would come home with a beautiful girl one day and tell me she was the one. They’d get married, and have babies of their own. We’d have grandchildren to spoil.” Amanda smiles wistfully, watching Steve and his Dad through the kitchen window. Eddie hopes he’s okay, hopes Steve’s doing better than he is, anyway. It feels like there’s cement lining his stomach. 

“Mrs Harrington—”

“No,” she says, harshly. “I’m talking now, and you’re going to listen to everything I have to say.

“I thought, Nancy Wheeler, you know her?” He nods, silently. “Nice girl. He brought her home and I could see it in his eyes, you know? Just this… light. He was happy. I thought she was the one.”

“So did Steve,” he says before he can stop himself.

“When it didn’t work out, I felt sad for him, but my boys a catch. It’s not like he was going to be alone for long. But that spark, it just fizzled out of him. He carried this… I don’t know, sadness. He’d smile, and he’d laugh, but it was always there under the surface. And then he started getting into fights, vicious ones. The Hargrove boy put him in the hospital, did you know that?”

He did know that. Eddie had spent many a night lamenting the fact he’d never get the chance to punch Billy’s smug fucking face. He doesn’t tell Amanda Harrington that, though, just scowls and nods.

She tops her wine up again. Eddie just wishes she’d get to the part where she calls him a dirty queer and cuts him a cheque if he’ll leave Steve. He wonders how many pieces he could tear it into before throwing it all over her stone floor.

“When Steve didn’t get into college, David told him to get a job. We didn’t make him pay rent, but if he wanted money he was going to have to earn it. And he did. He got that stupid job at Starcourt, got up early every day, worked the weekends. We were both so proud of him.

“And then there was the fire…” Her voice shakes, and she looks genuinely upset, and, maybe for the first time today, he feels sorry for Amanda Harrington. “We were in Indy that day, having dinner with friends. We didn’t know what had happened. We got home late and he wasn’t here, but he was eighteen years old, you know? We thought he was out with friends. We weren’t worried.”

She takes a large breath, and let’s it out slowly. “We got a call at three in the morning to tell us our son was in the hospital. And when we saw him…” Her voice catches before she looks up at Eddie. “You’re not a parent, Eddie. So you can’t know what it feels like. You don’t know fear until you nearly lose your child. And we kind of did, a little. He was never the same after that,” she says softly. She gives a sour laugh. “And then it happened again.”

“Spring break,” Eddie says. She nods sadly.

Amanda pauses and swirls what’s left of her wine in its glass. “A few months after the earthquake, or whatever it was, he walked in the door one night and he just… He had that light back in his eyes and suddenly my Steve was home. And I knew he was in love.” She smiles, and Eddie sees Steve in his mother, just how alike they are. “It was like Nancy times a hundred. He was glowing. I was so happy to see him like that. And I asked him ‘When are you bringing this mystery girl home to meet us?’ and he’d be coy, get all shy. I asked him outright if he was in love and he didn’t hesitate, just said yes with a huge smile plastered across his face, and yet he wouldn’t bring her home to us.

“And then one day he sits us down and tells us that this girl who he has fallen so deeply in love with is… is a boy.” She looks accusingly at him, and he refuses to shrink under her glare. “And suddenly everything you thought about your child, everything you had planned for them, it’s gone,” she snaps her fingers, “overnight. Now I’m not worrying about teenage pregnancy, I’m worrying about AIDS—”

“That’s not—”

“No, let me finish! Let me get this out, for Christ’s sake.” She knocks back the last of her wine. “He’s explained, all of that to us. And how you’re being… responsible. But we’re old-fashioned. Traditional. Our son coming home and declaring he’s bi — whatever it is —”

“ — sexual.”

“Whatever it is,” she glares at him, “it’s hard for us. But here’s the thing. I haven’t seen him that happy in so long. Maybe ever. You gave him his light back. You. You with your long hair and your tattoos, and your bad reputation… ” She runs out of steam, and blows out a huge puff of air. “He says you talked him into going to college.”

Eddie nods. “He’s smart,” he says, fiercely proud. “Smarter than people give him credit for.”

“He is. I’m glad someone else sees it.” She gives him a ghost of a smile and he feels wrongfooted all of a sudden, no longer sure what they’re doing. The fight he thought he was gearing up for seemingly off the cards.

“We’re getting there, Eddie. And we’ll keep trying. He loves you. And we love him. You do love him, don’t you?”

Eddie’s throat tightens and he swallows hard. “So much it hurts,” he croaks.

She smiles, a tentative thing. Fragile. “Good. We’re on a journey, David and I. I’m a little further along… but he’s getting there. We’re both getting there. I hope you’ll allow us the time to catch up.”

And what can he say to that? His own father told him he was a dirty little freak and tried to beat the gay out of him. Steve’s parents just want more time. They can give them that. Eddie can give them that.

“If it’s okay with Steve, then it’s okay with me.”

Eddie watches the tension in Amanda’s shoulders melt away, the worried frown smooths. “Good. And… thank you. For your patience. And for looking after him. All I ever wanted was for someone to love him and look after him.”

“I will always love him.” And he means it, knows in his heart that whatever might happen in the future, whatever gets thrown their way, he will always love Steve Harrington “How could I not?” 

Amanda offers a shy smile and Eddie thinks maybe he’s done his job. Maybe, at the very least, she will accept them now, and try not to fight it.

She’s still smiling when she looks at the kitchen counter, at the mess of vegetables in various states of being chopped and washed. “You know what?” She gets up and grabs the vegetables, throwing them in the refrigerator with a slam of the door. She turns back to look at him, hands on hips, and Eddie bites back a smile. “Fuck the salad.” He’s open mouthed as she gestures out to the garden. “Dave doesn’t like it, Steve doesn’t like it and I’m not going to make you choke it down out of politeness.”

Amanda crosses the kitchen to him and offers her arm. “We have steps out there. If you fall Steve will kill me.”

Eddie wonders just what exactly Steve has been telling them, how infirm Steve seems to think he is and he’d be lying if it didn’t rankle him, but at the same time his mom is trying to do something nice. She thinks she’s helping. So he’s going to let her.

They walk out into the sunlight, arm in arm, and he sees Steve laughing with his Dad, they both look relaxed and happy and that’s all Eddie wanted from today. They look up as Amanda and Eddie approach, Steve locking eyes with Eddie, eyebrows raised in a silent question. Eddie smiles and nods and Steve visibly relaxes as he goes back to arguing about the best way to grill a steak.

The rest of the afternoon goes smoothly, and while it’s Steve’s Mom who does all the heavy lifting, his Dad isn’t exactly a silent partner. It feels so normal, family in-jokes and laughter and he can see how much Steve has missed this.

When they leave Amanda hugs him, giving him a warm smile, and David shakes his hand, a little longer and a little softer than the first one.

Steve starts the engine, the radio springs to life, and they head out of the driveway, back to their own home. Steve reaches across and takes Eddie’s hand in his. “Thank you,” he says, glancing away from the road for a second.

Eddie squeezes his hand. “You don’t have to thank me.”

“No, I do. I was a dick. The clothes, your hair… I’m sorry, okay? I was just…”

“Scared,” Eddie finishes for him.

Steve nods. “Scared.”

“They love you, Steve. Whatever happens. They love you, okay?”

Steve sighs, finally unburdened. "I know."

They pull up to a stop light, Tom Petty playing on the radio. Steve runs his hand through his hair, finally relaxed enough to muss it up. “Uh, Dad asked if you’d like to bring Wayne.” Steve glances across at him quickly, and then back at the stop light. “Next time?”

He’s not exactly sure what Wayne would say to an invitation to the Harringtons. But he does know that Wayne thinks the sun shines out of Steve’s ass, and there’s not much that he’d say no to if Steve was the one doing the asking.

“Sure,” Eddie says, and he reaches across to this boy, this man, that he loves so fiercely, and pulls him in for a kiss. “Next time.”

#steddie fanfic #Spotify unwrapped writing prompt #eddie munson #steve harrington #disabled eddie munson #cw period typical homophobia #cw chronic pain #cw internalised ableism #cw homophobic language #cw mention of AIDS crisis

[frecklenog]

“Eddie.”

He looks up, and a fifteen year old girl is offering him a small box. For one admittedly foolish moment, he’s struck with the guilt that she might have wasted her allowance on some… something that reminded her of him. A too-expensive trinket that he’d just hock before slipping the cash to… someone. (Fuck, Hopper probably wouldn’t even take it. He’d have to slip it in the once-Chief’s pocket while he wasn’t looking.)

But she’s smiling at him the same way she does with her brothers, and her boyfriend, and the rest of their motley little family. And Eddie caves pretty much instantly.

“I thought it would be easier for you to spin,” El explains, after watching Eddie fumble a couple of times to untie the ribbon. (She doesn’t try to help him, and he’s silently grateful for that.) The box isn’t big, only a three-by-three-by-three inch cube, but that hardly matters. He’s just glad he can get it open on his own. It makes him feel a little less pathetic about the rate of his recovery.

A rate that, evidently, El noticed and took into account.

She’s a smart kid.

Eddie isn’t sure whether to laugh or cry when he sees a much flatter, more circular dreidel than he’s accustomed to. His great-uncle Don has a few like this, made of metal and clay and wood. Some of them were made in Europe, which Eddie only realized the implications of later. But he’d brought them every year, teaching the kids how to play with them at the dining room table. His war buddy Al would watch, pretending to be some kind of sports announcer, which had always made Eddie laugh.

Now, he pulls out the top and inspects it. The letters are hand-painted. “Jonathan teach you how to use this yet?”

El nods. She rattles off the letters, the meanings, the house rules that the Byers use. Then she pulls out a bag of chocolate coins — the same brand his great uncle used to buy.

“I tried to make sure it would be balanced. Do you want to see how well it works?”

Eddie smiles at her, and finds he doesn’t have to force it.

“You know it, kiddo.”

#i’m a lil late but #chag chanuka sameach! 💖🫶🏼 #stranger things #eddie munson #el hopper #el byers #jewish byers #jewish eddie munson #disabled eddie munson #shut up emrys #art time

[str4wb3rry-guy]

i need there to be more fics w eddie disabled from being quite literally torn apart by demobats, there is no way u can walk w/o a cane after that

plssss it would make the fix-it fics way more realistic and disabled rep !!!

#disabled eddie munson #eddie munson #stranger things #disabled representation #disabled rep

[justrandomfandomstm]

Ok I love steddie an shit but i do wanna say that there is a real frame where Eddies leg looks very much ... off

So

HEAR ME OUT

disabled amputaded Eddie

BC I NEED MORE OF BLIND AND DISABLED MAX AND AMPUTATED EDDIE BC THERE ARE CONSECUENCES BUT THEY WORK THROUGH IT TOGETHER AND THEY SACRIFICED THEMSELVES AND THAT HAD AN EFFECT

and hurt/comfort steddie lives in my head rent free

anygays tag me in fics k

Edit: i also am in need of more DEAF/HARD OF HEARING STEVE. IT IS A NEED NOT A WANT

#steddie #disabled eddie munson #disabled max mayfield #steve x eddie

[bread52487]

Welcome, to me projecting like it's an Olympic sport!

I got thinking, if Eddie had hEDS, and became a rockstar, and his fans would always theorize he's a vampire. Because he doesn't really appear to age. But in reality, people with EDS for the most part don't really get wrinkles or any of that.

But that just wouldn't be fun to tell, so Eddie lets them think what they want for a good while. He even wears stupid plastic fangs sometimes for the hell of it on stage!

It isn't until his knee gives out on stage, and he has to take a full pause to sorta, smack it back in place, that he has to straight up explain "Hey! My body is a little messed up. But at least I'm hot forever! And got some cool party tricks."

Steve scolds him for showing off, because he knows that it will eventually make it all get worse the more Eddie decided to slip his shoulder to gross someone out.

After that, Eddie makes a point to regularly donate to charities. And when he gets letters from fans thanking him and some in person, showing off decorated mobility aids and stuff and thanking him for letting them he more confident, he totally doesn't cry every time. Especially not when fans notice him wearing various knee/ankle braces and decide to send him tiny patches to decorate them with.

#eddie munson #stranger things #headcanon #disabled eddie munson #heds #written by someone with hEDS #who has had to stop in the middle of a convo to smack my shoulder back in #minor steddie in there

[i-used-to-wear-the-fedora]

Mute Eddie AU, The Sound of Silence

Eddie Munson talked a lot. He loved to talk. He loved to yell, scream, sing, to say he was loud would be an understatement.

His last moments were spent playing the guitar and making as much noise as possible to attract the attention of the demobats and save his friends. Eddie Munson died a hero. At least, that's what he thought before he passed out drowning in his own blood.

Then he woke up. Eddie's eyebrows scrunching up in confusion as he realized he was in a small white hospital room. In one of the chairs next to his bed was his uncle Wayne, quietly snoring as he slept.

'Wayne?' Eddie called out. Well he tried to. But nothing came out of his mouth except a choked whine. The teen blinking in confusion at the pain in his throat. Looking down to see bandages that stretched from just under his jaw all the way down to his chest. Trying to sit up pained Eddie. Panic starting to set in as he wondered why he couldn't speak. More choked noises coming out before Wayne started to wake. Noticing Eddie's panic as he got up.

"Whoa, hey calm down kid." Wayne tried to reassure his nephew but it did little to help. Eddie frantically trying to get something, anything, out of his mouth but nothing came. Why couldn't he talk? Why did his throat and chest hurt so much? Trying to get out of the bed only resulted in his uncle pushing Eddie back down as he hit the call button next to the bed. Eddie trying to push the older man away when the door to the room opened where three people in scrubs rushed in. Eddie's eyes darting to them as the shorter woman spoke.

"Mr. Munson, please calm down." She said as she approached. "We know you're very confused about what's happening, but you need to make sure you don't stress your injuries any further, okay?" It took the goth a few moments to calm down enough to nod his head. Wayne moving back and allowing Eddie to crawl back into his hospital bed so he could lie down. The woman took a notepad and a pen from the table by the door and handed it to the young man. Immediately he began writing and in large lettering quickly scribbled.

*Why can't I talk?*

"I'm...not at liberty to disclose too much information, but we believe that due to your attack, your vocal chords have been heavily damaged. You were covered it cuts and bites, it's a miracle you survived.''

Right. Demobats. Eddie's eyes narrowed and he wrote again.

*But it'll get better, right?*

The look the woman had on her face made Eddie's stomach drop.

"I'm sorry, but they're beyond repair. You'll never be able to talk again."

After that everything kind of blurred together. The doctors explaining everything, Wayne trying to talk to him, the cops and men in suits having him sign papers saying he was exonerated of all charges he'd been accused of. Eddie couldn't even remember the bullshit cover story they gave. He should've been elated that his name was finally cleared and the world didn't end but the teen couldn't bring himself to be happy about this.

The kids had tried to stop by to see him but he refused to let them in. Eddie didn't want anyone to see him like this.

"Boy, I know you're going through a lot, but wallowing alone ain't gonna solve anything." Wayne tried to get through Eddie but the boy simply responded by rolling over to face away from the man. He could feel his uncle staring at his back but he stubbornly refused to look back at him.

It was another week before the young man was finally discharged. Apparently an "earthquake" tore through Hawkins and destroyed about half the town. Including their trailer park. The suits that had them sign nondisclosure agreements had so "generously" relocated them to an apartment building near the edge of town. Save a few pieces of furniture from the thrift store, the place was almost completely bare. Eddie frowned as he looked at the plain white walls, holding the small plastic bag of personal effects he had left in a tight grip.

Going into the room designated as his, Eddie locked the door behind him and plopped down on the bare mattress that still didn't have have a frame yet. Tossing the bag to side and laying down, Eddie curled into himself and now they he finally had the privacy to do so, the goth buried his face in his arms and he began to silently cry.

#stranger things #fanfiction #stranger things au #eddie munson #mute eddie au #disabled eddie munson #wayne munson #eddie munson lives #there will be comfort later but right we're on big sad boi hour

[willowworkswithwords]

Any Time You Need a Friend

Chapters on ao3: one, two, three

Steve and Eddie both have bad nights, struggling around bad memories and hightened anxiety in November. The only reason Steve can pull himself out of bed is because Eddie needs him. Turns out, Steve needed him just as much. Wayne starts to see Steve's tendency to deny himself for the sake of others.

TW: Steve deals with anxiety-induced food issues and denies himself food out of his need to make sure others are taken care of. Nothing is graphic or overly detailed, but this whole chapter is about Steve having some trouble with keeping himself well-fed. Please take care of yourselves!!

- Chapter Three: Teach a Man to Fish -

November came before they knew it. Eddie was still walking with a cane, but he could go longer periods of time without it. Max was improving in physical therapy and wasn’t shutting Lucas out anymore. But it was still November, and everyone was sticking together even more than usual.

Hopper said it was the anniversary effect, that everything felt so much worse around the date. They did their best to lean into what their government therapist said, that talking about it all, not just to recall what they needed to do but to talk it through, would help, so the Party had been working on catching Eddie and Robin up on what they’d missed. Nancy and Steve were quick to go to the very beginning.

So, Steve had found out about the box.

Nancy kept it at the bottom of her closet. It held three things neatly and delicately, all Barb’s: the notecards Barb had helped her make, a book she had left at Nancy’s house a couple days before the pool party, and the last picture of her, taped back up and framed.

Here he was, a week after the box, and he was staring at his empty fridge with deep bags under his eyes. His stomach had started to hurt. It wasn’t his normal hunger, or that weird feeling he sometimes got, like an anti-hunger when everything was too much and he couldn’t stand adding food to the list. This just hurt.

It hurt and his head was starting to pound and he’d only just woken up, hands still shaking at his sides, and his fridge was really, really empty. So he just…went back to his room. The deep blue of the not-quite-dawn was pushing against the windowpane, and Steve covered himself in his comforter and curled around his empty stomach, wondering why things were so damn hard right now.

-

The rising sun was just about to hit his bed when the phone rang. Steve let it go. It rang again and somehow it seemed louder. Steve didn’t move. His stomach still hurt, and his head wasn’t any better. He hadn’t slept.

His walkie went off and he had it in his hands before he’d even registered getting out of bed.

“Steve, do you copy? Over.” Eddie’s voice was almost calm, but Steve had heard enough of his check-in calls over the walkie before to hear the rapidly building panic beneath it.

“I’m here. What’s wrong. Over.”

His hands were shaking again.

“Oh thank Christ—Steve answer your fucking phone.”

The click of the walkie resounded in Steve’s empty room, and Steve stared at it for a second before pressing down the button.

“Uhhhh, you didn’t say over? Over.”

His voice doesn’t shake but it sounds small even to him.

“Fuck—over. Answer your phone. Over and out.”

Steve’s phone rang a third time, and this time Steve was already on his way to the handset in the hallway.

“Eddie I’m sorry I didn’t realize it was you calling I—”

“Have you eaten breakfast yet.”

Eddie doesn’t ask it like a question. He says it like he knows the answer and is awaiting confirmation. Steve shuffles despite Eddie not being able to see him.

“It’s like, barely seven a.m. Eddie.”

“Yeah, but you’ve been awake, right?”

And before Steve can try to deny it Eddie bulldozes on.

“I’ve been awake too, sucky ass nightmares, barely got like, three fucking hours, I’ve been staring at the static on the TV man, I feel like I’m gonna puke kinda, Wayne’s not back yet but he should have gotten back an hour ago—”

“Woah woah woah, Eddie, breathe, dude.” Steve makes an effort to let Eddie hear his inhale and exhale, even as Eddie laughs hysterically for a while before he can get it together enough to mimic him.

When Eddie has been able to breathe for a couple minutes, Steve pushes his fingers into his eyes, pushing the migraine away from his eyes, back into a little box called Ignore Until Not Busy With Important Shit, and exhales.

“I’ll be there in ten, Ed.”

Eddie lets out a shaky exhale again.

“Thanks, Steve. See you soon?”

“See you soon, Eddie.”

Steve could drive to Eddie’s in his sleep, for Eddie and for Max. The amount of times Steve has had to drive to each of the kids’ houses in the middle of the night to make sure they were all ok was kind of embarrassing.

The only light on in the trailer was in the living room, the other end of the trailer still dark even against the rising sun. Wayne’s truck was gone, Eddie’s van parked right by the ramp Wayne had built to make sure both Eddie and Max could get in and out as needed. Steve pulled up into his spot, on the other side of Eddie’s van.

He knocked and Eddie slammed into the door, the locks being flung open as fast as possible. Eddie was never in the trailer without both of the doors locked down tighter than a hard level in DND. Wayne had only stopped Eddie’s anxiety fueled lock-down when he’d tried to jam all the windows shut. November may not be an anniversary date for Eddie, but the normal fears had been bolstered with the stories from all the Upside Down stories from before March, with each new detail and each new horror they told him. Steve knew Eddie needed to know, that he wanted to know, but he wished everyone else’s anxiety wouldn’t have to rub off on him so much (his own included).

Eddie’s face is just this side of frantic, just a little wild still, and Steve steps into the trailer without another word. The door snaps shut, each lock sliding back into place, then Eddie turns and presses his head into Steve’s chest, sighing shakily. Steve wraps his arms around him and smiles sadly at his mop of hair.

“Hey Eddie.”

“Hey Steve.”

-

Wayne comes home just as Eddie pulls the waffles out of the toaster and Steve is finishing up the eggs (an over easy egg for Eddie and a hard egg for himself, because the texture of wet eggs makes him gag). The special knock only Wayne and Eddie use breaks through the album they’d put on and Eddie flies over to the door.

Wayne is yanked into a hug before he can even get in, and Steve lets them be while he plates up his hard egg without a word for Wayne, grabbing the syrup from where he knows it lives at the way back of their cabinet.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t call, kid, the power went out and I didn’t want to waste time by stopping somewhere,” Wayne says as he squeezes the back of Eddie’s neck. Eddie smiles shakily and they part, coming over to the table once Wayne slides all the lock closed.

“Looks good, kid.”

Steve takes a second to realize Wayne’s talking to him, then smiles at him as he slides the egg and waffles over to Wayne.

“It was a joint effort.”

Steve is still smiling, plating up waffles for himself, stomach growling really loud actually, when he looks up at Eddie and his smile falters. Eddie is looking back and forth between Steve’s plate and Wayne’s, frowning.

“I thought that—” Eddie begins, but Steve can’t let Wayne know, it’s not a big deal. They’d used up the last two eggs, it was fine. Waffles was more than Steve would have eaten at home anyways.

“I’m not in the mood for eggs, Ed, I just wanted to make sure there was something for Wayne when he showed up.”

Eddie looks suspiciously at him, and Steve can see Wayne’s eyebrows furrow.

“Steve, was this egg…”

“It’s all good, Wayne. I’m not that hungry right now anyways.”

Eddie is staring at him, Steve knows he is, because they’d just been talking about how loudly Steve’s stomach was growling before Wayne had knocked, and he knows Wayne had heard its growl a minute ago. Steve can’t look at either of them. It’s not a big deal, really. He’s fine.

An exchange must happen between Wayne and Eddie while Steve is busy shoveling waffle into his mouth, because Wayne’s chair is scrapping against the linoleum and he shuffles into the kitchen. Steve figures it’s for the coffee that just finished brewing, and he’s sort of right.

A cup of coffee appears by his plate, but so does a banana.

“Oh uh, thank you sir—um, Wayne.”

Shit, he was trying not to let that slip out so much anymore. He knows it’s a dead give-away that he’s anxious too, because he always falls back on old habits when he’s unsure how to interact with Wayne. Or honestly, with anyone.

“No worries, Steve. No use going hungry when there’s plenty to eat.”

Briefly, Steve looks up. Wayne has a small smile on his face but worry in his eyes. Eddie meets his eyes too, smiles a little softer.

Steve picks up the banana.

#steve harrington #eddie munson #steve harrington has anxiety #eddie munson uses a cane #disabled eddie munson #good parent wayne munson #good uncle wayne munson #unspecified eating issues #tw eating issues #anxiety #panic attack #not graphic #stranger things #willow talks #willow's writing #my writing #my fic

[bloodyfinchesandgreenbirds]

He’s been hit with my disabilitification beam

I love putting random things on cheeks of characters I don’t even care if it looks good

#original post #text #writing #picture #eddie munson is disabled #disabled eddie agenda #meme #disabled #disabled headcanons #stranger things 4 #stranger things (2016) #stranger things #stranger things season 4 #disabled eddie munson #eddie munson #joseph quinn #eddie munson headcanons #all characters are disabled #stranger things headcanon #disability

[voidpacifist]

I'm the kind of steddie truther where I firmly believe steve and eddie put stickers on each other's things and PARTICULARLY if eddie wears orthotic braces and steve wears hearing aids? they just stick shit to them and every time a sticker wears off, they get together and print a new sheet for each other

#deaf steve harrington #disabled eddie munson #steddie #steddie headcanon #steve x eddie #steve harrington #eddie munson #stranger things

[sleepyeye17]

Another Disabled!Eddie drabble

Warnings: Some legal stuff, some ableism

Words: 117

After the hearing, Steve grabbed burgers to go from a nearby diner, and he and Eddie ate in the car. Eddie didn’t like eating in restaurants anymore. Even when the restaurant had a wheelchair accessible table, Eddie felt like people were watching him, speculating on his level of disability, wondering if he could understand them or if he would cause problems. People expected Steve to order for him, and were surprised when he spoke. It was easier overall for them to eat out.

They ate in silence, both reflecting on the hearing. Eddie’s lawyer had been passionate, which was good. It seemed like there was a solid chance of a hefty payout. The judge seemed sympathetic.

“Your lawyer seems… intense,” Steve said.

“Yeah.”  Eddie fidgeted with his fries. “He was the right choice. He’ll get us the compensation.”

Steve bit his lip.

“He’s wrong, though.”

Eddie looked up.

“What?”

“He’s effective. But he’s full of shit.”

Eddie just blinked in confusion, and Steve went on.

“All that stuff about how you were destroyed in the Upside-Down, and how your life has been ruined by the Lab, and how you used to have potential but now you don’t? That’s bullshit.”

Eddie managed half a smile.

“You think so?”

“I know so. I mean, if it gets you guys the money you need, fine. But don’t you believe it for a second.”

“I think most people would agree that being a paraplegic is pretty shitty.”

“Obviously it’s shitty. But you’re paralyzed, not dead. You weren’t destroyed, you weren’t ruined, you’re right in front of me, being fucking gorgeous and talented and–”

“Being what now?” Eddie was grinning. Steve blushed, but didn’t look away. He took Eddie’s hand in his, and felt the pulse racing in Eddie’s wrist.

“And amazing. Fucking– God, so amazing.”

Eddie somehow managed to look cocky even with tears in his eyes. He beamed, so bright it hurt Steve’s eyes.

“Damn right I am.” He kissed Steve’s knuckles. “Love you.”

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