#for clerical reasons: the plan worked vecna's dead eddie has no idea he likes men but steve DOES and IS flirting on purpose

[poplarste]

uhhhhhh that tiktok (thanks @peter-pantomime, hope you don’t mind the tag) that points out that Eddie coulda zipped up his leather jacket and tac vest combo and maybe not been eaten by bats, but it’s Eddie saying “Steve? [significant pause] Make him pay” and Steve taking a step forward to zip up his jacket and saying something cheesy

...upon reflection i didn’t think i was actually going to sit here and write this all in one go but lo and behold i’m supposed to be working on an article shhhh

further update: this is now on ao3 Something crosses Steve’s face when Eddie points out that he and Dustin are nooooooot heroes, but Eddie ignores it in favor of indulging himself, just for a second, watching the set of the three heroes’ shoulders as they move toward Creel House.

“Hey, Steve?” It’s out of his mouth before he can stop himself, some unchained impulse to at least let Steve know Eddie respects the fuck out of him now, just in case they both die.

The real heroes turn back, waiting.

“Make him pay.”

Steve retreads those last few steps, back over to Eddie and Dustin, claps a hand to Eddie’s leather-clad shoulder, the sound of it drowned out by sickening red thunder. He leaves his hand there, too, and Eddie’s confusion is only silenced by the thudding of his heart when Steve’s free hand comes up to his chest.

He tugs at the teeth of Eddie’s War Zone vest, real live actual tactical armor to replace the battle vest that Steve’s still got over his fresh War Zone shirt and under his fresh War Zone jacket, for reasons Eddie doesn’t have the brain power to contemplate. It doesn’t seem at all like him -- they’ve been all tense and snarky at each other (and Eddie supposes he gets why) since he’d pinned Steve to that boathouse wall and held glass to his throat. That felt like a lifetime ago, though. They’d been different people then, or at least, Eddie thought maybe he had been.

“You should zip up,” he tells Eddie, like he’s actually saying something else. “You’ll catch your death.”

Eddie does not catch his death, though the blood under Dustin’s fingernails from keeping pressure on his neck loudly proclaims just how close they came. He knows it’s just luck that he didn’t bleed out anyway -- a couple inches toward his chin and he’d be just as mangled as the poor, brave vest Robin had insisted on confiscating for cremation later -- but now that the anesthetic has worn off and the fever has gone and the fresh stitches in his face and neck start to itch like a lot, actually, it occurs to him that if Steve Harrington hadn’t taken that one moment of absolute character-breaking insanity, Eddie’d have been ripped apart. Bled out, there on the rocky ground of the Upside Down, probably all over Dustin since the little shit had come after him anyway.

Fucking kid. Eddie loves him so goddamn much.

But back to Steve, and his incomprehensibly tender moment in the middle of the apocalypse.

Once they were all patched up and cleared and definitely not rabid, thank you Robin, they’d been released. Free to go. Nary an NDA in sight, just a withering look from Agent Stinson and an edict to just “please, for the love of God lay low until we sort this out.”

Cool, as far as Eddie’s concerned. He’s too busy not scratching at his stitches and reeling over Steve inadvertently saving his life. Eventually, he can’t resist the urge. The line rings and he fidgets with the cord.

“Robin,” says the voice after the ringing ends, no greeting at all. “For the last time, I’m not rabid, none of the blood tests showed any scary Upside Down shit, everything is --”

“Steve.”

Steve stops on the other end. Which is fair, really, since Eddie’s literally never called him on anything that’s not a walkie talkie before, and that was mostly incidental. “Eddie. What’s going on, man?”

The edge in his voice is subtle, enough to dismiss and make the question either casual or an alarm bell, but Eddie doesn’t miss it. He just gets to the point, and Steve-on-the-other-end can do with it what he will. Eddie’s not his mom. But Wayne raised him right even if the rest of Hawkins doesn’t think so, so he’s gotta say something. “You know you saved my life, right? The jacket thing. Down in... Before we split the party.”

“What?”

“You told me to zip up my jacket, and the vest,” Eddie insists. “I’d have been chewed up like a cheap dog bone if you hadn’t. I just. Thanks, man.”

Steve’s quiet on his end of the line. At first, Eddie thinks maybe he’s just stunned that The Freak has any manners, but as the silence stretches on, he begins to wonder if actually the line’s been cut or something.

“Steve? Buddy? Steeeeeeeve,” he croons into the phone. “You OD on pain meds over there or something?” Steve, having been significantly more chewed up and run around on it far longer than Eddie, had been stuck in the hospital for several days with a high-grade fever, after all was said and done and Vecna was burnt up to a crisp. None of it had seemed particularly Upside-Down-y, just regular exhaustion, dehydration, and good old rampant infection, but once he’d been released, Eddie had it on good authority that he was a champ about taking antibiotics and an absolute nightmare about taking the pain pills they’d given him for all of the…everything on his back, arms, and sides.

There’s a strangled noise from down the phone line, and Eddie wonders if the phone actually is fucked. Before he can ask, though –

“Guess I did, huh?” Steve’s voice is soft. “Don’t mention it.”

Eddie scoffs a little, playful but casual. “Don’t worry, I don’t want to think about it much, either.” Steve actually does let out a chuckle at that, and Eddie grins, since there’s no chance of anyone seeing and calling him on it. What, then, is the harm? It’s just a little hero crush. “Hey, I’ll let you go, man. See you around, when Buckley lets you rejoin society.”

Steve groans just a little at that. “Yeah. Robin.”

“Robin,” Eddie agrees. “Later, Steve.”

And then Steve’s voice is all soft again, like it was when Eddie thanked him, like it was when he told Eddie to zip up his vest, and now – “Yeah. Later, Eddie.” There’s a lingering silence on the line, like Steve’s waiting in case Eddie has more to say.

Eddie hangs up first, and resolutely doesn’t think about it.

Who doesn’t get crushes on heroes, anyway.

#poplarste.mp3 #poplarste.fic #steddie ficlet #steddie #is it a ficlet if it's 1k and change??????? #catch me double checking the scene while writing this #and finding to my delight that indeed there is a thunderclap and some red lightning right there where i'd already written it in #this was NOT supposed to be 1000 words. #there's an expanded version in my head where Eddie tries to act normal about his crush in public and is a total bitch about it #but even this much is more than i expected to write right now at this moment when i'm SUPPOSED to be doing other things so. enjoy i guess? #for clerical reasons: the plan worked vecna's dead eddie has no idea he likes men but steve DOES and IS flirting on purpose