cw: mentions of scarring, canon-typical violence, flashback (not graphic), minor body horror (again, not graphic, mostly just emotional feelings about scars)
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Everyone gave him weird looks when they walked in, quickly schooling their features when they noticed he was awake and watching them.
He didn’t know exactly what that was about.
They had him on a lot of good drugs.
But eventually he got weaned off them, and he noticed the pull of bandages on his side, and his arm, and his neck, and his face.
He was still unable to get out of bed. Still couldn’t even reach his arms above his chest for more than a few seconds.
But he damn sure reached up to feel the cloth and plastic surrounding his cheek. How had he not noticed for days? How had no one bothered him about it?
Maybe they had and he just didn’t notice. The morphine was one hell of a drug.
Wayne was soft, patient with him. Saw him touching it, saw the way his eyes filled with tears. He’d never been particularly vain, hadn’t cared much about what he looked like to others, but this felt bigger than that. This felt like he was changed in a way that everyone could see.
Add it to the list of things people could bully him for.
He cried himself to sleep, Wayne’s hand in his, silently comforting in the way he’d always done.
When he woke up again the next morning, he was alone.
It was the first time he’d been alone since the boathouse.
He could swear he heard bats outside his door, screams coming from the attached bathroom, flashes of someone dying on the ceiling.
He felt the sharp sting of teeth puncturing his skin.
He felt hopelessness creep into his bones as he gave in.
Maybe this time they would finish the job.
“Eddie!”
Steve Harrington’s voice broke through the thoughts, panicked enough to bring Eddie back to his hospital bed within a second of hearing it.
“Shit, are you okay?” He continued, hand brushing against Eddie’s bandaged cheek.
Eddie nodded once, closed his eyes, leaned into the touch.
He could blame it on any number of things if Steve felt weird about it. The morphine, the flashback, the loneliness.
“You’re okay, Eddie. I promise. Won’t let anything happen to you,” Steve whispered.
Eddie believed him.
He fell back asleep with Steve’s hand gently cupping the mangled side of his face.
If Steve could still touch him there, then maybe it wouldn’t be so bad.
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Steve came by every day, sometimes in the early morning, before visiting hours officially started, sometimes well after Wayne had left to get some sleep. He always smiled when he walked in, a genuine one, not the one everyone else gave that was so fully of pity and pain he couldn’t bear to make eye contact. He sat down on the side of the bed, not the chair like everyone else, not scared to be close.
And every single day, without fail, he would run his finger along the edge of Eddie’s bandage on his face, watching his own movements and cataloging any changes.
Eddie sat quietly, still, scared to put words to anything happening. Scared to tell Steve what it meant to him to have someone acknowledge his pain in this way. Scared to think Steve could mean anything by it.
It was easy to pretend Steve was doing this because he cared.
Maybe he did care.
But he didn’t care the way Eddie wanted him to, needed him to.
So he stayed quiet, still.
He watched.
He fell asleep while Steve talked about his day, the kids, what Joyce made Hopper do around the house.
He woke up alone most days, but that was okay, because Steve would be there eventually.
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“You ready to get that thing off?” Wayne asked, gesturing to the bandage.
“Oh. Today?” Eddie suddenly didn’t want to ever be without the bandage. Removing it meant he’d see what was under it.
It meant seeing how much that place had ruined him.
The pull of the stitches hadn’t been as obvious with the pull of the bandage masking it.
But now it’s all he felt.
The nurse smiled at him as she put some antibiotic cream over the area, saying he would probably still have to keep it extra clean for the next week or so while the stitches did their job.
Wayne smiled at him in the way that meant he didn’t really want to smile at all, but knew Eddie needed him to.
Steve didn’t come.
Eddie didn’t sleep.
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He woke up with panic in his chest and a silent scream in his throat.
He woke up with Steve’s hand on his face.
Gentle, soft, but a strong comfort.
“Promise I washed them first. They said we have to be careful about germs,” Steve said quietly.
“You don’t have to. I know it’s…it’s gross. It’s ugly. I’m ugly.”
Steve shook his head. “No. Not gross. Not ugly. Alive.”
“Steve-“
“You’re alive, Eddie. You could have your entire face held together by staples and you would still be a miracle. You’d still be the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
Well, Steve’s charm wasn’t an exaggeration, was it?
He wasn’t even sure if the skin barely pulled together could blush anymore, or if the heat that should be on his cheek was burning on the outside the way it felt like it was on the inside.
“It’s gonna be awful when it heals. I saw it in the mirror.” Eddie could feel every stitch in his jaw, the few that spread across the corner of his mouth and bottom lip, the ones that were nearly up to his ear. “I’ll always have a crooked face. The scar will always be huge. It’s all anyone will see.”
“Then they aren’t looking.”
Eddie bit his lip, eyes searching Steve’s. “But you are.”
“No. I’m seeing. There’s a difference. I see you. I see what you’ve survived. I see the mark it left on you. I know it wasn’t just the scars that cover your skin.” Steve leaned his head down, touching Eddie’s forehead with his own. “We all have them. And we’re all still here. Your heart’s beating. That’s all that matters to me.”
“Who knew you were so good with words?” Eddie smiled sadly.
“Robin says I’m just good at not having a filter.”
“She’s right as always.” Eddie wrapped his fingers around Steve’s wrist, turning as slowly as he could to kiss his palm. “You’re not scared of it.”
“No. Are you?”
“I’m scared that you’ll change your mind when it’s always there as a reminder of what happened.”
Steve kissed his nose, making him smile for the first time in what felt like years.
“I’ll have the reminder that I got you out of there. That no matter what, the bats couldn’t finish the job. That you were stronger and you made it.” Steve let his hand drop, but quickly laced his fingers with Eddie’s. “I know it’s a lot to ask of you to trust me, but will you? For today?”
“Just today?”
“I’ll ask again tomorrow.”
“And what? Every day after that?”
Steve smirked.
His eyes were glistening with tears, but Eddie could tell it wasn’t sadness or fear.
“If that’s what I have to do.”
They hadn’t even talked about feelings, not really. Nothing that made any sense to Eddie, nothing that they could define. A part of Eddie was still convinced he was in a coma and dreaming this entire conversation up.
But even the nurse had noticed the way Steve watched him, how he touched him, how he fought for him. She said he’d been a firecracker from the moment he carried him into the hospital, dripping blood on the tile, staining the halls with his demands for help.
Wayne said he barely left his side the first day, only doing so when the doctors had told him they would call the cops if he didn’t.
Erica even noticed how things had changed between them, stating that she refused to watch her babysitter and the only DM she had respect for make out.
But Steve held Eddie, made him feel like he could get out of the hospital bed and live a life that wouldn’t keep him running. Steve was there.
Steve might even love him. If not now, then some day.
And Eddie could trust him today.
He could probably trust him tomorrow.
“Kiss me?” Eddie probably shouldn’t. The stitches tugged when he talked, and another mouth anywhere near his wounds was just asking for an infection.
But Steve would be careful. He knew what Eddie could handle.
It was barely a kiss. A graze of the lips at most.
But it was the best kiss Eddie had ever had.
At least until tomorrow.
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✨🤍 some steddie softness for @thefreakandthehair's birthday, i hope it's the very best so far! 🤍✨(please please your day comes first, read this whenever you have time and space to breathe 🤍)
Eddie is not a religious man — far from it, actually. But there are a few things that make him believe in higher powers. In angels. In destiny and luck and a love so strong it could conquer everything.
This very moment is one of them.
Stevie, soft and sleepy beside him in the back of the car as Nancy is driving, the dim light of the passing street lamps painting his face in hues of gold like the light itself favours Steve Harrington, caressing his features with the softest of shadows.
He’s beautiful. Ethereal. Perfectly angelic with his eyes closed, his whole body turned towards Eddie in the warmth of the car.
It takes Eddie’s breath away, his heart taking up space where before there were his lungs and ribcage, growing in size until he feels like he is about to burst. And even then he keeps looking, staring at that pretty face that looks so at peace with the whole world right now. Eddie has never seen Steve like this, but now he understands why people start wars. Why people defy gods and death itself to be with their one true love. Why Orpheus looked back.
He understands. Because Steve, his Stevie, warm and safe and perfectly fine in the backseat of a car? That is everything. He doesn’t even need to kiss or touch so long as he just gets to look. And be. Oh, to be at the same time that Steve is.
That might just be life’s greatest gift to him.
A tiny sigh falls from Steve’s lips and Eddie really, really might be about to burst.
“Hey, angel,” he whispers, because moments like this aren’t made for anything but hushed words, their truths too heavy, too sincere for the world to hear and keep on spinning. He doesn’t need the world to spin as long as there is Steve.
“Hi,” Steve whispers back, his eyes still closed but the smile lighting up, luring Eddie in like he is but a moth drawn to the flame.
Eddie leans in and rests his forehead against Steve’s, his hand coming up to cradle a light-kissed cheek. Steve leans into it, following Eddie’s hand like maybe they are twin stars pulling each other closer until there will be an explosion of light and creation. Steve nuzzles against his palm and leans further into Eddie’s body until they share the same breath — but still it’s not enough.
Eddie wants to say so many things now that their hands are entangled, their soft exhales mixing. But after a while he notices that Steve is humming before gently singing along to the song coming quietly from the speakers.
“Take it easy with me, please. Touch me gently like a summer evening breeze. Take your time, make it slow. Andante, Andante. Just let the feeling grow.”
Eddie knows the song, recognises it instantly, and his breath gets stuck in his throat once more. Because he has a secret. He loves it. He has imagined for the longest time that one day, someone would make it his song. Sing it for him, to him.
He’s never told anyone because he has a reputation to uphold and more than enough metal music to listen to, but of course Steve wouldn’t care about his secrets being secret, and just oh so casually make his deepest, most private of dreams come true.
He’s an angel, that one. A hero. Myths and fairy tales should be woven around that heart of his, folklore speaking of his name until history itself wouldn’t dare to forget. No one can convince Eddie otherwise. Not in that moment, not with Steve singing so quietly, so gently, so adoringly.
I think I love you. I think I can’t ever stop, not when I’ve seen you like this. Not when you’ve just shown me what life can be about, what it should be about. Gods, I love you and love you and love you.
That’s what he wants to say.
But all that comes out is a marvelled, “Shit, Stevie.”
It has the desired effect of a huffed breath, an even wider smile, and Steve cuddling further into Eddie’s side, eyes still closed. Eddie brushes a kiss to Steve’s forehead and feels like maybe his love can make it into the fairy tale, too.
It will. Oh, it will, when Steve finally lifts his head from Eddie’s shoulder and looks at him through hooded eyes, all soft and sleepy and safe. A moment passes like this and Eddie can’t breathe, maybe he can never breathe again — but it only lasts until Steve slowly, so very slowly begins to lean in to claim Eddie’s lips with a kiss so gentle it could bring him back from the dead.
Eddie kisses Steve back just as slowly, because in moments like this there is no rush, no hurry. There’s only them, there’s only this. Only a kiss until there is another.
And with Steve, there is always another.
Nancy smiles as she is taking the long way to Steve’s house, rounding Loch Nora twice because she knows how comfy Steve gets in cars at night when he doesn’t have to drive and there is soft music playing.
Eddie kisses her goodbye on the forehead, fully aware of what she’s done. He doesn't tell her about the sun and the myths and all the wars he would start for Steve.
Nights like this are not meant for telling anyone about them. They can hardly be believed as it is. They can only be lived, hand in loving hand.
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