Oh Golden Boy (don't Act Like You Were Kind)

oh golden boy (don't act like you were kind)

part iii: at your best you were magic

(this one has length, you guys, but the boys needed so much RESOLUTION 🥺)

for @kultiras at the ❄️ Winter @steddieexchange 🖤❤️

<<< part two // start at the beginning

Eddie kind of expects to be clocked hovering outside the window, or by the rattle of his van. He kinda expects to be left standing on the porch.

His heart’s fucking pounding, and he’s halfway to shivering because he didn’t wear a decent coat, because no one’s there anymore to bully him into being a little more aware of taking care of himself and he…he kinda feels like he did when he was running for his life, when they found him in Rick’s boathouse, he’s maybe gonna hyperventilate and wouldn’t that be a pretty fucking picture, pass out from lack of oxygen, or die flat-out, heart giving out on the steps of the man he loves, that he loves and that he wasn’t good enough to keep and—

“Oh.”

It doesn’t even matter how flat it comes out: Eddie’s breath catches just to hear that voice, holy fuck.

“Steve.”

He can’t even keep the word in, that single name in his chest knocked clean to launch from his lips, and Steve…

Steve looks rough. Drawn, kinda pale but in that exhausted washed out way where he’s not just blanched for his skin tone but in a way that makes the saturation of his whole self seem washed out and sallow. He’s got more stubble than he normally allows, much as Eddie has enjoyed the hell out of that gorgeous scruff now and again—he knows Steve only lets it get that way when they fuck too many hours in a row to want to get out of bed and properly plan to leave, or of he’s sick, or anxious, or…

Not good.

Eddie thinks it’s probably the generally not-good thing that’s to blame, here.

And yet somehow he’s still the most beautiful thing Eddie’s ever seen in his whole fucking life. No contest.

God, Eddie’s so fucking gone on him. All he wants is to reach, and pull him close, and keep all the sour things from his heart. All Eddie wants is to fucking…love him. For the rest of his goddamn life.

“I,” Eddie’s voice comes out raw, sandpaper rubbing to bleed; he would have wanted better, Steve deserved him to be better no matter what they were, what they weren’t, what they’d never be or maybe could be—but Eddie knows he’s weak as a rule, and here and now he breaks clean open, heart cleaving straight down the middle to bleed free because…

Fuck: Eddie had been hurting for being without Steve, but he’d underestimated just how much seeing him, breathing his air again would undo him. The sheer relief down to his cells, just to know in his bones that Steve was in the world. He’d been less than a shell, he’d been only half-floating through the world on his own for the way he’d healed himself around the give and take of Steve and to know it again, even just at arm’s length, feels like breaking water for the first time after drowning, but then it every single atom of him had been diminished on its own, then started vibrating again all at once after a fucking age spent stopped-dead.

“What are you doing here?”

Of all the things Eddie could hate out of the situation he’s standing in—outside of anything and everything that surrounds the fact of Steve, all that is Steve because that could never be hated at all—but of all the things to hate, the worst is maybe how flat Steve’s tone is. And worse?

How Eddie can’t read him. How, how did Eddie…

How did Eddie lose that?

“I,” Eddie moves his mouth, lips stretching awkward around the sound, and he’s adrift, man, he’s fucking loose ends with no hope of ever tying together, ever tethering to anything but the man in front of him, he believes that in his soul: with anyone else, anywhere but here, and Eddie would still just have this collection of stray threads of what it means to be himself, just reaching for Steve fucking Harrington forever and for always, holy fuck, and—

“I’m,” he grasps as best he can at the straws of what it means to form a thought, but all of what he comes up with is insufficient, rehashes the same core sentiment: I’m less of a person when I’m not with you, I’m scared by what that means but I’m more scared by what it means not to have you, I’m most scared by how hollow your eyes look and how dry your hair is at the ends because I pay attention where maybe almost everyone else has been letting that slide under the radar, I’m so fucking in love with you I think they could cut me open and only find you inside, I’m yours and I will be yours long after I’m more soil than corpse in the fucking ground, I’m—

“Jesus,” Steve huffs, and something in Eddie’s chest perks up at the bitchy little tone he throws put as he seems to give up on whatever was letting him stand in the doorway as he throws the door open and backs up into the hall, waving Eddie’s direction with too much resignation: “get in here, you’re gonna get frostbite, man.”

And maybe there’s a plummeting in Eddie’s gut at the tone but…he doesn’t need to be told twice.

He also doesn’t need to experience the thickness of the tension that descends immediately between them once the door clicks closed, suffocating, burning in his lungs.

“Hey,” the word gets punched out of him, not least because Eddie’s a little afraid that he won’t be able to draw another breath to get anything further said.

“Hey.”

And Eddie still can’t fucking read him, and holy shit, does it sting.

“Steve,” he only just manages not to moan but then—

“Why are you here?”

And it’s so…toneless. Kinda curt. So blunt and somehow Eddie feels it more like a spike, a fucking harpoon through his sternum that drags bloody against his heart with every goddamn beat.

“I,” Eddie licks his lips; “Dustin, he was—”

“Oh,” Steve sighs a little, bitter at the edges and Eddie’s just grateful that it’s something; “he send you?”

And Eddie doesn’t expect to feel it like a slap to his fucking face like this but: fuck if he doesn’t. Fuck if that’s not exactly what it is.

“No one sent me,” Eddie’s fucking quick to correct that because Dustin may have begged him, but Eddie thinks his heart’s been ready to scramble to Steve’s doorstep and maybe just fucking grovel and promise to try and be whatever about him made Steve happy to begin with, or not be whatever put Steve off of him and they could be happy again, maybe, and Eddie’s chest could feel less in a vise all the goddamn time.

“He, uh,” and Eddie stumbles a little around giving context when all Steve does is raise a doubtful brow at his denial that he’s here primarily because of anyone but himself.

“He said some stuff that,” Eddie swallows hard, works his throat around a lot of half-formed things he doesn’t think he can quite get out before he ultimately just rasps:

“I got worried.”

“Nice of you,” Steve laughs a little save there’s no humor, sniffs a little and it’d read haughty if you didn’t know what to look for, if you couldn’t tell that Steve’s eyes are stretched too wide, and shine a little too bright and his hand’s twitching to rise to the bridge of his nose and pinch which only ever means—

“Not necessary though.”

And it’s so hollow, it’s just…it’s filled with so much nothing, those words, that voice, that it’s an anguish all on its own, and fuck, but how Eddie’s voice breaks on the next words that he doesn’t even give conscious consent to even come out at all:

“You’re supposed to be happy, Stevie.”

He feels the way his lashes stick as he blinks too fast, his heart hurting because Steve looks like he’s in fucking pain and why are they both in pain—

But Steve’s expression is all scrunched up, and he’s frowning, fucking baffled at Eddie from across the space, so small, cramped to the wall next to the closed front door but as good as a continent, an ocean stretched between for how Eddie’s can feel his heat, can’t reach, and then Steve’s squinting and near snapping:

“What?”

And it’s said so sharp but then weirdly without the bite in its anding, like he’s too worn down, too drained somehow to manage it, or even really want to. Eddie..

Eddie isn’t sure he wants to keep learning just how many times, how many ways a heart can fucking break.

“I,” Eddie’s throat’s dry as shit and he cannot possibly care because his heart’s pounding in a way he doesn’t know he’s felt before, because it’s all wrong, isn’t it, it’s all so fucking wrong; “whatever I was doing that was bringing you down,” he shakes his head, desperate as he leans forward to Steve as far as he dares, closer but not close enough, never close enough:

“If I’m gone, you’re supposed to be happy and it’s like,” Eddie groans, and maybe it’s more of a whine really, fuck it all, that fits, that fucking makes sense because; “you didn’t want me here anymore, so I—”

“I never said I didn’t want you here.”

Eddie startles, heart in his throat again and hammering, violent and hellbent as Steve cuts him off, voice bowstring-taut where it cuts through the mounted tension, but does nothing to diminish it in the process; does nothing to ease the way it makes Eddie’s pulse work harder, desperate to fight the weight of it.

“I have never once wanted you to be anywhere but here,” and Steve’s voice is fucking…pained and just, just: how?

“Stevie,” Eddie pleads, because he doesn’t fucking understand; “you flinched when I touched you,” and Steve does it just then, the slightest bit; Eddie’s chest clenches just at the echo of it.

“You moved away from my mouth when I tried to kiss you,” and oh, how that had hurt, how that had withered things in Eddie’s ribs that never died long, just regrew to be burned back because Eddie didn’t know how not to love Steve, didn’t want to know such an unthinkable thing: but good fucking god, if it didn’t start to hurt worse than dying when Steve stopped wanting him—and Eddie was okay with it not being love, for Steve, with it being too much or maybe too soon but he’d…

He’d believed what they had was something beautiful; he’d clung maybe foolishly to the possibility of…maybe Steve someday growing into love with him.

And then he’d pulled back; then he’d spurned Eddie’s affection with his body, he didn’t even have to say it, it was sown in his skin, he…

“That’s not tru—” Steve starts, tone tight as he tries to defend but: no. No, Eddie hadn’t fucking created his own heartbreak from whole cloth, without reason.

“You turned, repeatedly,” Eddie hates that it comes out as accusatory as it does, but he…he wasn’t fucking imagining it, he hadn’t been because you can’t make up that kind of knife in your chest, you can’t.

“You tried to make it look like a coincidence. But when you keep getting your mouth on the man you lo—” and Eddie, he chokes it back as much as it wants to come out, to be spoken and known even if it’s not returned, never returned because it’s not going away, it’s never going away, but he, he—

He can’t. Not…not now.

“When you keep getting your mouth on your guy’s cheek and not his lips, damn,” Eddie’s breathing shudders; “you fuckin’ notice.”

Steve doesn’t say anything, but his gaze has shifted to the ground. Eddie…doesn’t know if he should take that as permission to keep going. He doesn’t even know if he wants to keep going in the first place.

His heartbeat’s still a torrent, though, and he…he doesn’t know if he could stop the words that come next if he tried.

“You stayed on your side of the bed all curled up, like you,” Eddie swallows hard, because what he’s about to say out loud fucking hurts to put into words; goddamn—because he thinks it’s true:

“You made yourself small to not be near me.”

Steve’s shoulders shift, then, but he doesn’t move, just keeps staring at the floor.

“You won’t even look at me when all your plans to avoid me go wrong and we actually miraculously end up in the same place because of the kids,” Eddie keeps going because he’s opened the floodgates, he’s let the feeling in him sneak through and it was too fucking big, it tore off the dams he tried to put in place to hold it all at bay; “if you can’t get away quick enough, every time I almost catch your eyes you look like you’re in pain,” and he looks like it now, he looks like he’s just made of hurting: “you jump like you got burnt.”

Steve’s next inhale is a sharp gasp of a thing. Eddie tries very hard not to feel something like victory to get somereaction from him.

He fails miserably.

“Robin hisses at me when I see her,” Eddie keeps on, because he wasn’t lying, the gates have been obliterated, there are no guardrails left for the way his heart’s such a mess and it’s spilling onto everything, into everything; “and I’m convinced she’s basically your subconscious manifest when it comes to who she turns her venom on,” and even Eddie would have missed it if he hadn’t been fixated unwavering on Steve in all of his glory, now: those lips don’t quirk, exactly, but they move the slightest bit.

Eddie, again, didn’t really think that his heart could learn to break in any more ways, but: here he is.

“You didn’t pick up the phone—” he damn near fucking moans because it hurts, it still hurts, it might always hurt—

“You didn’t leave a message.”

Steve’s volley is clipped, a not-so-subtle indictment, gaze flicking upward when he speaks and Eddie’s caught in those sad fucking eyes so swift and complete, it feels like all that he is might be forfeit in their hold.

He’s okay with that, though. He’s been okay with that—more than.

It’s when he’s nothing to that gaze, when Steve can’t even bring himself to look, that Eddie starts to crumble.

“The machine isn’t on,” he breathes out, barely a whisper, and Steve just blinks, then looks back at the ground and Eddie…Eddie’s not this strong, y’know? Eddie’s been barely anything for weeks, in so many ways, and he…he can’t just keep holding himself together when all he sees is Steve in pain, when his own pain makes him weak on top of everythingbegs.

“Steve,” he murmurs, nothing short of a plea for fucking mercy, for this man to take pity and maybe just explain a little, help Eddie understand where it all went wrong; “talk to me.”

And Eddie isn’t expecting it when it happens, given the mostly-stoic mask Steve’s perfected to keep him at bay: but when Steve breathes in deep and the motion, the sound of it shatters around something broken like a sob?

Eddie breaks right along with it.

“Jesus,” he half-gasps; “you need to sit down, sweetheart, come on,” because Steve’s shaking, fucking shaking where he stands; “here, I—”

And Eddie reaches, hand fucking trembling as he forces himself to keep enough distance for it to have to be Steve’s choice to touch, because if Steve doesn’t want him, if Steve doesn’t want any of him, ever, then Eddie has to learn that’s what his world is, that’s what his world will always be, no matter how his heart aches with it all and—

Steve steps, leans, and Eddie doesn’t need more assent than that; feels his nerves light up when Steve gives into his touch, doesn’t shy from the way Eddie’s grip tightens on his arms as he walks them slow from the door to the living room, to the couch where he settles Steve carefully near where the throw pillows will cushion him; reins himself in from finding a blanket he knows is in the cabinet hidden by the TV and wrapping Steve up tight in it, keeps himself from sitting next to him too close, stops himself from gathering Steve in his arms, but…he can’t go too far.

He can’t.

“This okay?” Eddie asks gently as he can when he settles down the shortest distance away that he can justify, that he thinks he can get away with; Steve doesn’t stop him, doesn’t react and Eddie’ll fucking take that.

He doesn’t even wholly-consciously put his hand, palm-up, on the cushion between them; certainly doesn’t expect anything but for Steve to scoot further from it once he realizes it’s there, but then—

Then Steve’s hand is landing in Eddie’s, and Eddie…after the shock settles, he fucking folds his grip around Steve so goddamn tight.

And Steve doesn’t fucking flinch away.

“Talk to me, Stevie,” Eddie breathes out, his heart doing wild things for the way it feels to touch that skin again, even so slight, so innocent: it’s everything. “Stevie, please,” and he wasn’t above begging before; with Steve’s hand in his he’s sure as shit not above it, now.

Eddie thinks he’s holding out for nothing, then he scolds himself—he’s not holding out for nothing, he’s got Steve’s hand in his hand, he can feel Steve’s pulse at the wrist and yeah it’s too heavy, it’s too fast and all Eddie ever wanted to was to be the safe place that Steve’s tension could ease into but the proof of life, of Steve, here, with him, is enough, it’s enough and Eddie is a rich man beyond measure, he’s, he is, it’s—

“I’m,” Eddie jumps a little, clings tighter to the palm pressed against his own when that voice scratches low into the space between them, and then starts to bleed feeling deep and unbridled when Steve whispers harsh:

“It was already so fucking hard, before I loved you.”

And Eddie…look.

Eddie’s felt ice run through him before. He’s felt it when he ran terrified from what it meant to face down death. He’s felt it in another dimension as the bat bites stole the life from him. He’s felt it in his room because he’d lost the sun he’d shaped his world to orbit around, to draw life from.

But…Eddie’s not sure he’s felt it take him over quite like it does just now; like it does when he has to ask, because there’s nothing else for it, he has to know and so he has to be the one to invite the ice into all he holds dear and maybe fucking ruin them both when he says it, pushes them past this point of no return:

“What’s hard, Stevie?”

And he waits, again, and tries not to fall for being too greedy, for getting too much when he’s grown horribly accustomed to nothing, and he should just give thanks for the way he can hear Steve breathe, a fucking miracle, a gift; he doesn’t dwell on just how much the idea of Steve answering, of Steve speaking more and telling Eddie what went wrong, where Eddie maybe went wrong—

“Losing you was the worst thing that ever happened to me,” is what Steve says, plain like reciting a law of physics, a rule of the universe. “And I wasn’t even in love with you yet.”

Eddie…feels bowled over and a little light-headed. Steve…loved him? He knew he loved him like he loved the Party at large, fought for them all, would stupidly give his whole fucking life for each and every one of them but…this kinda sounds like more, and maybe Eddie’s just got rose-colored glasses over it all, maybe he’s suffocating himself under the veil of wishful thinking—

But then he sobers because: loved. Loved. Maybe it’s just what he’s saying and how he’s saying it, like, incidental.

But it also sounds…past tense. And Eddie’s heart, like; Eddie thinks somehow his heart wails for the idea that he had this singular, precious man, maybe even his singular, precious heart, all this time, but now, now he doesn’t, and—

“I can’t sleep. I’m just…” Steve shudders, and Eddie, he has to just grip harder to Steve’s hand; if he can’t hold to more of him, he has to hold hard to what he’s allowed, what he does have.

“I woke up next to you, the most random morning, nothing out of the ordinary,” Steve says it, voice a little distant, all of it sounding more like a story than anything save for how Eddie can still feel Steve’s rabbit heart under his fingertips.

“And I realized how fucking deep I was in this,” and Steve turns Eddie’s hand a little in his own, spins one of his rings like he used to and Eddie’s breath catches for it because it feels too intimate, it feels too right, like a dream that’ll fade so fast, that’ll decimate him all over again, what’s left of him, in an instant when it’s gone again.

“So fast, I know,” and Steve says it like he has to justify his heart like this, and Eddie’s struck with the stark realization of just how well he must have been able to hide what he thought he’d been broadcasting to the fucking cosmos despite his best efforts not to be too much, or too intense, or too insane.

Not to broadcast to the world the obvious truth that his heart got rewired early to beat in the rhythm that spelled Steve Harrington out in the goddamn stars—but Steve doesn’t seem to have seen it. Or maybe…didn’t believe what it was if he did catch a glimpse.

Fuck.

“And it was never about, like, what if you didn’t feel the same, or weren’t ready, that’s not, I mean,” Steve tosses his head a little, and it’s not just that the concept is already absolutely absurd—how could Eddie know Steve, truly come to know Steve, and be anything but ready to offer all that he is to him in half-a-blink?—but it’s more than that, it’s that Eddie can feel that it’s just going to get worse, that it’s going to be more devastating when Steve finishes that thought—

“I’m used to that, I wasn’t planning on saying anything, at least not yet.”

That. That is more devastating, because how can Steve be used to not being loved with everything, it never fails to break Eddie when it’s pointed out, when he’s reminded that so many people had hurt him, had failed him, and now, now…had Eddie done it too, without ever meaning—

But even more than all of that, fucking selfishly: Steve had been thinking of things in terms of not yet. Of a future, where they had love.

Eddie’s heart’s fucking sick with it, reluctant to pump at all because it just…it just feels pointless.

What had he fucking done?

“It wasn’t something I even planned on having change how I acted, really,” Steve’s continuing on, like the things he’s saying aren’t earth-shattering, soul-torching; “realizing I was like, whole-heart, soul-deep in love with you was…” and Steve just shakes his head and oh, oh but his lips kinda curve, he kinda smiles, and it’s…

It’s full of so much regret, like, a wistful thing in the worst goddamn way, and Eddie doesn’t think he can recover from this. He…doesn’t even know where to start.

“It wasn’t that new, right, it didn’t just happen, the only sudden part was putting it together, like, consciously,” Steve lays out like he’s making a map to try and explain to Eddie how his heart moves, as if Eddie hasn’t been making a study of that singular thing for months, planning to continue it for a lifetime, and apparently still failing to realize so much that he’s missed.

“So it’s not like, I mean…” Steve worries his lower lip; “I’d still treat you the same, y’know? I didn’t have to change. And you didn’t have to know.”

“But,” Eddie can’t hold himself back before his mouth moves before he thinks twice, automatic because; “you…”

The way Steve changed, the way they changed was…that’s the reason for all of it, and if Steve specifically hadn’t—

“Oh don’t worry,” Steve bites, so fucking sarcastic, so dismayed and so…goddamn resigned, unconscionably disgusted:

“I’m fucking well aware.”

And Steve folds in on his himself, and Eddie…Eddie can’t maintain the distance anymore. If Steve doesn’t want it, he’ll move back but he, he needs to be close enough that Steve could fall into him, if he wanted—

It takes less than a heartbeat, and given how Eddie’s pulse is auditioning for the role of a caged bird sobbing, it’s swift: as soon as he’s close enough to think he can feel how Steve’s body moves the air around him just for breathing, never once letting go of Steve’s hand in the process, Steve’s following the slightest pull Eddie gives on that hand, and falling into Eddie’s side.

And fuck if Eddie doesn’t wrap around him the instant he’s pressed against him; if he doesn’t tuck Steve into him and keep him under his arm; doesn’t sink into and relish the way the weight of Steve’s head goes just to the side of his chest, can undoubtedly hear the cacophony inside, and…he just presses harder, nearer.

Eddie might fucking cry.

“Nightmares,” Steve finally croaks, and the way it resonates, the way it hangs foreboding as a horror is thick in Eddie veins. “Like I’ve never had before, not after any of it,” and he shivers, ducks somehow closer into Eddie’s collarbone, like he means to hide and of course Eddie will keep him, will shield him, will protect him from the whole goddamn world. For anything and everything.

For fucking ever.

“I know what your chest feels like without a heartbeat I can find,” Steve turns his face further into Eddie’s chest, will damn well fucking feel the skip of that heartbeat that’d be a trial not to find just now, and oh, oh just: Stevie.

“What your mouth feels like without breath coming out, what your lips feel like cold,” and he sounds so tormented, so wrecked but then beyond that: disassembled and left for carrion, unforgivable—Steve should only be treasured, not taken apart and…discarded.

Eddie…Eddie didn’t discard him, he would never.

So how the fuck did they end up here, like this, where Eddie’s just trying to hold Steve close enough, steady enough that he can staunch all the invisible, undeniable bleeding in him?

“I know what your blood tastes like,” Steve breathes into the notch between his clavicles; “because it was all over when I tried to breathe for you.”

Steve’s mouth’s right there when Eddie’s breath caches, when the whine brews just under his lips where they drag sloppy against Eddie’s shirt, wet on the cotton and so alive, so alive—

“I know how my heart stopped when I thought it had all be for nothing,” Steve whispers there, and then holds where Eddie knows he can feel the pulse; “that I’d failed you, that—”

And Steve shakes his head, and Eddie makes to speak, to tell Steve he could never fail him, not ever, but Steve seems to have broken his own floodgates, now, and he spills:

“But that’s wasn’t new, right, so I wasn’t expecting any of it to shift, y’know? Like, if anything I figured, with love in the mix it’d be more, like, fear of rejection, shit from, just, with all the girls, with Nance, like all that old high school bullshit would be what reared its head,” he laughs, the most tragic sort of agony in the sound where it never should be, where there should only ever be Steve’s joy:

“But nope. Nope, my scrambled goddamn brain decided fuck that, let’s try something else.”

And Eddie can’t seem to get any words out anymore, now, much as he wants to. His mouth’s too dry, throat too tight. He just clings, clings so tight and fucking…prays that Steve can feel in his hold, in his heartbeat, in everything between them here and now, that he loves all of Steve. That all he is, is committed to making sure that Steve doesn’t hurts like this anymore, ever again.

If Steve will let him.

“I didn’t want you to leave,” Steve whispers, “I never,” and he shakes his head, smashes his lips over his teeth, jaw tense enough to twitch and Eddie just wants to fix it, just wants to ease all of it and make Steve okay, and somehow make up for how he—despite never meaning to, despite never choosing to be—seems to be the reason Steve’s in such turmoil, such pain.

“I can see how it looked like that, like, I hear what you’re saying and I get it, but,” Steve licks his lips, brow furrowing in the way Eddie loves to smooth but he doesn’t think he can, now, doesn’t think he should and it’s twice the wound just to watch like this: to know it might not be welcome, and to know that Steve may have to hurt here, beyond Eddie’s capacity to soothe, in trying to work through what it is that’s gutting him so harsh.

“When you’d reach for me, sometimes it would jolt me out of the, like, fog of it all,” Steve finally says it, tells him without looking to make eye contact but he’s tracing Eddie’s fingers, now, and it feels…significant; “because it’s the worst when I sleep, when I see all the what-ifs, but when I wake up it always lingers, and I get lost in it all the same, it all hits just a little different from what’s actually happening and then from the dreams, how it was when I’d watched just seconds before, when you’d,” and as much the words dry up in an instant, choked on a swallowed-down sob, Eddie can hear the obvious ringing out as if it was ripped straight from that precious fucking chest, raw and bloody:

When in the dreams, you’d died.

“You in reality was just, so opposite to what everything in my head sticks on?” Steve breathes, less a question than a plea for Eddie to accept what he’s saying, to understand and believe, as if Eddie would, could do anything else; as if the way the sheer truth of it in Steve’s aching tone isn’t soaking into the layers of Eddie’s fucking heart and flaying the pieces apart in real time. “The echos, the, umm,” Steve swallows, and Eddie cannot look away from the way how he swallows stretches the skin of his throat; “the ghosts of the horror shows I get on repeat every time I close my eyes,” he screws his eyes shut, then, like it’s muscle memory, like it’s ordained and unavoidable, to recoil from the magnitude of what haunts him in the night.

“Like, how could you be touching me, when you were…”

Steve lifts their clasped hands to his mouth and Eddie nearly comes apart for how it feels, but then at the very same time he aches for the way Steve’s hand can’t wholly stop trembling, even as he pulls Eddie’s pulsepoint to the swell of his lips where he murmurs:

“How could you be warm?”

Eddie watches, refuses to blink, as Steve holds there, breathes there, nuzzles a little against Eddies wrist and drags his lips there, back and forth and Eddie might fucking die here and now, like this, because it’s perfection, but at the same time, it’s devastation incarnate.

It’s pure fucking pain.

“I didn’t want to make you feel how the,” Steve’s throat clicks for how hard he swallows; “how the things in my head felt. Especially after the first few times,” he shakes his head, and Eddie can taste his own pulse for how hard it beats at the base of his throat; “I couldn’t tell what was real, when you were against me. Because it felt more real then anything, but I’d just watched you,” and again, the unspoken is louder than words themselves could ever be:

But I’d just watched you die.

Eddie wants nothing more than to slice himself open somehow, and gather Steve inside him and hold him closer than close, so that he can know all the reassurance he needs and Eddie can know it too, at the very same time; so they can know each other’s lifeblood as close as their own, because for Eddie, Steve’s is closer, means more than his own: he just wants to gather Steve close and keep him so fucking safe. Keep the whole of him, unwavering.

“It scared the hell out of me, but then the first time I woke you up,” Steve closes his eyes, bites at his lip again.

“You were out of it, I think I scared you, too, and I couldn’t even see everything beautiful about you without seeing,” and Steve’s voice is a harrowing thing, is so fucking gutted out, and Eddie just wants to be…Eddie just needs to go back to that moment, he can’t even remember the moment where he didn’t even know he failed to make Steve feel better, safer, not fucking alone and all he wants is to go back and find that turning point and turn it on its head. Make it right.

But then Steve is gabbing his hand, and lacing their fingers so tight it fucking hurts in the best possible way, before he breathes out a whisper:

“It was the worst thing that’s ever happened to me, when it actually happened,” and they both know he means the bats, and the blood, and the red lightning sky; “but it’s like my brain got stuck there, like it stopped at the losing and not what came after,” and Steve brings Eddie’s hands up to his lips and less kisses, more buries his face in Eddie’s hands and just breathes before he moans a little around the words left:

“It got stuck, and it just runs from there.”

And if that’s not the simplest line of pure ruinous hurt that Eddie’s ever heard, holy fuck.

“Stevie,” and it’s Eddie who moans around the word, now, because god, his baby’s been aching with all this for…for how long?

“You hold your breath sometimes when we kiss,” Steve says, more incidental on the back of a breath, mostly air around the moving of his lips; “and when my head’s been like this, just, soaked in this, I can’t—”

And, oh.

Oh, Steve’s…Steve’s telling him why. He’s explaining why he, why he did all the…why he turned away, why he pulled back, and oh, oh god—

“Robin doesn’t know all the details,” he pushes on, and Eddie can see how he’s biting down on his tongue fucking hard behind his lips; “I’m sorry she’s been,” he huffs a little, tips his head as he circles his thumb a little against Eddie’s knuckle; “growly at you.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Eddie breathes, cupping Steve’s face because he…he needs to, he needs to show him he’s cherished, that Eddie’s heart is his, fucking beats for him and belongs to him and he, he is…

“Baby, don’t be sorry about anything, please don’t be sorry,” Eddie begs because, because fuck: “I’m the one who’s sorry,” and he is, he’s so sorry, he didn’t know but he never wants Steve to hurt and he’s only made Steve hurt harder because he thought he understood and was doing what he could to help and in truth he was doing anything but—

“I couldn’t look at you because my heart hurt,” Steve turns his face into the palm Eddie’s framed against his cheek; “and I know you stepped away because I can’t get my shit together, because I’m losing my fucking mind and,” but he didn’t, he didn’t and he wants to say it but Steve’s barreling on, convinced as fuck and that’s, that’s not okay; “and I know, of course I know that it’s better that you don’t go down with me, I know that. But fuck,” Steve laughs in that terrible, self-sacrificing way that has no idea what he’s worth, what he means:

“I don’t know what hurts more, the dreams or the waking hours when I see you and you aren’t, you don’t feel,” Steve’s words catch again, and he shakes his head into Eddie’s hold, breathes as Eddie strokes his cheek and holds him, just holds him until he can say the rest:

“Losing you like that is worse, but it’s not real,” Steve swallows hard, keeps his eyes clenched shut tight like that’s the only way he can manage to keep going; “losing you like this is better, because you’re still,” and Steve’s fingers find the pulse at his wrist again—because somewhere, it’s still beating:

“But then, it’s the truth, and,” Steve’s voice cracks and god, this man, this beautiful man…

“It just hurts,” Steve says “so goddam much and—”

“That’s not the truth.”

Eddie can’t keep waiting, just to let Steve keep circling this horrific pit of agony, for all the things they both misunderstood, for all the hurting they’ve both breathed through too long.

No more. Steve blinks up at him, and…yeah.

Eddie’s turn, now.

“I am yours,” Eddie pledges like his whole life’s behind it, and in truth: it is. It absolutely is.

“And I feel so fucking much Stevie-baby,” Eddie whispers, because there’s something profound in it, and there’s something magical and beautiful and sacred inside all Eddie feels so much of, and it needs to be revered accordingly as he traces Steve’s cheekbone, the bow of his lips with nothing less than worship. “I didn’t think people were built to love like this. I’ve never seen it. I didn’t know it was a thing to feel at all until now.”

He means it. Steve’s gaping at him a little, marveling a little even, maybe, but it’s not an unbelievable thing. Because this is Eddie Munson’s heart. For Steve Harrington.

This is the only thing.

“And I am sorry,” Eddie exhales all that he has in him to give to an apology because he is sorry, he thinks that sorrymight be seeping out his pores: whatever he did to cause this, whatever extent of a part he played, as much as he never wished or planned to.

He’s fucking sorry.

“I didn’t leave, I just,” he tries to explain, tries to prove somehow that no matter how fucked it all came out to be, he could never leave his Stevie.

“I didn’t leave you, not at all like you’re thinking,” he kisses Steve’s temple, and then draws him close to speak into his skin, like he can press it deep enough for Steve to know without a shred of doubt as he strokes Steve’s hair, tangles his fingers and holds him dear, breathes him in.

“I thought maybe you needed space, but I should have asked,” Eddie laments with a waver in his voice, eyes watering because fuck, fuck:

“I wanted to be what you needed so bad I hurt you on the way,” and isn’t that the fucking kicker? Isn’t that the gut punch, the unbearable truth at the core.

“Then I stayed away, because all signs pointed to it being me,” Eddie murmured into the crown of Steve’s head; “but that was just because I’m scared, because loving you this much is bigger than I can hold sometimes,” and he makes himself pull back so he can meet Steve’s eyes, red-rimmed to match Eddie’s where they’re actively streaming now as he breathes out the truth of his deepest, truest fucking soul:

“You’re the best thing I could ever ask for and I,” and he bends his forehead to Steve’s, breathes there for a handful of beats:

“I didn’t want to push you, and ruin it,” he confesses as the weakness that drove him to cause so much suffering, in only hoping to help. “I didn’t want to lose you, because I’m selfish, and having you taught me a whole new level of what made breathing worthwhile,” and he brings Steve’s hands both to his chest now, presses them tight to the shaky rise and fall, the tremorous hammering underneath as he speaks clear the only truth he really knows:

“Heart and soul I love you, Steve.”

And Steve’s hand on his chest clenches, and Steve’s breathing stumbles, and Eddie loves him.

So goddamn much.

“I didn’t mean to leave you, I would never mean to,” Eddie tells him, shaky and watery with the tears that are still falling; “I thought I was doing what was right,” he huffs, because, nice fucking work on that one, Munson, definitely bet on the winning goddamn horse there, Jesus Christ.

“I never, ever wanted to hurt you, I could never want to hurt you, I’d rather cut my own arm off, my own heart out,” and he turns his head the slightest bit, so he can find skin to kiss how much he means this into:

“I am so fucking sorry.”

Steve chases his mouth and Eddie leans, keeps himself pressed up close to speak straight against him as he gathers Steve’s hands at his chest a little tighter, tries to convey everything he might do with his eyes with the rest of his body now, with the way his voice floods with the heart of him whole:

“Could you ever,” he stammers a little, because he…he doesn’t want to face what it means if the answer to what he’s about to ask is set to break him apart all over again.

But he loves this man, and now that he has what could be a chance—Steve can’t be leaning into his touch, can’t be telling him all of this started because it hurts too much to lose Eddie, with there being no possible chance—but Eddie might have a chance to have Steve back, to keep Steve for always.

Like fuck he’s gonna be a coward at risk losing this again.

“Could you, y’know, like, ever think about giving me a chance to make up for it?” Eddie’s voice is so small, but so earnest, because he will do anything. “To fix it, and prove I’ll never hurt you again if I can help it,” and he will, he will do whatever it takes to prove what his heart and soul knows through to the bottom, bright inside his bones:

“Fuck, I’d break myself in half before I hurt you again, baby,” he promises, vows deeper than anything—

“I don’t want that.”

Steve blinks at him, eyes fucking intense, and Eddie stills, his heart plummeting because…well, of course it was possible, and of course Eddie understands, he hurt Steve in a way he doesn’t know if he can wholly forgive himself for, in a way that’s maybe worse for how Eddie’d tried for anything but, such a gross misstep and he—

“I don’t want you broken,” Steve reaches, flips his palm from atop Eddie’s heavy thumping heart and grasps, brings Eddie’s hand to his lips and kisses there, pinning Eddie with his gaze through his lashes:

“Not ever, not for anything,” Steve says it heavy, emphasizes each word with intention: “never for me.”

“You’re the only thing that’s worth it,” Eddie counters, just as firm, just as committed to that truth with his whole goddamn chest: “worth anything.”

Worth everything; and Eddie thinks Steve hears that too; hears it all.

And it’s Steve who’s reaching, now, who’s framing Eddie’s face and pulling him in and Eddie sinks into it, falls into the way that Steve moves him, takes control in those subtle, automatic ways and fuck if Eddie didn’t quite realize just how much he missed this part, the way that Steve commanded the moment and tipped his chin just so to kiss deeper, to draw moans from spaces inside Eddie that he didn’t even know he possessed: electric.

In-fucking-toxicating.

“Come home?” Steve asks-but-tells him soft, earnest; “what I do want, is for you to come home.”

And fuck if Eddie wants anything else in the world; fuck if that isn’t everything.

Home. With his Stevie.

He chokes on a fucking sob and he wraps around Steve so goddamn tight.

“Thank you,” Eddie presses lips to his jaw, peppers kisses up to his temple, across his brow, down the bridge of his nose, worshipful and dazed, so viscerally relieved, like a noose he didn’t know was tightening around his neck was suddenly torn free and he can breathe, he can breathe, he’s still got the best fucking reason to breathe.

“Thank you,” he mouths at Steve’s lips as he makes his way down his chin to his neck to worship that space with this gratitude, his devotion as he swears deeper than he’s ever even considered committing to anything:

“Promise you won’t regret it.”

“I don’t regret it,” Steve shakes his head like the idea’s anathema; “maybe it was hard, some of it, and maybe it was getting harder, worse than I could keep a handle on, but without you,” and Steve’s voice breaks a little, and he shakes his head harder, more like he’s trying to get rid of a nightmare, his eyes glassy when he looks back up:

“Without you is so much worse, Eds.”

And Eddie’s heart jumps because he’s not okay with that hurting.

But also because Steve…Steve’s saying outright, after all of this, that with Eddie is a better way to be.

Fucking sue him if that hits him just so, okay?

“I’m sorry I made you feel like I could ever want a life without you in it,” Steve whispers into his temple, teasing his hairline. “Fucking unthinkable, baby.”

And Eddie shivers, because…he’d hoped this could be where they’d end up, but he…he was scared. So scared that he’d lost it, that there was no coming back.

“God, I missed you,” Eddie breathes, shaky as fuck, wet on the edges at best; “every second of the fucking day.”

“Me too,” Steve meets him, a little sniffly in his own right; “so much, Eddie. So much.”

“I’m sorry,” Eddie says again, wobbly, because he is, he fucking is—

“Stop saying you’re sorry,” Steve chides him with a peck at the bow of his lips; “I believe you, that you thought it was the right thing.”

“Because it meant making you happy, not for me,” Eddie needs to he sure Steve knows that part, knows it in his fucking bones. “I would never leave you because I wanted to,” Eddie whispers, kinda fucking horrified at just the idea; “nothing could make me want that.”

He cups Steve cheek and lets Steve lean into how it fits just so before he murmurs low, still shaky:

“Barely even survived it,” because fuck, now that it’s over, Eddie can appreciate how much it took from him, being away from Steve, and when he couldn’t even see why. “You’re the sun, Stevie.”

And fuck, if that’s not the truth. He is the center of the galaxy. He is all life in the universe.

Everything.

“Steve,” Eddie finally disturbs the sweet bubble of yes, right, this is right that they’re holding between them, and only because he…

He can’t risk this. Ever again. And he’s not foolish enough to think this thing’s fixed, that it’s one and done. But Eddie, and his devotion to Steve, and his love: that’s not ever going to be done.

Loving Steve is not something he is fucking ever going to be done doing. Done drowning in gratitude for the goddamn privilege of.

“I need you to promise me you’re never going to keep this, anything that hurts like this, locked up ever again, okay?” he runs his thumbs along the crests of Steve’s cheekbones. “I am here with you, I want to be here for everything, all of it, always,” and he kisses just between Steve’s brows, holds there for a few moments before he leans back and lifts Steve’s chin on his fingertips to look him straight in the eyes, see down to his soul entire:

“I’m never not going to want to help, to try and make the hurting go away, or at least find a way to help make it easier to bear,” and he means it, and he holds Steve’s gaze firm until he can see the conviction in his own veins start to color Steve’s irises brighter, to be taken in and believed.

“You could tell me to fuck off forever,” he tucks his cheek along Steve’s, burrows a little on the crook of his neck to breathe in the scent of him, to feel his blood move under the surface; “like…leaving you alone this time was a bridge too far, go to fucking hell Munson. You could come to me in twenty fucking years and I’d still drop everything just to make you hurt less.”

And Steve cranes his neck, opens up that space for him and lets Eddie fit there closer and just breathe, breathe, breathe, tucks Eddie under his chin like the tables are turned and…maybe they are. Or else: no, not maybe. They both were hurting. And they both love too much to let any of that hurt be anything but tended to, but dressed and cleaned and soothed, now that they have each other in arm’s-reach. Now that they can press each other close and hold and be, and remember all over again what life feels like where it sings in one body held tight to another, when it’s loved this full.

Steve keeps him there, lets him get his bearings, before Eddie inhales extra deep so he’s got Steve in his lungs when he makes himself pull back; gathers Steve to him again, now, and it’s…it’s just as much a comfort. It doesn’t matter who’s in whose arms. So long as they’re here.

So long as they’re them

“This is,” and Eddie makes damn sure that his hands are on Steve and nowhere else, that he’s holding onto Steve, that his fingers are locked with Steve’s, that he’s entangled to the point where it’d hurt to get out but he’s never going to try so it’s irrelevant. He needs Steve to know, and never question that Eddie’s never going anywhere.

“All this, is heavy, Stevie,” and he’s got his lips pressed to Steve’s hair before Steve can even finish how he makes to tense up; “and it breaks my heart that you’ve been carrying it all on your own.”

And Eddie holds there, holds and keeps Steve so close, until the other man slumps a little, until he gives that little bit of tension and then some back into Eddie, and it feels…it feels like how Eddie imagines someone feels when they exchange vows at the altar, or else, how they want to, how it’s talked about. Because there’s nothing present in this moment save sheer fucking trust, and the willingness to give between two bodies, two souls.

Eddie can’t help but pull him a little closer, duck down to trail his mouth down Steve’s forehead, his cheekbones, the apples of his cheeks, just: show him how much he feels. How much he feels lucky that Steve’s leaning into him, that Steve’s giving him this; this…opportunity to hold him up, too.

The fucking gift of it. Of him.

“So strong, my sweetheart,” Eddie mouths against Steve’s lips, then; “so brave,” and it kinda fucking floors him, really it does, that this man is…all that he is. Fucking superhuman, sometimes, good fucking god.

“But I love you, and that means you never have to shoulder anything alone ever again,” Eddie moves to kiss Steve straight on, properly, and then he lets Steve deepen it as far as he wants: and shit, he wants.

And Eddie cannot put into words what it means to have this again. To have his Steve in his arms, to have him want to be there, to let go in Eddie’s embrace.

“Never alone, baby,” Eddie nips his lower lip when they break apart, gasping; “yeah?”

“Yeah,” Steve says, clear eyed and red-swollen lipped and fuck, he’s exquisite.

“I can’t take back what happened, with Vecna, the first time, or anything before or since,” Eddie needs, all of a sudden, to bare a little more of his heart, to make sure Steve knows all the little crevices of him, so he’ll never fill the gaps in with anything but the unfettered love that’s meant to be there, that lives there always and creates the shape of what Eddie holds in his chest.

“I can’t erase the fuel for your nightmares, and I hate that,” Eddie moans, and Steve’s the one who leans in for his lips this time, who kisses Eddie so fucking thoroughly he feels lighter, he thinks, for the pieces of him blissfully surrendered up on how their mouths meet.

Eddie decidedly does not hate that.

“I do want to die in your arms,” and Eddie’s a little dizzy as he says it, giddy and buoyant with how his heart flutters and maybe another time he’d think twice before being this candid, but not anymore. Not flooded with relief and joy and gratefulness like this, and faced with the real possibility of the future he aches for:

“When we’re old and grey and wrinkled and still so fucking in love that we’re rewriting what it means to feel,” Eddie rips open the whole of his lovedunk heart for Steve to see and hear and know, and maybe even embrace for all the hopeless romance Eddie’s finding real hope for holding in Steve and Steve alone; “making new rules and setting new standards for everyone who comes after us, for how deep and much and well we loved.”

Eddie’s never seen Steve’s eyes shine like they do when he looks up and locks their gazes, takes all that Eddie’s giving, showing: he’s not just witnessing it.

He’s embracing it. He’s fucking eager like Eddie is, and how could Eddie be this lucky, to be welcomed, to be forgiven, to be understood, to be given the chance to earn this for keeps, to hold Steve close and safe to his chest for fucking ever.

“I’m sorry I hurt you, for trying to do it ahead of schedule down there,” Eddie murmurs at the corner of Steve’s mouth, just…just kinda to be close, to feel his breaths as they come; “and then thinking I knew what you needed and fucking it up, here,” and he makes himself draw back, then, to hold Steve’s chin and look him square on, because he needs Steve to see, he needs to hear and know, just, like, one more time, in case it’s the one that sticks strongest, most lasting:

“I never meant to hurt you,” he doesn’t let himself drown in those eyes just now, needs to tether in them and weave himself in the thick glow of them, the way the caramel color swims; “never want to hurt you,” and he lifts his touch to run his thumbs under Steve’s eyes, no tears to wipe but he feels…he feels a need to touch there, delicate, reverent:

“Never want you to hurt.”

“I know,” and Steve wraps his fingers around Eddie’s wrist, holds tight; “I know, babe, thank you,” and Eddie is going to make sure he doesn’t overlook any of this ever again: Steve failing to understand how deep Eddie’s feelings run, how much he means to Eddie, how Eddie’s heart couldn’t even beat right without him, for how much of it’s made up of Steve.

He’s going to make sure Steve knows that the only thanks necessary in what they share is the all-encompassing gratitude. Is just being thankful, for the fact of a love unprecedented.

“Maybe I could,” Eddie throws off the first thing that comes to mind to face how they got here head-on, and maybe he riffs out loud a little, goes with the pull at the base of his heart and leaps, tries to chart the right course to make sure he does get to die in Steve’s arms one day, where they both take their last breaths in the same second and their hearts go to whatever’s next—something other or something quiet, something next or something final—together, always together, never-not-together, ever again:

“Maybe I could hold you tight to me, like, every night, all the time, and now that I know what’s happening here,” he taps Steve’s head lovingly, rests fingertips at the side of Steve’s neck to touch at the pulse as he offers, kinda fucking clumsy, and hopes like hell the depth makes up for it; “then I can be ready to catch you.”

And Steve pulls back, just looks at him, and he feels so dismantled in the best of ways, like being unraveled when the knots holding you up were too tight anyway and then it’s just pure release, and when he sees the soft little hint of a smile on Steve’s lips, blinding in his eyes—it’s everything as Eddie promises from his goddamn cells:

“I will always catch you, Steve.”

And Steve, he just sighs, and falls into Eddie once more—again, the gift of that kind of trust, Eddie will never get over it, or take it for granted—but Steve just falls and burrows into Eddie’s chest, settles at the center and Eddie would put fucking money on the fact that his heart swells to meets that weight, that presence of Steve; that every part of him just knows who’s there to listen and feel. That his beating fucking heart wants, because of how much Eddie wants. How much Eddie knows this man means.

“Maybe we could get a really big shirt,” Eddie muses as he stokes up and down Steve’s spine, spread over Eddie’s whole chest as he is; “and stretch out the neck so we can both fit, then when you wake up and you think,” Eddie pauses, doesn’t want to put those things into words to live in the world any more than they’ve already been forced there.

“But then you’re pressed as close as you can be, and you can feel the truth, and I can hold you until you believe what you feel,” he doesn’t know if that makes sense at all, but Steve’s breaths are damp and warm over the barest ends of the scars that stretched a little farther toward the center of his chest and…fucking hell.

That’s just a heady fucking feeling, y’know? And all Eddie wants is to keep.

“Like, maybe we could try it?”

He’ll try, more than try, just about anything.

“What if I—” and Eddie doesn’t need Steve to finish that thought, he can read the fear, the worry, the resignation that he’ll somehow have some reaction that being held tight to Eddie will make unbearable, maybe even dangerous given just how wide those eyes go.

Eddie’s not gonna let that shit stand anymore. Not ever a-fucking-gain.

“There’s nothing you could possibly do that I’m not ready and willing to catch, and hold so close, and keep so safe. Remember?” He tips Steve’s chin up so he can look at him, drink him in entirely and hold him there until he can read that he’s heard and understood through and through when he vows with his everything:

“Always gonna catch you.”

And Steve’s hands come to Eddie, now, and he writes the moment again, takes control of the momentum in between them and grabs Eddie’s face, draws him into the kind of kiss that lights up his nerves neon bright and sparkling, shimmers through him like pure fucking magic:

“I love you,” Steve breathes in between Eddie’s lips, then goes to pressing that feeling all over, drawing the dopiest grin to Eddie’s whole fucking face:

“I love you, I love you, I love you,” then he braces his palms on Eddie hips, and honestly, Eddie had apparently floated a little bit into the here and now because he hadn’t even wholly processed Steve straddling him until he’s gazing down at him with so much fucking affection:

“Thank you,” and the serious tone he says it in is somehow made, like, twenty-dimensional and all the more significant; “for coming back.”

And Eddie…Eddie doesn’t really understand how that’s something to be thanked for when coming back feels like putting his heart back together again, but: fine.

He can meet the sentiment.

“Thank you, for letting me,” Eddie leans in, kisses Steve’s still-a-little-swollen lips; “for wanting me.”

“I want you forever,” Steve answers, solemn and sure and without hesitation. “I want you,” then he smiles, because maybe they’re a little fucked up to find joy in this sentiment but fuck if it’s anything but the best possible thing Eddie could imagine:

“’Til the day we die.”

“Swear it, sweetheart,” and Eddie isn’t even going to try and deny, or reshape the fact that he’s just gazing at Steve, now, fucking marveling because how can he not?

Why would he do anything but wonder at the goddamn miracle in front of him, perched atop top him, nestled in his chest and safe inside his heart: why the fuck would he do anything else, anything less?

“Stevie, baby,” he exhales a little shaky, leaning into just, just…kiss all of it into Steve’s soul:

“I fuckin’ swear it.”

❤️

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