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puncertainty · 21 days ago

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The nurse pulls the stethoscope away from the bend of Steve's elbow, the sound of the blood pressure cuff being pulled away is harsh in the quiet room, “right, lets give those wounds a check.”

Steve has the routine down now, and he pulls the hospital gown away from the appropriate places, lies back, sits up, pulls the sheet, lifts a leg, the nurse humming appreciatively each time. Just one bandage to remove and replace with clean now.

“Okay, so, eat a good meal this evening, and breakfast tomorrow, and after a bowel movement I think you’ll be fine to go home.”

Next to Steve, Eddie snorts, “bowel movement. Better order prunes for Breakfast Stevie.”

“Thank you,” Steve tells the nurse, and she leaves with a nod.

Eddie has his filthy boots on the bed, but they never leave a mark on the sheets, so Steve ignores them.

“That’s sweet of her,” Steve says absently, no energy to fight it after climbing up into Hop’s truck.

“So Joyce and Nancy are already at your place,” Hopper tells him, “you’ll have groceries and some meals ready. I think El’s there too, she wanted to make sure your bedroom was clean.”

“Hope you don’t got anything suspicious hidden away,” Eddie shoves a dirt encrusted hand between the seats, into Steve’s peripheral vision, nails caked with filth and blood, the end of one finger is just bone, the flesh eaten away by something. Steve tries not to gag. Eddie makes a vulgar gesture, wanking the empty air, “don’t want her innocent young eyes finding your supply of dirty mags right?”

The cuff of Eddie’s jacket has a string of something flesh like and rotten hanging from it.

Steve spends the rest of the journey looking out of the window.

“Steve, honey, are you okay?”

Steve shuffles through the house, finding only Joyce in the kitchen, “yeah. All good.”

“Right, well, let me show you what I’ve done okay,” and Joyce shows him, the neatly prepared meals still cooling on the side. All very sensible, palatable, starch and protein and vegetable. Everything neatly labelled.

Eddie’s speaking in the background, Steve does his best to ignore it, “bet she’s filth in the sack you know. Nice of her to get you the good stuff though,” and Eddie pulls a milk shake out of the fridge.

Eddie drinks, and Steve watches as it leaks through the holes in Eddie’s guts, soaks his filthy jeans, and drips onto the kitchen floor, Joyce talking all the while.

Steve flinches. He can’t help it. The bang is loud.

“Hey Dingus, you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah I’m fine,” but it’s made a lie when he twitches again.

“Steve...maybe you came back to work too soon? Do you want to go home? You look really tired.”

Home is worse. Home is so much worse, because at home he’s alone with Eddie, “nah, I want to try and stay.”

“Okay, well, sit then,” Steve does, flinching again as another launched tape hits the windows, Eddie cackling madly.

Steve stares at the ceiling in the dark. Eddie is hopping around and singing. Loudly. Something Steve doesn’t know.

Steve’s so tired he feels like his eyes are sinking into his head. His body is weighed down by it. He feels a little delirious, like he was when he was on the good meds at the hospital, but the evil twin of that feeling.

He wonders vaguely if you you can die of exhaustion. It really feels like you can. He’s broken, he knows it, can sense it creeping up. He’s so close to just...crumbling in on himself. He does something he hasn’t done for weeks, spurned by a final act of desperation, “Eddie,” Steve’s voice cracks, and he can feel that his eyes are wet, tears tracking their way along his temples, “Eddie please stop. Stop, just for a little while.”

Eddie stops moving, listening to Steve, “are you going to stop ignoring me?”

Steve feels like he’s making a deal with the devil, swallowing thickly. By acknowledging Eddie he’s admitting that Eddie’s there.

This is the end of Steve’s sanity.

“Okay.”

“You screamed like a little girl when you first saw me,” Eddie says absently.

“Yeah,” Steve admits. Admitting it is easy, it’s true. It’s speaking at all that he’s reluctant about.

“Don’t seem bothered now though,” Eddie moves when Steve does. Steve’s done pissing now, stripping to get in the shower. The toilet lid drops with a sharp thud and Eddie sits on it. Eddie hasn’t been out of Steve’s eye line since he came to in the hospital; he’s had no choice but to get over being viewed naked.

Eddie has provided Steve with an unwanted but highly detailed commentary on his own body.

Apparently Eddie finds him attractive. A subject he has gone into in vile detail.

“No,” Steve passed out from exhaustion the moment Eddie allowed him some peace last night, and if this is the game he has to play to get some sleep tonight, then he will.

Steve showers, “so you’re actually not dating that Buckly girl then. I really thought you were. Didn’t clock that she was a raging dyke.”

Steve closes his eyes under the hot water, letting it batter him. It covers the sound of his deep sigh, “I’m fair game. You don’t say anything derogatory about anyone else or the deals off.”

“Okay. Okay that’s fair. I mean...I’m not that kind of guy anyway, I swear I just...you’re the only one who could hear me. And you were ignoring me. I was trying to get a rise out of you...trying to get you to...react I guess. Even for a second.”

Steve sighs, “stop trying to guilt trip me. I’m talking to you, aren’t I?”

“Yeah but...I don’t want you thinking I’m like, a bad guy-”

“Whatever. That’s exactly what someone in my head would say.”

“What? You don’t think I’m real?”

Steve scoffs, finally pulling the shower curtain back and climbing out to dry himself. Up until now Steve’s had to endure Eddie’s lecherous and very obvious oggling. This time, Eddie looks away. Steve's glad.

“I’m the only one who can see you, of course you’re not real. I’ve just...been hit in the head one too many times. Or...it’s trauma, or something.”

“Can you put a movie on for me? Honestly you’ve got no idea how fucking boring this is.”

“Sure,” and Steve does, and he ends up just sitting and watching it with Eddie. Steve reflexively tuts when Eddie’s boots land on the coffee table, but Eddie just grins at him.

“You’re looking better,” Robin tells him absently.

“Yeah, yeah I feel a lot better,” which is true. Steve’s had two whole nights full of sleep. Eddie is propping up the counter, flicking through leaflets for upcoming releases and two for one rental coupons.

“Come here Dingus, I was worried,” Eddie watches as they hug. They hug for a long time, “you’d tell me, right? If something was going on?”

“Sure, of course,” Steve answers reflexively. Easily.

Eddie looks up long enough to roll his eyes at Steve, “why don’t you tell her?”

Steve doesn’t answer. Eddie glares for a second but then shrugs it off when Dustin and Mike come through the doors, looking for free rentals and staff discounted snacks.

Steve can’t help but stare at Eddie, who in turn is staring, wide eyed and fascinated. He tries to touch Dustin’s shoulder, but as usual, his hand goes straight though. He looks, briefly, heartbroken.

The pain echos in Steve's own chest.

Once Steve had started ignoring Eddie, since, you know, he’s not real, Eddie had gone through a four day period of trying to punch Steve in the face. Half way through day three, Steve even managed to stop flinching.

Eddie’s already in the passenger seat, “why don’t you tell them about me?” he asks again.

Steve finds a tape, digs out some Abba, takes great pleasure in Eddie’s clear disgust. “Because you’re not real. I’m going to get myself locked up somewhere.”

“Steve,” Eddie huffs, “I’m pretty sure I’m real man. I feel real.”

“That's exactly what-”

“Oh fuck off Harrington. Why you then? Why is this happening to you?”

Steve sits in the quiet left behind by Abba. The car making quiet noises as it settles and cools. Steve stares through the glass at his own front door.

“I think I’m being punished.”

Steve moves around the kitchen, making effort to cook himself something that’s actually protein and vegetables and not just canned food and melted cheese in slightly different arrangements.

“That’s sad, you know, that you think you’re being punished. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

Steve shrugs, “you’re dead.”

“Not your fault. I made my own choices.”

Steve shrugs again, “it’s not like I’m doing this on purpose.”

Eddie snorts, “you think your subconscious is punishing you with me? That’s...a hundred kinds of shitty. Also, I’m kind of offended.”

And Eddie really does look offended. Steve laughs. Really laughs. And then he’s laughing desperately because the laugh knocked the pieces loose and he feels like he’s cracking open with all of the everything that’s happened. And then he’s crying, leaning against the kitchen counter, sobbing.

Eddie’s hard to see through the snot and tears, but he’s there, hand hovering uselessly in the air, looking so, so, concerned about Steve. Steve wipes the tears away eventually. His chest feels tight, but also lighter, and he spends a minute relearning how to breathe, Eddie talking him gently through it all the while.

Everything looks a little better, after. Even Eddie’s face isn’t as dirty as Steve thinks he’s made it out to be.

Steve’s lying on the couch. Eddie’s lying on the floor.

“Yeah, I don’t know. I don’t really have one.”

“How can you not have a favorite color? Come on Harrington, Everyone has a favorite color.”

“What’s yours?”

“Like...I guess like a teal? Like a really specific green kind of blue?”

Steve hums, turning to look, “I would not have guessed that for you.”

Eddie shrugs, staring at the ceiling, “how about red? You seem like a primary colors kind of guy.”

“Are you like...calling me simple, some how?”

Eddie laughs, a short shocked braying noise, “am I insulting you though the medium of favorite color choice?” Eddie gestures vaguely, rings catching the afternoon sun, Steve noticing the shine on them for the first time.

“Feels like it,” Steve grumbles, but he’s smiling, lying back on the couch.

“I’m bored,” Eddie gets bored when Steve’s doing housework. He’s become a constant distraction away from the things Steve really should be doing, but still. This is how the laundry ends up not being folded, and they end up going for a drive to no where that results in a sunny walk along the bank of lovers lake.

“Nearly fucking shit myself jumping in that lake. Was bad enough watching fucking Patrick die.”

“Yeah that must have...must have been bad.”

Eddie skims a rock across the water, “maybe you’re right,” he says, almost absently.

“What about?” Steve finds a rock for himself, but it only skims one time before disappearing below the surface. Eddie grins at him, quick, before he goes back to finding another stone.

“Me being...a curse. I was there for Chrissy. And then Patrick-”

“Hey. Hey, no. No I don’t...I don’t think that, any more. And Patrick and Chrissy, that was awful, but it was Vecna, you just...wrong place wrong time man, don’t beat yourself up.”

Eddie sighs through his nose, “okay.”

They stand, watching the sunshine make the water all sparkly. Far off in the distance, Steve can hear some kids playing. The fun kind of shrieking and hollering.

“Nothing to be scared of now though, right?” Eddie asks.

“Nah, I don’t-”

Steve doesn’t even get to finish what he’s about to say, Eddie hollering and whooping, gravel crunching under his boots as he sprints the few yards to the waters edge. “It’s fucking freezing,” he screeches when he’s in up to his hips, but he doesn’t stop, arms splashing as he still tries to walk even the waters too deep for it.

Steve absently thinks that the water's going to fuck up the leather of his jacket.

Steve doesn’t really know what possesses him, but he chases Eddie in anyway.

Steve’s sneakers squelch horribly as he slumps up the beach, but he still doesn’t regret it. The elated look on Eddie’s face when they'd splashed each other. The joy.

Steve hadn’t played like that since he was a kid.

He can hear Eddie following him, and they flop down on the grass, side by side, an inch between them.

Steve squints at the sun, watching as Eddie holds his hands up to the warmth, bands of light shining though his fingers. They look better. As in, they’re all present and correct.

When they turn to look at each other, Eddie’s face is clean.

They both lean in at the same time, and Eddie’s mouth is warm from the sun and chilled by the water.

#this is so awesome!!#fanfiction

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