#APPRECIATE STEVE HARRINGTON LIKE HE DESERVES YOU SWINE

[hitlikehammers]

The Everybody-Loves-Steve-Harrington-So-They-Should-Damn-Well-Tell-Him-Regularly fic nobody one person asked for—

this ended up unapologetically being just an extended love letter, in the form of actions and very sappy words, from Eddie Munson to the love of his life, one Steve Harrington, after they live, damnit, and get to be happy.

———

It’s been three months by the time Eddie puts it together. He’s gonna blame extensive-physical-trauma-via-demon-bat-attack for his lack of perception on the matter; for how long it took.

Actually, wait. Back up.

It’s been closer to seven months since Spring Break, and said demon-bat-attack. He’d been laid up for close to a month, a fucking interminable 26 days that were only made bearable by rereading The Lord of the Rings, again, for comfort; by making margin notes in The Silmarillion because why the fuck not; and by the frankly unparalleled company that was mostly his uncle whenever he could manage, and Steve fucking Harrington, the man himself in the flesh, across more hours than Eddie suspected he could rightfully manage, not without consequences. People didn’t just not rent movies in a crisis; not in fucking Hawkins. But Eddie rarely woke up alone between the two of them and a smattering of everyone else, and it was…nice.

It was really fucking nice, and when they left even for a little while, Eddie got choked up more often than not because having them was so nice. He’d never felt, like. Cared about, before. Not like this.

When he wasn’t getting choked up, though, he was increasingly fantasizing about how soft Steve’s skin looked. Like, to touch. How plump those lips were and what it’d taste like if he got to bite down on them. How Steve’s tongue might fit in Eddie’s mouth, or maybe also elsewhere, and vice versa. He spent some of the time—when he wasn’t alone, even—stuck in those thoughts. He knew it was stupid; dangerous. But Steve always had a tendency to lean into him more than was strictly necessary, the scent of his aftershave and just him in general all collectively kind of cruel to taunt a man with, in all honesty. He touched Eddie way more than was necessary, always mostly innocent but always for far too long. The mixed signals were maddening, to say the very fucking least, especially from a straight boy.

That was: until Robin brought up Vickie when it was just the three of them in Eddie’s room and Eddie—who knew about Robin, but was never completely sure if Steve did, too—got to witness Steve’s dramatic eyerolling at Robin’s plight because I told you to lean in during that part of the movie, fuck’s sake Buckley which was brazenly countered with not everyone got so much practice in before realizing they liked both teams, dingus, and Eddie’d mostly blanked out like the end of a VHS until Robin had left, and Steve had stayed, concern all over his face that’d been hidden in Robin’s presence as he sat on the bed next to Eddie’s propped up form, close enough to feel the heat of him, as he asked what was wrong and leaned as if to take Eddie’s temperature with his lips before pulling away to opt for the back of his hand. And Eddie had frowned, maybe bit back a groan because he had wanted the lips, he had wanted them a whole fuckton of a lot, but he managed instead to ask:

“Both teams?”

And the grin that’d curled out from Steve, then, was fucking cheshire but bright, eyes glinting when he answered:

“I don’t flash it around, but I don’t, like, hide it from my friends”—promptly sending Eddie Munson spiraling as his world got turned inside out.

But what that all means, basically, is that it’s been about six months and change since—after all that practice presumably also worked the other way around, and probably served to give Eddie away for all the fantasizing now that it was suddenly leant a little oxygen, a little fool’s hope—but either way: Eddie did find out, that very night, what those lips tasted like. Felt the words against his mouth, even, before they pulled apart, broke the spell: So fuckin’ glad you’re not dead, you absolute goddamn moron.

From which: it’s been five months and twenty-two days, since he got out of the hospital, dragged into Harrington’s stupidly oversized house—yours is still a crime scene, so your choices are pretty fucking slim, Eds—and deposited not into one of the far-too-many guest rooms, but onto Steve’s own mattress to glare at the overwhelming amount of plaid as he’d protested stealing Steve’s bed before realizing, very quickly, that Steve’s plan hadn’t actually involved giving up his bed to anyone.

Because, sliding in next to Eddie—who was still sore as fuck, but healed and mostly-whole if you counted the slightly creative new shape of his torso with all the stitched-up divots around the eaten pieces—but it clocks in at being about five months, twenty-one days, seventeen hours and like twenty-three minutes before Steve Harrington, who Eddie had harbored a few lingering doubts about regarding the extent of his comfort level with…all of this, despite what had become daily makeout sessions timed around the nurses’ rounds—but those were doubts he shouldn’t have wasted energy on at all, as it happened, given that at that five-month-twenty-one-day-seventeen-hour-twenty-three-minute mark, in Harrington’s stupid-large bed, he got hands on Steve’s dick for the first time and. Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

Which is to say nothing about ten minutes or so later, when he got Steve’s mouth on his dick and…well, fuck.

And yeah, Eddie might remember the set up of that shit to the goddamn minute, but if you made him break it down in any more detail beyond that point he’d fail you, flat out, because Steve Harrington has no goddamn right to be that good at sucking cock.

And yet.

From there, though: it was around three weeks after that, that Eddie became just about certain everything between them wasn’t just sex. It was very very good sex, like, sometimes (most times) mindblowingly good. But Eddie was a little too attached to studying Steve’s face while he cleaned them up after they’d both come; Eddie was a little too entranced by the way Steve’s hair would get flopped into the air by soft puffs of air when he breathed deep in his sleep. Steve, for his part, touched him so tenderly Eddie might’ve died for it. He watched Eddie with a deep-dark intensity in those wide eyes, when it was night and the color in them got lost to the shadows and it was all reliant on the tug, the stray shine in them pulling behind Eddie’s ribs: and those eyes weren’t the same ones he watched the others with. Those weren’t the same eyes Eddie thinks he’s seen anyone watch…anyone with. They held too much, inside. Which was part of the problem: Eddie couldn’t read all of it. But he started to think he could pick up the important parts; enough to read into the way Steve tucked his head against Eddie’s neck sometimes, and wrapped his arm around Eddie’s chest other times, and sighed like the world was right when he managed to do both at once even when that was a boldfaced lie but not there, with them—not in those moments of them.

Basically: Eddie could read enough to be pretty damn sure what he was reading into all of it just…he just couldn’t be too far off the mark.

Which is how it comes to a head exactly 24 days after that, though—Eddie knows that one to the hour, the minute for the way his heart had thumped and he’s studied a clock to try and distract himself away—because that’s when Eddie became absolutely fucking sure, wonder of all wonders; became sure of this impossible thing that was where all the evidence pointed, all the touches and the looks and the sounds and the sighs. And when it happens? It’s not even a heat-of-the-moment thing, they weren’t even fucking, they hadn’t even just been, either: they were just curled in bed around each other, Steve sprawled on Eddie’s chest and Eddie’s fingers in Steve’s hair and Eddie’d climbed through Steve’s window earlier that night because his parents had made an unexpected stop home—first of the year, apparently there were actual things in an actual office his father worked in, located in actual Indiana that sometimes needed his actual-physical signature or some shit—but it hadn’t been planned and Steve had been caught off-guard. And Eddie hadn’t been prepared for how the presence of his parents would weigh on the man, how it would dim the sunshine in him even when they weren’t in the goddamn room, even from behind the counter at fucking Family Video in the days that followed; or else, maybe he could have expected it, a little in theory, but he sure as hell wasn’t prepared for how it twisted in his guts to witness it, or for just how much he goddamn missed falling asleep next to Steve at night with the promise of waking up the next morning the very same way. And Eddie’d been waiting for Steve when the man himself came up about twenty minutes after Eddie’s unannounced arrival via unlatched second-story window, and Steve had stood stock-still for a long moment where Eddie wondered if he really should have thought twice, here, before Steve was beaming, locking his door behind him as downright fucking joy blossomed from him, the sun coming out from behind the clouds, and Eddie’d sighed, relieved to see it when its absence had felt like swallowing glass.

And they’d kissed, fuck but they’d kissed—they’d made out like kids with a fraction of their experience and didn’t dare to go further with Steve’s parents underfoot and it didn’t even matter because it was perfect, fucking sensational for everything it was, and when they’d finally parted for more than a quick breather Steve had whispered to him:

“You’re unbelievable,” and the way he’d said it was with wonder and Eddie’d preened a little for it while he memorized the patterns Steve was tracing on his chest like a treasure map. “Don’t know how you even put up with this bullshit.”

And Eddie knew he’d meant the sneaking in, the dodging his parents, the hiding when it was needed and Eddie’d known part of that was because Steve’d never fucked a guy before—at least not seriously, repeatedly, with attachments and feelings involved and stuff; Steve had been able to live his love life on main and give zero shits, where Eddie’d always known he’d leave part of his heart behind closed doors, if he was lucky enough to find someone who wanted it at all. So part of it, Eddie knew, was just a mismatch of experience, and maybe even expectation. And Steve had seemed fine to keep them under-wraps as needed, not for shame or wanting to hide—shockingly, blessedly—but for understanding the necessity. Yet when it came to Eddie, he automatically turned guilty. Like Eddie wasn’t jumped in, here, leapt in with both feet and no desire to climb out.

Possibly, like, ever.

And Eddie didn’t love that, neither the question nor the doubting; but what Eddie hated most was when Steve said that word—it’s not like it was offensive or like, of particular note in some way; just that it sounded godawfully sour, like bile at the back of Eddie’s with how it rolled off Steve’s tongue, the tone of it, for no real reason at all that Eddie could figure out, he just fucking hated hearing Steve use it: specifically when he was aiming it at himself.

Bullshit.

Which at least partially explained the mindset, the reasoning for what came next as best as anything could, save that it was honest and heartfelt and it couldn’t stay held back forever. It was just that Eddie didn’t mean to say it; not just then—and yet:

“Because I kind of fucking love you.”

And then it was out, and he meant it in his heart of hearts, he really fucking meant it even if he didn’t mean to say it it in that exact moment; but either way it was out, he couldn’t stop it or take it back. There wasn’t even any context for it being a slip of the tongue or the heat of the moment or anything but the god’s-honest truth, fuck everything, and it was probably way too soon—and unjustifiable for that alone—but it was also almost definitely unwanted and unreciprocated and what if they were just fucking, what if it was just fucking, Jesus fucking Christ, Munson, get a goddamn grip—

Then Steve was slipping off of him, away from him, and Eddie’s heart—which had been jackrabbiting wildly was instead plummeting past his stomach to wrestle out from his goddamn toes; stupid, stupid—but then Steve was straddling him, his hands braced on Eddie’s chest as he watched him for only half a moment before fucking devouring him, and in between the downright glorious offensive being carried out on his lips, Steve had panted harsh:

“Thank fuck, thank fuck, thank fuck, ‘cause I’m in fucking love with you.”

Which is how it shakes out, closer to four months since they started, since their first kiss in a goddamn recovery bed—that’s how it shakes out that they’d stumbled up the stairs through the garage the very afternoon Steve’s parents get fucking gone, falling over themselves so as not to lose the contact of their lips because goddamn, Eddie knew Steve could kiss, and his own experience on the whole pales by comparison, but he thinks he knows enough to say the two of them, together? Fuck, but the look in Steve’s eyes when they break for air every time is ravenous, pupils blown goddamn silly, and Eddie would put money on their kissing being something goddamn special.

He was between Steve’s legs, teasing him kind of viciously if he’s honest, when the goddamn fucking front door slammed and they both froze in place because…

Well, fuck. Obviously.

“He’s home? I would have thought college…” a voice wafted up as heels clicked toward the kitchen; heels, two uneven pairs, and heavy flats. Three people.

“Didn’t we all,” a low grumble of disgust, closer to the bottom of the stairs where the coats could hang, filtered upward on its own, betraying a fourth of the party without needing to take a single step: Steve’s absolute fucker of a father.

“He was involved in a fairly serious motor accident,” and that would be the slightly-less-unconscionable-but-not-at-all-forgivable Mrs. Harrington from the kitchen, Eddie’d lay bets on hers being the higher, louder heels, and she sounded concerned enough for her company, Eddie was sure. But not enough for normal people with a goddamn beating heart who give a shit about their fellow members of society, to say nothing of their own flesh and fucking blood.

Which is why whoever her company was: they’d think it was perfectly normal. Concerned, even, and genuine for it. Eddie forced himself to sit back, and close his eyes: Steve’s parents were too fucking much, and they weren’t even his. He’d never even properly met them. But fucking hell.

“He’s fine, but it’s definitely set him off course for a bit.” and oh yes, Harrington the Elder just had to chime back in from closer, still near the door, the base of the stairs: why was he still near the door? So Eddie could jump and run and strangle him more quickly, for the proximity? Like a little present just for him, for its convenience? God, but it was tempting.

“Oh yeah,” Steve had thrown his head back with a thunk against the headboard, “just fine, bet me they’re only guessing it was even a car accident.”

And Steve? Steve just sounded resigned, maybe a little disgusted, or maybe even tired; but Eddie.

Eddie was letting every word feed a genuine fucking rage in his gut, and a well-earned one, too.

“He has a little job, in the meantime” and there’s Mrs. Harrington again. As uselessly, banally inhumane toward her own fucking son as ever. “Just a stopgap, but he’s doing well given the circumstances.”

“Oh yes, minimum wage hawking cassette tapes, we’re very proud,” and Eddie’d thought he might break a tooth for how his jaw was clenching, grinding, because fucking hell. There’s nothing about the man he was kneeling in front of, as he was in that moment—and hell, maybe even more so because of who he was before, for the work anyone’d have to put in to change, and come out genuinely better than not just who they used to be, but better than most people, period—but there was nothing about the man in front of Eddie that was anything less than deserving of pride, and praise, and love.

So much love.

Mr. fucking Harrington was lucky his shoes hustled quick to the kitchen, shortly thereafter, else Eddie may have lost what remained of his restraint.

“Initiative though!” and it’s a third voice, male, the other non-heeled compatriot. Must be a couple. “Nothing like perseverance in the face of adversity. Can’t teach that in class!”

And then came some murmurs, mumbles, the conversation drifting farther from where Eddie could track it, until:

“Steven?” and oh, Mommy Harrington, shut the fuck up.

“Come say hello to the O’Briens! Our flight’s been delayed until the evening and there’s absolutely nothing to do in the airport for that long, but they’d love to see you!”

At least that had explained why Eddie and Steve had been so rudely interrupted when his parents had left that morning and they’d gleefully planned to spend every hour after Steve got off work making up for the lost time between what they’d stolen that week while the house had been invaded by its delinquent owners—because to Eddie’s mind, that’s what they were. Derelict parents, and piss-poor landlords of a house that only tipped over toward a home at all because of Steve.

Because of the love of Steve, and the love that Steve returned. Something these assholes couldn’t possibly comprehend, Eddie was sure of that much.

“Jesus,” Steve had huffed before sitting up, leaning to kiss Eddie’s forehead and grab his hands, dragging him to the bed in Steve’s place. “She probably just realized she forgot her cosmetics case in the kitchen and it was a convenient excuse.”

And then Steve had slipped on a pair of clothes that looked too formal, too put-together for being in one’s own home, fluffed up his hair as best he could and crossed to the bed one more time to peck quick at Eddie’s lips: “Stay up here.”

“Obviously,” Eddie had rolled his eyes, but he couldn’t help the pang of worry. He hadn’t liked the idea of leaving Steve unprotected with those wolves, those fiends. He hadn’t…liked that at all. He’d known Steve could handle himself, he’d known Steve had done so his whole life thus far, but still.

Eddie hadn’t liked it.

“I’ll make this as quick as I can,” Steve had promised as he straightened up and smoothed his shirt.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Eddie’d found himself promising like rote, like his bones were built from it so how could he not, so he doubled-down because, well. He’d lost himself to Steve a while ago, by that point; there was no possible harm in making it plain now in case there was anything left that hadn’t already been bet in full, risked in whole. “And not just because I…can’t.”

He’d hoped his eyes had told the full scope of the truth of it, too.

Steve had crossed the room again to kiss him, and fucking hard too; it’d felt like he got the memo, which was a plus at least.

But then Eddie had spent the long minutes, maybe hours, thinking; stretched out on top of Steve’s bed. Thinking about the future, about whether there was a future, to this. A future that he could make with Steve where they would tell his parents to fuck themselves, where they could build a life, where Eddie could take care of him and he could take care of Eddie, where they were partners and they grew and thrived together no matter the speed bumps and the roadblocks and the hatemongering and the bigotry. He’d thought about making a life with Steve where that gorgeous soul was never surprised at the idea of people staying, still being there, wanting nothing more in fucking life but to still be there, with him.

Eddie’d thought a lot about the consequences of standing up and jumping down the stairs five at a time so he could deck Steve’s asshole of a father in the motherfucking face.

“I fucking hate them,” was the first thing Eddie’d said once Steve had returned, locking the door behind him as the click of the front door downstairs had followed in kind; alone again. Fucking finally.

Steve had flopped half next to Eddie, half on top of him, and blew out a long breath:

“Join the club.”

“Do they always…” Eddie had started, but hadn’t been sure yet which direction to go. There were so many, and he hadn’t wanted to overwhelm Steve, he’d wanted more than anything to distill all of his disgust, his disdain into one question, one blow he didn’t want to deliver because Steve didn’t deserve more blows, any blows, not ever; and specifically? Eddie never wanted to deliver blows to Steve of any kind. For any reason. He wanted to be the first place in Steve’s world to depend upon to deliver the softness, the tenderness, the damn-near worshipful gratefulness for the fact of Steve Harrington.

Always.

“Whatever it is,” Steve had exhaled heavily, when Eddie took too long deliberating; “the answer’s probably yes.”

And the flippancy, the resignation that wasn’t even resignation, wasn’t strong enough for that—acceptance, maybe? Whatever it was. Eddie fucking hated it in Steve’s voice.

He hated it, and it was the sheer vehement rage that not-quite-resignation had stirred in him that made the question finally take shape and escape his lips:

“They talk about you like you aren’t fucking magnificent.”

It wasn’t even a fucking question. It was a goddamn refutation. How could they. How could they?

Steve had turned to look at Eddie slantways, neck crooked at an angle and his hair flopping over his forehead and he’d…grinned. He’d fucking grinned.

“You are the only person in the world who would say that,” Steve had said softly, and Eddie could tell he’d been aiming for at least a little humor; he’d hit the nail on a vulnerable sort of surprise, instead. Disbelief, but an innocent kind.

“I mean it,” Eddie’d been quick to say, to assure, because by fucking god, did he mean it.

“Then you’re also the only person in the world who means it,” and again, Steve had aimed for teasing, but had landed on a wondering sort of skepticism that had twisted violently in Eddie’s chest; that Eddie wasn’t even sure Steve had known he was giving away. Didn’t know for sure if he’d have let Eddie see it, as a conscious choice.

But Eddie had seen it.

“The kids think you hung the moon.”

And the look on Steve’s face when Eddie had taken that turn, gone down that road: no. Steve hadn’t meant to for his expressions to give him away. Maybe Steve hadn’t even known what was being given away: the same thing that had been in this voice, before. A certain self-deprecation that outweighed the abilities of even the most skilled masters of laughing that shit off.

“Bull,” Steve had huffed with a little snort, and yeah: case in fucking point, and good god, Eddie was starting to see the depths of this thing that Steve kept hidden, maybe best of all even from himself, Jesus Christ. “I wave a fancy nail bat at monsters and I drive them around. They won’t even need the second one soon, or at least Dustin won’t. If he can figure out parallel parking.” Steve’s nose had scrunched adorably then, and Eddie’d wanted to appreciate it fully, wanted to sit up and kiss it, but he was a little nauseated at the way the words were sinking in, the things unsaid beneath them tumultuous and just so fucking wrong. “Umm, right, well like, maybe not super soon. But still.”

“They adore you,” Eddie’d insisted, because even a total stranger, a compete outsider could look at Steve with those twerps and see how they worshipped him. It had confused the shut out of Eddie in the beginning, but fuck if he hadn’t seen it.

But maybe…maybe Steve’d been seeing something totally different all along. Something he’d learned at home, something he’d long accepted as fact. Maybe good natured—if often obnoxious—bantering had always landed as honest critique.

Which, which: fuck.

Fuck.

“I’m an endearing idiot,” Steve had chuckled a little to himself, tracing spirals on Eddie’s forearm, and sounding…content with it. Unsurprised and unbothered by a simple and uncontested fact. And…what the fuck.

And riffling through his brain, Eddie’d started to see it: Steve had always just rolled with it. God, but: Steve had laughed along.

Like it was honest. And true.

“Robin thinks you’re amazing,” Eddie had tried to flesh out the picture that was taking shape and souring in the pit of his stomach; Steve had calmed a little, sobered a little, his tone getting quiet, but…also, small.

Eddie did not like that one fucking bit.

“Rob’s,” Steve had started, a little shaky; “I’m lucky to have her. Sometimes I feel guilty, though,” and: what the actual fuck?

“I hate that she has to kinda, separate me from the other parts of her social life? I mean, I get it,” how. How? What was there to get? “But I hate that she has to, like, defend being around me to her other friends, y’know?”

And no, Eddie had not known. Eddie did not and would never know, because Steve was not a thing to be defended against, or justified. Shit: Steve did all the defending of everyone, these days. His simple living-breathing presence in someone’s general goddamn proximity was justification unto itself.

“I mean, before you? I had my ex-girlfriend, her long-distance boyfriend, and a little gaggle of teenagers. Rob had all the band kids and shit. The language nerds who like sitting around speaking French and German and whatever,” and Steve had carried on, while Eddie’d tried to make the pieces fit. “I don’t know who I flattered in the luck department, but I’m thankful for whatever I did, to deserve finding her.”

And Eddie’d wanted more than anything to explain to Steve that shit went both ways and them some, but then those eyes were trained on him, straight and unblinking and Eddie was then and remained forevermore a weak fucking man for Steve’s eyes, and the love they drowned in, fucking perpetually.

“Same goes for you,” Steve had whispered, breathy as fuck: “so goddamn much sometimes it hurts.”

And again: Eddie had been, was, is, will always be past his dying day, weak as shit for this man.

“C’mere,” he’d breathed back and reeled Steve in and kissed him until his lungs were burning, until Steve’s chest was a mallet against his own from the outside for the force of his panting.

“I love you something stupid,” Eddie’d managed to say, even it it’d been more of a gasp: “I love you something painful and dangerous and fierce, dug in so damn deep, and all of it put together is so far beyond the best feeling I’ve ever imagined, that I can’t even see straight,” and he’d framed Steve’s face and just…drank him in before he exhaled, the sound trembling just a little, but enough:

“God, I love you.”

They’d kissed, and they’d fucked, and it screwed with the tilt of the earth a little bit for how fucking good it was. But that?

That was when Eddie started really paying attention.

In fairness: he always pays attention to Steve—but Eddie also sometimes has the attention span of a goldfish unless he puts his mind to acting otherwise. And nothing in his entire life has ever felt as important as Steve Harrington, so: put his mind to this is exactly what he does. So he starts studying it, finding the threads of it, perking up and filing away and mostly fucking scowling when he hears stray lines here and there, like:

The things we put up with for a free ride, grumbled from a backseat, or:

Sure, he was kind of a douchecanoe, but I swear, now he’s— cut off by the popping of gum behind a counter, or:

He’s not all bad, and really, he wasn’t even all bad then, but… with that last word dangling like damnation, or:

He’s easy on the eyes, sure, but sometimes I wonder if that hair crushes his brain cells, tossed carelessly with a smirk, or:

I don’t know if I’d say dictionary definition of ‘peaked in high school’… with, again, the goddamn ‘but’ so clear it might as well have been shouted into the abyss to echo on endlessly, or:

If he didn’t foot for the tokens, I’m not sure it’d be worth it, garbled around greasy pizza that the speaker sure as shit didn’t pay for himself, either.

So yeah. That’s kind of how, seven months after Spring Break, and after three months of cataloging all of the stray commentaries surrounding his maybe-improbable-but-oh-so-glorious boyfriend, the love of his goddamn life: Eddie puts together how Steve Harrington maybe thinks all of the shit that’s said about him, specifically from the people he loves most, might just be falling into the same category as the absolute bullshit said about him under his own roof, by the two people in the world who were supposed to love him first. And sure, Eddie knows what failed parenting looks like; feels like. Intimately. And maybe Eddie can’t swoop in and stop that, stop them; can’t fix it with the magic wand of his own resolve and the sheer smothering magnitude of his own feelings. But Jesus fuck: Eddie sure as shit can have a word with the people who unwittingly—and god, he hopes like hell that’s all it is, unwittingly, stupidly and thoughtlessly and carelessly tossed because they don’t fucking know better, don’t get to see something deeper than hurt in Steve’s posture, his gaze for it, something that’s more like agreement without a goddamn hint of surprise, or indignation because it’s just accepted as fact, and what’s worse is how if that’s the case, then what’s Steve been taking in as care, as love, as acceptable all this time, for this fucking long? Jesus, just, just—

After three months of putting it all together and being goddamn sick to his stomach, enraged beyond measure at the picture it paints: Eddie makes the executive decision to do something about this shit.

…more (on ao3)