#i've just learned that mistys weren't introduced until the mid 1990s but in my mind that's what sally smells like

[wheels-of-despair]

"Loving Eddie was easy. Even on the hard days."

Aftermath | Chapter 11 | Eddie Munson

Eddie Munson x Female OC | E.M x Karmen Jones

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 12 | Chapter 13 | Chapter 14 Chapter 15.

Chapter Summary: The worst nurse on the ward makes a decision for Eddie that he isn't comfortable with. Karmen thinks about her family and then her compatibility with Eddie while giving up a Saturday morning sleep-in.

Story Summary: Eddie wakes up in the Upside Down after 'dying' in Dustin's arms. He wakes up again in the hospital and is reunited with his loved ones. This story covers Eddie's time in the hospital and overall physical recovery after the Upside Down.

This fic is part of the She Feels Like Home series. It sits between Boxing Day and Drop Out.

Chapter Tags: Angst, Hurt/Comfort , Fluff, ASL, (American Sign Language), ASD !Eddie, Autistic Eddie, Non-verbal Eddie, , Healing, Getting Better, Season 4 Spoilers, Found Family, Family Acceptance, Lore Drop, Mentions of kinks, Specifically Mommy!Dom Kink, Mentions of past relationship trauma/cheating/trust issues, patient abuse, medical abuse, talk of murder, past child abuse, mental health issues, panic attacks, suicidal ideation.

Words: 8k

~~

People don’t forget. Nothing gets forgiven.

Eddie remembered someone saying that once. He couldn’t remember who, just that it had resonated with him in an unexpected way.

The quote had burrowed itself into his subconscious and sprung forth again after Chrissy’s death. When he was hiding alone at Rick’s place before the Gang found him. Before he knew about The Upside Down and Vecna. It had become a mantra in his mind. A repeating phrase that promised him no hope.

After defeating the mysterious Dark Wizard, when his life was saved and his name was cleared. He thought that the words would stop swirling in his head and finally let him rest. That things would feel normal again and he could believe if only for a little while that even if people didn’t forget, that they would forgive.

But deep down Eddie knew better than that. That whatever wise man had spoken that truth to him was correct and he was fucked, plain and simple. 

People wouldn’t forget what he ‘did’ and they wouldn’t forgive him for it either. If his treatment from the staff at Hawkins Memorial Hospital was any indication of how Eddie was to live the rest of his life interacting with other people. The general public. Then he wasn’t really sure he wanted to get better and go home.

He hated the staff that worked whatever floor of the Godforsaken place he’d landed his sorry ass on. They were cold, rude and most of the time just downright nasty.

He’d gotten to know most of the nurses names by now. Recognizing them as they entered his room and gauging how his day was going to be based on the quality of care he could expect from the person that was assigned to him.

They were all terrible he’d decided before he had conversed with Nurse Jo. She had changed his mind about hoping that the whole ward burned down with all of the staff inside. 

He’d let her leave with the other patients before he lit his match.

But the others could all go to hell. He ranked them in his mind from awful to atrocious and changed their places weekly based on how horrible they’d been to him.

But there was one person on the leaderboard whose place had never wavered. The top spot for number one most hated Nurse in all of Hawkins, went to Sally.

Nurse Sally had a special place in his heart. 

The place he liked to keep every person that had ever wronged him in his young life. A place akin to hell where he could use them to warm his chest at the thought of them burning alive.

If being recently dismissed of a murder charge wasn’t a memory he had to sober him, he sincerely worried that Nurse Sally would finally push him over the edge.

He’d never met another person in his life that induced such a rage in him with as few words as Nurse Sally was able to.

She wasn’t even trying.

He didn’t think.

She was just… Like that.

The raggedy old bitch was only in her 60s according to intel he’d acquired while partaking in his new favorite pastime. Which was honestly just eavesdropping but he liked it better when he pretended he was watching the Hawkins spinoff of General Hospital.

Eddie had a hunch that Nurse Sally had lied on her resume and her formal medical training consisted of putting leeches on patients during the smallpox pandemic. 

She was a horrible woman. The meanest by far. He felt that he knew deep down in his soul that it wasn’t even personal. It didn’t matter who he was or what people had thought he’d done. She didn’t discriminate. She hated everyone equally. 

He wished he could have asked Steve about it when he’d visited. No doubt he had to deal with her as well, being on the same floor.

He could just tell she was the type of person that chastised new Mothers for not putting socks on their baby when it was 90 degrees out. The type that would watch a news story about the rise of rent prices and then call the generations after hers lazy. 

She definitely drove twenty miles an hour under the speed limit and then honked at people for overtaking her. 

He hated everything about her from the sting of the cold rings she refused to take off to the stench of cigarettes that followed her around. He usually loved a good cigarette but after not having them for a few weeks, the withdrawals were finally over. So if the rotten smell that brought on waves of nausea wasn’t enough to convince him that this woman was a Reptilian in disguise; The fact that her rings never warmed to what should be the natural temperature of her hands, would have him sure. 

He hated her more than he hated Maureen and Eustace from a few trailers over and they had always been at the top of his mortal enemies list, just above Principal Higgins and Karmen’s neighbor Margrette.

Yes a lot of his mortal enemies were elderly women but to his defense they tended to be the demographic that hated someone like him most. Older men hated him too but their hate tended to blossom into indifference and then they left him the fuck alone. It was the women like Sally that couldn’t keep their mouth shut about his appearance or the hobbies he held.

Despite all of the flaws Nurse Sally exhibited, the decidedly worst part of her existence was that she always worked the morning shift. He had never seen her after midday and while that should be a fact that brought him comfort once she was gone. He found it extremely unnerving in the middle of the night when his painkillers were starting to wear off and his body refused to rest, that there was a chance she would be the one to come stomping through the doorway in the morning when he was at his worst and really just needed someone to take pity on him. 

This particular morning she’d arrived twenty seven minutes later than usual to give him his cocktail of medicines. He understood the staff were busy and things didn’t always run smoothly in a hospital. But this was spiteful. It had been a quiet morning. 

She’d rolled her eyes at his un-finished breakfast while he struggled not to writhe in pain. It had taken all the strength he had not to flip the tray table over in response to her grumbles about the cereal he couldn’t stomach, going soggy. 

It would have only hurt him in the end. The strength he needed to do something so wild would drain what was left of his determination when she left him to rot in wet, milk blankets until shift change.

Instead he had closed his eyes and fantasized about running into her when he was finally free of this hellhole. 

Physically. 

With his car.

He wondered where she liked to take her lunch break while he shivered and gagged through the awful ordeal of swallowing his pills. Having finally graduated from morphine in the IV to oral medications.

He never thought he’d miss the icy feeling of medicine being injected directly into his bloodstream but not only did he now have to force himself to actually eat a little so he could swallow the tablets but he had to be awake and make the conscious decision to take them instead of the brief reprieves where they would inject into his IV while he slept.

He was pretty sure they weren’t supposed to do that. Probably were supposed to wake him every time but some of them just didn’t want to be forced to talk to him.

He wasn’t one to complain about going to sleep and then waking up again relatively pain free. He would have rathered it that way every time if he had the choice.

The oral medicine had nothing but drawbacks. It didn’t work anywhere near as fast and he wasn’t careful his stomach would reject them. The nurses refused to give anymore if he threw them up. He knew that technically they weren’t allowed to for safety reasons but he couldn’t help but feel that they took a little too much pleasure in reminding him of that fact.

He’d realized pretty quickly that it was important to take them as soon as he was able to have another dose. Because he would start to feel the pain again long before he was allowed to have more and if he pushed it back any further than the allotted 6 hours, there was a risk that not only would it become severe enough that it would feel like the medicine barely did anything but it would be bad enough to have him vomiting which rendered the oral medication useless anyway.

It was a horrible catch twenty two that repeated in cycles until he was lucky enough to accidentally stumble upon the combination of actions that would settle his belly and let him keep the medicine down despite the pain.

Usually the correct action was to have a few bites of food, swallow the pills as soon as he got them with as little water as possible and then lay incredibly still for several hours. Sleep if he could. But the staff was still insisting on doing his vitals every few hours and it had been long enough now that talk of Physical Therapy had started to amp up.

They wanted to get him walking again. They, being Owens men. Probably the hospital staff too but only so they could finally tell him to walk his ass out of there.

He wasn’t complaining about that part. He couldn’t wait to get out. But he was not looking forward to being yelled at by the Therapist for not walking far enough or long enough. Not trying hard enough. Despite his injuries being entirely unique to any other case they would have ever seen.

They didn’t know that and he couldn’t tell them.

He’d finished taking his pills, putting the little paper cup back down on the table hard like he’d just taken a shot. Water dripped from his lips as he took in several shaky breaths and pushed the tray away with an equally shaky hand.

He’d gotten them down. It was time to lie still now.

Except Nurse Sally had other plans for him. She’d been grunting at him for weeks now that he was an absolute mess. That even being in the hospital, not being able to walk and only having one thorough sponge bath in that timeframe was not an excuse to give up on one’s appearance.

Eddie wasn’t sure why she cared. She seemed like the type of pearl clutching witch to condemn him based on his fashion choices alone. He didn’t miss the irony that even if he did try to make an effort, she wouldn’t be happy with what he looked like. They had two entirely different ideas of what ‘presentable’ meant and only one of them was reasonable.

“-A matted rats nest!” 

Eddie tuned back into her ranting mid sentence and tried to figure out what she was on about as he slowly slipped back down the bed. Intending to slide under the covers and pretend like he was in a coffin until around lunchtime when the painkillers would actually start to kick in. About 45 minutes before he was due for another dose. 

He jolted away as he felt cool metal on his upper arm. Those damn rings just about giving him frostbite where she had tried to still him with her grasp.

He felt an overwhelming urge to hiss at her in response. Swat her over the head a couple of times, no claws and hope she was weirded out enough to not come back.

He didn’t.

But it was the closest he’d ever come to giving into that particular fantasy.

Instead he stared up at her with barely concealed fury. Paused in the middle of sliding down the mattress, his shaky arms barely holding himself up as she motioned for him to sit back up and snapped her fingers at him when he didn’t immediately move.

‘It’s just not in his nature.’

Wayne had told Nancy.

Good Lord Nurse Sally was starting to make him ponder if Wayne was wrong all along.

“I won’t have it for a second longer.” She continued, Eddie unsure what the hell she wasn’t having anymore as she practically yanked him back up the bed by the arm. 

She pulled a groan from deep in his stomach where his medication was still deciding if it wanted to play nice with the spoonful of cornflakes from earlier. 

She had some unexpected strength behind her wiry frame. Either that or Eddie had lost more of his bodyweight and muscle tone than he had realized while recovering. 

The bats alone were generous enough to relieve him of that extra 2 pounds people were always trying to lose in magazines. 

Eddie’s body protested as he shifted to get comfortable. He hadn’t wanted to sit up at all but had to, to take the pills. He’d learnt the hard way that he couldn’t dry swallow them lying down. 

His wounds didn’t ache all the time for no reason anymore like they used to. But they did randomly flare up now and again even when he hadn’t overexerted himself. It was a strange sensation unlike anything he’d ever felt before. Kind of half way between a burn and a sting. They throbbed like an ant bite but the pain was also sharp and pointy like a wasp sting. The difference was that it wasn’t focused on just one small point. It was the entire wound and the baseline of pain was consistent like a burn but amped up in waves depending on how he moved. 

When this happened it was like that for every wound at the same time. Even the ones that had started to heal really well. Even the small cuts on his hands and face that were all but gone. 

If he didn’t know any better he would think that all of them were still infected and he was feeling the effects of that. 

He couldn’t explain it to the doctors. All he could do was answer yes or no questions about pain levels that ranged on a number scale. He had no idea if this was normal or not for the type of wounds he had.

Even if it was normal, what was the ‘normal’ they were comparing it to? Burns like his cover story? Being mauled by an animal? Because they knew deep down these were bites and not anything else? 

Even if they knew exactly what happened to him that meant nothing in the grand scheme of things. They didn’t know anything about Demon bats from another dimension. It wasn’t like they had been extensively studied like every other animals on the planet.

For all he knew, their little fangs contained some sort of venom that would torture him for years to come like a stinging nettle.

Karmen had told him once about the colloquially known Gympie-Gympie plant from the state she grew up in. The most painful plant in the world. The kids were taught about it in early schooling because it left unsuspecting victims that accidentally touched it with a sting so painful it had driven grown men to suicide and it lasted weeks… Sometimes even months.

Was that what was happening to him?

It was a terrifying thought. That the pain might not actually ever go away. That he might be stuck like this for months… 

If not forever.

That he could potentially spend the rest of his life in sporadic agony with no one understanding why or believing that he was actually still in pain. Being labeled a drug addict and blacklisted from all hospitals as a med seeker.

The train of thought he was on made his throat feel like it was going to close up. His breath came short and sharp as he realized he had spiraled himself into a panic attack out of nothing.

“Calm down.” Sally directed flatly as Eddie’s chest heaved with the shallow breaths he was taking. His wide eyes watering as he looked around the room desperately to try and find something to ground himself. Anything else to think about to distract his brain and bring him back from thoughts of a lifetime of suffering.

“Ah!” He yelped in surprise as his head was jerked backwards. The shock of the motion forcing air out of his lungs with the cry and affording him the chance to take air back in without stuttering.

That’ll do it…

A long gasping breath was inhaled and held inside him for a long few seconds before he was struck again against the back of the head and it was forced out in a way that left his lungs completely empty.

He finally took a relatively normal breath. Tears in his eyes as he turned to look at Nurse Sally with fear clouding his brown orbs.

Did she just... h-hit me?

He asked himself, surprised by how fearful he sounded inside his own mind. His stutter was brought forth without even speaking. All thoughts of running her down in his van had vanished and suddenly he was again that scared little boy that had been struck over the head for not talking fast enough.

He was that kid, trapped in a room with an adult that didn’t care that he was afraid.

Tears spilled over and down his hot cheeks as he blinked at her. Realizing as he did so that she hadn’t been hitting him over the head to try and stop his panic attack.

She may as well have though, considering his body’s reaction to the touch he wasn’t ready for. It had triggered him in a way he hadn’t been expecting.

His eyes fell to the object in her hand. He looked between it and her frustrated face as his fear started to simmer down and was replaced with anger. The tears continued all the same as he glared at her with as much hatred as he could possibly muster in a vulnerable moment.

You fucking bitch.

~

Saturday morning was Karmen’s least favorite day of the week to wake up early. Every day it was a slog, no matter how she looked at it. But Saturdays used to be her reprieve. Friday nights were fun to look forward to even without plans and knowing she had nowhere to be in the morning was a kind of freedom she rarely chose to give up.

Which is why it was so damn hard to be walking through the hospital doors just after 9am on the one morning of the week she usually enjoyed.

She had afforded herself a little extra window of sleep this morning and while she felt a little more rested than usual, she had wrestled with whether or not it was worth it for the amount of guilt she held in her belly over making Eddie spend the beginning of his weekend alone.

She had told him the day before that she wasn’t getting up at the crack of dawn today. That she was burnt out and needed a couple of hours after work to focus on herself before a solid 8 hours of sleep. She had framed work as the issue and while it was technically the crux of it. Not spending more than an hour most days on her own basic needs and neglecting the miscellaneous ones was weighing her down in a way she hadn’t been ready for.

She’d practically spent the whole week Eddie was missing in bed but not a second of it was restful and since he’d come back she’d given it her all to make sure he had a reason to stick around.

He’d understood when she said she needed a sleep-in. Lord knew Eddie wasn’t a stranger to an all day lounge-about to recover from a shitty week. But she knew inside that he was sad about it and would never say because he loved her and wanted her to be happy too.

She had tried not to let it get to her. Even Wayne had stopped her as they left together the night before and told her that he thought it was great she was taking a moment for herself. He knew better than anyone how full on Eddie could be and she knew he felt the same weight on his chest that she did every time he had to leave the hospital. 

He had tried to convince her it was okay to take the whole weekend. That Eddie would be fine if she just didn’t show up again until Monday lunchtime. She knew that wasn’t true but she appreciated him for trying. At the very least he had convinced her that sleeping in was an okay thing to enjoy.

That he didn’t judge her for it.

But that fact hadn’t stopped her from dragging herself out of bed at 8:30am and eating her toast in the car on her drive across town.

Granted, 8:30am was still a sleep-in for her. But it wasn’t exactly the one she had in mind when she’d gone to bed purposefully without setting an alarm in the hopes her body clock would forgo waking her in a cold sweat, thinking that she was late for work.

She hadn’t bothered to get ready to leave the house in any capacity. Her unwashed hair still in a bun from the day before and the oversized shirt she’d worn to bed was ruffled by the whoosh of the automatic doors.

She couldn’t remember who’s shirt it was at this point. Just that it had been too big for them and it was the most comfortable ‘dress’ she’d ever worn in her life. She’d had it for a long time. It was one of her favorites that never usually left the house with her. No matter how comfortable it was, it wasn’t exactly a full outfit on its own and usually, she tried at least a little to seem put together with the way she dressed.  

She looked down at it as she waited in the elevator. A cartoon galah wearing sunglasses, surrounded by palm trees on a lavender background.

Oh, it was Bradie’s. 

She realized. Remembering suddenly that it could only belong to her older brother. The rose-breasted cockatoo was an Australian animal. The irony of that fact being that despite currently residing in Australia he hadn’t purchased the shirt there but in a gift shop in Thailand 5 years before he moved across the ocean back to the country they were born in.

She thought about him briefly as she headed towards Eddie’s room. Wondering what he would make of all this if she called him up and told him the story she had and tried to act as though it wasn’t fishy as hell.

No doubt he already had opinions but there was no way she was hearing them any time soon. 

She could pretty much guarantee that her Mother had barred him from calling her or asking about it if he did. Bradie was opinionated and pig-headed but if he liked you he’d give you the world. He was also fun-loving and laid back but it varied person to person if they had ever seen that side of him.

He hadn’t met Eddie yet but he’d gotten an earful about how fantastic he was a couple of months earlier. Strangely, not from Karmen. 

Karmen’s Mother Carla, had loved Eddie when they’d visited. 

She was one of the first after Wayne to tell her that there was no way Eddie did the things he was being accused of. She’d only met him a few times but she knew and she was an ‘amazing’ judge of character…

The fact that her Mother had immediately said that Eddie was innocent should have worked in his favor but if anything, it hindered his case. Her mother was a lovely, gorgeous hearted woman that trusted blindly.

In other words, she was gullible and prone to being hoodwinked by nefarious people.

But she certainly did have her moments. She tended to be right about people more often than she was wrong. It was just that when she was wrong, it was always a doozy.

‘Doozy’ didn’t exactly describe the magnitude of how wrong she would be if she was wrong about Eddie... 

But Karmen had overlooked it all the same. Said ‘thank you’ and decided to believe that Mum was right because she was just as gullible but only when it came to love.

Yes, Carla had loved Eddie.

He was exactly the type of boy that she wanted Karmen to find. Kind, polite, funny, a little bit silly and:

“So, so handsome!” She had cooed, her fingers pinching both of Eddie’s cheeks as he looked down at her with stars in his eyes.

He was her new favorite! She had proclaimed, slurring her words after several wines at the first dinner they’d shared.

Eddie blushing and kicking his feet as Carla’s other son Parker sat across the table, mouth agape.

He had traveled across the country to be there. Not to meet Eddie but to alleviate the guilt he felt that his Mother was ‘alone’ and ‘lonely’ since he, her last baby, had left home.

He’d only been living in L.A for a few months at that point.

Karmen knew her Mum hadn’t meant it the way it came out but she silently understood why Parker had bought a return ticket for only two days after his arrival and Bradie hadn’t visited in years.

Speaking of Braide, she was glad he hadn’t heard it. He was petty like her. Petty enough to renounce his citizenship just so he had an excuse not to come back for Christmas.

Parker had just rolled his eyes and written it down in a notepad when he thought no one was looking. 

He’d take the hit to have more material for his musical comedy.

He’d drink about it when he got back to L.A.

Besides, he liked Eddie. He already knew him vaguely from school. 

Karmen wondered what he thought about it all. Not that she really cared for his opinion. He was a worse judge of character than her Mum.

Their Mum who had just been trying to make Eddie feel welcome. 

She had succeeded. 

He hadn’t shut up about how much he loved Carla for several weeks afterwards. 

Karmen was happy with that result, if not a little worried that he’d leave her for the mature model of herself with better cooking skills. 

There was a small part of her though that found Eddie’s excitement at being accepted profoundly sad. Knowing Eddie had never really had a Mother figure in his life. He’d certainly never had one that outright said they liked him. 

The man had Mommy issues but not in the way she was used to. Most men she had dated that showed their hand early and ticked Mommy Issues off the list off Red Flags were total Momma’s boys but liked to pretend they hated every second of her doting on them. 

It was to the point that Karmen played second fiddle to Mother and put up with behavior she shouldn’t have from the in-laws that were just ‘protecting their baby’ from the mean lady that he asked to date him.

Eddie’s issues were very different. He hadn’t had a Mother to dote on him. He’d never been doted on before, period. He’d never really been taken care of before outside of basic needs and the kind of strained and stunted emotional talk that Wayne could offer.

Affection before Karmen was sparse and often came from inappropriate places and people. Like the Elementary School teacher that he latched onto because they were a little too nice when he was struggling to make friends or the person he had a crush on because they didn’t tell him to go away the first time he spoke to them.

Just two examples of the many people that were kind to him in the past that he went on to develop a strange parasocial relationship with.Thinking he meant more to them than he actually did. It always ended in the reality crashing down on him before he got too comfortable.

A big reason he had been surprised when Karmen actually turned up at the Hideout on that fateful Saturday night. He hadn’t misconstrued her general friendliness for affection or imagined the connection they shared.

She cared for him in a way he didn’t truly know he needed until he had it and Eddie liked being cared for. 

He liked it a lot.

That was what it came down to. It was something he’d only just begun to really open up to her about before everything went down. He’d had no problem sharing his tastes early on but a few weeks before he’d gone missing the can of worms had been pried open and emptied out all over the bed.

Just another checkbox at this point for why exactly she knew in her heart of hearts that Eddie was innocent. 

No one really knew him like she did. What he was really like behind closed doors. 

He wasn’t scary, macho or self-assured.

If anything he was timid, gentle and soft. 

He wasn’t capable of snuffing the life out of someone.

Also, despite not being able to tell her with his words, she knew there was nothing between him and Chrissy.

She had worried at first. Having been mistreated in the past there was always that deep seated fear of it happening again. Of being so gullible that she had not been able to see the signs. That fear of being blindsided by someone you trust, again. 

But after having time to sit with the information she had, she knew he was telling the truth about that at least.

There was just no way a barely legal highschool girl was worth giving up what he had found in her. 

Not in a conceited way. She didn’t believe she was hot shit or the best thing to ever happen to him simply because she was great and he couldn’t do better. 

But in the way of the deep understanding she had for who he was and why. What he liked. His personal tastes when it came to sex as well as everyday life.

Their shared predilections inside the bedroom and out.

She was happy to indulge any and all of his fantasies as he was her. There was no reason for him to stray when he’d already confessed his most awkward desires and she’d responded with enthusiasm. 

What would be the point of starting again with someone else? Even Eddie on Ketamine knew that was a frivolous endeavor.  

She worried sometimes that she had accidentally melded the inexperienced man she’d met into her ideal partner. Someone that catered to her specific tastes without regard for his own. 

But she checked in on that regularly. Every time the anxiety creeped in she’d revisit the idea with him and he was never anything but enthusiastic and excited. Telling her she was being silly and to forget the idea that she had somehow tricked him into wanting the things she wanted.

It hadn’t taken him too long to feel comfortable expressing some of his own kinks and the more he divulged, the less she worried. Each erotic fantasy had an anecdote or explanation attached that pre-dated her involvement in his life by at least 5 years.

The man knew what he liked, what he wanted and most surprisingly, why. 

He was incredibly self-aware in that regard and she envied the confidence he held in his desires. The ability he had to explain to someone that was basically a stranger how and when he’d realized that he wanted to be coddled by a maternalistic Dom.

There had only been a few times over the year where one of them hadn’t felt up to what the other had proposed. Eddie had no trouble voicing that with her and she’d happily compromised on something else, as he did for her.

Good sex certainly wasn’t everything she looked for in a relationship. To be honest it wasn’t even on her top 5 list of things that a partnership needed to be successful.

But accidentally stumbling across someone so compatible was rare. Someone that took her wants and needs into consideration during the act. Someone that not only shared kinks but outside of that was kind, compassionate, funny, just plain fun and:L

“So, so handsome!” 

Her Mother’s voice echoed in her head.

It was basically unheard of.

Eddie was an enigma in the best way possible. Even if he turned around the next day and said he never wanted to do anything along the sexual vein again she would be okay with it.

She could go without. She had always been happy to take care of herself.

Eddie had so much more to offer her than shared bedroom preferences. She felt she’d hit the jackpot with this man and she was willing to put up with just about anything to keep him around. 

The only thing she had to think twice about was giving up her Saturday mornings. But when faced with the prospect of getting to sleep until noon but waking up alone forever, the choice was easy.

Loving Eddie was easy. Even on the hard days.

She thought maybe she should tell him that, in those words. That he’d probably like to hear it.

But it would have to wait as she’d just arrived outside his room and her eyes twitched as all thoughts and emotions outside of anger disappeared into the abyss.

She wondered sometimes when rage at a sense of injustice overtook her, if the fury washed over her brain and made it smooth like a river rock. Only one thought allowed at a time when she was so mad that she wanted to cry.

Right now the single thought was Nurse Sally being flattened by her sedan. Unaware that she and Eddie had yet another fantasy in common. She exhaled a shaky breath as she watched Eddie wince at every rough tug of his scalp. 

His nose was scrunched and his jaw set in a way that told her it was taking everything he had left to keep his own anger and hurt inside. However it may present when released, she had no idea. 

It was ironic that he thrived on routine but had become extremely unpredictable of late.

Judging by the redness of his eyes, she was pretty sure he’d already let something out and it had been ignored. She could see if not tangibly feel the barely restrained furor that was bubbling in his gut at every unsolicited touch from that vile woman. 

Karmen rushed forwards as the dull thunk of the hair brush hitting against Eddie’s scalp bounced off the walls of the room. She held back her snarl just barely as she stepped into Nurse Sally’s view and held out her hand in a way that demanded attention.

Eddie startled at the sight of her. The way she had bustled into the room not giving him time to adjust to the intrusion, even though he was grateful to see her. 

He’d never been great with surprises but watching him get startled now was heartbreaking.

Karmen softened, realizing she had frightened him. Feeling bad for how she had approached even if it was because she was jumping to his aide. She should have been more mindful of how skittish he was at the moment.

“I’ll take care of it.” She ground out curtly, gesturing at her outstretched hand and waiting for the brush. Sally looked at her with condescending eyes and for a brief moment Karmen actually thought she was going to argue. To which she definitely would have shouted. Scaring Eddie again and getting herself kicked out without the chance to comfort him.

The other woman wrinkled her bumpy flesh as she smiled in a wholly unfriendly way before placing the head of the hairbrush a little too firmly into Karmen’s palm. 

Karmen suppressed the urge to wince as the bristles dug into her hand. Instead, staring down the older woman silently as she made a show of lingering to clean up things that didn't need to be cleaned before leaving the room just to see if Karmen broke her resolve.

She didn’t. Not saying a word or easing up on her glare until the old hag was completely out of earshot. Eddie watched his girl warily, knowing what she was doing and wishing he had the emotional energy to be proud of her.

She turned and watched as he moved his gaze to his hands. Unable to make eye contact when she finally put her attention on him fully.

“Hey.” She greeted him softly. 

He nodded to acknowledge her, not looking up as she put a gentle hand on his knee. 

“I was going to help you do this.” She said as she took a piece of his matted hair in her fingers. She had been wanting to tackle it since she saw it for the first time. Knowing on a personal level how hard curls were to maintain and how quickly it could get to the point of a buzzcut if they weren’t taken care of.

Eddie’s gorgeous curls were anything but taken care of at this point. Basically just a few matted dreadlocks in the back and a few free stands she had managed to conspicuously wrangle under the guise of giving him a nice little head pat while he was sleeping.

His bangs were relatively untouched and looked as normal as ever. The only issue with that being that they were in his eyes constantly and desperately needed a trim. Eddie wasn’t exactly a barber shop kind of guy. He’d cut his own bangs in the mirror 3 years ago and made peace with what they were. Before her, they were often uneven due to the fact that the only time they ever got a trim was when he got sick of blowing them out of his face while he was trying to do delicate painting or writing at a desk.

Giving into the 3am urge to say ‘fuck it’ and cut chunks off them in the bathroom of his trailer.

Karmen liked them anyway. But she had become his unofficial hairdresser in the time they’d been dating. She’d watched in horror one night as he had growled in frustration and stood up from where he’d been sitting at his desk, taking some random stationary scissors from his drawer and leaning into his mirror to snip them straight across in one go.

If Uncle Wayne had a job with regular hours he probably would have burst into the room to find out what she was screaming about as she jumped up to take the scissors away and offered to do it for him properly.

Not that she knew anything about cutting hair really. But she’d spent enough time at the salon in her early 20s to emulate what they did to a better standard than Eddie was used to.

Eddie nodded at her again, still staring down at his lap as he pressed his lips together in an effort to stop himself from spiraling again. 

“Eddie.” She cooed, dropping the piece of hair and sliding her palm underneath his locks and across his back. He leaned his side against her. Resting his cheek against her chest as she put the brush down on the bed and brought her hand up to run her fingers through his long bangs.

Why are they all so mean?

His voice sounded small, even though it was just inside his head. It was tired and weak, just like the rest of him.

He knew deep down of course why and that he didn’t do it. But it didn’t stop him from getting to the point on days like this where he started to question whether or not he truly deserved it.

There seemed to only be a select few people that thought he didn’t.

He never wanted Sally to do his hair. Never asked for it or consented at all. In retrospect she might have told him what she was planning but she certainly didn’t care if he was listening or not. Didn’t wait for his okay to touch him.

He didn’t want to be touched by anyone else. Least of all that horrible bitch or any of the assholes that chittered and chuckled in his direction all day long as if he couldn’t hear or see them. 

Just because he couldn’t talk right now didn’t mean he was stupid. 

That he didn’t understand how much they hated him.

They didn’t care if he got better. They cared about him looking better so they could get him out of there one way or another. Luckily, they cared if they lost their jobs. Eddie shuddered to think what someone might do to him if they thought they could get away with it. If Wayne and Karmen weren’t a constant around here to attest to the fact that he was getting better. 

If he didn’t have people to kick up a stick and ask questions if his health suddenly declined or worse.

“Can I help you with this today?” Karmen asked quietly. Knowing deep down that he had not asked for or wanted the nurses to do it for him. “It’s alright to say no.” She reminded him when he hesitated a moment. Thinking about the answer.

His stomach was doing flips and he was still in a lot of pain. It was a miracle that he hadn’t thrown up thus far. Cold sweat beading on his forehead at the reminder that it was a possibility. His body taking the thought as its queue to remind him that the painkillers still hadn’t fully kicked in and this might be as good as it got if he pushed himself far enough to vomit.

The thought of someone tugging at his scalp for hours on end was enough to make him gag.

Soon?

He asked, moving his hand in a sign and looking up to her with worried eyes. He had been studying that book religiously and learning rapidly but he was pretty sure she didn’t have time to do the same.

She didn’t understand the sign but knew that it wasn’t a simple yes or no all the same.

“Maybe?” She asked, copying the sign with her hand as Eddie shook his head in response.

“S…” He tried, stuttering out a hiss for the beginning of the word as he moved his palm away from his body in a pushing kind of motion.

“Soon?” She asked, quickly. Catching on fast. She’d played a lot of charades in her time and for her 26th Birthday in June the year before, John had bought her Pictionary. To his dismay, she and Eddie were a well oiled machine at silently communicating. Often guessing each other’s pictures first try or with just a glance to tell the other how to pivot their guesses.

Eddie nodded happily. Bringing a hand up to his face and signing:

Sleep.

He didn’t actually want to sleep, having woken up not too long before. But it was the only way he knew to convey that he wanted to lie down. 

She understood. Disengaging from him and giving him the room to move as he needed to.

“Hey.” She said again as he settled himself on his back. Catching his attention and making him look at her curiously. “I’ll be right back.” She assured him as she pointed towards the open door. “I’m just going to make a phone call.”

~~

The phone by Eddie’s bed only called one way. People could call him if they had the direct line but he wasn’t able to make his own calls on the hospital's dime.

Not that he really had anyone to call anyway. Not that he could speak to them even if he wanted to.

But it meant that when Karmen needed to make a call she had to play nice with the nurses at their station so they would let her use the one patient phone on the floor.

She had come back not long after leaving without elaborating. Eddie had actually started to doze off and only noticed that she was back when the dip of the mattress under her weight alerted him.

She laid with him for a long while. Both of them fell in and out of a light sleep as Eddie’s painkillers finally managed to do their job and some of the tension left his body at the relief coupled with the feeling of a warm body next to him.

Karmen finally got her sleep-in as they were woken up by the lunch delivery. Eddie was surprised to find that he wasn’t in anywhere near as much pain as he usually was around this time of day. Maybe the late tablets meant that they were still working strong or maybe he had been overreacting earlier and actually getting a good rest next to a loved one would help him heal faster than he thought once he left the hospital.

He had griped over the food and Karmen didn’t blame him. Soggy peas mixed into lumpy mash and a questionable source of protein that they silently argued over the origin of until things got out of hand. 

Karmen was convinced it was beef while Eddie insisted on pork. 

Neither of them wanted to try it.

Eddie had gotten frustrated at her not understanding him and started snorting like a pig to which Karmen mooed at him repeatedly in response. 

A nurse had walked in at that moment with his next dose of medicine, both of them falling silent and watching her as she picked up his chart and wrote something down before leaving again without a word.

They waited until she was gone before bursting into laughter. Karmen smiling from ear to ear at the sound of Eddie’s chortling. She had missed the sound.

She promised him that when Wayne arrived soon she would go and get him some proper food from the cafeteria.

She made good on her promise. Disappearing to buy everyone coffee and Eddie a bowl of pasta shells in a red sauce that the lady behind the counter heated for her in the microwave.

She had hoped they would have pigs in a blanket on offer but she never got lucky enough to be that funny.

Eddie ate more of the pasta than she was expecting. She made a mental note to bring him some food and snacks from home during the week so he was eating at least one meal a day.

After he’d finished, Wayne produced the plastic bag he’d brought with him and Karmen handed him some money in return. Wayne had tried to refuse it but she’d forcefully stuffed it in his fist. He’d taken it but winked at Eddie behind her back as he slipped it into her handbag.

Karmen looked through the purchases and that was the moment Eddie realized that she had called Wayne earlier, asking him to bring her things on his way over so that she didn’t have to leave him.

He was grateful. 

She started placing things on the table beside his bed and he sighed deeply, recognizing them as haircare products and resigning himself to just getting it out of the way.

“I know.” She’d said, without looking up. “But I want this to be as quick and painless as possible and I only want to do it once.”

~~

A/N: I know I'm probably repeating myself a little in this chapter and will continue to do so in the coming chapters. I just really want to drive home how in his own head Eddie is at the moment and how frustrating it is for him to not have an outlet for that other than thinking about it and spiralling himself. Sorry if that's boring, but it's intentional.

Eddie is everyone's parents favorite child except his own 😂 @wheels-of-despair has an amazing series where Eddie is reader's Mom's fave as well. High recommend this fic that features this dynamic. 🥰

Part 12 will be linked here when it's finished. In the meantime...

Read the rest of the series here :)

This series is so personal to me, so it means the world to me when someone let’s me know they enjoy a work from this series. If you guys liked this please pleaseee consider letting me know via comment, reblog, message, anon ask etc.  

Tag List: @3ddi3-daydreamer @micheledawn1975 @munson-blurbs @wheels-of-despair @browneyes528 @stevemunsons