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grimesgirll · 11 months ago

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you jumped at the chance to babysit for rick grimes.

your mom didn’t have to repeat herself when she instructed you to arrive at rick’s early the next morning to give him some help with his baby girl.

not that you minded, but you babysitting for rick was a part of your mother’s larger plan to welcome the new arrivals into the community. it was an easy way for the survivors - namely their leader, rick - to warm up to everyone. and you had to put your half finished developmental psychology degree to use somehow.

you’re disappointed when you show up bright eyed and bushy tailed to be greeted by rick’s son carl, and not the dreamy sheriff himself.

carl is more than happy to pass off the bubbly little baby - who you learn is named judith- to you and dash out the door after giving you the rundown on her routine and lack thereof.

it doesn’t take long for judith to get used to you - or get into the habit of pulling your long hair. carl mentioned that she’d had a solid breakfast already this morning so you hunker down next to her playmat to tire her out in preparation for her next nap.

thoughts drift from tummy time to the absent head of the house. where was he? you knew part of the reason you had even begun babysitting was to help rick with childcare if he accepted his new position as constable, but you couldn’t think of anywhere else he would be.

and truth be told, you’re disappointed.

the first day the southerners had arrived, you looked on as rick stepped through the gates, judith in his arms. you’d been shocked to see a baby but you were even more enthralled by the hot suburban dad who’d landed on your doorstep.

not as old as your own father but nearly old enough to be, rick grimes had been blessed by age. his wild, grown out hair and tense but demanding disposition immediately attracted your attention.

it’s wrong; you shouldn’t be crushing on the man you’re babysitting for.

but you’ve been so bored!

let’s be clear: alexandria is your home. the safe zone provided more stability than the road could ever offer but survival was boring. at least inside of alexandria.

but out there?

whatever was out there was written all over the face of every new survivor your community had taken in. you’d heard bits and pieces; cannibals, maniacs on a power trip, robbers, corrupt cops even in the end of times.

and you could really see it on rick.

he had the demeanor of someone always scanning the room for the exit. you’ve never seen him so much as smile so it’s hard to imagine anyone like him adjusting or relaxing, even somewhere like alexandria.

your mother had theorized that some childcare could help ease the ex-cop’s anxieties, give him and carl a chance to breathe.

someone like that needs a lot more than a day away from the kids though. rick grimes needed an all inclusive vacation

and maybe a blowjob.

you tear yourself away from your wild thoughts about the rugged leader to turn your attention to the little girl hitting you with all of the sleepy cues at once. glancing at the clock, you decide it’s time for a nap and scoop up the eight month old. it’s not until you try to lay her down in the nursery that judith gives you your first problem.

seems like you had a velcro baby on your hands.

your hypothesis is proven correct during little judith’s second afternoon nap when you’re resigned to the living room armchair.

any attempts to place the little girl on her back, stomach, or side were met with tears. you’d just huffed and posted up on the rocking chair, ready to rock her for the duration of her nap.

it could be a pain but some babies just slept better hearing another heartbeat besides their own. it’s biology. judith is long out of the fourth trimester but that doesn’t exempt her from wanting to fall asleep in a pair of warm, snuggly arms. and besides, it’s not like you have anything better to do.

so you’re still curled up with judith when her father arrives in the afternoon.

gun holstered on his hip, the front door swings open to reveal rick grimes, looking much more like a resident of alexandria than he'd arrived. despite his new haircut and the difference that a shower makes, rick still looks pent up to you. like the feral man who'd shown up at your gates was just bubbling under the surface.

“hey there,” he greets once he registers your presence.

in his constable uniform, rick is even more handsome than you imagined all cleaned up. his chestnut curls are trimmed - courtesy of your neighbor, jessie - and he’s fully fitted like an officer of the law, and not an outlaw.

"oh, hi," you sit up and offer as much of a salutation you can being nap trapped.

"you must be deanna's daughter."

"that's me," you chirp, keeping your voice low to avoid waking up the little girl on your lap. "sorry, you caught us during naptime."

the southerner shakes his head. "no problem. looks like you got her down easy enough."

easy? you want to ask him to repeat that again but you just smile.

"i'm sorry i wasn't here earlier to introduce myself, i'm rick." the man extends his hand to you and you have to steel your nerves so he doesn't feel your hand shaking.

you're shocked when you hear confidence dripping from your voice as you give him your name. under his dark blue gaze, you want to squirm but you're holding it together somehow.

"you know, you can probably get out here early today. carl should be home soon."

you do your best to hide your disappointment. "leaving early on the first day?" you grin. "i think i like this job."

that earns you a chuckle from the sheriff who points to the sleeping baby you're holding. "i've got it from here if you wanna head out."

you don't but you put on your pearly whites and utter a peppy "sure!" handing over the still sleeping judith to her father.

"thanks for agreeing to this," rick commends you, eyes looking over the picture books and learning materials piled up in your arms. "i really appreciate having someone here to look after judith during the day."

“don’t worry about it, she’s such an angel, rick.”

"yeah, she is," he agrees, pausing to glimpse down at the napping infant. "i guess we'll be seein' you tomorrow?"

“whenever you need me.”

as his gaze follows you out the front door, rick is hard pressed to confirm if that was actual innuendo that came out of your mouth or just a generous offer.

he’s even more surprised to see you on his doorstep again after supper.

“hey,” you start. “i think i forgot one of my books here when i was watching judith. do you mind if i grab it?"

your burnt orange journal is right where you'd left it - intentionally - on the accent table in the upstairs hallway.

"oh, perfect! it's right here," you exhale in manufactured relief as if you hadn't left it there a few hours ago just for this purpose.

"is she down?" you ask rick in your best quiet voice.

he nods his hickory head of hair. "wanna see her?"

you nod enthusiastically and he leads you a few doors down the hall where you two pop your heads into a dark, curtain drawn room.

“how’s she been sleeping?” you ask innocently, following the father’s gaze to the sleeping infant lying peacefully in her crib.

“good enough,” he grunts. “all things considered.”

“how have you been sleeping?”

a chocolate eyebrow raises.

“you know, you have to get some sleep too.”

“isn’t that you’re for?”

rick must notice your reaction from the way he clears his throat and walks back his words, clarifying, “taking care of judith and all so i can,” he makes air quotes with his fingers, “rest.”

breathing deeply in an attempt to calm your racing heartbeat, you offer a smile with your exhale. “yeah, but that’s only during the daytime. she still has two wakeups at night, right?”

the man leaning in the doorway beside you shrugs. “two or three, give or take.”

“that’s a lot of time to be waking up at night.”

his ocean blue eyes twinkle as he shoots you a look and crosses his arms. “tell me about it.”

you motion towards the crib. “so i know judith likes to be held for naps, but have you ever tried room sharing with her? or even sleeping with her in the bed?”

rick gives you a quizzical look. “i thought you weren’t supposed to let them sleep in bed with you.”

“only if you’re a heavy sleeper,” you discern. “or if you drink or you’re a smoker.”

“really?”

you nod. “it’s called the safe sleep seven. its a big thing in other parts of the world." you draw an awkward breath. "not that there's anything wrong with watching her from the monitor," you refer to the device in his back pocket.

"well," rick runs a hand through his dark waves, stopping awkwardly at the end like he forgot about his haircut. "judith's always been held so it wouldn't shock me that that's how she likes to go sleep."

"did you have to snuggle her to sleep to get her down tonight?" your honeyed voice inquires curiously.

"i held her." he answers with a sigh.

"it makes sense. humans are programmed to want to be close to each other."

a silence settles over the two of you before rick clears his throat. "yeah, maybe i'll have to look into this sleep safe seven."

"i can bring a book next time i'm over," you offer. "i was a developmental psych major in college."

"so you have a degree to babysit?"

you roll your eyes. "i was supposed to end up doing research. you know," you gesture to judith in her nursery. "working with younger kids like her and figuring out what works best for them for sleep, learning to eat, the potty, play, school, all that."

"sounds like you're pretty smart," the ex-cop concludes.

you shrug. "smart enough."

with that, you two are walking down the stairs and you're heading towards the door when rick asks you if you'd like anything to drink.

you stop in your tracks, turning around on one heel. "you know, i'm kinda thirsty. i'll actually take a water."

rick's hands around the cold glass must be tattooed in your mind from how intently you're watching him. you thank him for the glass and gingerly take a sip, taking a moment to notice how his hands are braced against the counter. a cacophony of cracks erupt when the man rotates his neck and you can't help but laugh.

the older man frowns. “what’s so funny?”

“did you not hear the way your neck cracked?”

he shrugs it off. “gotta do it sometimes.”

“not like that,” you insist, glancing at his hands again, you get an idea. “why don’t you let me show you how you’re supposed to crack that?”

rick gives you a sideways glance.

“my roommate was in school to be a masseuse.”

“you don’t have to do that.” he says quickly.

you shake your head at him. “it’s not a problem. you can give me pointers.”

it’s wrong; rick shouldn’t be face down on the sofa in the house your mother had given him, getting a massage from her young twentysomething daughter.

and he most definitely shouldn’t be trying to hide an erection.

never would he have imagined getting a massage from a college student a week ago. like the haircut, rick wants to accept your community’s gifts with tact but that’s hard to do when your hands are kneading lower and lower down his back.

“when was the last time you relaxed, rick?”

the question comes out of nowhere and he almost wishes judith would pop up on the baby monitor to spare him from answering.

“can’t tell ya’.” he replied honestly.

you hum in response, observing as he twitches under your mischievous ministrations. rick didn’t have to go to massage therapy school to know that this massage is nowhere near professional. it’s downright racy as your fingers skim the top of his lower back.

god, he has a nice ass for a dad, you muse. you wonder what he’d look like fully nude on this sofa and if you weren’t touching him through his undershirt.

“that’s a little low.” the new constable remarks, calling you out.

you giggle. “i don’t know. i think the muscles down here really need some attention.”

rick hisses when you venture past his lower back and squeeze. he wants to say something but it feels so fucking good to have the tension manually worked out of his muscles.

“flip over.”

rick is about to bust out of his pants.

“flip over, please.”

the brunette finally complies; he wants to be embarrassed but doesn’t have a second for the emotion because you’re falling to your knees in front of him, pointing.

“want me to help you with that?”

“what?” he sputters.

“please, let me.”

wow, you want him. and who is he to deny you? not with how much of a roller coaster the past few have been; he should at least get to decompress.

“go ahead-,” rick doesn’t get another word out of his mouth before you’ve fully yanked his pants down and scootch further between his legs, attaching a hand to his waist. you slide his briefs down and are almost smacked in the face by the eight inch cock in front of you.

“rick…”

“if it’s too big, i understand.”

he starts to say something else but can only manage a gasp once you swallow the first few inches of his cock in your mouth. you ease your way back up to alternate between gripping his length and lapping at his precum covered head.

god, he can’t let deanna find out.

or spencer for that matter. no need to give your brother another reason for rick to be on his bad side.

he can’t be bothered to think about your family when you’re on your knees with his dick in your mouth.

“you’re doin’ so good for me, honey,” rick praises.

you moan deeply around his cock as you fit him further down your throat. it doesn’t take long for his hands to find your hair and suddenly his thick length is sliding down. you just swallow around him the best you can. you wonder if he’d believe you if you said you’d never had a dick this far down your throat.

it’s only once your windpipe starts to feel rick’s size that you raise your mouth up and off of the man in front of, catching a shallow few breaths before diving right back down to envelope him in your mouth.

rick can’t get enough of this. a hot, more than willing knockout of a woman on her knees with nothing but relieving his stress on her mind. and nothing was a hotter than a girl who actually wanted to give a blowjob, and by the way you’re hollowing your cheeks and pumping what doesn’t fit down your throat, he knows you’re loving this. a good girl like you deserves more than just his dick in her mouth.

“slow down, sweetheart.” he instructs, even though it takes a moment for you to slow the vigorous pace you’d committed to. “i wanna help you out too.”

your eyes widen with delight and he doesn’t have to tell you twice to come up on the sofa with him. instantly, rick is in between your legs and undoing the button of your jeans in order to pull them down to your ankles.

his thick cock jumps at the sight of your sopping panties.

blushing, you lift your hips as rick clutches and discards the undergarment on the floor. that’s when he gets the opportunity to take in your already soaked little hole. he can’t help himself from slipping a finger in and driving it deeper at the sound of your raspy squeaks. the same noise comes out of you once he gives you another. you must’ve wanted this for a while from the way you coat his fingers. you’re wiggling and rotating your hips like they’re on fire and he only has two digits inside of you.

“easy, girl,” he warns and you pout as you struggle not to buck your hips.

“i need you, rick,” you gasp. “feel you in my core. i’m so hot for you right now.”

you so are. rick thinks and adds another finger.

not only are you making his dick swell more than he thought it could but your insides are hot. that tight little core is choking his three fingers like a boa constrictor.

“i’m gonna come on your fingers,” you make him aware, hoping he’ll move you to his cock.

“go right ahead, sweetheart.”

so you do.

you let out a muffled sob into his shoulder. he doesn’t stop scissoring his fingers into you until he removes them from your reluctant cunt. your mouth opens automatically when he lifts his sticky digits to your mouth. enthusiastically, you let him slip them into your mouth and suck until they come out clean.

you can barely respond to the “good girl,” he’s whispering huskily into your ear because your lips are pressed to his. disregarding the fact that your pussy is dripping all over the new sofa, you fold into the kiss.

where have you been? you wonder while his tongue starts to pick a fight with yours. the fact that you’re suddenly in his lap doesn’t register until you feel his hand on the small of your back.

“you’re up,” he whispers in your ear before shifting you on top of him.

you only understand what he means when you suddenly feel like you’re being torn in half. “fuck,” you exhale, conscious not to be too loud as to wake up the baby upstairs.

from his rapid breaths into your bust, you can tell that’s holding back.

“rick,” you whine.

fingertips find your hips just as your arms wrap around his neck and you’re holding on for dear life as the constable starts lifting and lowering you on his cock.

“god,” you cry through gritted teeth.

rick is fucking you just like you thought he would.

he doesn’t wait for you to roll your hips or ride him, no, he just fucks you. yeah, you’re on top but rick is the one pounding into you from below. you feel every ridge and vein on his impossibly thick cock as you brings you up and down on top of him.

this is the fucking that you expected from the dauntless, untamed man that rolled through your gates with his equally intimidating allies. you wonder how long it’s been since rick had a good fuck. by the way he ruthlessly spears you on top of him, you know it’s been months at least. you conclude it probably wasn’t for his lack of skill though, not with how he maintains a delicious pressure on your clit with those same digits he used on you earlier.

your core is calling again: this time it’s lava hot. whatever tension rick had you dripping at earlier is no comparison to the overwhelming internal buzz pulsing inside of you.

“fuck, honey, you’re gushin’ around me.”

you look down. he’s right; you’ve made a slick mess of both of your laps. the words to respond don’t make it to your mouth because rick is once again picking up the pace.

every time you coil around him, rick just adopts a more devastating pace. it’s like after months of going without, he’s doing everything in his power to be as deep inside of you as possible. any deeper and he’d be back in your throat.

“you gonna come again on my cock, baby?” the brunette murmurs in your ear.

“yes, sir.” you croak, not having the capacity to comprehend what your words were doing to him. unless your body and the mind of its own it had counted.

your core is reacting right on time to rick’s consistent teasing. “that’s it,” he encourages, applying even more pressure despite your shaking legs. every time you sink down onto him, you feel full to the hilt.

“ah, fuck.”

rick’s orgasm hits before your finale; nonetheless, his tightening embrace and desperate thrusts into you are just what you need. the contrast of your hot core with rick’s warm cum should make you sick with worry and maybe something else but you’re too fucked out and drawn into your peak to care.

sweat coats your brow and your hair is sticking up in every direction but you’re just swallowed up by the tightening in your core. swallowed by how full you feel. you feel like you could make even more of a mess on top of rick.

the jolt that reverberates through your core this time is galvanizing. you wonder if there was anything before this orgasm.

head laid forward against his chest, perfectly glistening tits rising and falling with each full breath, you are at peace. who knew that relieving rick of his stress could bring you so much pleasure?

and when you look up at him, all you can do is offer a pupil blown smile.

he might just like alexandria.

#the walking dead #rick grimes #rick grimes x reader #rick grimes smut #rick grimes imagine #twd imagine #twd smut #rick x reader #ricky dicky doo da grimes #constable rick #not beta read #grimesgirll #reader was a developmental psych major before the apocalypse #happy 15 days to this blog lol #reader is really forward #reader has rick rabies #blowy #p in v sex

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hitlikehammers · 1 month ago

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PART 2/2: in which lock-picking⛓️‍💥 is 100% a valid love language, and waking up with ✨Steve Harrington✨ was NOT the future (exactly. maybe. ish.)

...but waking up in a hospital bed just might be ♥️

<<< last time: And Eddie thinks that’s highly fucking debatable—he’s not sure where it comes from, because it’s a little out of place, Eddie didn’t say anything but maybe he’s just that transparent, the heart of him so quickly, so completely, and if that’s the case then it’s entirely fucking debatable because Eddie thinks he’s going to burst, splinter like a starburst, glorious in the unmaking for how big this thing that’s building in him feels, how certain he is that it’s about to break his ribs and he fucking looks forward to it, so no: Steve doesn’t love most because he can’t, because Eddie is overcome with this feeling and he, he— He’s drifting, because Steve’s heat is a heady fucking drug, and his heartbeat’s a metronome, a lullaby against Eddie’s back and it’s instinct, it’s unquestionable when he shimmies tighter into Steve’s hold and sighs the weight of the world out between his lips because… Because goddamnit, this feels right.

OR: y'know. Eddie thought he was dying in the Upside Down but then he's waking up in the future, in bed with Steve Harrington like what the fuck

Eddie comes to—again: un-fucking-expected—with the same sensation of his ribs snapping, the pain of it a dull thing he thinks he can just float through because his heart’s so gone on the impossible possibility of some future imaginary day where he, where Steve, where they—

“Eddie?”

Wait.

Wait, that’s…okay.

Back up.

He tries to take in what his senses are willing to offer him: something starchy, itchy against his skin, both sides—definitely not the sheets from the bed he’d just felt visceral underneath him. Pressure and aching at his chest: but less sweet the longer he focuses on it. Stinging and the pull of maybe-bandages, maybe-sutures, maybe both and something deeper, like…oh, wow, fuck, it’s entirely possible his ribs are already broken. His heart still feels full, but also scared, unsure, wrong-footed as more and more little clues seep into his consciousness, before maybe the clearest of them all: a shrill little beep that’s fast, like embarrassingly fast—

A monitor.

He draws a shaky breath—iodine, like, burning levels as he inhales and holy fucking shit, he’s in a goddamn hospital.

He’s, did he…

Is this what Steve meant, when he said ‘wake up’? Did Eddie…

Did Eddie fucking survive?

It’s in the spiral of that thought that Eddie clocks the same voice that jarred him out of his own head…in his own head, before. With the fancy sheets and the warmth and the home and—

What…what if it wasn’t in his head at all—

But his body, his pulse recognizes that voice as safety. As…rightness incarnate.

“Oh fuck,” and that’s the Steve Eddie knows best, right there, a little breathy and a little pitchy for frayed nerves and constant worry and the weight of the fucking world to make sure everyone—everyone else—makes it out as okay as possible.

And it’s in thinking that, that Eddie recognizes what Steve-in-his-headin-the-future-in-his-dream-in-his-maybe-not-quite-death-hallucination meant, when he’d said Eddie’s eyes softened. Because Steve’s heart on his sleeve, in his eyes, had looked peaceful, then. Content, even.

Not so frantic. Not so…scrambling.

Still just as blinding, though.

“Thank fuck, you’re awake,” Steve half gasps, a tiny clattering against the tile floor vying to draw Eddie’s gaze away but there was genuinely nothing in the whole goddamn universe that could take Eddie’s eyes off of Steve just now, those lips parted ever so slightly, cheeks that tiny bit rosy, pulse maybe-maybe-not visible just below the bandages on his neck.

He’s beautiful.

“What do you need?” Steve’s leaning closer, hands reaching but then kinda fluttering, kinda hovering, not sure where to touch and even if they knew the answer, kinda like they’re not sure if they can touch in the first place, yet all Eddie can do when he sees them, when he feels the shift in the air for how close they are; all Eddie can do is remember what it’s like to be pressed close to Steve’s body, to feel Steve’s arms around his chest, like they’re keeping him.

“What can I do,” Steve asks, so earnest and Eddie’s pulse does a little skip for it, how good it feels; “I—”

And Steve’s eyes are already big, just short of pleading, darting to the corners of the room maybe for water, maybe for a button to call someone to help more than he can—as if anyone can help more than Steve can, just now, because Eddie’s waking up from what it feels like to have Steve, and the most pressing possible thing in the world just now is SteveSteveSteve, near enough to feel, to breathe in—

Steve’s eyes are already big, though, is the thing, even before the full-on fucking crash of something to the floor makes him freeze. Eddie tries to peer down, winces as it pulls to much at…everything, kind of, Jesus H., but he hurts everywhere, and…

“The hell were you doing?” he asks in the absence of being able to see because…metal. Metal had hit the floor, from the height of probably-the-bed, after Steve had pressed into the mattress, shifted the weight, and then he’d blinked all owlish and adorable: culpability for whatever he’d been up to written all over his gorgeous fucking face.

“Umm,” Steve chews at his lip a little, eyes peeking up through his lashes, that look that makes Eddie weak and wobbly at basically every juncture it’s possible to tremble at like that, but he doesn’t duck away; he doesn’t even blush. He’s not…whatever he was doing—and Eddie’s range of motion is fucked, he’s already super well aware of that shit when he even tries to move to see the floor, to follow the sound—but whatever Steve was doing, he’s unrepentant. But in a way where he maybe recognizes that other people would have been less brazen.

Eddie’s wrist tingles out of nowhere—weird, when all of him is already kinda in a sort of dull, narcotic-shrouded pain—and he frowns, glances down at least that far and notices the slightest ring of red that’s less angry, not attached to bite marks and broken skin, and he has the wildest thought cross his mind just then, and he steels himself to crane his neck as far as he can, to limit the strain he’ll put on his middle because now he needs to see, because he kinda knew before he cut the sheets and ran into the fray that coming out on the other side meant life behind bars if there was any life at all, yet here he is, increasingly seeming like this is real, and this is his ‘other side’, and…

He’s just in a fucking hospital. He’s…he’s here, and he’s, he’s not…he’s not in fucking chains.

And it stings like a bitch, and Steve’s a second away from stopping him, reaching for him and pressing him safely back onto the the bed, but Eddie gets the glimpse he needs. Recognizes the shape on the floor, shiny steel against the scratched-up linoleum.

“Were you,” Eddie traces the ridges of his teeth with his tongue, because there are layers to what he’s about to ask; “were, umm, were you picking the,” and the first little clatter from before makes more sense if he’s right, and if he’s right, well, fuck.

It’ll be hot as hell, if he’s right.

“That?” Eddie tilts his head toward the floor because: cuffs. What he’d seen, what had fallen: handcuffs. On the floor. And they’d have had to have been not on the floor, and probably on him before, and so, he—

“Possibly,” Steve answers with a straight face, as unapologetic as ever, maybe more; maybe even defiant, and oh, wow. Steve Harrington picking his fucking handcuffs, setting his stupidly-quickly-lovesick ass free.

Hot as fuck; seriously.

“How positively criminal of you, Harrington,” Eddie grins half-maniacal, feels the stretch of it burn against a cut that’s gotta run half the span of his cheek but fuck it, the warmth flooding him is undeniable, is incredible—he’s giddy all of a sudden, straight to his bones.

“S’nothing on hot-wiring,” Steve shrugs, like it’s not fucking everything; “but I wasn’t,” and Steve takes a deep breath before he squares his shoulders, looks at Eddie straight-on and shit, if he thought the warmth in him up to now was something?

It’s kinda got nothing on what consumes him under those eyes.

“I wasn’t going to let you wake up fucking…shackled.”

And goddamn if the fire in that voice, those words, doesn’t light Eddie up like burning, doesn’t shake him to the core and then blanket him in sureness and the kind of protection he didn’t think really existed.

Save that he does kinda think it’s exactly what this man’s made of; made for.

And Eddie can’t escape the certainty rising in his veins and pumping, fierce and unshakable, that he wants—more than maybe anything—to be the one to give that same safety, that same promise of something unwavering and permanent and beyond question, right back to Steve.

“You’re an innocent man,” Steve leans in then, emphatic with it; “you’re a goddamn hero,” and he means it, holy shit, he believes that:

“Like hell I was just gonna,” and he shakes his head, like the idea is just that preposterous; like he cannot even consider anything but Eddie being free, and okay, and here, and…

Eddie’s struck with the sudden slap of realization across the fucking face that he couldn’t have gotten topside by himself. That someone had to get him from the hellscape to here. And of the able bodies in the Upside Down, no matter how strong the girls were, only one could have wrestled him through that gate. Only one could have…whatever he maybe needed, between this bed and that bat-strewn ground, it was, Steve would have been, he’d have—

The force his heart trips, then leaps with, is fucking cataclysmic. Eddie’s honestly surprised it doesn’t just tear out from his throat then and there.

“Plus they’re in the process of finishing the paperwork to make it all official, dropping the charges and all that, clearing your name,” Steve gestures vaguely in the air, like it’s all routine, the feds and the cops sweeping shit under the rug but then he remembers all the side comments he’d collected in the back of his mind these last few days about the ‘last time’ and then ‘the time before that’ and fuck all also the first time—

Maybe it is, just…sick and twisted and harrowing and heartbreaking routine.

“They’re just really fucking slow,” Steve smiles at him, all small and devastating and…

And okay, so that overwhelming urge to be a constant in Steve Harrington’s life, safe next to his heart kinda for always, zero to forever in half-a-blink?

Eddie knew he wanted, when he threw his vest at Steve’s bare chest more for Eddie’s own fucking sanity than anyone’s modesty, but it was all washed in the hopeless-helpless colors of desperation, of why not when I won’t see tomorrow; and now.

Now, all Eddie wants is tomorrow. Every tomorrow. No tomorrows without this man. Without what he saw, how it felt: what he knows in his marrow loving him would be.

It’s probably that conviction etching into his cells that makes makes him softer, a little weepy around the edges; drives him to need through the next words that escape:

“Steve,” Eddie breathes, wishes Steve were just that little bit closer so that the distance he can reach could reach him:

“Thank you.”

“Of course,” Steve waves him off almost, like he doesn’t think everything he is, everything he’s done is monumental. Not just the cuffs but with the cuffs like the cherry on top of how Eddie would—will, if he’s given the chance—devote all that he has and all that he is to making Steve happy. To making him as calm and warm and loved as Eddie could feel in that bedroom, in his head or in the future or on death’s fucking door.

“I mean,” Steve starts, and Eddie can already feel how he’s angling to downplay the thing that’s only swelling, building, growing under Eddie’s own ribs and, well: no.

No, Eddie won’t be standing for that.

“Stevie,” and Steve’s gravitated wordless just close enough for Eddie to be able to brush his fingertips against Steve’s wrist, to curl and pull his hand into Eddie’s grasp, palm splayed above Steve’s knuckles, holding. Keeping.

“Thank you.”

And Steve stills a little, stares at him like he can see what’s tucked up tight and dear in Eddie’s chest and maybe he can, because his voice is feather-light and a little bowled-over. A little…a little awed.

“You’re welcome.”

So yeah, maybe he can see what’s in Eddie’s chest, less tucked in this moment now than fucking, like…

Blooming.

“Do you believe there’s anything waiting when we die?”

Eddie’s gonna blame the frantic blossoming warmth coursing through him for the way he blurts that shit out with no preamble, like maybe the flowering wonder of it all pushes it out without permission, sweet on the back of his tongue but heavy because it matters so much; because it’s all just nostalgia.

For now.

“What?” Steve gapes a little, sounds dumbfounded; maybe a little wary. Fearful.

His hand’s still held under Eddie’s, though, so it’s only natural the way Eddie lifts his fingers and presses them palm-to-palm like it means something.

“Do you?”

“I…don’t know,” Steve swallows hard enough the follow down the taut line of his throat, fucking mesmerizing.

So maybe the way Eddie licks his lips before he says anything more isn’t…isn’t just for the sake of the topic and its weight, is all he’s saying.

“I,” and Eddie doesn’t really know where he’s going, here, or else: he knows exactly where he’s going.

He’s just not totally sure the path he’s planning to chart along the way for getting there.

“When we were down there, and I was telling you to go after Wheeler,” which yeah, okay, surprise direction there, weird little detour, but…it doesn’t feel wrong.

Which means, if it’s right instead: then that’s everything that is Steve in Eddie’s lungs for breathing, in the chambers of his heart. So he leans into it.

Squeezes Steve’s fingers laced together with his.

“Eddie,” Steve starts, sounds tired, spent, and Eddie was never going to let that happen; no matter where he’s going, or leading them down the path of his revelations, the truth etched new but also deep in his bones like it was only waiting to be found and known.

“It was because that’s what I wanted. For me. I wanted to,” and his breath catches on a little chuckle, so light and choked and a little hysterical as he adds, giddy and a little bashful all together at once:

“Unambiguously, umm,” and he trails a little, wants to hide behind his hair just a touch but to do that would require a broader capacity to move in the first place and more, so much more: it would mean letting go of Steve’s hand.

So: absolutely not.

Especially not when Steve’s gone full dropped-jaw gaping at him, his fingers in Eddie’s grasp twitching like he’s confused, like maybe there’s part of him short-circuiting, and Eddie feels his exhales tremble when he finally blinks, finally tilts his head and takes Eddie in at a new angle before he asks, genuine and not just a little lost:

“Seriously?”

And Eddie…Eddie’s actually never been more serious in his life, so.

“Like,” and he circles Steve’s knuckles delicate-like with his thumb: “I wanted the chance, to try, I guess, yeah.”

And he doesn’t know if he’s risking everything to own it, even if he’s owning just a sliver of the breadth and depth that he feels, but he does know unequivocally that he wouldn’t hold it back if given the choice, the opportunity to do it over and not show his bloody-beating heart on display.

A bloody-beating heart that’s moving quicker, slamming harder against his chest but…that actually feels like the only correct thing it could do. Because this merits it.

This kinda is his whole fucking heart.

“Do you still?”

It takes Eddie a longer string of seconds than he’d prefer to own to, to process the words as having meaning, no matter that he doesn’t fucking understand what they’re aiming at.

“What?”

“Want,” and Steve’s the one squeezing Eddie’s hand now, turning a little to graze at the line of his veins at the wrist; “the chance.”

And he says it deceptively casual, despite how he’s staring at their hands, determinedly not meeting Eddie gaze as Eddie gets his chance at the gaping.

“Fuck yes,” Eddie finally huffs on something not unlike unabashed fucking joy, save that this thing he’s feeling is so much bigger, and when Steve looks up, meets his eyes and his own glimmer, shine so bright and brim with such disbelief, but so much stronger and with such hope, Jesus.

Eddie can’t help the giggle that bubbles out of him. Like his whole fucking soul gets shaped into a single breath of exultant delight.

And they both hold to one another, trace across skin and map the lines and dots and scars, and Eddie’s not stupid, he knows this isn’t how it works but…

But he’d still bet money on the fact that the way he’s touching Steve, so innocent and so quietly intimate, is healing his wounds, shoring up his weaknesses and stitching him up fuller, better, breath by shared-sacred breath.

It’s heady as fuck. It’s exquisite.

“Why’d you ask me about when we die?”

Steve’s the one to break the still, and even that’s not breaking anything, really; he speaks so soft. He’s stroking down from Eddie’s thumb back and forth.

It’s not breaking anything.

“I saw something,” Eddie whispers, not sure what reaction that’ll get, and Steve’s staring at their hands again, marveling really, so Eddie can’t read any hint save for the crinkled furrow in his brow.

“But you didn’t die.”

Which isn’t the reaction he thinks he expected, even if Eddie couldn’t name what he did expect. And it’s also not a revelation he thought he’d receive.

“Not at all?”

Because he’s genuinely surprised. He at least figured he’d flatlined like…long enough to have visions of absolute and total domestic bliss and shit.

But Steve’s shaking his head decisively, holding on to Eddie just a little bit tighter.

“You had a pulse, whole way to he hospital,” he tells Eddie, voice gone a little hoarse; “it wasn’t strong but,” and Steve looks up at him, and fuck, those eyes are too shiny now and Eddie doesn’t want that, he doesn’t want his Steve to hurt, he—

“I fucking held you,” Steve croaks and oh, oh he’s shaking, Jesus—

“I kinda,” and he swallows with a click Eddie can hear, around a throbbing pulse Eddie can see, wants nothing more than to soothe with his lips against that tender skin; “I kinda had to make sure, so,” and the hand that’s not holding Eddie’s comes up, trembling as he reaches toward Eddie’s chest:

“Kept my hand pressed, just,” and his voice gives, and he looks up at Eddie with something like devastation, begging something like permission because he doesn’t know that everything that Eddie is, is his.

But he will.

He will know.

“Yeah?” Eddie breathes out, holds Steve gaze as he nods, as he tries to make it clear that anything Steve needs is his, and then some.

It takes a second, but the shine in those eyes finally shifts, finally brightens and then Steve’s breathing’s made of tremors, but his hand finds Eddie’s chest and sends something sparking like lighting through him just as the whole of Eddie feels immediately like he’s home.

And Steve’s hand on his chest feels exactly like it did in their future bed, in their future room, in their future life.

Their always love.

“Yeah,” Steve whispers, then takes a moment, palm splayed wide just above Eddie’s bandages, before he’s gripping Eddie’s wrist with the other hand a little harder:

“It’s so fast,” he exhales like it holds the whole world and then some; he wonders at just Eddie’s heartbeat under his touch and god.

God, but Eddie…Eddie couldn’t have imagined he’d ever feel like this. Let alone feel like maybe it’s mutual, maybe it’s real, maybe he can keep it and stay in this feeling for forever.

“Fuck yeah it is,” Eddie murmurs, then he chuckles, inhales deep maybe just to better feel the weight of Steve’s hand; “making up for the lost opportunity, y’know,” and fuck, all he wants is to be able to lean, to kiss the pout of those lips, to taste what it means to love somebody like he’s never done before.

“Making up for what it missed the last time your hand was there to feel it.”

And Steve’s hand above his thrumming heart twitches just a little, but never flags or makes to move, to leave, and Eddie thinks that he’d be fine if he lived the rest on his days with Steve like that, near enough that he could press a hand to Eddie’s heart at all times and just…just know that it’s his.

Because maybe it’s sudden—it’s definitely quick—but Eddie’s never known anything like he knows this.

“Eddie,” Steve finally whispers, a question and a claim and a means of cradling Eddie to his heart, somehow, for how swathed in light and affection Eddie feels in that moment, in just the shape of his name like it’s never been spoken before.

“I saw the future,” Eddie blurts out in a rush, breath coming a little quicker and heart-under-Steve’s-hand pounding harder. “Maybe. I don’t know, I mean, it sounds so stupid when I say it out loud but it felt so,” but then he looks into Steve’s eyes again and Steve is listening, Steve’s maybe doesn’t think he’s crazy, so he feels safe enough to say with his whole fucking chest:

“It felt real, Stevie.”

“What was it?” Steve asks, so quiet, so gentle like he doesn’t want to disturb this thing either, like he doesn’t need to hear it spelled out yet to know it’s delicate, the most important thing in the world, which fuck yeah it is, even as it cracks and chokes for the flood of feeling around it when it presses up from Eddie’s chest:

“Us,” Eddie breathes it out like the precious truth it genuinely fucking is:

“It was us.”

And Steve doesn’t say anything, but his eyes glimmer all the more, swimming with a riot of emotion to a degree than Eddie feels drowned in awe just to see it, and his hands on Eddie hold tighter, more fervent, devoted like a pledge for the way it runs through Eddie’s blood and sings in his veins:

“Even if it wasn’t real,” but Eddie’s doesn’t believe that, not really, not in his heart of hearts where it all pounds into the crevices that map Steve’s touch; “even if I wasn’t seeing the actual future,” and maybe he wasn’t, maybe that wasn’t their future, and maybe he’ll never know, but what he does know, is—

“It felt right, Steve.”

He knows that clearer than he knows the sky is blue.

“It was just a few minutes,” Eddie flounders a little, mostly because he remembers how good it was, written indelible into how much he wants, here and now:

“But I have never felt anything so right.”

He breathes, shaky and shallow and too fucking fast, but then Steve starts stroking his palm along the unmarked spaces of his chest, back and forth over the gallop of his heart like he means to stay there. Like he could ever want to keep.

“Well,” Steve whispers, his eyes on the path of his hand to make sure he doesn’t draw any pain—as if he ever could—until he knows the safe route over and back, again and again, and then he looks up, catches Eddie’s eyes and locks there, doesn’t pin so much as holds, holds, holds.

And good fucking god, Eddie feels it glisten through him like starlight; Eddie feels remade before Steve’s leaning in, lower than to meet Eddie’s mouth but then he’s pressing his lips to the dip between Eddie’s collarbones, holding there, breathing like he means to savor, like he means to cherish, like he means to, to…

To stay.

And Eddie’s heart’s under that hand and those lips all at once, wholly Steve’s while it quivers like a riot, while it leaps as Steve changes the world, writes their fucking future where his mouth drags wet and warm and ardent and there’s nothing in it at all that can be anything other than at least on the way to love as he breathes, fucking vows:

“We gotta try, then, don’t we?”

♥️

>>>also on ao3✨

for @penny00dreadful 🖤 still very fucking sorry it's this late

✨permanent tag list: OPEN (lmk if you want to be added/removed): @askitwithflours @awkwardgravity1 @bookworm0690 @bumblebeecuttlefishes @captain--low @depressed-freak13 @dragoon-ze-great @dreamercec @dreamwatch @estrellami-1 @finntheehumaneater @goodolefashionedloverboi @grtwdsmwhr @hiei-harringtonmunson @hbyrde36 @imhereforthelolzdontyellatme @live-laugh-love-dietrich @mensch-anthropos-human @nerdyglassescheeseychick @notaqueenakhaleesi @pearynice @perseus-notjackson @pretend-theres-a-name-here @pukner @ravenfrog @sadisticaltarts @samsoble @sanctumdemunson @shrimply-a-menace @slashify @stealthysteveharrington @swimmingbirdrunningrock @theheadlessphilosopher @theintrovertedintrovert @themoonagainstmers @theohohmoment @tillystealeaves @tinyloonyteacups @tinyplanet95 @warlordess @wheneverfeasible @wordynerdygurl @wxrmland @yourmom-isgay @1-tehe-1

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#steddie #eddie munson #steve harrington #post-s4 #established relationship #soft domestic fluff #picking handcuffs as a love language #picking handcuffs as a turn on #both/all #future fic #but possibly not that at all #because this whole thing is probably just eddie's brain postponing the death thing after the bat-mauling #(in the dream/death-throes-fantasy eddie's indulging in a bed with Steve Harrington—or NOT how can anyone KNOW FOR SURE?!?!?!?!!)#the last thoughts of a dying!eddie munson #(PROBABLY; that WOULD make more sense)#(right?)#waking up in hospitals after being very sure you were dead? I don't know her #(100% actually I do know her)#not exactly how you'd expect but there ARE kids and there IS steddie caring for them #emotional hurt/comfort #happy ending #Falling in Love at the End of the World #But When You Stop The Apocalypse—IF You Live To See It—Then It's Just Falling In Love #stranger things #gift fic #penny00dreadful #hitlikehammers v words #hitlikehammers writes

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