Make a Home Out of Hurt
Rating: General
CW: Death of a Grandparent, Mourning
Tags: Post-Season 4, Post Canon, Grief/Mourning, Established Relationship, Alternate Universe — Future Fic, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Love Confessions, Sad Steve Harrington, Steve Harrington Has Absent Parents, Steve Harrington Mom is Okay, Steve Harrington's Dad is an Asshole, Eddie Munson is a Sweetheart, Steve Harrington is a Sweetheart, Eddie Munson Takes Care of Steve Harrington, Moving in Together
Had an evil little thought. Also, all these Fenton bunnies I mention are real! My nana collects Fenton. (She's alive, don't worry, but I thought about her the other day and it spiraled into this.)
🏡—————🏡
We’ve already seen this neighborhood, Eddie thinks, but won’t say.
Even though they have. They’ve driven by the same three houses. Yellow, pastel pink, and navy blue. White door, white door, brown door. Bushes and bushes and a bushel of red roses. One garage, no garage, no garage but large driveway. He’s seen them. Over and over and over.
And each time they pass the last one, the leather of the steering wheel squeaks. And each time, Steve makes a muffled sort of noise. And each time, Eddie wonders if resting his hand on Steve’s shaking shoulders would anger him or mellow him. And each time, the car gets just a little slower as Steve loses his control more and more.
We’ve already seen this neighborhood, Eddie continues to think, but knows he’ll sit here with those words. He’ll sit in the passenger seat. Window cranked as far down as it’ll go—half-way since Dustin busted the actual mechanism. Beemer’s been through a lot, so it’ll be here for Steve’s end all breakdown, too. With the radio volume low, playing the same double-sided tape on repeat, flipped by Eddie because Steve’s hands have been shaking: The World We Knew by Frank Sinatra. Because it was her favorite. Nana’s favorite. Nana Harrington’s favorite.
On the fifth drive through, Steve finally parks the car. At the end of the long, slow winding driveway. He looks out the windshield, hollowed and not quite here. With limp hands in his lap. Messy, greasy hair he couldn’t bother to style. Eye bags so heavy, Eddie barely believes he can hold them on his face.
Eddie can follow his line of sight. To the edge of the white picket fence, worn down a little with age, scratched up from the curled nails of an old brown dog, carved with her son and daughter-in-law’s initials, and eventually stained with yellow handprints from baby Steve. Yellow because, as Steve has echoed, “Lello, Nana. Lello like your dress. Your favorite!” Well, Steve’s favorite too, he just won’t acknowledge it’s because of his nana. Eddie knows that the paint has faded a bit since then, given that it’s been fifteen years since Steve’s had hands that small, but Eddie can see him. In his little white and red striped t-shirt, hidden by a pair of nicely pressed denim overalls, white sneakers, and his mom’s bobby pins in his hair—something she did because it just wouldn’t stop growing so fast and thick. Or so Eddie’s been told.
He’s been told a lot in the last week. Since the call came through the landline of their apartment. Since Steve had gone silent and collapsed to his knees and wailed, screamed even. Since he dressed himself in a suit that fit well, but looked out of place on his curled in body. Since…since the obituary was finally in his hands at the funeral, and he got so sick in the church’s restroom, Eddie had to drive them home in a daze—a quarter worried, a quarter tired, and half hanging by a thread. He thinks he’s heard everything, but what is love if not more than everything? If not all the words in every language, all known objects and unknown, every species and race and sexuality and identities combined?
He’ll hear everything. Until their old and grey and forgetting everything.
“There used to be a tire swing on that tree,” Steve states flatly, pointing at the weeping oak in his nana’s front yard. It’s crooked like it’s been kissed by the wind. A lot withering because the weather’s been harsh on her. Grey against the navy blue of the house’s siding.
I know, sweetheart, Eddie wants to say, so soft it gets lost between them. Instead, “Yeah? Bet it was a good tire, too,” he coaxes, still soft, all sweet. Even if he’s heard it each time they’ve passed by.
Steve nods once in his peripheral. Sniffs. “Yeah,” he states wetly, “one of the expensive ones. She didn’t want it to pop under me. Didn’t…She didn’t want me to stop using it.” His head dips down, looking at his fingers, where they’ve begun to absently trace the seams of his jeans. “I stopped,” he whispers shamefully. “You think she got mad because I stopped?”
“No, baby,” Eddie answers honestly. “I think that she was happy you used it at all. Think she was always just happy to see you, Steve.”
A sharp intake of breath next to him. “I used to come over here when my parents were gone. Or when they’d scream at each other. Or when…when they’d forget I existed,” he relays, quiet as a mouse. “When they’d forget, Nana would open the door and kiss my cheek and make me something to eat. I was always too skinny. So she made me casseroles,” he explains, a wisp of a smile. Gone in the blink of an eye. “She’ll never make ‘em again, though. She won’t—”
“Steve,” Eddie calls gently, a small warning. A siren before the tsunami.
“—Love me again,” Steve sobs, “Nana won’t love me again.”
“Oh, baby,” he breathes. Eddie steps out of the car, rounds over to the driver’s side, and yanks the door open. Carefully, he unbuckles Steve, scoots him so that his legs dangle over the side, and pulls him down into a gentle hug. “Baby,” he coos. “Just get it out, honey. I’m right here. We’re right here. I’ve got you.”
And Steve cries. Again; though Eddie’s lost count. He squirms against Eddie’s chest. Head nestled to his neck. Crying big sounds that sound too large, even for his adult body. Sounds that carry boats, that poison with oil spills, that home orcas. He slobbers onto Eddie’s skin, grand globs of hot spit that gargle in his throat before launching from his mouth. His unshaved stubble scratching at the side of Eddie’s face—where his skin is sensitive and smooth and will most definitely be raw with Steve’s aching.
He sobs until there’s no more tears. Until he’s a whimpering, shivering mess on Eddie’s chest. Bunched up and small and fisting Eddie’s t-shirt like a lifeline. Squeezing the fabric in his hands like two lemons.
Eddie runs his hands up and down Steve’s spine. From the small of his back to his hunched shoulders, squishing him. He sways them ever so gently like the rustle of the old oak tree. Hums something incoherent and unrecognizable. If only to get Steve to stop shaking.
“Eds?”
“Hm?”
He takes a long, slow breath. Breathes out, “Why’d she give me the house?”
Eddie pulls them apart. One hand on the middle of Steve’s back, the other cupping his left cheek. Swiping at the tacky tracks from his tears. “I’m not sure, baby. Maybe she loved you so much that she wanted you to have it? To always be safe there?”
“Shouldn’t she have given it to my dad? I don’t…” Steve’s eyebrows scrunch in confusion, his mouth frowning. “I don’t deserve her house?”
“Sweetheart,” Eddie sighs. “She chose you for a reason. You, Stevie. Not anybody else. Just you. If she wanted to give it to her son, she would’ve. But she didn’t. She thought of you, put you in the will, and now it’s yours.” When Steve doesn’t respond, Eddie gives him his moment of silence. Running his palm up to Steve’s shoulders. Pressing his thumb into his supple skin. “You may never know her intent, but she probably had a reason. It was a home you came running to, where you felt safest, where you felt…loved. Grandmothers always have this air to them, like they just know things about you before you say ‘em. Maybe she just knew you needed her and her space before you even realized.”
Steve sniffles. His eyes are still wet. Bloodshot and tired. Rumpled all the way around, exhausted and quiet. “She used to play with me in the yard.”
I know, Eddie thinks once more. He goes with the topic change though, if that’s what Steve needs.
“And when we played hide and seek, she always made sure to look until I was found. Because she didn’t want me to feel forgotten, her words.” Steve’s fingers are fidgeting with one another again. Picking at his fingernails, peeling at hangnails. Eddie moves down and takes them, rubbing soothing circles into their backs, just so Steve doesn’t harm himself on top of everything. Steve continues, hushed, “When I’d stay the night, she would sleep with me. Hold me close to her. Scratch my back and scalp and tell me stories…all the way until I fell asleep.”
“Kinda like I do, huh?” Eddie asks.
Steve nods. “Yeah,” he croaks. “Think that’s why I feel so loved and safe with you.”
And Eddie hasn’t cried, not really, not yet. But this may be it. Because he knows, beyond everything, that Nana was special to Steve—so special that just one negative comment, one complaint, one little fuss about her was enough to get you shunned by him. He’s seen it play out with Dustin, he’d been banned from coming over for two weeks. And with El, who didn’t understand quite yet, but had lost conversational abilities with Steve for two whole days—ergo, the Silent Treatment.
This means something. It means everything. Eddie kind of wants to cry about it.
But he reigns himself in for now. Because Steve needs him like water. For somebody to just be there and be present and be patient. Through it all.
“You wanna head inside,” Eddie offers, “I’ve got the key in my pocket.” He gestures loosely to the inside of his vest, the safest pocket near his heart. When Steve nods, Eddie leads them inside silently. Opens the door first, per request made by Steve days prior. Sets his shoes by the front door—not told to, but just out of respect. Hangs up his jacket, his vest. Takes Steve’s jacket, too. Unties his Nike sneakers. Smacks a quick kiss to his cheek. And then he waits by the front door for Steve to say or do something.
The first thing he does is gasp. Eyes roaming the hallway, the living room, and the fireplace that connects the kitchen and living space together. He takes a few tentative steps before stopping in front of a tall, full China cabinet.
“Her Fenton bunnies,” Steve breathes.
Eddie slowly approaches behind him. Wraps an arm around his waist, tugging him into his side a little. “Are these the ones your mom was talking about on the phone?”
“Yeah. I just…Didn’t think my mom was telling the truth,” Steve murmurs. “She told me Dad didn’t want these. Takes up room or whatever. But they’re so pretty here, how could you not want these?” His left hand reaches for the knob of the cabinet. Twisting it gently as to not rattle the glass shelves. With the doors swung open, the bunnies under the cabinet’s lighting are free to touch. And so Steve picks one up, carefully in his hands like it’s alive. Maybe it is, Eddie thinks for a moment, alive with her spirit.
He breathes silently by Steve as he investigates the glass item in his hand. Running his thumbs over the ears. Down the smooth back.
“Satin glass,” Steve states, “It’s like touching the fabric, which is so weird. Nana used to talk about it all the time, but I never believed her. She never let me touch. You wanna?” He holds the bunny up to Eddie’s face. In offering, for him to pet. So he runs a slow thumb down its back. And sure enough, soft as silk, cold to the touch. “All of them are here.” He replaces the silk, purple bunny on the shelf. Picking up a chromatic shifting one next. “Carnival glass,” Steve explains, “it’s heavier than the other one, feels like. But so shiny. Think Nana used to say it was amethyst or something, but that might be what the color shift is called?”
“You sure listened to her well,” Eddie murmurs, “know a lot about this.”
Steve chuckles, a little choked to Eddie’s ears but he makes no comment. “Yeah, I guess I did. Mom used to say that I had selective hearing. That I listened when it was something I cared about.”
“And you cared a lot about Nana,” Eddie concludes.
“Yeah,” Steve whispers, “cared a lot about Nana.” He sets the carnival glass bunny back on the shelf. Standing idle in front of it all, taking it all in. “She has one upstairs, in a different glass cabinet. It glows green under the special blacklight upstairs. Said it was radioactive.” He chuckles again. “I gave her that one. As a gift for Mother’s Day in…I think ’77? Mom helped me pick it out—she was nice about the bunnies, about finding this stuff. She loved Nana, too. And she…” He laughs low in his chest and Eddie blossoms a little at the sound, unheard in so long. “Mom would pull out the long box of tissue paper and gift bags from the crawlspace. She’d unfold the prettiest gift bag—this one was a little brown one, covered in peach colored peonies. Stuffed some off-white tissue paper in that one. Wrapped the little yellow—well, it was supposed to be yellow—Fenton bunny in bubble wrap, covered it up with a bunch of caramels. Gave it to Nana, and she squealed! Apparently, she already knew it was radioactive? Thought it was the best gift ever. Which, ouch Nana, I gave you other bunnies for Mother’s Day, c’mon.”
Eddie snorts. “Maybe that’s what earned you the house? That radioactive bunny was probably the key to her heart,” he jokes. Though his stomach turns at the possibility it wasn’t appropriate to make.
Steve laughs loudly, though. Shaking his entire body with it. He slips his hand into Eddie’s back right pocket, sighs, and leans against him relaxed. “Dad should’a tried harder if he wanted Nana’s heart,” he comments, “all it took was a damn bunny.”
“Among other things, I’m sure.”
“Probably,” Steve sighs. “I think she was just excited to have a grandkid. She had a weird relationship with my dad. They didn’t get along very well. So maybe she was sorta…trying again?”
“Stevie, I think she just loved you. There doesn’t have to be some grand, deep meaning behind it. I think she just loved your company. How your laugh fills a room and your smile is seen from across the yard. And how you’re always polite, despite having reasons to not be. Maybe because of your terrible puns and how awful you are at quoting Shakespeare? You charm everybody, Steve,” Eddie monologues. “There’s not a reason to not love you.”
For a moment, the room falls completely silent. Distantly, there’s the slow tick of a wall clock. A few birds singing out in the backyard, where the bird bath probably is—only known through Steve’s memories. A slight hum from the radiator. The cars passing by on the main road just around the corner. Hawkins is quiet when there’s mourning; maybe it’s felt through the whole town, through the soles of Steve’s socked feet, from the beating of his ever love absorbent heart.
She died November 7th, 1993. Just a few days ago. Maybe it’s the anniversary of Will Byers going missing that Hawkins is feeling. Maybe it’s just tragedy. It’s love persevering—even in the most dire of situations. Where Joyce Byers was screaming about where her son may be, all those mismatched theories, and the ways in which the town thought she was crazy—even when they believed her and cried over her son’s body being pulled from the water. Where Will is actually thriving now. Where Sandra Harrington no longer is, though she was a fixture in several communities and families, Steve’s own being included.
“How’s your boy doing?” Wayne asked the day after her funeral. Eddie had shrugged, admitting he wasn’t sure because Steve had gone terribly quiet and sick. “Tell him I’m sorry. That he has a home with us. That he can come over and cry and I’ll make him hot cocoa. Alright, Ed?”
God, even Wayne knew. And there was silence after his condolences.
There is so much silence.
Until, finally, Steve asks, “Will you live with me here?”
“Wh—What?” Because surely he didn’t hear that right.
“Live with me here,” Steve repeats, a little more urgent. “I don’t think I can handle this place alone. And…I know how to use her gas stove. I can make you the spaghetti dish she used to make. And the casseroles she used to bake. We can open up her recipe box and I’ll teach you how to make her apple pie—the one she gave me for your birthday two years ago?
“And we can read your Lord of The Rings books on the porch on the bench she has out there? Grill in the backyard when we have everybody over. Robin can have the room that used to be my nursery. We can…We can live our lives here.”
Stunned, Eddie gapes momentarily. Before gripping harder at Steve’s waist, drawing him closer even when there’s no more room. Two solid bodies connected from shoulder to foot. “Are you sure, Steve? You don’t wanna—“
“You’re my family, Eds. I have loved you since that bullshit in ’86. We have seen each other through our absolute worst. Of course I’m sure. Of course I want you here,” Steve swears. “I know what I’m getting into. Even if it hurts to look around here right now. But you’ve been here by me through one of the worst heartbreaks I’ve ever experienced. I want you here—preferably always.”
“Stevie,” Eddie breathes. He reaches out with his free hand and cups the right side of Steve’s face. Swipes over his glistening cheekbone. Under his shadow beaten eye. The tickling brush of Steve’s bottom eyelashes on the tip of his thumb. And he kisses him tenderly, with every word he could ever imagine to say, all emotion he could ever feel, with an intensity seen in atomic bombs. He pulls back to see Steve’s eyes closed. Flushed and bright in the cabinet’s full white lighting, doors still open, and fragile glass bunnies as witnesses. Promises, “I want to, Steve. I want to be here with you. Through it. All of it. As long as I get to love you.”
And on his thumb there are fresh tears, gone cold but skin scalding. Steve’s lips trembling with silent cries. His eyelashes fluttering. Him and him and him. Beautiful and raw and open. Gentle like flowers and strong like wind. Aching and romantic and with a heart the size of the universe itself. Because Steve Harrington is everything—
Or so his nana has said. But Steve doesn’t know. And that’s Eddie’s own secret.
“Okay,” Steve mutters, “make a home with me, Ed.”
🏡—————🏡
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