#i didn't think i was gonna be able to do steddie week becuase it crept up on me and i haven't kept up

[delta-piscium]

@steddie-week day 1: Hunger | 1.1k words cw: light angst in that Steve is a little sad/dealing with some mental stuff but like hurt/comfort (not EDs which mental stuff combined with the prompt word might make it seem like, hunger is used as a metaphor)

Sometimes Steve doesn’t talk to anyone for days. He just shuts himself in his room and hides, barely leaves his bed. Pretends he doesn’t exist, or that time has stopped and he’s the only thing that exists.

Sometimes, he’ll go back too soon, feel bad for the ignored calls and drag himself out of bed to see the people who matter most to him. But it won’t feel warm and soft those times. He’ll be too raw and It’ll feel like they’re grabbing his insides and eating them. Pulling his heart and brain out of his body and devouring them without letting him eat theirs in return. 

Usually, he’s okay with that. He knows his place, he knows that’s what he’s for. For other people to get fed. And he’s happy to feed, to do that for them. 

He loves them, of course he’s gonna give himself over. It’s just that sometimes they take too much. They don’t know they do he thinks, they don’t know they’re eating him alive. That he’s presenting himself on a silver platter and letting them take take take, and that sometimes they take too much.

That’s why he disappears, so he can grow back. So he can give more. Because if he stops giving he's afraid they’ll get tired. He won’t be useful, he can’t give when he’s like that. He starts craving, he starts wanting. He feels starved and wants to take and feed too, and that’s not part of the deal. He’s not supposed to eat, he’s supposed to be eaten. So when he turns hungry and ravenous he hides, he isolates. 

Robin is the only one who truly gets this about him, who doesn’t take and demand. She gently accepts the things he gives and never without giving too, forcing him to stay whole. It’s overwhelming and sometimes he has to hide from that too, he doesn’t know how to deal with the force of it. He’s so used to the constant hunger it’s a shock when it’s gone but he’s gotten better. And anyway, he and Robin are part of one whole so whatever is given or taken between them is never really gone. It stays with both of them.

Robin is the only one, or she was the only one he should say. Because now there’s Eddie. Eddie who gives and gives and gives, almost as much as he does. But who doesn’t seem to dwindle and dim like Steve does. Who doesn’t seem to starve or hunger. Eddie who notices when Steve does, when he stumbles and gets greedy. Who holds him up and makes him whole with a look, a touch, a word. 

Eddie who breaks in through his window when he shuts himself in his big empty house and lays with him in his bed, softly telling Steve stories and running his fingers through his hair. 

It’s wonderful.

It's the worst. 

“I’m afraid you’re gonna end up as empty as me,” Steve tells him, whispers it into the dark. “That you’re here now and you’re giving and I’m taking and you’re gonna be the one left with nothing.” 

Eddie doesn’t respond immediately but hums in acknowledgment, lets him know he heard and is thinking. 

“This is good for me too,” he says eventually, “being with you and resting. Getting to be here for you when you never used to let anyone but Robin be. It’s good for me too.” 

“It can be good and still drain you.” Says Steve, knows it to be true. He doesn’t resent giving the way he does, he loves it, it’s good. It drains him. 

“Yeah,” Eddie agrees, “this doesn’t drain me, you’re comforting me too. It’s balanced.” 

Balanced. That’s what Robin tells him too. That’s what Nancy sometimes asked him for when they dated and he couldn’t let her see the cracks. That’s what he wonders about with his other friends. 

He doesn’t usually know how to do that. He doesn’t know where the lines are. He doesn’t understand how Eddie knows. 

“You let me give, and I let you give, so it’s balanced. We don’t take from each other, we gift and we receive. It’s balanced. You have to let other people give sometimes too, Steve.” 

It hits something deep in him, the last words. He knows this, he doesn’t want to know it. 

“I’m afraid they won’t. if I open myself up to it. If I ask, I’m afraid they won’t.” He says it so quietly it’s almost inaudible but Eddie hears. 

His hands still in Steve’s hair for a moment before moving again, gently scratching his scalp. 

“I know baby. But that’s not fair, they want to give too. If they knew how much they took without giving back they’d be heartbroken. It’s not fair to you or them.” 

Steve lets Eddies words wash over him, he knows he’s right. They’d be nauseous with it. His sweet wonderful friends and family would be crushed.

“Sometimes it will happen, maybe,” Eddie continues when Steve doesn’t respond beyond a sharp breath in. “Sometimes people won’t know how to give after only getting but you gotta let them try. Sometimes they’ll learn and adjust, sometimes they won’t and you’ll have to deal with that. But you can’t starve yourself like this because you won’t let them try.” 

"What if I take too much?"

"Then they talk to you, like you should talk to them."

“When did you get so wise,” Steve snorts, his voice is tight but he makes the effort, tries to lighten the mood. Deflects, like he always does. 

Eddie lets him, a little, knows Steve has to. But he’s still serious when he answers.

“Wayne is like a never-ending well of insight and digging around in everything, never lets me get away with shit.” 

The opposite of Steve’s parents who were the first to take from him and never give, never look into his eyes and tell him to eat. 

“He’s a good guy,” Steve tells Eddie instead of weighing him down more than he already has. Instead of acknowledging and relieving the hunger pang that strikes him at the thought. Even now, here, he doesn’t know how. 

“Yeah,” Eddie agrees. “I’m here to relay his wisdom, like playing telephone with whatever stuff he teaches me. The things your parents took away from you.”

Eddie still knows, of course, he does. He always knows.

“And what do you get?” Steve has to ask.

“I get you. I get everything.”

Steve smiles, turns around to kiss Eddie. He doesn’t feel empty when Eddie kisses him back, hungry. When he takes and devours. 

#i didn't think i was gonna be able to do steddie week becuase it crept up on me and i haven't kept up #and i wasn't gonna post this but like i wrote this in like 40 minutes in a haze and then went on tumblr and saw one of the #prompts for day 1 was hunger and i had literally just written this thing where i used hunger as a metaphor so i went back and reread it #and did some edits and now im posting it #which well i usually stick to humor in my writing so this is always scary but here we are #this is so different from what i usually post but this is also representative of like 70% of my notes app i just dont share #this kind of writing but fuck it i guess #my writing #dels steddie thoughts #steddieweek2023 #steve harrington #eddie munson #steddie #stranger things #steddie fic #steddie week