Requested by @westifer-dead (I think?? I hope that was directed at me)
This probably wasn't what you had in mind, but in my defense, it absolutely was not what I planned on writing. It sorta snuck up on me. I hope this is okay, though <3
🖤 kissing while crying / goodbye kiss / desperation
Prompt from this post
Tags/CW: transmasc Steve, fairly explicit depiction of menstruation, resulting mentions of blood, mentions of dysphoria, Steve's internal dialogue is rather unkind to himself in this one (soft ending, though??)
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Steve’s first, horrified thought when he wakes feeling an uncomfortable amount of damp sticking his boxers to his skin is that he’s somehow managed to piss the bed.
The immediate wakefulness caused by that thought, however, is enough to give him a second one – particularly when he feels the ache low in his gut and spreading down his hips as he rolls over to toss the covers back and reveal the red stain on both his underwear and the sheets.
Fuck.
He’s early.
His period shouldn’t have been along for another couple of days, at least, and Steve hadn’t even thought about putting on a pad before getting into bed—he glances at the clock—two hours ago.
“Motherfucker,” Steve hisses.
He’d gotten home from the world’s most frustrating late shift sometime after midnight and had actually managed to get to sleep by one, and now his body is pulling this shit on him – waking him with pain and mess at three in the goddamn morning, days before it had any right to. And now his boxers are probably toast, and the sheets might be salvageable but he’s going to have to get up and change them right now, and he’s so fucking tired, and it’s three in the morning, and when he shifts to sit up, he’s caught for a moment by the sticky-slick feeling of blood drying against his skin.
He does his best to swallow back the feeling of nausea that creeps up on him at the sensation, but it’s something he hasn’t had the stomach for since being covered in Eddie’s blood after hauling him out of the Upside Down, and the cramps really aren’t helping.
It’s for all these reasons that he’s probably less gentle than he could be when he reaches over to shake Eddie awake.
“Eddie, wake up.”
Eddie groans and rolls over, curling up with his back to Steve.
Steve huffs and gives him a shove. “Eddie.”
“S’early,” Eddie grumbles. “G’way.”
Normally, Steve doesn’t mind Eddie’s steadfast refusal to wake up for anything less than three alarms and the promise of coffee. Sometimes he even has fun with it, seeing how quickly he can rouse Eddie with other sorts of promises. Right now, though, he has less than no patience, and he grabs his pillow and whacks Eddie in the side with it.
“Wake up!”
“Whatthefuck,” Eddie gasps, bolting upright and glancing around the room for his assailant.
Later, Steve might feel bad; for now, he only drawls, “You awake now?”
“Did you hit me with a pillow?” Eddie demands, eyeing the weapon in Steve’s hands.
“You wouldn’t wake up,” Steve says. “I need you to get up for a minute.”
“What? Why, what’s– oh.” Eddie much catch sight of the mess as Steve twists to shove the pillow back behind himself. “Shit.”
Steve’s face heats with embarrassment. “Shut up,” he snaps. “Just get out of the bed.”
Clumsily, Eddie moves to obey. “I didn’t mean–”
“It’s– never mind, I shouldn’t have snapped, sorry, just–” Steve sighs. “Just let me change the sheets.
He strips the comforter from the bed and rolls it up to toss it into the chair in the corner of the room to be put back on when he’s done, but he doesn’t make it much farther before his body betrays him with another wave of squeezing cramps and a dribble of blood sliding down the inside of his thigh from under the loose leg of his boxers.
He swears and lunges for the tissue box on his bedside table to catch the drip before it can hit the floor, and he can hear Eddie hiss a breath in through his teeth – it’s probably in sympathy, Steve recognizes distantly, but in the moment he still feels like he might die of shame.
“Let me– let me get cleaned up. Just a minute,” Steve mutters, balling the tissue up in his fist and making for the dresser. “Then I’ll finish with the sheets.”
“Why don’t you go take a quick shower?” Eddie suggests quietly. “I can finish the sheets.”
Yanking a pair of briefs out of the dresser, Steve slams the drawer shut. “I can clean up my own damn mess, Eddie.”
“I know you can, but you don’t have to,” Eddie says, much more patiently than Steve probably deserves. “I’m betting you’ll feel ten times better if you get the chance to rinse off, so go ahead. You know how much I love wrestling with the fitted sheet.”
Steve should probably say no. It’s stupid to make Eddie clean up after him when he’s perfectly capable of doing it himself.
He should say no, but he doesn’t want to.
He glances back at Eddie, who looks nothing but sincere in his offer, and nods. “Thanks,” he mumbles, and Eddie gives him a little smile and a nod in return.
In the bathroom, Steve makes the water as hot as he can stand it and pops two Advil before stripping and shoving his boxers straight into the trash. If he tried hard enough, he might be able to get the stain out, but he doesn’t have the mental fortitude to contemplate doing that right now. His t-shirt has been spared any blood, but he puts it in the hamper to be washed, anyway. It just feels dirty now.
There are some months where Steve’s period comes and goes without any fuss; it’s an inconvenience and a bit of a drain, but hardly worth comment. Then there are some months that shove Steve headfirst into ten different stages of dysphoria and various neuroses for no apparent reason.
This one feels like it’s going to be the latter.
Even once he’s standing under the shower spray, the blood already sluiced down the drain, Steve doesn’t feel like he’s ever going to be clean again. He knows it’s his shitty brain lying to him, he knows that the feeling will go away in a few days—a week, at most—but that doesn’t help him now.
He wastes an extra ten minutes in the shower, trying to convince himself he’s only staying in because the hot water is helping his cramps (only partially true; he’s so tense that they haven’t really abated, and in fact have crawled up his sides now, seizing on the scar tissue from his bat bites and yanking his whole abdomen in tight, but he’s hoping it will help with his cramps), but he does eventually manage to force himself out and dry off.
With the fuck-off-biggest pad he owns shoved into his underwear, Steve heads back to the bedroom and stops short inside the door.
The lights are still dim, and Eddie is waiting up for him, sitting against the pillows with his book. He’s not only changed the sheets and fixed the comforter, but he’s laid out a pair of pajamas for Steve – the exact pair he prefers when he’s having a particularly bad day. And for some reason, that’s it for Steve.
The tears hit before he can even try to choke them off, and Eddie must not be very immersed in his book, because the first ragged breath is enough to alert him to the fact that something is wrong.
He looks almost wounded when he catches sight of Steve standing in the doorway like a weepy idiot, and Steve would feel bad, but Eddie’s already up and out of the bed and coming towards Steve with his arms open in offering.
And with anyone else, Steve would shy away; this isn’t a part of him that anyone needs to see, this weakness and inability to cope. But from Eddie– even as stupid as Steve feels right now, he knows he doesn’t have much that he needs to hide from a man who will help him clean up his own blood and then offer to hold him while he cries about it.
He accepts the hug, allows himself to be led back over to the bed and sat down, and then lets himself be held.
Eddie presses his lips to Steve’s forehead and then swipes his thumbs over Steve’s cheeks, wiping away whatever tears fall and kissing him there, too, like he can replace the evidence of his distress with love.
And hell, maybe he can.
In a while, Steve will want to get dressed and they’ll both need some actual rest, but for now, Steve thinks he’s more than willing to sit and let Eddie try.
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If I Should Stay
Part 1 | . . . | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15
Steve, Robin, Nancy, Jonathan, and Eddie exchange looks. “Can you tell how long?” Nancy asks.
“Less than a day,” El says, sounding apologetic. “Other than that…” she shakes her head and slips the blindfold off. “I am sorry.”
“You’ve done more than enough, El,” Robin soothes. “Thank you.”
“We have to go after her.” Nancy looks pleadingly at Steve. “You want to save her, too, right? Not just Will?”
“I do,” Steve nods. “I didn’t know how long we’d have. I’d hoped we’d have more time, but it looks like we’ll have to go in twice: once for Barb and Will, and once to kill Vecna.” He looks around the room, focusing on the three boys. “I know Will was the artist, but Lucas, I know you can draw too. If we get you a map, can you find points and direct us?”
Lucas sets his jaw and nods. “I’ll do my best.”
“Okay. Here’s the plan, then: you three, stay here with El.” He looks at Dustin, Mike, and Lucas. “We’ll have walkie talkies, so we can keep in constant communication. El, how long can you stay in that space?”
She looks at him steadily. “I can do it.”
Steve looks at her, then nods. “I trust you. Robs, you’re with me?”
“Just try and get rid of me, Dingus.”
Dingus? Jonathan mouths to Nancy, who shrugs.
“Nance, Jon, and Eddie. You’re with us. We’re getting in and out as fast as we can. If all goes according to plan, we’ll have two more people coming with us on the out. They’ll be weak, but between the five of us, we can and will get them out safely. Robin, you stay here, direct the weapon-making. Make sure I get a bat. I’m going to go get walkie talkies, masks, and a whole lot of first aid supplies.”
“Got it,” Robin nods, then points at Eddie, Jonathan, and Nancy. “You three, with me.” She leads them to the backyard, and Steve knows she’s bringing them to the shed, where his old sports things and various tools are.
He looks to the boys. “Keep working on those plans. We’ll need them for the second attack. El, do you want to rest before we begin?” She considers it, then nods. “Okay. You know where the bed is. I’ll be back in less than an hour, alright?”
She nods and begins climbing the stairs. Steve looks around once more, taking stock, then grabs his keys and walks out the front door.
He gets to the store no problem, walks inside and starts filling his basket. Seven walkie talkies, seven masks, seven pairs of goggles, antibacterial cream, bandages, a suture kit, some ice packs. Two bottles of pain pills. He thinks about it, then makes his way to the front desk, smiling at the employee. “Hey, could I use your phone for a minute, please?”
He looks at Steve, unimpressed, then shrugs and gestures towards it. Steve thanks him and dials his home number.
“Hello?”
“Dustin. Do me a favor and get Eddie?”
“Yeah. One second.”
He hears Dustin yelling for Eddie as he walks outside, then a minute later, Eddie’s on the line. “Hello?”
“Hey, Eddie. I grabbed some pain meds, but I’m wondering if they’re going to be strong enough. I can pay you, but could you…”
“Yeah, no, I’ve got it. And no, dude, you’re not paying me. Not for this. I’ll head home and get them right now.”
“Perfect,” Steve says. “Thanks so much, Eds, you’re a lifesaver.”
“Uh, y-yeah, no problem. I’ll, uh, go now.”
“Okay. I’ll probably beat you back. See you there.”
“See you,” Eddie agrees, and they hang up,
Steve looks around for a few more minutes, finds a package of nails, adds those to his basket and goes to check out.
He’s well aware he probably looks like a serial killer, but he knows from experience the cashier is blindly scanning his items.
His luck runs out when Chief Hopper walks in and ambles towards the checkout counter. Steve does his best to keep the sigh internal. “Chief,” he says, giving him a little nod. The chief returns the greeting, peering over into Steve’s basket.
Steve suddenly becomes very interested in the gum options.
“What’s all this?” Hopper asks, inclining his head towards the basket.
Steve shrugs. “A few different things.” Please accept it, please accept it, please accept it-
“Like what?”
Dammit. “Uh… well, I noticed I didn’t have a first aid kit, and I figured I probably should, y’know? And I wanted to do some work around the house.”
Hopper grunts. “The masks and walkies?”
“Um.” Steve blanks. “It’s for a game with my friends?”
Hopper sighs. “If I get a call from your neighbors-”
“You won’t,” Steve says. Promises.
“Fifty-one sixty-four, sir,” the cashier says. Steve’s never been more grateful to be interrupted.
He pays, grabs his things, and sends Hopper a salute on his way out the door. He notices Hopper watching him as he leaves the parking lot, and he forces himself not to speed on the way home.
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