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flowercrowngods · 6 months

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who did this to you. part 2

🤍🌷 read part 1 here pre-s4, steve whump, protective (but scared) eddie

This is not happening. None of this is happening, he’s… He’s dreaming. He’s high. High as a kite somewhere where reality doesn’t matter, where it can’t fucking reach him and he’s— He’s not panicking behind the wheel with Steve Fucking Harrington bleeding against the passenger side window.

It’s not happening.

Because if it were happening, Eddie would simply throw up. He’d leave his van on the side of the road and run the fuck away. Away from Harrington and his trouble, away from his rattling breath that’s so loud and unsteady, Eddie doesn’t even dare to turn on any sort of music, even though he’s itching for it, his hands clenching and unclenching around the wheel until his knuckles go white.

“Shit, shit, shit,” he mumbles under his breath, barely aware of his surroundings at all, his eyes flitting from Harrington to the red stain against the window, back to the road and then down to the white-knuckled grip and the speckles of dried blood that is decidedly not his.

Lost in his panic and disbelief, Eddie almost runs a red light.

It’s harsh, the way he hits the brakes, and the sound Harrington makes is pathetic enough that Eddie feels like maybe this might actually be happening.

“Sorry,” he breathes, his voice no better than Steve’s — and he’s not the one with a concussion, a broken rib, and that… fucking fear. Of something. Or someone.

Who’s hurting you, Steve?

Jus’ everyone, sometimes. God you don’t… You don’t even know.

He doesn’t even know. He doesn’t wanna know. All he wants is for Harrington to stop fucking bleeding, to keep his eyes wide open and—

“Ed,” the boy says, wheezes, and it sounds like he wanted to say his full name, but had to swallow first. Blood, Eddie thinks. Don’t let it be blood. “Think I’m… ‘M gonna throw up.”

“Please don’t throw up,” Eddie says before he can stop himself, hating how small his voice sounds, how urgent — like that’s the thing to be urgent about. God, he’s such an ass, but he… If Harrington throws up, Eddie will lose it. He knows he will.

He chances a glance over at Steve, who has somehow managed to get his right arm tangled with the handle at the door, keeping himself upright and safe from Eddie’s rather frantic driving style. His head is drooping, moving this way and that against the red-stained glass, and he blinks unseeingly as blood begins to trickle down from his nose and temple again.

He’s making himself small, and Eddie wants to pull him upright and tell him to stay like that, tell him to stop looking so terrible, so horrible, so…

So much like Eddie’s fucking problem.

He hates it. Hates everything about that vision. Boys like Harrington shouldn’t look like this, shouldn’t hold themselves like this, shouldn’t… Shouldn’t have no one but Eddie to take them somewhere safe.

It’s just not tight.

“Don’ wanna throw up,” Steve says at last, the pause too long for Eddie’s liking, and he sounds so solemn about it, yet so helpless, and Eddie kinda wants to scream. Wants Harrington to scream. Anything to stay awake and maybe not ruin his car. Anything to not fucking die in it.

“Tell me something,” he says then, because he knows he has to keep Harrington awake and speaking. Just for another ten, fifteen minutes, he tells himself. “Anything, yeah? Tell me anything. Gotta keep you awake there, you hear me? Sounds great, right, staying awake?”

He’s rambling and he knows it, desperation shining through his words and the god-awful way his voice breaks a little. This is not about him, he knows it isn’t, but still he wants to punch himself, wants to pinch himself and stay fucking calm.

But who could stay calm in a situation like this? The silence is filled with the horrible wheezing and rattling of Harrington’s breath barely audible over the engine, and Eddie has to look over several times to make sure he’s still there, still with him, still alive. His panic spikes each time.

He’s just about to reach over and shake him a little, snap in front of his face to get him back, when—

“I don’t know what.”

It’s quiet, that voice, breathy and tiny and almost invisible, and Eddie wants to scream again.

Tell me why you’re so scared. Tell me why your old buddy did this to you. Hagan would never touch you, so why did he now? Tell me what happened to Hargrove. Tell me why you sound so fucking small.

“Tell me about your…” He fumbles for a moment, taking a sharp left and pretending not to hear the choked-off whimper. Focusing on good things. On normal things. “Your favourite person.”

Eddie cringes at himself the moment the words leave his mouth. Your favourite person? Really, Munson? He scrambles to find something better, something cooler, or maybe something easier like asking his favourite fucking colour, but the overthinking really doesn’t mix well with the already panicked state of his mind. And Eddie just blanks.

Beside him, though, Harrington sits up a little straighter, smearing more blood against his window in the process that Eddie pretends not to feel nauseous about.

God, he never did like blood.

“You wan’ me to tell you ‘bout Rob?”

“Sure, yeah,” Eddie says, a little too loud, a little too shrill, actually running a red light this time because he doesn’t want to brake again and hurt the boy some more. There’s no one around anyway. This is Hawkins. Fucking dead-end of a town. It doesn’t need red lights, or boys who look like Harrington. “Rob. Tell me ‘bout him, what’s he like? Favourite colour, all that shit.”

“Her.”

Eddie blinks, looking over to find Harrington looking at him — or trying to, his eyes still drooping and empty. But it’s a good sign. People don’t die when they look at you, right?

“What?”

“Her,” Harrington says again. “An’ blue. Deep ‘n’ dark blue. She’ll say something corny when, when you ask her, jus’ to fuck with you. Sunset gold or rose, jus’ to mess with… But is blue.”

Eddie doesn’t really listen, doesn’t really process what Steve is saying, already thinking of the next question just to keep him talking. But then he continues on his own.

“Mornin’ blue dep— de… makes her sad, though. So only dark blue. Says it’s why we’re friends. You’re so blue, Stevie. Got half’a my clothes, still, she does. All the blues.”

That's... really fucking endearing, actually.

And he says it with a half-smile, too, bloody and pathetic as it is. Like it’s a secret that only the two of them are in on, only Steve and Robin. It’s kind of sweet.

Not for the first time today does Eddie find himself wondering, Who the hell are you, Steve Harrington?

He exhales through his nose, ignoring the way he’s started to shake with all that panic that’s been sitting inside him for a little too long now with no way to let it out.

“Not much longer,” he mumbles under his breath again, or maybe he just thinks very hard. Maybe he doesn’t know where he is at all. It’s like he blanks every few seconds, too busy thinking and trying not to.

Before he can tell Harrington to talk some more about that girlfriend of his, there’s a pained, confused little whine that forcefully tears Eddie’s eyes from the street for a moment only to meet hazel eyes widened in confusion.

“Wh— Where… Where’re we going?”

Oh no.

“Why’m I in y—“

“You’re safe,” Eddie interrupts him, speaking slowly because suddenly his tongue is too big for his mouth, and not entirely sure if he’s reassuring Harrington or himself. “You’re hurt, okay? It’s bad, but it wasn’t me. I’m taking you to… to someone. My uncle Wayne, he’s— He knows about that kinda stuff. You were telling me about Rob. Remember her, Blue? How about you tell me some more, hm?”

Eddie’s voice is unsteady with worry and fear and panic, and he’s doing a piss-poor job at hiding it. The thing is, he’s going to cry. He’s actually, absolutely, no-doubt-about-it going to scream and cry and punch a fucking hole into something when this day is over, when his van is no longer bloody, and when Steve Harrington won’t have reason to look at him any longer.

Oh, how he wants to skip forward. Past the nausea, past the fear, past everything that’s happening right now. Maybe past the insomnia that will come with a day like this, too.

Past all of it.

Or better yet, travel back in time and never get to that fucking boat house.

But he can’t. So he breathes.

At first, through the ringing in his ears and the racing of his own heart so loud and so forceful he’s shaking with it, he worries that Steve’s gone silent again, that he’s gonna ask again, ask what happened, ask where he is, ask all the questions that make Eddie feel like he’s been doused in ice water because they’re questions that only get asked in stupid movies where terrible things happen to people.

But then he hears him mumbling something. Numbers.

“What’cha mumbling there, Blue?”

“‘S her number,” Steve says, his voice slurring again, worse than before, and Eddie hits the gas a little harder. “‘S jus’ her number. Robbie’s number.”

And he mumbles again. Over and over and over, until Eddie couldn’t forget it if he wanted to, ingrained into the frayed edges of his mind now.

He lets him ramble, lets him repeat the number until the words slur together and he can’t separate a four from a nine anymore. Each time Harrington hesitates, each time he stumbles over the words or forgets a digit, Eddie wants to punch the wheel.

He doesn’t. He only grips it tighter and counts down the turns he takes, the streets he passes, the fucking trees that are familiar, before, finally, the trailer park comes into view.

The sob Eddie lets out when, with shaking, trembling hands he pulls up to his home to find his uncle having a smoke outside is deafening to his ears after the quiet weakness of Harrington’s voice.

It startles him, makes him stop his rambles and sit up straighter when Eddie finally kills the engine. For a moment, without the steady, rolling hum, the car is filled with the small, tiny whines Steve makes on each exhale. Like it hurts to even breathe.

“Wha’s wrong?” He asks, but Eddie can’t really hear him. Can’t turn to him, can’t— “Eddie?”

He’s out of the car before he can take hold of another thought, stumbling out of his open door on legs that feel numb and heavy. The urge to cry is back again, the burning in his eyes only getting worse when Wayne takes in the dried blood on his clothes and hands with careful, calculated worry.

“Ed?”

“I didn’t know what— where—- I’m… Wayne, I’m sorry.”

“Slow down, kid,” Wayne says, raising his hands as if to calm a spooked deer. Like Eddie is the one who needs his help. And he is. He really, really is, and he shouldn’t be, because this isn’t about him, but—

Wayne grabs him by the shoulders to keep him still, and only now does Eddie realise he’s shaking again, restlessly moving his weight from one leg to the other. His uncle steadies him, gently pressing down on his shoulders to ground him, and Eddie nearly sobs again.

“Ed. Are you in trouble?”

“No,” Eddie scrambles to say, becoming aware of what this looks like, hiding his hands behind his back on instinct, like that’ll make Harrington’s blood disappear. “‘S not my blood, I didn’t do anything, I swear! I swear. It’s, uh. I just found him. In the boathouse, I found him, and he was… God, he looked so bad, okay, but he didn’t want the hospital, and he was, like, so scared of something, and we don’t even talk, we don’t even look at each other, but I just… I didn’t know what to do, and you know something about concussions and people who were beat to shit and, again, I’m—“

“Eddie,” Wayne says, his voice so calm but so assertive that Eddie shuts up immediately, gladly handing over to controls to his uncle now. “Who’s the kid?”

He nods towards Eddie’s van, where Harrington looks to be halfway unbuckled, but his eyes are closed and his face smushed against the door again, like he just gave up.

“Shit,” Eddie says, adrenaline and panic slowly falling from him with Wayne’s hand on his shoulder. He sags into his uncle and rubs at his face. “It’s Steve. Uh, Steve Harrington, I mean.”

“Okay,” Wayne says, and he’s so calm. So calm. Eddie feels like he’s about to fall apart, and Wayne is the only one keeping him together, with that’d steady, warm hand on his shoulder. “And you promise me he didn’t give you trouble? Or anyone else who’ll come finish what they started?”

Eddie shakes his head profusely, getting a little dizzy with it. “I promise I’m not in trouble. He said Hagan did this to him, was alone when I found him. No trouble, Wayne, I swear, I’m not like that, you know I’m not.”

“Okay,” Wayne says again, and Eddie wants to weep. “I know you’re not like that, but some people are, y’know? You did good, son. You did good. Now help me get him out of that car.”

It takes his uncle tugging him towards the van for Eddie to kick back into motion, nearly falling over his feet turning back around. It’s only Wayne’s “Easy” murmured under his breath that keeps the ground from opening up and swallowing him whole.

He climbs in on the driver’s side while Wayne rounds the car and gets to Harrington’s side.

“Hey there, Blue,” Eddie says, his voice shaking and the nickname slipping again — but it’s easier to call him that than his real name, it’s easier to pretend it’s literally anyone else in here with him, bleeding against his door.

It’s easier to pretend it’s not Harrington’s breath rattling the way it does, easier to pretend those pained groans so high in their cadence they can only count as whines don’t come from Hawkins High’s Golden Boy who graduated a few months ago and was supposed to be done with bullshit like this.

“Come on, up you get,” he tells him, not daring to raise his voice too much.

He looks so frail. Like he’s already broken. Or like he’s trying not to. Like he’s holding on.

Eddie pretends not to think that the hand he places on Steve’s cheek to gently pry him from the window is not the only thing keeping that boy together right now.

Harrington groans, whines, wheezes, but opens his eyes to meet Eddie’s. Jesus, we’re they this blown before? Or this swollen?

“Hey,” Eddie says, just to say something. Just so he won’t have to hold the boy’s face in silence, just so he won’t have to focus on all the blood. Just so he won’t have to hear more questions that people aren’t supposed to ask.

Steve opens his mouth, his breath coming out a little sharper, like he wants to say Hi rather than Where am I? or When will it stop hurting? Like he wants to say How can I help you help me?

Somehow, Eddie manages a smile.

Wayne chooses that moment to open the door — just unclicking it, not pulling yet; giving Eddie enough time to support Harrington, make sure he doesn’t fall.

“Careful,” he whispers, though whether it’s for Wayne, for Steve, or for himself, he can’t quite tell. Maybe it’s a plea to the rest of the world, and to anyone else who will listen.

Steve is still staring at him. That’s probably not a good sign. He leans back a little, turning Steve’s head to make him follow him. Slowly, of course. Gently. Eddie can’t remember ever having touched something like it was going to break if only he looked at it wrong, but somehow he’s hyper-aware of it now.

Because Harrington is staring at him. Entirely too still, like he has no strength, no coordination to do anything but stare. And yet Eddie is the one who, now that the adrenaline has fallen from him, now that he can let someone else take over, now that Harrington doesn’t need him anymore, finds himself unable to look away.

Because Steve is just a boy. And so is Eddie, who can feel Steve’s breath against his wrist. And maybe, out of the two of them, Eddie is the fragile one. The one about to break.

“Blue, you with me?”

Steve nods. Doesn’t speak again. Doesn’t move. Eddie swallows, briefly looking back down at Wayne to see if he’s ready. His uncle nods, ready to catch Harrington should he go down, and Eddie turns back to the boy who’s smeared with his own blood.

“I’m gonna take off your seatbelt now, yeah?” he tells him, not entirely recognising his voice anymore. “That man out there, that is Wayne. My uncle. He’s safe. He’ll take care of you, okay?”

“Safe,” Steve breathes, and that shouldn’t be the one thing he focuses on. It shouldn’t sound so unsure. So insecure. So hopeful, so relieved, so— Fucking earnest.

Swallowing all these thoughts, all this desperation and all those questions, Eddie reaches over Steve, one hand still supporting his head and feeling the overheated skin of Harrington’s cheek against his palm, the hint of stubble and the crust of dried blood. As if in slow motion, not daring to make a wrong move and hurt him more than he already does, Eddie frees him the rest of the way, letting the seatbelt slide into its hold behind his shoulder.

“Careful,” he says again, just to say anything, but he is careful, and his hold on Steve is steady.

“‘M careful. Not gonna break, Eddie.”

“I know.” But maybe I will.

“Good. ‘Cause… Don’ wanna break.”

Eddie smiles, despite everything. “You’re not gonna break, Blue. Wayne’ll catch you.”

Harrington loses his focus then, his eyes glazing over, but the small smile on his lips widens. “Blue. ‘S nice.”

Yeah, Eddie thinks. He kinda is.

Somehow, miraculously, they get Harrington out of the van and into the trailer. He throws up halfway to the doorstep, and Eddie curses under his breath while Wayne talks quietly, asking him yes and no questions that Eddie can’t really hear through the ringing in his ears — a strange mix of fear and relief, a panic not quite over, but soothed by his uncle’s familiar voice; even if it’s not directed at him.

“Don’t worry about it, kid, the next rain’ll take care of that. Stop apologising.”

It throws him then, rather suddenly and violently, watching Wayne supporting Harrington, watching the blood smeared boy with the swelling, angry red bruises in his face. Somehow it’s different, seeing him in his home.

This was always a safe space. Always void of everything terrible.

And now there’s a broken boy on his doorstep who’s not Eddie.

He remembers the fear, the panic, the plea for no hospital, Eddie. Can’t go there.

Why not? You need a doctor—

Monsters. Only monsters there.

It paralyses him and he stays where he is, holding the door with an arm that’s heavy like lead, standing on legs that begin to go numb again. He watches, but not really, as Wayne sits Harrington down on the living room couch, between magazines and brochures and some of Eddie’s calculus notes from last night that he was searching for a sketch of a monster he was so certain he’d drawn in the margins a few weeks back.

Now there’s blood on his calculus notes. And Eddie is helplessly keeping the door open as though he’s going to run away any second now. Letting in more trouble to join Harrington on his couch.

He should… He should close the door. Help. Run. Disappear.

“Ed,” Wayne calls, snapping him out of his stupor. “The first aid kit, please. A bottle of water. A clean, wet cloth. A blanket, too.”

Wayne talks him through it, takes it one step at a time, has Eddie bring him one after the other like he knows how much he’s keeping his nephew together by keeping him on the brink of usefulness.

Soon, Wayne has everything he needs, taking care of Harrington and his wounds, keeping him awake and talking so much better than Eddie did, even making him smile here and there, hiding his wince when the motion pulls on his split lip or the huffed breath sends a jolt of pain through his rib that Eddie is absolutely certain must be broken with the way he holds himself — with the way he lets Wayne hold him up.

Wayne is doing his thing and Eddie is hiding, gripping the kitchen counter like a vice, staring both unseeingly and hyper-vigilantly as exhaustion washes over him, dragging him under and draining him of more than adrenaline. He slumps against the cupboard behind him, rubbing at his face like that’ll make it all go away.

It’s not right. It’s not. This is Eddie’s home, it’s supposed to be safe, it’s not…

He breaks away, ripping his hands from the counter and all but stumbling outside, heaving a deep breath and giving in to the urge to cry. Tears spring to his eyes and he wipes them away angrily, because it’s dumb, it’s so stupid, it’s absolutely fucking insane that he should be so worked up when Harrington talked about dying earlier.

These things don’t happen. They don’t!

“Stop fucking crying,” Eddie grumbles, sniffling and wiping away more tears as he closes his eyes against the afternoon sun. “Get a grip, Munson, Jesus Christ, there’s no reason to cry you big fuckin’ baby.”

Nobody’s there to contradict him. Nobody’s there to make it worse. So he lets his eyes sting for a while, lets his lips wobble, his jaw clenched shut, the balls of his hands pressing into his eyes, breathing deliberately.

In. Hold. Out. Hold.

He doesn’t even scream. Doesn’t punch the still bloody side of his van, doesn’t run into the woods and disappear into the void.

He simply breathes. Tries not to think about boys dying in mall fires, and even less so about boys beaten and abandoned in boat houses.

Doesn’t think about fucking Hawkins in Bumfuck-Indiana and the cursed way it has, driving its people mad.

Doesn’t think about, They said my brain is hurt, Eddie. Doesn’t think about the Monsters Harrington mentioned. Doesn’t think about Blue, doesn’t think about I’m tired, Eddie. Don’t wanna hurt anymore.

Doesn’t think about blue, blue, blue.

He’s shaking when he comes back inside. He’s shaking when Harrington meets his eyes, looking a little clearer now, the blood washed away and everything bandaged a lot better than Eddie managed. He’a bundled in Eddie’s blanket. It’s wrong. It’s so, so wrong.

Eddie can’t move, and neither does Steve.

“Steve,” Wayne says, waiting until those eyes tear themselves away from Eddie and back to him, though Eddie sees them fill with such trepidation, he almost asks what’s wrong. “I won’t hear a no on this, and I won’t let you go home. I’m taking you to the hospital. Especially if you tell me your head was hurt like this before, more times than one.”

“Three,” Blue breathes, a little dazed still. Not magically healed, not even from Wayne. Another thing that doesn’t feel right.

“Three times,” Wayne says, nodding, like he’s encouraging Steve to continue.

“But I don’t want a hospital.” Again with that tiny fucking voice. Like the Monsters are hiding under hospital beds.

“I know, son,” Wayne sighs, tugging the blanket a little tighter around Steve, and Eddie’s eyes begin to sting again when he notices the tone Wayne uses. When he realises. When he remembers.

”I want my mom.“

”I know, son. But she’s not coming. Your mama is gone, Ed, and this is your home now. Think we can make that work, hm? You and I?”

Eddie had never felt so lost as he did then, clutching his blanket to his chest, burying his face in the wet fabric even as this man — his uncle — tugs it tighter around him. Like he is fine with Eddie wanting to hide as long as he doesn’t run away.

He had shrugged, then, even though we wanted to shake his head, tell him no, tell him he wanted his mama.

”I’m scared, uncle Wayne.”

And Wayne had smiled a little, and nodded. “Then we do it scared, Eddie.”

Actually, Eddie feels like he never stopped doing it scared.

And now there is Steve, who Eddie never believed knew what being scared felt like. It’s dumb, of course, because even Harrington is just a boy, but he was always untouchable to Eddie. They never talked. They never existed in the same space together, not in a good way and not in a bad way. Their worlds just never aligned, never collided, never coexisted.

And now…

“I’ll tell you what’s going to happen, okay? There’s a doctor, Doctor Clarke. Like— Yeah, like your science teacher, remember him? ‘S got a brother who’s just as much of a genius, and just as kind. He’ll take a look at you, yeah? Make sure your brain isn’t too hurt, clean your wounds, give you something for the pain. He won’t, uh. He won’t hurt you, kid. Whatever’s got you so scared, Dr Clarke will be nice to you. Especially when I’m there with ya, I’m an old pal of his. And I will be. Won’t let you outta my sight until you’re well enough to run away from me, you hear me, kid?”

Eddie’s hands are hurting, his fingertips raw from where he’s been biting his nails while Wayne talks Blue through what’s going to happen — and he wonders, with the way Steve’s eyes are glued to Wayne, if he ever had anyone talking him through shit like this.

“Okay,” Harrington breathes at last, still sounding way too small. “But. I’m…”

“Scared anyway?” Wayne offers. Steve nods. You’re so blue, Stevie. “Then we do it scared anyway.”

And they do. Wayne goes to get the car so Steve won’t have to walk too far, leaving Eddie alone with him for a brief moment.

He watches, from his place in the kitchen, how Steve’s face falls into a look of utter exhaustion and tiredness; the adrenaline washing from him just the same. Eddie wants to reach out. Wants to say something, break the spell of tension and silence and I know we don’t talk, but I’m glad you’re doing a little better. I’m glad you’ll go see a doctor. I’m glad you haven’t died, I guess. Do you really think you will? Are you really so scared of that?

But Eddie keeps biting his nails, and Steve keeps his eyes closed, blanket around his shoulders. And they don’t talk.

“Thank you.”

Eddie perks up, not entirely sure he didn’t imagine the words — but Harrington moved slightly, his eyes still closed but his face now turned towards Eddie.

“For, uh. This.”

“I didn’t do shit, Blue,” Eddie says. “That was all Wayne. All I did was freak out, I promise.”

Harrington shakes his head, though, slowly. “Mh-mm.”

Eddie’s mouth snaps shut, because there is no room for discussion here. They don’t talk. And he doesn’t want the bubble to burst with insecurity and sourness.

“Thank you,” he says again, and he sounds final about it. It makes Eddie wonder what he’s like, really like, when he doesn’t consist of pain and nausea and disorientation.

He has a feeling that, despite everything, despite Monsters under hospital beds and torture in boathouses and mall fires that kill teenagers, Blue Harrington might be someone good to talk to. Compassionate as shit, even when all he wants to do is pass out.

“You’re welcome,” Eddie rasps, pretending that his eyes don’t sting.

He wraps his arms around his chest like he’s hugging himself, or like he’s holding himself back. From reaching out, from asking, from telling, from talking.

Unwittingly, even with his eyes closed, Steve mirrors him, and Eddie wonders if he, too, it holding himself back, or just curling in on himself some more even though it must hurt, feeling so small.

Maybe that’s what fear of death does to a nineteen year-old. It’s so fucked up. Eddie wants to scream again.

Outside, he hears a car door fall shut just before Wayne reappears in the door, giving Eddie some kind of meaningful look that he wouldn’t mind deciphering on any other day, but today he fears he needs words.

“I don’t know how long this’ll take. Will you be okay, Ed?”

“Will I be— Yes! I’m not the one with the concussion, man, of course I’ll be—“

It’s a bluff, comes too fast, and Wayne sees right through it before Eddie even realises it, and he steps closer. A warm hand on his shoulder. His eyes stinging again.

“You did good, kid. Everything will be fine. But it might take a while. It’s fine if you need to go somewhere, just… Don’t drive. Call Jeff if you need someone, just. Don’t do anything stupid. And don’t get behind the wheel. Deal?”

Eddie swallows hard, hit by another desperate, aching wave of I wanna go back in time and skip this day. A wave of tired exhaustion and wondering, aimlessly, just who the fuck Steve Harrington really is.

“Deal,” he says, and Wayne pulls him into a hug.

Eddie follows them outside then, trailing behind them like a lost little puppy, helping Harrington into Wayne’s car. His movements are still slugged and a little disoriented, so Eddie decides to lean in again and fasten his seatbelt.

“Careful,” he mumbles, allowing the boy a moment’s warning, a moment to adjust before the weight settles on his chest.

Dejá-vù hits him and makes him pause, with Harrington staring at him again.

“I’m careful,” he says, the corners of his mouth tugging into a little smile.

More lucid than earlier, and Eddie thinks it that which takes his breath away for a moment.

“Not gonna break, Eddie.”

“I know,” he says, still not moving back, instead reaching up to tighten the blanket around his shoulders even though the seatbelt is already there to hold it in place. “You’re not gonna break, Blue.”

The smile on those lips is genuine now, gentle enough to not be ruined by the blood crusting them.

“Thanks. Again.” And then, when Eddie finally pulls away to close the door and tell Wayne to drive safely, “I really do like that name.”

It soothes the urge to scream.

Eddie closes the door as gently as he can — which isn’t much, because the car is old and not exactly smooth.

“I’ll see you later,” he tells Wayne. Promises. To stay out of trouble, to stick around, to not run away for a while again, to stay out of his car.

Wayne nods, a faint smile on his lips.

“Later, Ed.”

And then they’re gone, and Eddie is untethered again. Wonders, for a few seconds every now and then if it really happened, if this is real.

But it did. And it is.

And after sitting on the steps for a while, having a smoke and staring at where Wayne’s car disappeared ten, twenty, forty minutes ago, Eddie heads inside.

He has a phone call to make.

🤍🌷 tagging: @theshippirate22 @mentallyundone @ledleaf @imfinereallyy @itsall-taken @simply-shin @romanticdestruction @temptingfatetakingnames @stevesbipanic @steddie-island @estrellami-1 @jackiemonroe5512 @emofratboy @writing-kiki @steviesummer @devondespresso @swimmingbirdrunningrock @dodger-chan @tellatoast @inkjette @weirdandabsurd42 (a thousand percent sure i missed some but oh well such is the 3am disease)

addendum 22 jan 24: onwards to part 3

#steddie #steddie fic #steddie fanfic #steve x eddie #steve harrington #eddie munson #steve harrington whump #this is so long i am SORRY #i hope tagging y'all was okay (and equally i'm hoping i missed nobody but also it is 3am)#who did this to you #most of y'all will know most of the beginning already maybe i should have split it up but i wanted y'all to have Something New too #and then the Something New got out of hand and oh well :(#dio words

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14dayswithyou · 7 months

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I'm going to be a little evil :3c /silly

*I have stolen all of their headwear, leaving only FROGGY HAT in his closet.*

"Boy it sure is chilly today. Don't forget to wear a scarf and a hat when you come pick me up, okay [REDACTED]?"

✦゜ANSWERED: I believe in froggy hat [REDACTED] supremacy 🖤🐸

He knew. Of course he knew. [REDACTED]'s security system alerted him the second you stepped foot into his apartment, and it took the dark-haired hacker almost all of his willpower not to rush home and see you. But alas, he had other matters to attend to and messes to clean up here. Things he couldn't risk putting on hold, lest he pay the consequences for them later.

So, [REDACTED] settles for watching you through his cracked phone screen as you try to sneak your way around his apartment. They didn't really understand why you felt the need to be so secretive; you knew your boyfriend would be out for the day, you had his spare keycard and access to the entire 14th floor, and [REDACTED] had made it explicitly clear early on in the relationship that everything he owned was yours completely. Nothing was off limits to you, and that included every inch of his living space.

...And even himself.

Curiously, they watch with keen interest as you quietly slide the door to his walk-in closet open and take in your surroundings once more — making sure that you really were alone in his dimly-lit bedroom. But barely a moment passes before you stride in with a newfound purpose, unzip your backpack, and begin to stash all of his caps and beanies inside.

Well, alright then. If you decided he no longer needed those items, then so be it. He was never one to deny you anything.

But in retrospect, you were honestly doing [REDACTED] a favour. He genuinely didn't really need those items in his possession anymore — especially considering how he had no real reason to conceal his identity from you after all these years of being together.

He could never forget about that pivoted moment in time when you opened up to your beloved hacker about his rather... intense need to watch over you 24/7. And after you had scolded him multiple times for stalking you from darkened corners and alleyways outside your apartment complex, [REDACTED] had all but tried to change his ways. To better themselves for you.

After all, you deserved nothing less.

Glancing back at his phone once more, [REDACTED] takes in every little movement you make as you continue to tuck away his belongings; down to the turn of your head and the flex in your muscles. Not a single twitch or glance goes unnoticed under his watchful gaze — and had the dark-haired man not been so enraptured by your ministrations — he surely would've noticed that it was just about time for him to start packing his tools up and head home.

Home, in time for the date you had planned for the evening.

But the way you purposefully moved around his closet had [REDACTED] in a trance. You were extremely methodical about the things you were swiping from his shelves; neatly packing away all of the headgear, earmuffs, and scarves on display (and even the ones hidden within the depths of his drawers!). Yet... One single item remained in the aftermath of your wake.

Atop one of the lone shelves in the corner, it sits, isolated from the rest of its kind. Worn out yet well loved; it was no more than a novelty item your boyfriend had originally won for you from a crane game. But even after their constant insistence that you should keep it, you rebutted it all by saying it'd look better on him instead — all while pushing the cute, froggy hat back into his hands with a teasing smile.

("If you keep bleaching your hair like that," his real name falls from your lips like sweet nectar, "All of your hair will fall out. When that happens, you can use this to keep your bald head warm!"

"...When that happens? Hmph. You're gettin' cheeky." With a smile of his own, your boyfriend reaches out to gently pinch your cheek. "I haven't touched m'hair in ages.")

So after watching you be so meticulous with the items you were "robbing", the hacker couldn't help but wonder what your main motive was. Why leave that silly, little frog hat alone unless... Did you want him to wear it? You knew [REDACTED] would never say no to you — let alone to a frivolous request — but admittedly, they did find it rather endearing to watch you put in all that effort just for him.

Just like how he used to be... Back before you opened the curtains of his life and brought sunshine into his heart.

Gone are the days of "Ren", when [REDACTED] had to snoop around your apartment just to get any sort of inclination of what your type and interests might be. No longer did [REDACTED] have to "borrow" some of your old clothing to keep himself company on lonely nights; to put them over his pillow and pretend like it was you he was holding close to his chest. He no longer had to steal your presents and tokens out of spite and jealousy — only to return them days later once they noticed how upset it made you.

Too caught up in reminiscing about the past, [REDACTED] had almost missed your swift getaway from his bedroom. Living up to your nickname, you glide down the staircase and across his foyer as if you sprouted angel wings on your back and stroll into the elevator, before closing the door and pulling out your phone.

And just like clockwork, [REDACTED]'s camera feed gets replaced by the bright red and green call buttons that shake and taunt him at the bottom of the screen — alongside the personalised caller photo of you smiling towards the sunset ocean with [REDACTED]'s jacket atop your shoulders. The dark-haired man leaves no room for pause before he's swiping his finger across the screen and eagerly anticipating the sound of your voice.

You greet him in that casual, nonchalant tone of yours, and [REDACTED] had to resist the urge to start recording the call — to save the addictive timbre of your voice for when he needs to hear it the most.

"Man... It sure is chilly today, don't you think?"

There's the familiar sound of tacky elevator music playing in the background, and part of [REDACTED] thinks you're purposefully calling him right now to let him in on your (not so) secret escapades... To let them know where you are.

Or perhaps you were already aware that he knows, if the way you were glancing up at the elevator camera was anything to go by.

Regardless, you don't give away any other telling signs as your beloved hacker watches you through the camera. Your bag is still carefully slung over a shoulder, while one of his old, black university caps received the pleasure of being fiddled with in your hand. Your voice returns once more, and it causes a grin to form on his lips.

"Don't forget to wear a scarf and a hat when you come pick me up, okay?"

There's a newfound teasing lilt in your tone, which has [REDACTED] latching on to your every word with bated breath and scrambling for a reply.

"'Course. Wouldn't miss our date for the world. 'N make sure y'stay warm too, angel." Without missing a beat, he easily takes his place in your little game. "Wouldn't wanna misplace your jacket 'n get cold now, would we?"

Your pixelated smile on the screen gives everything away.

You hear the unmistakable sound of [REDACTED]'s sports motorbike before you see it; watching the corner of your street as he appears from the darkness like a phantom.

And like the gentleman that he is, [REDACTED] doesn't make you stray far from the safety of the streetlamp either. The moment your boyfriend pulls up in front of you, one of his large hands reaches around your waist to draw you near (almost as if he'd gone years without being in your presence), while the other makes quick work of the latch of his helmet. In one swift motion, he pulls it off and rests it against the tank—

Only to reveal that cute, pastel green frog hat sitting atop his head.

He can't help but smile when you do; clearly pleased that he went through with your silly request. At that, you let out a low hum of appreciation as you lean against your boyfriend's chest, and [REDACTED] returns the favour by bending down and pressing a chaste kiss against the crown of your head as well.

"...Think y'could give this unworthy prince another kiss, love?" Your beloved boyfriend leans in closer until your lips are millimetres away from touching, "Otherwise I might stay cursed t'live in this froggy form forever."

#💌 — answered.#🖤 — sai writes.#💖 — 14 days with queue.#💖 — about ren.#I'm like 14 years late bc of irl stuff; but wahhh belated happy birthday!!#I received your other ask about how you and Ren share a birthday after a holiday... It fr made me laugh dhghjs #But lmaooo I am so sorry that y'all get discounted holiday candy on your birthdays ;v;#Hopefully you don't mind this fic as a (super late) present!!#The froggy [REDACTED] art in Discord server shall be your early birthday present lol /silly #Anyways........... WHIPPED!!#HE'S SOOOO WHIPPED!!!#The froggy hat stays ON during motorcycle dates #Thank you for your service (I won't snitch about you breaking and entering) 🫡

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