Eddie was hoping that he would be able to get back to a somewhat normal life, whatever that may be. One that didn't involve living off of Spaghettios while hiding from the cops or nearly dying in an alternate dimension that he had learned about approximately five days prior would be preferable. And sure, he might have been asking for a bit much when he assumed that he would just be able to ease back into his life and maybe, finally, graduate. The last thing he expected, though, was for Steve Harrington to pull up to Hawkins Memorial Hospital in his BMW to pick him up after he was discharged.
"Your trailer's trashed," he said after rolling down the passenger side window.
Eddie just blinked at him, his brain still slow to catch up to the situation, foggy from all of the pain medications he had been on. "What?"
"Your. Trailer. Is. Trashed. Munson." Steve repeated himself slowly, still waiting for Eddie to take a hint and get in the car.
Eddie opened the passenger side door and unceremoniously slid into the front seat, cursing under his breath at the pain that spread throughout his sides at the sudden movement.
"If you want to stay at my house for a bit, you're more than welcome to. Our guest bedroom is already set up and everything."
"No, wait, what happened to the trailer?"
Steve waited until they were out of the parking lot to answer, "After they cleared your name publicly from the investigation, I guess some people got pretty upset, like, they really thought you still had something to do with it. You know, basically no one here has any common decency, so they took it upon themselves to fuck up your trailer."
There was silence for a few seconds, "Is Tiamat okay?"
"What? Who the hell is Tiamat?"
"Tiamat! My guitar, Steve! Is she okay?" Eddie seemed frustrated, as if it was common knowledge. Steve figured it was probably the pain meds.
"Your- yeah, it... SHE is fine. In the back with your clothes and some other stuff I thought you might need."
"You went through my stuff?"
"Well I wasn't really planning on giving you a choice on staying with me to be honest."
"And they say chivalry is dead," Eddie mused.
"My parents are never here anyways, so.. there shouldn't be too much bothering you."
Eddie just hummed in response before closing his eyes and relaxing back into the seat. He would have normally argued about not wanting to be in the way and being able to find a place and take care of himself, but he was too tired. He knew Steve was too stubborn to change his mind about Eddie staying over anyways, so he just let it go. After everything that had happened, Steve needed to have control over something, and quite frankly, Eddie needed a place to stay.
Neither of them said anything for the rest of the ride until Steve pulled into the driveway. "Don't worry about your stuff, I can bring it in."
"I'm not letting you be my bellhop, Harrington."
"Just shut up and go inside."
Eddie stared him down for a minute, debating whether the argument was worth it or not, before giving in and heading to the house. His things were fully moved into the guest bedroom in less than 5 minutes while Eddie sat on the edge of the bed, feeling useless. He waited until Steve had finished to ask about his uncle, who had apparently talked to Dustin about where Eddie had been and was currently fighting with the police over pressing charges for his trailer for about four days now.
"Apparently they have no idea who was responsible, so they're saying there's no way to actually charge anyone."
"Bullshit," Eddie sighed.
"Pretty much..." Steve crossed his arms and looked at him with an expression Eddie could only assume was concern, helplessness, maybe both, maybe neither. "I'm really sorry."
"It is what it is I guess," he was starting to realize just how tired he actually was and how nice having a bed without handles and wheels felt.
"I'll get you some water. You should probably lay down for a bit."
Eddie couldn't help but crack a smile, "I didn't realize Family Video employed nurses."
"Hey! I'll have you know that I am CPR certified AND I know the heimlich maneuver... it was part of training at Scoops."
Eddie let out a short-lived laugh before crossing his arms over his abdomen and screwing his eyes shut in pain. "Shit.. You trying to put me back in the hospital or something?"
"Sorry, sorry, are you okay?" When Eddie looked back at him his eyebrows were furrowed and he was frowning.
"Yeah, I'm fine, don't worry about it."
"Did they give you-"
"Painkillers, yeah. I think I should probably wait a little before I take them though."
"Whatever you say. You are the expert on drugs here after all."
"Hey. Not funny, man." He stared him down.
"Not funny," Steve repeated, nodding. "Got it."
Eddie shot him another smile, "Just messing with you."
"Oh, fuck off," Steve left the room. He brought Eddie water as promised, told him where the bathroom was, went through the whole spiel about shouting if he needed anything, ANYTHING, and eventually left to let him rest for a while.
The bed was comfortable, really comfortable. The mattress was soft and Eddie assumed it was somewhat new as most things in the house seemed to be. He closed his eyes as soon as his head hit the pillow and waited to drift off. Ten minutes, fifteen, thirty, an hour. It didn't happen. He turned over once or twice, trying to will sleep to come. The only thing that did was the darkness, the cold, the sound. Eddie could have sworn it was coming from outside somewhere. The dread. It was almost like he was still there on the ground. Weak, helpless, dying.
He opened his eyes to look at the bright off-white ceiling, practically begging it to slow down his heart rate, to bring him back from whatever sensory nightmare he was falling into. He hadn't even noticed how heavily he was breathing until he began to calm down. And he was sweating too. Great. Whatever, he needed a shower anyways. That was the plan. Get up, take a shower, take his pain meds, and hopefully fall asleep. He had been able to sleep fine in the hospital, of course the IV drip cocktail of god-knows-what probably helped him experience a dreamless rest.
He grabbed a change of clothes and made his way to the bathroom, smiling to himself when he saw that Steve had already set out a towel and washcloth for him. He did his best to fold the old clothes and set them on the vanity before taking a look at himself in the mirror. God, he looked like shit.
He tilted his head to the side slightly and ran his finger along the scar tissue that had formed on his neck. That one must not have been as bad. He thought he would definitely be dead if it had been. It was still sensitive, but it didn't hurt like the others. The others. Eddie took a deep breath and looked down at the bandages around his stomach. Without thinking, he grabbed at his hair. He had a bad habit of chewing on it from time to time when he was anxious or concentrated. Now he was both.
He took another breath before he slowly started unwrapping the bandages. He had about a month's supply in the guest room, generously gifted to him from the hospital. Eddie thought it was a bit overkill to be honest, but what did he know? He watched what he was doing in the mirror and flinched when he finally exposed the wounds, biting down hard on his hair in an attempt to keep from making noise. They had been stitched up in hopes of speeding up the healing process, but that didn't make them look any better. At least Eddie didn't think so.
The water felt good. It stung a little bit where the stitches were, but it was so natural, so normal, so refreshing. Eddie took a deep breath before he closed his eyes, letting the water run down his face. He could have stood like this for hours if he didn't feel utterly disgusting, just letting the water wash over him, making him forget about the past few weeks of his life. Yeah, that would be nice.
When he got out of the shower he took his time drying off and getting dressed. He decided against putting his shirt on right away since he would have to rebandage himself anyways. Instead he opted to get any excess water out of his hair now, leaving it to fall over his shoulders in damp curls. When he opened the bathroom door he was greeted with the sight of Steve leaned against the wall, supposedly waiting for him, arms crossed, and frowning almost comically.
"I told you that you should get some rest and take it easy, and instead you decided to unwrap your dressing and take a shower? Do I need to babysit you, too, Munson?" His tone was lighthearted even though Eddie could still sense something uneasy in his voice. Something Steve probably hadn't even picked up on himself.
"'Dressing?'" He raised an eyebrow.
"That's... yeah, dressing, bandages, that's what they're called it's the same thing."
Eddie smiled. Steve always seemed to get defensive over the most trivial things. "Relax, I'm putting new ones on anyways."
"Let me help."
'Let me help.' Eddie sighed dramatically and made a show of rolling his eyes, "Fine. If it'll get you to stop pestering me. I'll let you feed into your little savior complex."
"I don't have a savior complex."
"Uhuh.." Eddie grabbed his dirty clothes from the vanity and started walking back towards the guest room.
"I don't!" Steve followed behind him "Just.. sit down on the bed or something."
"Yes, sir," Eddie sat on the edge of the bed and watched as Steve got fresh bandages from the bag he had gotten when they released him from the hospital. Steve stood in front of him awkwardly for a moment before deciding to kneel instead. Eddie's stomach turned for a split second as he looked down at Steve.
He was focused on unraveling the gauze strip and didn't notice Eddie's eyes on him until he looked up at him. "Let me know if it's too tight, yeah?"
Eddie just nodded, "Yeah, okay." He let out a long breath that he hadn't realized he was holding as Steve started to wrap the thin fabric around him. He noticed that Steve's eyebrows furrowed when he was concentrating.
Steve was careful with what he was doing, not wanting to mess up Eddie's stitches. He heard him wince once or twice above him and mumbled a quick apology that was followed up with 's'fine.' It didn't take too long for Steve to be satisfied with his work and Eddie to be satisfied with the prospect of being left alone. He stayed in the room when Eddie took the pain medication he had been given and left when Eddie told him to 'take a picture, it'll last longer.'
Something was bothering him though. The entire time he was rebandaging Eddie's wounds it was all he could think about, yet he didn't even know what it was. Steve slowly made his way back downstairs, grasping desperately at straws, explanations for why he felt so... off.
Shampoo. That was the bathroom that Steve always used. All his things were in there. Eddie used them. Why would he be upset that Eddie used his things? He sat down on the couch and stared into nothingness as he racked his brain to make sense of it. Maybe he was just stressed. Maybe he needed sleep. It was HIS shampoo, HIS soap. But why did that matter? What was the big deal? He could smell it. He smelled it all the time. It was familiar to him, it smelled like him. He smelled it upstairs in the bedroom when he helped Eddie with the bandages. He could smell it on Eddie.
Eddie smelled like him.