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Four years ago, Steve would have said that he had a fairly reliable sleep pattern. His schedule had been busy enough that his body knew to pack in rest where it could, somewhere between the constant demands of sport, training, games, dating, and the seemingly never-ending school work. He was still young enough, and fit enough, that the odd all-night party, or three in the morning cramming session, didn't make much of a dent.
But now… now he sleeps like the next crisis could come crashing through his window at a moment's notice. Lurching wildly between restless, fitful snatches, actual insomnia, and periods of suffocating unconsciousness that leave him sweating awake convinced he wasn't where he was supposed to be. Robin tells him that it's his brain's response to repeated and profound trauma. Steve thinks this is deeply unfair, because he knows he could deal with the trauma better if he managed to get a good night's sleep.
Either way, he's not sleeping when he hears a solid series of thuds from his guest room, followed by the sound of swearing. It's not the first time either. No matter how many times Steve tells Eddie not to try and do shit by himself in the middle of the night, to call him instead, he doesn't listen.
He kicks the blankets aside, pretending he isn't secretly thankful for the excuse to get up and make himself useful. Even if it's just to tell Eddie to knock it the hell off.
Down the hall, the door is cracked a few inches, letting the light stream through in a way Eddie hadn't protested. Steve can immediately see the way the other boy is half off the bed, trying to lean down for the empty glass and book on the floor, the lamp on the nightstand is rolling on its side, teetering for the edge.
Steve pushes the door open wider with a bare foot and crosses his arms. "Seriously, how many times are we gonna do this?"
Eddie grimaces at the shape of him in the doorway. "Shit, sorry, I was really hoping that wouldn't wake you."
"I wasn't sleeping." Steve steps fully into the room, straightening and turning on the light before bending to pick up the glass—which had clearly been at least half full—and the book, which seems to have taken the worst of it. Eddie swears again when he sees it and Steve wipes it off as best as he can, then carefully spreads it open to dry and leaves it next to the window. "Dude, you're not supposed to do anything strenuous, you have a million stitches."
Which somehow is still less than when he'd first hobbled his way into Steve's house, because Munson's complete inability to stay still does not pair well with explicit instructions not to bend or stretch excessively, and to take it easy walking and carrying things. All of which Steve catches him doing on a daily basis.
"I was going to turn on the light and read." Eddie gestures in place of an apology, and even that seems to wear him out. "But I caught the glass instead, couldn't exactly make a diving catch for it."
Steve honestly wouldn't put it past him, especially judging by the half smile Eddie's giving him through a curtain of hair, and the way he's measuring out the imaginary distance of said dive with his hands.
"You could have called me." It's not even the third time he'd said exactly the same thing and he's getting a little annoyed about it.
"It's two in the morning… I think." Eddie turns to check the clock on the dresser across the room, and clearly regrets it judging by the sound that wheezes its way out when he straightens again. "Excuse me for thinking you might be sleeping."
Steve thinks Eddie should probably know better at this point. He sets the glass back on the nightstand, then unscrews the bottle he'd been filling it from, which is already half empty at this point, and tops it up. He gives Eddie a pointed look when he caps it again, until he lifts his hands in surrender and very obviously makes a show of sliding his way back into bed, more carefully than he'd probably worked his way out of it.
"Far be it from me to refuse my nurse's strict instructions."
"You can joke all you want, but if I see blood on your bandages tomorrow I'm going to be pissed."
"And stern corrections will be incoming, got it, got it." Eddie mock salutes and then performs a less dramatic version of his usual flop against the pillows, which ends on a faint groan at the impact. "Forgive me for wanting to fill the sucking and endless hours of the night with something other than the buttermilk walls of your second best guest room."
'Second best?' Steve mouths the words at him, and adds a heaping of dubious eyebrows. He doesn't know whether to be offended by that or not. Which one does Eddie think is his best guest room?
"You're not sleeping either?" he says out loud though.
Eddie sighs in his direction, eyes widening in a way that seems to suggest this is an understatement.
"I can't smoke," he starts slowly, the words clipped out, and Steve can feel the frustration in them, "and I can't jerk off, so, no, sleep isn't exactly within reach most nights, especially not now the good drugs have been cruelly withheld."
Steve frowns, because apart from the way Eddie curses and sweats when forced to go too far, and the odd idiot moment when he pops a stitch, he hadn't seemed to be obviously hurting during the day. He would have noticed that, right? He should have noticed that.
"Is the pain still that bad?"
Eddie waves a hand at the nightstand, Steve assumes to demonstrate the lack of pill bottles. "Not enough for the good drugs, apparently."
"That wasn't what I asked," he points out.
For a second Eddie looks tempted to make another joke, to deflect Steve's concern away and dismiss the conversation, but instead he sighs hard enough to send his hair flopping upwards.
"It's bearable," he says at last. "Mostly background noise. Figure that's a good sign though, right? Putting skin back where it belongs is no fucking joke. I know I should be grateful, and not bitch about it so much, but it's hard to change the habit of a lifetime."
Steve knows that feeling too well, he wasn't injured to the extent that Eddie was but he'd had his own wildly unenjoyable period of tight bandages, medication, and creams that he thinks were supposed to stop a dozen different infections from eating him alive. And, yeah, the whole process was fucking miserable.
Eddie shuffles over, carefully but pointedly. He doesn't say anything, which is weird when it's so easy for him to say everything else. But for some reason this is something he doesn't ask for. He just leaves a space open, obvious enough that it might pass as doing Steve a favor. Wanting company but being unwilling to admit to it, to put himself out there and risk being rejected. Steve settles next to him anyway, tipping back against the same pillows, it's not cold at night anymore so he's not that bothered about sitting on the blankets rather than under them.
"So is there anything else that helps you sleep, aside from smoking and jerking off?"
"Well, no one's ever made me a glass of warm milk and told me a bedtime story," Eddie offers, and seems to actually consider it for a few seconds. "Given the choice I would much rather whack one out, but the amenities in your guest room are sadly lacking."
Steve suspects it's more the fact that any energetic movement is an exercise in misery and broken stitches. But, sure, they can go with the lack of hand lotion and tissues if that's easier.
"Well it is only the second best guest room," he says. "Maybe the atmosphere isn't doing it for you?"
Eddie snorts next to him, still half leaning on three pillows. Steve can see the way the bandages wind their way up his torso, white curling over one shoulder and half his throat. The stitches on the edge of his jaw are bare now, but the skin looks tight around them. He knows by the way Eddie touches it occasionally that it bothers him, not knowing how bad it's going to be once it's healed maybe? He knows Eddie would protest, make jokes about 'the social currency of attractiveness,' but Steve knows what it looks like when someone cares and is trying really hard not to show it.
"So what's your excuse?" Eddie looks tempted to ask if a lack of tissues is his problem too, but he bites it off and instead there's something genuine there.
Steve can't help but think that the answer is the same. Paranoia, nightmares, the lingering edges of too many hurts and something that might be an inability to relax. Maybe his body is broken in the same kind of way now?
"I got some sleep."
Eddie wrinkles his nose, mimes slowly throwing a pillow at him. "I would wager considerably less than your recommended eight hours."
"There was definitely a straight forty minute stretch in there," Steve says, but it feels less like a joke and more like a cry for help.
"Oh, yeah? Was it good?" It says something that the question seems to be genuine.
"Gave me a headache and a nightmare," Steve admits.
Eddie makes a sympathetic noise, slithering gently sideways until he can knock his foot against Steve's. He's far more of a pain in the ass during the day, all annoyance at his own inability to move at anything that could be called normal speed, a scatter of complaints and minor irritations, not to mention his endless need for sound and movement. There's a radio in the windowsill behind him, and a stack of notebooks in the drawer in the nightstand. Steve doesn't know what he writes in them, songs, stories, stuff for campaigns for the kids? The last of which, he is definitely not allowed to run any time soon, not until at least half his stitches come out. Because Steve has seen how into the whole thing Eddie gets, waving his arms and bouncing around every time there's a character he has to act out. He can't sit still for shit when he's being the center of attention. He'd been trying to get Steve to change his mind about that for the last four days.
But, at night, he's surprisingly quiet, content to go stir crazy without demanding Steve's company, as if maybe he really hadn't wanted to disturb him, still feeling and acting like he owes him in some way. Which Steve kind of hates because there's nothing like dead silence to make you think the only other occupant of the house isn't in a position to make noise anymore. It's hard not to worry. Or maybe something important in Steve just snapped in half and now he's not capable of thinking about people without also thinking about all the horrible things that have happened to them, or could happen to them.
If his brain could not do that… that would be great.
But now Eddie's giving him a weird look, like he can hear the thought. "I figure when the body gets tired enough it just shuts down though, right? It's not great sleep, it's more like your whole body waving the white surrender flag."
"Yeah," Steve agrees, because there's no use pretending he doesn't know exactly how that one feels. Completely ignoring the fact that it sometimes takes literal days, and leaves him feeling like he might have gone mad somewhere in-between.
"Ugh, I hate that you know exactly what I'm talking about. I keep forgetting you've been through this shit before, you got that… what, revolving door of horrors?"
Steve is really not a fan of that phrasing at all. "Wow, thanks for the great description, and by great I mean horrible. But it wasn't all this bad." He tries to make that sound reassuring, knows he'd missed by a mile. "Well, ok, the beginning was kind of a lot, but mostly it's been more of a sort of steadily increasing horror. Which, I hear that that sounds worse, I do. But this one was definitely the most messed up."
Eddie looks like he's trying not to laugh, which is unfair, Steve isn't good at explaining things the way Robin is.
A hand reaches across the bed to pat his leg, and he thinks it's reassurance, or maybe sympathy.
"Yeah, but I feel as if you're at least living proof that there is some level of normal that I will return to after all this is over. At some point, I'll stop thinking that something's snuck in the room with me and is hiding behind the door, or end up convinced I'm hearing fluttering noises coming from the wardrobe. Woke up to that one a few days ago and didn't love it."
Steve's not really up to sharing some of the things which have caught him halfway between asleep and awake, some of which he hasn't even shared with Robin. So he tries for something joking instead.
"If it's any consolation the wardrobe is full of pillows, blankets, and a couple of snow suits."
"I know, I looked, dude, you can't shut me in a room and then go to the store without me investigating the hell out of the place. Poking my grubby fingers in all the Harrington secrets." Eddie lifts his fingers from the bed long enough to wriggle them.
Steve doesn't bother to point out that he's not supposed to be wandering at all, and if he finds out Eddie's been downstairs he's going to be in deep shit, stitches or no. Judging by the fact that he's now smirking at him through his hair, Eddie knows exactly what he's thinking.
"But, yeah, I just want to sleep, I'm going out of my mind."
Steve thinks about it for a second. Brain skipping ahead without permission. "You need a hand?" he finds himself asking.
"What, with the sleep? I wish you could, unless you intend to knock me out, which I should warn you is more of a handful of minutes thing rather than an all night thing. I do not need brain trauma to add to all my other trauma. A trauma stack if you will. A Jenga tower of emotional horrors."
Steve has to tug Eddie's hands down from where they're trying to demonstrate.
"No." He doesn't know whether he's actually going to ask again until he does. "With the trying to sleep. I'm not allowed to give you cigarettes, but the other thing… it's not a strenuous activity if you're not the one doing it."
Eddie is completely silent for a long minute, staring at Steve without blinking. The moment eventually breaks in an awkward, breathy laugh. Eddie's hands drop, bitten-down nails dragging against the softness of the blanket.
"I… ok, I'm pretty sure I didn't just imagine you saying that."
"Look, it's not a big deal, it doesn't—"
"Yeah, obviously it's not a big deal for you and your locker room straight friends to jerk each other off," Eddie says, the words drawn out in a way that's more stiff than teasing. Steve can see the way his shoulders have gone tense, all the joking leeched out of him.
It occurs to him that offering that out of nowhere might have been a bit shitty. That there were certain things confessed in the hospital that Eddie probably wouldn't have told him without a lot of drugs involved. He's still a little annoyed about the judgment, since he's never done anything like that before. But he definitely knows now that the assholes he used to be friends with would have been the opposite of cool with it, so maybe... maybe some of it is fair.
"You're right, it was a stupid idea, I'm sorry, forget it." Steve's tired and he's trying to solve problems with his own stupid brain, he should know better by now. He rubs his toes against the back of his calf. Chasing an itch under the edge of his sweats. "Clearly I'm not getting enough sleep, and I'm talking… bullshit." The word stings in a way that he honestly wishes it wouldn't.
Eddie laughs in miserable solidarity. The nights must feel so much longer for him while he's trying to heal. Some of the stiffness eases out of him, and he's drumming his fingers on his thigh through the blanket, they look oddly narrow without all the rings, which are still in a dish on top of the dresser, Steve's not sure why he hasn't put them back on yet. It seemed weird to ask.
"God, I hate that I'm thinking about it now," Eddie says, voice deep but quiet.
"About—" It takes Steve's brain a moment to catch up. "Yeah, I'm sorry, I didn't mean it in a weird way, I was just trying to help."
"Uh huh. And I'm sure that if a pretty girl offered you a completely platonic handjob when you were convalescing, you wouldn't find that weird at all."
Steve is about to point out that it wouldn't be platonic if it was coming from a pretty girl—and he's glad he doesn't actually say that, because he immediately gets it. He guesses to Eddie he effectively is a pretty girl offering a handjob? He's Eddie's version of a pretty girl. Which he's aware has gone to a weird place, but his life is a series of weird places lately so he figures he can live with it.
"Ok, you make a good point." For some reason he can't get his brain off that track though. "But this would be more one of those medical necessity situations. Where it's for your well-being and not…" A hook-up, his brain wants to say, but phrasing it that way has too much of a record-scratch feel to it. Too obvious in a way not even Eddie could fast talk his way around.
Eddie's glaring at the wall now, so it doesn't seem to have helped anyway. "Steve, I don't want a pity handjob at three in the morning in my convalescence."
"No, ok, that's a fair point, but I'm just saying that if you did—if you did—I'm offering, that's all I'm saying."
"Oh my god." Two hands lift and drag their way down Eddie's face, like he's making this worse somehow.
"I'm gonna stop talking," Steve decides. "I think I'm just digging myself a weird hole."
The silence drags out longer than is comfortable, broken only by the shuffling crinkle of sheets. Steve hears the quiet hiss that threads out between Eddie's teeth, before his foot starts shuffling the whole spread of the bedding down in a way that is slow but pointed.
Steve will admit to being genuinely surprised as he shifts a little next to him, headboard knocking against the wall when his elbow presses against it.
"Yeah?" he asks.
The blankets are pushed down enough to expose the pale stretches of Eddie's legs, which is the only part of him not currently covered in bandages, though thankfully they're all holding containment well enough after his attempted expedition earlier.
"But you are not allowed to judge me if I'm totally into it, ok?" Eddie's hand fidgets next to his hip, which only draws the eye to his underwear, and makes it obvious that his dick is not entirely soft. It's weird to be looking, but it's not as if he can do this without. He see the slight stretch in the black material, the line of it settled pointing upwards. He really did offer to do this.
"No, it's cool, it's fine?" His voice sounds normal, that has to be a win.
"It's fine, he says," Eddie mocks under his breath. "This is the stupidest way anyone ever—"
"Anyone ever what?"
"Never mind."
Steve should have known better than to expect Eddie to put up with this being quiet, he always has an opinion about everything. He shuffles closer, stares at the bare slash of Eddie's stomach where bandages end and the waistband of his boxers starts. You can't help a friend out without touching their dick after all. Steve's touched his own literally hundreds of times, probably more. It's fine, it's fine.
He lays his palm on the skin, feels it twitch and contract once, twice, Eddie exhales a messy sound as Steve puts a bit more pressure on it. His stomach is warm from the bed, the edge of the bandage softly padded but scratchy. He doesn't miss the faint nudge upwards.
"No moving," Steve tells him, and he tries not to feel weird about how soft that comes out.
Eddie grumbles something about how that's going to work out, but obediently settles.
Steve nudges his fingertips inside his shorts before he can change his mind, a slow push sending them deeper, nails scratching through wiry hair. It's a strange angle, he's reaching over instead of down, pushing into clothes which aren't his own, looking for the wrong shape, sitting a few feet away instead of kissing someone. His fingers find the soft-hard shape of Eddie's dick, and all his easy confidence that it would be just like touching his own and he'd know what he was doing, cracks down the middle. Because touching someone else's dick is different. It's a different shape against his palm, a different weight, the heat of it sudden in a way he's not prepared for. He feels it when Eddie sucks a breath and strains slowly up into the tightening circle of his fingers, with what sounds like a bitten-off murmur of his own name.
"Fuck." An arm moves out of the sheets, lifts up high enough to flop over Eddie's face, the other still on the bed, nails curling into the fabric. But he doesn't tell Steve to stop, he doesn't change his mind or ask him if he's sure. Though the way his mouth pinches shut tells Steve that there's something he's trying not to say.
Steve probably should have got something to make it easier, before he shoved his hand in there, but it had seemed presumptuous before he even knew if Eddie wanted him to. Now he's faced with the prospect of pulling his hand back out and finding some lotion or something, so his fingers will be slippery-wet where they're touching Eddie's dick, and he does his best to ignore the shivery heat that comes from that. He's not usually good at imagining things, he's more of an in the moment sort of guy. But Eddie is really good at making things roll around in his head, get large and complicated, get more than complicated. Which is made even weirder by the fact that he's fairly certain Eddie would let him do a lot of things. Steve's not sure how it got this far, touching Eddie in a way he'd never touched anyone else. Still, even if it's new, he can't pretend he's never thought about it, in that vague, absent way that he'd recently learned wasn't as universal as he'd thought. He'd never trusted any of his friends enough to ask, it wasn't the sort of thing you asked, he knew that much.
Eddie's throat rolls on a swallow, something clicking as it goes down.
"Hang on," Steve says quietly, drawing his hand free. There's nothing in the room but water, lighter fluid, and the ointment for the edges of Eddie's still-healing wounds. None of which are going to work, so he just lifts his hand and licks it, tries not to feel weird about the tang of skin and sweat and some sharper undertone that he can't help but realize is probably what dick tastes like. If he'd ever thought about that before it's something he'd chased out of his head pretty damn quick. But it's surprising how easy that is to think about when you have far worse things jostling for space in your brain. The number of things Steve had absently thought about lately that would have sent him into some sort of screaming panic even a year ago.
So, yeah, not as bad as he'd thought it would be, and maybe he's a bit too focused on Eddie's mouth, he watches it press thin and then open a touch, tongue pressed to his lower lip. Steve realises that if this was real—if this was real, that would be the moment he'd lean in and kiss him. Squeeze in close and edge his mouth open while he touched him.
But it's not like that. He hadn't offered anything like that. He'd only offered this.
Steve slips his hand back under Eddie's shorts before he can think about it too much, nudging the waistband down with his wrist, swallowing back the newness of it while he grips him in wet fingers, his palm making dry skin slippery as he spreads moisture on a slow pass down and then back up. One of Eddie's feet kicks in the sheets, throat bobbing again and again, and then giving up, letting a shuddering breath fall out of his open mouth.
"You're allowed to enjoy it, you know. That's kind of the point."
Eddie gives a breathless laughing groan, thighs tensing. "You say that like I'm not—shit, Harrington."
He's tempted to say 'not even Steve when I have my hand around your dick, huh?' but it feels a little too familiar, too light for the moment. Instead he shuffles closer, rhythm falling for a second, the top of his foot presses to the side of Eddie's, which stretches briefly into the touch before twitching away.
"You can make noise. The house is empty."
"I'm good," Eddie says immediately, but there's a strain under the words, a bitten-off edge to them.
"Come on, it's cool." Would it be a dick move to dare him to? The moment feels too quiet for it, the slow movement of his hand something that isn't quite casual.
"It's not—you don't want to hear my noises." The arm over his face moves upwards, until Eddie's fingers can dive into his hair, briefly fist in the darkness of it, eyes fluttering. "I can't keep my mouth shut—you don't want to hear a bunch of shit about how good your hand feels, or how you're going to make me come."
Steve feels that slow jolt in his belly, a heated point of interest—because he does, he suddenly wants that more than anything. He wants Eddie to tell him how much he likes this, wants to know he's doing a good job.
"What if I do?"
"Fuck's sake." There's a shuddering push up into his fist, and interest very quickly becomes something Steve can't pretend isn't arousal. The shape of his dick going stiff in his sweats, bracketed by the stretch of his thighs and the bunched blankets.
"Tell me," he urges.
"It's good," Eddie bites out. "Haven't been able to since everything happened… love the way your hand feels, can't believe you touched my dick and then licked your fucking hand after, do you have any idea—" the words garble into nothing as he pulls an inhale in through his nose, it shudders out after, as if he's holding a groan. "Tighter, tighter, please."
How can Steve possibly deny that shivery request? He pulls his fingers in tight, spit drying too quickly where his fist is working, arm slowly cramping at this angle. But judging by the slow curl of Eddie's nails digging in the sheets, one knee drawing up, it's not going to be long.
"M'not gonna last, don't you dare hold it against me."
Steve can feel the roar of his own pulse in his ears. He's reaching over without thinking about it, dragging the waist of Eddie's underwear down so he can see what he's doing, so he can see the flushed head worked through the clutch of his fingers, thumb smearing wet over it, the shuddering twitch of Eddie's hips, which he's supposed to be keeping still.
"I want to see," he says honestly, doesn't care much whether that's one of the things he's allowed to think but not say out loud. He wants to see Eddie come, wants to see it and know that he was responsible for it. He'd always been weak for that, watching other people lose it under his hands and mouth. He hadn't expected to like it so much when everything was so different.
Eddie's making wet, punched-out sounds now, eyes fixed over his head, resolutely not looking at Steve.
But that just makes it easier to watch him, to drag one leg outwards to rest his arm on, twisting him over until the jut of his own cock is pressed to the bed, the sudden pressure sweet and heavy and good. Steve wants to move his hand, to lick it again—he briefly thinks about leaning over and getting the whole moving length of Eddie's cock in his mouth, pressing his tongue to the smear of fluid at the tip, and he has to crush himself into the bed, coughing out something that sounds broken.
Eddie makes a sound too, nothing accusing, more a breathy sort of surprise, before his own hand is reaching down, gripping Steve's wrist as the dick in his hand twitches, and spits, and spills onto the pale stretch of his stomach and hip, the low edges of the bandages and Steve's fingers. It smears over the knuckles and fingertips as he turns fisting into slow squeezes. Until it slows, leaves Eddie with wet lines of come laid over his stomach, and the sheet. He's hissing quietly at the overstimulation, before he's pulling Steve's hand away.
"Oh fucking Christ, Steve—the hell? Can't believe you did that. What the fuck?"
Their hands fall into the sheet together, tacky-wet and half tangled.
Steve stays where he is, balanced on one arm, watching Eddie breathe hard and stare at the ceiling. He's so hard it hurts, a steady thud of dizzying need, so close to the edge that he knows all it would take is a few strokes with one sticky hand, a few seconds balanced over Eddie, looking fucked-out and messy and really good.
He could. He doesn't think Eddie would even mind. He could say something. But instead he lets the moment drag on.
"Was good," Eddie says eventually, the words careful in his mouth. "So good. Do you—you probably don't, well, ah, thanks I guess." He gives a laugh that sounds strained and awkward, before his breathing evens out. Eventually he slides his free hand down and pulls his underwear back up.
Steve continues to say nothing, his chest too tight, stomach hot. He reaches up for tissues, wipes the mess across Eddie's lower stomach, and their fingers. Eddie doesn't try to thread their fingers back together when Steve lays his hand back between them.
It doesn't take long before the quiet sound of Eddie breathing is deep enough to be sleep and Steve drags the blanket back up.
He stares at the pale edge of Eddie's jaw for a long time, feeling a lot like someone just kicked him off the edge of something.