𝐏𝐎𝐋𝐀𝐑𝐎𝐈𝐃 [steddie]

𝓒𝓱𝓪𝓹𝓽𝓮𝓻 𝓣𝔀𝓸

(TW: ptsd, mention of drugs)

It was a Monday afternoon when Eddie was getting ready to go visit Steve at his work place. It was early fall. The summer was slowly ending. Green leaves gradually turned into shades of red, orange and yellow. The days became shorter, the nights longer. On this particular day wind was rustling the leaves on the trees and the sun stayed hidden behind cloudy skies.

Him and Steve had started to date officially not too long ago. It was one of the last summer nights when Steve had asked Eddie to be his boyfriend. Eddie smiled at the memory. Steve had been so nervous about asking even though they had been acting like a couple for a few weeks before they actually labeled their relationship. It had almost seemed as if Steve was nervous for Eddie's response, even though he should have known that Eddie would never say no to becoming Steve's boyfriend.

Ever since they had made their relationship official new Polaroids had been added to Eddie's wall. Robin had allowed Eddie to borrow the camera and Eddie used his chance to take as many pictures of Steve alone and of the two of them together as he could.

Eddie and Steve had spend most of their free time together ever since that one day that the latter had come over to Eddie's trailer just to repeat what they had done first in the parking lot of the local cinema. Spending their freetime together had meant for Steve to go over to Eddie's trailer after a long day at the video shop. As for Eddie, all his days consisted of free time, so he spent a lot of his time waiting for Steve to get off work. After all that had happened he didn't know what to do with himself. He had a hard time sleeping at night, nightmares taking up most of the time that he did manage to fall asleep. He was constantly feeling tired and exhausted.

He knew that he should've gotten a job by then, but he didn't know what he could do. And he wasn't sure he felt stable enough to work anywhere with the constant sleep deprivation anyways. There were too many moments that his mind drifted off to things so dark and terrifying. Moments in which he wanted to do nothing but bury himself under his blanket in his bed and close his eyes, hoping sweet sleep would carry him away. He would try to blink it all away, all the bad memories of being attacked by the demobats, as if it was that easy, but it wasn't. Nothing really worked except for distracting himself by spending time with Steve or friends, or well if he was alone, weed would do the trick just fine.

Eddie's uncle Wayne allowed him to stay with him and didn't pressure Eddie to find a job. And Eddie was incredibly thankful for that. Eddie just needed time to heal and he was glad to have been given that. Wayne had been good to Eddie. He had been a great father figure to him and Eddie was grateful for all that his uncle had done for him.

Uncle Wayne had been the second person to find out about Eddie and Steve's relationship, the first person to being Robin. One night Steve had stayed at Eddie's trailer. Eddie had figured that the only times he could actually have a few hours of peaceful sleep was when Steve was with him. So Steve had stayed over night, while his uncle was working yet another nightshift. Steve had his arms wrapped around Eddie, Eddie's back pressed against Steve's chest when uncle Wayne walked into his nephew's room in the morning, not realizing that Eddie and Steve had still been fast asleep. He had knocked but they didn't wake up from it. All uncle Wayne had wanted to do was to pick up Eddie's laundry, thinking Eddie wasn't home since he hadn't reacted to the rapid knocking on his door.

Uncle Wayne had opened the door and saw Steve and Eddie cuddled up together under the blanket, deep asleep. He had quietly closed the door again, leaving them be. He had never questioned it. He had never mentioned it to Eddie, not until Eddie had opened up to him about the relationship himself. The metalhead had been so nervous, but he felt the need to tell his uncle as he had been his only family for a long time and he didn't want to keep such a big secret from him.