Beyond the Battle: Action & Consequence (Steddie, Stranger Things)

Chapter 35: Getting Up

"Fuck."

The word was said very quietly, but Steve was alert in a heartbeat, nevertheless. He opened his eyes to find Eddie had turned in his embrace at some point during the night and he was looking at the top of Eddie's delightfully messy curls. There was tension radiating from his boyfriend, so he knew Eddie was awake.

"You okay?" Steve asked quietly.

Eddie's head came up slowly and dark eyes met his own. Even in the low light, Steve knew it was not a natural darkening of Eddie's chocolate brown irises, and even as he looked there was the tiniest red glow.

"Ah," he said, "I was wondering when that would happen."

"How do you always take this so calmly?" Eddie asked.

Steve gave his boyfriend a small, but genuine smile, bringing his hand up to cup Eddie's face.

"I understand why this scares you," he whispered, making sure he conveyed his sincerity with his eyes since he couldn't so it with his voice. "This is all new, what I can do scares me sometimes too. But nothing about you scares me. The opposite. God, if I hadn't been so focused on the kids yesterday, when you took that guy out, I probably would have done something incredibly embarrassing."

"You really have a thing for vampires, don't you?" Eddie whispered back.

"Mostly I have a thing for you and that includes you being a vampire," he replied honestly, because he was pretty sure he'd never thought about vampires twice until Eddie, "and I think we should take this to the bathroom before Robin wakes up and tries to stake both of us through the heart."

"Steve, you're supposed to be recovering," Eddie pointed out.

"So are you," he countered. "You seem to have about a two-day cycle, and you used your vampire abilities today for the first time for anything but feeding. You need blood and it won't hurt me to give it. I'm still tired, yes, but I ate enough for a small army so my tanks are topped up, and we can sleep in."

"You had that argument planned," Eddie said.

"Yep," Steve replied and gave his boyfriend another smile.

There was no point in denying it. It had occurred to him while they were eating earlier.

"Don't expect to get the upper hand in this relationship all the time," Eddie said and rolled out of bed.

"I wouldn't dream of it," Steve assured him, following along and slipping past Eddie into the bathroom.

As Eddie closed the door with a quiet click, Steve pulled the little chord on the light above the sink. The room brightened with the orange glow, picking out the details of the bath and shower behind him with deep shadows. It felt kind of ethereal. Perfect for the moment as he stared into the mirror.

"I can't believe how pretty you are either," Eddie said in a teasing tone, meeting his eyes in the reflection over his shoulder.

He replied with a small smile, but his mind was rushing too far ahead to really react to the joke.

"I want to watch as you bite me," he said, holding Eddie's dark eyed gaze.

A flicker of anxiety flew across Eddie's face, crinkling his forehead for a moment.

"Why?" was the quiet question.

"Because you're beautiful and I want to see it all," Steve replied without hesitation.

The atmosphere in the room was charged. Eddie's confession of a few hours previously was still so fresh in both their minds, it was obvious. Steve wanted him to understand how much he had meant it when he had said Eddie was not a monster. He did not find any part of this monstrous. He had been perfectly sincere when he said It did the opposite of frighten him. He needed Eddie to see it too.