Boltedfruit Archive

The bites aren’t healing right.

They’ve been oozing a yellow pus, thick and slow as they drain each morning before Steve tentatively redresses the grotesque wounds.

Just over a week ago, El defeated Vecna and destroyed the massive gate. Beyond that, life has been a mess of round-the-clock news coverage and Christians picketing the satanic takeover of Hawkins.

There’s not a lot that Owens and his team of government spooks can do to cover up a miles-wide gap in the earth spitting fire, smoke, and monsters from another dimension.

By some measure of grim luck, his monument of a house still stood when the dust settled. The trailer park wasn’t so lucky.

Steve had offered, and it seemed a straightforward solution. An obvious one.

He dragged Eddie out from hell, he may as well let the guy surf his couch for a while. Until his face stopped being plastered over town, or Owens took care of that hiccup as well. Whichever came first.

So it’s been a week, and his bites haven’t healed. At all. They seem as fresh as ever.

He wants to ask if Eddie’s bites are healing at all, or if they’re the same.

–

The other thing is, he’s been so hungry. Starving. He piles food onto his plate for every meal and finished every bite, and when Eddie jokingly comments on it, his hunger seems to flare right back up every time.

And there’s pain. It pinches and pulls; invisible stitches all up and down his sides. His neck is healing at least, only leaving a slight burning ache when he turns his head too far one way or the other. But his torso is mottled, torn up into a deep pain. And when Eddie asks if he’s okay on particularly hard winces or casual touches that render sharp gasps, Steve feels the pain rack his body. One big shiver.

He has night sweats. Wakes up in soaked sheets and pillowcases.

He has dreams. Really nice dreams. The kind that has him waking up humping his mattress into the ground, voice crying out as he makes a mess of his pajamas.

He’s never done so much laundry in his life.

It’s been a week, and everything seems to be getting worse.

He only counts the dreams as bad because he’s dreaming about Eddie. And while the Eddie in his dreams is as touch-starved as him, the Eddie in real life is hard for Steve to make eye contact with. When he does, he feels his stomach flip, heat pooling in his groin. And he can’t let it go there. He just can’t. It’s new. It’s weird. It’s a craving.

But he’s figured out one thing.

The nearer Eddie is, the worse it gets.

–

It gets progressively worse until he resigns himself to living in his bedroom. He doesn’t need to ask, doesn’t even consider it, but Eddie leaves him food at the door. He takes the plates when Steve is done with them.

It’s another week of barely any communication, but it keeps getting worse, and Steve is getting desperate.

He makes a mistake. In trying to avoid Eddie, he runs right into him when he opens his bedroom door and Eddie is just there. His eyes are big and dark, and Steve hears the gasp leave him.

His hand lands on Steve’s bare, flushed chest on reflex to keep from knocking into each other, and that’s what does it. That’s the moment that has Steve making the single most embarrassing sound to ever leave his throat.

It’s his touch, his skin. It’s cool, it’s relief. The pain has vanished, arriving and exiting as quickly as his own pulse. He covers Eddie’s hand with his own and presses until his palm lies flat against his skin. Eddie shivers.

Then his eyes are trailing down, locking on the bandages still taped to Steve’s middle. They’re pink with fresh blood.

“You were…really hurt.”

“Yeah.”

“Is that why…the last few weeks, you’ve—” Steve sees his throat bob. “Steve, why—what is this?”

Is it possible he’s feeling it too? This strange wash of erasure, as if nothing else exists besides them? As if pain and time and blood have ceased to matter. Their skin against one another is more important.

Eddie’s fingers twitch, dragging against Steve’s chest hair. He swallows again, and Steve hears his throat click. Sees his pupils dilate big and black.

Steve claps a hand against Eddie’s neck, holds him firm and god, he’s so warm, but every point of contact makes Steve feel cool.

Refreshed.

He feels good for the first time in weeks. Months. Years, probably. Since before he was drawn into the hellish world of monsters.

“Holy shit,” Eddie whispers, eyelids fluttering, before he lets his head drop forward onto Steve’s shoulder.

Steve buries his nose at Eddie’s scalp, inhaling deep. He smells divine.

“I don’t—I don’t know, but you feel so—”

“Fucking good,” Eddie finishes, and then his lips are pressing cool and slick to Steve’s shoulder.

Steve whines, hates he even makes the sound at all, but it has Eddie’s hands moving to his sides, gripping his hips instead of his waist. He shoves Steve against his doorway and then he’s kissing Steve senseless. It’s as desperate as Steve feels, and he returns every one in kind, feeling dizzy and off his feet. Only Eddie’s touch grounds him.

Then Eddie’s shoving himself back, is slamming his own back against the wall of the hallway, eyes huge, panting hard. He’s looking at Steve like he’s the one who’s been spooked. Like Steve kissed him.

And fuck, it hurts. It hurts so much worse than before.

Steve stumbles, groaning as his knees touch carpet.

“Steve?” Eddie sounds so small.

“I don’t know what’s happening,” Steve grits out. He gasps, fingers twisting in the carpet. “I need—”

Eddie’s hands fall light on his shoulders and Steve keens at the touch. He looks up, meets Eddie’s eyes.

“I feel like,” he tries to say, every word harder than the one before, “I feel like if you don’t touch me, I’ll die.”

A shocked laugh escapes Eddie. “T-that’s crazy, man.”

“I–It’s been happening for weeks. The bites, they’re not—they’re not healing, Eddie.”

Eddie swallows again, and Steve wonders for a wild moment what it might feel like around his cock. Only then he realizes he’s hard, straining against his boxers.

He whines, pleading, “Please, Eddie. It only feels good when you touch me.”

Then, so softly, Eddie says, “Mine aren’t healing either.”

“Shit.”

Then Eddie’s hands are sliding through his hair, thumbs against Steve’s cheeks as he tilts his head back and kisses him again. Steve dives back, arms wrapping tight across Eddie’s back and ruining their delicate counterbalance, sends them both sprawling back against the carpet. Eddie straddles him, but when Steve lifts his hips he meets only air.

“More. Need more.”

“Yeah,” Eddie’s saying, tongue wet and lips messy over his own. “Yeah, goddamn.” He whips his belt free, and it seems to take ages for him to push his pants down around his ankles.

Steve helps by shoving his own underwear off, naked and flushed and not caring one bit as he greedily drinks in every inch of bare skin Eddie reveals. Steve tugs his shirt off. He’s paler than Steve, his happy trail much darker and more sparse than his own. Eddie licks his lips, starts nosing at Steve’s cheek.

“This okay?”

“Eddie, shut up and touch me.”

Steve kisses away his laughter. He spreads his thighs, the movement a little awkward but not entirely unfamiliar. He gets his fingers around Eddie’s hard dick and tugs him close, makes him moan.

“Fuck, fuck,” he pants, again and again. “Like that, Steve.”

It’s a matter of chance when Steve rolls his hips up, craving more pressure, more heat, more relief, that Eddie’s cock drags against his hole and they both freeze.

He’s wet.

Eddie does it again, mouth going slack as he meets Steve’s eyes. “Steve, you’re—”

Steve grips Eddie’s cock tight and angles his hips down. The thick head slips inside when Eddie instinctively ruts forward, seeking that tight heat.

“More,” Steve moans.

Eddie drops to his elbows, their bodies lined up as he slides the rest of the way inside, hips sitting flush against Steve’s in seconds.

“Sorry. Shit, I’m so—”

“No, no it feels. Jesus, it feels perfect.”

“I didn’t hurt you?”

Steve shakes his head, tears gathering at the corner of his eyes. It feels like nothing he’s ever felt before. Every atom comprising his body is alight, painless, whole. He wants more. He needs it.

“Not at all,” Steve tells him, running a hand through Eddie’s dark curls, holding them away from his face. He’s breathing hard, feels like he’s run miles in minutes, but it feels so sweet. Every part of their bodies that touch makes his teeth ache, every movement moreish. “Want you to come in me.”

Eddie’s hips jerk forward.

“Goddamn, Steve. Fucking, christ—”

He starts moving and Steve locks his legs around his waist, urging Eddie deeper with each thrust. He never wants it to end.

But soon enough Eddie’s mouth is back on his, is barely managing the words against Steve’s lips, “I’m not gonna last.”

“Eddie, want you, want you to, want it inside—”

Eddie bites Steve’s lower lip so hard when he comes, moaning loud and deep, Steve feels his own skin split. His blood is all copper tang as Eddie releases him, harsh breaths mingling with his before leaning back in and sucking Steve’s tongue.

Everything inside him is warm, slick, wet. It’s like a live wire attached between Eddie’s cock directly to his own, and when Eddie buries himself as deep as possible, Steve spills all over them both. And it keeps coming, rolling over him in endless waves.

Eddie stays buried, cursing as warmth keeps gushing between them. He sits up, peeling their skin apart and watches with something Steve might name awe.

Steve can’t help shifting his hips, the pleasure ripping through him bordering on painful. He’s still hard when it’s over, and when Eddie gently wraps his fingers around Steve, more come pulses slowly out.

Eddie gasps, sudden and sharp, and Steve knows after a moment why.

He’s hard still too, didn’t even waver.

They stare at each other, panting.

“Again,” Steve says, more an order than anything else.

And Eddie obliges.

–

After a day spent fucking on nearly every square foot of the upper floor—for lack of wanting to move too far away from one another for any amount of time—they sleep in Steve’s bed, naked and covered in a day’s worth of spend, sweat, and spit.

Steve wakes first the next afternoon. He stretches, muscles locked up and sore. He waddles into the en suite bathroom to piss and take stock of the damage.

He’s covered in lovebites, the best kind of bruises. The pain is gone. The uncomfortable heat.

He’s hesitant to even check.

What if whatever that was yesterday didn’t work? For either of them?

He sighs, carefully peeling away his dressings.

And while the pink stain of blood remains on the bandages, his skin is unblemished underneath. As if the bites had never been there at all.

“Oh my—”

Eddie appears in the doorway, hair bigger than ever and eyes only slits from exhaustion. He looks spectacularly fucked out.

He yawns, before padding up to Steve’s side and kissing his shoulder, then his cheek.

Steve turns, and Eddie’s lips meet his, gentle and slow.

“Hey hotstuff.”

Steve snorts.

Eddie’s fingers trail against his untouched sides. “Can’t believe it worked.”

“Upside Down is the gift that keeps on giving.”

Eddie looks at himself in the mirror then, sees what Steve saw when he first came in. Tangled mess of torn tissue and deep punctures gone. Erased. The skin looks brand new.

Aside from the ring of hickeys around his neck and thighs.

“If I knew the key to healing these sons-of-bitches was kissing a handsome boy, I would have done that the second you invited me here.”

“Any handsome boy, huh?”

“Nah, just the one.” Eddie smiles in his typical, impish way. “Been thinking about it for a while, after all.”

He smacks a wet kiss to Steve’s forehead before turning for the shower.

“Now get in here and help me clean up. I feel like somebody came all over me.”

Steve wrinkles his nose but obliges him. He shuts the curtain and finds the perfect temp for the water before letting the stream hit Eddie directly. He squeals all the same, dramatically covering himself to make Steve laugh.

“I wonder who could have done that.”

“Mysteries never cease.”