There's a hospital again, something about a joint contusion and minor surgery and blah blah blah. Eddie barely listens these days. He doesn't need to. Steve will remember everything anyway.
And he doesn't sleep in hospitals, no matter what they try and give him. So he is just lying there, at 3 am, with plenty of time to stare at Steve without interruption. His favourite hobby by far.
He's nested in his chair bed beside Eddie's; it's made up of two arm chairs shoved together and covered in stolen blankets and one coveted pillow. Because the homophobic nurses refuse them a family member bed in the room with Eddie, and the non-homophobic nurses are better saved for breaking more important rules for them (like when Robin brings all the children and cheeseburgers at the same time).
Steve, who can sleep anywhere, is dreaming something that makes his brow furrow. Eddie doesn't like it. Steve's serious, slightly-annoyed, black-cat-vibes smooth out when he's asleep (and also right after sex, but that's not important right now). He should only be his pretty, baby-faced, sweetness-embodied self right now.
So Eddie reaches out and takes a dangling hand in his own. And closes his own eyes.
And wakes up to the nurses with their machines at 9 am.
"Never sleeps in hospitals," Steve grumbles, shoving a coffee at him with a raised, grumpy, daytime-Steve eyebrow.
Eddie beams. He definitely likes this version of his boyfriend best.
