To Heal All Wounds

Literal Hell

The car ride to the station had been hell.

Literal hell.

Worse than hell.

Because Steve had been to hell. Several times actually. He'd even seen it rise to earth, and it still wasn't this bad.

Because hell didn't smell like Old Spice and Herbal Essences. Hell hadn't found the single metal tape in Steve's car.  Hell didn't pull a face, sticking out its lower lip in a pout like it was touched and ask "aww, did'ja miss me?"  Hell wasn't headbanging like this was a stupid spring break road trip, flinging the scent of its shampoo all over Steve and his car despite its hair being tucked up into a baseball cap.

Hell wasn't banging out drum solos on Steve's dashboard. And his thigh.

"I just," Steve began as worry colored his voice, his attention divided between driving and shoving Eddie's hand away. The action was only met with laughter and a redoubled effort to use Steve's thigh as a drum kit. "I just need you to take this seriously."

"Oh, don't you worry, Mom," Eddie answered in a cadence of theatrical seriousness, his face pulled long and dire. "I promise that I am taking this very seriously."

Steve already didn't believe Eddie for the simple reason of the man being who he was, but then the dark-haired man smiled wickedly. The same smile from earlier that morning, when Eddie had stuck his syrup-coated face out at Steve and challenged him to clean up Eddie's mess. Between glances, Steve watched as Eddie turned his head on his shoulders, the rest of his body remaining forward facing.

"I might even say that I'm taking it..."

His voice was low and even, with the slightest tremor of laughter below it and Steve knew exactly what was coming next. He held a finger up to Eddie's face to try and silence the man, but Eddie only grabbed the finger, encasing it in his fist as his eyebrows hit his hairline, slowly opening his lips as though to draw out Steve's anticipation for the inevitable.

Steve tried to interrupt him with a very firm, "No, don't..."

"Deadly seriously," Eddie finished despite Steve's warnings.

Silence, save for the music for which Steve had capped the volume. Silence for a moment while Eddie stared at Steve with that over-exaggerated look of sternness before the facade broke and he was smiling again. And then that smile erupted into a laugh. A laugh Steve had resigned himself to never hearing again. A laugh he couldn't help but return because he was hearing it again, against all odds. Against all logic. Against all hope and prayer and stupid wishful dreaming. Steve was hearing that laugh again. Steve laughed right back at Eddie -- with Eddie, if only because that huge feeling of joy pressing against his ribs was quickly expanding and threatening to break his ribcage open.

And Eddie glittered at him. He really did. With a smile that cracked his whole face in two and eyes that never seemed to express anything other than everything, all at once.

It made the balloon in his chest swell impossibly larger, threatening to overtake Steve in a searing hot supernova of joy. Steve felt alive for the first time in... in two years. He felt like a man caught in a gentle rain after drought or a kid looking up for the first time into a starlit sky. He felt something cool and clean and clear in his limbs, slipping like ice water all down his spine in the best way. He felt nebulas aching and swirling to life when Eddie pounded out another part of a solo on his thigh. The sensation surged and crashed up his core and out his throat in the shape of lyrics that he didn't even know that he knew by heart.

This time, Eddie's expression was genuine in it's unabashed surprise. His mouth hung agape, his eyebrows hit his hairline, and his eyes shone like Christmas lights. It took him a solid minute of staring at Steve while he sang to join in himself, trading in his imaginary drum kit for an air guitar at the solo.