Chapter Text
The first thing he notices coming back from the darkness is his tongue, dry and too big inside his mouth.
Worst of all, he can’t breathe - not while his tongue is there, occupying all of the space needed for airflow. He needs to move it, or open his mouth, or something - but, the second thing he learns is that his jaw seems to be locked shut, and any attempt to move it shoots a fiery jolt of pain all the way down his spine. The third, thankfully, is that his nose still works as expected, so he won’t die of suffocation quite yet.
Hopefully.
He’s not sure he wants to try to move other parts of his body and he can’t hear much more than the ruffling of papers and a faint beeping around him, so opening his eyes seems like his best bet. He does so slowly, deliberately, feeling the light hit the back of his corneas and hurt enough that he lets out a groan. How long has he been out?
“Wait - Eddie?”
He groans in recognition, even if he’s not sure who’s speaking. His eyes are not adjusted to the light yet and he isn’t gonna try and open his mouth to ask, so he’s half hoping that whoever it is will just spontaneously announce themselves.
“Holy shit. Eddie, oh my god, Eddie. Guys, Eddie!”
This time, the groan is prolonged, pained, as his head throbs amongst the screams. Now that it’s hit an ungodly amount of decibels, he recognizes the voice of Robin from band class.
He tries to stretch his arms - the left one is sore, but mostly moveable. The right one just… does not budge, and the pain is strong enough that somehow the jaw pain seems negligible, and now he’s yelling in pain. His throat hurts and his voice is scratchy enough that he suspects he might have done a whole lot of that already, in the near past.
At least, after rubbing his eyes, he’s able to see shapes again. Just in time for a curly head of hair to appear in his vision.
“Holy shit, Eddie, you’re awake!”
“Dustin,” he rasps, and hopes his lips are successfully curling into something resembling a smile. His tongue still feels swollen, and it still hurts to move most things, but… Henderson is here. And for some reason, that fills him with both guilt and relief.
“Sshh, don’t move,” he lulls him, petting his hair gently. Had he been crying? “You are - god, I am so mad at you. I am so happy you’re awake. Why do you do the things you do.”
“What the fuck happened,” he coughs out, scrunching his eyebrows in a desperate effort to focus on the details of Dustin’s face. God, he’s definitely been crying. Give him a day or two to properly get on his feet, and whoever has done this will get properly smacked.
“Vecna’s gone,” Dustin replies immediately, his voice trembling. “Nancy, Robin and Steve burned him to a crisp. You bought enough time.”
You bought enough time.
Holy shit. This was not a hangover.
All of it comes flooding back - the plan, the Master of Puppets solo, the fucking freaky alien bats, the taste of blood in his throat and everything going black - and he finally, suddenly jerks awake. He tries to get up as fast as possible, leveraging the table best as he can, but he’s about as effective as a carp out of the lake. Once he finally makes it (partially) upright, thanks to Robin’s and Dustin’s help, he’s in enough pain that he’s pretty sure he would have already thrown up, if he actually had anything in his stomach.
“Everyone… everyone made it alright?”
“Everyone is alive,” Robin nods. The fact that she did not use the same wording, and that Dustin seems to cry a little harder at that, is not lost on him - but he does not have the strength to get into that quite yet.
“The Sinclairs? Henderson? Wheeler senior?”
“I am touched by your concern, Munson. We’re alright,” a new voice addresses him from the hallway, right before Steve’s hair peeks out the doorway in all their majestic splendor. He has to admit - the dude knows how to do haircare. “You, however, are most decidedly not.”
“Ever the voice of truth, Harrington. What would we do without you.”
“You’d still be in the Upside Down, for one,” Robin interjects, and Steve rolls his eyes so hard Eddie thinks he might have caught a glimpse of his own brain. It’s clear that it’s not his favorite topic of conversation; and yet, unfortunately for him, Eddie knows for a fact that the best way to ignore the sting in his eyes and the knot in his throat was to throw words on it. The more, the better.
“Harrington the Hero. It has a good sound to it, doesn’t it?” he chuckled, ignoring the stabs of pain in his stomach with each breath. “Always said you’d make a good paladin. Look at me being right.”
“Yeah, I still don’t know what that means, Munson,” he mumbles, looking away. Eddie is particularly pleased in noticing that Steve’s cheeks are just a little more flushed, but does not allow himself to smile about it. Especially not when he can feel Robin’s stare right on him.
“Paladin? I distinctly remember you comparing Steve to a kelek not too long ago,” Dustin remarks, and this time it’s Eddie’s turn to blush, ever so glad that no one else in the room knows what a kelek is. “I am happy to see that your opinion of Steve has improved, but-”
“So, not that I am not happy to have made it outside of the shadow realm - but uh. Where am I, exactly?”
“Steve’s room,” Dustin replies, and Eddie has to employ all of his willpower to not look at Henderson again. It downright kills him not to see his expression, but he looks at Robin instead, who in turn seems just as interested in her friend’s face.
“And… to what do I owe the pleasure?”
“He just offered,” Robin mentions with her best casual tone, and this time Eddie just cannot stop his gaze darting to the other man. He can think of at least seven different reason why he should not be as giddy as he currently is, or why he should probably tone down his grin a notch or two, but this time Steve is looking back at him with a shade that reminds him of a sundried tomato and he is enjoying it.
“Well, it’s not like we can take you to the hospital, seeing as you’re still a wanted criminal and all,” he argues back - and this time, Eddie’s smile does falter. Busy as he was with taking down interdimensional bad guys and being eaten alive by alien bats, he’d forgotten about Hawkins. “And we weren’t sure how functional you would be once you woke up. Like, for showering and all.”
Eddie sucks his teeth, slowly - very slowly - and shakes his head. Harrington, yet again, has uttered the magic words.
“Good call. I would kill for a shower.”
---
Eddie has to admit that he had not immediately grasped what Steve had meant when he mentioned that showers were one of the reasons why he was staying at his place.
It’s a lot clearer now that he’s sitting on the edge of a flower-adorned blue bathtub in the middle of the bougiest bathroom he’s seen in a long time, with his head stuck in his shirt and not enough hands (or arm mobility) to do anything about it.
He can't believe that he's fought creatures of the shadow realm and lived, and now he’s been defeated by a gods damned piece of clothing.
He wants to scream, but that would be a foolproof way to get Steve’s attention, and that’s just about the last thing he wants right now. What he wants, instead, is a way to take off his clothes without writhing in pain - and if he’s completely honest with himself, he would even take the pain, if he could actually get his pants off himself. His hopes of reaching the shower without having to be escorted had already been shattered, but at least this…
He carefully moves his left hand along the neck of the t-shirt, shifting it all the way to his nose, then to his forehead, and then finally to his hair - and that’s where he gets stuck again, betrayed again by his wingspan.
It’s not looking good.
“God fucking damn it,” he hisses, wiggling his head as a last, failed hope, and groans loudly.
Steve knocks almost immediately.
“You alright in there, Munson?”
“Well, thank god I am about to get into the water, because things are going swimmingly,” he cheerily yells back, and for a moment, he considers leaving it at that. Unfortunately, he has not taken a proper shower in days, he can feel the dirt in the pit behind his knees, and, well, he has considered committing felonies for much less. “But uh. If you’d like to continue with your paladin streak, I might be, uh, a little stuck.”
He can sense, more than hear, the sigh on the other side of the door.
“Alright, I am coming in.”
There’s a squeak of the door, and Eddie closes his eyes. There is no world in which he wants to see Steve’s face while he assesses the damage. Luckily for him, it takes him less than twenty seconds to free him from his prison of cotton and polyester - and when he opens his eyes again, he finds Harrington crouched in front of him, observing him from eye level.
“I knew it was just a matter of time before you’d want to undress me,” he blurts out before thinking - and he clenches his eyes shut again. God damn it, he was such a prick. Harrington had been nothing but nice to him, offered his help, and in return, he got – that. God. “Sorry. Didn’t mean it.”
“You talk a lot of shit, to not even be able to undress yourself.”
“That is true,” Eddie admits, and carefully opens one eye again. Steve hasn’t moved - and he’s relieved, and maybe slightly encouraged, by the fact that he’s wearing an amused expression. “On that note, I would suggest changing the subject from undressing to literally anything else.”
“So… you don’t need me to also take your pants off?”
Eddie hopes with all his heart that Steve won’t notice, but the look he shoots at the man currently holding his shirt in his right hand is like, two well-placed questions away from being full of tears.
“...Please.”
They both stay silent as Steve moves towards him again, and Eddie definitely has some wildly contrasting feelings as his fingers unbutton what remains of his jeans and unstick the bloodied denim from his skin. He keeps his head high, avoiding any eye contact until he his pants fall on the floor, and Steve’s hand gently moves each leg away.
It hurts like hell, but he will not say a single peep. Not even when he slips his arm around his back and puts his shoulder below Eddie’s armpit, angling him to lower him into the tub.
“Come on Munson. Hang on.”
“Shit, I don’t even wanna think about how I will get out.”
“You got out of the Upside Down, man. The bathtub seems like less of a problem.”
He didn’t go into the Upside Down expecting to come out, though. He won’t say it out loud, but he has a feeling that Steve might have guessed it already.
Instead, he turns to what he does best: a goofy grin, and ignoring the elephant in the room.
“Seems like I need you for both, big boy,” he jokes, trying to gauge Steve’s reaction, which is apparently nonexistent. Not that he has it in him to stop, anyway. “You, uh. You should join - ouch, shit-”
His foot slips, and if he braces for a hit on his back or his ass, he does not expect the pull from under his armpit. Harrington is stronger than he’d thought - and he fully appreciates the thought for a moment, at least before his side feels like someone has set it on fire.
“Sorry, sorry, sorry,” Steve yelps, and Eddie would laugh at the sound if he wasn't as focused on not screaming from the pain. “Let me - ah, shit, you’re bleeding again.”
“Tsokay,” Eddie mumbles, gasping for air despite his best efforts. “At least there’s no - ouch - weird spooky bats around this time. That, uh, seems like progress.”
“I’m honestly surprised you haven't made any jokes about me biting you,” Steve mumbles, finally letting the other man go and gently easing him onto the bottom of the tub.
“Don’t play with my self-control, Harrington. Seems like a lose-lose situation for you.”
He is sure that in any other situation, Steve would laugh. As it is, he only cracks a pensive smile, a line of worry lining his forehead while he stares at what he can only assume is a gaping wound right below his ribcage.
“That may be a problem,” he thinks out loud, rubbing his finger on his chin while the other hand rests on his hip. “I don’t think you can take a shower if you’re bleeding, can you.”
“You definitely can,” Eddie shakes his head, raising both his hands in disbelief. “Seriously? I mean, you didn’t seem like the type to get beaten up in high school, but uh. How many times have you been to the shadow realm by now?”
“They told me not to get the wound wet,” he brushes off the question with an eyeroll.
“Yeah, well. I just got into the bathtub, and that’s what wounded me in the first place, so getting out just seems like a bad idea.”
He’s cold, and his muscles hurt, and he needs a nap - but he would get bitten again by all those weird bats before asking for more help from Harrington than absolutely needed. As much as he enjoys having him around, he likes his independence, thank you very much.
“Yeah, okay. Your wound, you do you. I’ll leave you to it,” Steve finally decides, scratching the side of his head. “The uh, showerhead is right next to you, it’s not hung up. Do you need anything else?”
And there it was. The shame, and the heat to his cheeks, and his brain moving in a thousand different directions to find any alternative solution - and the sting in his eyes when he can’t.
“Maybe a pair of scissors,” he replies, his voice feeble as he gestures towards his boxers, most of it still sadly hanging around his thighs. “Might, uh, need spare underwear as well for later, if you don’t mind.”
---
As soon as he opens the water, all he can feel is relief.
Of course, he’s familiar with the magic that a hot shower can bring at the end of a bad day. God knows he’s lost it one too many times opening the shower and finding only icy cold water at the trailer, courtesy of the shittiest water implant ever seen in Hawkins. But this... this is something else.
It’s just the plain pleasure of feeling himself get clean. The oils, the grime, the blood and the god damned bat gunk are caked up in thick enough layers that the water has already started to drip grey without the need to scrub. And god knows what he’s just went through puts in perspective any other bad day he’s ever had, like, pretty much ever.
“And it’s not even over yet,” he mumbles to himself under his breath, looking at the fresh, red bitemarks around his legs and stomach. It feels like it should be over. After defeating the real-life dark lord Vecna, almost dying devoured by alien creatures, what is still left to do? How is he still in hiding?”
The chocked sound that comes out of his throat surprises him as well. His chest bobs, desperately looking for air it cannot reach as he hectically shuts off the water tap and presses his fingers as hard as he can on his mouth, determined not to give in. But his eyes are already threatening to let more tears fall, and his chest feels like a hot rod has been pushed down his esophagus, and -
His shoulder tense up, and another sob escapes through the nose. Then another. And by the third, fourth one, his hand had slipped again on the side, palm splayed open as his back slides further down the bathtub and his eyes fixate on the ceiling above him, tears streaking down the side of his cheeks down to his hair.
“One. Two. Three. Four…”
He hasn’t cried in years. Or, rather; he’s decently sure he has shed a couple tears in the shadow realm, or the underworld, or however else they wanted to call it, but he also thought he was on his way out and it hurt as hell, so that feels warranted. But in moments like now, in a random bathtub in East Hawkins? Not since his mother…
“...Five. Six. Seven.”
When he was a kid, he had invented a trick to stop crying on command. He’d grown pretty proud of that, actually. Every time that he felt his throat get a little tight, or that familiar prickling sensation in his eyes, he’d just start counting up to ten - and, every time, he’d manage to stop just a little short of the final number. Mostly before eight; sometimes on nine, if he was having an exceptionally intense cry.
“Eight. Nine.”
Doesn’t look like that particular trick works anymore.
“Shit! Gods damned fucking shit!”
Silence falls as he breathes back in, trying to regulate the sobs, and picks back up the shower head. He reopens the water with slow, deliberate movements, and his skin warms again under the water.
Then, a knock.
“‘I’m having a bit of a déjà vu here, but uh - everything alright in there?”
Ever the paladin in shining armor.
“I’m uh - yeah. Don’t come in,” he replies, hoping his voice is not as watery as it sounds like to him. Small chance, he realizes.
“Alright,” he just says, and Eddie waits for the sound of steps on the carpet, but they don’t come. Instead, a handful of seconds later, it’s still Steve’s voice that comes to him from behind the door.
“Say, uh. Before I accidentally kind of stabbed you in the side,” and Eddie winces at the memory, “ÿou were saying - I should join what?”
Thing is, Eddie talks enough shit that he doesn’t necessarily keep track of everything that comes out of his mouth. That would take way more memory than his weed-riddled mind allows.
Thankfully, this particular remark had been tinged with just the right amount of hope, and the right amount of guilt about that hope, that he actually knows what he was about to say.
“Ah, yeah,” he sniffs, and accidentally sprays a bit of water out of the bathtub as he massages his eyes with his one remaining usable hand. Oh well. “I was saying, you should uh - you should join Hellfire sometimes. Once this is all blown over, you know.”
This time, there’s no voice from outside of the bathroom. And Eddie is notoriously not good with silences, particularly so when he’s just invited Steve Harrington to his DnD club. He starts rubbing his legs, around his ankles, then all the way to his knees and thighs, being careful to avoid the weird, painful dark patches around the bites. It’s the opposite of what he should do, he’s pretty sure, but… he’s gonna pick his battles, for now.
“Yeah, I mean. Henderson would like it, I think. I know he’s been trying to get you to play for years, and I get it, might not have been at the top of your list to play with Eddie ‘The Freak’ Munson, but hey - we’re in definitely better terms now, aren’t we, Harrington.”
Eddie would very much like to stop talking right now; but to his extreme alarm, it feels like his verbal vomit has taken a life of its own, and it definitely does not want to end.
“There’s just no way you hang out with Dustin and won’t like a campaign. Plus, I, uh, I still cannot believe that you don’t know what a paladin is. You’re like, the archetype. If you weren’t too young for it, I’d suspect you were the inspiration-”
“Or, how about you tell me about paladins now. I want to hear it from you. You’re a damn great storyteller, from what I hear.”
And just like that, the flow of words just stops, together with his hands, as his brain takes his sweet time to process Steve’s remark and his cheeks get a little warmer. Mind you, he knows he’s a good storyteller. He’s built off a whole persona around it - hell, the only legacy he has ever built around him is based on being a Dungeon Master.
He just didn’t expect it from Harrington, that’s all.
“They’re - um, thanks,” Eddie mumbles, and he could swear that he hears a faint cackle from outside the bathroom. He resumes the scrubbing, embarking in a monologue where he is very careful to mention more often them generally being sticks in the mud with a propensity for lawful goodness, rather than generous knights in shining armor. Still, it might have slipped a time or two.
By the time he has explained the difference between a paladin and a fighter, and what it means to be lawful good, he’s also done showering - and to his surprise, he notices he has also stopped crying a while back.
Talking does the trick. Sneaky motherfucker, Steve.
“So uh. If you’re still up for getting me out, I think this is our moment,” he calls out again, and the door opens immediately, revealing Steve and several pieces of cloth.
Eddie’s hand reflexively runs to cover his private parts, before realizing in horror that he will need that same hand to hold on to the other man.
This is a nightmare.
“I brought some towels - one for hair, one for body, and one just in case - and some shorts I had laying around. They may not be your type, but it will help with the bandages, at least,” he rattles off while setting everything down next to the sink. “Ready to get out?”
“As ready as I will ever be,” Eddie sighs, and the air feels just a little too chilly between his legs as he raises his hand towards Steve again. Harrington, however, is still leaning over the countertop, staring at him with a look of confusion and seemingly without any intention of moving.
“What’s up, Harrington? Changed your mind? I can probably crawl out if needed,” Eddie jokes, knowing as he says it that it’s a blatant lie. He would probably rather sleep in the tub instead.
“No, I mean - you didn’t wash your hair,” Steve replies, eyebrows still furrowed, and Eddie does a half shrug.
“Yeah well. I only have like, three quarter of a functional arm at the moment,” he explains in his most nonchalant tone, ignoring the pang in his stomach. “I also didn’t manage to wash my back for that matter, but the important things are taken care of, if you know what I mean.”
It takes Steve a few moments to move towards the bathtub, and when he does, he throws a towel on the arm still hanging in the air towards him.
“Put it… you know,” he gestures vaguely at the other end of the bathtub. Eddie is confused, but he’s not going to ask for explanations on this particular topic, especially as Steve is getting dangerously close. Instead, he just hurriedly throws the cloth onto his junk, and searches for hints on what’s about to happen as he looks at Steve kneel beside him and pick up the showerhead.
“Tell me if anything I am about to do is not okay, alright?” he murmurs - and before Eddie can fully catch up, Steve’s fingers are brushing his hair as warm water is flowing on his head.
He’s washing his hair. Like, Steve ‘The Hair’ Harrington is watching the hair of Eddie ‘The Freak’ Munson. This almost rivals Vecna in terms of being completely out of this world; and for a moment, he can feel his mind explode in a million different pieces, while his stomach twists around himself in a… not unpleasant way.
He hates that he’s enjoying it this much.
“You, uh, don’t have to, you know,” he mumbles quietly - and yet, predictably, his heart stops for a moment when Steve does halt.
“Do you want me to stop? Just say the word.”
Eddie just looks up, meeting Steve’s gaze. Whatever the other man sees, he just starts lathering shampoo on his hair, and a traitorous groan slips out from Eddie’s lips.
“My god, Harrington. If the whole video store situation doesn’t work out for you, you should definitely consider a career as a hair dresser or something,” he murmurs, closing his eyes. Steve’s fingers are strong against his scalp, and sure, he’s pulled his hair a couple of times, but this is a hair wash for the centuries. All he has to do is convince himself that everything's okay, sit back, relax, enjoy, and try not to audibly gulp when Steve’s hand touches his neck.
“Yeah, I think I will pass on that,” he muses. In reply “I don’t know how you do it. Long and curly? I would buzz it off.”
“You would never!” he gasps dramatically, bringing his hand to his heart.
“You’re right. I would never,” Steve chuckles, before picking up the showerhead again, and water falls again on his face. “Tell me if the water’s too warm.”
“Tsperfect,” Eddie just mumbles, and suddenly, he feels like he really should think about anything other than the other man’s hands in his hair. “You never thought about letting your hair grow?”
“Please. My hair is perfect,” Steve immediately jabs back, and Eddie can feel the mild shock in how his movements are getting just a little rougher. “I found the holy grail, man. I’m not gonna change it up for, what? Making a statement?”
“Spoken like a man who’s never headbanged,” Eddie sighs. “We should go to a concert one day, if I ever make it out. So you can see what you’re missing out on.”
The water stops, and as Eddie opens his eyes again, he sees that familiar worry line on Steve’s forehead.
“You’ll make it out,” he just says flatly, opening another bottle and squirting the content onto his hands. Eddie’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise.
“I assume it wasn’t 2-in-1, the shampoo that you just used?”
“Holy, Grail,” Steve repeats, raising his eyebrows, and a new wave of relief pours upon Eddie as Harrington’s fingers run through his hair again.
“You fancy motherfucker.”
This time, he allows himself to enjoy the feeling. It’s less about massaging the scalp, and more about playing with his hair and waiting for it all to absorb, or something. Plus, he’s really getting good at it. Where he was hesitant at the beginning, he’s now become more confident, drawing longer strokes all the way through the length of his hair, and - to his… shoulders?
He hears a new bottle pop open.
“Again... tell me if anything I am about to do is not okay.”
Steve’s hands are now touching Eddie’s back, and all the man can think about is that, after all, almost having been offed by shadow bats is a pretty okay trade for this. His fingers are rubbing against his skin, soaping him up, and - god, he’s seen playboy magazines with less intimate pictures. He gulps. The blood loss was probably too severe for his body to redirect any of it to his genitals quite yet, but he’s already barely made through the pants situation. Ii Harrington keeps it going any longer, all bets are off.
“I uh - I think it’s a good time to rinse!” Eddie shouts, a couple decibels and a full octave higher than he’d expected his voice to come out. Steve’s hands immediately fly up in the air as if he just got burned, and Eddie wishes he could take it back. “Don’t, uh - I liked it. Thank you. It was, uh, really good. But I’m like, freezing.”
Steve shoots an eyeful back and, somehow, Eddie does not think he’s convinced him.
—--
After a complicated retrieval situation that involves more towels than expected, a bucket, and a fair amount of obscenities, Eddie has made it out of the bathtub and dried himself best as he can. After that, it takes them a while, but thanks to a significant amount of willpower and almost three properly functioning legs between the two of them, the men wobble for a good five yards down the hallway before deciding that Eddie is not gonna make it any further and plop him back onto Harrington’s mattress.
The relief of having made it there unfortunately subsides when Harrington shows up with a new roll of bandages and a pair of scissors.
Thankfully, the pain is more bearable than he expects; it’s clear that he’s tended to wounds before, and Eddie tries not to think about what that entails for both him and the rest of the freshmen. It also proves a remarkably good bonding experience, at least in Eddie’s opinion, as he spends most of the time either commenting on Steve’s technique (both of them have strong opinions about how to best secure a bandage without the proper tools, it seems) or complaining about not wanting to take Steve’s bed from. On the other hand, Steve tells him just as many times to shut it and not to make the situation more complicated that it needs to be; and if Eddie does keep complaining after Harrington leaves to get him a glass of water, he also falls asleep mid-mumble not two minutes later, so he clearly has not won that particular battle.
That also means that he wakes up mid-afternoon, in the darkness, by himself, clenching the blanket on top of him as a shield. After all the trouble of going that shower, he’s drenched in sweat again, and his eyelashes are damp again, and he just feels dumb. Nightmares aren’t new - but this is different, and there’s nothing that warrants that reaction. He’s back in Hawkins and there’s no bats around him, he knows it rationally, but -
Fuck it.
He’s still got a mostly functional arm, after all, and he uses it to turn himself around. Steve’s bed is big (like, king size big, which does not surprise him in the slightest), but he still manages to army-crawl himself to the edge of the bed, and now he’s looking at the carpet from the mattress, wondering how the hell he’s gonna turn around enough to be able to go down feet-first.
Somehow, he does - sort of. He can’t really walk (he tries to put down his right foot and no, the ankle has not gotten better in the couple of hours of sleep he’s gotten), but what he can do is to somehow lower himself on the floor by holding on to the nightstand for dear life and jumping down with the help of his good leg.
His side feels like someone stabbed him, and now his butt hurts as well, which is new on the list of injuries he’d collected so far. There’s a certain sense of victory in his movements as he scoots forward,though, inching towards the ajar door and opening it with one triumphant kick - and moves further down the corridor, wriggling himself towards the stairs he can see. At least steps are easy to handle sitting down, he thinks, and that’s about all the thought process he puts into his little quest before embarking into the descent, one painful bump at a time.
It’s only once he’s almost at the bottom that he hears the voices.
He can’t really make out who it is, or what they’re saying. They’re behind a closed door, for one, but also he can hear the swooshing of his own heart pumping blood as he realizes again that yes, he is still a wanted man. While he fully trusts that Steve 'The Paladin' Harrington would do anything in his power to protect him, he really, really does not want it to get to that point.
He starts to lean backwards, frantically trying to use his best arm to pull himself upwards - but his battered muscles are a poor match for the force of gravity, and he slips forward again with a solid thump that makes everything else fall into silence as the voices stop.
Fuck.
His eyes dart around, looking for something, anything that he could throw, or stab with, or literally just not make him feel completely helpless against whoever was coming, but the only thing he sees are the portraits of a much younger Steve hanging above him, way above his reach.
He freezes and stares at the door, which opens up with a creak.