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“Fuck,” Steve swears, immediately dropping the shard of glass as he feels it bite into the fleshy pad of his palm.
That was stupid. Why hadn’t he just grabbed the dustpan? It isn’t even that far from where he’d dropped and broken the glass, it’s not like he’d had to kneel down and immediately try to pick the pieces up with his bare hands.
Hissing, he clutches his opposite hand over the cut, like if he squeezes hard enough, his skin might just obligingly knit itself back together, but it’s no good; he can already feel the slick sensation of blood welling up against his skin.
Suddenly, he feels cold.
He forces himself to pull his hand away, to look at the damage done. It isn’t terrible – long, curving along the soft pad beneath his thumb, but it doesn’t seem to be deep. It’s bleeding, though. He watches, caught, as it seeps out and trails into the palm of his hand.
“Steve?” Eddie calls out from somewhere; distantly, Steve remembers that he’s out in the living room, just beyond the kitchen, but it sounds like his voice is coming from a long way off. “You okay?”
Steve can’t answer. He can’t seem to pull his attention away from the blood dripping from his cut; a little trickle has escaped his palm and slipped between his fingers, landing on the kitchen tile. Blood is smeared on his other hand, too, he realizes, from where he’d been clutching at the wound. It’s just a little, but it’s enough to make him feel clammy.
“I heard something break,” Eddie is saying, and his voice sounds closer now, yet still somehow distant. Distorted, like he’s at the other end of a tunnel. “Are you okay?”
He very much isn’t, Steve realizes, once he’s processed the question. Physically, he’s sitting on his kitchen floor, staring at his own blood welling in his palm, but mentally–
The last time he’d had blood on his hands, he’d been surrounded by ash and dust, shivering in the cold, still air of the Upside Down. Eddie’s blood had been everywhere; slick in Steve’s palms as they’d tried to staunch the worst of it, sticking his shirt to his skin as he’d cradled Eddie’s body against his own to get him out, tacky on the front of his jeans where he’d wiped the worst of the mess so he could grip the wheel and drive – he’s there right now, can see it so clearly, can feel it on his skin.
He can’t breathe.
His vision is tunneling out, static filling the edges even as his eyes are still glued to that fucking cut. He sways where he’s kneeling and–
“Hey.”
Two hands cup his cheeks and firmly turn his face forward. The blood is gone, and Eddie fills Steve’s swimming vision.
“There you are, sweetheart,” Eddie says, just audible over the pounding in Steve’s ears. “Look at me. Don’t think about anything else, just look at me.”
Steve looks. He blinks slowly, still stuck in the strange twilight between consciousness and unconsciousness, but he looks. Eddie is there in front of him, whole and healthy, his brown eyes wide and bright, his mouth moving again as he speaks.
“You’re okay, Steve,” he says, and Steve shakes his head minutely in the cradle of Eddie’s palms.
“You’re okay,” he manages, and Eddie’s face does something complicated – goes soft and a little sad.
“Yeah, baby, I’m okay. I’m fine. I’m right here,” he says, and Steve lets the words wash over him, pushing away his buzzing panic.
Without moving away from Steve, Eddie reaches behind himself with one hand, groping wildly until he finds the kitchen towel hanging off the edge of the counter and pulls it down.
“Eyes on me,” he orders as he wraps the towel carefully around Steve’s hand, and, suddenly exhausted, Steve is grateful for the simple directions to follow. He keeps his eyes on Eddie’s face and tries to breathe beneath the constricting cage of his ribs.
The cut burns under the makeshift terrycloth bandage, but Steve doesn’t mind. He flexes his hand and lets the pain ground him.
“It doesn’t look too bad,” Eddie says, bringing his hands back up to cup Steve’s face. “Just take a minute, and then we’ll go get you cleaned up, yeah?”
Steve swallows and nods, trying to steady himself. “The glass,” he says, glancing down at the mess that he and Eddie are very nearly kneeling in.
“I’ll get it in a bit, don’t worry about it,” Eddie says.
“Okay.” Steve gives Eddie another tiny nod. “Use the dustpan.”
Eddie bursts out with a short laugh, leaning forward to bump his forehead gently against Steve’s. “Yeah, baby, I’ll do that.”