Work Text:
Knee-deep in the poacher's dream
He dragged that thing out back and he
Hung it upside down & slit its belly open
And then he let it bleed out
He held my head & made me watch
Filled my mouth up with its blood and said
"Grow up weak or grow up tough"
- "Alligator Blood", Nicole Dollanganger
dogwood
/ˈdɒɡwʊd/
noun
a shrub or small tree of north temperate regions,
which yields hard timber and is grown for its decorative foliage, red stems,
or colourful berries.
As a little boy, Steve reads Little Red Riding Hood for the first time on the swing in his backyard.
He lets his feet trail across the grass, swings lazily with the book of fairy tales open in his lap.
The book is old, from the library where Steve finds refuge on the weekends when he wants to get away from Tommy and the rich group of boys he's expected to be friends with, even though they're brutish and mean, cutting their fists and teeth on the bones of boys more delicate than them. Steve prefers to be around plants and animals, loves the way cats follow him down the street, how flowers bend their heads as he walks past.
He sits and reads, ignores the sounds of his parents fighting inside the house. It's always easier to stay outside and play pretend. So much easier to trace his hands over the pictures and imagine he's one of the characters, that this life is the pretend one and he'll wake up any moment to a life that's nectar-rich and dripping in honey.
He stiffens at the sound of something breaking inside, then looks back at the book. Runs the tip of his finger along an illustration of the wolf, pressing down on one of its sharp canine teeth, wondering if it'll cut him. If he’ll lift his finger and find a bead of ruby-red blood.
His mother comes outside a little later, hiding the fresh bruises on her wrists under the cuffs of a long-sleeved blouse. It's the white one with pretty pearl buttons at the cuffs, one that Steve likes to slide on when his parents aren't in and look at himself in the mirror.
Girl-boy , his mother calls him when they're alone, something in-between, something beautiful. But never when Steve’s father is around, she wouldn’t dare. He never liked being reminded that his only son is a freak.
When she sees the picture on the open page, the one of the girl and her long red cloak, the large wolf standing on its two hind legs, regaling her, she takes the book from his hands with a discerning look.
"Be careful, my love," she says. "Sometimes the tales are true. All men have wolves inside them."
Steve looks at her, at the sadness in her eyes. So like his, their blend of green and gold. Witch eyes .
"Will I know it when I see them?"
"Most times. Some are very good at camouflaging themselves."
Did my dad camouflage himself , he wants to ask, is that why you married him?
He turns back to his book instead, knows not to ask questions like that, not in the fragile silence that descends upon the house after one of his parents’ fights. Though he softens when his mom sinks her fingers into his thick mop of hair and cards her fingers through it. Reads out loud when she asks him to, narrating the story of the innocent young girl and the wolf stalking her through the woods.
☾
Steve doesn't think about that afternoon for years.
Not about the fairy tale or what his mother said.
But maybe he should have.
Should have thought about it the year he turned fourteen and Tommy shoved him against the wall to kiss him, Steve frozen like a deer in the cage of his arms, only opening his mouth when Tommy huffed and demanded it. Should have thought about it at sixteen when one of his father's friends put his hand on Steve's waist at a family dinner party and asked if he could see him that weekend. Should have thought about it at seventeen when Billy Hargrove punched him in the face and then licked the blood from his bottom lip, Steve forcing himself to go soft and small, letting Billy shove his jeans down around his thighs, doing it to protect the children, and having nightmares of it for months afterwards.
He doesn't think about it again until a strange boy with an accent like syrup and southern stars called Eddie Munson takes him by the wrist under a moonlit night in the Upside-Down and says, "I need to tell you something."
Steve looks at him, trying not to fixate on the bite of his nails and the heat of his skin, the press of his thumb against Steve's pulse. The way that Eddie always smells like cigarettes and fallen leaves, how there's earth caked under his nails, turning his nail beds black. The shape of his face under the night sky like a feral animal, delicately boned, but shadowed in the pools under his brow and cheekbones, like he’d been etched in charcoal.
"What is it? Do I have bat juice in my hair?"
"No. I mean, yeah, but it's not that."
"What is it then?"
Eddie stares at him with huge brown eyes, his hair long and matted, tangling against his shoulders.
Eddie Munson, who Steve's only known for a handful of days, but who feels indispensable now, like he'd snuck in and stitched himself into the fabric of Steve’s life, into the veins and arteries that made up the chambers of Steve's interior. Who Steve has watched with Dustin and the other children, who all treat him like a father, like a leader, their very own Peter Pan. Whose face and smile make Steve feel things, deep down in his stomach and between his legs. Who's lithe and sinewy in a way that makes Steve's entire body yearn, like he could pitch forwards into his arms, his heart plucked raw.
"I'm not like other boys."
Steve bites back a laugh, thinks about Eddie at school. His manic grin, how he’d provoke the bigger boys, how he was always climbing on things and making trouble and being a mischief, and says, "Yeah, you're telling me."
He tries to keep his voice light, but it doesn’t make Eddie smile. He looks pale and drawn, his forehead and the sides of his mouth heavily lined. Far too heavy for twenty years old, like he'd aged ten years in just a week.
"No, you don't understand."
Steve looks at the girls, ahead of them, conscious of not losing them, then back at Eddie.
"Help me understand then."
"Have you seen the sky?" Eddie looks up, at the stormy blanket of clouds, the bright sliver of moon that bathed them in sickly light. "It's different, almost a full moon, even though it wasn't before we got here."
"Everything's weird here," Steve says, trying to find the energy to smile, though it's hard when he's bleeding sluggishly from two separate wounds, and the only thing keeping him warm is the worn denim of Eddie's battered vest. Like lovers on their first date, walking down by the lake. "It's why we call it the Upside-Down."
"Yeah," Eddie says, fidgeting now, always anxious, like he can scent things on the wind.
Steve leans in closer, to the impossible warmth radiating from Eddie and in his softest voice, the one he uses with the kids, says, "Tell me what's up."
Eddie sucks in a shuddering breath and says, "I can feel myself changing."
"Changing?"
After a beat, Eddie nods. "Under the full moon I always change."
Steve stares at him, but he doesn't laugh. Because he knows Eddie isn't joking for once. Has known for years that strange things lurk in Hawkins. Bad things. He's seen creatures without faces crawl in the shadows, has seen his mother with split lips and black eyes that she valiantly tries to hide beneath pressed powder. He's seen children possessed by things that want to suck on their innocence and he's seen Billy Hargrove bend his head and feast on the guts of a teenage girl, staining his chin and the chest of his white shirt with thick gouts of blood.
"You're a-"
"Werewolf," Eddie completes, like the curse is his to utter. "That's what I mean."
Steve swallows, and Eddie tracks the movement of it, eyes flitting down to the line of his throat.
"I didn't think they really existed."
"Not many do anymore."
And maybe that's why, Steve thinks. Why Eddie's covered in a labyrinth of mysterious scars, like the long one that stretches from his neck to his cheek like a curl of white ivy. Maybe it's why he has so many strange tattoos, the symbols and runes etched into his chest and arms, why his hair is so thick and wild, why his nails and teeth have looked longer since they've been down here.
"For how long?"
"Since I was a kid."
"Why didn't you mention this before?"
Eddie grins, the shape of it verging on crazed. "When exactly? When I wasn't being hunted for a murder I didn't commit and almost hung on a cross?"
"At any time," Steve interrupts, voice rising sharply with worry. "Are you telling me you've been around my kids for months and hadn't warned them?"
Eddie's face turns sullen. "I'd never hurt the kids. And we never met near a full moon."
"It's still irresponsible of you."
"Well forgive me for not wanting to broadcast it."
Steve looks at him, tries to imagine it.
His mother had told him about wolf-men, shapeshifters, the ones who were bitten and cursed to change under the full moon. She'd shown him pictures in some of her books. The ones she kept in a locked box in the attic, full of strange texts and illustrations of mythical creatures, of various plants and their medicinal properties, their pages smelling like lavender and vanilla sugar. Until Steve's father had found them and made his wife watch as he burned each one.
He looks at Eddie now. Tries to Imagine him as one of the beasts in his mother's books and can’t.
"I'm sure you're just a puppy at heart."
The joke's misjudged and Steve regrets it when Eddie's grip on his wrist tightens and his mouth pulls downwards.
"It's not funny. I'm going to transform when the full moon rises and you can't be anywhere near me when it happens."
"You're hurting me," Steve replies, keeping his voice calm. Always knows, when it comes to men and their hot heads, that it's better to bend than to rise up against them.
Eddie drops his hand instantly. "Sorry," he mutters, stepping away to put distance between them.
Steve immediately misses his warmth. Eddie’s always so warm, like toasting bread over a fireplace.
He takes his wrist and rubs the place where Eddie's thumb had pressed a bruise into his skin.
"We need to catch up with the others, but we'll talk about this later?"
Eddie looks reluctant but nods anyway.
He walks past Steve, then stops and looks over his shoulder at him.
Steve tenses under the hard weight of his eyes. "What?"
"Nothing, it's just," Eddie falters and he looks so young suddenly, buckling under the pressure of things said and left unsaid. "Not all monsters choose to be ones."
He's gone before Steve can think of anything to say.
☾
Night-time in the Upside-Down feels like blood dripping into water. Slow, thick, the air clogging Steve's mouth and nose like a veil of noxious fog.
It's not natural, feels harder the longer you're in it, and Eddie continues to worsen as the night goes on.
"What's up with him?" Robin asks Steve while Nancy scouts ahead. They’ve had to go slow, the road ahead thick with creatures, but Nancy had said she’d be safe, she just wanted to get the lay of the land.
Steve of course had wanted to go with her, but that’s when Eddie had started to feel sick and separated himself from them, skulking near a copse of trees, and Nancy had said to stay put, she could handle herself.
The two of them turn to look at Eddie, who's crouching with his head in his hands. Every now and then he makes a retching sound and Steve grimaces in sympathy as he spits a long string of bile onto the ground.
Steve turns back to her. "Do you know anything about werewolves?"
"What?" she asks, eyes widening, all white around the blue. "Like Teen Wolf werewolves? Like American Werewolf in London werewolves?"
"They're real."
Robin blinks rapidly. "No fucking shit they are, and you didn't ever tell me this because?"
"It never came up," he says, "and it's not like I'd ever encountered one before, so..."
"Is this one of the creatures your mom told you about when you were a kid?"
Steve nods, the mention of his mother pulling at him like old stitches. "In passing, only little bits. She'd never met one either, I wasn't sure for a long time whether they were just a myth or if they'd died out."
"Christ," Robin says, throwing up her hands, "what is my life? The Upside-Down, vampires, mad Russians, now werewolves ? I'm just a teenage girl who wants to finally get laid by a hot girl and go to college."
"I know, babe."
"So what? You're telling me Eddie Munson's a werewolf?"
Steve sucks his bottom lip into his mouth, feels gossipy and wrong for talking about it. "It's not really my place to say."
"Oh, come on! We're down here with a werewolf, and it's not like we have any chew toys to distract him if he goes all furry on us, do we?"
Steve bites his lip, smiles. "We could give him your Kermit plushie."
"Oh screw you, Stevie."
The sound of fresh groaning, louder this time. They both freeze at the sound and turn around.
"Eddie?" Steve calls.
Eddie doesn’t answer him, head still in his hands. Steve and Robin glance at each other, silently agreeing to approach, and start walking over to him, Robin curling her hand around Steve's arm.
Eddie stands as they get closer, but shields his face with his hands.
"Don't look at me," he says, turning his back on them.
"Eddie," Steve murmurs, "come on. You don't have to do that, not with us."
Eddie flinches, but doesn't try to pull away as Steve puts his hands on his shoulders and gently turns him to face them.
It's a shock when he does, though Steve tries to keep his expression as neutral as possible as he sees the two wolf ears that have sprouted from the top of Eddie’s head, the same colour as his hair but soft-looking, covered in thick fur. Or the way his teeth have grown into a set of sharp fangs, canines curling over his bottom lip.
His eyes have darkened too, amber to dark brown, ringed in a bloodied rust-red.
"Oh," Steve says at the same time Robin says, "okay, wow."
"Yeah," Eddie replies, wolf ears flattening back against his head, "hunt the freak, right?"
Steve stares at them, at how velvet-soft and sensitive they look. He wonders how it would feel to brush his fingers against one, if Eddie was ticklish there.
"You're changing?"
"It's always like this the night before the full moon."
"So you're a real-life werewolf?" Robin blurts, always putting her foot in it. "How does that even work?"
"How do you think?" Eddie asks irritably. "The moon rises and I change. I lose all sense of humanity. I become a fucking beast."
He spits more bile on the ground near them, nose wrinkling like an angry dog.
"Jeez," Robin says quietly, "sounds rough."
"You could say that."
Steve thinks, wonders, senses the air around Eddie turning red. Anger, blood, violence, all colours he associates with other men. Dangerous men.
"Have you hurt people before?"
"No," Eddie says, giving him a pointed look, "but I could. Woke up once with a slaughtered deer lying on the ground next to me. My teeth had torn its throat out, I was covered in its blood. Took days for me to get its scent off my skin, like I’d bathed in it. Think I'd eaten it raw."
Robin exhales hard like she's been punched. "Okay," she says, drawing the word out. "Well there's no deer down here, but maybe you could feast on some of those bat things if you get the munchies."
"I'm not turning tonight, but if we're not out of here by tomorrow..."
He trails off, looking uncomfortable.
"Time moves differently down here," Steve says, "there isn't a normal day or night cycle, tomorrow could come in a few hours for all we know."
"Or minutes," Robin says, shooting him a look, the energy around her turning the colour of bleached bark.
He brushes their fingers together without looking at her and senses her immediately beginning to calm.
"Are you hurting?" he asks Eddie.
Eddie nods. "Always do. Cramps, like I'm gonna vomit. Headaches too, from my bones changing shape. Why? Are you offering a free massage?"
Steve thinks about the full moon, the diagrams in his mother's book for each stage of a wolf's transformation, the new bones breaking through, the man's skin sluicing off like a sheet of water. How the man's face was always locked into an open-mouthed howl of pain.
Maybe that's why wolves always howled in the first place, maybe the pain never stopped.
"Does it hurt when you change?"
"When I transform," Eddie corrects, "and yeah, it's fucking agony."
"What does it feel like?"
Eddie sneers, and his fangs come out on full display, making Steve's breath hitch in his throat. "Like nothing a silver-spoon baby like you could ever imagine."
"Hey," Robin snaps, taking a step forward as if to shield Steve. "You don't have to be an asshole, Steve's trying to help you."
Eddie shakes his head, fangs retreating. "Sorry," he says, "that was out of line."
"Don't worry about it," Steve replies, wanting to keep the peace between them, it’s not the time or place to fight. "I've been called a lot worse."
And it’s true. Words didn't hurt half as much as they did when he was growing up, when each insult and put-down from his dad or the kids at school dug into his side like an icicle, turning his skin cold and blue, until he looked in the mirror one day and realised he'd become every inch the ice prince his mother had always warned he might become, swapping sunlight and warmth for frost. It only got worse the day she died, Steve’s heart calcifying and closing up, his lips so cold, girls said he felt like snow.
Things are different now.
Every day all Steve does is try his hardest to crack his heart open again, let the warmth back in.
"It's going to be okay," he says.
He reaches out without thinking about it, brushes a strand of Eddie's long hair behind his ear.
Eddie makes a noise that's more dog than human, a pitiful whine, and pushes his cheek against Steve's hand.
Robin blinks, doesn’t say anything, and Steve swallows, pulse picking up as he watches Eddie nuzzle his hand. He probably doesn’t even know what he’s doing, is acting on animal instinct.
Steve decides to go with it.
"We'll be out of here soon," he soothes, stroking his thumb along the high point of Eddie's cheekbone. "Just hold on, everything’s going to be all right."
Eddie makes another noise, but softer this time, a rumble in his chest that does something to Steve’s lower stomach, heat pooling between his legs.
Footsteps behind them.
"What's going on?" Nancy asks.
☾
Sleep comes in fitful bursts that night.
Steve huddles down in the back of the RV with Dustin on one side and Max on the other, the two of them bundled against him like baby chicks.
Eddie's been better since they got out, wolf ears and fangs disappearing once the miasma of the Upside-Down was gone, but he barely sleeps, choosing to chain-smoke outside and watch the sky.
He’d kept close to Steve in the Upside-Down, practically glued to Steve’s side as they found Nancy’s house and communicated with Dustin and the kids. Steve tried his hardest to ignore it, but hadn’t been able to hide the way his cheeks grew pink, how the blood flushed hot beneath his skin, Eddie’s eyes had stayed on him the entire time, like he could taste the rush of blood in the air, dragging over him as sharply as his teeth.
He’d skulked away once they were out and the wolf retreated, barely able to look at him as they talked about next steps, about all of them going back. Had spent the rest of the day barely looking at Steve, and Steve hates how much that hurt. What did he care if Eddie didn’t want to talk to him? It’s not like they were friends.
But still.
Eddie stays outside all night, and Steve looks at him through the window of the RV. He watches and thinks, suddenly wants to know so much about him.
When had he become a wolf?
Had he been bitten? Had he lived in a pack?
And how had he kept it hidden all this time?
Steve looks at him and wants to know everything.
Strange southern boy, cheekbones like slivers of moon, skin the colour of a distant star. No wonder he was a wolf, when the moonlight bled through his skin.
"Is he going to be okay?" Nancy asks the next morning when Steve's up and changing his shirt from the duffle he’d hastily packed the day before along with snacks for the kids, Dustin’s vitamins, Robin’s chapstick because she always complained when her lips got dry.
She pointedly doesn’t look at his bare chest, but when Steve looks at her, there’s a dusting of pink across her cheeks and the bridge of her nose.
"Eddie?"
"Yes."
"He's fine," he replies.
Nancy frowns. "How do you know that? You don't think we should send him away?"
"Nancy,” he sighs, wanting this conversation to be over. “We can't send him away just because he's different. And the kids love him, they’ll be so mad if they find out we’ve cast him out into the wilderness.”
"That's not what we’d be doing! We could keep him somewhere safe.”
“That sounds like he’s a prisoner.”
“You know what I mean .”
“Nancy, I really don’t.”
“He could be dangerous.” Nancy’s voice grows rueful as she watches Steve potter around, trying to make coffee with a rickety travel kettle because he needs caffeine. Misses the dark roast he brews at the cottage, how he steeps his tea using fresh lavender from the garden. “You should know that better than anyone."
Steve stiffens. He places the kettle back down. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"Nothing," Nancy says, a little too quickly.
"No,” he says, can’t help the glass in his tone. “You obviously have something to say, so say it."
"I just mean…” She shakes her head. “Steve, you know how volatile these kinds of men can be. You remember what happened with Billy."
Sometimes Steve wishes he’d never told her about that. Not that he had much choice when she’d seen him later that night looking like he’d been pulled through a hedge, bottom lip split, blood on the back of his jeans, shaking all when she ran to him and pulled him into her arms, her hand on the back of his head, pulling his face into her neck as he clung to her and cried.
He’ll always love her for that, no matter what happens between them.
"That was different. Eddie's different."
"You don't know that," Nancy says slowly.
“He’s good and kind, you’ve seen that.”
She looks at him, her gaze so piercing and steady that Steve wants to turn away, break eye contact.
“Until he changes.”
Because they always change .
All men have wolves inside them.
Steve opens his mouth, doesn’t know what he’s about to say, but knows it’ll be something cutting, that he’ll tell her to mind her own business, they’re not together anymore, she doesn’t get to tell him what to do.
Thankfully, they’re interrupted by Robin, who opens the door to the RV with a crash and says something about needing more supplies, she’s missing this and that , and Steve uses the excuse to slip past her and outside.
Eddie's just outside.
He's smoking a cigarette, his back against the RV, and he's so moody and beautiful in profile that Steve's heart trips, a rabbit caught in barbed wire.
"Hey wolf boy," he says.
Eddie turns to look at him, cigarette pinched between his fingers. He looks tired and his hair falls over his shoulders, long and lank. Steve wishes he could wash it for him. Wishes he could give Eddie a beautiful, hot bath. Back in the claw-foot tub in his cottage, the windows opening onto the garden where the birds fly down to play in their own little stone bath and the flowers grow unbidden with no hands to cull them.
Eddie would like it, he thinks.
"Hey," Eddie echoes. "Been talking to Wheeler about me?"
"You could hear us?"
Eddie taps his ear. "Got wolf hearing. Not everything disappears when I'm human."
Steve cringes slightly. "It wasn't anything bad, she's just worried."
"Uh-huh. Thinks I'm gonna tear Henderson's throat out at any second like a rabid dog?"
The thought makes Steve's throat catch. "It's not like that, she's bound to be protective."
Eddie brings the cigarette to his mouth and Steve watches the way he exhales smoke from his nostrils, how it coils in the air around him, like he isn’t a nerd at all, but a bad boy with a motorbike, in his leather and denim, his nose crooked like it’s been broken, how he can hotwire cars like it’s nothing, laughs like a maniac and speaks in riddles only the kids understand.
"And what about you?” he asks. “What do you think of my furry little problem?"
Steve walks closer, takes in the dark marks under Eddie's eyes. "I think it's unfair and you shouldn't be judged for it."
Eddie surveys him for a second then looks away, taking another drag from his cigarette. "Sure," he mutters, like he doesn't believe him.
“You didn’t come in last night.”
Eddie shrugs. “Always feels better when I’m outside. Feel restrained when I’m inside for too long.”
“Like you’re on a leash?”
A snort. “Sure, lay all the dog metaphors on me, baby.”
Baby.
Steve shakes his head to dislodge how that feels.
It only takes a split second for him to decide what he's going to do next.
"Munson," he says, "check this out."
When Eddie turns, he lifts a brow, letting his expression grow cocky.
"You're not the only one with gifts."
He kneels and presses his hand to the grass, presses it there until the energy flows through him, lush and green, and a ring of daisies blooms around it.
Eddie's mouth drops, the cigarette suddenly forgotten between his fingers.
The weight of his eyes prickles like claws down Steve's spine, flicking between the daisies and Steve’s face, like maybe it’s all a trick.
"Witch?" he asks when he's got breath again to speak.
It's the first time anyone's ever called Steve that and the word slips into his blood, intoxicates him.
He remembers all the times his father called his mother that, but always with a spit and a curse, never with the kind of wonder that fills Eddie's voice.
"Not quite."
Eddie's eyes narrow. "What does that mean?"
Steve looks at the kids in the near distance, all of them enjoying an innocent moment as they play-fight in the grass, and back at Eddie. "Walk with me?"
After a moment, Eddie nods, flicks the cigarette away and follows him around the RV.
Steve walks through the field, feeling Eddie's eyes on him the entire time. It’s quiet out here, on the edge of Hawkins, peaceful, and it makes Steve miss his cottage so much he aches with it. So funny, for Homecoming King and star athlete Steve Harrington to become a recluse after high school, to sell his house and move into a small cottage where he grew vegetables and flowers and made syrups and tinctures using his own herbs. He knew people talked about it, that they laughed behind his back on the days he went into town, gossiping about how queer the Harrington boy had become over the past year, but Steve had grown past caring a long time ago.
At the line of trees that mark the edge of the woods, he stops, waits until Eddie's at his side.
"So?" Eddie says after a moment of tense silence, "spill, Harrington, unless you want me to die of shock."
"Oh no," Steve replies drily, "we couldn't want that." He shifts, feeling strange and vulnerable in a way he hasn't for years. "My mom was a witch,” he says quietly. “It goes back for generations."
"Was?"
"She's dead."
"Shit," Eddie hisses, "I'm sorry."
"It was a while ago now."
“And you’re not pulling my leg?”
Steve sighs. “Oh yeah, it’s a huge prank, I made fake flowers pop out of the grass, you didn’t notice?”
“Okay, point taken.” Eddie stares at him and Steve wills himself not to go red. "So you were born with it?"
Steve nods. At least he thinks he was. Even as a child, he could do things. Could make bright sparks appear between his fingers, could open windows and doors with his mind if he focused hard enough. People had always been drawn to him. Children and animals. He was able to make flowers blossom, could revive them too. Sometimes dreamt things before they happened, felt people’s energy swirling around them in bursts of colour.
Eddie exhales. "That means you're powerful,” he says, and that tone has crept back in, the wondrous one, like Steve’s something special, something rare. “A natural-born witch."
"You know about witches?"
"What my uncle told me, yeah. He met a couple of them on the coast once, sea-witches. They're, uh," Eddie coughs, "mostly women I've heard."
"That's true," Steve says, hasn’t felt ashamed about it for years, "the divine feminine."
"It's cool."
He arches a brow at him. “Cool? Eddie Munson’s calling me cool?”
“I can make an exception just this once.”
"Well I’m sorry to disappoint you," Steve murmurs, watching the trees, at the two birds making a nest with twigs and leaves. "I can barely do anything."
"What do you mean?"
Steve turns back to look at him.
Eddie looks tired, but in the fading morning light Steve can see the wolf in the brown of his eyes, his thick, wild hair, how his untamed brows meet in the middle.
Why had he never noticed, he wonders. They had gone to school together for years, had Eddie really hidden it that well? Or had Steve just been blind to any suffering that wasn't his own?
"I don't have any real powers. What you saw back there is the best I can do. I can grow herbs and flowers pretty easily, I can make tinctures and teas that help with sickness and with wounds. I can make mini fireworks with my hands, kids' tricks mostly. Nothing big."
"The magic weakened when it was passed down?"
Steve shrugs, the feeling of pulling old stitches again.
"Fuck." Eddie's voice is light, teasing and Steve watches as a lop-sided smile grows on his face, his stomach swooping in a way it shouldn't. "Just never thought I was going to school with a witch this whole time. And it being Steve Harrington of all people."
"People surprise you sometimes, I guess."
"The others know?"
"All of them, yeah." He thinks about Eddie's confession last night, how the kids' eyes had lit up when he got back and told them. How they proclaimed Eddie to be the coolest now, even as Steve spluttered and loudly defended his status as the group’s undefeated coolest. "What about you? Have you always been a wolf?”
Eddie looks down, kicks a rock across the ground.
“For most of my life, yeah. Wasn’t born with it like you, but I’m a freak all the same.”
Steve wants to roll his eyes, but he knows there’s something there, insecurity beneath the posturing, the feigned nonchalance. "You don't have to keep calling yourself that, man. You're not a freak.”
“Keep telling yourself that, Harrington. You haven't seen me on the full moon yet."
Steve can’t help but smile. He presses in, enjoying the way Eddie’s eyes grow wide at the sudden proximity. "I bet you look so cute,” he says under his breath, “like a little puppy."
Eddie grimaces. "Dude, let me have a little dignity."
“Like how you gave me your vest last night?”
“Yeah, and I’ve noticed you’re still wearing it.”
“It looks good, sue me.”
Eddie’s eyes dip down, growing half-lidded. “It sure does.”
The air grows thick between them, loaded with something that feels purple and electric on his tongue.
Steve steps back, the tension pinging like an elastic band but not dissipating.
"What about your parents? Were they wolves?"
Eddie's mouth twists, his energy dipping into something muddied and murky. "I'd rather not talk about that, if that's okay."
"Yeah, for sure. I didn't mean to be nosy."
"You're not, I just haven't talked about them in a long time."
"It must have been hard to have kept it a secret all this time, especially in such a small town."
Eddie nods. "I've been lucky to have my uncle, he took me in when I needed it and keeps me safe on the full moon, even when I break into a nearby farm and kill all the chickens." Eddie makes a face again, like he can taste blood in his mouth. "I was fucking rude to you about it last night, I'm sorry, you didn't deserve that."
"It's okay, you were scared."
“Not very badass of me.”
“Why did you? Tell me first?”
Eddie looks at the trees, like he’s thinking about what to say, then at Steve. “Felt like I could trust you, I guess. I can see why Dustin likes you so much.” He coughs again, plays with the ends of his hair. “Anyway, thanks for not making me feel weird about it.”
Steve crinkles his nose. "I wasn't surprised to be honest. You do smell like a wet dog."
That pulls a laugh from Eddie, a delighted little one where the dimples pop up in his cheeks. He reaches out and shoves him. Just lightly, but it makes Steve smile and shove him back, harder, trying not to laugh as Eddie stumbles backwards a couple of steps.
Eddie comes charging back with a vengeance.
He rushes in but instead of shoving Steve, wraps his arms around him in a bear hug, crushing him against his chest and locking Steve’s arms to his side.
Their eyes meet and Steve's heart jumps to his throat, because Eddie’s deceptively strong, and his arms are all sinew and iron around him.
They stand there staring at each other.
Steve doesn’t try to break the embrace.
This close, Eddie feels like a furnace, like he’s burning up beneath his clothes.
"Are you always this warm?" Steve can’t help but ask.
Eddie swallows, eyes dipping to Steve's mouth. "Always. Wolf skin’s like fur even when we’re human.”
"You must be really handy to have around on a cold winter's night then."
"You could try me out and see."
Steve feels his eyes widen, the implication, the images it brings to mind, making his stomach pull tight.
“I can feel your heartbeat,” Eddie murmurs, still staring at his mouth. “It’s beating harder.”
A split second later, the tension cracks and Eddie's arms drop, chuckling awkwardly as he steps back and scratches the back of his head.
Steve fights the urge to ask him to put his arms around him again.
"Not sure," he says, in much safer territory when he's joking around, "wouldn't want to get fleas."
Eddie smiles. "Fuck you, man," he says, no sting in his voice.
They stand there, shyness in the air.
"I guess we should head back,” Steve says after a moment.
Eddie nods. "Yeah, totally.” He shakes his head, smiling again. “Steve Harrington, a witch. You’re full of surprises, you know that?”
“So I get a gold star?”
Eddie places his hands over his heart as if in prayer. “Baby, you get all of them.”
Steve rolls his eyes.
Shoves down all the white buds inside him threatening to bud and bloom into stars.
☾
Robin gives him a knowing look when she sees the two of them walking back together.
"Dogs, huh?" she asks when they're alone, picking out what weapons they're going to bring with them.
Steve blinks up from the gun in his lap. "What?"
"Come on, don't play dumb with me."
Steve looks across the field to avoid the knowing look in her eyes and sees Eddie with Dustin, heart swelling as he watches them hug.
"He's like a dad to Dustin," he says.
"And what does that make you? Mom?"
Steve's cheeks grow warm and he shakes his head.
“Just shut up, Robbie.”
"Not that it's surprising," Robin continues, a warm teasing lilt to her voice, "you always did have a thing for bad boys."
He looks back at her. "Since when?"
"Uh, since forever?"
"That's not an answer."
Robin bites her lip, grinning. She looks at Eddie too. "I wonder what they're talking about."
"I don't know. Nerd shit probably.”
"Did you tell him about you?"
"Some of it. Not everything."
"I'm surprised he hadn't noticed, to be honest."
Steve stares at her profile. "What do you mean?"
Robin looks back at him, brows rising. "You mean you haven't noticed?"
"Noticed what?"
She smiles, hair glinting gold in the afternoon light.
"Steve," she says softly, like she’s divulging a secret, "he looks at you all the time."
☾
It's a sweet feeling that doesn't last.
Not that night, when Steve approaches Eddie outside the RV as the others do their last checks inside and tells him he can't come with them.
Eddie stares at him, his long hair tied back with a bandana in a way that shouldn't be fucking cute but is.
"What the fuck are you talking about?"
"You can't go. It's too dangerous."
"Bull shit , I can help. Henderson and I have a plan, we know what to do."
"And leave Dustin alone with you? You said it yourself, if the full moon comes up..."
Eddie’s forehead creases like he’s in pain. "You don't know it will."
"And you don't know it won't."
Eddie shakes his head and his expression goes flinty and mean like it did the night before. "So I have to stay behind while rich boy Steve Harrington goes off and plays the hero?"
That stings, salt in old wounds.
“I’ve seen you die,” Steve says to him then.
Eddie blinks at him, goes unnaturally still. “What do you mean?”
“A hundred times. Maybe a thousand. Over and over again I’ve seen you die. I never knew who it was, the dark-haired boy in my dreams, but I know now.”
“I don’t believe you,” Eddie says, but he sounds rattled and he’s grown even more pale, all white skin and hair so black it looks blue.
“You don’t have to believe me, just stay away.”
“Why don’t you do a spell on me, make me?”
Steve exhales. “I told you, I can’t do magic like that.”
Eddie’s eyes narrow. “Have you even tried? Or are you too scared?”
This time, white ice floods through him, igniting all the places he'd been keeping warm for months.
“Fuck you, Munson. You don't know anything about me or what I've been through. You think because of what I told you today that you’re suddenly the authority on me? You don’t know shit so don’t act like you do.”
Eddie's expression crumbles, the cruelty in his eyes melting away. "Steve..."
Steve turns away before Eddie can do something stupid like apologise, or put his hands on him. "Forget it, do what you want, I don't care, just don't get in my way."
He leaves Eddie there, doesn’t say goodbye.
☾
Steve wasn’t lying.
He’s always known that witches have second sight. His mother had told him about it when he was a little boy, and sometimes Steve dreams of things before they happen.
It’s never fleshed out, always abstract, told in broad strokes of colour rather than the minute detail Steve needs to do anything about it, but the dreams he has of Eddie have always been the most vivid, the most painful.
He first had the dream when he was eight, when he woke up crying and his mom came running in from the other room. He had it again when he was eleven, then thirteen, then every year since then. He’d had it more frequently in recent months, where Steve wakes up with wet eyelashes and an ache in his ribs like something’s been ripped out of him. Something he hadn’t even known was there until it was missing.
He dreams of a dark-haired boy with a voice like a songbird and a smile that makes him yearn, who smells like fallen leaves and ripe apples, dirt under his fingernails, bleeding out under a moonlit sky. Bleeding white instead of red because he has the moon inside him.
He sees the same boy that night in the boat house, when he shoves Steve against the wall, a broken bottle pressed to the artery in his neck, an expression on his face like anger, terror, mouth curled back in a snarl.
Steve sees him and he knows.
Eddie Munson’s the boy of his dreams.
☾
Steve’s meant to be magic but most days he doesn’t feel like it. It had been passed down on his mother’s side but sometimes all it does is feel like a curse. When his birth, his sex, his difference , is the thing that makes his father turn away, or on the worst days, get angry.
He looks at his mother’s hazel eyes and her brown hair, looks at the locket around her neck, and wonders if he’s the reason his father hits her, if it’s why men treat him in the way they do. If instead of sorceress , a word applied to the most powerful of witches, the women that sired him, if the word siren would suit him better.
Siren, slut, serpent.
Most days he doesn’t feel powerful at all, all he feels is a weight, a strain, a longing to be normal.
Most days he feels like a butterfly, its wings torn off by cruel fingers.
Most days, he wishes he didn’t exist at all.
☾
The four of them set off without Eddie.
Four, because Dustin won’t sit put either, insists on coming with them, and Steve says okay, can’t turn him away after everything they’ve been through together. The plan is hatched. The four of them in one team, Max and Lucas in the other, Eddie in the trailer on watch.
They leave, and Steve makes sure he doesn’t look at Eddie once, even though he can feel his eyes on his back as they go through the gateway in the trailer.
It doesn’t matter, anyway.
Doesn’t matter because Eddie doesn’t listen, doesn’t stay behind like he said he would. Not beautiful, stubborn Eddie Munson, who’s stitched himself into Steve’s life, and like the glittering cobwebs that collect in the corners of Steve’s cottage, refuses to leave.
So Steve isn’t surprised to see him.
Feels resigned to it almost, feels fate come knocking.
Steve’s in the middle of grappling with two demobats when he sees him. Eddie arriving in the Upside-Down like an avenging angel, dark hair blowing behind him in the wind, guitar strung over his shoulder.
Stupid boy , Steve thinks.
Stupid, beautiful boy.
Eddie smiles at him, so mischievous even now. He’s at Steve’s side in an instant, ripping one of the bats away where it’s gnashing its teeth through Steve’s shirt, giving Steve an opening to finish off the second one.
When both bats are dead, he turns to Eddie, chest heaving, ignoring the tangle of emotions he feels at seeing him, clings to the red storm cloud of anger instead.
“What are you doing here?”
Eddie just winks, opens his mouth to say something but stiffens suddenly, nose flaring as he scents something on the wind. He turns, eyes seeking out Dustin through the gloom and runs to him, gets in front of him a split second before a demobat swoops down. He gets it in his hands and onto the ground, and Steve’s eyes go wide as he watches Eddie, who, instead of stomping on it with his boot, bends his head and bites it. Feels a quiver of electric in his stomach and between his legs as Eddie’s teeth sink in, as the bat screams, thrashes, and finally goes limp.
Eddie rises, mouth and chin stained black, spits the creature’s blood onto the ground.
Their eyes meet as Eddie helps Dustin up and Steve feels the urge to run to him. Feels stupid, wild, unbidden things. Wants to run his hands through all that long, dark hair, kiss the blood from Eddie’s mouth. Wants to strip his clothes off and push Eddie to the ground. Lie there with Eddie between his thighs, feel him rutting against him, show him how wet Steve gets whenever he’s near.
He wants things he can never speak.
Steve’s interrupted by another bat knocking into his side. It’s all rabid teeth and beating wings, and he tears his eyes from Eddie to deal with it, a doom clock ticking within him, the old dream rising like a rush of blood.
It doesn’t take long.
The full moon rises as they knew it would.
It hits with the sudden, violent force of a tidal wave. A blade of moonlight emerges from behind the clouds and seems to fix upon Eddie like a spotlight, dissecting his face as if in two, one half in light, one in shadow.
He only has time to cry out once, a shrill, agonising kind of scream that cuts through the air around them like a knife, before he’s seizing up, clutching his stomach with both hands as if something’s trying to claw its way out.
He falls to the ground with a full-body shudder.
Steve’s seen that kind of shudder before, remembers a girl from high school who had a seizure in class one day, how she had fallen from her chair and contorted on the floor, how frightening it had been, like she’d been possessed. Eddie moves in the same way, arms and legs twisting, mouth locked in an oval of pain.
“Oh my god,” Steve says, but nobody hears him. Not Robin or Nancy, who stand at his side, rooted to the spot in shock as they watch Eddie writhing on the ground in a patch of moonlight. And not the creatures of the Upside-Down, who pause their onslaught, creating a wide circle around Eddie, heads tilted, noses scenting, as if sensing the birth of something monumental.
The transformation, when it comes, is beautiful and grotesque.
Steve’s never seen anything like it.
Eddie’s on the ground, his hands digging into the earth and he’s screaming. The sound so blood-curdling it makes Steve’s ears rings, makes him step back instinctively, reaching for Robin’s hand. He hunches on the ground, body bent in a severe arch until, with a bone-splitting crunch, his back breaks, the bleached laddery bone of his spine cracking through his skin. He hunches like that, howling, clothes tearing as his bones change shape, dark fur growing like wildfire over the exposed mass of muscle and bone.
Next to him, Robin bends at the waist and is sick, and Nancy presses close, her hand around Steve’s arm, but Steve can’t look away. Feels transfixed as he watches the wolf take shape. As Eddie’s form lengthens and grows, as his fingers elongate into claws, nails like knives.
His face starts to change shape too. His lips splitting at the corners as the sound of his scream dips lower, turns into something strangled and animal, a howl that makes all the small hairs on Steve’s arms stand on end. His face splits and tears, skin shedding like paper, until another face starts growing through the gaping wound of his mouth, one with dark fur, a long snout and a mouth full of fangs.
Dustin tries to run to him, but Steve keeps him close, slings his arm around his chest and locks him down. Around them, the creatures continue to stare at Eddie, watching as a true predator emerges in front of them.
The transformation complete, clothes in shreds and dark patches of blood clinging to his fur, the wolf rises from his four-legged hunch on the ground. And Steve can’t do anything but stare. He’s nothing like the wolves in the books Steve read growing up, nothing like the sleek, elegant woodland animals his mother told him about. Eddie is hulking, monstrous, with red-ringed eyes, and as he rises to his hind legs, the beast lifts his head and howls under the ripe circle of the full moon.
He’s an apex predator, the strongest, most dangerous, the thing that appeared in children’s nightmares, the whispered story told around bonfires. Nothing like the puppy Steve had teased Eddie about, but a true monster. And as he howls, everything in his vicinity answers his call, the creatures around him howling in tune. The sound echoing around them, as if everything in the Upside-Down was bending its head in reverence.
A flash of movement in the side of his vision, a demodog emerging from the trees and running for Steve. He brings his arm up, doesn’t have time to reach the bat at his side, but it doesn’t matter. Not when Eddie comes bounding over, crashing down in front of him, shielding him from the dog with the massive bulk of his body.
Steve stares up at his back, frozen.
Eddie snarls, a sound that makes Steve quiver down to his bones. Takes the wolf between his jaws and tears it to pieces.
It’s over in seconds, the wet sounds of Eddie biting through meat and viscera turning to a sickening crunch as Eddie’s fangs snap through bone. Eating through the dog like it’s a chew toy.
When it’s done, Eddie drops the body to the ground, the huge gouges left by Eddie’s teeth coated in thick strands of saliva.
“Eddie,” Steve whispers.
Can’t believe it’s really him. The silly, bendy-legged boy from school who stood on tables and had dimples when he smiled. Who Steve had watched with Dustin the day before, how he had taken the boy in his arms. Who had blushed when he called Steve a witch.
The wolf turns at the sound of his voice, and Steve feels his breath leave him, feels rooted to the spot, as Eddie fixes his gaze on him, those red-ringed eyes.
Steve reaches out with shaking fingers to touch him.
He knows it’s a bad idea. Knows that mouth could bite him, could pull him in and swallow him whole. But he doesn’t care. Needs to know Eddie’s still in there.
He reaches out and places his hand on Eddie’s nose. Despite how ferocious he looks, his fur is warm and soft, and Eddie’s breath pants in the air between them, blood on his breath and the curve of his teeth.
“Eddie,” he says again.
Realises he can see him.
Can see Eddie in the centre of those eyes, where the red softens into a deep amber brown around the iris.
It doesn’t last long. The wolf jerks from the touch like it burns, stands upwards on his hind legs. Steve’s mouth drops at his height, the insurmountable size of him, all fur and muscle, some gargantuan hybrid of man and wolf. When his eyes dip to his chest, he realises he can see the outline of Eddie’s tattoos through the dark hair.
Movement, as more beasts emerge from the woods. Eddie growls when he sees them, a low, gravelly sound that makes Steve shiver, and he watches as Eddie bounds off again, lowering himself to all fours.
Steve’s not sure how long they fight. It could be minutes, or hours, but they keep coming. Bats, demons, things with long tongues and no faces, the creatures that have been haunting Steve’s nightmares since he was sixteen. He doesn’t remember much in the days afterwards, the brain softening what it can’t process, but he does remember the way Eddie killed everything in their midst, using teeth and claws, the thick blade of his tongue, the thrash of his tail. Remembers being dragged across the ground by a huge serpentine vine that curled around his waist, but being rescued by Eddie yet again, who bit through the thick flesh as easily as twine.
Then, the girls pulling him into the Creel House. Steve telling Dustin to stay put in the bushes outside, not to come out, makes him promise, not for anything. He sees Eddie in the distance, fighting with two demodogs, one of them tearing at the fur at his throat, and he grimaces, wants to run to him, can’t with Nancy’s tight grip around his arm, telling him to hurry.
“The plan,” she says, “they need us.”
So they go inside, face the horrors inside.
By the time they get out, everything’s changed.
Daybreak, thin and muddy because there’s no such thing as pure sunlight in the Upside-Down, has broken through the clouds. The first thing Steve does is look around for Eddie. He sees him in the distance, lying on the rocky ground. He’s changed back in the faint light of dawn, naked and so small, so broken, a doll smashed against the rocks. And Steve’s heart jumps to his mouth when he sees the ground around him flooded with red.
Steve runs to him as fast as he can.
Dustin’s there, kneeling at Eddie’s side, shoulders shaking as he cries. Steve pulls him aside, as gently as he can, and takes his place, eyes taking in all Eddie’s wounds, the gaping bite on his side, the chunk that’s been removed, that’s turned the ground beneath him red.
“What happened?”
Dustin shakes his head, voice thick with tears. “The bats, there was a swarm of them, they overwhelmed him, he couldn’t get away.”
“Okay,” Steve repeats, cataloguing everything, “it’s okay, everything’s going to be okay. Robin,” he says over his shoulder, “take Dustin.”
Robin does, pulling him away with an arm around him, leaving Steve with Eddie.
When he looks back at Eddie, the boy’s opened his eyes.
"Harrington," Eddie says, eyes glazed as he stares up at him. "Did I do good?"
Steve shakes his head, trembling all over like he’s the one naked. "I told you not to come.”
"Couldn't stay away, not when you needed me."
Anger boils over into something gnarled and twisted inside him and he shakes his head, wants to slap himself, wants to slap Eddie.
"You're stupid . You're a fucking stupid wolf. I should kill you myself for being so stupid."
"And you're beautiful," Eddie says as he stares up at him, blood pooling in the corner of his mouth. "Knew you would be. My uncle always said witches were the prettiest. Glad I got to see one before I died."
He stares down at Eddie, shocked.
"Sorry," Eddie laughs, even now always laughing, "don't even know if you like boys."
Steve's chest cracks open and the anger bleeds out with it. He wants to laugh, wants to cry at the same time, wants to curl up by Eddie’s side and never leave him.
"You're not going to die," he says, wishing his voice wouldn’t shake, hands patting over Eddie’s chest like he can stop the bleeding if just wishes hard enough. "You're going to live, and I'm going to nurse you back to health and cook you a steak when you’re better.”
Eddie grins, though it must hurt. "Sounds real nice." He looks up at the sky, at the sliver of sun, and his cheeks are wet with tears. "Might need a raincheck on that though, sweetheart. You said it yourself, you’ve seen me die already. Not that I’m not honoured, just wish you could have dreamt about me in some other way.”
"Eddie," he says, and he feels the tears on his cheeks, feels the others close behind him as they watch. "You can't leave. Please don't leave."
But Eddie's fading, eyes closing and his skin looks blue beneath the black of his blood.
Steve does the only thing that feels right, nothing his mother had ever taught him, but that sings to Steve all the time, following the thread that connects them, the red string he’s felt pulling at him since that night in the boat house when Eddie pushed him against the wall.
He bends his head and kisses him.
Under a moonlit sky in the Upside-Down, Steve bends his head and kisses the strangest boy he’s ever met, one with a southern voice and a smile that’s wild at the edges, like he was birthed by the woods and the stars.
As their lips meet, Eddie’s eyes fly open. He stares up at Steve, frozen, but after a moment he kisses back, a faint press of his lips that makes Steve light-headed. He closes his eyes, keeps kissing him, parts his lips a little, just to hear Eddie make a sound, a little moan, but not one of pain this time, lets himself enjoy it for a split second, like it’s a cold evening and Eddie’s dropping him home after a date, where they had milkshakes and fries and went to a movie. Like they’re just two boys, two normal boys, and they’ve got their whole lives ahead of them.
When Steve pulls away, Eddie's staring at him like Steve's something celestial, like he's seen an angel.
“Magic?” he asks.
Steve shakes his head. “Just the old Harrington charm, I’m afraid.” He sobers quickly. “Eddie, listen, we don’t have time, you need to bite me.”
“What?” Realisation dawns quickly. “Steve, no .”
“To save you, you need to bite me. I read about it in one of my mom’s books, it’s the only way.”
He remembers vividly, had spent a lot of time with that book, on that chapter, reading about how to end a wolf’s suffering as he knelt on the floor in the attic surrounded by his mom’s things.
When Eddie continues to stare at him, Steve says, “You have to, there’s no other choice.”
Eddie blinks rapidly at him and he shakes his head against the ground, looking horrified at the thought.
“No.”
“Steve?” Nancy says behind him, but Steve’s hand shoots up, silencing her. He knows what he needs to do. Has never known something as much as he knows this. He’s not good or smart, isn’t even a proper witch, but he can give himself to save Eddie.
"The bond," Eddie says, fresh blood bubbling between his lips, "it'll make you pack."
Steve strokes his hair back from his forehead. "Silly dog," he whispers as he bends over him. "I already am. Do you think we'd be here if we weren't?"
Eddie shakes his head, eyes wide.
“Steve…”
"Don't argue with a witch.”
He takes a knife out of his pocket and brings it to his neck, cuts a small jagged line. It immediately stings, but it’s nothing compared to how frightened he is, the fear pressing up urgently against his ribcage.
He presses himself down.
“Bite me,” he urges, feeling his pulse thump against Eddie’s mouth, “come on, Eddie. I want it.”
Eddie shivers, mouth opening against Steve’s skin.
But Eddie just lies there, not biting, or even licking at his skin, and Steve feels himself on the verge of screaming, to tell him not to be so stupid and stubborn. But then Eddie gives him a tentative lick, lips retracting, and relief floods through him, so potent he could cry.
Eddie presses his teeth against him, canines scaping against the flutter of his pulse, making Steve shiver all over, goosebumps breaking out on his arms.
A moment later, Eddie bites down.
☾
Somehow, against all odds, they manage to bring Eddie back with them.
It’s difficult, carrying him through the Upside-Down, a make-shift tourniquet around him, but the creatures have retreated for now, have recognised the superior predator in their midst. So they travel slowly, drenched in blood, until they find the opening back into the real world. Pass Eddie’s body between them like a broken bird.
They don't take him to the hospital, even though Nancy insists it’s the best place for him. Steve says no, instinctively knows Eddie won’t make it, that his wolf blood won’t take to the medication they give him, to the fluorescent lights and the machinery, how trapped he’ll feel. That the wolf inside him could go into shock.
So they bring him back to the cottage that Steve’s had for the past year, when he sold his father’s house the day he turned nineteen and dumped most of his belongings. Gave the furniture away, brought the antiques to thrift stores, poured the liquor down the drain. He kept some of his mother’s things, a necklace and a couple of her rings and a white slip she wore to bed, kept a couple of photos too, but got rid of everything else. Was happy to see it gone, his old wallpaper and basketball trophies, the outside pool where the girl died that night, and hoped another family would find happiness there.
The cottage is small, on the outskirts of Hawkins, half-hidden in the trees, where hardly anyone ventured, but it feels more like home than the Harrington mausoleum ever did, not dripping with ghosts, but with sunlight, where weeds and wildflowers burst through the cracks in the paving stones and butterflies fluttered down to rest on the windowsills like scraps of lace.
In his bedroom he lies Eddie down as carefully as he can, doesn't worry about the blood that immediately soaks the buttercream sheets a deep startling red, and tells the panicked, tear-streaked kids to go home. It’s hard to get them away, but he promises he’ll keep them updated, that they can visit and see Eddie in a few days.
He turns away Nancy too, who’s torn between staying for Steve and looking after the kids, going to the hospital where they’ve brought Max.
Robin takes the longest to convince, who thrums in the doorway to his room, looking at him anxiously.
"Are you sure you're going to be okay?" she asks, face pale and splattered with blood.
Steve turns where he’s kneeling by the bed and says, “I'll be fine, don't worry about me."
“But I can help, I can do anything you need.”
“It’ll be better if I do it alone.”
Her bottom lip wobbles, eyes big and glossy with tears. “But I want to be here for you.”
“You will be,” Steve says, placing his hand over his heart. “You’ll be right here.”
With a shaky smile, Robin nods and does the same. It’s a little thing they’ve been doing for months now, when one of them needs to be comforted. She leaves him with a bear hug and a softly spoken demand that he call her if he needs anything, that she’ll be back in two days.
Once she’s gone, Steve sets to work.
He takes the herbs and flowers he needs from the kitchen: chamomile for the inflammation, feverfew for the fever, bright yarrow flowers for Eddie’s wounds. Wills his fingers not to shake as he stitches up the wound in Eddie’s side, trying to keep the sob inside his own throat when Eddie's breath goes flinty and his pallor grows deathly white, his blood coating Steve’s hands up to the forearms.
The bite mark on Steve’s throat throbs as he works and he knows his neck is smeared with blood, but that’s good, he wants it to hurt. It means it worked. Through the bite he feels the bond between them forming, pink and raw like a newborn fawn. Coaxes it into being, tells it not to be shy. In his mind, he takes the bond in his hands, where it’s soft and malleable like clay, and uses it to tether Eddie to him, won’t let him drop over the other side, where he teeters dangerously. Keeps him bound to Steve’s side as he whispers words of comfort, gentles him and takes the pain onto himself, pulls the other boy against him and says, Eddie, stay here. Stay with me, be strong and stay.
The first week is a week of blood.
It’s touch and go the entire time, despite the bond and the clean, white energy that Steve courses through the open channel between them. He tries his hardest to bring the sickness from Eddie’s mounting infection into himself, making him retch and vomit into a bucket he keeps by the bed, but he just cleans up afterwards and goes back to work. He focuses on the infection in Eddie’s side, pressing fresh yarrow to the wound when he changes his bandages, and cleans it with a herbal wash of calendula, St John’s wort, gotu kola and Oregon grape. Steeps cloth in oregano and thyme and uses them as a compress to cool him down. Every now and then he consults the books he’s brought into the room, the few he’d managed to hide away before his father burned the rest. Relies on the paltry knowledge his mother had passed along on the rare days they were alone, with a pinch of his own intuition.
Eddie howls through the worst of the pain, bloodies his throat with it, but Steve stays by his side the entire time, patient throughout, only leaving to boil water for his bandages, or to cook up a syrup with white willow bark to dampen the pain, sleeping and eating in small increments when Eddie’s sleeping too. He spends his hours tending to him: holds his hand, whispers to him, massages the bond, making sure he’s comfortable, not in too much pain.
Whenever he’s gone, Eddie cries out for him.
“I’m here,” he says when he comes back into the room, stroking Eddie’s hair back from his sweaty forehead and pressing a washcloth there. Croons pretty tangles of words and lullabies to him when Eddie’s delirious from the fever and thinks he’s still a child, when he calls out for his parents, cries from nightmares that plague him through the night, ones of blood and teeth and bone.
“Why are you doing this?” Eddie asks on the fourth night when Steve’s applying a herbal balm to his side, one he made that afternoon with calendula, comfrey and rosemary mixed with bee’s wax to thicken it.
Steve looks at him. “Doing what?”
“This? Tending to me?”
Steve thinks about what to say. Opts for half-truths, the safest way ahead. “You saved Dustin, you came for us even though I told you not to. You were brave.”
“‘M not brave,” Eddie says bitterly, “I’m a monster.”
“Stop,” Steve tells him, can’t help the brittle way he says it, worry and fatigue wearing him down. “Please stop, you need to preserve your energy.”
“You should just take me outside and shoot me, put the dog down.”
Steve puts the salve down, takes a deep breath so he doesn’t snap and says, “I said stop.”
Eddie does as he’s told, looks at the ceiling instead with a sullen look on his face, though Steve doesn’t miss the way tears fall into his hairline.
Each day, Steve cradles the tentative bond between them, keeps feeding it, nourishing it, coursing his own energy into it, watching as it turns from a pale petal-pink to a darker dusky rose. When Eddie’s asleep, he works on it, strengthening it where it looks weak, braiding flowers and wreaths of ivy around it and breathes a shaky sigh of relief when he sees Eddie’s not teetering on the edge of that cliff anymore, the one where the drop fades into a thick mist, but is further in the thicket with Steve, where they sit cross-legged and make daisy chains. Sometimes he’s the age he is now, other times he’s a young teen, a child, but whatever form he finds Eddie in he smiles, makes sure he feels safe.
He’s so relieved the morning he realises Eddie isn’t on the precipice of death anymore he falls into his first deep sleep in almost six days, wakes up with a jolt to find himself curled up on the side of the bed next to Eddie, the dawn light whispering through the window.
Eddie’s sitting up against the headboard, pale but with pink in his cheeks, and looking down at him.
“Sleeping beauty,” he greets, voice hoarse.
Steve sits up, scrubs at his eyes. “I fell asleep?”
“Yeah, and you snore really cutely too.”
“I do not, oh my god.”
Eddie smiles, and Steve’s so glad to find the bandages at his side not soaked with red.
“God, I’m starved,” he says, and Steve exhales shakily, trying not to laugh. He’d been feeding Eddie little bits of food each day, mostly bread softened in milk and honey, or spoonfuls of soup. But now he goes to the kitchen and makes him scrambled eggs with toasted sourdough, feels happiness bubble up inside him when he watches Eddie eat it all like a starved man.
Things get better after the first week.
The infection in Eddie’s side starts to abate, and the edges of the worst wound begin to scab around the edges. Steve looks at it when he’s changing Eddie’s bandages, and suddenly, without warning, breaks down in tears, burying his face in the bedspread by Eddie’s side and trembling when Eddie brings his hand down and strokes his hair. Eddie doesn’t say anything, just lets Steve cry, keeps his hand on him the entire time, carding fingers through his hair in the way his mother did when he was a little boy.
Once the panic is gone, and the bleeding has stopped, a gentle kind of ritual begins to sink in. One of food and bringing flowers in from the garden to put by Eddie’s bedside, of playing music on the radio he brings into the room and humming along with the old tunes. One afternoon he catches Eddie watching him in the corner of his eye as he sings along to Marvin Gaye, and feels himself grow shy when Eddie says he has a pretty voice.
Steve bathes Eddie when it’s safe to do so, brings a sponge and a basin of warm soapy water into the room and washes him. Then, when he’s stronger, helps him to the bathroom to do it there.
Washing him embarrasses Eddie at first, makes his cheeks glow an endearingly neon red, and Steve feels himself go red too, trying to ignore the thick thatch of hair on Eddie’s chest, and then, what lies between his legs. That even soft is still very impressive, and wolf-like in ways that makes Steve’s pulse trip in his neck. When he glances at it and then up at Eddie’s face, their eyes meet and skirt away again, both of them blushing as they look at opposite ends of the bathroom. But Eddie soon relaxes into it, and Steve can tell he likes it, being looked after in this way.
Each day he makes them both food. Eggs with fresh chives in the morning, sandwiches in the afternoon, stews and soups in the evening using the vegetables Steve’s been growing in the garden. He makes them tea throughout the day too, which he steeps in a teapot that belonged to his mother, using honey and lemon, sometimes fresh sprigs of lavender and thyme. Grudgingly allows Eddie coffee in the mornings too when he starts to gripe for it.
Steve knows Eddie’s feeling better when he starts doing things like that, and when he starts feeling mischievous again. When he tears the corner from a sandwich where he’s sitting up in bed and says through a mouthful of mozzarella and pesto, “So how much is this at-home care costing me? You gonna whack me with a huge bill at the end of my stay?”
“You know it,” Steve replies where he sits next to him, socked feet curled up on the bed. He’d moved Eddie to the armchair that afternoon so he could change the sheets and the smell of fresh cotton soothes his nerves. “I’m gonna rinse you for all you’re worth, Munson.”
They talk the entire time. More and more as the days go by. Eddie gets chattier as some of his energy comes back and the pain in his side subsides. They talk about stupid things at first, arguing about movies and the best flavour of ice cream (vanilla cheesecake for Steve; liquorice for Eddie, which Steve decries as foul) but as the days drip on, they unearth other things: the places they’d visit on a road trip, what they dreamt of being when they were kids. Eddie tells Steve about his uncle, the trailer, tells him about Kentucky where he grew up, what it’s like to hunt deer or go ice-fishing. In turn, Steve opens himself up and tells Eddie about the stupid country club his dad made him go to when he was growing up, about the pony he wanted but was refused, little things about his mom, the abilities he had inherited from her.
The entire time, Eddie listens to him, stretching out in bed in a lionish, lazy way that makes Steve itch under his t-shirt, all his tattoos and lithe muscle on display, the white etching of scars turning him into something sacred, a religious icon, the sheets bundled around his waist.
But Steve isn’t used to anyone listening to him at length like he’s interesting . When Eddie interrupts and asks him to clarify something, or to ask for more detail, and Steve falters where he’s fluffing his pillows or checking his bandages because no one, with the exception of Robin, has ever treated him like that. Like anything Steve has to say is of importance. People have always found him funny, charming, but no one’s looked at him in the way Eddie does, like he’s trying to work him out, peeling his layers away day by day, looking for his core, what makes him tick. Looks, Steve suspects, for his hidden heart.
Steve keeps everyone up to date as he promised he would. He calls Robin and Nancy each day, then each of the kids. He kisses Robin on the cheek when she brings him groceries from town one morning, bringing him the bread he likes because he hasn’t had time to bake his own.
On the seventh day Dustin arrives, now with Mike and Will in tow, who’ve made their way from California and have so much to tell him , but he reluctantly says Eddie can’t handle visitors right now and doesn’t let them in his room. Does accept the presents they’ve brought him before they leave, the candy and comics and a battered copy of something called A Wizard of Earthsea.
So he “doesn’t die of boredom” , Dustin says, and Steve play-acts kicking his butt out the front door.
He makes sure to call the hospital and check in on Max every day. Calls Eddie’s uncle too, using the number Eddie scrawls on a piece of paper. Brings the phone in to him and gives him privacy, closing the bedroom door as he hears the man on the other end cry.
Steve’s never shared his life with anyone before, but he finds he likes it, and on the nights where Steve puts the book down where he’s been reading to Eddie, he looks at the ceiling and thanks the gods for keeping him here. He thanks the moon, he thanks Mother Nature, he thanks everything lush and green, the herbs and flowers in his garden, how the birds sing to Eddie each morning. He reaches inside and thanks the bond between them, the bite on his neck that’s started to scab, that will leave his skin mottled with two thin white lines. He thanks the magic in his hands, even though it isn’t very much, and ultimately, he thanks Eddie for being stubborn and strong.
☾
Towards the end of the third week, Eddie’s colour has returned, and Steve thinks he’s well enough to venture into the garden. So he brings him out there, Steve's arm around his waist to keep him upright, and sits him down on a deck chair on the small porch.
"It's so nice out here," Eddie says, taking the chipped mug of ginger and turmeric tea that Steve brings out to him, looking at Steve’s allotment and the flowers that grow in bright explosions of colour. He’s shirtless, never gets cold like Steve does, even at night, but Steve wraps a tartan blanket around his shoulders anyway. “Did you buy this place yourself?”
Steve sits down in the chair next to him, his own tea in his hands. He blows across the top where it’s steamy. “Yeah. Sold the house where I grew up. You know the big one on Wisteria? Then bought the cottage on my birthday after thinking about it for a couple of weeks. The woman who owned it was a widow. She took a shine to me and sold it to me right away.”
“And you like it out here?”
Steve sips his tea, nods. “It’s what I needed. I couldn’t be there anymore, not after my mom died.”
“Can I ask what happened to her?”
Steve looks up at the stars. Thinks about the past couple of weeks, how close they’ve become. So different to those first few tentative days where they tip-toed around each other, wary and off-kilter.
“She killed herself.”
A sharp intake of breath. “She…?”
“Killed herself,” Steve repeats, finds voicing it doesn’t hurt as much as it used to. “My dad had been hurting her for years, he couldn’t bear her being a witch. I think maybe it made him small, less powerful than her, so he took it out on her. And then one day, I guess she just couldn’t take it anymore.”
“God, Steve, I had no idea.”
“Not many do. Only a few people.”
“Where’s your dad now?”
“He left when I was seventeen, has a new wife and baby up in New York, I think. I’m not sure. I burned all his letters, never took his calls or told him I was moving.”
They sit in silence for a few moments until quietly Eddie asks, “Do you miss her?”
Steve strokes his finger along the rim of his mug. “Every day,” he says honestly. “I always think of things I wish I’d said to her, you know. It’s one of the reasons I bought this place, she always wanted a little cottage with a garden.” He finally looks at Eddie. “She conjured a spell when I was a baby to repress my powers. It’s why I can’t do much, why it only comes through in small ways.”
Steve’s never told anyone that before. It hurts but feels cathartic, necessary.
Eddie blinks at him, the tea in his hands going cold. "Why did she do that?"
"She never told me. I think she didn't want me to face the same fate her own mother and grandmother did.”
"They were killed?"
Steve nods. “The persecutions. It's why she married into my dad’s family. For protection."
He expects apologies, all the dramatic things people usually say at times like this, about how sorry they were, how they wish they could do something but Eddie just reaches out and takes his head.
“You’re incredible,” he says.
That’s what does it.
Steve quivers, feels himself on the verge of sudden tears, and Eddie makes a sympathetic, soothing noise in the back of his throat
“Come here,” he says, tugging at him.
Steve goes to him and they bundle into the one chair together, under the blanket, Steve half on Eddie’s lap. It brings them so close they’re pressed together, but it feels warm and good. Feels right. The bond between them purring at the proximity, pulsing with satiny gold light.
“Better?” Eddie asks when he’s settled against him and Steve nods. “Can I tell you something now?”
“Of course,” Steve replies, so close he can count Eddie’s eyelashes, “you can tell me anything.”
Eddie breathes in, the sound of dredging something up from deep within. “Remember when I wouldn’t talk to you about my parents?” When Steve nods, his mouth twists like he’s tasted something bitter. “It’s because I killed them.”
Steve blinks at him, startled. “Killed them?”
“Yeah,” Eddie swallows, “never told anyone that before.”
Steve watches him, the crease between his brows, the downward knot of his mouth. “What happened?”
Eddie tugs the blanket around Steve, like he needs something to focus on. “I was twelve,” he says, “we were on a family vacation, camping up in the Appalachian mountains.” His brow creases more, a painful twitch. “It’s beautiful up there, you’d love it. So quiet, just the sounds of nature, the birds, pitter-patter of deer feet, and you’re surrounded on all sides by trees and lakes. I was out early one morning, wanted to find wild mushrooms, impress my dad by bringing some back. I was deep in the forest, away from camp, when it happened.”
“A werewolf?”
Eddie nods, that sour note still on his face. “I didn’t know that at the time, of course. Just thought it was a regular wolf, but there was something wrong with it, it looked hurt, there was this wound on its side. I was stupid, I got close to it, thought I could help it, could go back and get my parents, but that’s when it bit me. I don’t know if it was scared, or what, but it got its mouth around my arm and bit down. I have a scar there, I’m sure you saw it when you brought me back.”
Steve nods, he had noticed that. A deep white scar in the shape of teeth on Eddie’s upper arm. Not the delicate webbing of some of Eddie’s other scars, but vicious, like he’d been gouged.
“But that’s not the worst of it.” Eddie takes a deep breath and exhales. “When I woke up, the wolf was gone. I’d lost a lot of blood, but my parents found me, brought me straight to the nearest hospital, where they patched me up, gave me a blood transfusion.” Eddie laughs, but it’s not bright, nothing like a bell. “Not that it mattered. Because a month later the full moon rose and I changed, right there in the middle of my bedroom. I was so fucking scared, I didn’t know what was happening, I just remember the blood and the pain. I thought I must have done something so terrible, to hurt so much.” Eddie’s breathing goes tight and wet, and Steve tightens his arms around him. “When I came to, it was morning, and I was me again, but my parents, they were dead. I found my dad in the kitchen, and I’d… I’d ripped him open, his chest exposed, I remember seeing his guts, the smell of them.” Eddie shudders. “I found my mom outside, she’d made it to the back yard, but I’d killed her too, she was on her front and her back was clawed to ribbons.” Eddie presses his face to Steve’s shoulder. “I just fell to the floor, I was in shock, I couldn’t move, couldn’t do anything.”
Steve can just imagine it. Eddie, just a child, finding his parents dead, knowing he’d done it. Only twelve and already knowing the taste of violence.
“What happened then?”
“It took a couple of days—”
“ Days?” Steve interrupts. “ You were alone at the house for days? Oh my god, Eddie…”
“Yeah. It took a couple of days, but the neighbours came over and found me, saw the bodies of my parents. Called the cops, who came and cordoned off the house, took me down to the station. Blamed it on a wild animal breaking into the house. A bear, maybe, even though we never got bears around there. I had to talk to this woman, a child therapist, and then they called Wayne, my uncle, and he came to pick me up.”
Steve listens, thinks his heart might break in two.
“Eddie, sweetheart…”
“I couldn’t keep it in. I managed two days at the trailer until I broke down and told him everything. Not that he believed me, not until the full moon rose again. Then he knew, it wasn’t just some fucked-up trauma dream.” Eddie wipes his eyes with his arm. “So yeah, I lied to you when I told you I hadn’t hurt anyone before. It’s worse than that. I killed my own parents.”
“It’s not your fault.”
Eddie’s eyes grow bitter. “How is it not my fault? I did it. I fucking killed them.”
“It was the wolf, not you.”
Eddie starts to cry. “But I should have known, I should have tried to do something.”
Steve shakes his head. “It’s not your fault,” he says again,” there was nothing you could have done.”
Eddie shakes his head, overcome with tears, and Steve takes him deeper into his arms. He keeps him like that, rocking him gently and letting him cry, letting him get it all out, every wet, rotten piece of it. He holds Eddie through his sobs. Strokes the bond between them too.
When he’s quietened down, he kisses Eddie’s brow. “Thank you for telling me,” he says.
Eddie lifts his head from Steve’s chest, eyes swollen, lips red. He’s left a damp patch on Steve’s sweater, but he doesn’t mind.
“Wayne didn’t kick me out, he was so good to me about it. Made sure whenever the full moon came up, I was out in the woods, in the middle of nowhere, where I couldn’t hurt anyone. But you were right. It was fucking stupid of me to come after you the other night, I could have hurt you too. I could have killed all of you.”
“But you didn’t.”
“Just couldn’t bear the thought of you getting hurt.”
Steve strokes his hair out of his eyes, thinks about the way the wolf had looked at him. “I looked into your eyes and I knew you were there. What happened to your parents, that wasn’t your fault, it was the first time you had changed, you were a prisoner to it. But you can harness it now, I saw that.”
“You don’t think I’m disgusting?”
Steve runs his hand down Eddie’s cheek, strokes him with his thumb. “I’d never think that.”
Eddie nods, doesn’t look convinced, but presses his cheek back to Steve’s shoulder, lets Steve stroke his hand down his back and hum to him.
They sit there for over an hour, enjoying the balmy evening air, the sound of owls and crickets, until Steve realises Eddie’s staring at him.
He turns to him. “What?”
"Nothing, it’s just…” Eddie shakes his head, smiles. “I was right about you, you do have magic in your touch."
Steve tries to ignore the butterflies in his belly, their wings black and blue like Eddie's hair. "I'm sure you say that to all the witches."
Eddie snorts, but it’s a cute sound, all dimples and teeth. "You're my first, remember?"
"Did I live up to everything you were told?"
“That and more.”
Steve rolls his eyes. “You’re easily impressed.”
“I don’t know, I mean… you’re a fantastic nurse, you can make homemade soup, beat demon bats to shreds with your bare hands. You’re easy on the eyes…”
“I think the word you used was beautiful .”
“Don’t remember that, I was delirious from blood loss.”
“Oh, sure, of course, that’s totally it.”
Eddie smiles. His eyes stray to Steve’s neck, to the place where he bit him, face growing serious. He reaches out to trace his finger along it and Steve barely manages to keep back a little shudder.
"That'll scar," he says, "it'll stay with you forever."
Steve gives him a shaky smile, Eddie’s touch igniting a small trail of fire inside him. "It’s no big deal.”
“No big deal?”
“I have other scars. On the inside. It’ll be nice to have one of the outside for once.” When Eddie laughs, he frowns. “Why is that funny?”
“Only you would say that about being bonded to a werewolf. Steve Harrington, always full of surprises.”
“I said I don’t mind.”
Eddie tilts his head back, dumb smirk on his face. “Maybe you’re just crazy.”
Steve shrugs, settles back against Eddie where he’s warm and soft like fur. “Maybe.”
After a moment, Eddie puts his hand on Steve’s, plays with his fingers, strokes each one.
“What will we do?” he asks.
“Just sit here for now. We’ll figure it out.”
☾
It’s a couple of nights later when they’re on the couch together watching an old black and white movie on Steve’s small TV when Steve turns to Eddie and says, “It was impressive, you know.”
Eddie turns to him with a brow raised, hand buried in a bowl of popcorn that Steve heated on the stove with butter and rosemary. “Impressive?”
“You,” he says, feeling his face grow warm, knowing he’s half-draped over Eddie under the blanket, but in no mind to pull away. “When you turned.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah,” Steve says, cramping on the inside. He turns back to the TV before he can embarrass himself further, knows Eddie’s still watching him.
“Well thank you for telling me.”
“You’re welcome. Now shut up, I’m trying to watch the movie.”
☾
That night in bed, Steve goes to sleep in the spare bedroom for the first time since bringing Eddie back.
In the dark, alone, he lets himself unfurl. Grows wet and needy beneath the sheets, fingers seeking where he's empty, where he pushes inside and moans into his pillow, turning onto his front and hitching his hips from the bed. It feels so good, something he hasn’t done in a long time, but that makes him molten, his thighs trembling around his wrist. He gasps as his fingers slide deeper, where he’s wet and soft on the inside, so wet he drips down his thighs, and says a name, thinks about a set of sharp teeth holding him down by the scruff of his neck, of claws dragging down his spine, a nose snuffling at him.
In the dark of his room, he lets his mind run wild. Lets himself want things he can never utter.
He wants teeth and claws embedded in him.
Wants to be filled, wants to grow heavy with seed.
Wants his baby, his bite, everything .
He’s reaching his peak far too quickly, so fast it’ll hurt, when he senses movement behind his door, the old floorboards creaking. A sharp inhale makes Steve’s ears prick up, but then nothing, silence, like the person is holding themselves very still.
The thought of it, of knowing Eddie is just outside, that he’s using his wolf hearing to listen to him pleasure himself, pushes him over the edge. Steve presses his other hand to the bite on his neck and he gasps that name again, louder this time, not muffled into his sheets but into the air, and squirts around his fingers, pushing his needy cunt down into the pillow between his legs.
With Eddie’s name on his lips and his bite on his neck, Steve comes harder than he ever has before.
His head goes cottony for a while, as he slips into a thin sleep, hips falling back onto the bed. When he wakes a few minutes later, he hears movement again, this time down the hallway. He listens to the click of a bedroom door closing, and with rosy cheeks and trembling thighs, wonders what Eddie’s doing now.
☾
Things are awkward the next morning, quiet and tense when Eddie makes his way out of bed by himself and into the kitchen where Steve’s making breakfast. But when Steve starts scrambling eggs Eddie presses his arm against his as he makes coffee, Steve relaxes against it.
Neither of them mention it and things go on as normal.
☾
Towards the end of the fourth week, Eddie’s well enough to go home, though his side needs to be bandaged still and he needs a crutch, which Steve has left over from hurting his leg falling off roller skates the year before when he was playing around with the kids.
They both delay talking about it for a few days, but the full moon is rising soon, and Eddie needs to be back at the trailer for it. Even though Steve quietly thinks he could just transform here, where he has the safety of the woods to run around, where there aren’t any neighbours to see him, or people he could come across and hurt.
Steve doesn’t mention it, anyway.
Thinks, maybe, it would be too intimate, doesn’t want to make Eddie uncomfortable.
Their last night together comes fast.
Too fast, after Steve’s grown used to moulding his daily life around Eddie, of making them breakfast and tea in the morning, of going into the garden where Eddie reads and watches him tend to his flowers and vegetables, the two of them baking bread in the afternoon, their faces and hands covered in flour. Then listening to the radio and watching TV in the evenings, old black and white ones usually because Steve likes them the best. In between, he checks Eddie’s wounds, makes sure they’re clean and steadily healing. Giggles when Eddie talks to the kids on the phone, at the way Eddie becomes a big kid himself. Putting his hand on Eddie’s back when he says, choking up, that he’ll visit Max as soon as he can.
Steve keeps his word and on their last night before Eddie goes home, cooks him a steak.
"What am I going to do without my daily sponge baths," Eddie bemoans as he watches Steve cook. Greedily eyeing the slab of beef that Steve got from the butcher’s that morning, which Steve’s basting with butter, garlic and fresh rosemary from a pot on the windowsill.
“You’ll survive, I’m sure.”
“You say that, but a man can get used to this kind of treatment, it’s cruel to rip it away so abruptly.”
Steve can’t help but smile. “You’re ridiculous.” He points to the steak. “You want it rare, I’m guessing?”
Eddie lets his tongue snake out where he’s leaning against the counter next to him. “So rare it’s blue, baby.”
“You’re so gross,” he admonishes, ignoring the pet name, how it makes his stomach flutter.
He looks at Eddie again, at the sweater he’s wearing. Eddie’s been wearing Steve’s clothes the entire time he’s been at the cottage, and Steve can’t help but laugh sometimes, at how much he looks like a stray dog that’s been dressed up in bows and ruffles. But the cream cable knit he wears this evening suits him. With his hair pulled back in a loose pony, he looks handsome.
When the steak’s ready, and the hasselback potatoes are crisp and salted, Steve prepares Eddie’s plate and presents it to him with a flourish. Watches as Eddie practically starts to salivate looking at it.
He snatches it away just as Eddie reaches for it.
“Actually, my mistake,” he teases. “Shouldn’t I put it on the floor for you? Shall I put it in a dog bowl?” He looks around dramatically. “I might have one around.”
Eddie gives him a look, one of his slow smirks.
“Why don’t you try me?” he asks. “Put it on the floor by your feet and see if I eat it.”
Steve’s smile twitches as the air between them grows thick, heady like they’re sharing a cigarette, smoke curling between their mouths, connecting them.
He rolls his eyes to break the tension, putting the plate down on the counter in front of Eddie. “Okay, whatever, weirdo, you can eat now.”
They eat casually, standing at the island in the kitchen, Steve pouring red wine into two glasses to distract himself. The air remains charged, the two of them meeting eyes every now then before smiling awkwardly and looking away, and Steve knows the feeling distinctly, remembers describing it to Dustin two years ago. Sky before a storm. Sexual tension.
He gulps the rest of his wine a little too quickly and pours himself another glass, frowning when he sees Eddie’s already finished his steak.
“Seriously?” he asks. “Already?”
Eddie pats his stomach. “What can I say? I’m a growing boy.”
“You haven’t even touched your vegetables.”
“I’ve never liked the green stuff.”
“The green stuff is nutritious, so eat it right now.”
“Yes, okay, mom.”
As Steve watches, Eddie eats every last piece, then lifts the plate to his mouth and licks up the little bloody pool that has collected under the steak, grinning when Steve’s nose wrinkles in disgust.
“You’re an animal, you know that?”
“Oh, baby, say it again, love when you talk dirty.”
“Shut up , I hate you.”
“Come on, you love me.”
Steve takes another sip of his wine, pointedly doesn’t answer that as he fiddles with his fork. Winds up giving Eddie a third of his own steak, as he nibbles on some remaining hasselback potatoes from the dish.
They finish eating and Steve valiantly declares that he’ll start the dishes now, it’ll save him doing it before they go to bed.
He’s stacking everything by the sink, Eddie standing next to him in a comfortable, sleepy silence, because he always wants to be near Steve now, whether he’s in the house or the garden, always winds up following him. Has even started sitting outside the bathroom door when Steve’s relaxing in the bath and talking to him through it.
Steve finds he doesn’t mind it.
Thinks he might miss it.
Eddie leans back against the counter, presses his arm ever so lightly against Steve’s, smiles at his profile.
“I really would have eaten it at your feet, you know.”
Steve laughs. “You’re such a freak, of course you would. But please don’t do that, I’m not a god, it’ll go to my head.”
“You are a witch though. A beautiful one.”
“You’re calling me beautiful again?”
He starts on the dishes as Eddie watches. Until Eddie says, in a quiet voice that Steve almost doesn’t catch over the water running, “I wish I wasn’t going tomorrow.”
Steve swallows, tries to keep his voice light as he replies, “Honestly, you’ll be relieved when you’re there and I’m not there to nag you all the time.”
He expects a retort, something idiotic and witty in response, but Eddie doesn’t do that.
Instead, he reaches out and puts his hand on Steve’s forearm. His touch so hot it feels like a brand, so startling it makes Steve fumble with the wine glass in his hand.
It drops, smashing to the floor.
“Oh shit,” Eddie says as he looks at the shattered glass. “Sorry, fuck, let me clear it up. They weren’t expensive, were they? I can get you another one.”
Steve shakes his head, dries his hands.
“Don’t worry, let me do it.”
“No, you could cut yourself, let me.”
“Eddie—”
“No,” Eddie repeats, and a hint of something creeps into his voice, his tone dropping to a basement floor baritone. It feels like rubbing up against gravel, makes Steve want to arch up against it like a cat. “Sorry, shit,” Eddie says, turning bashful. “I didn’t mean to go all wolf on you, I just don’t want you to hurt yourself.”
Steve manages to unstick his tongue enough to say, “You can go all wolf on me if you want to.” Cringes as soon as he says it.
Eddie stares at him. “What?”
Steve tries to laugh, makes a sound that sounds more like he’s being strangled. “Nothing, forget it.”
He looks around for a dishcloth, something to collect the glass. Thankfully it had only broken into a few large pieces.
“What if I don’t want to forget it?”
Steve runs his hand through his hair. Finally finds a dishcloth. “There’s no point talking about this. You’re going home tomorrow anyway.”
“I mean, I don’t have to.”
Steve looks back at him. In the amber kitchen lights, Eddie looked oddly vulnerable. Biting his bottom lip, eyes round and dark, nothing like the cocky loudmouth Steve knew from school.
“You don’t want to?”
“Not really, no.”
“Why?”
“Why do you think ?”
Steve sighs, exasperation creeping in. “Maybe just tell me and I’ll know .”
Eddie breaks eye contact, fixes his gaze on the far wall. “It’s just…”
“What?”
"It's scary how I feel about you."
Steve stares at him, feels his heartbeat in his neck and his wrists, how hard it’s beating.
"How do you feel about me?"
Eddie looks at him again and this time his expression has gone dark, brooding. "I want to kill anything that touches you."
The admission is blunt, tastes like the truth.
"You don't even know me.”
"I know you're kind and brave. I know that you're lonely."
Steve frowns, can’t help but feel on-guard. “How would you know something like that?”
“Because I used to watch you at school all the time. You were always so confident, so charming. Like nothing could touch you. But whenever no one else was looking at you, your smile would drop like a mask.”
Steve mentally tries to catch up, feels like he’s lost the thread somewhere and can’t find it again. “You were watching me?”
The edges of Eddie’s mouth curl upwards in a small, resigned smile. “Guess I had it bad.” He looks at the glass on the floor, takes the dish cloth from Steve’s hand. “Here,” he murmurs, “let me clean up.”
Steve, for once, lets him do what he wants. Watches as Eddie kneels and carefully looks for every piece of glass, gathering the mess up and putting it in the trash. Tries to still the rapid beat of his heart, finds he can’t.
“Why didn’t you ever say something?”
Eddie groans as he throws the dishcloth to the side. “Come on, man. Me? With you?”
“Is that so weird?”
“Maybe not since I found out about you.”
“Oh, that I’m a freak?”
“That you’re different , like me.”
Steve shakes his head. “I’m a witch that doesn’t work, Eddie. I’m not anything special.”
Eddie walks up to him, gets right up into his space, because of course Eddie would. Stupid, beautiful, brave Eddie Munson who never backed down even when he was betting on a losing game.
“That’s not true,” he says. “You are special. You’re singular.” He grins like they’re sharing a secret. “I think you’re kinda wild.”
That startles a laugh from Steve. “Says the werewolf.”
“You say you can’t do magic but everything you do is filled with it. You kissed me and brought me back from the dead.”
“You were just sleeping, I woke you up.”
“Then you brought me back here and spent weeks looking after me.”
“Anyone would do that.”
“No,” Eddie says, completely serious. “Not anyone. Just you. You bonded us just to save me. Don’t you see it? How amazing you are?” Eddie’s eyes dip to the scar on his throat. He’s looked at it a lot over the past few days, sometimes when he thinks Steve doesn’t notice, but he always does. “The wolf thinks so too.”
Steve’s brow arches, even as Eddie’s words light something inside him, sets off the cramping between his legs, where he’s felt aching and hollow for days.
“Oh, really?”
Eddie nods. "He’ll consider you pack now. He'll seek you out when it's the full moon."
"I know, it's okay. You think I can't handle it?"
"I know you can."
"Maybe I’ll build a kennel for you in the garden,” Steve says, can’t help but tease.
Eddie smiles, dimples popping. Shyness spikes again in the air around them, so sweet, like strawberry lemonade on a warm spring day.
“Will you be okay?” Steve asks. “On the next moon?”
“I’ll be fine. I’ve been through a lot of them before.”
“The others want to reconvene in a couple of days, they’re hearing things, there have been weird fissures found in the woods apparently.”
“Great, more fun.” Eddie sighs. “But I’ll be there.”
“You don’t have to. You’ve been through a lot, I wouldn’t blame you if you wanted to cut loose, you don’t have to be part of the club or whatever.”
“I want to be there. I want to be anywhere you are.”
Steve looks down, feels himself flush. He isn’t used to this. Feeling so shy, not being the one to lead.
“Well that’s fine then,” he murmurs.
Eddie fidgets, fingers tapping a clumsy rhythm against the counter. “And, uh, I was wondering…”
“Yes?”
“When all of this is over, this whole apocalypse thing, I was wondering if I could, uh…”
“Just spit it out, Munson.”
“Fine, god , if I could take you out sometime?”
Steve’s mouth goes dry. “Take me out?”
“Isn’t that what all the normal kids do? When they haven’t shared blood and bitten each other yet?”
Steve laughs, scrubs his hands down his face. “I guess we did do everything backwards.”
“It’s cool, I’m not really one for convention.”
“No, I know .” He thinks about it. “What would we do?”
“Go see a movie, grab dinner.”
“Uh-huh, sounds boring.”
Eddie makes a sound like he’s choking. “Okay, shit, I’ll take you out on my motorbike and we’ll rob a bank, happy? Then I’ll ravish you until you can’t stand up.”
It’s such a ridiculous thing to say, but it makes Steve bite his bottom lip. “You have a motorbike?”
Eddie blinks, then grins goofily. “That’s really the part of that sentence you decided to focus on?”
“Honestly you’d be lucky to even get a kiss.”
He’s joking, but it makes Eddie’s face light up.
“I want that,” he says, like a kid on Christmas Day. “I want a kiss.”
“Would you say please?”
“A hundred times.”
Feeling bold, a sliver of the old Steve Harrington sneaking in, he says, “Do you want to kiss me now?”
Eddie stares at him like a rabbit in the headlights. Opens his mouth and closes it again. “Can I?”
“Why are you asking?”
“I don’t want to presume…”
“You don’t want to be like all the other boys?”
Eddie glowers. “No.” He shakes his head. “Sorry.”
“You don’t have to be sorry.”
“Oh? You like it? Me being jealous?”
Steve rolls his eyes. “I never said that.”
“I can smell it on you. I can smell your blood.”
Steve can’t help but gasp. “You can?”
Eddie smiles sheepishly. “Yeah, always could…”
“You’re so weird.”
“Okay, call Hopper and arrest me then.”
“Maybe later. What does it smell like?”
“Your blood? Like warm spices and clementines.”
That feeling again, Steve growing wet between his legs, Eddie’s nostrils flaring like he can smell him even through his jeans, all heightened with his wolf senses.
“Did you know that’s kinda creepy?”
“Sorry,” Eddie says, not sounding sorry at all.
“Why be sorry? You can’t smell that I like that too?”
Eddie tilts his head. “You like creeps?”
“I like stubborn-as-shit wolves, it seems. Now are you going to kiss me or bore me to death?”
He doesn’t need telling twice.
Eddie presses in and kisses him.
He kisses him, and it’s nothing like the kiss they shared in the Upside-Down. This time, Eddie is warm and solid, and he’s the one to kiss Steve. His mouth soft but firm, tasting of rosemary and garlic butter, and a curl of cigarette smoke because he’d been smoking out in the garden before dinner using the contraband pack Dustin had snuck in. His taste, so different to anyone Steve’s ever tasted before. Deep, masculine, the forest at the back of his mouth and a crescent moon on his tongue.
“Oh,” Steve says when their lips part, a starry night in his head, like there had been a tab of ecstasy on Eddie’s tongue, setting off purple sparks behind his eyes.
“Oh?” Eddie asks, so close his breath flutters across Steve’s mouth. “A good oh or a bad oh?”
Steve licks his bottom lip, chasing his taste. “I don’t know, I think I need more data samples.”
“Ooh, data samples, you’re getting spicy now.”
“You really never stop, do you?”
“How can I?” Eddie smirks. “Knew you were checking me out when I was naked in your bed.”
“What?”
“Just knew it. You wanted me so bad.”
“Eddie, please shut up for once and kiss me.”
Eddie does as he’s told.
They kiss again and it’s harder this time, Eddie crowding Steve back until he’s got him up against the countertop. The kiss deepens, the two of them panting into each other’s mouths, tongues tangling. Eddie’s hands stray to Steve’s hips, and Steve moans at the feeling of it, wants those rough, calloused fingers under his sweater. Wants them pulling the material up and plucking at his nipples, pressing between his legs where he’s needy and wet, inside him where he aches to be filled.
He arches up against him, tangles his fingers in Eddie’s thick hair. And god, it’s been so long since Steve’s been kissed like this, if he ever has. Because Eddie kisses so deep it’s like he wants to consume him. It’s like he wants to bite him and chew him up, snap his ribcage open with his teeth and nestle inside him forever, right up against his heart where they’ll never part.
When the kiss breaks this time, Steve’s breath feels heavy, his lips tender and bruised.
“Shit, fuck, sorry,” Eddie blurts, his hands still clasped around Steve’s waist, his mouth wet with Steve’s spit. “I should stop.”
Steve blinks, feels like he’s been hit by a truck. Like he’s got sunburn and a fever. “Stop? Why?”
“Because I want to treat you right.”
He shakes his head, can’t help but laugh. “God, you’re so cute.” He runs his hands down Eddie’s chest, relishes how sinewy and muscled he feels under the cable knit. “You really don’t have to go tomorrow.”
Eddie knocks their foreheads together, exhaling shakily. “If you don’t tell me to leave, I’ll never go,” he whispers.
Steve thinks about the dreams, the bruises on his mother’s wrists, her suicide letter, the way that everyone had always left.
He thinks of new beginnings that taste like fallen leaves and red apples, of washing Eddie’s hair, of seeing him transform under the full moon, of feeling whole and beautiful again.
He kisses the corner of Eddie’s mouth.
It feels like a blessing, a promise, a prayer.
“That sounds okay to me.”
“But the transformation…”
“You can do it here, it’s safe and quiet. Or you can do it at home and come back, whatever you prefer.”
Eddie’s expression goes so hopeful and puppyish it makes Steve’s chest clench, the bite mark on his neck tingling.
“So I can take you out? Me and my witch?”
Steve pretends to think about it. He reaches out, tangles his fingers in Eddie’s hair. Leans in to kiss Eddie again, softer this time, just a brush of their lips.
“Shall I let you?” he asks.
“Please,” Eddie whimpers against his mouth, “I’ll be so good. So good for you, baby, I promise.”
“Maybe I don’t want you to be good,” Steve whispers, skim thrumming at the way Eddie groans. “Maybe I want you to eat me up. How about that?”
Eddie squeezes his eyes shut, like he’s trying to restrain himself, like he’s hanging on by a thread. “You shouldn’t tempt a monster,” he says.
Steve smiles at him.
Knows now with certainty that what his mother said that afternoon by the swing was wrong. Not all men had monsters inside them. And Eddie Munson, with his smile and his stubbornness, his voice like a handful of southern stars and a wolf inside him, is anything but a monster.
At least, not the kind of monster Steve didn’t like.
“Yes, wolf boy,” he whispers, pulling Eddie in by the ends of his hair, “you can take me out.”