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sentientcave · 29 days

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Retirement Party

Price has retired from Military life, and he's not handling the change well. But on the one year anniversary of him hanging it up, his boys bring him something special to help keep him busy. You.

Chapter One - The Perfect Gift

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Contains: No Y/N, Kidnapping, Stalking, Drugging, Forcible relocation, Generally creepy behaviour, Threats (open-ended), I guess this might count as human trafficking?, Dubcon everything because Reader is terrified (non-sexual), plus-sized reader, fem/afab reader, There is something fucking wrong with these guys for real.

~3.2k - MDNI - Dark fic! Please mind the content warning above

"I told ye, she's perfect," Soap said, eyes on the window across the street. They could see you puttering around your living room, wearing a pretty flower print dress as you tidied up. "Good with bairns too, met her when I was pickin' up the niece and nephew from school. She was workin' for some rich family, an' they let her go because the wife found a pair of her knickers in her husband's briefcase." He snickered. He'd been the one to put them there, although, in his opinion, he’d been pushing the bounds for a long while anyway. Sure he’d essentially cast you adrift, jobless and with no one looking out for you, but, well, they were looking after you now, weren’t they? So it wasn’t all that bad.

"Good job, pup," Ghost said fondly, ruffling Johnny's hair. "Captain's gonna love 'er."

"How do you lads want to play it?" Gaz asked. "Could go in tonight. Won’t take much to knock her out, pack up her things, take her to the cabin. Get her nice and situated for when Price gets back."

"No point in waitin', is there?" Ghost asked. "Nice she's on the ground floor. Makes takin' 'er things easier. I'll go round 'n' check the windows in a bit. Should wait till after midnight. Don't want to be spotted by the neighbours."

"No' much risk o' tha'," Soap said. "Knocked over a bunch of bins last I was here and the cunts didna even turn on a light. Just the bonnie thing worryin’ while the rest of ‘em sleep sound."

Gaz lit a cigarette, nodding thoughtfully. "Small apartment too. Is there much to move?"

Soap shook his head. "Nah, no' much. Sweet girl lives simply. I told ye, she's perfect for the captain. He'll be able to spoil the fuck out of her, once she's broken in, aye?"

"Know 'e'll like that. Man needs a wife to dote on. ‘e’s been goin’ a bit crazy, all alone. An' 'e can train'er up nice."

"Think he might share?" Gaz asked wistfully, exhaling a stream of thin smoke as he sighed. "Nice soft girl like that-- Plenty to go around."

Ghost laughed. "Thought we'd 'ave trouble gettin' Johnny to keep 'is 'ands to 'imself, and you're the one droolin'."

"Scuse me for having eyes, mate. Just think she looks sweet."

"We'll get to see first 'and soon.” Ghost clapped him on the shoulder. “Come on lads. Let's get ready."

You wake up on the hard metal floor of a moving vehicle, your pounding head cradled in someone's hands. That's what you notice first, and the thumbs rubbing circles against your neck soothingly.

It has the opposite effect. Your eyes fly open.

“Hi, bonnie,” a somewhat familiar face grins down at you, blue eyes smiling, but too intense, glittering in the low light that filters in from the windows at the front of the truck. “How’s yer head?”

You grimace, trying to make sense of what’s going on around you. The back of the van seems to be filled with boxes. “Aren’t you Finn and Rory’s uncle?”

“Aw, ye remember me? Knew ye were a sweetheart.”

You try to sit up, but Johnny puts a strong hand on your shoulder and keeps you where you are. Your head feels too heavy to try and fight him, your muscles weak. “What’s going on?” you ask. “What— Is this a kidnapping?”

“Tha’s an ugly word, bonnie. We’re doin’ ye a favour, really. Settin’ ye up with someone respectable. Captain’ll take good care of ye.” He pats your cheek. “Whyna get back to sleep? Still a ways to go, aye?”

Maybe it’s just a bad, weird dream. You do feel foggy, like you’re not fully attached to your body, and keeping your eyes open is a struggle. You’ll wake up back in your own bed, and have a funny story to tell if you ever bump into Johnny again. He’s definitely too nice to be a kidnapper, right? Like, people don’t really do that sort of thing. It has to be a dream.

“Okay,” you mumble, letting your eyes close again.

As you suspected, you wake up again in bed. The headache’s receded some, and there’s warm sunlight streaming in through the windows. You bury your face into the pillows, and then bolt upright. The pillow smells weird, like sweet tobacco and spice, and you don’t get morning sun in your bedroom. The window faces a brick wall across a narrow alley.

The room you’re in now is not your room. It’s sparsely furnished, just a dresser under the window and the bed you’re tucked into, and two doors, one that’s clearly a closet, and one that must lead out into the rest of the… house? Judging by the sound of birdsong outside, you’re out of the city.

You pad to the window and look out. There’s a van in the driveway, and three men carrying things in. One of them looks up and spots you in the window, waving cheerfully.

Not a dream. Fear grips you, ice sliding down your spine, shards settling in your stomach, needling and uncomfortable. Your sinuses prickle like you’re about to cry, but no tears come. You’re too dehydrated to summon them. It’s hard to tell how long you’ve been out— It’s fully daylight outside, but you have no idea what time. A second look around the room finds a digital clock sitting on the nightstand, 3:05 glaring back at you in red.

There’s a knock on the door, and it pushes open. The man who walks in is handsome, smiling at you so beautifully that your automatic response is to try and smile back, although you feel that it’s flimsy, unsure. There’s no chance that this man is here to help you, but you at least hope he’s not here to hurt you either.

“How’re you feeling?” he asks. His voice is as pleasant as his face is, smooth and cheerful, although it makes you wary about him on principle. “You hungry?”

You shake your head. It’s not true, but you can’t trust that there wouldn’t be drugs in anything they give you.

“Well, come on downstairs, hm? Get some water at least. Maybe a tea?”

Your stomach churns. “I might be sick,” you manage to squeak out. He quickly ushers you out into the hall and into a bathroom. You don’t make it to the toilet, but you do manage to make it to the sink. If you had a little more fire in you, you might have tried to vomit bile onto the pretty man’s shoes, but it’s hard to shake the instinct to be good, not to make any trouble, to hope that they’ll just let you go. You’re not even sure what they want. You have no family to ransom, you don’t have any money to speak of, you’re just a fat little ex-nanny still paying off an English Literature degree from a second-rate college.

You turn on the sink to wash away the sick, and rinse your mouth out. Your hands start shaking when you realize your toothbrush is sitting in the holder next to the sink, like it belongs there. Your makeup bag is sitting on the counter too, and when you look down, you realize you’re standing on your own bathmat, taken from your home and arranged here, as if effects from your own house are supposed to make you feel comfortable. You look at your reflection in the mirror, and then at the man still standing in the doorway, his brown eyes all concern, as if he wasn’t party to a fucking nightmare.

You straighten up, gripping the counter to steady yourself. “What the hell is this?” you ask, trying to inject some authority into your quaking voice. “Who are you? What do you want from me?”

“I’m Gaz. Nice to meet you. Johnny had lots of nice things to say about you.”

So that hadn’t been a dream either. You look around the room desperately, looking for anything that could possibly be used as a weapon, but Gaz seems to know exactly what you’re doing, and he steps into your space quickly to grab your hands.

“None of that. Come on. You’ll feel better after a tea, yeah? Then you can get ready to meet the captain.”

He leads you downstairs. Questions spin around your head, but you’re not sure if it’s worth asking. Gaz only bothered to respond to one of the three you’ve asked so far, and it wasn’t the one that you were most interested in an answer to. So you stay quiet instead, taking in the layout of the big room. A front door and a back door, and windows that look out onto a forest on one side of the property, and more forest on the other side, beyond a large cleared space with a neat garden and a few fruit trees. There’s a second building that you can just see the corner of from the kitchen window, more likely a garage than a neighbour.

Gaz backs you up against the counter and leans down slightly, his hands gripping your thighs. You panic, the touch surprising you, and slap him across the face. The sharp sound makes you freeze, like it wasn’t you that had done it. He takes advantage of your surprise to shove you up onto the counter and grab both your hands with one of his, all the friendliness draining our of his eyes in an instant as he points a scolding finger at you. You feel like you’ve done something naughty that you’re not fully aware of the implications of yet, a badly trained dog or a child. “I’m going to let that one slide, because I understand that this is a big change for you. But you’re not going to like what happens if you try that again, understood?”

You nod quickly, your own eyes wide. “I-I’m sorry,” you say, the instinct for appeasement rearing it’s skittish little head.

And then the smile returns, as pretty as before, storm clouds blowing away as though they’d never been there to begin with. “It’s alright, doll. Just don’t do it again. And definitely don’t try that attitude on with the captain.” He taps the pointing finger against your nose playfully, and lets your hands drop back into your lap.

The rules seem simple enough. Be good and sweet, and get friendly faces in return, to a degree. No matter how cooperative you are, you doubt they’re going to let you go home. Fighting back means consequences, and you’re not sure how far those consequences will extend. If you’re too much trouble, it’s not a stretch to imagine that they’ll just kill you outright and try again with a meeker woman. You don’t yet know if death would be the more preferable outcome.

You pull your sweater down over your thighs. The black zip-up hoodie isn’t yours (the word Riley is stitched onto the front of it), but it’s big, and even though it smells faintly of cigarettes, it affords you at least a little modesty and comfort, more than the tank top and the sleep-shorts you’re wearing underneath do. Riley must be the third man. Was he the captain? Or was there a fourth one somewhere?

Johnny comes through the door carrying your suitcases, and he grins widely when he sees you, the charming, boyish one that you’d thought was handsome before. It’s only unnerving now. “Didja have a good sleep, bonnie?”

“You drugged me,” you accuse.

“Weel, of course. You were no’ goan ta come all peaceable, and LT wouldna be patient if ye were cryin’ the whole way here.” He trots upstairs, and you can hear him drop the bags with a thump, before he’s clattering back down the steps and leaning against the counter next to you. “How’d’ye like yer new home, bonnie? S’a nice place, aye? Better than tha’ little shoebox back in the city.”

“I like my apartment,” you protest.

“Psh, ye’d say tha’. Puttin’ on a brave face since yer such a good girl. But it wasna verra safe, was it? No’ a single neighbour paid us any mind while we were loadin’ up yer things. No’ a good place for a single girl, aye?” He reaches out and puts a big hand on your knee, squeezing lightly. “Now ye’ll be taken care of, like ye should be.”

“I don’t want to be taken care of.”

“Nonsense. Ye’ll be glad, once ye get used to things. Already looks real homey in here, don’t ye think?” He gestures at the living room.

You twist to look, and your stomach sinks. Your throw pillows are on the couch, one of the afghans you crocheted hanging over the back of it. You recognize the titles of your books on the shelves. These men were nothing if not thorough, surgically removing your entire life and transplanting it to this house in the woods, with it’s wood panel walls and big, overstuffed leather couches.

He continues blithely, like he’s not delivering some of the most horrifying news you’ve ever heard. “Most of your furniture’s in the garage, ye can sort tha’ out with Price, aye? But we brought all yer clothes and decorations and whatnot in. Figure ye should wear tha’ pretty black sundress, an’ those long stockin’s with the clippy belt, ye ken the one? Cap’ll like those.”

They’d been through all your things. If you had anything left to throw up, you might’ve again. Gaz sets a glass of water on the counter next to you. “How d’you take your tea, doll?”

“Milk, two sugars,” Johnny answers for you. “Our sweet lass has a sweet tooth, aye?”

“How do you know that?” You can hear the quiver in your voice, and it doesn’t slip by either of them.

“Come oan, hen, ye ken I didna jus’ pick ye off the street. Did my research. Wouldna pick just anyone for the captain.”

“When he said he’d found the perfect girl, we didn’t believe him at first,” Gaz says, leaning against the counter on the other side of the kitchen while the tea steeps. “But Ghost and I knew he was right, soon as we saw you.” He nods at the glass. “Drink your water. You haven’t had anything since last night.”

“Is it drugged?” you ask flatly.

“No, want ye awake for when Price gets here. Yer a real cute thing asleep, but we want him ta hear yer pretty voice and see that smile, aye?” Johnny reaches past you and picks up the glass of water, taking a big swig to demonstrate it’s harmlessness.

You take a careful sip when he hands it back to you, and then another, resisting the urge to just gulp the whole thing down. The door opens again, and the biggest man you’ve seen in your life walks in, wearing a black t-shirt and a mask with the jaw of a skull printed on it, pulled up over the lower half of his face. He looks at you dispassionately, and then at Gaz and Johnny. “What the ‘ell have you two muppets been sayin’ to the poor thing?” he asks, his voice rumbling like an avalanche. “She looks like she’s gonna faint.”

“Figure she’s just peaky,” Gaz says defensively. “I’m making her tea.”

The big guy swats Johnny’s hand away from your knee impatiently, and cages you in against the counter, one huge arm on either side of you. “How’re you feelin’ bird? Be honest.”

“Terrified,” you admit.

He chuckles. “Sensible, considerin’. But you don’t need to worry, olright? No one’s gonna hurt you, so long as you’re good. And you want to be good, don’t you, bird?”

You nod. You’d thought Gaz and Johnny were big, but this one’s huge, broad and tall and even scarier. It’s clear why they started off introducing themselves to you in the order they did. If this man had been the first thing you’d seen after waking up you probably would have gone into hysterics.

“Use your words, pet.”

“I want to be good,” you say obediently, because you don’t see any other options, at least for the moment.

“Good girl,” he says, and there’s the slightest hint of a smile in his dark eyes.

Somehow, this is the most comforting thing that you’ve experienced all day. You won’t be hurt if you’re good, and you are being good.

He pushes back from the counter slightly, giving you more space, takes the mug of tea from Gaz, and hands it off to you. “Small sips,” he instructs. “And maybe a biscuit, if you think you can keep it down.”

“Are you the captain?” you ask nervously, gripping the mug with two hands.

“Hm? No. ‘e’s still about an hour out. I’m Simon. Ghost to these two.” He fishes an open package of biscuits out of the cupboard and sets them next to you. “Once you finish your tea, we’ll get you ready. Want to make a good first impression, right bird?”

“Not really,” you admit. “I’d like to go home.”

He laughs, at least finding your honesty amusing. “That won’t be ‘appenin’. If Price dun’t want you, I’ll keep you myself. But I’ll tell you right now, you’ll like Price better. If you’re good for him, he’ll be real good to you, understood?”

You bite your tongue. It won’t do you any good to point out that a man that would accept a person as a gift is probably not capable of being good to anyone. Good is subjective, and the three men in front of you are lunatics. Their captain probably has the slightest bit stronger a grasp on his sanity, or a consistent moral code, if not a particularly righteous one. So you just keep your mouth shut, and drink your tea, and eat two chocolate digestives while Gaz and Johnny start collecting things to make dinner.

As soon as you set your empty mug to the side Ghost pops you down from the counter and ushers you upstairs with a big hand placed a little too low on your back. He tells you what to wear (down to the lingerie), but blessedly doesn’t insist on watching you get dressed. He does sit on the edge of the tub and watch you put on makeup, however, requesting red lipstick and winged eyeliner. Your hands are still a little shaky, but you manage to do as he asks. His eyes smile at you just a little when you’re obedient. You feel pathetic for not making a fuss, but you’re not sure what you can possibly do, except something stupid that will make them angry enough to hurt you.

He helps you into a pair of strappy red heels that had been languishing in the back of your closet before they dug everything out, and straightens the seam of your stockings, running his big hands up your calves. It’s like you’re a doll, dressed just how he wants, something to look pretty and say less than nothing, a gift for some other man you’ve never met to keep on a shelf.

Or worse, to play with.

You hear Johnny and Gaz greet someone downstairs, their voices loud and excited, and your heart skips nervously.

Ghost rises to his feet, smiling so big you can see it even with the mask. “Wait right here, pet,” he says firmly, leaving you sitting on the edge of the bed while he goes off to greet his captain. “Want to introduce you proper.”

So you sit, and you wait, shaking and nervous, for what feels like eternity, until you hear Simon’s surprisingly light footfalls on the stairs again. He offers you a hand, and hoists you over his shoulder as soon as you’re on your feet, carrying you down into the living room.

“We all pitched in,” Gaz says, as casually as if he meant throwing in five dollars for a card. “But she was Soap’s idea.”

“Picked ‘er out special, Cap,” Johnny says. “She’s perfect for ye.”

“She?” an unfamiliar voice asks. “Don’t tell me you got me a dog.”

“Better than that, skipper.” Ghost laughs as he circles around the couch, and drops you carefully into the man’s lap, stepping into line with the other two. “We got you a wife.”

I've been low-key thinking about this concept since I read ohbo-ohno's Don't Leave Me Locked in Your Heart a while back (If you haven't read and you like a good dark fic, you should click that link, you may enjoy it). I think getting someone a person as a gift, or being given as a gift, rather, is a fun fucked up fantasy to explore. I'm not entirely sure where I'll take this but I promise to put in content warnings. Let me know if I miss something, I don't want anyone to be surprised by what they find!

Image Credits: Banner

Dividers: 1 - 2 - 3 by @/Cafekitsune

#cod mw fanfiction #cave writing #John Price x Reader #x reader #dark fic #Price please keep your dogs on leashes they are terrorizing women #The boys missed the real retirement party because they got emergency deployed and they've been trying to reschedule all year long #Good thing they've got such a good gift to make up for it #The homies in discord agree: These guys are unsettling

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flowercrowngods · 3 months

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based on an idea i had about steve getting a bad migraine from the sudden bloodloss after kas feeds from him

post-canon, steddie don't like each other, hermit kas, depressed brain injury steve, kinda gloomy, anxiety & compulsions

Steve cuts the engine with a sigh, feeling heavy and alien, like a lone survivor in a ghost town. He’s not a lone survivor, and Hawkins isn’t technically a ghost town because there’s still enough of them here to build it back up or to watch it crumble and cave in on itself, front row seats to the fourth wave of destruction.

Maybe the real ghost is Steve, actually, floating through his days just waiting for his brain to decide it’s had enough. Just waiting for the perpetual ringing in his ears to rise in pitch and frequency and for his skull to fucking crack open from the never ending waves of the never ending buzz.

Robin asks him about it a lot, notices how he will stop and listen to his body on every inhale that feels slightly wrong, or every movement that’s just a little too fast or just a little too sudden, the blood rushing into his head or out of it, the doctor’s words ringing in tune with the tinnitus: You watch that head of yours, young man, and do not hesitate to call emergency services when the headache won’t stop after a few hours, or when anything feels off, you hear me?

The truth is, he barely heard him then. Blood was roaring in his ears, the tinnitus still quiet, but his hearing still dull from impact and screams and shock wave after shock wave of the world sewing itself back together.

He sighs again, drumming his fingers along the steering wheel and trying to catch his breath. Taking stock of his head, the heartbeat he can only feel in his hands right now and nowhere near his temples, and the quiet little tap tap tap of his finger nails hitting the leather, wanting to make sure he can hear it. Wanting to make sure he doesn’t imagine the sound.

Always fucking needing to make sure.

Soon, he breathes a little steadier, convincing himself that getting out of the car won’t be the last thing he’ll ever do. It’s so stupid, too, that fear, all that anxiety living inside him just waiting to boil and spill over until he does something stupid just to spite it.

The cool breeze hits his face, working in tandem with his calming breaths to alleviate his obsessive thought spirals, and he stuffs his hands into the pockets of his jacket as he does nothing but breathe for a minute there.

He’s up. He’s standing. He can walk through the forest to the vamp’s hiding place, it’s fine. It’s fine. Although standing so suddenly makes him aware that he hasn’t eaten much today, too busy hating everything about this town and helping to rebuild it anyway.

Forgetting to eat and drink is another thing that’s new to him. There’s quite a few things he forgets a lot, but those are the worst. Robin is always on his ass about that, but at some point he stopped telling her. It feels like he’s stopped telling her a lot of things. Maybe that’s something else that comes with severe brain injury, young man.

He feels plenty guilty about it at least — but not enough to tell her about all the horrible things that are happening to him, or the horrible things he thinks are happening to him. The Upside Down is gone, Vecna is dead. These bad thoughts, they’re all him. But knowing that doesn’t fucking help.

Pushing away from the car and turning around to lock it, Steve decides to wallow in self pity no longer and to just get on with it. As much as he hates it. As much as part of him wants to just go home and claim that he forgot about that, too.

It’s no secret that Steve never liked Eddie. The boy’s a hypocrite, he’s loud, he’s annoying, and he just likes to shame people as publicly as possible, spitting proclamations of conformity and sticking it to the Man while at the same time turning anarchy into despotism under the guise of rebellion — and he’s the dictator.

Or, he was. And Steve never cared about him or his larger than life attitude that was worse than any of the smiles Steve ever wore to fit in in high school. Steve mostly ever just wanted Munson to shut up and eat his lunch, stop pretending he’s better than any of them just because he liked different things.

Although it wasn’t even about liking other things, it was only ever about disliking. And shaming and denouncing. Steve always wondered what kind of a miserable life that dude must have lived, shaping himself not from what he liked but from what he hated. Creating an identity that left a bad taste in everyone’s mouth because it was so fragile and contradictory and, frankly, so fucking annoying.

Still, he’d never wished for Munson to get involved in all of this. He’d never wished for the man to die. And then to come back only to be turned into some kind of vampire, doomed to live an even worse existence than he did as a human, hidden away in some shabby cabin.

Steve feels a little bad for him now. For Eddie. Or Kas, as the kids like to call him because he never reacts to his name anymore, more monster than human these days, although Dustin is sure they can domesticate him into becoming his old self again.

“Like Dart, remember?”

“Dude, don’t compare our friend to your sick little creature.” That was Lucas, affronted and annoyed. Steve could relate, although…

“You gotta admit, he’s kind of a sick little creature himself now.”

“Steve!” they’d both yelled, and Steve just playfully shoved their heads back before going to grab a coke from the fridge.

And Kas, because vampires are apparently a thing even after the end of the world, needs blood to survive. The forests are void of animals most of the time, like nature has decided to give Hawkins an ultimatum before returning and the day hasn’t come yet. Maybe it’s something to do with electromagnetic fields, or maybe it was something else entirely leading them all to safety while Hawkins was turned into a war zone. Either way, there is nothing for him to feed here.

Kas can’t just stalk around the woods at night and drink up a deer or two. Nor can he go rob the blood bank at the hospital, they’re running low as it is anyway. That left them all with only one option that Mike so disgustedly pointed out back then: Kas needs their blood. And Steve feels just bad enough for him to play along.

So now he is out here playing blood bank for the monstrous version of a guy he never even liked, and his hometown is in shambles, and his head might actually sign the fuck off at any moment now, apparently.

Things are going great.

Saving the world is just… really fucking isolating.

Still he has no choice but to announce his presence with a firm knock on the door, the pattern easy but memorable.

“This is Steve,” he adds as his hand falls to his side, waiting.

Kas always takes a while to come out and open the door, hiding away from any noise like a feral cat. Steve can kind of relate — he and Kas don’t have the best relationship either. He has no idea how sudden vampirism works, but just like feral cats will be able to tell when someone wants to hurt them and when instincts should be kicking in, Kas seems to realise how little Steve wants to be here and help him. How little he wants to have his blood sucked out of his body leaving his limbs to feel numb and uncomfortably tingly.

Eventually, though, the door opens with a creek, just enough for a pair of eyes — too large, too wide, too wild — blink back at him. Steve just lifts his eyebrows, really kind of not in the mood to deal with this barely human vampire and his absolute lack of learning curve about this situation.

When he’s sure Kas has blinked at him for long enough now, he pushes open the door and shoves inside rather roughly, immediately feeling bad when he hears the slight whimper.

“Sorry,” he mutters, stuffing his hands into his pockets again and trying not to grimace at the stale, disgusting air in the cabin. “Jeez, you really gotta open a window every once in a while. Thought vamps were supposed to have heightened senses or some shit.”

Kas growls at him, mirroring Steve’s move and shoving past him this time, his shoulder slamming into Steve’s with painful strength. Glowering at the stupid vampire, he rubs at his shoulder before crossing his arms in front of his chest.

“Listen, buddy, I can just leave and have you deal with your hunger, okay? No big deal for me, I even get to keep my blood.”

Kas snaps at him, showing his fangs and crossing his arms, too; a laughable copy of Steve’s own stance.

“Or you could just cut the crap and get on with it so I actually can leave again without taking shit from the peanut gallery. Your choice.”

The huff that follows is so indignant, Steve wonders if that could be what gets Kas out of Munson’s body and let the human win over the monster. Maybe indignation and annoyance is what will break the spell eventually, lift the curse just enough for Munson to get back into his old habit of monologising and spouting nonsense out of that big mouth of his.

Steve is half tempted to try, but he really does want to just go home and lie on his large couch with no sensory input whatsoever, tuning out the world and his anxieties that might be about to turn into compulsions just for him to gain a little control over everything again. So he squares his shoulders and takes off his jacket before tilting his head to the side, allowing Kas full access to his neck.

It’s always a little scary but still oddly fascinating, filling him with that same rush that came with witnessing all the supernatural shit over the past few years. Kas is the last remnant of all that, and somehow, buried beneath piles of rubble and trauma and the teenager he had to give up on being, Steve feels weirdly protective of that.

Not of Eddie. Of Kas. Of the monster that lies dormant. Of the last bit of danger in his life, because he doesn’t know how to live without it anymore — so much so that he has to make it up.

Maybe it’s a symptom of his self destructive tendencies, as Robin would call it. But Steve might be as fascinated with the vampire as Robin is with fire; so she doesn’t get to have a say in this.

There is always a strange intimacy in the way Kas approaches him. Slowly, carefully. Like a hunter his prey. Steve doesn’t feel like prey, not really, but a part of him wants to. A part of him needs to be prey again, if only for those instincts that manifest with a perpetual tremor and a restless feeling in his chest to be of use again. If only so he can have a point again. Something to fight that’s outside oh his own head.

Now, his point is standing still entirely and feeling those chapped but warm lips trail up and down his throat a little before Kas finds the right spot that won’t really hurt Steve, the right spot that will make it all go by quickly and without any hiccups.

Still he shivers, like always, and Kas holds him close when he finally bites down. Like always.

He stands motionless as he feels his blood flow alternating, rushing in his ears and his head, his heart thump-thump-thumping, putting up a fight against the strange intrusion. He hardly even breathes at all, focusing instead on his body and burying his finger nails in his palm for five seconds before releasing his hands and repeating the process three times before he gets it right.

But then his head is pulsing, his heartbeat slowing down as his vision briefly blacks out in the same way it does when he gets up too quickly, and his heart falls. It’s too much. Too sudden.

“Kas,” he says, but the vampire doesn’t hear him, drinking more and more of the blood that must be so thick with how little he’s had to drink today — something he only just remembered. “Kas,” he says again, more urgently this time; but still the vampire drinks.

And where before Steve had a clear vision of the door in the dark room — the light of day streaming in through the cracks and framing it almost mystically —, it’s spotty now. Just slightly off. Like something is missing but his brain is working overtime to complete the picture anyway, reducing the blind spot to merely an illusion. But Steve knows what’s happening. He knows what the sudden pulsating of his head means, especially when it’s followed by his vision just going AWOL on him.

No, he thinks as the situation really settles in, and he begins to push Kas away. Not like it matters anyway now; the damage is done. No, no, no, no, fuck!

He frantically shoves at the vampire now, blinking against the blind spot even though he’s painfully aware it won’t help. Kas breaks away from him, wiping his mouth and smearing his face and the back of his hand with Steve’s blood. If he looks just right, he can’t even fucking see it.

Heart falling further, Steve buries his hands in his hair and pulls, hoping that by some kind of miracle he can just pull the migraine out of his head before it can really settle. It’s his only chance. He can’t drive like this, he shouldn’t walk like this, and soon he won’t be able to do anything at all.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” be hisses, hearing the edge of desperation in his own voice and caring very little about that right now.

Kas is on him again in a second, and Steve waves him off, tries to shove him away but the vampire is stronger and persistent.

A high keening sound builds in Kas’s chest, and Steve knows he doesn’t really speak, doesn’t really use his words, ever — maybe he doesn’t know how. But the keening sounds more like a whine, and the way he pulls at Steve to look at him is as much an indicator of worry as he’s going to get.

But Steve doesn’t want Kas’s hands on him, wants to just get out and away before the pain comes. So he takes another step back and holds up his hands, hoping that the vampire will just fucking take a hint.

A little too quickly and a little too frantic, Steve shakes his head, his eyes flitting about the room to see if there’s still pieces of it missing or if phase two is about to start. He has about twenty minutes left before his body will be composed of nothing but skull-splitting pain that is only equal to someone ramming actual nails into his head — and even that would be preferable right noe, because at least that pain he wouldn’t need to explain. Or justify.

Another keening sound interrupts Steve's burgeoning spiral, and his eyes land on Kas, who really looks like a kicked puppy right now.

"I gotta go," he says, voice a little unsteady with apprehension and panic, but just as he's about to rush out of the cabin, Kas crosses his path and won't let him move.

A strong hand lands on his chest, and Steve really, really doesn't want to deal with that right now. He tries again, tries with more force to sidestep and push past him, but Kas won't let him budge.

"Let me go." But Kas doesn't let up. "Kas. Please. You gotta let me go, I gotta get home, I—“

The first flash of white in his peripheral vision catches him off guard, moving his focus away from the clawed hand on his chest and toward the flickering line that cuts through the left side of his vision right now.

Curious or worried or maybe just really fucking stupefied at having Steve act so weirdly, Kas inclines his head and ducks to catch Steve's eyes.

"Move," Steve says again, as assertive as he can manage with his brain and body scattered between following the flickering lights that are invisible to everyone else and the pain that is about to consume him, leaving him incapacitated for several hours at least.

Instead of moving out of Steve's space and allowing him to leave, Kas shoves him backwards with that superhuman strength he has now, forcing Steve to stumble back helplessly. Fear rises in him again, and it's a different flavour this time that mixes horribly well with the anxiety and apprehension and all the waves and waves of blinding panic he feels out of nowhere almost all the time now.

His knees buckle when they hit something rather violently, and then he's falling, landing on the worn couch with a breathless gasp, his instincts running wild. He needs to fight, he needs to run, he needs to get home and be safe and get the fuck away from this monster who won't let him go now. Steve doesn't know Kas as someone who will just take what he wants, but, well, he is Munson, in a way. So that tracks.

But instead of attacking him, instead of going for his neck again and sucking the rest of his blood, instead of beating Steve to a pulp to keep him pliant and unmoving and turn him into some sort of personal livestock, Kas just... sits down next to him. Hands in his lap. Worried look trained on Steve, who needs to catch his breath and calm down.

"Hurt."

It startles Steve. Kas has never spoken to him. But what’s more, Steve shouldn't be that obvious. He doesn't want to be that obvious, especially about hurting and being hurt.

So he shakes his head, his hands coming up to press into his eyes, hoping to get rid of the flickering lights even though he knows that once they stop, the pain will come; and it will come badly.

"'M not hurt," he says, lying through his teeth and the heel of his hand. "I just gotta go home."

"Hurt," Kas says again, and it's more assertive this time, less of a question. Like he's telling Steve rather than asking. Like he's making him understand.

He reminds Steve a little of Robin in that regard, and he almost has to smile. He would, too, if he wasn't so aware that it would become a horrible grimace, wavering and pale even by vampire hermit standards.

So he sighs instead, letting his hands fall into his lap and wringing his fingers. There are about ten, maybe fifteen minutes left. Not enough to get anywhere safe on foot, and he sure as hell ain't driving when his vision is halfway through its rendition of a TV without signal, zig-zagging in white and red and green, flickering and flaring and leaving him a little disoriented even when all he's doing is sitting on that dusty old couch.

"Hurt," Kas repeats for the third time, and Steve tenses, ready to snap at him to shut up, that he's not hurt yet but will be any minute now and that Kas should really just shut the fuck up and leave himself if he won't let Steve go anywhere.

But looking at those wide eyes, he doesn't snap. He deflates. His shoulders fall and his eyes close, which only makes the flickers worse, he feels.

“I’m… I’m gonna have a migraine," he sighs, letting that hang in the air between them, letting the words take up the whole room and suffocate him while he knows that they won't touch Kas. That he won't understand. Nobody does.

It's just a headache, Steve, get over it.

They leave a bitter taste in his mouth, and he's just waiting for the huff to come.

But it doesn't come. Instead, Kas just keeps looking at him; same worried expression, same unobtrusive posture, same everything. Right. He probably doesn't know jackshit about what that's supposed to mean.

So Steve explains. “I, well. I kinda can't really see right now, but that'll pass. That's when the pain comes. I won't want to move. No light. No noise. No nothing. And all I can do about it is wait it out, which is why I need you to let me leave..."

It's one of those moments where he hates that he's the only one of their group with a license; that he can't just radio with a code red and have someone come get him no questions asked.

"I just wanna go home, man," he sighs, hating his voice for the weak whine around the edges.

A beat passes between them, and Steve pretends like he's not counting the seconds. Like he doesn't notice that the flickering zigzag line is getting smaller and dimmer, and that agony is imminent.

"Here," Kas says then, and somehow it's both an offer and a command. "You. Here."

Steve blinks, the words not really translating through the tired fog of his brain.

"Huh? Sorry, uh, what?"

"You," Kas says, shuffling closer to him, like that sort of helps him translate what it is he wants to say.

"Me."

Kas nods, then motions around the room and pats the couch cushion, releasing a cloud of dust from it. "Here."

“You—“ Steve frowns. "You want me to stay here?"

The nod is decisive and in another world Steve would have called it eager, with the way Kas is shuffling on the spot.

"Kas," Steve sighs, rubbing his face, not quite sure how to make the vampire explain that it's gonna be bad. Really, really bad. The flickering shimmer is already waning, and phantom pains are already setting in, settling along his skull like little pinpricks of warning.

A clawed hand reaches for his wrist, making Steve flinch away, but Kas doesn't hurt him. He pulls Steve’s hand away from his face almost gently, slowly, and makes sure Steve looks at him.

"Safe." And he looks so genuine about it. He looks like he knows what that word means. "Safe."

With a sigh, Steve accepts his fate. Kas isn't gonna let him go anytime soon, and at this point Steve really doesn't want to face the gloomy weather outside, stuck as it is somewhere between drizzle and downpour and so endlessly grey for days.

Still he feels pathetic about it. Vulnerable. Exposed. Like a last bastion falling, the castle walls crumbling, the fragile house of cards finally falling, because suddenly this agony isn't something he keeps only to himself.

Even if it's only Kas who witnesses it. Kas, who’s endured worse than that, Steve knows. Brainwashing, manipulation, the agony of shaping human into vampire so excruciating his mind has gone into hiding still.

"Okay," Steve breathes at last, pretending that his voice didn't break on that single word. "Okay."

Kas hums, the sound resembling more a gurgle than anything else, and before Steve knows what's happening, cold hands are pulling him up and off the couch.

"Jesus," he mumbles, barely catching his footing and pulling away from Kas's grasp, but following nonetheless, not even thinking about fleeing now. "I'm coming, I'm coming, man, don't touch me."

Miraculously, Kas does stay away, walking just one step ahead of Steve, turning towards him every two steps to make sure he's still following. It reminds Steve of a mama duck herding her ducklings across the street and making sure they're all still there. It's weirdly endearing.

"Why do you even care?"

He doesn't get an answer, but that's no surprise, and he doesn't really mind either. It was more about wondering, about putting that question out there and letting it take up space for future contemplation.

Kas leads him to an adjoining room, the north-facing windows all barred shut, ripped and moth-eaten curtains drawn to block out the last of the light. Right. Fitting, for a vampire's lair.

The bed in the middle of the far wall is surprisingly large, though, and looks surprisingly soft. It's unmade, but that's just as well. There are no belongings in the room otherwis that Steve can make out, the framed pictures on the wall look as dusty as the rest of the cabin, so they can't belong to Kas. Or maybe he likes them enough to keep them, to claim them as his own now.

It’s a heartbreaking thought.

Stupidly and out of nowhere, Steve wonders if he could take care of this cabin. Dust it and clean it and only fill it with things Kas likes. Maybe things Munson used to like — surely the kids would know how to go about that. Or Wayne.

He's about to ask; about the pictures, about the stuff, about Wayne — if he's been around lately, if he's still telling stories to bring back the dormant Eddie parts of his modified and manipulated mind.

But just as he's about to turn to the vampire and ask, the blinding flickers disappear from his field of vision in the dark room, and within seconds something inside his skull bursts, leaving his body awash with pain that nearly has his knees buckling. A whimper escapes him that he tries to steer into a groan, but then his hands are flying to his head and he stops caring about how he expresses this immediate agony to the world.

Kas is on him again with a whimper, suddenly just as fucking tactile as his once-human form.

“Don’t touch me,” Steve rasps, wrenching himself free from the gasp once more. He really wishes Kas would stop touching him. "You want me to lie down here, yeah? Take your bed?"

Kas nods again, looking at Steve with those wide eyes that seem to glow in the dark — or maybe that's his migraine-addled mind seeing things where they aren't, making up for the blind spot and the flickering.

Steve looks away, the motion hurting his entire face, and he closes his eyes as pins and needles are moving along the inside of his face, pricking up against the skin but never breaking through.

"Right then," he whispers, his voice barely audible and still too loud, making his ears click and pressure collect around them, making him wonder if they're going to burst. "'M gonna lie down."

Struggling with the heavy blanket, Steve is close to giving up and just lying on top of it, but Kas is quick to help him once he realises that Steve needs it. He pulls back the blanket, still looking so damn stricken about everything, like he's genuinely worried about Steve. It doesn't make sense.

He doesn't have the strength for a Thanks or even a smile, but he nods just once, just barely, before sluggishly falling onto the bed and fumbling with the blanket once more. Every movement hurts. Every twitch of a muscle is too much, and just moving his pinkie is enough to douse his body in never-ending pain that travels from his skull all the way down.

Something Steve has always wondered is why migraines make his body shut down like that, leaving him in a state where all he can do is lie down and fall into a near-catatonic limbo until the pain has lifted enough to face the rest of the world again. Fighting inter-dimensional monsters and posing as a feast to demonic, modified monster bats was also agony. It also made him lose his footing and almost pass out from blood loss and pain, his back scratched open completely where the bats dragged him across rough stone.

Migraine pains don't really compare to those, though, and it scares him. Because he knows that's all up in his brain. His fucked up, mangled, thrice-concussed fucking brain he never got cared for because the government goons never took them seriously. Never took him seriously.

And now here he is, lying in a stranger's bed in a pitch-black room that's still somehow too bright, unmoving, too weak to even pull up the blanket, and hoping to pass out from it all. Hoping he won't hallucinate again this time. Hoping that he won't throw up this time, his body convulsing because it knows it shouldn't be feeling like this.

Throwing up from pain. There's really nothing more fucked up than that. Or, there is. Throwing up from pain and begging an invisible man to make it stop, only to realise hours later that the most painful migraines can also make you hallucinate.

He doesn't want that. He doesn't want any of that ever again, and certainly not in a strange, dark cabin with a vampire forged from a human he never even liked.

Tears spring to his eyes, but they're not the kind that'll fall and bring relief. They just stay in the corners of his eyes, his only way to express the waves and flares of pain washing over him, wishing he could just pass out now.

Kas tucks him in. Steve didn’t know he could do that. It strikes him as extremely non-vampiric even in this state he’s in. Steve doesn’t react, doesn’t so much as blink his eyes open as the pain travels up to his hairline and settles there, flaring over his forehead to his eyes and down to his cheekbones and then up again, a never-ending motion that he never stands a chance to get used to.

“Safe,” Kas says again, and it zings through Steve’s body with violent force that doesn’t match at all with the gentle tone he’s using.

Scrunching his forehead to stave off more words, Steve hopes that Kas will take the hint and know to shut up.

But he has no such luck.

“Here.”

“Shhh.” He shakes his head minutely, shushing the vampire with a barely there noise, keeping the damage to a minimal amount. “You can go,” he slurs, trying not to speak at all. “Please.”

A beat of blessed, blissful silence, before there’s shuffling again. Kas does walk to the door, but then stops in the doorway. Steve doesn’t want to look.

“No.” Kas sounds surprised about it. Mystified. Like he wants to leave but can’t.

What?

“Stay. Here.”

Whatever you do, just please be quiet about it, Steve thinks desperately. Instead of saying any of that, he shushes him again, hoping that the thump he hears means that Kas is sitting on the floor now. Though he doesn’t understand why.

Why do you even care?

“Safe,” Kas says again, whispering the word into the room, and it doesn’t zing through Steve this time.

With Kas refusing to leave and his pathetic state of existence so blatantly on display, and with waves and waves as his nerves fire signals to his overworked and tired brain, more tears sprint to his eyes. And this time they fall. Silently, and without a sob, without even a sniffle of acknowledgment. But they fall.

And Steve just wants to go home.

🤍 permanent tag list gang: @skiddit @inklessletter @aringofsalt @hellion-child @stobin-cryptid @hotluncheddie @gutterflower77 @auroraplume @steddieonbigboy @n0-1-important @stevesjockstrap @brainvines @puppy-steve @izzy2210 @itsall-taken @mangoinacan13 @madigoround @hammity-hammer (lmk if you want on or off, for this story or permanently)

part 2 here

#steddie fic #steddie #steve harrington #eddie munson #kas eddie munson #dio words #kas takes care of steve fic #still not sure if this is tumblrable but it shall no longer stay between me and the discord thread girlies

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