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alleiwentcrazy · 1 year

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The point is, Steve can’t hear.

A person can get hit in the head only so many times before it takes effect and does permanent damage. Steve’s incessant claims that being in the front row when the fight breaks down does nothing to him, that he’s safe and alright as long as everyone else is, mean very little in the face of cold, evident facts.

His hearing isn’t intact. It takes him a while to adjust to this reality, but with the help of his friends, he eventually does. Thanks to Nancy’s fierce bullying of the government guys who come to Hawkins to assess the situation and cook up some half-assed excuse for everything that’s happened, Steve now has a small army of well-paid doctors that really seem to be eager to help. He also gets state-of-the-art hearing aids that, well—they work, but Steve’s range of possibilities is still quite narrow. Let a few people into the room, let them speak simultaneously and all he can hear is static, rustles and crackling.

But he’s pliant. He listens when Robin tells him they have to get in the car and hit the road to get to his appointment on time. He lets her help with inserting the aids properly on the days he’s just too impatient and too bugged about how they feel and look to even care if they help him hear. He’s not dismissing her enthusiasm when she starts learning sign language before he even gets a chance to discuss it as his option.

He’s doing a lot of things for her, even if they’re supposed to be important to him first. To be honest, these days it’s mostly doing things for Robin that keeps him going. He would have gone completely numb ages ago if it weren’t for her and her unique ways of picking up the severed pieces whenever he crumbles.

He’s also doing it for Dustin. If Robin is his twin sister, Dustin is the little brother he’s never had. And Dustin… It’s just been too rough on him. It’s been rough on everyone; how could it not be if the only thing they seem to be able to do is wait? Wait for the lab guys to figure out a way to end this. Wait for the panic to cease. Wait for Max to wake up.

Wait for the grief to pass.

They wait and wait, but it never stops—on the contrary, it brings fresh, equally unwanted feelings. They’re always there, lurking behind the corner like a kitten that wants to launch itself at an unsuspecting owner – only with them, there won’t be any playtime involved. Steve recognizes this feeling. It’s the same feeling he’d had in that Winnebago when he was dropping off Max, Lucas and Erica at Creel’s doorstep. An awful anticipation of doom waiting to happen.

He doesn’t like it. He’d like to find a way to do something about it, but he can’t seem to get to the core of it.

Maybe that’s why he thinks he’s hearing things when he really can’t be hearing them.

At first, Steve writes it off as him being paranoid. It happens only when he’s home by himself, so it’s the only logical explanation – he takes off his aids, he gets too attentive about his surroundings, right? He thinks he hears something, but it’s only his tired mind playing tricks on him.

Especially because what he hears are mostly usual, non threatening things. The sound of water running in the bathroom (he goes inside, everything is dry and quiet). The sound of kitchen drawers being opened (he goes to the kitchen, the cabinets are exactly the way he left them). The sound of cutlery being dropped on the floor (but he hasn’t even taken anything out in the first place).

He even gets used to it. Things happen, his brain is weird. It’s confusing, sure, but hasn’t he seen worse things? He definitely has.

But it doesn’t keep him away from sleeping with his bat perched on the side of the bed. If he sleeps at all, if a sudden sound of breaking glass doesn’t keep him awake until his morning shift with Robin, when he can finally leave this goddamn house and take his mind off of things.

Steve tries to ignore it. He really tries, but the point is—Steve can’t hear things like running water in the bathroom when his aids are off. Hell, he only makes it out if he focuses on it when they’re in, so why the heck can he hear it so well? Why are the sounds multiplying?

It goes on for weeks. He avoids the topic for as long as possible, trying to shoo away the obvious similarities between his house and the house that made him hate spiders and cringe at fireplaces not too long ago.

It gets a little too real on just some random Tuesday, when his kitchen positively explodes with sounds the second he gets the hearing aids off. Cabinet doors slam left and right, mugs fall to the floor and shatter, forks and spoons seem to be getting thrown around like ragdolls—but Steve sees nothing. He hears it, he hears it so loudly it hurts, the cacophony of noises he’s never even heard before, but his eyes register no proof of it. He curls down on the floor, expecting sharp glass pieces to cut his skin, but nothing happens. Nothing’s here.

He still covers his head, tucked away in the furthest corner of the kitchen, waiting for it to just stop, to leave him alone—

Steve doesn’t know how long it takes, but when it’s finally done, his knees are shaky and his breathing is ragged. He snatches his aids and takes off, straight to Robin’s house. He doesn’t even lock the door, a thing his parents would kill him for if they knew.

It’s the first time he explains everything to her. It would be hard not to, because she sees right through him. His panicked, restless eyes are enough indication of things not being right.

“Maybe, uh—I think I’ve read something about hearing loss and auditory hallucinations? That they happen, sometimes, especially if the loss of hearing is sudden?” she says, already flipping through her notebook where she keeps all Steve-related stuff and pacing around the room with enough force to make a hole in the carpet.

Steve’s not convinced. “It seems pretty real to me,” he mumbles and frowns. “But that’s the point of it, right?”

Robin shrugs. He notices that she has a small set of wrinkles around her eyes. Steve looks at them for a second in total disbelief. They already have some worry wrinkles, and they’re not even well into their twenties.

He’s gonna lose all his precious hair in a span of months if this doesn’t stop.

They decide to bring it up during his next appointment, still hoping that it’ll maybe go away on its own. Robin tries to make him get a consult straight away (what if it is rabies after all, Steve, like a really really really weird, belated presentation of rabies?), but he waves it off. The option of hallucinations doesn’t soothe his nerves, but as long as it’s not a chiming clock, he can avoid confronting it for a while longer.

It doesn’t go away, though. Steve can’t quite pinpoint it, but it almost feels like—well, it obviously doesn’t feel like it’s real enough to be real. But there’s something that accompanies the sounds, the lack of evidence, the missing of this ominous feeling that Creel’s house inflicted on him.

The sounds—it feels like they bear a presence. Steve’s still scared and gets spooked by them whenever they happen, but he’s no longer truly afraid of them.

Some of them are even comforting. The sound of his pillow being fluffed up before he gets to bed, the sound of pen scratching on paper whenever he leaves his journal open on the desk, the whooshing sound of a lighter being opened and closed – they all make this eerie place his parents have left him a little less empty.

He rarely lets himself think about it that way. He may be a little kooky, but admitting that he’s lonely enough to find hallucinations comforting would be way too much to handle at the moment.

So Steve can’t hear, but he learns to accept the fact that, apparently, sometimes he can. He doesn’t know how it works—to be quite honest he doesn’t know a lot about experiencing hearing loss at all, despite now being hard of hearing himself—but it just makes its place in his life.

He thinks about it a lot, but he tries not to overthink it too hard. It just happens. Things fall to the floor in his house, curtains get torn, the fridge gets opened frequently. He just can’t see it. His mind hears it, but his eyes don’t get the memo. He lives for longer than a week. It’s probably a good sign; nothing’s going to make his bones snap in two now, probably. Hopefully.

Things change suddenly.

Steve tries to spend as much time with Dustin as possible. Between work, his appointments and Robin, Dustin, Max and the kids are his top priority. He doesn’t think he would be able to function if he let himself take a breath and step down from his piled up responsibilities that he chose to take on himself. They keep him together. They keep him going.

Besides, Mrs. Henderson gets really worried. Sometimes it’s just better for Dustin to stay with Steve, and Steve is more than happy to be with him, even though it seems that Dustin doesn’t really like his cold house either.

It’s one of Dustin’s quiet days. He gets them, sometimes—Steve knows that trying to get him to talk on one of those days is a lost cause, and his ears are killing him. He was in such a hurry this morning he didn’t take the time to put the aids in properly. Work was overflowing with people, too, so now his temples are throbbing from trying to pick up the chatter from the static. Seriously, how is it possible that people still spend so much time watching movies in the face of almost-apocalypse, Steve doesn’t know.

“Would you mind if I took my aids off for a while?”

“Go ahead,” Dustin mumbles, bending over his new book.

Something flips inside Steve’s chest. He knows it’s not supposed to be like that, it’s unlike Dustin to be so… not himself. But what can Steve do? He can’t make him talk. He can just wait, nothing else.

He gets up to leave his aids on the counter and pour himself some coffee. He should probably start making dinner soon, but he decides to take a few peaceful sips first.

It’s weird. To sit with Dustin Henderson, of all people, without a single word. Steve glances at him every once and again, but Dustin either ignores him or genuinely forgets that he’s there.

Steve’s so deep in his thoughts about Dustin, he doesn’t even look to the side when a sudden sound of kitchen chair toppling over cuts through the silence. His eyes are trained on the kid.

Who flinches. And frowns. Steve can swear that he fights the urge to look around.

Each and every chair Steve keeps in the kitchen is standing where he placed them in the morning after breakfast. Nothing real has happened. But Steve heard it. And, apparently, Dustin did too.

Steve’s brain is working overtime for the rest of the evening, and he desperately tries not to show any of it. He’s jumping into conclusions. It was an accident; dumb luck. It’s nothing. He’s working himself up, nonsensically.

But it doesn’t feel like it’s nothing. It was only one chair, one sound, but the feeling that accompanied it was strong. Too strong to be nothing.

He waits to drop Dustin off at home like he’s on pins and needles, fumbling with his fingers and keys and pacing around. Maybe it’s better that it’s one of Dustin’s quiet days, he mostly gets away with it, getting only a few side glances.

When gets back home, it’s late, but he’s buzzing with anticipation nonetheless. He can finally do something. He discards his aids haphazardly, not nearly as carefully as he should, and starts running around the house. The house his parents built is huge—but the kitchen turns out to be quite small when he’s finally done with arraying at least a dozen lamps there. He has to raid three of his father's garages to get enough extension cords.

When he turns them on all at once, he has to take a step back and shut his eyes, because it’s too much light.

Just the right thing he needs.

His heart is beating so fast he can almost feel it ramming against his ribs. That’s about how far he’d thought this plan through.

“Come on,” he says and clears his throat, trying to gauge how his voice may really sound now. He repeats himself, hoping that it’s louder this time.

Nothing happens for a while, but he knows he’s close. The feeling is here. The presence that hasn’t left him in months. It’s here.

Steve walks around the kitchen, moves the lamps a little, shakes some of them. His hands are clammy and it feels like he’s chewed through his cheek at this point, but he can wait. He’s waited for a long time. He can wait a while longer.

When the microwave beeps, he stops breathing for a second.

Until it beeps again. And again.

“Oh god,” he breathes. He doesn’t know if he speaks clearly or not, he doesn’t even care. “Come on, show me that it’s you. Come on, come on—”

The lamp furthest to the left starts blinking, slowly at first. Then the one next to it, then another one, and another one, like someone’s walking around and making them flicker one by one.

They’re blinking so much one of the bulbs goes out. Steve doesn’t hear it hiss, so he knows it went out here, now. He knows it’s real.

“Oh god,” his hand goes to his mouth. His eyes are weirdly itchy. “Oh god, is it really you, Eddie?”

The lamp directly in front of Steve goes wild. When he reaches out, it’s almost like he can touch the presence that’s here with him.

And it’s Eddie. Eddie’s here with him.

#steve harrington #eddie munson #is he a ghost??? is he a zombie????#a vamp- is he a vampire?!?!?!?!?!?#well he's definitely a creature #robin buckley #dustin henderson #dustin and his dads #!!!!!#steddie #stranger things #st4 #fix it fic #of sorts???? at least a beginning of one #im telling you people.... there are explanations #hard of hearing steve harrington #hoh!steve #platonic stobin #because i love them

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stevieschrodinger · 1 year

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Eddie goes zero to sixty when he wakes up. He expects to be dead, so the strong smell of disinfectant and boiled hospital food comes as a shock that, at first, he doesn’t believe.

But then the irregular bleating of the heart monitor next to him starts to sink in, the beeps sounding way too fucking fast and that stresses Eddie out even more. He tries to escape out of the bed, gets tangled in tubes and wires, agony burning up his side and through his stomach, practically falls out of the bed when his own legs won’t hold him.

The floor is rock solid and stone cold, and that just ratchets Eddie’s panic further, because now he’s stuck and he can’t escape and there are people – people he doesn't know – touching him, all talking all over each other and it’s so much, too much to handle, the overload -

“Holy shit kid,” a voice Eddie would recognize anywhere, mostly because he’s been warned by that voice so many times about getting caught dealing and carrying and, “Jesus, give him some room a second.”

“I thought you were dead,” Eddie rasps out, voice totally fucked.

“Yeah, well, thought the same about you kid,” Hopper answers, stoic and honest as always.

“I can’t stay here,” Eddie finds his hands twisted up in the material of Hoppers jacket.

Hopper nods, knowingly, “back into bed, give me half an hour.”

Eddie agrees, holds onto that, because the lights are too bright and the noises are all so fucking loud and even the sound of his own breathing is annoying.

“Kid,” Hopper raps on the door frame, and every fucking pair of eyes in the room swivels to him because literally everyone rammed into Max’s room is a kid to Hopper. He narrows it down a bit, looking at Steve, “Munson’s awake.”

Half the people in the room shoot up, Dustin’s fastest despite his fucked up ankle, so Hopper sticks an arm out, wraps him up, stops him even though the kid is screeching and wriggling in his hold, “just Steve, the rest of you stay here.”

There’s a roomful of complaints, but something in Hoppers tone must relay the urgency, because they do obey in the end.

“So, he needs somewhere to go.”

Hopper nods down at Steve, “Owen’s can wrangle it, but it’s got to be somewhere known, somewhere that has the space, somewhere...private.”

Steve gets what Hopper’s laying down, his place is the only place that makes any sense, “yeah, of course.”

Because there’s no question.

Eddie limps across the threshold, most of his weight supported on Steve’s shoulders. They take one look at the mountain of stairs and divert straight to the couch. Steve can see that Eddie’s in pain, that he’s restless, that he can’t settle, “what can I do?”

“Nothing. Nothing. Feel like there’s...fire ants or something, crawling all over, under my skin.”

Steve tuts. Not having a suggestion for that. Eddie’s face contorts again and he’s sweating. The nurse was very fucking clear about the pain meds, and Eddie can’t have any more for another couple of hours at the earliest. Steve doesn’t state that out loud; he’s pretty sure Eddie doesn’t need reminding.

He comes back with a cool sodden towel, feeling helpless, but the second it hits Eddie’s skin Eddie practically screeches and they know that isn’t the answer, so Steve throws it in the laundry.

“I don’t know what to say man, shower? Like, a hot one?”

“Dressings,” Eddie bites back, white knuckled and almost writhing now on the couch.

“Maybe...we should take you back, maybe they can-”

“No. Fuck no,” Eddie’s words bitten out, panicked.

“Okay okay,” Steve surrenders, palms up flat, “what then?”

Eddie’s eyes flick over the back of the couch, he can’t see the stairs from there, there’s a wall in the way, but his expression looks pained just at the thought, “I’ll try anything once.” He tries to make a joke of it, tries to make out that he’s okay, but he’s clearly in fucking agony and Steve has no idea what to do for him so he agrees readily.

Making it up the stairs takes them fully half an hour, Eddie having to wait, panting, on every single step. Steve’s never felt so helpless in his life (excluding that one time Max floated in the cemetery), it’s torture watching Eddie suffer, watching him try and keep in all the pained noises, only to fail miserably.

He manages a half hearted joke about King Steve giving him a sponge bath when they make it to the turn near the top, the wider step on the corner giving Eddie somewhere safe and secure to lean.

Steve doesn’t laugh, “how are you feeling now?”

Eddie swallows, throat clicking dry, “it’s worse. It’s like there’s...like something's under there, moving around,” Eddie draws in a hissed breath, face crumpling, “hurts. So fucking much.”

Steve doesn’t even know what to say to that, so they get moving, and those final four steps are worse than all the others combined. They shuffle through Steve’s bedroom and into the bathroom, and when Steve clicks on the light Eddie makes an agonized noise and Steve clicks it off again immediately.

“S’bright,” Eddie mutters, squinting at the floor, greasy, sweaty hair sticking to his forehead. He looks ill. Washed out. No, gray. He looks like he’s gone gray in the dim light coming through the small bathroom window.

“Okay, okay, no problem,” so Steve turns to get the water going, trying to figure out how the fuck they’re going to do this considering Eddie looks exhausted and half dead already. He hears Eddie make a noise, there's a soft thump, and Steve turns back, concerned.

Eddie’s gone.

He’s just...gone.

His clothes are in a heap on the floor, bloody dressings mixed in, and Steve yells, hopping backward and nearly dragging down the shower curtain, when the pile shifts. Wings emerge. Tails.

Steve recognizes it instantly. It’s a fucking demobat.

“Fuck. Fuck fuck,” Steve backs away, edges his way through the door, thinking of the nail bat in the boot of his car. He usually brings it everywhere with him, when he can, but he was too concerned with getting Eddie into the house to think of it.

He doesn’t take his eyes off the thing as it flops around, trapped in Eddie’s clothes. Steve darts the rest of the way, scouring his room for a weapon and giving up fast; the kitchen, a knife; that would be easiest.

Steve runs for it, closing his bedroom door tight so the thing can’t escape. He runs down the stairs, grabs the biggest knife in the block and then takes the stairs two at a time on the way back up.

Steve opens his bedroom door cautiously, point of the knife sliding through the gap, just in case the thing is flapping around in his bedroom. It’s not, it appears safe.

But Steve knows the danger, he was nearly killed by just one of those things so he isn’t taking any chances. Steve waits a second with the door open...he realizes he can hear it. It’s not making the horrible high pitched screech that he’s used to, it sounds more like...well, it sounds like a whimper. It actually sounds kind of pathetic.

Steve creeps closer, only to find the demobat hopelessly tangled in Eddie’s clothes, it’s struggling only making it worse. Steve stands for a moment, staring. Eddie’s gone...and now that little creature is in Eddie’s clothes.

Eddie. Shit, Steve has a terrible feeling about this, “Eddie?”

Steve creeps a little closer, still pointing with the knife, “Eddie, man, if that’s you, you’ve got to give me something here,” Steve begs desperately. There’s still no response, “oh fuck me, I’m loosing my godamn mind.”

Steve kneels, moving a little closer, “Eddie?”

The Demobat’s strange, worm like head appears from under Eddie’s shirt and sort of...mewls. It’s pathetic, really. The open, rounded mouth in filled with rows of tiny, razor sharp teeth. It’s got four eyes, two above the mouth, and two more set behind that, and they all blink in turn, strange slits opening and closing slowly.

It makes another little noise. “Okay. Okay, lets, try...oh man I am so dumb. Dustin’s never going to let me live this down,” Steve slowly offers the back of his hand to the thing, reasoning that if it bites him, the wound won’t be too debilitating than if he looses a finger or something equally terrible. He waits, watching, poised to drag his hand back at the first sign of danger. He doesn’t need too though, because the demobat potentially formerly known as Eddie, snakes out a too long, thin black tongue, and licks a sticky smear on the back of Steve’s hand.

And that’s all. It sits still, staring up at Steve will all four of it’s beady black eyes, watching expectantly.

“Okay. Okay. I’m going to trust you. But if you bite me I swear to…” Steve mutters to himself as he carefully untangles the bat from the pile of clothing, it’s tails and wings well and truly wrapped up with the material.

It’s not awful. It feels kind of cold, but the skin isn’t like, moist, or anything, it’s very dry and kind of scaly. The wings are more leathery, and the tail is...well, it kind of feels weirdly hollow.

“Okay, I got you Munson. God that’s so weird,” Eddie’s body snakes up Steve’s arm a little way, wings flapping clumsily as he tries to right himself. Steve has to fight his instinct to throw the thing off, the last time a demobat was this close to him it nearly strangled him to death.

Despite climbing all over Steve, Eddie wraps his tail around his arms and chest...but not his neck. Not even close. Kind of like, even in this form, he knows.

Eddie ends up hooking the ‘elbows’ of his wings into Steve’s shirt and just...huddling there. Not doing anything, tail wrapped firmly around Steve’s arm, one wing against Steve’s chest and the other against his back, hugging Steve’s shoulder.

Steve stares at himself, and Eddie, in the mirror, “well, fuck.”

With no idea what the hell he’s supposed to do now, Steve heads to bed. It’s been a bit of a day, and whatever the hell this is can wait until tomorrow. He crawls into bed, carefully lying down. Eddie seems to get it, movements still slow and very clumsy, he shifts completely onto Steve’s chest, sort of walking on the joints of his wings, curling up.

Steve lies there, staring at the ceiling in the dark, “I guess this is...maybe not the weirdest thing to happen?”

Eddie makes a soft trilling noise.

Fuck.

Steve wakes up slowly, very aware of the warm weight on top of him. He blinks, vision filled with a mop of brown curls. Eddie.

Steve is hugging Eddie. Eddie is mostly on top of him. Eddie is very naked under Steve’s hands and his very obvious erection is digging into Steve’s thigh and, “Eddie, you’re people again!”

Eddie lifts his head, squinting, opens his mouth and says, “mrrrrp?”

It’s eerily reminiscent of the noise he’d made last night, as a demobat.

“You’re a dude again, dude.”

Eddie blinks. It seems to take a long time to process before he finally, finally croaks out, “coffee.”

Steve wholeheartedly agrees.

Steve slips out of bed, Eddie either isn’t acknowledging or hasn't noticed his boner situation, so Steve figures there's some sort of bro code here and just ignores it too.

While coffee is brewing, Steve figures his only possible course of action is to call the smartest person he knows. He will never admit that out loud, but luckily Henderson answers on the second ring, like he’s been waiting for Steve to call him.

“Dustin-”

“Can I come see Eddie yet?”

Steve sighs, “I’m great, thanks for asking, so cool of-”

“Steve.”

“Yeah. Yes, come over.”

The little shit doesn’t even say goodbye. He just hangs up.

Steve takes a coffee up to Eddie, who is buck naked and sprawled ass up over Steve’s bed, “okay, Eddie come on, Dustin’s on the way.”

Eddie groans, crawling out of bed, Steve heads over to his wardrobe to dig out something for Eddie to wear so he isn’t obviously staring at all of Eddie’s nakedness. There’s a thump and a, “shit,” that has Steve spinning back around, Eddie sat on his ass on the floor, looking confused.

“You okay?”

“Legs. Apparently you can forget legs really fast.”

It hadn’t occurred to Steve when he woke up, but it does now. All of Eddie is pristine; there’s not a wound, mark, scar bruise, anything on him anywhere. Steve has to step closer, kneeling in front of Eddie to prod his chest, Eddie swats at him, “you’re all healed up.”

Eddie stops swatting at Steve and prods himself instead, “holy shit. I am.”

“Well...that’s a positive, right?”

Eddie hums, and Steve goes back to digging him out a sweater and some sleep pants and boxers. That’ll do for today. Eddie’s a little wobbly when he stands, so Steve hovers in grabbing distance, but Eddie gets dressed without incident.

Steve offers him the coffee from the nightstand, now cool enough to drink. Eddie takes an enthusiastic mouthful and Steve watches as Eddie’s face goes through a series of...something, his mouth obviously full of coffee. His face is definitely doing something. And then Eddie just opens his mouth, “bleaugh,” letting the coffee just...run back into the mug.

And then he hands it back. To Steve. Who takes it reflexively, “I’ll just...I’ll go and get rid of this.”

“Where is he?”

“Okay, okay, firstly, I need you to not freak out.”

“Steve,” Dustin stares at him, “saying that is guaranteed to make anyone freak out.”

“Yep,” Steve agrees, “I mean it though, Eddie is absolutely fine, I swear it.”

“But. There’s a but isn’t there, Steve why is there always a but with-”

“He turned into a demobat last night. Like just, was a bat. And I didn’t know what to do, so we went to sleep, and then this morning he was Eddie again.”

Dustin’s face is a process, before he finally settles on, “are you sure?”

Steve rolls his eyes, “yes, yes, I’m sure. He was Eddie, then bat, the Eddie again. It wasn't complicated, just fucking weird.”

“Right...so where is he?”

Steve opens his bedroom door to find...absolute carnage. His bed has moved, the mattress is off the frame, there’s blankets and pillows strewn everywhere, feathers swirling in the air.

“Eddie?”

Eddie pops up on the other side of the bed, shirtless and frantic looking, “I didn’t, I didn’t do anything, it just, it just...it just exploded.”

Steve stares, the feathers settling. Eddie’s actually naked again and appears to be building some sort of fort on the floor of Steve’s bedroom, Steve blinks, “the pillow doesn’t matter Eddie.”

Eddie nods decisively, “good.” Then, after a moments thought, “do you have more?” And then he’s back on his hands and knees rearranging his fort, like a feral racoon or something.

“Dustin’s here, do you want to maybe come and talk to him?”

“It’s the scientific method Steve!”

“We are not throwing anyone off a roof, anywhere, any time, ever.”

They both turn back to Eddie, watching as he eats another spoon of raspberry jelly straight out of the jar.

“You got any ketchup?” Dustin asks, going back to food again.

“That won’t prove either theory, ketchup is red and sweet.”

Dustin turns to him, “Steve, that is possibly the most intelligent thing you’ve ever said to me.”

Steve’s ready to slap the little shit at this point, but Dustin’s face is earnest. Apparently Dustin actually means what he just said. Like, sincerely.

So Steve lets it go, and Dustin suggests, “we need something sweet but not red, and something red but not sweet.”

“We should go to the store,” Steve adds, then stares at Eddie for a minute longer; he’s basically fucking the neck of the jar with his tongue, “I’ll call Nancy to go to the store for us,” Steve adjusts.

Dustin nods, turning the page of his notebook.

Nancy drops grocery bags on the counter while Robin hops up next to her, “so, I thought we could make red jello and add a bunch of salt or something, I got some soup for him to try, some more jelly just in case, and some more ketchup since you said he really likes that. Two tubs of salsa…”

Steve rummages in the bag next to her, when Eddie pops up next to him, Steve hadn’t even heard him come into the kitchen. Eddie wedges himself right in there, pushing Steve back with a hand and then...hisses. Hisses at Nancy. Like, makes a hissing noise and bears his teeth. Steve just moves, lets Eddie push him back, while Nancy watches, wide eyes and surprised.

She takes a few Steps back herself, closer to Robin, and tries a tentative, “Eddie?”

He just hisses again, before snapping, “mine!” at her.

And then he disappears, there’s a light thump on the kitchen floor. Everyone watches as bat Eddie extricates himself from his clothes, movements much better this time around. He half climbs and half flaps his way up Steve’s body, until he gets to around waist height and Steve grabs at the thickest part of Eddie’s body to help him out. Eddie climbs the rest of the way, draping himself around the back of Steve’s neck, tail wrapped under one armpit, Eddie standing on his wing joints on the opposite shoulder. He hisses at Nancy again.

“Holy shit,” Nancy says.

Dustin is frantically scribbling in his notebook.

Robin, once she’d got over the shock of Eddie’s transformation, laughed and laughed and laughed. Even Nancy was smirking at them. The way Steve was absently stroking over Eddie to keep him mollified, and that Nancy couldn’t come within ten feet of them without Eddie getting all riled up again.

“So, you and Eddie huh.”

Steve just rolls his eyes.

“He’s feeling plenty threatened by Nance,” Dustin adds, really, really, unhelpfully.

“Probably because they were a thing,” Robin speculates.

“So you and Eddie are like, dating?” Dustin asks, and whatever Steve’s face does makes Robin laugh and laugh and laugh again.

Eddie actually manages a graceful glide off Steve’s shoulder and onto the nest/fort/thing Eddie had constructed earlier. Steve was going to try and tidy it before bed...but from the way Eddie is wing walking across it, pathetically dragging the edge of a pillow in his tiny mouth, Steve guesses that he’s not.

It’s also been a bit of a day, and he can’t really be bothered.

He climbs into bed, Eddie flapping out of the way and then climbing his way carefully up onto Steve’s chest.

This is my life now, Steve thinks, as he stares at the ceiling.

And then gets winded, when the very small demobat lying on his chest is suddenly a full sized man again. Eddie nearly headbutts Steve in the chin and Steve rolls over to dump him off, panicked and with the breath knocked out of him. Eddie makes a pathetic and somehow accusatory trilling noise, like this turn of events is all Steve’s fault, before he rolls over and flops over Steve again.

Apparently, cuddling is a thing they do.

Eddie makes a noise like a purr when Steve rubs his hand up and down the naked skin of Eddie’s back.

So, yeah, this is Steve’s life now.

#stranger things #eddie munson #creature eddie munson #magic eddie munson #steve harrington #long suffering steve harrington #steve and dustin #dustin henderson #hopper to the rescue #bat eddie munson #steddie #steddie headcanon #stranger things headers #nancy and robin

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angelynmoon · 1 year

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So, eldritch monster Steve...

Part 1

Steve who was born in the Upside down long before El and Hawkins lab discovered it, before it was called the Upside Down, who may even have come into being at the same time as the Upside Down formed.

Steve who escaped when Dr. Brenner first began his expeiments, Dr. Brenner who opened a crack that let him slip through long before El was old enough to understand just what had been released, who didn't recognize Steve as Other the way she would come to recognize the creatures that also escaped into the Right Side Up.

El who doesn't know that Steve isn't human, doesn't know he escaped the Down Below because he was lonely.

Steve who spent years lurking in the woods surrounding Hawkins, practicing and learning, (those first few years may have been spent digging through garbage cans, and maybe a small Eddie Munson, still carrying bruises, a buzz cut and a distrust of adults, may have left left overs by the trash for him, thinking him a stray cat or dog, hoping to lure him close enough to pet, but that's a different story, that's Eddie's story, Eddie who called his stray, the one that was too scared of people to show itself, Steve, and Steve who liked the way a tiny Eddie whispered it so preciously that he kept it) Steve who spent time learning to mimic the way humans looked and spoke until he felt confident enough to join them.

Steve who knew that Mrs. Harrington longed for a child so much that she didn't question the one that walked out of the woods one day to splash around in her pool and called her Mother.

And their family was fine, Mr. Harrington accepting that he had an Heir now and not questioning why he'd never seen the boy before, children should not be seen or heard unless they were called on. And it was fine, right up until the moment that Mr. Harrington raised his hand to the small boy that was neither his son nor human.

Mr. Harrington learned that day what fear was and he took his wife, let her give adultery as an escuse for her travelling with him, anything was better than saying a monster live in their home.

And they left the creature the house and focused on their business, everywhere but Hawkins, and Mr. Harrington walked with a limp from that moment on.

Carol and Tommy were part of his mask at first but Steve really did come to care for them, as much as he could being what he was, so even after Tommy threatened him, even after Carol turned her nose up at him, he let them live, they had been his for so long, and part of him would always think of them as his, they were marked as such, nothing from the Down Below would touch them, not the real monsters from the Down Below at least.

Billy though, well, Billy had been marked the moment that he put his hands on Lucas with intent to hurt him, when he threatened Max, and Dustin, and Mike, those kids were Steve's and even if he couldn't stop them from fucking around with the Down Below, he could at least make sure nothing ate them, they were his in a way that Tommy and Carol never were, in a way even Nancy wasn't, not really, she might have been, Steve might even have been able to learn to love her deeply and completely, but she had ruined that when she came to him smelling of Jonathan and guilt, when she had gotten drunk and called him bullshit, she still had his protection but it wasn't the same after they broke up.

And Robin, when she helped him hold the door in a Russion Bunker to protect his kids he knew he'd never let anything from the Down Below touch her, she was his on a level that even the children would never touch, and he was hers in a way he never knew he could be. She was the one person he considered telling, but he was afraid, what if she was afraid of him after, he liked her, parts of him might even love her.

She was his other half, his humanity, his moral compass, if she liked boys Steve would have made her his everything, instead he settled for soulmate, Platonic with a capital P, as she told Dustin when he said they should date.

Robin was his, always and wholey.

And Steve was so angry when he found out Henry was targeting Max, that he had taken Chrissy in front of Eddie, Eddie who had fed him portions of his own dinner before Steve went to the Harringtons, Eddie, who Steve had never wanted involved in the Down Below.

And Steve supposed that it might just be time to remind the Down Below, the place that Steve was born in, that he had lived in and survived in, long before he was Steve, before he had been taken in by a rag tag group of nerds, time to show Henry just who was in charge here.

It was time to show Vecna just who the big boss of this game was, it certainly wasn't Vecna.

Steve wondered what kind of Dinosaurs and Dustpans name the kids would give him when he showed them what he really was.

@cats-ate-all-of-my-pasta

#stranger things #steve harrington #eldritch monster steve #upside down creature steve #steddie undertones #alternate universe of sorts #part 1 #From the Rot

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taeiris · 3 months

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meanwhile in the upside down…

our boys

byler worms are back in my brain. basically this is a lil scenario i made up in my head where while theyre stuck in the UD, mike gets attacked by a demo creature or wtv, and will saves him so thats the context for all the mess and their state💀 rest is in the script i decided to add over it bc im extra.

close ups!

and lineart!

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chouthechaoticraccoon · 9 days

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Why does my special interest have to be media? Why couldn't I have gotten the math autism instead of the 'I know every single fact about these specific twenty shows, books, and fandoms and can't stop thinking about it so I neglect my responsibilities to write 300k-word fanfictions and annoy people with how much I talk about it' autism?

(Specifically, Stranger Things, IT, House MD, and Supernatural have me in a chokehold, save me)

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steddieonbigboy · 2 months

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Abnormal Behaviours

written for @steddiemicrofic march prompt ‘pin’ wc: 388 | rated: T | cw: none | read on ao3

📌📌📌

"What's a three letter word for badge?"

They're sat at the kitchen table, drinking coffee in the late morning light, and enjoying a rare day off together when Steve interrupts the Dio tape Eddie has playing over on the counter. It takes Eddie a moment to remember how to form words before he can offer a response to the crossword clue Steve has just thrown at him.

"Uhh pin?"

"Yeah that works, so what about 'not you'?"

"Me?"

"Sure, yep," Steve scratches his nose as he scans the newspaper, "Okay how about 'opposed to' for seven letters?"

"Against?"

"And, um, 1979 album by Pink Floyd?"

"The Wall? Hey, wait a second," Eddie grabs the puzzle pages from Steve's hands and stares at the blank sheet before looking up with a laugh, "You little shit!"

"C'mon Ed's," Steve grins unrepentant, "When have I ever willingly done a crossword? And to answer your question, yes. Yes, I will pin you against the wall."

"Did you seriously make fake crossword clues to get me to ask you that?"

"Robin helped."

"Robin help- well of course she did, neither of you can function without the other."

"Yeah, we're like guinea pigs."

"Stevie, baby," Eddie pinches his nose before taking a deep breath, "I'm not even going to dignify that with a response."

"What? It's true! They get lonely without a friend," Steve sits up straight from where he's been slouching against the kitchen table, "And one of the books we read said that they can 'develop abnormal behaviours' if left alone and that's us!"

"Okay, two things. One, why have you read multiple books about guinea pigs? And two, why have you read multiple books about guinea pigs?"

"Oh, so it's fine for you to read multiple books on random subjects," Steve pouts, "But when I do it, it's weird?"

"It is when the subject matter is guinea pigs!"

"Me and Robin were thinking about getting one," Steve shrugs, "So, we were being responsible pet owners and doing some research first, and now we know that we have to get two!"

"Look, not that I don't love the idea or anything, but can we please get back to you pinning me against the wall?"

"Nope. In fact, I think we should go pick Robin up and go to the pet store instead."

#steve gets the skrunkliest little piggie he can find and calls him gremlin #eddie is absolutely not charmed by this tiny creature in the slightest no sir not at all #steve would definitley never come home to find eddie cuddling with gremlin and feeding him dandelion leaves #robin's piggie monsiuer duvet would never be snoozing in eddie's pocket either #eddie is still waiting to be pinned against the wall though #steve harrington #eddie munson #steddie #steve x eddie #stranger things #steddiemicrofic #steddiemicroficmarch #bigboywrites #mine

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bitsbug · 2 months

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My personal (and favorite) Gourmand theory is that they went DOOM mode on the red lizard population and singlehandedly made them become endangered on the facility grounds.

My evidence? Notice how every slugcat before them on the timeline - Spearmaster, Artificer, and Hunter, each encounter red lizards in their campaigns. Only in the campaigns of Survivor and Monk - which come directly after Gourmand - are they absent. They do reappear in Rivulet and Saint, but those both seem to take place in the far future. It took that long for the population to recover from the hell Gourmand wrought upon them.

#this applies to other hardmode creatures like red centipedes & spitters too. It's just that red lizards are the most obvious example #and I know I know it's MOST LIKELY a gameplay thing #but rainworld is no stranger to incorporating gameplay mechanics into its lore #also it's really funny to imagine #rain world #rainworld #rw spoilers #rw gourmand #obligatory talk tag

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one-time-i-dreamt · 5 months

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A symbiotic creature lived and haunted and area similar to the Upside Down in Stranger Things. A crew and I worked to find it, and dispose of it, which resulted in me being the only survivor.

#dream #creature #symbiotic #upside down #stranger things #death tw #violence tw #horror

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chirpsythismorning · 2 years

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The significance of the byler scene in Will’s room just hit me.

Think about it. Mike said the best thing he’s ever done was ask Will to be his friend.

So I don’t ever want to hear anyone downplaying the importance of that scene in 4x04. Mike was literally beaming and smiling more than we’ve seen him smile in ages, and there’s a reason for it! Because he was out here recreating the best thing he’s ever done 😭

#byler #stranger things #byler analysis #byler meta #byler evidence #‘I asked if you wanted to be my friend… and… and you said yes. you said yes. it was the best thing I’ve ever done.’#vecna: *steals this exact memory from mike to prevent him from saving the day again*#mike: if we’re friends again… best friends…#will: yeah?#mike: yeah.#mike in 4x04: THIS THE REMIX #no but if #birthdaygate #memorygate #are real…#that means Mike subconsciously recreated this moment that was so important to him… despite a literal curse from a demon creature…#very soulmatism of him 🥺

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corrodedcoughin · 1 year

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Overdramatic married to the bit and the aesthetic eddie munson would have black candles right? Would exclusively burn black candles whenever he has the chance. And every time he forgets that black candles have repercussions. So when he sneezes and it’s black snot that comes out he convinces himself he’s got ‘the plague’ and every time Wayne just gives him this withering stare and goes back to watching tv because Eddie’s just crawled out of his bedroom, dragging himself along the floor giving it ‘uncle, fair and noble uncle, I fear the consumption had taken me. Look for me tomorrow and you shall find a grave man’

Wayne takes a sip of his coffee and lets Eddie know ‘I’ll make sure the Garfield mug goes to a good home, son’ and suddenly Eddie crawling back to his room, Garfield mug in tow muttering about nobody appreciating his dramatic flair. Steve is sat in silence on the couch with Wayne, watched the whole thing without saying a word and honestly? Would pay to see it again. Maybe plots to buy more black candles so that it will happen again

#Eddie is a little creature please let him indulge in his dramatics #Steve is paying for dinner and a show evidently #yes sometimes wayne baits him but they do it to each other. Wayne has been known to monologue dry humour when the mood strikes and it’s one #if Eddie’s favourite things. has regaled Steve with tales of it #Steve can’t wait to see it himself #stranger things #eddie munson #steddie #steve harrington #Wayne munson

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stevieschrodinger · 1 year

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Dustin’s crying so loud, Steve can barely hear when Eddie speaks, “trust me, Stevie?”

Eddie’s never called him that before. Eddie coughs again, bloody, and it spatters his lips and stains in between his teeth, mutely, Steve nods.

Eddie grabs Steve by the collar of his own denim jacket, pulling himself up and Steve down. He’s surprisingly strong considering Steve is absolutely certain that Eddie’s about to die. That’s what makes Steve close his eyes and open his mouth; lets Eddie have whatever he wants. Invites it when Eddie invades with a wet and bloody tongue. It’s a battle of a kiss, and Steve soaks it up.

Eddie disappears from under Steve’s hands, and he almost falls forward, Eddie disintegrating into a cloud of fiery ash. It settles, and in the middle, there’s an egg.

It’s shocking enough that Dustin stops crying, “what the fuuuuuck?” Dustin reaches for the egg, pulls his hand back, hissing, sucking his fingers.

Steve reaches for it next, “it’s too hot,” Dustin tries to warn him...but it isn’t. It’s pleasantly warm in Steve’s hand and he lifts it comfortably.

They take it with them.

They have absolutely no fucking explanation for what the hell just happened. Steve, instinctively, refuses to put the egg down anywhere. He sits, staring at it, cataloguing the slightly speckled pattern, watching how it catches the light as he turns it in his palms, pale and diffuse in the lamplight of the lounge.

He doesn’t really like other people touching it, but allows Robin to brush it with her fingertips; she draws them back sharply, hissing, blisters already forming. He carries it with him, even going so far as to showering one handed so he can hold it. He curls around it that night in bed and isn’t even worried that he might accidentally break it; he knows he won’t.

They have a day to recuperate, the party all together again, and safe; Vecna is defeated.

Eddie has one living relative that everyone knows about; Wayne Munson. It’s the only possible place they may get some answers; the trailer is just...gone. They contact Hopper, who contacts Owens, and an hour later he calls Steve back. The trailer was impounded by Owens team to study the damage and now closed gate inside; Wayne Munson is in a Motel.

Everyone piles into the beemer.

Wayne looks sallow when he opens the door, distraught, but in a kind of worn in way. Like he’s already accepted it. No one speaks, they just watch as Steve produces the egg, cupped carefully in his hands. Wayne’s face crumples, his eyes well up, and he pulls Steve into a hug, “thank you. I thought I’d lost him, thank you.”

“Okay,” Steve replies, “but we have no idea what’s going on.”

Wayne shoos them into the room. There’s two doubles, Dustin, Robin, Nancy and Jonathan climb onto the still made bed; not the one that’s clearly been slept in. Wayne sits at the foot of his bed, Steve remains standing, carefully cradling the egg.

“He never told you what he is?”

Everyone on the bed is staring at Wayne wide eyed, Steve almost laughs at them, but he’s too busy shaking his head at Wayne.

Wayne nods, scratching his head, “so how long have you and my Eddie been seeing each other?”

Everyone on the bed turns to look at Steve instead, eyes, if anything, even wider, “we...aren’t. That’s not. We’re not…” The egg pulses hotly in Steve’s hands; for a brief moment, it’s unpleasant.

“You must be something, or you wouldn’t be able to touch his egg. Bound in blood?”

“There was blood, he was coughing up blood...when he was dying and he…”

“They kissed,” Dustin interjects, super unhelpful, “right before Eddie…” Dustin makes the form of an explosion with his hands, “you know, went poof.”

Wayne nods, “it’s enough, this time, for Eddie to come back. But if you don’t complete the bond, he won’t last long. Eddie must love you a hell of a lot.”

“Love me?” Steve asks weakly.

“Yeah,” Wayne says, “phoenix’s mate for life, and they won’t come back for anything less.”

There’s a long, drawn out silence, before Steve, finally offers a weak, “we hardly even know each other.”

“Eddie knows. A phoenix always knows. And you have to complete the bond, or he won’t be able to stay.”

“What?” Dustin asks, panicked, “what do you mean, stay?”

Wayne shrugs, “a phoenix, rejected by their mate, will burn up from the inside. He’ll wither and die unless Steve...reciprocates.”

Steve, weak limbed, just gives up and sits on the floor.

“What about you, Mr. Munson, are you a phoenix?” Dustin’s going to start in with fifty million questions. Steve’s kind of glad, gives him a moment to sit here and...stroke Eddie’s egg.

“Nah, I’m his dad’s brother. Him mom was the phoenix; that’s how she died. My brother wasn’t the best of guys and when he fucked it up...she died. Didn’t take long. Eddie’s a half breed, they can see it on sight, so the other phoenix, they rejected him. He’s been with me ever since. Not human enough to fit in here, not...good enough for them.”

Dustin looks affronted on Eddie’s behalf, “that’s not fair, Eddie’s a great guy. They’re...prejudiced, Eddie’s better off without them, anyway.”

Wayne hums agreeable, “they put a lot of stock in their feathers, what they look like. His mom knew at birth he’d never be accepted, but we had to try after she died. I’d hoped that they would take pity on him but...no. They said his colors were an ill omen.”

“What’s wrong with his colors? What colors? Eddie doesn’t even have feathers.”

“He will when he hatches, and they’ll be black as night.”

Steve figures it’s been around seventy nine ish hours when the first crack appears in the shell. He has no idea if there’s a significance to the amount of time, but he doesn’t interfere. He just turns the volume of the television down low and sits and watches, fascinated, as the crack widens and little, damp, black chick gets itself free. The inside of the shell shines like dark mother of pearl; like an oil slick.

Steve already knows he will hide the egg away and treasure it forever. He had sworn again and again to Dustin that the second Eddie showed signs of hatching, Steve would call him. He couldn’t though. He just couldn’t. Something in him screamed loudly that it would be wrong. It would be so wrong for someone else to be here.

He decides to let them have one night together, just him and the tiny, feather light ball of blackness sitting on his thighs. He’ll call Dustin in the morning.

Steve tries to put Eddie down to go to the bathroom before bed; Eddie chirps miserably the whole time. He walks around on top of the comforter once Steve is in bed, and Steve watches in the lamplight as the tiny chick negotiates the mountains and valleys of Steve's bedding. He falls asleep finally, bored of exploring, nestled against the side of Steve’s neck.

“You said you’d call!”

“I know, I know, I’m sorry, it’s just it was late and-”

“He’s so big!”

“Yeah,” Steve replies. Nothing else to say really. Eddie seemed to have quadrupled in size overnight. He’s now the size of a chicken, covered in long, sleek black feathers. He has a long neck for his size, and his tail feathers sweep along the ground as he follows at Steve’s heels.

“Are you going to go and see Wayne?”

Eddie tilts his head at the sound of his uncles name, watching from his perch on the kitchen counter. Steve had tried him with a bowl of dry cereal, but Eddie had merely pecked at it a couple of times before ignoring it. Steve had added milk and eaten it himself.

“Nah,” Steve replies absently. The thought of leaving the house is...well. Steve doesn’t like it.

The next day, Eddie is the size of a very large turkey and his head, thanks to the long neck, can almost stretch to the height of Steve’s shoulder. When Steve sits on the couch, Eddie flaps up to sit on Steve’s lap, long neck winding around Steve’s, his head looping around to rest on Steve’s chest. His eyes are warm brown, just like Eddie’s human eyes, and Steve isn’t even a little worried about the huge talons or wickedly sharp beak.

On the seventh day, Steve wakes to find a man in his bed with him. He sighs with relief, pulling Eddie closer and whispering, “hello sweetheart,” into his fluffy hair.

Steve assumed they had time, he had hoped they could get to know each other; that Steve could do this properly, but by lunch Eddie is looking tired and has gray hairs at his temples so Steve simply says, “I love you, too,” over coffee and toast and hopes that it’s enough.

#stranger things #steve harrington #eddie munson #the party #magic eddie munson #creature eddie munson #headcannon #steddie #steddie headcanon

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ectonurites · 6 months

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@bylerween2023 DAY 5 & DAY 6: CAME BACK WRONG/SUPERNATURAL CREATURES

this was one of the first things i’d started working on for bylerween and also probably took the longest LMAO but anyways: an iZombie au! based on the comic—not the TV show of the same name, if that wasn’t clear.

the key thing both the show and comic do share though is the idea that: zombie eats brains -> they get memories of the person whose brain they ate

i do wanna do some more stuff in this au/setting at a later date because i have ideas, but throwing this little… introduction to the situation together seemed like a fun thing to do for this event 💜

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ladykailitha · 11 days

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Well Met By Moonlight Part 12

Long time no see on this one. Sorry about that. I was trying really hard to balance everything out, but it didn't work. Hopefully this makes up for it.

I would absolutely go back and read part 11 considering how long it's been.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11

In this we find out where the blood came from, Billy gets a gift and a shock, and Eddie proves he's smarter than people give him credit for.

Robin sprayed Steve down with a hose and washed away all the blood. Then he shifted. Tommy climbed on his back and dug his hands in the thick fur by his ruff.

He let Tommy steer him to where he needed to go, behind them he could sense both Nancy and Hopper in wolf form running on either side. Neither of them carried any scent of blood, so they weren’t one of his pack who had woken up covered.

Now that he was back in wolf form he could smell that the blood on him wasn’t human. Thank god, but it was still a problem because the scent didn’t smell like any animal he’d ever hunted before.

Patrick was literally on the Coven’s doorstep when Steve arrived. He was surrounded by Billy, Heather, Chrissy, and Keith. Patrick was barely breathing and it looked as though he had been mauled by something. Something big.

Bigger than even Steve.

He nudged Tommy for him to get off which the keeper did quickly. Steve shifted back into his human form.

“Why didn’t you heal him?” he snapped at Billy.

Billy laughed. “Because I figured it was a present to me.”

Steve’s head snapped up. “But you weren’t the one attacked, I was.”

Billy stepped over Patrick’s body as if he was trash. He leaned into Steve’s space. “And you’re weak. Everyone knows it. This was the supernatural community coming to me and telling me that it’s time to dispense of the...” he paused for dramatic affect. “Pleasantries.”

Steve growled and snapped in his face, causing everyone present to gasp.

“I dare you to try, Billy,” he snarled. “You won’t do shit. Everyone knows you’re actual coward, hiding behind the veneer of the Dominus rank. I know about your little spy. I even know who it is.”

Billy was forced to take a step back.

“You don’t know shit, Harrington,” he sneered, trying to gain back the footing he had so clearly lost. “But go on then, come get him if you really think you’re strong enough to take me on.”

Steve scoffed and knelt at Patrick’s side. “I don’t have to take him, Hargrove. I can just do this.”

He picked up Patrick’s wrist. “I can save you,” he murmured. “But you have to consent.”

“Saved me,” Patrick rasped. “Can’t save me–”

“I can,” Steve insisted. “Just give the word and I’ll do it.”

Patrick nodded.

Steve looked up at Chrissy and Keith. “You both saw him nod, yes.”

Keith nodded and Chrissy said, “Yes. I attest that he nodded.”

Steve lowered his mouth onto Patrick’s wrist. Billy whirled around to try to stop him but both Heather and Chrissy leaped to grab his arms to hold him back.

Nancy and Hopper looked on in stunned silence as Patrick’s wounds receded. The boy’s body shook and he howled in pain. Then he laid still.

Everyone watched on.

“Now we see if he has the potential.” Steve got to his feet. He was still naked as he turned to face Billy head on.

“Why would you do that?” Billy snarled. “He tried to kill you. Now if he survives he’ll be able to finish the job. God, Harrington I thought you were dumb but this takes whole new levels.”

Steve scoffed and got right into Billy’s face. They were standing toe to toe and even though Billy was taller and broader than Steve when his blue eyes met Steve’s hazel, Billy ducked his head.

“You didn’t listen, as always,” Steve growled. “He said that I had already saved him. Which means the blood I found when I woke up this morning was that of whatever attacked Patrick.”

Just then Wayne and Eddie landed on the ground behind them, fully transformed. Wayne’s wings were grey to Eddie’s midnight black, but the were longer, heavier, darker in a way that had nothing to do with color but from the aura that surrounded the older vampire.

As none of the current coven were over the age of fifty, most of them born vampires and young, Billy had to bow to Wayne’s age and experience. Wayne hissed and Billy stopped struggling against Keith and Chrissy. He went boneless in their arms as he sank to his knees.

“It’s done,” Wayne said solemnly.

Everyone turned to looked at Patrick.

The boy’s breathing had evened out and his wounds were healed. His clothes were still tattered and torn, covered in the patina of his attack. Steve could hear his heart beat and it too had evened out.

“Take him back to the compound,” he said fiercely. Hopper and Tommy helped Patrick to get on the back of Nancy and Tommy climbed on to help keep him from sliding off. Then Nancy was off like a shot, tearing off toward home.

Steve knelt on the ground and sniffed the blood that remained. It had the taint of something feral and dark. Not werewolf. Not vampire. Some other supernatural being.

“Christ!” Wayne hissed. “What the fuck is a cat sìth doing on this side of the Atlantic?”

Billy scoffed. “There’s no such thing. Not ever legend is real otherwise we’d be fending off at least a thousand demons from Japanese folk lore alone.”

Wayne glowered at him. “Be that as it may, boy. The fae are not only real, but deadly as hell. It’s only because the cat sìth wished it so that he lasted as long as he did.”

Steve rubbed his jaw. There was something off. Something that didn’t make sense.

He shook his head. “A cat sìth was involved, no doubt. But I don’t think that’s who attacked Patrick.”

Every head turned to Steve.

“What do you mean, Stevie?” Eddie asked.

“I’m a good fighter,” Steve explained. “But there is no way that I would have been able to fight one off not if Patrick was the target.”

Billy licked his lips. “Because Patrick wasn’t the target.”

Steve nodded. “The cat sìth was on hand to feast on the real target to make sure there was nothing left.”

“So who was the target?” Hopper growled.

“Considering that Patrick was dumped on Billy’s doorstep?” Chrissy said, “It’s a sure bet it was probably him.”

“But why?” Keith asked.

“Holy fucking shit!” Eddie hissed. “I know exactly what the plan was.”

Billy scoffed. “Like a bitten could figure it out before a bred. Go back to your trailer, trash.”

Wayne leveled Billy a glare that Dominus met head on. Neither man flinched first.

“What have you got, Eddie?” Chrissy asked, breaking the tension.

Eddie puffed out his chest and preened a little at the attention. The alpha in Steve woke with a possessive growl that caught in his throat.

“Patrick was poisoned.”

Every head turned to Steve in concern. Well all but Hopper.

“He’ll be fine,” the gruff former alpha informed the crowd. “Part of the perks of being a werewolf. We can’t be poisoned. It doesn’t stick.”

Steve grinned wolfishly at the vampires. Wayne rolled his eyes.

“Wait,” Chrissy said. “If that’s the case, then they were banking on Billy turning Patrick into a vampire, weren’t they?”

Eddie nodded. “They assumed that Billy would want one of Steve’s assailants as a vampire kind. Adding a valuable ally to the Coven.”

Wayne nodded. “That’s a good thought, boy.” He ruffled Eddie’s hair fondly. “But they didn’t account for one thing.”

Billy grinned this time, finally having caught on. “That I wouldn’t allow a bitten in my coven.”

Steve’s eyes went wide. “So what about the cat sìth?”

“That’s where their plan gets ingenius,” Eddie said. “Billy turns Patrick, Billy dies from the poison, the cat sìth eats or at least mangles Billy’s body, and it looks like a turned vampire killed the Dominus, turning the whole coven against Wayne and me.”

Wayne rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “I’m strong and so is Ed, but there is no way that we’d be able to take on an entire coven on our own.”

“Thereby removing the town’s fiercest protector from the board,” Billy finished. “Whoever this person is who’s calling all the shots, I’d like to meet so I can rip off his head.”

Steve winced. “There’s still the problem of what attacked Patrick if it wasn’t the cat sìth.”

Wayne crouched over the spot that the young man had lain and touched the quickly drying blood with all four of his fingers.

He shook his head. “I can’t tell what it was. It’s no beastie I’ve ever run across.”

“Which means that it wasn’t anyone from the community,” Billy said, his relief palpable.

As much as Steve hated to admit it, he agreed with Billy on this one. If Wayne didn’t know the type of supernatural being this was, that meant that it wasn’t someone from Hawkins.

Unfortunately that meant research and Steve wasn’t very good at it. Nancy was, but he wasn’t sure she would tell him what she found, alpha or not.

Eddie seemed to pick up on what he was feeling because Wayne and he shared a glance. Eddie nodded.

“I’ve got you, babe,” he murmured, low in Steve’s ear.

The alpha relaxed.

“As much as I would love to stand around and chat,” Billy said with a sneer. “But the sun is up and I have no intention of frying out here.” He signaled for Chrissy and Keith to follow him and they all went back inside the large manor house that served as the coven headquarters.

That left only Steve and Hopper with Eddie and Wayne.

Steve turned to Hopper. “Get the pack together so I can explain. And you will not speak of what happened here until I arrive. And I forbid Nancy and Tommy from doing the same,” he said slipping into his alpha voice, not trusting Hopper to do as he was told otherwise.

Hopper bristled but shifted back into his wolf form. He took off in a dead heat back toward the Harrington Compound.

Steve sighed. “I don’t know what to do with him now that he’s back. It’s caused such upheaval in the pack that I’m fighting even the ones that backed me in the alpha challenge.”

“It’s certainly not how things are normally done,” Wayne said, nodding. “I will speak with him and see if I can’t get him to be more understanding.”

The alpha nodded. “Thank you.”

Eddie pulled off a backpack that Steve hadn’t noticed in the hubbub of Patrick’s attack and started pulling out large, billowy clothes. He handed the top set to Wayne, who quickly got to work covering every inch of his skin.

As Eddie did the same, he grinned at Steve’s confused expression. “We knew there was a chance that it would be full light by the time we cleared this up and packed accordingly.”

Eddie’s clothes were black to Wayne’s white, but they both included a large brimmed hat, gloves, and bindings to seal their sleeves and pant legs to their limbs.

Steve thought they looked a little ridiculous, but smiled as he waved them off.

He looked up at the manor, once dubbed the Creel House, named after a man who had built it right in vampire territory and paid the ultimate price for his impertinence.

Whatever was brewing in town there was an undercurrent that seemed to stem from the very under belly of the supernatural community and if Steve didn’t figure it out soon, the town was going to rip itself to shreds.

He shifted and ran at full speed back to the compound. He just wasn’t sure if he was running from danger or towards it.

And that frightened him.

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