Archive of Our Own

Eddie Munson knew there was something wrong with Steve Harrington. 

That didn’t exactly make him special, though. Everyone knew there was something wrong with Steve Harrington. Before the end of fifth year the guy had been popular; a talented Quidditch player and the youngest Captain for the Hufflepuff team in a long time. Ladies loved him. Lads worshipped him. 

There was a marginal discussion of some smaller strange behaviors over the year previous—mostly because he was hanging out with the less cool folk a bit too much, had some big blow out with fellow Hufflepuff Tommy H—but nobody cared about Tommy H all that much. Tommy H was a minion, a desperate meathead. 

So Steve hung around with Robin Buckley from Ravenclaw all of a sudden. That didn’t suggest a total mental break. Maybe he was banging her like he’d done the Wheeler chick. No biggie. 

But coming back from summer shifty, quiet, quitting Quidditch and turning down his position as prefect was suggestive of a total mental break. Steve Harrington ditched the remainder of his Hufflepuff worshippers, walked around the halls of Hogwarts like a zombie—if he was even seen at all.

King Steve, party champion and Quidditch superstar had become a complete recluse over the seven week stretch of summer. 

There were several working theories. 

Nancy Wheeler was theory #1. Fifth year had been somewhat messy. Steve and her had hit it off at the end of fourth, dated halfway through fifth until Nancy Wheeler had decided her tastes more suited the likes of fellow Ravenclaw Jonathan Byers. 

According to Eddie’s very apt sources, Steve had really loved her. Which was unfortunate, because then he’d tussled with Jonathan in the courtyard in the way muggles do—and as a muggleborn, one would expect Steve to have the upper hand in a muggle fight.

He did not. Jonathan smashed his face in a little bit, and Steve spent a month or so of fifth year sulking—especially since directly after that fight, he’d had the one with Tommy H. He was momentarily Stevie-No-Friends.

However, Eddie observed Steve slowly spend the remainder of fifth getting closer with Dustin Henderson— another Ravenclaw. Took him under his wing kind of thing, if the kid styling his hair differently was anything to go by. 

By design, Steve then found himself a babysitter to the whole of Dustin’s crazy kid group of friends. Mike and Max, Slytherins. Jane and Will, Gryffindors. Lucas, the Hufflepuff. Eventually his little sister Erica, too. Everyone sort of just assumed he liked being idolized. 

Then came the Robin Buckley development—the largest confusion of the year. Suddenly they were two halves of the same idiot, peas in a pod, the like. 

And nobody should have been more confused than Eddie Munson himself.

The thing was that Eddie had been friends with Robin since first year. Freaks stick together, cause a general ruckus and whatnot—so Eddie’s other friends, Gareth, Jeff, the rest—were baffled by how little he cared that Steve Harrington of all people was all buddy buddy with her.

This was the problem with the ministry, Eddie found. In all their sworn-to-secrecy bullshit, they left Eddie with a lot of questions he couldn’t answer.

Because, yeah! Eddie would totally care more. He’d care so much more about Robin and Steve being friends if he hadn’t been one of the many to accompany them to the Ministry’s Department of Mysteries—hadn’t seen Death Eaters with his own two eyes, and fought them alongside Steve Harrington.

It was totally absurd. It sucked, too, because Eddie’s dad had been a Death Eater—being able to give people proof that Eddie himself was not a Death Eater would’ve been great. But being threatened with expulsion was less great, so instead he had to sit around and pretend, boohoo, Steve Harrington had stolen his friend. 

(Which he hadn’t. Of course.)

If anything, Eddie had just gained more friends. Dustin for example—the kid was a firecracker, interested in all the same nerdy shit Eddie cared about. He’d sort of half-stolen him from under Steve’s wing, making them even-Stevens (haha). They shared Robin, they shared Dustin. 

But Eddie and Steve did not speak unless they had to—or under the threat of death. 

(Eddie does not think about Steve disarming a Death Eater who’d had Eddie on the ropes. Eddie does not think about how Steve had given him his hand without hesitance, got him up, checked him over and then smiled, smiled so hard it made Eddie’s stomach curl up and purr like a happy fat cat. Eddie does not think about how they’d fought shoulder to shoulder until Jane had scared Lord Vecna into retreat—)

Eddie doesn’t think about Steve Harrington without good cause. He promises. 

And Steve’s total 180° flip in character is absolutely a good reason. 

Summer had something to do with it. Those aforementioned newly-gained friends had invited him to spend two weeks at the Byers’ Burrow, two weeks Eddie had to turn down. He was away with his Uncle Wayne, a dragon handler—learning the ropes in Egypt. 

He knew Robin had gone, because Nancy had gone because Jonathan was there—obviously. Eddie knew from the few letters Robin had written to him over the summer that Steve had been a frequent flier too. In and out, picking up kids and depositing them wherever they demanded in his funny muggle car. 

Something had happened at the Byers’ Burrow over the summer. So naturally he went to his usual source. 

“I know you said jackshit happened but the funny thing is, Buckley, I don’t believe you! Not even a weeny bit, I know you,” Came Eddie’s harshly whispered protests, chasing Robin down the corridors. They were bathed in the warm light of sunset, their glowing warning against being out after dark. 

Suddenly turning on her heel, Robin forces Eddie to collide into her back. She jabs her finger into his chest. “I am telling you that nothing happened. If you don’t believe me, that's not my problem,”

“I don’t believe you and I know it’s my problem—why do you think I’m annoying you all the time?” Eddie’s hands aggressively gesticulate, emphasizing each hissed word like the blunt side of a knife. 

“You do that anyway,” Robin tosses her hands up too, palms flat with frustration. “Munson,”

“Buckley,”

With a sharp inhale, Robin closes her eyes, brow pinched. “You know if I could tell you, I would,”

“So something did happen?” 

“Obviously!” Robin’s tone is sharp, entirely too strained for this to be a minor matter. Something that forces Eddie’s insides to twist and squeeze uncomfortably, the idea that his best friend wouldn’t loop him in on this. 

“Rob—it’s me ,” Rings clicking together as Eddie brings his hands to his chest. “I’m not gonna have anyone else to tell. All of you know and—I don’t. I’m the… sole traveler, cast out of the communion,”

Face scrunching like an upset pug, Robin groans softly. “Don’t—fairytale speak me right now, Eddie, this is serious,”

“Not serious enough, the kids are clearly in on it!” Eyes a little wild, Eddie feels the air he breathes draw in through the small gap between his two front teeth. 

“The kids— were there, Eddie.” Comes the choked out response, Robin’s posture melting just enough for her hand to reach out and curl around his wrist. 

Something dawns, then, a thought amongst the orange hues of the sun’s departure. “Is this—like June?” He tries, brows knitting together in what he imagines is a lovely blanket of utter confusion and a few loose threads of concern. 

“Eddie—,”

“Like—a Lord Vecna thing? That’s what this is?” 

Startling at the use of the dark lord’s name, Robin puts her hands on his chest, fingers splayed out. Steadying him. “ Eddie. You know I can’t tell you. You—you know. You remember all the… the hoops we went through after. If you—if you wanna know, it can’t, it can’t be me, okay?” Her voice is tired, just a little rough around the edges—those big, sharp eyes gleaming up at him. Rimmed with guilt and regret. 

Eddie laces their fingers together, his stomach bottoming out. “Okay,” He reasons, because he can’t really deal with making Robin cry. Not even for the sake of curing the rampant curiosity that itches away under his skin like a fever, a bug—an insect. 

So obviously he tries Dustin, next. 

“No,” Was the immediate response while they fumbled their way through the library, the younger grabbing a series of thick, worn-back books. 

“Dusty-bun,” Eddie says cheerily, trailing after him like a particularly oppressive shadow. “Come, now, tell Papa Eddie all your woes,”

Slamming down the heaviest of the books on the desk, Dustin gives a look Eddie can only describe as the encapsulation of teenage angst. “Never say that series of words together ever again,” 

“The beautiful disaster of words I can string together will fall from my lips like a clown’s handkerchief from their pocket if you don’t tell me,” Dragging a chair over, Eddie straddles it, propping his head up on the back of the seat. “Come on tiddlywink. You can tell me anything,”

Groaning, Dustin pointedly thumbs through his book. “Not this, Eddie. You know I would! Robin told you we all would if we could ,” Before bringing it to a close with a hearty smack. 

“Hey now, we treat books with love and affection, Dusty,” Eddie shakes his head, angling the novel his way. The cover reads Werewolves: An All You Need To Know Guide. “Light reading?” He says, pretending to care. 

Scoffing, Dustin snatches it back. “I have a school project due, one you’re ruining. Go bother Mike or something, asshole. You’re not getting shit from me,”

Which is so rude—but Eddie takes the advice. He finds Mike and Jane in the courtyard. 

“Eddie…” Jane’s voice is soft and tentative, yet still definitive. “We cannot…”

And it gets to that point in the day where Eddie could just tear his hair out. Straight out! Right from the root, unearth it from his head like a plant needing to be repotted. “Come on, I was with you guys. I know—about the shit, I… ventured into the gates of hell, etcetera—,” 

Adding that when Jane’s face began looking blank, Eddie turns to Mike, whose face is giving away nothing but indignance. “Dude, you want us to get expelled? My sister would kill me.”

Which Eddie knows. Because Nancy was the first person he’d actually asked about Steve when they got back—if anyone would be aware of his total insanity, it’d be her. But no, they hadn’t had a rekindled romance that ended in flames, and promptly left the discussion with that pinched, uptight countenance about her that always had him feeling a little like a misbehaving puppy. 

Nonetheless, it would be like drawing blood from stone. 

“Yeah, I know. But it’s still me! I know things! I can be quiet,” Eddie says, indignant, nose turned upwards as snobbishly in outrage as he can manage. “I was with you mere paladins at the crest of the battle! Tucked in the belly of the beast, we fought side by side in the breast of the danger, coffined by darkness and conjoined under the juices of victory, Michael!” 

Mike—dubbed Michael—seems just as unimpressed, if not moreso. “You can be quiet? You’re really proving it right now, Eddie. Stop asking us if you know what’s good for anyone. And do not ask Will. You hear me?”

Clearly something dawns on Eddie’s expression. Mike groans. “ Don’t ask him,”

“Why? He the easiest of you rowdy bunch to… crack?” Eddie says, curling his tongue in his mouth like the fork of a viper. 

“No…” Jane says, face creased in an unhappy downturn. “It upset him… what happened,”

“ Jane,” Mike hisses, using an aggressive jut of his neck to punctuate his distaste. 

The girl looks nonplussed. “Do not ask Will. He will not… tell you, but you will only upset him. To remind him, would be… bad,”

Now, Eddie can’t claim that he always listens to a bunch of kids ordering him around. Most of the time when he’s told to not do something by anyone it’s like they’re begging for him to go and do it. Reverse psychology is a breeze with him, a walk in the park—but Jane is Jane. She’s powerful and small and so selective with her words; being willed against something is like a law engraved in concrete. The Munson doctrine whines and begs underneath her firm tone, fighting to go against her wishes. 

But those big, dark eyes gleam at him, stoic and solemn and sad, and Eddie can’t deny Jane anything. Not after everything she’s been through. She’s wiser than her years, definitely wiser than him. So he relents, dragging a hesitant hand down his face. 

“Fine. No Will. Lucas will tell me though,” Eddie insists, just a bit more put out than when he began this mission. 

Lucas will not tell him. 

The kid is on some strange mission of his own, claiming Hopper, the groundskeeper, has demanded he undertake. 

“Why the Godrick does Hopper need a massive hunk of meat?”

Lucas grins, testy and nervous. “I’m flattered, Eddie, I’ve been working out—,”

Cuffing him on the back of the head lightly, Eddie straightens out his expression, trying to make sure he looks truly serious. It’s a little hard when Lucas is like a drop of sunshine, glowing and radiating childish boyish glee wherever he goes. It’s even more tricky now that he’s holding a piece of raw cow or something in his arms, bleeding all over his uniform. 

“You better tell me what’s going on, Sinclair, or next time we do a campaign I’ll insist we host it in your dorm and I’ll kill your character in a downright blaze of disrespect and weak squalor.” Eddie barks, prodding the huge slab of meat with one tentative fingertip. Gross. 

Lucas seems desperately affronted by this. “That’s so not fair! Dustin said he didn’t tell you either, why do I have to get punished for it?”

“Because Dusty,” Eddie huffs, blowing imaginary smoke from his nostrils like a dragon, “I expect disrespect from. You— you, young one, respect your elders. Respect their need to know things that everyone else knows!” 

Clearly noticing just how wound up Eddie is, guilt pushes Lucas’ expression through a little ripple of wrinkles in his face, screwed up in thought. “It’s not—easy to explain,”

Any further attempt is also brashly interrupted by a wild flurry of red hair and stomping feet, Max Mayfield flying down the corridor, locked onto her boyfriend (on and off again) like a dragon seeking the warmth of its own fire. “Lucas, there you are! Can you hurry up? He’s practically ready to eat me —,”

Then she registers Eddie with a flick of her eyes, faltering. “Hopper. Hopper is ready to—to eat me whole like the witch from that stupid fable with the candy house. Because he has—a baby thestral. That’s hungry. And you know how… goddamn protective that old man is of those things,” She sends him a cutting glare. “Don’t you, Lucas?”

“Yeah, totally,” Her boyfriend parrots, wide-eyed yet simultaneously trying to pull off a smooth guy act poorly.

Eddie is a little out of his depth when it comes to Max, often feeling the need to fold to her barbaric leadership. The only time he’s prepared to go toe to toe with the ferocious goblin is during his campaigns, because he— for the most part—is in some semblance of control. 

“You’re going to Hopper’s cabin?” He finds himself echoing, all smiles and eyelash flutters. “I can come, that guy looooves me—,”

That earns him a freakish, harmonized, “No!” From both Lucas and Max, who consequently start down the corridor in a fumbling gaggle of lanky teenage limbs, rounding the corner and disappearing from sight. The only sign of their presence at all are the small puddles of blood from the large raw meat Lucas insisted was for Hopper.

Eddie doesn’t fail to notice, however, that the two of them fled in the opposite direction of Hopper’s cabin.

“I just don’t get it,” Eddie sighs, smoke dancing from the small gap between his two front teeth; the one he liked to use to shoot pumpkin juice through at unsuspecting victims from time to time. “I thought we were allllllll,” Crossing his fingers, he waggles them in the air. “Tight. Tight as… as mumsie’s socks, tight as… a happy button on a cardigan,”

Chrissy is strewn across him, her nice, lean legs crossed over his knobby knees. She’d happily collapsed over him after a few good puffs of the new strain of Alihotsy plant Eddie had been perfecting. While it might not be entirely ethical to be close friends with a client, Eddie isn’t really all in on the drug scene since the showdown with the Death Eaters—so she doesn’t have to pay for whatever they smoke on the bays of the Black Lake. 

So she’s more just his friend now. Ex-clientele turned druggie chum. Smoking buddy. Occasionally philosophical gal pal. Like now.

“Why don’t you just…” Chrissy seems to lose her train of thought, head loose and lulling on Eddie’s pointy collarbone. “…” The girl glances up to the sky, lifting her finger as if she intends to poke at the clouds. 

Eddie chuckles, lacing his fingers through her hair as he finishes the last of the blunt. With one flick of his wand, he packs up the rest of his supplies. They’ve both had enough. “Food for thought there, Chris?” He fishes out a small chocolate frog—one he’d stunned to ensure it didn’t bounce away while they were too inebriated to chase after it. 

“Why don’t you…” Her long, spindly fingers take the frog, picking at it. She’s spider-like, Eddie notices now, delicate and pale and graceful in a slightly ethereal, unsettling way. If he had any fleeting interest for the opposite gender, he likes to hope she would be his type—all hair and big eyes and long, rangy limbs. “Why don’t you just…”

Admiring her efforts, Eddie reasons that should he ever think to sell this, or try it again with Chrissy in another one of their drug-induced therapy meets, he’ll knock the dosage back a bit. He likes his friends able to actually form sentences. 

“Talk to him. To Steve,” Her well-manicured nails push into the supple flesh of his cheek, giggling at him. “To Steeeeve. Your Steve,”

“My Steve?” Eddie’s eyebrows raise, practically willing her to continue down this humiliating road. He doesn’t distinctly remember going on too many tangents about Steve before now—but then again, come tomorrow he never really does remember all that’s been shared. 

“Mhm,” Chrissy hums, content. Relaxed. “Your Steve… with his big, round chocolate… eyes, his… nice, sharp jaw, soft… soft cheeks, his little freckles that you just l-o-v-e, loverboy… Loverboy Eddie…”

“Not sure how much Jason would like to hear you talk about another man this way,” Eddie teases, though his voice is strained by any mention of Jason. 

Chrissy takes a similar approach, her brow creasing a little. Frowning. “They’re your words, not mine. You get all…” She wafts her hand, before becoming fascinated by the way her own fingers move in the air. “Mushy…”

“Do I now?” Eddie sighs, patting her on the head. “I’ll speak to him if I can find the guy. He makes himself scarce these sad, sad days,”

“Sad because you can’t… moon over his nice, lush hair, all fluffy and…” Chrissy can't find her words, so she hysterically giggles away instead. 

Eddie rolls his eyes fondly. “Yeah, yeah, laugh it up,”

“Hey, hey…” Chrissy gently pats the side of his face. “When you do find him… ask him to join the Quidditch team again. We are losing sooo, so badly!”

Having promised to do just that several times over before Chrissy is finally sober enough for them to part ways, Eddie happily skips his way back up the path up to school, still riding his high like a surfer to a wave. 

He’s trying not to think too hard about trying to interrogate Steve, of all people. If anything Eddie’s more concerned that with one sorrowful look from those big, brown eyes, the tables will turn, and Eddie will end up spewing all his secrets like cornflakes tipping out of a cereal box. 

Steve has that effect. They’d been in the aftermath of the battle of the Department of Mysteries and he’d limped over, collapsing in a heap where Eddie had been sat. One look cast to the exhausted, bruised and painfully attractive face on that man and Eddie had felt it all bubbling over, the urge to reach out and clasp his hands, confess his deepest desires to Steve like a man at an altar. 

Eddie and Steve don’t do deep, long conversations. Simply because Eddie can’t handle them. A few words tumble from Steve’s lips and Eddie watches them, studying the way they shift together to form syllables into sentences. Steve speaks and Eddie is enveloped in the warmth of his deep, velvety voice, sometimes caught by surprise when his words hitch over a rough patch, a hoarse note in his tone; carpet peeled up to reveal a firm wooden floor in need of varnishing. Eddie could varnish Steve, he’s reminded of his want to do so whenever he’s exposed to him for extended periods of time. Eddie could curl around him like a snake, squeeze every last dredge of bright, sharp liveliness from him and pour it into a little bottle, keeping it on a chain around his neck, close to the heart. 

Which is why Eddie and Steve don’t do deep, long conversations. 

They do passing glances. A nod to one another over the heads of the kids they mind, a simple silent question: are you alright? A careful returned action, reciprocal synchrony. Both of them are active contributors in the interactions they share, responding to each other’s learnt cues, shifting with one another’s body language like a lost, loved tongue they’ve become fluent in. Steve and Eddie both talk enough to heat up a room amongst themselves, so together they speak through a flick of their eyes, a brush of shoulders. 

If they pass in the corridors, maybe Steve will smile, lopsidedly, one side of his mouth pulling up higher than the other due to a small scar on his lip from third-year Quidditch. Maybe Eddie will lift a hand to drag up the side of Steve’s passing arm, win himself a vaguely confused chuckle, a low shake of the other’s head. Not dismissive, receptive. Steve shakes his head when he’s flustered, frustrated or when his hair falls into his eyes.

Oh, Eddie likes it when Steve’s hair falls into his eyes. It’s a spectacle; a prayer answered for the common worshipper. 

It falls in his eyes and his brow will pinch, annoyance etched into his face far too daintily for it to be fair. He’ll purse his lips—try to blow it back into place, extend the narrow column of his pale throat to do so. Steve has moles on his neck—two of them in a happy pair, close yet just out of reach from one another. (Eddie wants to touch them, push the pads of his fingers against them, feel his pulse rabbit beneath the flesh there.) Often that tactic fails, so Steve will shake his head like a wet dog, displacing objects around him in his fleeting attempts. Eddie likes the clumsiness, makes him feel giddy, dizzy. Makes him want to pick up things and throw them, just to join in, maybe make Steve feel less alone in his abject stupidity. 

The best part is when the head shake doesn’t work. It has pretty good odds for the most part—but sometimes it won’t. And Steve, exasperated, will groan; a low purr, and rake one of his hands in a claw-like motion through his hair. Tousled and just a tad sex-moussed like, it’s an addiction of his Eddie wonders if Steve knows he’s feeding into. If this is all some big tease. 

Maybe that’s partly why Eddie wants to know what’s wrong with Steve. If this is all some elaborate way to pull away from him, isolate himself from whatever cat and mouse game they’re playing. If Eddie’s leering was too obvious, maybe. Part of him wants to know just so he can lie the nagging, prickling, rotting anxieties in the stupidity of his hindbrain to rest. Another wants to know so he can reach out, learn how to help and cushion Steve away from whatever has transformed him from the warm, loyal personality Eddie had been shocked to grow to know—into this. Cold and absent, hiding. 

But his thoughts earn him nothing but a bad trip, Eddie almost eating shit on the path back up to school when he gets too into his head. 

“Serves ya right, y’dumb shit,” Comes the sharp, pointed voice of Erica, rounding the courtyard entrance to stare at him, her arms tightly folded across her Ravenclaw uniform. “This is why my mom says smoking makes you stupid,” 

Brushing off his uniform trousers just a little insecurely, Eddie casts a cheery smile to Erica. “Maybe so, Lady Applejack, but put me in a room with your mother for five minutes and I guarantee I can win her over,”

Her face scrunches up in a violent disgust. “Ew, you goddamn heathen. My mom could cut—your—t hroat. T-H-R-O-A-T, you numb ballsack,”

He tries not to let the shock of interacting with Erica Sinclair show on his face, for the sake of his pride. “I didn’t mean it like that, kid-wonder. I meant that I’m charming,” 

“You couldn’t charm your way into the pot of a mandrake, you ugly bumpkin. Stop breathing,” Then she whirls around, pivoting on her heel and starts to strut away. 

Realizing that she might just know something about the Steve ordeal—despite her verbal takedown—Eddie stutters his footwork to start after her. “Come now, Sinclair, I’m sure we could have a wonderfully civil chit-chat if you just give me a chance—!” 

Falling silent when she spins around with all the force of a thousand angry kneazles, Erica seems like she’s gearing up to chew him out. Maybe she’ll even tear him a new one if Eddie doesn’t catch the hint, but then she goes deathly quiet, eyes widening a touch. 

“Munson,” Eddie finds himself flinching under the firm, forceful grip of what he knows by just the accentuation of his name, is Jason Carver. 

He’s a helpful guy, Carver. He sure as hell helps guide Eddie’s back up against the solid cobbles of the courtyard’s arch, following him with his elbow pressed up against the base of his neck. Over his shoulder Eddie can see his two more violent cronies—Andy and Chance. 

(Since Lucas and Patrick started getting along and hanging out without Quidditch practice enforcing it, Eddie thinks maybe there was a good word or two put in about him. Because Patrick never shows up to these ambushes anymore.) 

“Little Sinclair,” Jason sweetly spits, patronizing and taunting. He’s positively venomous. “Why don’t you find some nicer influences to hang around with for a little while? Some nice little girls, maybe,” Erica doesn’t shift, so Eddie’s jaw becomes a new toy for Jason’s hand to squeeze. “We just want to talk with Munson, here,”

Erica raises her eyebrows, jutting out her chin. “Hell no. You’re gonna beat him up and he’s gonna die, cuz have you seen him? He’s scrawny and pale. He’s got toothpick limbs,” 

“Erica,” Eddie forces up the lightly strangled column of his throat. Jason pushes down a bit harder, almost willing him to talk against his orders. “It’s fine. You can go,”

The girl doesn’t seem slightly enthused by that idea, her hand hovering over where Eddie imagines her wand is tucked away. Andy whips out his, twirling it between his knuckles. A warning. A threat against a kid. “Erica,” Eddie repeats, smiling, though what he’s saying is more of a plea.

Erica’s face forms a dark, frustrated expression, a storm cloud of bad temperament, and then she tosses her tight-curled bunches over her shoulder and flees back up to the school. 

If he was able to let out a sigh of relief, Eddie absolutely would. But the elbow to his throat and the whole predicament of being alone with three morons who are dead set on sending him off to Azkaban for the sins of his father doesn’t suggest bright prospects for him. Jason confirms this narrative, drawing his wand and jabbing its point into the side of his neck. 

“Let me give you a scenario to think about, Munson,” Jason’s face is deformed with a quiet rage. “You’re me—,”

Unable to help himself, Eddie grimaces. “Gross,”

Jason twists his wand into his neck harder. It’ll definitely bruise in the morning, purple and green and decisively unattractive to the eye. It buys his silence. “You’re me. And your girlfriend, your nice, sweet, pretty little girlfriend comes to see you. You’d agreed to a date together. Maybe Hogsmeade. Precious time together,” Eddie has to resist the urge to roll his eyes for every sickly, pretentious description of Chrissy. It’s hard not to cringe. 

“Imagine how I feel when she’s high out of her goddamn mind on some drug you’ve given her. Some Death Eater freak getting my girlfriend high,” Just to really emphasize the venomous inflections of his tone, Jason makes sure to slam Eddie’s back into the slabs of stone behind him for good measure. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing? I told you, Munson, to stay the fuck away!”

“He did,” Chance backs up, ever the yes-man. 

Andy doesn’t speak, but the sadistic twist of his smile says enough. 

“ Forcing drugs into my girlfriend—,” And that’s usually the sort of comment Eddie makes himself draw the line at. He takes a lot of shit just to try and soften the blow of whatever beating he’s in for, but he can’t let that kinda shit just slide by. It’s fucked up. He says so.

“Chrissy buys it off of me, you barbarian. I don’t—force her to do anything, or—,” Eddie knows it won’t get him anywhere but poundtown, but no way can he swallow his pride, Chrissy’s pride for the sake of Jason’s fucked up fantasy world. 

Jason’s arm arches, wand curling back with him. Preparing to strike, no doubt, some bitter hiss of a jinx or maybe even a curse if he’s really that wound up. “My girlfriend isn’t a fucking druggie. I’m gonna fucking kill you, Munson, I’ll make you fucking beg for it—,”

There’s a flash of a spell, maroon-ish-red, and Jason’s wand snaps out of his white-knuckle grip. It flicks past his two friends, swiftly cutting through the air and stopping when it finds the soft barrier of another wielder’s palm. 

Steve Harrington stands at the foot of the courtyard, flanked by a determined-looking Erica. 

Eddie knows that he shouldn’t say bad things about his savior (and he thinks a lot of good things, gut churning about how he’d wordlessly come to his defense,) but Steve looks like the living dead. 

There are deep, purple bruises beneath his eyes, those dark, swimming eyes. They almost look black, two large open caverns in the white of his sclera, gaping and beckoning all nearby to be swallowed in their chasm. They sit stark against the blue-ish white of his sickly pale skin, his careful constellation of moles sharp in their placements on his hollow face. 

Steve grips Jason’s wand in his hand. Discolored, pinkish, raised scars are struck across his knuckles, reaching between his fingers in jagged, angry lines. Eddie has no doubt they climb further up his arms—but his marred skin is hidden beneath thick bandages and long sleeves.  

If Jason and Eddie weren’t taken aback enough by the mere appearance of the guy, Steve just has to go the extra mile. He brings Jason’s wand to meet with his other hand. In one swift, shocking movement, snaps it over his knee like it’s nothing.

Eddie thinks Steve might have completely lost his mind. No—he knew that already. But this is levels of total, pivotal insanity untouched by any other wizard at Hogwarts. And Henry Creel went to Hogwarts.

As he considers the likelihood of Steve needing to be sectioned, the pressure on his throat disappears, Jason, still silent, shifting away from him to approach Steve like some kind of wild animal. A predator. “What the fuck, Harrington?” Is his opening hiss, clearly just as bewildered as the peanut gallery. 

“Leave him the fuck alone,” Steve growls —and he actually, seriously growls, low and rumbling in his throat. Erica stands at his elbow, eyes flicking between the animal she seems to have brought with her and Eddie, who she just deems as unhelpful, based on her expression. 

Andy steps forwards to knock his shoulder against Jason’s, forming some kind of wall between the two of them. “Wasn’t sure I believed Tommy H when he said you’d gone fucking crazy, Harrington,” The sneer on his face contorts his lips in an upward grimace. “But defending a fucking Death Eater?”

“Not a Death Eater,” Steve barks, a snarl so low it makes Eddie’s toes want to curl. 

“Are you under some kind of Imperius Curse, Steve? Is that why you’re acting like a crazy person?” Jason accuses, eyes dipping to where his broken wand sits amongst the cobbles. “He do this to you?” He juts an accusatory finger towards Eddie. 

Erica seems like she’s ready to fizzle up some offensive retort in Eddie’s defense, but the stubborn forward step Steve takes keeps her quiet. He’s squaring up to Andy and Jason. Chance too, if he makes good on it. “I said shut your fucking mouth,” 

Andy scoffs, bringing a hand out to grab Steve’s shoulder in some action of macho-masculinity. It doesn’t last—after just a second or two the guy hisses, whipping his hand back into his own chest. “What the fuck? He’s boiling—there’s something up with him, Jason,”

“He do this to you?” Jason shouts again, as if Steve didn’t hear him the first time. “He’s gone, man, look at his eyes. We’re gonna have to get it out of Munson.” And then he’s turning again, holding his hand out for Andy’s wand, who gives it over with a wide, screwed up grin. 

Chance looks a little more hesitant. “I dunno, man, you’re gonna get us into shit again,” 

Though maybe it should’ve been his first instinct, Eddie hasn’t moved—back still glued to the stone Jason had held him against. It only occurs to him now as Jason stalks back over, wielding Andy’s wand like a knife. Eddie’s busy trying to divide his attention between the impending threat and whatever the fuck Steve is doing—he’s bristling. Standing there with his fists balled and shaking at his sides, panting through his mouth like he’s trying to fend something off.

Once pale skin is now flushed, feverish with anger—and his eyes almost seem sharper, pupils narrower. 

Erica’s distress is rare, but distinct. 

Eddie doesn’t get the chance to dwell on it much longer, as Jason’s hand curls around his throat again, pressing the point of Andy’s wand against his temple. “What the fuck did you do to Harrington, Munson?” 

Over his shoulder, Andy leers. To Chance’s clear discomfort, the sadistic smile on his face grows as he says, “Maybe you should crucio it out of him,”

Whatever floodgates Steve has been fighting to keep closed are blown by the sheer viciousness of that comment. Eddie doesn’t even have the time to feel fear congeal in his chest, because the guy crosses the small distance between him and Andy in half an eye’s blink. A hand that almost appears clawed swipes out and takes the Hufflepuff by the hair, whipping his head back and bringing it against Steve’s chest in a headlock.

Andy squirms, choking out a noise of surprise before Steve seems frustrated by the leverage he has, and solves it by flinging Andy over his shoulder. 

It shouldn’t be possible. Andy has the same body mass as Steve, if not more—broad shoulders and wide, tree-stump legs. But Steve takes him by the throat and throws him in a heap behind him, a sickening sound of limbs and bones hitting stone left in his wake. 

Freakish enough to have Jason abandon Eddie once again, he finally takes some initiative, pushing off of the stone to stumble out of the firing line. Erica helps steady him, her brow carved down the middle in a harsh line of concentration and stress. 

Jason meets Steve in the middle of the courtyard, taking a swift left-hook to his jaw, knocking him off of his feet momentarily. Steve is up again far too fast, practically rabid as he snarls and dives, taking both of them to the cobbles in an animalistic pounce. 

“What the fuck—!” Jason has half a second to choke out before Steve’s on him, straddling his hips and pummeling at his face, swinging and swinging relentlessly. 

It’s not right. It doesn’t feel like Steve, whatever predatory instinct has swallowed him whole, eyes dead and gone while he moves on hostile compulsions, wild and savage. 

“Steve!” Eddie finds himself crying out without much thought, startling it out of his mouth when Steve’s knuckles start coming away with blood. This isn’t his Steve, not the gentle, supple Steve he’d described to Chrissy. There’s no warmth to him, he’s succinct and fierce, not the way he’s usually protective and rough around the edges. The way he moves is animal-like, alien, foreign to Eddie, who’d studied him for years like he was a new language, a heralded artwork. 

There’s a moment where Steve falters—those wild, wild eyes point to Eddie, burn through him like fire to plastic, melting at his core in a toxic mass of chemicals. 

Jason shifts beneath him, takes the second of reprieve to flip them, rolls Steve onto his side and slam his head against the stone with a fistful of his hair once, twice— and though dazed and already beginning to bleed from the skull, Steve is unabating, ferocious. Jason gets a handful of punches in before they’re both tumbling down the hillside towards Hopper’s cabin. Andy chases them down, finally free from his daze to try and aid Jason, the two of them pinning Steve by the arms and dealing as many blows as possible before—

With one swipe of his arm, Steve knocks them both off of him, snarling, hissing, showing teeth as he practically froths at the mouth, nails clawing at flesh until they draw blood. He deals with Andy with one cracking punch to the nose, sending him spinning to the grass in a heap. Jason wrestles with him in the mud, the two of them a mess of blood and sweat and tears, primal predators fighting for the crown jewels of the food chain. 

Steve has Jason flailing on his back, has one hand smothering his face while the other tears the neckline of his robes, pinning his body between two thighs. His body arches, spine almost sharp enough to be seen in its shape through his shirt, coiling up ready to strike,

And then he takes a jet of bright light to the chest, body thrown backwards upon impact and colliding with the mossy bank behind him. Steve collapses in a stunned, bloody heap. 

Hopper stands in the doorway of his cabin, his face the picture of gruff concern and anger, taking Jason up to his feet with one fistful of his robes, shouting something at him that doesn’t reach Eddie. Whatever he says is enough to have the Hufflepuff gather up Andy and start running back up the stairs, casting Eddie and Erica a dark, bloody look as they pass in a flailing panicked gaggle of bruised, beaten limbs. 

Mouth dry, Eddie can’t find it in himself to say anything— a rare feat, Robin would joke. Instead, he just stumbles down the stairs Jason had climbed to kneel by Steve’s side, trying to rouse some sort of consciousness from him. Steve’s eyes are rolled up into the back of his head, whites and flickers of darkness, body convulsing gently. 

It’s a sickening sight to see, but not unfamiliar. Hopper stunned him, confounded him maybe. Despite this closure, Eddie slips his hand into Steve’s even when the heat coursing through his body is unbearable, scorching red-hot fingerprints into the flesh of his palm. 

“What in the goddamn hell was that?” Erica’s voice is unsteady, trying to maintain her usual confidence and faltering. She’s scared, Eddie realizes, and guilt is a sweet liquor on his tongue. 

As is the heat of realization. Whatever was wrong with Steve, Erica didn’t know about. Eddie isn’t sure if that makes him feel better or worse. 

“You need to leave,” Their groundskeeper’s words are harsh and brash, Hopper brutally ignoring Eddie’s bewildered expression when he comes closer. Prying Steve from out of his hands, the older man throws him over one shoulder, retreating into his cabin wordlessly, without explanation. 

Eddie and Erica stand there, shunned, when his door slams in their faces. 

If there wasn’t blood on his hand (Jason’s, Andy’s, Steve’s, he isn’t sure), Eddie likes to think he would’ve put more of an argument up, maybe banged on the door and demanded answers. But one look at the uncertainty on Erica’s face—the way she seems to be hoping he will guide her to some reasonable conclusion, makes the decision for him. 

“We should—go. It’s getting dark,” Eddie tries to reason. Despite the way she raises her eyebrows, Erica doesn’t argue.

By the next morning, the school’s most rampant rumor is that Eddie is solely responsible for King Steve’s mad-hatter crusade. Imperius curse, maybe, or a jinx-gone-wrong. An act of petty revenge. There’s no doubt as to who started them, either, not with the sorry state Steve had left Jason and Andy in the night prior. 

Eddie feels them circling him like vultures, just waiting for an opportune moment to beat the ever loving shit out of him, or curse him like Andy had been so desperate to. Though Steve was no doubt coming to his defense, Eddie can’t deny he’s made things a thousand times worse. Even if it wasn’t at his own control, Jason and Andy have been humiliated. No jock takes that shit lying down. 

To add insult to injury, the group of people in the know about Steve still don’t decide to let him or Erica in on anything despite what they witnessed. Despite what people are saying about Eddie. 

It hurts, aches. That Robin knows the truth, the reality that could dull the rumors that Eddie has hurt Steve. But it has to be bad, bad enough that this persecution against him, against the freak is a preferable outcome. 

So ignoring the pitiful expressions Eddie’s friends share whenever he walks by them without any attempts to interrogate, Eddie rehashes his own very good, can’t-go-wrong plan. 

(Technically authored by Chrissy.)

Steve. Steve is the key, the center of the problem. Eddie finds Steve, seduces, charms, intimidates the big secret out of him. No way he can resist the Munson charm, not if it was good enough to make him go wild in the first place. 

Finding Steve is harder than at first expected. Problem number one. 

He’s not in his old dorm. Eddie’s broken into it before—so you can imagine his surprise when his usual bed is now containing an entirely different Hufflepuff, who insists that, no, he hasn’t fought Steve to the death for the bed. He does his best to convince Eddie that Steve’s got his own room now, not in the Hufflepuff common room with everyone else. 

Once upon a time, people might’ve believed it was because he was too high and mighty to share. Luckily for Steve, people are pretty convinced he’s a danger to society and has been sectioned in a very special padded cell in Hogwarts these days. 

But man, Eddie skips his classes purely to wander around and try to find some secret passage. He pulls on every candle, moves books on bookshelves, kicks random cobbles in the walls hoping one will give way. And it’s trying times like this that really remind Eddie that he was placed in Gryffindor, not Ravenclaw.

Collapsing against the cool stone after what felt like hours of walking, Eddie was fully prepared to pack it in for the day—maybe skip more classes to search tomorrow. Operation Seduce Steve For His Secrets (OSSFHS) couldn’t fail on day one, not with his pride and also the anger of a fierce young Lady Applejack on the line. 

Somewhere in this castle, Stevie had a secret room. Suggesting it wasn’t safe for him to sleep amongst his peers at the moment. Maybe an illness? A curse gone wrong? Something contagious? Maybe rabies. That was a common muggle disease, right? 

Clearly just as exasperated with this train of thought, the castle had reluctantly opened a door up right behind where Eddie had been leaning his weight—suddenly sending him toppling into open air. 

Collapsing on a cool, stone floor, Eddie feels around for immediate danger, whispering harsh swears under his breath when the door immediately disappears at his feet. 

Eddie looks up. 

Steve gawks back at him. 

It’s a nice place. Cozy. Though the floor is cold, the room is warmed by candles and a nice radiator, not to mention a frankly absurd collection of blankets Eddie didn’t even know the school had, considering how thin the sheets they slept under in the dorms. It was basically his winter wet dream. 

And then there was a whole different— dream in the nook of the room. Steve.

Steve, who stood there, shirtless, muddled by his own confusion. To be fair, Eddie had just arrived from thin air.

The Room of Requirement, a dull voice tingles in the back of his head. Maybe it had been Robin, or Dustin, but someone had told him of this place. Clearly Steve required it.

This conclusion was all the more justified when Eddie allowed himself to get an eyeful. 

Steve’s visible bare skin—the lengthy planes of his torso, his waist—was a mess of gore-like scarring. They were deep, sharp, raised and burning before Eddie’s eyes, they screamed danger, wounds, suffering. It looked as if someone had taken a meat cleaver to Steve’s chest and carved away at him relentlessly, without organization or motive. Just wild, hateful curves of something sharp, something deep. 

His neck was similar, though one particularly garish line across his throat had Eddie’s insides twisting. 

How did he survive this? What forced him to survive this? Why wasn’t Eddie there?

“Steve,” Eddie begins—but in doing so he fractures the moment, Steve floundering as he grabs blankets and tangles himself in their safe coverage, trying to shield his scarring from view. “ Steve— hey, chill, man, it’s me, I’m—,”

“You shouldn’t be in here, nobody should—,” 

“Yeah, I've been getting a lot of that recently,” Eddie cuts him off, standing, slowly. His fingers splay out like starfish, unassuming, harmless. A sign of universal surrender, a promise of no harm coming. 

The pain in Steve’s face is almost enough to have Eddie on his knees. “ Eddie,” He says his name like he’s trying to scold, but it comes out as more of a whine, eyes wet and desperate. “You can’t be here. It’s not safe,”

“It’ll be safer if you tell me what happened, Steve,” Eddie takes another few steps forwards, a few footfalls away from closing the distance between them. 

“You know I can’t. You—you’ve been told, Eddie,” It’s almost comically, the pathetic way he softly groans, thick lashes batting as he begs at him. 

Eddie takes another step forward. “People tell me to do things a lot of the time, Stevie. I much prefer doing the telling. So you—are going to tell me—,”

Steve backs up, calf hitting the end of his bed and sending him sprawling backwards onto the mattress. But not before he curls a frantic fist in the front of Eddie’s shirt, an instinctive attempt to keep himself on his feet. All this succeeds in doing is bring Eddie down with him, tangling the two of them up in a gaggle of limbs and thick blankets. 

Eddie finds himself lying on top of Steve. In actual reality, not a dream fantasy he envisions to help him fall asleep. Eddie is lying on top of Steve, breathing him in, feeling his pulse jackrabbit—or maybe that’s his, the two of them mingling together in a disjointed harmony of blood pumping and hearts singing. He can’t tell what’s his and what’s not, panting breath and sweat-damp skin, goosebumps and shudders of shock, embarrassment, glee. 

Propping himself up on his elbows, Eddie bears some of his weight into his arms, palms flat against the mattress. Steve lies beneath him, eyes deep and wide, face warm and pleasant. Wordlessly, Steve brings one of his hands to curl around Eddie’s wrist, tender fingers brushing the skin of his forearm. 

Eddie’s arms buckle. He slips, and Steve pushes a firm palm up against his chest to catch him, preventing a disastrous clash of foreheads or worse. It’s now, feeling Steve bear his weight, do they meet eyes properly—and Steve is staring. Steve’s pupils are dilated, and he’s looking, looking at Eddie like he’s never seen him before. Like they’re strangers in the same bed, orbiting one another in their own constellation. Steve drew Eddie towards him with those eyes, an unconscious pull and push as he had to fight the urge to collapse—though he knew Steve would find another way of steadying him.

Steve did that. He always had, ever since he’d begun to collect children to babysit. They’d swarm him like a barrage of small, insistent ducklings, demanded his attention and assistance and he’d not swayed, had always been this pillar Eddie could admire. Someone they could rely on. 

Which, he supposes, was why the beginning of the year was so jarring. Steve’s sudden absence, the discombobulated way the group now functioned. A vital part missing, a serious organ. Steve was their spine, their balance. 

And Eddie missed him.

It’s a crushing feeling, a tidal wave of longing, sickeningly dizzying while he rests against the strength of Steve’s touch. Now laid bare to the sheer heat of their skin on skin, Eddie wants more. Needs it, almost as much as he needs answers, excuses. Needs to know why Steve is so insistent on pushing him away, keeping him at arms’ length and then finding it in himself to beat Jason Carver into the dirt for merely considering harm against Eddie. 

The knowledge of someone’s care was like honey in his throat, slick and sweet, sticky to handle. Eddie wasn’t sure what to do with it, spread it, drink it, bathe in it and fester. Eddie wants to ferment in the feeling of Steve’s care, rot under the eye of his full attention. 

Then his eyes shift. Steve looks, suddenly, fleetingly at his own forearm, the one keeping Eddie separate from him. Keeping him steady. 

Eddie follows—because in times like these, Eddie is acutely aware of just how willingly he’d follow Steve anywhere. On this occasion, he follows Steve to a raised, gut-churning bite scar on the inner flesh of his forearm.

Steve drops him. They collide, Eddie choking out air as his face drops against Steve’s blanketed chest, groaning as he’s rolled onto his back, as Steve flees, pushes away from the bed in a fumbling panic, slamming his own back against a set of drawers. 

“You— can’t. Be here,” Steve says, insistent. “I can’t—control myself, Eddie,” 

Warmth grows in his gut like a flower to blossom, growing alongside a healthy dose of molten confusion. “You don’t—have to?” Eddie tries, brows knitting together. 

That earns him an exasperated look. Steve nearly seems pained. “You have to leave, Munson. I’m not fucking around, this—it’s all so goddamn twisted, and I want to tell you, I do, but it can’t be tonight, any night but tonight, ok? If—if you leave now I’ll—I promise I’ll tell you. Just not tonight, please,”

It’s the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, a blazing euphoria after weeks of strife. A promise of nirvana, closure, whatever else Eddie can describe it as. 

He goes to declare allegiance to Steve’s compromise—only for there to be a loud knock at the door. “Steven?” Calls a voice of authority, familiar, whimsical. 

Eyes widening, Steve smacks Eddie with the back of his hand. “ Bed,”

“Thought you’d never ask—,” Steve’s hand silences Eddie, pushed over his mouth firmly. 

Jaw clenched, Steve shakes his head. “Get. Under. The. Bed.” 

There were several quips Eddie would’ve normally made about how usually he had a preference for giving the orders, but as briefly discussed, he had a hard time saying no to Steve Harrington. Eyebrows raised, Eddie presses a kiss to the inside of Steve’s palm, quickly dropping to his hands and knees and crawling backwards under the dark, musky space beneath the bed. 

The voices in the room are muffled by the heavy blankets that shield Eddie from their view—but Eddie knows them, vaguely. Professor Owens, the headmaster—and Hopper. 

“The Shrieking Shack is a safer location,” Is what Eddie can make out of the quiet conversation above-head, straining to try and listen. “We have a set up for you there, as painless as we could manage,”

“Okay,” Steve’s voice is tired, perhaps strained by the unavoidable awareness that he has Eddie under his bed. 

“You ready for this, kid?” That’s Hopper—gruff, yet still with the undercurrent of support beneath his words. He gets a scoff in return, footsteps no doubt belonging to Steve leading the other men out of the newly-discovered room. 

Leaving Eddie alone again. 

Scuffling out from under the bed in a wild mess of hair static and crumpled uniform, Eddie tries his best to wrestle with whatever subheading he could put that experience under. Homoerotic, vaguely threatening, who knows in these trying times—for his troubles, he steals a box of chocolate frogs on his way out, patiently waiting for the door to reappear so he can leave. 

It seems a little reluctant, and Eddie has to resist the urge to kick it, “Come on, man’s got places to be,” because it’s stone, materializing on a literal wall. Not every urge should be acted upon—something he’s rapidly beginning to realize he should heed more often. 

Eddie starts to almost believe the Room of Requirement doesn’t want him to leave, but after several strings of colorful swear words, it surrenders, the handle to the new door appearing at hand-height. And despite his door struggles, Eddie finds himself walking back to the Gryffindor dorm in a good mood, the promise of finally knowing like heroin. Not to mention direct, prolonged exposure to Steve Harrington, in all his fucked-up freaky glory. 

And then Eddie rounds the corner. Jason is standing outside the Gryffindor entrance, his face a picture of sore purples and angry swollen reds. 

They’re waiting for him. Andy and Jason. 

Eddie starts to wonder if the Room of Requirement was trying to stall him to prevent what is to come.

They chase Eddie through the school, tumbling down stairs and ignoring the shouts of prefects in his wake. And it was inevitable, Eddie tries to reason with himself as he feels the sharp pain of a stitch developing in his side, he’d known this would happen. But in the middle of the night, with no one to intervene, supernaturally sick or otherwise—

Eddie wasn’t entirely sure he was going to get out of this one alive.

It’s one thing to worry about escaping situations unscathed, but that was never on the table in the first place. No, Eddie worries for his life, no joke, worries that they won’t find his body til morning, black and blue and cold. 

Jason is an asshole. Neurotic and controlling. Andy’s the bigger concern—he’s sadistic, he enjoys what Jason thinks is “teaching a lesson.” He plays into his delusions, pushes him further and further. Eddie will be their victim tonight, and will be swept under the rug as just “another Hogwarts accident.”

These thoughts push him on further, breathless and burning as he soars down the stairs through the courtyard, smothering his fear for being out in the dark as he stumbles closer and closer to what had been described to them many a time as a death sentence. 

The Forbidden Forest.

Once thrown, a look over his shoulder confirms his worst fears—Jason and Andy are not faltering at the face of the woodlands. If anything they seem to hasten their pace, believing Eddie to be hesitant.

Against every single instinct Eddie has ever developed in his fried, strained nervous system, he forces his body to keep moving, jumping over a fallen tree trunk and enveloping himself in the darkness of the forest. 

Hide. It’s his first instinct, the right one. He won’t be able to outrun them forever, he’s only done so thanks to the stretch of corridor’s worth of head start. So he bobs and weaves, running in snake-like patterns before reaching a clearing, charming a hefty stone as quick as he can manage. It rolls, creating the illusion that someone had fallen down the steep hillside. All the while he turns, thrusting himself in the direction of another fallen tree.

Holding his breath, Eddie pushes himself into its hollow trunk, hissing through his teeth when a sharp shard of bark cuts into the flesh of his arm. Ignoring the hot blood he feels it draw, Eddie stays deathly silent, forcing himself to not give into the urge to cry. 

If Jason and Andy didn’t kill him, there was a high likelihood another creature from the forest would. Eddie was fucked from all sides, the bitter guile of anxiety pandering to him like a neglected child. He tries to find comfort in the silence, to no avail—it likely means that they aim to get the jump on him, maybe they were even drawing in close now. 

Eddie had no way of knowing. 

That was until suddenly his tree trunk shifted. A warning sign—because then Eddie is blown backwards, winded by a stunning spell, toppling down the length of the clearing. It’s steep—almost a cliff face, jagged rocks cutting into sore flesh without care for the blood strewn in his path. It hurts, and Eddie’s heart is thumping in his throat as he falls, limbs curled around his ribs, his eyes shut to try and fend off the forest floor debris. 

The worst part aside from the blinding pain is opening his eyes to find his surroundings just as dark as the inside of his eyelids—his only reprieve is the cold glow of the full moon above head.

“Mmmngh,” Was the best effort Eddie could make to cry out for help, a pained groan as he stuttered to a stop in the mud. It takes all his will to not scream, ribs throbbing like a hive of wasps in a jar. 

With what of his eyesight wasn’t swimming in blood and dirt, Eddie strained himself to try and look back up from where he’d fallen, brace himself for further harm to come whenever those two morons found a way to follow him down. 

He found them—Jason and Andy had stopped about half way down, the latter holding onto a wayward tree for support. Their eyes were sharp and near-glowing under the polarizing moonlight, haunted, gleaming at him. Stuck in a limbo, frozen. Jason’s mouth opens, closes—he reaches a hand out, almost pointing to Eddie, for Eddie, maybe to warn, to curse. 

Then they flee. A barrage of dirt and dust while the two of them frantically scramble back from whence they came, leaving Eddie to owlishly watch them go. 

It doesn’t feel right, this reaction—a bit of a steep climb would not dissuade their hunt. Not unless there was a bigger fish, an apex predator. 

Branches crunch behind Eddie. 

He turns, coolness swimming in his veins like a straight shot of liquid nitrogen. It’s ineffable, a chilling fear he’s never touched so rapidly before, only ever reached in slow, steady drawls, not the tidal wave that swallows him now. Similar to the cool sweats one gets after one too many shots of firewhiskey, when the burn dulls and drops into a pit of nausea. Eddie’s stomach turns, and turns; twisting and determined to push itself inside out for all the dread it’s slick with. 

Eddie is still. He doesn’t dare move from where he’s unevenly propped himself up on his hands, can’t fathom an action that’d even begin to scratch the surface of safety. 

About seven-foot tall, deformed in posture and body, arms too long, legs curved and hunched as it sits on its hinds. Every stretch of marred, scarred skin is slick with ragged, heavy brown fur, some even slightly curled. 

In their standoff, Eddie looks harder. Its face is dog-like, a small snout, wide, dark eyes that soften from their violent slits into empty, thoughtless caverns. Its ears go from flat against its head to standing up to attention, one of them twitching. When the creature inches a little closer and Eddie scrambles, it doesn’t chase him. Just stares, blankly, dumbly. 

“Hi…?” Eddie mumbles, throat far too dry and brain fat too suffocated to do much else. 

The eyes swim with something akin to recognition. The nose twitches, scrunches, sniffs. 

The penny drops. 

“ Steve?” 

Eddie’s mouth drops open, a rush of warmth mingling with the omnipresent fear that scratches an itch in his hindbrain. The creature softly whines, bending further to knock its snout against his temple. “Oh my god,” The creature—the Steve, sits down in a furry heap at his feet. “You’re—you’re? Some?” 

Studying him again, Eddie reaches, threading his hand into the softer, curlier fur by his ear. “A wolf? A… were? Werewolf?”

Steve-wolf nudges Eddie’s palm with his snout. 

“Okay,” Eddie gently pats Steve-wolf’s fur. “Okay,” He’s doing his very best not to go into shock, his injuries becoming far more painful without the careful blanket of adrenaline. Steve-wolf shifts in closer, licking at the blood that’s been running down from Eddie’s temple. “Haha, hey—hey, hey,” 

It’s hard to be afraid of seven foot wolf Steve when he’s practically rolling over beside him—but it also goes against everything Eddie’s ever been taught about werewolves. They’re not supposed to recognize the people in their lives, not supposed to do anything but hunt and tear and eat. Eddie should be a pound of mangled flesh. Not playing man’s best friend. 

Then Steve-wolf shifts, shoves his snout into the crook of Eddie’s neck, breathing in deep and desperately. Like he’s some kind of drug, some solace or comfort he’s been deprived of. 

“Ohhh—,” Eddie isn’t really sure what to do, or what’s even happening. “Okay?” Steve-wolf grumbles, nudges him again with his snout, and breathes him in some more, as if he’s taking another hit. “Right. No talk. Got it. I can do—I can totally do that,” 

Wet nose sniffling away under his ear, Eddie does his best to hold his breath to minimize the chance that the ticklish feeling will make him laugh, embarrass Steve-wolf into changing his mind and eating him whole. 

Then Steve-wolf stops, draws back. Sniffs at Eddie’s legs, where the worst of the damage is—then those big, round eyes, puppy eyes, flick back to him. Ruminating. 

“Penny for your thoughts?” Eddie teases, chuckling just a bit hysterically. Steve-wolf grumbles at him, before slowly turning, lowering himself to the ground, belly to the forest floor. 

When Eddie doesn’t move, Steve-wolf shoots him a look that can be described as nothing less than accusatory. It says are you stupid? 

“Oh,” Eddie blinks, tired and dazed. Glancing from Steve-wolf and then the mess of his own legs, he slowly gets the picture. “You sure? Not saying you aren’t a big boy, Stevie, but I’m pretty heavy—,”

Steve-wolf growls. 

“Yep! Okay,” Pushing himself onto his front, Eddie crawls, awkwardly taking handfuls of Steve-wolf’s fur to grapple himself onto his back. “Point taken—,” Yelping when Steve suddenly rises on all fours, Eddie loops his arms around the scruff of Steve-wolf’s neck, squeezing softly. 

Steve-wolf climbs the cliff face without much struggle, large paws and harsh claws giving him whatever leverage Eddie definitely didn’t have. Leaving a landslide of debris and dust in his wake, the wolf has them padding through the Forbidden Forest with unfathomable speed, dominating the landscape Eddie had almost fallen victim to. 

It’s more exhilarating than Eddie can put a name to, so thrilling he starts whooping, sitting up and grinning, breathing in the sharp, winter night air as Steve’s speed has his pulse jackrabbiting. “ Stevie! You’re the fucking man!” 

Clearly Steve enjoys that, because he howls, snout to the sky as they pound their way through branches and trees and anything that might stand in their way of this moment, this time. 

They come to the clearing of the forest, the warm glow of Hogwarts Castle, a homing beacon; promise of safety. It’s nothing compared to the thick fur beneath him, the warm, shifting body. Steve keeps him close, carries him home. 

Skidding to a stop in the dirt, Steve digs his paws into the mud, bringing his body back down to the earth. Reluctantly, Eddie rolls off, crawling onto his hands and knees before crouching by Steve’s snout. “Good boy,” 

Steve-wolf huffs, blowing air through his nose—a way of telling him to shut up. “What? No dog jokes?”

“Eddie!” A voice cuts through the quiet bliss of the night, raw and high-pitched with panic. It brings Steve to attention, snarling low in his throat and commando-crawling in front of Eddie. 

It’s Robin—flanked by a wide-eyed Dustin. “Eddie!” She holds up her hands, slowly shaking her head. “Eddie, take—take a few steps over here, slowly ,”

“Rob,” Eddie starts, fisting one hand into Steve’s pelt. “It’s fine. I know. He’s fine,”

Jittering, Dustin stays tucked into Robin’s side, shaking his head and gaping at Eddie like he’s insane. “Eddie, he’s a werewolf. He’s—he could eat you.”

Steve looks at Eddie, ears flat against his head. Whining low in his throat, the wolf trudges over to him, curling up at his feet. 

Eddie stares at them both. 

“Yeah, he sure is vicious,” 

Another gaze to the pair of them has Eddie notice what state they’re in—muddy, bruised and haggard, hair messed and clothes torn. It’s not long before Hopper comes running over the clearing, sweating hard and panting, hands clutching his knees as he takes a moment to gather himself. 

There’s a momentary standoff. Professor Owens appears in a cloud of disapparation. 

“Ah,” The older man says, hands settling on his hips. “I see Mr Munson has the situation handled,”

Another glance back to his feet explains the sudden lack of warmth coiled around them—instead of a large, furry beast taking residence there, Eddie finds the very-naked body of one Steve Harrington. 

He falters. “Oh—uh,” In a flurry of panic over Steve’s dignity, Eddie shoulders off his robes, throwing it down over the pale expanse of his long limbs. In an effort to curl the material over the more important parts, Eddie finds his eyes caught on the moles on the more intimate skin he’s never seen before—face hot as he carefully covers them. 

Groggily, Steve raises a hand to paw appreciatively at Eddie’s arm, before it drops down to the floor as he groans, pressing his face into the material of the offered up robes. 

“What the fuck?” Dustin chirrups, bouncing excitedly at Robin’s elbow—who just seems to be marking Eddie with an inquisitive stare. 

“I’m too old for this bullshit,” Comes the gruff complaints of the still-panting Hopper, crouching down to scoop the practically comatose Steve up into his arms. 

“Me too,” Robin helpfully supplies at the ripe age of sixteen. 

Eddie continues to hobble his way over to them, dumbstruck. “Is anyone gonna explain any of this to me?” And jovially slaps his hands on his thighs. “Or do I just have to keep playing guessing games?”

As if just remembering he was there in the first place, Professor Owens hums, smiling in the way old men do. Wise and warm. “Come,” He says, holding out his arm.

Glancing to Robin and Dustin, Eddie limps his way to stand by the headmaster, as if waiting for any last-minute protests on their behalf. They stay quiet, Robin’s lips curling a little into a smile. This is as much closure for her as it is for him, the end to questions she couldn’t answer, no matter how much she wanted to. 

With some effort, Hopper trudges over with Steve, limp, knocked-out Steve; brushes shoulders with Professor Owens. He sends Eddie a look that suggests he should really, really brace himself. 

When they end up in Professor Owen’s office with Eddie heaving into a bucket after his first multi-person apparition, he understands why. There’s a reason one caster shouldn’t typically do it, and now Eddie is trying his best not to spew that reason all over the place. 

Thankfully for his pride, Steve is far worse off. Still bundled up in his robes, the guy is hunched up in a ball beside him, staring off into space.

When Hopper had tried to separate them, Steve had snarled, sharp teeth protruding from angry, bleeding gums. He had not tried again. 

From Eddie’s (very limited) understanding, he could grasp that Steve (somehow) was a werewolf. This likely had occurred over the summer (wow) and had started a domino effect that now led to Steve Harrington, the Steve breathing-living-blinking Harrington curled up at his side like a lapdog. 

Eddie wonders if some god is really pleased with him in some distant realm. Because a man can only dream. 

“An… anchor?” He finds himself mumbling after the dry-wretches falter into pathetic hiccups every now and again. 

Professor Owens nods, regal and stern. “Yes. It’s a tricky business. But it occurs when Steven’s wolf…” He makes a vague hand gesture to the way Steve-human is rubbing his face against Eddie’s arm. “Finds a bond it particularly finds special. Wolves are picky. You must be quite the charmer,”

Ha. Erica would love this. Carefully patting Steve on the head, Eddie casually loops his arm around his shoulders. “So I’ve heard. And… this means what?”

“It gives Steven’s wolf some humanity to hold onto. Something that connects it to him . Reduces the likelihood of an unfortunate gorey rampage, or some… similar incident,” Wafting a hand dismissively, Professor Owens shoots Eddie a stiff smile. “It’s a good thing. Especially for Steven. With your assistance, the wolf will adjust to human company.”

“Right,” Eddie mumbles, blinking some dust out of his eye. “And, uh… what does this do to actual Steve? Like, is…” He glances down to the man of the hour, who’s all but climbed into his lap. “Is this real?”

Brow softening from the harsh frown it so commonly held, Hopper chuckles, one hand on his hip. “That anchor shit only happens when the guy already values a bond he has with someone. The wolf just gets to take a pick of the litter. Means Harrington and his wolf must think you’re the shit, Munson,”

And wow, it takes a lot of willpower to not keel over at the mere idea. Steve, valuing him enough that out of everyone, all the people he cares for—the wolf, for whatever reason, decided Eddie was the one. The One, capital O. His tether to humanity.  The thing standing in the way of Steve losing his head and ripping throats out.

Man. It’s kind of a lot to handle. 

But then Steve bumps his forehead against the column of Eddie’s neck, capturing his attention just so he can give him a sleepy, stupid smile. And Eddie decides that whatever weight he has to carry for the sake of Steve would never be too much. 

“Now,” Professor Owens interrupts his honeymoon bliss. “I’ve heard you’ve been hunting for an explanation, Mr Munson? I do apologize for the… secrecy. I imagine that it has been difficult for your friends, keeping this from you. But you have to understand,”

The man looks to Steve, to the scars that blemish his skin. “This sort of thing would cause… trouble for us as an institution. I informed your friends that should anyone outside of those present on the 4th of August were to be informed of the transgressions and results of that day, Steven would be promptly expelled,” 

“Expelled?” Eddie swallows, mouth dry like cotton. “What the fuck?”

Hopper’s hands sit low on his hips, the man sighing heavily. “You think he’d have a choice? Parents find out we got a werewolf here and Harrington would become a pariah. That shit scares people, and for good fuckin’ reason.”

“It’s Steve,” Eddie hisses, heart in his throat. 

“Thanks to you, maybe it can always be,” Hopper states, bluntly. “But it was touch and go, kid. We weren’t sure he could come back here. Weren’t sure if he could be around the kids,”

It’s like blasphemy. Steve, too dangerous for the kids he risks his life to protect, dedicates himself to protecting. Eddie wants to hurl again, wants to hit something—maybe Hopper, if he didn’t value his life. 

Pulling Steve closer, Eddie slowly turns to stare down Professor Owens, the bitter feeling of protective paranoia prickling under his skin. “What happened?” 

The wall opens at the flick of the Professor’s wand, a deep, stone basin growing from the previously concealed space. The man addresses Steve. “I think it might be better to show him, Steven.”

Still a little wolffish, Steve grumbles, but glances up at Eddie nonetheless. Eyes big and their usual chocolate brown, overflowing with earnest, wet fondness. “Yeah,” His voice is hoarse, rough. It sends a ripple of shivers through Eddie, though he tries to disguise it, shifting. 

Professor Owens puts his wand to Steve’s temple—slowly drawing from his skull a translucent wisp, tossing it into the basin with a delicate practice. “Do you know what a pensieve is, Edward?” He beckons him to stand, which he does with some struggle—Steve stays attached to him, tucked into his side. 

“Not really?” Eddie muses, peering over into the swimming mix of all the little wisps of light, Steve similarly hypnotized. 

Hopper’s behind them both in a single step—large, rough hands taking one head each, plunging their faces into the magical, cloud-like mixture. “You will,”

It’s like falling. 

Eddie finds himself sprawled on his back, winded, confused—staring up at the dusk-kissed sky. Grass tickles the side of his face. 

Tilting his head, the Byers’ Burrow comes into view, crowned by the final touches of a fleeting sunset. Steve stands at his feet, offering up his hand, seeming a bit fresher than before. 

“Hey,” Eddie says, feeling like a bashful schoolgirl when Steve pulls him up, bumping chests. 

“Hey yourself,” Steve says, one eyebrow raised. His face is etched with exhaustion, yet those eyes—there’s a light to them, a tender humor. He doesn’t let go of Eddie’s hand. Instead, they stay linked, joined at hip-height. 

Absent-mindedly, Eddie notes he can’t really feel his toes for all the rollercoasters his extremities are doing as a result of this minor detail. “Where are we?” He asks in an attempt to not collapse in a puddle of sheer Steve -exposure.

The guy doesn’t help—he does that thing with his face, that stupid little squint and scrunch. “Owens’ fishbowl. It’s like… some memory thing. We can live a moment, but can’t… like. Interact with anyone. He did it with me when everything first happened in the summer,” 

“Oh,” Eddie says, because what else is there to say? In his defense, it’s been a long day of sleuthing and ass-beating, and now memory swimming. 

Steve seems tense, too. His grip on Eddie’s hand is tight, and he keeps adjusting, as if worried he might be hurting him. “Uh—just. Heads up. It’s not great,”

There’s a small, nervous smile on Eddie’s lips when he bumps their shoulders. “Wasn’t expecting a bedtime story, Stevie. I’ve got you,”

And he does—when the Burrow suddenly goes up in flames, Eddie steadies Steve with a hand to his shoulder, pulling him close as if they could feel the heat at all. They can’t, but there’s nothing natural about watching somewhere Eddie had always thought as a place of family, of safety, be swallowed whole by a torrent of fire. 

There’s Death Eaters, he realizes. They’re laughing and shrieking with delight, conjuring their fire jinxes into the Byers’ cornfield, creating a large ring around the house. It’s an ambush. 

His chest goes tight when Jane rushes out of the house in a fit of pure rage—the sanctity of her new home disturbed no doubt as a personal message to her from Lord Vecna. Eddie has to resist the urge to cry out for her when she boldly chases after a Death Eater in an act of ferocious anger, disappearing into the cornfield in a gap of the ring of fire. 

Max is next—she yells after her best friend, jumping through the gap in the fire to flee after her into the darkness. Mike is at her heels—where Jane goes, he follows. 

And then there’s Will. In his nightclothes, hesitating for just a second. Faintly, Eddie hears Joyce calling his name, Hopper shouting at all of the kids, trying to stop more from chasing after their friends—but it’s too little too late. 

Will disappears into the cornfield. 

The adults are too far away, the ring of fire would no doubt close before they reached it. But out of the corner of his eye, Eddie sees a glimpse of metal. A car—a muggle one, parked haphazardly by the Burrow. A figure, quickly advancing.

The memory’s version of Steve Harrington bounds past Eddie and Steve, narrowly missing the closure of the fire ring as he chases after his stupid kids.

“Come on,” Now-Steve says, tugging Eddie by the hand to follow. Wordlessly they pursue, seamlessly passing through the cornfield, only disturbed by the shrieking laughter of hiding Death Eaters. 

The scene shifts before they get much further. Jane and Max, back to back, dueling one of Lord Vecna’s Death Eaters. Then it moves again. Mike and Will clutching one another as they try to predict when another will jump from out of the darkness, attack them. And again. Steve, trying to balance watching over the four of them. Shooting off spells offhandedly in an attempt to draw attention. 

It’s a mess of sparks, colour and the taste of distress in the air. Eddie can smell the smoke, the sweat. Steve’s grip on his hand only tightens when they watch as his past self stuns what seems to be the last of the Death Eaters that had followed them. As he gathers the kids, pushes them to start running back towards the Burrow. 

The perspective moves again. Eddie and Steve watch as Will leads the group in running back to his flaming home. 

Steve’s grip on Eddie is hard enough to hurt when something appears behind them in a cloud of dark matter. 

Someone.

The two of them turn, though there's no doubt Steve knows who’s behind him. A malformed man, his face a mess of ugly scarring and a deformed, unsettling grin. His teeth are sharp—too sharp. And Will is just a few footfalls away when the man lurches, transforms. Shifts. 

A werewolf. 

It’s a handful of seconds at most. But it’s agonizing.

Steve pushes through Mike, Max, Jane—takes the back of Will’s nightshirt and pulls hard enough to tear the neckline. Takes the younger boy to the ground. 

There’s not even a flicker of hesitance in his face when he bodily tackles the werewolf intending to pull Will apart, limb from limb. 

It’s a losing battle. It’s a sacrifice.

Eddie struggles to watch as the wolf sinks its claws into Steve’s chest, and begins to shred his flesh in a vigorous display of wanton cruelty. It’s relentless, a poignant show of power and sadistic tendency. Steve’s cries are unbearable, and the iron smell of blood, Steve’s blood, has him gagging, pressing his face into his sleeve.

Eddie watches Max, Mike, Jane and Will have to witness what was the murder of Steve Harrington. Can’t bring himself to look at Steve at his side now, not when this scene has a sharp pain cutting through his insides relentlessly. 

He wants to intervene. He’s a helpless bystander. 

Yet Steve tries to fight it. Even as the claws are stained with his own insides, the dying man continues to try and deal some sort of blows, still uses the voice that gargles on its own blood to tell the kids to run. 

It’s horrific. Eddie wants to tear his own heart out, lay it out for the wolf to take instead. 

But Steve’s dying actions seem to amuse the Death Eater, the wolf. Seems to tick some sick, sadistic box. Because just seconds before Hopper arrives at the head of Steve’s ruined body to deal a killing blow to the beast, it bares its teeth—and bites into his wrist. 

Eddie traces the raised scar on Steve, threads their fingers together as they watch Joyce roll the corpse off of him. He keeps their bodies pressed together, a tether to reality, as Will becomes hysterical—

(Eddie remembers Jane’s warning.)

“ Do not ask Will. He will not… tell you, but you will only upset him. To remind him, would be… bad,”

(Guilt almost swallows him whole.)

Because for all intents and purposes, Steve dies. Half of him was smeared in the scorched crops of the Byers’ Burrow. But the scene shifts, Steve lying on their charred breakfast table, the adults fighting and the children screaming when he writhes, body unnaturally closing itself up of its own volition. Skin curling to a close over gaping holes in flesh. Jonathan, Robin and Nancy trying to help hold him down as he screams. 

Steve’s arm twitches in Eddie’s hold. A phantom pain. 

Flashes of memories begin to speed up—the end of their trip. They see Erica running into Steve, asking for him to come and help Eddie. They see cuffs and chains in the Shrieking Shack, Dustin insisting to Hopper that it wouldn’t be strong enough. He’d been doing his reading. 

Eddie feels stupid. Begins to recall things in a new light.

( Remembers angling the novel his way. The cover reads Werewolves: An All You Need To Know Guide. “Light reading?”)

( Dustin snatching it back. “I have a school project due,”)

They see Lucas and Max delivering the raw meat to Steve, see them argue about how terrible he looked on their way out. Robin, begging for Steve to let her in after he’d almost snapped at her over something stupid. 

Steve, alone. Steve, isolating himself. Steve, listening to people talk, people mock, people speculate. Steve, watching Eddie from a distance, wanting to follow the pull of his wolf, finding it difficult to ignore. 

The memories fade to black. 

Eddie and Steve stand in an expanse of nothingness. 

There’s a pleading gleam in Steve’s eyes as he puts a hand on Eddie’s shoulder, willing him to look at him. He won’t beg, not now—not after that. But Eddie can’t not, even though he knows his eyes are wet, even though he’s blinking back the urge to cry because Steve is crying. Eddie’s always been bad with that, ever since he was a kid. Someone cries and he wants to cry. But this someone is his someone, and it makes it ten thousand fucking times worse. He doesn’t just want to cry, he wants to explode, to dissolve and die in a heap at his feet. 

“Eddie,” Steve chokes, just a little. He’s a drowning man, and Eddie’s his anchor. Either he’ll pull him under the surface like a ball and chain, or he’ll tether him to warm sands, the sanctity of a shore.

And so Eddie kisses him, because if he starts to talk he won’t stop. There’s too much to say, so much he won’t be able to—so he kisses Steve. Kisses Steve for being there right on time; kisses Steve for always insisting he pick up the kids in his stupid muggle car, kisses Steve for chasing after them into the danger, kisses Steve for his long, lean legs, for the way they move fast enough to catch up to them, kisses Steve for protecting them always, unconditionally, kisses Steve for succeeding, kisses Steve for dying, kisses Steve for suffering, kisses Steve for going at it alone, kisses Steve for always turning away help, kisses Steve for helping him, kisses Steve because he’s Steve, and Eddie’s wanted to kiss Steve since third year when Tommy had been making fun of Eddie’s boggart being his dad, and uncharacteristically Steve had said:

“Hey, man. Not cool. People can’t control their families,” 

And it was such a stupid crush, because Steve had been mean. But that one glimpse of kindness told Eddie that there had to be more to him, even if it took the combination of one Nancy Wheeler and several stupid, reckless kids to bring it to the surface. 

But Eddie kisses Steve for being kind, so kind that it makes Eddie ill, sickly sweet and stupid and golden, kisses Steve because he’s Steve and if he doesn’t kiss him he just might not kiss anyone ever again. 

And as the strange sensation of actual reality begins to bleed into their small pocket of dead space dawns like a new horizon, Eddie feels Steve kiss him back.

Eddie Munson’s Five Step Guide to dating a werewolf:

1) Don’t ever expect personal space. Ever.

It wasn’t really a problem for him. Eddie enjoyed Steve’s tactile nature, but man. The guy hated not having at least one part of them touching at all times, practically driving him around the bend. If Eddie didn’t wake up completely tangled in the long, gangly limbs he liked so much, he would be concerned for Steve’s health. 

(This came with the added bonus of a guard dog. Jason and Andy didn’t fancy going toe to toe with Steve these days.)

2) Don’t invest in central heating.

Because who needs it? Steve runs hot. Always. There were bets amongst the kids over the likelihood of an egg frying if they cracked it on his forearm. Eddie had his own personal space heater.

3) Two words: raw meat. Addition: hangry.

Steve’s metabolism was about three times the speed of the average teenage boy—already a superhuman feat. Eddie had taken to dicing up cubes of raw meat just so whenever the guy had a bitch fit out of nowhere he could toss one and buy the world another hour of peace. Growing wolves need their nutrients!

4) Dog jokes. Always. 

Steve hated them. Eddie found them a pivotal part of their relationship, even if Steve frequently threatened to break up with him over a badly-timed pun. 

5) Grow accustomed to the taste of Mandrake leaf.

Man, that one was a doozy. 

It had stemmed from the whole issue with Eddie jogging around after Steve-wolf every full moon. It was a general risk to his health, and werewolves were surprisingly difficult to keep up with. Hopper also didn’t like him just strolling around the Forbidden Forest like live bait for whatever else was traversing its woods. 

So, naturally, Eddie became an illegal animagus.

Though he preferred the term “unregistered.”

It wasn’t easy, or fun. Steve also repeatedly fucked it up because he’d forget the hardest part of the process was Eddie needing to keep a Mandrake leaf in his mouth, undisturbed, for a month.

Key word: undisturbed.

Difficult to manage when Steve had a real tendency to stick his tongue in there and then recoil at the taste of the bitter leaf he’d just sentenced both of them to another month with. The plant practically became the third player in their relationship.

Until finally, Eddie shifted—into a bat, no less. Convenient for all parties, not to mention fucking sick. He’d monitor Steve-wolf from the skies, flutter down to tether himself in his fur when he got tired. 

And yeah. The morning after was always rough. They’d both be sore and exhausted and their bones would feel wrong under their skin after the transformation—but then they’d spend the day napping. Their monthly day of peace. 

Eddie would trace Steve’s scars with his fingertip, something he’d taken to doing when he’d dedicated himself to learning every detail of his body. They weren’t an eyesore to him, not after he’d adjusted to their presence, learned to love them as a part of him. They were a story; the story of how Steve had saved little Byers, who so frequently tailed the two of them like a happy shadow these days. 

These days—the better days.

Days where Steve started playing Quidditch again. Eddie always in the stand to anchor him.

Days where Robin, Nancy, Jonathan, Eddie and Steve would worry about real teenage school shit like exams. Where they’d study together, a mismatched group. 

Days where the kids were safe around Steve without a shadow of a doubt. Where his wolf learned to grow fond of them all. When by the summer he could lie in the Byers’ cornfield amongst them all, as a wolf, while Jane, Max and Will threaded daisies into his fur. Dustin, leaning up against him while he’d read. Mike, writing a campaign based around werewolves. Lucas, excitedly playing fetch—something Steve’s wolf would only ever do with him, no one else. 

There were always bad days on the horizon. Death Eaters, Lord Vecna. Days where they’d have to fight. Days where they’d have to hurt. 

But Eddie spent his summer helping the Byers fix up the Burrow, living in its husk with all of his friends. 

Eddie spent his summer learning that they’d won the fight to get Steve back. And every time Steve would take a break from painting, renovating, lifting just to seek out Eddie, bring him near, Eddie knew that he hadn’t just won.

He’d gained. 

Because who else in the Wizarding World could brag about having a werewolf for a boyfriend?