werewolf steve, werebat eddie (ch3)
It’s the quiet conviction that he’s in the wrong bed that wakes Eddie the next morning. The mattress too soft, the pillow too thick, and the boy next to him is an unwavering, giant red flag too. He sighs, hand under his cheek and contemplates the sleep-creased face of Steve Harrington next to little old Eddie Munson.
And he thought turning into a bat was going to be the only weird part of this weekend.
Steve snuffles, twitching his nose before falling back into a steady breathing rhythm again. And Eddie would like to deny how cute it is, would like to refuse to see how handsome Steve is, and would very much like to pinch the thin river of greed winding through him that would like the chance to have a fun, kind guy too. Someone who stirs Eddie, makes him laugh. But that’s not his fate in this lifetime.
He turns onto his back, staring directly above at the bubble pattern of the ceiling and determinedly focusing on more important matters.
Like the fact that he’s a bat now.
Rubbing his eyes with his thumb and forefinger, he wonders what the hell to do with that knowledge. It’s not going to get him anywhere; there’s no big corporation that wants to hire bat services. Last he heard, the ability to squeak wasn’t going to land him a record deal. Eddie huffs out a laugh, maybe he can get into acting. Take this gig out on the road.
No, just like having to watch a girl be brutally murdered in front of him and only barely scraping past that hack job Hawkins PD called an investigation, Eddie is going to have to take his lumps and keep moving.
He peers at the awful plaid wallpaper of the bedroom. Unsurprised by the banality of it, the hint of wasted money on lack of taste, but he is surprised by the pleasant abundance of greenery across the whole space. Potted plants crowd every available surface, some with trailing vines flowing over containers hanging from the ceiling. Even with the window closed, the room smells fresh, a clean sweetness to the air that matches the shiningly healthy and obviously well-cared for leaves, flowers and, he peers closer, herbs.
He wonders whether Steve dug these out of the woods with his big furry paws or if he’d bought them at the local nursery. Looking at the array of sizes and colourful patterns on the clay pots he figures that Steve shelled out a decent amount of money for his botanical set-up.
It twinges something in Eddie. Steve, just as taken in by the Upside Down, doomed to forever be a half-man and half-beast too, but sleeping peacefully within an oasis of his creation, sheltered by the tall walls of the Harrington home, with friends who love him, who don’t care about the monster within.
Because what is Eddie now? A monster? Maybe. A creature? Definitely. This new change in his life won’t make it any better, it won’t give him any advantages. It’s just one more thing he’s going to have to hide. To squirrel away like a tender thing lest the soft belly of it be exposed to the type of people who would hurt him.
Hurt, he knows, comes in many different forms. From a father believing your best value is in using small hands to boost a car, in the indifference of a mother leaving you on your uncle’s doorstep, on your best friend pushing you to the floor when you try to kiss him.
He looks over at the effortlessly handsome features of Steve, at his expensive and beautiful room, and thinks that whatever risk Steve carries, it is nothing like the one Eddie would be exposed to if his new secret got out.
He spots a familiar animal on the cover of a book on the bedside table. Curiously, he picks it up, flicking his eyes over the types of bats in the world, their characteristics, advice on care, and other little random facts.
Steve stirs, smacking his lips his eyelashes flutter before his gaze opens to land on Eddie bent over the book. He’s under the blanket that Eddie lays over; his bat version must have crawled out of the hoodie at some point but remained on top of the bed. Last night had been a blur and he doesn’t remember much except panic followed by Steve’s warm hands.
“Hey,” Steve smiles sleepily, “You came back to us.”
Eddie grunts, “Yeah, not sure exactly how that happened, but small blessings and all that.” He scans the feeding behaviour header, noting that blood is indeed amongst fruit, insects, and nectar as their preferred diet. Pausing, he tastes his mouth like it’ll suddenly reveal an obvious craving for bloody flesh. Meeting only morning breath, he grimaces and continues reading.
Finally realising that Steve has been silent for an unusually long pause, he glances over only to be startled by the intent look in his eye as he regards Eddie. “Are you okay?” He asks quietly and Eddie bristles at the concern, resentment stirring that Steve gets to be the kind one. The guy who cares despite being similarly afflicted. Why can’t he be just as resentful and mean as Eddie?
“Well, it’s not a giant dog, but I suppose you should welcome me to the club.”
Steve purses his lips thoughtfully, “I’ll ignore the canine dig for now since I know you’re going through something. But I get it, you know? If you can talk to anyone about being suddenly faced with the oddity of waking up in a body that no longer feels like your own, it’s me.”
Eddie rolls his eyes down at the book, “Our life experiences are vastly different, Steve. I don’t think you could get where I’m coming from if you tried.”
“Maybe not all of it,” Steve admits carefully, sitting up so he and Eddie are on the same level, “But I can try. And it’s got to be better than holding it in. You’re a pretty verbal guy, Eddie. I figure’d you’d want to talk about this.”
“What’s that mean?” Eddie glares at him and Steve raises his palms, saying, “Just that you seem to like talking your thoughts out, and that I’m here, willing to listen if you want to get anything off your chest.”
“Yeah, well, you can keep that hairy chest to yourself,” Eddie mutters darkly, looking at a bat’s mouth held open, exposing sharp fangs from front to back like a deadly, serrated knife. He presses his tongue against his molars thoughtfully; he doesn’t remember there being a lot of sharp tools in his mouth.
“Right,” Steve huffs out a frustrated breath, “You’re obviously in a mood. But fair, you’re allowed to take a beat until you get your feet under you.”
“I’m allowed,” Eddie mocks under his breath.
Steve cocks his head, “Yeah, you’re allowed. Just like I was allowed to take a beat too, once I figured out that turning into a wolf wasn’t a hallucination or a mental breakdown.” Eddie ignores him and Steve says with frustration, “What’s your problem?”
As he does, Eddie’s eyes catch on a fun fact section, and he can’t help the grim laughter that escapes. Of course. Of fucking course. He hears the mounting irritation in Steve’s voice as he calls his name again and latches on to it, happy to smack back. “Did you know, Steve,” Eddie starts, meanness fuelling his smirk, only he has a feeling that the petty feeling is directed inwards. “That bats have the highest rate of homosexuality out of any mammal?”
Steve watches him warily, “Are you saying that the shift turned you gay? ‘Cause I’m not sure it works like that,” his lips tug up cautiously, “It didn’t for me, anyway.”
Eddie sees the invitation to share the joke in Steve’s expression and it fuels the bitterness, “Yeah, well, you being a straight dog isn’t going to surprise anyone.”
Invitation dropping accompanied by eyes narrowing, Steve says, “That’s fucking condescending.” Eddie sees the insult across his face and rolls his eyes, conviction spreading that Steve has never had to think about how he presents to the world for one fucking minute before being afflicted with their shared infection.
“All I’m saying is that the wolf stuff may have made you a bit weird, but you were never gay-boy-in-Hawkins weird to begin with. Let alone the shitty kid from the shitty family with parents who don’t give a fuck.”
Steve’s eyes harden and he sucks his breath between his teeth consideringly, “I’m not sure whether I should share with you how wrong you are or simply tell you to fuck off.”
Eddie stares back just as hard, “You can’t tell me that you were ever the weird guy, Mr Popular Jock. What? Did you get ostracised from the team when you wore the wrong lucky jock strap?”
Rolling his lips, Steve nods his head decisively, “Yeah, you know what? I am going to tell you to fuck off.” Any hint of warmth in his expression shutters away and Eddie blinks, not having realised how open Steve had been with him even while they bickered. Steve continues, voice flat and unfriendly, “You know what your problem is, Eddie?”
“What?” He tries to sneer but the feeling of being wrong-footed continues and it lands with less force than he wants.
“You think you’ve got everyone worked out,” Steve trails his eyes over Eddie's face leaving his skin feeling flushed and burning, “What was it you said in the Upside Down? The Munson Doctrine? I was barely enough for you to approve of even then, right?”
The ground beneath Eddie’s feet shudders slightly, shaking his gut into an uneasy feeling but Steve doesn’t notice his suddenly shaky equilibrium as he bitingly continues, “I suppose I only met the bare minimum when you said that I was a good guy: I wasn’t a massive asshole that would allow you to take the rap for Chrissy’s murder or, I don’t know,” he laughs with very little humour, “Let Max be killed by Vecna? So that must mean I was scarcely half decent, right?”
Eddie frowns: he had meant what he said in the Upside Down — he’d seen Steve care for the party, chase after Max and make sure the kids were safe. He’d been a steady port in the storm who Eddie had looked to more than once while feeling unsafe and unsure, and Steve had always been looking back, with either a reassuring nod or a helpful explanation in the sort of plain speak necessary for a newbie to their wretched adventures.
Steve rolls out of bed and Eddie can’t even be mad that he might use his height to his advantage because he heads straight to the doorway, pausing with his hand steady on the frame. He shakes his head looking down, “I thought that you saw me. It didn’t have to be every part, but I thought that you at least saw that I’m trying to be a good person.”
He looks up and Eddie is pierced clean through by the hurt in his eyes, the walls falling briefly to allow this one sad glimpse, “But ever since I showed you who I really am, what I am, I’ve realised that your approval comes with conditions.”
“That’s not true,” Eddie protests, furiously thinking, but his gut sinks below his feet when he can’t work out a counterargument to the accusation.
The walls over Steve’s eyes swiftly build up again, leaving only a cold man in its wake. “You assuming how easy I’ve always had it tells me that you never cared enough to look below the surface anyway.” He regards Eddie for one last long second as if taking him in for the final time, and Eddie is unsure how to respond when the ground is rumbling so strongly under his feet.
Quietly and without looking back at Eddie. No fanfare in the movement as if he’s decided that he’s not worth the fight. He realises now that he’d expected Steve to push back, to argue for Eddie to do better, but—having left him behind—Eddie doesn’t know what to do other than to quietly take his book and leave.
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