“Maybe there are clues in the words you have.” Robin cuts in, reaching for the notepad and sliding it in front of her.

Steve huffs, “I need to know the whole thing; there’s definitely words missing.”

“Should you eat more bread?” Robin asks, already sliding the previously abandoned plate of bread towards him.

“You shouldn’t overwhelm yourself.” Mama says, pushing the plate back. “We don’t know if there’s a trigger to the spell, or if you and the caster’s paths will just cross one day, maybe they don’t even know they cast it.”

Steve blinks at her. “So I have a true love and they might not even want me?”

“No!” Robin belts out immediately.

“No, of course not,” Mama says, continuing on. “The one known thing about any spell like this is that they only work on those who are receptive to it.”

“So some weirdo can’t put you under their spell?”

“Yes, exactly Robin; Steve, whatever this is, whoever this was, they love you with all that they are. And you them.”

“I don’t even know who it is! How can I?”

Mama doesn’t have an answer besides saying “Your soul must know them already.”; Their conversation was over soon after that.

Steve spends the next couple days silent and brooding. He can’t stop thinking about how he’s what, marked to love someone he doesn’t even know? How’s that fair?

It could be any random person on the street that thought he was hot, some weird old guy or a lovesick middle schooler..He only just turned 25 the day before the bread incident, but he’s saddled with this huge unknown that isn’t going to get better any time soon?

Okay, apparently not just some weirdo according to Mama, but still. Un-fucking fair all the same.

He’s also pissed that he can’t give anyone all the baked goods he’s made within that time. Each and every one of them ending up with a sour aftertaste. 

“Damn witch bullshit…” he grumbles to himself, only half serious, as he scrapes another batch of sour sugar cookies into the trash.

He’s salty, okay? Pun intended. If he hadn’t ever learned the truth about the powers over food his grandmother (and now him too, apparently) has, he could’ve just excused the batch after batch being off on bad butter, or old flour.. Something other than his mood being what’s ruining his cookies.

That’s what he’d done every other time something he’s made tasted off, now he knows it was him the whole time.

Mama comes in then, he doesn’t have to look up to know the look she’s giving him.

Steve leaves the bowl of leftover dough on the counter, mumbles out a “I gotta go.”, then tromps out the back door and into the woods behind his grandparents’ home. 

He supposes it’s good that they live just outside the city, really, having the trees to escape under like this has helped him before, and he’s hoping will help him now.

Meandering through the underbrush, he strolls along until he reaches the small clearing he’d claimed for himself when he was what, 8? 9? Doesn’t matter. It’s his spot to get away from anything he needs to.

He sits down against the big oak at the edge of the clearing and tips his head back toward the sun filtering down on him through a gap in the canopy above him. He breathes in the fresh air, focuses on the warmth hitting his face, and just exists there for a while, slipping in and out of a soft snooze.

Suddenly, he’s shocked out of his dozing by the sound of twigs snapping underfoot.

If it were coming from behind him, he’d expect it’d be Robin coming to find him here, but it’s not. It’s coming from ahead of him across the clearing.

Steve stands and presses back into the trunk of the tree, wondering if there’s bears in these woods when a person stumbles through the tree line.

The man is thin, about Steve’s age if he were to guess, and covered in dirt, his light wash overalls and his boots are caked in it. His hair is long, pulled half-back away from his face and full of bracken from the forest.

He also seems to be in a daze, staring with dark eyes at Steve with an unfathomable expression. 

It shifts soon after, though, warming into a watery smile. “I’ve come home to you.” he says, clear as day, then collapses onto the grass.

“Oh, shit!” Steve rushes forward, kneeling down beside the man and quickly checking him over for injuries. 

Steve presses his fingers to the man's pulse confirm it's still there (it is) and there don’t seem to be any bruises or breaks in his limbs, so he goes to his head, feeling quickly under the tangles in his hair for any blood, any knots.

Nothing. There’s nothing apparently outwardly wrong with him.

“Hey, hey, wake up! You gotta stay with me, man.” he says, shaking him lightly. 

The other man’s head lolls to the side and his eyes open a crack, his lips quirking up into a smile. “M’love…”

“What is your name?” Steve insists in a slow, clear voice.

Instead of answering, the man raises his hand slowly to cup Steve’s cheek. “...v’wait’d so long..” he slurs, then goes limp again, his hand dropping to his chest.

“Oh no you don’t,” Steve gets his feet under him and gathers the man up into his arms in a bridal carry. His steps falter when he feels how light the man is in his arms, how much more thin he is than how he’d looked.

Steve adjusts his hold on him, making sure not to let his head hang backward over his forearm, and rushes back toward the house.

“Mama!” he shouts as soon as he clears the treeline into the yard.

She’s at the back sliding door as soon as he is. “Steve, honey, what—”

He pushes past her, hurrying to the spare room on the first floor with her on his heels. “I found him wandering the woods, I couldn’t just–I don’t know what’s wrong with him, Mama.”

She gestures him forward to the bed, “Put him there, on top the covers,”

He does, setting him down as if he’s made of glass.

As soon as the man is out of his arms, Mama takes his place. “Nothing seems broken, but he’s so light, he needs food, he needs water, should I call 911? I don’t even know his na—” he rambles on, not even realizing he’d started to pace until his grandma stops him in his tracks.

“Steve, listen to me.” she says, pulling at his wrists gently, removing his hands from his hair. “He will be fine. Now, go get a bowl of warm water and a washcloth and come straight back here.”

He nods dazedly, stumbling backward out the doorway and spinning to the kitchen.

Steve slides to a stop on the tile floor in front of the kitchen sink at the same time Robin gets home from her classes that day.

“I have a date!”

Wait, he needs the bowl first. He scrambles to the opposite counter for the large mixing bowl Mama uses for her damn bread and fishes it out with a clatter of everything that that had been in front of it on the shelf tumbling out to the floor.

“Steve?”

Should he put soap in it?

“Steve!”

No, Mama just said ‘warm water’, not ‘warm soapy water’. He nods to himself and turns on the tap, reaching under the sink next for a washcloth.

“Steven Otis Harrington.”

“Oh, hey Robin, you’re home.” The bowl’s almost full.

“Steve.” She spins him to face her, holding tightly to his shoulders.

He tries to twist back around futilely, “The bowl–”

“Steve. What. Is. Happening.”

He blinks at her a couple times. “Robin!” He pulls her to him in a tight hug. “Holy shit, you’re not gonna believe–”

“Steve, the bowl?”

“Shit,” It’s nearly full when he shuts off the tap, so he dumps a bit out and picks it up with both hands, “C’mon, he’s this way.”

“He? Who’s he?”

“Dunno, I found him in the woods.”

“Aw, Steve, you can’t just take in any ol’ stray dog you happen to find out in the wood—-” Robin cuts herself off as they get to the bedroom door. “Ohhkay…so..not a dog.”

“He looks to be dehydrated, but I don’t think he has any injuries.” Mama says in lieu of a greeting when they return. Steve sits down on the opposite edge of the bed that she is, and carefully passes over the bowl of water without looking at her.

The stranger immediately takes in his attention. His soft features, dark brows…Steve starts to pull the bits of brush out of the man’s hair, untangling twigs, leaves, and he can already see one of those pesky prickle things twisted into the hair next to his ear.

Mama sets the bowl on the sidetable, and gets to work immediately, wiping the dirt and grime from the man’s face and arms. “Robin dear, can you grab one of those sports drinks Pa loves so much outta the fridge? And a bottle of water.”

“Of course!” she says, darting back into the kitchen.

“We’ll need to get some food in him too,”

“We should make him scones.” Steve states apropos of nothing. “With chocolate chunks.”

“Maybe after he’s a bit better, sweetie.” Mama scoffs, wringing out the washcloth. “He needs healthy fats first, butter, oatmeal, avocado, things like that.”

“I can do that!” Steve says, jumping up excitedly. His former task forgotten, he rushes out of the bedroom and to the kitchen, nearly bowling Robin over in the process.

He gets to work on simple eggs and toast for their houseguest, avoiding Mama’s lucky bread in favor of his own store-bought stuff for now, he can make him his own later. 

As he scrambles the eggs, he focuses everything in him on the stranger, on getting him better, making him healthy again. He’s not exactly quite sure how to do what Mama does, but the sour cookie dough says he’ll do it without thinking about it…kinda.

Whatever. 

All he knows is that he’s telling the fuck outta these eggs to make his love better. Make him whole again.. Make him—

Wait..

Did he just refer to the random man laid up in the other room as his love?

Is…

The fugue state he’d been in since first laying eyes on the man crackles away just long enough for him to think.

What did he say before he collapsed? "I've come home to you."?

That..sounds right....why is that so famili—

Steve's eyes leave the pan of eggs in front of him and snap immediately to the scrap of paper he'd scrambled for a few nights ago.

Is he…?

And of course, as if the words weren't already plastered permanently onto his grey matter, there they are, plain as day.

tagging those that were interested on the last part!!! @mugloversonly @kittydeadbones @maybequizas @queenie-ofthe-void @newtstabber @angeldreamsoffanfic @eyesofshinigami @sunflower-trashbaby @perseus-notjackson @kaspurrcat @quinns-shadowy-arts

Eddie was sentimental like that. But his mother had always told him, objects held power. Which was probably at the root of his packrat tendencies, but he was twenty-six and he wasn’t about to change now. 

It was nearing midnight on a Tuesday night and Eddie sat on the sunken couch in his apartment. A cigarette curled smoke about his head as he laid cards out before him on the coffee table, studying the images intently as a Pink Floyd concert streamed on the flat-screen. He absently reached for the remote to turn down the volume as he considered the spread.

The Two of Wands reversed, Strength, and the Ten of Cups.

Fucking Strength again. Eddie had drawn that card very nearly every day for the past two months. Ever since his new neighbor had moved in. 

Eddie took a drag off his cigarette and tapped black-painted nails thoughtfully on the coffee table. He glanced up when a long furry white shape scrabbled up onto the table and hopped around the cards. Eddie’s familiar, a small white ferret, made a grab for the Strength card and Eddie hastily snatched it out of her teeth. He glared at her and she met his gaze with eyes like shiny black beetles.

“You have something to do with this, don’t you,” he accused, pointing at her with the card in his hand.

She darted away and off the table, kicking over his stack of cards as she went.

“Little shit,” Eddie grumbled to himself as he gathered up his deck and put it back in its black velvet bag.

Eddie’s phone buzzed and he fished it out of his back pocket.

unknown: hi! this is robin. i got your # from chrissy. can you do a reading tn??

Eddie sighed, glanced at the clock. He had a few places he liked to meet people for readings. Chrissy, his closest friend since high school, attended the local University. Robin was probably the same Robin that Chrissy talked about all the time, the one in her Women’s Lit class. Eddie quickly arranged to meet her at the 24-hour University library, and tried to pretend there was no reason to be anxious.

“Galadriel! Get your furry little ass out here, we’ve got work!” Eddie called as he stood and went to the door, tugging on his jacket and boots. 

The sound of tiny claws on the hardwood preceded his familiar as she scurried into the foyer, dragging one of her little sweaters.

Eddie grinned and stooped to pull the lavender sweater onto her squirming body. “Good thinking. It’s supposed to get cold tonight,” he said. He unzipped a beaten black leather backpack on the floor and Galadriel hopped in without needing to be told. He put the backpack across his chest and grabbed his helmet from the hook by the door.

The library was only a twenty minute walk, but Eddie hated walking. His breath misted in the cold October night air as he swiped water droplets off the seat of his motorcycle and mounted it. Thankfully the rain had stopped for a while, but a feeling on the back of his neck told him it wouldn’t hold off long. 

Eddie parked his bike in front of the library a few minutes later and hung his helmet on the handlebar. He crouched to check his reflection in the side mirror. He fluffed his hair, which had gone sadly flat under the helmet, and checked his teeth. He tried out his sweetest smile, then his filthiest smirk. 

He let his face fall into his hands and groaned. “It doesn’t matter. You know you’re not going to talk to him, you fucking coward,” he hissed.

Galadriel poked her head out of the backpack and nipped the meat of his hand. Eddie squawked and almost fell backwards onto his ass on the wet pavement. “Shit! Ok, I’m going! Asshole,” he grumbled. A crack of thunder boomed ominously overhead just as he mounted the steps and a rain drop hit his nose. Another thing he’d gotten from his mom: an infallible sense for weather.

Midterms were coming up for students, so the library was fairly full even at this time of  night. When he walked in, the object of his anxiety was helping a student at the front desk. Eddie passed the desk without looking up and found Robin at a secluded table in the language section. 

Robin, Eddie soon discovered, was as infatuated with Chrissy as Chrissy was with her. The question Robin had for him was whether she should break up with her girlfriend, and ask Chrissy out. Robin used the word “fine” to describe her current relationship no less than eight times. She had described Chrissy, however, with phrases like “electric smile” and “a laugh like christmas bells” and “fascinating opinions on Radclyffe Hall.” 

Eddie laid out a spread for her, and the cards just confirmed what he already knew. Robin needed to move on from this relationship that was going exactly nowhere at a turtle’s pace and roll the dice with Chrissy. 

‘You owe me, Chrissy,’ Eddie thought as he pocketed $25 from an anxious but happy Robin and gathered up his cards.

When he exited the language section, thunder rolled and rain lashed against the windows of the library. Up front he saw Steve standing behind the librarian’s desk, one hand to his ear and the other fiddling on his phone. His gaze was intent on his screen, elbows on the desk. Eddie slowed his determined walk towards the door, waffling with indecision. He felt Galadriel squirming restlessly and looked down to see her narrow musteline face peaking up at him out of the dark cavern of the open backpack. Somehow, her expression seemed accusatory. 

“I’m not a coward,” he whispered to her, defensive. “It’s rude to bother someone while they’re at work!”

Her beady eyes blinked up at him. 

Eddie clenched his teeth. “What would I even say? ‘Hey, I know we’re neighbors and we’ve said less than ten words to each other but the first time I saw you without a shirt I had to lock myself in my bedroom and jerk off about it until I could think about anything else again?’” he whispered angrily.

Two girls passed him, giggling and glancing at him. Eddie winked at them and gave a mock bow, swallowing his embarrassment behind a mischievous grin. Nothing to see here. Just a man talking to himself. One of the girls blushed and gave him a little finger wave. 

When they were gone, Eddie sighed and looked down at his familiar. “Fine,” he whispered. “I’ll talk to him. But I’m gonna say the stupidest shit just to spite you.”

Galadriel didn’t roll her eyes, because she was a ferret, but Eddie got the message loud and clear. “Shut up,” he whispered to her. Then with more confidence then he felt, he rolled his shoulders, shook out his hair, and sauntered up to the desk where Steve still stood with one hand to his ear and his eyes on his phone, brow furrowed. 

Eddie leaned on the wood surface, cleared his throat. Steve didn’t react. Eddie tapped his knuckles against the desk and Steve finally looked up, pretty hazel eyes wide and glossy pink lips slightly parted. He was wearing a smart blue button-down tucked into dark chinos that Eddie knew from experience made his ass look incredible. His lion’s mane of chestnut hair was as gravity-defying as ever, swooping over his forehead.

Eddie ignored the wild pattering of his heart, laid his hands flat on the desk to hide their shaking, put on his best smolder, the one he used when he was crooning into a microphone on stage at a local bar. “Can I apply for a library card? Because I’d like to check you out.”

Steve’s brow furrowed in consternation, and he looked down at his phone again, slid his thumb across the screen. He looked back up with an apologetic frown. “What was that? Sorry, I had to adjust my hearing aids. The noise from the storm kinda interferes.”

Eddie’s stomach dropped. Shit. Shit! He hadn’t actually meant to say something that stupid, but that’s usually how it went for him. His mouth did things his brain didn’t authorize. And Steve hadn’t even heard him. The little bit of courage he’d managed to cobble together mainly to spite Galadriel’s judging looks had melted away “Um…”

“Oh my god, is that a ferret?” Steve said.

Eddie looked down to see Galadriel had poked her furry white head out of the bag across his chest and was looking at Steve. There was definitely a sign on the door that said no animals except service animals that Eddie ignored every time he came here because his familiar was usually very good at keeping herself hidden. Except when she was being a nosey little shit. 

“I have to go! It was- nice, um- this was-,” Eddie gargled, before he gave up and turned on his heel, practically sprinting to the glass doors as he pushed Galadriel’s head back down into the bag. 

“That was a disaster!” Eddie said as he stomped back down the steps to his motorcycle. Rain pelted his hair and his leather jacket. Galadriel had smartly curled back up at the bottom of her bag. She hated rain. 

Back at the apartment, Eddie dropped his helmet and bag by the door with a sigh. Galdriel tumbled out of her bag and gave herself an indignant shake as if to dispel any responsibility for that catastrophe of an interaction. She skittered off into the apartment and Eddie followed, shedding his sopping clothes and letting them fall with wet slaps on the hardwood. He’d pick them up later. Right now he needed to dry his hair and change into some soft pajamas. 

The thing was, Galadriel was right. He was a coward. Eddie had been hopelessly infatuated with Steve from the moment he’d moved into the building two months ago. 

Eddie had been awoken out of an unusually good sleep at two in the afternoon by the sound of shouting and thumping out in the hallway. When he’d gone to investigate, ready to use his well-known freak persona to scare whoever it was into silence, he’d come face-to-flushed, sweaty face with the most beautiful boy he’d ever seen in his life. He had been moving a couch with the help of a curly-headed teenager with a gap-toothed grin. 

Eddie had stuttered something stupid, he still didn’t know if it had been his actual name, and Steve had introduced himself, dropping his end of the couch to shake Eddie’s hand, a dumb smile stretching his beautiful face. The teenager had cussed at them both with a far-too superior attitude for a literal child and Steve had fumbled to pick up the couch and continue scraping and denting both sides of the hallway as they moved his furniture into the apartment right beside Eddie’s.

Eddie had agonized for days about whether or not he should go over and formally introduce himself and maybe bring his new neighbor some homemade bread or a casserole or something. Was that something you were supposed to do for new neighbors? Or was that just when someone died? Eddie didn’t know. He also didn’t know how to cook anything more complicated than a grilled cheese. After a week he’d decided too much time had passed for it to be anything but weird to knock on his new neighbor’s door. 

And then for the following two months Eddie had sunk deeper and deeper into admiration for his pretty neighbor who sang along to pop songs and ran shirtless in the afternoons if he wasn’t playing basketball with neighborhood kids and had the sweetest smile and most expressive eyebrows and had some kind of bitchy older brother thing going with a group of rowdy teenagers that Eddie found both entertaining and endearing. Also he was a hot librarian. How was Eddie supposed to be normal about any of this?

And despite his familiar’s encouragement (read: harassment with a side of judgment) Eddie had done nothing so far to make a move. 

And now he’d made a fool of himself. At least Steve hadn’t actually heard his incredibly stupid pick-up line. That was a plus, right?

Eddie sat back down on his couch and pulled out a box of supplies he kept under the coffee table. He needed to put together some spell kits for his Etsy shop. It was almost Halloween and people went crazy for spell kits during “spooky season.” It wasn’t his favorite part of his business, as it were, but it paid the bills.

Galadriel came running out of the bedroom still in her little purple sweater, dragging Eddie’s favorite fuzzy blanket behind her. Eddie smiled reluctantly and accepted her offering. He wrapped the blanket around his shoulders as she scrabbled up onto the sofa beside him. She liked to help with the kits. 

Eddie massaged her behind the ears with his thumb and forefinger, smile fondly exasperated. “It’s alright. It’s not your fault I can’t talk to pretty guys without looking stupid.”

Galadriel hopped around to his other side happily and jumped to the table. She started pulling bags of dried herbs and tiny vials out of the box, what she knew they’d need for spell kits for communing with spirits. They were always his best sellers in October. Oddly enough, spell kits for banishing spirits were extra popular in November.

“Of course, it kind of is your fault a little bit,” Eddie teased. “You know I get extra stupid when you provoke me. I’m very suggestible.”

Galadriel chittered at him and Eddie laughed. Thunder cracked outside and rain continued to pound against the windows as he and his familiar worked at the table.

---

“I have so many questions...” Eddie muttered, looking them over. He didn’t even know where to start. Well, no. He did. “What the hell are you two doing here?”

“No, you don’t ask the questions,” Robin snarled. She dragged Steve forward and Eddie backed up as the two sailors stomped into his trailer. Robin plunked Steve at the table and rounded on Eddie. “The fuck did you do to him?”

“I... ? What?” Eddie glanced at Steve, who was casting his eyes around the trailer, looking with interest at their mug collection. Suddenly, it all seemed to click.

He should have recognized the blown-pupil, fuzzy look in Steve’s eyes straight away. Dude was loaded. “Look, whatever he’s on, he didn’t get it from me. I’ve only ever sold the guy weed and that was like, months ago...”

But he must have guessed wrong because Robin shook her head. “No, that’s not the problem. Whatever he took he stole it from his mom's medicine cabinet, I think it’s Valium or Ambien or something... but that’s not the point. He did that to himself.” Robin stepped forward, her eyes narrowing. Eddie resisted the urge to step back. “But I’m pretty sure you did the other thing,” she said, jabbing her finger into his chest.

“What?” Eddie repeated. “Come on, that’s bullshit. I didn’t do jack shit to him.”

If anything, it was Steve who’d fucked things over for him. If he’d just moved over and shut up for the second it would’ve taken to buy cigarettes then none of that would have happened. Eddie would’ve been in and out with nary a bitchy remark exchanged.

“No, see that’s the thing,” Robin said. “It’s not bullshit. None of it is. Not from him—” she pointed at Steve, who had picked himself up and was now reaching for Eddie’s Garfield mug. “Not anymore.”

“Hey, cut that out, man,” Eddie snapped, snatching the mug back from Steve. If he took some kind of downer it would be all too easy for the mug to slip out of his uncareful grasp and shatter. And he liked his Garfield mug.

“Aw, I’m really sorry, Eddie,” Steve said, staring at him with big eyes. Eddie snorted. He looked so sincere, too. Must’ve been some good shit he’d taken. “Not just for the mug, I think I’ve been a real asshole to you. Yesterday, at the store? I knew you were waiting behind me but I just wanted to show off. That’s so douchey, isn’t it? And then I called you a super-senior, that was so mean. I’m just really really sorry.”

Eddie blinked, his jaw going slack for a moment. What the fuck kind of drugs was this guy on? “Right, sure you are...” he said uncertainly.

“Oh no, he really means it,” Robin said. She sighed. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you. Look, I’m sorry for bursting in here like this, but I just... I don’t know what to do and he’s kind of freaking me out.” She eyed Steve warily.

He shrugged. “You shouldn’t be so worried! I feel, like, way, way better now, I think it’s all gonna be fine.”

Robin rubbed her temples. “That’s the drugs talking, dude...”

Steve seemed to consider this. “Nah.”

Eddie looked between the two of them, taking in the pleasant, out-to-lunch expression on Steve’s face, and the tired concern on Robin’s. He still didn’t know what the hell was happening but he figured if Robin had come here thinking he could help, he should at least hear her out.

He put on a pot of coffee, and they took a seat at his table. Robin and Eddie, at least. Steve had wandered into Eddie’s bedroom and Eddie could hear him remarking on how cool his guitar was.

“Don’t touch that!” Eddie snapped, leaning a little to the side to try and spot what Steve was doing in his room.

“I probably will!” came Steve’s chipper reply.

Eddie groaned. He looked at Robin. “Alright, I’m listening. What the hell is happening and why is it my fault?”

“Well, I don’t know for certain it is... but it’s gotta be, right?” Robin said. She cringed, as if aware she wasn’t making sense. “Ever since he came into work this morning, Steve’s just been... off.” She chewed the inside of her lip. “At first I thought he was just being... I don’t know, weird. But then he was talking to the customers and—” Another grimace. “It was bad. After one of them clocked him, I took him home. That’s when he took whatever he took and told me what happened yesterday. With you.”

Eddie frowned. Nothing had happened yesterday, not really. Steve had been a jerk, Eddie had been a jerk back, then he’d left. Annoyed and without the cigarettes he’d gone into the store for, but that was it.

“Honestly Eddie, I never believed any of that crap about you,” Robin went on. “I mean, people talk shit all the time, mostly it’s BS. ‘Oh, Eddie Munson, he’s part of a satanic cult of evil witches that eats babies, and they have gay orgies...’” Robin rolled her eyes. “I never believed any of that, because it’s insane. But now...”

“I mean, you can keep believing the orgies thing,” Eddie said with a shrug. “It’s kind of flattering that people think I have that kind of pull.”

Robin raised her eyebrows. “What about the... the gay part?”

“Oh, uh, that part’s actually true,” Eddie said. He stood up and poured himself a cup of coffee, using his Garfield mug since it was already on the counter. He offered a cup to Robin, who shook her head.

Usually he wouldn’t have been so honest about himself, but since it was Robin and he was like 90% sure she was gay too... well, there didn’t seem to be a point to lying.

“But if there are gay orgies going on in Hawkins, I’m not getting invited to them,” he added, sitting back down across from her.

“Right...” Robin muttered, looking away. “So the gay thing is true, what about... the other stuff?”

Eddie peered at her over his Garfield mug. “Do I look like I eat babies?”

“That’s not what I meant. Not that satanic cult shit but...” Robin closed her eyes for a moment, breathed out. She tried to steady herself. “People say you’re a witch, Eddie. And I never believed it because, I mean, that’s nuts. But now... I mean, I gotta know. Are you?”

Eddie hesitated. “I... might be,” he admitted. “Kind of. But look I can’t really do anything, alright? I’m a shitty witch, nothing works for me. Spells, potions... fuck, I can barely read a Tarot deck.”

Eddie has enjoyed the quiet solitude of the forest for years -- the shifting breeze in the branches of trees he knows as well as himself, the den of chittering foxes and the mysterious hart who appears so rarely, the white ash tree that has grown up around him as he built a fortress away from the town he'd grown up in, away from the ghosts of his past.