#bandana ash | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

rosewaterandivy · 3 months ago

Text

ii. bisclavret

Summary: and here he thought he’d hit the bricks when it came to library visits.

Pairing: s.h. x werewolf!reader

W.C.: 5.8k

Warnings: supernatural elements, super sleuth steve, exhausted eddie, poor mother-daughter relationship, general werewolf nonsense, graduation shenanigans

A/N: well, three months later TO THE DAY and here we are. everyone go thank ash (@big-ope-vibes) for gently nudging me to continue this. apologies for the delay & I hope you enjoy! 💜

m.list | playlist

prev | next

There’s a howl from outside his window. Low pitched and haunting as it soars over the other din of nocturnal noises in Loch Nora’s suburban sprawl.

Unmistakable.

Desperate and mournful with just a whisper of familiarity in it.

And his feet hit the floor before he’s rightly awake, drawn to the moonlight as it cascades through the trees just outside his house. His knee knocks against something hard, but he feels no pain.

But in its place, he does feel something. Anxiety, panic? At any rate, some sort of emotional discomfort. The overwhelming sensation that something isn’t quite right.

The howl trails off plaintitively, and there’s something ineffable about it because—

Steve could swear he hears a voice in it.

Sometimes, you felt the only time you could truly be yourself was on a run. And though you despised organized sports, cross-country had some distinct advantages. Namely, that it was almost a solitary activity.

So when you weren’t dropping by Hellfire meetings or loping around due to a paradoxical relationship with the moon, most afternoons saw you toeing on some sneakers and running for a few hours.

And while trail-running wasn’t exactly a medaling event, it was your forte and Coach Reynolds didn’t seem to mind. Other than asking you once to bring Munson aboard because he’d seen Eddie outrun the SRO in a wild sprint at the Homecoming game, the coach generally left you to your own devices.

Breezing by the picnic table that Eddie affectionately calls his office, you stride through the woods back behind the school at an easy pace. Your mind empties and allows you to focus on the breath in your lungs, the myriad of scents carried on the air. The forest smells as it always does, that damp earthy quality of decaying underbrush cut through with fresh saplings taking root.

Further into the woods and at the mid-way point in your run, you’re about to turn back when you hear a dry snapping sound from somewhere ahead of you. Lightning quick, you narrow your gaze only to find a shirtless and sweaty Steve Harrington.

His chest is heaving like he’s been running for some time and he’s wearing a ridiculous bandana as a headband to keep his hair from falling in his face. There’s a healthy rosy hue dusting his cheeks and nose, and you know if you don’t leave now then you might do something worth regretting.

“Hey,” He exhales, stopping a few feet from you and setting his hands on his hips.

Steve leans over to catch his breath as you, meanwhile, stare at him dumbfounded.

And it isn’t like you haven’t seen shirtless men before; Eddie, in fact, is vehemently opposed to wearing any clothing that isn’t strictly necessary, particularly in the summer when the a/c tends to crap out in the trailer.

But to compare the two is a moot point. Because Steve is bronzed with hair on his chest, not the pallor of some sickly Victorian child. He’s sturdy, feet planted firmly in the ground even as his sucks in breaths as if his life depends on it.

He just smells so damn good.

It is precisely at this moment, that you know you’re fucked.

Because several things happen in quick succession.

Kicking it all off, a breeze passes through and you’re, of course, downwind of Steve so you get smacked with a sensorial wall of Harrington’s sweat, musk, and what can only be described as how you believe a raging inferno would smell— sweet and smoky. Enough to make your mouth water.

Then, he takes a step toward you with a concerned look on his face.

“You alright?”

Unfortunately, no, you are very much not alright.

“I, uh,” You say, recognizing all too well the rough rasp your voice has taken on. “I gotta go.”

It’s all you say as you jog past him, shoulders colliding as you run away, a familiar pull in your belly like the coaxing of an ember into a flame.

Fucking coward.

It wallops Steve in face one lazy Saturday, nearly out of the blue.

The kids have descended to watch movies and eat him out of house and home.

They’d made it through Teen Wolf and they’re maybe half-way through An American Werewolf in London when Steve visibly pales.

“Too gory for ya?” Max asks with a laugh, tossing popcorn in her mouth only to miss.

He shakes his head, eyes trained on the screen.

Robin pokes him with a socked foot eliciting no reaction.

Steve thinks back to the bonfire, his moonlit romp through the woods and the ineffeble feeling of being watched, how fucking weird you were the other day on your run.

And then he lets out a low whistle, scrubbing his hand through his hair.

“Shit.”

How he convinces Robin to waste the remnants of her weekend at the library, he’ll never know. When he first pitched it, she looked at him as if he’d suddenly sprouted another head.

“Do you even know where the library is, dingus?”

“Hey,” He says, only slightly perturbed. “I dated Nance, I sure as shit know where the library is.”

Robin cracks a smile, “Sure, big guy.”

And now, they’re rifling through the folklore section of the the Hawkins library after a fruitless search in nonfiction.

“Remind me of what we’re looking for?”

“Uh, like legends about wolves, I guess.”

“Why the sudden interest in our oft misunderstood four-legged friends?”

He stops, puzzled, “What the hell kinda sentence is that, Rob?”

She shrugs and continues perusing. “I dunno, I just think people don’t understand the wolf. They’ve been hunted and poached to near extinction in the U.S. y’know.”

The hairs prickle up on the back of Steve’s neck. He hadn’t considered that, and frankly, it’s a terrifying thought. Because if on the off-chance he’s right—

“I blame recreational hunters, personally.” Robin continues to prattle on, “Because wolves actually provide a natural cull to the ecosystem. I mean, why else do we have such a rampant deer population?”

Steve let’s her continue in this same vein for a while, knowing she’ll run out of steam eventually. He tosses a few books on the table they’ve claimed, mostly Germanic fairytales. And when he’s pulled all he could from the shelves, he hauls them over to the circulation desk.

The elderly librarian, Gladys, gives him a warm smile and opens the cover of each book to stamp the due date.

“Research project?” She asks with a friendly smile. “We’ve had a lot of kids come through for that recently.”

“Uh, kind of.” Steve allows, and thankfully he doesn’t have to painstakingly continue this conversation because Robin slaps a book down on the counter at that precise moment.

“This one too.”

Her eyes glint like she’s found something good, and Steve glances at the cover briefly.

Les Lais de Marie de Fance.

“Really, French?”

“Hey man,” Robin says, jockeying an elbow to his side, “I’m not about to look a gift horse in the mouth, okay?”

Gladys passes back the stack of books to them and Robin opens the tome to pointedly tap her finger underneath one word: Bisclavret.

The next few days pass by peaceably enough.

You lie low, go to school and cross-country practice, hang out with Eddie, and studiously avoid Harrington’s haunts.

Eddie is the one to return the video tapes, as a precaution.

He swings into Family Video that day with the intent to come away with a copy of Evil Dead and an even distribution of sweet and sour candy.

What he does not expect is to find Harrington at the counter with a stack of books and furiously scribbling in a battered notebook. It’s such a shock to see, that Eddie stops short in the doorway.

There’s a grunt and the sound of glass hitting metal that causes Steve to glance up.

Just Munson lurking in the doorway.

He rolls his eyes and says, “In or out?”

Eddie shuffles into the store and drops the tapes into the return slot. He eyes the stack of books warily, and can’t recall the last time he’d seen Harrington carry a book, much less crack one. Recognizing a few titles, his blood runs cold.

Goddamnit.

He beelines for the horror aisle, swipes some candy from the shelf by the counter, and tries to get outta there as fast as he can.

But, of course, Harrington takes his time rigning up the sale.

Eddie taps his fingers against the counter, leg bouncing as he stands there trying not to sweat bullets. Because it’s one thing to warn Harrington off of moonlight strolls, that’s just being like, neighborly? He wouldn’t really know.

The point is this: Steve seems very close to figuring something out.

Something that he should have no business doing in the first place. And not because you’d nearly bitten Eddie’s head off at his less than helpful suggestions.

“Over my dead body,” is what you had said.

And it was a very near thing, at the time, because you had stumbled into Hop’s old hunting cabin without a stitch of clothing on, limping, with your hands and jaw covered in dried blood.

There was also the matter of the bullet that grazed your leg, but that’s what the first aid kit was for.

“Y’know,” He had pointed out, cleaning the wound as you hissed and thrashed on the floor. His t-shirt barley long enough to be considered modest on your frame. “This could all be avoided it you’d just—”

“What,” You bit out, “Tell him about this clusterfuck of a situation?”

Eddie takes that opportunity to put pressure on the wound and pack it with gauze. You nearly kick him in the face, and maybe he deserves it.

Later, after a few hours as he was changing your bandages, he broached the subject again. A different tactic, but the same intent. He kept his voice soft, barely audible under the laughtrack from the TV.

“It’s only going to get worse.”

A grunt.

“He could help, is all I’m sayin’.” Eddie turned to you on the sofa, mindful of your leg as it rested on his lap. The wound healing up quite nicely already. “The shifts wouldn’t be as bad, you’d have some—”

A snort.

“Something to live for?”

“Well, someone, technically. But yeah.”

You wave him over with a lazy smile, only to cuff him on the back of the head.

“You idiot,” You say around a laugh, “I’ve got you to live for. Why drag another sorry sucker into this mess, huh?”

Eddie shakes himself loose, comes back to find Harrington staring at him over the counter. He pays and scoops up his purchases in both arms.

He’s almost out of there, scot-free, but when he’s turning toward the door, a knowing voice says:

“Gladys said to return those overdue books you’ve got, Munson.”

And in that brief moment, Eddie and Steve understood each other perfectly.

He high tails it outta there accompanied by a litany of: fuckfuckfuckFUCK.

Robin is regaling Steve with her painstaking translation of that French story she found.

“So like, the earl of whogivesafuck marries this chick and she notices that for a few nights every month, her new husband isn’t in bed.”

Steve continues typing in the receipts for the day.

“She confronts him about it, and he says that once a month he turns into a wolf and loafs around the forest. He trusts her, obviously, and says that he can only turn back if he finds his clothes, so he usually stashes them in the woods somewhere.”

He hums, trying his best to show the bare minimum of interest.

“But the thing is,” Robin says, chomping down on a piece of licorice. “His wife has this lover, a knight, and she’d much rather be with him than some earl who’s a part-time wolf. So, she waits until his next turn and then steals his clothes from the forest.”

“So, he’s a wolf forever?”

“I mean, for a while, yeah.” Robin chews audibly. “But the earl was close with the king, and in his wolf form endears himself to the court. Some time goes by, and he’s living large as a glorified pet, but then his wife comes to court with her new husband.”

“Sounds bad.”

“Well, if getting your nose bit off is bad, then yeah.” She barks a laugh and tosses the candy wrapper into the trash. “And the king is floored because this wolf has never said so much as ‘boo’ to anyone all the time he’s been at court. So suspicion falls on the now noseless wife.”

She wraps up the tale; the king gives the wolf clothes on the advice of the wife. Lo and behold, what was once a wolf is now his long lost earl. All’s well that ends well.

“Huh,” Steve says. “Weird.”

“Not that you should just randomly hand out clothing to every wolf you come across,” Robin teases with a gleam in her eye. “Just thought it would be helpful for your lil’ project.”

“Sure, sure.” Steve nods and shoves the receipts in the night deposit bag. “And this earl, did he have a name?”

“Bisclavret.” Robin supplies, “It’s like, old ass French, but I think it translates to something like…” She pauses and seems to dissect the word in real time. “Bleiz is , uh, Breton for wolf and claffet means rabid? Ill, maybe? So, my best bet is wolf-sick.”

Curious and curiouser.

Steve files it away to think about later.

Besides, he has a spare bit of clothing lying around somewhere. It would be nothing to just toss them in bag and throw it in his car. Just in case, of course.

Steve thinks there’s sort of a innate brilliance to it all.

It’s subtle, it has to be if you’re to avoid detection, and probable— it really works a charm.

His notebook is full of scribbled lines lifted from library books, loopy curls of a more feminine hand when Robin included her summaries of the French story, haphazard drawings of the moon, teeth, and glowing eyes.

The eyes he’s comes back to more often than he’d like. Shards of moonstone that catch the light, milky white with a flashy vein of blue.

He didn’t know that’s what it was until ambling around Robin’s room one day. She was half-assedly studying for finals, plopped on her bed and surrounded by books and sheets of notebook paper.

Steve, for lack of anything to do, investigates the collection of bric-a-brac on her dresser.

A small square of milky white cut through with specks of gray, blue, and green catches his notice. “What’s this?” He asks, feeling its dull edges in his hand. Turning it slightly, it flashes an icy blue vein.

Robin looks up from where she’s sprawled on her bed, nose in a book. “Oh, that’s moonstone.”

He hums in response, turning the rock this way and that. Phosperescent eyes coming to the fore of his mind, there in an instant and gone in the next. The golden light of the streetlamp cutting across your cheekbone, incisors gleaming and white.

Carefully, he sets the moonstone down amongst Robin’s other treasures, and files it away for later.

Things are becoming clearer as the moon creeps closer to waxing full in the sky.

Steve is a patient guy, he can wait a little longer.

The aconite no longer works.

Eddie has gone through more chains and tow rope than any twenty year-old has a right to. He’s trying to keep it together, but it’s getting pretty fucking dire.

He can see how each day, each new failure, is wearing you down.

To a casual observer, you hide it pretty well. Oh, just cramming for finals, you know how it is! Something to explain away the rings under your eyes, the ‘I just rolled out of bed’ look instead of the more accurate ‘I woke up in the woods again and these were the first clothes I could find.’

You had never, to Eddie’s recollection, willingly worn a Hawkins Tigers anything. Much less a shirt to school, of all places. It’s a slow motion disaster as you pour yourself out of the van and get your bearings on the pavement, because that’s when he sees it.

‘HARRINGTON’ emblazoned on the back of the gray tee, there for the entirety of Hawkins high to gawk at.

And yeah, you might be slow on the uptake today, but Eddie’s tongue is so tied he can’t possibly work his way out of it in a subtle fashion.

Instead, he throws an arm over your shoulders and does his best to cover the name as you walk into the building.

But the damage is done by the end of homeroom that morning. A class you share with Robin Buckley and elected to sleep through that day. Head on the desk, hair fanned around you, Harrington’s name is clear for everyone to see against your shoulderblades.

The whispers start then and Robin makes it a point to hang back as the bell rings.

She watches as you jolt awake, blinking a few times before grabbing your stuff and making toward the door.

Robin catches up to you easily, the students giving you a wide bearth in the halls. Too happy to fall into their cliques, peer at you, and whisper amongst themselves.

You’re so out of it that you don’t even realize she’s tailing you until she pulls you into the girls bathroom at the end of the corridor.

Her scent gives her away— light and airy like fresh laundry hanging on the line, but there’s a sharp sour note of fear, nervousness maybe. And she smells a bit like wood smoke— Steve.

“Woah, um, hi?” You say as the door swings shut behind you.

The few students in the bathroom rush out, leaving the two of you alone.

Robin looks at you incredulous, because she’s maybe figured something out that her best fucking friend in the world was keeping from her.

And she can’t begin to guess why he would do such a thing.

“You’re wearing his shirt.”

“What? Who’s?” You turn to look before realizing that’s a moot point and situate yourself in front of the bathroom mirror instead.

You can feel the blood draining from your face as you read the letters on your back.

Fuck.

This cannot be happening. Not today, not now, not ever.

“I, uh,” You stammer, failing to explain this away.

Robin studies your reflection in the mirror. The near bruises under your eyes, how sloppily you’re put together today, that you’re sleeping every spare moment you can get.

She clears her throat, “Did something happen between you two?”

Narrowing your gaze at her, you turn from the mirror, posture drastically changed.

Where once she believed to have the upper hand, Robin now realizes her grave miscalculation. Shoulders back and standing tall you cooly assess her as you take calming breaths.

There is a razor-fine edge that you are on the precipice of, one false move and it all falls apart.

“Wouldn’t he tell you if it did?”

If you can keep her talking, you can diffuse the situation.

Robin isn’t a threat, she’s Steve’s best friend. She carries his scent on the periphery of her own, it calms you somewhat.

“Then how did you—”

Before she can finish the thought, the door slams open and Eddie waltzes through.

You let your shoulders fall, relieved at his arrival; safe and familiar.

“Ladies,” He greets casually, as if he struts into the girls bathroom on a regular basis. “Guess my invite was lost in the mail, huh?”

Eddie tosses his bag near the door alongside yours and throws the lock.

Robin’s eyes flit between the pair of you, curious and wary.

The bell trills out and the din in the hall dissipates.

You can’t afford to linger here much longer, finals to take and all.

“Something’s up.” Buckley says shouldering past Eddie to unlock the door, “And you’re gonna tell me what it is.”

“And if she doesn’t?”

Eddie’s voice is low and warning, his eyes cut to you fleetingly before settling on the growing problem that is Robin Buckley.

Her hand grips the metal handle, knuckles nearly blanching white, and barely turns her head to softly say,

“Then he will.”

The door opens and she’s gone.

“Well,” Eddie sighs as he grabs your bags. “If this isn’t a goddamn bitch of an unstatisfactory situation.”

“Yeah,” You agree, “Got it in one, Ed.”

Steve doesn’t see Robin that much over the week. Busy with finals and graduation, she cut down her shifts at Family Video leaving Steve with Kieth more often than not.

It wasn’t the worst but it certainly wasn’t the best; his manager elected to play the Star Wars movies on a loop for two days straight and Steve was fine with that, if not a little distracted.

He’d requested off for Robin’s graduation and was closing on his own for once. He played Fast Times just because he could and gnoshed on the half-open box of Milk Duds Robin had been working her way through.

But he couldn’t escape the feeling that something wasn’t quite right.

It itched at the back of his mind all through his shift lingering as he killed the lights and locked the front door.

His skin feels too tight again and he’s exhausted despite not doing much to warrant it.

Steve grabs his keys and leaves through the back door walking toward his car.

There’s a sound like someone stepping on gravel behind him.

He pauses midstride.

And then, there’s that voice again, the one he hasn’t heard since the bonfire.

A low rumble that feels like a caress:

Go.

Steve does as he’s told, mindful of the controlled steps behind him.

He slides into the car and locks the doors.

As the engine turns over, he glances at the rearview mirror only to find the bluest eyes he’s ever seen staring back at him from the shadows.

Blueblue, definitely not moonstone.

The BMW peels out of the lot and onto the main drag, leaving whatever was lurking there to the dark.

A cloying scent of gardenia assaults your senses as you walk through the door.

Your mother is perched on the arm of the sofa, beer already in hand.

“Hi hon,” She greets with a smile that has far too much teeth. “Happy graduation!”

The best thing about your mother, if you were pressed to find one, was the simple fact that she was never around.

“Uh, thanks.”

Your bag drops near the door as you cross your arms and lean against it.

She goes on to say how proud she is of you, that she couldn’t possibly miss her only child’s graduation, that it would—

She pauses mid-sentence, her grip on the can crushing it slightly. She scents the air, her once too-perfect smile falling into a snarl.

“What is that smell?”

Throwing the can aside, she marches up to you and lifts your hair from your shoulders, turns you this way and that, eyes searching for something that isn’t there.

But now that she’s uncomfortably close, the scent is heightened.

The scent that isn’t entirely yours and is subtly laced with wood smoke.

“No,” She says, eyes catching the name on the back of your shirt, “Absolutely not.”

Your back is nearly to the wall as she clenches your arms in an attempt to force you into submission.

“Mom,” You try, voice calm, “Nothing has happened, nothing will happen—”

“After all I’ve done for you,” She sneers, eyes bright and furious, “After all the work I’ve done to raise you, ensure your safety, this is how you repay me?”

She’s always been a stong woman, your mother, forced to by circumstance and the harsh reality that honed her. Her shirt shifts as she manuevers you to the wall, revealing the faded scar of a bite to her jugular.

A souvenir from your father, that she never failed to remind you of. One of two, including you.

You swallow thickly, hating every point of contact you share with her.

The precipice is coming closer and you’re falling headfirst into it.

With a shuddery breath you close your eyes, and try to think of better things.

Summer, freedom, warm nights, cool water, that glint Eddie gets in his eyes when he laughs, running with no destination in mind, bonfires under a starry sky, the sweet scent of smoke—

Threat.

A low growl crawls its way up your throat.

A demand.

“Let go.”

Hands come up and grasp her wrists, shoving her away from you. She stumbles back, balance precarious as you purposefully step forward. Her eyes dim as she glances up at you, feaful and almost cowering.

Because while your mother was a strong woman, you were stronger. Something she always knew and lived in fear of. Let the entire pack fall to ruin under the guise of protecting you from their judgment. Refused to have you be used like a weapon.

But in doing so, she also denied your rightful place there.

Your birthright.

And sure, you mother always claimed it was because people wouldn’t respect a woman in charge. Said you were better off as she packed her bags once again, leaving you with Wayne or Hopper.

“A woman’s place isn’t at the head of the table,” She’d say as a parting blow.

Gravel would spray out from under her tires as she drove out of Forest Hills, and Wayne’s hand would fall to your shoulder in a comforting squeeze as tears leaked down your cheeks.

“Don’t pay her any mind darlin’,” He’d say ushering you inside. “She wouldn’t know the first thing about about leading a pack if it bit her in the ass.”

She looks scared now, terrified to see what you’ve become in her absence.

Strong, loved, and unafraid.

In the chaos of memories, you hadn’t felt your fangs descend. You tongue one briefly before opening your mouth to say:

“Leave and don’t ever come back.”

It is not a request.

She balks at the order, tries to fight it.

Another step closer has her lowly whining and ducking her head.

Your voice is foreign to you, a lower register and stronger somehow, self-assured. It rips through you like wildfire this new feeling, runs like magma through your veins.

Power.

She grabs her meager things and turns to leave, pausing at the door she says, “Don’t bring that boy into this.”

A parting warning as the door swings shut.

This charade goes on for weeks.

But without the excuse of school— Robin, Eddie, and you have graduated— Steve has difficulty keeping a handle on his curiosity.

Curiosity killed the cat…

How does the end of that saying go?

Right, so. Being cool, calm, and somewhat collected, Steve only tails you on certain days of the week. Generally on those evening runs you’re partial to, it’s easy enough to brush aside as a coincidence; you’re a runner, he’s a former jock besides, he doesn’t do much other than observe.

He studies where you go, the places you frequent and with whom. And more often than not, you’re alone, secluded in the woods somewhere. Steve wonders if he’s getting himself into a can’t see the forest for the trees situation, it feels like he’s getting nowhere.

Or less than nowhere, going backwards maybe.

He’s curious why Eddie isn’t glued to your side.

He has to remind himself that he’s looking for a change in behavior. On his calendar, Steve tracks the lunar phases, noting that you grow more impulsive the more it waxes, eyes beckoning like the most precious of stones. Your stride shifts to something corded with tension, you run faster as if you could outrun the skin you’re in. Your hair grows wild and unkempt, snapping hair ties in its ferocity.

Steve watches and makes note of this for reasons he cannot possibly explain. All the while, he tries to convince himself that he’s not being obsessive and weird. Though Robin would cite his notebook as evidence to the contrary.

He’s careful to remain undetected. Quick to duck behind a tree as you loop back on the running trail, and he’s convinced you’re about to glance in his direction.

But there’s something you didn’t account for, on this particular run. It’s the late afternoon the day before the full moon— the Strawberry moon— lying in wait, hot and pregnant in the sky. Steve’s tailing you at what he’s sure is a reasonable distance on your run that day, he’s got you in his sights and goes to wipe away the sweat gathered at his brow.

In that instant, you are gone.

He blinks to clear his vision, glances left and right. And, deeming that you are nowhere to be found, he drops a spare pair of shorts and an old tee shirt at the trunk of an ancient oak tree.

A twig snaps somewhere to his right.

“Harrington,” You greet with a tense smile, voice frustrated and gruff. “Funny seeing you here.”

“Uh, yeah,” Steve replies around the lump in his throat, voice strained. “Great minds and all that.”

You take a measured step toward him, filling the space between you. He notes the slight flare of your nostrils.

“That’s interesting, I could’ve sworn you were a morning run kinda guy.”

“Oh, um,” Steve stammers in response, suddenly overwhelmed by your proximity and the musky tang radiating from your sweat drenched skin. “Well, it gets hot so early now—”

“Don’t play dumb, it doesn’t suit you,” You warn with a low growl, and shift your stance so he’s forced back against the trunk of the tree. “You know exactly what I’m getting at.”

“Honestly, I don’t—”

You take a deep breath in, brows furrowing as if in great pain.

“I can smell you.”

And that shuts Steve right up.

It seems rather obvious to him now, of fucking course you can smell him. He feels like an idiot for not considering it earlier. God, how embarrassing.

You stare each other down in the subdued quiet of the forest, your eyes boring into his with a harsh intensity. Steve is kind of thrilled and terrified to be able to study them up close, despite the precarious situation at present.

Your irises are blown, from what he can see, like ink splattered across a page and crowding out their natural color. There’s the faintest hint of milky white rimming the edges, fluctuating slightly as if battling for dominance. Your pupils are enormous, so big and…

My, my, what big eyes you have.

All the better to see you with, my dear.

Steve shudders and books it out of there, faster than a knife fight in a phone booth and twice as choatic. And he doesn’t stop until his lungs are fit to burst at the intersection of Pine Bow. He doubles over, hands on knees, gulping in snatches of air.

He shakes his head, unable to get your flickering eyes from his mind. The viciousness in your gaze should serve as a warning.

Well, Steve had never been one to take heed of those.

He wakes in a cold sweat tangled in his sheets.

Struggles to piece together the images from his dream.

Damp earth. Wet leaves. Something wild and free.

He falls back against the pillow and drags a hand across his face. The illuminated numbers of the clock state that it is seven in the morning.

Robin is still dozing in one of the guest rooms, she’d stayed over after graduation and they’d torn into the liquor cabinet while dancing along to Top 40 on the radio.

He’s thirsty but nowhere near hungover as he swings his legs to meet the plush carpet underfoot. Robin will doze off and on until late morning if he lets her, so there’s enough time for a quick morning run.

Steve throws on a shirt that’s seen better days and the blade of Rob’s scissors, the hem barley grazing past his pecs, some shorts, and laces his sneakers. He swings the door open and is about to step outside only to stop short at the sight of a fairly large gray dog at his door.

It cocks its head curiously, mouth falling open in a soft pant as they assess one another.

Now, Steve had always wanted a dog; had begged every birthday and Christmas until it was clear that the Harringtons would not tolerate dog hair and dander polluting their home. Undeterred, Steve wrote to Santa dutifully each year until he was eleven. Then, it was all too obvious that Santa thought Steve was far too old for such things— Christmas presents turned into cash and checks left on the counter, wire transfers from the Cayman Islands.

So it’s really not his fault that he tiredly assumed what was actually a wolf was just a very large and well-behaved dog. And he maintains that fact to this very day, he’ll have you know.

“Oh, uh, hi there.”

The dog, or so Steve assumed, sat politely on his porch, its large paws barley grazing the edge of the welcome mat.

He saw no collar nor leash, and ruminated on what to do as the animal studied him in return with a keen intelligence in its eyes.

Eyes that were oddly familiar to Steve.

But before he could decide on what to do, Eddie Munson’s van careened into his driveway and screeched to a halt.

“Harrington!” Eddie yelled in the bright summer morning, “Don’t do anything stupid.”

He fell out of the vehicle and tripped several times in quick succession striding across Steve’s well-manicured lawn.

The animal cocks its head to the side in interest, light eyes trained on Steve but ears cognizant of Eddie’s approach.

And before Eddie can intervene, Steve grabs something from behind the door and tosses it at the dog’s feet. A wet nose scents the air, dips to investigate the cotton, and deems it satisfactory.

It takes the shirt between its teeth— which strike him as unnaturally sharp— and trots inside the house. The act shocks Steve into silence.

“Well fuck, Harrington,” Eddie curses, running a hand through his unkempt hair. “You’ve really done it now.” He shoulder checks Steve as he enters, grumbling to himself all the while.

So, curiosity may have killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.

He shuts the door and hears his mother’s voice ringing in his ears—

“No, you know better, Steve,” she sputtered at the puppy on their patio, worrying a dish towel between her manicured fingers. “Don’t feed it, it’ll just come back!”

He shakes the thought loose and follows Eddie down the hall to the living room.

And, well, he’d always wanted a dog, a companion of some kind. Steve figures it’s better in than howling outside his door.

#steve harrington x reader #steve harrington x you #steve harrington fanfiction #steve harrington fanfic #fic: itws

64 notes · View notes