#im still having ao3 troubles but at least this is readable now | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

vyragosa · 7 years ago

Text

vyra, i was so inspired & encouraged by you posting ur fanfiction! i loved it so much! i had written this a week or so ago, but i didn’t have the courage to figure out how to send it.

i dont know i want to put my name to it because i dont think tonbokiri and sengo are fully in character (though i would like to grow as a writer until i can write them well), and i also dont want to spam ur blog with it, but i did write it as a kind of “thank you” for streaming mihotose the other week, and i thought that, if you have the courage to post yours, then i want to have the courage to send you this gift, even if mine isn’t all that good.

because of its length, don’t feel pressured to post it onto your blog if you don’t want to! i don’t mind either way. it’s entirely up to you, because as far as i’m concerned, it’s your gift for you to do with what you like. you don’t have to comment on it if you don’t want to, or you can choose to; you don’t have to post it unless you want to; etc. im not sure if this is the best way to send you this, because im still not 100% on how the “submit” feature works, but i hope this is readable;

(put the rest of the message under the cut with the fic v )

(ok so first of all i couldn’t wait to be home and read during a break in the freezing cold and i literally could not stop crying involuntarily, literally unable to stop still) your grasp on them, i just, how raw

the way you wrote their fears and tears? tonbo being so excessive to the point of being incredibly self-destructive, thinking that his words are never appropriate when each time, they are? disregarding his own self for others, for him

sengo being so, so self-contained to the point of facade completely shattering from a single world (which reminds of his face almost choking back tears in mihotose being told he isn’t alone i’m NOT ok) wanting to take care of him instead, to make him realize no one should go that far for him, and especially not tonbokiri

thank you so much for taking the time to write all of this? i’m a bit at loss of words i’m afraid i can’t praise it as much as i think of it but i genuinely cherish it with all my heart, and please don’t downplay yourself like this in the future you don’t give yourself enough credit that i can’t put in words

“Did you sleep better, back then?”

Sengo’s face has turned back to the window, not fully, but so all Tonbokiri can see is the apple of his grinning cheek tremble.

“I would take those unpleasant memories from you, if I could,” Tonbokiri says. He says it quietly, because if he spoke any louder then his voice would crack with its own weight. “Sometimes I wish I could, if it would ease your suffering.”

Sengo laughs wetly. "And then we’d never have met.” “I’d find you still.”

i have another ao3 account invite arriving hopefully soon, so if you want this to be more clean, i could post it there maybe if that would be better. & i have never written for anyone before, and i don’t think anyone has seen anything i’ve written in a few years, so please don’t think too harshly on my characterisations, writing, dialogue, pacing, etc. because i’ve never had anyone to critique my mistakes.

(i also think i started writing this with the intention of it being an au where they had been human but very much like that spies or assassins, like i saw on your blog, so if anything seems strange, it’s because of that! i didn’t mention anything explicitly, but i wanted to give myself some room because i’m not fully familiarised with the canon yet, so that’s why some things may not be in line with canon, even though they may call themselves “spear/sword.“ i wanted to write something in between the phases of them being very traumatised by their life experiences and starting the road to recovery; between them still considering themselves weapons lacking autonomy and them starting to think of themselves as people who can make their own decisions.) as i said, i know there are places where it definitely feels even to me that tonbokiri and sengo are ooc, but i hope you’ll forgive those moments while i begin figuring out how to write them properly. even if you don’t enjoy this so much, hopefully you can use this at least as something to give you different ideas.

~ Tonbokiri is woken by Sengo.

He knows this even before his eyes are open. If he could not tell by the thin fingers brushing back his hair; or the sound of his sleep-husked voice, unusually quiet, unusually tremulous, calling his name; or even the faint smell of cherry blossoms still sticking to Sengo’s skin after they’d taken Monoyoshi to see around the city and the nearest park just the day before … if he could not tell by any of that, then Tonbokiri would know just from habit.

It is in the nature of things like them to awaken fighting; to burst into consciousness at the slightest sounds; to feign sleep while reaching for their knife under their pillow, or to listen to the sounds of the building adjusting to the new weight with wailing creaks and then to launch at their attacker. That is in their training. It had taken some time - though, not nearly as much as either of them had expected - for Tonbokiri and Sengo to adjust to each other’s presence, but now that they have, if he is woken in any manner and his body allows the haze of semi-consciousness to fog his mind, then Sengo must be near, keeping him peaceful.

He is woken by Sengo most nights in some way or another, though not usually for long. A leg thrown over his waist might catch his attention, their hips budging as they shift might stir him, fine hair in his face and tickling his nose will wake him with a sneeze, or the blankets being pulled further to one side than the other might cause him to wake just enough to pull them back. To all of these, Tonbokiri will smile, ensure that nothing in the room is out of place and disturbing him, and drift back to sleep. On less pleasant nights, he is woken by Sengo’s fitful dreaming. Not his nightmares, or at least not the fully-fledged ones - while he knows Sengo has periods where his dreams give him pain, he too often wakes himself first, quiet enough or still enough to never wake Tonbokiri, and instead lets him rest unknowing; and so Tonbokiri only ever catches the after-images of these nightmares: the restless attempt to fall back asleep again, tear tracks on Sengo’s otherwise dormant face, smiles the next day that are a little too wide … all signs of something that Sengo endured right beside him that Tonbokiri missed. Sengo brings them up occasionally, but never seriously, only to tell him something particularly gruesome that he thinks might scare Tonbokiri away, or with a wink and a fluttering hand as if he’s trying to convince them both that he’s telling a particularly overblown ghost story rather than his own memories.

They haunt him like ghosts, certainly, but they’re no less real.

Tonight, Sengo had woken him, but he’s already awake himself, face scrunched into something just a little more serious than his usual pout.

“Muramasa … ?” he murmurs. This is strange to him, and his body is reacting frustratingly slowly. Lovingly slowly; it - he - trusts Sengo implicitly; he can almost imagine his resting muscles asking what such a rush is for, if Sengo is here.

A light is already on in their room, a dim amber glow in the corner from a lamp. Just hazy enough to leave deep shadows in haloed curves around the furniture, but just bright enough to leave a pleasant highlight on Sengo’s face.

“Ah, you’re awake.“ His fingernails scratch pleasantly at Tonbokiri’s scalp, brushing through his hair. Sengo is sitting with Tonbokiri’s head in his lap; he is surprised none of the movement woke him sooner.

“Of course,” he repeats, forcing his eyelids to remain fully open despite his comfort. “Of course,” he repeats, “didn’t you call me?" He thinks he remembers Sengo’s voice, whispering his name. "Is something wrong?”

“Don’t you remember? You were having a nightmare.”

The fatigue seeps from him in an instant, leaving him cold and awake. The cold centres in his chest like ice, but Sengo’s hands near his head are still warm. So it was me who woke him first … It’s troubling to think of how he may have disturbed what little peaceful sleep Sengo had earned just with his own bothersome thoughts. “Oh,” he eventually manages. “Yes, I don’t remember at all. Thank you for waking me from it so quickly.”

Before he can apologise for waking Sengo himself, Sengo’s pout changes shape, and his warm hands travel to Tonbokiri’s chest, thawing that frozen feeling. “But your heart is racing, can’t you feel that?”

“Ah, that,” he says. He notices now that it’s been pointed out. But he smiles up at Sengo rather than think about it. “My heart always races when I look at you.”

Sengo splutters slightly in surprise, face turning a soft pink, glowing in the dusky orange lamplight, framed by highlights of long, feathery hair. Tonbokiri could stare at him for so long …

I wonder if it just got faster. He puts a hand over Sengo’s, both of them over his heart.

The flush doesn’t fade, but Sengo adopts a wry, amused smile, wrinkling his nose mischeviously, eyes twinkling. “Pardon the intrusion, then, if I’ve interrupted a dream in which I’m undressing.”

“It’s no interruption, if you’re the one who wakes me." How could even the most pleasant dream he conjure compare to the real thing? Ah, embarrassing, even the thought makes his cheek heat. "And, I am sorry,” he manages, next, before he blurts out something even more sentimental.

Sengo’s smile doesn’t vanish, but his eyes go wide and study him carefully, scrutinising.

“For waking you,” Tonbokiri explains. “I–”

He is distracted by a flash of deep red slashed across the palm of Sengo’s hand, made noticeable as he moves it from Tonbokiri’s chest to his own lap.

He shoots upwards, almost knocking Sengo backwards with his speed and size. In the light, with the movement, the red shimmers. Tonbokiri forces himself to think rationally despite his hammering heart, to come into a sitting position beside Sengo and move slower; Sengo’s muscles have clenched, shoulders tightened, and his gaze is scanning the room for whatever threat he thinks must have made its presence announced.

Tonbokiri scolds himself internally. He knows what they both are, and he was foolish to react in a way that has left Sengo waiting for an attack, and after Sengo woke him up so gently. His breathing slows purposefully, steadily, and he outstretches his hands to take Sengo’s. Slowly, so that if Sengo wanted to knock his hands away, he could.

But Sengo offers the hand faster than Tonbokiri asks, eyebrows high on his head, offering a faint, “What’s the matter?” into the open air.

Tonbokiri’s thumb presses into the heel of Sengo’s hand as he turns it to examine it closer. A thread of his own hair, dark red, had caught itself on Sengo’s ring finger. His hands had been so gentle that Tonbokiri hadn’t even felt the roots tug in his scalp, even as the strands were drawn with the movement.

His exhale is a heavy huff of relieved air. His thumbs trace the lines of Sengo’s blessedly unblemished palm. “I thought I’d cut you." The red like a river of blood deep in Sengo’s skin … all just a strand of his hair. It had just shone oddly in the light, is all. It had looked like something it wasn’t, and his mind had jumped to its own conclusions.

"You didn’t,” says Sengo, flexing his hand to better see it himself. Then, thoughtfully, almost like a challenge. “You couldn’t.”

Tonbokiri almost traitorously thinks, I have, remembers the dragonfly, then silences that weakness. No matter what his body is capable of, has done, he won’t let it harm Sengo.

“Huhuhu, even without saying any words, the things you think are so loud,” says Sengo, tapping Tonbokiri’s temple with his unhurt hand. “You didn’t, and so what would it matter if you had? I thought you told me you didn’t remember you’d had a nightmare.”

“I can’t remember it,” begins Tonbokiri. “And it would matter, if I’d hurt you.”

Sengo flicks his wrist to dismiss that thought. They’re sitting so close together, and yet Sengo’s face has turned at an angle impossible to read. “But you seem so alert, after waking." With an insincere edge, "Would it make you more at ease if I undressed right now?”

He frowns. “If I can’t remember it, I’d say it hasn’t bothered me so much,” he says. “But … you worry me. Are you alright?”

“You’re such a worrywart. Aren’t you the one with bad dreams?”

“We both have bad dreams." Tonbokiri leans closer now, and Sengo gives him reluctant eye contact. "Did it trouble you when I woke up?”

Now Sengo smiles. It’s tight on his face; a mixture of the false, teasing grins he wears for the others, and the pained, bittersweet twist that sometimes unwillingly slips onto his face. “You didn’t.”

“Trouble you?" Then he realises. He lowers his gaze. "Wake you.”

It isn’t a question, but Sengo still confirms it with a half-shrug, doing his best not to look bothered about it.

“I’m glad, then,” Tonbokiri decides. “That I had that dream and you woke me. No one of us should be awake alone at this hour.”

Sengo shrugs again, more haphazard this time, rising to cross the room to their window and look out over the night. “It’s not so bad. I used to stay up and stare at the stars, before. I would wonder which unlucky one I must have been born under." He flashes a playful grin over his shoulder, one that Tonbokiri can’t return.

Before. Before he was Mihotose. Tonbokiri himself hardly feels as if he’s been here long, although he feels so at peace with the team. But he had spent so long as the spear belonging to just one man before this; Sengo has had many handlers. Does it feel so differently for him? Does time pass differently? There are times when Tonbokiri worries that Sengo feels isolated for being the last of them to join.

"Did you sleep better, back then?”

Sengo’s face has turned back to the window, not fully, but so all Tonbokiri can see is the apple of his grinning cheek tremble.

Sengo crosses back, but so quickly Tonbokiri barely catches a glimpse of his face. His hands grasp Tonbokiri’s shoulders, and his purple head rests above red. “How peaceful … but then I’d have almost no memories whatsoever.”

“Then I’d wish for you to have a different life. A normal one. A human one." Speaking as if they aren’t humans. But, some days, it would be almost more impossible to believe they are.

Sengo laughs wetly. "And then we’d never have met.”

“I’d find you still.”

A drop lands squarely on Tonbokiri’s head. He pretends that it could be possible for it to rain inside their room, rather than feel the deep sorrow in his chest knowing that Sengo is crying.

“I am Sengo Muramasa,” Sengo declares. Bold, but sad. “And not that stranger who lived some normal, human life. If this Tonbokiri … if he has regrets,” he speaks softly, with no judgement, “then I’m sure that that other Muramasa is out there … instead of inside this room, where you’re trapped with the demon.”

“How can I have any regrets in this life that took me to you?" His voice is heavy and wet.

"In this life that’s given you nightmares … you have no regrets? You wouldn’t change it?”

“No.”

“You’d take all those lives again? Walk down this path that you’ve walked down?”

“If you were waiting for me on it, yes.”

A smile curves against his temple. “Liar." Two more raindrops fall from the shadow of a violet cloud above. Tonbokiri is held so closely that he can only see Sengo’s collarbone, from how tightly he is held. "Merciful Tonbokiri”–here, Sengo traces the Siddham on his chest–“he would never shed all that blood for anyone less than his old master. Let alone for something like me.”

Merciful Tonbokiri. He wants to be, he aspires to be, but. He can’t remember what his nightmare was, but he can imagine. His past has given a lot for his dreams to work with. “If there is a price to pay to keep our lives together, to be paid in blood, at the cost of all I’ve shed and all you’ve shed, I would gladly give it all, straight from my own heart." He guides Sengo’s finger from the Siddham to his heart beside it. "If you’d have me.”

Sengo makes a choked noise. His hand curls, his knuckles brush and must surely feel Tonbokiri’s pulse. “So desperate to keep your own misfortunate life, and to make me change mine?”

“Only if it’d make you happy.”

“But how could I possibly be happy if we were living different lives?”

“I’d pay it all the same, if it’d make you happy in this one.”

“Huhuhu, sometimes, you can be a little slow, Tonbokiri." Sengo pulls back so they can see each other, face-to-face. There are tears rolling down so quickly they fall into his smile. "I already am.”

Tonbokiri leans carefully up to place his mouth on Sengo’s. Sengo freezes, one hand still on Tonbokiri’s shoulder, and the other helplessly pressed against his heart. They are still so new at this, and Tonbokiri’s face turns as red as his hair and Sengo starts in surprise almost every time they’ve tried, between failed attempts where they bump noses and turn away, too flushed, before they’ve even gotten close enough.

They part reluctantly, but still so close. Tonbokiri can taste tears on his lips, and he leans his forehead forward against Sengo’s. Sengo’s lips are still parted, upturned.

“Sometimes …" He frowns at himself, for breaking the silence–the ease. For doing it so clumsily, instead of sharply and neatly like the spear he is should be able to do. "Sometimes, it feels as if you aren’t.”

“As if I’m not …?”

“Happy.”

“Sometimes it feels as if you aren’t, either.”

“There is nothing to be concerned about." But, at Sengo’s deadpan stare, he admits, "I … am. More often than not. Being here has helped.”

“That’s not fair, then; you’ve been here longer than I have,” Sengo accuses, biting his tongue playfully at Tonbokiri. “Perhaps even this demon sword could learn to live a happy life if it stays here long enough.”

“Demon sword?” asks Tonbokiri with a laugh. “I don’t think I know of that stranger. I don’t think such a thing lives here, even. The last person to come live with us was, hm, definitely a man, not a demon. One of the kindest and gentlest I’ve ever met.”

“‘Kind and gentle’? Are you certain that you and I are thinking of the same thing?”

“Well, I have met, and talked to, and experienced, and … loved Sengo Muramasa. And I think that both he and I know who he is far better than any of those strangers who spread rumours of demons. Even better than those voices who live in his head and try to convince him those lies are true.”

“'Loved,’” repeats Sengo quietly, in a strange, hoarse voice.

“Yes. I haven’t much experience with it, but I think that’s it.”

“One shouldn’t tease, you know,” Sengo rushes to say, “or play jokes. Not on this demon who is just learning to become a man. That would be cruel even to a Muramasa.”

“I would never. Isn’t it you who says I don’t understand humour very well?”

“And so what you say …”

“… I am always honest with you, Muramasa.”

Sengo laughs, a happy outburst. There are still tears on his face. Tonbokiri kisses him again, before he can think better of it. Sengo’s hands cup his cheeks, and Tonbokiri wonders if he can feel his grin.

They are still so close, chest-to-chest, that when they pull away, Sengo murmurs again, “Your heart … it’s still so fast.”

“I told you; so long as I can see you, my heart races.”

“Then it would be best for me to turn off the light, or you’ll never get back to sleep.”

“That’s alright,” says Tonbokiri. He looks to the window. It’s still so dark outside. But the shadows are hardly daunting when it is so bright in here with both of them. “I think it would be okay for us to stay up just a little longer.”

#submission #unbelievable #unbelievable how raw and emotional

10 notes · View notes

your-iron-lung · 7 years ago

Text

No Shade in the Shadow of the Cross 3

AKA ‘Trouble Comes Knocking’; also readable on AO3

my exwife was supposed to beta this for me but shes taking too long and i am an impatient person so im posting it early lol

Story Synopsis: Some weird low-key occult parties start popping up that Steve can’t in good conscience ignore and takes it upon himself to investigate. Billy gets caught up in the consequences of his meddling, and isn’t it funny? For all the strange things the Upside Down has thrown his way, it’s werewolves that Steve has trouble accepting exist.

Chapter Word Count: 3511

Pairings: Eventual Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington

Genre: Supernatural/Drama/Horror-ish

Previous Chapters: 1, 2,

Next Chapter: 4

Home and tucked into his bed with no memory of how he got there, Steve dreamt of queer things he didn’t understand. Blurry, dark images swarmed his subconscious like a great, malevolent storm bearing down on him too quickly for him to escape. His dreams had him running through the woods, avoiding the shadowed areas between the trees where huge, narrow maws erupted from the blackness, showing off fangs that were long and drawn into needle points, eager to draw blood.

The dreams plagued him for a week, replacing the threat that came with the usual monsters he’d come to be familiar with in his sleep. He’d faced the things with teeth-lined flower bulbs for heads and survived, but now whatever it was that was hunting him down in his thoughts was unknown, and the fear of that unknown was what woke him up every night that week, leaving him a trembling, sweat-soaked wreck who couldn’t comprehend the level of terror he was feeling.

There was, at least, some sort of reprieve from the torment his psyche was undergoing. On the days he went to school, Billy avoided him vehemently, not even trying to go out of his way to talk shit or start a fight. In fact, it seemed that he was actually going out of his way to avoid him now.

Whatever had happened at the party had turned him off from Steve Harrington for the time being, and for that at least Steve was thankful. Something good had come from that miserable night, and if he were lucky, maybe it would last a lifetime. Billy probably assumed he was crazy (and wasn’t that the prime example of the pot calling the kettle black?) after witnessing his episode, and maybe he was, but every time he thought about it his hand began to throb painfully, as though it really had been injured. There were still no marks, though; not a single indicator of any kind that his hand had been harmed in any way.

It made no sense, and he didn’t know what to do about that.

Who did he have to talk to that would believe him if he opened up about what he’d seen that night by the fire? Or of the thing that he’d seen skulking about in the woods like some sort of horrible, jittering animatronic that someone had let loose to terrorize him? Would anyone even believe him if he did say anything? Billy certainly hadn’t, and he’d been a first-hand witness.

He groaned into his hands, letting his head fall forward onto the steering wheel of his car where he sat in the parking lot, too lethargic to leave the school yet. Those stupid weekend parties were supposed to have been an escape, but now he found that they had become the primary source of his stress.

Earlier in the day, Steve had found another one of those mysterious notes slipped into his locker. On it was another map and address, and he’d had half a mind to rip it up then and there before he’d flipped it over out of bitter curiosity.

There, instead of the ‘+0’ that had usually been marked on the card, was a ‘+1’ instead. The change was the only reason he hadn’t torn it to pieces.

“What is happening to me,” he whined, dragging his fingers down his face, pulling at the baggy, discoloured skin beneath his eyes. “What the hell does any of this mean?!” he cried out to no one.

He’d have to track down whoever it was that was leaving the invitations in his locker to get any kind of information. Someone from school was leaving them for him, even if that person wasn’t showing up at the parties, which raised the question of ‘why’ again. Why wasn’t whoever was inviting him going? Why was it just Billy and Steve that were invited, and no one else from their school? Why, why, why?

There were no answers, and no way for him to get any.

Groaning with frustration, he sat up straight in his seat, letting his hands fall away from his face. He stared out of the windshield with a blank expression on his face when he caught sight of Billy walking towards his Camaro across the parking lot. Looking at him made him frown.

Maybe… what if it was Billy leaving him the notes? Could all this shit be some sort of elaborate long-term prank he’d concocted just to fuck with Steve on a psychological level?

As if Billy could sense that Steve was thinking about him, he paused mid-stride and turned to face him. They made eye contact briefly, and in that moment Steve knew Billy couldn’t possibly be behind it all. It was far too elaborate for someone as brash as he was, and his reaction upon seeing Steve freak out hadn’t been one of victory, but was rather one of apprehension. If Billy had been the mastermind behind it all, he would have gotten what he’d wanted and celebrated that, but he hadn’t. It was beyond Steve and Billy both; the other boy had just been coming along for the free drinks.

Caught up in his thoughts, Steve hadn’t realized Billy was walking towards him until he knocked on the window, rapping his knuckles sharply against the glass.

He jumped in his seat at the noise, turning his wide, brown eyes up to Billy who had a deep frown locked on his face. Pointing with his finger, he gestured for Steve to roll down the window.

“What do you want?” Steve asked as he cracked the window, doing his best to sound annoyed despite how tired he felt.

“What do you think?” Billy retorted smartly, rolling his eyes. He glanced around the parking lot to see if anyone was looking their way before he leaned down low, resting an arm along the frame of Steve’s car to speak quietly. “I didn’t get another invite, did you?”

“You didn’t?”

The surprise Steve felt must have been blatantly plastered across his face, for Billy’s lips twitched into a grimace when he spoke.

“No.”

Steve sat still for a moment, studying the passive look of muted anger on Billy’s face before he thought he ought to show him the note. He pulled his school bag that had been in his passenger seat over into his lap and began digging through it, looking for the invitation. His fingers brushed past his notebooks, pens, and other loose items before they finally felt the stiff cardstock the note had been made of.

As he pulled it out, Billy’s frown deepened.

“Why the fuck did you get reinvited?” Scowling fiercely, he stood up and took out his pack of cigarettes, placing one between his snarling teeth. “I bet it was that faggot on the guitar. Told whoever’s running that shit show not to bring me back.”

“Whoa, language, man,” Steve said disapprovingly.

Billy narrowed his eyes as he lit his cigarette, running his tongue along his teeth before leaning back down. “Let me see it.”

Something about the borderline manic look that Billy held in his eye made Steve hesitate, fingering the card in his hands uncertainly. He wanted to roll up the window and keep the invitation to himself, even if he had no interest in attending, and he definitely didn’t want Billy going in his stead.

All the same, he gave the card over when Billy reached in for it.

A dark look overtook Billy’s face as he studied the card, mouth moving as he silently read and memorized the address. Steve watched him quietly as Billy flipped it over, and saw the look of confusion that spread into his eyes when he saw what was printed there.

“The fuck is this?” he asked, holding up the back of the card that read ‘+1’ so that Steve could see it.

“I don’t know,” Steve replied honestly. “All the others I got had ‘+0’ on the back.”

Billy flipped the invitation back around so he could read it again. A look of concentration overtook the anger that he usually held there briefly as he contemplated its meaning.

“It kinda looks like the shit Susan sent out when she married my dad; mailed out their wedding invitations with how many guests the person invited could bring,” he explained, turning the card over in his hands contemplatively. “Like, y’know, their plus one or something.”

“Huh.” Steve hummed, realizing that that actually made some sense. It was kind of obvious, now that he thought about it.

“Congratulations Harrington, you get the honor of taking me to the party with you,” Billy said then, flicking the card back at him through the opening in the window.

“So, what, you’re like my date now?” Steve snorted, chuckling a bit, amused at the notion. He grabbed the card from where it had settled on his dashboard. “Why Billy, if you wanted me to take you out, all you had to do was ask.”

The fear he’d felt throughout the week in his dreams was trying to resurface in his stomach at the thought of attending another one of the forest gatherings, despite how nonchalant he was acting. He swallowed it back and tried to ignore it as it crept its way throughout his body, circulating through his bloodstream in a steady, repeating current.

Billy sneered at him as he spoke. “Yeah, I bet you would like that, wouldn’t you, Harrington?”

“Well, tough, because I’m not going,” Steve said, dropping the humor in his voice and averting his gaze. He shoved the card back into the deep dredges of his book bag and slung it back into the passenger seat forcefully, as though it were prone to attacking him.

“What, you have one bad trip and that’s it? You’re done?” Billy scoffed and put a hand on his hip, staring down at him with a taunting grin. He blew out a stream of smoke that mixed in with the wind and blew away almost instantly. “Thought ‘King Steve’ was supposed to have been a real party animal; not the one and done kinda guy.”

“But these aren’t normal parties!” he blurted out, banging his fists into the steering wheel in frustration. He barely missed hitting the horn. “There’s something wrong about them!”

“The only thing wrong about them was how you freaked out over nothing,” Billy drawled, looking around the parking lot again to make sure no one was paying attention to them as Steve raised his voice. For some reason, the fact that Billy was concerned about who might have been watching them pissed Steve off. “Whatever you think attacked you was all in that fucked up, pretty little head of yours.”

Steve groaned and let his head fall back against the headrest of his seat. There he let it roll towards Billy so he could fix him with an even glare. “There is something bigger going on out there. How else would you explain all the secrecy? Nobody else knows anything about them.”

A group of girls walked by them, greeting Billy energetically as they passed. He turned away briefly to entertain them with a smile, and when he redirected his attention back to Steve he found that he had turned away to stare angrily out his windshield. He looked tired, with deep, purple bags drooping under his eyes. Whether Billy believed him or not, it was obvious that whatever Steve thought he’d seen at the party last week was affecting him terribly.

“Fine, say there is something weird going on at those shitty little hick cult parties,” Billy relented, recapturing Steve’s attention. “Only one way to be sure of that, Princess, and I think you know what that means.”

Steve moaned and shut his eyes. “Why are you so desperate to go? Do you seriously have nothing better to do? Something a little more your speed, maybe?”

Billy didn’t answer him; merely stared him down with a hard, steely gaze that made Steve sigh and look away.

“Alright, fine. If it’ll prove that something shady’s going on out there, then fuck it, fine,” Steve said, gesturing about with his hands as he spoke. “I’ll take you out if that’s what you want, Hargrove, since you seem so desperate to go.”

“Great.” Billy’s face lost its hardness as he broke out into a grin and slapped his hand down onto the roof of the BMW loudly, ignoring the implication behind Steve’s words. “Don’t be late, Harrington, and get some sleep; lookin’ a little rough around the edges there, pretty boy.”

He walked away before Steve could say anything else, hips swaying as he made his way over to his Camaro where his sister was waiting for him.

It was snowing freely on the night of the party, coming down in a mild torrent that likely would have closed the roads had they not already been salted in advance. He drove slowly on the backroads, navigating through streets he’d never been to before in a part of town that looked largely uninhabited. The few houses that he saw didn’t have any lights on, and the road was, for the most part, as dark as the forests he’d been dreaming of. The natural light from the full moon coupled with his headlights were all he had to work with as he rode on.

His windshield wipers thunked back and forth rapidly, deflecting the falling snow faster than it could settle. He made sure to keep the BMW traveling well under the speed limit, keeping a careful eye on the road as he traveled. In the back of his mind, he wondered if Billy had ever driven in the snow before. There was no way in hell he’d make it if he drove the way he usually did.

Maybe that would be for the best, though, Steve thought. No more Billy, no more parties, no more problems.

A strong gust of wind blew past, rattling his car. The BMW swerved a bit before he strengthened his grip over the wheel, righting his car in its lane. The back country roads had been salted this time at least as opposed to the last time he’d ridden them, but they were still slick enough that one wrong move could have him sliding off if he wasn’t careful. He dropped his speed a little bit more and was driving past a cow pasture when he first smelled something strange.

Initially, he wrote it off as some byproduct of cold cow shit, but as he sniffed the air creeping in through his air vents, he realized he hadn’t smelled anything quite like it before. It was entirely unpleasant, and reminded him of the time his mother had gotten sick with the flu and his dad had made him care for her. The stuffiness of her bedroom that she’d been holed up in for a few days coupled with her illness had been staggering, and was similar to what he was smelling now.

Coming in with the warm air, it smelled of stale beer and sickness; a combination that had him wrinkling his nose in disgust. He sped back up, trying to get through whatever fetid cow pasture he’d been driving by as quickly as he could possibly manage in an effort to escape it.

As he rounded a curve the smell dissipated somewhat, easing the slight bout of nausea it had caused when he’d initially smelled it. He relaxed his shoulders, unaware that they’d been tensed at all when the reek came back in a strong, sudden wave.

Steve gagged and almost swerved off the road, holding one of his arms up to breath through the sleeves of his shirt. It smelled so strong of sickness and rot that Steve thought the whole field of cows must have died or something. It was revolting, and he almost began dry heaving as the road curved and he came across something lying in the road.

A large, black shape was lying horizontally across the pavement, blocking nearly both lanes of traffic. He hadn’t been going fast enough to hit it, but he’d come close to doing so as he slowed the car to a stop, confusion furrowing his brow as he stared at the blockage. The falling snow made it difficult to see what it was clearly, but it looked too thin for it to have been a fallen tree.

It almost laid flat against the road, and if it hadn’t been for the light dusting of snow coating it, illustrating it as a 3D object, Steve would have been certain that it was a shadow.

A shadow like in his dreams.

Panic built up within him as quickly as a balloon filled with water, and threatened to burst just as immediately. He sat there with his headlights trained on the shape, breathing heavily out of his mouth when the sudden urge to bolt out of his car and run away overtook him. The last time he’d been this scared had been when he’d first encountered the Demogorgon, and for whatever reason as he sat there trembling, he was reminded of how it had almost killed the three of them when it burst into their world.

One hand was on his seatbelt, fumbling to get it undone before he could even think about what he was doing, the other on the door handle, ready to rip it open when he was freed of his restraint. He wanted to get to the bat in his trunk more than anything else in that moment.

His eyes never left whatever was lying there in front of him, and the longer he stared at it he realized it was a beast of some sort; too large to be a dog, but still canine-like in form. About the size of the Demogorgon, honestly, but bigger. It could have been a bear, if not for the weird proportions of its limbs.

Steve finally got the seatbelt undone and was about to run from the car when he finally caught himself in a moment of clarity.

‘What the hell are you doing, Harrington?’ Surprisingly, his voice of reason came in the form of Billy. It was unexpected, but for some reason Steve found it grounding to hear Billy’s stern voice rumble over the panicked thoughts currently running rampant in his head. ‘Gonna just ditch your rich bitch car and run out into the freezing woods like some sort of moron? Get real.’

“Get real,” he repeated, calming down a bit. He placed his hands back on the steering wheel and stared at the thing lying in the road, wondering if there was enough space for him to drive around it without getting stuck in the snow. It wasn’t moving, after all; maybe it had been hit by a car and was dead.

While it blocked the entirety of the road on his side, it only spread out about halfway into the lane of oncoming traffic. If his tires didn’t get stuck in the snow lining the shoulder, he should be able to get around it without issue. His panic, though subdued now, still threatened to become unmanageable as he put his foot gingerly on the gas, easing his car forward slowly and turning to navigate around whatever the hell was just lying there.

His heart was beating so loudly he could hear it thundering in his ears as he inched the car forward, snow piling down in a hard flurry around him. He was having a hard time breathing as he got closer and closer, his car now entirely in the left lane and almost even with the creature when it spasmed. Steve felt his heart seize up as the shadowy beast jerked spasmodically, raising its head so that it was staring in at him through the passenger window.

He heard himself start to whine, a high-pitched, desperate noise of terror as he stared back into the beast’s beady red eyes and he was sure, so, so sure that it was going to kill him if he didn’t move. He slammed on the gas as it lurched again, trying to come to a stand as Steve’s tires squealed uselessly on the slick pavement and the snowy ground before they finally caught traction and shot him forward.

The smell alone had been enough to make him sick, but his stomach began convulsing when he looked dead into the thing’s eyes. He almost threw up into his lap as he drove away, not daring to look back at what he’d seen to see if it was following him. He couldn’t control the way his whole body was shaking when he realized that he’d seen those eyes before.

The monster in the road had been the very same thing he’d seen that first night in the woods two weeks ago, and he knew now without a doubt that it was following him. That, or the parties were leading him to it, and he didn’t like the implications either way.

hi henlo it me, duke

i just wanted to say that the uh bit with the thing lying in the road was based on something that actually happened irl to my sister about two years ago. she was driving back to uni down in sc on some weird back roads late at night and she came across somethin lyin in the road like this

'It scared the hell out of me. I literally was so scared, i had never seen anything like it. It was big. Very big. It was like the size of a bear. But i knew it wasn't a bear. It was laying halfway into the left lane from the side of the road. It resembled a dog, or a large wolf. But the thing that really struck me was its bright glowing red eyes. That were looking straight ahead, so as i drove by, it looked right at me I didn't stop. and i didn't slow down. I kept going. But i was so scared. I have NEVER seen anything like that before. I almost thought i was imagining things, but those eyes stood out to me so much i knew that i saw something I have never seen it again since.'

she thinks it was somethin called a plat eye? dunno! but i asked her if i could use her spooky story in my spooky story and she said yeah lol

#harringrove #harringrove fic #billy hargrove/steve harrington #billy hargrove #steve harrington #werewolf!billy #slow burn #stranger things fanfiction

10 notes · View notes