Chapter Text
Steve Harrington wakes up to the smell of old earth and cigarettes. It sits in his nose as he tries to burrow into the center of that smell, his muzzy mind wanting nothing more than to wrap itself in it. There’s a gentle murmur and something shifts in his hair, snuffles, and Steve hums as nails pet over his back. His tongue laps lazy stripes over the pale flesh, his eyes focussing blearily. He sees the lines of a spider’s legs and wants to trace them with his tongue. He can smell something beautiful under the skin, pumping slow and cool, waiting for him to find it and lap it up with his tongue. Steve pushes himself closer, his arms tugging the tepid body to him and trying to lock it into place so he can nip at the perfect pale pec before him.
“Whoa, Steve, time out.” The words are breathy, hold no weight to them, and Steve can feel the current under them that tells him to bite. He opens wide, lays his flat front teeth onto the skin and —
“Stop.” The word rings through him. Blood, bone, sinew, and skin. It ripples into his brain and makes him still, his breathing becomes a desperate pant against the chest in front of him. “Steve.” He can feel how hard it is to keep his name even. “I need you to finish waking up, babe.”
Steve blinks. What’s he talking about? He’s awake? He’s totally awake. But it does feel like a delicious dream as well, laying on body-worn blankets, a gentle chill surrounding him, Eddie Munson pressed to his chest and—
His consciousness slams into him sideways, and he rolls with it, tearing himself out of Eddie’s grip as he flings himself into the wall next to Eddie’s bed.
“Whoa, whoa,” Eddie says, his voice a mix of panic and worry. “It’s okay, you’re good.”
“Fuck. You.” Steve says the words through clenched teeth as he tries to will himself through the wall. He knows where he is now. He’s in Eddie Munson’s trailer. His body is one big bruise. He can still feel the ghost of Billy’s dick inside him. All it takes is a little shift and his heart becomes a rabbit in a snare, demanding freedom because he needs to get out and away because he’s going to come back. Billy is going to come back and do all that again and Steve won’t be able to stop it because…because…
“Hey, shhh.” Eddie’s hands are rough with callouses, but the touches are soft. They pet gentle lines over Steve’s arms, there but not grasping, not trapping. “He’s not here, he’s far away, yeah? You can feel that.”
Steve takes in deep shaking breaths as tears drip down his face. At the base of his spine, he can feel a little tug, a compass that points in a direction he does not want to venture in. He’ll never get far enough away from it. But Eddie’s right, the pressure tells him that Billy is, in fact, far away. Far enough away that the snare around his heart starts to slacken, and his body starts to droop as the adrenaline in his blood seeps away.
“There we go,” Eddie says softly, his fingers becoming hands that pet over him, caress him, and Steve wants so badly to fall into them and let them wrap around him. But that’s not him that’s telling him that. That’s something else, something Eddie put there.
“I need to piss.”
“Yeah, okay,” Eddie says as he quickly scrambles up. Steve allows himself to look, and he feels his chest clench because fuck. If anyone had asked him Tuesday morning if he thought Eddie “the Freak” Munson was beautiful, he’d have asked them what they’d been smoking and where he could get some. The guy before him is all quick energy and pale skin marred by scars that he wants to trace with his teeth; lines of ink that look like they would taste like home.
“I-I ghouled you.”
Steve shoves those thoughts away into the same box that houses sweet heady kisses and laughter from what feels like days ago now but must have only been a few hours. Everything Eddie is going in that box, and he’s not going to look at it until…until never maybe. Eddie keeps moving, a flurry of limbs as drawers open and close as he searches for something.
“Bathroom?” Steve can’t keep looking at him. He’ll go insane if he does.
“First door on the left,” Eddie replies, and Steve ducks out of the bedroom and through the frail wooden door on his left. It puts a barrier between them, and Steve finds he can’t breathe. What the fuck!?
“Steve,” Eddie gasps outside the door, and he can feel the knob under his hand move.
Need him, need him, need him, something tells him.
“Fine!” he bites out between his teeth. They are clenched so hard that his jaw hurts. It’s a good hurt, a hurt that is from him and no one else. He’s the cause of that pain, and he keeps it up. It feels like his molars are trying to become one tooth or that they’ll crack at any minute, but he keeps the pressure until the feeling of need passes. Outside he can sense Eddie, can almost picture him with his back to the door.
“The fuck was that?” he asks, his voice small, but he knows that Eddie can hear him. It is quiet out in the hall.
“The thrall,” Eddie replies back finally. “It’s still, uh, really fresh.”
Steve closes his eyes and takes a deep breath.
“It’ll get easier,” Eddie adds quickly. “It’ll calm down, I promise.”
“How do you know?” Steve asks as he stares into the dingy little bathroom. There’s a single, shoebox-sized window over the shower, and it lets in pale December sunlight.
“I just know,” Eddie murmurs on the other side. Steve’s surprised he can hear him. As he calms down, he can feel the little compass behind his heart firmly pointing behind him, towards Eddie. Steve lifts his hand and pushes it to his chest. He feels a mole beneath his palm, right over the tug.
“This is your north star.”
Steve tears his hand away and jerks toward the toilet. Bile splashes over his tongue and into the stained basin. He barely registers the door being torn open before calloused fingers are petting over his scalp, murmuring soft things and keeping his hair out of his face as he vomits.
“There you go, get it out.” Eddie’s voice is like a silky balm along his brain, helping him shove down the memory of much larger hands grabbing him; of a hot tongue trailing over his chest.
Steve pukes again, tastes his sob on his tongue, and doesn’t fight it. He heaves and cries into the toilet bowl while Eddie pets and holds him, keeping him from shaking apart.
“Shhh, I’ve got ya.”
“But you can’t protect me,” Steve sobs. He remembers that, knows that. Eddie is as much Billy’s as Steve is Eddie’s.
“I will try.” He’s holding him, body wrapped tight around him in a side-hug while his face pushes into Steve’s sweaty scalp. “I’ll fight that fucker with all I’ve got to keep you safe.”
Pretty words, true words, but he can also feel the fear that laces them. They both know that everything Eddie’s got isn’t going to do shit against Billy.
“Can you stand?”
Steve takes a few deep breaths before he nods.
“Okay, good, let’s do that.”
Steve lets Eddie’s hands pull him up, re-arranging his strings so he can become a real boy again.
“I’m going to leave the door open, okay? I’m just going to go get you some clothes.”
Steve nods numbly, tears in his eyes as he looks down at the mess he made of the toilet.
“Okay.” There is a pause before a small, chaste kiss is pushed to his temple. It makes Steve flinch slightly and he feels more than hears Eddie make a pained sound somewhere low in his throat. Then he’s gone, getting the clothing he had mentioned. Steve takes the few moments of privacy to empty his bladder, adding to his mess before flushing the toilet. The water from the sink is cold, smells a bit like minerals, and he cups it in his palms before splashing it over his face and slurping it into his mouth. He rinses the worst of the bile from between his teeth before he spits, does it again, and then finally swallows a mouthful. His entire throat aches as the water travels down, remembering how to work. The memory of something unnaturally long and thick having occupied the same space as the water almost makes him spit it right back up. Steve fights it down. This is his body, his throat, and he wants water. The next drink comes easier, as does the third. He splashes more water on his face before grabbing the stained handtowel from the side of the sink and wiping it away. He can smell cheap soap and something like motor oil on it, but he ignores it.
“Feel a little better?”
Steve turns to find Eddie standing in the doorway. He’s dressed, the chains on his jeans glinting in the dim light and a faded band tee with the letters AC/DC adorning it. His hair is dark and wild and it frames his face. His eyes are pinched with worry.
“A little,” Steve replies.
“Here.” Eddie hands him a little pile of clothes; jeans that look so thread-bare they could be see-through, boxers with a tear under the waistband but no stains, and a t-shirt with the face of some undead creature and crazy letters.
Steve doesn’t say thank you, even though some part of him is trying to demand that he should. Instead, he leans against the sink and starts to get dressed on shaking legs. Eddie hovers nearby, hands darting out each time Steve stumbles while putting on the clothing, but never touching.
When Steve pulls on the shirt, he expects his back to ache. He remembers the series of scratches and welts that had been left there, but there is nothing. He pauses and turns to look at it in the mirror. Between the toothpaste stains and water spots, he sees that his back is whole.
“What the fuck?” He twists, looking for any sign of the scratches.
“Like I told you earlier, you heal faster.”
Steve looks over to Eddie. He stands with one arm wrapped around his chest, the other playing with his hair. The long curls hang around his face, threatening to close like a curtain should Steve try to look too hard. Eddie’s eyes dart up to his and he gives a tiny smile that is obscured by the hand in his hair.
“That’s kind of insane,” Steve replies as he glances back in the mirror before letting the shirt fall.
“Wait until you eat something,” Eddie chuckles.
“Huh?”
Eddie gives him another smile, less shy, and his hand moves away from his mouth.
“Your senses are going to be insane for the next couple of days. Sight, smell, touch, taste; it’s going to be like you’re experiencing everything for the first time.”
Steve fixes Eddie with a tight stare.
“Why do you know this?”
Eddie’s smile falls a little and goes a touch sad.
“That’s a story for another time.”
“But—”
“Later,” Eddie cuts in. “Later, I promise. Right now you’ve got enough to work through without my life’s story muddying it all up.”
“Fine,” Steve says. His curiosity feels almost like a physical creature, settled under his sternum and peaking out into the world, looking around and ready to pounce on whatever it can find. “But I want some fucking answers, Munson.”
“And you’ll get them!” He opens his body language, hands up and placating. “I’ll tell you everything you want to know, Steve, I will. Just not all at once.”
“Then what will you tell me now?”
Eddie's smile is soft, and it makes something in Steve’s chest kick. He looks away from it, pretending to study himself in the mirror, though he’s really just looking at Eddie in the glass.
“Guess vampires do have reflections,” he thinks.
“How about we get you something to eat first?”
As if on cue, Steve’s stomach growls.
“Fine.”
Steve is sat down on a couch with a dinner tray in front of him. Eddie then hurries into the kitchen, and Steve feels the same fear spike as it had when he’d gone in the bathroom, but he keeps a lid on it. He can still see Eddie, after all. He’s just a few feet away. He can deal with that.
The small trailer fills with the smell of cooking dough, and Steve is quickly provided a plate of half a dozen freshly heated waffles, a few pats of butter, and a jug of off-brand syrup. The smell is, quite frankly, heavenly, and he digs in with his mismatched silverware. The first bite makes him freeze. He can taste everything.
“What the fuck,” he whispers as he looks down at the plate. He’s never particularly liked eggos before. They aren’t bad, but they aren’t great either. But these…these are divine. He chews, lets the flavors mingle more on his tongue, with his saliva, and he can almost feel the chemical bindings break and pull as the enzymes get to work. He chews slowly at first, savoring the flavors as if they have never graced his tongue. And, maybe they haven’t, not like this at least.
“Told ya,” Eddie says with a chuckle as Steve picks up the pace, eating through the stack as Eddie sits cross-legged on the floor, one hand playing idly with the carpet while the other cradles his chin as he watches Steve.
Steve literally licks his plate clean, his tongue collecting the sugar syrup from the ceramic. He can taste how it’s all flavored trickery, not really syrup, but he doesn’t care. It’s sweet, and if not for Eddie’s quick hands, he would be drinking it right out of the bottle.
“Do you need more?” Eddie asks as he holds the jug away from him, eyes searching his. Steve glances at the syrup, feels the sugars melting on his tongue into a kind of bitter aftertaste, and shakes his head. His stomach is warm and full.
“Okay,” Eddie says with a nod as he takes the tongue-cleaned plate and silverware away. He leans over the dividing wall and deposits them all on the kitchen counter before he comes back. He moves the eating tray out of the way before he settles himself in front of Steve, putting himself at a lower level, his body hunched forward slightly as he sits crosslegged with his elbows on his knees.
“Alright,” he says as he takes a deep breath, eyes closing as he plays with the carpet just in front of Steve’s toes. “Life as a ghoul 101.”
Steve scrunches his nose. “I think I like the term Thrall better.”
Eddie laughs, a real one, and Steve’s body tingles all over.
“Okay, Thrall 101, you got it.” Eddie grins at him. “How much do you remember from our conversation before you went back to sleep? You were still pretty out of it.”
Steve feels his cheeks and the back of his neck burn slightly. He remembers warm kisses and cool arms around him. The way Eddie’s tongue moved lazily against his bottom teeth and how his knee slotted perfectly between Steve’s thighs.
“That you, like, own me or something,” he replies unable to look him in the eye. Steve instead finds Eddie’s rings very interesting as they glint in the yellow light of the living room’s lamps. “That I’ll be stronger or some shit because of it.”
Steve can tell Eddie nods from how his hair bounces in his peripheral.
“Okay, that’s a good place to start then.”
Steve can see Eddie’s foot start to twitch under his thigh, the ankle moving his foot up and down.
“As a Thrall you are bound to the vampire whose blood you drank, which, in this case,” Eddie opens his arms up, hands spinning slightly as he presents himself, “is me.”
“No shit.”
Eddie snorts a laugh.
“What’s that mean though?” Steve leans in a little, looking down at Munson from his seat on the couch.
“It means you’re currently hopped up on the best mix of steroids, uppers, and weed all at once,” Eddie replies. “That’s the best way I can put it.” He’s picking at the floor again, foot almost a blur he’s bouncing it so fast. “Vamp blood is addictive. It boosts all of your stats; strength, speed, charisma, stamina; just shoots it all through the roof.”
Steve nods, though he’s not totally sure what he’s talking about. He sounds like Dustin when he talks about his campaigns with Will.
“But, it comes with a catch,” Eddie adds. “Whoever gives it to you has sway over you. They can pull at that blood you drank like it’s something physical and use it to manipulate you. Two AM and you want to sleep? Too bad, the vamp you drank from is hungry and you’re a 24 hour diner that can’t turn them away.” Eddie drags his hand through his hair and sighs.
“Were…were you a Thrall?”
Eddie barks out a deep, ugly laugh that Steve very much wants to stop. It settles bitterly in his belly, making the food he just ate gurgle unpleasantly.
“That easy to tell?” Eddie asks, eyes flashing. The sheen of red makes Steve’s breathing stutter and the rabbit in his chest tenses, ready to run. Eddie closes his eyes, and when he opens them, they are warm brown. The rabbit relaxes.
“I was 16 when I was thralled,” he says as he scratches at his chin. “Went to a metal concert; snuck in and got caught by a bouncer. Was given two choices. I could either 1. get the fuck out with a few broken bones or, 2. have a little fun with the guy. You can guess which option I took.” Eddie shivers and Steve moves without a thought in his head. There is something there, in Eddie’s eyes that he wants to go away very, very badly. Eddie squeaks as Steve slides into his lap, arms wrapped around his shoulders. He doesn’t register what he’s doing until Eddie is tentatively putting his arms around him as well. Steve’s face heats, and he quickly presses his face into Eddie’s neck. He can smell the cheap detergent on his clothes and the earthy scent that is nothing but Eddie.
“Hey, it’s okay,” Eddie murmurs as he gives Steve a squeeze. “All in the past now.”
Steve clears his throat and nods into his shoulder.
“I want to stay like this forever”. The thought is a blip in his brain, but it gets him moving. Steve quickly pulls away and Eddie lets him go. Steve slides off his lap and sits against the couch, his knees stay hooked over Eddie’s, but they touch nowhere else as Eddie starts playing with his rings. Steve catches the way that Eddie looks at him, with something in his eye that he’s not sure about. Something hungry and soft.
“Anyway,” Eddie clears his throat and looks to the side, taking the attention away. “I won’t do that to you, Steve. I never wanted to do that to anyone. If I had known you were going to bite me back, I would’ve—” he pauses, his eyes sliding shut as he takes a deep breath. “I would’ve stopped sooner.”
“You don’t sound so sure about that.”
Eddie laughs; a soft, bitter sound.
“Yeah, I’m not,” Eddie replies. “I’d like to think I would have, but I wasn’t lying. I was starving, man. Hadn’t fed in almost two weeks. Then Tommy took off like a bat out of hell and I figured I was going to have to go catch a deer or something just to get through the night. Didn’t expect to find you and Belial, and the fucker could tell how badly I needed it. Dangled you in front of me like a worm on a hook, and like an idiot, I took the bait.” Steve jumps when Eddie angrily scratches his scalp, causing his hair to fly around as Steve hears him violently itch at his head.
“Motherfucker got me to open the damn circle and now he’s who knows where. Probably fucked his way through half the state by now and added a couple of zeros to his body count.”
Steve swallows, the little seed of panic he’d been pushing down trying to bloom.
“Can we, you know, send him back?”
Eddie gives a dark chuckle.
“You know how to perform an exorcism?” he asks.
“No.”
“Do you believe in god?”
Steve pauses at that. He’s just learned that vampires exist; had known that there are things out there in the dark for a while now, but does he believe in god?
“I’m…not sure.”
“Good answer.” Eddie flops back on the floor, his hair fanned out behind him in uneven waves. “But faith is a pesky thing you need to have to perform one, apparently. Doesn’t matter what that faith is in, but without it, you’re pretty much just saying a pretty poem.”
“And with demons?”
Eddie lifts his head up just enough to look at Steve before he thunks it back against the floor.
“They don’t give a shit what you believe in. You give them some snacks and read their Latin, and they’ll show up.”
Steve’s brain stutters.
“Their Latin?”
“Yeah,” Eddie huffs. “Each one has their own little spell or whatever to get them.”
“And you gave me Billy’s!?” Rage flares up Steve’s throat.
Eddie jumps at the shout.
“Wha—No!” He sits up quickly hands up and palms opened wide, much like his panicked eyes. “No, seriously, that shit I gave you was just that, shit. It was a bunch of made-up phrases. Like, the whole offerings thing was real, but I didn’t give you a real summoning spell, especially not for a prick like Belial. What kind of asshole do you take me for!?”
“Then why the fuck did Billy show up?” He wants to reach out and shake Eddie. Shake him until his hair is nothing but a blur and those brown eyes are rolling around in his skull.
“I don’t know!” Eddie throws his hands into the air. “Nothing about what I gave you should have called him up. NOTHING! Not to mention I never expected you to actually try and summon something!”
“Then why would you even give me that!”
“Because I thought it was funny!” Eddie jerks his legs out from under Steve’s as he stands…much too quickly. “Jesus Christ, Harrington, do you know how funny that shit was? To have the King of Hawkins High come up to me under the bleachers, not looking for pot, or pills, or even cigs, but for a summoning spell? I thought I was having a stroke!”
“But you still gave me one!” Steve starts to get up, his anger demanding he stand.
“I gave you something fake,” Eddie snaps. “Like giving middle schoolers oregano instead of weed. I figured if you did decide to give it a shot, you’d just show up at school with a little cut on your arm and I could tease you about it.”
“So, what,” he stands with his arms over his chest, “You don’t actually know how to perform a summoning? You just fed me a bunch of bullshit.”
“No, I mean, yes, I UGH!” Eddie throws his hands up and presses the palms to the crown of his head, framing his face in the diamond of his arms as he starts to pace. “I know how to perform a summoning, yeah, but I don’t just pass that information out. Like weed, coke, acid, fucking sure. Demonic calling cards? No way, man. That shit is bad, really bad, and Belial is a fucking dick.” There is a hard spark of anger. It is displaced from Steve, but he can still feel it, and it sits in Eddie’s chest.
“Bastard knows how to get under your skin and just fucking TAKES what he wants.” Eddie snaps it as he turns to Steve. His eyes have gone black, his nails are longer, and the snarl on his face exposes his lengthened canines. Rage bites at Steve’s chest, flits in and out of dark places, and attacks the bond Billy left him with.
Steve can taste syrup on the back of his tongue. It doesn’t taste as good mixed with bile. His knees give out and he sits heavily on the couch. Pain races up his spine and makes him wince while his insides protest the sudden movement.
“Shit, fuck, sorry.” Eddie does the fast scratching motion at his skull again, this time with both hands on either side, and the anger quickly flies away, leaving Steve’s chest and returns to the one it came from. When Eddie looks back up, his face is back to normal and his fingernails are short.
“You okay?”
“Yeah,” Steve bites out as he makes himself more comfortable.
“Let’s, uh,” Eddie clears his throat. “Let’s stop talking about Belial.”
Steve nods in agreement.
Eddie sighs, his shoulders dropping and body slumping into an exhausted posture. He moves to sit next to Steve, settling in so that he is close but not quite touching. They sit in the quiet, backs against the couch cushions. Steve starts to fiddle with a tear in the armrest.
“In a couple of weeks my blood will wear off,” Eddie says, his eyes closed and head thrown back over the backrest. “You’ll start having something like withdrawal symptoms when it gets close, but as long as you don’t drink my blood again, the connection will sever.”
“That’s all?” That seems too easy.
“Yep,” Eddie says as he pops the P at the end. “Though it’s easier said than done. Thrall withdrawal is rough, man. You feel like you’re dying.”
“Thanks for the pep talk.”
“I’m just being upfront,” Eddie says as he turns his head to look at him. “You’re going to crave it, even before the withdrawal. I’m going to want you to take it because I don’t want you to be in pain and—.” Eddie chokes off the sentence before he looks up at the ceiling. Steve thinks he might be blushing, though there isn’t so much a color to it as a feeling that zings through him.
“And what?” Steve stares at him, at his throat and the way it arches against the edge of the cushion. The space where he bit last night peeks out under the shirt collar, and Steve scowls when he realizes that there’s nothing there to see.
Eddie closes his eyes again and Steve watches as his nostrils flare. “And because part of me wants to keep you as my thrall,” he replies softly. Steve’s heart jumps to his throat. “I can smell my blood mixed up in you,” he murmurs. “It’s blending with your blood and it’s…it’s like the most beautiful thing I’ve ever smelled. I just want to fill you up with it, let it mingle, and then taste us.”
Steve feels his heart rate tick up as Eddie starts leaning towards him.
“You already smelled so good,” Eddie murmurs. “Drove me fucking insane in math, I could never focus. Could smell you no matter how far I moved away. Wanted to feed on you at Halloween, but you left the party before I could.”
Steve can’t look away as the space between them closes. Eddie’s earthy scent is wrapping around him, filling his nose. “And now you’re full of my blood and all I can think is that you’re mine.” The word is a sharp growl that sends a thrill up Steve’s spine and into the little nook carved out behind his heart. An ache starts in his neck, right where Eddie had bitten before. He knows what will stop that ache; it's in Eddie’s mouth.
Steve feels himself shift closer, the thrall whispering to him about how nice Eddie’s lips look; how those teeth will feel in his neck again. He licks his lips and wants to taste something cool and metallic on the back of his tongue.
Eddie stops moving, frowns with his eyes still closed, and quickly tears himself back.
“Sorry.” There is a slight growl in his voice as he shakes himself. Some of the feelings in Steve’s chest pull back. “Fuck, sorry.” Some of them stay.
“I’m not gay.” He’s not sure why he feels the need to say it, but in the face of Eddie’s presence, the words feel hollow.
“I know, man,” Eddie replies with a wild little laugh as he pulls up one leg, setting his bare foot on the cushion. It lets his knee point to the ceiling, and he props one wrist up on the bony summit. “Believe me, I know."
Steve stares and feels questions crawl on the back of his tongue. Instead, he looks away.
“How…” did you know I’m not gay? he wants to ask. “How would you have fed on me?”
“Huh?” Eddie looks at him with surprise.
“You said that you’d thought about feeding on me before. How?”
“O-oh.” Eddie looks out across the living room. His free hand comes up to tug at his hair. “It’s, uh, pretty easy actually. Just, get someone who wants to buy out in the woods, or go to a party, get them high or drunk, bite ‘em, and take just what I need to keep going.”
“But, don’t they remember?”
“Not if I don’t want them to,” Eddie replies, not quite looking at Steve again. “During a bite, I can kinda, fuck around in people’s heads. It’s some sort of chemical in my saliva, I think, I’m not sure, honestly. But it makes people really suggestible, at least for a short time. I’ll just, ya know, get a drink, make them think that they got too high, fell on something, maybe even leave a couple of other nicks so it looks like they rubbed up against something in the woods. Whatever I think will be the most believable story to them. Then, once they’ve got that thought in their heads, I help them home or make sure they’re safe. If I do it right, and I always do it right,” Eddie adds with a little look at Steve, “They just blame it all on being kinda fucked up.”
Steve nods slowly. “So, when you bit me, you could have made it so I didn’t remember it?”
“Yeah,” Eddie replies as he runs his thumb over his fingernails. “At least up until you bit me back.” He gives Steve a little wink.
“Huh?”
“As my Thrall, you’re immune to that part of my bite,” Eddie says. “Just like how if I bit another vamp or even a were I wouldn’t be able to—”
“Were!?”
Eddie blinks at him owlishly.
“Oh. Yeah, uh…” Eddie clears his throat. “So werewolves are a thing, by the way.”
“Oh my god.” Steve leans forward and cups his face in his hands. “This is insane.”
“Welcome to the Darkside, Stevie, it only gets weirder.”
“I don’t know if I can do weirder,” he replies seriously. “I thought it was bad enough that demons and hellhounds are real.”
“You’ve seen a hellhound!?” Eddie stares at him, wide-eyed.
“Oh, I’ve seen some shit,” Steve replies. “Whole reason I know demons are real. The other shit, well,” he runs his fingers through his hair. It’s clean, product free. He hopes that Eddie had been the one to wash him. “You’re the first vampire I’ve met.”
“No I’m not.”
Steve looks at him wide eyed before Eddie grins.
“You know Mrs. Click?”
“No…” Steve whispers.
“Yep!”
“I am so glad I don’t have any more classes with her. I’d never be able to look at her the same way again.” Steve tries to picture the woman, her somewhat pale skin, the slightest sag in the jowls of her jaw. How her eyes always cut through the room and she could hear any little whisper.
“Yeah. Made last year weird man.” Eddie gives a chuckle.
“Last year? Wait, how long have you been a vampire.”
“Um, just a little over a year now, I think.” He picks at his nails.
“How did—”
Eddie stands up quickly, startling him. “That’s a story for later,” he says as he spins on the bare ball of his foot to look back at Steve. Steve frowns. “Unless you want to tell me about the hellhound.” Steve sighs.
“Actually, I should probably go home,” he murmurs. The word ‘home’ doesn’t taste right. “Should let my parents know I’m okay.”
“Yeah,” Eddie replies with a nod as he looks Steve over. “Probably a good idea.” He gives Steve a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “You hang around much longer and I’m gonna need a snack.”
The idea should make him feel sick. Instead, it makes his toes want to curl.
******
Eddie Munson’s van smells like a mixture of weed, gasoline, oil, and something so earthy it makes the back of Steve’s throat go dry. The suspension is shot, and they bounce along as Eddie drives over the pot-hole-filled back roads of Hawkins. He doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t have to. Steve can feel his nervous energy filtering between the two of them; two paper cups, one string, and while he can’t understand the words coming down the line he gets a general idea.
“Jesus,” Steve mutters as he rubs a hand through his hair, his leg bouncing to try and expend some of the nerves Eddie’s feeding into him. It’s early evening. It’s also Thursday. He’d been out for almost 48 hours. The sun isn’t rising like he had assumed earlier, but setting. It also doesn’t seem to bother Eddie in the least.
“Sorry,” Eddie murmurs, and Steve feels how he tries to cap the little line; not talk so loud into it. Steve feels it dull, his leg stops twitching, and he immediately wants to reach over and tell him it’s okay. He doesn’t because it’s not. None of this is okay.
The thrall is like a disconnected voice behind his heart, desperate and strung out on something that can only be provided by the guy sitting next to him, and Steve hates it. Hates that needy little voice because it sounds too much like him when he’s drunk at home, bed empty and brain full, and he just wants to be held.
“Are you sure you’re okay to drive?” Eddie asks as they turn into the small parking area. “I mean, I did just hit you with a lot.” The little lot is nothing but dead grass and bare dirt on the side of the road, the soil turned over and over by dozens of cars driven by kids in the dark.
He’s not, they both know he’s not, but Eddie’s not going to stop him. Eddie’s not going to force him to do anything through the Thrall. Steve kind of wishes he would.
“I’ll be fine,” Steve replies, his hand already on the door. “Besides, I don’t want to leave my car here for another night. Might get tagged.” Eddie’s smell is a cloying perfume that flows out around him into the evening air. The little dial in his chest is slowly starting to spin.
Steve shifts to get out and has to bite down the hiss that tries to escape. He should feel like he’s dying from what Billy did to him, but he isn’t. Even now the pain is getting more bearable with each minute that passes. At least that’s one upside to Eddie’s blood.
He can feel Eddie’s hand hovering over his shoulder, and can taste the words Eddie wants to voice as if they’re his own. They trickle down the link between them, spindling through his heart into something tangible.
I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. I didn’t know. I want you.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, Munson.” Steve pushes himself out of the van and steps into the night. It’s freezing, well into the twenties, and his breath comes out as little vapor clouds. The cold settles over him, but it doesn’t quite touch him. Even without a coat, he feels like he could be out here for hours, like it’s in the low sixties and not well below freezing. He quickly heads for his car, hand shoved deep in the jeans Eddie had given him and clenched tight around his keys and wallet. The only clothing that had survived Billy’s claws were his shoes. He doesn’t want to go back to Skull rock for his coat.
“Call me if you need anything!” Eddie yells out his window, eyes trained on Steve. He can feel them. Wants them to stay on him.
Steve says nothing as he opens his car door and throws himself in. The seats are cold, the fabric sapping his body heat as he sits with his eyes closed. The little dial in his chest is moving, pointing, and it feels like a fucking tug.
“I can feel you.” Eddie had said, but that’s not quite right. It’s not a feeling, more like a new sense. It’s ingrained in him like his hearing and sight, and knowing that it will dissipate makes a sickly feeling rise in his guts. There is an echo of it behind him. Steve looks into his rearview mirror and can see Eddie, poised to get out of his car.
The little strung-out voice in his head is begging. It wants to go back to the trailer, climb back into the bed where Eddie had kissed him. That place made him feel safe. It was where he had felt wanted, protected, lo—
“Go,” he says between gritted teeth, jamming the little voice down. He can’t get himself to move, not with Eddie this close. He needs him to be the one to step away. He’s still too fresh. He can’t fight that little voice, not yet.
The needle in his chest goes spinning as he hears the engine die and watches Eddie get out of his car.
“No, no, no,” he chants, as he watches him get out and slowly approach. Steve’s hand is on the door already, starts pushing.
Eddie’s hands hold it shut.
“I’m going to stick around here for a bit, okay?” His voice is just barely muted by the glass between them.
Steve looks up at him.
“W-why?” Come with me, come with me, come with me.
“Closer to your place. It’ll make it…easier.”
“Make what easier?”
Eddie gives him a sweet, sad smile before he murmurs, “You’ll see.” He steps back from Steve’s car, wearing nothing but a leather jacket over the same clothes from the trailer. Steve notices that Eddie’s vapor clouds aren’t as big as his.
“Head on home, Steve.” He feels a little nudge of something. It’s not forceful, just an idea, a thumbs up that it’s okay. There is also worry, fear, and a slip of adoration that he wants to poke and prod at and bring to life.
Steve starts the car and peels out faster than he should. A gasp rips through him as he goes, and he has to slow down because if he doesn’t he’s going to be sick.
With each mile he puts between them, he can feel the thrall stretch. It gets tighter and tighter, like a rubberband being pulled around a watermelon. A pained scream escapes his throat as he shakes in the driver’s seat, hands white around the car’s wheel. It’s barely a ten-minute drive to his house, but it may as well be hours. His chest burns and tears fall down his face. Twice he almost turns around, almost, but he pulls the car out of the turn in a way that is, quite frankly, dangerous.
Yet he manages to get home to a chorus of car horns, his whole body shaking as he pulls his vehicle into the otherwise empty garage. He stumbles out and goes to his knees, gasping. He can feel the tight pull of Eddie out there, and it fucking hurts. It’s nothing like the one in his lower back. That one is just there, an itch that he does not want to scratch, and it quietly mocks him.
The one behind his heart screams.
Steve crawls into his house, unable to bring himself to his feet again. If he does, he’s going to start running, and he knows just where he’ll run to. The stairs are made more manageable simply because they go back towards Eddie. He lets it pull him towards his room, and to his feet, the new direction giving just the barest amount of slack as he goes.
Climbing into bed takes all of his energy. He wants so badly to throw himself from the window and run into the oncoming night, but he doesn’t. Steve lays on top of the covers in his pleasantly heated home and shakes like he’ll never be warm again. Giant sobs wrack his body as he pulls in deep pulls of air. They fill his mouth with the smell of Eddie, his shirt warming up in the house and releasing the scent. Steve rips it off of himself before he presses the cotton to his nose and breaths in deep. The scent fills him, settles him, and his breathing starts to even out as he lays down facing his window. He can feel Eddie out there, can feel the bite of cold on his skin as he walks through the woods, keeping the thrall’s pull at a bearable distance, letting Steve get used to the stretch.
Steve pushes his hand against his chest as he lays on his bed, nose buried in Eddie’s shirt as he feels the pull. Against his palm, he feels a mole.
“My north star.”
He sobs through clenched teeth and tastes bile. Fuck.