One word prompt: Veterinarian!Steve - sent by @shelleyminx | WC: 1,119 | Warnings: None | Rating: G | Tags: Humor; Pre-relationship; Eddie's unusual taste in pets; Veterinarian Steve AU. | [AO3]
“Hey, the cats are fed and the water fountains are clean. I also changed Cookie’s blankets because she peed all over them again when she realized it was nearing closing time. Do you need anything else before I go?”
Steve looks up from the files on his desk, a little startled by the sudden interruption, and finds Robin standing by the open door, already bundled up in her winter coat and with her bag slung over her shoulder.
Jesus, was it closing time already?
“Did everybody else go home?” Steve asked, glancing at the clock on his computer screen and startling even more when he found out it was well past seven.
He had been working on these files for two hours and still nowhere near being done with them. What the hell!?
“They did. Max and Will just left, and I sent Mike home early because that butthead was running a fever and thought it wise to hide this from everybody.”
“That damn kid,” Steve sighs. “What is it, the third time this month?”
“Fourth.”
“Yeah, I’m definitely gonna call Nancy later. Maybe she can knock some sense into Mike’s thick skull.” Steve rubs his eyes for a moment, exhaustion making them a little blurry for staring too long at small, printed letters. When he opens his eyes again, Robin is still there, patiently waiting for him. “Sorry, you can go if you want, Robs. I still have a few things to do here, then I want to take a last look at Zoro before I go home.”
“You sure? I can stay with you until Joyce or Jane gets here.”
Steve shakes his head. “It’s okay, Joyce should be here any minute now. Go home and tell Vickie I’m totally gonna beat her at Mario Kart this Saturday.”
Robin lets out an amused laugh. “I really doubt that, but fine,” she says. “See you tomorrow.”
“Your lack of faith in my abilities wounds me!” Steve shouts as his friend leaves, but the only answer he gets is another laugh. “Traitor,” he murmurs to the now empty office, no venom in his voice at all.
Steve hears the front door closing with a noisy swish and then there’s only silence.
Another sigh escapes Steve’s lips as his eyes once again land on the mountain of files taking over his desk. He and Joyce really need to hire that new vet to help them out, the clinic is getting too big for just the two of them to handle it by themselves.
Resigned to his fate, Steve works a bit more for a while. With no one around, it’s easy for him to get lost in his tasks. He finishes up with the patient files from that day, then sets aside a couple of cases he really needs to talk about with Joyce to get a second opinion.
A little before eight, Steve turns off his computer and crosses the clinic towards the cat ward, to finally take a last look at Zoro. He’s finishing rewrapping the black cat’s hind leg when he hears heavy knocking coming from the lobby.
Zoro meows, looking at Steve with big green eyes.
“That’s not Joyce,” Steve says to the cat, who meows in agreement. Joyce, like Jane, has a key; she’d just let herself in.
The knocking persists, and Steve quickly tapes the wrap on Zoro’s hind leg before putting him back in his cage and exiting the cat ward to find out what the fuss is all about.
Through the glass door, Steve spots a man. His long curly hair is a wild mess, dark eyes so round and wide as he slams his fist against the door in distress. He relaxes when he catches sight of Steve, but not much; the distressed knocks cease, replaced by franticly waving hands asking for Steve to come closer.
Steve hardly turns down anyone who comes knocking on his door, no matter how late or how busy he is. But when they are clearly that distraught? There’s no way in hell Steve is going to ignore such a call for help.
In a few quick strides, he crosses the lobby and unlocks the front door, pushing it open without hesitation.
“Hi, how can I help—”
“Something’s wrong with Theodore,” the man simply blurts out; no introductions, no greetings, just a shaking hand grabbing Steve’s forearm and eyes getting wider than it should be humanly possible. “He was fine yesterday, but then he didn’t show up tonight for his treat and when I went out to look for him I found him passed out next to my trailer. Please you gotta help him, I think someone poisoned him.”
“Okay, okay, I’m gonna help him.” The hold on his arm eases, and Steve takes the opportunity to rest his hands on the man’s shoulders to catch his attention. “I’m gonna help him,” he reaffirms. “But you gotta breathe, man. Can you do that?”
The man nods, taking a deep breath.
“Good. Now, my name is Steve, and I promise I’ll do what I can to help you.
“I’m Eddie. Thanks for helping me out.”
“Of course. Where is Theodore?”
“My car. He’s in my car.”
“Alright, then let’s get him, yeah?”
“Yeah, okay.”
There’s a battered van parked very close to the front door, and Eddie makes his way towards it as soon as Steve steps outside.
“You said he was poisoned?” the vet asks, as he watches the man open the passenger door and take a yellow transport box out.
“I guess so. He was passed out, but I checked and he’s breathing.”
“Okay, let me take a look.”
And, you see, Steve’s seen his fair share of weird cases in his eight years in this job. Some funnily weird, some weird weird, so it’s safe to say that by now very little things surprise him.
However, as used to the job as Steve is right now, he admits that he was not expecting to find a passed-out raccoon in the yellow transport box.
“It’s a raccoon,” he says dumbly, blinking a few times to make sure his mind is not playing tricks on him.
It’s not. The raccoon, Theodore, is still very much there.
“Can you help him?”
Technically, yes. Steve can probably help him.
But it’s a raccoon.
Not a cat. Not a dog. And honest to God raccoon.
“I have so many questions right now,” Steve mumbles, but he shakes his head and focus back to the task at hand. He’s a freaking vet and there’s a passed-out animal there; he can ask whatever questions later, after he makes sure Theodore is okay. “You know what, that’s not important. Follow me, please.”
He can’t be alone where Chrissy died, but he can’t tell anyone that. So he sleeps in his van. Parks it down the street from Steve’s, close enough to see the light on in the living room. And Close enough to feel like he isn’t actually alone. It works for three nights but on the fourth, Steve finds him. There’s a knock on the driver’s window. Eddie jumps so hard he hits his head on the roof.
There’s Steve standing there in pajamas, hair a mess, holding a baseball bat like he was ready to swing. “Eddie? What are you doing here?”
“Shit—hey, Steve.” Eddie forces a laugh, scrubs a hand over his face. “Uh. Thought you’d be sleeping.”
Steve doesn’t buy it for a second. His eyes go sharp. “Are you okay? Are the kids—”
“God, no, they’re fine,” Eddie says fast. “It’s not—” He stops. Bites his lip hard, trying not to cry. His voice cracks anyway. “I can’t sleep in my trailer, man. I can’t even be near the thing. Ever since—”
He doesn’t finish. He doesn’t have to.
And Steve’s face does something complicated. Then he just says, “Come inside.”
“No,” Eddie shakes his head. “I’m okay here. Really. Van’s got—” he gestures vaguely, “—seat reclines and everything.”
Steve stares at him. “Eddie.”
“I’m fine—”
“Like hell you are.” But Steve doesn’t push. Not yet. He just stands there in the cold for a minute, then says, “Lock your doors,” and goes back inside.
Eddie thinks that’s it. Until the storm hits two nights later.
Rain slams the van so hard it sounds like the sky’s splitting open. Thunder cracks and Eddie’s right back in the Upside Down, back with the bats, back with Chrissy—
The passenger door wrenches open. Steve’s soaked, furious, not asking this time. “Get inside. Now.”
“I—”
“Eddie, please.” Steve’s voice breaks. “I can’t sleep knowing you’re out here.” And Eddie looks at him. Rain in his eyelashes. Terrified and stubborn and so, so tired.
He climbs out of the van.
Steve doesn’t say I told you so. Just throws a blanket around his shoulders and walks him inside.
Prince Steve Harrington travels into the woods to find a rumored witch, Eddie Munson
“Do you have something that is like the opposite of a love potion?”
Eddie looks at this prince who he hates on principle because the royalty has never been kind to people like him and sees someone trying very hard to seem aloof instead of exhausted.
“What on earth would something ‘the opposite of a love potion’ even do?”
“Make someone stop falling in love.”
Eddie rolls his eyes, still standing in his doorway, not having let the prince inside. “What, your betrothed sleep with a knight or something? Want to sneak the potion into the knights mead so he stops paying attention to her?”
“No. I want it for me.” The prince says.
Eddie blinks. Looks at Prince Steve closer, looks into his eyes and sees an unsettling emptiness.
Prince Steve sighs. “I just want to stop feeling.”
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