Steve knows better than to enter the Witchwood. He’d been warned from the time he was a child, back before the wolf, that it was home to its namesake. And not just any witch, a dangerous one. One that had killed an entire hunting party, unprompted, with the flick of a finger. None who have entered those woods since have ever returned.
Steve knows better than to enter the Witchwood, but he doesn’t have a choice. Robin is slumped over his back, hands clenched tightly in his fur, clinging desperately to consciousness. He can feel her blood, warm and sticky, matting the fur of his back. His own gait is slowed, every step jolting the silver teeth digging into his right hind leg and sending sharp pain shooting through him. He’s not sure how much longer he can run, and he can hear them - the bloodthirsty cries of the townsfolk dead set on his murder.
They had been found out. So many cycles of living in this town, living among its residents as a friend and neighbour, and still they’ve all turned on him. Of all the times for it to happen, too. It was the moon he had agreed to make Robin a wolf. She had already been weakened from the wolf taking hold when they had been attacked, the silver already a weakness but her body not yet given over to the strength of the wolf.
Steve wishes he could take her to Nancy, knows Nancy would help despite everything, but the townspeople have blocked them off, funneled him in his blind panic. His only hope is to lose them is the wood, but even then he might lose Robin to his own fumbling medical knowledge.
But first, he has to get away from their pursuers. Steeling himself with a deep breath, Steve enters the Witchwood.
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Eddie is no stranger to people trying to do him harm. It’s been a constant in his life from the time he was a child, long before his gifts had awakened. And one that had- well. It’s been a constant of his life, sure as the cycle of the moon and sun. So he notices the prickle of someone entering the woods, but he gives it no regard. It happens a few times a year, that someone gets it into their heads that they will be the one to kill “The Witch of the Woods”. None ever even make it to him, losing themselves in the enchanted trees.
These trees are older than him, and their magic is their own. They like him and welcome him among them, but otherwise are hostile to outsiders. In the beginning, he had tried to help those who became lost in the woods, but those days have long since passed. Despite what his uncle says about his soft heart, Eddie’s become bitter and jaded and he no longer pays any mind to those who venture into the woods.
But this time, something is different. Eddie feels the disturbance of someone crossing into the forest, feels the shift of magic as the forest warps around them, and it’s… different. The ways and paths of the trees are second nature to him, he can tell by the shimmer of magic against his skin which paths have been revealed and which hidden away and this…
The forest is being lenient, gentle. The interlopers are shown the ways to peaceful places, soft and danger-free. Eddie can recall only a few times that the forest has been kind to intruders, and it has almost exclusively been to children.
So he’s more than curious already when he feels the buzz of more people crossing the boundary into the woods. A lot more. And Eddie realizes that this hunt is not for him.
The trees are not so kind this time, opening its twists and turns like a maze, a trap for anyone foolish enough not to turn back immediately. They don’t, of course. They never do. Eddie pays them no mind, drawn instead by curiosity to the two that are being pursued.
He steps between the trees, slipping into a space that’s folded away between reality, picking his way with ease through paths that are there and paths that are not until he emerges at the edge of a small clearing, moonlit and mossy. Theres a tiny spring-fed pond and there, limping toward it, is a wolf. It’s huge, the size of a small bear, with a strong frame and thick russet fur.
It notices him at the same time as he notices it, and it’s massive head swings to face him, teeth already bared in a snarl. It’s hackles raise, and it turns fully, squaring up, a threatening growl rumbling across the little clearing to him.
Eddie steps back, already gathering his power until it glows around him with dark energy, because this is no normal wolf. Even without the size and the silver trap clamped around its leg giving it away, he can see it in its eyes, feel in its presence that this is something more.
He recalls his childhood, the warning tales at his mother’s knee. He remebers later, freshly chased out of town and taken in by his uncle, watching as the old man leafed through his ancient book and warned Eddie that he wasn’t the only dangerous thing in the wilds. Eddie has no doubt that he’s come across one of those dangerous things now. He looks at the wolf and knows exactly what he’s seeing.
oh fuck oh fuck I just realised, these FUCKERS!! These writers!!! oh my god 😂
Eddie told us he was about to do it.
Plan is get in, get out.. 🏳️🌈 WITHOUT ANY DRAMA (yes, without any drama indeed: off-screen, parents were cool, plan was a success!)
They even had cake!!! His family is literally the cutest!!
I mean hello, he says this in the same scene in which he opens the closet door and Buck says "They should understand."
Yes, Eddie DID IT, didn't he? He totally did. Of course he did! Eddie came out to his family! That's why they have become so close, because Eddie came out and Eddie's family, to his surprise, was actually awesome, supportive!! They weren't those dinosaurs he perhaps feared they'd be, about to bite him. No, instead they had a whole party, reacted to him coming out lovingly.
That's why they're face timing, communicating, finally talking!! Eddie is getting valid parenting advice from his dad, they are finally really talking about the toxic masculinity and trying to figure out how to raise a son like Chris... That's why Eddie is now trusting his parents to take care of Chris!!
Okay so, hear me out. This is just a slither of an idea. So, Hawkins, the labs, the experiments, the kids...but what if the supernatural world is a real thing there? So like there's just vampires and werewolves and witches and stuff just...going about their day. In the background.
So, Eddie's not human. He can pass, and does pass, but he isn't. And he's wierd, partly because he's not human at all, but partly because he doesn't fit in either world. Maybe he's a werewolf with a bald ass and his pack rejected him, or he's a vampire that absolutely loves modern culture so doesn't fit in, like, at all. Maybe he's 1/10th unicorn but all the other unicorns are perfect Nordic blondes and Eddie just doesn't make the grade.
So yeah, Eddie passes for human, but he will never fit in this world. But his doesn't fit in his people's world either. And then Chrissy happens, and Eddie freaks the fuck out because, not only what happened, but because he went to Chrissy because he could smell the pregnancy, smell the crushing depression. Or maybe because he's a unicorn, and he could FEEL it. But, when what happens happens, not only does he have to witness it...but he can SENSE it too. Sense the evil. Smell or feel that there's something other in there, something otherworldly and just...not right.
So when Steve Harrington turns up with his kids...all feeling like family too each other, and all definitely telling the truth...Eddie goes with it. He trusts them.
Coincidentally, whatever Eddie is means he heals whatever damage the bats do to him, and when Steve and him and Dustin and everyone are standing in the trailer together, staring at Eddie, who looked dead ten minutes previously, Eddie figures, fuck it. If they can deal with Vecna...then they can deal with this.
