↞[Stranger things preference] reacting to receiving an handmade scarf↠
▶ [Billy, Eddie, Steve, Jonathan] reacting to receiving an handmade scarf
NdA: the relationship between the reader and the characters is still in an early stage, which allows me to keep (and analyze) them closer to their on-screen portrayals. Some entries may lean a little more into fluff and show the characters in a looser light, but my goal is to keep them as authentic and true to canon as possible. Hope you'll like it <3 If you’d like to read more of my work, I’ve published the first chapter of Why Do You Cry on AO3, a fix-it fic with Billy and Eddie. [Click here to read.]
↠If you have any requests, ask the devil.↞
Billy Hargrove
Billy doesn’t understand the scarf at first. It’s handmade, obviously. A little uneven in places, the stitches too tight in some rows and looser in others. Not store-bought. Not generic. Not something you grab at the last minute because you don’t know what else to do. And that alone already puts him on edge.
He takes it from you without saying thank you. Just a short nod, jaw tense, eyes flicking over it like he’s looking for the catch. A scarf is too intimate. Too domestic. It implies someone noticed he’s cold, or thought about him long enough to sit somewhere and make something with their hands. That kind of attention makes his skin crawl.
“Didn’t have to do that,” he mutters, half-dismissive, half-defensive. Not unkind, but sharp. A warning.
He doesn’t try it on in front of you. He folds it once, twice, too precisely to not really care, and stuffs it into the pocket of his jacket like it’s nothing. Like it’s just another thing. He changes the subject immediately, lights a cigarette, makes a comment about the weather being shitty, about Indiana being a frozen dump anyway.
Later, when he’s alone, the scarf comes back out.
He turns it over slowly in his hands, thumb catching on a loose thread. He doesn’t smile. If anything, his expression hardens. Handmade means time. Time means intention. Intention is dangerous. It creates expectations, and expectations are where things start to rot.
He tells himself it’s impractical. That it doesn’t even match his jackets. That it’s probably itchy. That he doesn’t need it. Not even his style, c’mon.
But he still keeps it.
The first time he wears it, it’s late. He’s out driving, nowhere in particular, cold seeping through the car when he steps out to smoke. He wraps it around his neck quickly, almost angrily, like he’s annoyed at himself for needing it. He doesn’t look in the mirror. Doesn’t think about your hands making it. Doesn’t think about why you chose that color.
If anyone comments on it, he shuts it down immediately. “Found it,” or “it was lying around,” or “don’t read into it.”
If someone pushes, asking who made it, his tone changes. Shorter. Colder. Conversation over.
He never thanks you properly. Not with words. Not with eye contact. Not with anything that would count as vulnerability. If he does anything at all, it’s something indirect: fixing something without being asked, driving you somewhere without complaining, standing a little closer than usual in public like it’s a coincidence.
The scarf stays in his car most of the time. Folded. Hidden. Safe. It’s his little secret.
He doesn’t see it as a symbol. He doesn’t attach poetry to it. He just knows that when it’s around his neck, the cold doesn’t bite as hard, and that fact alone irritates him more than he’ll ever admit.
Eddie Munson
Eddie pretends he doesn’t know what it is at first. He turns it over in his hands like it might bite him, squinting at the uneven stitches. “What is this,” he says flatly, “and why does it look like it survived a minor war?”
When you tell him to stop being an idiot, that you made it by hand for him, his mouth opens to fire back something smart. Something loud. Something that keeps things normal.
Instead he goes quiet for half a second too long. That sentence forces him to face reality: you noticed him, really saw him, and you spent not just money but time, quite a lot of it, on him. And that’s scary, at least at first.
“Oh,” that’s all he says. Then, immediately defensive: “You know I’m legally required to mock this, right?”
And he does. Gently. Calls it lumpy. Asks if you learned to knit during a government experiment. Claims the color makes him look like a rejected Christmas elf. But his fingers don’t stop moving, thumb rubbing over the yarn like he’s still checking it’s real, like he is getting used to it.
He absolutely does not put it on right away. That would be insane behavior. He needs time to figure out how to react, how a normal person would react, how you’d expect him to react.
Five minutes later, when he thinks you’re not looking, and once he’s finally convinced himself that wearing it won’t have catastrophic consequences, he wraps it around his neck. Too loose. Crooked. Perfectly Eddie.
“It’s… warm,” he mutters, like that wasn’t the entire point. “Which is, uh. Useful. For my delicate artist’s throat.” He tries to season the comment with sarcasm, nodding like he is saying something very smart and wise, maybe to avoid looking too touched or too exposed, but even if he hides that familiar crooked smile under the scarf, you can see the pleased expression in his eyes, in the way his cheeks pull when he grins, forming those long and pretty dimples.
From that day on, the scarf becomes A Thing. He wears it to The Hideout. To the D&D club. On nights when the trailer is colder than usual, he has no problem wearing it even inside, sometimes messing with it in front of the mirror, trying different ways to wrap it. If anyone comments, he says it was stolen off a corpse or won in a blood pact, of course.
If anyone touches it, he snaps. It’s involuntary: not really about jealousy or personal offense. It’s rare for him to have something that’s only his, something so personal and deliberately made, and his first instinct is fear that someone might take it or ruin it. But he laughs right after, so the loss of control can look like a drammatical and unserious response.
“I’m just a poor warlock, I cannot risk to get on my patron’s nerves”
When it starts to fray, he fixes it himself: badly, carefully; because he knows exactly how long it took to make and exactly how much it means that someone made something just for him. He doesn’t even think about telling you. If anything, he’s embarrassed, feels like he didn’t take good enough care of it, so he just gets to work.
He never says thank you out loud.
But every time you see him wearing it, even when it’s way too warm outside, he gives you this look: half-smirk, half-soft, that says everything he won’t.
Steve Harrington
Steve doesn’t clock it at first. You hand it to him kind of casually, like it’s no big deal, folded a little uneven, soft in a way that isn’t store-bought. He smiles automatically, that easy Harrington grin, already halfway into a ‘you didn’t have to…’ before he really looks at it.
“Oh,” he says, quieter now.
It’s a scarf. Clearly handmade. The stitches aren’t perfect, and one end is a little longer than the other. He rubs the fabric between his fingers, brows knitting slightly as he tries to understand how something this small suddenly feels… big.
Gifts Steve got from his family were always impersonal: overpowering colognes, expensive shoes, sports gear for hobbies he’d never actually pursue, clothes in random colors because no one ever bothered to learn his favorite. And yet, handling this slightly wonky scarf, he treats it with an immediate, careful attention that makes it feel like the most valuable thing he owns.
“You made this?” he asks, like he needs to hear it out loud. Maybe you just found it on the ground, or in some old closet, and thought, you know what? Instead of turning this into a cat bed cover, I’ll give it to that guy with the nice hair.
It would make sense.
When you nod, he laughs once, breathy, a little disbelieving. Later he’ll feel embarrassed, realizing he probably made too many noises and comments and risked sounding fake or like loser, but that’s a problem for later. “Holy shit,” he mutters, big dark eyes tracing the stitches. He shakes his head, smiling again, softer this time. “I like it. I like it a lot.”
He insists on trying it on immediately, even though it’s not that cold and he definitely wraps it wrong the first time. You reach out to fix it, fingers brushing his jacket, and he goes still, letting you, eyes flicking down and then away like he’s suddenly very aware of himself.
“How do I look?” he asks, half-joking, half-hopeful.
When you say it suits him, he scoffs, but there’s color in his cheeks. “Yeah? ’Cause I feel like I look kinda… I don’t know. Like a guy who owns a houseplant.”
He keeps touching it after that, adjusting it, tugging it closer around his neck. Later, when he thinks you’re not looking, he smells it, just once, curious about what it carries: maybe your hands, maybe your house, maybe a bit of perfume you sprayed on it just in case.
He wears it all the time after that. As soon as the sky turns gray, for quick errands, even once while babysitting. If anyone asks, he hesitates, but he doesn’t mind admitting it’s a gift, maybe adding a joke about how it doesn’t match anything in his closet but that won’t stop him, never mean, never inviting criticism.
He can’t mend it himself. If a stitch loosens or snags somewhere, he’ll casually ask someone in the group if they know how to knit, or if their sister does, just so you won’t think he’s treating it carelessly.
Jonathan Byers
Jonathan Byers never expects gifts. Not really. He’s the kind of person who assumes people are just being polite by inviting him places, that his presence is tolerated rather than wanted. It’s not a victim mentality, it’s just the fate of being the older brother and the man of the house, used to being partly invisible because he has to keep his emotions in check, and partly because he often has to turn down invitations knowing there are things waiting for him at home.
So when the person he’s been spending time with, -quiet afternoons waiting for his brother at the arcade, long walks with his camera hanging from his neck; hands him a scarf, he freezes.
It’s obviously handmade. The stitches aren’t perfectly even, some loops tighter or longer than others, making it bunch slightly in places, and the colors don’t really match anything he owns. He notices all of it immediately, but without criticism. He also notices how much time it must’ve taken.
Jonathan nods, awkward, unsure where to put his hands, and murmurs a soft “thanks,” like he’s afraid that saying it too firmly might make you think he doesn’t like it, or doesn’t want it, or that the gift somehow made things more complicated.
Later, alone in his room, sitting on his bed, he runs his fingers over the yarn. He thinks about how you must’ve sat somewhere, looping thread over and over, probably making mistakes and starting again, eventually giving up on fixing the imperfect parts.
The thought hits him harder than he expects. Someone chose to spend time on him. Not because they had to. Because they wanted to. He’s never hidden being sentimental, he's alway's been teased for it, so when his eyes start to sting, his first instinct is to laugh quietly at himself.
He wears the scarf even when it doesn’t really match his jacket. Even when it’s not that cold. If anyone comments, he just shrugs and says “it was a gift,” like that explains everything and nothing at all. But he’s careful with it. He never tosses it on the floor; he takes his time to fold it neatly, and if he can’t he keeps it draped over the back of his chair, safe; in the car he stores it in his bag, afraid it might fall and get dirty if he takes a turn too sharply.
Jonathan doesn’t talk about what it means to him. He doesn’t have to.
