Chapter Text
To his immense horror, Steve Harrington wakes up one day… in the body of a cat.
At first he looks at his striped paws, and he thinks, “Okay, this is a dream,” and promptly falls back asleep. He's not an expert, but he's fairly sure dreams are supposed to be weird.
“I'm gonna be back to normal when I wake up.” It’s his last thought.
When he wakes up, he is not, in fact, back to normal. Roughly, that's when he starts to panic.
He rushes down the bed and into the en suite bathroom, bumping into the doorframe on his way in. He jumps onto the sink countertop and stares at himself in the mirror.
He is most definitely a cat.
A brown tabby with hazel eyes and a fluffy tail, to be precise.
He has no idea how or why this had happened, and even less idea how to reverse it.
“Oh no,” he thinks, “oh fuck no.”
He is royally screwed.
What’s he supposed to do now?
He opens his mouth, wanting to see if he can speak, but predictably, he makes a distinctively feline distressed sound.
Steve has already graduated high school and has no plan to go to college. He has no girlfriend because she cheated on him and dumped him, and no friends because he left them after they turned out to be a bunch of assholes. His parents are disappointed he didn’t get into college, and even if they used to be home often—which, of course, they didn’t—they sure as fuck don’t plan to be home anytime soon now.
He could stay here inside the Harrington House, but what is he going to eat?
He can’t exactly turn on the stove or open a can of tuna in these conditions.
Could he hunt? Maybe? But how? He has no idea where to start.
“Oh, fuck me,” he concludes. He’s gonna die of starvation, and the worst thing is that no one is going to realize he’s gone. No one is going to look for him, and no one is going to miss him.
He wants to cry. Can cats even cry? He doesn’t know, and that makes him even more upset.
He’s roaming around the house in desperation, looking for something that could help him, when he’s struck with a memory. He was still in high school, still friends with Tommy Hagan, and Steve remembers him relaying a rumor about Eddie “the Freak” Munson feeding stray animals in the trailer park.
(The rumor was 100% about Munson kidnapping black cats for satanic rituals, but it’s not like Steve remembers ALL the details. Also, fuck whatever Hagan says, that piece of shit.)
And well, free food is free food.
If his chances are to die of starvation anyway, Steve might as well try one last time.
It takes Steve a while to leave Harrigton House—going out from the ensuite window was simple since it was already open, but going down from the roof wasn’t a straightforward feat. The 10-mile walk to the trailer park takes him a little over a couple of hours.
The sight of Forrest Hill fills him with hope and joy. He’s exhausted and scared shitless, but he’s proud of himself for getting there.
Finding the Munson trailer is a piece of cake, as Steve would recognize that beat-up, white and green van anywhere.
Steve goes to lie down in the shadows of a tree, keeping an eye on the trailer and waiting for Munson to come out. Frankly, even if the rumor is true, he’s expecting Munson to just throw him a sardine and call it a day. But when he does come out, and Steve all but sprints towards him to greet him with a trill, he did not expect Munson to look at him, GASP in the most theatrical way possible, and coo at him in a baby voice:
“Aww, and who’s this cute little baby?”
Steve is so stunned, he doesn’t even have time to react before Munson walks over and starts petting him on the head, which… oh. Oh. Oh, that’s actually nice.
Munson is doing something with his fingers, scratching behind his ears, and it almost feels like Munson’s shampooing his head, Steve starts to purr like an engine.
He didn’t even know he could do that.
After that, Steve decides he might as well hang around.
Munson puts out food and water at least once every day, so Steve knows he won’t starve to death. And Forrest Hill is a surprisingly nice place. The few dogs are always kept leashed, and the kids that come over at his trailer to play his nerd Dumb-Dragons-or-something game are kind and like to play with him while they wait to be picked up by their parents, and the other stray animals aren’t particularly aggressive, in virtue of the fact that they are always fed. Eddie Munson always makes time to pet him until Steve goes belly up, and his uncle Wayne lets him lie down on the porch couch with him sometimes. Steve can spend the day chilling in the grass, under the sun, or running behind butterflies, and at night he hides under the Munson front porch to sleep.
It’s a nice slow life.
That is, until summer starts to transition into fall, and the first storm of the season hits.
The underside of the porch is flooded with mud, and Steve is drenched in freezing rainwater. Suddenly, he’s terrified he’s gonna die.
He doesn’t want to die! For the first time in his life, he actually enjoys being alive! He's starting to like being a cat! He refuses to die!
Steve can think of only one thing that can save him, and his only hope is, once again. Eddie Munson.
Steve plants himself right under Eddie’s window and starts meowing loudly, wailing, and crying up a storm until the boy opens the window to see what’s causing this commotion.
Steve doesn’t waste a single second, immediately jumping inside and curling up on the floor right below the window. He knows he’s wet and dirty and probably stinks like an old rag, but he doesn’t want to get the mud on Eddie’s linens or around the house. The dry floor will be enough for tonight, he just hopes Eddie will have mercy on him and let him stay there until the storm is over.
“Make yourself at home, uh?” Eddie chuckles, kneeling on the floor. He gently scratches him on the head with a single finger. “Oh, poor baby, you’re shaking.”
Steve didn’t even realize how cold he was. He tucks his paws and tail under his body to warm up, closing his eyes to rest, so when Eddie picks him up, he’s not expecting it.
“Meow?”
Eddie tuts at him.
“Let’s get you cleaned up, okay?” Eddie holds him close to his chest, heedless of the mud getting on his clothes. He brings him to the kitchen, and gently puts him down inside the kitchen sink.
“Where is he coming out from?” asks Wayne from his spot on the couch, frowning at the sight of the cat.
“Poor kitty was crying under my window until I let him in,” replies Eddie, as he’s checking the water temperature.
Wayne silently walks up to Eddie’s side, eyeing how Steve lets the boy wash the dirt from his fur without making a fuss.
“He’s surprisingly well behaved.”
“Yeah, I thought so too,” Eddie sighs, a sad frown tugging down the corners of his mouth. “I thought he was a housecat that escaped from his place, but he had no collar, and I’ve seen him hang around Forrest Hills for weeks now.”
Eddie scratches under the cat’s chin, and Steve starts purring softly. Steve doesn’t know why Eddie looks so sad.
“I think… I think he’s been abandoned.”
Oh.
“Maybe his family went on vacation and didn’t want to bring the cat or something, so they abandoned him in the forest. Look at him, Wayne, he’s so sweet, how could anyone abandon him?”
Wayne hums.
“Well, I guess he’s lucky you’ve gotten him inside.”
After washing him and drying him with a warm towel, Steve gets carried back into Eddie’s bedroom. Eddie places him on the bed before changing out of his dirty T-shirt. Then he lies down, lighting up a joint and picking up a book, and Steve immediately curls up against him, seeking out Eddie’s body heat.
The boy coos at him.
“You really are sweet, aren’t you?”
Steve does not remember much else, as he promptly falls asleep.