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“Hi again!” Angie smiles at him, big and bright. She’s wearing a blue sundress today, with a pretty straw bonnet wrapped with matching ribbon, her blonde hair falling in perfect soft curls down her back.
Steve greets her with a smile, he likes Angie, she’s great, and Steve’s sure her smile would make anyone"s day better. Unfortunately he’s getting the vibe that she likes him a lot more than he likes her.
“Did you have any more of that honey? It’s wonderfully sweet, I finished it all already!”
Steve has six hives, mainly to have bees nearby to look after his little meadows, his flowers and fruit trees. The vegetable plot and his little green house. He uses a lot of the honey himself, in tea, in cakes, in soaps, so he only sells very few actual jars a year, “sorry, all sold out, but I did make some hard candies with some of it." Steve produces a paper bag to see if she’s interested, “well, they’re lemon, verbena and honey, and technically for sore throats, but they still taste good.”
She pouts at him, ignoring the offered bag and squeezing his hand instead, “are you sure you’ve non left? Maybe I could pop by and pick some up?”
Steve pulls away, “certain, sorry Angie,” Steve does his best to soften his smile, “it would be a wasted journey for you,” her tells her sincerely.
She seems to get the message though, tipping her hat and smiling, “well,” she says firmly, raising her eyebrows all playful, “if you do find you have some honey for me, Steven, do let me know, won’t you?”
“Sure thing,” and she gives him a flirtatious wink before moving off to try her luck elsewhere.
“You’re lonely though.”
Steve rolls his eyes, goes back to bunching dried herbs by type. They’ve been hanging to dry in the sun room at the back of the cottage, making the warm air in the room all fragrant. “Rob, we’ve been over this. We’ve been over this a lot. I am perfectly happy,” and now Steve desperately regrets mentioning Angie in the first place.
“There’s nothing wrong with Angie though, I don’t understand why you won’t at least...try these things.”
“You’re absolutely right, there’s nothing wrong with Angie, she’s kind, clever, charming, beautiful and anyone would be lucky to have her in their lives-”
“So-!”
“No Rob,” Steve sighs, stripping dried leaves off stems and into labelled jam jars, “I just...the thought of someone in my space is...it’s just not for me, okay? My life would have to change, I’d have to make accommodations, and I’m just...I’m very content, okay, with how things are.” And Steve wishes, desperately that she would just leave it alone. It’s become so much worse since she got together with Vicki, like a relationship is the be all and end all to life. Steve knows Vicki makes her really happy, and Rob just wants the same for him. It just wouldn’t be the same for him, is all.
“Right, but that wouldn’t matter if you got a familiar for company-”
Steve sighs again, “Rob-”
“But a familiar would make your magic more-”
“My magic is perfectly adequate for it’s purpose right now, thank you very much,” Steve reminds her primly.
She sighs, rolling over on the couch like Steve’s just committed a huge offense, “I just don’t understand why you"re so against it.”
“There are a lot of reasons why a familiar is a bad idea Robbie.” And because they’ve been over this what feels like a hundred times, Steve can list them easily, “it’ll be fur or feathers, so not only would they shed on my furniture, and I’ll have fur or whatever everywhere, you know I don’t do so well with bird dander. Makes me sniffly. They get separation anxiety, so they have to go with you everywhere. Not exactly going to be convenient if I pull a- a – dire wolf or something, and you want to go to the movies. And if I leave them home alone, it would be cruel.”
“You might get something small and hairless! Like a- a frog!” Rob insists.
Steve just rolls his eyes and huffs, “but I might not. So no. Also, a frog? Really?” Not that Steve has anything against frogs particularly, just...where the hell would it stay? The sink?
“Steve!”
“I said no Robbie, okay. I’m not lonely. I have my garden, my books, I have plenty to do. I see you at the weekend, I see plenty of people at Tuesday Market. I am fine.”
“Alright,” she says, clearly not believing him at all.
Steve senses it when Robin takes his scrying crystal, he can feel the warmth of her fingers as she gently cradles it, and then the cooler touch of her hand through cloth as she carefully wraps it in something soft. He knows when it moves; feels it acutely when it crosses the threshold of the cottage.
When she snips a rose from the rambling bush that grows over the front door of the cottage, the rose tells him. He feels it through the earth, and a vibration through the air. The roses don’t mind; they know Robbie is much loved, they will gift her a single stem. Steve sends his gratitude for their understanding.
He wanders back through the cottage, to his tiny library office, fingers tracing the shelves until he finds a space he knew would be there. “Oh Robbie,” he sighs.
Robin returns the book and the crystal the following weekend; Steve pretends he never noticed them missing, and when nothing seems to happen, he forgets about it entirely.
“Oh,” Steve says, staring into the open cupboard, “well, aren’t you handsome?”
Steve has to reach behind the snake for the tin of tea he wants, but the snake doesn’t seem to mind. Steve closes the cupboard door carefully, so as not to startle it. He puts a scoop of dried tea into the teapot; he buys the dried tea at the market, but the additional dried ingredients are all Steve. He tops up the pot with hot water, and then leaves it to steep, heading upstairs to retrieve a pillow case that’s not currently in use.
He opens the door to the cupboard again, his new friend hasn’t moved. The snake is perfectly jet black all over, scales shining like an oil slick in the dim light. It’s only small too, probably the length of Steve’s forearm. Steve considers the snake for a moment, it’s notable only in it’s lack of presence, which is why Steve hadn"t detected it before he opened the door.
He feels about now, just to check. All is normal; he can sense the bats sleeping in the eaves, the birds nesting and hunting. The crawl of much smaller things in the earth and his bees buzzing with much industry in the morning sun. A rabbit is hopping around in the little wild flower meadow Steve claims as a back lawn. A little further off, in the woods, a deer leads her fawn.
But the snake. The snake he can see in front of him? Nothing.
Steve hums. He would treat the snake gently either way, but he is extra cautious since he’s fairly sure it’s magical in some way. Not that Steve can detect any magic on it, either.
“Well, despite how handsome you are, you are most definitely not an indoor snake.”
Steve puts his hands inside the pillow case, stretching the fabric before carefully using it to lift his visitor, “hiss!” says the snake as Steve turns the pillow case inside out and the snake drops to the bottom of the small sack.
The snake didn’t hiss. It said the word, ‘hiss’. It sounded distinctly male and, maybe, a tiny bit panicked as Steve had let go and let him fall inside the soft pillow case.
The snake says, “hiss,” again. This time he sounds distinctly indignant about the whole thing.
Steve carefully carries him to the edge of his wildflower meadow, and puts the material down so the snake can find his own way free, which he does almost immediately, treating Steve to the most spectacular side eye Steve has ever seen. Steve strongly suspects that, whatever the snake is, it can definitely speak. “You can come back in when you learn some manners,” Steve informs him.
Steve heads back inside and pours his tea, tea strainer settling gently in the bright little bowl Robbie had gotten him for his birthday. Steve stares at it for a moment before it clicks, “oh Robbie,” he sighs. With nothing else to be done, Steve sits and drinks his tea and waits for the return of his new familiar.
No fur, no feathers, and very small. Steve sighs, again, maybe these things do have a way of working out.
The snake carefully coils it’s way up a chair leg. Then across the seat, investigating the edge of the table cloth with it’s constantly flickering tongue. It slowly manages to make the journey up the back rungs of the wooden dining chair, then coils it’s way along the final, wide slat at the top. It blinks slowly at Steve.
“My name is Steve,” Steve informs him.
“Hiss,” replies the snake quietly, grudgingly.
He sounds very grumpy, which is kind of understandable considering he’s just been dumped at the bottom of the garden in a pillow case, which...yeah, Steve did do that. “I’m sorry I put you in the garden, and I’m sorry about the pillowcase. In my defense though, if you had just spoken to me, non of that would have happened. And I know you can, you’re my familiar, aren’t you?”
The snake blinks, very slowly, slitted pupils and bright golden yellow eyes reappearing in increments.
“And there was no need for you to be hiding in my tea cupboard, if you had just introduced yourself…”
The snake turns away, slithers across itself to face away. It doesn’t leave. Just settles in again with it’s back to Steve.
“Oh. You know I didn’t summon you.” Steve sighs, he’s been doing that a lot already today. He up ends the cup and finishes his tea. “I’m sorry about that. My best friend, Robin...she can do a little magic, you know, knows some of the basics from me but...when she took the book with the familiar spell in it, I didn’t...well, I didn’t think she’d be able to do it. And then nothing happened, or at least, I didn’t feel anything happen. So. No. I didn’t summon you, but that wasn’t my fault, either.”
Eddie likes it in the tea cupboard. It’s dark. Everything is still and quiet.
He’s never been any sort of reptile before, and tasting the world is strange. He’s sluggish when he’s cold. His whole body touches the ground when he moves; he’s not sure he likes it.
His being, his shape, is made to fit the needs of the witch he has to serve. His witch has a flower meadow and a sun room and his cottage smells herby and fresh, and Eddie has no idea why Steve would want a snake, of all things.
Steve deserves a pretty bird, or a little bunny, maybe even a noble stag, or something. Not...whatever this is. And Eddie is unfamiliar with doubt. It’s not an emotion he’s really had much to do with, before he was summoned to be Steve’s; he finds he’s not enjoying it.
Because for the first time ever...this witch wasn’t the one who summoned him. And Eddie doesn’t know what to do with that either; because that means that Steve probably doesn’t even want him.
Eddie likes the tea cupboard, because it’s dark, and quiet, and cool enough that he slips into the liminal space between sleep and awake; it’s just like being in the in between place all familiars occupy when they’re not here, being alive, being needed, being kept by the witch that summoned them.
When he"s on two legs, Eddie has a tattoo of a spider on his chest. The first witch he belonged to. She was the sort to eat children and curse people, so Eddie was the sort of familiar that enjoyed people"s fear and the taste of their liquid insides.
The second was different, a man, this time. A man who wanted nothing but power. A man who had underlings and a library full of potential. A man who wanted to rule the world; so Eddie matched suit. Eddie was huge, scaled, flying. Could breathe fire.
But no matter how powerful people are, they grow old, it"s inevitable. And Eddie slept again, with a new brand on his skin.
The last time; a woman. The world had changed a lot in Eddie"s absence. He was on a new continent. A new world. He was a little bat. Easily hidden, liked it in the warm spaces between the rafters of the cottage, nestled in the thatch.
Liked this girl who just wanted to help. This girl who lived alone, but wanted company, and even when he was there, feeding her power, she still didn"t practice much magic. It was Eddie"s shortest life by far, nestled on his girls shoulder at night, doing nothing worse than hunting insects in the garden. It was also his best life. A life where Eddie learned a completely different way to be.
But that girl was burned.
When Eddie blinks his eyes open again, he can still yet sense the tendrils of the spell around him. Summoned with a rose and a crystal. But not by the witch himself. Eddie flicks his tongue; scents the air. Love. It was love that brought him here. The most binding kind of spell.
His witch is loved already.
Eddie slithers himself into a little ball in the tea cupboard. He likes it here; it’s cool enough that sometimes he almost sleeps, and almost forgets. The herbal taste of the tea is intense in this small space, and it washes away all the others, even the lingering tastes of smoke and love.
The little snake really seems to like the sunshine, especially in the morning. Steve always takes his first cup of tea in the sun room, and the little snake joins him. He, and Steve assumes he’s a he from his voice, but he could be wrong, emerges from the tea cupboard when Steve opens it, first thing in the morning.
He makes his sluggish way into the sun room, where he basks on the warm flag floor, looking like a streak of rainbow oil spilled there in the sunshine. Steve drinks his first cup of tea, and his little snake blinks his way awake after warming his blood in the sun.
Steve wonders what the scales feel like, but he hasn’t yet dared try and touch.
Steve lets his mind wander, checks his boundaries, checks the plants in his garden, feels the rabbit kits the bunny gave birth to two days ago in their burrow. Feels the bees getting to work; thousands of minds but yet one creature. Makes a mental list of everything he needs to do this morning; who’s ready for harvest, for pruning, who needs more water, more shade, more sun.
Steve stretches his toes against the warm flags under his feet, frowns, feels deeper, feels a connection he’s never found before. Can feel the connection of the stone deep in the earth; can feel the stone was quarried nearly twenty miles from here. Can feel that it happened hundreds of years ago. Can feel the quarry, the stones connection to it; overgrown, no longer used, and with a little lake formed at the bottom. Steve sees it clearly in his mind, and then blinks down at the little snake lying in the sun.
Steve still can’t feel the snake, despite his being the cause of Steve’s growing power.
One of Steve’s very favorite places to be is kneeling in the dirt in his garden. He has his basket, and he pulls carrots that are ready; gives their neighbors more room to flourish, so that they will be ready for another day. There are tomatoes in his little green house, along with one bell pepper. Basil from the raised bed.
Steve heads inside to make soup.
He still can’t feel his little slithering shadow; only knows he’s there when he catches sight of him moving amongst the plants. If Steve isn’t too obvious, he can watch briefly, watches as the little snake twists along amongst the stems, his tongue constantly flickering.
The little snake watches as Steve returns from his pantry; a large sweet potato in one hand and a white onion in the other, “soup today, I think. I might make a bread dough, while the veggies roast.”
Steve doesn’t know what compels him to speak, and he has no indication if the little guy is even listening or not. There’s no reason for him to explain what he’s doing...but it seems wrong, to just ignore his guest all the time. Feels rude. It’s not either of their faults that Steve’s guest is here, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t try and make the best of it. It’s the only option really; there"s no unsummoning a familiar.
Steve’s voice sounds strange, in the quiet of the cottage. Usually his only guest is Robin, once a week. Steve can’t remember the last time anyone else was here. His voice sounds strange, he hasn’t used it since the market on Tuesday, and now it’s Friday night.
Maybe Robin has a very little bit of a point, not that Steve would admit it.
Steve sits on the couch, two thick slices of warm bread resting on his knee, and a bowl of steaming soup cradled carefully in his hand. His little visitor is curled up on the arm of the couch; Steve has no idea how he got up there.
“Here,” he says, holding out the spoon like a peace offering. He’s holding it curve side up, just the residue of soup clinging to it. The little snakes tongue flickers across it before he turns his head away, “what do you think?”
“Hiss.”
Steve is waiting for Robin, leaning in the doorway with his arms crossed, “I hope you’re very pleased with yourself,” he calls.
“What for?” she calls back, carefully clicking the gate closed behind her.
“Your spell worked. I have a familiar,” Steve injects as much disapproval as he can into the statement.
Robin squeals with excitement and skips her way up the path. Steve huffs and heads back inside.
Steve can’t see his guest anywhere when he goes back in to put the kettle on, which is odd, because he had been settled next to Steve on the couch in the sun room, listening to Steve read aloud. Well, he didn’t leave when Steve started to read to him, so Steve assumed he was okay with it, if not enjoying it.
Now Steve can’t find him anywhere when he looks about.
“So, where are they? What’s their name? What are they? Have you been doing lots of magic together?”
“I’m not sure where he’s gone.”
“Can’t you like, find him? Feel him with your witchy ways, or whatever?”
“No,” Steve answers, frowning, “it doesn’t work like that with him,” Steve explains as he pulls out the tea pot and moves the kettle off the boil.
“OoooOOOOOooooh mysterious,” the chair makes a terrible noise on the tiles as Robin pulls it out and seats herself at the table, “so, what is he then? We can just go look for him?” She stands again, almost immediately, clearly excited.
Steve opens the tea cupboard, only to find his little visitor nestled into a corner made by a tea tin and the side of the cupboard, “he’s a snake, and he’s very beautiful,” Steve reaches past carefully, taking a different tea than the one the little snake is taking refuge against, “and if he wanted to meet you, he would be here, so leave him be,” and Steve smiles conspiratorially at his guest, before he carefully shuts the tea cupboard door.
Robin pouts, “I guess. But no fur and no feathers! How big is he?”
Steve smiles down into the teapot, putting in two scoops of leaves before adding the boiling water, “he’s very small,” Steve tells her, returning the tea tin to the cupboard, mindful of where his visitor is curled up, watching him.
“So he’s perfect then?”
“Yes,” Steve agrees before he closes the door, “yes he’s perfect.”
“Eddie.”
Steve nearly has a conniption in his own green house. Spinning around wildly and spilling the contents of his watering can on his own boots.
It takes a long few seconds for him to put it together, and then another few to find his little guest, sitting up above his own coils in amongst the cucumbers.
“Eddie?”
The snake nods. Actually nods. Followed with a flicker of his tongue.
“Oh, well, nice to meet you Eddie, I’m Steve.”
And Eddie slithers away into the greenery, and that seems to be the end of the conversation for now.
Eddie makes his way out of the tea cupboard. He sits on the counter while the kettle boils, and then yawns. It’s the most horrifically endearing thing Steve’s ever seen in his life. The inside of Eddie’s mouth is pink, even though his tongue is dark. Eddie’s mouth goes so wide it almost turns inside out. It goes so much wider than his own body. He has two great fangs that unfold like toothpick scimitars and then neatly fold back into the roof of Eddie’s mouth.
It’s fascinating.
And horrifying.
Eddie had been letting himself hang off the counter until gravity took over, falling the rest of the way with a soft thump. Once they were on first name terms, Steve offered to help him down.
Eddie grudgingly accepted.
And by grudgingly, he’d said ‘hiss’ and then eventually slithered onto Steve’s outstretched palm.
So now Steve puts his hand out and lets Eddie get himself situated, and he heads into the sun room, mug of tea in one hand, and little snake curled up in the other. He sets Eddie down on the flag stone he seems to favor, before taking his own seat on the couch. Steve sips his tea, allowing his mind to wander. He checks the boundaries, the animals, all of the plants.
He makes his plan for today, for the garden. He plans what he needs to get ready for market tomorrow; he has soap to take out of molds, ready to wrap. A few other bits and pieces he should pack ready. He has some extra vegetables he can trade for tea leaves, and he’d like some more wool to knit a new scarf for winter.
He wonders vaguely if he knitted a narrow tube pullover, would Eddie wear it?
He can fully imagine the side eye Eddie would throw him at the mere suggestion.
Steve finishes his tea, puts his cup down carefully, and closes his eyes. He feels for the warm stone under his feet, explores the same connection he found a few days ago. Sees the quarry again but bypasses it. Wants to see the before.
There are aeons.
Darkness, pressure, water, silence. Heat.
Unbearable immense heat and pressure. Steve ignores that, feels the strands of connection. The earth. The mountains. The way they shift. The entire earth rubbing, cracking, breaking, continents pulling part, mountain rages spitting, oceans of water-
There’s something-
Oceans of water, immense and unfathomable-
Something on his toes.
What are toes?
“Sssteve.”
Steve? What is Steve?
There’s too much. Too much. It’s leaking out of him. He’s too small. His flesh splits with all of it, bones shatter under the weight. His lungs are filled with molecules of air and he can count everyone of them and there’s just not enough room-
There’s something, on his feet, he has feet. He’s a person. He’s contained. He’s breathing. He starts to remember where it all goes. How it all fits. Even though he is small and insignificant and his entire life will pass in the blink of an eye but also go on forever because of enormity of what he’s connected to it goes on forever-
“Sssssteve!”
Steve blinks his eyes open, the world is fuzzy and hard to focus on, things shifting and tilting until Steve blinks it away.
Blinks down at the little snake that slithers off his feet.
“It’s dangeroussss to look for too long,” Eddie warns him. It’s the most he’s ever spoken.
The sun had moved in the sky; Steve lost nearly an hour of his day in what felt like a single breath.
Steve snuggles in with his hot chocolate, pulling the knitted blanket across his legs. He has his book, and he’s stoked his little fire, and the rain is pelting steadily against the glass. Steve sighs deep, content.
“I love this weather,” he tells Eddie. He doesn’t expect a reply, so it’s no surprise when Eddie stays silent. Steve offers him the back of his tea spoon, just a hint of chocolatey milk clinging to it. Eddie tongue flickers across the surface and then...tentatively...does it again before he goes back to watching the flickering of the flames.
“It’s market day tomorrow, you’ll have to come with me if you don’t want to stay here alone. You can ride in the truck with me, and once we get there I can let you down while I get unpacked. There will be lots of people though, so stay near and don’t get yourself...trodden on.”
Eddie makes a noise, but it’s more like a ‘hmph’ than a ‘hiss’ so Steve takes it as some kind of acceptance of the plan.
They sit without speaking for a long time. Long enough for Steve to give up on a reply and get two more pages into his book. The crackle of the fire and the pitter patter of rain soothing.
“Truck. The horssssselesssssss carriage at the front of the cottage?”
Steve doesn’t startle when Eddie speaks, but he’s surprised enough by it that it does take him a long moment to respond, “yes. That’s right. How long has it been, since you were someone"s familiar?” Steve asks, cautiously.
There’s a pause, before Eddie finally admits, “a very, very long time, I think.”
Eddie started the journey curled up on the passenger seat, but it was less than a minute before he was stretched as tall as he could go, trying to look out of the window. They had barely made it to the end of the lane so Steve is happy to pause to ask, “I could lift you up here?” Eddie’s very small, he wouldn’t be at all in the way where Steve indicates below the windscreen.
Steve rests his hand on the seat in invitation, and Eddie only hesitates for a second before he takes him up on it, “it’s in the sun too, nice and warm up there.”
Eddie sits for a moment, before Steve gets the truck moving again, “thankssssss.”
“Okay, don’t go far, I can’t sense you so I don’t want you getting lost.”
Eddie’s currently riding in Steve’s shirt pocket and he sticks his head out to look at Steve, “you can’t?”
“No,” Steve looks around at the other traders setting up there stalls, “come to think of it, I can’t see your aura either.” Animal auras are typically small, but usually Steve sees them as pretty bright, when he’s looking for them. From Eddie he gets nothing.
In his pocket, Eddie sighs spectacularly.
“What?” Steve uses a finger to pull the pocket open, looking in.
Eddie rolls his eyes spectacularly from where he’s curled up, “can you sssssssee your own aura?” He asks, with, in Steve’s opinion, a truly unnecessary amount of sass.
“No-”
“No, of course not, because you’re standing in it. Nitwit.”
“Hey now,” Steve lifts Eddie out of his pocket, “no need for name calling,” and he puts Eddie down on top of his display of soaps wrapped in brown paper. “Okay, so if that’s why I can’t see your aura, is that why I can’t find you?”
Eddie sighs again, “he can be taught, it’sss a miracle,” he replies, deadpan.
Steve doesn’t reply, just closes his eyes. He has to take a second to sift through all the other people around him, center himself, feel the ground beneath his boots. And then he looks for Eddie; not how he would look for another person, or an animal around him, no. He looks for Eddie like he would think of his foot for a moment before he wiggled his toes. He searches for him like he would think to flex his fingers after holding his knitting for too long.
He looks for Eddie as a part of himself, since they’re the same.
He finds him almost immediately.
“Oh. That’s really easy, you could have told me that.”
“Why?” Eddie slow blinks, “you don’t want me here,” and with a surprising turn of speed, he turns and slithers off the soap, and then drops off the edge of the table in a huff.
Steve sighs and lets him go, they can talk about it later, Steve’s first customer has arrived.
It was a fairly successful day. Steve has a little fold of notes in his pocket and his little cash tin is heavier with coins. He’s traded vegetables for wool, and spent a little of his cash on things he can’t produce himself; flour and eggs and cheese, mostly.
Not for the first time, Steve stands and looks at the chickens in their little cages. Their auras are bright, like Steve finds with all animals. Their thoughts are simple and immediate; all of their focus usually on fulfilling one biological need or another, it makes them very easy to read.
Steve would like to keep a few chickens; he’s been considering it for a while, but just hasn’t got around to it yet. He would have his own eggs and a small specialized team of organic pest control for his vegetable patch. It’s very appealing.
He decides to take his cash to the hardware store on the way home; he’s going to need supplies if he wants to build a coop for them.
Steve stands, considering. He quite likes the natural wood stains, especially with what he’s bought so far, but there are so many colors.
“Eddie,” he says quietly, looking over the tins, “what color do you think?”
From in Steve’s pocket there is a very put upon sigh, “I can only ssssort of ssssee green and blue, really.”
“Oh. I didn’t know that,” Steve says, picking out a tin of sky blue wood paint, “sorry.”
Eddie makes a vaguely dismissive sound.
Steve didn’t want Eddie here, and that is true. There’s no denying it. He was against having a familiar from the very beginning. He’s always been against it.
But now. Well, Eddie’s here, and there’s nothing much to be done about that, not really. And Steve likes to think he’s pretty easy going around most things, and he likes to think he can just make the best of most situations.
So that’s what he’s trying to do. He had thought having a familiar would be some kind of hardship, a responsibility, like...pet ownership, or something. He thought he’d have someone who invaded his space, and that he would have to make accommodations for.
That isn’t how it’s turned out at all.
Wherever Steve goes, Eddie goes. Either riding in a shirt pocket or following along behind. Steve doesn’t need to feed him, Eddie is a snake, despite the human intelligence of a familiar, and Steve had asked one time if he’d like something. Eddie told him he’d had a mouse two days prior and was fine, so that was that. He sleeps unobtrusively in the tea cupboard and sits quietly on the arm of the couch next to Steve in the evenings. He speaks only when spoken to, and usually with a disgruntled economy of words.
Steve thinks the hiss is kind of cute, and he would never, ever dare think of it as a lisp.
It’s clear Eddie hasn’t let go of the fact that Steve wasn’t the one to summon him, even though Steve has, once he’d gotten over it, done his best to be accommodating. He talks to Eddie, chatters about his plans and his day and what he’s doing, even though Eddie barely, if ever, responds unless it’s a direct question.
But they will get there, Steve’s sure, if he just keeps being nice to Eddie, he’ll come around eventually.
Steve’s continuing his campaign of kindness right now, in fact, as he stitches his loose end into a seam, “what do you think?” Steve asks, holding his work up to show Eddie.
“What issss it?”
“A...a pullover, I guess,” Steve shows him the kitted stripes of the green and blue tube he’d made, with a cuff at one end so that it would be like a roll neck sweater. Eddie’s...neck all the way down, Steve guesses, so it doesn’t really matter where it sits on him.
Steve holds the end open and with a very put upon sigh, Eddie slithers inside, wriggling until his head pokes out the other end. The ruched nature of the roll neck holds it in place pretty well. Eddie sits back on his coils, looking down at himself, “it’ll get dirty.”
Which is not what Steve had expected him to say. He’d fully expected a dismissive comment, if honest, but Eddie showing...care over something Steve has made is warming, “that’s okay, I can wash it, and it was easy, I can make more.”
“It’ll probably get ruined though, dragging on the floor.”
“I’m sure it won’t.”
They sit in silence for a while, Steve finding another ball of yarn from his basket to start on a slightly revised version of the Eddie body sock.
“I’m not ussed to being down here. I’ve alwayssss been high up, before.”
It’s the first Eddie has volunteered about his past, and Steve doesn’t want to push or put him on the spot, so he focuses on his cast on, working wool and needles between his fingers, and hums encouragement.
“I could fly, when I was a bat, and even when I was a sssspider, I was a pretty big ssssspider. But I could climb well, ssspent all my time up high. Ready to drop on unsssussspecting victimsssss,” Eddie chuckles to himself, the rubs his blunt snout against the couch, like he’s trying to itch it.
And yeah, that doesn’t sound nice to Steve. Sounds down right terrifying actually, having a giant spider land on you like that. Not that Steve minds spiders, particularly, but he definitely thinks it would cause him to startle, or even panic, for a moment, “do you miss it? Tormenting people?”
Eddie settles again, watching the flames in the fireplace, “no. Not at all.”
Oh well, Steve thinks, that’s a relief.
“So did she have a gingerbread house?”
Eddie stares at Steve blankly, which is very effective on his little snake face.
“It’s...from a story. A witch with a house in the woods made out of cookies and sweets to attract children so she could fatten them up and eat them.”
“That’sssss…ridiculousss. The animalssss of the forressst would eat it. It would go sssodden in the rain. Then it would fessster and grow with mold.”
“Yeah, I’d also question the structural integrity now I’m thinking about it. Anyway, it doesn’t matter, in the story the kids pushed the witch into her own oven and burned her alive.”
“Good,” Eddie replies before nuzzling his snout against the woolen pull over and curling himself up.
“Where is your cauldron?”
“This is it, here,” Steve tells him, pulling his instant pot out of the cupboard and plugging it in.
Eddie slithers closer, “that’s not a cauldron. The fire is over there.”
“It is,” and Steve tries not to show that he’s feeling a little bit critiqued. Eddie is a traditional witches familiar who probably found electric lights a surprise, Steve can’t really get uppity just because Eddie doesn’t know better.
“Then why does it say instant pot on the side?”
“Look, just watch okay,” he tells him, dropping ingredients in, “last weeks batch of soap sold really well, so we need to make another batch. I buy the soap base, but I do melt in a little beeswax from the hives. Just a bit. Hazel. Chamomile. Yarrow. Lemon; helps it smell good as well as being cleansing.”
Eddie sits close, watches as Steve switches it on, hits ‘slow cook’ and puts the timer up to four hours before dropping the lid on, “and we"re done. No stirring, no need to watch it, nice even temperature with no fire to tend. I’ll come back and add a few bits, but it’s done.”
Considering Eddie is a snake with snakelike features, he’s remarkably emotive sometimes. Right now he’s frowning at Steve’s slow cooker like it’s personally offended him, “magic issss intent.”
“Right. Yeah.”
“How do you infussse your potion with your intent if you do not tend to it?”
Steve shrugs, “dunno’. Just...does it.”
Eddie huffs, slithering away and scoffing, “magic ssssoap.”
Steve does make an effort to stop by the pot more often than he normally would, just to give it a stir.
“So has he made you more powerful?”
“Yes…” Steve starts carefully, “but not exactly how I thought he might?”
Rob raises both eyebrows at him, sipping her tea.
“It’s...like he’s magnified some things that were already there...but…”
“But?”
Steve sighs, hating to admit it, “mostly he just tells me I’m doing it wrong.”
“HA!” A boisterous laugh startles out of her, and then Rob can’t contain her giggles. She finally calms down, “so, are you enjoying the company?” She asks, teasing.
And Steve sighs and examines his tea because he hates to admit it and her crowing is going to be unbearable, “yes. I am.”
Rob is silent for long enough that Steve looks up, she looks like she’s about to explode, she’s so desperate to say it, “go on, say it.”
“I told you so! I told you so! In your face Steven!”
He sighs again, “yeah, yeah, whatever.”
Steve’s almost asleep. He’s nested comfortably under his sheets and blankets, a trickle of moonlight softly lighting the edge of the blinds. He shifts, something tickling the edge of wakefulness.
Eddie.
It’s unusual for him to be moving around so late, usually he’s curled up in amongst the tea tins by now. The movement is just enough to keep Steve this side of sleep.
Eddie’s in Steve library, nosing amongst his books. Slow, steady movement, just disturbing the motes of dust in the air and little else, Eddie’s body small and light and silent but for the slight shushing noise his scales make on the warm wooden floors.
Steve can feel the shadow of well worn, smooth wood grain against his belly.
He’s taken his pull over off for the night then.
Steve feels it twice when Eddie first touches his scrying crystal. He feels the tickle of Eddie’s tongue, the strangely intimate waft of cool air from Eddie’s breath.
He senses the taste of magic from around the crystal. He didn’t know that magic had a taste. It’s a little sparkly, like popping candy.
And then it stops. It all stops, and Steve frowns in his half sleep. The floorboards are warm under his feet, and his crystal sits cradled carefully in the palm of a hand.
Steve sleeps, sure he’s already dreaming.