Chapter Text
earlier
Steve had been sleeping at the Henderson residence for the past week. Well, “sleeping” was a loose term. He told himself it was because he was worried about Dustin; he didn’t want to leave him alone in the house with just his mother, his mother who cared so much but could never understand. And of course, Steve was worried about Dustin.
But in the early hours of the morning, while tossing and turning on the couch under the blanket Mrs. Henderson laid out for him every night, he was forced to admit to himself that there was more to it than that.
Steve hated his own house. His house that was too empty, too big even at the best of times, and God knows this was certainly not the best of times. He knew Robin would come stay with him if he asked, all he would have to do was say the word and she would drop everything for him, fuck whatever her parents had to say about it. But he couldn’t ask that of her, especially not right now with her senior year coming to a close and her already difficult task of convincing her white-pickett-fence parents that not only was it ok for her to not have a boyfriend, but also to not go to college immediately after graduating. He knew her running off to a strange boy’s house indefinitely would only make her situation infinitely worse.
So he stayed with the Hendersons, which was really quite alright. He essentially became Dustin’s personal chauffeur, driving him to school and back, to hangouts with the rest of the party. And, of course, as often as they could, driving to the hospital.
Looking at Max in her hospital bed was one of the worst things Steve had ever experienced. Right up there with getting drugged out of his mind by Russians and getting his insides nearly torn out by evil bats. She just looked so small, ensconced in the harsh white sheets and the huge, clunky neck brace. Her eyes sunken into her unnaturally pale face, the only color the deep purple bruises underneath those sunken eyes and the splash of red hair across her pillow. Her hands unmoving on the blankets, the rise and fall of her chest just barely visible. Everything about it was so fundamentally wrong, and Steve almost couldn’t stand the sight of it.
Lucas was almost always there when they visited, sitting dutifully at her bedside, reading her stories or telling her about his day or just watching her sleep. That hurt to watch too. So did seeing Dustin, usually so bright and full of snarky comebacks and a wealth of useless factoids, limping somberly over to Lucas’s side, or taking his chair on the rare occasion he wasn’t there. Dustin would always place a notebook on Max’s bedside table, full of notes he’d copied from his own during his lunch period, “just in case she wakes up and wants to catch up on schoolwork.” Mike and Will were there too, sometimes, Nancy having dropped them off. El couldn’t come on account of her still being hunted by the government or something, but Will always brought shakily written notes from her to lay on top of the notebooks from Dustin. All four boys were noticeably quieter, more withdrawn. Different.
They were all different, was the truth. It was hard to go through something like they had without coming out the other side a changed person. Some changes were just more obvious than others.
For his part, Steve did his best to ignore his own changes. He allowed the pain in his sides every time he breathed too deep or stretched too far to distract from the pain in his chest while he clutched Max’s unmoving hand over her bedsheets. He took Robin and Dustin to volunteer at the school-turned-rehabilitation center and told himself that would eventually lessen the overwhelming guilt threatening to drown him at all times. But late at night, sleepless eyes staring at the Henderson’s living room ceiling, his demons became harder to ignore.
Especially once the Upside Down began seeping through the cracks into Hawkins. It was the morning after the dust had started swirling through the air and the storm clouds had gathered above the town. Steve groggily opened his eyes to the frantic voice of a newscaster. Claudia Henderson was sitting on the arm of the couch at his feet, absolutely enraptured by the TV and wringing her hands in her lap. Steve rubbed at his eyes and shook his head slightly trying to clear the fog of sleep, and allowed the words to wash over him.
“...still no change to the weather, this unforecasted storm seems to be camping out here for a while. In the meantime, we encourage everyone to stay in their homes if possible, and wear a face covering if it is absolutely necessary to venture out into the world. Again, we still don’t know what these particles could do if inhaled or ingested, so we recommend that everyone proceed with an abundance of caution.”
Mrs. Henderson hummed nervously, continuing to wring her hands. One of her legs was bouncing up and down lightly as she continued to stare at the television. Steve sat up slowly, clearing his throat. Mrs. Henderson jumped slightly, then, turning to him, relaxed her tense position with a look of sympathy.
“Oh, sorry love, didn’t mean to wake you. It’s just so crazy out there, I figured it was best to stay as up-to-date as possible.” She gave him a small smile.
“S’okay,” Steve slurred blearily, clearly still muddled from sleep. “D’you wanna sit on the couch?” He drew back his blanket as he spoke, creating a space for her on the opposite side of the couch from him. She shifted gingerly from the arm of the couch to the cushion he’d opened up, resuming wringing her hands as soon as she was settled. The two of them turned back to the TV just as a new voice began to blare out of the speakers.
“This just in, it appears there is even more reason for the citizens of Hawkins to stay indoors today. Three bodies, as of yet unidentified, have been found across the town: one by the nearly entirely decimated Forest Hills trailer park, and two by Lover’s Lake. At this time, the police are investigating these seeming attacks—yes, you heard that right. Attacks. These bodies have been disfigured almost beyond recognition, with deep gashes across their faces making them very difficult to identify. Hawkins PD is asking that everyone remain calm and try to…”
The voice faded into the background as Steve’s brain finally woke up, a spill of cold dread seeping down his spine. With a muttered excuse to Mrs. Henderson, he crept from the couch and through Dustin’s cracked open bedroom door, trying to stay as quiet as possible so as not to wake him. His bare feet padded near-silently across the rug towards the suitcase of clothes he’d been keeping in the corner of the room. He pulled out the first outfit he could find, and retreated back down the hallway to the bathroom to change.
In the bathroom, he pulled his pajama shirt up and over his head, wincing at the tug in his sides as the stitches strained against his broken skin. He gingerly removed the bandages he’d had on overnight, the gauze barely stained at this point, a week out from his near-death experience at the hands—or rather teeth—of the Demobats. He hissed a sharp breath through his teeth as the final bandage snagged on a protruding stitch, tugging sharply at his side. Once the bandages were all safely discarded in the trash, Steve paused to catch his breath and examined himself in the mirror.
It was times like these, along with those times in the middle of the night, that it was hardest to forget. When he stared himself down in the mirror, bloodshot eyes underscored by dark circles gazing absently back at him. The cuts all along his torso, the smaller ones scabbing over, the deeper ones sewn shut, all of them likely to scar and, by extension, keep him trapped in this nightmare forever. Times like these, unable to look away from the physical wounds carving up his body, he was forcibly drawn back into memories. The mental scarring he tried so hard to suppress, inevitably bubbling to the surface.
He looked at the wounds spiraling across his body, and he thought of their mirror image. A flash of dark curls and a wicked smirk. That smirk gone forever, those curls limp and lifeless on the cold ground. And the wounds, just like his own, where teeth had dug in and ripped chunks away, taking and taking, feeding off his life, his life which had been so big, so much, and yet not enough. Because unlike Steve, no one was there to rescue him. And so instead, it had been Steve stumbling back through the barren landscape, too late. Nancy and Robin behind him as he’d dropped to his knees beside Dustin, sobs clawing out of all four of their throats.
And now it was Steve, standing in this bathroom, staring at the wounds that he had survived but that Eddie had not. With Dustin sleeping soundly down the hall, who had broken his ankle trying to get to Eddie when no one else could. Because Steve hadn’t been there, Steve had been busy lighting Robin’s molotov cocktails as if she couldn’t have done that herself, and just generally being of little use. And it hadn’t even worked, the clock had still chimed four times, the earth had still cracked open. Max was still asleep, and not even Eleven could find her.
Eddie was gone, and Steve was here, staring in the mirror at the very wounds that had killed Eddie, scabbing over on his own sides and no longer leaking blood and pus. In some sick, masochistic sort of way, he hoped they all did scar. He wished they would open back up, just a bit, just to keep leaking, just to keep reminding him of all the places he’d failed. Eddie. Max. Dustin. All gone or damaged beyond repair. And here he was, just a few scrapes and scars.
Disgust and guilt churning in his gut, Steve wrenched his gaze away from the mirror, plastered new gauze pads onto his wounds, and tugged his shirt on over his head. He quickly changed into the rest of his clothes, pointedly avoiding looking at his reflection, and nearly stumbled back out of the bathroom in his haste to escape.
After collecting himself in the hallway, he made his way back out to the living room and bunched his pajamas and the blanket at one end of the couch, leaving room for anyone to sit if they’d like. Mrs. Henderson had left her post on the couch and he couldn’t see her anywhere, but he figured that was just as well. As much as her near-constant worry made him feel warm and cared for in a way that he never quite had with his own mother, he didn’t think he could field her million-and-one questions right now. Instead, he grabbed what Dustin had dubbed “Steve’s First Walkie” off the coffee table right by the couch where Dustin insisted he leave it (“In case of emergencies, Steve!” “Dustin, I’m living in your house right now, in any emergency you could just as easily walk the three yards down the hallway and wake me up.” “No, Steve, you don’t understand. This is nonnegotiable.”) and slipped quietly out the front door, locking up behind himself with the spare key Mrs. Henderson had pressed into his hand over a year ago now when he and Dustin had started hanging out more.
Once he was safely inside his car where he was sure no one would hear him, he extended the antenna on the walkie, dialing in to the correct frequency.
“Robin. Robs, are you there?”
No answer.
“Robin, pick up. Hello?”
Still nothing. Steve sighed, leaning back in his seat, before pressing and holding the transmit button once again.
“Robin. Robinrobinrobinrobinrobinrobinrob—”
“What. Can you possibly need to talk to me so badly about?” crackled a distinctly sleepy voice from out of the speaker.
“Oh, good, you’re awake.”
“Yeah, now I am. No thanks to you, dingus. Besides, you’re not even using proper walkie etiquette. What would our strange child friends say?” Robin tsked, her voice husky from exhaustion.
“Robin, have you seen the news today?” he asked, not even bothering to call her out on her own improper “walkie etiquette.”
“No,” she replied back, all grogginess gone from the sound. “What’s happening? Steve, where are you right now?”
“I’m fine, Robs,” he soothed, hearing her start to wind herself into a panic. “Just, I’m coming to get you. I’m on my way now. Can you tell Nancy to call Jonathan and that we’re coming to her? I’m gonna start driving so I can’t call her.”
“Steve—” Robin began, before cutting herself off. She probably had about a thousand questions for him, but thankfully all she did was sigh and say instead, “I’ll give her a call. Meet you on the corner in 10?”
Steve nodded before remembering she couldn’t see him, and quickly replied, “Yep.”
“Okay, Steve. See you soon.” She paused, the walkie still crackling as she held down the transmission. Then, a slight smile on her voice audible even through the garbled speaker, she said, “Over and out.” The walkie went silent and Steve rolled his eyes, shifting his car into gear as he drove off.
Ten minutes later, Steve watched from the corner of her street as Robin practically tumbled out of her bedroom window, landing gracelessly on the grass before running over to him. She was wearing a bandana over her mouth and nose, which he rolled his eyes at affectionately as she swung herself into the passenger seat.
“You know we were breathing this stuff in for like, hours and hours, right? And so far none of us have turned into some weird Upside Down mutant.”
It was Robin’s turn to roll her eyes at him, as she scoffed and pulled a spare bandana out of her bag. “I thought you might say that, dingus,” she said, shoving the bandana, blue with white paisley print, into his chest before strapping herself in. “I also know that Dustin told me Hopper nearly died down in those tunnels because he breathed too much of this stuff in and passed out. And as far as I know, we don’t have a way to differentiate between poisonous dust particles and non-poisonous dust particles. Plus, we still don’t know the long term effects those particles could have on us, even if they’re not immediately harmful. I’m not taking my chances. And neither should you,” she finished with a little huff, sitting back in her seat.
“Yeah, whatever,” Steve snarked, but he took the bandana and draped it over his shoulder for easy access. “Did you call Nance?”
Robin side-eyed him. “Yes, I called Nance,” she replied, emphasizing the nickname with a little flutter of her eyelashes. Steve ignored her and began to drive, heading down the familiar roads towards the Wheelers’ house.
When she didn’t get a response to her jab, Robin continued on. “Nancy said she’d call Jonathan and get him over to her house. I’m honestly a bit surprised he’s not there already, you’d think they’d be attached at the hip after spending months apart, but I guess nothing accounts for the end of the world…” She trailed off, looking out the window at the perpetual gray sky, little flecks of dust settling on the trees.
Yet another victim of the apocalypse seemed to be Jonathan and Nancy’s relationship. There had been a certain tension in the way Nancy would talk about him for months, but most everyone, Steve included, had assumed she had just missed him. But now that Jonathan was back, it seemed like they had bigger problems than just distance. And if all of them didn’t have much bigger problems, namely, the apocalypse, maybe Steve would have asked Nancy about it. It seemed like they were finally both in a place with their own relationship where they could talk to each other beyond awkward small talk, even if most other people in their lives read that as them being desperate to swap spit again. Any other time, Steve would have loved the opportunity to reconnect with Nancy. But, again, the apocalypse.
Robin was uncharacteristically quiet for a little while, staring out the window. Normally, car rides were full of her endless chatter, typically even more so when she was nervous. The silence was jarring and disruptive in Steve’s ears.
“Rob,” he ventured. “You OD over there?” He tentatively reached out and placed his hand on her thigh.
“No,” she murmured softly. “Just thinking.” She continued to stare out the window, but her hand came down to squeeze Steve’s where it still rested atop her leg. A squeeze that said, I’m here, I’m alright. Steve kept his hand there for the rest of the drive, only lifting it to shift gears as needed.
They arrived at the Wheelers’ without much event, Steve electing to park on the street out front rather than in their driveway, which was taken up already by a gaudy, yellow pizza van.
“I guess Jonathan’s friend is here too,” Steve mused as they walked towards the door.
“Yeah, Argyle, right?” Robin asked, Steve shrugging in response. “He seemed cool. Totally weird, and definitely stoned, but cool.” Steve hummed in agreement.
They reached the pristine white door, which was immediately thrown open by Nancy before either of them had the chance to knock. Nancy ushered them in hastily before shutting and locking the door behind them.
“My mom doesn’t want the dust in the house,” she said by way of explanation, answering their odd looks. “And, frankly, neither do I. Come on, the boys are downstairs.” And with that she turned away and descended the stairs, leaving Steve and Robin still removing their shoes in her entryway.
They reached the basement together to find their suspicions confirmed; Jonathan was perched on the arm of the chair his friend Argyle was sprawled across, both of them looking exhausted. Strangely, Argyle seemed more comfortable in the Wheelers’ basement than Jonathan did, Jonathan on the edge of his seat like he was ready to run at any moment. That, compounded with the fact that Nancy was on the opposite side of the room pacing back and forth and pointedly avoiding looking at their chair, only served to heighten Steve’s suspicion that something wasn’t working with the two of them. He shared a look with Robin that suggested she was thinking the same thing, before she awkwardly cleared her throat and stepped forward.
“So, is someone finally going to tell me what this is all about? So far all I have to go on is a cryptic phone call from Steve.” Steve sighed at her before looking around at the three others in front of him.
“Did you guys see the news this morning?” he asked. Predictably, all of them aside from Nancy shook their heads, Robin with a muttered, “Since when did you even watch the news?” that earned her a slight glare from him before he turned back to where Nancy was wearing a hole through the carpet with her pacing. She looked at him intently, steely blue eyes boring into his own as she stopped moving and instead folded her arms across her chest.
“It’s clearly something to do with him,” Nancy said, her emphasis making it clear to all of them who she was talking about. Steve nodded in response, still meeting her eyes even as he felt Robin tuck herself a little closer into his side.
“It was only a matter of time,” he replied softly, reaching out to tangle his fingers with Robin’s almost subconsciously.
“Stupidly, I thought we’d have longer,” Nancy muttered, shoulders hiking up around her ears and hands clenching white-knuckled around her elbows. “I should’ve known better.”
“It’s okay, Nance, all of us were hoping it would be longer. There was no way to know when it was coming.” She gave a small nod and her shoulders relaxed minimally, Steve’s heart swelling with the irrational urge to cross the room and wrap her up in a hug, her small frame enclosed in his arms. If it had been Robin he would have done it in a heartbeat, but he wasn’t sure where exactly the boundary lay with Nancy anymore. Besides, he forcibly reminded himself, Nancy didn’t need anyone to hold her together and comfort her. She was probably the strongest of the lot of them, and she certainly didn’t need saving from the danger she’d faced down arguably more times than any of the rest of them. He settled for pulling Robin closer to him instead, and trying to convey to Nancy through his eyes alone that she wasn’t somehow at fault for this. She finally rewarded him with a small smile before darting her eyes away.
“Still,” she continued, standing up straight as an arrow to address the rest of the room, “we need to come up with a plan. We’re probably the only ones who can actually do anything constructive right now.”
In their shared chair off to the side, Jonathan and Argyle, who had been turning their heads from Nancy to Steve and back like they were watching a tennis match rather than a conversation, began furiously whispering to each other. After a few seconds, in which Nancy’s eyebrows climbed steadily higher towards her hairline, Argyle’s hand slowly raised into the air as he glanced at Nancy, (rightfully) deciding that she was the authority figure in the room.
“Dude,” whispered Jonathan, tugging his hand back down. “You don’t need to do that. Just ask.”
There was silence for a moment, before Argyle tentatively began in his California drawl, “Right, uhh sorry to interrupt, my dudes, but what exactly are we talking about right now? Did I miss the part where someone actually explained what’s on the news or do you all just have a weird mind connection?” His mouth opened in a little “o” before he turned to Jonathan. “Dude, you have to tell me if you’re all secretly superheroes too like your freaky sister.” Jonathan looked fondly down at his friend before sighing in exasperation and turning expectantly back to the room at large. Steve felt more than heard as Robin breathed a short laugh into his shoulder.
Steve tugged Robin by the hand with him to sit on the bottom of the basement stairs as Nancy moved into the center of the room, taking a deep breath before launching into an explanation of the killings that had been on the news. Noticing Robin’s subtle shaking against his side, he squeezed her hand tight. His eyes drifted around the room, idly taking in details as he let Nancy’s words wash over him and retreated into his own thoughts.
When he was in high school, Steve had an English teacher, Mr. Adams, who was obsessed with symbolism and intention in that particularly annoying English teacher way. He remembers specifically being assigned some old book that he hadn’t bothered actually reading, and coming into class the next day to Mr. Adams rambling on and on about the “significance of absences” and “what the greater implications are for the overall narrative” or something like that. At the time, Steve had dismissed it as inconsequential, because who cared about what wasn’t there when there was already so much going on? Who could pay attention to the lack of father figures when you had to track the different meanings of each flower mentioned in the story while also keeping up with the plot? But now he found himself coming back to it.
The thing was, there were more and more absences to notice in their lives, each one leaving behind a gaping black hole where they had once stood. First it had been Barb who, in her death, had sucked up Steve and Nancy’s barely-formed relationship and spit it back out broken and unsalvageable. Then Bob, who Steve hadn’t really known at all, but whose death had extinguished the bright spark that was Joyce Byers for nearly a year. And then Billy, who’d left as much damage in his death as he had in his life, leading Max down a spiral so deep that no one could reach her. And of course Hopper, who wasn’t really dead after all but had left all of them shaken and in varying states of despair and disarray.
And now. Now Steve felt like he had two gaping black holes on either side of him, each yawning wider and wider and threatening to swallow him whole while he barely managed to keep his balance on the thin strip of sturdy ground beneath his feet. On one side were two images superimposed on one another. A girl with a skateboard tucked under her arm, lightly freckled face split into a grin as some sarcastic comment left her lips, long red hair streaming out behind her. In sharp contrast, laid over top: the same girl, motionless and deathly pale in a hospital bed, covered in casts and bruises. Steve missed Max so much it hurt, taking him almost by surprise. What he wouldn’t give for a biting comment from her, flaying him open and airing out his faults for the world to see, if only for proof that her spitfire spirit was still in there somewhere. Instead, he found himself by her hospital bed, straining to hear her breath, the steady beep of the heart monitor sometimes the only proof that she was still there.
And yet, Steve refused to give up on her. He refused to open the letter that he’d left on his desk at home, the letter he was instructed not to read until after she was gone. Because opening it now felt like a betrayal, it felt like accepting defeat. If he opened that letter now, he was admitting that there was no hope for Max, he was admitting that he thought she would never wake up. But if anyone was going to survive this, it would be Max. Steve wasn’t ashamed to admit that Max was one of the strongest people he’d ever met; certainly much stronger than himself. The least he could do was sit by her side and hold her hand, and keep proving, every day, that he hadn’t forgotten her. That he believed in her. And so he pushed on, avoiding the gaping space she was meant to occupy through sheer spite and force of will.
On his other side, however, the absence was much more murky and turbulent, swirling faster the closer Steve tried to look. Steve would sometimes swear he felt the light brush of dark curls over his shoulder, the slight smell of cigarettes following him through his already haunted dreams. He sometimes wished he had shown more interest in Dustin’s nerd game, or picked up a heavy metal tape every once in a while, just so he could have something left from the boy who had flipped his world on its head before being taken from them all too soon. The space where Eddie Munson should have been was cold and empty, a sharp contrast to his larger-than-life presence and contagious warmth. Steve often found himself wondering how someone he’d known for such a short time could have taken up so much space in his mind, so much so that he was left stumbling, leaning into a body that was no longer there.
Steve had kept the vest Eddie leant him, now ruined and splotchy with blood. He had cleaned it as well as he could and tried to give it to Dustin, only for Dustin to shove it away with a dry sob and a shake of his head. So now the vest rested on the desk chair in Steve’s empty room, yet another ghost haunting the Harrington residence. Steve couldn’t bear to have it with him at the Hendersons’, but at the same time it was impossible to even think about throwing it away. After all, it was the one remnant he had of this boy who was taken from the world too soon, lost to the darkness before he had the chance to truly spread his own bright light.
And Eddie had been so bright. Steve remembered picking up Dustin from high school in his first week, the usual freshman weariness after a long day of sitting through classes and getting hip-checked into lockers replaced by a strange giddiness. His grin was so wide Steve was afraid his lip would split, as he raved to Steve about the senior boy who had offered them a place to sit in the cafeteria, an exclusive membership into his totally epic D&D club (Dustin’s words, not Steve’s), and a safe space free of bullies and fear. A space where everyone was free to be as nerdy as they pleased, indulging in their interests without fear of being made fun of, aside from some light friendly teasing. Dustin couldn’t stop talking about how cool Eddie was, and how awesome his campaigns were, and how most of the other freshmen hadn’t even made friends with sophomores at that point, but they were friends with a senior.
Of course Steve was jealous, jealous that he couldn’t provide those things for Dustin and the other boys, couldn’t be their senior friend watching out for them in the hallways, the friend they would run home to their parents and brag about. But secretly, deep down, Steve was also grateful. As a reformed asshole jock, Steve was well aware of the bullying scene in high school, although from the other side of the conflict. Hell, he had probably bullied Eddie a few times, or at least stood by and allowed it to happen. But he had also watched as Eddie built up a persona around himself, becoming the very thing people accused him of, turning the word “freak” from a pointed barb to a badge of honor across his ever-present leather jacket. Steve had watched Eddie make himself a target, then watched him take others under his wing while he shouldered the brunt of the teasing and shoving and name-calling. After a while, Steve had realized that Eddie was brave. Brave, and very protective. So to have his boys in good graces with someone like that, well. On the days where Dustin would talk for hours about Eddie’s greatness, or when Mike Wheeler started to change his look every day until he was practically a mini Eddie Munson, or when Lucas would smile softly and say that even though he had missed basketball practice for the latest campaign, it had been worth it—on those days when Steve’s jealousy would spiral and his thoughts would turn desperate, he would remind himself to be grateful. He would remind himself that the boys needed Eddie, in a different way than they might need Steve, and to resent that would be nothing short of selfish. That didn’t stop him from dropping scathing remarks about Eddie from time to time, not immune to his own petty insecurities, but he liked to think those were earned after weeks and weeks of Eddie-related rants.
All this to say, Steve had already felt a strange and confusing mix of kinship and rivalry with Eddie before they had even met properly. And then they did meet, with a broken bottle pressed to Steve’s throat and a bone-deep fear in Eddie’s big, brown, doe eyes. And Steve had learned that behind all the bluster and bark, there was a sweet, frightened boy who just wanted someone to tell him he was going to be okay. And Steve had tried, he really had. Because even then, after barely a week of only running for their lives, Steve had recognized something in Eddie that didn’t exist in anyone else, something that called to him and brought him closer. Something he couldn’t stand to lose. And yet. Don’t try to be the hero. And Steve had left him there. And Eddie had given himself up. And now, in his place, was this hole.
Steve leaned into Robin as he let the others’ voices prattle on around him, various exclamations flying in one ear and out the other. Robin absently lifted her arm and titled her torso ever so slightly so that he was effectively resting on her chest, and draped her arm over his shoulder, twining her fingers with his when he reached up to hold onto her. Robin, who had been his lifeline through this, through everything since Starcourt. She was the sturdy ground that kept him from plummeting into the darkness left behind by these gaping absences, she was the light at the end of the tunnel that beckoned to him when he was ready to give up. His saving grace. Just sitting here with his head on her chest, feeling the rise and fall as she breathed in and out, was enough to center him for the time being, to bring him back into himself. He squeezed her hand gently as he began to tune back into the conversation at hand, the last dregs trickling into his consciousness.
“Dude,” Argyle was saying, eyes dragging slowly between Jonathan, still perched on the chair next to him, and Nancy, once again pacing. “That’s like, totally gnarly. You’re telling me you guys fought some fucked up dogs, and now they’re back and killing people again?” Jonathan nodded at him, the exasperation still evident in every weary line on his face. Argyle’s eyes widened and he flopped back into the chair, a long, drawn-out whisper of “Jeeeeeesus” filling the air space.
“I mean, that’s the only thing that makes sense, right Nance— uh, Nancy?” Jonathan finished with a somewhat awkward cough, turning towards Nancy.
“What else could it be?” Robin asked from above him, chiming in for the first time. “I know I never fought those bastards with you guys, but from the way you described them it sounds like it has to be the same, right? Or, y’know, maybe not the dogs, but the fully evolved form. The Demogorgon. It wouldn’t be that surprising if creatures started crawling up through those awful cracks throughout town—I’m kind of surprised it hasn’t happened already, if we’re being totally honest. And you said the Demogorgons have those huge claws. So it would make sense that they’re the ones causing this damage. Nancy, you said the news mentioned the bodies were all gouged up. Well, it sounds like Demogorgons could easily do that. And—” she cut herself off suddenly, sheepishly. Steve felt her shift underneath him and could tell without seeing that she was shrinking into herself, ruddy blush tingeing her freckled cheeks.
“Sorry,” she mumbled. “Rambling again.” And Steve’s heart cracked a little bit for her. He sat up so he could get a better look at her, keeping their hands tangled together. She was slouched against the banner of the staircase, looking down at her knees.
Nancy broke the silence first. “Robin, if you have more to say, I know we’d all love to hear it.” Steve didn’t miss the way Robin’s head shot up, the blush staining her cheeks and neck worsening as she met Nancy’s encouraging gaze.
“No, uh, that’s okay,” she stuttered out. “I’m done.” Nancy waited a moment before turning back towards the room at large, Robin almost immediately letting out a barely-audible sigh next to him before deflating like a balloon. He raised his eyebrows at her suggestively, a slight grin teasing the corner of his mouth despite the gravity of their situation. Don’t you dare, her responding glare seemed to say, ice blue eyes piercing through him until he looked away with a small huff of laughter. After all, how was he meant to survive the literal apocalypse without a bit of friendly teasing of his best friend?
Speaking of the literal apocalypse, Nancy was thinking out loud again, a habit of hers that had originally endeared her to Steve before they had started dating. He smiled fondly up at her now, allowing her to puzzle out whatever was clicking together in her brilliant journalist’s brain for the rest of them to understand.
“At first,” she began, “I agreed with Robin. I thought, ‘Oh, this must be Demogorgons. All the facts match up.’ But, then I remembered. Robin and Steve, you guys wouldn’t remember this because it was just Jonathan and me at the time. But, how did we discover that Demogorgons track the scent of blood?” At this she turned expectantly to Jonathan, who looked slightly cowed under her sharp gaze.
“Um,” he began uncertainly, before seeming to find his footing. “Oh. We saw it take that deer. Through the portal to the Upside Down.” Nancy gave a concise nod in confirmation.
“Right,” she replied. “The Demogorgon was always hunting. It didn’t seem to kill things just to kill, it was like a predator. Like a shark. Hunting for food. And so, assuming the Demogorgon didn’t somehow evolve in the last two and a half years…” she trailed off expectantly, a teacher prompting her students to fill in the blank. Robin was the first to respond, ever the teacher’s pet.
“This wasn’t a Demogorgon,” she breathed, voice scratchy with suppressed panic. Steve felt her start to shake again and scooted closer to her on the step so that their bodies were pressed entirely together, thigh to shoulder connected in one long line.
“So it was something else?” Jonathan asked from his vigilant post at Argyle’s side. Even from here, Steve could see a slight tremor in his hand, a furrow between his eyebrows. He and Nancy looked at each other, all previous awkwardness evaporating in the face of a new threat. Nancy nodded slowly, dread building in the small confines of the basement until it was thick enough to slice through.
Argyle, seemingly oblivious to the rapid deterioration of the atmosphere in the room, was the one to finally ask the question no one wanted to voice.
“So, if it’s not the Demoguy, whatever, what is it?”
No one answered.
“Shiiiiit,” Argyle breathed out. “You guys don’t know?” At Jonathan’s shake of his head, Argyle seemed to finally grasp the gravity of the situation, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees, propping his chin on his hands, looking uncharacteristically determined. “Well,” he said, making uncomfortable eye contact with everyone in the room until they were all looking at him, “Either way, we need a plan, right? So what’s the plan?”
“Clearly we need to stop it, whatever it is,” Steve answered, when no one else was making any move to speak. “We need to hunt it down, and we need to make sure it can’t hurt anyone else.”
“And how do you suggest we do that, Steve?” Nancy asked, voice cold enough to bite, before wincing slightly and flashing him an apologetic look.
“Well, we start with the bodies,” he replied, acknowledging her apology with a small nod. “See if we can find anything there, any tracks or footprints or something like that. And then we follow it, hunt it down, kill it.” Even as it came out of his mouth he knew it was too easy, but at least it was better than the absolute nothing all of the others were coming up with.
“That could work,” Nancy began, finger tapping lightly against her chin as her brow furrowed in thought. “But, if the bodies are already on the news, that means police and media and maybe even civilians will be swarming the area, if the bodies are even still there. Any footprints we might have been able to find will have been trampled by now.” She made a frustrated noise before looking up at all of them. “I think our best bet right now is to wait. No—” she held up a hand, already anticipating the noises of outrage from both Steve and Jonathan, before continuing on. “I know it’s not ideal, and yes, it likely means more people will get hurt. But, we need to see if there’s a pattern to these killings. If there’s a place the killer always goes, if there’s a time of day the killings happen, if there’s any common thread at all. That’s all we can hope for right now, and we just have to pray that we can figure this out sooner rather than later.”
Steve opened his mouth to retort, the idea of leaving innocent people to die while he sat back and did nothing unimaginable. Flashes of dark curls swept across his vision, blood speckled and lifeless against the cold, damp ground. He couldn’t imagine turning the other way again while yet more people lost their lives to this horrible beast that only he and his friends truly knew how to fight. And yet, he couldn’t see a way around it. Nancy was right. The knowledge settled in him like a stone, sinking deep into his stomach, an added weight for him to carry.
“Wait,” Robin said suddenly, looking over at Jonathan where he sat across the room. “Isn’t your step-dad kind of the only person who’s ever actually killed one of these Upside Down creatures? Like, definitely, 100% killed one. Obviously, our Wonder Girl turned one to dust, but we don’t know that it actually died, just disappeared.”
“El’s killed a few of the dogs too. And he’s not my step-dad,” Jonathan muttered, before an absolutely fearsome look from Nancy quickly shut him up.
“Either way,” Robin continued, unconcerned with the interruption, even though Nancy was still glaring daggers at Jonathan from her post across the room. Steve added that little tidbit to his catalog of weird things to be discussed after the immediate danger was averted, turning back to Robin to hear what she had to say.
“Shouldn’t we ask him for help? Or, like, I don’t know, maybe literally any adult who actually knows what they’re doing and can help us? Because clearly we are in over our heads. And, before, there weren’t any adults here who knew what they were doing, so obviously we couldn’t ask anyone. And clearly that did not end well. And now we have two very experienced monster killers right at our fingertips! It just seems like a waste to not put them to use.” Steve has to admit, she’s got a point. As much as he’d prefer to do this all on his own and not put anyone else in danger, Joyce did just get home from Russia of all places, where she’d just broken Hopper out of prison, crowing about how he had decapitated a crazed Demogorgon with a longsword. He nods along with Robin, following her gaze across the room to Jonathan who eventually sighs, giving in.
“Yeah, I guess that makes sense. He and my mom could probably both help. And my mom would kill me for doing this without talking to her first anyway.”
“Ok, so it’s decided,” Nancy said, business-like and efficient as always. “We’ll wait and see if any patterns show up in the killings, and Jonathan will talk to his mom. Then we can talk again in a few days and see where to go from there.” They all nodded, some more reluctantly than others.
“Oh,” Nancy continued suddenly, straightening up. “And, um. Let’s not tell the kids. At least for now. They all have enough on their minds.” This they all agreed on much more quickly, Steve giving an enthusiastic nod before Jonathan and Robin followed suit. Argyle continued to lounge in his chair in much the same position as before, never making it entirely clear how much he was actually retaining from this conversation.
“Ok then,” Steve said awkwardly, when it seemed like no one else had anything to contribute. “Well, uh, keep in touch, I guess. And. We’ll meet up again soon.” With that, he stood up to leave, pulling Robin with him. Robin tugged gently on his hand, halting him before he could climb the stairs.
“Steve—” she started, blush creeping up her neck. He raised his eyebrows at her, prompting her to go on. “I’m just gonna, um.” She gestured slightly with a jerk of her head to where Nancy stood behind her, her cheeks beginning to flame as Steve felt his eyebrows climb even higher. She squirmed uncomfortably under his gaze before he let go of her hand, and she darted immediately across the room towards Nancy. He watched, amused, as Robin towered over the shorter girl, leaning into her space and gesturing animatedly while rambling in hushed tones. Steve was surprised to see Nancy’s cheeks also tinged with pink as she smiled almost shyly up at Robin, and Steve tucked the entire interaction away to ruthlessly tease Robin about later before turning his eyes away.
Over by the chair, Argyle and Jonathan had both gotten to their feet, gathering the few things they’d brought with them in preparation to leave. It was now that they were standing up that Steve began to notice the strange almost gravitational pull they had on each other, always leaning towards each other seemingly unconsciously, before pulling away again just before the moment of impact. They each appeared to move with the other effortlessly, anticipating the other’s moves in a way that almost made Steve wonder if they didn’t have a telepathic bond. Then he remembered how often the kids would tease him for his “freaky twin shit” with Robin, and he supposed it wasn’t so strange after all. Jonathan had been oddly closed-lipped about what exactly had happened on their spontaneous road trip across the country, something that Steve was all too familiar with. No one other than Robin knew the true extent of what had happened beneath Starcourt, and the horror of that experience had led to an almost worryingly intense friendship. So, if Jonathan now had a slightly doped out, dreamy shadow trailing him everywhere, Steve couldn’t really fault him for it. He watched as they curved towards each other like parentheses, murmured words and light brushes of hands passed between them that no one else could decipher.
Something in Steve’s stomach twisted at the sight of his friends, a deep ache of something missing, something essential that had been lost from this dynamic before it could even be incorporated.
“Look at that. Everyone’s pairing off, huh, Harrington? And you’re left with little old me.” A warm presence at his side, pressing into his back, the light brush of long curls across his shoulder sending goosebumps across his skin. Great, Steve thought to himself. Not only were there freak killings across town and unknown dust particles filling the air, but now he was hearing voices in his head. That, or he was actually being haunted. Maybe it was some divine payback for surviving the same wounds that had killed Eddie (not that he really believed in God anymore). Or maybe the pressure of constantly fearing for his life had finally gotten to him, and he was slowly losing his mind. Steve wasn’t sure which was the better option.
A loud crackle from the table jerked Steve out of his thoughts. Jonathan and Argyle both jerked their heads up, while Nancy stiffened and Robin flinched slightly. Steve himself stayed utterly still, waiting. The crackle came again, this time more defined.
“Nancy!” A desperate warble, crackling through the static of the walkie lying in the center of the table. Nancy sprang into action, snatching it up and extending the antenna before holding down the transmission.
“Hello? This is Nancy, over.” Steve snorted to himself. Of course her “walkie etiquette” was perfect. Steve’s mirth was quickly snuffed out, however, by what followed.
“Nancy, thank God,” the unmistakable breathless voice of Dustin Henderson sniffed, sounding panicked and on the verge of tears. Steve was up on his feet and lunging to grab the walkie out of Nancy’s hand before Dustin had even finished talking, his following question of “I can’t find Steve anywhere, and he won’t answer, have you heard from him?” finishing as Steve brought the walkie up to his face to talk.
“Shit,” he muttered emphatically, thinking of his own walkie, discarded in the back seat of his car, before holding down the transmission. “Hey, hey Dustin, it’s ok, I’m here.”
“Steve?” Even through the static, Steve could hear some of the sarcastic disbelief return to Dustin’s voice. “What—” he hiccuped slightly and Steve’s heart clenched at the vulnerable noise. “You’re with Nancy?”
“Um, yeah? And Robin. And Jonathan and Argyle. We’re at the Wheelers’ house.”
“Robin’s there too? And neither of you were answering? Steve, you can’t—” he cut off again, trying to cover up the slight break in his voice, before soldiering on. “You can’t just leave. I didn’t know where you were. And I woke up, and you weren’t here, and they’re saying on the news not to go outside, and there are bodies turning up, and you can’t just leave without telling me, Steve. I didn’t know where you were,” he repeated, his voice so small by the end that Steve was nearly in tears himself, guilt churning in his stomach.
“Hey,” he said softly. “I’m sorry. I just didn’t want to wake you up. But I’m fine, I promise.”
“Yeah, well.” Dustin sniffed, a little bit of his usual snark returning to his voice. “Next time you have to tell me. I don’t care if you wake me up. Or at least, keep your walkie on you, for Christ’s sake.”
“Yeah, yeah, ok,” Steve said fondly, a smile curling his lips at the familiar attitude returning. “We’re about to head back anyway, ok? I’ll see you soon.”
“Yeah, whatever. Over and out,” Dustin finished, the line going dead.
“Alright, Robs,” Steve said with a loud sigh, passing the walkie back to Nancy before gesturing to Robin. “I guess that’s our cue. We’ll see you guys in a few days?” The others nodded, Robin walking back to him from her place at Nancy’s side.
“We should probably get going too,” Jonathan said, Argyle hovering over his shoulder. “Y’know how my mom gets. I don’t wanna keep her waiting for too long.”
“I’ll see everyone out,” Nancy said quietly as they all made their way up the stairs.
She stood in the doorway as they all left, blatantly ignoring her mom’s concern about the dust, arms wrapped around herself as first Argyle, then Steve began to pull away from her house. She looked strangely small in his mirror, more like the uncertain girl he’d first met than the strong, confident person she’d grown into. Robin, nose pressed to the window, watched Nancy until she was out of sight.
“So,” Steve ventured after a few moments of silence. “You want to tell me what all of that was back there?” Robin glared at him, yet again flushing red.
“She just needs a friend,” she said. Then, “Shut up.”
“I didn’t even say anything!” Steve exclaimed, affronted.
“Yeah, well, you thought it.”
“Ok, if you’re so wise, what exactly did I just think?”
“Oh, you know,” Robin needled. “Just your usual delusions.” A pause. “She’s straight, y’know. You of all people should be aware of that.”
“Whatever you say,” Steve said coyly, eyes firmly on the road. He couldn’t help but remember the pink flush staining Nancy’s cheeks as Robin had leaned closer to her while they were talking. It was all too familiar, something Steve remembered from back when he had first met Nancy. Only this time, it had seemed less rehearsed, less expected somehow.
“Steve,” Robin said, a sharpness to her voice that hadn’t been there a moment ago jerking him back to the conversation at hand. “Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Steve.” This time it came out dull and flat, and Steve turned to look at her. She was slouched over in her seat, hands twisting in her lap, her hair falling in limp waves around her face, concealing her expression. His heart twisted a little in guilt.
“You’re being mean,” she said softly, no force behind it and yet still hitting Steve like a punch to the gut.
“Robin…” He pulled hurriedly onto the shoulder of the road, throwing the car into park and flicking on the hazards before turning himself fully to face her. She continued to avoid his gaze, hair still covering her face. “Robin, Robs, I’m sorry,” he blurted, reaching a hand out towards her but letting it fall back into his lap again, unsure what exactly she wanted from him in this moment.
She let out a breath. “It’s ok, Steve. Just, don’t… don’t joke about stuff like that. Don’t give me false hope. Not again. Not after Vickie.” Steve thought again of Nancy’s blush, and the way she had looked about three seconds away from murdering Jonathan on Robin’s behalf. But he pushed those thoughts aside, knowing, as Robin had just pointed out, that he’d been wrong before. Vickie was still a sore subject for Robin, something that both of them tended to avoid bringing up.
“I know it’s not ok, Robin. I wasn’t thinking, and you’re right, it is mean. I shouldn’t tease about things like that. I’m sorry.”
“Well,” she turned to look at him finally, a small smile curling her lips. “At least you’re self-aware.” She reached out and placed her hand over his, giving it a little squeeze and a pat.
Robin’s overflowing capacity for kindness never failed to amaze Steve. He looked down at her ring-clad hand where it covered his, her chipped black nail polish and her chapped knuckles and the light little freckles that spiraled over her wrist and up towards her fingers.
If there was anyone he knew who deserved to be loved it was her—she deserved someone who would burn down worlds for her and then come home to tuck into bed beside her and hold her while she slept. And it’s not as though Steve wouldn’t have done all of that for her and more, but, well. They’d had that conversation before. And Steve had grown since then. Now he recognized his love for Robin as what it truly was: she was the missing piece of him that he’d never known he’d lost until he had her. But she wasn’t like Nancy had been, even if he had thought she might be at one point. And she certainly wasn’t like—
Steve cut himself off in the middle of his train of thought, forcefully severing the thread trailing through his head before it could unravel into something he wasn’t ready to confront yet. He continued to stare at his and Robin’s hands where they overlapped, her many rings shining in the dull light from the clouded-over sun through the windshield. He decidedly wasn’t thinking about a different hand, thicker fingers, larger rings, brushing through tangled hair or deftly maneuvering a pair of pliers.
“Steve?” Robin’s quiet voice jerked him out of his thoughts. He took a deep breath in through his nose before turning to her, her eyebrows bunched up in concern as she searched his face with her soft blue eyes. “I promise, it’s really ok. You don’t have to beat yourself up about this.”
“No, it’s…” he trailed off, taking another deep breath. “Sorry. It’s not about that.” Robin just looked at him patiently, expectantly. He knew that he could just take off, start driving again, and she wouldn’t push it. She was good that way, always knew when to leave things be, let him work things out on his own. She would let him come to her in his own time, if that was what he decided he wanted. Even still…
“Robin…” he whispered, hardly daring to meet her eyes. “I can’t— I can’t stop thinking—” His voice came out thin and strangled, barely making it through the barrier of his teeth. His heart was beginning to thump in his chest, so heavily he was sure Robin must be able to feel it through the hand she still rested beside his. She nudged her pinky against his comfortingly, and he stared down at the point of contact, forcing the words from him in a rush. “I can’t stop thinking about him.”
Robin made a soft, sad sound next to him, a sort of punched-out noise that filled Steve with the sudden urge to burst into tears.
“Oh, Steve…” she said, bumping their pinkies together again. Of course she didn’t have to ask who he was talking about; there was only one him these days between any of them. There was only one who they all skirted around in conversation, only one whose absence was a presence of its own in every room.
“It’s like…” he continued after a great inhale to will the tears away. “I dream about him. All the time. And then I wake up and I keep seeing his face, or thinking I smell him, which, how fucking weird is that? And every time I look in the mirror, it’s like he’s staring back at me, like we’re connected somehow, like I can’t tell where he stops and I start. And today, just now in Nancy’s basement, I swear I heard his voice, whispering in my ear. A joke for me and no one else, just like he did those few times before he— before—” At this Steve’s throat really did close up, constricting as though disallowing the impossibility that Eddie Munson had died to be spoken into existence. Even though they had all seen it, even though Steve had stared into his glassy brown eyes, all the familiar spark and warmth completely vanished. To say it aloud seemed almost a betrayal, a willingness to give up hope even in the face of so undeniable a fact.
“We all miss him too, you know,” Robin’s voice came from beside him. “It’s ok to miss him. It’s ok to dream that he’s still here. He was our friend, and now he’s… gone, and that’s been hard on all of us. You’re not immune to pain, Steve, even though sometimes you might act like it. You’re allowed to be haunted by him just the same as the rest of us.”
He was our friend. But that was part of it, wasn’t it? Maybe, for Steve, there was something else there, something he was barely able to admit to himself.
“I just sometimes feel…” he began, not quite sure himself where he was going. “Maybe I would’ve wanted… Like, maybe if things had been different…”
Steve thought about how Eddie’s hands were smaller than his own, but no less capable. He thought about the matching scars splayed across their torsos, Eddie’s running deeper than Steve’s, cutting him down while Steve continued on. He thought about Eddie leaning into his space just to fluster him, how Eddie would take the time to explain things to Steve in a way that no one else ever had. He thought of his dream of the winnebago, and how Eddie had been picking up lost kids in the cafeteria since before they’d ever met.
“Steve,” Robin said from next to him, her voice gentler than he’d maybe ever heard it. He turned to face her finally to find unshed tears in her eyes, a small, sad smile on her lips. He let her look at him, let her see all the things he had left unsaid, let her read him like he knew she could. “I’m so sorry, Steve,” she said, her voice wavering slightly as she squeezed his hand again. He just nodded at her, not trusting himself to speak.
They sat like that for a bit, holding each other’s hands in his car on the side of the road, before Steve finally turned back to the wheel.
“I should probably get back before Dustin goes absolutely ballistic,” he huffed with a laugh he didn’t feel. Robin just nodded, pulling her hand away so he could shift gears and navigate back onto the road. They drove the rest of the way back to Robin’s house in silence, him parking on the corner once again as she left him with a lingering kiss to his forehead before clambering back in through her bedroom window. Then he drove back to the Hendersons’ house, steeling himself before walking through the door.
As soon as the door opened, he was crushed into a suffocating hug, a small, curly head burying itself in his chest. Steve wrapped his arms just as tight around Dustin’s slightly trembling form, grounding them both in the entryway of his house.
“Don’t ever do that again,” Dustin mumbled into Steve’s shirt.
“Sorry, bud,” Steve murmured back. “I’ll make sure to keep you in the loop next time.”
“You’d better,” sniffed Dustin, pulling back to give Steve a disapproving glare and wagging a finger in his face. “I’m holding you to that, Harrington.”
And despite everything, despite the dust in the air and the dead bodies and the ghosts haunting each and every room, despite the still-healing scars in his sides and the mental wounds that might never go away, despite it all, Steve smiled.