Chapter Text
It was strange, seeing the Harrington home bustling.
Once, perhaps, it wouldn’t have been quite so odd a sight, a sensation --- back when the Harrington parents’ absences had been exploited fully and regularly in the name of a near-innumerable number of parties --- but those days had passed long ago, in time with the waning of high school and of the King’s fame and of innocence regarding the interdimensional horrors lingering just beyond Hawkins as the world knew it. Now, the halls had stood empty for long enough that filling them felt... surreal, albeit in a good way.
No doubt, Steve should have been focused less on that than on the real problem --- on trying to puzzle out what they needed to do and how they needed to do it --- but he couldn't quite manage it. Kept getting distracted by the sound of Nancy and Robin talking in his kitchen; by the sight of Dustin sitting, cross-legged, in front of an expensive coffee table covered by glossy Polaroids; by the knowledge that Jonathan had just walked down the hall in quest of a bathroom that hadn’t been used in months. (Admittedly, his sidetracked thoughts weren't that big a deal anyway; Steve was under no illusions about the fact that he would not be making any great breakthroughs in the matter at hand, would not be solving anything. Besides, the whole group was basically just waiting anyway, and had been ever since Mike radioed in to say that they were done and on the way back.)
When the rest of the party did arrive, they announced themselves with a rapid barrage of knocking and tense hellos given as afterthought more than they were genuinely. “Lucas and Max aren’t coming,” Mike said after, slipping past Steve and already walking down the hall as the words left his lips. (Steve spared a moment to wonder how the hell the kid could possibly know where said living room was --- he didn't think the kid had ever actually been there --- and then chalked it up to a willingness to wander around until he found out because nothing else made any semblance of sense.) Mike's eyes fixed worriedly on Will even as he walked away, though there was nothing urgent about the look to have made it too worrying. (Yet.) “Dustin here yet?”
Steve nodded, though the kid was turned away and halfway out of the room already. “Yeah, living room,” he tried, and he appreciated the nods that Will and El gave him in acknowledgement, even though they were leaving too, before he even got the door shut behind them. A sarcastic grumble was, honestly, deserved at that point; he didn't begrudge himself the frustration as he allowed the door to click closed and locked it. “‘Thanks for having us over, Steve.’ ‘Sure, twerps, no worries.’” He shook his head, huffed out a breath. “Some manners would be nice, is all I’m sayi--”
“Thank you.”
It was light, from behind him, and Steve jumped before he could think about whether he knew the voice. Jolted around, too. Only then recognised that it was just El, standing quietly several feet away from the doorway he was quite certain she had just walked through, and tried to calm the racing of his heart. “Christ, kid, what are you, a ninja?”
She shrugged, then walked back through the doorway after Mike.
Steve wasn’t exactly surprised, but he didn't have much to say, either. Just followed, eventually, amused and bemused at the same time.
– – –
“If the gates are open, why isn’t Vecna here?”
Steve frowned at the question, both at the thought itself and at the brain-bending process of trying to puzzle it out. Frowned even more at the thought that, “I mean, do we?” Responded to the chorus of inquiring looks by restating the question: “Do we know that he’s not here already?”
Robin tilted her head, first in consideration and then in agreement. “We don’t know what he’s up to. It’s certainly possible.”
“And,” Nancy added, “even if he’s not, there’s no telling whether that’ll last.” She looked about as troubled as Steve felt, one hand fiddling with a curl of her hair. “If he’s just… biding his time, or healing, he could be trying to come through any day now. We don’t know anything about his plans or his timing, and we only slightly have a sense of his powers--"
Dustin, frowning to one side, finally cut in (and, frankly, Steve was more than a little surprised it had taken him so long, since he'd been sitting to one side in half-anxious, half-sullen silence since they'd started to chat). “Does it matter?”
“Yeah? Kinda does?” A nervous laugh chased Robin's words, then overtook them. “Right? I mean--"
“If he’s here, he’s here. If he’s not, he’s not.” The kid would almost sound bored except for how tense he was holding himself, how fierce his expression had become, how hurriedly he fiddled with the ring on his finger. “We can’t predict what he’s doing, so we can’t overthink it either.”
“I don’t--"
“I’m serious. We’ll just end up backing ourselves into a corner. If he’s here, then we haven’t heard from him so he might as well not be.” A beat, wherein his eyes roamed about the room: first to Robin, then Steve, then Nancy, then his ring, then back again, with breaks for the others present. Eventually, and more quietly, he added, “It doesn’t matter if he’s actually here if you let him into your head either way.”
Nancy didn't entirely seem to disagree, but she still returned fire with, “And if it’s a trap?”
“We’ll figure it out,” Dustin said, and he didn't wait for a response. “We’re wasting time.”
“We have to plan.”
“No, we have to find a way into the Upside Down. You want to make a plan because you want to waste time.”
“Dustin.” Steve really didn't want to snap at the kid --- felt for him, really --- but it wasn't exactly something that could be allowed to slide either. Definitely couldn't be allowed to slide with stakes as high as they'd become. “Take a breath.”
“No, Steve, this is ridiculous--" A pause. He broke off. Looked around one final time. Turned on his heel and walked off, a careless, “Never mind,” tossed over his shoulder.
The silence that followed is long and awkward (or, perhaps, short but rendered long by virtue of its awkwardness). Either way, Steve was the one to cut it off. “I’ll go after him.”
– – –
Steve was not exactly surprised to find Dustin sitting a few rooms away, back hunched as he perched near a window, eyes more distant even than the scenery beyond the glass, but the sight was a melancholy one and it still managed to make Steve feel even worse about the whole situation. Played havoc with the sinking feeling that's resided firmly in his gut for days now, with every giant revelation dropped into their laps. "Hey."
The kid didn't react, save perhaps for slightly more here-and-now presence flickering back into his eyes. He certainly didn't turn away from the window.
An unfortunate development, though it still wasn't exactly a surprising one; Steve just wasn't entirely sure how grand a motivational speaker he could make. "Listen, this has all happened really fast. Like. So fast." Great job, Steve. So profound. "I know you're probably reeling because, you know--"
"Because Eddie's alive and we left him there?"
"Uh..." Steve blinked. Frowned. "Yeah."
"Then yeah. Reeling." Dustin still hadn't turned, hadn't looked back. He was undeniably back in the present, for his eyes were fixed on something more directly and visibly out the window, but, if he was anything like Steve --- which he was --- his thoughts hadn't left the past. "Just because no one else cares--"
"Hey!" Steve didn't so much walk closer as he did stumble, feet carrying him before he could think better (or differently, anyway). "I care."
Dustin did at least pause at that; in fact, it was enough to bring his eyes back towards Steve for one long, assessing moment. "Yeah," he said eventually, and it was even half-genuine, beneath something like exhaustion and something like frustration. "But they don't and I can't--"
"That's not fair." An attempt at interruption found itself halted before it could really take off, thanks largely to Steve's lifted hand. "No, kid, you listen. You're smart at a lot, but if there's one thing I know, it's people." Another interruption attempt, another waylaying hand gesture. "I get it. You're hurting--"
He did get interrupted, then, though only by a scoff, so he counted it as an overall win.
"--and you're angry. But the others aren't much better off." The kid still looked doubtful --- mouth twisted into a moue of discontent, eyebrows drawn together, expression slightly scornful --- so he adapted. Changed course. "It was Nancy's plan, you know." The words felt wrong to say --- after all, it had been, in a sense, a plan designed by all of them... or, at least, Steve felt entitled to at least some of the blame --- but he said them. Tried to sound like he meant them. Did, in a way, because he'd always been pretty good at reading her, and, justified or not, he knew what he saw in her eyes: guilt and fear in a complicated mix all too familiar from whispered conversations about Barbara Holland and the demogorgon in his backyard. "She's just as upset as you. But she feels responsible, too, and now we're all looking to her to decide what to do next, and it's... it's not easy, Dustin. She's worried she's gonna lose someone else."
For a moment, he looked... understanding? Sympathetic? Something between the two, maybe. It didn't stop him from fighting back --- something that, to Steve's eternal frustration and equal relief, didn't seem liable to ever change --- but it was there, and it was better. "So what? The longer we wait, the longer Eddie's there, alone--"
"I know. And we're going to help, okay? We're going to get him outta there." He hoped his tone didn't let on just how much that was optimism more than true certainty, how much he was praying the future wouldn't make a liar out of him on that, too. "But we're going to do it right."
Dustin didn't look happy, per se. He crossed his arms and looked out the window, face mostly hidden by his hair except where Steve could see his eyes, gazing off into the distance with ferocity enough that Steve half-wondered whether he could see into the Upside Down just like that. And then he nodded, grudgingly but genuinely. "Fine."
"Fine?"
Another nod. "Fine."