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It’s three weeks before Nancy and Jonathan’s graduation when it comes back.
No one’s surprised anymore; monsters come out of the woodworks like clockwork. They know how to handle it, know how to kill the demoshits.
Still. Nancy wishes they wouldn’t interrupt her time with her boys.
They’re in the back of Steve’s car. It’s stuffy, there is three of them, but they make it work, having spent enough nights in the backseat to be used to all the bending and stretching. Steve’s dutifully unbuttoning Nancy’s shirt from behind her as she works Jonathan’s belt, grinning at his deep groan as her fingers ‘accidentally’ brush against his crotch. She’s seconds away from teasing him, lifting her head up from nipping his neck when there’s ruffling from behind the car, the sounds of leaves scattering.
“What was that?” Nancy asks, suspicious. She squints at the breath-covered window, unable to make out anything from the darkness.
“Probably nothin’. Kids come here all the time, right?” Steve says from behind her, his breath hot against her neck.
Steve’s voice, smooth and out of breath, is enough to reassure her, give her hope that maybe she can just be a normal teenager for once —
There’s a loud, piercing wailing somewhere behind them, the sloshing sounds of legs—maybe tentacles?—against the ground, definitely growing louder with each passing second.
“Of fucking course,” she growls, bracing a hand against Jonathan’s chest when she feels him start underneath her.
“Can’t go one year without this shit, can we?” Jonathan mumbles.
Nancy carefully slides off of Jonathan’s lap in the cramped area, slowly opening the door. “I have a gun in my purse. Steve?”
“Bat’s in the trunk. Got an extra gun in the glove department. You know how to use it, Jonathan?” There’s a playful edge to Steve’s words as he climbs out the other side, flipping the trunk open.
Jonathan scoffs as he reaches across the passenger seat, fiddling with the glove department. “Think you of all people know how well I can—”
“You two are really going to flirt right now? ” Nancy interrupts, swiftly turning the safety on her gun off. It’s cold between her fingertips, months since she’s held it, and like a switch, she feels safer. Confident.
Even through the pitch-black, she can make out their blushes and fights back the urge to kiss them stupid. “C’mon,” she says, jerking her head in the direction of the sound. “Let’s put a cap on this thing before it gets the chance to wreak any havoc.”
The flashlight in Jonathan’s hand clicks and together, side-by-side, they march forward, into the light.
She’s done this a handful of times now, enough that she’s used to the shots of her gun that it doesn’t startle her, that she knows damn well how to bandage a wound and wash a blood stain, that she has a fucking protocol. But her heart still pounds, her lower lip quivers, and her legs feel weak, like they could topple over any second.
It’s the sound of Jonathan and Steve’s heavy breathing that soothes her.
She can do this.
“What the fuck? ” Steve hisses, and they follow his view, staring at a trail of black—black blood? But then she sees him struggle to take another step forward, the goo sticking to the bottom of his shoe, refusing to let go. Jonathan has to pull him forward, Steve nearly crashing into him.
“Careful, it’s almost everywhere,” Jonathan warns just as Nancy nearly steps into another line of slime. She scowls—he’s right. Haphazard, dark lines strewn everywhere on the ground, even on trees, branches. If whatever made that noise finds them, they can’t run, not really. She tries not to think about it, gripping her gun a little tighter.
“What, has it just been circling the woods this entire night? What is it doing?”
“Waiting?” Jonathan guesses, sending a shiver down Nancy’s spine.
“Jesus.”
Jonathan tips his flashlight up the length of a tree, and Nancy swallows, hard. Teeth-shaped indents decorate the bark, the branches limply hanging off the side. Like the ground, the bark’s covered in charcoal slime, but the bite-marks are the horrifying part.
“We’re not freaking out. No freaking out. Not at all,” Steve says, sounding very much like he’s freaking out, his voice shaking and his eyes wide.
As Jonathan reaches to touch his shoulder comfortingly and Nancy opens her mouth to soothe him, there’s a deep, low grumble from behind them and the sound of something heavy dropping onto the ground.
They all shriek, jumping backwards. A split second of fear has her fumble to pull the trigger when it leaps out towards Jonathan, Nancy nearly dropping her gun from how startled she is. The thing sends him reeling and a horrifying lurch in her stomach as his body— his still body —soars through the air.
“ No! ” She’s not sure if the scream came from her or Steve or the both of them, an all too painful thud resonating in her ears before Nancy’s firing off towards the thing, getting a better look at it. It’s large, a dark green, covered in gunk, its bead-like eyes glowing in the dark. Large, shapeless arms—those must definitely be tentacles—reach out for them, and she jerks backwards so fast she nearly falls.
Nancy whooshes out a breath, trying not to cry even as her eyes water, and pulls the trigger with determination.
But she can’t see anything. Everything is consumed with black; the flashlight must have broken with Jonathan’s fall.
She’s firing off, trying to burn her panic as the thing’s gargled screeching pierces her ears again and again. It’s slinked off—she tries desperately to find its eyes, but she can’t. She just shoots, praying that she’ll at least wound it.
“Jonathan?” Steve’s mangled cry immediately stops her line of fire. If she hits either of them, unless, unless she already did—
“Steve? Where are you? I can’t—where is it?” Nancy hates how her voice breaks, how utterly childlike she sounds, sobbing as she stands completely still. This wasn’t supposed to happen, it was right there, she had a clear shot! Jonathan could be dying or dead, she might’ve shot Steve, she could be next. Her mind reels and she can’t think.
She squeezes her gun tighter and tighter, the thing grumbling and snarling, the sound growing fainter and fainter. “ Steve Harrington, where—”
“Nance, wait, I think—I think I’ve got—” His voice breaks with a violent smack, over and over again and Nancy’s going to scream, she’s going to burn the entire town to the ground if—
“Fucking shit stain, I’ve got you now!” She wants to sob for a completely different reason now, knees almost giving in at the sound of her boy—alive, safe, okay —and his voice, echoing throughout the woods. He must be whacking it repeatedly with his bat because the thing grunts, coughing. She catches glimpses of its eyes and the light’s begun to dwindle.
Her body slumps and she tentatively lowers her gun. “Is it dead?”
“Think so,” Steve pants. “It’s not making noise anymore.”
There’s complete silence. All Nancy can hear is her own, ragged breathing.
“Okay,” she starts, “we need to find Jona—”
“Nancy, wait, I think it’s moved, it’s not here—”
It’s the second she takes raising her gun that’ll come back to bite her in the ass. Her head whips up and the thing charges right at her, pissed and growling, dark sludge dribbling out its mouth. She steps forward, but her foot is caught in it’s muck. When she juts her chin out— strong, Nancy, be strong —and shoots, it jumps onto her, knocking her to the ground.
Her head pounds and everything is cold, wet, slimy—
until it’s all black.
“I should’ve been faster, Jesus, I shouldn’t have let it out of my sight—”
“Steve, you did your best, okay? And it was pretty fucking good in my opinion. If you didn’t hurt that—what did you call it—”
“Jabba the Hutt looking fucker.”
“Yeah, that , it could’ve killed Nancy. Focus on that. You were good tonight.”
“You were pretty good, too.”
“Ah yes, I did a great job at getting knocked into a tree and nearly passing out.”
Nancy could listen to their easy banter forever. She wants to drift back off to sleep to the sound of their voices, until she remembers what happened, how she was definitely knocked out, not asleep. It’s like her body remembers in that moment, too, because her stomach burns as she tries sitting up, pain shooting up and down her abdomen. “‘M fine,” she mumbles groggily before either of them can rush to her side.
It’s doesn’t matter, because Jonathan leaps out of the chair propped in front of her and Steve kneels, reaching out to cup the side of her face.
“‘M okay,” she reiterates forcefully, “but, you know, don’t stop holding my face.”
Steve chuckles and she takes a good look at his face, cuts and bruises scattered over his cheeks and forehead. Nothing too bad, definitely not worse than the state Jonathan left him when he’d punched him from what feels like a million years ago. “Tell me where it hurts.”
“It hurts nowhere.”
“Stop being stubborn.”
“Not being—”
Jonathan’s fingers carefully hike up her shirt, which is forever ruined with her blood mixed with that thing’s spit, thanks, revealing the blooming bruise darkening the corner of her hip. The wound hasn’t closed up, she thinks as she traces her finger down the teeth indents, hissing immediately when she presses down.
“Oh really?” Jonathan raises his eyebrows. “I’ll get some bandage.”
“It’s my fault anyway,” she mutters as Jonathan darts to the kitchen. “I hesitated, I nearly dropped my gun, god, I shouldn’t have—” Nancy stops at Steve’s smile, curved with a hint of amusement, his fingers carding through her hair. She can’t read his expression and it frustrates her. “What?”
“For someone so smart, I cannot believe you just said something so stupid.”
“Excuse me—”
“Nancy,” Jonathan says calmly, turning round the couch and bending in front of her. It occurs to her now that she’s in his house, bleeding over his couch. She looks down, prepared to see the cushion soaked, but sees she’s laid out atop of blankets. Her boys, so smart, she internally gushes, even if she desperately wishes they didn’t have all the experience they did.
He presses a cool hand to her abdomen. “You were caught off guard. It happens, okay?”
She digs her fingers into her palm as Jonathan begins dabbing at her wounds with a cotton ball, the sting sharp and painful. Steve pulls at her fingers and intertwines their hands and she’s grateful, until she remembers she’s annoyed with them. “It shouldn’t happen,” she grits out, not meaning to snap—she’s exhausted, she’s in pain, she’s so fucking mad at herself. “I should be better. You could’ve died, Jonathan, you and Steve, you could’ve—”
Steve’s thumb brushes against her knuckle. “We’re still here, aren’t we? Very much alive and well.”
“Not going anywhere, either,” Jonathan adds, his hint of a smile managing to relieve some of the burn of the iodine. “Nancy, it’s okay. It’s all okay.”
She waits until Jonathan’s finished to sob, giving into her wobbling chin and the shine in her eyes. It’s cathartic, letting the tears she’s held in for so long fall, being held and comforted by the boys she love.
She’s cried it all out ten minutes later and now they’re all holding each other, a mess of limbs and bones on Jonathan’s couch when the front door bursts open.
“What the fuck happened to my sister?”
“Language,” Nancy says sternly, despite the warmth surging in her chest at the sight of Mike, eyebrows pulled together, a hand clenched into a fist. Will, Lucas, and Dustin follow behind him, stumbling towards the living room with varying levels of unease on their faces when they see Nancy.
“Langu—what the fuck happened? Are you okay? What were you doing in the woods in the middle of the night? ”
“Really, Mike, I don’t think they need to answer that—” Dustin coughs, shutting up when Lucas elbows him.
Steve stands up suddenly, hands braced on his hip. “Where’s Hopper? How did you dipshits get here?”
“We biked,” Will says with those Bambi eyes, and Nancy swears she sees Steve soften, adoration sparkling in his eyes. It doesn’t surprise her how soft the Byers’ make him.
“ Will! ” Mike, Dustin, and Lucas hiss in unison.
“I told you dumbasses to wait for Hop—are you not aware of how bad it looks. For the four of you. To be missing. Considering what just happened. If Hopper can’t find you—”
Dustin snorts, raising a hand defensively. “Relax, would you? We’re not that dumb. We left a note.”
Nancy and Jonathan exchange grins, snorting into the back of their hands to keep from laughing.
“A fuckin—”
“You guys are giving Steve an ulcer,” Nancy reprimands, fighting back a smile.
“How about you guys chill out in Will’s room for a sec? We’ll describe the thing we killed and everything. Just wait,” Jonathan says gently, letting out a relieved breath when they take his suggestion.
Mike looks apprehensive, mouth tugged into a frown.
"I'm fine, okay? If you think this is bad, you should've seen the monster shit," she assures him with a grin, and it's enough to make him smile and start leading them to Will's room.
Jonathan flashes Will a smile when he passes, ruffling his brother’s hair affectionately on his way down the hall.
Nancy feels about a million times lighter, watching the back of Mike’s head until he disappears into Will’s room. “They were having a sleepover?”
“Mhm. At Dustin’s,” Steve answers, situating himself at the end of the couch, next to Jonathan.
“I cannot believe you know that and I don’t. Am I that bad of a sister?”
Steve yawns, casually stretching his arm to hook it around Jonathan’s neck. “No. They got me a Walkie-Talkie and I’m physically incapable of saying no to any of them.”
They laugh together, and Nancy finds it extraordinary that even when at her lowest point, when she’s tired, aching, and bruised, Steve and Jonathan still manage to make her smile.
Power of love, she supposes.
Nancy yawns loudly, rubbing her eyes. “I might fall asleep on you,” she warns Jonathan, kissing the tip of his nose before snuggling her head against his shoulder.
“Let’s get you into a proper bed.”
Steve and Jonathan lift her, together, into Jonathan’s bed. Jonathan grabs her a pair of pajamas from his mother, Nancy promising to return it, washed, and they help her change, afterwards tucking her underneath the warm, plush comforter. Jonathan and Steve sit at the other end of the bed, Steve’s legs propped onto Jonathan’s lap, both of them watching Nancy adjust the pillow underneath her head with stars in their eyes.
“Need anything?” Jonathan asks.
“‘’M good, thanks. You guys aren’t going to sleep yet?”
“Think we’ll stay up a little longer. Until they knock themselves out,” Steve says, gesturing to the other room where they can distantly, but clearly hear the kids. “We can go, if our talking will bother you.”
“No,” she answers immediately. “It won’t.”
Nancy’s not sure how long she’s been asleep, but when she wakes up, she can still hear the kids and Jonathan and Steve are still sitting in their same positions, both of their mouths twisted into smiles at something Steve’s saying.
“Hey there,” Jonathan coos, palming her cheek, “did we wake you?”
“No,” she murmurs, leaning into his touch, “I mean, yeah. But I’ll fall back asleep in a second.”
Steve bends down, kissing her forehead. “We’ll be here when you wake up.”
“Promise?” She asks, even though she knows the answer.
“Promise,” Jonathan says.
She drifts off to sleep to the sound of of their voices, an I love you on the tip of her tongue. She’ll say it in the morning, because they’ll be here. They always will be.