Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Will thinks he doesn’t understand, but oh he does, he does.

Actually, he understands all too well, being a “loner,” a “freak” one of those “losers,” the ones with a capital L as an insult thrown at them, something to wound, the “loners” with deep seeded sadness behind their eyes, the taunts that little by little break a person down. People’s words chipping away bit by bit until you don’t have any sense of who you are, except what people tell you you are, that and no self worth.

Jonathan knows how it feels. He’s had a whole life full of it. Doesn’t expect it to change now. Not even now when he’s surrounded by people he trusts.

He’d be wrong though if he said it didn’t bother him anymore, mostly it still bothers him because it bothers his little brother, even after the talks they’ve had in the past.

He puts on a brave face for them, for his mom, who he loves greatly, and his brother, his little brother, who he knows is dealing with things at this very moment that Jonathan himself can’t fathom, his little brother, who he can’t honestly picture living without. The thought makes him feel sick.

He puts on a brave face, like he’s always done, but the truth is, Jonathan Christopher Byers is very much broken, like he’s collected splinters of his past selves from different periods in his life, and has just now jigsawed his way into piecing himself back together into the semblance of a well off, full functioning person. Even though he isn’t, that’s what he airs to everyone around him, not letting many in. And maybe he’s scared. Just maybe.

The weed used to help, cutting away the edge of all his insecurities, all the toxic abuse, the destruction of who he was, from a young age, but even that has its end in him dumping his stash with Argyle, it doesn’t give him that high anymore, not from Blunts, Joints, Spliffs, or the occasional Backwoods, it only serves to make him focus on the past, fall further into the old nightmares that haunted him in the past — and if he’s being truthful, in the present, since he walked away from the abuse, or moreover his dad just up and left, but left behind all his troubles and all his anger that had been directed all Jonathan’s life at him and his mom and his little brother. And it’s a vicious cycle that keeps on giving and going, forcing him to survive on the bare minimum, because that’s all that he can do, he can only survive, because living through everything he has, it’s not living, it’s a constant struggle.

Sometimes, the only time he feels like living is with his eye to a camera, shuttering out anything but the best in life, the things he sees that take him away from his life, and sometimes he wishes it could always be that way, living life through his camera, but even that has, in recent months, lost it’s appeal. That and the fact that he left his camera and equipment in California when they, his brother, his brother’s annoying best friend, and Argyle, went on a cross country mad dash to find his little sister, yeah, because she isn’t just Jane, El, or Eleven to him, no, she’s like the little sister he never had, but doesn’t regret getting to know. And if he was being serious, he’d do it all over again just to have the outcome it did. El becoming part of his ever expanding family. It’s a little weird at times.

There’s worry furrowing between his brow now and it’s been there since the first moment that they arrived back in Hawkins, some months or so ago, since Will started acting like — Jonathan pushes the thought from his head, no, Will’s fine, he’s going to be just fine... but Jonathan knows he isn’t, and it’s cost him countless hours of sleep, worrying for his little brother, but he doesn’t have long to think on it, since he’s being paged over a static assault on his ears from the walkie talkie that Dustin had bestowed upon him, owned beforehand by someone named Eddie.

Jonathan doesn’t know who this Eddie is and Dustin didn’t really look fit to explain, Jonathan understanding in the instant the teen’s face cracked for a second, that that Eddie probably wasn’t coming back for it, much less anything else. For Dustin’s sake, he keeps it close.

It’s Will’s voice that greets him through the haze of the general confusion in the atmosphere, the shouting of people manning the floor in the packed rooms, the startled laughter of kids, clanging pots and other objects, barking and other animal sounds, and the loud disgruntled sounds of drivers forcing their car horns to the max, and it’s almost too much for Jonathan.

It’s almost too disorientating and Jonathan almost misses the heavily worded exchange between Will and Mike, which is anything but friendly, like their usual is.

It’s just one of the many signs that alert Jonathan to the fact that something has changed, and when he thinks about it, it sends warning alarms through his mind, because Will has changed and for the first time in forever, Jonathan doesn’t know what to do about it. He feels stuck and hopeless.

It’s a false alarm, one of many they’ve had through the past month and it never stops to unnerve the young man. Anything having to do with his brother and uncertain danger will always unnerve him.

And with more than just a little uncertainty, Jonathan Byers goes about his day, helping the unsettled stragglers of Hawkins with whatever it is they need. And all the while, the Upside Down seeps into they’re world from below.

Chapter Text

He tries, but he can’t ignore the angered voices from the next room, the screaming that drifts to him from under the door, and no matter how loud he plays his cassette tapes of soft rock and roll, or the quieter tapes of old Patsy Cline, crooning Walkin’ After Midnight to him, as if the singer understands him completely, a small child who feels all too suddenly alone in the world, but — not even Patsy Cline can drown out the sound of his father’s anger or his mother’s tear stained sobbing, and the little boy is sure to have his nights haunted by the sounds, long after they fade. 

His father’s yelling at his mom now, as he’s been doing for the last hours, Jonathan’s lost count, hiding away in his room with his wide eyed baby brother. His little brother is crying and won’t stop even when Jonathan starts singing low and under his constricted breath.

Later on, Jonathan watches the door ripped open, so fast it’s almost off it’s hinges, his dad sauntering past, like everything’s fine, like nothing in the world happened and everything is fine, like Jonathan’s mom isn’t crying on the disgusting red shag carpeting, a bruise forming over her wrist, the shape of fingers against her skin. His dad grabbing for another beer.

Nothing happened, everything’s alright, she fell — Jonathan hears, but he doesn’t believe it, he sees his mother smile, fix her smile in front of the pain and look of betrayal, of loss, she slots down the smile like one of the Halloween masks Joyce presents him with months later when the holiday rolls around. 

Jonathan watches the fake monsters walk the streets, they run wild, cackle and laugh and roar into the night, but it doesn’t frighten him, it never has like it does other children his age, because the real monster is the one at home, and that monster is year round.

Jonathan doesn’t get scared by the wax masks and various costumes, those monsters don’t scare him in the slightest, because those monsters are fake, those monsters have nothing on Lonnie Byers. 

— Raised voices greet him when he gets back to Hop’s Cabin, fingers tentatively gripping the door handle, while his breaths come in short sharp gasps, mind sent miles away, years in the past, where other voices drown out those of the new. He’s good at keeping emotions bottled up, kept skin deep, but today it’s breaking through, today something just breaks in him, and years of pent up pain comes crashing through the thin wall he built against it, coming back with year’s worth of memories he can’t forget. He’s swept into a panic attack that’s been years in the making. 

Bright lights and too much sound, the crackling of The Mary Tyler Moore Show over the half broken TV set with it’s low quality picture, there’s glass on the floor and the shouting of two voices while the two young boys stand far to the side, frozen in the fight, fear all they know. 

‘I’m leaving you for good this time!’ His mom’s rushing to pack their bags, and claw like nails are digging against his skin, his wrist entangled tightly between an iron grip, his father pulling him back without thought to any injury or any pain to the small boy, his father’s yelled ‘See if I care! Be better without ya!’

It wouldn’t be better without her, without his mom, the only person he found comfort in, shelter from the storm that was always and would ever be Lonnie Byers. His mother, sheltering them from her husband’s anger, as best she could, his mother who had always tried her best to give them normal lives, his mother, who with the countless abuse had been beaten down, to a person neither recognized, who still found the strength to fight now when it mattered most. 

Joyce Byers who had stuck around through thick and thin, fearing what would happen if the subject of abuse got out, if they went to court, what would happen to her boys if Lonnie gained custody. All the sacrifices she made.

Hands finally relinquish him, he finds purchase on the table side, fear freezing him in place against his mother’s comforting form. He’s only seven and the bruise forming on his face is anything but a consultation prize for speaking up against his father in one of his dad’s unneeded rages, leveled at Jonathan’s little brother. It’s okay Will, it’s okay to cry. He’s shielding his brother, as long as he can he’ll protect him, but he knows, even at that young age that it’s the unseen cuts that scar the deepest. His father hits the table. Will is crying, can’t stop the tears, and Jonathan is frightened.

He’s shouting now, cursing this and that, Jonathan’s red rimmed eyes itch with unshed tears. He can’t cry, he won’t cry, he can’t— It’s been beat out of him with unkind words, crying in his father’s book, a weakness. Jonathan doesn’t cry, he can’t. He stands there, mother’s protective hand on his hunched shoulder, little brother beside him, eyes staring sideways towards a fist sized hole in the wall. Father’s still yelling and his mother is yelling back, he’s not ready when Lonnie lunges forward. There’s a rough grip on his arm. 

“Jonathan,” there’s a gentle pull at his sleeve, Nancy, he thinks, but her voice does nothing to pull him from the past, the shouting that’s both in the past and his present, as if both times are melded in his memory, and he stands there, eyes half lidded, shell shocked in stance, Nancy’s started worrying that he’s getting Vecna’d, he hasn’t moved, stays stock still, she’s yelling now for Will, Will who’s come around the coffee table, knocking his calf before he’s rushing out, Max beside him with her Walkman, while Will’s desperately doing anything he can to pull Jonathan back into their world. 

Max is rifling through cassette tapes, Dustin and Lucas mirroring her in their mad dash through cassettes at the coffee table, Lucas making an exasperated breath. Mike pulls himself out of fight mode just enough to start to help as best he can, panic isn’t needed now, though he’s not sure he’s listening now, panic is setting in regardless. 

Will is close enough now to see tears freely cascading down his brother’s face, and the sight scares him to no end, he’s only seen Jonathan cry about three times throughout their lives and this —

Max is yelling something at him, Mike is tugging at his arm, reiterating what Max says, and Will feels as if he’s listening to them through a deluge of water, as if he’s drowning underwater and can only hear their voices filtered through a great distance, fear constricting his throat and smothering his ability to hear, tears clouding his eyes, he makes out only a few words as Max is holding up a cassette tape and he understands in an overwhelming rush 

‘What’s his favorite song!? Will!? What’s his favorite song!?” Shallow breaths drift through the chaos, Will is hyperventilating and he can’t think , just cries out his brother’s name before his throat starts closing up. He’s not going to be able to help his brother, the brother who’s always helped him, the brother that’s protected him and — “Will!?”

Max throws her headphones to Robin, who’s suddenly materialized from somewhere and is fitting the small set over Jonathan’s ears, frantic motions, and Will is searching for a song, before Steve stops them mid panic mode and mental breakdown, snapping fingers in front of Jonathan’s blank face 

“Anybody noticed how he isn’t floating by now?” Steve assesses straightforwardly and shrugs it off “Ehhh, maybe Vecna’s trying something new , switching it up, or maybe this isn’t what it looks like, just a guess,” 

The rescue mission grinds to an abrupt halt, all eyes on Steve Harrington.

“Soooo, you’re saying that he’s not actually being Vecna’d right now?” Dustin mutters seconds later while Mike dodges a look from Nancy as he waves a hand in front of Jonathan’s half lidded eyes 

“Huh,” Mike is the first to look away towards Jonathan, his eyes frowning at the corners in concern “Sooo, what exactly is this? I mean, if it’s not Vecna — uhhh, Vecna-ing him?” 

Chapter Text

Will’s worried, he doesn’t have any clue what to do, and he’s pretty close to yelling again. It’s so out of character that it’s worrying to him.

“Maybe he’s just having a ‘sode?” That’s Dustin posing a question that honestly makes the thin resolve that Will is barely holding onto, crack a bit more with pressure.

“Jonathan doesn’t have ‘sodes, he doesn’t even have episodes,” Will bites out, eyes boring a hole in the coffee table as they’re all arranged around it, Steve having carefully maneuvered Jonathan to the sagging couch.

Mike’s clearing his throat and catching El’s eye from his peripheral vision where she’s sitting a few feet to his right “Well, whatever this is, can we all agree that it isn’t Vecna?”

“I’m pretty sure it’s just a really bad panic attack, guys,” Max voices, still rifling through cassette tapes and picking out a busted up cassette without a title that she pops unceremoniously into the Walkman player “Let’s try this,”

Will can’t believe it, he just can’t, and shakes his head, knees pulled up to his chest as he watches his older brother for any sign of anything really “Jonathan doesn’t have ‘sodes, he doesn’t have panic attacks, he doesn’t have any of those things.” He states, taking a glass of water from Mike’s hand and thanking him softly.

Matthew Wilder’s classic ‘83 hit Break My Stride is just about over when Jonathan moves and opens his eyes, fixing them on the lines on his palm before he glances over at his little brother, instantly forming his downturned lips into a wide smile while he forces himself into a calm evasive look “Hey buddy, was the music really necessary? You couldn’t find any Bowie or The Clash?” He’s taking slow calming breaths though he feels them cram in his throat, blocked up with fear, so he clears his throat.

He can’t let him see him so broken, he can’t let him know, it’s been Jonathan taking care of Will, forever, and he’s not going to have it any other way, but he can’t let Will or anyone else for that matter, see him so broken, so he slots down a mask over the broken bits, and smiles “Found your favorite at the place today...” 

Max switches off the music while everyone else is staring at Jonathan. 

For a long time no one speaks. No one really knows what to say in the first place, so after awkward moments have ticked by, where the world’s worst staring match boils down to everyone’s eyes fixed on Jonathan, Dustin decides to break the ice with ‘So does that happen often or was that like a freaky one time possession thing? Cause I really don’t want to deal with that again, no offense’ he states the last part as he half turns to Will, before sliding back to his criss crossed applesauce position on the carpet.

For a half of a second, Jonathan thinks it might be easier writing it off as just another run of the mill ‘possession’ but he decides better on it, the look on his brother’s face making him feel slightly — okay, very guilty. Dustin leans forward, snapping Jonathan out of his dark study of the coffee mug rings on the dark wood coffee table, and he looks Jonathan up and down suspiciously.

‘So is this a Carrie type situation or The Exorcist type possession? What are we talking here?’

There’s a scratch of nails over his palm, an old habit that hides nervous energy and Jonathan sighs slightly, as if Dustin and the other’s concern is wearing him out “We aren’t,” he’s mutters slowly, letting the words fall from his lips as a rough hand reaches up and rakes down the lines of his face “We aren’t talking about this, about it, everything is fine, it’s fine,” the last two words are sent directly to Will with a reassuring look that Jonathan is sure does little to reassure anyone, let alone his little brother.

“I’m fine,” it sounds so hollow, a tape recorded over and over, playing on repeat, he knows it does, knows that no one believes him, but he says it anyway, and maybe he needs to say it, more than anything, just to try and recollect his shattered pieces into some semblance of a whole person again.

So he says it again and meets with skeptical glares.

Lucas briefly sets a hand gingerly on the older male’s shoulder and takes a calming breath before speaking, Jonathan thinks the calming breath was mostly for his benefit “Jonathan, man, it’s alright, it’s alright to not be alright,” then he pulls his hand away and Jonathan thinks that he wishes it had stayed, they don’t know how grounding it is.

Robin has been uncharacteristically quiet since everything happened, but she breaks it to move closer and opens her mouth to say something, what comes out are song lyrics that she cuts into a string of sentences “We know the secrets that you keep,”

Steve’s suddenly come around with a glass of water and some headache reliever, which he presses lightly into Jonathan’s hand, shrugging slightly “Well, that and you’re talking in your sleep, sooo,” Mike takes a look sideways at his girlfriend before looking back at the older Byers brother, El coming closer to her boyfriend and the large grouping of people “That and El kinda got into your head when she was floating in her bubble bath and everything, two nights ago?”

There’s a pressure on his shoulder, a reassuring grip, but out of habit, it still garners a flinch from him, some muscle memory or something “We know, Jonathan, it’s okay, we know what’s happening, we just want you to talk about it,” Nancy says from his right, still rubbing his shoulder in a calming motion.

“We want to help you, that’s all, this is a safe place, okay?”

He hates them treating him like he’s some fragile object that’s so broken that one harsh word or ill gotten sentiment might crack him into pieces that can’t be fit back together, he hates it.

Will’s been shutting him out and he doesn’t know how to get him to open up again, because it’s something that can’t be fixed with a new mixtape or just talking about it, he’s tried that and all Will does now is shut him out and avoid the conversation.

And Jonathan feels so alone, even in a crowded room.

“I just don’t want to talk about it, if there was anything to talk about, but there’s nothing, and I’m fine, I really am, don’t worry about me,” it’s been said countless times through his life, to multiple people, starting with his mother and ending with Will, who he has to protect from whatever this world’s thrown at them, and it’s given them a lot of ugly things.

Besides, it would take a millennia to unload all the baggage that Jonathan can’t seem to dump from his mind, because it’s like muscle memory, it seeps into his thoughts, showing itself in shaky breaths and the slump of his shoulders as if he’s weighed down by some unseen weight, it infects his silence, but whatever he does, he can’t seem to shake it, it’s like some disease he lives with, the only thing his father’s left him with, like a family heirloom that he can’t throw out. Jonathan doesn’t have that amount of time. Besides, Will is more important. His focus has always and will always be on Will, his little brother, the little brother he’d give his life for, if it came down to that, the brother who’s pushing him ever farther away, the brother he’s afraid he can’t reach anymore, but that won’t stop him trying.

Max digs some marshmallows from the cabinet, grabbing a half full milk carton from a limited supply they have in the fridge as she rifles for the cocoa powder, she’s making hot cocoa and there won’t be any argument.

Jonathan’s thankful for the minutes distraction that tears all eyes away from him and towards the kitchen and Max making a mess with the cocoa powder and milk.

Maybe it’s a memory from the past, one of the few good ones that he’s managed to hold onto, but it reminds him of a three year old Will, a three year old Will covered from head to toe in cocoa mix with milk splatters on the walls and pools of it on the ground, a failed attempt to teach the little boy how to make the delicious treat. It draws a slight smile from Jonathan before he’s moving off the couch and into the kitchen to help.

Joyce used to make cocoa when the cold weather hit, or when it became all too impossible to block out the yelling and the harsh words, leaving Jonathan feeling drained and second rate, worthless, his mom would bundle him up in blankets and give him a mug of cocoa to warm his spirits, she’d tell him it wasn’t his fault, none of it, that his dad was fighting demons of his own, that his dad didn’t mean it, really. It helped like a bandaid over a small cut, just to cover it for a while, it didn’t heal his brokenness.

It’s not a cold weather day, it isn’t a day like the others, his mom isn’t here, and it’s not a situation you can really fix so easily, but the thought puts a smile on his face for the briefest second nonetheless.

Max briefly touches his hand, a way to get his attention before she goes back to stirring cocoa powder into the heating dairy “If you need to talk about it, if there’s anything, you can talk to me, you know that? I — I’ve been there.” she meets his eyes from a sideways glance with a smile that makes him think she’s older than her age, seen things people her age usually haven’t, for good reason, there’s something suddenly so vulnerable there that Jonathan has never seen with Max Mayfield, and he’s feeling a surge of anger rise in him for all the pain he sees in her eyes, anger at everything she’s been put through, that she never should have, he almost doesn’t hear her when she asks slowly “Need to talk about it?”

Jonathan’s nothing but good at deflection, so he tries and fails to turn it around on the Mayfield girl, asking instead as he absentmindedly takes over stirring “Need to talk about anything? What about you?” He knows she hasn’t really been coping well after the events at Starcourt or after — there’s a knowing look she gets and she’s shaking her head, leaving off the five sarcastic comments that almost form on her lips

“You’re a Dingus...” she states, going back to the task at hand “Hiding everything like this, not even talking to Will about it, or your mom, it’s not healthy, and what happened today, we really thought you were getting Vecna’d,” there’s a look that passes on her face, a grip of her arm to feel that it’s still there, that the bone has healed, that the scars are only skin deep, but are gone from her appearance.

Jonathan feels a sudden surge of protectiveness towards her and grips her shoulder in a loose grip “Listen, it’s never going to happen again,” he doesn’t know that “He’s gone Maxine, he won’t hurt you again, even if— even if he does come back, I won’t let him hurt you, or anyone else, I won’t, I promise,” it’s what he told Will the days after the feelings started, the tingling harsh feelings that made Will worry that Vecna was not all the way gone. Jonathan doesn’t joke about serious things like that, when he makes a promise, he’s going to stick to it, and he’s made a promise to Max. He gets a slight smile, but nothing else except a ‘thanks,’ and a ‘you can call me Max,’ before there’s a mug of cocoa in his hand and Max is handing out the rest.

Jonathan takes a seat between Max and his little brother, dropping a new and only slightly worn cassette tape in front of Will, as he gives him a worn smile while he barely manages to hold back from reaching out and ruffling Will’s mop of hair “Hey buddy, I told you I found your favorite, yeah... The Clash,” he’s instantly worried when Will only shrugs, a slight movement while he’s moving aside the marshmallows in his mug like they’re icebergs that need removing, which is weird in and of itself, because usually Will’s favorite part of hot cocoa is the marshmallow paste that forms, the frothy formation of melted marshmallow goop, and usually he loves The Clash, but today, today something is just off, and Jonathan doesn’t know if it was his impromptu loss of reality while being forcefully brought through the hell that is memory lane, his panic attack that stopped him breathing properly, or if something else has caused this change.

“They’re alright...” Will’s voice brings Jonathan back to reality, back from memories of long ago and far away, in another place and another time, a time when both brothers had been on the opposite sides of the Upside Down, both singing the same song.

His heart comes to a thudding halt and sticks somewhere in his throat with the marshmallow paste “I thought you really digged them, I thought The Clash were your favorite, something change that?” He slides the tape back, settling it in his pocket again with a worried crease forming between his eyes “Al—right then, I’ll just have to go find something else — You aren’t dropping Bowie though? You still like Bowie?”

His heart is melting like the marshmallows, fear running up and down his spine, because something has changed and that ‘something’ is his brother, his brother who goes back to staring into his mug of half drank cocoa “He’s alright I guess,”

Jonathan stops with his mug halfway to his lips before he sets it down on the coffee table, and fixes his brother with an x-ray stare, looking dead tired.

“Will? You’ve been distant recently, with all of us, but mostly just with me, you’ve also been fighting with Mike, you never used to fight with Mike, now you just —,” his voice trails off and he turns, half on half off the couch as he’s turned to Will, he clears his throat harshly, sipping his almost forgotten cocoa before setting it down and settling a hand on Will’s shoulder.

His voice comes out slightly strained from emotion which he quickly holds back “Remember what I said at Surfer Boy Pizza? When we were setting up that immersion tank for El? When I told you that story about Larry and everything?” It’s about when Dustin gives a confused look at Steve and an equally confused look is sent back, that Jonathan realizes that he forgot they weren’t alone before he goes on, gently, as of right then, nothing else matters except his young brother in front of him.

“Remember that I told you that no matter what I would always be here for you if you needed me? Well —,” there’s a sharp breath from Will and a pause before there’s a slight change in the atmosphere, a change that comes in the slight flicker of the cabin lights above.

The edges blur slightly and Jonathan hears Will’s voice as if he’s miles away, and it says, or he thinks it says something like ‘Well maybe I don’t need you anymore, okay? Maybe I don’t need you anymore, maybe I never needed you.’

And that’s when Jonathan knows something is definitely wrong with his little brother, and it’s definitely not the usual.

Chapter Text

‘Jonathan,’ said in a quiet voice after what seems hours of shouting, Will’s small voice reverberating against his brother’s neck, the younger boy held in a gentle yet firm and protective hold as they stay, curled together in the closet of Jonathan’s room, small med kit open to fix the slowly bleeding abrasions on two tiny knees, the result of a bike accident at the local park, and the aftermath, their father yelling, breaking the bike, angry at Will for being a child, doing something only a kid his age would do, something so normal other’s would not bat an eye, but their dad’s always one to think everything they do reflects on him. Angry words in the park, Jonathan carrying his crying baby brother upstairs to the relative safety of his room. Now all there is are angry voices downstairs, Will trying to stifle his tears. Jonathan telling him that it’s alright to cry, that it isn’t the weakness their dad thinks it is. Placing bandaids over the scrapes, Jonathan knows bandaids are just a cover for the internal issues, that they’ve only covered the marks people see.

He doesn’t know how they end up on the subject of growing up, or when exactly Will stops crying, but he manages a slight smile when he hears his brother whisper that ‘he’ll always’ need his big brother, no matter what. It makes young Jonathan feel pride well in his chest, knowing that he’ll always be there to protect Will from the monsters, even if those monsters are their dad.

Now, there’s a divide between them, and he doesn’t know how to cross it, he doesn’t know what he did to lose Will’s trust or even how everything started, why Will’s now shouting at him, things only their dad would ever say, and Jonathan is frightened, worried, defenseless.

He understands the moment the voice changes, his brother’s voice warping into the deep tones, Will advancing forward, holding out a bloody hand, Jonathan’s nearly pulled in by it, seeing this mirror image of Will, hurt, bleeding, there are tears falling, the voice changing, it’s Will’s again, harsh words, breaking down every thin layer Jonathan’s ever made, every wall, and Jonathan can’t look away.

He’s locked in that closet now, except it warps, it’s larger, the size of a room, Will, no — no it’s not Will, IT isn’t Will — advances slowly towards him and Jonathan can’t find the movement he needs to run away from something so familiar, something so broken, something —

He’s running over broken floorboards, his mom’s voice calling out from somewhere in the dark, Will’s voice and — Vecna’s.

He’s running blind, tripping over loose nails, shattered beer bottles, he reaches a door, but it won’t open and he hears his voice as if through water, bouncing back to him in an echo of a desperate scream as he’s wrenching at the door.

He feels more than sees the approach behind him, hands banging against a closed door, the door to the home of his childhood, aching fingers struggling at the door, the grip on the handle, the voice ever coming closer, then the stop, the pulling back, the voice losing clarity, only Will, three year old Will crying and Jonathan turns, remembering in stock still horror the memory that he’s stuck in.

He feels more than thinks in that split second, feelings getting the better of his rational side, the side that knows it isn’t real, that this thing, this memory isn’t solely his, that Will — Will isn’t here — and though it’s killing him, not being able to comfort his little brother in that dream, he stumbles back into the now opening door, the scene changing, no Will, no Vecna, and he’s staggered into his mom’s arms, his mom who opened the door, and he’s sobbing, her hold on him tight and protective.

Her voice, it’s her voice, she’s there, must be, because — her voice changes and in the instant Jonathan realizes it, it’s an instant too late, or it would have been, if not for one single fact, Vecna doesn’t want him dead.

Not yet that is.

No, Vecna wants Will, and Jonathan has never been angrier in his life or more resentful that at this moment he’s the wrong Byers brother, because he’d willingly give his life for his little brother if it meant Will could live, but that’s not what Vecna wants, Vecna wants Will and Jonathan is not Will.

Reality comes crashing back down and hazy faces are all around, music blaring, coming in and out, Jonathan can’t quite make it out, there’s too much light, too much noise, a grandfather clock going off somewhere close, in his head maybe, he’s semi aware he threw a punch towards Vecna before being pulled back to — wherever this is, because, one thing’s for certain, it’s definitely not where he left the other’s.

Something pokes him, hard. A smiling face with a halo of dark straggly, seen better days, curls greets Jonathan when his eyes clear and he barely registers a hand on his shoulder before he’s stumbling to his feet and calling out into the dark, darker than pure pitch and more ominous, the only reason he can see the person a few steps ahead of him is by a small fading ring of light from the end of a cigarette lighter. There’s a large smile, a tattered and torn bandanna or something tied around his head, a military sleeveless green vest over a dark sleeved Hellfire Club tee-shirt.

The person is talking and Jonathan almost misses what he’s saying, the words make no sense, only some register through the ringing in his ears.

The other male steadies him slightly, giving him another smile and a reassuring pat to his shoulder, his energetic voice lowering to a gentle tone.

“Welcome to the In-Between, don’t get too used to it, it sure isn’t home, or any home I’d like to have, I’m Eddie by the way.”

“Jonathan... Jonathan Byers.” Jonathan manages through a panicked breath.

There’s recognition in Eddie’s dark eyes and a smile all his own lights up his face “Wait, the Jonathan? Like the Jonathan, Jonathan? The famous Jonathan?” Jonathan’s brows are furrowing in worry and confusion, sure he’s never met this Eddie before “Y—You know me?” He just manages before the smile falls and Eddie shrugs it off “No clue, ehhhhhh I was just messing with you, though I mean you could be any Jonathan, you could be Wheeler’s Jonathan, now come on, you ever been to Skull Rock?” Jonathan’s definitely sure he’d remember this weird guy if they’d ever met and right now he’s sure they never have and he’s not counting his lucky stars either, and he’s definitely not following, because his eyes squint out through the dark and he clears his throat audibly, eyes raking the other male’s face for something close to humor or an explanation.

“The kissing place? You know, where Harrington takes all his gals? That Skull Rock?” Eddie slaps his forehead “Yeah, yeah the kissing place, but we aren’t going there for a joy ride or anything, Byers, we’re gonna hide there. Oh and we’d probably be smart if we got there before dark,” Jonathan thinks he catches a wink from the other male, but doesn’t dwell on it, it’s pitch black and Eddie disappears into it the instant he moves away from Jonathan, and suddenly the panic returns and Jonathan feels angry at himself for calling out into that darkness, panic stricken voice echoing back in one fear riddled word

“Eddie!!!?” Don’t leave me here alone, don’t go, all this is playing like a bad loop through his head, and Jonathan blindly reaches out, but all he can see is darkness, when a hand shoots out from it to tangle in his shirt, he only has time for a short stifled yelp to escape from between his cracking lips, before there’s soft laughter in front of him and Eddie’s face comes back in the glow of the cigarette lighter, and Jonathan is frightened at the relief he feels when he reaches out and hooks his fingers in Eddie’s hand, Eddie and his reassuring lunatic smile, honestly, how is he still smiling?

The smile turns lighter and a little mischievous as Eddie tightens his grip on Jonathan’s hand “Come on Jonathan Byers, to the kissing place we go,” he lightly jokes, tugging Jonathan forwards through the dark as if only he can see a path forward “Whatever you do man, don’t let go, I don’t know what you’re usually like, but I really don’t wanna lose you, I dunno if it’s the thought of being alone again for who knows how long in this hell hole or what not, or if I just need a distraction, but I really am not looking forward to losing you, you know?” He’s picking his way through what feel to Jonathan like large oddly shaped loose rocks that in the flash and passing of the lighter’s small ring of light, illuminates the bleached chalky white of bone.

Eddie’s fingers lace in his, steadying him as he almost falls, and Eddie pulls him into his space, eyes searching his “What’d I say bout letting go?” It’s not even angry, just a sentence followed by a short smile, while Eddie starts off again and Jonathan follows, fingers clenched to breaking in Eddie’s hold.

“You come here often?” Eddie manages while he’s helping Jonathan navigate through the bleak expanse of Nothing, and Jonathan can’t help but feel a smile form across his lips

“Yeah, I come here about every week,” Jonathan squints as if thinking “every month? It’s a real nice spot to just relax, I’m having a blast really,” his voice cracks, he can feel Eddie’s hand tighten reassuringly in his and the weight on his chest lessens and his heart doesn’t feel so clenched in an iron grip, there’s something steadying about Eddie.

And that is exactly when the crying starts from somewhere close by in the dark, a young baby taking it’s first look at the world around him and finding nothing in the bleak expanse. Alone.

Eddie’s finger nails are digging into the long white line of scar tissue on Jonathan’s palm and his voice comes out a little less steady when he picks up a few degrees of speed and mutters out towards Jonathan ‘Ignore it, just ignore it.’

Another tug on his arm, another ‘ignore it,’ followed by a softer ‘this isn’t your memory.’

Jonathan’s searching out in the dark, eyes straining to acclimate to his surroundings, he’s made out approximately the location of the crying, could make it there if he let go, but he pulls against the weight of Eddie’s hand in his.

Alone. He’s not alone, he knows it now, there’s— there’s Eddie — and that child, whoever it is, does not deserve the fear of being forgotten in the darkness smothering them, nobody deserves being alone in a place like this.

Jonathan just makes out through inky black blots, the shape of a crumbling bassinet, some relic from past years or past decades, he can’t see much of anything else, but a sense of compassion moves him forward, dragging Eddie along with him.

They’re over at the bassinet in a matter of seconds, Eddie shining his light over the small expanse, and Jonathan sees him, the small dirty baby with the large deep brown eyes and a messy tuft of dark curls, something oddly familiar there. Eddie tugs on his arm hard, trying to backtrack away from the small baby and the sound of his desperate crying. It’s then that the darkness fades and is replaced by a dirty interior, a run down living room in a dilapidated excuse for a residence.

There’s the overwhelming sound of a tv blaring loud and obnoxious into the room, the sweltering festering smell of old beer and other things, and Jonathan instinctively reaches out, takes hold of the child in his crib, steadily lifting him out of the broken wicker and torn mattress, there’s a male’s voice yelling somewhere close, yelling at the baby to stop his crying, and in that instant it connects, Jonathan turns, looking at the grown male before him, hand clutched against his, eyes fleeing from the sight. He turns back to the baby, cradles him in his arms, and takes a deep breath. In, out, and again. The other male looks close to a nervous breakdown.

“It’s alright Eddie,” Jonathan mutters through the dark enveloping them once more “It’s alright Eddie,” he speaks to both the baby and the male on his left, and with both, he leads them away from the darkness of that memory. The crying stops. The baby in his arms becomes heavy and looks up at Jonathan with wide brown eyes.

Eddie stops to catch his breath, the baby’s disappeared into the folds of the bleak expanse, back into memory, and the tightness in his chest loosens considerably, and Jonathan settles down at his left, hand reaching up and stalling just above the metalhead’s shoulder, before he sets hesitant fingers against it and grips him on the shoulder reassuringly “That memory...” he doesn’t know what to say — Eddie fills in.

“Was one of my first, my dad, he wasn’t all that good a man,” There’s a lump forming in Jonathan’s throat and he fights it back, feeling suffocated “Yeah, my dad — my dad wasn’t all that good either, must run in Hawkins, maybe that’s Hawkins’ real curse... rotten fathers.”

He’s outstretching his hand and manages a smile “Come on, I think I can see a patch of light up ahead.” There’s the flash of a smile he gets in return and Eddie’s hand gripping his as he pulls him up onto his feet, a smirk passing on his lips.

“You can’t see shit...” the voice rolls out and Jonathan hides a laugh in clearing his throat and squinting through the dark “Yeah? Well, thought it might cheer you up some, can’t have you moping or whatever, ouch, don’t slap me,” Jonathan’s pretty sure he’s got Eddie laughing at him “It was a pat, not a slap, don’t go complaining now about a little pat, you’re a big boy aren’t you?” Jonathan catches a teasing note in the other male’s voice and rolls his eyes.

Chapter Text

Jonathan’s took first watch, though his head droops and his eyes are half lidded and he’s pretty sure if he doesn’t keep awake he’ll come crashing down off the top of Skull Rock, he’s on an adrenaline fueled alert, and he’s not too sure how Munson can be fast asleep down below on the ground.

He’s just moving into a crouched sitting position when his eyes catch on movement ahead of him and he flicks out the lighter with it’s limited amount of light, flinching back and scraping his palms against rough rock, he’s bout bursting to call out Eddie’s name, to warn him when he’s flicked the lighter on to only meet with Eddie spider crawling up towards him. Eddie who catches his eye with a lazy smile “Oh hey...”

“Hey, hey, relax, it’s just me, just me man,” Eddie’s quick to make himself known and he raises his hands out in front, slumping into a half crouch “Hey, hey, woah man, it’s just me, it’s just me,” he states hurriedly while Jonathan drops the sharp rock he had grabbed in the dark.

Eddie double checks before he’s crawling up the few more inches and flops down defeatedly, padding at the stone before he looks sideways at the Byers male with a teasing look “I’m surprised that I could get the drop on you, man, I mean, I could’ve been anyone, what if I’d been Vecna?”

Jonathan’s eyes clear in the hazy light and he shakes his head, vocal chords raw from disuse “Then I’d probably be dead.” It scares him, how matter of fact it his, how he says it, as if it’s only a matter of time. He stretches out the aches in his cramped muscles and gives a slight yawn before glancing towards the other male tiredly “You should get some sleep,” “Can’t,” Eddie returns, eyes roving through the hostile dark.

“We can, uhhh, talk,” Jonathan’s got a less than good feeling about talking, but if Eddie wants to, who’s he to say no, though he’s pretty sure it’ll end up with Eddie doing most of the talking.

Eddie leans luxuriously back on his aching elbow while he’s settled his other arm over his bent knee, pulling at the loose threads in the torn and shredded knee, he scratches his nose with a dust caked finger and looks around before focusing on Jonathan “So uhhh, you do photography or something like that, yeah?”

“Y-yeah, I used to work for the school paper actually, before —,” opening his eyes against a wave of pain, he’s met with withheld curiosity in the other male’s eyes, Eddie prods him with his foot “Before? Before what?”

Jonathan heaves in a breath, holds back tears “Before — you know, I I’d do anything to protect my little brother, but I I couldn’t protect him then and and I almost lost him then...” there’s a sharp tug at his shirt sleeve, he’s suddenly closer to Eddie, the other male’s face a little more visible at the slight distance they are from each other.

There’s a grounding grip on his shoulder which makes Jonathan feel a little less fearful, fearful of bad memories, of losing Will, of —

“What’s your brother’s name?” Eddie starts.

Jonathan’s hands clench tightly “Will, his name is Will.”

Eddie’s tongue flicks out to wet his dry lips and stays there, between two crusted lips, in a look of concentration before he nods, as if he’s made a final decision “Well Jonathan Byers, today might have been your lucky day,” if Jonathan sees him wink, he ignores it, intent on looking forward at the his companion “I promise I’ll get you back to Will, even if I die trying — or — well I haven’t actually ruled out that I could actually be dead already, weird world right?”

Jonathan’s pulled his gaze away and looks out at the expanse of nothingness that’s suffocatingly close around them “Yeah... weird world.”

“You ever played D&D? No? Well, from all my years playing, from simple Class to Dungeon Master, I’ve found that it’s all about strategy, and that’s what we need. Plus, it’ll pass the time.” He’s reaching in his pocket while Jonathan watches, confused, and —right, of course Eddie Munson would have a full set of D&D dice with him at all times. It’s his lucky set.

Eddie’s eyes roll and Jonathan’s sure people can’t make their eyes that large “Yeah, I know, I know, Nerd, right? Now let’s play...”

First though to pick a character and class, not to mention level and a lot of other minuscule facts, Jonathan’s never played something so difficult and complicated. He picks a Level One Cleric, and thinks he made a mistake when he notes the furrowed brow across from him.

“Of course you’d go for that,” Eddie breaths out and Jonathan fixes him with a confused stare, eyebrow lifting under his haywire bangs “Problem?”

Eddie’s rolling a d10 absentmindedly in his palm, the red and gold numbers glinting off the black obsidian die “Not a problem... just predictable, and if we’re gonna defeat Vecna for good, that’s not what we need to be...”

Jonathan manages a calm half look “You think I’m predictable?” Eddie’s dice rolls faster in his palm “Again, not a bad thing, just you’re too predictable and we need the opposite.” Something in Eddie’s look makes something rise in Jonathan “You want unpredictable? I I can be unpredictable,”

He’s not ready when the laughing starts “Please, you picked The Cleric right off, the Healer of the group, you saw that class and ran, you ran straight away from Fighter or Blood Hunter or anything that is pure conflict...”

“I don’t run.” Eddie can see something there, he’s hit some nerve, so he digs a little deeper “Take it from me, man, sometimes you gotta run away to survive, but running away from everything, that’s something else... it’s not really a life if all you’re doing is just surviving.”

Jonathan feels his fists clench and he’s taking calming breaths while Eddie straightens out over the imaginary board and flicks his gaze to Jonathan’s “You been running all your life, man, so what’s so bad that it got you doing that?”

He’s leaving no room for Jonathan to reply, and Jonathan’s not so sure he should, he feels words stuck in his throat, acidic and suddenly angry.

“You don’t know me...”

“I know from the little time we spent together that you’ve always been the one to make sacrifices in your life, for others, see,” he’s picking out a small figure from his pocket, some carved piece he made in wood shop in Junior High “In the world there’s a lot of different classes and cause of circumstances, you, my friend, Jonathan Byers, fell into the role of Cleric, patching up everyone else’s lives while yours was crumbling, healing everyone else, but not yourself, all you felt, all you were feeling, you forced that back cause you had to, you locked that up, but every now and again it gets opened, look, what I’m trying to say is that you’ve spent so much time in that one role, that you forgot about the other sides, I haven’t known you that long, Jonathan Byers, and I mean, in the scheme of things, time is a construct, but in the short time I’ve gotten to know the little pieces you let on about yourself, I’ve come to think you’re more of a Fighter class, A Blood Hunter maybe, you’re more than just a healer, Jonathan Byers, you got this fight in you, it’s sickeningly sweet really, and if I’m honest, I can’t get over this whole Good Samaritan thing you’ve got going, the concerned citizen, this goody two shoes routine you got going, it’s real sweet, but you’re also struggling with it, which makes you like all the more human, from all you’ve gone through, you’re a fighter, you just forgot.” He’s extending his hand, the Cleric figure held out to Jonathan “So you can stick with the expected, I’ll give you the Cleric and we can go on with the game, or I can hand you this little baby, the Fighter, and we can get on with it, you can be two things at once you know, the total expected and unexpected,”

He’s got both figures held out in the palm of his hands and Jonathan hesitates, remembering the day he snapped from the pain and the anger, his fist connecting with Steve Harrington’s face, the way he felt the need to protect his mom, his brother, slightly sickeningly his father, who he owed nothing... he remembered bottling everything up inside, his throat so tight with unshed tears suffocating, how he fought the Demogorgon and how far he’d come from then, how he was planning on keeping Vecna from ever getting near Will and the others ever again, how he’d fight for the chance to protect everyone he loved. Eddie’s right, He is a fighter, he just forgot.

Eyes slotted down to the figure clutched in his palm, a small wooden figure with delicately carved armor and a sword in hand.

Eddie claps his shoulder and smiles “There we go big boy, that’s it. Soooo, you ready?”

Jonathan feels his heart settle back to it’s normal beat and his breathing normalizes, he manages a short eye roll before he’s looking to the imaginary board between them “You’re something else, Munson,” “Yeah?” Eddie leans in with a playful glint in his eye “What am I?” “A jerk, that’s what.”

Eddie laughs, a pure ecstatic cackle, and he punches Jonathan’s shoulder lightly “Yeah? And I’m also the only company you got, so, take it or leave it, man.”

Jonathan’s silent for a moment, thinking about all that Eddie said, it makes him feel like he’s some sort of open book “I’m not a Goody Two Shoes, by the way,”

Eddie knocks against his foot, something in the turn of his lips that make him look all the more devil may care “That’s the spirit. So, shall we?”

Chapter Text

Max knows the moment Jonathan Byers flickers and fades that there’s something wrong, and not just wrong, but majorly wrong.

In all respects except for one, Jonathan is still very much there, in a catatonic state of shock while his mind is somewhere far away, somewhere unreachable.

Max is sitting on now healed legs, bones still aching from the pressure and stress, but she only has one thing on her mind, so she’s sitting on her knees, in front of a catatonic Jonathan, and nothing so far has worked, not even trying to talk to him.

Will is somewhere over to the side, eyes shut against the scene before him, while Joyce and Hopper are asking questions to a stunned audience of teens

The part of Max that is still tied to Vecna is searching the Upside Down for any signs of Jonathan, desperately seeking, but she comes up empty handed and her own voice startles her when she says in a loud enough tone that everyone turns ‘he’s not there...’

A concerned Lucas is beside her now, clutching her hand that’s reached out and gripped one of Jonathan’s “Who’s not where?” Lucas asks and Max gives an audible whine, eyes searching Lucas’ face as if he has the answers

“Jonathan, I can’t find him,” she’s struggling to keep her voice level and barely succeeding “I can’t find him, and — the Upside Down, he’s not there,” she’s nervously fumbling for her headphones before she makes a decisive nod and slides them on “Maybe he’s so far away I can’t find him, maybe he’s hurt or or — maybe I’ve got to go deeper...”

There’s been moments in the months that followed the destruction or what was thought to be the ultimate demise of Vecna, in which Jonathan and Max grew to be friends, starting in the hospital, the days of her very slow recovery where all she could do was wait, when all she saw was darkness and the Upside Down and all she heard were hazy strained voices, often far away, one such voice had been Jonathan’s, unsure, soft and gentle, protective, simultaneously upset at her and the others for using her as bait against Vecna, and on the other side, upset and angry at himself for not being there to protect everyone. When she woke up the first time it had been with Jonathan in the room. He’d sent Lucas home that night, endless days spent waiting with Lucas falling more and more into a depressive and hopeless state. Jonathan had promised to call if she woke up. Max had, and waking up to her friend’s older brother curled up and half falling out of a chair, with his hand just beside hers, talking to her about how ‘she had to wake up,’ for Lucas ‘he really loves you, you know,’ for Eleven ‘You’re one of her best and only friends and I love her like a little sister, so don’t break her heart by not waking up.’ He’d slumped in some sudden defeat then, not knowing Max’s eyes had half opened, that her breath had normalized, that she’d focused the hazy bits of her brain on listening to him, pulling her back from the horrors of the Upside Down.

“Max, I don’t know if you can hear me,” a slump to his shoulders that made Max feel wrapped in sudden defeat, some feeling of acceptance of something, she could not place, there’s fear there too, and desperation, a hand falls to the bed and for a moment it touches her hand “You gotta wake up, Max, you can’t give up, none of the others are going to give up on you, I’m not going to give up on you, you can fight this, I know -,” Jonathan clears his throat, choking on slight tears and lets go of her hand “I know I’m asking a lot, I know you’ve already been through so much and it’s probably not over till it is, we’re going to make sure it is, I promise, but they all need you, Lucas — you know he’s crazy about you, I don’t know what he’d do if you don’t survive this, and and I know you’ve just been surviving, I know that too, and everything you’ve been through — it can be suffocating, life, you think you’re going one way and then, then, like — like myself, I — I made such a stupid mistake, god I was so stupid, I wasn’t going to get any acceptance letter from this college that Nancy wanted me to go to with her, this fancy school somewhere else, I can’t leave my mom and brother, so I just — I got an acceptance letter from a college in the state, close to mom and Will, but I never told Nancy and I guess I screwed that all up — but — about life, you think you’re going one direction and then things get broken or or your life gets turned upside down, and—” That’s about the time he notices the monitor’s steady beat and at the same time that Max clears her throat loudly

“You should really talk to Nancy about that...” that’s the first time Jonathan hugs her and then promptly apologizes for it. She doesn’t mind, because he’s one of the people that makes her suddenly feel safe. “It’s about time you woke up,” Jonathan laughs and Max smiles for what seems like the first time since Vecna’s curse “Didn’t know you guys had a timeline.” Through her months of recovery, they get to be friends, maybe she looks at him like the older brother she never had.

So yeah, maybe she won’t tell anyone that maybe, just maybe — she might have started thinking of him as an older brother that she never had, that this is cutting her up seeing him like this, that she’s riddled with fear because she knows what it’s like.

Maybe she needs to find him because there’s a part of her that worries there will be another time for Vecna to seek the win, maybe her mind goes back to the shadow monster or the Mind Flayer, maybe she doesn’t want another casualty in the war with Vecna, that’s been heavily weighted against them. She could care less about why, she just needs to find him, and hopefully soon, hopefully unhurt.

Lucas pulls her headphones off in a tight hold “You can see into the Upside Down!?”

Max pulls her headphones back “Yeah, and I’m going to use that to help us find Jonathan...”

Lucas tugs her back, gently, but it hurts from the pressure on her recently healed left wrist and she winces, headphones sliding off as she looks towards her boyfriend with a disapproving look “Sorry I didn’t tell you I was still able to see things from the Upside Down, okay? But I didn’t tell you because I knew you’d do this,” if his voice comes out a little high with panic, he forces it back “Completely freaking out, this is why I didn’t tell you.”

Jealousy doesn’t suit Lucas, but at that moment he feels it, rearing it’s ugly head in the pit of his stomach and he gestures towards the frozen form in front of them “Oh, but you told Jonathan?” “Lucas?” “You told Byers, but not me?” “Are you angry at me or something because I didn’t tell you about it because I knew you’d do exactly this?” There’s a pause in thought “Yeah...” maybe it’s fear and confusion that makes him act like this, maybe it’s the feeling that she doesn’t trust him enough, that she trusted their friend’s older brother instead of her long term boyfriend, but then again.

“Okay, okay,” Lucas focuses his breath, takes a deep one in and out as Max slips her hand into his “So why’d you tell Jonathan instead of me?”

“I didn’t, I didn’t tell anyone about it, Jonathan just kind of knew, he figured it out, that the Upside Down won’t exactly leave me alone, like it won’t with Will... like it won’t with me or Nance or anyone else...” she bites back on a few comments before leaning into Lucas “And part of me thought I could handle it, maybe it’d just I don’t know, go away... but it’s it’s just been getting worse, like real bad, headaches, nausea, nosebleeds, I even get something like Vertigo, the music helps, it still helps, but sometimes I feel like I’m getting sucked in, like there’s something calling me into the void, into the Upside Down, and not even one of Jonathan’s mix tapes can help that, you know, it’s complicated.”

“We get it, you’ve got feelings for Jonathan,” Dustin adds to the conversation, sliding down the couch onto the floor and gaining a grossed out gaze from the whole party and a look from Max “No, gross, I mean, if you mean ‘feelings’ as in him being like an older brother I never had, then yeah, but no, not the other sort of ‘feelings’ that’s just gross.”

Nancy moves from the arm of the couch to situate herself beside the unmoving male “Alright then, now that we’ve considered all the angles and decided that Maxine does not in fact have feelings for Jonathan, can we please focus on I don’t know, waking him up? Getting him back? Something?” There’s panic behind her eyes and Steve involuntarily wraps her protectively and comfortingly in his arms, Nancy leaning against him, face breaking with tears.

Max feels a shudder pass through her then and Lucas steals a blanket from Will to wrap around his girlfriend, holding her securely against him.

“He’s so cold,” Max gets out, eyes falling on darkness and two discernible shapes. And it’s almost like remote viewing how she sees it. Watching them through a film of darkness.

Squinting through the darkness, she breathes out a relieved breath, before confusion sets in “Eddie? J—Jonathan, Jonathan’s with Eddie...”

Dustin’s the first one to take that information and accept it, filing it away in the not out of the ordinary “Wh—what are they doing? Where are they? Does Eddie look alright?” He’s met with a piercing look from Lucas and stops “Sorry...”

Max shuffles against Lucas, curling closer to him “don’t know, it’s too dark, not the Upside Down... they’re — they’re playing D and D,” everything comes to a halt and Mike lets out a confused breath “They’re playing D and D? Shouldn’t they be like, I don’t know, trying to escape or something?”

It’s in the moments before her mind severs from the In-Between that it locks on to a different consciousness, someone who’s scared and angry and familiar, someone who feels they’re fighting a losing battle. She holds it there as long as she can, trying to make out the blur she knows is a person, a mix of person and emotions, and all she can hear is a confusing hum of words and sounds, before she’s drifting back and away, shooting back through the darkness, as if she’s falling from a great height.

Max loses sight then, loses them, coming back into the cabin’s interior with a bump into reality, all eyes on her “It would be nice if everyone stopped staring at me... thanks.” Tears are falling fast down her face before she even realizes it.

Chapter Text

“I Eddie Munson, Dungeon Master and the coolest all around guy you Jonathan Byers, will ever meet, welcome you, Jonathan Christopher Byers, into the Hellfire Club, are you ready and willing to swear an oath to the Cult of Vecna? But beware Jonathan Byers, for once you walk the winding path you cannot go back.”

Jonathan’s running his fingers against the shredded bits of his black slacks, while he sighs audibly into the surroundings “I’ve already started down this road, so I guess there’s no turning back now, is there?” Eddie’s smile greets him over the waning light of the cigarette lighter “Not a chance.”

Jonathan smiles, slightly and with a warmth in his chest as he’s running a nervous hand through his hair and laughing, softly “Alright then, guess I have no choice,”

Then something catches his eye. Something that can’t possibly be real, and a feeling of dread settles.

It’s a shock, it Can’t possibly be, but — Jonathan doesn’t believe his eyes — could be an illusion or — Max Mayfield is standing feet away and Jonathan’s voice catches in his throat.

“Max!?” He manages before she’s fading and he’s left scrambling up and nearly falling from the jagged side of Skull Rock.

He feels a desperate hand clutch his jacket, a sharp tug as the fabric of his sleeve pulls away and the feeling of falling fast through the air, he can barely manage a scream before someone’s catching him from below and both are crumbling to the ground in a heap of limbs and cursing. The voice sounds familiar, but — Jonathan searches through the dark, untangling himself from the other body and finds himself looking up towards the rock where he knows Eddie is calling down to him.

He barely manages a brief ‘I’m alright!’ before a callused hand snakes round his wrist and he feels a sharp tug, screaming out as a face comes into hazy view right in front of him and someone calls him a ‘Moron.’

Behind him he can hear the scrabbling of Eddie clambering his way down Skull Rock and his voice drifting down to him, yelling something Jonathan briefly thinks is something like ‘Coming down!’ before Eddie jumps the last few feet and tackles the newcomer. None other than Billy Hargrove. Eddie doesn’t immediately let the small blade fall in his hand, and Jonathan doesn’t really blame him, with someone unpredictable, like Billy, it could go multiple ways. Jonathan’s not so sure he wants to find out. There’s a minute of confusion before Billy looks sideways in confusion “The hell my drug dealer here for?” Eddie rolls his eyes, letting the knife drop to his side “Oh here’s one of my worst customers.”

Jonathan starts walking, the Hargrove male following him through the dark with an unexpected announcement “Listen, I I know I’ve been a piece of shit in the past,” Billy suddenly starts, hands raised out in front “But right now, all I want to do is find Max, find Max and apologize and and keep her safe, like I should’ve... stead I was mad, I was so mad, angry at her for something she never did, and I was so— I guess we all have daddy issues though...”

Jonathan doesn’t believe it, his fingers are balled in fists and he’s standing here listening to Billy Hargrove talking about — feelings. He’d always thought Hargrove survived off one feeling and one feeling alone, anger, and he still doesn’t really believe it.

“He got to me, I let him get in my head and I — most of it, I would have never — now I’m trying to keep calm and all, but I can’t really do that with you, jackass, pulling a blade on me, that’s not even a blade, what is — will you just let me finish?”

Jonathan’s thinking, thinking about his own experiences with his father, how it’d changed him, how instead of growing angry and resentful, he became quiet, shy, protective of himself and his little brother, how Billy had become the opposite, how they’d both lost themselves. Maybe if it had gone differently, maybe Jonathan would have been like Billy, he doesn’t think so.

“So you’re the guy that made Max’s life living hell?” Billy kicks him in the knee and Eddie groans, Jonathan tugging at Eddie’s arm to get his attention “Eddie, let him up?” It’s out before he knows he even spoke, his voice echoing back to him. Eddie doesn’t immediately let him go, and Billy doesn’t immediately move, but there seems to be some understanding now, something like ‘You try anything and you’ll pay.’ something like that.

They’re about to speak again when the next set of memories arrive, slamming all three into the past, and Jonathan’s trying to find anything to hold onto, any spark of happiness or anything that can help him through, when he realizes with a jolt that these aren’t his memories, and that he’s looking at a memory from Billy’s childhood. It’s just about done when there’s a hum of confusion and many voices, the memory dissolving, like the end is being blocked out, being smudged and erased from memory, and then Jonathan realizes it, the storm of voices and the nervous hum, it’s all and every emotion baring down at once, confusion, fear, anger, it’s all there and it’s everything Billy’s ever felt.

As quickly as it comes, it’s gone, and Jonathan is left watching the wreck that he sees before him. Maybe Billy would have been different if he’d never had to be put through what he was, maybe it would have turned out better, but all he turned into was what, in the beginning, he’d fought so hard not to become, his father. Maybe it could have turned out better for him if he hadn’t pushed everyone away, used hatred and anger as weapons. Maybe.

There’s a surge in the darkness and Eddie’s gripping Jonathan’s shoulder in a death grip “Your turn.” Is barely muttered through a breath.

If this is part of some sort of torture that Vecna concocted to break them down, Jonathan’s pretty sure it’s working, since reliving all his bad memories is a sort of living hell.

Chapter Text

“Max, are you sure?”

“I’m serious, I heard him,” Max sits on the uncomfortable couch with the springs digging against her back and she briefly wonders how anyone could sit on it, let alone sleep there for long periods of time, like Jonathan has for the months they’ve been back “I’m sure I heard him.”

Lucas swivels in his seat, holding his girlfriend as close as he possibly can as he looks at her in confusion “Jonathan?” “No,”

Will’s been silent for a long time, but manages to turn away from his brother’s unmoving form to ask the question that everyone is thinking, but are too scared to hear the answer of “Vecna?” “No,” Mike looks up from where he’s cuddling Eleven and frowns slightly, unused to getting only one word answers from Max “Then who?”

Max draws in a tight breath, eyes ghosting away before she returns to stare at a spot beside Will, a spot that’s made up of Eleven, and she can’t catch a breath, but lets it out in a flow of emotions that she’s withholding, her eyes drying on the spot “Billy.”

—

Billy Hargrove isn’t one to ever air his true issues with anyone, let alone the Moon Brained Kid and the Incredible Metalhead King of Dorks... not that in his earlier years, Billy hadn’t been swept into the world of D&D himself, his mom had encouraged it, had encouraged him in anything and everything and when she’d left — no, it hadn’t been that way, no, when she’d gotten sick of the abuse she’d abandoned him, just left him and he’d watched her drive away, and it was a memory that had haunted him for years, his mother, bags packed, a starless night, and her walking out the door, driving away into the night, leaving him behind. His father shouting through the night, cold hands clasping him as his mother left. The door shutting behind her, locking him out of her life and locking him into a constant never ending circle of anger and abuse. His father with full custody, keeping his mother away, and it was his father who had pushed her through that door the night she left, her abandonment of Billy had never been meant to happen, his father had just forced her out, warned her against taking their kid, out of spite for her or something else, and reluctantly she’d left him, he hadn’t seen it that way then, but it made sense now.

And maybe he’s so angry at her, maybe it hurts to admit that all his anger stemmed from that moment when the mother he had always thought cared about him (she had told him she had) the mother that always showed she cared and loved him, made him feel loved and like something, had walked away forever and made all that love dissolve into one thought in his head, the thought his dad would beat into his head, the fact that he was worthless.

He was angry and upset, heartbroken and felt betrayed, and Max had got in the crosshairs of that anger that had consumed him over the years, when he’d hoped and silently prayed that he’d never turn out like him, his dad, but he had, he’d turned into the spiteful, hard headed, antagonistic man that had ruined his childhood, the rest of his short life, up till Starcourt.

He doesn’t blame her now, doesn’t feel that anger he did towards her or any ill will, all he feels is sorry, all he feels is guilt. And beyond everything, he wishes to tell her that, wishes he’d been more a brother to her than her tormenter, because he’d become the very thing he’d sworn he’d never become, his dad and all his faults and his anger.

The memories have made him quite mad in a way his father never could, in all the years of abuse, images playing over and over in the In-Between, a perfect storm to make anyone break, and he’s a broken in a way that can’t be sewed up or covered up, he’s a broken that will heal jagged with sharp edges.

Maybe Max had made him see his own brokenness in an all too bright light, like she held a mirror up to him and made him take in the ugly picture there, the hidden truth, a shattered boy who’d become an angry and abusive man, just like his father. Like father like son. No, he’d never wanted to be his father’s son.

There’s an interruption in the form of Eddie Munson breaking into his thoughts, and it’s an imposition Billy thinks he doesn’t need right now, so in a roundabout way he voices that, and some old habits are bound to take a long time to die out.

“Hey Shitbird, I’m thinking here...” he’s about to say more when Eddie’s cutting him off with a noncommittal shrug “Go think somewhere else then.” He states with a loud voice and a shove to the Hargrove male’s shoulder, Billy catching his wrist tightly, before letting go as Jonathan clears his throat and points towards the place Billy is sitting

“You’re on our game board...” Billy pretends to pick up the imaginary board with two hands and frowns, eyebrow raising minutely “Well move it somewhere else Byers,” he could do it simply, but old habits die hard so he gives a wild throw and Eddie groans audibly, flipping the dirty blonde off in exasperation “Now we’re never gonna find out the next move, since hairspray over here threw the board away.”

Jonathan sits down, offering Eddie a look which Eddie returns

‘No, he won’t kill the idiot, but he won’t not think about it. No, the thought does seem kind of satisfying, but okay, okay, no murder, guess homicide is out. Ritual sacrifice? It’s pretty metal.’ ‘No.’

Jonathan starts looking around, scanning the surroundings as far as he can see, which is about right in front of his face “We’ll just make a new one,” he states, his breath coming out in sheets of ice cold breath, it’s getting colder and it’s one of the times when Jonathan wishes he’d snagged a sweater or something with him.

He doesn’t immediately take it when Billy offers him his jacket, or — or he thinks he might have, since it was laid halfway between them and Billy’s given him a silent look that Jonathan thinks means ‘take it or leave it.’ So Jonathan slips it on and mumbles a quick thanks to the other male.

Billy jabs the ground with a stick, thinking, before his head jerks sideways to glance at Eddie, he throws the stick somewhere far off into the dark “So what Level and Class are you two Airheads anyway? Level One’s? Clerics? Definitely not Heroes... It’s cute really,”

Eddie and Billy have been bickering for two minutes straight and to Jonathan it feels more like eternity, an eternity in hell where he’s stuck babysitting two possibly mentally stunted almost adults and he’s so done, he’s never been more done with anything, and that’s saying something as he’s had worse in the past.

He’s blurred out the edges of speech and is somewhere far off, still shaken up from the memory that came to haunt him earlier. The main feature being Lonnie and angry voices, protecting Will, always protecting Will, his mom, the kids, he doesn’t resent it, he’s just tired, just so tired of it.

Now he’s stuck with Billy Hargrove and Eddie Munson and he’s come to believe it’s a type of torture as well, one of the lesser types, but still torture.

Jonathan might even prefer being alone to this, whatever this is. If he doesn’t separate them fast though, it’ll probably be coming to blows, since Billy looks close to blowing his top and Eddie seems hell bent on egging him on. Maybe it’d be easier if he let them kill each other, maybe not.

Jonathan draws in a deep calming breath, wishes for a blunt or something to take off the edge, and takes another breath and thinks back.

“How would Billy Hargrove know something like Classes and Levels in a game like D and D? I thought you’re above all that,” he manages, drawing away Billy’s attention from the suddenly smirking metalhead.

There’s a scrape of nervous nails over torn jean and Billy gives Jonathan one of his cold stares, but he doesn’t mean the feelings behind it now, but Jonathan doesn’t know that “Because Shitbird, I used to be a freak like you and Munson here — then I grew up.”

—

Will is hiding, from Jonathan, his mom, Eleven, Max, Lucas, Dustin, Steve, Nancy, Robin, and Mike, especially Mike, and now he’s got this sense that something bad will happen, a feeling of Vecna breathing down his neck, taunting him with the knowledge that something will happen, something bad, and taking his brother is just the tip of a very large iceberg.

Max says he can talk to her, that she’s been there, but he doesn’t and he can’t, and maybe in part, it’s because he knows he can’t, because Vecna is anything but forgiving, and Will feels suddenly completely alone.

It’s when everyone is talking at once in raised voices that Will really feels alone, memories that he’d forced back into the recesses of his mind, flooding back, loud voices and protective arms around him, making him feel safe, but now they’re gone, because Jonathan isn’t there, and might never be again, unless they find him, and the time is getting closer to losing him forever.

Will is angry and there’s a dark look in his usually light eyes, Joyce knows there’s something wrong, but doesn’t know how to approach her younger son, Will having been pulling away more and more and falling more into himself.

Joyce remembers when Jonathan stopped being so open, when he closed up and stopped telling her things. Now she’s watching her younger son close up as well.

Joyce sits beside Will, wrapping him in her arms as he buries his head against her shoulder. She then pulls Jonathan to her as well, holding him close.

She’s not ready to lose them. She can’t and she won’t, even if she has to fight this Vecna herself.

Meanwhile, Eleven is munching on Eggos and staring at Will with a concerned look. Still, there’s something she can’t figure out, and it’s troubling just as much as Max’s sudden connection to the Upside Down, to the reappearance of Billy or whatever it is that Max heard.

—

Space Oddity plays through a hazy film of straining speakers, the headphones blasting into his ears as he lays across the bed, the slamming of the back door, the loud voices nearly blocked out, still ringing in his ears.

He knows somewhere far off there’s a normalcy that his family lacks, some sort of difference that’s stressed in him, impressed into his mind that other families — the music is cut off abruptly, the lights blowing out, a scream he knows as his little brother’s, his mother shouting, words he only half hears as he’s running down the stairs, two at a time and not caring if he falls. The kitchen is where he finds them, Will — Will sobbing, hand clasped over a bruise now forming against the broken skin of his wrist, he looks smaller, dwarfed ten fold in size to the monster before him, their father in all his misplaced fury, their mother yelling.

‘Hit me! Hit me! You want to hit me, go ahead!’ She’s up in his face, Jonathan sees the confusion in his father’s face, the anger, he steps forward, pressing Will behind him, back and away, before he’s stepping forward. The fist lands before he can register it, and there comes an audible cry from his mother, as she’s catching as he’s falling back, protective arms close round him, and there’s his father through the white out of pain, the look on his face is one of sheer surprise.

‘I didn’t mean it, didn’t mean to, she made me,’ said moments after Will runs for an ice pack.

‘Y-Yes, yes you did... you did — and and nobody makes you do anything, she didn’t— you chose to.’ Jonathan manages through the pain, the bruise forming on his face, a large swollen bump under an eye ‘You always mean everything you do,’ Lonnie Byers doesn’t try to give one of his customary excuses, he doesn’t try to get a hold of himself, punches a hole through the wall and blames his sons, his wife for his behavior. If they hadn’t made him —

Joyce curls Jonathan closer and leads him upstairs with her younger son beside them, leaving them in Jonathan’s room to come back with bruise cream, kept always handy in the medical kit.

‘My brave boys,’ whispered as the slam of a door sounds, the car speeding recklessly from the drive. Tears are forming in Joyce’s usually calm eyes, the forced coolness and comforting look, now gone, and all the walls are crumbling around them.

Jonathan doesn’t ‘waste’ time on himself, goes straight to caring for a little brother and his mother, both broken shells of who they once were, and Jonathan protectively pulls them closer, eyes watching his door in fear that his father will burst in once more, blaming them for everything he willingly and knowingly did.

That’s when Jonathan leaves his boyhood behind and becomes a protector. The boy he was died that day amidst the yelling and the pain of existence in the Byers’ household, the pain which was all because of his father.

Jonathan buries the pain and soon he buries all feelings, he’s numb, the numb feeling turns to something far worse, he doesn’t feel anything and he tries to keep it that way.

Jonathan’s foot knocks against something which kicks him back with a sharp hit to his ankle “Hey Shitbird, wake the hell up, you’re dreaming.” A voice states, loud in his ears.

Jonathan wakes to the upside down features of Eddie Munson, a hand on his shoulder, and Billy Hargrove looking at him from directly to his left, if Billy wears a look of concern, he quickly masks it.

Eddie’s still smiling when he comes the right way round so that Jonathan isn’t seeing him upside down “We thought you were a dead man,”

Billy’s not one for niceties and gets straight to the point, wrenching Jonathan onto his feet with a hard tug on the other’s wrist “While you were off in dreamland, Byers, the Freak here and I got to planning our escape.”

Chapter Text

Jonathan prefers the quiet and solitude, hell, he’d probably even prefer being stuck in the Upside Down with all measure of innumerable dangers than stay one more minute in the In Between with Billy Hargrove, who’s mood swings measure from sort of nice to downright detestable, at the moment it happens to be somewhere smack dab in the middle, ending at a bad temper.

“You both are crazy,” Jonathan can’t help but muster as he’s being led through the dark by Eddie and further on, Billy leading the way.

“Never said anything to dissuade you from that opinion did we? Actually, I quite like people thinking of me like that — or at least I did till —” The Metalhead cuts himself off with a laugh and Eddie’s laugh is hollow now, and Jonathan wonders how long he’s been down there, how long Billy has, revisiting old memories that won’t leave them alone.

He’s clearing his throat and directs his gaze towards the figure in front “Aren’t you going to ask me about Max?” Billy stops so fast that Eddie nearly bumps into him “And what if I don’t want to know?” Billy’s doubled back to tower over Jonathan, using all his height at 5′ 11” (5’ 12” with his machine shop black boots on) to Jonathan’s 5′ 8″ smaller build “Maybe I don’t care...”

A breath passes between them and Jonathan looks up slightly, squinting through the beak surroundings “Maybe you do... that’s why you’re trying so hard to get out of here, because underneath all of your masking, you really do care, but you can’t let others see that.” They’re close enough now that Jonathan can just make out the sneer on Billy’s face “You’ve got me all figured out, don’t you?” Sarcasm.

Eddie cuts between them “Hey hey hey, now, can’t we just I dunno, make friends or something? Just till we get outta here? Then you guys can have at each other and tear each other apart, I won’t stop you, actually, it’d be total metal. We can all kill each other later — right now we should focus on, oh, I dunno, escaping from this hell hole.”

—

“I’m serious! Billy’s in there! He’s with Jonathan!”
The possibility of those words scare Max more than she’d like to admit and she knows the obvious reason for it, the obvious reason that nobody wishes to voice, because the obvious reason is that Billy Hargrove isn’t just MIA or something like that, Billy Hargrove is dead, and that doesn’t bode well for Jonathan if Max says they’re in the same place, whatever place that is.

Will doesn’t hear them, blots their voices out, it’s too much to take and the painful truth is that he’s had to deal with it all his life, everything being to much to take, but then he had Jonathan to lean on, to protect him, and where’s Jonathan now? Sitting voiceless on the floor with blank white eyes, staring out at nothing, still offering a calming presence to his younger brother, but —

Will holds back on a cry that catches somewhere in his throat and reaches out, Jonathan’s hand feeling cold as he catches it in his and holds it, reaching out to some sort of darkness that’s all he can feel.

“Jonathan?” There’s a faint feeling, like the pitter patter of a weak heartbeat, and if it gives Will hope, it’s extinguished in an instant, a false hope, because it’s gone, and something severs in him, there’s desperation and darkness, but nothing else now.

“Will?” A voice, Jonathan’s voice, Will’s eyes open hopefully, only to find blinding white before him, but the voice comes again and louder, sharper.

Desperate.

“Will!?”

Will catches his breath, eyes raking through the sudden separation between them, his mind searching through darkened corridors and empty spaces “Jonathan!?”

Everyone turns to look, Will shouting his brother’s name as he’s falling over some precipice and following a slight white light through the dark scenery, the cold, in the suffocating surroundings there’s only the faint light and Will.

Then suddenly there’s screaming, shouting, anger, there’s a small boy cowering behind a kitchen cabinet, tucked up, trying to be unseen by the angry adults, and Will stops, his tracks dusting away behind him, eyes following the boy’s to find Joyce and Lonnie. Will looks back at the boy, realization hitting him like a blow in the stomach, the boy is his older brother, but he’s younger than Will here, he must be no older than five or six, eyes screwed shut and a pair of busted headphones on, Will thinks at full blast, the way Lonnie is shouting.

Crying, Jonathan’s crying and Will feels every breath hit him like a hammer blow, there’s pain cutting at his heart, he’s not sure how he keeps breathing. It hurts. These aren’t his feelings, these aren’t his, they’re Jonathan’s, and everything hurts.

There’s a lumpy little package wrapped in a blanket in the young boy’s arms, and Will steps closer into the scene, the lumpy package suddenly sprouting waving bread roll arms and a small tear stained face that’s gone red from crying too much, Will realizes in that moment that that bread roll baby is him, that even at five or six, Jonathan looked after him, always without thought for himself, he just loved unconditionally and would always protect those that he loved.

“Jonathan?” His lips move before he realizes he’s said a word, his heart thudding in his ears “Jonathan, it’s going to be okay, dad he — he’ll leave, he’s going to leave us, and after that, after that, he won’t hurt us anymore, not mom or me, not you, it’ll be okay...” he has no idea if the boy can hear him, only steps a little farther, looks down at the boy and the baby, blocking out the yelling.

“You’ve protected me for so long...” there’s a sharp crash, something breaking, more yelling, Will places a protective hand on his brother’s shoulder, breaths out “You’ve always protected me, even when no one protected you, you’ve always protected me, from everything, but you don’t — you don’t have to anymore — Jonathan — I can do it now, I’ve got this, y—you’re the best brother anyone could have... I — I love you Jonathan.”

Yelling, and for an instant their eyes meet, recognition somehow dawning within the surprise and confusion, before Will comes to, back in the ramshackle living room of Hop’s Cabin, surrounded by a ring of concerned people, Joyce, Joyce yelling at Hopper to ‘Do something!’ Just to ‘Do something!’ Can’t you see he’s ‘floating,” just to ‘Help him!?’

Now he’s on the floor with a splitting headache and everything’s too bright, just too bright, he’s not sure if he voiced it, but he must have, since Steve’s sprung up to switch off some lights, but from the dimming of the lights and El’s slight nose bleed, which she wipes away with a careless hand, it seems she beat Steve to it.

Joyce has stopped yelling now, Will crumpled over on the ground, looking up at her, lips moving slowly as he finds the words ‘Mom, please stop yelling, I I had enough already from Dad...’

—

“I told you, I heard him! I heard my little brother!”

“Bullshit,” Billy throws a rock, the skitter of it across hard ground fading into an echo and then nothing “What else you hearing? Any other voices? Maybe you could tell them that this place is shit and if they could kindly give us a little help, maybe you could communicate with them or something, maybe you’re finally tapping into some of your hidden telekinetic and telepathic abilities or some shit like that, Carrie.” Billy stands there lighting a cigarette with agitated fingers.

“Byers you just led us on a wild goose chase, thank you very much.” There’s the customary sarcasm, the scowl, the cock of a hip to the side, radiating aggression, anger, the warning in a look, there’s also anger and despair “Your brother got you lost, got us lost.”

Eddie pulls Jonathan to the side, eyes flitting over the figure feet away and back to Jonathan’s face, and he’s too close in Jonathan’s personal space.

“Look, I’ve tried liking him, I really have, but it’s not my fault he’s unlikable, the guy’s a dingus and it isn’t our fault about that, but look, I didn’t wanna have to bring this up, but we’re gonna have to end him, he’s driving me insane, man, it’s not even his bad taste in music, it’s everything about him, I mean, I really don’t want to have to do this,” he’s so close now that his frizzy hair is flying against Jonathan’s face and he pulls back a little “But maybe we got a chance to get out, you know? Maybe uhhh, what we need is all right here...” Jonathan feels miles away, and he couldn’t be farther “S—sorry? Not following...” Eddie doesn’t miss a beat.

“I know it isn’t exactly right, and all,” Eddie shoved his hands deep into his pant’s pockets, slumping back a little “but I’d rather it be him than me or you — I like you — but him? Nahhh, but what I’m saying, what I’m saying is that maybe Vecna has given us a way out of here... I mean it’s sadistic as hell and everything, but the guy doesn’t exactly have a fear of death or anything, he kinda likes it actually, like majorly likes it, he probably writes it on his to do list or something, but all I’m saying is... maybe a ritual sacrifice or something, and I’m totally okay with sacrificing Billy...” Jonathan blinks and is about to answer, when Billy’s hard voice cuts through his thoughts “If you both are done talking bout sacrifices and all that, could you shitheads get the hell over here? I got something you just might wanna see. Or don’t, take your sweet time why don’t you both.”

—

“I was just sitting here minding my own business when it hit me,” Dustin looks up into a crowd of skeptical faces and pouts slightly “You don’t believe me... Suzie would believe me.” Steve’s there, patting his shoulder briefly, before he’s focusing on the rock in his hand “And the rock came from up there?” Steve’s pointing at a crack in the ceiling, a place where the plaster is peeling away, training his spiked baseball bat (moreover, Nancy’s bat) at the exact place, eyeing it as if at any second a Demogorgon is going to drop in through the ceiling, to say hello and grab a quick snack. Steve internally groans.

“Noooo, that’s just a ceiling crack, sometimes a ceiling crack is just a ceiling crack, not every single crack or something is a portal into a other dimension... Dingus.”

Dustin cuts through Robin and Steve’s back and forth with a loud whistle he’d learned from Steve “If you’ll shut up for a minute, thank you, it didn’t come from the ceiling, it came from the wall, that one...”

Steve’s the first to listen and looks over at a blank slate of a wall “So Lemme get this straight... a rock comes out of nowhere, defying gravity to fly across the room, and just has to attack you, Dustin Henderson... why am I not surprised?” He throws the rock at the wall then, and when it disappears he looks around the room before giving himself a moment to flip his top

“This is crazy! This is crazy! This is crazy.”

Will’s bundled into a blanket, has been talking in a hoarse whisper about what he saw, he’s only been talking to Joyce, but he breaks off mid sentence to point towards the white expanse of wall “I heard Jonathan from over there,”

Steve listens, he’s the first to take a swing at the wall, not even stopping when he hears Hopper saying something about ‘destroying his cabin,’ and he’s the first to tear away at the broken boards and everything, all the while keeping up a one sided dialogue of ‘I’ve got you kid, I’ve got you, we’re gonna find him, don’t worry, we’re gonna find him, I’ve got you,’ directed towards Will.

Steve’s barely got the wall open when he hears it, a sense of relief and fear falling over him.

“Barb?”

He’s nearly got the wall pulled away when the gate opens in front of him, darker than pitch and moving at the corners like vines, but it’s nothing they’ve ever seen in the Upside Down. Steve turns to Hopper with a raised eyebrow and an open mouthed stare.

“You’ve had this boarded up for how long and haven’t told any of us? Not even El? The kids came over to play and stuff, they could have gotten seriously hurt playing Hide and Seek or something, I mean, this is not okay...” there’s a moment where it looks like Hopper might make a heavily worded response, but then a slight smile forms over his worried face “Now you’re giving me parenting advice, Harrington?” There’s a pause, a look from Hopper that feels like an X-ray stare “You don’t even have kids...”

Steve removes the last piece of white wall that’s blocking the gate and rolls his eyes “Come on, I happen to be a very overworked single mom here, I’m an overworked mom to eight kiddos, yes, I included you in the list of my eight kids, Robin, I always include you in that... anyway, what are we standing around for? We could be finding Jonathan. Now give me a flashlight and let’s go...”

—

“Sooo, what exactly are we looking at?” Eddie stares down into a hole “Oh great, great, Hargrove found a hole in the ground, well that’s unnatural to find that, cause last I checked, you can’t make holes in the ground! great, great, and look, more darkness, excellent, I don’t see the point of this,” Eddie’s voice is pitched in between a whisper and a yell, shoulder to shoulder with Billy while Jonathan’s lacking a couple feet “I’m so glad you two took us sight seeing, but I have a feeling it’s not helping anything...”

He’s halfway through a curse when he hears the first voice, something crumbling, when dark vines start dragging him under, and Billy’s given a mad leap for his left hand while Jonathan has a desperate grip on his right, and they’re shouting back and forth at each other over Eddie’s head.

“You pull!” “No, you!” There’s something snaked around Jonathan’s leg, but he doesn’t stop trying to help Eddie, and Billy’s gripped on so tight that he’s leaving bruises on Eddie’s wrist.

“You grab him!” Jonathan losing his grip, scrambling to get it back, just to get a hold on Eddie.

“Hello! Would you two be able to save your lover’s spat for a time when I’m not being strangled by vines!? Or would that be too much to ask here!?” Eddie shouts out through a choked breath.

—

“Why oh why are these places always dark and creepy... anything but dark and creepy, why not bright and happy?”

“Or holly and jolly?” Steve replies through a roll of his eyes, beating back the vines curling round and round the walls of the tunnel into whatever lies ahead.

Chapter Text

—

“Does it smell like Pot in here?” There’s a distinct scent wafting through the compact tunnel, the smell suffocating and there’s a shuffling behind Steve, who’s taking the lead through the inky surroundings and regrets it. And for the millionth time, since they entered through the gate, someone knocks straight into him.

“Oh, sorry Brochacho, I’m lighting up here, see, the weed keeps me from losing my shit, and this is a shit losing situation Brochacho,”

For the hundredth time Steve feels his eyes rolling and he clenches back on some harsher words “Yeah, Brochacho, I get you... I get you...” he states, sarcasm dripping in every syllable.

“Right on man, you uhhh, wanna partake?”

Steve’s close to losing his calm and sucks in a breath before blowing out a cloud of smoke from what he’d sucked up in the noxious air “No thanks man — I’m sure the weed is Dope and shmackin’ or whatever, bro—chacho, but these are my kids and they’re my responsibility, and I don’t think their parents would like them getting second hand Dope smoke from you lighting up...” Steve ‘Always the Damn Babysitter’ Harrington states, carrying on through the tunnel to possibly certain death... most certainly a painful death. Possibly.

Maybe death would be better than having to make the return trip listening to Argyle again. Maybe, Steve’s not weighed all the options.

—

“Eddie!!!! Eddie!?” Jonathan can hear his voice in the ghost of a scream and his grip loosens around his friend’s wrist, hand raw and his skin broken, desperation in the clutch of his breath, he’s sure someone’s pulling him back in their arms, but he’s too angry to determine if they’re friend or foe and he keeps yelling towards the place they lost him, as vines are creeping round his legs and the prone form he can vaguely make out from the tangles of dark vines.

“He’s gone! What are you doing!? He’s gone!” There’s a voice yelling at him from somewhere near his deafened ears and he’s struck out to feel a hand grip his wrist in a tight grasp. He’s suddenly so weak and the person manages easily to drag him back and away from the vines that are shooting up towards them.

Jonathan gets a whiff of cigarettes as the arms release him, Billy lighting a cigarette with less than still fingers, they’re shaking slightly.

How many people are they going to lose? How many?

“You nearly got us all killed there,” Billy’s stating in a matter of fact tone while he’s catching his breath, funny, him catching his breath while the cigarette between his teeth steals the air from his lungs.

Jonathan’s limped over to a small rock where he’s let himself fall, losing Eddie — he — Billy’s sitting beside him now, offering a cigarette and a look that’s hard to decipher, like the dirty blonde is fighting some inner battle.

Billy rolls his aching muscles in his shoulders before stamping out the cigarette and standing up, wicking away blood from a small cut on his arm “You two Shitheads are going to be the death of me... Stay here and don’t touch anything.”

—

“Why are you even here?” Steve grumbles out as Argyle knocks against him for the millionth time and Steve feels the tunnel wall move almost as if it’s breathing, as if it’s alive.

“I dunno man, I heard my sweet bro Jonathan Byers was in trouble and I just jumped right in to this rescue mission... oh, and bullying my bro - bro, ain’t happening no more, right bro? Heard what you did bro with his camera and his girl, not cool, not cool Brochacho, that Byers has it rough already, man, you read me?”

“Loud and Clear...” Steve grits out before the walls start closing in on them and he’s making a mad dash towards the small pin prick of light he can see before them, shoving all the kids in front of them as he’s yelling for them to move, to get out, heart clenched in an iron grip of fear and confusion.

—

There’s a burst of white light and arms pulling him to safety, a brief burst of pain, a screech of sound which Eddie translates into words he hardly hears, and the shrieking of the vines as they writhe around in the golden glow of orange flames, shriveling and dying.

‘That’s pretty Metal’ Eddie thinks moments before darkness encapsulates him.

When he comes to, there’s a face swimming before him, swathed in blonde hair, the face hazy in front of Eddie, because his eyes are just now getting back to normal, shapes popping before him and becoming physical forms.

The face swims before him, he thinks he sees a nervous smile through the length of long hair. Blonde.

Eddie’s eyes strain through the darkness “Chrissy?” There’s a sharp swat to his cheek and a groan passes through his lips as he gingerly sits up, dragging himself into a swaying sitting position.

“Chrissy? Chrissy? Do I look like a chick to you, Munson?” Billy’s sitting cross legged on the ground, not really caring now about the large amount of blood running down his arm from a large gash accumulated in an attack from one of the vines that had Eddie wrapped in a chokehold “Now I asked you... Do I look like a chick?”

Eddie’s looking around in confusion, blinks back on tears that won’t fall anyway “Maybe if you blink a little.” There’s a smile that he sends Billy that the blonde doesn’t send back, though Eddie thinks he might just detect something in the other male’s eyes, maybe some spark before “Ouch!” Jonathan’s beside them now, examining Eddie in a frantic manner while Billy’s leaning back, breathing heavy and labored. Jonathan feels as if he’ll pass out, any second now, it’s just a matter of time, and Eddie’s worst out of them.

He just can’t catch a breath. His throat is raspy and choked, as is his voice, and he’s not sure if he’ll ever be able to speak again without gasping for breath.

“Thanks,” is mustered from a hoarse sandpaper throat and Billy just nods somewhat shakily as Jonathan checks on Eddie before fighting Billy into letting him tourniquet up the wound in his arm to stop the bleeding.

“No problem... but next time — I’m just gonna leave you, got it? It’s not worth the trouble for me...” Eddie feels a lump form in his throat before he smiles slightly “Admit it, man, you like us,”

“No...”

Billy’s fingers are absentmindedly tearing at a hole in the knee of his pants and he doesn’t look up, eyes hollow and staring down at the ground “Chrissy — she was that Cheerleader chick right?”

“Yeah...” Eddie says softly, voice an octave too high “Chrissy, Chrissy Cunningham...” he tries to think back to some better time, to the forest when they’d met, the picnic table where they’d sat and talked, laughed, she’d been laughing then, they both had, but now all he can see is her levitating body, the fear still on her unmoving face, all he can hear is the snap of bones.

‘Chrissy wake up, I don’t like this Chrissy, Chrissy wake up!?’ floating, she’s floating before him and there’s no stopping her, there’s so much pain, fear, Eddie’s screaming now, he can’t stop. Then the sick twist of bone, the sickening sound.

“Yeah, Cunningham... whatever happened to her? You guys ever —,” Billy feels a sharp twist in his side and his heart hurts, something about the frozen fear on Munson’s face just — “Vecna...” Eddie breaths into the stillness, eyes flowing thick with tears “Vecna killed her.” There’s fury and rage and a sickness that hits him, there’s regret, anger at himself, Billy feels it as if it’s his. “Vecna? Alright, alright cut the shit, explain?” Maybe it’s to pass the time, distract Eddie, maybe it’s to distract himself from the pain, just to forget about it while someone explains what he’s missed.

Maybe it’s because he understands the lost look in Eddie’s eyes, something nobody should ever be subjected to feel, because it means they’re still living through some trauma that’s too hard to take.

Eddie explains as much as he can, trying to gloss over the goriest details, Jonathan filling in bits, and Billy just nods along, making comments here and there, but not really daring to interrupt, and suddenly there’s a sick feeling in his chest, anger at himself, the type he always gets when thinking about his actions before.

“Alright... alright — just — just tell me one thing, is — is Max safe?” Remorse comes out in his voice, a thought that ‘she’s at least safe from me,’ following the stream of sudden guilt “I just need to know that...” both sets of eyes look away from his and Billy gets the feeling there’s something they aren’t telling him.

“W—wait — what— what happened to to Max? What happened?” Ice cold waves pass through him, he’s had enough time in solitude, away from Hawkins and the abuse of his dad, the anger that ruled his life there, he’s had time to think.

True, he never gave a shit before, maybe he did, maybe he just — you care about someone and they just hurt you, they lie, they trick you, they abuse you, break you down, they leave. Maybe he did care or maybe he built up a wall around his heart to protect himself and that wall made him into the despicable person he was, who he still is, with his father’s anger and his father’s prejudice, maybe he did care, but he couldn’t show it. Because caring for people only made you weak.

That’s his father talking, all his father, and all he can do is try and block it out. His hands have turned to fists now and he’s pretty close to losing it completely.

“What. — happened. — to Max?” He’s close to losing it, like he would in the past, his fist gripping the collar of Jonathan’s shirt in a chokehold grip, but the fight sinks away, falls from him, and he forcefully lets the other male go, Jonathan lurching backwards on unsteady legs, to sit back with a thump on the ground. Billy thinks of an apology, but it never comes out.

—

“We’ve been going in circles the whole time!” Steve gets out with exasperation “And Brochacho over there was trying to suffocate us.”

They’re back in Hop’s cabin with an array of injuries and Steve is fuming, not only was their mission a failure, but the kid’s he cares about got hurt because of it, and they’d just been going in circles.

“We’re no closer to finding Jonathan or the others and now we’re back where we started and the gate has closed up! Do you people even know how hard it is to babysit seven or eight kids at the same time I’m going into inter dimensional dimensions and almost dying every time!!!? It’s not a god damn picnic in the park!!! Oh this is not good, this is so not goo— J-Jonathan?”

There’s a voice in the back of his mind, he really doesn’t have time to focus on how weird that is, just listens again, but hears nothing and throws his hands up in dramatic defeat “Oh great! And now I’ve gone crazy! I’m crazy, I’m crazy — I’m— oh there it is again!” He can just make out a small voice and Joyce Byers staring straight at him before he straightens up and turns his gaze to the stiff figure before the coffee table

“Jonathan? H—how are you — how are we doing this?” Steve breathes out sharply “Why not Nance?”

“Steve? Is — is that you?” It comes as a whisper and Steve feels a great amount of sudden concern and relief “Y—yeah, yeah it’s me... it’s Steve Harrington — h-how— how are you?”

“Steve?”

Steve vaguely realizes the room has dissolved before him and he’s standing in front of a Jonathan that’s blood splattered and wounded, eyes hollowed out with pain and Steve’s running to him, the form collapsing and Steve’s holding him, the form in his arms so tangible that he feels he could pull Jonathan back through the darkness with him and back towards the small pinprick of light he knows he came from.

Steve turns back to the labored breathing and finds himself staring into the other male’s face, into his eyes that show some fear “Jonathan, tell me where you are? Where are you?” Steve’s words come in waves, blasting into the silence around them and he feels panicked and suddenly scared. Steve Harrington feels scared like he never has before, and he’s faced down Demodogs.

“Jonathan, you need to keep breathing, just — where are you?” He’s the unlikeliest person to be talking to Jonathan from wherever he is. He’s not Joyce or Will, he’s definitely not Nancy, but he’s suddenly there.

“In Between...” Jonathan’s voice dusts out of the silence and Steve turns to look around, eyes raking through the dark “In Between? Jonathan I don’t — I don’t understand...” there’s frantic breaths and a fading haze at the corners of his eyes and he’s pulling Jonathan with him, trying to get back to that light, but he’s struggling

“My Mom? Will?” Steve sits down on the hard ground, looking around to find anything other than darkness “They’re — they’re okay,” he manages “Freaked out, but — who isn’t,” he’s not sure how he manages it, but he’s mustered a reassuring smile “Man, you even managed to freak me out, congrats...” he’s sitting there with Jonathan Byers and they haven’t traded blows or heavily worded insults, he hasn’t felt the jealousy he usually would over Nancy or — there’s just him and Jonathan Byers and this all consuming fear “We’re gonna get you out, just — just stay put for a second,” Steve’s throat constricts painfully “Where is this — this In Between?”

The darkness suddenly dissolves, sending him back to himself and the interior of Hop’s Cabin and he’s barely managing to keep it together and for a brief minute, he doesn’t know immediately where he is, still stuck in the cold and the darkness.

“Jonathan? Jonathan!?” Nancy, Nancy’s bent down and holding him and Steve Harrington bursts into tears that he’s been holding back too long.

Joyce hesitates only a moment before pulling Steve into a reassuring embrace, one which Steve, who’s parents are not the most feeling and loving, don’t ever give him.

And since the first day he got mixed up into this mess of different dimensions and people with superpowers and babysitting six kids while fighting inter dimensional monsters and trying to balance a shaky love life, he feels safe.

“It’s okay, it’s alright, I’ve got you, it’s okay...” Joyce whispers to him, reassuring and gentle and Steve gathers his breath, lets it go in one shaky inhale and exhale, before he slowly leans up and looks over at Will and his older brother “I — I saw Jonathan...” he manages, looking towards Joyce, who’s got tears in her eyes “Is he - is he okay? Is he alright? Where is he? Is he safe?”

Steve closes his eyes as his vision starts to swim in and out with the onset of a piercing headache.

“Is he safe?”

Steve feels his throat close around the word and he swallows audibly, hands clenched against his knees, blood staining there “No. No he’s he’s not, something happened, something’s happening,” his voice is hoarse and close to panicking and he grips Jonathan’s shoulders hard and shakes the unresponsive male “Jonathan, Jonathan it’s time to get up Jonathan! I don’t like this Jonathan! Get up!?” Robin’s quick at his side to stop him panicking

Will’s hand shoots up so fast it’s a blur and he grips Steve’s wrist in a loose hold “Stop... he’s — he’s here...” the prickling on his neck intensifies and the air falls stagnant around them as if everything is holding their breath “He’s here.”

Chapter Text

The sky is as red as it is in Vecna’s realm and as Steve carries Jonathan’s limp form out, he’s stuck between fear and a sense of strange calm, a calm which quickly vanishes when he notices the mirror image of what it looks like in the Upside Down. Oh this can’t be good. No, this is the farthest thing from good. This is bad... worse than bad.

Dustin is arguing with Hopper, wanting to drive while Hopper flat out puts that question to rest, Dustin about to make a point back, and Steve’s losing the slight calm he has, Jonathan getting heavy in his arms “Hey Henderson, this isn’t a joy ride and this isn’t exactly a sack of potatoes I’m holding, now get in the car and let Hopper drive, you can take the wheel some other time... now get in and shut your trap.”

He doesn’t mean to snap, it’s the last thing in his head, and the last person he’d ever think of yelling at, but he does, and instantly regrets it, but he doesn’t have time to apologize, he just slides in beside Nancy and Will in the far back, Jonathan resting between them, still unmoving. Hopper starts the car off down the road and fast, turning the corner with screeching tires.

Steve runs a hand down his neck, the sudden prick of cold air against the back of his neck and the nervous energy renders him speechless in thought, before he’s glancing towards Dustin, a Dustin who’s not so secretively but trying to be secretive about it, wiping at his eyes.

Steve lets out a sigh that’s filled of regret and rubs his hand down the back of his neck again “Look, Henderson I — I’m sorry...” he catches Hopper’s eye in the rear view mirror before the Chief turns his gaze back to the road and Steve looks over towards a very silent Dustin.

“I’m sorry... Dustin I’m sorry, I yelled at you and I don’t have any excuse, I just snapped and I’m sorry, I don’t know how to make it up to you, but I want to... I’ll do anything to make it up to you, buddy.”

“Anything?”

There’s a moment where he thinks Dustin is about to forgive him, where they’re about to shake hands or hug or something, but then he looks towards his friend and sees a smile there that he doesn’t much like “Okay, wh—what’s that face for?”

“Sing that song I like and we’re all good...” is what falls from Dustin Henderson’s mouth with a wide smirk of a grin and Steve feels a knot form in the pit of his stomach

“Alright, no, deals off, I am not gonna apologize for the rest of my life, Nope, there is no way I am singing that song in front of everyone here... no way no how. You don’t even like that song, you just want me to make a fool of myself, I know your little tricks, Henderson.” He meets Robin’s large eyes as she swivels and turns in her seat to stare at him

“Nooo...” he mumbles right off before she can pester him “I am not singing Material Girl... you can’t make me.”

Robin only shrugs and turns back to the front, sending him a slight glance “Wasn’t going to ask...” and that’s when the soft singing starts, Robin singing the words to Steve’s chagrin.

“No, I am not going to sing that song, you won’t make me,” Steve states, losing his grip slightly “You are both so mean to me, what’d I ever do to deserve you, Buckley, Henderson?”

“Don’t know, you must be real lucky or something, Harrington. Oh, oh turn here, go left, left, turn here.” Steve is used to Robin and Dustin’s backseat driving, Hopper is not, Steve can see he’s getting annoyed by the twitch of his mustache.

Steve leans back against the cold glass of the back window and turns to look at Robin, who’s giving Hop some unwanted directions “So where are we going exactly?”

Robin doesn’t even bat an eye, in fact, she looks at him as if she’s waiting for a bomb to go off and she’s bored with it, maybe she’s waiting for him to argue with her “Vickie’s...”

Steve is staring at her in shock when Robin turns in her seat and Steve pretends to clear out his ears “Sorry did I hear you wrong? I thought you said Vickie? As in Vickie Vickie, as in — Robin, I don’t think right now is exactly the best time for a date at your girlfriend’s house... I mean, that’s great for you and all, but this isn’t exactly the time, I mean, I mean, if we bring Jonathan there in this state, she’ll start asking questions, and she might call the police, she might freak out, and we don’t want her freaking out, I don’t need that right now, we don’t need that, nobody needs that, I mean think of Vickie, do you really want to have that conversation? Oh hi Vickie, can we invade your home for a while, how about we just move in? Oh by the way, our friend Jonathan Byers isn’t possessed, promise, he’s just — he just does that sometimes— no it’s not narcolepsy — oh, and have you heard of Vecna, the Mindflayer, Demogorgons, Demodogs, and whatever else? Do you want to know everything about the place Will accidentally got lost in? Well we call it the Upside Down, oh no please don’t call the police, it’s all real, prove it? No we can’t prove it, I know we sound crazy, but we’re not crazy, you just have to believe us...” Robin is quick to cut through his panic with a look and a pointed “Are you done?” Steve swallows and breaths out “Maybe.”

“I don’t see the big deal about going to Vickie’s, Steve, besides, it’s not like she doesn’t already know.”

Hopper revves the gas pedal to the floor, taking a sharp left and Steve presses down on Jonathan’s shoulders to keep him sliding around as Hop cuts the corner tight “You told someone about the Upside Down? You told a random person about the Upside Down and Vecna? Who is she? Can we even trust her?”

“Vickie, she’s Robin’s girlfriend, she’s pretty nice... she’s cool.” Steve offers, glancing over at Robin “If Robin trusts her, that’s good enough for me.” He shrugs, leaning back.

“She could be a Soviet Spy...” Hopper takes a corner on two wheels

“Uhhh, Unlikely, but okay, let’s go with that...” Steve states dryly, hands running over the dried blood in his pants leg, at the knee and already a dark crimson and brown stain “Yeah, Vickie’s a Soviet Spy... pretending to be a high-schooler and the best cover is that she’s in Band, a high school Band... Welp, that makes total sense. I completely rest my case. Thanks Murray.” He can feel the cold stare like he’s been dumped in the Antarctic “I’m not Murray.” Steve raises an eyebrow, just the one, and focuses his eyes at the Police Chief “Aren’t you though? Because right now you sound a lot like him.”

“You want to stay in this car, Harrington?” Steve’s fingers clench with nerves “Yes — Sir...” Steve frowns, pretty sure he has never called anyone ‘sir’ in his life, except for the few times his dad speaks to him — scratch that — speaks at him, with regret and sometimes sharp words and unneeded advice.

Hopper keeps driving. Past Vickie’s house and out of Hawkins.

It’s late the next day when they arrive at Murray’s and Steve is worried because Jonathan has gone radio silent.

Chapter Text

“Look in the camera...” Steve nearly breaks the speaker into pieces trying to find the camera, only to hear Murray’s voice crackle out over the speaker ‘Oh isn’t he a smart one...’ he’s holding Jonathan again, doesn’t know how he got from sort of enemy to barely tolerant of the Byers male to friends, wait — are they friends?

Nancy is first to look up into the camera and the speaker system crackles again, Steve wincing slightly with the sound.

“And who’s the one with the hair,” Steve doesn’t expect Murray to remember him from some time ago at Starcourt Mall, he hardly remembers the conspiracy theorist himself, just a few words and a voice over the walkie’s staticky frequency. Actually, that night was all some strange sort of blur to the Harrington male, having gained for himself a quite nasty concussion when he’d rammed into Billy Hargrove’s car to save his friends. He slightly remembers sitting alone in the back of an opened and parked ambulance, lights creating swirling patterns that make him sick, he remembers waiting as parents rushed towards lost children, Karen and Ted and Mike with little Holly, Joyce holding Will in a tight hug, he remembers feeling lost and unloved, hopeless and angry, no parents rushing to him, no arms around him, he remembers when that too changed.

Jonathan, it was Jonathan walking, barely, up to him, a muffled voice, low and calm yet also pitched and frantic.

There’s arms wrapped round him in a feather light embrace, a voice somewhere far off through the concussive haze “take it easy, hey, hey man, you’re okay,” a blanket drops round his shoulders “The kids? The kids?” A hand on his shoulder, gently pressing him back to a sitting position “They’re — they’re fine, nothing broken, nothing harmed,” he bites back on a feeling of nausea and tries to focus “Nance?” “Fine, she’s fine,” no animosity in his words, just reassurance “You should lay down, you’ll feel better like that, believe me...” Jonathan’s words feel miles away beyond the dull throbbing of his head, the sick swell in his stomach “Everyone’s fine Steve, just focus on getting better now, I got the rest, I’ll watch out for them.” Steve feels that reassurance that never comes with his parents rejection of him as a person, his father and his disdain and his mother and her cold aloofness.

“Come on, let’s get you lying down, I swear it’ll help.” Steve pulls his mind away from his swimming thoughts only to feel steadily shaking arms wrap round him and help him up, leaning heavily against Jonathan “You’re you’re shaking,” there’s a small smile that passes across Jonathan’s lips “It’s alright to be scared Steve, it happens to the best of us.” Jonathan states with a pointed look before he’s catching Steve as the male starts falling on his wobbling legs, gravity now playing one horrible joke on him “Come on,” Jonathan’s picked him up in a bridal carry before Steve can complain and sets him in the back of the ambulance, the small gurney in the middle, before settling in the space between gurney and ambulance wall, letting the silence lapse between them “Steve? You were really brave there, when you— you really saved us, so thank you,” Steve can feel warmth pool in the pit of his stomach at the words, and he bites back on a smile.

“Well, you know— just what I do now, I guess, save the world and what not... I never thought I’d be doing that, I mean - me, Steve Harrington, babysitting six kids while stopping monsters from another dimension, nobody would believe it, I mean, me, Steve Harrington, who’s biggest concern was what everybody thought about me, years ago my biggest worry was what shirt would go with those pants, or I was playing basketball trying to make my dad finally proud of me, I thought it was life or death, and now I just fought a monster and it all seems so stupid now, but I thought, I seriously thought my dad would be proud of me, but he never was, not with everything I did...”

Steve knows he’s rambling at that moment, but he feels as if he can’t stop, his eyes hazy with withheld tears. Jonathan grips his shoulder in a loose grip, a smile on his lips “We’re proud of you Steve, Max, Dustin, especially Dustin, Will, Mike, Lucas, El, Nancy, Robin, we’re all proud of you, maybe that’s all you need. Maybe you’ve been trying too hard to make something happen that won’t ever happen, sometimes family’s aren’t what you need, can’t be what you want, but maybe you’re looking in the wrong place, Steve, maybe family is right in front of you, has been the whole time, with Max, Lucas, Will, Mike, El, all of us, you act like you’re alone, Steve, but you’re not, you’ve got family with us. We’ll always be here for you, I want you to remember that, even if we have history or shared trauma, we’re here.”

“I’m so proud of you.” Jonathan’s mom in Steve’s peripheral vision, a hug that’s not suffocating, that he dearly needs. ‘I’m proud of you.’

Joyce comes to help Steve home, Steve in the backseat with Dustin clinging to him as if the kid is never going to let him go, the others squished together, holding on, a family. Steve barely meets Jonathan’s eyes, but there’s a smile on his lips that doesn’t fade, he’s found a family and that family is worth fighting for. He’ll remember that, whatever happens.

“This is Steve, Steve Harrington,” Nancy states, looking up into the camera lens “The — the Steve I mentioned before — when we came to see you the first time... that Steve,” “That Steve? The We like Steve, but we don’t Love Steve, Steve?” Nancy spares an apologetic glance at Steve before nodding up towards the surveillance system “Yes, that Steve...”

Steve is getting fed up with this shi— right, he shouldn’t curse in front of the kids... he’s getting sick and tired of this stuff — he’s been cramped up in a car, squashed against the window by Dustin and an Argyle that won’t shut up about random things, he’s just been talking about random things and it doesn’t make sense to Steve, he’s cramping something awful, he’s pretty sure he’ll never regain feeling in his left leg since it went to sleep hours ago, and he has six kids who haven’t had anything to eat since breakfast.

“Hey, does this look like a sack of potatoes to you? No, this is Jonathan Byers and he needs help, so if you don’t let us in in the next second, I really don’t want to do this, but I’m going to start counting and when I get to three,” there’s laughing over the speaker, like a laugh that some maniac would have.

“You wouldn’t,” Steve pushes doorbell again “Don’t think I won’t, I’ve been shoved in a car with six complaining kids for hours, One of them kept asking if ‘we were there yet’ and wouldn’t shut up, I think my left cheek has gone to sleep for good, Jonathan’s heavier than he looks and probably possessed, I’ve been having to lug him around, into the car, out of the car, I’m worried sick about him, and the kids haven’t had food since breakfast! So you open the door or —“ the door opens, Murray standing there with a rifle and a glass of vodka, clothed in a robe

“Are you always so pleasant?” Steve pushes past the older man, grumbling angrily “You better have Eggos...” El slightly perks up at the prospect of Eggos.

“Nice to see you too... what sort of a greeting is that? Oh I can see why you left him for Byers.” The last part is muttered as an afterthought to Nancy as Murray lets the crowd inside and focuses his attention on Hopper and Joyce “To what do I have the honor of this house invasion? And no, I don’t have any Eggos. Sorry.” Steve sets Jonathan on the couch before turning to glance at Murray “You’re not sorry.” Murray’s pouring another glass of neat vodka “No, Lemme guess, all other food will kill her except Eggos?” Lucas shakes his head slightly in confusion “No, she just really likes Eggos.”

“Hate to break it to you, but I don’t have Eggos, I do have other food though, your kids won’t starve, relax, you’re going on like a single mother, hate to break it to you Steve, but they aren’t actually your kids.” Steve straightens up and raises an eyebrow “El likes Eggos, not other food. And I know— first off I’m not a woman so I can’t be their mom, second.” “Bright one, isn’t he?”

“Look Murray, we need your help, this is sort of urgent.” “Isn’t it always though? What is it this time?” The older man grumbles lightheartedly

“Only Vecna,” Murray’s quick to nod along as if he knows what’s going on with the whole babysitter’s club plus their actual babysitters bursting into his house like some sort of plague “Oh right, Vecna, right, who?”

“Only the most evil mind stealer in the world,” Erica states as if Murray should know already and is behind the times.

“He doesn’t steal your mind, he just kills people,” Lucas states, cutting his sister short and fixing his glare against hers, a staring match ensuing before Max interjects “He steals souls... not minds, he doesn’t just kill you,” if a shiver passes through her, she doesn’t let it show.

“He’s this terrible monster who’s like six foot tall and he looks creepy,” Dustin breaks into the conversation “All the skin looks melted off him, there’s just the muscular system there,” “He uses vines to strangle you,” “not to mention uses his mind to break bones and stuff,” “he —“

“Alright alright, I get it, you don’t have to go further with the gruesome details.” Murray’s looking towards Hopper and Joyce with a forced smile, sarcasm in his tone as he says ‘Kids, aren’t they just wonderful.”

Steve is sitting on the couch, eyes closed, hand trailing on the couch cushions “You have a blanket?” He mumbles, barely moving his hand to point at the form beside him “For him, not me,” he’s just coming to grips with the fact that he’s friends with Jonathan Byers, and here he is now, just realizing that he actually cares about him, he wonders if Jonathan would feel the same, wonders if they are actually friends. He’s so lost in his head that he nearly jumps out of his skin the minute a heavy quilted blanket slaps into his face. “Hey!” “A simple ‘thank you’ will do.”

“You could’ve just handed it to me like a normal person.” Steve states, unfurling the blanket and looking over at the form beside him “Okay Jonathan, I’m gonna wrap you up under this, alright?” His smile falters in the silence that greets him “Come on man, wake up? Or or say something?” There’s a defeated sigh that escapes Steve’s lips and he covers Jonathan up with the blanket, leaving only his head above the surface, but he doesn’t even know if he’s actually breathing.

“Giving me the silent treatment are you? Okay, okay, I get it man, I get it. Look, either you’re going to talk or I am, and to tell you the truth Byers, right now, I know it’s gonna sound crazy, but right now I’d much rather hear your voice, but okay, okay, I get it.” Steve slumps down beside Jonathan and sets his hands stiffly on his knees, leaning forward wearily “Fine then man, if you aren’t gonna talk then I will...”

Steve sits back, rocking slightly, maybe it’s comforting, maybe it stems from the fact he’s not ever been one to sit still for too long, regardless he doesn’t stop for a minute, lost for what to say.

“These uhhhh, past months I I’ve been watching you... ummm, not in a creepy kinda way, just in a— oh for crying out loud, I —“ Steve sits back, thinking of words that suddenly feel jumbled “You know or maybe you don’t know that I’m an only child, and I mean it’s a lonely existence, man, real lonely and seeing you with Will, I guess I was jealous of you, of having this person with you always, someone to talk to and someone who looks up to you, you know? I never had that till my life got turned upside down.”

A small breath passes between his lips “I don’t know what it’s like, and then these kids just basically fell into my lap or something and I had to be this protector, and then I got to feel like a big brother, to Dustin, but I knew nothing about being a brother or even a really good friend, I was a shitty friend, I had shitty friends, and I was an even shittier boyfriend, but I started watching you, what you did and how you acted with Will, I took notes, I wanted to be like you so I could be the big brother Dustin deserves, so I guess you helped me with that, I guess I should thank you for that. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but you were kind of a role model. You know I don’t know why I’m even telling you all this, I mean, it’s not like you can hear me anyway.” Steve gets out the last sentence in an exasperated manner and slumps back against the couch

“All I’m saying Byers is that you have to get back here, you’re going to make it back from wherever you are and you’re going to see Will again, you’re gonna get to take him to the Arcade or just — you better not give up on yourself cause we aren’t, I’m not, so you don’t give up either, got it?” Steve swipes at his face, catching a stray traitorous tear “Jesus, Byers, you’re getting me all emotional.”

Chapter Text

El’s been quiet all this time, doesn’t even say anything when Mike is at her elbow, when he asks if she’s okay. No, that’s the answer, she’s not okay, the events of the prior months haunt her in her waking hours as does the ever present threat of Vecna and the Government officials, people wishing her dead or wishing to use her as a weapon or — she’s sitting here, watching the color drain from her adopted older brother’s face while he’s powerless to do anything, thoughts and feelings trapped in his own mind, while everyone just sits there.

She’s watched bones snap, seen things most would be weakened by, not be able to recover from, but she’s here now, she got out, but her trauma keeps coming back to her, and every time she thinks she’s rid of it, rid of Vecna, rid of the rainbow room and Papa, everything comes back to haunt her.

Papa took everything from her, Vecna took more, and now he keeps taking from her what’s most important to her. She hasn’t spoken in hours, the silence seems too dense to break, to oppressing, too hollow. She clamps down on the anger before it surges through her, counts back down from ten to zero, like Jonathan taught her to, some coping mechanism he’d learned young.

“Just count back... it’ll help. Promise.”

Ten. Nine. A deep breath. Eight. Focusing on the darkness and a flash of light. Seven. Six. She’s falling slowly, drifting in a calm feeling. Five. Four. Another breath. Three. Two. One. — Zero.

“I— I have a plan.” The silence breaks like glass, the stable bickering of a few voices dies down, and El stands up, calm and already collecting her thoughts

“I think I can reach Jonathan.”

—

“You really think this’ll work? El, are you sure this’ll work?” Mike is beside her, hand clasping hers in a nervous grip, there’s a camera sitting in El’s lap, a blindfold over her eyes, and a determined look that Mike knows well, it leaves no room for argument.

“It’ll work, it has to.” Mike is always skeptical “But what if it doesn’t, El? What if —,” El cups his face between her hands, kissing him gently though she feels some sudden divide “Mike, I need you to trust me.” Mike can only nod “I do.”

El tightens the blindfold, makes sure it’s on.

“Breathe, I’m right here with you...” Ten “You’re safe, I won’t leave, you’re safe.” Nine “Just breathe, I’m right here with you El.” Eight.

“Jonathan?” There’s a flash of blinding light through the dark that El searches through, and she’s getting worried.

“Jonathan!!!?” She shouts out, Mike gripping her hand outside of the place she is now.

“El? El what’s wrong? Are you okay? El?”

“Eleven?” El searches through the darkness till she finds a solitary flickering spot of light and moves towards it, heart thudding with sudden relief and growing worry “Jonathan?”

“El? How?” El’s beside him, hesitant to reach out, in fear that he could disappear into dust or just disappear “Doesn’t matter, are you okay?”

There’s blood and a lot of it.

“I’ll be fine, El, always am.” A reassuring smile falls onto his face, something he’s rehearsed since childhood, but it doesn’t work on El.

“No, that’s not true...” “El,” “That’s not true, I saw you in California, you smoked that noxious weed stuff daily,” Jonathan manages a slight surprised laugh “That ‘noxious weed’ was Pot, it — it helped... I— El, I know I wasn’t really there for you —,” “You were, you were there, but then you just went away, you disappeared, you just left, that stuff made you distant,” El can feel tears breaking down her face “I know it felt like you were alone, but you — you aren’t, you aren’t, it’s me and you and mom and dad and Will, family, you said we were family and families don’t leave each other. Families don’t leave.”

There’s a shift before her eyes, a darkness that clears, and a small wooden table with four chairs and a high chair in the corner of a stark white room, a woman cooking breakfast with tears on her face, two children, a man just coming in with a beer in hand and a loud voice, one boy, the youngest, with a scraped knee.

“El?” Mike’s voice talking through the haze “El are you okay?” And El can’t seem to answer as she watches the man yell and the oldest child protect the youngest. Stepping in front, a new bruise on his face, a face with fearful eyes.

“That’s you isn’t it? Your Papa was bad too?” She’s turning back to the older version of the small boy now, eyes wide, and Jonathan only nods, eyes plastered to the scene as the man shoves past his wife, collecting his things before he walks out the door and the small table vanishes with the woman and two small boys, the haze around it clearing, El turns back to her older brother.

“Good families don’t leave each other,” she states, reaching out for his hand “I came to take you home... we miss you, I miss you.”

Mike is screaming El’s name now, fearful something happened, and Jonathan looks around before glancing back at El “Your boyfriend’s annoying...” “You’re annoying, but I miss you,” “Miss you more.” El grips his hand, pulling him up with her powers before frowning sadly “Where are you? Why are you bleeding? What’s happened?” There’s a bandage wrapped around his midsection and El pulls a corner of it away before recoiling “Did the vines do that to you?” “It looks worse than it is, El,”

El grips his hand in hers, feeling suddenly torn open physically and emotionally “Friends don’t lie, Jonathan...” there’s a gentle hand on her cheek and a fond smile “I’m okay El,” “Stop saying that, I know you’re not,”

El can’t seem to combat the tears away “We need you Jonathan...” there’s voices in the distance and she can feel a change in the air around them, a deep breath, some anticipation.

“This place,” Jonathan’s voice snaps her back to herself and she looks up at him “This place El, it’s terrible, I’m trying to get back to you, to all of you, promise.” “Promise?” Jonathan barely manages a smile “Friends and Family don’t lie, right?”

There’s a large cut snaking over his arm and El manages a smile “That that cut is going to make one bitchin’ scar.” She can barely muster a smile while Jonathan can barely laugh and sits beside El, arm around her shoulder, inclining his head slightly with a small smile lighting his face, wiping tears from her face, gently “Yeah, Bitchin’.” It’s so out of place for Jonathan to say that, that it leaves both of them in a fit of laughter, before the moment passes.

It feels as if the moment stretches on and neither speak, feeling lost in the silence

“Eddie calls this place the In Between, he says it’s between our world and the Upside Down, but I’m not sure, Billy thinks we’re full of it trying to get out, he’s been down or up here since Starcourt... it’s nothing but vines and no light here, and the worst part, the worst part are the bad memories.”

“Memories?” “This place it haunts you, El, it’s like how Max explained Vecna’s curse, how he’d torment them with terrible things in their past, it’s like that here, but it’s worse, I thought they couldn’t hurt anymore, but they can.”

El’s fists clench and she feels herself shaking with anger. Her big brother, this is her big brother lost and alone and frightened though he tries so hard not to show it. Puts up a mask even with her.

“Jonathan, I can stay with you, nobody will harm you, promise, nobody will dare.” Determination flashes through her face, holds itself in her eyes “You’re my big brother and I love you, nobody’s gonna touch you, they won’t dare. If they do, I’ll use my powers.” But even then she feels everything starting to fade, turn into a sharp dust, particles in front of her eyes, like they’re floating away on a harsh breeze and she’s scared, watching her brother disappearing before her like so many others “Jonathan?” She reaches out but she can’t feel him and he’s holding out his hand, their fingers barely touching “El, I need to tell you something.” and then he’s gone before the next words pass through his lips, and El’s alone in the dark, a ray of light shining through the light mottled fabric of her blindfold.

“El?” Her eyes are tight shut as Mike unties the blindfold, Mike’s voice concerned, but all she sees is darkness behind her eyes, before she opens them and the cabin room comes into view with a small grouping of concerned faces.

“El?” “I found him.”

Chapter Text

“El this is crazy, this is crazy, we aren’t going to find him there, why there anyways?”

“Because,” El gives a one worded answer, helping Steve with a long length of copper cordage that they’re winding up into a more manageable carry size “Because I saw it, I saw him running there, there were memories flashing around us, and I saw him running to the Photography lab, he was running from something... like a person, he was running from a person.”

“No,” Joyce speaks for the first time into the brief silence, and since her fight with Hopper, hours earlier.

“Not exactly a person... When when Jonathan was younger he used to see things others didn’t, feel things other kids his age couldn’t. Kids can be unkind when they see differences, they used to call him names, one boy in his class, Jason Carver, he used to call him the most horrible names, throw things at him, chase him through the school, he turned Jonathan’s few friends against him, called him a freak.”

There’s a breath before Joyce goes on “It wasn’t easy for Jonathan, and it got so bad that he pretended to be like everyone else, normal, he pretended everything was fine, but he kept seeing things others didn’t, he just pretended he didn’t, but one day, he told me that something had been following him, that — that he was hearing things, his dad thought he had gone crazy and took Jonathan to a hospital, they sent us home with medication, I never gave it to your brother and your father sold the pills without my knowing.”

Will sits there, thinking, his brother, his older brother had been just like him. “Mom, why didn’t you tell me?” “I was scared.”

“There was a doctor I took him to, Dr. Brenner,” El stiffens in her crouched seating position, but doesn’t interrupt “I thought he could help. I didn’t know what to do, god I couldn’t do anything, my son was seeing shadows, monsters, he was seeing monsters and I couldn’t protect him from them. I, his mom, couldn’t protect him. Brenner seemed kind to me, said he would help my son, I felt relieved, I was alone, my husband didn’t believe me, he wasn’t around and when he was — I never had help, I was so scared of what was happening to my son, and when Brenner said he could help us, help Jonathan, I was just so relieved, because we’d finally have help. Then the tests started.”

Fingers shake for a cigarette, nerves cutting away at her skin deep resolve and tears are flowing freely down her wan face “He said he’d help us, but he only made it worse.”

“He was obsessed, obsessed to the point of madness, he spoke of another world, something he’d seen only once, he was obsessed with making a scientific breakthrough, with the discovery, he started testing Jonathan, he was trying to find something.”

El’s hand is gripping Mike’s so hard that it’ll leave bruises “He was trying to make contact. He did the same thing with me...” horrid memories flashing through her mind like the lost reel of a forgotten film “Why does Jonathan not remember?”

Max shuffles in her seat by Lucas and looks out towards something unseen “Who says he doesn’t remember? The brain it does a lot of stuff to keep the trauma from totally engulfing you, right? Like there’s selective memories and all these other sorts of things, he could honestly be keeping those memories hidden away in a recess of his brain, just to have them haunt him at certain times...” a sharp breath and a look down at the ground with a sad gaze “Believe me, I — I know...” Lucas holds her closer in his arms.

“I’m sorry about Billy... we’re all sorry about Billy.” Said in a whisper that’s loud enough it travels and Max takes a breath “It’s it’s not about Billy now... it’s about what happened after.” “Vecna?” There’s a nod and a lost look for only a moment, Max’s eyes opening in one quick movement “Yeah, Vecna.” She looks up, guilt stricken “And since I was the last person he needed to kill... since I didn’t die,” her eyes turn towards a prone figure on the couch, and suddenly unshed tears are rolling down her face and she clutches onto Lucas even more.

“First — first they took Billy, and I know, I know he was a terrible person, he had his own demons and he let them win till the end, but I — part of me hoped he’d change, that we could be what we never were, a family, but then he died, because they took him, and I thought, I was so mixed up about it, and then, then Vecna, Vecna happened, I thought I was dying, and part of me, part of me was relieved, just so relieved cause I thought maybe Billy and I, we could try it again, but — but I didn’t die, because I didn’t want to, I didn’t want to, and then the coma and waking up in the hospital, and Jonathan was there, he was there and he made me feel safe, he acted like the brother I never had, the brother Billy never was. And now — now Jonathan’s —“

“No,” El speaks into the room, all eyes turning to her “No, Vecna won’t kill him... he’s only using him...” Dustin frowns and leans forward towards El in concern and confusion “Using him for what?”

“To get at Will and I... he wants us, he knows Jonathan can get us closer, then he’ll have us, he wants to kill Will and I. He doesn’t want Jonathan, he wants us,”

In that moment, Steve comes to a realization, one he voices in a thick tone “and Jonathan’s just the bait...”

“He knows El found him...” Nancy states from beside Mike and Robin, eyes wide with shock

“So if we go to get Jonathan back — Vecna will —“

“Woah, woah, woah, my dudes, my dudes slow down?... who’s this Vecna bro? He sounds so un-chill, like he killed people or something?” Argyle, out of the loop, surprised eyes turning his way.

“So lemme get this straight, this Vecna dude is after my bro Jonathan Byers? Because he’s actually after Jon’s bro Will and his sis, Eleven, is that right Bro?” Steve face palms “What is he still even doing here?”

Mike clears his throat around the nerves that are wrecking his calm and collected demeanor and causing chest pains “Just wait, I know he doesn’t look it and the weeds gone to his head, but he’s actually pretty smart when he wants to be...” Will and El agree before looking over at the stoner with expectant gazes.

“The way I see it, Brochachos, we can still rescue our bro Jonathan without putting his siblings in any danger, right?” Argyle states, glancing at the crowd gathered round “It’s like that guy says in that movie where the one nerd bro gets the older janitor guy to teach him martial arts to kick that blonde haired guy’s butt,” “The Karate Kid,” Robin states from somewhere near Steve’s elbow “Highly recommended.”

“Yeah, that one, with the blonde gal,” “Elizabeth Shue...” Argyle points a finger at Robin in thought “Yeah, Shue,” “She’s great in that,”

“How is this classic film going to help us with a real world problem?” Steve gets out through a heavy breath and Argyle gives him a confused look “Bro, that is a real world problem... I’m guessing you’ve never been bullied by an athletic blonde...” Steve thinks about Billy “You’d be surprised.”

“Well then my dude...”

Steve’s kinda losing his patience at that point “Get to the point...”

“Right, right, well the janitor guy,” “Mr. Miyagi,” “I don’t care about his name or the hot blonde chick or what type of martial arts he does, or if he gets straight A’s in school!” Steve starts and Nancy grips his shoulder comfortingly while Argyle looks at him in calm surprise “Okay okay, chill bro, chill... Mr. Miyagi tells Daniel San that the best defense in a fight is to ‘no be there,’ —,”

“I don’t follow?” “The chick with powers,” “El,” Mike supplies gently from the side “Right, El, and Will, don’t necessarily have to be there to rescue their bro, you following my train of thought Brochachos?”

“You want us to no be there?” Will supplies in confusion “Exactly Will Byers, you get it, bro.”

“So you want the only person with powers to sit this one out on the bench?” Lucas manages as he looks El’s way.

“Well, not exactly my dude. Nah, she can still partake in the plan, my dudes.”

Chapter Text

“I swear to god, if he says ‘my dudes’ one more time —,” Steve punctuates the words with a heavy blow on a piece of glass, bat in hand, while he watches the others gathering whatever materials they can.

“Oh come on Steve, you’re probably just jealous because he has a better head of hair than you...” Robin states beside him, a wide smile over her face and Steve concedes slightly “I will agree that he does have nice hair, but no, I’m not jealous.”

Robin breaks a piece of metal from a cabinet “Here’s something, Why do you care so much?” Steve stands straight and looks around the junkyard with a heavy feeling “I care so much because we’re right now trusting our lives to a stoner, a stoner who’s vocabulary is pretty limited to ‘bro’ and ‘Brochacho’ and my all time favorite ‘my dude.’ — and up till this point, I haven’t really heard anything about him saving the world... unless his pizza van is some sort of superhero lair or his hair has magic powers or something— You can’t say you aren’t worried?”

There’s a shrug of shoulders and more breaking off of metal “You were just a washed out Jock turned babysitter for six genius kids, and I was an outcast who played in band, but we’ve saved the world how many times before? Things are pretty strange, Steve...”

Argyle wanders over carrying a sheet of heavy metal “my bro, everything alright here?” Steve turns and nods hurriedly “Yeah my dude, we’re good bro...” he comes face to face with a laughing Robin Buckley when he turns back around “What?”

“My dude? Bro?” Steve recovers his bat and takes a swing at a plank of wood “Just speaking his language, no need to not be friendly...” “Steve, you’ve been giving him death glares all day... I hardly think that’s being friendly, or if it is, you might need to rethink ‘friendly’ -“

Will’s coming undone at the seams, heart racing through the cracking pieces that he’s been continuously taping back together ever since the Upside Down came into his life years ago. Ever since Mike began to prefer El to his best friend and the company they kept.

He’s been talking to thin air, trying to reach out through the dimensions to his brother, but he feels energy draining resistance to his efforts, a sharp prickling pain at the base of his neck, an extreme chill.

“He likes it cold...”

Will remembers from the past, the time when... when the Mind Flayer —... a shiver passes through him, starting down his spine.

“Mom? Do you remember that time when you took us to the art museum and I got lost in the Surrealist painting gallery, you were so scared and Jon, he was trying to calm you down, and he went to look for me on his own, while you searched the Impressionist gallery... Jonathan found me staring at one of the Dali’s, a painting by Salvador Dali... the one with the warped melting clocks...”

Joyce stops her work and looks over at Will in mild confusion “The Persistence of Memory... yes, I remember it...” a smile forms over her lips “I couldn’t pull you away from it...”

“It was right after dad left, the first time, you got us out of the house when he was packing his things, you didn’t want us around him, you were —scared... you didn’t know what he’d do, so you took us out for the day, you knew I loved art, so you took us to the art museum. I remember Jonathan’s reaction when he found me again... he hugged me so hard I thought my bones were breaking.” A laugh escapes him, cut off by bitter tears.

Will manages a smile, the cold fading slightly “He scolded me, but it wasn’t like dad at all, like how I was scared of him, Jonathan made me feel safe, he told me never to do that again, that he was afraid something had happened, he was so scared, but he calmed down enough to stay with me and talk about the painting and after he gave me a piggyback all the way to find you, even at that age he protected me, felt I was his responsibility, I was five and Jonathan was nine, I don’t know how he did it, taking care of us like that, he shouldn’t have had to, but he did, he still does... I — I know —,”

“Know what?” Joyce half whispers, breath coming out constricted, all eyes turning to Will in worry.

“I think I know Vecna’s plan... and I think I know how to get Jonathan back.”

Steve draws in a breath, he’s pretty damn sure he’s not going to like this “How?”

“Vecna wants me, doesn’t he? So why don’t we let him think he can have me?”

Chapter Text

“Byers? Hey Byers?” Dirty blonde hair and an annoyingly blinding smile, dark at the edges and fading slowly after “Byers?” Billy’s hauling him up, Eddie wading out of the darkness from the peripheral of their fading vision “Hey Shitbird...” shakes him from his general confusion.

“He doing alright?” Jonathan can only make out a few scrambled words between Eddie and Billy “Ehhh, he’s not doing so hot... Took a tumble.” Billy’s slapping his face to jolt him up, he’s slowly fading, he thinks he mentions El, but he can’t be sure, just bats Billy’s hand away, catches a note of concern in the other male’s tone.

“Hey Byers, you good, man?” Eddie’s in Jonathan’s face, eyes rushing back and forth to scan for further injury and Billy drops Jonathan into Eddie’s arms, lighting a cigarette “I’ll start a fire...” the dark blonde mutters, pulling his shirt closer, it’s torn blue jeans that have half lost their color over time and a white tank and Eddie wonders how Hargrove isn’t a corpsicle by now. It’s Freezing.

Eddie himself barely feels the cold, he’s got one long sleeve jacket on, the dark leather frayed at edges, now bearing miniature holes in the left sleeve, tattered from a Demobat attack, he’s got an old Vietnam war pilots vest over that, from that military surplus store he went to with the gang, when they’d foolishly made a plan to defeat Vecna for good. Obviously it hadn’t worked.

He’s still sporting the black and white bandanna that now hides a wound over his left temple, there’s red there now, dried blood sticking the fabric to skin. He’s pretty sure his shoes are now torn to shreds, and Jonathan isn’t doing much better, red high tops shredding off his feet, the button up he’s wearing hardly being an adequate cover against the cold.

Billy’s trying to light a fire near some crawling vines, doesn’t care, if he’s gonna die — his lighter stalls, lights, goes out, all the fuel gone, and with it, the last of Billy’s small hope.

“We’re all gonna die here...” Eddie turns to the voice, eyes staring down at the dejected Hargrove male, he throws his top jacket to Billy, slumping down with Jonathan on the harsh ground “Yeah...” Eddie breathes out, finding the last of his water and giving the small amount over to Jonathan, who looks like he’s in the most need of it “Yeah... probably... very probably, if this was a D&D Campaign, uhhhh, I’d say we’d be pretty screwed...”

“Great, just what I wanted, I’m gonna die with you idiots... granted Munson’s more of an idiot than you Byers, but still,” “Thanks?” Jonathan mumbles in mild confusion.

Billy throws the jacket back, leaving Eddie rolling his eyes “Fine... if you don’t want it... I was just trying to be friendly.” There’s sudden agitation on Billy’s face and he grits out angrily “Well stop that then, I never asked you to be friendly, did I? We aren’t friends... I’ve never had them and I don’t want them.” There’s a crack in his voice at the end that makes Jonathan think he might not be all the way telling the truth, but he leaves it there and lets the atmosphere crumble in on them, falling to silence.

“We’re going to get out.” Jonathan suddenly states like it’s final and there’s no room for complaint, even from Billy who’s already opened his mouth to reply “We’ve got what? No lighter fluid and a few things of water that’s dwindling out? But have we really looked around?” “Sorry if you haven’t noticed, Byers, but the place is lights out, no light.” Hargrove scoffs, throwing a pebble at Eddie, the pebble freezing in mid air and Eddie flipping it back at Billy. He doesn’t even move, Jonathan and him are stock still and staring at the little ring of light where Eddie’s face and his outstretched hand are illuminated.

Jonathan’s the first to speak when he gains his voice “You threw that pebble with your mind like Eleven can? How did...”

“Someone threw that— don’t know who...” Eddie points around wildly trying to pinpoint another culprit and draw attention off himself “Somebody’s throwing things.”

Billy dumps Eddie onto the ground and off the petrified wood he’s sitting on “Yeah, you. Now start talking.”

Eddie looks just as the petrified wood and it takes a moment after he clears his throat to speak “I’m Ten...”

If Jonathan understands, Billy is completely lost and squints in incomprehension “No you’re not... I mean sometimes you act like you’re ten, but what, aren’t you twenty or twenty-one? You couldn’t fool anyone, telling them you’re te—,” Jonathan puts an arm out to stop Billy mid sentence

“How did you escape Hawkin’s Lab? The Rainbow Room?”

“The Rainbow Room? That some type of bar? What’s the — alright somebody better start talking...” Billy can feel a panic spreading inside him, the same panic he’d get when he got home from school, not knowing what dad he’d find inside the house, the mean abusive drunk or the mildly kind father figure that he knew was only disguise of the former, some way to gain his trust and then the other side would show up and none of the behavior would ever change, that type of panic Billy had grown used to, the clench in his throat and his stomach in knots, breath harsh and stifled, he’d grown used to that.

“The Rainbow Room was part of Hawkin’s Lab,” Jonathan starts and stops, memories flashing through his mind, darkness, monsters, the main monster a smiling man in a white lab coat, a light blue button down long sleeve, watching him fight something only nightmares could bring.

“Hawkin’s Lab?” Billy’s voice shakes him back to the present and Jonathan nods, breath heavy “It’s where this man, Dr. Brenner, he experimented on gifted kids, kids with unusual powers, unusual skills —,” “Eleven,” Billy lets out in a breath and Jonathan pauses, surprised the Hargrove male remembers El.

“Yes... she was one of the kids at the Lab... but not the first or the last... I don’t remember why my mom took me there, but I remember things about it, monsters, my mom she took me away from there after she saw Brenner was obsessed...”

“Obsessed with what?” There’s a chill down Billy’s spine and he busies his fingers with the tattered jean of his pants leg

“With making contact...” Eddie supplements in answer, but it only makes Bill more confused “Contact with what?” Eddie’s quick to raise a hand and point around “Contact with this, with the other side, the monsters, and I guess we did it... I guess El did...”

“Yeah,” Jonathan manages before he sees Eddie clap his hands, the sound echoing in the dark “Right, time to Lemme try something.”

He’s holding shaking hands out through the dark, eyes concentrated and staring down as the ground begins to tear. Jonathan feels Billy grip his arm, pulling him back a distance from the new rift in the ground that Eddie is fighting to make, it’s a small spot of light at first, then.

Suddenly a sliver of light can be seen, something moves through that light and the world starts fading around them in inky black tendrils.

Billy is up and pulling Jonathan with him, the three forming a circle, back to back, before the light bursts forward to reveal

“HARRINGTON!?”

“Now you two are going to explain why you had to go and get everybody so worried about you, you are going to apologize when we get back, I can’t believe I came in here for you guys, you could have at least saved me the trouble. Now get over here, come on, hurry hurry,”

In the glow of Steve’s flashlight, Eddie smiles “Didn’t know you’d miss me so much Steve,” he’s walking over to a mildly annoyed Steve Harrington by the newly created gate and just smiles “Thanks for the rescue, Big Boy.”

Steve’s heart flutters at the calm familiarity of Eddie’s tone, the smile, the comment, but outside Steve pretends to be bothered by it, rolling his eyes as Eddie’s moving past him, hugging him, slipping down through the gate. “You need a shower bad, Munson. I mean it.”

Steve looks towards the other two with serious eyes, eyebrow raised in an already answered question “So you guys want to stay here I guess?” He states sarcastically before ushering them towards the gate, eyes staring over at Billy Hargrove in confusion when the other male grips his shoulder, dead in his tracks.

“Look, Harrington I — I just want you to know—“ a sound like the shrieks of a thousand bats rings out through the silence, Steve cuts down at a vine wrapping itself round Billy’s leg

“We’re even, let’s go,” Steve turns, foot dangling over the precipice before he’s turning back to an all too still Billy Hargrove “We gotta go, come on,” Steve hears the frantic note in his voice, sees Billy recoil from it, the stiff shake of his head, Adam’s Apple bobbing at a harsh swallow, a hand reaching out “Give me the bat Harrington, we both know I’m not going back.”

Steve looks numbly down towards the spiked baseball bat at his side, looks back to someone he had come to hate in the brief time they’d come to know each other.

There’s a mad desperation in Billy’s eyes and he shakes his head at the other male’s attempt at words “Give me the bat Steve? I can do more good in here than I ever did out there, just give me the bat and go home?”

Steve shakes his head, hands returning to hips in an almost facsimile of disapproval “Oh what am I going to tell her then?” There’s confusion in Billy’s eyes and Steve steps a little closer “Who?” Steve was hoping he’d ask, he pauses a minute before heaving a breath, a shrug of his shoulders rounding it out “Max of course, you might not believe it, but she wants you back in her life, wants to give you a second chance, while I was all okay, more than okay with leaving you down here, but she insisted, so you get your butt up there and you make right with Max — and Lucas, El, definitely El, Henderson, Wheeler, you know — all the people you hurt...”

“I’ll give it to you Harrington, you make a damn good babysitter and older brother, and that’s on top of you basically sucking at everything else...” Steve frowns slightly and cocks a smile slightly “You giving me a compliment or trying to start a fight, Hargrove?” Billy pauses in sudden thought and Steve frowns in confusion, heart jolting in his chest as he’s counting down the minutes in his head, the minutes they have before the Demobats get to them.

“I’m not coming back with you, Harrington, it might be selfish, but there’s things I can’t face yet or ever, I did bad things to people I should have been kind to and I don’t know how to make any of it better, the best thing I did was leaving in the first place, at at Starcourt I made a decision and I’m sticking to that, besides, I bet Max’s life is better without me in it, and I’m okay with that.”

“Hargrove, you sure don’t want to make this easy on me... come on or I’ll have to hit you, I did it before and if I really need to I’ll do it again.” Stepping towards the dirty blonde he notices the smirk “What?”

“You mean you’ll probably get a punch in here or there but I’ll be winning the fight? I seem to recall that last time we went fist to fist you got your ass kicked, Harrington.”

Jonathan who is leaning heavily on Billy’s side can’t believe it, the two of them are trying to out man each other in a worded conversation about a fight they’ve already had and he’s dying, he’s literally “I don’t care who won the fight last time, I’m literally dying right now and I think that would be so much better than standing here listening to you two go back and forth, I feel like punching both of you in the face and I don’t usually feel that way, and how Max told it to me, you both weren’t winning, Steve punched you, you punched Steve, she said you looked like a pair of Muppets trying to kill each other, and nobody was winning or losing, the way she told it, she had to grab some sort of syringe and she knocked you out, you got knocked out by a pre-teen with a syringe, you aren’t some big man there Hargrove, and you — don’t get me started with you Harrington, I get it, I really do, there were a couple of times I wanted to punch him too, and I was stuck with him, but you both are acting like idiots while I’m dying here because this red stuff running out of my chest, yeah, oh you both noticed, I’m so glad, this red stuff isn’t ketchup...”

Billy looks from Jonathan over to Steve and shrugs it off for once “Is he usually this mouthy?” He asks Steve as he’s towing Johnathan towards the now closing gate and Steve’s rushing to help, has grabbed ahold of Jonathan’s arm and is pulling him through “I know I know, pretty lippy isn’t he? Sarcasm, you get used to it. Just part of the Byers charm.” “I think you just complimented me Steve, I might just die of shock.” A rush of air strikes them, it’s fresh and cool without the stale aftertaste, and Jonathan starts to breathe again, but not for long as a pair of arms wrap round him, joined by another and another, till he’s being squished between his mom, brother, El, Max, and Robin, and it feels like home.

El finally pulls herself away to look up at Jonathan and smiles through tears “Told you I’d find you...” she laughs when he quickly brushes her tears away “Never doubted you.” Jonathan states, hugging onto his adopted sister as if she’ll disappear along with Will and the others.

Dustin and Eddie are saying their hellos when Steve and Billy step out from the gateway and Steve looks over at the two with something close to a smile “Hey, you’re just gonna give Eddie that treatment? Where’s my hug?”

It’s in that split second when a shadow like tendril shoots from out of the gate and entangles around his leg, Steve letting out a harsh blood curdling cry as he’s dragged backwards towards the opening into the In-Between.

Chapter Text

“STEVE!” Robin and Dustin simultaneously shriek with an accompanying yell of “HARRINGTON!” From Billy, who thinks fast, grabbing for anything he can of Steve, and coming up empty again.

“Steve! Steve!?” Robin’s running forward, eyes wide with fear and a sickening horror and Billy’s quickly tugging her back and away from the gate where Steve disappeared, tugging her back into a school basketball court that he’s sure wasn’t there a minute ago, and there’s Max and Lucas and the rest of the mismatched group, and Billy can’t seem to look at them. “Let me go!” Billy shouts and shoves Robin back towards Nancy and the rest of the group “It’s only been Eddie, Jonathan, and I that have gotten out there alive, I gotta do this, to make it even, maybe this is my chance to make it right! All of it!” There’s a quick glance towards Max, a glance towards Lucas, an apology hanging against his lips, but the words stall in one jumbled ‘I’m Sorry.’ before he’s looking to Max again “Let me go?” He notes the look against her face, a hard look he put there before, guarded, the same look a younger Billy wore against his dad. Billy hesitates uncomfortably with an apology, it doesn’t come out, but he vents a little anger and nervous energy “Every second we waste Harrington could be dead or dying,” there’s a growl in his voice and he watches Max stiffly nod before he’s running back towards the gate and turns briefly at the end “Max,” he shoots out in one involuntarily said word “Max, I am sorry, what I did, to you, to Lucas, I never wanted to become my father. I’m sorry.” Then he’s going back through the gate and to what he hopes is an alive Steve Harrington.

Max stands there, eyes dead center and staring into the abyss of the gate and the other side she can’t see, Lucas with a steady gentle grip on her hand, a question, ‘Are you okay?’ The long and short answer? No. It’s going to take a long time to make things altogether right.

But they don’t have that time.

Screaming starts out from the gate and Max moves forward only to have Jonathan pull her back gently, and the screaming echoes.

Just as a hand shoots through the gate and the screams of agony die out, a hairline crack in the floor becomes a crevasse, opening wide and making Max and Lucas lurch back from the side as Robin and the rest are tugging on the only part of Steve they’ve got a hold of, and Steve’s fighting his way back to them.

Steve is the sole person to be pulled from the gate, and Billy’s no where to be found. And maybe Max can live with that.

But she doesn’t have much time to think about it, as another shock wave breaks through the basketball court.

The floor shatters, hairline cracks bursting into large open crevasses that separate Will from the rest

there’s a cry of fear from Will, a call over to Jonathan, who’s standing on the edge of a large chasm and looking so desperate that Eddie pulls him back from the edge

“WILL!” Jonathan’s fighting to get back to him, to fight Eddie away, desperation and anger mixed with fear “Will!!!”

Chapter Text

It happened so fast they’ve no time to get their bearings before the world is broken into fear and pain in mere split seconds. People are yelling and the voices are pitched and frantic and ringing in Jonathan’s muffled hearing. He just catches El arguing back at him before his eyes flick towards his brother, his brother who is seconds away from being Vecna’d. Panic stabs him in the lungs. El is panicked, gripping Jonathan’s arm in a death-lock grip.

“I’ll stay... I’ll I’ll stay, I don’t want you to go... I don’t want you to go— there’s other ways— there has to be.“ El feels so small in the moment her powers are lost from her, taken, draining away with her waining energy, she’s so drained she barely manages to whisper the words. Her voice is tired and pitched in a hard whisper, throat constricted by emotion “Jonathan please?”

Tears are coursing down her face as they are on his and his fingers gently breeze over her cheek, wiping them away and drying her tears “It’s okay, it’s okay El... you’re going to be okay, you have to be okay. For both of us now, okay?” “No.”

El stares past him, the body twisting in the air and a sharp cry that is Joyce, Hopper struggling to pull her back, just keep her safe.

El’s having a hard time pulling her eyes away from the twisting form, the crack of bone that hasn’t come, but she knows it will. Jonathan’s saying something through the bright lights, her eyes snapping back to him in a red haze.

“I love you El.” Jonathan whispers, one last suffocating breath choked with fear, but a calm suddenly settles and he’s gone, standing up and pressing El into Steve’s arms, gripping his shoulder before he’s turning back towards the floating body above them “You’re the best little sister a guy could ever have, I love you Eleven,” then he’s turning back to Steve.

“Keep her safe.” It’s not a request, it’s an order. One Steve means to follow. The brunette can only nod stiffly, no words leaving his lips, jaw clenched with worry.

El’s screaming now, can’t help it as the windows bust out, shattering glass and metal around them, she’s struggling in Steve’s arms and Steve carries on faster, running now towards the safety of the others, leaving Jonathan behind with the floating form of Will Byers.

The metal’s twisting, bricks falling and plaster coming down and Steve pushes on, trying to avoid the falling debris as he hears Jonathan yell his name, gathering his attention, Steve looks back, finding a large divide between him and Jonathan on the other side, a giant gate.

“Jonathan get out of there!!!?” Steve panics, shoving El into Hopper’s arms, the ex-Police Chief holding Joyce back with the little strength he still has, while Steve’s yelling towards his friend, but through the look on his friend’s face, he can tell Jonathan isn’t going to listen.

“Steve throw me the Walkman!? Steve!?” Steve’s frozen in place, calculating the distance before he’s running forward, arm held far back to ready the throw.

“Jonathan here!!!?”

‘It’s just like basketball, just like a basketball game...’ Steve pushes himself into thinking, just pass the Walkman and get out, but it’s not that easy.

He’s close enough to where the edge of the gate opens up when the collapsing wall falls, Steve narrowly avoiding it as it’s tumbling down, the Walkman falls from his hand and is lost from his sight.

He nearly falls in himself, but a quick action from Max stops him from falling, and it takes all her strength to pull him back and away from the gaping chasm, but then it’s too late, the solid ground beneath them crumbling into the void.

They’re both falling and El reaches out, frantically trying and failing to use her powers that are non existent now.

A flash of dark hair sweeps back behind her and she looks forward, willing her powers to come back, only to find herself as normal as the next person, as powerless as they are.

Steve is falling fast into the Upside Down, it’s not the fun sort of falling, like falling in a pile of leaves in Autumn or falling in love, though that is equally dangerous, no, it’s just the painful feeling of falling, he’s sure of only one thing, the feel of Max’s hand gripped in a white hot clutch around his fingers and both of them are screaming, Max’s hair whipping back around her, obscuring her vision, not that there’s anything to see except the red and blue of their impending deaths in the Upside Down.

Then suddenly the ground lifts away and they’re getting yanked back, up towards yelling concerned voices and they find themselves floating over solid ground. Steve could almost laugh in shock, but doesn’t.

El looks to her outstretched hand in confusion, her powers — no, no, it isn’t her, it’s a heart wrenching thought, a singular thought that stretches through her brain and the confusion with a sudden overwhelming question. If not her, then who?

She can sense him, someone else’s conscious fighting with itself, scared.

“Next time step away from the edge, Harrington, you butthead.” Eddie’s voice, the fear is Eddie’s, Eddie who is standing, arm outstretched, palm up, right behind El.

“You got that, Big Boy!? Sure you do.” It’s everything Eddie, the tone, the laugh that follows, and El can’t help but stare as Eddie drops Max and Steve on the ground, far back and away from the giant gate, before he turns to the gate before them and the person on the other side of the chasm

Two identical streams of blood are running from his nose and down his face.

“HEY Byers you got five minutes man!” He’s turning and stops at the surprise on each face “What?...” he frowns in surprise at everyone gathered round.

“You’re— you’re one of — you’re - eleven...” Eddie can’t help but roll his eyes at Mike and his absolute imperfect grasp of the English language at the moment “No Butthead, I’m ten, do I look like your girlfriend?”

“What Mike means is you’re — you’re one of them, the Hawkin’s lab kids, you’ve got powers...” Lucas states as he’s holding onto Max like she’ll disappear if he lets go “And?” An eyebrow raises sharply in a question and Eddie wipes his nose against his hand, leaving blood trails.

“And we could have used those last year Dingus!” Robin manages before they’re all frantically staring towards the other side, where Jonathan is desperately trying to get to Will, and all they can do is watch everything break.

“Byers! Get out of there!” Eddie yells, pulling Robin back from the edge as the gate opens wider into Hawkins High Basketball court and they can only watch in horror.

“I’m not leaving Will!!!” A panicked voice reaches them and El steps closer to the edge, trying to find a way over “Jonathan!!!?”

“I can’t leave him! I’m not going to leave him!!!”

Will is floating, but no bones are broken, yet, he just hangs there limply in the frost bitten air and El screams into the frozen atmosphere, she screams like never before, agony and despair mixing with anger, this time though, no windows burst out, nothing happens.

Max feels her bones break again, the snap of ligaments and tendons and — it’s in her head, it’s in her head, the memory of it, the feeling — it’s sharper now, mechanized like a weapon, Vecna using it against her, and she’s losing Billy all over, she’s being broken and bent, and someone’s started singing, tearing her away from the pain and bad memories haunting her, no, it’s the cassette tape on the lost Walkman and Kate Bush is singing out of it, but there’s someone singing along.

“Doesn’t hurt me, do you wanna feel how it feels, wanna know know that it doesn’t hurt me...” “Billy!?” Max turns only to find empty air “Billy!?” Lucas holding her as close as he can, and she understands in a heartbreaking second that the voice is calling to her through the void. Just a nightmare in her head, something Vecna can use, the voice of her dead step-brother.

There’s a shift in the gate and someone comes tumbling out to right himself on the ground, and Max thinks it’s an illusion, something Vecna has copied into reality, because it’s Billy. Oh it’s definitely Billy Hargrove. Hallucination or not.

His eyes glare over at the metal head male “Munson! Next time I tell you to leave me down there, to go save the day, leave me a light? I couldn’t see anything down there...” Dark swaths of blonde hair plaster to Billy’s face and he looks sideways at Max before looking at the situation around them, holding up the unharmed Walkman

“And watch where you drop things asshole, that dropped on my head falling from the sky... hey — Max...” there’s no time, but Billy needs to get everything off his chest in the second he has. He doesn’t know where to start.

“Max, I didn’t — I —,” the words catch in his throat, won’t come out because he doesn’t know how to say everything, only two words come out “I’m sorry...”

A scream wrenches them from the past and into the present and Billy’s eyes find the small figure in the air, gritting his teeth, and cursing, he flicks his eyes towards the metal head behind him “This is gonna sound crazy man,” Eddie’s sucking at the corner of his lower lip and looks over, gesturing slightly into the air “We’ve been fighting inter dimensional monsters for a hell of a long time, man, so whatever you say can’t be as crazy as that, so proceed,”

“We can’t get the Walkman to Byers without throwing it over the gate... but Will needs it, right? And throwing it, That isn’t gonna work, man... so...”

“So?” Eddie has a bad feeling about what he’s about to hear, and the burly blonde doesn’t disappoint. An eyebrow raises in confusion.

Billy hesitates, eyes flicking towards Max then to the abyss before them “Someone has to go over there and that’s gonna be me... I want you to get me as close as I can to them?” Eddie’s slight smile fades “Okay, okay, now that’s just — crazy... but I like it.”

Billy gives a half shrug before he’s settling the Walkman in his jean pocket “Look man, I don’t have time to argue with you about my half baked plan, alright? I need you to use your powers and get me over there so I can give Byers the Walkman, we don’t have another option... if I die, well it won’t be the first time, right?” Billy grits out in a low grumble —