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“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.” Steve says the moment he opens his eyes.
The sky is a bright, candy-blue, without a single telephone pole or wire in sight. He’s laying on some kind of gravel - or dirt - that scratches uncomfortably under his head, and he knows it's getting all in his hair. There aren’t even any smokestacks in the distance, and the trees he can see are far larger and more vividly green than anything he’s ever seen around Hawkins.
The comment, however, is definitely because the moment he opens his eyes the very first thing he sees is an enormous shape flying far above that he’s pretty sure is an actual dragon. Like, he’s not an expert or anything, this is definitely more Dustin’s wheelhouse, but he thinks he can probably recognize a fucking dragon when he sees one. It’s gone in seconds though, and leaves him feeling uncomfortably like he’s lost track of a spider in his bedroom.
Robin makes a muffled grunt from somewhere at his left, sounding pretty much exactly like she does when she wakes up in the morning before work after staying up until three in the morning watching crappy movies. “I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore.” She says blankly.
Steve blinks slowly. “We live in Indiana?”
There’s a shrill, squeaking shriek of “ FUCK YES! " from Steve’s right before a short, flailing arm whips out and catches him on the face.
“Henderson!” He groans as he sits up, rubbing at his nose with his eyes squeezed shut in pain.
“No time for your bitching, Steve! Look! Look around us! Look- oh my god, look at you! ” Dustin's disembodied voice bellows.
Steve very much does not want to look.
He does anyway.
He groans.
“This stays between us, got it?” He very much does not whine. “It does not leave this - uh. This… hospital room? Are we still technically in a hospital room?” Steve asks hopelessly. White, is what he notices. He’s not wearing the blue polo and jeans he’d come to the hospital in anymore - instead, his clothes have been replaced by some kind of cross between a cartoon disney prince’s outfit and a knight. All ornate white, head to toe. Some kind of armor pieces sit on his shoulders, an uncomfortable weight that reminds him vaguely of the year he tried football. Those aren’t so bad. It’s the weird scarf thing around his neck that he picks at awkwardly.
Robin snorts. “God, you even have an ascot. You look like such a douche.” She laughs. “Oh, and a
cape
! Dustin, look at his little cape!”
Steve whips around to glare at her and maybe make fun of whatever outfit she’s been stuffed into, but he finds to his great disappointment that she’s much better off than he is. She’s wearing some kind of strappy black and brown getup with a tattered hood. “Are those
knives
on your thighs?” Steve asks.
Robin looks down. Slides one out of it’s holster. “Huh.” She says. “Yeah, looks like it.”
“No fair.” He mutters. “Why do you get to look cool?”
Robin shrugs. “I am cool.” After a moment, she frowns. Looks around. “Steve, we’ve lost Dustin.”
He looks over where he heard Dustin last, somewhere beyond his right shoulder. The road - because that’s where they are, some kind of old-timey, gravelly road through a forest - is empty. “Shit.” Steve says.
“Shit.” Robin echoes. “It’s been less than ten minutes and we’ve already fucked up. Dustin is loose in fantasy-land. Loose, not lost. I’m more worried for fantasy-land than I am for Dustin.”
He groans, falling backwards and letting his head thunk against the ground. “Ow. That kinda hurt.” Steve mutters.
Robin flops down next to him. “That’s weird, isn’t it? If we’re in some kind of dream, shouldn’t we be, like, totally disconnected from our bodies or something?”
“Eddie’s dream.” Steve corrects nonsensically.
“I don’t know what we expected. Looks like you’re gonna wind up playing Dungeons and Dragons whether you want to or not, Sir Steve.” She snipes with a grin.
He groans louder.
“Come on, get up. Get up, we’ve gotta go find Dustin before something happens to him. Get uuuup, Steve.” Robin wheedles after getting back to her feet and nudging him half-heartedly. “You’re getting your cute little outfit all dirty. It’s white, man. White. All white.”
“How are we going to find him?” Steve asks hopelessly.
“He had this huge, stupid-ass hat on. Big feathers and shit popping out of the top. Let’s just look for the hat, it’ll be impossible to miss.”
With one last put-upon groan for the road, Steve unsteadily gets to his feet. He’s in the middle of half-heartedly brushing dirt off his stupid clothes when he pauses.
“Sorry, he was wearing what? ”
-
There are small scuffed footprints in the dirt, leading off down the road. They don’t get noticed until Steve and Robin are almost started off in the other direction after a rather miserable game of rock paper scissors, and Robin audibly sighs in relief when Steve points them out.
“Oh thank god,” she’d wheezed. “I really thought we were about to be stupid enough to just start walking and hope for the best. Or the worst, and split up.”
At least the dorky outfit isn’t horribly uncomfortable. The pants are almost too tight and the weird… armor bits are heavier than anything he’s really used to carrying around, but he’s still in shape enough that it’s not agonizing. He’d tried to pull them off initially but every piece seems to be attached firmly to the rest of the outfit and he’d taken one look at the bizarre, intricate lace-up jacket-thing on his torso and decided he’d just stick it out instead. Still, Steve’s pretty sure he’s eventually going to get worn down, so he hopes they find somewhere to rest soon. Or better yet, hopes they find Dustin and Eddie and just get the hell out of dodge.
“But seriously, what is with the costumes?” Steve repeats for the third time.
Robin rolls her eyes. “It’s Eddie’s fantasy-land.” She says, like that answers anything. Whatever expression he’s wearing makes her roll her eyes even harder. “I don’t know, Steve. We’re just… fitting in, I guess.”
He wrinkles his nose. Frowns. “...How big do you think this place is, anyways? I know El said we’d have to look for a while to find him, but I wasn’t really expecting to just get dropped in the middle of nowhere. What if we’re headed in the total wrong direction?”
She grimaces. “God, don’t remind me. The only reason I’m not just freaking the hell out right now is because this is technically not real. That’s what I’m telling myself. Over and over. It’s just… all in our heads. In Eddie’s head? Something like that. I’m so far into not having a clue what to do that I’m pretty much just trying not to think about doing anything at all because if I do I’m gonna have a panic attack.”
Steve clicks his tongue, and squints to try and see if he can see anything in the distance again. Dustin’s footprints - the footprints they’re hoping are Dustin’s - continue onwards. “Hey,” he starts. “Do his steps look like they’re getting shorter?”
Robin pauses. “...Huh, yeah. You think he was running? All the way until now?”
“Doesn’t really sound like him, but…” Steve trails off, frowning. He swallows.
“...but he’s gonna see Eddie again.” Robin finishes his sentence softly. Steve groans, scratching his head awkwardly.
“...Ah, man. Poor kid.” He mutters. Points at her. “ Don’t tell him I said that.”
Robin looks back at him with a small grin back on her face, and opens her mouth to reply - but stops, eyes blowing wide at something behind him. He hears it before he turns around, a quiet creak of wood and wheels alongside the clopping of hooves. They stumble to the side of the road, staring blankly as an actual horse-drawn cart comes rolling down the gravel road. The nondescript, simple-clothed man at the reins looks straight out of one of the kids’ fantasy movies - or one of the history channel shows Nancy used to watch.
Steve suddenly feels quite overdressed.
When the cart gets closer, the way the man looks at him after a double take makes him pretty sure the driver also feels like Steve is quite overdressed. But - the man begins slowly drawing the cart to a stop.
“Score one for the douche-bag outfit?” Robin whispers to him, voice a bit panicked.
“What?” He hisses back.
“Dingus, what if he thinks you’re - you’re important or something? Oh, oh! Maybe he’s going to offer us a ride?!”
Steve stands up a bit straighter. “I could be important.” He says. “I do look very important.”
Robin reaches a hand over to try and smooth down his weird-scarf-ascot thing. He bats her hand away with a glare, just in time for the cart to pull right in front of them. The man at the reins blinks at them owlishly. “Hey, man-” Steve starts.
“ Good sir!” Robin nearly shouts, stepping forward and cutting Steve off. He stares at her. “My liege and I were attacked on this very road not but a few hours ago! We barely escaped our carriage with our lives, overrun by bandits as we were! Please, good sir. We would be most appreciative if you could perhaps offer us a ride to town. My lord would reward you most handsomely should he be saved from the perils of this treacherous road, and from his aching feet.”
The man slowly turns his head to look at Steve. Steve awkwardly gives a little wave. “Robin, what the fuck do you mean reward, we have nothing to give him!” He whisper-hisses at her. She shrugs him off.
A perplexed look twists the man’s face. Steve understands the feeling. The driver looks behind him at the bed of his almost-empty open cart, before looking back at them. “I’ve never heard a single tale of bandits around these parts.” He says.
Steve can see Robin purse her lips beside him, sweating. “I guess they were just passing through, too.” He offers weakly.
With a shrug, the man gestures half-heartedly to the cart. “Well, I suppose you folks can climb aboard. Help the fellow man and all that. Seems a bit silly, though.” He says.
Robin and Steve look at each other. “Why…?” Robin asks cautiously.
He fixes them with a curious look again. “Wellford’s just a few minutes away, even on foot.”
Robin blinks. “...Oh.”
“...You folks have no clue where you are, do you?” The man asks.
“Nope. Not a clue.” Steve admits with a shrug. Robin moves to whack him, but he leans out of the way.
“It’s his royal upbringing,” Robin stammers out. He elbows her back. “He’s never- he’s never been outside the castle, you see. And as his- as my lord’s personal bodyguard, well I haven’t been out recently either, and- and I seem to have lost my bearings, and -”
The man holds up a hand. “No need to explain yourselves, little lady. I said I’d take you folks, even if it is just a few minutes. Go ahead and hop on.”
They both thank the driver profusely before scurrying around to hop onto the back of the open cart. It kicks off to a slow crawl, the clip-clopping of the horses’ hooves a novel sound to Steve. They spend the few minutes the cart is moving pointing at strange things on the roadside, and the medieval-looking buildings of the town once it comes into view. They gave up on speaking old-fashioned and fancy within the first thirty seconds of the ride, and just pretended the man couldn’t hear them while they compared a rickety signpost near the outskirts of the town to ‘the one right outside that dive bar outside hawkins, no, the one right next to the tattoo place, robin, the tattoo place and that taco stand you love, y’know the only good one in the entirety of indiana.’ It worked out, though, because he seemed to be pretending the same thing.
When they reached the proper entrance to the town, the cart pulled to a stop. Robin and Steve jumped down from the back and walked around to the driver’s side again to say goodbye. Awkwardly remembering Robin’s promise of payment, Steve fishes his hands into his jacket pockets for the first time. His gloved fingers hit something solid, and he pulls out a small decorative pouch. He straightens his back again, and tries to look like he knows what he’s doing as he opens it to find a small pile of shiny pearly-white coins. “Why is everything all white? ” He mutters. With a shrug, he guesses and grabs about fifteen coins from the bag before shoving the pouch back into his - surprisingly deep - pocket. He gestures at the man awkwardly, and coughs to clear his throat. “Err, thank you. Kind sir. For the information and… er, help? We hope this reward is, err….” Steve swallows. “...cool. With you.” He finishes, feeling stupider than the time he had to read a paragraph of To Kill A Mockingbird in front of the entire class.
He hears Robin from his side - “Wait, you had that this whole time?! What the fuck were you doing while I was checking my pockets two hours ago?!” - and though the man gives him a bemused look, it seems that he’s not the type to turn down any sort of thanks and holds out his hand.
Steve sets the coins in the man’s palm and quickly walks off with his head held high, dragging Robin behind him. He hears a choked noise from the cart and walks faster, hoping he hadn’t just handed the man a couple of pennies and called it a day.