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“I’ll dive down.” The decision wasn’t one Steve was focusing on. It was logic, cold and necessary now they knew the gate was at the bottom of the lake. He didn’t wait to argue at all, just threw his jumper off while speaking, dropping his jeans and diving in.
Nancy of course had tried to argue anyway and he was glad to not hear anything she started to say until he’d let himself flip through the movement encouraged by his legs fusing into the tail. “Steve – We should have – What?”
Popping back up on the boat he took the torch Eddie had wrapped in a plastic bag from his stunned friend. “I said I’d dive down, stop yelling. It’ll help if something down there tries dragging me through.”
“You have a tail?” Robin asked, equally stunned. Out of everyone she was the most likely to know, but he’d expected he to have either forgotten or dismissed the comment during Starcourt as a joke.
He looked back into the water and shook his head. “Long story and there’s a gate to a hell dimension to check: Not the time for this.”
Steve dove down, leaving everyone in the boat sharing looks of confusion or stunned bewilderment.
“So you didn’t know Steve’s a mermaid? Or is the surprise being played up just for me?” Eddie eventually asked, breaking the silence.
Nancy turned a glare on him snapping, “No!”
“He mentioned it once last time this happened. Should’ve known he wasn’t lying.” Robin admitted, shrugging, but focusing on the water her best friend was under.
Watching from the shore, Max dropped the binoculars as Steve got off the boat, looking at Dustin expectantly as she asked, “Steve’s a mermaid?”
“What? That was something from the gate!” He immediately protested, squinting over the lake before trying to snatch the binoculars.
“No. That was Steve getting a tail and diving down.” She insisted, waving out where once again they could see the tail vanishing into the water and keeping the binoculars out of his reach.
“Let me see!” Dustin tried to snatch it again.
She glared, crossing her arms in a gesture very similar to Steve. “He’s underwater now Asshole! You won’t see anything.”
/\
After the Hawkins group managed to regroup Steve stood with arms crossed, watching them all and preventing any next steps planning being done. “The only one who didn’t stand a chance of seeing was Erica but just so it’s plain, I’m merfolk. If you tell the government or even anyone else in our group or especially my family that you know I will be murdered.” He stated, more seriously than most of them had seen.
“Steve, don’t-” Nancy huffed, already turning away and grabbing her notepad to try and make them plan.
He glared and that was enough for everyone to pay attention. Nobody had seen him get angry at Nancy, not enough to cut her off. “Not an exaggeration. My father will kill me if he realises anyone else knows. Do Not Tell Anyone!”
“Okay, but do we need to, like, get you away from your parents after defeating Vecna and clearing my name? Should that be the next fight on our list?” Eddie asked, looking concerned.
“He won’t do anything as long as nobody knows. I got the pool. That’s more than Mom ever got. So no. Let’s focus on things we can actually fight.” Steve repeated.