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Hawkins feels like it’s dissolving around you.
Just a few hours ago the government was insisting that everything was “contained.” That El was the problem, the big bad that needed defeating.
That the tremors were aftershocks and the sky turning red was “atmospheric interference”.
But when the Mind Flayer showed itself again - unmistakable, towering in the sky like a storm made of dust and lightning - the military finally changed their tune.
Evacuate the town.
Get civilians out now.
Anyone not fighting leaves immediately.
So reinforcements arrived, the evacuation began, and you hadn't stopped moving since.
Buses lined the street like giant metal coffins, their engines rattling the cracked pavement beneath your boots, headlights slicing through the smoke hanging over the town.
You’d been directing people toward the evacuation buses until your arms ached and your throat felt scorched from talking over engines and shouting soldiers. Everything smelled like exhaust and damp earth. People were crying, clinging to bags, pets, each other. It didn’t feel real. It felt like a nightmare you’d wandered into half-asleep.
You needed a second. Just one.
You stepped away from the line, hands braced on your knees, breathing hard.
The world felt like it was narrowing to a point, and your body ached in a way that felt bone-deep - not the kind of tired a good nights sleep can fix.
“You good?” Robin calls out somewhere behind you, voice hoarse as she helps an elderly woman clutching a very fat, ginger cat onto a bus.
You flash her a thumbs-up without looking back. You don’t trust your voice not to crack.
A soldier touches your arm.
“Ma’am? Are you boarding?”
It’s almost insulting that he asks.
“No,” you say. “I’m staying.”
Your voice comes out harder than you meant it to, but it’s the only way you're holding it together.
You turn back toward the crowd, now ready to keep going, but someone steps into your path.
Steve.
He looks terrible, and you dread imagining your own state. His once perfect hair is a mess, dirt - or was that blood? - smudged along his cheekbone. His eyes are sharp, bright in that worried Steve way, but there’s something hollow behind them that makes your chest tighten.
“Hey,” he says. Just that one word, in that slow way that he does when he’s been thinking too much. Worrying. Spiraling.
You open your mouth to tell him you’re fine - even though you’re not, obviously - but he beats you to it.
“You should go with them.”
For a moment you blink at him, because it doesn’t make sense. You glance over his shoulder, expecting he means Robin or Dustin or Nancy. One of the party that you’re supposed to follow to get started on a different task.
“Go with who?” you ask.
He doesn’t speak. Just gives one small nod toward the evacuation vehicle nearest you.
Your eyebrows jump, your mouth falling open in a small O before you can stop it.
“Steve…” You shake your head. “I’m not leaving. How could you think that?”
He drags a hand through his hair. A nervous habit. One you’ve seen a thousand times.
“It’s safer.”
You almost laugh - not because it’s funny, but because it’s absurd. “Safer? I think we're past the point of safe. Way past.”
He runs his hand through his hair again, harder this time. “It's just this - this feels different. Like the end of the line or something. Like everything we've been through before was just build up."
As if to prove his point a bolt of lightning flashes in the distance, a deep red bleeding through the clouds, followed by a low roll of thunder.
You swallow hard.
“Yeah, it’s dangerous. It always has been. But we’re all in this together."
“That’s the problem.” His voice cracks, just a little. “We don’t always get out... Eddie didn’t.”
His name hangs between you both like a ghost.
“Then I should stay,” you snap, sharper than intended. “We need as many of us as possible. Steve, we’ve been through everything together. You expect me to run like a coward while everyone else stays to fight?”
“Look, it's just-”
“Just what?” you demand. Your heart is pounding so hard you can feel it in your teeth. "Why are you acting like suddenly I’m not - what? Not needed?” Your voice cracks on it. “Like I don’t matter?”
His face crumples like you’ve hit him.
“No. No, that’s not - Jesus, that’s not what I meant.” He stops, fists clenching and unclenching at his sides. “You matter." Then, quieter, almost breaking: "It's because you matter... to me."
His shoulders slump like the admission is too heavy to hold inside any longer, and he steps closer, voice dropping until you can barely hear it over the buses.
“You’ve been beside me through everything,” he murmurs. “You and me - we always make it out, and I keep telling myself that means something. But this time… I don’t know what’s gonna happen. And if - if something goes wrong…” His throat works around the words. “I can’t handle that. I can’t even - I don’t want to think about it."
You look at Steve fully now. Really look.
His shaking breath.
His clenched jaw.
The way his eyes are locked onto you like you're the only steady thing left in the world.
And suddenly you get it. This isn’t about logic. It’s fear.
Not the jump scare kind, but the slow kind, the kind that sneaks up on you over years spent caring about someone more than you were ever supposed to.
Fear built from all the almosts you and Steve have carried around. The looks that stretched a little too long. The jokes that hid things you were both too scared to say out loud. The nights you patched each other up and pretended it didn’t mean anything. Every bit of hope you shoved down because the timing was never right or the world was always falling apart.
And now you see it, clear as anything.
He’s terrified this is where it ends.
That you could lose each other before either of you finally admits what’s been there the whole time.
And it terrifies you too.
"I can't lose you.”
He says it like it hurts him. Like the words have been lodged in his ribs for years.
He isn’t saying he loves you.
He doesn’t have to.
You exhale shakily. “Steve…”
He reaches for your hand like he’s scared you might vanish if he doesn’t. His fingers curl around yours, warm and trembling.
For a second, neither of you move.
You feel your eyes sting. You’re exhausted and terrified and overwhelmed and suddenly standing inches from the boy you’ve loved - quietly, stubbornly, stupidly - for so long you stopped counting.
"I can't lose you either."
Then you step into him, your forehead resting against his. His breath catches - you feel it - and his hands slide up to hold your arms, steadying himself as much as he’s steadying you.
“But I’m not going,” you whisper. “Not without you. Not ever.”
He laughs once - a quiet, broken sound - and you know if he lets go, he might fall apart. You might too.
“I was afraid you’d say that.”
“Too bad,” you breathe.
His thumb traces your cheekbone, slow and almost reverent, like he’s memorizing you. And maybe he is.
For a second - one impossible, suspended second - you both just stare, the air between you warm and charged, like a thread pulled tight.
His eyes flick to your mouth, then back up. He leans in half an inch, close enough that you feel the heat of him, close enough that if either of you exhaled wrong, you’d touch.
“Guys!”
Dustin barrels toward you, out of breath, waving both arms like he's trying to land a plane.
“We need you! Now! Monster signals going crazy, Robin’s freaking out, and if I have to be the one responsible adult around here, we are so screwed!”
Steve jumps back so fast you almost laugh. Almost.
Dustin blinks between you. “Why do you both look weird? Do you look weird? You look weird.” He squints harder. “Were you arguing? Or - wait, were you -”
“Dustin,” Steve says sharply, cheeks going red. “Focus.”
“Oh, right, right!” Dustin spins around, already jogging. “Come on! End of the world! More important than whatever - whatever that was!”
You meet Steve’s eyes.
He meets yours.
There’s no hiding what was just said. Or rather, what was left unsaid. No going back.
You share one long, aching look.
Steve swallows and nods. “Let’s finish this together.”
You nod once. “Together.”
He turns and runs after Dustin, and you, without a moment's hesitation, follow him into the chaos and the danger and whatever comes next. Together.