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God, he couldn't believe it'd been six months.
It wasn't like he'd just been sitting around, waiting for someone to tell him it was all a bad dream. That Max wasn't in a coma. That Eddie hadn't died. That Hawkins wasn't split up and falling apart. That they weren't falling apart.
Between the volunteering, helping the Party cope and getting the Byers settled back in, starting to come up with ways to find and kill Vecna once and for all, Robin's newfound plan of taking up the radio station and visiting Max at the hospital, Steve hadn't really had a moment to himself in a while. Not that he wanted that kind of reflection space. It would just make him spiral downward, and he didn't have time for that.
Half a year already, and he still didn't have his shit figured out. At least he had it figured out enough to pick up Lucas from the hospital and drag him to school on the first day he tried to skip to be with Max. The boy wasn't happy, and neither did Steve take any joy out of the situation, but he knew it was the right thing to do. Rightfully upset, Sinclair had slammed the car door on his way out, causing the glove box door to drop. And with it... letters. A realisation dawned upon him: Max's letters. The ones to El, Will and Mike. One of them had probably stuffed them in there after they left the Wheelers', the day Max was first attacked.
His hands trembled as he reached over to pick them up. How had he not remembered the undelivered ones? It wasn't like he'd forgotten the existence of the letters. After all, his lived on top of his desk at home, unread.
Without a second thought, he sped towards the hospital.
Max's bedside wasn't an unfamiliar place for him. Lucas had spent the summer there, and many times, when the others couldn't, he'd sit with the younger boy. He’d also come with Robin, Dustin and Nancy. They never talked. What was unfamiliar to him, though, was sitting there alone. He knew the others did it, but he couldn’t. It hurt too much. To not have anything else to do but look at this girl he was supposed to protect and had failed to. It was easier with the others around. They would read to her or play her song on the radio. How Lucas hadn’t gotten sick of that song, he didn’t know. This time, however, he wanted to talk.
He lowered the volume of the radio Sinclair had left playing and sat down in the chair the nurses had learned not to move.
"Hey, Mayfield. I found your letters." He settled them on the small table by her bed. "One of you dumb kids stuffed them in my car and forgot about them. I'll deliver them now since we did manage to get a hold of the others" He paused, scoffing at himself. "I don't know why I'm telling you this, Sinclair's been giving you daily updates, I'm sure."
Steve looked at her face, serene, unmoving, before lowering his head
"I don't even know why I'm talking to you, why I came here now, to tell you this. But I want you to know I'll pass the message. That they shouldn't read the letters.” He paused, “I haven't read mine. And you know, Max, I don't want to read it.” He looked at her again, hoping she would open her eyes just to stop him from spitting out emotional mush, as she called it “I just want you to wake up so I can throw that damn piece of paper away. I don't care if I don't get to read if you think I'm awesome or stupid or whatever emotional bullshit you might've written. I don't care if I never find out that I mean to you a part of what you mean to me, if it means that you come back to us. That I get to see you rolling your eyes at me again. That you get to laugh. That you get to live. That you get to go with Sinclair to that stupid movie because I can't watch that boy suffer anymore."
Steve hadn’t realised it, but tears had started streaming down his face. Damn it, when had he become so sensitive and started caring so much for a bunch of kids? They weren’t his family, so why did he care? Better yet, why did they care about him? It hadn’t gone unnoticed to him how Max had written him a letter, but to none other of the “adults”. Not Robin, or Nancy or Jonathan. Just him. Gosh, she hadn’t written Erica a letter, and they went along pretty well back when she and Lucas were dating. Yet she’d written one to him.
He sat there for a while, afterwards, not speaking, not moving, just staring at Max like his sheer will could make her wake up. But it didn’t work with Lucas, and it didn’t work with him.
He hadn’t really noticed how long he’d been there until Mike showed up. He realised then, as he was probably back from school, that he hadn’t even left for lunch.
“Hey, you came for a visit?” the Wheeler son asked as he came in.
“Yeah, you could say that”, as Steve replied, he saw the younger boy noticing the letters he’d left on Max’s bedside.
“What are those?”
“Oh, uh, Max…” he started to explain “…she wrote these letters. The day Vecna came for her. She called them safe-proof. In case the worst happened. She gave us ours and said we weren’t supposed to read them unless she actually…”
“She’s not dead,” Mike stated, matter-of-factly, upset at the mere idea someone would insinuate it.
“I know. God, I know.“ He sighed and grabbed Mike’s letter from the small pile “Anyway, here’s yours. Someone must have stuffed that in my car along with Eleven and Will’s. Found them today after I dropped Sinclair off.”
Mike stared at the brown paper as Steve handed him the letter. His name, written in Max’s handwriting, stared back at him.
“How many did she…” he let the question die on his lips as the older boy replied,
“You kids and me.” Mike paused for a few seconds before asking
“What did yours say?”
“Dude”, Steve almost killed him with his eyes, incredulous with the question after what he’d just told the guy
“Right, no reading.”
After a moment of silence, realising he’d never been in that room with the younger boy before, Steve questioned
“Did you come for a visit?”
“Well, Lucas got held up at school, and he didn’t want Max to be alone. We didn’t know you were here.” He thought for a moment before adding, “And, I guess, I also wanted to spend some time with her.”
“Funny”
“What?”
“I don’t think I recall seeing you two have a civil conversation”
“Hilarious, Steve” He sighed, sitting down by Max’s legs, still holding the letter in his hand “She’s one of my best friends. I don’t hate this whole thing just because I see what it’s doing to Lucas every day… I hate it because she didn’t deserve this. She should be kicking us every time we make a stupid decision or don’t think things through. She should be getting to help El with her training. She should be here, not in this room or whatever place her mind is in.” He looked at his letter again, choosing right then and there to throw it away as soon as he left this place. He didn’t know what Lucas had done with his, but like his best friend had faith in Max’s return, he did too. And he would hold on to that faith until she actually did.
The two boys sat in the room for another hour, in silence, until Lucas showed up, just as visiting hours were ending. Once the nurses had kicked them out, Steve drove the kids to their respective houses, giving Will’s letter to Mike and stopping by Hopper’s cabin to hand the ex-chief Eleven’s. As he arrived at his own house, after calling Robin’s place to apologise for not showing up at all during the day, he thought about how he’d always wanted a little sister. And maybe, just maybe, once Max was back, he could finally get one.