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“I don’t like girls,” says Will, and Steve is probably gaping a little. Like a guppy.
Steve is only, like, vaguely familiar with this whole coming-out thing. When it was just Robin and him, in the bathroom, laying on the dirty ground coming down from a Russian high, it was different. It felt natural, like the last puzzle piece in their friendship, the final pull on the knot that keeps them—Steve and Robin—tied together. They’d laughed so hard Steve had a stitch in his side, because Steve started up on his best Tammy Thompson impression and Robin was grinning and joy like that was the obvious next step.
Will isn’t smiling. He isn’t laughing. He isn’t calling Tammy Thompson a muppet. There isn’t an obvious next step here: Just Will Byers laying himself in front of everyone in the room like he had to reach down and tear the words out of himself against his will. Like ripping off a band-aid on a wound still tender.
Steve stares. He thinks it would probably be weird if he got up to hug Will like the others are. Joyce, El, Lucas, Dustin, Jonathan, Robin, Mike. All wrapping arms around him like they can keep him from unraveling onto the floor.
It’s the bravest thing he thinks he has seen a person do. Will Byers—quiet, tiny, bowl-cut kid with the horrors behind his eyes—has more balls than anyone Steve has known.
More balls than him, that’s for sure.
So Steve watches quietly as Will cries into the arms of the people he has loved all his life, clings to them like even now he thinks they might slip away. He watches when Will finally steps back, draws his sleeves over his hands, watches everyone slowly disperse.
For a moment, he watches Will. Sitting silently, staring up at Dustin’s hastily drawn model. There is a firmness to his shoulders, a quiet furrow to his brow, a shift in his body. Like he is feeling the ground beneath his feet.
The floor creaks beneath Steve when he makes to leave, and Will jolts slightly.
“Shit,” says Steve, ever intelligent. “Sorry.”
Will blinks slowly, steadily, at him. “It’s fine.”
Steve rocks on his feet for a moment before determinedly stepping closer. If Will has the guts to come out on the cusp of an inter-dimensional war, he can have the guts to congratulate him.
Steve clears his throat to try and dispel some of the tension. “Um. That was pretty cool of you. What you did. Or said. Or whatever.”
Will stares. Steve is vaguely reminded of the thirteen year old boy who held the power of the Mindflayer in his wide eyes. He’s still just as intimidating now, even if Steve is about 70% sure Will can’t send any demodogs to maul him anymore. Or maybe he can, based on what Steve heard about back at the MAC-Z.
“Well, I guess everything you’ve done recently is kinda cool, huh?” Steve continues, stumbling through the words. He kind of wants to stay in this kid’s good graces all of a sudden.
“Oh. Thanks,” Will murmurs.
“Yup,” says Steve, popping the p. “Yup. Rad. Super rad.”
Will gazes blankly at him.
“So,” Steve keeps talking, for some fucking reason. “Your Tammy. Is he—uh—cute?”
Will tilts his head, looking a little amused for the first time. “Are you asking me if the guy that I—I liked—is cute?”
Steve shrugs and slumps into a chair. “Yeah, sure. I mean, if you like him so much, he’s gotta be a looker. Boys can be cute, right? Is there a different word that—that you guys use?”
Will laughs and looks a little surprised that the sound came out of him at all. “I don’t—I’m not sure? I don’t think so. Boys are—boys are cute.”
Steve nods sagely. “Boys are cute.”
Will’s eyes go a little wide.
“No! No—I mean—I like girls. I’m into chicks, for sure, one-hundred-percent, love girls,” Steve yelps. “I meant, like, objectively. Guys. You know?”
And Will—Will giggles. He hunches over himself and really just sort of laughs, almost hysterical like he can’t believe the situation. “Yeah. I know.”
Steve clears his throat. Again. “Sorry. I’m trying to be supportive. Is this weird? This is weird. This is so weird.”
“It’s not weird,” Will says quietly, his laughter tapering off.
There’s a moment of silence between them, not quite awkward but not exactly comfortable either.
“I had this total, stupid crush on Robin at Scoops Ahoy,” Steve blurts suddenly.
Will glances at him, his eyebrows shooting up to his hairline. “Really?”
“Yeah, totally. Like, so embarrassing. We were high on Russian drugs, and laughing about something stupid, and I had to tell her. That’s when I found out about—about her.” Will listens silently. “I mean, she didn’t have to tell me. She could’ve just said, like, ew, Steve, no, your hairspray is too stinky, and that would have been fine. Obviously. But she did. She told me all about muppet Thompson. And I thought, whew, that’s tough shit.”
Will hums. “You’re still friends.”
“Yeah, ‘course. She wouldn’t drop me just because I made a total ass of myself,” Steve says, because duh. “We’re better off that way, I think. And then she found her, um, Vickie, and that’s pretty great.”
“It is pretty great,” Will echoes.
“What I’m trying to get at, I think, is that—like—it’s not the end of the world. Having silly crushes. It happens. Even like this, in the actual end of the world.”
Will tips his head back on the chair, exhaling softly to the ceiling. It feels heavy, like the exhaustion of carrying something so relentless is wearing on him. “Is it normal to—to feel like losing them—him—is the end of the world?”
Steve tilts his head. He thinks, for a moment, about Nancy Wheeler—the weight she holds, even now. His throat suddenly feels awfully dry again.
“Sometimes,” he says. “But it isn’t forever.”
He’s lying.
Steve thinks he surely has felt lost ever since Nancy called it bullshit through a drunken tongue he didn’t recognize. He still loves her, in more ways than one, even if it feels like it must be ripping up his insides.
But in other ways, Steve keeps loving elsewhere. He loves Robin, her sarcasm and honesty. He loves Dustin, his humor and intelligence. He has more love to give than just the pieces of him that belong to Nancy. Steve thinks maybe that is what growing is. It’s not the lack of loving someone, but rather the abundance of other loves, that sows healing. That’s not something he can put into words so easily.
“Well,” Steve says, swallowing thickly and standing. “Congrats. On the—um—“
Will glances at him, lips curling wryly. “The being gay thing?”
Steve coughs. “Yeah. Yeah, that.”
“Thanks.”
And Steve ambles away awkwardly, looking back once to see that Will has his face lifted up against the sun and his eyes closed.
The ride to the Upside Down is awfully bumpy—which Steve thinks is probably a strange thing to complain about, considering the dents of bullets on either side of them and El’s downturned expression, but it’s all he can think about.
That, and Will tucked into his mother’s side. That, and the impending sense of doom that blankets over them. That, and the bruises on Dustin’s face that Steve isn’t sure are from their fight or from Andy.
It doesn’t matter anymore. Life or death situations make things like that feel sort of insignificant.
(Or maybe not. Maybe Steve is considering all the little things now more than ever.)
The radio tower seems taller here, in the darkness. Looming. Foreboding. This isn’t racing Jonathan, naively wondering if it might impress Nancy. This is standing beneath lightning strikes and a blood-red sky, wondering if you’ll ever see clouds again.
Steve lets Dustin and Robin go before him—just in case. They stop together intermittently on each platform, breathing hard. The ground slips further and further away, and the world feels increasingly less steady.
Below, Steve sees the silhouettes of everyone else at different levels. Jonathan and Nancy. Joyce and Lucas. Will and Mike.
Steve squints, curious despite himself. He can’t hear anything that they must be saying when they pause on a platform just below—Steve doesn’t mind. It would be creepy to eavesdrop, anyway. It’s probably weird enough to be staring.
Steve observes as Mike hands Will his own water, wearing an expression he has never seen before. Usually, Mike has his eyebrows drawn together, lips curled, eyes narrow—he’s constantly acting pissy, huffy, haughty. Here, there’s none of that. Mike looks open, soft, gentle, in a way so palpable that even Steve can see it.
Cogs shudder into motion in his brain. This feels like the moments of hunting for a lost puzzle piece under the table, that last little bit before it all comes together.
Steve doesn’t find it. But he watches anyway, watches Will’s teary smile and flushed cheeks, watches Mike’s words form so earnestly.
It’s not a Steve and Robin sort of talk.
And then Mike puts his water bottle away and starts climbing again. Will hesitates there for a moment, his expression dropping into something mournful. He has lost the color in his face here, turned pale by the haze in the air—and not for the first time, Steve wonders what it must have been like, four years ago today. Who do you call for, alone in another dimension, hunted by monsters?
Steve isn’t sure if he could name that person for himself.
Will Byers keeps surprising him with his bravery. Steve didn’t know it could be so quiet and yet so sure.
After a moment, Will finally shifts and keeps climbing, like he has steeled himself. Steve straightens up and does the same.
Steve nearly dies at the top of the radio tower.
He doesn’t, but he comes close. It’s Jonathan who catches his arm, of all people, at that last second where Steve floats between life and death. He thinks about some things in that beat—time really does slow down.
What would his parents think? When is the last time he sat in their living room to watch the news, exist in their company? They would spend a lot of money on a funeral, that’s to be sure.
What about Robin? Steve would hate to leave her behind. He always wanted to see her get out of Hawkins, maybe with Vickie. She was more than scooping ice cream and video stores and small-time radio stations. Steve knew that about her.
And—perhaps most jarring of all—Dustin? Steve can still feel the weight of him in his arms: You die, I die. He knows the truth of grief in Dustin’s eyes, knows the ways it broke him down.
He wonders what Dustin might do, seeing him fall.
Steve prays, prays, prays, that it isn’t anything reckless. He doesn’t want to be a second Eddie that haunts the bags under Dustin’s eyes—or worse.
And—and that’s it. Time has stopped, and Steve has nothing else to think about. He just lingers there, suspended in midair, with everything he has loved spread out in front of him—the list is short.
There should be more, to fill the space, but there isn’t. It is just Steve’s tiny world. He has half the mind to wonder—is that enough?—before he is being hauled back onto the radio tower with a lurch. Dustin grabs him so tight he loses breath, Robin clutches his hand in a vice grip, and that is that. Steve’s near-death experience for the year, or whatever.
Meanwhile, El manages to save all their lives for the umpteenth time. Nancy goes first through the gate, hauling herself up and holding out a hand for the next person. Robin goes, then Lucas, then Joyce, and Will. Will, who is stronger than he looks, drags himself up onto the railing with a shaky breath. Is it El fighting Vecna that is making him tremble like that?
Mike is there—Steve sees it happen—a supporting hand on his arm.
“I got you,” Mike says, somehow still soft and gentle in their haste. Steve has never heard that kid be anything remotely soft or gentle. “Here, take my hand.”
Will does. He puts one hand on Mike’s shoulder and the other in his waiting palm, and uses the support to steady himself.
“Thanks,” he breathes. Mike nods. Together, they make their way through.
Steve should probably thank Jonathan for saving his ass, now that he thinks about it.
The other planet is sandy. It’s probably getting into Steve’s boots, and he doesn’t love it. At least, though, by some miracle, the air is breathable.
In other news, the Mind Flayer is a hell of a lot scarier here. And bigger. And deadlier.
“We have to help her,” Mike gasps, watching as El disappears into its body. “We hurt the Mind Flayer, we hurt Vecna.”
“Hivemind,” echoes Robin.
“To damage anything of that scale, we need to spread out,” says Dustin breathlessly.
The foundations of a plan dance between them in the air between callouts and panicked gasps as the Mind Flayer advances. It raises a huge, spidery limb, only to come crashing down moments later. They scatter like ants.
Nancy fires a round into it desperately and someone screams.
“Will!” Joyce shrieks.
When Steve turns, Will’s knees are buckling, his face contorted in pain. Every hit they land on the Mind Flayer is an attack on Vecna, but an attack on him, too.
The hivemind.
Will drops to his knees, shoulders heaving, as Joyce, Jonathan and Mike crowd around him. He’s shaking his head as his mother frets.
“No,” he mutters. “No, no. You have to keep attacking it. El needs help.”
Joyce clutches at him, pulling him into her chest. “It’s hurting you, baby, we can’t—“
“It’s killing him,” Mike says softly, hardly a breath in the wind. Somehow, the world pauses for the words, just long enough for the thought to take root and become reality.
Will slits his eyes open, just slightly, his body shuddering as the Mind Flayer wails behind them. “Kill it.”
Kill me.
Steve stares, wide-eyed, as Joyce lets out a shrill wail and crumbles into him. Mike clings to Will’s free arm as Lucas and Dustin rush forward and drop to their knees at Will’s side.
“The canyon,” Lucas says, glancing back. “We could lure it there, ambush it from above.”
“Are you crazy?” Mike gasps, incredulous. “We can’t—look at him!”
Will writhes in their arms, gasping. Sweat beads over his brow. Steve feels lightheaded, watching Will’s body contort again and again like he’s being punched.
“Mike,” he murmurs when it finally lapses. “Come on, she needs you right now.”
Mike gasps in a shuddering breath, his eyes huge and desperate. “I—I need you. We can find another way. Will, don’t do this. Please.”
Will gazes at him for a quiet moment. Steve remembers the little boy who needed to be burned. He remembers the scrawny kid at Scoops Ahoy with that overgrown bowl cut, and the face of him on missing posters in 1983. Zombie boy. Fairy. Freak.
Will, sitting in front of them all, faced with everything he had been shunned for all his life, and still letting the words hang in the air.
He remembers Will at the radio station, staring at Dustin’s drawing, hands in his lap. Had he known, then, what would happen? Had he kept it to himself all this time? Will Byers, who fought and lived and lived, only to die at the hands of something out of his control.
God, that’s depressing.
Steve watches Will reach out with his free hand and curl it around Mike’s for a brief second before he pulls away and sinks further into his mother.
Mike trembles. “Will. Will.”
Will shakes his head minutely. “Go.”
It could only have been a minute, a few seconds, but it feels like a lifetime watching it all unfold. Steve feels like an onlooker, a member of the audience watching a horror movie. The ending feels inevitable, crushing, but Steve still finds himself hoping. There’s no use waiting around either way.
“Let’s go,” he says with finality.
Will makes brief, grateful eye contact with him. Steve chances a nod.
“I’m staying with him,” Joyce hisses, and no one would dare argue. Not with Joyce Byers, the mother who watched her son die. There’s a murmur of agreement.
“Well. Who’s going to be bait?” Robin says, voice unsteady.
“I am.”
Nancy Wheeler, because who else could it be? She moves with a surety far beyond her years; doesn’t ask for confirmation, doesn’t look for reassurance. She doesn’t need it. She simply adjusts her grip on her gun and starts walking towards the Mind Flayer head on.
Nancy Wheeler, the girl with the gun that Steve had so much love to offer to. He still loves her, after everything, through the fighting and the death and the bullshit but— Differently, now. Steve watches her go with a sense of awe, a sense of pride, but not the longing he is so used to catching his heart.
Love in the absence of grief, for the first time, because he hasn’t lost her—she was never his to lose. And she most certainly doesn’t need him to throw a punch for her.
When she starts shooting again, Will seizes. His head is yanked to the sky, his body taut like a live wire, his wails sharp and endless.
For a moment, they are all frozen, watching his agony. Nancy reloads, and swings her head back to look at them in the moment before she makes a break for the canyon.
“What the hell are you waiting for?” She shouts. “Move!”
Steve doesn’t need to be told twice. He shoves Dustin and Lucas forward, ushers Robin along. Jonathan squeezes his mother tight and follows.
Mike still won’t go.
Steve watches him cling to Will like his lifeblood, tears streaming down his face, a silent mantra falling from his lips.
“Mike, come on,” Steve exhales.
Mike doesn’t respond. Steve has to physically grab him by the back of his vest, hauling him to his feet as Mike writhes and fights and shrieks.
“No! No! Stop it!” He gasps out shrilly as Steve yanks him away. He’s certainly going to go down kicking and screaming, slamming his fists into Steve’s chest.
“I know, bud,” Steve tries. “You need to let him do his thing. Nance would kill me if you died.”
Mike doesn’t respond, just shoves his face into Steve’s shoulder and cries. His fighting fades into misery.
“Don’t let it be for nothing. Let him be your hero. We gotta pick up the pace, kiddo. I mean it.”
Mike stares up at Steve, his eyes glassy and wide as saucers. “He’ll be okay, though. He’ll be okay, right?”
Jesus Christ.
“Yeah. Yeah, he’ll be fine. We just gotta start running, and he’ll be fine.”
Steve thinks this is the second time today he has lied to a child.
Man, that’s fucked up.
The final battle doesn’t last long. It’s nothing like the movies, with grand gestures and huge crescendos. Steve is covered in blood, dirt, snot and Mind Flayer slime, and it’s all-around sort of unpleasant.
The Mind Flayer heaves, and begins to fall.
“We gotta go!” Steve gasps, grabbing onto Dustin and making a break for it.
In the distance, a figure stands, a hand outstretched and turned up to the heavens.
There’s a breath between the moment when the Mind Flayer collapses and the moment where it all sinks in, right after the death and right before the we did it. Steve’s chest heaves. Dustin is alive at his side. Above, Jonathan, Lucas, Mike, Nancy, Robin. It feels like some kind of miracle. The silence is a blessing, a gift, a blanket of comfort after years of noise.
And then, the sound of a body dropping.
The scream of an endlessly grieving mother.
Steve had no idea Mike Wheeler could run that fast, but he’s streaking across the sand like a bullet. Dustin and Lucas are quick to rush after him, and Steve is tugged along by the current.
Will.
His name hangs in the air like an omen. His body lies crumpled in Joyce’s arms, one eye red with blood. She desperately wipes it away with her sleeve.
“I don’t know what to do, baby,” she’s gasping. “Tell me what to do. Tell me how to fix this. I can make it better, honey, I just need you to tell me how—“
And Jonathan is there. Mike is there. Lucas, Dustin. There’s so many tears, all pooling between them.
“Hurts,” Will manages. “Mom.”
She sobs, a wild thing torn from her body, and it lingers in the dead air. “I know. I know. I’m right here.”
“I was so scared,” he whispers.
Steve watches him. Watches, and watches, and watches. He thinks of all the things he has loved, all the things he has forgotten. When this is all over, what binds him to these people? These grieving, loving, fighting people, who are bound both by blood and by soul?
Steve watches Lucas and Dustin cling to each other. He watches Robin sink down beside Jonathan as silent tears pour down his cheeks. He watches Mike press his forehead against Will’s palm, pleading with him. Nancy drops to her knees with him, stricken. They all orbit Will.
Slowly, Steve crouches beside them. Not quite there—a ghostly figure, spectating. To glimpse what it must be like to be so loved.
“Oh, baby, please,” Joyce begs, swiping her thumbs over Will’s damp cheeks. “Please, please, please.”
Robin reaches for Steve’s hand, suddenly. She grabs onto him, pulls him closer, presses their intertwined fingers to her chest. Steve can feel the steady beating of her heart. Fast, fluttery, but constant. Her tears trail into the creases of his knuckles and soak into his skin.
“But I’m—“ Will takes a gasping, shallow breath. His own blood drips down his neck. “I’m not afraid anymore.”
Oh, thinks Steve, because Will Byers really is the bravest kid he has ever met. He clings to Robin harder, somehow.
And when Will dies, the world bows its head.
It only lasts a moment. A moment that feels dimmer, darker, scarier than anything before. Is it possible for one boy to have so much love to give that life itself starts to lose color when he is gone?
Then, Will takes in a deep, gasping breath. Joyce drops her head to his chest and sobs.
“You’re alive,” Mike breathes. “You’re—you’re really here. Like magic.”
“Sorcerer,” says Lucas.
Mike lets out a long breath, something that he must have been holding in for much longer than a few seconds. “I knew it. I knew it all along.”
It takes a long time for things to go back to normal.
Max goes to physical therapy every other day, then once a week, then once a month. She struggles to learn to skateboard again, and on her bad days she still needs a cane—but she will, with time.
Dustin cuts his hair, but he keeps the rings. He tells Steve they give him an edge. They hug a lot when it’s over. Steve thinks about telling him he loves him even more. He wants to say you remind me of him.
Jonathan gets accepted into NYU, which, Steve learns, he’s wanted since he was six years old. There’s a lot to admire about having such firm beliefs like that. Something to chase.
Nancy goes to Emerson. It’s a long way from Indiana—but if anyone can handle it, it’s Nancy Wheeler. Steve knows that.
Everyone is leaving. Joyce and Hopper want to run away to Montauk together. The kids are applying to their own colleges. Even Robin Buckley, perhaps the biggest homebody Steve knows, is planning on it.
“You’ll be fine,” she tells him, resting a hand on his shoulder. “You survived without me before, didn’t ya?”
Steve scoffs. “Yeah, and I’ll do it again.” But he’s not so sure.
He thinks a lot, these days, of the time he spent with fleeting friendships and bloody noses. He thinks of broken cameras and cold Coke cans.
Steve isn’t a good person. He creates the illusion of one, hiding behind these people who are leagues better than him—but in the absence of their goodness, there’s just Steve.
And we drift apart, more and more and more, Will’s saying in the back of his mind, his expression crumpling, his hands shaking. And yet Steve watched everyone revolve around him like he was the sun itself, saw how they shared in grief for him.
“I mean it,” says Robin.
Steve stares at her, blinking rapidly. He doesn’t know when he started crying, but he knows that there’s a warmth on his cheeks that wasn’t there before. “You’ll come back, though.”
“Obviously,” Robin breathes. “And I’ll call so much you’ll get sick of hearing my voice. You can’t get rid of me, Steve.”
“God, fuck, when did I become such a crybaby?” Steve gasps out.
Robin lets out a watery giggle. “You’ve always been a crybaby, deep down.”
It’s true, Steve thinks as he drops his head to her shoulder. He clings to her like a parasite.
Miraculously, they get invited to a Christmas party.
It’s at the Wheeler’s house, and because Dustin is invited, Steve gets to come along too. Mostly because he’s the chauffeur.
It’s loud in the way that isn’t suffocating, but warm. Like a—a baby’s swaddle, or something. Steve doesn’t know. Mostly, he’s just holding a glass of wine in his hand and following Robin around like a stray dog.
Nancy Wheeler looks like a dream under Christmas lights. Objectively speaking. She is the loveliest of things in the world, smelling like sweet perfume and touching up her lipstick in a handheld mirror.
The four of them—Steve, Nancy, Jonathan and Robin—sit around the dining table some hours after dinner has been served and eaten.
It’s a strange dynamic, the knowing they’ll all be separated soon enough, the waiting game. The college talk. Steve doesn’t have much to add, but he likes listening. He likes hearing about their success. They deserve it.
“What about you?” Nancy asks, and it clicks a second too late that she’s looking in his direction. Robin kicks him under the table.
“Ow—oh!” Steve stalls by talking a long drink. “Uh, you know. Same old, same old.”
“What, moping around?” Nancy asks, quirking a brow. Which, ouch.
Steve laughs—he tries to, at least. “Yeah, I guess so, huh?”
Nancy smiles. “I’m teasing. Come on, Steve, you’re better than that.”
Steve blinks at her, then to his rapidly emptying glass. His reflection wobbles.
“Seriously, you are,” Nancy continues. “Actually, I think they’re hiring for a new coach down at the elementary school. It made me think of you.”
Steve’s head snaps up. “What?”
“Yeah! I saw that. For the Little League. Totally up your alley,” Jonathan pipes up, his eyes brightening.
Steve stares between them. He looks at Robin, nearly asks her to pinch him, but Nancy’s just nodding along. “You should apply. They’d be lucky to have you, Steve,” she tells him gently. Warmly.
“You think so?” He blurts, like a child searching for reassurance. Do you really think so highly of me? Do you think of me when I’m not around?
“Definitely.”
Steve bites back a grin. “Yeah, maybe I will. That’s cool.”
There’s a brief, comfortable silence in which Steve feels something in his body settle—like melting wax. The sun setting into the ocean, blending into the waves. A puzzle piece fitting into place. And then—
“Ste-e-ve!” Dustin’s voice rings out from the living room. All four of them jolt.
Robin raises a glass mockingly. “Your children need you, Stevie-boy.”
Steve groans.
“What?” He hollers back, tilting his chair back to peek at them.
Dustin, Holly, Erica, Max and Lucas sit in a circle on the floor. Dustin flutters his eyelashes in a way that is probably supposed to look convincing, but only looks ridiculous. “Can you get us another pack of Coke from the basement?”
“Why do I have to do it?”
“Come on, please,” Dustin widens his eyes. “Max would do it, but she’s still sore from PT! You wouldn’t make her do that.”
Max grins. “Would you?” She pitches her voice up in a way that is absolutely condescending.
“There’s four more of you—“ Steve pinches the bridge of his nose. “You know what? Fine!”
As he turns and stomps towards the basement, there’s a resounding cheer from the group. Steve rolls his eyes.
He hasn’t been in the Wheeler’s basement in a long time—perhaps once, in a whisper, between everything that was happening. The noise of the party is sucked away when Steve closes the door behind him and steps down the stairs.
“Oh, shit,” he says, because there’s Will, curled up on the sofa and staring at nothing. He startles slightly.
“Oh,” Will says right back. “Um, sorry.”
Steve hasn’t seen Will since the day he died almost two months ago. It’s strange, looking at him now, one eye still frosted over and blind, but the breath steady in his lungs. Steve is finding it difficult to equate this boy—with broad shoulders and a warmth to his skin—to the tiny kid he used to know, pale and wide-eyed and afraid.
Will isn’t afraid—it’s obvious, in the way he holds himself, the way he speaks, the way his hair is growing out to curl just slightly around his ears. The bravery he’s always had is showing on the outside.
“What’re you up to?” Steve says dumbly, because it’s probably weird to just stand and stare.
Will shrugs. “It got a little loud up there, I think. I needed a break.”
He’s strikingly honest.
Steve nods along, keeps talking like he always seems to do. “That makes sense. Um—how are you?”
“What, you mean after I literally died?”
Steve sputters. “Shit, I meant—I don’t know, sorry, is that—?”
Will laughs, and it’s real, light, natural. He’s so far removed from the kid in the radio station who faced the sun. “I’m joking, it’s fine. It’s a lot to get used to, you know? Everything’s different.”
Slowly, Steve nods. “Yeah. Like, everything that happened was so shitty, but, like—it started to feel like a part of us. And now, without it—“
“You feel lost,” Will finishes quietly, looking at Steve like he’s seeing him for the first time.
“Yeah. Yeah, exactly.”
Will looks down at his hands, thinking. “Can I tell you something? Like, something weird? I don’t think I could say it to anyone else.”
“Oh! Um—if you want, yeah,” Steve sinks down on the other side of the sofa and feels it take on his weight. “‘Course.”
“I didn’t think I would make it to my next Christmas,” Will confesses, so soft.
It clicks, there in the cool air of the Wheeler’s basement, that Will Byers expected to die all along.
“You knew. You didn’t tell anyone.”
Will smiles a little. “How could I? My mom would’ve shut the whole thing down in a heart beat. But, also—I think I was scared of how people would react.”
Steve tilts his head. “What do you mean?”
“It’s just—I knew people would be sad, obviously. Of course. But I also—“ Will hitches in a breath. “Is it crazy to say I thought they might be relieved? I was scared that—that maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad thing. It’s so selfish, but I think maybe I was scared that I’d find out all along I was just as forgettable as I thought I was.”
Steve hangs his head. “Jesus.”
“Sorry. I don’t know why I’m telling you this. I knew it would be weird.”
“No! No, I—I think,” Steve sighs. “I think I get it. Like, even if you never existed, the world would just keep turning.”
Will is quiet for a long moment. His whisper is barely audible. “Yeah.”
“If it—um, if it helps at all, I don’t think you’re selfish. I think you’re the bravest person I’ve ever met.”
Will laughs breathlessly. “You’re crazy.”
“No, I’m serious. Fuck, dude, you’re a total powerhouse, you know?” Steve looks up at him earnestly. “Like, holy shit.”
Will turns a little sheepish. “I mean—Steve, you too.”
“Come on.”
“Really. I—all of us totally looked up to you. At first, you were kind of just Nancy’s jerk of a boyfriend, but, I don’t know. You’re kind of, um, really cool. With the bat, and everything? Or the time you got your shit rocked by Billy to protect Max? Nancy dumped you and you still stuck around, just—just because. That’s pretty brave.”
Steve exhales. The quiet between them lasts longer this time.
“Can I—can I ask you one more thing? You don’t have to answer.”
Steve raises his eyebrows. “Sure.”
Will hesitates, wrings his hands in his lap for a moment. “Do you…do you still love her?”
Steve startles. It certainly wasn’t the question he was expecting. “Who, Nance? God, no. No, she’s just a friend,” he says, a knee-jerk reaction he’s rehearsed for months now. Then, a little more sincerely: “I did. For a really long time. Embarrassingly long.”
Will nods slowly. “Your Tammy.”
“Yeah, I guess so, huh?” Steve grins. Will smiles back. “I admire her a lot. I think that might have been why I chased after her for so long; she’s kind of everything I wanted to be. Instead of looking for that in—in myself, I tried to find it in her. That was never going to work.”
Will nods, eyes downcast and suddenly sad. He tucks his knees into his chest. “Robin said something similar.”
“Did she? She probably got it from me,” Steve tries for a joke. “Anyway, Nancy’s way better off without me. I was super codependent, and she’s—you know. Nancy.”
“But are you better off without her? After all that?”
Steve’s heart stops and restarts again. He pauses, lets the question float in the air. “Honestly? It took me a really long time to figure it out. But…yeah. Yeah, I am. We weren’t right for each other.”
Will closes his eyes, his lashes fluttering against his cheekbones. He’s thoughtful.
“Do you think,” Will swallows hard. “If you could go back, knowing everything, you’d choose to love her again?”
Steve pauses. He thinks of Nancy in the Byers’ old house, with flickering lights and a pistol in her shaking hands. He thinks of the choice he made outside his old Beamer with crumpled flowers still in his hands. He thinks of Dustin, of Robin, of all the love he has to give and all the people he has found to give it to—all because of a stupid, lovesick choice.
He listens to the laughter of the party upstairs, the creaking of their movement, the joy laced in every word and smile. The people he now knows like the back of his hand.
“Yes. Not—not because she needed me, but because—I don’t know. If I didn’t love Nance, I wouldn’t be here. I’d still be dickwad Steve Harrington who peaked in high school.”
Will laughs, gentle. “You were a dickwad.”
Steve hums agreement. He considers something for a moment. “What about you?”
“What?”
“Your Tammy. Knowing what you did now, would you go back and love him all over again?”
“Yes,” Will says instantly. “Of course.”
“Why?”
Will looks at him then, so earnest, still so young, so full of love to give and so willing to give it away.
“Because it’s him.”
Oh. This isn’t a crush, a silly high school relationship that unravels in frat boys’ bathrooms or punches in alleyways. This isn’t roses from the supermarket crinkling in Steve’s hands.
It’s such an honest, unguarded display of love, of longing, an ache folded between the lines. It’s certainly not bullshit.
Steve nods, slowly. “Well, shit.”
“Yeah,” Will sighs, staring at his shoes. “Shit.”
“Look, man—“
The basement door flies open and hits the opposite wall with a crash. Steve and Will both jolt in sync.
“Will! There you are! I’ve been looking for you,” Mike gasps as he bounds down the stairs. He’s practically blind to Steve’s presence, hovering over Will like he wants to touch but he’s not sure where to start. “Are you okay? Did something happen?”
Will’s expression softens visibly, his smile so sweet. “I’m fine, Mike. It’s okay.”
“Are you sure?” Mike presses gently, his fingertips brushing along Will’s shoulder.
Steve scrunches his eyebrows together in confusion. The Mike Wheeler he knows would be cursing a mile a minute, pissed-off and huffy.
“Yes, I’m sure,” says Will, fondly exasperated. Mike nods, lingers an extra moment, before he pulls away and finally notices Steve. His demeanor shifts instantly.
“What’s he doing here? Is he bothering you?” He asks, frowning.
Steve puts up both hands placatingly. “Just grabbing more soda for the kids.”
“So do that,” Mike snips, crossing his arms.
“Sir, yes sir,” Steve mutters dryly as he stands up to hunt for the case.
“Don’t worry about it. We were just talking,” Will is saying behind him.
“Talking about what?” Mike mumbles, and if Steve didn’t know any better, he’d think the kid almost sounded bitter. Jealous.
Will fumbles for a moment. “Just—stuff. Things. You know.”
The couch puffs as Mike flops down onto it. Steve moves a little slower, curious. “Well, next time come talk about stuff to me. I’m better company.”
“I resent that,” Steve says.
“Mike,” Will scolds softly, but he’s laughing. “Come on. Be nice.”
Mike humphs, but he doesn’t say anything else. Will apparently has the kid on a short leash.
When Steve turns around with the case of soda in hand, Mike has settled himself directly next to Will—despite all the extra space on the couch—and is eyeing him with barely concealed suspicion. Will is a little pink in the cheeks, chewing on his lip. Steve stares at them.
And then—oh. Oh, holy shit. Steve gets it now. The soft looks, the pleading by his side, the fighting, the desperation to stay at his side. That’s not Will’s Tammy. That’s absolutely not Will’s Nancy, either.
“Are you done?” Mike grumbles, curling an arm around Will’s shoulders. Will, almost imperceptibly, leans into him.
Steve nods dumbly. “Yes. Yup. Leaving. Bye!”
And he hauls ass up the stairs.
Robin laughs so hard she cries when Steve tells her this.
“You—oh, fuck, dude—you didn’t know?” She gasps between giggles.
Steve crosses his arms, glaring. “No, I didn’t know! Sorry I’m not an expert on—on—“
“Gay people?” She snickers.
“Yes! God!”
“You’ll get there, my gay padawan. Trust me,” Robin hums, patting him placatingly on the shoulder.
Steve is not soothed. “What is that supposed to mean? Have you been hanging out with Dustin without me? Did you—did you have movie night when I was sick? Robin! What does that mean?!”
She just cackles.
Meanwhile, Steve starts noticing things. He notices the way Will gravitates towards Mike in a crowded room. He notices the way Mike always has a hand on Will. He notices the way Will’s cheeks flush when Mike leans over to whisper something snarky in his ear. He notices the way Mike stumbles over his words when Will is staring at him oh-so attentively.
(He also starts noticing the way Marty McFly looks in that stupid puffer vest, but that’s unrelated and not something Steve is going to address.)
So when he goes over to the Wheeler’s to pick up Nancy, he considers himself adequately trained in—gay flirting, or whatever.
It doesn’t even matter, actually; Robin’s already in the car, and they’re going to pick up Jonathan next to go bowling together. Steve’s excited, even if he would never admit it.
Karen Wheeler opens the door with a tight smile. She clearly hasn’t forgotten him. “Steve.”
“Hi, Mrs. Wheeler. Um, is Nancy here? Me and Robin—Robin and I—we’re picking her up to go bowling.”
He gestures behind him to his truck. Robin waves wildly. If nothing else, it seems to put Mrs. Wheeler at ease. “She’s almost ready, come on in. Can I get you anything to drink?”
“No, that’s okay. Thank you,” Steve steps inside and marvels at the warmth of the house, even on the brink of a bitter incoming January.
“Well, you can go find her. I,” Mrs. Wheeler eyes him then, and Steve feels incredibly scrutinized. “Trust you know where her room is.”
Steve clears his throat. “Yes—I mean, um, I’m sure I’ll find it. I mean—“
“Just go on,” she sighs, shaking her head, but her smile is kind.
Steve nods quickly and hurries for the stairs. Nancy’s room is last on the left, right before the master bedroom.
Holly’s door is open, music spilling out, and she’s lying on the floor drawing. She waves absently as Steve passes. Steve smiles nervously at her.
Mike’s door is ajar, very slightly, only three inches at most. He should maybe say hi—is that weird? Do you say hi to your ex-girlfriend’s little brother? Probably not. Would it be weird if he didn’t?
Steve sighs, goes to knock on the door—fuck, he’s doing way too much, isn’t he?—when—
Shit. Shit, shit, shit.
Will’s in Mike’s room, sitting next to him on the edge of the bed. And they’re kissing, a gentle sort of thing, with Mike’s hands comfortably on Will’s waist and Will’s fingers curled into his hair. Real. Honest. Natural, like it’s something that was always meant to happen.
Beyond the shock, something warm whispers in the depths of Steve’s heart—pride.
He watches for a moment longer as Will pulls away to rest his forehead against Mike’s. When they make eye contact, pressed together like they were made to be, they smile. Will looks so alive.
And Mike leans back in.
Steve looks away quickly—staring would be creepy, and Steve hangs around with Dustin a lot, but he still tries to shy away from creep territory. He hurries to Nancy’s room and knocks, a little louder than necessary, as his heart oozes happy, happy, happy. Will has so much love to give. He deserves someone who will cherish it, who he doesn’t have to be afraid of losing.
Nancy opens the door, looking about ready to snap, but when she sees Steve she relaxes. “Jesus, I thought you were Mike. Am I late?”
Steve huffs out a laugh. “Almost. What’s taking you so long? The hair?”
“Oh, please. You spend more time on yours,” she retorts, guiding them both down the hall.
Steve makes an offended sound. “I wake up like this!”
Nancy shoots him a look over her shoulder. “Sure you do.”
And her gaze doesn’t make Steve feel like a crumpled up soda can or abandoned roses. He just feels—light. He marvels about it for a moment as Nancy hurries out to the car and slides into the backseat.
Robin glances at him. “Hello, driver?”
Steve nods. “Right! Shit.”
He kicks the truck into gear—she needs a little coaxing, but she runs like a dream when she gets there—and pulls out of the Wheeler’s driveway. Robin chatters happily to Nancy and loops her arm around Steve’s as they go, and Steve feels settled.
His love is in safe hands.