Archive of Our Own

The bassline beats heavy in Steve’s chest—punches his lifeless heart back into rhythm and rattles through his ribs. He can see the lights as they flash over his face even with his eyelids closed. Bodies surround him, shoulders brushing as they dance; he only stands and sways in place, sometimes turning, sometimes not. He doesn’t stray far from his chosen spot. Everyone else flows around him like a river around a rock.

No-one moves him.

No-one speaks to him.

Steve probably wouldn’t notice if they did.

He stands on the dance floor, eyes closed, and he looks for her.

⸻ 🪶 ⸻

It all begins on a Starcourt Mall bathroom floor.

Actually, it begins a bit before that, but Steve had misjudged what it truly was.

She was just his co-worker, and his annoying co-worker, at that, for a while. She was weird and kind of nerdy and got these bursts of energy that were equal parts amusing and irritating. She never gave him an inch, always on his ass about something. Yet, she was easy enough to talk to. He could get through the work day with her just fine. He started to look forward to seeing her, actually. Work still sucked, but driving to the mall each day, he’d find himself thinking, ‘At least Robin will be there.’

She’d be there to make sarcastic jokes and poke fun at his flirting game and vent about the worst of the customers with.

And then everything else happened. The Russians happened. Steve thought it was curtains for them, at the time.

He’d been resistant to the idea that maybe, just maybe, he could be attracted to this nerdy, awkward girl. This witty, funny bright spark in his day with her grungey jewellery and her pink lips and her freckles and her smudged eyeliner that she almost always forgets about and rubs into her cheek halfway through the shift.

The Russians happened and it made Steve realise some things.

That he wasn’t as grown-up as he thought he was, and that he had to let go of those lingering feelings of wanting to fit in. Go with his gut a little more.

And his gut was telling him to go with Robin.

So, he does. At least, he tries to. He’s not deterred when she shoots him down. They’d just been kidnapped and tortured together. Steve’s got a black eye to prove it. They threw up side-by-side in the… Steve’s gonna guess women’s bathroom, just judging by how much cleaner it seems. Point is, they just went through a lot together. If she needs a little convincing to see things the way Steve’s seeing things, that’s fine. Steve needed convincing too. A little bit from Dustin, and unfortunately a lot of it from thinking he was going to die by the hands of those Russian fucks, but he’s there. He’s got a picture in his head of what they could have, he just needs to coax Robin into seeing it too.

And then his vision of a perfect future with this funny, pretty girl shatters in an instant, because Robin’s vision of a perfect future is with a funny, pretty girl too.

His gut feeling ends up not being wrong, though.

There, on a bathroom floor in Starcourt Mall, something wonderful starts to bloom.

After the fire—and everything else—they need new jobs. And after the Russians, they each need a friend, too. Someone who understands exactly what the other is going through. Steve shouldn’t have been so surprised that he has nightmares after it. The monster was one thing, and that was terrifying, okay? He’s not downplaying that. But it’s always the faces of the people torturing him that show up in his dreams and have him waking up soaked in sweat, the phantom pains of a beating throbbing in his face. So they stick together. Lean on one another. Just a phone call away if one of them can’t sleep—and neither of them sleep all that well in the aftermath, for a while. They spend most days together, going around town, picking up job applications and filling them out side-by-side, hitting the library to check the notice board for more… it becomes this unspoken agreement that they’re looking for jobs together. Safety in numbers and all that.

With all the time they’re spending together, they talk. They talk a lot. After Robin had bared her soul, and Steve had confessed to having feelings for her (however briefly—he found them draining away surprisingly easily when he realised he doesn’t have to put every woman he makes a connection with into a box of ‘would date’/’wouldn’t date’), there just wasn’t a whole lot that was off the table. By the end of that summer, they knew almost everything about each other.

Family Video hires them both and without question, Steve gives Robin a ride for nearly every single shift they happen to share. The job sucks, but the company does not. It’s like Scoops Ahoy all over again but better. She isn’t just some girl that’s a ‘maybe’ on a happily ever after, she’s actually his friend. His best friend.

Steve’s never been so glad he trusted a gut feeling.

Never felt so connected to somebody he wasn’t dating, too. Tommy had been his best friend, his oldest friend, but it never felt like it does with Robin. The trust, the love, the reassurance, the banter. Knowing they can call each other up in the middle of the night for comfort and never be laughed at. Communicating with just a look across the room. They’re perfect for one another, not in the way Steve had thought they were at first, but they just fit together.

It feels like his life has turned a corner.

Then Vecna comes around. The Upside Down tears a hole right through Hawkins. The whole gang comes together to fight tooth and nail against it, because what else can they do?

Steve feels responsible for more lives than ever—not just the kids’, but all of them, the whole gang.

They all have to get home safe, whole, alive. They’re all so brave and beautiful and crazy and smart and they have to make it. Steve can’t handle a world where they don’t make it. They’ve already lost too many. Billy, Chrissy, Fred, Patrick, Eddie. It’s affected the group in ways Steve knows he can never understand. Max seeing her brother die broke her. Dustin holding Eddie while he bled out hardened that once sweet, soft boy around the edges—made him jagged, made him mean. Others, they really only knew in passing, schoolmates. Just teenagers that are never gonna get the chance to grow up. There’s countless more around Hawkins, people they never knew but were loved by somebody, just… gone.

Steve’s never grieved a big loss before, but he can see how it’s torn up the others. Losing Eddie was devastating enough and Steve didn’t even know him. Not really. He thinks he would’ve liked to. But it’s too late now and he doesn’t ever dare let himself dwell on the ‘what ifs’ of any of the ones they’ve lost.

They have the final battle all planned out. Every single footstep any of them make is calculated. Eleven and Will are to deliver the final blow when the moment comes—it only seems right.

Steve’s got the high ground, posted at a spot specifically so he can see everyone and everything that’s happening. He can take out demo-creatures from afar with one of Nancy’s guns (that he had to beg to use—a little humiliating, but whatever) and keep everyone safe. Keep everyone alive.

Vecna coming within range was not part of the plan.

But he is within range—and, shit, Steve’s out of ammo.

Keeping tabs on Vecna isn’t his job. It isn’t part of the plan. The motherfucker isn’t even paying attention to him, too focused on their battlefield below. Steve on his little rock is of no interest to Vecna… and maybe that’s a good thing.

He wouldn’t even need a bullet. Vecna’s so close, levitating almost perfectly in line with Steve’s vantage point. Steve reaches for his spear, calculating. This isn’t quite the same as throwing a baseball, but Steve’s a pretty good pitcher. It has to be quick—unexpected. Vecna could move at any second, take himself to the other side of the battlefield again.

This could be it.

This could be their chance.

Steve could end it all right here.

His aim is perfect.

The spear flies through the air, the trajectory exact—it’s going to go right through Vecna’s skull.

For all of a split second, Steve thinks they’ve won. That they’ve done it. He’s done it. The breath leaves his lungs when he realises the spear’s stopped—hovering right by Vecna’s temple. He turns to Steve, like he’d been anticipating the throw all along, before Steve even knew he was going to do it, and Steve’s blood goes cold. It’s like he’s under Starcourt Mall with some Russian fuck beating down on him all over again. That feeling that he’s not getting out of this alive. He gets down low, scrambling back on the rock on his knees, like keeping closer to the ground would make him less of a target.

The spear turns slowly in the air, pointing back at him, and with a minute twitch of Vecna’s head, it’s sent hurtling straight at Steve. He moves on like it’s nothing, bringing down his next attack on one of the others.

Everything happens so fast. They always say that in movies, that it all happened so fast. But it really does. The moment is so quick and yet seems to stretch on for an eternity, feeling like he’s watching his own demise play out in slow motion, but he somehow can’t get out of the fucking way. The scream and the sound of Converse scrambling on the rock don’t register until he feels hands on him, pushing, pushing—he goes over, falling until he hits a ledge further down. It winds him, lying there with his cheek scraping against the stone, watching his friends down below desperately try to get the upper hand.

All of his friends, except for Robin.

She’s not at her post.

⸻ 🪶 ⸻

The agonal gurgles of a girl drowning in her own blood will play on a loop in Steve’s head for the rest of his days.

He scales the rock back up to the top, wholly unprepared for what greets him.

Robin, his Robin, his beautiful, funny, weird, nerdy, clever Robin, impaled through the stomach with his spear. She’s lying splayed out, blood bubbling up out of her mouth. She’s alive, eyes wide with a raw terror that not even the Russians could bring out of her. His brave, brave little bird.

Steve’s scared to touch her, hands hovering as he tries to compute what he’s seeing. It’s such a devastating injury that he can’t comprehend it. Robin coughs and splutters blood up across her own face, making a raw sound that has Steve’s bones going cold.

“Robin, Robin, stay with me,” Steve leans over her, a hand at the top of her head, another cupping her chin, smearing blood. “It’s— it’s okay, you’re okay, st-stay with me, you’re— you’re— you’re— it’s gonna be okay, just— just— stay with me, okay? Stay with me, I-I’ll— stay with me, Robbie, please.”

She looks at him like he can make it better. Like he’s going to save her.  

Her hands twitch, grabbing at Steve with a desperate panic and Steve grabs back. Holds her hands in one of his while her mouth works like she wants to speak, but she can’t even breathe. She can’t even breathe. Steve doesn’t know what to do with all this blood.

When her head and her hands go limp, eyes still open and waiting for him to fix it, Steve doesn’t know what to do. He can’t make sense of it, still. The spear, the blood, the panicked look on her face that’s going to stay frozen there forever. The last breath leaving her lungs is an ugly sound. It spews up more blood and Steve can’t let go of her hands. He stares at her, shaking, waiting for her to blink.

He can still fix it.

He can still fix it.

Nancy screams his name somewhere down below, but he can’t let go of Robin’s hands.

⸻ 🪶 ⸻

They’re losing. Badly. And they have to get the fuck out of here if any of them want to live. The others are out of their goddamn minds if they think Steve’s going to leave Robin here to be finished off by demos, though.

Hopper’s already headed for the gate, Eleven in his arms, Mike and Will hot on his heels. She’s injured. Steve doesn’t know badly. He didn’t see it. He wasn’t looking.

Nancy and Jonathan try to reason with him, try to make him get up. They don’t have time to be hauling Robin with them, man, c’mon, they’ve gotta go.

They don’t fucking get it. Steve can still fix it. She’s coming home with them.

He screams at them to just leave and he’ll catch up. They don’t have to wait for him; he’ll make sure he and Robin get out of here.

It’s Dustin who puts his hands on him, tries to haul him to his feet. Telling him they’ve got no choice, Vecna’s about to bring an army of demo-bats down on them and they need to run, now.

“Just because you left Eddie doesn’t mean I have to leave her!”

The look on Dustin’s face hurts, but it’s nothing like the look on Robin’s. Steve has to focus on her, he has to help her. Dustin turns away and Nancy’s crying, begging.

Steve looks between her and Jonathan with tears in his own eyes. “Please. Please just help me get her down the rock and then I’ll carry her on my own. Please.”

They have to take the spear out first.

Steve’s never seen so much blood.

He starts plugging the wound with whatever he can find and he feels Nancy’s hands doing the same. She won’t look at him. (Months from now, Steve will understand why she did it. That Robin was long gone by that point and Nancy wasn’t doing it for her benefit). Between him, Nancy, Jonanthan, and Argyle waiting at the bottom, they climb down the rock with Robin. No amount of fabric stuffed into the hole in her abdomen stops the blood leaking all over them and Steve steadfastly ignores that no human could possibly survive this.

As much as he encourages them to go ahead without him, none of them do. Nancy, Jonathan, Argyle, Dustin, Lucas, Max—they all act as a shield, knowing Steve can’t defend himself and carry Robin over his shoulders.

When the bats come, there’s nothing Steve can do to help his friends. He clings tighter to Robin where she’s draped limply around his neck, gripping one of her arms and one of her legs as he tries to go faster. He can’t run like this—can barely jog. The rest of the group raise their weapons in defence and Steve just keeps his head down, aware of movement around him but not of what’s actually going on.

He can see the portal ahead. It’s close.

Maybe fifty feet.

He doesn’t think they’ll make it.

But they have to make it. Everyone else could. They’re going at his pace but none of them are carrying anybody—they could run. If Steve has to stay here with Robin and fight the bats off on his own, he will. He can feel blood pouring hot down his chest and he tries not to focus on it.

“Just go,” he shouts, to nobody in particular. “I’ll catch up, just go!”

“No,” a voice calls over the screech of the demo-bats, right by his ear. Jonathan. “Man… you gotta put her down! We gotta go, we all gotta get out of here! You won’t make it if we leave you!”

Steve shakes his head, keeps his eyes trained forward. He won’t. He won’t. He won’t leave her here to be bat food.

“Steve, please,” Max pleads at the other side of him. She sounds like she’s crying but he can’t turn his head to look. “We need to run, you need to leave her here.”

Again, Steve shakes his head. They’re so close. Thirty feet out. All of his muscles are burning.

“We’re— no, we’re so close, we can make it,” he grunts.

His vision is starting to blur from the weight he’s carrying, and he can hear his friends screaming around him as they swing their weapons at diving bats. He keeps on, determined…

…and he stumbles. Steve feels his knee give, almost going down—but it’s Lucas that catches him, takes the weight. He heaves Steve back up, arm under his where he’s shaking trying to keep Robin on his shoulders.

“C’mon, man!” Lucas hurries him. “C’mon!”

Energy renewed, Steve keeps trying, spots appearing in his eyeline.

They’re so close.

Ten feet.

They can make it.

⸻ 🪶 ⸻

He spruces the fresh violets and bluebells in the wire vase and uses a tissue to wipe a mark from the miniature trumpet replica on the headstone. It still looks nearly as shiny and new as the day it was glued there.

The sun’s behind clouds, but it’s warm. There are birds singing nearby in the trees. They’re almost always singing when he visits on a dry day like this. He rarely ever sees the birds, but he likes to think they’re robins.

(Deep down, he knows they’re not… nothing more than simple sparrows, most of them. They’re a little duller than robins; a little less magical. Steve supposes he relates to them in that way).

Steve hopes she likes getting to listen to the birds, whatever they are. She was musical too. All the little songbirds together.

⸻ 🪶 ⸻

Steve steps into Hopper’s cabin, only here because Nancy, Jon, and Argyle made a team effort to force him into the Wheelers’ car. The door’s barely shut behind him before Max flies across the room, undeterred by the fact she’s almost a foot shorter than him.

“You’re an asshole! You’re such a fucking asshole!”

She swings on him and Steve just barely has the good sense to block it, grabbing her fist and enveloping it with his own hand entirely. Max stays determined, thumping at his chest with her other fist until he takes a step backwards, back hitting the door. There’s a commotion around them as Nancy and Jonathan yell at her to stop, pulling her away.

Max wrenches herself free of their grip and doesn’t lose focus on Steve. She keeps screaming, and Steve lets her.

“If you had just left her there like everyone told you to, Lucas would’ve been fine! We would’ve been out of there before the bats even knew where we were! He might lose his arm, Steve! His arm! It’s all your fault! It’s all your fucking fault and you don’t even care! She was already dead!”

Nancy sucks in a breath to his right, and Steve’s jaw twitches.

“Max, stop,” she pleads.

“You knew none of us would leave you behind! You knew! He almost fucking died too, Steve, so you could, what? Make yourself feel better by bringing her with you? What even happened up there? You were supposed to be the lookout, how did your spear end up in her—”

Nancy shouts this time. “Max, stop it!”

Steve’s got Max by the shoulders, almost nose-to-nose, each of them with tears shining in their eyes. “I was saving her! How fucking dare you?”

He feels Jonathan’s hands on him, or maybe Hopper’s. Everyone’s yelling and he pushes Max away, tears spilling over as he aggressively shrugs off whoever is trying to hold onto him.

“How fucking dare you,” he spits, voice shaking. “How fucking dare any of you act like it would’ve been okay to just leave her there.”

He slams out of the cabin before he can listen to anyone else throw the blame in his face that he knows he deserves.

Nancy’s the one to follow him—Steve didn’t expect any different. He can sense her standing behind him while he has his arms hugged around himself, trying not to cry. All he’s fucking done is cry and puke since Robin was wrenched from his arms at the hospital, and none of it will get rid of the stench of her blood that feels like it’s seeped into his skin.

“You didn’t tell me he might lose his arm,” Steve hisses, fingers pinching the bridge of his nose.

Nancy touches the back of his shoulder. “It’s… not a sure thing yet. He might.”

Steve huffs, head bowed as he drops his hand. Max is never going to talk to him again. Lucas might never talk to him again.

They’re both quiet, save for the birds singing some tune that’s far too cheerful for how any of them are feeling right now.

“Steve…” Nancy takes another step closer, beside him now. “What did happen up there…?”

Steve stares straight ahead. It feels like something is crawling up his throat, tears starting to make his vision swim. Blindly, his hand pushes at Nancy’s side—she takes it in hers immediately and squeezes it tight.

“I did what I always do,” he whispers. “I messed up.”

⸻ 🪶 ⸻

Sam Owens gets involved. He has to. Robin’s parents don’t know about the Upside Down, about Vecna, about any of it, and they need some kind of story to explain how their daughter was impaled.

Hopper is the one who breaks it to Steve. He briefs the rest of the gang as a group, but Nancy insisted Steve be told more privately. Hopper doesn’t even argue. They’re all hollow, right now. Nancy tags along, something else Hopper doesn’t argue about.

To put it plainly, Steve’s horrified. He thinks the Buckleys deserve the truth, no more lies, no more bullshit. That’s their daughter. He argues, he punches doors, he pulls at his clothes like he can’t handle being in his own skin right now.

“Harrington, have some sense,” Hopper begs, grabbing him by the shoulders and shaking, just once. Nancy takes a step forward, gaze steely. “Whether they think she fell and impaled herself climbing a broken fence or think she died fighting some— some monster beyond our wildest goddamn nightmares, she is gone. She is their kid. No matter how you… no matter how you lose your kid, it all feels the same.”

His grip loosens the longer he talks and Steve goes lax in his hands, head tipping back as he refuses to look at him. The tears spill over and he tries to muffle the sob working its way up his throat.

“I took her from them,” Steve’s voice cracks, head bowed forward now as his shoulders start to shake.

Hopper takes in a slow breath, straightening up, and Nancy’s hand goes over her mouth in the background, trying not to lose composure. Hop’s hands slowly go around Steve instead, pulling him into a tight hug.

“They don’t need to know that,” he murmurs. “This story, it— it takes you out of the equation. They don’t know you were involved like that.”

Owens had felt it most believable to say Steve was there, a witness to the terrible ‘accident’ of Robin losing her footing climbing over a sharp, old fence. They’d say Steve tried to help, that he called the ambulance. Neatly explains Robin’s grisly and untimely end, and Steve’s current mental state to his own parents. For Owens, that’s two birds, one stone.

Two birds… but only one Robin.

⸻ 🪶 ⸻

The day Robin died is easily the worst day of Steve’s life.

He’d rate her funeral as a close second.

It’s a long morning. It takes the efforts of his mom, Nancy, and Argyle to get him out of bed, showered, and into his suit. The sight of the suit alone almost made him lock himself in the bathroom.

Argyle drives. Nancy keeps her hand on Steve’s arm the whole way, like she’s worried he’s going to launch open the door and throw himself out. Jonathan, Joyce and the Chief are rounding up the kids. Steve’s parents are coming a little later.

He barely speaks to anyone when they arrive at the church, bodies all ablur around him, the pleasantries sounding distant to his ears.

It’s like an out-of-body experience to have to carry her casket. He couldn’t possibly say no when the Buckleys had called the house and asked his mom about it. He follows the instructions on how to safely lift, completely rigid, never once looking at any of the other men—her father, her uncles, her grandfather. All the men she loved dearly in her life, and Steve is one of them. He can’t think about it.

He can’t think about how he carried her out of the Upside Down alone on his shoulders and now he’s carrying her into her own funeral, the weight shared this time but somehow not feeling any lighter.

He can’t think about it or he’s going to lose it, so he doesn’t.

It’s not her in there.

It can’t be. It doesn’t make any sense.

His little bird was never that heavy. He’s sure of it.

⸻ 🪶 ⸻

Steve’s been really good.

He’s been really, really brave.

He doesn’t shed a single tear through the ceremony, eyes red-rimmed but never spilling over. He feels there and not there. He’s doing great. He’s getting through it.

He starts to crack in the cemetery.

Traditionally, as a pallbearer, he is expected to also help lower the casket into the ground. It was one thing to carry her in and out of the church, but this…

They want him to put his little bird in the ground, extinguish her forever with dirt. Steve backs away after the casket has been placed on the beams, rubbing his hands on his suit pants as the funeral director stops mid-explanation on the next steps to begin lowering her down.

“Steve…?”

He glances up, sees Robin’s mother looking at him quizzically. Her husband’s beside her, a hand on her back. It’s the first time Steve’s made eye contact with either of them—today is the first time he’s seen them at all since it happened.

They’re dressed smartly, freshly showered just like he is, but they don’t look… right. Like they were in pieces this morning and they’ve glued themselves together just to leave the house.

Everything Steve was suppressing floods him at once.

Robin’s agonised gurgles, the way she looked at him. The blood that sunk into his nail beds and the dry skin on his palms and wouldn’t come out for days. The blood pouring out of her mouth, out of the hole in her stomach. It’s all Steve can smell even now, that sickly metallic scent that stops him from even trying to eat these days.

Tears spill over and saliva fills his mouth, making him gag. He steps forward again, falling to his knees in the grass and putting his hands on the casket. He tries to speak, words coming out as sobs, retching as the other pallbearers shuffle around, unsure what to do. The crowd murmurs and Steve can hear Robin’s mother start crying but he can’t bear to look at her again, and he can’t bring himself to stop and pull it together either.

The only words he manages to get out clearly, heard by most of the attendees: “It should be me.”

Nancy’s at his side, bent over to whisper into his ear. “Steve, not here.”

He grips at her jacket, turning to her but leaning his head forward onto the casket. “They should bury me,” he cries, voice catching.

Nancy glances at Robin’s parents, trying to conceal her growing panic. “Steve. Steve, you need to— not here. Okay? Not here.”

Steve shakes his head and turns away, rubbing his forehead against her casket. “It was supposed to be me.”

“Steve, please—”

Hands yank him up and back and he cries louder, retching again as bile rises in his throat. He can hear her choking, hear how much it hurt. Pain he caused, pain he brought on her. The crowd have broken out in concerned and pitied gasps and conversation, and the Chief steps in to try and diffuse things. Steve doesn’t even hear him, though. He’s being pushed away from the crowd, quickly, by Dustin, with Nancy holding his wrist.

“It’s okay,” Dustin’s saying behind him, guiding him. “It’s okay. It’s okay.”

They get about twenty metres before Steve collapses to the grass and vomits. He can feel Dustin and Nancy’s hands on his shoulders, and then his parents’ voices are there too, soothing background noise until all four of them slowly get him to his feet again and escort him to the car. He thinks his mother might be crying.

“It should be me,” Steve repeats, throat choked up with stomach bile, snot on his upper lip. He can barely see for the tears, still hasn’t quite caught his breath after throwing up. They’re getting him into the back of his parents’ car and he can’t stop saying it. “Sh-should be me. Should bury me.”

He can hear all their voices, his parents talking. It’s background noise as he lies in the backseat and cries against the leather.

“We have to take our son home.”

“We will, but we should say our goodbyes, this is a funeral, Richard.”

“They’re still in the middle of the burial, they won’t miss us, we were only here for Steve.”

“He just made a scene at the burial, I am going to apologise to them!”

His parents’ voices fade, but Nancy and Dustin still linger. Steve can’t see them from where he’s slumped over in the backseat, but he knows they’re there; can feel the air from outside filtering in the open door.

“S-Steve? Buddy?” A pat on the leg. Dustin’s voice. “I think your mom and dad are gonna take you home in five, okay? So you can rest.”

“We can check on you later,” Nancy adds, mascara smudged around her wet eyes.

Steve sniffles against the car seat, cheek stuck to the leather interior.

“Can you tell them?” he whispers eventually, fresh tears leaking.

“Tell them what…? Tell who?” Dustin asks, a hand still on his leg.

“Robin’s parents,” Steve whispers, breaths jerky and uneven from crying so hard.

“Tell them what, Steve?” Nancy presses, voice ever gentle, a comfort to him always.

He swallows, lip wobbling as he tries to keep it together. “That I’m sorry it wasn’t me. I w-want it to be me. I’m s-… I’m sorry. I know they wish it was me.”

Steve lets himself crumble, weeping quietly into the car seat. Nancy and Dustin don’t answer, but he thinks he hears them crying too.

⸻ 🪶 ⸻

The next few weeks of Steve’s life pass at a glacial pace.

Every minute lasts an eternity. And there’s absolutely nothing for him to fill that time with.

He can’t bring himself to eat. One or two bites of anything is enough to make him feel sick, so he never gets a full meal any more. TV shows and movies just don’t hold his interest the way they used to. Swimming or running feels pointless. He tries, and his limbs feel weak and slow. He doesn’t have a job now, either, since Hawkins tearing itself apart wrecked Family Video in the process. It’s a relief, really. He doesn’t think he could step foot in that building ever again. His parents say they’ll pay for whatever he needs right now—gas, snacks, money to go hang out with his friends. But he doesn’t need any of that. He doesn’t eat, and he doesn’t go anywhere, and his friends are busy stressing over how to save the planet. Nobody really wants to hit up a movie or grab milkshakes right now.

Speaking of saving the planet—Steve’s been conveniently left out of those conversations.

Nobody calls on him for the team meetings. Nancy checks on him. Dustin and Mike, sometimes with Nancy and sometimes not. Jonathan, too. He doesn’t see Max, and he doesn’t see Lucas, and he was never really that close with Will and El anyway.

But nobody says anything about Vecna. About what they’re doing, what the next move is.

He can’t say he blames them. He didn’t stick to the plan last time. What do they need him for?

The days drag on forever, but the nights are different.

Going to bed is Steve’s favourite time of day.

Robin walks through his dreams, gorgeous and untouchable. She can’t die there, never will. He loves and loathes it all at once.

Then there’s the other dreams. The dreams where she’s choking, that horrible death rattle, spitting blood and begging for help. His guilty mind warps it into something even uglier, her insides in his hands, desperately trying to put them back but everything keeps spilling out. She’s choking and begging for it to stop, that it hurts, why would he do this? Why would he do this to her? Why would he do this?

He wakes up gasping, sobbing, soaked in his own sweat. His mother’s almost always there when he opens his eyes, having run straight to his room hearing him cry. She holds him while he sobs, rubbing his back and kissing his hair. It only helps for a little while. The dreams always come back.

He starts sleeping in the Buckleys’ driveway.

He doesn’t plan it. He craves sleep, wants to see her and he also doesn’t, terrified it’ll be a dream where she’s so angry with him. Where she’s dying and dying and dying and he can’t stop hearing it. He starts going for drives instead, after dark. Radio on, window rolled down with the cold night breeze whipping through his hair. Anything not to think about it.

He’s in her part of town and he just… goes there. Straight to her house. Doesn’t even think about it.

All the lights are off. Her parents must be asleep. Steve wonders if they have nightmares too. Her body would’ve been all cleaned up when they got to see her, though. Not bloody and punctured how Steve saw her, and still sees her now, night after night.

He parks up in their driveway, cuts the engine, and falls asleep in the seat. And he doesn’t dream about a damn thing.

So he does it again the next night, and the next, and the next. He feels closer to her and it settles him. Her parents do notice, though. Of course they do.

He gets a couple good weeks in before his own parents sit him down for a ‘talk.’ They tell him they’re worried. That they know he’s been sneaking out every night and now the Buckleys are calling them saying he’s been parked outside their house, sleeping in his car, and leaving at daybreak. That the Buckleys are… concerned. It’s making them feel a little rattled.

They don’t say those exact words but Steve can read between the lines.

He would be embarrassed but he can’t seem to find the will to care that much. The problem is he’s desperate to be close to her, and what’s closer than her house?

“Can’t… can’t you ask them if I can sleep over sometimes instead, then? In her bed?”

Richard and Marilyn share a quick look.

“Steve, I don’t think that’s—”

“Please? Can’t you ask? I— I— I just miss her,” Steve presses, more needy, his voice cracking.

He doesn’t mean to be so pathetic, but can’t they at least ask? Steve knows they’re embarrassed after how he acted at the funeral and now this, but they don’t understand. He’s mortified at the thought of actually interacting with her parents again, but he’d do it just to get to be in her bedroom. Around her things, her smell.

“Steve, she’s their child, it’s not really appropr—”

His mother is cut off when his father nods across the table. “We’ll ask.”

Marilyn’s stare says a thousand words but Steve just quietly thanks them and disappears to his room before an argument can break out.

⸻ 🪶 ⸻

The rejection from Robin’s parents is the worst heartbreak Steve’s ever had. His parents try to break the news gently to him but he throws his glass of water off the table and storms to his bedroom in tears.

He’s never acted like this. Not in all his teenage mood swings did he ever dare, and it shocks even Steve himself, but he can’t seem to rein it in.

The Buckleys said it’s not healthy for him, that they know he’s hurting but this won’t help and that he needs to think about his future. That he’ll find a new girlfriend someday. Steve aches to tell them the truth but if the reaction is bad, he doesn’t think he could live with himself—he’s barely getting by as it is. They don’t even know her. They’re never going to know her.

Every adult around them thinks they were a couple and he doesn’t care to correct them, but it hurts that her own mom and dad don’t get it.

He just wanted to be in her space even one more time. And they said no.

He screams into his sheets about it and then remembers he lives at the end of the block, woods for miles at this side of the house, so he screams out his window into the dark and nobody screams in response but it feels like there’s a hand on his lower back for all of a single moment.

⸻ 🪶 ⸻

Steve’s sitting on the grass with his knees bent, arms around them as he talks. He doesn’t think too hard about the fact he’s sitting on her, above her. That she’s somewhere down there in the dirt. There had never been a formal decision on what to do with her body. Steve remembered she had talked about wanting to donate her organs once, but she never had anything official stating this, so everything went into the ground. The gravesite was, admittedly, beautiful. Steve hadn’t been in the right frame of mind to appreciate it at her funeral, but her parents had picked a perfect spot.

It still didn’t make it any easier to think of her there in the cold, in the dirt. Steve tried to consider it like giving back to the Earth.

It’s silly to even be upset about. She’s not there. She doesn’t feel cold, afraid or alone. Steve knows that, and yet, it still keeps him up at night even now. It’s been almost four years and he’ll spend sleepless nights at the parking lot near the cemetery just in case she’s still scared without him nearby.

Almost four years on and it’s not as hard as it was. It makes him sick to think that it could, possibly, somehow, be getting easier. It shouldn’t be allowed to get easier for him. He doesn’t deserve it.

Almost four years on and he knows it’s ridiculous to lose sleep over keeping her company. She is not there.

Yet, he sits here at the stone and talks to her every week like she is. Talks to her like she’s listening, pauses for laughter, gestures like he sees her eyes tracking his movements.

He combs his fingers through the grass like he’s playing with her hair, and keeps talking.

⸻ 🪶 ⸻

Steve doesn’t get many unexpected visitors these days. Nancy, frequently; sometimes with Dustin, sometimes with Jonathan. Mostly just by herself.

So when Vickie Dunne shows up at his place, it’s a bit of a surprise. Steve’s mom makes them tea to drink at the kitchen table and vacates to the yard ‘to do some gardening.’ Steve shuts the kitchen window as well as the door after she goes to avoid any eavesdropping.

In the bright daylight of the room, Steve can see that Vickie looks like shit, but it seems rude to say so. He’s aware he won’t look any better. He thinks it’s maybe been six days since he last showered.

Vickie’s eyes look dark and sunken in, like she hasn’t slept for the entire fifty-nine days since Robin… went away.

“How are you?” she asks, eyes trained on her mug rather than at him.

“Peachy. Why are you here?”

Steve wouldn’t normally be so blunt but he just doesn’t have the energy for pleasantries and small talk these days.

Vickie looks at him, a little surprised, and then back down again, evidently growing nervous. “I— sorry, I should’ve called, or something, I just—”

“I’m— no, I’m sorry,” Steve holds a hand up to stop her, sighing softly. “I’m just tired.”

Tired. Heartbroken. Sick with guilt. Disgusted by his own audacity to be sitting here alive and breathing right now. It’s all the same, really.

Vickie keeps staring down at her tea, taking a few deep breaths.

“I, um,” she starts, pausing to clear her throat, “I… just couldn’t stop thinking about Robin.”

Hearing her name these days makes Steve feel like his heart stops for all of a few seconds. He closes his eyes for a moment and tries to be normal about this. He knows they were friends. She could only be here about Robin, there’s no other reason she’d visit. He just didn’t think they were really all that close. Not enough for Vickie to be sitting at his kitchen table, looking as hollow as she does.

Almost literally. She looks… thinner than he remembers. Like she can barely stomach a meal either.

In the end, Steve says nothing, uncomfortably sipping his tea and avoiding her gaze.

“Did she… when… did she say anything? When she was…?”

It feels like the previously comforting drink sours in his stomach. Steve closes his eyes and shakes his head. “Please don’t make me do this.”

Vickie presses on, tone growing desperate. “I’m sorry, Steve, just— please. Did— did she say anything about… about me?”

Steve’s eyes open again, face twisting up in confusion as he stares at her. Her eyes are red with unshed tears, staring right back at him like a begging dog. “Why would she— ?”

He cuts himself off, realisation flooding him as she starts to cry. The epiphany cuts sharp through his chest. Robin never told him.

“You were together,” he says simply.

Vickie laughs lightly through her tears and wipes them from her cheeks, shaking her head. “No, we didn’t… get that far. I thought, maybe, we were heading that way, but…” she trails off and lets out another sob. “I never even got to kiss her. I— I thought about it every day for months and I just… didn’t. I think— I think I was falling in love with her.”

Steve’s eyes start to burn, looking away towards the kitchen window. He bites the inside of his cheek even as his bottom lip starts to quiver, fighting to keep it together. So they weren’t dating. But they could’ve been. They were a ‘maybe,’ there was a possibility, and Robin never told him.

It hurts. It really, really hurts.

“So, what, you guys, like… came out to each other? And then what?” he asks, trying not to sound bitter.

But he is. He thinks he hates this girl sitting across from him right now even though her only crime is loving the love of his life.

Vickie sniffs, not seeming to sense his contempt. “Not until recently. We were just friends but I had a… feeling? And maybe she had one too? I don’t know.” She smiles a little, wiping her nose with her sleeve. “We were at the same party a few months back, one of Robin’s friends from band hosted it? And, uh, we spent the whole night talking. Drank too many wine coolers. That was when we told each other. I thought maybe we were finally gonna kiss but we got interrupted. And then I think… I think we were both just too nervous, after, when we’d sobered up. We didn’t talk about it directly but I just felt like… we were headed in the right direction.”

Steve dares to look over to her, at a loss for what to say. Robin never told him any of this. His chin shakes and two tears spill over, dropping his gaze to the table instead.

“She said you were the first person she ever told. That you were her best friend and she could talk to you about anything, after that day.”

This feels like pity. “Not anything,” Steve says before he can stop himself, too much venom in his voice for her to miss it.

Vickie swallows. “She told me once that she hadn’t told you that we were hanging out a lot. ‘Cause she was scared she’d jinx it if she said anything. And she never really said what ‘it’ was, but… I knew what she meant.”

Steve lets out a huff, his eyes slipping closed. Jinx it. Jinx it. She thought she was gonna jinx her big lesbian love story if she spoke a word about it. He can hear it now, her voice clear as a bell in his head, rambling to her stuffed bear while she paces her bedroom: I can’t say anything to Steve, because some pretty girl that I’ve been dreaming about for months finally seems into me, but I spent all those months talking about it and nothing happening and what if that’s the problem? What if I need to stop talking about it? He’s always giving me all these tips and pointers and I don’t have the— the— the charisma to pull any of them off! I just need to… to shut up about it and let the universe do its thing, and once I have the girl… because, hopefully, please, God, let me have the girl… and bam, I’ll tell him all about it.

On and on and on, nervously rambling herself in circles. It almost makes him smile.

“She talked about you all the time,” Vickie adds, her voice soft. Steve doesn’t open his eyes but his brow twitches. All the time? “I know we don’t really know each other but… she was always telling me about how funny you were or how generous or smart or something. Almost all of her stories, you were there. I feel almost like we were friends already. I… always wanted her to invite me to hang out with you guys. Get to know you more.”

Fresh tears spill silently down Steve’s face. Funny? Generous? Smart? All the things Robin was, she thought about him. Talked about him to this girl that maybe she was falling in love with.

Vickie’s being so kind to tell him all of this and he’s being so cruel in return. Maybe she wouldn’t be so nice if she knew the real story. If she knew it was all Steve’s fault.

He decides to put her out of her misery.

“She couldn’t speak,” he whispers. “When it happened. She couldn’t say anything even if she wanted to.”

Vickie nods silently, hands going around her mug as she digests that.

Steve braces himself, expecting her to ask for more details, but she doesn’t. Instead, she reaches across the table, and takes his hand. Accepting the comfort feels like he’s lying to her, but he doesn’t pull away.

⸻ 🪶 ⸻

Both their lashes are spiked wet with tears when Steve walks Vickie to the front door. He can see his mother hovering in the background by one of her rose bushes with a pair of shears, interestingly not actually shearing anything.

“Steve…”

He draws his gaze back to Vickie, giving a slight nod.

“Did… did Robin ever believe in magic?”

His brow flickers at the unexpectedness of the question, making a quiet sound in his throat as he contemplates it. Magic? He doesn’t know. Otherworldly demonic beings and children that can crush stuff with their minds? Well.

But he can’t say that.

“Um. I’m not… sure. She liked reading mythology about witches and stuff.”

Vickie nods slowly, looking around the front yard and off down the street for a moment before she turns back to him.

“Do you?”

“Do I…?”

“Believe in magic.”

Steve thinks of Eleven and of Vecna and of everything that haunts his nightmares about that godforsaken Upside Down. His tone is thoughtful when he finally says, “Maybe.”

Vickie nods again and doesn’t say anything else about it. She gives Steve a hug, and he hugs back, trying not to think about how, in another life, they would do this all the time, because they’d be friends, because she and Robin would be a couple. Because Robin would still be with them.

Steve watches her leave the yard, bidding his mother goodbye as she passes her, and makes her way down the street. She must’ve walked here. His mom waits an appropriate forty-seven seconds before she comes over with a smile.

“She seems nice,” she comments, seeming to think this visit meant something else. “Will we be seeing more of this young lady…?”

Steve watches Vickie get smaller and smaller the further she walks, becoming just a speck in the sunlight on the pavement.

“No,” he says softly.

⸻ 🪶 ⸻

Steve is sidelined from the final battle when they eventually kill Vecna. He would be hurt about that if it didn’t all feel completely pointless anyway.

It’s hard to feel any kind of relief that it’s over when all Steve can feel these days is a deep, unfixable ache. A gaping wound in his chest that won’t stitch shut no matter how much everyone around him tries.

Life in Hawkins isn’t stagnant anymore. Businesses rebuild, roads are repaired, schools reopen. Lucas gets to keep his arm but his dreams of playing professional basketball are dead in the water. The Byers move away again, with Hopper in tow this time. Jonathan goes to college. Nancy delays it, still faithfully visiting Steve every week but even she has to get on with her life eventually. Steve kind of nudges her into it. He doesn’t want her to feel like she can’t do what she was born to because of him. She goes to Emerson and the weekly visits become weekly calls instead. Steve can’t say he hates her dedication to it. Argyle goes back home, but strangely enough, he calls too. Steve doesn’t know why. Pity, probably. He’s easy to talk to, though, at least. The kids graduate high school and, one-by-one, they move away to attend college too. They’re smart little suckers; they’ve got big things coming their way. Steve doesn’t see much of them before they go and he can’t blame them for that.

Even Robin’s parents end up moving away. Steve’s heartbroken when he sees the ‘For Sale’ sign in their yard and at first he can’t comprehend how they could leave. How can they let another family move in? Another child make Robin’s bedroom their own? It takes a couple of days for him to understand it.

Steve wants to move, too. Being in Hawkins feels too much like being haunted. His parents don’t nag him about college anymore—he thinks they’re scared to. Like the slightest stressor might make him snap. Maybe it would. His dad gets him a cushy job at the company and, honestly, Steve’s paid a pretty decent wage for doing, in his opinion, not very much. He’s sure his colleagues talk about him behind his back, about how Daddy’s little boy just gets everything handed to him with barely a 2.9 GPA to his name… but he just doesn’t have it in him to care.

So, he’s got the job security to at least pay for his own bills. His parents are simultaneously both encouraging and hesitant about him moving out. They tell him they think it’s a great idea, that they’ll help him clean and decorate his new place, but maybe he should stay in Hawkins, and they’re just a phone call away if he needs them, and is he sure he’s going to be okay by himself, maybe he could get a roommate…?

He doesn’t want a roommate. Especially not because he and Robin used to talk about that—moving in together. So he definitely doesn’t want a fucking roommate, because they’re not her and it’ll never be her. And he definitely doesn’t want to stay in Hawkins. He can’t.

He sees her everywhere.

Like, really sees her. It’s wonderful and terrible all at once. He can’t get groceries or go for a run or grab a coffee without Robin right there, at the corner of his eye. It’s like a tease, like she’ll really be standing there if he turns his head quick enough, but the vision doesn’t last. She fades from view and the hopeful spark in his chest dims and it never, ever fucking hurts any less no matter how often it happens.

Selfishly, Steve wants and wants and wants to move on. He’s painfully jealous of his peers as they build up exciting careers, move to new states or even countries, find love, start families. He wants those things, has always wanted those things. Those dreams didn’t die when Robin did. He wants them so badly but he’s so scared. He’s so scared she’ll be angry that he gets to live and she never can and it’s all his fault. She’s not here, she’s not here anymore, but what if she’s so angry? So hurt? So lonely in the dirt?

As much as he’d move to the other side of the goddamn country if he could, he can’t bear the thought of abandoning her completely.

He ends up moving two towns over, still close enough that he can visit her grave every week. It’s not even a full half-hour drive.

The bright side of the Buckleys leaving town was that, in packing up Robin’s things, they seemed to soften. Steve unexpectedly ended up being given a box of her belongings—little pieces of her that her mom and dad thought he would like to hold onto. Some clothes. Some jewellery. Her cassette tapes. Steve starts wearing her onyx ring on a silver chain around his neck. He has a feeling his own parents had something to do with this stuff being given to him in the first place, but he doesn’t ask and they don’t tell.

He pins up her jacket with the patches on his livingroom wall in his new place. Her cassettes of all her favourite singers are always on rotation. He keeps one of her t-shirts in his bed, rubbing the fabric between his fingers to sleep every night. He wears the chain with her ring attached all the time. She’s always with him.

Steve was naïve to think he could leave her ghost in Hawkins, though. His mind is a rotating film reel of Robin, every day, every hour, every second. He can’t close his eyes without hearing her laugh—or choke on blood. She died, but her memory never does.

Steve’s grateful for it. And he hates it just as much.

His new town is full of new faces and still all he sees is Robin.

To still be able to picture her in vivid detail even years later… Steve knows he should consider it a gift.

It is a gift. It is. He only ever wants to find her again, for these fleeting glimpses of her in his peripheral to be real.

It’s a gift. I’m so glad you’re still with me, he thinks to himself, tears streaming as he lays in his bed in the dark, unable to stop picturing her vacant eyes and bleeding mouth. I don’t want you to go but I don’t want to see you anymore.

At least his parents always answer when he calls at three in the morning, desperate to hear a voice that isn’t that of his best friend dying and dying and dying.

⸻ 🪶 ⸻

It’s a curse, one he knows he deserves, that he only ever sees visions of her happy in fleeting glimpses, but always pictures her final moments on repeat in painful, head-on clarity.

If this is how it has to be, so be it. He’s accepted that he must live with the consequences of his stupidity, but he wants so badly to be able to see that happy, carefree version of her in all her beauty just once.

He finds himself looking for her everywhere he goes.

He’s given in to it; he’ll never be free of her, not really. He doesn’t think he truly wants to be.

Sometimes he gets this feeling that she’s right there—within reach, just outside of his line of sight. But she’s never there when he turns around.

Over time, he gets that feeling less and less, like she’s slipping away. Like maybe the pain doesn’t hurt quite so much any more. Like maybe he could finally, finally move on and live life for himself.

It makes him sick. It makes him spiral.

Looking for her in small town Indiana mustn’t be enough. He’s not trying hard enough. He’s going to lose her.

⸻ 🪶 ⸻

The Jewel House is as vibrant as it sounds.

The glittering club lights can be seen from the outside, their pink neon sign glowing in the window, and the sidewalk lined with patrons dressed to the nines.

There’s another smaller sign lit in their window in white lettering—Lesbians Night.

It feels like fate. Steve hadn’t come to Indianapolis looking for anything in particular. He just wanted to be somewhere different, to get away. To be drunk and lost in a crowd. But stumbling across a gay bar when he’s already a few drinks in, completely by accident, on their designated ladies’ night? That’s gotta be fate.

He makes his way to the door, immediately blocked by both bouncers.

“Not tonight, fella. Lesbians’ night on Thursdays—you can come back tomorrow.”

Steve stares in the doorway, barely able to glimpse what’s going on inside.

“Gotta go somewhere else, bud,” the other bouncer prompts him to move.

Steve draws his gaze back to them. “I-I’m just looking for my friend. I don’t wanna make any trouble, I just— I really need to find her. She’s— she’s by herself.”

He must look miserable enough to be pitied. The bouncers share a quick glance.

“And you think she’s in there?”

Steve swallows, hopeful. “She could be.”

He stares at them, and they stare back, seemingly in a silent debate. Steve quickly searches through his pockets and comes up with a twenty, offering it out to one of them, then the other when he doesn’t immediately take it.

“Please. I just wanna find her.”

There’s several moments of hesitation before the burlier of the two grabs the bill. “You got ten minutes to see if she’s in there.”

⸻ 🪶 ⸻

That’s how it starts.

That first night, he gets some odd looks inside the club. Not that he notices. He’s too preoccupied with the fact he can’t see Robin. He sees a lot of faces, but none of them are his little bird.

When he stumbles out onto the dance floor, he’s surprised, bodies nudging him this way and that. He stumbles over some girl’s foot and almost slips on a spilled drink. His previous alcohol consumption makes him feel heavy all over. His head feels like it weighs a tonne. He hasn’t slept in three days.

A woman with hair cropped almost right to her scalp asks if he needs any help. It’s hard for Steve to focus on her. She tells him he won’t find any dudes here tonight—lesbians only. Steve finds himself smiling at her. Robin would be amazed by this. She might even cry. She’d love to be here, surrounded by other women just like her.

He thinks he feels her here.

Steve also thinks he’s either not lost that Harrington charm, buried somewhere beneath all the grief, or he just looks so fucking awful that everyone takes him at face value. He tells her he’s just trying to find his friend and wants to know if it’s okay to wait for her here… and she says okay. As long as you don’t bother any of the girls, is her stern warning, but Steve doesn’t even glance their way.

This woman has more pull with the bouncers than Steve does, because when one of them comes to haul him away, she vouches for him… and they let Steve stay.

He’s not sure why she cares so much, but he’s grateful.

Of course, he doesn’t find Robin.

Or rather, Robin doesn’t appear.

It doesn’t stop Steve from going back the following week to try again.

He really thinks it’s a mix of how pathetic and sleep-deprived he must look that they keep letting him in. That, and the woman that vouched for him that first night.

He sees her again. Or rather, she sees him. She tries to talk to him, an air of concern—whether it’s for him or the girls around him, he’s not totally sure. Hard to read, but that’s because Steve’s always already drunk by the time he shows up, or on something. Or both.  

M-Maybe she’ll show up tonight, he slurs, several weeks in a row. If I’m always in the— in the same place, she can find me easier.

She never knows how to follow up from that.

The thing is, she can’t even worry that Steve’s just there to leer at the girls. He doesn’t talk to them. He doesn’t even look at them. It’s just so much easier to feel like Robin’s presence is close if he shuts his eyes.  

On the dance floor of The Jewel House is the only place Steve ever feels alive any more. The music vibrates through him, the molly making him feel like he’s floating around above the speakers. Colours dance behind his closed eyelids and he feels like if he just stands there for long enough, one of these times, she’ll be there. He feels so close to her. They never went to a place like this together, but he thinks they could’ve. Someday.

Someday, when they’d moved in together in a tiny little apartment, they could’ve spent Friday nights here. Dancing, drinking, helping Robin drop all his best pick-up lines on the ladies. They would’ve laughed. They would’ve laughed so much.

Sometimes his hands come up like he’s reaching for someone.

Please, he whispers.

The colours keep moving behind his eyelids but they never take the shape he’s hoping for.

The girls all come to expect him to be there on lesbians’ night. He picks a spot on the dance floor and he doesn’t move for hours, but they all know why he’s there—word spreads. They all know he’s looking for someone.

They never know who. He never seems to find her.

He never even opens his eyes.

⸻ 🪶 ⸻

“You remember that? The first time I said we could move to a big city together, when everything was all over, and you laughed?” Steve grins, like the stone might grin back. He plucks at the grass and then immediately regrets it, stroking it down gentle—an apology. “You thought I was kidding. You were so happy when you realised I wasn’t. Jokin’ about who would be worse for not picking up their laundry, or leaving dirty dishes lying around. You were convinced it would be me, but I’ve seen your bedroom. You’d be the worst roommate ever.”

Steve laughs and reaches out to trace the letter R on the stone, the smile on his face only wavering a little when his eyes start to grow glassy.

She’s not here. She’s not listening. He knows that. He knows.

“I don’t know if I believe in all this stuff, but… maybe we can do it all again sometime?” Steve’s throat feels tight now. She’s not here but she could be. She could drop by again in another life. “Maybe we finish the journey next time?”

⸻ 🪶 ⸻

Steve’s life bypasses him like he’s in a revolving door, everyone else on the outside.

He shows up at work just enough that his father doesn’t question him.

He stays awake for days on end in a desperate bid to avoid the nightmares, doing whatever he can not to have to see her, even though all he ever wants the rest of the time is to see her.

He talks to her at the cemetery every week. He takes acid or molly, depending on what he can get his hands on, and waits for her on the dance floor on Thursday nights.

Nancy comes over every so often. She’s always armed with a new pep talk every couple of months. Her latest one is trying to convince him to ask somebody on a date. Steve’s not sure he has the capacity to feel anything for anyone any more, but he doesn’t tell her that in so many words. Jonathan stops by to watch a baseball game now and then. Steve doesn’t think it’s because Jonathan actually likes baseball and he has a strong suspicion it’s at Nancy’s insistence but neither of them mention it.

Vickie calls occasionally, too. “Just checking in,” she always says. They talk about nothing. It’s always Vickie who mentions Robin’s name—that she had a dream about her, or she had this great dinner that she thinks Robin would’ve loved to try. Steve never really acknowledges it. He doesn’t see the point. It’s been over five years of Robin not getting to eat any kind of dinner, great or otherwise, so what is the fucking point?

Argyle, of all people, has dragged Steve on vacation a couple of times—if vacation can be a 48-hour road trip, a stop in a couple sad motels, and a whole lot of weed. It’s kind of him, really, but it doesn’t exactly do anything for Steve. He can’t find any joy in it, but every time Nancy hears about one of these trips, she gets all happy, like it’s helping, so Steve just pretends it does. He supposes that’s why Argyle keeps arranging trips for them. At least the weed is good. Steve can appreciate that much.

Things are different with the kids. He never sees Will or Eleven now, but he hears they’re doing okay. Eleven’s injuries from the battle way back then were fixable enough that they haven’t caused any long-term damage. They go to the same college; Hopper got them a little studio off campus so they could room together, support each other. They deserve it. Steve’s happy for them. Mike, too—Steve knows Mike never liked him much, but he still has a soft spot for the little smart-ass. He’s at the same college and according to Nancy, he’s doing pretty good.

Lucas writes. It usually takes Steve a few weeks before he can bring himself to open them, the envelope burning a hole in his conscience while it sits on his coffee table until he can’t take it any more. Lucas is still living with his parents, and Steve knows that’s his fault. He doesn’t hear from Max, but Lucas mentions her here and there. Max sends her best wishes too, he says, when he signs the letters off.

It makes Steve scoff every time. Yeah fucking right. She despises Steve now, he knows it. He deserves it. It astounds him that Lucas even wants to talk to him. He only writes back occasionally. What’s he even supposed to say? Sorry I ruined your future, you could’ve been a famous basketball player but I guess we’ll never know now… oops? If it’s any consolation, I’m a wreck? Give my best to your parents?

With Dustin, it’s… even more complicated. He drops by without warning after months of silence, usually with groceries. He stocks Steve’s fridge, comments on the stuff he’s left lying around on counter tops. Tidies up some, maybe washes a dirty bowl. Asks if he’s seen his parents lately, and how they’re doing. He gives him an awkward hug and tells Steve to get some fresh air, and he’s gone again. They never talk about anything real. They never talk about… it. That day. Anything. Steve has to hear from Nancy that Dustin dropped out of college and he’s working at Bradley’s Big Buy and still living with his mom. He runs a refreshed version of Hellfire at the community hall for some local kids and apparently he’s ‘content.’ Steve’s not convinced, and he’s also not happy about it, but he doesn’t have the energy. He doesn’t suspect that barrelling in and trying to fix Dustin’s life would go over well.

Not when his own life looks the way it does, and he has no intention of changing it.

He can’t.

He needs to keep things exactly as they are. He needs to see her again and know she’s okay.

He’ll find her.

One of these times, somehow, he’ll find her.

⸻ 🪶 ⸻

“Do you understand the terms of this ritual?”

The necromancer’s voice is deep and steady, a combination of their hooded cloak and the darkened room concealing most of their face.

Vickie nods slowly. Of course. They’re already most of the way finished. Yes. Yes, she understands.

She understands that she’s been worried about Steve for years. She understands that he’s let the guilt of what happened to Robin weigh him down so much that his spine is snapping in two. She understands that she never told him about her plan, because she couldn’t bear to do that to him if it didn’t work—if she got his hopes up for nothing, she’d feel that same guilt come crashing down on her.

At least if it fails, the only person she’s disappointing is herself.

She understands that she’s worked her fingers to the bone for over five fucking years to make this happen. Two jobs, sometimes three.

She understands that she’s researched this in every way possible, and all that research has brought her here, to this unsettling room, in an unsettling town hours and hours from home, with this unsettling person who claims to be a sorcerer of the dark arts. An expert of the occult.

She understands that after tonight, the process could take weeks… maybe months. That she can’t rush the process—digging her up prematurely would disturb the spell and leave her halfway regenerated. She has to be patient and let all her hard work come to fruition naturally.

She understands, deep in her heart, that she and Robin had something special; special enough that this is all worth it.

She understands Steve and Robin had something special too, in a different way, but no less precious.

Vickie knows she can bring that back. Make all three of them whole again.

She wouldn’t be standing here if she didn’t.

“Yes,” she confirms. Her hands shake but her voice doesn’t. She holds the blade of a knife diagonal over her forearm. “Yes, I understand.”

The necromancer places a heavy hand on the table between them, and Vickie tries not to jump.

“Do you understand,” he repeats slowly, voice louder, “that once you offer your blood to the ritual, even I will be powerless to change the events that follow? Do you understand that there is no turning back? That what dies and does not stay dead, can never die again?”

Vickie feels her eyes begin to burn.

She thinks of Robin’s parents, and of Steve, and of the countless nights she’s spent crying herself to sleep alone in bed knowing the one person she should be sharing it with isn’t there.

To think that none of them ever have to experience this loss ever again, seems like a blessing.

She blinks away the tears and hardens her expression.

“I understand,” she repeats, louder than before. “Bring her back.” 

Vickie slices the blade over her skin, blood pouring down over the open book on the table before them. The necromancer raises his hand over the book, speaking in a language Vickie doesn’t recognise, and the pages begin to glow.

⸻ 🪶 ⸻

A sparrow perches on Robin’s headstone, singing his song.

He takes flight as the early afternoon breeze rustles the chestnut trees behind him, soaring into a blue sky with the sun on his wings.

It’s early summer, a soft warmth settled around the town. It’s a beautiful day to sit in the grass and talk to Robin, but Steve’s not there.

Back home, his house is quiet.

A dining chair stands beneath a light fixture.

The ceiling creaks as Steve’s legs swing gently.

He wore his best sneakers. The ones Robin always liked.

Outside, a sparrow flies past the window.

⸻ 🪶 ⸻

Rebirth is as slow as it is ugly.

Robin’s body had decayed away almost entirely to bones.

In the weeks that follow Vickie’s visit with the sorcerer, progress feels almost non-existent.

Just as a foetus must mature in the womb over time, Robin’s corpse must do the same in the safety of her casket in the ground.

Organs regenerate. Muscles refine. Facial features reform. Her skin grows back over her bones and tendons. Her casket weakens around her, the walls of it growing thinner and thinner in preparation to break down and allow her to emerge when she’s ready. She looks putrid for a time, positively horrifying, but Vickie never sees this.

Vickie can only picture her as she knew her alive, like Snow White, pristine in a glass coffin where the ugliness of death can’t touch her. She sits by Robin’s graveside daily, stroking the headstone and encouraging her.

“It won’t be long, birdie,” she whispers. “We’ll be together soon. You can see your parents again. And all your friends. I haven’t told anybody about this. Not even Steve. He’s— he’s struggled so much without you. But it’s gonna be okay. Everyone’s going to be so happy to see you. Just keep going, keep— keep getting better for me. Please. I miss you so much.”

She leaves every day with tears staining her face, desperately clinging to hope that the spell worked.

But every day that Robin doesn’t show signs of emerging, Vickie feels her grief overtake her faith just a little bit more.

⸻ 🪶 ⸻

It’s early summer, a soft warmth settled around the town.

The early evening views from the cemetery are accompanied by a steady rumbling. Birds take flight from the trees nearest Robin’s grave.

Vickie stands up from where she’d been sitting on the grass as the ground trembles beneath her, the feeling rattling through her very bones. She feels sick with anticipation as she steps backwards, the grass over Robin’s grave becoming displaced with deep, damp soil, pushing up through the surface.

When the rumbling stops and the grass stills, Vickie’s heart feels as though it does too. She stands in place, shaking, for what feels like an eternity.

Then, movement.

The loosened dirt shifts and Vickie jolts, panting with anticipation, with wonder, with fear.

A hand forces its way up from the ground—dirty but unmistakably Robin’s, her nails painted pristinely as the day she was buried with one of her rings shining on her finger. Vickie gasps, frozen in place as she watches a second hand emerge and begin frantically clawing the dirt away.

Vickie throws herself down in the soil and digs, sweeping muck and worms and pebbles from where she thinks Robin’s face might be, grabbing her arms, pulling her up. She’s clumsy and desperate, tears pouring down her face.

“Robin,” she sobs. “Robin, I’m here. I’m here.”

She feels her face just below the surface and clears the soil away, finally seeing her—Robin. Perfectly in one piece. Breathing like she never stopped.

Alive. Whole. It worked. It worked.

Robin stares at her, eyes wide as Vickie helps her sit up and gathers her into a crushing hug. Robin doesn’t react as Vickie sobs with joy into her shoulder.

“I love you,” Vickie cries, elated to even be able to tell her, never wanting the chance to say that aloud to be taken from them ever again, “I love you, I love you. I can’t believe it. I can’t believe it. I got you back. I brought you back. Birdie, I love you so much.”

Robin sits there stiffly in the dirt while Vickie clings to her, eyes watering in the brightness of the day. She stares up at the sky, and a sparrow flies overhead.

⸻ 🪶 ⸻

Steve had forgotten how to feel at peace.

It wasn’t possible without Robin. He didn’t deserve it.

Maybe this is all a hallucination. Lack of oxygen, just the final remnants of his imagination as his brain dies. Maybe the afterlife really doesn’t exist, and that would be okay—because right now, he’s holding his brave little bird in his arms for the first time in years, and he remembers what peace and comfort feel like. Her skin is glowing, ethereal in a way he imagines a ghost would be, but he can hold her, and she can hold him back, and that’s all he could ask for.

“You didn’t have to do this,” Robin whispers into his neck.

Steve almost smiles, tears falling into her hair. “I thought you were calling to me. I— I felt so guilty that— that it should’ve been me a-and you might be here alone, that you might— I just had to try. I had to try to get to you. I’m s—,” Steve sobs suddenly and chokes on his words, arms tightening around her, “—I’m so sorry, Robbie, I’m so sorry I couldn’t get to you before, I—”

Robin strokes his back, shushing him softly. She loves him so much, and he feels it. He feels radiating through him—she was never angry with him. Never angry at all. She’s so good to him, even after what he did to her.

“I missed you so much,” she murmurs. “I’m so happy you’re here, but… but now everyone else is going to miss you back home. It wasn’t your time yet, Steve.”

Steve squeezes his eyes shut, his chest aching. “If this is how it is then I’ll see them again someday. I had to be with you. I had to make sure you were okay.”

Robin pulls back from their embrace, still holding onto Steve’s arms as she gives him a watery smile. “I’m okay now that I’m with you.”

They stay that way, holding each other’s arms, studying each other’s faces—re-familiarising, each line and mole and dimple. The agony Steve put himself through all those years has aged him. He looks tired.

Robin cups his cheek, thumb stroking over the skin. It hurts thinking of everyone he’s left behind, just for her, but she can’t stop smiling. He can rest now.

And when everything around them begins to shake, and Steve’s hands can no longer hold onto Robin’s fading glow, panic overtaking them both as she slips from his sights—

—there is simply nothing they can do.

⸻ 🪶 ⸻

“What have you done?!”

She won’t stop screaming.

Robin’s on her hands and knees in the dirt of what was formerly her resting place, clawing through the soil like she could rebury herself if she dug deep enough.

“He’s alone! He’s alone, I need to go back!”

Vickie didn’t know. She couldn’t have known. Maybe if she’d told Steve, he wouldn’t have— he wouldn’t have—

“You have to kill me,” Robin begs, hysterical. “Please, he— he came to find me, I need to go back to him! You have to kill me! Please! Please, I have to die. I have to find him.”

Vickie sobs behind her, sick to her stomach as she watches the love of her life, the girl she gave absolutely everything to resurrect, try to dig her way back into her own grave. Robin won’t even look at her. She just digs, raking through the soil until her fingertips are bleeding, crying until she’s hoarse. She sobs up at the sky, begging to be killed, asking Vickie what the hell she’s waiting for.

This agony feels worse than the day she died.

“I need to see him! He’s alone, I need to be with him! He came to find me, I need him!”

The sun is setting around them, and Vickie doesn’t know how to tell her.

⸻ 🪶 ⸻

The birds fly overhead and sing in the trees nearby, carried on the gentle breeze. They’re none the wiser to the meaning of heartache. The sun’s still behind the clouds but the air stays warm, by all accounts a perfect summer’s day.

It means nothing to the birds that Steve thinks he might be going mad. She’s here and she’s not here. He sees her and he doesn’t. He looks for her but he never finds her. He prays to stop hearing her die over and over in his dreams, then loathes it when his wish is granted.

It means nothing to the birds that he thinks maybe there’s only one thing left to do, because it was him who should have died that day, and he was never meant to live a life without her.

Steve thuds his fist into the grass, other hand gripping the edge of the headstone, an anguished sob leaving him.

“Why won’t you stay buried?”