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Steve and Jonathan Byers were the last two left in the upside down. Steve nodded at the rope, letting him go up first. Byers reached for it, following the movements of Robin, Eddie and Nancy before him, who were all watching safety from beyond the gate.
Steve couldn’t wait to be out of this place. Couldn’t wait to escape the earthquakes every two seconds. The vines connecting to the hive mind strewn everywhere. And, obviously, those fucking bats.
Byers’ arm dropped suddenly from where he gripped the rope. Steve frowned.
“Dude, what are you-“
Then he froze, horrified, as he looked at the other guy’s face.
Byers’ eyes were rolled back, and he was completely still. Just like Max had been. Just like all Vecna’s victims had been.
Shit.
Shit shit shit shit shit.
“Hey, Byers.” Steve grabbed his shoulder and shook, not exactly gently. Byers didn’t even react. “Jesus Christ, wake up!” He looked up to the people gathered on the other side of the gate.
“Is he…?” Nancy began, voice shaking. Steve didn’t have words for her, but just nodded numbly.
Then he found his voice. “Do something!”
The others all dispersed, shooting each other terrified looks. Steve turned back to Byers, terror seeping into his gut. He couldn’t die. Not here. Not now. Fuck, they were so close to leaving.
“Hey man, come on, wake up! Byers!” Steve was shaking him again, getting more frantic.
Byers was completely reactionless. Could he even hear Steve? Steve was completely lost. How was he supposed to know what to do? Shit, he should have questioned Max more about her vision. He should have tried to get more information out of her. How had he ended up here - knowing absolutely nothing about how to deal with this situation?
He glanced back up through the gate, seeing only Erica left on the other side. “Whatever you guys are doing up there, hurry up!” Who knew how much time they had left? Max has started floating after only a couple minutes.
Erica rushed off, calling out to the others. They needed music, right? That’s what had worked for Max. This would be just the same. Byers’ would hear the music, wake up from whatever vision he was having, and then the two of them could finally leave.
“Byers! Come on! Jonathan!”
This was all wrong. Jonathan couldn’t die. This wasn’t supposed to happen. Their group fought upside down shit every year or so at this point, and they always came out the other end of it unharmed. Except for Hopper, or course. Fuck, it was happening again, wasn’t it. First Hopper, now Byers. They were being picked off one by one.
“Jonathan!”
Steve didn’t even like him. And it was hardly a secret that the feeling was mutual. He was dating Steve’s ex, for gods sake. And, well, he was kind of weird. Steve had grown used to weird over the past few years - Dustin and his friends were hardly normal kids - but still. The two of them had never gotten along.
But that didn’t mean Steve wanted him dead.
Then, suddenly, blood started to drip from Byers’ nose. “What the…” That hadn’t happened with Max. Or, from what he’d heard, Chrissy or Patrick.
And now that Steve thought about it, Byers wasn’t even cursed. Vecna targeted his victims - he’d given Max and the others nightmares and headaches and all that - but Jonathan was different. Jonathan hadn’t even targeted. Or, at least, Steve didn’t think he had been.
Whatever this was, this was different than the others.
“Byers, for fucks sake, man, wake up! Come on, Jonathan.”
Steve was still shaking him, even though it wasn’t doing anything. Byers’ eyes looked completely vacant. Nothing that Steve was doing was useful, but he didn’t know what the fuck else to do.
How long did it take to find some damn music?!
“Holy shit.” Steve backed up a step, momentarily shocked, staring at Jonathan’s face. Joining the steadily dripping nose, blood was starting to flow from his eyes. “Holy… shit.” What the hell was happening?
Steve’s fear was growing, gnawing through any logical thoughts he might have had. He reached out to Jonathan again, shaking him roughly. “Jonathan, come on, stay with me!”
Theblood was flowing faster now, streaking down his face. Steve reached out tentatively, trying to wipe it away, but it was no use. It was only replaced by the endless streams of warm red.
A sound came from behind Steve, and he whipped around, half expecting to see a swarm of bats coming to finish off the two of them.
Instead, he saw Nancy, hands gripping at the rope, face a grim mask of determination.
“Nancy!” Steve lunged for her, catching her just as the gravity flipped and she fell. She stumbled, then pulled away. “What the hell are you doing?” She ignored him, moving instantly to Jonathan.
“Jonathan! Can you hear me?” She was grabbing his face, wiping at the blood with her sleeves, clearing it much better than Steve had. “Please, wake up!”
Steve stepped back over, coming to Jonathan’s other side, and grabbing his arm, shaking it again, as though somehow he would get a different result than he had the last time.
“Steve, what do we do?” Nancy asked desperately, clutching at him with frantic hands.
“I don’t… I don’t know.” He should be trying to comfort her, he should be doing something, anything, useful, but he was clueless. He was completely unprepared to deal with this situation. “Jonathan, come on!”
“Jonathan! Please! Come back!” Nancy slapped him, and damn, Steve should have thought of that. Not that it had any effect at all.
“Wake up. Wake up!”
“Jonathan!”
Jonathan’s eyes suddenly snapped back into focus, and he listed straight to the side. Straight into Steve. Steve, shocked, stumbled for moment, before catching him, and lowering him down. Nancy fell to her knees beside them, reaching out for Jonathan, who was staring at her with wide, terrified eyes.
He was breathing fast. Too fast, and shallow.
“Jonathan, thank god,” Nancy was saying, tears streaming down her face. “Jesus Christ. You scared us. You really fucking scared…” She was trying to clean the blood away again, but there was so much of it, so much more than Steve had realised.
Steve was holding Jonathan in his arms, and it was weird; a situation he could never have seen himself in. But he couldn’t let go. How could he? Jonathan was leaning on him - Steve couldn’t just shove him onto the ground. That would be cruel. He already fucking looked traumatised enough.
“You’re okay,” Nancy said, softly, hands shaking, slippery with blood. “Hey, it’s over. It’s okay. You’re okay.”
“No,” Jonathan murmured, sagging further into Steve, seemingly unconsciously. “Got to… warn El.”
“Warn El?” Steve demanded, heart hammering.
“Vecna… coming… for her.” His voice was weak, quiet, and Steve suddenly realised that that was not like Max.
His fast breaths suddenly didn’t sound like fear, but the desperate gasps of someone struggling to breathe.
Shit.
Nancy had noticed that something was wrong. “Jonathan? What’s… you’re okay.” She sounded like she was trying to convince herself. “You woke up. You’re okay.”
Jonathan’s hand shook as he reached out to grasp Nancy’s wrist. “Vecna… is One,” he whispered weakly, tugging on her arm slightly, as though he was trying to get her to listen. Like they both weren’t already listening. Like Steve’s whole body hadn’t been plunged into ice as the new information washed over him.
“Vecna’s One?” Nancy spluttered, shocked, before Jonathan’s hand slipped from where it held her wrist and fell to the ground. “No. No no no.” Jonathan’s eyes were starting to go glassy, and he was completely limp in Steve’s lap
This was wrong.
He had woken up. He was supposed to be okay.
Steve found that he was clinging, actually clinging, to this guy he didn’t even like, watching as he slipped closer and closer to unconsciousness in his arms.
“Jonathan, no. No, please, no,” Nancy begged, grasping him desperately. “No, stay with us. Okay? You have to stay with us. Look at me!”
Steve was shaking, horror seeping into him, cumulating by the second. Jonathan’s breaths were getting shorter, and almost impossibly shallow. “Breathe, dammit,” Steve said, ordered, as his horror became an avalanche of white hot fear was cascading through his chest.
“…can’t,” Jonathan muttered, almost inaudible. Nancy sobbed.
“No no no.”
Steve reached over, suddenly, to seize Jonathan’s arm, grip harder than it should be, considering the state the guy was in. He pressed two rough fingers to Jonathan’s wrist, trying to feel for the steady pulse that should be there.
Instead, it was weak, and thready.
“Shit. Fuck,” Steve cursed. He didn’t know what to do. Jonathan was getting weaker by the second, looking at him now, eyes a little unfocused. “Don’t pass out,” Steve told him, firmly. Even though he knew, at this point, it was inevitable.
He was still gripping Jonathan’s wrist, and it was completely still in his hand; deadweight. Steve breathed out shakily, then lowered the limb back to the floor, placing it down carefully.
Jonathan was… dying.
He was going to die. He was Vecna’s newest victim, somehow, and Nancy and Steve were powerless to stop it.
Jonathan turned his head slowly to Nancy. “…tell Will-“
“No!” Nancy cried, sobs spilling from her in an unstoppable stream of anguish. “No! Jonathan, don’t do this! Please don’t do this! I love you. Hey, please, I love you.”
The words that had once felt like a knife piercing Steve’s heart had somehow lost their bite. All he could feel was her fear and desperation.
Jonathan’s eyes slipped shut.
“No!” Nancy screamed, tugging him roughly away from Steve and into her own arms. Steve didn’t resist. He was numb.
Nancy slapped him, and again; shook him hard. When he remained unconscious, she gripped him impossibly tightly, burying her face in his shoulder with an animal sound that ripped from her throat.
Steve couldn’t move. The world shattered around him, glass from the metaphorical mirror that had held up the illusion of their victorious ending against Vecna exploding in glittering shards that faded from existence as Steve blinked.
Light from the gate above them trapped Jonathan and Nancy in an eerie spotlight. She was crying, choking on her sorrow.
Steve didn’t need to check his pulse to know that Jonathan was gone.
———
The last thing Steve was expecting was a pizza van to pull up into the driveway. They all stopped what they were doing - him, Nancy, Robin, Dustin and Erica all cautiously approaching this new vehicle.
A guy around Steve’s age, black hair hanging down to his waist, stumbled out the drivers seat. “What’s up, my dudes? Did you know that your town is, like, guarded by military people?”
“Who… are you?” Robin demanded, coming up beside Steve.
Before he could answer, the back of the van opened up, and Mike, El and Will clambered out.
Oh fuck. Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck.
Will was here.
Steve exchanged a horrified look with Robin as the three kids ran to Dustin. The guy with long hair was wondering around, staring up at the sky. “So this is Indiana?” he asked vaguely. “Indiana’s gnarly.”
“Who the hell are you?” Erica demanded.
“Oh hey. I’m Argyle.”
“He’s Jonathan’s friend,” Will explained, splitting off from the other kids. “We got him to drive us here. Um, where is Jonathan?”
Steve froze. The world muted for a moment, nothing but the sound of his own hammering heart flooding his ears.
Then Nancy let out a choked sob, arms hugged around herself. She’d been a mess the past few days, hardly talking to any of them, hiding in her own dark cloud of depression. Steve didn’t think he would ever forget the sounds of her screams back in the upside down, clinging to her boyfriend’s lifeless body.
Nancy stumbled across to the other side of the car, descending into tears. Robin glanced at Steve, then jogged over to Nancy. She’d proven pretty good at comforting her over the past few days. Well, there hadn’t been much comforting, but Robin always provided a shoulder to cry on.
Dustin had buried his face in his hands. It had been a tough week for the kid. First Byers, then Eddie. And Eddie had died right in Dustin’s arms, just how Jonathan had died in Steve’s.
Will’s face was a mask of shock; he hadn’t realised what had happened. Steve glanced around - took in Nancy and Robin and Dustin - and realised it was between either him and Erica to break the news.
It wasn’t much of a choice, really.
Steve could still feel Jonathan’s blood on his hands.
“Jonathan…um.” Steve couldn’t do this. He couldn’t fucking do this. Erica had backed away, giving him no help. Not that he blamed her - she was just a kid.
The weird guy, Argyle, gestured at Nancy. “That’s Jonathan’s girlfriend, right? Why is she crying?”
“Um.” Steve looked over his shoulder at Nancy, like he’d only just noticed. “Oh, well…” He’d never wanted to be somewhere less in his entire life.
Will was still looking at him, and Steve couldn’t be the one to make his face break into grief. He just couldn’t. Will was so young.
How should he start? He should say the normal stuff: that Jonathan was in a better place, that he hadn’t suffered - all that shit. Except that would be a lie. Because Jonathan definitely had suffered.
The silence had surpassed the point of normalcy. Dustin was slowly lowering his hand from his face, fresh tears cutting into his cheeks. “Will, um…”
Dustin was wearing heavy, silver rings. Those were Eddie’s rings. Dustin was already carrying the death of one of his friends - Steve wouldn’t make him carry another.
“Jonathan died,” Steve said, abruptly, cursing himself internally instantly because why the fuck did he say it like that? “Will, I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”
Will looked confused now. “…what?” Mike and El were glnacing at each other, also confused, the ball not quite dropping for any of them yet.
And why would it? They didn’t know about Vecna. They didn’t know anything.
“There was this, uh, guy. We called him Vecna,” Steve began, “He, um, started targeting people here.”
“One,” El said suddenly. Steve nodded, shocked.
“You know about One?”
“I know he was here, killing people,” El said simply, “He was after Max.”
“El got her powers back,” Mike cut in, “She tried to save Max.”
“Pizza dough freezer bath,” Argyle said, knowingly, gesturing to El as if what he’d just said made any sense.
“What does this have to do with Jonathan?” Will interrupted. Steve felt like he couldn’t breathe, but that reminded him too damn much of Jonathan’s last moments and everything he was trying so hard to forget.
“Vecna - One - got Jonathan,” Steve finally managed to get out. Dead silence followed. “He’s dead. Jonathan is dead.”
More silence. More staring. Steve wanted to fall through the ground and let someone else deal with this. Although, ironically, the best person to tell Will about this would be Jonathan.
Then El broke, suddenly, hand grasped over her mouth, body shaking with sobs. Mike was trying to hold her, but she wasn’t responding to him.
A thousand different things passed over Will’s face.
Then something crossed over his face, a pebble dropping in an ocean, the shadow of ripples passing over.
“When?” Will asked, voice almost a whisper. Steve was starting to shake, the open grief that surrounded him seeping into his body.
“A few days ago,” Steve said. “We tried to call you. We tried… we tried to save him. We… Will, I’m so sorry.”
Steve should have done more. He should have know what to do. There had to have been something he could have done. Anything.
He suddenly remembered, with a lurch, Jonathan’s last words.
Tell Will…
He’d never finished. Will would never know what Jonathan wanted to tell him.
Will wasn’t crying. He just looked… empty. Like something had been scooped out from inside of him.
“The evil wizard killed Jonathan?” Argyle’s voice was shaking. “Jesus Christ. Holy…” He leant against the van, face pressed against the window.
As if the situation couldn’t get any worse, another car pulled up, and out stepped Joyce.
Joyce. Jonathan’s fucking mom.
And then, from the other side of the car… Hopper?
A fraction of the fog of despair cleared as confusion took its place. Everyone stared at the dead chief of police, very much alive, in front of them.
Then El began to walk slowly towards him, breaking out into a run after a few steps. Mike stared after her, harshly scrubbing away a couple tears that had fallen down his face.
Joyce was coming over. Steve couldn’t do this. He couldn’t handle this.
“What’s going on?” she asked, going over to Will. “Honey, what happened?” She took in the scene playing out on the driveway with a frown. She turned to Steve, the most put together out of everyone. “What the hell happened?”
Steve’s voice had deserted him. He couldn’t say it again. He couldn’t.
Joyce was looking around the driveway, eyes flicking from person to person. “Where’s Jonathan?”
Dead. Jonathan was dead.
Steve couldn’t say it again. Couldn’t be the reason one more person’s face broke into a veil of grief.
“Where’s Jonathan?” Joyce said, harsher, looking around the driveway again, more frantically. “Why is everyone…?”
“Mom,” Will said softly, his face communicating what words could not.
Joyce screamed.
Steve couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t fucking breathe. He backed away from the group of people radiating sadness, moving out onto the road.
For a moment, inexplicably, he thought he saw Jonathan stood on the other side, watching him. But no. Just a shadow.
Steve hadn’t even liked Jonathan. Jonathan hadn’t liked Steve. But now, it seemed, Steve would he haunted by his face, his memory, those few, catastrophic minutes in the trailer, for the rest of his life.