Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

‘As scientists, it’s our job to understand the universe as it is, not as how we might wish it to be. We must always keep in mind that the universe is under absolutely no obligation to fulfill our hopes and desires.’
— from Time Travel and Warp Drives by Allen Everett and Thomas Roman

“You sleep well, asshole?”

This time, he doesn’t hesitate, even as his hands shake, blinking off the grey haze of sleep. He grabs Dustin’s arm and uses it to pull himself up: “I gotta talk to you, outside,” voice an urgent hiss, and Dustin seems alarmed enough to let himself be propelled along.

Then they’re outside, and Steve takes a deep breath. It trembles in his chest.

“This day,” he says. “I’ve been, like, reliving it. Over and over. You waking me up and Robin and Lucas with the boombox and Nance coming in from the bathroom–”

“Whoa, whoa, what? Dude, do you just not know what deja-vu is or–”

“It’s different to that, trust me. Because then we go to War Zone, because Eddie suggested it, and Eddie hotwires the neighbors’ camper van and tells me about his criminal dad and I talk to Nance about having fucking– fucking six kids, and then Jason and the assholes are at War Zone, and we floor it outta there and then you and Eddie make shields out of trashcan lids and he tells you to never change, and then– and then–”

He’s not sure he wants to go any further. Dustin is staring at him with his mouth open. “And this isn’t just some crazy-ass dream you had?”

“That’s what I thought the first time. And kinda the second. Less so the third.”

Dustin begins to pace. “Okay, say– say you haven’t gone completely insane. You’re– is this Vecna? Have you been Vecna’d? But why would he– or else, okay, let’s think about this. Logically. You say you’ve experienced this day, what, three times?”

“This is the fifth,” Steve says tightly.

“Right, that’s–” Dustin shakes his head, as if brushing off the weirdness, and he gets an abstract, analytical tone. If only Steve could do that, could separate the horror of it all from the facts and try and be smart about it. But he’s not smart. “And does it change? The day, can you change things? Or does it always play out the same?”

“It changes. I can– yeah, I can change things.” But not the big thing. Not the one thing he’s so desperate to change — that one thing stays the same. It always stays the fucking same. “We do things differently, sure, but it doesn’t make any difference in the end, it always– always ends the fucking same, always–” He stops. He’s not sure he wants to tell Dustin how it ends.

Dustin paces a circle around him and stops, frowning. “Like a loop.”

Something’s circling overhead — that fucking crow. He doesn’t remember seeing it last time, but then again he was inside with Nancy for most of it. (A thought that sours in his chest. He’s not sure he can bear to even look at her now.)

Dustin continues, oblivious. “So you’re– okay. This is completely batshit, but if it isn’t Vecna messing with your head then whatever remains, however improbable…”

“What?” Steve snaps, crossing his arms over his chest. He wishes he had one of Eddie’s cigarettes from before. The third time, he counts silently in his head. Today is the fifth.

“What if you’re time-travelling?”

Steve’s jaw sort of drops. He hadn’t thought of it like that. It’s too insane for words, surely, surely, and yet…

“You’re time-travelling. Kind of. Or, like, stuck in time. In a– in a loop. A time loop. Say that’s– Jesus Christ, say that’s what’s happening. When does it end?”

Steve looks at him uncomprehendingly.

“What makes the loop reset, Steve?” he says impatiently.

“Oh.” He hesitates. The words feel like a lump in the back of his throat. He says it quietly, like if he’s too loud it will come true again. “Eddie dying.”

A silence. Dustin’s face falling into something horrible, something Steve’s never seen before. “You’re- oh my god, you’re serious, holy fucking shit–“ He paces a circle and then turns back. “Well, we have to stop it. Right?”

“Yeah, like that isn’t what I’ve been fucking trying to do.”

Dustin ignores him. “Tell me everything that’s happened. And I mean everything, no detail is too small.”

So Steve tells him. It feels good to tell him, like it felt good to tell Nancy right until he ruined it. Dustin is the right person to tell, he realises, because this is science-y shit, surely, and Dustin knows his science. Right? But still. Steve does spare the details. Eddie’s blood collecting in Steve’s hands, sticky and slick, so much fucking blood–

He doesn’t tell Dustin this. In another lost day, Dustin already knows.

Dustin is uncharacteristically quiet, tense, when he’s finished. “What about Vecna, then? Are you sure it can’t be Vecna? Maybe he’s just– just trying to scare you–”

Steve remembers that. He remembers saying that to Nancy, the very first time, Okay, but… he’s just trying to scare you, Nance, right? I mean– I mean, it’s not real. The thing is, now he’s not sure what real even means. “I’m not sure about anything.” He looks through the window and finds the back of Eddie’s head, hunched on the couch in his leather sans the vest that Steve’s still wearing (and somehow it’s comforting, actually, that each time he comes back wearing it again), and thinks he’s actually sure of one thing, and that’s that he’s here to save Eddie. He has to save Eddie, somehow. There’s no other choice.

And yet he keeps fucking it up. It’s like he’s been given this one job by the universe, this one task, and he can’t do it. He keeps failing at it. Save Eddie Munson, only maybe Eddie Munson can’t be saved. Or maybe Steve’s not smart enough to do it.

But Dustin–?

He’s raced off inside and he’s already on the phone when Steve finds him. “If you’re trying the Byers you know it’s not–”

Dustin holds up a finger to shush him. Steve rolls his eyes and they catch on Eddie, who is smirking at him: Attitude problem, Eddie mouths, and Steve looks away.

“Mr. Clarke!” Dustin says brightly into the phone, and Steve stares at him. Seriously? If nothing else, it’s nine a.m. in the Easter break and Mr. Clarke’s a middle school science teacher — if Steve were him, he’d be in Florida right now. Or, at the very least, the Great Lakes. “Yes, I know it’s–” Dustin winces. “I know it’s early, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. And you’re not my teacher anymore. Yes. I do know that. I was just– surely that makes this more acceptable, actually, you’re just a learned friend I’m calling for metaphysical advice this lovely–” What day is it? he mouths at Steve, and Steve shrugs. He has no idea. “–morning.”

A silence. Steve can only imagine what Mr. Clarke is saying. The others have come up to stand around Dustin in a loose circle; Eddie’s still on the couch, worrying at the loose threads in the torn knees of his jeans.

“Thank you, m’lord! Okay, so, this is totally hypothetical, of course, purely for an– imaginative project– but I was wondering. Do you know anything about time loops?”

Okay, Steve is actually interested in this. He sort of has to be. So he moves closer, and Dustin holds the receiver so they can both listen to Mr. Clarke’s response: “Ah, you’ve been reading Robert Heinlein, haven’t you? In science we call it the causal loop, or the bootstrap paradox, after Heinlein’s novella. It’s generally taken to refer to an event that causes another event, which in turn causes the first event — a paradox of time travel. Everett gives us a neat example: imagine a time-traveller taking a mathematical proof from a textbook and teaching it to the mathematician who wrote it before he writes it, having travelled back in time — the proof would have no true author. The author was time itself.”

Steve has no idea what he’s saying. Dustin is nodding but he doesn’t look very invested. “Right, right, but what about a time loop specifically? A day repeating over and over and over?”

“Ah. Well, it’s a less popular thought experiment. I suppose a similar principle still applies, the idea of the person in the time loop being able to apply their foreknowledge in ways to affect the rest of the day — but it depends on your brand of time loop. There are two sorts, as I understand it.”

“Okay, great. What are they?”

“If you’ll allow me to explain–”

“Sorry.”

“Imagine you’re reading a book, let’s say, three times. The same text. Either you have only one copy of this text, and you read it three times over, or you have three copies of the same text, and you read one after the other. One copy is recursion; three is iteration. If your time loop is iterative, that means time is still moving forward — the days just happen to look exactly the same. If it’s recursive, then it really is the same day, over and over, and you’re time-travelling.”

“Vecna,” Dustin murmurs, away from the phone. He looks at Steve with wide eyes. “If it’s iterative, you’re just stuck in a Vecna-vision, but if it’s recursive then you’re– yeah. Time-travelling.”

“What the fuck?” Max says in the background. Right. Steve forgot they’re all listening.

“What was that?” Mr. Clarke says sharply. Steve remembers the tone well, from achingly long science classes when he himself was in middle school, throwing paper airplanes at Tommy H. and passing Ellen Rosby bubblegum under the table, which was how they flirted with girls in middle school, long before their currency became cigarettes and beer. Mr. Clarke had had very little time for it all.

“Nothing, just my– cat,” Dustin says, and winces at himself. “How would one — hypothetically, that is — escape such a time loop? Do you think?”

“Well, hypothetically speaking, I suppose there would have to be a trigger for the loop to reset.”

Steve finds himself looking at Eddie — how can he not? He’s got his eyes closed, rubbing his temples like this is all too much for him. Steve feels the same.

“In both cases — iterative or recursive — that trigger is what’s stopping you moving forward, what’s keeping you in the loop. I’d guess you’d have to engage with that trigger in some way, or else avoid it, to overcome it and get out of the loop.”

Like that isn’t what Steve’s been doing. Like that isn’t–

He slumps back against the wall and puts his head in his hands. So Mr. Clarke’s told him nothing useful, just a load of science-y jargon that doesn’t mean anything, it doesn’t make any sort of meaningful difference and what is he supposed to do with that? What is he supposed to do now?

Keep trying, he guesses. Keep trying to save Eddie, and stop failing at it.

“Okay, is someone going to explain what the hell’s going on?” Nancy says once Dustin’s hung up, hands on her hips. She emerged from the bathroom a while ago.

“Steve’s stuck in a time loop,” Dustin says, matter-of-fact. Steve feels faintly hysterical.

But the thing is, this time it’s easier to convince them. He tells them what Nancy’s going to say, almost verbatim, the dark cloud and the gates and Vecna-as-One-as-Henry-Creel — and she believes him, eyes wide and serious. He mostly looks at a spot behind her head when he talks to her. And then–

“So what’s the trigger?” Lucas says. He’s looking between Steve and Dustin with a frown on his face. “What–”

Dustin looks at Eddie. And Steve looks at Eddie, and then everyone’s looking at Eddie, and Eddie shifts uncomfortably and says, “Why do I get the feeling you’re about to say something I’m not gonna like?”

“Probably because we are,” Dustin says, but it lacks the usual know-it-all bite. It’s quiet, and unsteady, and sounds a little bit like that first time over the walkie, that first time where he said Eddie’s dead–

There’s a silence. Steve realises they’re all looking to him to say it. No one’s gonna say it for him, and he swallows the way his heart twists up in his throat and rips off the bandaid: “Yeah, man, you– um. Keep dying.”

“Uh. Huh. That’s cool. That’s, um– how many times, exactly?” Eddie’s got his eyes closed, like maybe if he can’t see them all then he can ignore this. Steve wishes that worked.

“Four- four times. This is the fifth.”

Eddie inhales shakily and then exhales immediately, probably too quickly, following it up with more, shallower breaths — but before Steve can go over to him, kneel down and talk to him lowly like he did for Steve in loop number three, Eddie’s talking again: “So all I have to do is– what. Not die? For Harrington to escape whatever fucking curse he’s under?” He laughs, a private, ironic laugh with absolutely zero mirth in it. Steve’s not sure what he’s finding funny.

“That seems to be the size of it,” Robin says. Her eyes are like moons.

“Not just that,” Steve says. Eddie’s eyes snap to his, frantic and dark and intense. “I mean– yes, that, but it’s– how you die. You keep playing the hero. Sacrificing yourself to save us. So you need to– not do that.”

Eddie raises his eyebrows a little. Parts his lips, mouths me? with something like faux surprised modesty, but Steve knows it isn’t faux, not right now at least. We are not heroes. He believes that about himself; right now, he doesn’t think the capacity to do something heroic is inside him at all. “Are you sure you got the right guy, over here? Maybe all those time loops have knocked you about a little–”

“You need to not do that,” Steve presses tightly, furiously. He’s furious. “I tell you not to be a hero right beforehand and you don’t fucking listen, so I’m telling you now, because if you do it then you’ll die and we’ll all be stuck here again–”

“Christ, Harrington, I get the message.” Eddie raises his hands, as if in surrender. They’re shaking almost imperceptibly. But he looks deadly serious, big scared eyes, and he nods at Steve, the same nod he gave him the first time, Make him pay, and that’s enough to make Steve think he means it. He has to mean it. Maybe this is the way out.

This time, when Steve asks Where’d you learn how to do this?, because of course he already knows but Eddie is drawn into himself right now, closed-off and small and Steve hates that so he’s going to try to draw him back out, Eddie smiles bitterly and says, “Darling dad. We’ve already got death in common, so why not add a spot of grand theft auto to the list?”

“He died?” Steve says, because that’s something he didn’t know.

Eddie shoots him a look; Steve’s not really sure what it means. “A couple of years ago now, so I’m no longer crying my eyes out. Funnily enough, I never was.”

Steve doesn’t know what to say to that. Not in prison, then, like maybe he’d assumed, rudely and unfairly. Dead instead. What does anyone do with that? What does Steve?

“Uh, Eddie? I’m not sure I love the idea of you driving,” Robin says, coming up behind, pressing against Steve’s back. He wonders if Eddie’s in good enough spirits to say it, to say the thing that’s been flooring Steve’s world since the first time, given he knows he’s maybe died at least four times by now–

But he is. “Oh, I’m just starting this sucker. Harrington’s got her. Don’t ya, big boy?” And he leans somehow closer this time, something manic in his eyes, a wide nihilistic delight. Steve wonders if he even cares about dying at all.

Then they’re off. Like usual.

“I mean it,” Steve says, when they’re leaving Eddie and Dustin at the trailer in the cold blue light. He’s told them already to block the vents, to use torches instead of spears, because fire holds the bats off longer — he’s done everything he can. This is the final step. “Don’t be a hero. Because you’ll get yourself killed.”

“Aye, aye, captain,” Eddie says, with a mock salute. “Told you, man, I’m no hero. A good runner, though. A very good runner.”

“Away from danger, not towards it,” Steve presses. “Please.”

Eddie drops the irony. He steps forward, something almost fragile in his eyes. “Alright,” he says quietly. “If you make him pay.”

Steve nods. Eddie nods too, and Steve has to believe him. Has to believe it of him. And of Dustin, if nothing else, because he’s clinging to Eddie with the tenacity of a limpet, fierce and unyielding, and Eddie’ll have a devil of a job sacrificing himself if Dustin has anything to do it.

And yet–

He still does.

“Eddie’s dead,” Dustin’s voice comes, gasping over the walkie, crackly and hoarse and breaking with sobs, and Steve knows it’s coming this time, the tumbling feeling of a new day dawning without his consent. Another death. Another dawn.

Again, he wakes up.

“You sleep well, asshole?” Dustin says, peering into his field of vision, but Steve looks away from him and at Eddie, tucked into the corner of the couch with his hands jumping over each other, fiddling with his rings. Steve’s angry. Steve’s fucking furious. You promised, he wants to shout. You swore to me, to Dustin, and you fucking did it anyway. You fucking died.

“Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning,” Eddie says, raising his hands in surrender, and Steve becomes aware he was glaring. Fuck it. Eddie deserves it.

“Fuck off, man,” Steve says, and maybe it comes out more tired than pissed off but Eddie seems to be offended anyway, eyes narrowing and body shifting back away from Steve.

“I know when I’m not wanted,” he says, getting to his feet. Hands still twitching over each other, Steve notices, though he doesn’t want to notice. He’s so fucking angry. So Eddie goes outside, just as Nancy comes out of the bathroom and starts to talk and this time they don’t know. Steve hasn’t told them. Recursive versus iterative, isn’t that what Dustin said? Not that he really knows what those words mean.

He’s distracted enough to fill in what he said the first time, “Okay, but… he’s just trying to scare you, Nance, right? I mean– I mean, it’s not real.”

And she looks at him and says, “Not yet.”

And something about it makes his hands begin to tremble. Because– she’s right. Not yet. Maybe everything he’s seen with Eddie isn’t real, not yet — recursion, is that what that means? He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know. All he knows is that– not yet. Eddie’s not dead yet. Not in this world.

He goes outside.

Eddie is sitting on the patchy, dried out grass, smoking a nearly-finished cigarette. He doesn’t look up as Steve approaches, just scoffs quietly.

“I’m sorry,” Steve says. “For being a dick.”

“This morning, or generally?”

Right. Steve thinks about high school, about the time Tommy H. called Eddie a queer and Steve just stood there and watched and Eddie said something stupid like sounds like someone would know and got a broken rib for his trouble. About knocking into Eddie and his friends’ shoulders in the hallways for no reason at all; about throwing balled-up bits of tissue paper at Eddie’s younger friends’ heads in freshman math class, just for the fun of it. It was harmless, some of that. Most of that. But it makes him a dick nonetheless. “Generally.”

Eddie’s posture softens slightly, just slightly. He finally looks at Steve. “So, pray tell, what’s got your panties in a twist?”

Steve sits down and puts his head between his knees for a moment. Then he sits up and holds out his fingers; Eddie scoffs again, but hands over the last drag of the cigarette anyway. Steve takes the puff and considers telling the truth; but it didn’t help last time, so why would it help now? He settles on, “Just freaked out a little, I guess. This is such deep shit.”

“You’re telling me.” Eddie nudges his shoulder, just lightly. The touch burns. “It’s been a long fucking day, man.”

“You have no idea,” Steve whispers. No fucking idea.

But then Eddie laughs cruelly, though Steve’s not sure who he’s being cruel to. “I think I do, Harrington. Fuck. Fuck.” And this isn’t just a relaxed smoke break outside, Steve understands. His whole frame is trembling just slightly, like a tensile wire about to snap, and his fingers, hooked around his ankles, are digging into the skin where his jeans ride up above his sneakers.

“Hey,” Steve says, softly. Eddie ducks his head between his knees and doesn’t answer. “You okay?”

“Fuck, Harrington, how are you okay? How are you– this is such deep shit, man, just like you said–“

“Who said I was okay?” A silence. “I’m just– good at hiding it, I guess. All of it. You don’t get to be King Steve showing how shit gets to you, right?”

“Right,” and Eddie laughs. “My liege. If only I could take a lesson or two–“

Steve touches him on the arm. No, more than that, he takes Eddie’s wrist. Again, like he has twice before, and maybe he can’t help it now. Eddie stops talking and just looks at him silently.

And they look at each other. And Steve doesn’t let go of his wrist. A crow circles above.

But then Eddie jolts, suddenly, like with an electric shock, and he twitches away from Steve and puts his head in his hands and it’s then, voice muffled, Steve’s offer of comforting touch rejected, that he says, “Army surplus store.”

And Steve goes along with it. As he always does.

But this time, when they’re going into War Zone, Steve stays behind. He stays behind with Lucas and Dustin and Eddie, because he knows. He’sseen how Eddie’s hands are shaking, how he’s pressing himself into the side of the RV and avoiding all their eye contact. So– for the first time in six loops, Steve sits down and stays behind.

“What are you doing, Steve?” Dustin prods, and Steve rolls his eyes.

“Protecting you shitheads,” he says. “What if Carver and the assholes suddenly turn up?”

He sees Eddie flinch. Dustin huffs dramatically and sits down next to Lucas in the back, a little way away from Eddie and Steve, almost like he’s giving them the semblance of privacy. Some privacy. But it’s enough, maybe, because Eddie somehow sinks down lower and lets out a shaky breath and then another one, faster, harder, and then he’s not really breathing at all.

“Shit, Eddie, are you–“ and Steve doesn’t finish, because it’s a stupid question, he just kneels down by the bench and reaches for Eddie abortively, and Eddie shudders and flinches involuntarily back. It’s time for the stupid question. “Are you okay?”

Eddie shoots him a glare. “Don’t fucking ask me– that, Harrington, you’re just– fuck, just– don’t– just don’t–“ he manages, as his speech dissolves between panicked breaths and he continues to lock eyes with Steve, furiously, like this is Steve’s fault, even as his chest jolts and his hands twitch over each other helplessly.

Steve thinks about this happening the whole time, every time, he was in War Zone. The way Eddie crumples into himself, folds into the side of the camper like the others won’t see him there, though they will. Trembling and holding the panic close to his chest. Hiding it from the others.

Eddie is trying to speak again but all that’s coming out are ragged gasps for air. Steve casts a look over his shoulder at Dustin and Lucas, a look that says Stay the fuck away and let me deal with this, which they seem to accept. Maybe they shouldn’t. Steve doesn’t fucking know what he’s doing.

But hey, he’s known Eddie for a pretty sizeable number of endless repeating days now, so.

“Hey, listen to me, okay? You’re okay, just breathe, just match my breathing, okay?” he says, copying everything Eddie said to him that third go-around when he woke up gasping still convinced he had Eddie’s blood on his hands.

“I’m not– fucking– fucking okay– this is– Jesus fucking– Christ, Harrington–“ But words are better than helpless panicked breaths, so Steve takes the venom in his tone as a win. “Where do you- get off, Jesus- oh god, oh– god–“

Steve puts his hands on Eddie’s knees, bare through the rips in his jeans. Eddie trembles.

“I can’t fucking– oh, god– god, fuck– I’m gonna– and why are you– why do you care, Har– Harrington–“

“Why do I care? Jesus, I just– I just do, man. I just do.” Why does he care. How does he even–

On some level, he’s been ordained by the world to care. Right? Because of the whole inevitable time loop thing. Eddie’s kind of a central pillar in his universe right now, isn’t he? So he has to care. But beyond that–

What Nancy said. The third time. About what other people aren’t expecting him to want. Maybe–

“Christ, Jesus– Jesus Christ,” Eddie gets out, but his breaths are gradually slowing. He looks at Steve mutely, eyes wide and frantic, as the panic attack tails off. Steve hasn’t moved his hands from Eddie’s knees. “Fuck, this is so–“

“It’s okay,” Steve says. “Happens to us all.”

Eddie lets out something that’s half a groan and half a whimper, and he pulls his legs up — away from Steve’s hands — and buries his face in his knees. “You really– you really didn’t need to see that,” he says, quietly.

Steve thinks about a few loops ago, about panicking on the couch and then apologising for it afterwards, and feels something turn over in his chest. “It’s okay,” he says, firmly. Gives Eddie no space to argue.

“Shit,” Eddie just says, muffled. “I keep together in the hell dimension and then lose it in the Winnebago; typical. That’s classic, isn’t it?”

Steve squeezes his knee.

Then he feels Lucas and Dustin moving behind him: “Is he okay?” Lucas whispers.

“He can hear you,” Eddie says, lifting his head and sending them a weak glare. “Go on, feast your eyes on Eddie the Banished, I’m sure he makes a pitiful sight–“ They start to protest but Eddie flings his limbs about and sighs dramatically: “No, no, I know you’re all enjoying this, your DM brought low, just waiting for your chance to swoop in and cheat the campaigns–“

“Never!” Dustin shouts, and Eddie smiles and retorts and Lucas fires back and suddenly things are normal, things are okay. Which makes Steve’s heart sink even further to his toes. Because Eddie’s been putting on this front, the whole time, losing it in between Don’t ya, big boy? and Never change and keeping up the facade he’s doing okay with it all — the facade they all keep up, Steve realises, the facade they none of them ever drop. Maybe they should just all be honest with each other, just once. All just fucking freak out together and maybe they’d feel better. And yet–

Eddie puts on the front. Eddie laughs with Dustin and Lucas. Eddie dies a few hours later.

And he does, a few hours later. As he always does.

But the next time Steve wakes up to Everybody Wants to Rule the World playing way down low, which was what woke him, he thinks, a sudden burst of it like the person putting it on didn’t know how loud it would be, he sits up and suddenly he knows. He looks at Robin and Lucas by the boombox and he knows.

“We use the boombox,” he says, when Eddie asks what the hell they’re planning on using as a distraction. “Play some fucking Tears for Fears for them. It goes loud, right, like pretty loud?”

“Loud enough? I don’t know,” Robin says, crossing her arms, frowning at him. “But equally– yeah, it’s worth a shot.”

“Tears for Fears, man? No way. You need something loud, provocative.” Eddie’s got a little grin on his face. Steve thinks about the last six times he’s died and just feels tired. Boneless and empty and tired. When does it end?

“Oh, what, like your metal garbage–”

“Garbage?” Eddie squawks, and the room dissolves into chaos. Steve is feeling increasingly like the sole voice of reason, and not only because he’s experienced all this six times before. He watches Eddie hide his shaking hands and throw himself into it all, into hotwiring the RV and hammering nails into trashcan lids and doing everything he needs to–

Steve catches him, when he goes inside for a sec, leaving everyone else still in the field. He seems calmer than before, looking at Steve with an eyebrow raised as he shakes two pills into his palm and swallows them dry.

“You okay?” Steve asks. Eddie doesn’t remember the last time Steve asked him that.

Eddie shows him the bottle. It’s Tylenol. “Nothing to worry your pretty head about, Harrington, so cool it. I’ll be high on nothing but adrenaline tonight, more’s the pity. Though I guess they never caught the Tylenol murderer, so maybe you should worry.”

Steve doesn't laugh. It is indeed nothing out of the ordinary — because Steve has a strange command of what’s ordinary, now — since Steve’s seen him disappear into the RV for ten minutes right before they drive back to the trailer park every time, now, every time out of the seven. Steve has bigger things to worry about than Eddie’s Tylenol break. (And at least it’s not drugs, real drugs. Then there might be an issue.)

“Be careful tonight, okay?” he feels compelled to say.

Eddie looks at him strangely. “Why, you going somewhere, Harrington? Last I checked, we were all going for Vecna together.”

“We are. But if it– if it goes wrong.”

He goes silent. He’s looking at the floor, at the ceiling, out the window, anywhere but at Steve. “Okay,” he says, seriously, and Steve wants to believe him but he’s believed him before and where did that get them then?

So he keeps an eye. A close eye, as they climb the staircase in the Creel house and keep their weapons close. Eddie’s Iron Maiden cassette is blasting on the boombox a way behind them, out of earshot now but hopefully still attracting the bats. They maybe should have left someone with it, to entice the bats further. Keep them interested. But Steve’s had enough of clever plans, at this point. He can’t let anyone else die. Can’t let Eddie die again either. Fuck cleverness. Fuck plans. They stay together, this time. They have to.

“Fucking hell,” Eddie lets out, when they set eyes on Vecna for the first time. Eddie’s first time. Steve’s seen him several times already.

“Let’s do this,” Robin grits out, and they do it. Molotovs and Nancy’s sawn-off shotgun. No bats — the boombox worked, and Steve finds himself making a mental note, a fucking mental note like he’s starting to assume each new loop won’t be his last — but the bats aren’t wholly the problem, are they, because there are still the vines to contend with and Vecna’s still on his twisted decaying feet, whole body turning to the side as he looks at– Eddie.

He’s looking at Eddie.

Why is he looking at Eddie?

And then a vine snakes out, even as Vecna burns, a vine snakes out and snares around Eddie’s ankle and drags him backwards, and Eddie yells in surprise and Steve drops his nail-bat to hold the fiery torch in both hands so he can lunge forward and try to stop it in its tracks as Nancy fires the shotgun again and sends Vecna down to the ground and Steve’s jabbing at the vines but they won’t let go and Eddie’s still being dragged into the shadows further, out of Steve’s reach, now, and he’s not sure how long they’re there but it’s long enough to hear the awful chimes of a cursed, deadly clock: One. Two. Three. Four.

“Four chimes,” Robin gasps.

“Max,” Nancy says, and oh. Oh. That’s the–

Not the missing piece, maybe. Steve’s missing a lot of fucking pieces. But it’s– part of it. A part of it he’d been missing. Max.

All this time he’d assumed–

He’d assumed Max was okay. He’d assumed Max was fine. That it was Eddie who was the problem, Eddie and the bats and the trailer and the–

But it’s Max too. He has to save Max too. (Yeah, because he’s doing such a fucking great job at saving–)

The vines writhe in the darkness. Steve doesn’t need to hear Eddie’s cut-short scream to know he’s gone, because the pins and needles creep up his arms from his hands and he doesn’t even try to fight the feeling, because he can do better this time. He knows it now. He can do better.

He can save Max too at least.