Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

His hand burst from the ground first.

Then dirty nails like claws, and scratched up scabby elbows clambering blindly from the soggy soil - breathless, ragged gasps heaving over, sinking into and swallowing whole the soft stillness of the lingering twilight. 

Disturbed birds fluttered, fleeting, from the tallest branches of surrounding trees as he ripped through the slimy placenta that cloaked over him thickly like curdled oil, sticky and pulling back at him as he dragged himself bodily out onto the forest floor.

His hair, long and wispy down the back of his neck from overgrowth and isolation, dripped with caustic bloody ooze. He couldn’t find it in himself to care. The taste of normal air, its crisp caress across his face like a cool balm and a welcome home was enough to make him cry.

Fuck that. He couldn't stop crying.

Wet and wretched, guttural and ugly noises wheedled out of him like a squeaky wheel of a whimper, spilling over the shakes of snotty, sputtering sobs, pausing occasionally to cough up dirt. It had caked into his teeth.

Leveraging his elbows, shoulders hitching, he hoisted the rest of his body through and scrambled backwards until his back hit solid bark.

Clammy sweat crackled itchy across his skin, sticky blood stretching thin his old and open wounds. It was warm outside, he noticed distantly. It hadn't been this warm, hadn’t been this warm at all when he—

A low whine slipped out and spilled over his lips before he could stifle the noise, hands slapping across his mouth and pushing his cheeks inward with a desperate pressure to keep quiet. 

Pure habit had his eyes scanning across the line of trees, the chirps and clicks of bugs echoing open the silent night.

He hoped they were bugs. 

His knees pulled up as he hunched as small as he could make himself, rocking gently back and forth until the familiar sharp waves of everything passed beyond him again.

They were so sharp.

It was so warm.

Sniffling softly, his gaze drifted back down. 

The hole was already closing up, dirt tumbling back into itself. 

Before long, it looked like nothing but an anthill. 

Sometimes he liked to pretend his parents practiced their parenting beforehand.

Little things, mostly, as if they cared enough to swap lines between each other and consider strategies of approach, something you might find while reading books on some child development thing, or whatever they were called. For parents that wanted to, say, develop their child.

It was indulgent, really, imagining what his parents thought about him. Or that they simply did in the first place. 

"Did you just roll your eyes at me?" 

He winced, shoulders hiking up automatically at the shrill of her tone. Because yeah, maybe he had just rolled his eyes. He was usually better at hiding it, well-practiced head ducks and eyes down like he was trained to do when her tone shifted just so. They’d rehearsed this dance well, in this big empty theater of a house and no audience. 

The familiar prickles of cold dread dripped down into his stomach as he braced himself, already knowing with a sour taste in his throat what came next. His mother was, if anything, consistent. 

"Maybe it would benefit all of us if you gave your friend from school a call.” She raised a scornful and sculpted brow the way his father did, the classical shape of a Harrington, sharp eyes vivid with satisfaction as she tilted her head and pretended to think. “What was his name again? Timmy?"

"His name is Tommy." 

His mother's lips pursed at the interruption. She was always so poised, pressed and pristine with red lips and perfect hair. If it weren't for all the little things that Steve had learned because he had to, those tiny unspoken tells, the pressure of the air around them, no one would ever suspect she was angry. 

"Well then." She sniffed. Steve bit the inside of his cheek. 

Not angry, no. This was always different. 

"Why don't you go stay with Tommy for the night, since your social life is so important to you. Our flight leaves in the morning. We expect the house to be as clean as we left it. But if we get another call from the Hawkins police, Steven—" her lip curled, her words low," —you will not be living here when we get back."

And being his mother's son, Steve saw a bit of red.

Petulant and blinding, long and hot and stubborn enough to burn through his brain as he stormed up the stairs to pack a bag He hardly noticed which shirts and pants and underwear and socks he shoved into the small duffle, stomping towards the bathroom and swiping at his toiletries in a rage, taking his mom's Farah spray just to spite her.

He pocketed his lighter, hoping Tommy had scored some weed over the weekend. He needed something, anything, to uncoil the burning tightness that had blossomed up in his chest like a mushroom cloud of smoke, to slow it down before it climbed up any further into his eyes. 

As he zipped up the duffle and slid on his letterman, final sediments settling down at the bottom of himself like dust in water, he imagined pausing at the door before he left and apologizing. Maybe he could say something that  might – 

By the time he was downstairs, she had already gone into her room and closed the door.

Lopsided footprints of grime and viscera trailed behind him down the sidewalk, wobbling precariously, both his feet and the prints left behind, streaking mysterious ooze and glistening red across the concrete. 

It was a blessing that it was still dark outside. He didn’t want to see anyone, didn’t want to be seen. Things didn’t feel entirely real, and he knew he looked like something the average Loch Norian wouldn’t hesitate to call the cops about. 

He blinked wearily at street signs, trying to remember where he lived and how to get there.

Everything ached. The air – clean and clear for the first time in who knows how long – had been soothing until it wasn’t. Now sweat stung vindictively along the cracks of his broken flesh.

By dawn, and the grace of something he stopped calling god, he managed to find his old house. The sun – how had he lived without it for so long he didn’t want to know, never wanted to find out again – was rising just in time for Steve to catch the For Sale sign shoved into the grass next to their mailbox.

His eyes lingered on it for a moment, unfocusing. Then he turned to limp the rest of the way to the front door. 

No cars were around, in the street or the driveway, but the spare key was still under the mat. 

Tiny sweat droplets of exertion decorated the concrete as he hunched down to pick it up. He wheezed, nearly keeling over right there on the porch, before gently shouldering the door open to slip inside.

It was the carpet he noticed first, greeting him softly with a familiar welcome home between his toes. Echoes of final words bubbled in his head, bursting with gas as he took another slow, disbelieving look around and headed straight towards the kitchen. 

The cold contempt of his mother's voice followed him as he ripped into the pantry and grabbed the first thing he could touch.

It was probably the most stale loaf he’d ever eaten but he couldn’t find it in himself to care. Bread had never tasted so good, melting on his tongue the way normal, real food was supposed to.

The mindless hunger he had spent so long training silent roared to life within him, clawing violently at the bars of his ribcage as he shoved another slice into his mouth.

He chewed only when he had to, tears streamed down his face. More snot. He couldn't breathe, gasping, swallowing, weeping, as the everything of it all started to catch up to him again, swelling in his tired throat, already raw from screaming. 

Then he found the peanut butter.

Chapter Text

He fell asleep.

Conked out harder than he meant to, waking with a jerk of sticky hands right there in the pantry, his face streaked with tears and peanut butter. 

He left the mess. Made a wincing ascent up the stairs and climbed like a child into the shower. 

Water — hot, steaming, normal water — ran black and red for a long time. 

He stared down at the swirl of wet dirt and blood as it melted off him, a merky rebaptism back into the plumbing of civilization. 

Eyes unfocused, vision blurring till it fish-bowled.

He reached for the shampoo, open skin stinging like gravity as he lathered his hair one hand at a time.

Hot steam filled the space, fogged the mirror. Hotter tears slipped down Steve's face. A peak of another hot wave swelled deep and alive in his chest.

He turned the knob as high as it could go and let it burn, knees unlocking as he sank to the porcelain floor of the shower and curled up as small as he could make himself.

He let the scalding water rain down the back of his neck, down his spine, a river of whatever was left of him carried gently down the drain along with everything else.

He couldn’t tell which half had been a dream.

Steve had never hit a deer in his life, but. But. He was fairly certain they weren’t supposed to be so big.

He'd swerved with more grace than he knew he had, really, if he had time to give himself some credit. The panic of squealing tires on asphalt, hands loose and shaking, helpless against the spinning pull of the wheel. 

He'd only caught a glimpse, and. It didn't look — it didn't look good.

Part of him screamed to stay in the car. Part of him wanted to, wanted to —

The daze hadn’t faded by the time he left the shower.

He layered himself with old sweats, thick cotton and soft socks that allowed new heat to breathe. Then he set to turning his bed into a nest of pillows and blankets.

He was sifting through their dusty trunk of heavy quilts in the living room, the quiet comforting smell of old wood and cool fabric between his fingers, when the slow blinking of the answering machine caught his eye. 

Before he could think twice, he pressed play.

His fingers curled nervously around the straps of his duffle in the passenger seat, heart threatening to leap up his throat and run off without him. The curdling dread in his stomach sat heavily, nauseous, and —

A snapping of twigs crackled somewhere in the dark.

The damp night air caught in his throat, had him swallowing down reflexively around gripping jaws of panic as he eyed the tree-line.

There was something on his side of the car. 

There were worse things in the world than repeating your junior year. Steve could think of a lot of them now. 

“…until the end of the summer…” 

His father liked to cut to the point. It could be refreshing sometimes, the simplicity. 

“…hope that running off was worth it.”

But it was more time than Steve had expected from them, really. 

Chapter Text

“Eddie. Eddie. Eddie.” 

She poked her peachy pink painted toe into his cheek, until crusty eyes creaked open, clumsy hands pulling up to swipe at the drool dripping from the side of his mouth. A low groaning of a whine rumbled awake in his chest.

He blinked wearily and gave her a sleepy, withered look. She narrowed hers back, unmoved but for a pulled corner of a smile.

“You promised.”

That made him huff. Because he did promise, and little Eleanor – bless her – had a brain like an elephant. 

She’d propped her tiny fists up on her hips like Wayne whenever he tried to put his foot down. That made him smile, dammit.

He smushed his face back into the pillows, huffed again between the strands of hair in his mouth, before pushing up to waddle drearily to the bathroom.

She followed as close as she could, a little duckling bouncing on the balls of her feet and clutching a rolled up comic book. She was already dressed, an old hand-me-down flannel with sleeves folded into the curve of her elbows and messy curls everywhere. 

They looked more related than he and Wayne did, bouncing dimples and all.

He liked that.

She did too. 

Wayne and Benny had known each other for forever. It came in handy on early mornings, before the diner officially opened.

They liked to reclaim their time over the satisfying smells of bacon grease, catch up over a communion of good food and steaming cups of black coffee. It made the air hearthy; time dripped like warm maple and let the sun slowly stretch awake.

Eddie soaked it in, spread out the bones of his latest project across one of the booths under a window, the peaceful quiet framed by soothing mumbles of his uncles behind the counter.

He was hunched over loose sheets of notebook paper, lost in the comforting concentrations of campaign, when a crash in the back kitchen had him yelping startled with a jerk. His pen slid, a streak of black divoting hard across the page. 

The rumbling conversation went silent.

Eddie’s skin began to prickle. 

He capped his pen. Climbed quietly out of the booth, careful to keep his footsteps light lest they squeak against linoleum.

Before his better judgement could catch up with him, he stood quietly in the little kitchen doorway and poked his head inside.

Benny and Wayne stared in shock, unusually quiet, at a small child.

Wearing nothing but a hospital gown, shivering and barefoot and curled in on herself, she stared back with shining terrified eyes and hunched defensive like a wild animal. Her hair was buzzed so thin that Eddie could see her scalp.

Goosebumps crawled up the back of his neck, remembering what that felt like.

She bubbled in the passenger seat the entire ride to the arcade, dimpled grin and eyes dancing as they drove out the trailer park and down the road.

Her hands jittered just like his did, tapped against her knees to the raspy beat of drums as they blasted from the speaker.  

He couldn’t stop his smile. Especially when she caught it and beamed back with crinkled eyes of sunshine and delight. 

He liked having a little sister.

Benny and Wayne shared a look, but Wayne spoke first.

“Hey, kid.”

He kept his voice soft and slow as he took a knee, just like he had when Eddie first moved in.

She stared, frozen, wary eyes wide like a cartoon.

“You hungry?”

That made her blink.

Her gaze drifted towards the sizzling sounds of the stove.

Benny shuffled the sausages around with a spatula as nonchalant as one could shuffle sausages.

After a long moment, she answered with a tiny jerk of a nod. 

Eddie scrambled back to his booth, shoved his papers away to make room for her.

Before long Benny had them set up with a tall stack of waffles, fresh and hot.

Eddie took it upon himself to dig in.

He tried not to look over at her. Tried not to spook her as he shred pieces of doughy waffle apart with his fingers, dragged them through a generous river of syrup and shoved them unceremoniously into his mouth. 

When he caught her staring, he beamed back a wide grin of chewed up waffle.

She blinked at him. Turned towards her plate like a baby deer.

Slowly, with tiny hands, she picked up a waffle.

Chapter Text

He was so hungry. So cold, so alone, and so very hungry. 

It had become hard to tell how many days it had been. There was no sun. 

He’d huddled here as long as he could, hunched and hidden. Had hoped someone would find him soon. Hoped someone would have found him by now.

This fucking house had become much too big for comfort. He couldn't stop checking over his shoulder, cold blood running and pounding in his ears, kept expecting that thing to find him again.

This wasn’t really his house, he knew that. He did.

As dark and cold as his real house was, this one was darker and colder, mildew bubbling up pockets of air from underneath the damp wallpaper. Vines crawled across and into any open cracks or crevices it could find as if it were alive.

Alive and aware, every now and again releasing a burst of dusty spores that smelled of sulfur.

He’d searched around for a bandana to tie around his face. Didn’t want that shit anywhere near his mouth. 

He gave one last look at the bare shelves of his — not his, he knew that, he did — pantry. Clutched the duffle bag to his chest and tried to still his racing heart.

The cans had gone fast. It was a miracle they’d been edible to begin with. 

He slid the can opener into the side pocket of his bag, eyes searching for anything else that might be useful.

It helped keep the panic at bay. The loneliness. His hunger too.

He hadn’t managed to unlock the gun from his dad's safe.

Had wrapped the kitchen knives in a damp and musky dish towel instead, and clung to the fading hope he wouldn't need them.

He'd let himself do that for now.

Swept the rest of the stale water bottles he hadn’t already guzzled into the remaining space of his bag, made an active effort not to think about how thirsty he was and went out into the garage. 

His old baseball bat was propped up exactly where he left it years ago, stained and rotten from this fucking hell dimension

His eyes caught the box of nails on the back work table, the one his dad never used but liked to pretend that he did.

He got an idea.

Melvald’s still smelled the same. Like a grandparent in an old memory. It was nice.

He kept his head down.

Let his hair fall over his eyes to more easily, effectively ignore the questioning looks and burning glances that followed him down the aisles.

Picked out what he needed. Counted change in his hand as he approached the register. One thing about hell, everything had been free.

Ms. Byers was working today. Her eyes blinked a split second of surprise, before a kind smile stretched open and covered the concerned wrinkle between her brows.

Her offered a small nod, the corners of his lips turning up as best as he could manage, and quickly ducked out the store. 

The monsters of hell had weaknesses, thank fuck. 

Had to use both hands to thrust the bat deeper into its chest, no time to adjust his grip as it jerked and shuddered through the wood beneath his hands.

It whined and wheezed, but he wouldn’t, couldn’t, fall for that again.

His arms burned, muscles already strained, shoulder bleeding and sticking to his shirt as he moved. Gray flesh squelched as he yanked his bat free, let the mass of dead matter flop to the ground with a dull thud  

Gave it an extra nudge with the toe of his sneaker for good measure, then sat down next to it to catch his breath. 

He was so hungry. Even dead monster didn’t smell so bad anymore.

Chapter Text

Benny got maybe two words out about calling someone before the kid freaked the fuck out. 

Only had to mention “bad men” once before Wayne got that look in his eye. The same look from when Eddie had begged to not be sent back to his dad.

The look that said the case was closed.

Before they knew it, she was sandwiched between the two of them as they drove as inconspicuously as possible back to Forest Hills.

He set to clearing his room up for her. It seemed like the obvious thing to do.

She stood in the doorway for only a moment, watching him as he flustered, before she started helping him— picking up books and pencils, following with her eyes and putting things away in the same places he did. 

When she didn’t know where something went, she would look to Eddie with a big, round, earnest look, and hold out whatever it was with her hands.

His heart fucking melted.

Nancy lingered in the hallway.

Barb had headed to class, making it very clear that being this hung up on a boy was not like her. That she could do way better than this one. That being late for class because of him was very much not worth it. And Nancy knew that. She did.

Tommy had snorted when she'd asked him where Steve was that morning, blowing her off and making some stupid joke about Chicago in the same breath, and had left it at that.

He’d said it loud enough that by lunch, everyone had grown their own opinions about Steve Harrington running off to the big city.

Barb was patient enough to drive by his house after school.

They passed by an empty driveway.

The lights were off.

No one was home.

Dustin was up in arms about Dig Dug. Mike and Will were distracted by the curly haired siblings that just came in.

He saw her red hair first. Outside popping wheelies, or whatever they were called. He thought it was cool.

They moved to the back lot for more space, and she — Max, she relented — finally offered to let him try.

It happened so suddenly —

“Billy!” She screamed. 

Billy gripped him by the collar, pushed up painfully against the rough brick of the back wall, spitting mad and yelling in his face. The grip on his shirt lifted him up onto his toes.

His heart pounded, face hot and ready to be hit. He’d never —

The fist holding him up went slack.

Lucas opened his eyes, breathing shaky, to find Billy on the ground.

Steve Harrington loomed over him, murmuring something to him that Lucas couldn’t hear. 

Max seemed to be able to though, and she squinted.

He didn’t know anything about Steve Harrington except from Mike. Mike, who  swore up and down that Steve Harrington was just a dumb jock who had skipped town last year.

For whatever reason, no one knew for sure, but probably for some other girl since he had ditched Nancy to do it.

That his hair was stupid. And that he was, in general terms, an idiot.

Whatever he'd said to Billy had him sneering as he picked himself up.

Lucas tensed, queasy.

But Billy just stormed off, nothing but a final glare towards Max. She glared back.

Lucas couldn’t breathe, couldn’t look away until he was gone.

Then he looked back.

Steve Harrington’s face was blank, eyes hollow and foggy.

Lucas took a step back before even realizing he had.

If Steve Harrington noticed, he didn’t mention it. Just blinked back down to earth with nothing but a subtle flinch.

His cloudy gaze drew towards them slowly. 

“You guys okay?”

His voice was quiet, raspy like he hadn’t spoken in a long time. 

They nodded.

He nodded back, mostly to himself.

Then he turned, Melvald’s bag swinging to the movement, and walked off without another word.

They stared as he trekked him down the street, then shared a look.

Mike and Dustin were never going to believe him.

Chapter Text

Hopper sat back, eyeing the dark clouds through his windshield. It was going to rain soon. 

Someone had called about an abandoned car. He figured he could check it out, call a tow, and head home before it started pouring.

But when he pulled up to where it had been reported, there was nothing there.

Lines of tire marks streaked across asphalt, swerving into dirt off the shoulder of the road. But no car. 

Hopper rolled his eyes, switched gears, and drove off. 

He’d checked under the mat for a spare key out of habit, not really expecting to find one, but like everything else here, a rusty, mildewed version was right where his neighbors had left theirs. 

Steve stared at it until his eyes burned, vision blurring, before picking it up. He ignored how cold and sticky it was and set to unlocking the front door as quickly as possible and slipping inside.

The house was both exactly the same as his own and completely different. Picture frames stretched up the stairs, vines curling around them and further up the sweaty wallpaper. 

He made an effort not to look at the people in the photos, happy families and holidays, and made his way to the kitchen for an inventory. 

There wasn’t much, but he collected what he could find into a pile in the center of the room. 

Cans, some blankets, anything that he could eventually use. He didn’t want to ever come back here.

He wasn’t sure where he was going to go, but staying here made his skin feel too tight, his limbs numb. Silent tears slipped down his face before he’d even realized he started crying again.

He lugged his new supplies out into the musty street, the sky dark and looming above him, before starting on the next house. More cans, some water, maybe a thing of gasoline in the garage if he was lucky. 

More picture frames along the wall, happy smiles and eyes that seemed to follow him. His skin grew tighter, his eyes pained as he raided another pantry. 

Most things were already mold ridden and rotting, but Steve lowered his standards and picked through what he could. 

He’d found a wagon in one of the backyards, slimy and gross but with all four wheels intact, so it would have to do. He wiped it down with a less slimy and gross wash cloth, and piled his bounty inside.

Eddie — which was short for Theodore, he told her, but he liked to be called Eddie — was very good at telling stories. His voice could change to fit any character — because that’s what people in stories were called, he’d said — and he always knew when to pause for “dramatic effect”. 

Eleanor — Eddie had helped her pick that one, and she liked how it sounded when Wayne said it, Ellie and Eddie, Eddie and Ellie — was learning a lot of new words. Eddie was a good teacher.

He liked to read, and now Eleanor liked to read, and they were going to finish reading the hobbit book if it killed them. 

That had been a joke, Eddie explained. It just meant that they were determined.

Chapter Text

Steve stared up at his house from where he safely stood in the international waters of the street, his fingers twitching around the canister handle.

His wagon overflowed with scavenged, stolen loot, squealing with strain when he walked too fast. He tried to ignore the liability that was.

His thoughts drifted to Tommy and Carol.

What they could be doing right now.

Nancy, and her friend.

What was her name again? 

Barbara. Yeah.

Barb.

He wondered if they were looking for him. Wondered if anyone was. 

His parents probably weren’t. 

Those feelings he had no words for, the ones he’d managed to keep at bay, flared swollen under his skin. 

His parents. 

He wished he could imagine a scenario where he was rescued.

Where he’d wake up from this fucking nightmare.

In some hospital bed or something.

His mother holding his hand. Brushing his hair back from his forehead like he’d always wished she would.

He tried to imagine her lips pursed with worry, his dad’s brow furrowed in concern.

Them asking him what happened.

Apologizing for not finding him sooner.

Promising they wouldn’t leave again. 

Before he even knew his feet were moving, he was rushing up to the porch and dousing his front door. 

He didn’t stop there, no.

The rush of cold catharsis had spiked his veins.

He crossed into the neighbor's yard.

Anointed the porch. Then hopped over to the next house.

Another round down the street and back up the other side. His hands shook, gasoline sharp and tangy in the air.

It smelled like home.

His chest hitched, aching sobs stuttering hiccups from his chest as he pulled out his lighter.

It burned fast.

Warm, hearthy flames against his face, roaring vibrations layered over and smothering .

Tears streamed down as clouds of smoke plumed upward.

He watched in enraptured and shattering fragments, as rotten wood and other looming reminders of his own disappointing and childish expectations were consumed.

It was a ravenous swelling feast of inferno, that left nothing but ash and still dissatisfied climbed across to the next roof to gorge itself on another empty husk of a home.

Something snapped within him, and he hunched over to hug his stomach.

Everything was tinged around the edges, distorted blues and aching despair.

He screamed until his voice broke.

Eddie shot awake in a panic at the sound of Ellie’s screams.

She was still asleep, face wet with tears and screwed up like she was in pain.

He went to her, sleep forgotten. Took her hand and brushed sweaty curls off her forehead. 

“Eleanor,” he murmured softly, soothingly. “It’s okay. You’re okay.  You’re safe. You’re safe, Ellie.”

She jerked awake. Eyes frantic until she found Eddie’s.

Then she remembered where she was, and promptly burst into tears. 

He didn’t hesitate to pull her into his arms, wrapped up in the heavy, faded quilt they’d just pulled from storage, gently rocking back and forth like his mom used to before she couldn’t anymore.

Ellie tucked her face into his shoulder, breathing in the fabric of his thick flannel pajama shirt.

It took a while for them to settle back down, but soggy with tears and bone tired, they managed to fall back asleep.

Chapter Text

Max waited a few days before going back to the arcade.

Left early with her skateboard, made sure to latch the door on the way out. Strategically walked the first block or two before jumping on her board and kicking off to a slow roll.

She just wanted to make sure she was still the highest score at Dig Dug.

If she happened to see Lucas there, then that would be fine too.

But he and the other nerds and their bikes weren’t in the parking lot when she rolled up to the curb.

If she caught herself looking around for them, that was no one’s business but her own. 

Whatever. 

She got six figures deep into another stupid Dig Dug game when she felt a presence looming over her shoulder.

During a level up cut-scene, she glanced over. 

The girl was a mess of curls and definitely standing too close. But her eyes were laser focused on the screen instead of Max, so the snarky remark dissolved off the tip of her tongue. 

She looked back to the screen too late and died.

That was fine. She'd still beaten her old high score.

“Are you...Max?” The girl asked over her shoulder, reading the name at the top of the game’s score list.

Max was in a good mood. 

“Yeah.” She smiled.

The girl smiled back.

He left before the fire stopped raging, eyes wet and swollen as they eyed the horizon for movement. He wanted more than anything to lay down.

Walking slowly down the sidewalk, he pulled the wagon behind him and tried his best to stop crying.

It would be stupid to attract more monsters than he already had.

His bat was within easy reach, but. He didn’t know if he could hold his own right now.

To distract himself from the hitch in his shoulders, he made a semblance of a plan. 

Somewhere safe, obviously.

Small was best.

Small and secure and, and.

Steve didn’t know. Supplied?

He had supplies.

Supplies were good. 

He shuddered again and kept walking.

Eddie had been so delighted that Ellie made a friend, he'd driven halfway home before realizing.

“Hey, uh,” he glanced back at his sister and this Max girl through his rearview, “You don’t by any chance, uh, work for the government, do you?”

If looks could kill, she'd have burned him alive. 

“You’re the one taking me home in your van. Should I be worried?”

She had him there.

Ellie looked like she was having the time of her life, though.

So Eddie just shut up, and turned on the radio.

He wasn’t sure how long he’d been walking, but he'd found a spot. 

A bit dinky, the trailer, but cozy. And far, far away from Loch Nora. 

He carried all the supplies through the door, then after a second thought picked up the wagon to bring inside too. 

The carpet was mildewed, but it didn’t matter.

He went all the way into the back, into the one small bedroom, and began to build a nest. 

He was grateful he’d brought so many blankets — dusty as they were. He layered them over each other and spread them out, stacked semi-moldy pillows into the corner. 

He had some tools with him, scavenged from old sheds and garages along the way.

The plan — he had one, now, even if it wasn’t as good as something Nancy could have come up with — was to board up the walls, build some sort of fortress that might help him feel safe enough to sleep. 

He was already so tired. 

Chapter Text

Eddie endured the tornado of the two girls as they created two piles out of his comic books. 

One was for, as Max had explained it, the  “ones that were a waste of paper.” The other was for “ones that were okay.”

Ellie’s eyes were intense, flipping through his comics with a serious focus.

And then somberly placing most of them in “waste of paper”.

They’d grown bored of that after a while, not because making fun of Eddie grew any less fun, but because all of his comics were about dungeons and dragons, and Max was loud about how there were barely any girls.

Ellie nodded along with a disappointed look, so Eddie just shut up.

Max was showing Ellie skateboard tricks outside now, and Eddie used the excuse of his guitar needing a tune-up to watch them from the porch.

Just in case someone knocked their teeth out, or something. 

He forced himself to take a trip to the junk yard.

Didn’t know where else to find scrap metal, and he was definitely going to run out of wooden boards before he finished securing the trailer. 

He took the wagon, piled into it whatever metal plates or tire rims, sheets of anything that would work.

He would have to get creative.

There weren’t a lot of options, and he knew he wasn’t very smart.  

Propping them up along the front walls of the trailer, he looked around.

A lot of the branches around were too thick and heavy to do much with, but maybe…

He shook the hair out of his eyes, decided what the hell, and started gathering them all together.

If the kitchen ones didn’t work, he was sure he could find a pocketknife around here somewhere. 

And spikes sounded kind of cool.

Max had been about to fall on her face, probably knock her teeth out or something, and then she wasn't.

No.

She landed softly on her stomach with an oof, dust kicking up around her.

She wasn't crazy — no matter how many times Billy had said so — but for a splinter of a second she could have sworn she floated. 

Pushing up onto her palms, she blinked dust out of her eyes and looked around.

Eleanor was frozen in place, staring at her with wide and watery eyes.

A trickle of blood dripped from her nose.

Her eyes drifted towards Eddie.

He’d stopped twinging his guitar, nostrils flared and posture frozen.

After a moment, he caught himself. Looked back at them quietly, and took a breath.

"I...we should probably go inside."

Chapter Text

Steve kept zoning out, his eyes glued to the floral wallpaper above Nancy’s head. 

She was drunk, glaring at him as he struggled to focus on her biting words.

He’d raided this bathroom before. 

Burned this house down, too.

“-...months , Steve. No warning, no call.  Everybody was saying that you just– ”

He didn’t know why he’s even come to this party. 

Hadn’t spoken to anyone since he…got back. 

Never knew what to say. Time passed more quickly here.

By the time he blinked the moment had passed, and they were already walking away feeling pissed off and ignored. 

Everything felt stupid. Trivial. Drinking, drama.

It was funny, in a distant and empty sort of way.

It was warm here, though.

And there were people. 

Drunk and mean, but real life people. He wouldn’t — couldn’t — take that for granted again.

“...a-and then you come back, and still no call, not a word, you just walk into school like nothing had even– that you hadn’t even-”

He winced.

She was right, though. He hadn’t said anything. Didn’t know how.

She wouldn’t believe him anyway. No one would.

“…fucking bullshit. You’re fucking bullshit.”

He closed his eyes, took a breath. 

She was right, but. It still hurt.

He blinked dumbly at Ellie, eyes drifting back down to where she pointed.

“Come again?”

Side by side on their bellies, feet kicked up in the air. Wind blew through the torn screen of the small window as they hunched over his comics.

Ellie huffed, and just pointed again more emphatically at one of the illustrations on the page.

He squinted.

A sorcerer stood tall, outstretched arms in the middle of a battle scene. Surrounded by a tornado of chaos, blood and bodies of enemies, lines of purple magic drawn like lightning from his hands.

“That.” She stressed again.

“I can do that.”

He was having trouble taking her seriously, but that only seemed to royally piss her off. 

She’d always been on the intense side, learning words but feeling normal emotions just as strongly as anyone else. 

Not being able to communicate was hard enough when you did have the vocabulary to express it. 

Eddie was still trying to convince Wayne to let him take her to the library.

He said it was too soon. To let her hair grow out a little more.

He’d sat down with Ellie early on, once she had settled enough and started to trust them.

Eddie hadn’t caught all of it. From what he did understand, though, was enough to not want details. 

Thinking about it made him a bit sick. More than anything else he could give her, she needed normalcy.

“That, Eddie.”

She sat up, still pointing.

“Magic?” He asked slowly, still confused.

She made a face.

“I… don’t know.”

Her lips twisted and tilted her head.

“Maybe.”

A moment passed, both of them staring at each other, and then she seemed to make a decision.

Ellie took a deep breath, and held an open palm out towards his dresser.

Every time Nancy talked Barb into coming to a party, she ended up regretting it. 

The punch was disgusting, it was way too crowded, and everyone here was too stupid to hold an actual conversation, and that sucked. What else were you supposed to do at parties? 

She’d gone into the backyard for some peace and quiet. Eddie Munson stood his post in the corner of the yard, a short line of people waiting to buy drugs, or something. 

Barb didn’t do drugs. 

Maybe she would, or would try them once at least, if she had anyone to do them with. But Nancy liked to wander at parties, and no one asked Barb anyway. 

Because she looked like she didn’t do drugs.

The sky was a pretty shade of twilight, a sort of stillness in the cold open air that melted the tension Barb hadn’t realized had been building in her shoulders. She hated parties, but this was kind of nice. 

“Hey, Barbara.” 

She jumped at the raspy, quiet voice that had snuck up behind her, and set her face back into a bored scowl before turning around.

Steve Harrington stood in front of her. He looked gaunt, bony shoulders halfway curled into himself. The shadows under his eyes were deep, his eyes themselves red and swollen as if he’d been crying.

Except his cheeks were wet, as if he were still crying. 

He cracked out an attempt of a broken smile, eyes lowered.

“Um. Hi. Can you-” 

His words were hoarse and hesitant, cracking like he was in middle school. 

Barb had never seen Steve Harrington like this. Had never imagined him like this. 

“Nancy, um. She’s upstairs. And- um.” 

His breath was starting to hitch again as he stared at the ground. “I think she could use your help.”

A plethora of snark retorts came to mind, but the pale and shivering ghost of Harrington in front of her had her hesitating. 

She didn’t know why Harrington had run off to Chicago but she hadn’t been surprised. 

He was always basking in popularity, it was only a matter of time before he grew bored and wanted bigger and better attention. 

Barb was only glad that Nancy hadn’t been as heartbroken as she could have been. 

Blinking back at this weird new version of Harrington, she wondered if he had gotten what he wanted. 

He flinched, almost imperceptibly, as she passed him to go back into the house and upstairs to check on Nancy. 

She tried not to wonder about what the hell had happened to Steve Harrington.

Tried to ignore how that wonder had shaped itself into worry.

Chapter Text

They stood and stared at what was left of his cat.

The trash bag and mop were heavy in his hands.

Dustin glanced back towards Lucas, who cleared his throat, eyes still wide.

“We need a plan.”

He layered the bottom of the broken sink with strips of chopped up wood and bits of coal he’d found in a bag in Loch Nora.

The axe he’d found behind one of the trailers near the trees.

Got a small, smoldering fire going somehow.

Covered the sink with a grated shelf from the oven. 

He tried to focus only on his movements as he grilled.

Didn’t want to think too hard about what he was doing.

Could puncture a hole in the ceiling to release the smoke, but he wasn’t sure he’d be able to patch it up if he needed to. 

The last thing those fucks needed was another point of entry.

So smoke filled the trailer, swirling and circling like a fucked up hot box.

Steve only cared that it was warm. 

Maybe the smell of smoked monster would keep them away. They didn’t like fire, after all. 

He blinked awake with a jerk, immediately on high alert.

The handles rattled.

And then someone was knocking — no, banging.

Someone was banging on the metal doors.

Trying to get in. 

He approached the front slowly, hesitating, before he reached to unlock the —

Two middle schoolers burst through, heavy breathing and scrambling to shove the doors closed behind them.

Steve blinked.

Was he still dreaming?

And then something slammed hard into the bus.

The walls shook.

The sheets he’d hung up swayed with the movement. 

The two kids hadn’t noticed him, too busy smooshing their faces into the glass panes of the door, trying catch a glimpse of whatever the fuck had been chasing them.

Whatever the fuck had been —

He froze.

Because he knew that smell. 

That —

He closed his eyes. Took a deep breath, and went to go grab his bat. 

Tapped one of their shoulders — the curly haired kid, he was closest — to tell them to let him through.

They turned, took one look at him, and began to scream. 

“What the - who the hell are -”

“Who are - oh my god, are you -”

“Steve Harrington? How the - What the hell are you -”

“I told you!” The other kid started slapping the first kid’s shoulder, “I told you we saw him! You assholes didn’t believe me!”

The first kid just rolled his eyes. “Oh please, you won’t shut up about you and that girl - ” 

Steve couldn’t keep up.

The thing outside slammed against the doors again, and their squabbling faded.

They stared up at him with big eyes, scared, stubborn, stiff upper lips.

And then their gaze drifted down to the bat in his hands.

They widened even more, before once again beginning to scream.

“Oh my god, oh my god. Oh my god, oh my god - “

“Please don’t kill us. Holy shit. Please? Please. We didn’t mean to - “

Steve cleared his dry throat to cut them off. 

“Uh.”

He didn’t know how to talk to people anymore. 

“I’m gonna — uh, open the door. You should,” he cleared his throat again, “You should probably get back.”

His voice rasped. He didn’t know how to fix that. 

The shrimps didn’t seem to care though, still eyeing on the bat in his hands as they scrambled towards the back of the bus, towards his nest of scavenged pillows and blankets.

He tried to ignore the faint tightening of his chest at them in his space, and just closed the doors behind him.

Two metal buckets of raw meat lay tipped over and scattered.

Three monsters sniffed at it, curious, but finding it too dead to be appetizing. 

He tensed.

And ducked just in time for the monster closest to the bus to jump at him, inches above his head.

It landed a few feet away, slid a little in the dry dirt of the junk yard, before turning quickly to face him.

It paused, almost ready to pounce.

Then it stopped. 

Steve’s eyes were glued to the monster as it started to sniff the air. 

Bending its head towards the ground, it kept sniffing, following something with his nose like a dog, until he came up to the tip of Steve’s shoe. 

He didn’t back away.

And then the monster ran off, making strange noises to the other monsters that had come to circle around them, and disappearing with them into the trees. He watched them go, the handle of his bat loose in his hands. 

“What the hell was that?”

He turned to find that the two shrimps pressing their faces flat against the windows.

He shrugged, but they weren’t satisfied.

They spilled out of the bus, rapid questions firing off and over each other, but Steve didn’t answer.

He just got back into the bus, and put his bat away.

They followed him, arms crossed and stubborn chins and very much refusing to leave. 

Steve sighed and laid back onto his stolen pillows, shrugging at them again and trying to find his words. 

He figured, even if they told someone, no one would believe them anyway. 

Chapter Text

Hopper sat back in the booth with a sigh. Joyce had gotten there early, which wasn’t like her. Or maybe he was just especially late.

Benny brought over some coffee, and they waited until he was back behind the counter before speaking . 

Joyce spread out the prints across the table with one hand, looking over the rim of her mug as she took a scalding sip with the other. Her brows furrowed, confused.

“A blight?” She asked. He shrugged.

“Looks like it.”

“Hmm.” Her fingers traced over a rotting pumpkin. Her nails were unpolished, but trimmed neatly. She wasn’t wearing any rings

Hopper rubbed over the lower half of his face, and sighed.

“Wright’s already talking about selling. McCorkle’s not too far from being convinced either.” 

Joyce looked up at him with raised eyebrows. Hopper chewed on the inside of his cheek.

“Can't figure why Hawkin’s Electric is so interested in buying it, though. Seems…weird.”

Barb fidgeted, pine straw crunching as she shifted her weight from one foot to the other. 

Eddie Munson didn’t seem half as nervous, accustomed to illegal activities on school grounds or something. His hair fell like a curtain as he hunched over the picnic table and rifled through his metal lunch box, chewing on some long piece of grass in the corner of his mouth. 

Barb couldn’t help but scrunch her nose at that, thinking of pesticides. Gross.

“Aha!” He brandished a tiny ziplock bag of what he had called ‘pre-rolls’ before looking back up at her through his curls.

“How many?”

And fuck. Barb hadn’t thought that far.

“Nancy - “ 

Nancy shrugged off the hand on her shoulder, threw another glare back at Barb and stumbled slightly on the stairs.

“Jesus Christ, stop treating me like a child.”

“Nance,” she tried again, sighing. “We should probably go - ”

But Nancy had already walked away, turning left into the kitchen instead of towards the front door,  scooping more punch and throwing it back like it didn’t taste like cherry fucking battery acid.

Barb sighed, and followed after her. 

She really hadn’t wanted to come to this party. 

Could be curled up at home right now, popcorn and movies and whatever candy her parents had bought for trick-or-treaters. Or even better, she could have gotten paid to babysit actual children instead of whatever this was with her drunk best friend. 

Nancy melted into the crowd of dancing teenagers. Barb looked around for somewhere to sit, feeling both very young and incredibly old at the same time.

Max dumped her comic books across her bed and used both hands to spread them all out.

“Okay, so.” She straightened up and looked back at Eleanor, whose eyes had grown round at the covers. “Some of these are a little different. Super strength and, like. Flying.”

She grabbed one and flipped through it, showing the other girl. “But I think what yours is called is…” She finds the right pages, placing her finger down on the word she was looking for, “...telekinesis.”

The word made Eleanor tense for a moment.

“Telekinesis.” She sounded it out, before grimacing and shaking her head.

“Magic.”

Max looked back at her for a moment, and then down at the comic in her hands. She closed it, nodding.

“Okay. Magic.”

“You’re absolutely right.” 

“I…am?” 

“Yeah. I don’t believe you.” Mike’s snide tone always went a little nasally when he sneered like that. 

Lucas threw his hands up in the air.

“I’m telling the truth, though!”

Mike rolled his eyes. Dustin hadn’t even looked up from his character sheet, mouthing numbers like he was doing math in his head. Will’s eyes swung between Mike and Lucas like he was watching a tennis match, but Lucas already knew what side he would take.

He crossed his arms and slouched back in his chair with a huff. 

“Fine! Don’t believe me. But there’s something going on with Steve Harrington and when you guys are the last to find out, don’t come crying to me!”

Mike just rolled his eyes again.

Rushing out the double doors, she was so, so glad the punch bowl hadn’t shattered. That would’ve made things a million times worse. 

She huffed and wiped at her cheeks, trying and failing to keep that awful feeling from spilling over in her chest more than it already was. The parking lot air was cold against the back of her neck. 

A wet laugh bubbled out of her chest. 

She’d chopped her hair off. She’d crashed her dad’s car. Operation Croissant was a dumpster fire. She was losing her mind.

“Robin?”

She jumped, spinning around. 

“Jesus Christ!”

Barb stood next to her car, the door open and one foot on the ground like she’d just hopped out. She was dressed in loose jeans and a sweatshirt, concern and confusion painted on her face. Robin gave a wet huff.

“What do you want?”

Barb’s face twisted, her eyes tracing back and forth between Robin’s red face and the car she’d crashed just moments ago, mouth opening and closing as if she was still figuring out what to say.

“Do you… need a ride?”

And Robin. Couldn’t take much more right now. Her eyes were heating up again, the snotty kind of burning that wouldn’t fade so much as break open. 

And of course it had to be Barb that found her like this. 

Robin sniffled, and climbed into the passenger seat.

Chapter Text

Any curiosity about where he had gone went sour after the first few months of being “the girl King Steve skipped town to get away from.” 

Tommy and Carol had been loud. If they missed Harrington, they took it out on Nancy. 

Her shoulders were tense and ready, knuckles tight around her lunch tray. She all but stomped through the cafeteria with a scowl.

The whispers never stopped. 

Barb was either behind her or she wasn’t. Nancy didn’t want to check. Checking meant looking around, and she could already feel everyone’s burning gazes well enough.

“Is anyone sitting here?”

She bit out to the emptiest table she could find.

Jonathan Byers looked up from his dry turkey and cheese on white, down to the empty seat across from him, and back up at her. 

After a pause, he nodded.

She sat down without another word - Barb sliding in beside her.

No one spoke, and Nancy was grateful for it.

Robin’s scowl deepened. Having just been crying, she looked a lot less threatening than she probably meant to. 

A wave of defensive resentment that Barb hadn’t known was there rose up inside her like a haunched cat. Her grip tightened around the steering wheel. 

“She did, though.” Robin continued, waving her hands around with her words like she always used to do. “And - and you just went along with it, as if - as if - and like, what the hell was I supposed to think?“ 

Barb barked a sharp laugh, surprising them both. 

Robin’s big shining eyes glared wetly at her, years of unspoken bullshit spilling out into the open. Barb could feel her own eyes growing hot. She felt like she needed to sneeze. 

"That’s rich,” Barb shot back, voice higher than she meant it to be, “considering you never said anything, and then just - just  stopped - stopped coming around, stopped calling or coming by, and -“

Robin scoffed, offended, nose still stuffy with old tears.

“Please.” Robin’s voice raised. “Let’s not pretend that - That’s not what happened at all, and you know it.” She flapped her hands, blinking away more tears as they welled up in her eyes. “You could’ve - you could’ve at least said something. To me, to her. I don’t know!“

“I’m sorry.” She looked over at Robin, her own eyes growing wet and blurry. “Was I supposed to just know that - “

“WATCH OUT!”

Their screams blended with the scream of the brakes as she stomped her foot down, but it was a second too late. 

Necks jerked as seatbelts locked. 

In a series of ominous thuds, a lump of someone rolled up the hood and onto the windshield, before sliding off and onto the ground as they jolted to a sudden stop. 

Way back in the day, when Steve’s parents only left town for a week or two at a time, they would hire Alice to babysit.

Alice was nice. She was tall, with a short bob of curly hair that she let Steve play with sometimes, bows and clips and braids. 

Her nails were always pretty colors, chipped in places but she never seemed to mind. Sometimes she would paint Steve’s nails, but they had to be careful to take it off before his parents came home. 

Before bed, when he was tucked in and cozy in clean pajamas after a warm bath, she would read to him. 

He didn’t have a lot of books at home. His parents thought it was a waste, considering they could go to the library whenever they wanted. They never did, but it was there, and if books were free then there was no point in buying any. 

But Alice would bring her own. She had a little brother, she said, and these were the books that he had loved when he was Steve’s age.

Steve liked stories.

For a moment, everything was quiet. Nothing but the sound of their breath filled the air.

Robin sprang into frantic motion, her hands flying as she fought to undo the seatbelt and leap out the car. Barb scrambled to follow her, eyes wide and slow with shock.

Her breath was growing uneven and staccato in her chest. 

“Oh my god. Oh, my god. Oh my god, we just - oh my god. Oh my god, Barb, we just killed someone.”

Barb didn’t answer. She was pale as a sheet, swaying a little and putting a hand against the car door to keep from keeling over.

Robin flapped her hands in panic as she rushed around to the front of the car. Barb wasn't too far behind her.

They hadn’t turned off the headlights. Everything was washed in a bright, blinding spotlight.

Like a stage play.

Or a crime scene. 

Steve Harrington groaned from the ground, his limbs askew. 

He blinked up at them dazedly, his pupils wide. Some blood trickled from a gash on his brow. 

After a long, terrifying moment, recognition and relief lit up on his face. His shoulders untensed, as if he had been expecting a fight. 

He smiled at them.

“Oh.” He cleared his raspy throat. “Hey, guys.”

Chapter Text

Nancy shoved her way through the crowd and tried to quell the utter burning in her chest. Music blasted so hard she could feel it pulsing beneath her feet. 

She hadn’t expected Steve to be here. Didn’t want him to be here. Didn’t want to feel so insane and hysterical with the way her resentment and the need to understand contradicted each other constantly inside of her.

Didn’t want Barb defending him the way she was, and watching her from the corner with concerned, sad eyes.

The chasm of rage she’d spent so long smelting over the past twelve months ripped open, cherry red and staining more than just her fucking sweater. 

She wanted to break something. Shatter it, stomp on it, and scream.  Vomit up all the black sludge of hurt and shame that still cycled through her, over and over and over again, until she felt hollow and delicate enough to shatter herself.

She wanted to set something on fire. 

Enough destruction to outweigh the absolute hell the last school year had been, and the one that had just started. 

The whispers, the giggles, the rumors. The questions, the jeers. The wondering. The blame. The fucking eyes on her fucking everywhere she fucking went. 

She had been an idiot, wanting to be popular. 

She wasn’t even supposed to be thinking about that tonight. She was supposed to be having a good time. Relaxing, or something. Cutting loose. Living a little. Turning over new leaves or whatever. 

Then Steve had to fucking show up, reminding everyone that he was fucking back from his fucking sabbatical, from wherever he had gone to get the fuck away from Nancy Wheeler. 

Nancy wanted to be more worried about him. She didn’t want to be angry. 

But with no explanation from the King himself, the rumors went wild. Again.

The fucking rumors. 

No explanation. 

She hadn’t meant to run into Steve tonight. Hadn’t meant to read him the riot act or give him any more pieces of her mind, but she had. 

It felt good, too. To get it off her chest. 

But he had just stared at her, ignoring her questions, face blank like he wasn’t even listening. 

Because when did anyone fucking listen to Nancy Wheeler? 

All she wanted to do was dance, and to forget about the past year. Forget about the fucking assholes that think they know anything. She deserved that, didn’t she? 

A pair of hot, calloused hands wrapped around her waist from behind, palms flat and fingers stretched across skin. She could feel the heat through her sweater. 

It was nice. It felt good. 

She leaned back, resting her head against a solid shoulder. Could hear the reverberations of a chuckle through his chest. Let those vibrations bleed into hers. 

She leaned into it, let the fruity haze of her last drink cloak over her. Stretched her neck back, and gazed into a pair of heat filled baby blues.

Billy Hargrove smiled, eyes crinkling, and leaned in for a kiss. She kissed back.

When he took her wrist and gently pulled her towards the door, she let him. 

Driving off in his car, she let herself have what she could have had with Steve Harrington so long ago. 

It was nice. It felt good. 

“Abso-fucking-lutely not, oh my god.” 

Robin Buckley was overreacting, obviously. Steve had been hurt much worse than this and had been just fine.

He wobbled to his feet, swaying between the panicked hands of Miss Barbara Holland herself. 

He blinked a few dark spots out of his eyes and glanced down at Robin’s dress.

“Huh,” he squinted, “Is it prom night?”

The two girls stared at him. A faint throbbing had emerged from his right eye.

“What?”

Barb had just gone to grab a ginger ale when she noticed that Nancy had gone. Clutching the cold can in her hand, she’d taken a detour from her seat - it was an expensive couch, ergonomic or something - to look for her.

She wasn’t in the kitchen, and the only thing left on the patio was an empty keg. Barb waited until the downstairs bathroom opened, asking around if anyone had seen her - no luck - and even Tina’s parents’ office - no luck either - before gritting her teeth and checking the bedrooms upstairs - they’d both been empty.

Logically, Barb knew she shouldn’t panic. Nancy was old enough to decide things for herself. Sure, she was drunk, and tiny, and in a state of heightened emotion. But who wasn’t.

Barb chewed her lip, and took a deep breath. The party was slowing down, but there were still plenty of people here. Maybe she went off for a spell - to smoke, or something, even - and would make her way back so she and Barb could leave together. 

She ignored the twisting in her stomach and hesitantly sat back down. The cracking of her soda tab rang in her ears like a gunshot.

Miss Barbara Holland’s Mother herself held a light up to one of Steve’s eyes, and then the other. Steve sat patiently like he was told. 

When she was done, she turned to the two girls who had dragged him here, and nodded.

“Definitely concussed.”

He didn’t feel concussed, though, he wanted to argue. 

Usually when he was concussed - from basketball, mostly, but his dad once too, and then literal hell, so he had a generous knowledge of the magnitude of a concussion, thank you - he got feverish and sick, cross-eyed with vertigo and barely holding down water. 

They all gave him a look, that suggested he may have said some of that out loud. 

“Okay,” he conceded. “I may be a little concussed.”

Nancy had woken up in a t-shirt too big to be hers, neck cramped and skin sticky against leather. 

Her head was resting against a bare chest. Nancy's breath caught, and she lifted her head. 

Billy Hargrove was still asleep, thank god. The arm that wasn’t loose around her waist was pillowing his head. His face was more relaxed than Nancy had ever seen it at school.

She did her best to detangle herself from his arms as quietly as possible, but he only snored and snuggled deeper into the space she had just vacated. 

Once she’d climbed into the passenger seat, she straightened her clothes, flattened her hair, and looked around. 

Hopefully she wouldn’t have to walk too far to get home.

Steve was now under what Miss Barbara Holland’s Mother called “observation.”

That meant, in no uncertain terms, that he was staying the night. 

Steve didn’t mind. They’d loaned him some clothes - soft - and let him use the shower - hot - and now he was swaddled in a thick blanket with Robin and Barb, eating popcorn and candy in front of the TV and watching movies that he didn’t understand. 

That was okay. Robin and Barb talked over most of it anyway.

Barb had been furious, but she’d also been more relieved that she was okay.

That is, until Nancy told her where she’d been. 

Her face clouded, her eyebrows raised high.

”Billy Hargrove?”

Nancy’s cheeks heated, and she pushed a piece of hair behind her ear nervously.

“Yeah.”

Barb’s lips twisted, confused. And then they curled up a little. 

“Isn’t he, like…”

“Like what?” 

“I mean.” 

Barb’s brow furrowed, and she wet her lips.

“Didn’t he threaten your brother’s friend out behind the arcade? Lucas, I think? Pushed him up against the wall and screamed in his face?”

“What?”

Nancy blinked, stunned. A queasy feeling started to grow in her stomach.

She hadn’t heard - had she heard that? Had that been - 

Barb’s eyes were wide as she leaned in. Her tone was low.

“Nancy…he threatened to kill him if he didn’t stay away from his sister.”

Gravity dropped, and her blood ran cold.

Robin was the one who noticed. 

She must be really smart, because it only took her a second to connect his glances between their toes and Barb's assorted box of colors, before she was plucking Pretty in Peach out from its spot between Tickle My Turquoise and Vivacious Violet.

It was the one he had been staring at.

She held it up and started shaking it. Steve could hear echoes of Alice explaining that it helped mix it up. 

Robin gave him a small, lopsided smile. 

“Your turn?” 

Instead of replying, he just held out his hands.

Chapter Text

If Billy felt hurt or snubbed about waking up alone, he’d returned it in spades. By the end of the school week everyone knew not only that Nancy Wheeler had lost her virginity on Halloween, but also what she sounded like when she came.

Barb was being weird. It almost felt like she was avoiding her. Thinking about that too much made Nancy uneasy with guilt.

And her parents.

Everything was piling up all at once, and she didn’t know where to even start.

All the eyes on her at school now had her cowering, searching for empty classrooms and other places to hide.

She still had to worry about her grades. She didn't have time for - for stupid high school drama and - and her own incredibly foolish decisions.

“Are you even listening?”

She glared up through her bangs at Eddie Munson. He was standing in front of her with his fists loose on his hips, eyebrows raised at her expectantly, the side of his lip turning up in a half smile.

She set her jaw, and glared harder.

“This is public property, Munson.” 

He smiled, eyes narrow like he’d been waiting for her to say something like that.

“Yeah, but we have a sign up sheet for this room, see. And this is a private session.”

She hunched lower over her notebook. She almost wanted to bare her teeth, if it would make him go away.

He traced over her with his eyes, down at the spread of her homework, and chewed his lip consideringly.

“Or…Tell you what." He stuck his hands in his pockets. "I need a favor.” 

She never liked the sound of that. 

“A favor?” She sneered at him a little harder than she meant to.

He blinked at her for a moment, before the other corner of his mouth turned up, and he smiled.

“My little sister needs a math tutor.”

“Jesus Christ, that’s a lot.”

Barb huffed down at the pre-rolls she’d spread out on the bus floor. The three of them sat cross legged and leaning back against pillows, light bleeding through the thread counts of hanging sheets along the walls.

She raised an eyebrow up at Steve.

“You’re the one with the decked out weed cave, Harrington.”

He huffed back at her.

“This is not a weed cave.”

Robin snorted at that.

“This is totally a weed cave.”

Barb rolled her eyes, and picked up a random joint.

Steve was already pulling his lighter out from his pocket. 

Nancy had never been to this side of town. 

The trailer was cluttered but warmer than her own house had ever been. She wasn’t sure if it had anything to do with the air.

She’d brought some of her old math books, clutched them tightly to her chest as she looked around at the photos and hats lining the walls. Munson hadn’t been clear at where they would be picking up from, but he made it seem like there wasn’t any actual starting point.

His little sister, Eleanor, reminded her of Mike in a lot of ways.

Not only in similarities, how he huffed and rolled his eyes, crossed his arms and slumped into his chair, but also in her jittery nervousness, big eyes constantly finding Munson wherever he was in the room, as if making sure he was still there. Mike never did that.

“Okay, so.”

She cleared her throat and wet her lips, spreading out old textbooks and the index cards she'd brought with her.

She wasn’t sure how to do this. It was a lot different than tutoring Steve last year, and the thought of that made her stomach twist.

“So,” she started again. “Math.”

Chapter Text

The curly haired nerd didn’t take off his hat when he burst into the library.

No, he’d been loud in grabbing his books - amphibians, of all stupid boy things - and had plonked rudely down at the same stupid table she and Ellie had been sitting at to flip through old fantasy novels. 

Max glared at him, but he didn’t look up.

He just palmed through glossy encyclopedia pages as if looking for something specific and not caring if he ripped the paper. 

Then Lucas, of all people, came in through the front doors.

His eyes scanned over tables until he caught the kid’s hat, and then he was walking over. 

If he glanced over at Max, eyes widening in recognition, she pretended not to notice. 

Ellie noticed, though, her gaze flicking back and forth between Lucas and Max. 

She noticed a lot of things. Max kind of liked that.

Steve felt good. He liked weed.

Robin and Barb were giggling over something. It was probably him.

He was always more expressive when he was high, and his tolerance was shot to hell anyway. 

He hadn’t felt so relaxed in a long time. His muscles were loose, his skin fit smoothly over his bones. It was bliss, and it probably showed on his face. 

The bus didn’t feel so empty with Robin and Barb. They were flopped over his nest of blankets, equally high.

The air was warm and his chest was warmer, as they told old stories and stupid jokes that had them laughing so hard they snorted. Steve felt like he was allowed to uncoil. The bus doors were locked and they weren't making too much noise to attract anything.

He really liked Robin and Barb. They were so smart, looking at him with sharp eyes that smiled with the whole of themselves, and Steve felt like he was basking in the sun when they lit up with an idea or a snarky, sarcastic retort.

They hadn’t asked too many questions, either. Didn’t pry over Steve’s half-baked explanation of why he had built a little fortress in an abandoned bus in the junkyard. 

He didn't really want them to know that he lived here. 

Lucas planted his feet and crossed his arms, trying to look intimidating in front of Steve Harrington, of all people. 

Steve Harrington had once been the top athlete at the high school as far as he knew.

Before the past year, at least.

Now he'd strewn himself across dusty - probably stolen - pillows in a hollowed out bus out in the junk yard on the other side of town.

Lucas had so many questions, and didn't know where to start.

Steve Harrington sighed again, arms dropping in defeat to spread across more pillows.

"Oh, my god. I-I don't -" he stuttered, then stopped to take a breath.

His eyes closed, and a hand came up to rub over his brow as he thought of what to say. 

Dustin, the asshole, started tapping his foot. Steve Harrington tensed for a moment, before sitting up and resting his elbows onto his knees.

"Okay. Okay." He lowered his head and ran his fingers through his hair, muttering to himself. "Okay." 

"Listen," he started.

It was unnecessary. They were already listening.

He swallowed drily and took a deep breath, holding his hands up and looking up at them.

"I don't know how, and I don't know why, okay?"

He clasped his hands together, wringing them, fingers picking at hangnails and loose skin. 

"But Hawkins...” he shrugged, eyes unfocusing. “Hawkins has monsters."

Chapter Text

The last night he saw Alice ended in a screaming match between her and his parents downstairs.

Steve hadn't caught most of it since he’d been tucked into bed, but from their tones and the final slamming of the front door, he had a feeling that it was about him. 

His parents were going away for two weeks, and they said he was old enough to take care of himself this time.

That had come as a surprise. He certainly didn’t feel old enough.

But they were grown ups, and they were his parents. They knew best. If he wasn't old enough then they would not have left him here.

And they had gone, suitcases down the stairs, a hug and a reminder to lock the door. 

The first day had been fine, really.

He’d stayed inside and watched cartoons, sitting closer to the TV than Alice had ever let him and eating spoonfuls of peanut butter to sate the grumbling as it grew in his stomach. 

It had only really gotten scary at night.

It had gotten a lot colder. A lot darker. And a lot more quiet.

Steve didn’t care for that very much. 

He distracted himself by making a plan.

A cozy plan, he named it, looking around for things he could use. 

He dragged his pillows and blankets out into the hall.

Shoved them, one by one, underneath his parent’s bed, before climbing down into the tiny nest himself. 

He curled up and laid perfectly still, pretending he was somewhere else.

Nancy Wheeler curled over one of her many textbooks in the corner, looking small.

Eddie tried to leave her be, but his eyes kept finding her every now and then over the course of the afterschool hours. 

He dragged his eyes back to the table again, watching the boys deliberate between themselves.

Eddie smirked. They had no idea what was coming. 

He used some tire rims and sheet metal, rusted and a little slimy, and climbed on top of the trailer to hammer them over the vents.

He didn't want to take any chances. They'd already followed him, and he'd seen how far they could jump.

The cherry red of the joint sizzled as Barb stared at him.

It must have been something he said, or the way his face went when she'd mentioned his house. He was very high.

"Steve?" Robin breathed from beside them.

Her voice was soft and shaky, and it made Steve want to squirm.

By the way her face fell once he looked over to her, eyebrows raised into her bangs, he knew he'd swung his head around too fast. Hadn't controlled his face well enough.

They knew.

"Are you living in here?" She asked gently.

A silence fell over the bus.

It was heavy, dense. It made the ringing in his ears shrill.

Steve wanted to cry.

He couldn't meet their eyes or else he'd spill over.

They had been having such a good time. He didn't want this moment to be ruined.

He didn't want to feel so exposed. And he didn't, he really, really didn't want to be alone again.

Distantly, as Robin scrambled over and clambered clumsy arms around him, squeezing tight with a comforting, dull pressure, he realized he'd started crying.

Eddie couldn’t stop staring at the painted nails of Steve Harrington.

He usually stared at Steve Harrington the normal amount, sure, just like everybody else. The basketball shorts, the hair. He was only human. 

But. There was only one other place he’d seen that shade of peachy pink before, and - 

Now Steve Harrington sat sandwiched between Robin Buckley and Miss Barbara Holland herself, of all people. The two girls were bickering, eyes rolling and snatching hands, and Steve Harrington just sat in the middle, a small smile on his face.

“Eddie?” Nancy’s eyes dragged him back to the lunch table. Her eye twitched a little, and guilt washed over him. 

"Sorry, sorry." He turned back to his ham sandwich and notebook. "Does Wednesday night work?"

"Already?" Eddie Munson breathed with a laugh.

Barb rolled her eyes as she scuffed a toe into the dirt.

"It was a busy weekend," she shrugged, rolling her eyes.

That only made him snort. He raised one eyebrow higher than the other, a tooth grin stretching across his face.

"Is that so?" 

She huffed, and he shut up.

Steve rifled his way through the driest things he’d found around the trailer.

Some were stained with mold and ripped more often than not, and Steve had to wipe his hands down after touching them.

Others were more salvageable. A few comics, and some thick paperbacks Steve put aside in case he grew bored. 

He really hoped he was rescued before he grew bored.

Chapter Text

He limped, leaving tiny trails of dripping blood behind him, and commiserated that this had been bound to happen eventually.

He’d have to come back for the shopping cart later. It was too good to leave behind, and it had only been that one creaky wheel that had fucked him over in the end. He still hadn't hit Melvald's or the police department.

But he didn’t think he could lift anything right now. His shoulder felt odd and out of place.

Things had been going so well, too. And then they hadn't. 

He tried to shake the hair out of his eyes without straining his neck, and just focused on his breathing.

Ripped flesh throbbed down his arm as he curled it further into his side, fresh blood bubbling up and shining as coagulations stretched open with his movements, scratched forearms pulling and cracking open again. 

A tree branch cracked near the trees. 

Steve’s eyes darted upwards and across the stretch of forest, and he quickened his hobbling pace back to Not-Forest Hills. 

A snort interrupted Eddie’s monologue. 

His own curly hair slapped him in the face as he haphazardly swung his neck towards the corner of the room, eyes narrowing with delight. 

The others spun around from their chairs. Her tiny shoulders tensed at the variety of glares trained in her direction. 

“Is something funny?” 

Eddie kept his voice soft, light. 

Nancy Wheeler’s head had been angled down over her books, pen in her hand like she was in the middle of writing notes. Her eyes widened under her bangs, surprised and a little caught out. Her mouth opened and closed a few times as she grew aware of all the eyes on her.

“It’s just…” 

She clearly hadn’t meant to interrupt, biting her lip like she already regretted this interaction.

“It’s clearly a trap.”

The silence was heavy.

Everyone stared at her with a mix of expressions, skeptical and wary but curious nevertheless. 

It was Gareth who spoke first.

“...a trap?”

She fidgeted a little in her seat, uncomfortable.

“The…he’s steering you into a boss fight. Obviously.”

Her words fell over the table. 

They stared at her. Longer than they probably should have, with the way her cheeks started to go pink.

“Obviously,” Jeff echoed softly, eyes flickering back and forth between his character sheet and the figurine placements on the board, mouthing numbers to himself and squinting.

Gareth blinked a few times, before he started flipping through the crinkled up pages of his notes. 

Eddie's eyes narrowed again at Nancy, before he propped his hands up onto his hips and made a sudden decision.

“And what would you suggest?”

Chapter Text

Jonathan was late to school again, minding his own business and keeping his head down like he always did. 

He was trekking quietly across the parking lot, the school day well into second period, when a scuffling from one of the back walls of the school caught his attention.

“Jesus, Tommy. Stop.”

A thud and hiss of pain made him pause, hand hovered hesitatingly above the handle of the double doors. 

“Fuck you, Steve.” 

More scuffles, another thud, before he finally peaked a subtle head around the corner. 

Hagan had Harrington by the collar, shoving him hard against the brick wall.

It looked like it hurt, judging by the grimace on Harrington's face, but he only had a loose hand around the other guy’s wrist in defense.

“Tommy, I can’t breathe.”

He wasn’t fighting back. Hagan gave him an aggressive, angry shake. 

"Where the fuck were you, dude?” He seethed. "Was it fucking Nancy? Did she fucking do something?”

Hagan’s face was red and flushed with anger, his jaw set and his teeth grinding.

“Fucking - running off to Chicago without a word, fucking - “ He shoved him hard into the wall again, “ - fucking waltzing back in here like - like you got fucking mauled - “

Hagan was shaking. His voice was low.

“Was it - was it me? Jesus fuck, Steve, where the hell did you go?”

Harrington didn't answer, wheezing, his face a miserable twist of pain, straining another hand around Hagan’s wrist to leverage for more air. 

Hagan let go, let him drop, sneered down his nose as Harrington hunched over to catch his breath, and shoved him with both hands back into the wall. 

“You’re a fucking asshole, Harrington.” His voice was cold, lips curling, before he walked off in the other direction.

Joyce caught herself curling the phone cord around her finger, and stopped. 

"I dunno, Hop." She chewed on her lip. "Are you sure it was his?"

Hopper breathed a heavy sigh through the phone, raspy and close to her ear.

"There aren't a lot of other BMWs in Hawkin's, Joyce."

She glanced down the hall, hoping her sons were still asleep. It was too early for them to be up on a Saturday.

"Joyce?" 

She turned back towards the kitchen, stretching the cord and starting to pace.

"But why would Hawkin's Electric even need a bimmer, anyway?"

Jonathan held his breath until he was gone, before looking back to Harrington.

He’d curled into himself on the ground, knees up to his chest, head tucked down and arms wrapped around himself.

His stomach squirmed, wanting to help.

But this was Harrington. 

He could hear his mother’s voice somewhere in the back of his head. Before he could talk himself out of it, he'd ducked around the corner. 

“Harrington? Uh - ”

He shot up abruptly, clearly caught off guard, shoulders spiked up to his ears and head jerking back so hard it cracked against the brick behind him.

Jonathan winced at the sound.

Harrington blinked spots out of his eyes for a moment, hands cupping over and rubbing his head as he looked over at Jonathan, confused.

"Byers?"

Chapter Text

On the first day of fall, they sent the real estate agent and changed the locks. 

His parents had always been punctual.

Steve hadn’t waited that long.

He'd made a plan, obviously. It was the tightrope over the chasm growing in the pit of his stomach, and it reminded him to change his bandages.

He would have to figure some stuff out before it got extra cold outside, but he could manage well enough. 

Brenner checked his watch as the tow truck pulled into the back lot, and turned his head over his shoulder. 

“And the driver?” He asked the lab assistant.

She’d prepared herself, he could tell, to give him an answer that he wouldn’t like.

“Not yet, sir.”

“Why are you doing this?”

Byers froze, wet paper towel in his hand hovering above Steve’s elbow, and shrugged. 

“Dunno.” He mumbled, and just kept wiping at his scraped skin. 

Steve stared at him. 

“I was such an asshole to you.”

Byers raised an eyebrow, not even looking up.

“I know.”

Steve’s lips twisted, eyes beginning to bubble hot with Tommy’s mean words and Byer’s strange help, everything else that had happened to him and just kept happening to him. 

There was a long silence before he couldn’t take it anymore.

“I’m sorry.” He whispered.

Byers just shrugged again.

“Hi, sorry,” he muttered to himself, quiet enough to be able to ignore it if it didn’t land. The corner of his mouth turned up just a little. Steve would have missed it if he hadn't been looking right at him.

“I’m Jonathan.”

“FUCK!” 

Eddie cried out and dropped the phone as if it had burned him.

It had burned him, actually, he widened his eyes. The palm of his hand was bright red and throbbing. 

The phone dangled, blackened with soot like it had just combusted. He picked it up and turned it around with his not-electrocuted hand, disbelief burning brighter than the swamping dread of having to tell Wayne they needed another landline. 

“What the fuck.” He whispered to himself.

The breathing over the phone had been raspy and weird. Eddie tried not to focus on it, tried to distract himself from the way it made his stomach turn with unease.

He hated crank calls.

Chapter Text

He found tools around the junkyard, scattered and abandoned like they’d been used and left behind.

He didn’t wonder why, because it didn’t matter. It was a junkyard. A yard of - if he understood correctly - junk.

It helped distract him from the weird wanting-not-wanting to see everyone he’d spent months thinking about and missing. Now that he was…back, the possibility sat heavy and awkward  inside him like oil and made him feel sick. 

He focused instead on unscrewing the giant bolts holding the bus seats down, moving them either out of the bus or leaned against the wall like a couch. 

Some were easier than others, but eventually he managed to clear out enough space to lay down. 

“Oh, but he was such a nice boy.” Her mother shook her head, curled fringe swaying with the movement as she kneaded dough across the counter. 

“What’s all this about?” Her dad walked in with the mail, passing by the kitchen to sink into his seat at the table and crack open his newspaper.

“Steve’s gone. Nancy’s…friend. They’re saying he ran away.”

“Ran away?” He chuckled to himself from behind his newspaper, “Geez, Nancy, what’d you do to the boy?”

“Yeah, Nancy.” Mike parroted from around his mouth full of pancakes, and she returned his snide glare. “What did you do?”

There was another girl waiting with Eleanor when she got there. She had red hair, and glared at Nancy before she’d even sat down.

Nancy raised her eyebrows, glancing between them. 

“Uh,” she blinked, “Hi?”

The red haired girl crossed her arms and slouched back. The table in front of her was littered with comic books and math homework.

Algebra, from what it looked like.

Eleanor sat next to her, a rare smile stretched wide across her face. 

Nancy turned her head to look over at Munson on the couch.

He just raised his hands up and gave her an innocent look.

“Excuse me?” She blinked at her, dazed.

Barb bit her lip. 

“I just - " She looked away with a huff.

“What do we even do anymore when we hang out, Nance? Like it - it just - “

She cut herself off, picking at a hangnail on her thumb and staring harder at the road than she needed to. 

Nancy was quiet, her brows furrowed and eyes wide as she watched Barb figure out what to say. 

“It just feels like all we ever talk about anymore is you, Nance. And - and listen.” Barb glanced over at her for a second, looking both earnest and frustrated. “I like talking about you, I do. And this year has been - has been really fucked up, yeah.”

“But,” she chewed on the side of her lip, “I don’t know. Maybe we should try and take a break or something, just for a little while. I don’t - I just - sometimes I don’t know why you hang out with me, Nancy.”

She didn’t respond immediately, gaze drifting off as Barb’s words sank in. 

A long silence filled the air before anyone spoke again.

“Okay.” Nancy breathed, almost a whisper.

They were pulling into the school now. 

When she parked, Nancy hitched the strap of her bag over her shoulder and got out of the car, clutching books to her chest and walking off without another word.

Barb stared after her, wondering just how royally she’d fucked up. 

Chapter Text

They'd dragged him, once again, back to Barb's house. Steve was allowed to bring his collection of blankets and pillows with the condition of Miss Barbara Holland's Mother washing them. Overall, it was a net positive. 

Steve was quiet as Mrs. Holland set up the guest room, a clean pillow in his arms, pressing it closer into his stomach as she turned over the sheets like a mother would for their kid. 

They were nice enough to let Steve take a hot shower and borrow more pajamas.

Their sleepover was more somber than the one on prom night. He knew they were trying not to stare at him, and he was grateful for it. 

Mrs. Holland made spaghetti. Steve's favorite.

Steve pulled his shirt off over his head. He'd worked up a sweat.

He wondered if there were any carpentry textbooks at the high school. Did they even have a wood shop? He thought he'd heard about one. Did they even have textbooks for that?

He dragged a wide circle of the perimeter around the trailer in spray paint, behind the line of spikes he'd somehow managed to drive into the ground. 

From the shopping carts he'd collected, he tossed out old towels and tree branches along the painted line.

He pulled two of the carts behind him back to the junk yard.

Had to smash the window to get into the garage, but managed to find where they kept the oil and lugged it into the cart to take back.

His eyes caught on a mountain of old tires.

He wondered, distantly, if they could burn.

Eleanor brushed her teeth, eyeing Eddie. When she spit, she turned to him.

"Do you like Nancy?"

Eddie choked on his toothbrush, leaning over to hack toothpaste into the sink.

He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, shaking his head like she had asked something funny. Eleanor didn't think she had though, so this was confusing.

"No- no, Ellie, no. Nope!" He rinsed his toothbrush off and spun out of the bathroom with a high-pitched laugh.

Eleanor followed after him. 

"Why not?" She asked. "Nancy is...pretty."

He froze, one foot still in the air, before sitting slowly down onto Ellie's bed. She plopped down beside him without blinking.

Eddie was quiet, which didn't happen often. His eyes danced over his fingers as he fidgeted with his rings, and then he looked up at her with a soft expression.

"Because I like boys, Ellie." He told her. 

"Really?" Her eyes bulged. "We can do that?"

Benny craned his neck over to Wayne. He had a good poker face, but his eyebrows had cracked and climbed high up his forehead, jaw slack enough that his cigarette fell into the dirt of the road. 

Hawkin's Electric - or Lab, or whatever the hell they did inside those cinderblock walls, had been ransacked.

No, not even. Worse than that. Blood streaked across pavement into the woods, doors that hadn't been shattered swinging limply off one hinge.

Wayne turned towards him slowly, and didn't need to say a word. 

They left.

Chapter Text

The liquor store had been a lucky ass find. 

Steve pushed his cart of bottles ahead, slowly so the glass didn’t clink together and make too much noise. 

Will shifted nervously, before he took a deep breath and approached the only occupant at the back table.

“Is it okay if I sit here?” He asked, squeezing the book between his fingers tight so that she wouldn’t see them shake. 

The gaze of her eyes lifted without moving her head away from her book, pinning him in place as she looked him up and down. Her jaw was set, but she wasn’t glaring. 

He held his breath. After a moment, she lowered her eyes again and looked back down at her book.

“Sure.”

They’d been listening to music in his room, him and Jonathan, when they heard the slamming of the car door. They assumed it was Mrs. Byers finally home, and continued flipping through old magazines. 

It wasn’t until Dustin’s voice rang out, high-pitched and frantic, that they moved. 

“STEVE!”

The ring of fire around the trailer smoldered, dots of burning tires speckled between the row of spikes. Black fumes plumed upwards, trailing high like smoke signals and making Steve think about the ozone layer. Did hell have an ozone layer?

He didn’t wait for his brain to catch up, shooting up like a firecracker and halfway down the hall before he could blink. Jonathan wasn’t too far behind.

Billy Hargrove had Lucas pinned up to the wall again, shaking him with fists full of jacket.

He stepped away from the window and let the curtain fall back, adjusted the thick blanket he’d wrapped himself in like a cape, sipped shitty nightmare whiskey straight from the grubby handle and turned back into the tiny bedroom. 

The stack of paperbacks met his eye from the bedside table, and Steve couldn’t help but pick one up. 

“Are you sure you want to do this?” His hand holding the scissors hesitated. Nancy stared at it through the mirror. 

She squared her jaw. 

“Just do it.”

Max and Ellie were lingering in the hall, their heads one on top of the other as they craned their necks around the doorway to watch.

Eddie sighed, resigned, and reached for the comb.

Barb pulled up and immediately noticed the extra car in the driveway. A camarro. 

She opened the screen door into chaos. 

Billy Hargrove straddled Steve Harrington in the middle of the living room, arm drawing back over and over to drive a bloody fist into his face. 

Jonathan Byers stood behind him, gripping handfuls of Hargrove’s jacket in a futile attempt to drag him off, but Hargrove didn’t budge.

The kids - Jonathan’s brother, a curly haired kid, and Mike - stood huddled into the corner with wide eyes. 

They’d surrounded Lucas protectively, while he gripped at the sleeves of the little red haired girl, pulling her back as she screamed.

“Billy, STOP!”

Barb decided what to do first. 

“Do you like magic?”

The question had startled her, and she jumped. He noticed.

“Sorry,” he whispered. “I just - I like that book too.”

Max’s eyes drifted down to the book in her hand, the one she’d blazed through without even realizing. The corner of her mouth lifted just a little.

“It’s okay,” she shrugged, and he smiled. 

She turned to Jonathan’s brother, whose eyes had trained on her when she came in, and told him to call the police. 

Then she approached the center of the room, gripped two hands into Hargrove’s hair, and yanked him off as brutally as she could muster. 

He was pulled out of his bloody rage with a sharp gasp of surprise, too shocked to catch himself when he fell backwards. 

He blinked up at her with wide blue eyes before a sneer warped over his face again, cheeks heating with anger. 

As he tried to push himself up, she lifted a foot up and pressed it into his chest, attempting to match his sneer with her own. 

“Stay fucking down, Hargrove.” She kept her voice calm, steady. 

She let Jonathan worry over Steve until Hopper showed up, keeping Billy where he was as the kids fluttered around them. 

Mrs. Byers finally came home at some point, taking one look at Steve and pulling him into the bathroom to get him cleaned up. 

Once Hargrove had been shoved into a back seat, the kids fluttered around Hopper, talking over each other as they tried to explain what happened. 

The little red haired girl sat still, though. Hunched into herself on the couch, as if trying to make herself as small as possible. 

Barb took a seat next to her, and they didn’t speak. 

Chapter Text

Steve freaked the fuck out when they tried to take him to the hospital, so as soon as they got home he was led to the kitchen table while her mom laid out supplies from the first aid kit. Then he was tucked into the couch and layered in blankets. 

Mrs. Byers had done a good job in cleaning off all the blood, and now thick gauze adorned his temple, butterfly stitches along his cheekbone and brow. 

Barb went straight to the phone, about to call Robin, when it rang. She jumped, startled, and picked it up.

“Hi, this is Susan Hargrove, Max’s mother,” the voice on the line was light. “Is this Barbara Holland?”

“This is she.”

“I wanted to thank you for driving her home. Would you ever mind babysitting her again? She seems to trust you.”

Barb’s throat went dry. 

He leaned back into the pillows, deliciously drunk, faint echoes of a strumming guitar lulling him lightly into a peaceful sleep. 

Dreamed of hobbits and elves instead of monsters, long curly hair and full bellied laughter. The air smelled like smoke.

For the first time in an unbearably long time, he felt warm.

“Dingus, you’re squinting again.” 

Steve huffed at her in response, but she only huffed back. He smiled at that for a moment, but his face fell again as he turned back to the register. 

He hadn't argued when she made him switch shorts with her, and she would be forever grateful for his generous sacrifice. The face Eddie Munson made when he swooped into Scoops had been priceless.

Steve hadn't noticed, too busy switching out one of the vats of new flavors. But Robin would remember it forever.

The lights flickered again. Steve froze, in the middle of counting change.

“Um, hello?” The little girl behind the counter snarked.

He blinked slowly back from wherever he had gone, tinting a little pink. 

“Sorry, sorry," he mumbled sheepishly, and he finished handing the rest of the change over.

The girl left and Robin turned back to Steve, watching the way he fiddled nervously with his hat, unfocused eyes darting around the store again as if he expected something bad to happen.

Chapter Text

"I am not your chauffer, actually."

Barb glared at her, but turned the corner towards Forest Hills anyway.

Max rolled her eyes and slouched back into the passenger seat, turning to look out the window with a huff.

When they parked, she pretended not to notice the face Barb made when she saw Nancy Wheeler's car in front of the trailer.

Hopper was just standing up to leave, putting his hat on to go home when the phone rang with an anonymous tip about an explosion down at Hawkin's Electric.

He'd been expecting an electrical fire, something small. He hadn't expected to find it completely burned down.

His eyes traced over charcoaled remains of cinderblock, soot covered and smoking,  before reaching for his walkie with the resignation that once again, he'd be working late.

He strung up some bed sheets along the walls, to cover the windows mostly, but he also liked how it made the place even just a little bit cozier. It was starting to get cold out, and he'd need to rethink insulation soon.

Laying back onto his nest of collected pillows, he pulled out one of the paperbacks he'd picked up from the library.

Max raised an eyebrow at the stack of books Will Byers had brought with him this time.

He slid them over to her with a small smile, before turning back to his book without a word. 

She stared at them for a second. The cover on top had an elven princess on it. She was holding out a pointed sword. 

Max huffed, and slid the stack of comics she brought onto the table in his direction.

Steve spent the next few days collecting more junk from other neighborhoods. 

Any unwearable clothing he could find. Any tables or chairs dry enough to burn. 

He still needed to beef up his armory, too. The police station was next on the list, but with the way the darkness moved along the horizon and the sky, it was becoming a much bigger priority. 

Chapter Text

Jonathan nodded his head towards Will.

“You, uh, already know my brother. And Mike,” he gestured to the sneering kid next to Will, and then to the other two boys, “Lucas, and Dustin, and…” 

The red haired girl scowled. “Max.”

“And Max.” Jonathan finished awkwardly.

Steve nodded towards them in greeting, but they only narrowed their eyes back, arms crossed in derision. 

He let Jonathan pull him by the sleeve down the hall towards his room.

There was something really funny about breaking into hell’s version of a church.

“No, no, no, no, no.” Barb’s eyes closed in frustration. “I’ve told you so many times. No.”

When she opened them, there were still two girls standing on the porch. 

Max just crossed her arms, lifted her chin.

After a beat, the brunette she’d brought with her mirrored her, raised eyebrows and all.

Barb sighed.

“Fine. Okay, fine. Get in the stupid car.”

He didn’t expect to find a whole lot here, but he needed paper for burning. And then it occurred to him that some churches have kitchens. 

He hadn’t found what he was looking for at Hawkin’s High, but he thanked hell that Hawkin’s Methodist did have an actual giant boiling pot. The kind he was only half certain he’d seen in a cartoon, some kind for soups or whatever you make in giant pots, something he couldn’t imagine anyone actually using. 

But apparently people totally did, and it was just him that had been missing out. Thank you, Methodists.

“I don’t know, Nancy. That’s…”

She chewed her lip, and sighed. He’d laid his camera delicately out onto the table, away from the syrups but not too close to the edge. 

Jonathan only ordered a small coffee. It made Nancy hyper aware of her pancakes. She tried not to focus on it. It had been her idea to meet here, after all. 

“I know it sounds crazy. And…you don’t have to come with me. It’s fine.”

His mouth twisted at that, and he took a breath.

“I don’t…..you probably shouldn’t go alone, though.” 

He leaned in, hunching a little on his elbows.

 “I know I said that my mom was working with Hopper, but it’s more like, not like,” he gestured vaguely with his hands, “...she’s not exactly part of the investigation, and I don’t think they’d like us poking around, either.”

She pursed her lips. The grip on her fork had started to ache. 

He’d lugged his giant pot down to the quarry and tried to figure out the best way to carry some ghastly water home to boil. 

Survival here was a bit of a balance. If he thought too hard about what he was doing, what he was eating, how he was eating it. He’d. He’d go crazy. He would definitely lose something he wouldn’t be able to get back. Maybe he’s just clinging to the echoes of those threads and he'd already lost it. Maybe that. 

But also, if he didn’t think at all he’d get eaten immediately. Because those things. Those things may have developed a more fervent interest in Steve since he’d built his little fire kingdom. 

The tires still blazed. The monsters just mutated. 

Days didn’t pass. The sky didn’t clear. Flashes of lightning - why lightning? Steve didn’t know - outlined the silhouette of the thing Steve didn’t want to think about most of all.

“No, no, no, no. No. Absolutely not.”

Two shifts later, one of Steve’s children came back from camp with an intercepted piece of Russian intelligence. Allegedly. Steve was vehemently against solving this puzzle of a lifetime. Vehemently .

“Dustin!” And now Robin had learned his name. He brought Mike Wheeler with him, but the kid just curled a lip in their direction, rolled his eyes, and followed Dustin into the back without a word. Curls poked up just a smidge from the shop window as they hunched over a notepad and a Russian dictionary.

Robin gave Steve a Look, and disappeared into the back to help. Steve huffed after her. 

“Seriously, guys!”

Chapter Text

Nancy’s shoes crunched as she walked over dried up, rotten leaves. Black and gray mold grew across patches of grass and pine straw, wet and dead and smelling strongly of fly-ridden bog. 

She covered her nose with the back of her hand.

It reached all the way to Starcourt. 

He dragged the box he’d found from under the bed towards his little nest, and pulled out the colored pencils he had found earlier. The images of flower petal teeth were vibrant when he closed his eyes, and he just wanted to put them somewhere else.

The notebook was warped from moisture, and half used with what looked like notes from some fantasy story - but it would have to do.

The echoes of guitar faded through the air again. Steve wasn’t sure how, or why, or who was on the other side. But he liked the rendition of Here Comes The Sun they played sometimes. It was usually around the time he’d just jerked awake from a nightmare. 

“Why does Steve live with you?”

Barb almost swerved off the road. 

“Excuse me?” She sputtered.

She blinked over to find Max staring at her, scowling like she always did with her arms crossed.

“Does Steve live with you?”

Barb scowled back.

“Is that any of your business?”

Max shrugged. 

“He’s always in the car when you pick me up.”

Now Barb shrugged.

“I drive him to work.”

“But why?”

“Again, is that any of your business?”

She pulled into Forest Hills, pointedly ignoring the car in front of Eddie’s and parking in front of Max’s.

They lingered, for a moment, like they usually did.

“Have they found your brother yet?”

Max’s scowl deepened, and she slouched even lower than she had been.

There was a long moment before she answered.

“No.” She sat up and reached for the handle. “They’re saying he probably ran away.”

She slammed the door harder than she needed to, and marched up the trailer steps. 

“You’re what ?”

Will winced at his tone.

Mike was mad. He knew Mike would be mad, and now Mike was mad. 

At him.

He wet his lips, and tried to explain. 

“It’s really not…I just - I’m still in the Party! I just - I just wanted -“

Mike didn’t let him finish, nostrils flaring as he shuffled his stack of papers together and stood from the coffee table. 

“Mike - it’s, it’s not even a campaign, really. It’s - it’s more like a silly book club - Mike - “

But Mike ignored him, stomping into the kitchen to call his mom.

Will stared down at the empty spot on the carpet, and tried not to cry. 

“You want to what?” 

“Roll to swing.” Eddie ignored Gareth and his gaping mouth, using what precious time they were allowed down in the Wheeler’s basement. Jeff took the cue and rolled, breathing on his hands for luck and checking the numbers of his character sheet, before nodding back at Eddie. 

Steve swung, and it missed. The momentum had him pulling to his left, and it seemed like the thing was ready and waiting for him to do just that. 

“Fifteen.” 

Nancy huffed back at Gareth. 

“You haven’t seen their faces. The way they look at me and ask for extra mustard with their lunch order. It’s - and something is absolutely going on with the arson case. It’s clearly related.”

Eddie nodded at Jeff.

“Just barely, but it hits.”

Claws ripped straight through his shirt, barely giving him enough time to curve and suck in his stomach, claws meeting skin but dodging in the way that really counted. He’s had deeper.

Jeff scrutinized the board, eyes darting between pieces.

He planted his feet, taking a breath and spinning the bat around his hand just because he could. 

Gareth shook his head. 

“All of those things are true, okay? But that doesn’t - what if - Nance - “

Eddie turned towards Nancy and tilted his head, his voice light.

“Would it be worth getting kidnapped and possibly - probably - tortured by the government?”

A few minutes later, as he caught his breath, bat dripping with residual blood, he wondered absently if he could find a flame thrower somewhere. 

“Okay, okay!” Nancy tossed her hands up in exasperation and looked back at Eddie.

 ”You’re right. I shouldn’t go alone.”

At the sound of screeching tires, Ellie lept from the table and ran to lean over the couch, peaking her head through the curtains to watch Max get dropped off. Nancy watched from the table, confused.

With a flash of red hair, the Mayfield’s screen door had hardly finished slamming shut, the car driving off and turning the corner, and Max was high tailing it over to theirs.

She grinned, and rushed to go open the door. 

Chapter Text

Robin pinched the joint out of Steve’s hand. He had melted into the pillows. She took a deep hit before passing it off to Barb, and then turned to snoop through more of Steve’s things. 

His school supplies were stacked together trepidatiously, loose sheets of paper crammed together between textbooks. No pencils, or even a folder. Just books and paper. 

She fixed the wobbly tower before it toppled over, obviously. And then rifled through what looked like a mess of half hearted class notes and worksheets. 

Fumbling to restack the books into something more architecturally sound, she noticed a notebook that looked well past its last legs. It was crushed and crumpled, ripped in several places, and warped from rain. 

Robin’s hand hovered over it, tracing the tears along the cover. They looked like scratch marks. 

She really, really wanted to look inside. 

Then she hesitated. Steve’s sad eyes and haunted silence drifted across her thoughts. 

So she put the notebook at the bottom of the stack.

“So.” Jonathan’s hands were delicate as they gently inserted the next tape. “The Cure released this one in 1979.” 

He fiddled with the dials a bit, hovering his hands over the stereo as it began to play. 

Then he turned to Steve to take back the joint, and snorted lightly at his face. 

“Dude.” Jonathan’s voice was raspy and deep. “You are so high.”

Steve watched his long fingers grip around the joint as he pulled in his own hit, watched the way his chest expanded with his inhale, how the neckline of his shirt stretched across his skin as he held it in, before blowing a slow, smooth breath of smoke maybe a little more in Steve’s face than he probably meant to.

Steve blinked at himself.

What was that?

But then the joint was being passed back to him again, and it was only polite to take another hit. 

He winded the string around the trunk until it pulled taut, tin cans jingling from the reverberation, before pulling out the notebook he’d shoved into the front of his pants for safekeeping, and the pencil from behind his ear, to mark spots onto the shitty little map he’d cobbled together. 

It wasn’t much, he chewed his lip as he surveyed his lackluster security system, but it would have to do. 

For now, at least. And hopefully there wouldn’t be much need for “for now”.

Steve pulled back as quickly as he had shot forward, lips tingling. 

Jonathan looked as shocked as he felt, blinking back at him with wide eyes. His long fingers came up to touch his mouth, as if he wasn’t finished processing the last thirty seconds. 

And fair. Neither was Steve. 

Steve had just kissed a boy. He hadn’t even realized he was going to do it, that he had even wanted to do it. But Jonathan’s eyes crinkled when he smiled, and the faint crooning of guitar didn’t help matters much. 

But then reality dropped like gravity, popping in Steve’s ears as he jerked, thinking of Tommy. And his dad. And himself, really. Because what. The hell. How did - When did - Has he always?

“Steve - “

His eyes widened, already dry from the weed, as he realized with sudden, sobering clarity, that he had placed himself into the hands of Jonathan Byers.
“I’m - I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” He sputtered. 

Jonathan’s eyes closed for a moment. Steve felt himself beginning to panic, breath stuttering, as he imagined the millions of ways this could be ruined. He wanted to be able to hang out with Jonathan again. The Byer’s house was warm, and the bus had already started to get uncomfortably cold at night. 

“Steve, it’s okay.” He’d lifted his hands to hover over him the same way they had with the stereo. “I’m - I’m flattered, really. But I - I’m not - “ He chewed his lips before resorting to a vague shrug.

Steve understood though, and nodded. 

Jonathan gave him a small, grateful smile, and Steve returned it with equal earnestness. 

Chapter Text

Joyce tried to school her face as little ten year old Steve Harrington approached the register. 

Tiny arms strained to dump his spoils onto the conveyer belt, before he turned to her with an open, eye-crinkling grin. 

“Good morning Miss Byers.” He chirped brightly. 

She smiled back. 

“Good morning Steve.”

He was so small. Shorter than Jonathan, who was still nine. She’d heard plenty about the little Harrington boy in the year above her son at school.

As he concentrated on counting change in his hands, Joyce couldn’t help but worry.

“No way.”

Max grinned at that, a cheshire cat smile of sharp amusement as she stomped over dried out piles of pine straw just to hear the crunch.

“Barb has a ban on talking about Nancy too.”

Ellie reached out a hand as she struggled over some branchy vines, and Max grasped it tightly without even thinking, to help her over.

She looked confused still, so Max continued.

“They used to be best friends. Something must have happened.”

Will raised his eyebrows at that, trailing behind them. He used one hand to grip the strap of his backpack and the other to steady himself against a gnarled trunk as he stepped delicately over roots. 

He couldn’t help but chime in, curiosity bubbling up inside of him like when he was planning a campaign.

“Do you think it has anything to do with Steve?”

Max stopped, consideration crossing over her face. 

“That would make sense. I’m pretty sure he lives with the Hollands.”

Ellie’s head tilted, eyes drifting a little in thought. 

“Eddie has a ban on talking about Steve.”

It was so damn cold in Scoops Ahoy. 

Steve really didn’t mind the uniform. Really, he didn’t. He’d had a lot of time to get really, really used to being grateful to wear just about anything. It really didn’t matter. At the end of the day, the day was going to end. 

What he hadn’t been prepared for, however, was the absolute lack of insulation the little sailor costume provided. He knew they sold ice cream, but Christ. 

Goosebumps ran up his exposed thighs, and his fingertips were going a little numb.

He didn’t like the cold. Maybe he did at one point in time, but he couldn’t remember anymore.

“Dingus?” 

He turned to blink at the one beacon of fucking sunshine at this shitty mall job. It wasn’t the worst hellscape experience he’d ever had, of course, but it was still fucking bleak. 

Robin’s brow was a little furrowed in worry, and Steve realized distantly that he’d zoned out again. 

He straightened up from where he’d started slouching against the counter, feeling numb and a little sore from where the corner had dug in and left an imprint on his skin.

“Yeah? Sorry.”

She pursed her lips, clearly not buying it. Her shrewd eyes traced over him in that distinctly wonderful Robin way, as if they were connected cosmically and he didn’t have to flounder in alphabet soup trying to explain something that words simply couldn’t come close to translating. She made him feel seen. She understood.

“So you’ll come after work?”

He blinked at her, trying to remember what they’d been talking about. The chopped ends of her shaggy bob poked out from under her sailor cap.

He nodded, not really knowing what he was agreeing to, but it was Robin. So.

Ellie’s curls bounced around her like a halo, her tiny palms held out for balance as she stepped off a particularly steep hill. Max stopped to wait for her, hands ready to help if she needed. 

Will followed behind, pulling the compass out of his pocket and pausing at the trunk of a tree to look around. 

“I think we’re close.” He informed them dutifully. Max nodded, pulling out the sheet of notebook paper from her back pocket and unfolding it. 

Ellie was at her side immediately, peering over her shoulder, standing close like she always did. With the way she squinted, Max wondered idly, maybe she needed glasses. 

Chapter Text

“Well hello, Clark Kent.”

Steve blinked dumbly at the stranger as they sauntered into Scoops, immediately caught off guard by the toothy smile and mess of wild curls framing his face like a halo. It looked soft, despite looking like it hadn’t been brushed. 

His hands were shoved into his pockets, jacket sleeves rolled up and forearms flexing as if his hands were in fists. Steve’s mouth went dry.

Floundering, he pointed up to the nametag on his chest, pushing his new glasses up his nose with his other hand and clearing his throat. 

“It’s, uh. Steve, actually.”

That made the stranger bark a laugh, surprising them both. His cheeks tinged a light pink, but once he regained his composure he straightened his shoulders and fell into a deep bow. 

“Apologies, your highness. King Steve, of course.”

Steve’s lips twisted, stomach turning at the reminder. Robin was suspiciously silent in the back, probably listening. His eyes lowered as he stared at the pattern of the countertop and cleared his throat again. 

“Please, uh,” he tried to keep his voice light and even, “don’t call me that.” 

The stranger’s eyebrows raised into his choppy bangs as he blinked back at Steve. He attempted a small smile to smooth over the awkwardness of the moment, but it was strained. He floundered again.

“Ahoy - um. Would you,” his voice came out raspy as he fell back onto what he had rehearsed for all the customers. He cringed, feeling the blush crawl up his collar. “Would you like to set sail on this ocean of flavor?”

“This is a terribly, horribly, no good, very bad idea, Wheeler.” Eddie squawked  in a whisper as he followed after her, the light from his flashlight shaking as his hand shivered.

She scowled, and sighed. 

“Let’s just get this over with. We won’t stick around for long.”

The leaves crunched damply underfoot as they slowly stretched across what had once been Hawkin’s Electric. Or Hawkin’s Laboratory, depending who you asked. 

It was a wet and humid kind of weather, perfect for cold sweats and reconnaissance. Eddie shoved his other hand deep into his pocket, shoulders to his ears as Nancy stepped over crumbled cinderblock. 

He grimaced at the tiny footprints of soot that trailed behind her, and did his best to scrape them away as he followed reluctantly.

He kept an ear out, zoning in on anything out of the ordinary amongst the bugs and night owls. His eyes scanned across the treeline for any signs they needed to run.

He nearly bumped into Nancy as she came to an abrupt stop. He stumbled, catching himself, before training his flashlight on whatever was in front of her. 

It must’ve been an elevator shaft at one point in time, blackened and burnt but gaping wide open. 

Veiny roots, grimy and wet, stretched over the open edges and outward. 

Nancy traced the shape of them with her flashlight, where they bloomed and burrowed into the surrounding earth.

Then she redirected the light back to the elevator, on the one side where the fucking nightmare fuel wasn’t growing, to a rusty ladder.

Hopper paused, before sighing deeply.

“You aren’t the first person to call about that, Joyce.”

His voice was raspy and resigned. She gripped the handle of her mug even tighter, holding it close to her chest. Steam and the smell of hot coffee wafted upwards, her eyes tracing over the kitchen wallpaper as she chewed on her lip in frustration. 

“There has got to be more that you can do, Jim.”

Another deep, tired sigh. 

“You know how the Harringtons are. Threats and connections,” a resentful huff, “And money.”

Lucas Sinclair tagged along once they recruited his sister Erika for the vents situation. It was obvious that he was trying not to stare at Steve, but he figured after the whole monster talk there might be some lingering weirdness.

Dustin, however, hadn’t skipped a beat. He bickered with Robin over semantics and verbage, or whatever SAT words they threw around these days. It was hard to keep up with their rapid spitfire exchanges, talking over each other more loudly each time as a new idea popped into their giant nerd brains. Steve’s heart swelled watching their faces light up, but his head throbbed at their increasing volume. 

Mike sneered like he usually did, slouched between Dustin and Lucas and glaring holes into the back table. He was clearly trying to focus on the conversation about blueprints and strategy, but every now and then he glowered at Steve with all the venom of a wet cat. 

Steve was pretty sure customers weren’t allowed in the back of the store, let alone a whole gaggle of children. But the way their squabbling filled the cold and empty air was kind of nice. So.

He stormed off, blood hot and seeing red, stomping past his fucking car because his dad took his fucking keys,  down the sidewalk and wherever his blind rage was going to take him.

Everything was fucked, and he shouldn’t be so surprised. 

It was always going to be fucking fucked. Any girls he met here were bound to be fucking bitchy and pretentious and not worth his fucking time. And he had always known that. 

He knew that this fuck ass town was never going to change his fucking mind, and any fucking hopes that lingered like the smell of fucking Wheeler’s perfume in his fucking car were as fucking pathetic as he knew they would be. 

So whatever fucking hotness that crawled up his neck into the back of his eyes were as much fucking bullshit as the rest of Billy’s fucking life. 

He wanted, desperately, to fucking smash something. To destroy something, feel it crack open beneath his hands like that fucking plate to Harrington’s fucking head. 

He didn’t know where he was going, pinestraw crushing under his feet as he lumbered into the patchy woods, but he needed to get as far away as fucking possible.

Chapter Text

“I swear to fucking god, Wheeler, I will drag you back if I have to.”

Nancy raised her hands, conceding his point, and they scuttled to the van to drive back to Eddie’s. 

She was quiet on the way to the trailer, eyes intense as they stared at the road through the windshield. Eddie left her to her thoughts, keeping the radio off and letting them sit in somber silence. 

When they pulled into Forest Hills, there was a van parked up next to Nancy’s car. A white van. 

Eddie’s stomach turned queasily as they walked up the driveway. The hair raised up his spine and the back of his neck. 

Inside sat a man in a lab coat at their kitchen table, two mugs of coffee steaming as Wayne flipped through a manila folder of papers. The man looked up as they came in, the screen door creaking ominously shut behind them.

“Ah, Mr. Munson, Ms. Wheeler,” he stood to shake their hands. 

“My name is Sam Owens. I think we might need to talk.” 

“It doesn’t look like a skull,” Ellie noted with a serious expression on her face. She tilted her head and squinted intently at the stacked together rocks. Max bit her lip, holding back a laugh.

Will didn’t try to hold back anything, snorting brightly and stepping further into the clearing to survey the surroundings. 

He gripped the straps of his backpack in excitement as his eyes scanned around for the best place to sit down, before steering towards the little space underneath the rocks. 

Max trailed after him, before noticing that Ellie hadn’t followed. 

She turned to find her looking concerned and nervous, eyes glued to the blackened tree roots that encircled the area. 

They looked dead and moldy, flies drifting around the patches of fermented leaves. Ellie’s gaze traced over the thick rot that cloaked over wide spreads of pine straw, and bit her lip.

“I don’t think we should be here.” She whispered to Max.

Max had never seen her look so scared. She didn’t like the way it reshaped her face, the way her eyes grew haunted and older than they were. 

She took Ellie’s hand, and called out for Will to come back. 

He poked his head out from the rocks, confused, until he saw the look on Ellie’s face. 

“You know,” he offered lightly, “I think we could get to the lake from here pretty easily.”

Robin was loud as she shoved open the little window as soon as the stranger paid for his scoop of strawberry and left. She somberly drew a tally under the “You Rule” category, and he furrowed his brow in confusion. 

“What?”

Lucas held the chain of the garage door open behind them as Steve Harrington moved to slice open what they’d found. 

“Wait!” Erika shouted, before she and Dustin lugged the box carefully out through the garage doors to examine it on more solid ground. 

It made a cracking sound as it dropped distractedly onto asphalt, their eyes widening as the entire freight elevator gave a ground shaking jerk. 

The chain yanked hard out of Lucas’ sweaty hands and dragged him downward with a surprised yelp. He barely managed to scamper out of the way as the doors slammed down, closing them in. 

Mike was already fighting over the control panel with Robin, yelling and pressing buttons that didn’t seem to be working.

Lucas' eyes drifted over to Steve Harrington, who stood frozen in place as his eyes darted around frantically, muttering under his breath as if cataloging all the things in the room with them. 

The elevator gave another heart stuttering jerk, before they were falling down, down, down. 

They screamed, voices cracking, as they tried to hold onto something.

Chapter Text

“Yes, Stevie, we do know Jonathan Byers.” Robin giggled, knees to her chest as she sat against the wall. 

Her eyes crinkled, dry from weed, at the dopey expression plastered across Steve’s beautiful face. He blinked at her, not unlike a puppy.

“That can’t be right.” 

Barb wheezed another laugh, Jonathan’s mouth twitching up around the joint.

“We all went to Hawkin’s Elementary together, dude.”

Steve’s eyes widened, genuinely delighted at the news.

“No way.”

Eddie looked pissed, Max noticed immediately as they walked in through the door, but not at them. Which was weird, because they got back super late.

Max wasn’t going to question it. Because there was a man here that made Ellie tense and terrified, and Max wanted to know why.

She didn’t leave Ellie’s side as they were ushered to the kitchen table and presented with an impressive coercion tactic of hot, steaming mugs of hot chocolate.

 Nancy was huddled near the stove looking guilty, which was odd in itself, but the hot chocolate was good so Max chose to ignore that too. 

Things made a little more sense when this Owens guy - and did he really have to wear a lab coat right now? They weren’t even in a lab - turned delicately towards Ellie and asked for her help.

She sat quietly through his explanation about gates and power sources, her eyes intense. Max was grabbing her hand before realizing she had, giving it a small and comforting squeeze. 

Ellie blinked, and squeezed back. 

Her eyes danced over the open manila folder, where a birth certificate for “Eleanor Jane Munson” was written elegantly in ink. 

She swallowed, before looking back up at Owens and nodding.

“What the fuck is that?”

Mike squawked, voice shrill with the edge of panic. Robin scuffed the back of his head lightly with a hiss to be quiet, to which he responded with a shove, and then they were squabbling again.

Lucas wasn't paying attention to them. His eyes were locked on Steve, stomach beginning to churn with unease. 

Steve Harrington looked stricken. A waxy glaze of an aware sort of horror slowly warped his face into something Lucas had never seen before. His cloudy eyes shined wide and afraid as he shook his head back and forth, slowly at first before picking up speed.

He muttered low under his breath, gazing dazedly and terrified at the outline of whatever-the-fuck was growing out of the wall behind the glass windows.

“No, no, no, no, no, no - ”

His hands had come up in front of him as if to push something away and taking a step back. He looked, for once, incredibly fragile.

“- no, no, no, no, no, no.”

Chapter Text

“Go! Go! Go!”

It hadn’t taken very long for the Russians to find them. Steve’s heels slid as he forced all his weight into keeping the door closed.

Lucas and Mike shoved themselves down into the vent, screaming at each other to move faster, and slamming the grating shut above them.

Adrenaline and dread pooled in Robin’s stomach as the door burst open.

Joyce was not at all prepared for the absolute acidic beratement from Mrs. Harrington over the phone, the cool hiss and cutting words that thinly threatened as precisely as they were intended. 

She felt scalded, scolded, small. Like a child. 

Her heart ached, thinking about tiny hands handing over the exact amount for peanut butter.

Eddie was silent as Owens and Wayne planned their excursion into the unknown with a tragically sage little Eleanor, nods and questions and bone chilling information that she was probably going to be thinking about for the rest of her life. Max sat vigil next to her, jaw set and chin raised, as if daring someone to try and send her home.

Nancy felt heavy with guilt, having dragged him and his family into something they’d managed to avoid for longer than anyone had imagined. Ruining the peace they had created. 

She felt sick, thinking about all the other things she had ruined lately. If she hadn’t -

It was all her fault.

The police station was eerie. He tried not to focus on that, or the bleeding color of red clouds that had collected across the sky. 

He broke in as quickly as he could, broken glass crunching as he slowly stepped inside. It was quiet, which was usually a good sign. But Steve had been fooled before. 

The chief’s thick corduroy jacket was hung over the coat rack like it was waiting for him. Since it was hanging, it was mostly dry. He added it to the collection in his cart.

Then he turned to look for where they kept the guns. Hopefully they weren’t too wet. He didn’t think wet guns would work. But cops used other weapons too, right?

Jonathan had been shuffling through tapes when Will got home. He was a bit sweaty and smelled of forest, but the grin on his face reached his eyes. So Jonathan just smiled.

He’d been gushing about his day hiking with new friends, where they’d set up their reading spots under some trees at the lake, when his walkie talkie came to life.

The voice that burst through the static was shrill, half muffled with panic.

“Hello?! Is anyone there?! This is a CODE RED”

 It was Dustin. 

Chapter Text

It became the one thing he was absolutely certain of. He didn’t want to die. 

The thought had been tempting at first, back when he still thought someone would find him. A shameful sort of satisfaction flared in his stomach when he used to imagine his parents crying over his mangled dead body, tragic and remorseful. 

But he knew that was probably a fantasy as much as the ones he’d read through ripped pages and melted ink.

The satisfaction faded once he’d realized he was never getting rescued. 

Maybe this was some cosmic punishment, for all the terrible things he’d done and all the things he could have done but didn’t. Or maybe he wasn’t even that important, to warrant some divinely inspired discipline. Maybe he’d just fallen through some cracks and it didn’t matter. Nothing really mattered. 

But he didn’t want to die. He didn’t want to die alone. He didn’t want his body to never be found.

Maybe it had taken getting to the true bottom of it all, but. 

He stopped to hunch over, hacking up another gob of pus. His lungs felt ripped open like when he’d had pneumonia as a kid. 

But none of it was black, so Steve counted that as a win. 

Some red, but no black.

They’d let the government guys in special gear go down first. Nancy didn’t argue about that. Then Wayne, with his own suit, then Eddie, then Eleanor, and then Nancy.

Max had complained, but the look Eleanor gave her actually worked, so she stood by with the other agents around the elevator shaft as they set up the surroundings in tape and tarp, unfolding tables and containing the area as best as they knew how. 

Some other agents in suits stood by the rot with pliers and plastic bags, taking specimens or something. Nancy didn’t know. 

The rungs of the ladder were sticky under her rubber gloves. Dripping water and the footsteps below echoed upwards. 

She tried not to pay attention to the spores drifting through the air the further down she went, the way they floated about the string of lights the agents had dropped down to illuminate their descent. 

Barb sighed, and got out of her car. The parking lot was practically empty, and Steve and Robin weren’t coming out. She was pretty sure they finally locked the doors, too. They’d just cut off the shining letters of the Starcourt sign. 

She worried over her lip. It was late. If they had found another ride, she was pretty sure they’d have told her somehow. 

Her neck jerked so hard it popped a little at the sound of screaming coming from the back lot.

Chapter Text

There was a deep stain at the bottom of the elevator shaft. Right in the center, unavoidable as she stepped off the ladder. Big and round, more like a splatter around the edges, as if something had landed with force.

A thin, grimy layer of it caked the bottom of her boots, the air echoing with sticky footsteps and heavy breathing as they ventured further towards the lab.

The stain didn’t stop. It streaked messy and ominous beside them down the hall. It was hard to tell what color it was in the dark. 

Nancy couldn’t look away from it. Her vision tunneled as they entered through the broken laboratory doors.

The stain of dark wet trailed past them and stopped abruptly in the center of the room. 

She swallowed back bile as something dripped onto the shoulder of her suit.

It was thick, thick enough to feel it land more heavily than water.

The gob of it stuck as it slid, leaving behind a slimy trail down her arm.

She shook it off the back of her glove, breath hitching, cold dread running up her spine.

Nancy looked up, and screamed.

Lucas scuttled backwards, watching numbly as the grating opened and a hand shot down to grip tightly at Mike’s hair. 

Mike yelped, terrified eyes bulging as his hands scrambled to his head, and then other hands were on his shirt and yanking him out of Lucas’ line of vision with a desperate scream.

He slid on his butt further down the vent until he heard the grating slam shut. Held his hands over his mouth to control his breathing, and tried to think. 

Eddie wrapped a  hand around her elbow.

“Come on, Nance.” He murmured softly to her as she swayed, eyes wide on the ceiling. “We gotta go.”

Ellie was curled up closer to Wayne, Eddie checked as he made towards the exit and he dragged Nancy behind him.

She didn’t fight or argue. There was a wide and hollow look in her eye, a horrified daze that Eddie hoped a cup of hot chocolate could fix. Maybe a joint. He didn't like how it reshaped her face, her usually stubborn chin now quilting as she climbed up the ladder.

She snapped out of something halfway to the surface, jerking sharply into a hyperventilation of sobs. Eddie rambled to distract her, told her about the new campaign ideas he had, asked what her brother was up to, what she had planned for prom.

He may have been in shock too.

There was no manual for finding your ex-whatever like that.

No manual at all. 

She squinted down at the little girl in a helmet and knee pads, and raised an eyebrow.

“Isn’t it past your bedtime?”

The look she gave her was withering. Barb’s gaze shifted towards Dustin, who was laser focused on a broken cardboard box.

His hands hovered like he was afraid to touch it. 

And fair. Her eyes drifted down to really look. It was leaking a neon green.

She blinked as it dripped and steamed, releasing a slow hiss as asphalt dissolved before her eyes. 

“What,” she took a deep breath, “the fuck?”

Attached to the ceiling was Billy Hargrove.

Whatever was left of him, anyway. 

Empty and open blue eyes, limp and loose jaw. His face was frozen in pain and disbelief. 

Limbs stretched impossibly outwards at all four corners like an anatomical drawing. His legs looked bent in a number of places, angles that weren’t possible unless they were broken. 

Tiny black veins branched and burrowed, splitting his skin open wide with tendrils like wire, adhering to the walls like tar.

They burst wetly from his chest and twisted into petals, draping across the walls and blooming like a flower. 

As cold and dead and damp as it was, it felt alive. Alive and aware, Billy’s head lolling at the center of everything, vines curling around him as if caressing his face.

Their boots crunched against sticky, shattered glass as the suited agents shifted, their necks craning upwards to aim their flame throwers.

Billy’s face stretched into a slow smile before his body ripped in two and the gate opened wide. 

Wayne’s heavy, calloused hands were grounding on her shoulders. She lifted a hand towards the ceiling and let out a scream.

She thought of Max, and her brother, and Eddie, her brother, and Will and magic and Papa, and that picture in Eddie's comic book with the purple flashes of what he had called lightning. She thought of her first thunderstorm, how Eddie played her a song about sunshine.

She thought of the library with Max, making new friends with Will, and all the other boys Will promised to let her meet.

She thought of Wayne, who loved her without asking for anything in return, and of Eddie teaching her how to read, and how purple was her favorite color. 

Wayne squeezed her shoulders as the gaping chasm above them began to shift closed, and Ellie's heart swelled with love. 

She blinked tears of blood from her eyes as she smiled, squinting like Max did when she played Dig Dug, and let out another scream. 

Chapter Text

Mrs. Byers held his chin between her fingers with one hand, and dabbed gently at his temple with a damp washcloth in the other. She didn’t ask any questions, didn’t look him in the eye, and Steve didn’t want to think about how that made the back of his eyes burn with appreciation. 

He sat quietly with his hands in his lap. Tried to stay as still as possible as she cleaned him up, and waited for the burning to fade into the dull throb it usually was. 

It didn’t fade, though. It just expanded, a lump swelling in his throat as delicate hands turned his head side to side and wiped his face clean. 

He felt flayed open and raw at the tenderness. He’d never - 

She hummed at him, drawing his eyes to meet hers. 

“How are you feeling?” Her voice was soft, fingers running across the small bit of unmarked skin along his cheek.

He blinked, surprised at the question. And then his vision blurred and the lump in his throat went hot. His lip wobbled.

She didn’t wait for him to answer, just folded him into her arms. 

That made everything worse, but he was already so tired. The spot where Billy hit him with the plate throbbed with the beat of his racing heart. 

He let his head rest against her chest right under her throat, and let the hot tears slip silently down his face. 

Steve started screaming even louder at the sight of them dragging Mike out the vent. He looked small and pale, eyes wide in panicked dread.

Robin jerked towards him and away from the hands on her, to no avail. With a signal from one of the men, they were dragged through the doors and down the hall. 

Steve poked at the boiling flannels, mourning the great waste of water this project was turning into. 

But his clothes - one of the few things he’d had left from Before - were in tatters, and it was cold. 

It was so cold, and maybe if he spooned off the layers of slime that bubbled up and coagulated along the surface of the giant pot, he could pretend like he was a witch and this was a cauldron and he was just making soup. Normal, chicken soup.  Or pasta, like Strega Nona.

Max’s arms dropped limply to her sides as a sobbing Nancy Wheeler crawled out from the elevator shaft. A half hysterical Eddie followed close behind, hands fluttering around her like he didn’t know exactly what to do, like he was afraid she might shatter.

He ushered her towards the cars parked along the road. Max watched them go, before her eyes were dragged back to the gaping hole in the ground.

A distant scream echoed upwards out of it. Her stomach churned.

“Wait!” 

Lucas called out, following after her as she stormed onto the front porch.

She whirled around once he’d closed the door behind them, eyes blazing as they narrowed.

“Do you think it’s my fault?”

He sputtered, hands fluttering.

“No! Of course not!”

She scanned over his face for a moment, and then turned away to pick up her skateboard. 

“Your friends suck, Sinclair.” She snarked loudly, before kicking off down the sidewalk. 

The smoke had choked the vines out, he noticed idly as he hung flannels out to dry along a high string he’d tied between two trees within the perimeter of fire.

He’d gotten used to the smell, and the deadened town had so much left to burn. It was warm, almost peaceful. 

He blinked out of his daze as lightning flashed along the skyline, giant shadows on the horizon. 

They were dragged to a tiny metal room and tied together in a triangle, wrists chafing against rope, breaths heaving and hitching and bumping shoulders as they were left alone to wait.

“I’m sorry about Mike.”

Will stood next to their table, a respectful distance away from where Max huddled over her book, but close enough to whisper. 

She pretended she didn’t hear at first, so he took a seat at another table. 

They turned at the sound of screeching tires, as Will and Jonathan Byers pulled up in their car. Dustin rushed past her towards them where they’d parked sideways across three spots. 

Erika Sinclair refused to explain what was going on. She just mirrored her, fists on her hips and eyes squinting back, telling her it was above her security clearance. 

Barb looked down at the steaming crater that had formed in the parking lot. The cardboard had been eaten away, neon green now charred and smoking, leaving behind bits of broken glass and metal.. 

She was going to have an aneurysm. 

Max huffed, before collecting her things and slumping over to take a seat at his table. They didn’t speak, but if books were silently exchanged between them that was no one’s business but their own.

The commander - and he must have been the commander, right? He had the red hat and badges and everything, and he was definitely in charge, so it made sense - gave a nod to one of the soldiers. He pulled out his pistol without a word and stepped forward to strike Steve right across the side of his face with it. Steve went limp. 

With another nod from the commander, two soldiers were grabbing him by the shoulders and dragging him off. 

Robin screamed. Mike started to cry. She couldn’t see him from where he was tied up, but could hear and feel the ragged sobs against her shoulder.

“Hawkins…has monsters?”

Max had the sharpest look of unimpressed disbelief that Lucas had ever seen. It also, inconveniently, made her eyes sparkle. 

“It sounds crazy, I get it.” 

That made her raise her eyebrows, lips turning up at the corners and scrambling whatever thoughts Lucas had managed to string together. 

He floundered.

“Just…be safe, okay? Don’t…don’t go out into the woods at night.”

She blinked at him, considering something, before her eyes narrowed. 

“Does this have anything to do with Steve?”

Chapter Text

“We’re wasting time!” Dustin’s hands flapped frantically at them as he tried to explain.

“Mike, and - and Lucas and - Steve and Robin - they’re - we didn’t know it was an elevator!” 

His voice had risen into a scream by the end, on the verge of hyperventilating. Erika - why was Erika here, actually? - nodded along seriously, eyes wide and urgent. 

Jonathan blinked at them both, still processing what the hell was going on, before he turned to dig through his car. When he found a quarter, he glanced back over to Barb. 

“I’m…gonna go call my mom.”  

“Hey, Man-Eater Wheeler!” 

Tommy Hagan and Carol Perkins looked her up and down and snickered. She tried to ignore the dread puddling in her stomach as she and Barb made their way towards the shallow end. 

Hagan and Perkins were never ones to leave well enough alone, though. Vindictive eyes and sharp grins, they reminded her of sharks when blood was in the water. 

“Any more victims lately?” Hagan’s oily, saccharine sneer slid off her shoulders like slime. 

They were slouched against the side of the pool by the lifeguard chair. Billy Hargrove, of all people, sat back with his sunglasses, a smirk, and a tank top that showed off the way his upper arms flexed.

Barb was already pulling her away by the elbow, when he ducked his head towards her.

“You know,” his eyes were a cool, clear blue as they peered over his shades to murmur low to her, “You could do way better than Harrington, anyway.”

Hopper hoisted himself out of his truck with a deep, tired sigh. 

Joyce had already hopped out and slammed the passenger side door, speaking in hushed voices with Jonathan as Will stood by arguing with two other kids and some red haired teenager. They’d all circled around what seemed to be a hole in the parking lot. 

His head craned back far enough for his hat to fall behind him, as a rumbling emerged from the ground and the entire building began to shake. 

He stumbled, foot tripping over a tree root and startling himself out of his daze. His heart pounded, his ears popped, as he tried - and failed - to catch his breath. 

The tittering only grew louder behind him.

The ring of Owens’ phone split open the still silence of the night air and made everyone jump. Wayne was busy helping Ellie climb out of the elevator shaft as he pulled the antenna and took the call, so only Max saw the expressions on his face shift into a deep concern throughout the mumbled conversation. 

After a stilted, tightening moment, he hung up. The air had turned awkward and heavy around them, stress lines tense across his forehead once he turned back towards them and cleared his throat. 

“There seems to have been a… disturbance across town, over by Starcourt Mall. We aren’t sure if it’s related yet.” 

Wayne’s arm tightened instinctively around an exhausted Ellie. Max drifted closer to the two of them as Owens hesitated again. “I…Excuse me. I need to make a few calls.”

He’d tripped again, harder this time. Now his legs wouldn’t listen to him. Things were not looking good. 

He dragged himself into a little crevice between roots at the bottom of a big oak - he guessed that’s what it was, but to be honest he had no clue - and hunched into himself as small as he could get. With any luck, they’d leave before the cold settled into his bones any more than it already had. 

Wayne insisted they take Ellie and Max home before heading over. She wanted to argue, to know what was going on, but the look on Ellie’s face and the way she took her hand made Max more than a little bit worried. Her nose wouldn’t stop bleeding, eyes drooping as she swayed towards the car. 

Before she slid in next to Ellie, Wayne pulled her to the side. He placed a comforting, calloused hand on her shoulder, voice going soft in that sort of way grown ups did when they were going to tell you bad news. With a final, heavy glance towards the gaping hole of the elevator shaft in the ground, Max had a feeling she already knew what he was going to say. 

“It’s, uh, " Wayne hesitated, before lowering himself down to her level. His eyes were kind and sad as they traced over her face. “It’s about your brother.”

He jerked awake, shivering and startled and with no idea where he was. And then he remembered, and braced his hands on the rough, slimy bark of the tree to stand up and keep going. 

He had to. 

Eddie had just settled next to Nancy, blankets on shoulders and steaming mugs on the couch, water logged and tuckered out and waiting for Ellie and Wayne and Max to come back. 

That was when the phone rang.

His lungs spasmed wet and sticky, but he ignored the burgeoning need to cough up whatever infection had settled inside of him and kept going.

He had to.

It all happened so fast. There was nothing Barb could do to stop the nightmare from unfolding before her eyes. 

The rumbling had been low at first, ominous and deep from the ground but had only gotten louder, growing upwards until even the second level of Starcourt began shifting way beyond its means. 

Deep, shaking cracks climbed up the walls and opened up, gasping out a great and terrible gust of black smoke. 

A burst of horrible sound, the crinkle of static as Hopper reached fast for his walkie - and then everything was collapsing into flames. 

Barb couldn’t hear much of anything else over their screams. 

Chapter Text

“- thank you, Karen! This year's fourth of July carnival was only expecting one spectacular firework show when the brand new Starcourt mall caught fire around midnight...”

Her stomach queazed.  

“…Local authorities had only just managed to isolate the flames up to the roof, according to witnesses, when what has now been identified as a gas leak created an explosion big enough to see from the carnival’s ferris wheel…”

He swallowed, throat dry.

“…The popular shopping mall had only just opened in June, but local authorities have determined that the cause of the fire and subsequent collapse was faulty wiring and architectural misconduct - “

Nancy hissed under her breath as she peeled her nail too short.

Eddie geipped the TV remote tight enough for his knuckles to go white, eyes glued to the TV. 

Her vision fishbowled a bit over the course of the night. Mugs of coffee gone cold, forgotten as they waited for something to happen.

Time felt stilted, stifling since Wayne called. They’d gotten back long ago, Ellie and Max off to bed and Wayne stretched back and snoring on the recliner. 

Despite a lot of differences - in terms of appearances and tastes and general ability to talk to people - Nancy and Eddie were very similar.

Things stuck to them, obsessively, neurotically, whatever. The buzz that rolled around in their heads, the need to chew on a thought long enough to drive rocking chair grooves into the soft blue cheese of their brains.

Honestly, compulsively, blankets wrapped around their shoulders like capes as they paced and fiddled and fidgeted.

The news blared on. 

“We’re getting word that there were people inside the building at the time, John - “

“Yes!” John cut in.

Nancy’s eye twitched over that. Over the fact that she noticed something like that. Especially at a time like this.

Her fingertips stung, itching with the need to claw at something.

“We’re getting word that Steve Harrington and Robin Buckley, employees of the nautical themed ice cream shop Scoops - uh, Scoops Ahoy - were still inside at the time the fire started.”

“Oh, John.”

Karen’s hand was on her chest, big doughy blue eyes blinking towards the camera. The hair on the back of Nancy’s neck stood on end. “I sure do hope they’re okay.”

John placed a big, knuckly hand over Karen’s. 

“Search teams are currently working through the rubble to locate them. And - “

John’s eyebrows curled downwards as he scanned over the pages in his hand. He cleared his throat, took back his hand to shuffle his papers.

“We’ve been informed that there were some - uh, children with them as well, twelve year olds Michael Wheeler and Lucas Sinclair.”

Nancy and Eddie stopped at the same time, a half second for them to share a wide, breath hitching glance at each other, and then Wayne was startling awake to the sound of a bouncing screen door, tire squeaking down the street. 

He’d laid out some towels in the front yard to lay down.

Boiled them first, of course, and hung them up to dry before stretching out on top of them near the wall of fire that surrounded his trailer.

And it was his now, wasn’t it? He didn’t know how property law worked in the real world, let alone the conversion rates of hell.

Christ, maybe ownership was just made up bullshit. Money didn’t matter here.

Nothing did. 

The fire lit up the air around him, warm and hearthlike, and for the briefest of moments he wondered softly to himself if this was really so bad. 

Max tugged on Ellie’s sleeve once they’d gotten out of the car.

She had that look on her face, the one that most people didn’t understand except her, the look that said she didn’t want to go home.

Ellie didn’t skip a beat, sliding her fingers between Max’s and squeezing tight. 

By the drop of Max’s shoulders, it was the right thing to do. Ellie pulled her inside their trailer to the back room, closing the door softly so that they had the privacy to cry.

Chapter Text

“Hey - hey Mike?”

Mike sniffled. Snot itched down his nose.

Robin’s head was tilted towards his, their backs pressed together tightly with thick rope.

His wrists hurt.

He wanted his mom. 

“Yeah?” His voice cracked.

Robin didn’t comment on it. She just started asking questions.

Was he excited for high school? Did he do anything fun this summer? Did he have any other friends?

Mike wasn’t stupid.

He knew she was trying to distract him.

But sitting there shivering against each other, he couldn’t help but be grateful for it. 

Nancy chewed her hangnail, cuticles raw.

Billy, Steve, Mike. They always came in threes.

She thought of where her mom was in the house right now.

If her dad was watching the news. If he’d say something fucking stupid and stinging like he always somehow managed to do without trying.

She hunched forward, a yanking, guttural sob wheezing out as she gasped for air, hands fisting into her hair as she tried to breathe through ragged waves of fucking everything.  

God, Mike. Fucking Mike. 

A hand - Eddie's, because he was way too good of a friend for her to ever come close to deserving - laid warm and solid between her shoulders. A steady weight, it helped dissolve the spasms radiating from her chest.

Another wave hit as they turn into her neighborhood, she pressed against her forehead to try and find a grip. Holly probably didn't know what was going on, and Mike. Fucking Mike.

 What was the last thing she'd said to him? 

He leaned back against the other aisle, empty of all the strings of rope and tough gloves he’d already shoved into the cart with more excitement than was necessary.

His chest hitched with phlegm as he laughed at himself, unsure if he was actually delirious or if it was just the fever. Would hellscape Tylenol be safe to take if it was sealed? Was that how it worked?

Whatever.

He was getting distracted and there were only so many hours in the not-day that he could go out and about like this, he reminded himself.

The strings were all grimy, but they still stretched well enough.

He pulled down a few sizes to test the weight, pressing down the giggles over how fucking stupid and normal it felt to go shopping in hell. 

One of the bows felt well enough for him to slide into the cart, and he looked around for the least disgusting manual he could find. 

Some arrows, a quiver.

He snorted to himself.

Quiver. 

Barb woke up not knowing where she was.

And then she remembered that the Hendersons had lent her their couch.

Her neck hurt from the arm rest, but her face hurt more from all the crying. 

The morning had only started peaking through the thread count of the floral curtains in the living room, thin rectangles of light across the wall just before it met the ceiling.

Barb let her eyes unfocus as she stared at it. It still didn’t feel real. 

It was quiet. Either no one was up, or they were and they didn’t want to be. 

She felt awkward, in some weird limbo, yesterday’s clothes wrinkled from sleep and the quilt she’d been given getting clammy with heat.

She didn’t know what to do. 

“Do you remember - “

Mike tried to ignore the way Robin was trying so hard to keep her voice even. He could feel how her lungs hitched against his back.

“ - do you remember when me and Nancy would hang out in middle school?”

He blinked, because no. He didn’t, and he told her so.

She gave a wet laugh, the chest of it pulsing through his own.

“No, you probably wouldn’t. It was sixth grade mostly, a long time ago.”

“Why’d - “ his throat was so dry he had to clear his throat and swallow, “- why’d you stop?” 

Stop what? 

“Hanging out” was too simple for stuff like that.

Because maybe he did remember it, remember her.

Purple shorts and funny socks and sleepovers, making faces at them on his way to his room.

They were always louder when Robin came along with Barb, and she had always been quick to make a face back instead of just rolling her eyes and ignoring him.

He wasn’t sure why that would make such a difference, but maybe it did. 

Chapter Text