Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Steve almost made it to adulthood without thinking about it again.

If he was good at words, he could have sat down next to Will at some point after he came back from the Upside Down, put a hand on his very thin shoulder, and explained that Steve knew what it was like, to come back when no one expected it of you. But he couldn’t manage it, because then he would have had to explain what he meant. And that would have meant thinking about it, really thinking about it, and that seemed like more than he was capable of. So he didn’t say anything to Will Byers about the challenges of being a living dead boy.

Steve had gone for years without thinking about it. He hadn’t spoken a word about any of it since before they moved to Hawkins, burying his childhood history behind the vapid experience of being King Steve. King Steve was normal, and popular, and he didn’t talk about things that were upsetting to him or to other people. No one wanted to hear about trauma. That was actually pretty a easy rule to follow, no one wanted to hear about the time he got kidnapped by a child murderer slash maybe pedophile and the only reason Steve was this creep’s only survivor was because of the ghosts that called the creepy black phone in the murder basement he’d been kept in. He had been doing alright. The nightmares were tolerable, the ghosts had gone quiet again.

Until that damned walkie that Dustin was carrying around.

The Upside Down wasn’t Steve’s first experience with the paranormal. He had spoken with ghosts before, he had known from way too young an age that there was more out there than he could explain. Even if he had been a scientist who was good at explaining things and not someone who was only going to pass physics with the help of his girlfriend. If Nancy was still his girlfriend, and didn’t, you know, still think their love was bullshit.

That wasn’t the point. The point was that Steve had dealt with the ghosts before and he had managed to live a fairly normal life, even with the knowledge that he was basically haunted.

The thing that had helped Steve bury that so deep and not think about it was that the ghosts needed a phone to speak to him. They needed to call him. And if he was never home, never in reach of a phone, then they could never reach him, and that was it. He didn’t have to listen to their whispers, didn’t have to think about the five days he spent locked in a basement waiting to die. The phone thing was a rule, and they had to follow the rules.

Until he was walking along the railroad tracks with Dustin, slinging meat from a bucket to lure out a cat-eating tadpole dog and the walkie burst into a hiss of static that sent him reeling.

“The gate is open” the walkie said and Steve felt his knees buckle. He didn’t recognize the voice coming from the walkie, but that didn’t mean anything. People sounded different when they were dead, sometimes.

“Did you hear that?” He asked Dustin, even though he already knew the answer.

“Hear what?” Dustin asked, and Steve did his best to play it off like it must have been the wind.

He had, mostly on purpose, tried not to learn too much about what had happened the last time with the Upside Down. He knew the general shape of it, knew that the thing that he had fought at the Byers’ house had killed a lot of people, had killed Barb, and Will had survived and come back and the thing was gone because a tiny girl with magic powers had killed it, and also maybe herself.

So he had gone to dinner at the Holland’s with Nancy and woken up in a cold sweat and not thought about what these things were or where they came from. The tiny superhero that Mike would not shut up about had taken care of it. But not before it had - Steve didn’t know - laid eggs or something and now there were tadpole dog things with razor mouths?

The point was, he didn’t know what “the gate” was, but he did know that there was someone who cared enough about it to pull themself from the fog that the afterlife seemed to be entirely made up of, to warn him. So it was important, and not too much of a stretch to imagine that it was tied, somehow, to this whole tadpole dog situation.

When he was scrambling for the fortified bus, concerned about these idiot kids and whether or not he was going to get home alive, he spared a single thought to wish that whoever had cared about the gate had cared enough to warn him that there was apparently an entire pack of tadpole dogs. Demodogs. Whatever, Dustin.

He shoved his feet against the reinforced bus door and swore under his breath. The demodogs were bigger than he was expecting and as they threw themselves against the door he knew that he couldn’t hold it forever. He also couldn’t think of a way to get the kids out of here without moving from the door and then they’d all be dead, and even if he was the kind of person who was good at coming up with plans, he could barely hear himself think over all the background screaming from the frightened kids.

“We’re at the old junkyard, and we are going to die!” Dustin was shouting into the walkie. He didn’t get a response. Steve did.

“Not yet,” the walkie promised, the words almost lost under the screaming of the kids. These fucking kids. Steve didn’t even have time to think of what he was meant to do with that information before he’s hustling the redhead (Mads? Maria?) behind him and waving the bat at the tadpole dog on the roof of the bus. The roof of the bus that they did not close. Great. He was going to die here.

“Max,” the walkie said, and Steve wanted to throw it out the fucking window. “Her name is Max.” This was a new voice, not the one that had been talking to him all day, but he didn’t really have time to ponder what that meant.

“Fuck. Off.” Steve grit out from between his teeth. The demodog hadn’t moved yet, and he could have been talking to it, if the kids asked.

And then it left. They all left and the bus fell mercifully silent for an entire two seconds.

“The gate!” The walkie insisted, and Steve wanted to scream at it that he didn’t know what that meant and he didn’t know what they wanted.

He didn’t, because he was the mature adult in this situation and he had to get these kids back to safety. But he wanted to.

And then there was more yelling, and planning, and little Will Byers looked like he was half a step from death’s door. And the superhero girl was back, which was neat, but also confusing. And then it was just him alone at the Byers’ house with his squad of kids from the bus, plus Mike Wheeler, and the fucking walkie would not stop whispering to him.

Steve wanted to go home and go to bed. He wanted to scream that it wasn’t fair, that this wasn’t his responsibility, that he had enough fucking truama, thank you. But the walkie just whispered, the chorus of voices coming too fast and thick for him to pick a single word or phrase out of the noise.

And then fucking Billy Hargrove.

From the moment that Billy had rolled into town, he had some sort of vendetta against Steve. And it had been fine, it had been stupid highschool bullshit that didn’t matter because there was an alternate Hawkins sitting under their feet, because there were ghosts that could speak to Steve if he had felt like listening, because Steve had killed a man - a real, human man - when he was twelve years old. If Billy Hargrove wanted to shove Steve around and claim to be king of Hawkins high because he could do a longer keg stand, then clearly his life was pathetic and he needed every bit of validation he could find. He could have Steve’s old friends. He could have Steve’s popularity. He could even have Steve’s spot on the basketball team.

He was not getting in that fucking house.

Max had been terrified when he had driven up, almost more so than she had been of the demodogs and that was more than enough for Steve. It had been almost six years, but he remembered how to fight human monsters.

“Am I dreaming or is that you, Harrington?” And then Billy Hargrove took his fucking jacket off, like there was anyone in a ten mile radius that wanted to see his nipples right now. The walkie hissed again, and one voice came out of it this time.

This was a voice that Steve recognized.

When he had been in that basement, Vance had been the only voice that had scared him. Steve had seen him once in real life, a kid interrupted Vance’s pinball game and Vance had carved his name into the kid’s arm with a pocketknife, so the poor kid would remember him or something. Vance had been taken less than a week later. And that rage, it crackled down the phone line like it was a physical thing, like if he just hated enough he could pull himself back to life.

“Are you going to let this bitch push you around?”

It was a bit funny, because when Billy had first blown into town, Steve had thought that Vance was back, somehow. They shared the same mop of blond curls, the same thick arms and boiling rage. Maybe that similarity was what had called Vance back from the fog of death - Stevie was Vance’s last tie to the world, and Vance didn’t want to lose a fight to a cheap imitation.

So when Billy went to shove him, because the idiot kids couldn’t keep their idiot faces out of the window, Steve didn’t go down. Instead, he wrapped a hand in the collar of Billy’s shirt and used it as a lever to slam Hargrove’s face down at the same time Steve brought his knee up, connecting with Billy’s nose with a sickening crack. When he pulled the knee back, he used the grip he still had on Billy’s collar to shove him backwards.

“Plant your fucking feet, Hargrove,” Steve spat, which, in hindsight, may have been a mistake.

Chapter Text

Billy started to laugh, a manic, crazed sound that raised the hair on the back of Steve’s neck.

“That’s what I’m talking about!” When Steve had pushed him, he had landed against the hood of the camaro and he paused there for a moment, laughing that eerie laugh and wiping the blood from his nose. “Looks like you got some fire in you after all, huh! I’ve been waiting to meet this King Steve everyone’s been telling me so much about.” It’s like he was grandstanding for an audience of four: Steve, himself and his goddamned nipples. Seriously, how was he not cold? This was Indiana, not California, winter was actually a concern.

The walkie, still in the house, spat a hiss of static so loud that Steve flinched. The last time he heard that, Vance, while dead, had shoved enough hate and anger through a phone that it caused a living man physical pain. Billy didn’t seem to hear it, but he had clearly seen Steve’s reaction.

“Oh, come on now, King Steve,” Billy drawled, a sneer on his lips. “It won’t hurt you to come down and mingle with the commoners everyone in a while.” His emphasis on the word down would have given his intentions away, even if Steve didn’t have some preternatural backup.

DUCK.

Steve ducked the first punch Billy threw, and caught the second on his left forearm while he clocked Billy in the jaw with his right. Billy was moving like a man possessed, barely acknowledging the hit, instead stalking towards Steve like he was some small animal that Billy wanted to gut and watch die.

Billy’s third punch got Steve in the ribs, hard enough that he was wheezing for breath when the fourth caught him in the face and sent him to the ground.

Steve could distantly hear the sound of the kids in the house shouting, but he blocked them out, scrambling to his feet before Billy could take advantage and kick the shit out of him.

FUCK. HIM. UP.

It wasn’t the walkie, Steve realized distantly. He was hearing Vance like he was standing right behind him, without a phone, without the walkie that was still in the house. Steve didn’t have time to deal with that fact right now, so he shoved it into the box in his head where he kept the things that he didn’t want to think about and squared up.

For a second, just half an instant, he felt a touch on the back of his ankle and his foot slid, like someone had kicked his feet into a different position.

Billy’s shoulder connected with Steve’s gut in a way that would have put him on the ground if his feet hadn’t been set. Instead, it gave Steve the time to bring his elbows down on Billy’s back hard, once, twice, and almost a third before Billy wrapped a hand around the back of Steve’s thigh and pulled, sending them both to the ground with an impact that forced Steve’s teeth together with a harsh click.

Steve drove a knee up, trying to get Billy in the balls or the gut, to shove the stockier man to the side and off of him, but he couldn’t get the leverage. Instead, Billy hit Steve in the face, cracking his head back against the packed dirt, then again, the impact blooming behind Steve’s eye like a firework of pain.

Distantly, he could hear a voice, a woman that he didn’t know, had never heard before, whispering in his ear.

The third punch dazed Steve enough that it took him a second to understand the words the woman was saying, and another half second to force his jaw to work enough to copy her.

“That’s not very nice, Billy-buddy,” Steve managed to force out, his voice sounding a little slurred, like he’d been drinking rather than getting his face beat in. Billy froze, his fist cocked back and ready to do some serious damage to Steve. His eyes went wide, his pupils widening to almost swallow the blue of his irises.

“What the fuck did you just say to me?” Whatever that phrase meant to Billy, it didn’t do anything to calm him down. The manic energy was rising, like Steve had said just the worst thing possible.

“I said -” and before Steve could repeat himself, Max was there, jamming a needle into Billy’s neck.

The next few minutes were hazy, and Steve had to yank the nail bat out of Max’s hands to keep her from doing permanent damage to Billy, but he was eventually able to stand and wipe the blood from his nose once Billy was unconscious, slumped in the dirt.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m not going to win any beauty pageants,” Steve muttered when he caught the kids staring wide eyed at him. His eye was throbbing in pain and his mouth was full of blood - he must have bit his tongue when they hit the dirt.

“That was excellent!” Dustin whooped, throwing his fist in the air like he had finally made it to the end credits of The Breakfast Club. Even Mike looked grudgingly impressed, which was something Steve had never seen before. It was nice to bask in the enthusiasm of the kids for a minute, before he remembered what it was that they had been trying to talk him into.

“Steve, come on,” Max was saying, wrenching the passenger door to the Camaro open. “We have to go, and now that we know that you’re a badass, you can’t keep us on the bench! You protected us from Billy, and he’s just as scary as those demowhatsits from the junkyard!” Steve blinked, and had to process the words again. It felt like his brain was working at half speed.

“That’s not my car,” he said, feeling like an idiot. Max nodded, while the boys crawled into the backseat, clutching swimming goggles? What was that about?

“The pumpkin patch might chip the paint, better Billy has to deal with it than you do,” she shrugged, and there was a feral gleam to her eye that reminded Steve of Billy, but less deranged. “He left the keys in the ignition, come on, Steve!”

Steve cast one final look at Billy Hargrove, unconscious on the Byers’ front lawn, and decided that asshole deserved worse than a scratched paint job. Besides, Max was eyeing the driver’s seat like she was going to leave him behind if he didn’t move his ass and like hell was he going to let that happen.

And if he opened the Camaro up a little much on the turns, grinning behind the bandana the kids had handed him, listening to their shrieks as the car handled the curves, he could pretend that he didn’t hear the walkie in the back whoop with a different kind of glee.

As for the tunnels, well, the less said about them, the better. If he could go the rest of his life without thinking about the tunnels, he would, but his tried and true method of repression seemed to be failing him now, so he knew those would be showing up in his nightmares.

When they get back to the Byers’ house, Billy was still on the lawn, groggy, but awake and pissed as fuck. But apparently what Steve said had shook him enough that he didn’t feel up to round two right now. Or maybe that was more the fact that Max had threatened to pop his balls with a baseball bat full of spikes. Or maybe the syringe of strange narcotics that had been pumped into his neck. Steve was too tired to care. But Billy got in the car without a word of complaint and even though she looked mutinous doing it, Max slid into the passenger seat - not before extracting a promise that they would tell her everything tomorrow. Before they left, Steve couldn’t help himself, maybe it was the fact that he knew Vance was still listening, demanding even beyond death to be the top blond with a mullet, or maybe it was because his face hurt like a bitch and he was feeling petty. Regardless, Steve leaned down next to the open window on the driver’s side, and muttered, just low enough for Billy to hear.

“She said you told her the wave was seven feel tall.” And then he smacked the hood of the car once, like he was a dad seeing his kids off on a road trip, stepped back and waved to Max.

“Get home safe,” he said, and there was enough of Vance’s anger crackling in the air that it sounded like a threat.

Then the adults came home, with El and Will and Nancy and Jonathan and Steve could breathe easier for not being the person in charge. Steve could go home and finally lay down on his bed like he had been wanting to do all night.

First, he had to deflect both Nancy and Jonathan who wanted to talk - maybe about how busted his face looked, or maybe about how they had been missing from town for a few days and Steve wasn’t book smart, but he wasn’t an idiot either. He was also too tired and hurt and angry to talk about this now, so he played up his bruises, which then put him Hopper’s cross hairs and it took him another ten minutes to convince the Chief that he was fine, really, he just wanted to go home and sleep it off.

Finally. Fucking finally, Steve was in his car, on the way home. He was alone, and he had made sure that there wasn’t a goddamned walkie that had been left in his car, there was just him and his car and the tunes on the radio and no ghosts.

Until the radio began to crackle, before a voice boomed from the speakers that Steve didn’t recognize.

“Nachat’ stroitel’stvo,” the voice said, the radio crackle making whatever language it was speaking even harder to interpret. The sudden noise was enough to startle Steve bad enough that he almost put the car in the ditch. It took him a minute to slow his breathing, and another to get his hands to stop shaking.

He snapped the radio off and his own breathing was loud enough to fill the silence. He set his head gently against the steering wheel, mindful of the bruises that decorated his face.

“Just, leave me alone,” Steve whispered to nothing.

The radio didn’t respond. He left it off the rest of the drive home, coming home to a dark, silent house.

He would take it.

Except when he went to collapse into bed, too tired to do more than toe his shoes off and struggle out of his jeans, suddenly the house wasn’t so silent anymore.

“Not bad, Stevie,” Vance said, sounding for all the world like he was sitting at Steve’s desk and not dead and buried. “Not bad at all.”

“What the fuck!” Steve lunged for the bat, well aware that he looked like a fool in his underwear waving his nail bat at an empty room, but there was no answer.

Chapter Text

It took two weeks for the black eye to heal and the split lip to fade. In those two weeks, Billy Hargrove didn’t look at Steve a single time. Which Steve would have been pleased about, if he wasn’t being constantly harassed by a random ghost using his car radio to shout at him in a foreign language.

There was also the fact that Nancy had definitely dumped him, which sucked, and immediately got together with Jonathan, which may have been the part that hurt Steve the most. So Steve was trying valiantly to do what he did best - bury all of his feelings into a tiny box, not think about his trauma, and move on with his life.

He hadn’t heard from Vance again, which was helpful, if not slightly off putting. He knew - he knew that there was nothing in the room that Vance could have used to talk to him. No phone, no walkie, no car radio. And yet Steve knew that he had heard Vance’s voice that night.

All of that to say - Steve had two weeks of relative normalcy to try and work himself through the heartbreak and the haunting, before Billy decided that he was going to make his move.

In hindsight, Steve probably should have seen it coming, as they were the only two people left in the locker room after practice, and being a dick while Steve was naked had been one of Billy’s favorite pass-times, once upon a time.

“Are you going to tell me what the fuck is wrong with you, Harrington,” Billy said, out of nowhere, and Steve was confident that he managed to mostly stifle the urge to jump, “or do I have to beat it out of you.”

“You’re welcome to try, Billy-buddy, but-” Billy didn’t let Steve finish that sentence, throwing his forearm across Steve’s chest and slamming him into the tiled wall.

“If you call me that one more time, you’re going to be breathing through a tube,” Billy said, and this may have been the first time that Steve was genuinely afraid of him. There was none of that manic energy that Steve had seen in him at the Byers’ house, just a placid sort of anger, like a lake that was hiding a crocodile under the surface.

“Take your hands off me,” Steve snapped, “Or I’ll tell everyone that you pissed yourself because you’re scared of your little sister.”

“Please, you’re not King Steve anymore. No one gives a fuck about you, not your former friends, not your precious girlfriend, sorry,” and Billy smirked like he was about to say something really clever. “Ex-girlfriend.”

Here’s the thing. Steve knew that he had a temper. It had gotten him into trouble a few times, his fights with both Jonathan and Billy were a good example, but the rage that cracked through him like lightning at that moment was a completely new sensation.

“Like you’re any better. You know you’re only interesting because you’re new. Soon enough there will be some other asshole for this school to fawn over and you’ll be left in the garbage, where you know you belong, Billy-buddy.”

He was definitely asking for that punch.

What he was not asking for was the haze of red that fell over his vision, like his anger had eaten everything in the locker room and left Steve standing alone in the wreckage.

It was like that night at the Byers’ when he had felt someone move his ankle, adjust his stance. Only this time, it was as if he was a puppet, and someone was pulling his strings faster than he could resist. Steve’s hand jabbed into Billy’s windpipe, sending the other boy reeling backwards, gasping. Steve’s leg lashed out, connecting to the side of Billy’s knee, sending him to the wet floor of the shower room. Through the distant, red haze, Steve was keenly aware of the fact that he could kill Billy right now, except that he didn’t have his knife on him.

That, more than anything, shocked him out of whatever fugue state that he had been in. Steve didn’t carry a knife. There was no reason for him to think that he should have had one on him.

Steve closed his eyes and banged his head into the wall behind him.

“Just, fuck off Billy,” he said, exhausted. It was as if the rage had drained out of him, taking all of the energy that he had left.

“This isn’t fucking over, Harrington, you fucking freak” Billy snarled, but he clearly had just enough of a self-preservation instinct to take the out and left Steve alone in the locker room.

And somehow Steve passed the rest of his senior year. He avoided Billy Hargrove, thankful that he was only a junior and Steve wouldn’t need to sit next to him at graduation due to the curse of the alphabet. He avoided Nancy Wheeler, and stomped on the part of his heart that hurt every time he caught a glimpse of her in the halls. He passed all of his classes, some of them barely, which was more than he could say for Eddie Munson, who was apparently going to have to try for his senior year for a third time.

Steve didn’t go to any of the parties that people threw, unable to find any sort of fun in getting drunk and cutting loose. He was terrified, on a level that he had only been once before in his life, of what had happened in the locker room. He didn’t want to think about what that loss of control meant.

He applied for jobs at the new mall, because there wasn’t a college in the state that wanted him.

He spent more time than he wanted to really think about hanging around Dustin Henderson, who was actually a very cool little dude when he wasn’t stressing about the end of the world or saving tadpole dogs (Demodogs, Steve!) that tried to eat him. He made Steve sit through all those Star Wars movies, which were fine, but then they kept trying to mimic the fight scenes with sticks they would find in Henderson’s yard and that was way more fun. Something about the way that Dustin talked a mile a minute and wasn’t afraid of being into the things that he wanted to be into, Steve found that endearing. So yes, his best friend for the last half of his senior year was in middle school. He’d be embarrassed about that if he could work up a fuck to give about another person’s opinion.

One evening, Steve had seen Hopper at the diner, picking up dinner for himself and El, probably. Steve had cornered him, demanded a confirmation that the gate was closed and that they were finally done with this bullshit. Hop had set a large hand on Steve’s shoulder and told him in his best “I am the authority figure here” voice, that it was done, and the gate was closed.

And Steve wanted to believe him, he really, really did, except that there was a shadow standing beside him, looking for all the world like a little girl. It was there for a second, then gone in a blink and Steve could not for the life of him remember what excuse he made to get out of that conversation so he could go home and shake.

“Polnost’yu rabochiy…chetyre mesyatsa” the car radio shouted unhelpfully at him the next day.

He started dreaming of the basement again, which sent him scrambling to the only person he knew in town who sold good weed. Eddie Munson was surprisingly cheerful about being held back again, and was more than willing to overcharge Steve for a few joints. Steve handed him the money, shook his hand, and deliberately avoided looking at the mournful woman-shaped shadow that loomed over Munson’s shoulder.

It was as if the little girl that he had seen with Hopper was the herald of all of these other ghosts. He saw them everywhere now. Not as distinct people, but as shapes that sat in the shadows of the living.

He smoked all of the weed he bought from Munson in an attempt to get his eyes to stop seeing the ghosts. Which, uh, in hindsight, was not an excellent decision on his part, because that was how his father found him, stoned out of his mind, lying on the floor of his bedroom.

“I don’t understand how you can be so fucking irresponsible, Steve!” Steve had known that this lecture was coming for a while, but his dad wasn’t prone to shouting, since Steve was his “miracle child” or some shit. But apparently this was the line for his dad. Steve thought about telling him that he was having bad dreams about the basement, he knew that would get his father off of his back faster than he could say “parental guilt” but something stuck in his throat.

His father had never believed him about the ghosts. He had attributed Steve’s stories to hallucinations, brought on by whatever the Grabber was using to sedate Steve and keep him pliant, and that had been that.

So Steve took the lecture, and the punishment, and went to work at Scoops Ahoy like the failure that he was.

And that would have been that, except for one night, the dreams were so bad that Steve had woken in a cold sweat, his fist shoved in his mouth to muffle his screams.

He was out of weed, had been for a while, he hadn’t been able to risk buying more with his father’s temper already as frayed as it was. So Steve had nothing to shove the dreams down and away and back into the box of repression he kept in his brain.

Which was probably why he went out the window. Couldn’t sleep, couldn’t stay here.

How he got the quarry, he really would not have been able to say.

Billy was there, lying across the hood of his Camaro, shirt closed by a single button so low down that Steve could see his belly-button, smoking a cigarette.

“The fuck you want, Harrington?” Billy said, sounding for all the world like he was debating just throwing Steve off of the cliff and calling it a day.

“Was she your mother?” Steve said, his mouth running away from his brain. Billy didn’t move from the hood of the car, but there was a line of tension in his shoulders that Steve could see from almost fifteen feet away.

“Fuck off.” And there wasn’t really any light there, except for the cherry from Billy’s cigarette and the moon, but it was enough for Steve to see the shadow that was always behind Billy, a slumped-shoulder woman who looked so so sad it hurt Steve to look at her directly.

“She says she’s sorry,” Steve felt like he was possessed, like that time in the locker room, only instead of someone pulling on his strings like a puppet it was someone pulling words from his mouth. “She says that she didn’t mean to leave, but she’s always with you in all the ways that matter, and that,” and here, Steve tried to pause, because it felt cruel to continue, but the words came pouring out of him regardless, “and that it’s killing her all over again to see what you’re doing to yourself.”

Billy leveraged himself off of the car, turning to look at Steve for the first time, which gave Steve a really good look at the shiner that Billy was sporting.

“You’re a fucking sadist, you know that, right?” Steve shrugged, hopelessly.

“I’m just saying what she wants me to say, man. If you prefer, I’ve got the ghost of a dead kid from Denver who would be more than happy to go for round three with you.” A crackle of rage, which Steve knew, without knowing how he knew, was Vance, ran down his spine.

“Ghosts. Really, that’s what you’re going with.” Billy’s tone was flat.

“Ghosts.” Steve closed the distance between himself and Billy’s car and fished a cigarette out of his pocket. “Got a light, Hargrove?”

Billy pulled a lighter from his jeans and passed it to Steve, who spent a blissful second just enjoying the nicotine and the quiet.

“They’re not really talkative, normally. It’s a single emotion or thought, stuck on repeat. She’s got a lot of love for you,” Steve said, carefully not looking at Billy to avoid provoking him more than necessary.

“Fat lot of fucking good that’s doing me,” Billy muttered, but he didn’t make any move to get up or leave.

Chapter Text

Steve was going to die. He was wearing this stupid sailor outfit and he was going to die.

Behind him, Robin, current shift supervisor and possible new friend(?), drew another line in the You Suck column, squeaking the marker as loud as possible. Mandy, a glorious brunette with great curls, bounced out of Scoops Ahoy, laughing around a cone of mint chip and probably at Steve. It was fine. It was all fine.

“I’m confused. Weren’t you supposed to be some kind of god among jocks? What happened to the Steve Harrington we knew and tolerated?”

“Ouch, Robin, ouch,” Steve muttered, leaning against the counter and wishing that he had managed to find a job that would have let him die of embarrassment in decent length pants.

He wasn’t sure why he was still trying, honestly. He had managed to get exactly one date since he started slinging ice cream and it had gone horribly, mostly because Steve was hearing the ghost whispers all of the time now. It didn’t matter if there was a phone, or a walkie, or nothing at all, there was always someone that wanted his attention. Luckily, they were quiet enough that Steve could pretend it was a background hum, except that sometimes someone would shout loud enough to be heard clearly. And, uh, it was fucking spooky, hearing dead people while Steve was trying to get into Veronica Allen’s pants, which may have resulted in a less that wonderful performance, and, well, Veronica hadn’t returned his calls afterwards, so.

Cockblocked by ghosts - the Steve Harrington story.

This summer sucked.

Well, this summer had a few bright spots. Robin, when not being completely unnecessarily mean to him, was really funny. Dustin was due back from his science camp any day now, and his letters had promised that he had “BIG NEWS,” which Steve was probably more excited about than he should be. And, (if asked about this, he would lie) Billy was a surprisingly fun dude to get stoned with.

They didn’t talk about the ghost of Billy’s dead mom, they didn’t talk about the voices that Steve was hearing, they just sat, listened to music, and occasionally volleyed insults back and forth at each other. Mostly about stupid things, Billy’s chronic bare chest, Steve’s hair, the chances of the Hawkins basketball team without Steve there, both of their stupid summer job uniforms. There were lines they knew not to cross, which was the only way that they had managed to hang out with each other and not get in another fight. Steve didn’t mention Billy’s family, and Billy didn’t say anything about Nancy and Jonathan. Easy rules.

It was almost like they were friends. Or something. Steve wasn’t sure what to call Billy, but knowing that there was someone who believed him about the ghosts, even if it was Billy Hargrove, asshole extraordinaire, was a huge weight off of Steve’s shoulders.

Except just last night.

Last night, they had at the quarry, Steve had been poking fun at Billy’s stupid life guard speedo, which Billy was claiming got him “mega laid,” they were sitting on the hood of the bimmer, passing a joint back and forth, and then Steve had been…somewhere else.

Just for a minute, it was like he was walking down a long, long, long hallway, the walls were lined with clusters of pipes and the lights overhead were that terrible fluorescent blue that made Steve think of drowning. He had something he needed to do at the end of the hallway, but he couldn’t remember what it was. But it was important, it was mission critical, it was -

There was a jolt, and Steve was lying in the dirt, staring up at the sky.

“What the fuck?” he managed, before Billy was looming over him, shouting.

“If you’re going to fucking kill yourself, could you be considerate enough to do it somewhere I wouldn’t get blamed for murder, Harrington?”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Steve tried to push himself up out of the dirt, but Billy planted one hand in the middle of Steve’s chest and pushed, sending him back to the ground. It was an obnoxious callback to their first shared basketball practice, but at least Billy was wearing a shirt this time.

“You almost walked off the fucking cliff!” Billy gestured behind him to the open air, because there was less than a foot of space between Steve’s feet, the edge of the Quarry, and a drop that would have killed him.

Steve felt two things happen at once with the realization of just how close he had come to dying.

First, his heart began to pound so hard he was sure that Billy could hear it. The second was a crack of lightning down his spine so intense that Steve could feel his back arch with it.

It was like nothing he had felt before, it was like Vance’s rage, it was like the moment in the basement when he had snapped the Grabber’s neck, it was the bat at the Byers’ place, something crawling through the walls, it was something ripping him apart from the inside, it was something in him trying to crawl out, it was like he was drowning in rage and hate and -

Billy slammed him into the side of the BMW, one hand covering Steve’s mouth to muffle whatever noise he had been making, the other pressed flat to Steve’s sternum.

“Harrington, if you don’t get your fucking shit together, I will drop you off the cliff my godamned self, do you hear me?”

The lightning wasn’t gone, it was still running up and down Steve’s spine, but it was manageable now, like the aftershocks of an earthquake, rather than the initial devastation. (Steve tried, and mostly managed, to forget about the time that Robin had spent an entire shift telling him about natural disasters, and how sometimes the aftershocks caused more damage than the initial quake. It was just a metaphor, it didn’t mean anything. Shut up.)

But Steve’s heart rate had returned to normal and he could mostly breathe around whatever was going on, so he nodded once, to show Billy that he was good to go, really, Billy could stop touching him now.

Billy took another minute, his gaze focused on Steve like he was sure that Steve was going to start screaming again in a second, before he stepped away.

“What the fuck, Harrington?”

“I don’t know,” Steve said, wrapping his arms around himself. “That’s never happened before.” He didn’t say that he was terrified, that he had only known the ghosts to be helpful before, but he was still hearing people that he didn’t know, that he could see them now, that he didn’t understand that they were trying to tell him. Steve didn’t say that he was worried it was just going to get worse.

“Well aren’t you a barrel of fun,” Billy hissed through his teeth, like he was mad about this whole situation, rather than scared. It would have worked better if the ghost of his dead mother wasn’t trying to run a soothing hand down his back, which felt like an unfair advantage into Billy Hargrove’s psyche, really.

They hadn’t smoked more, after that. Billy had made his excuses and left shortly after and Steve had stayed until he could convince himself that he was going to be able to make it home without some ghost seizing his body and running the car into a building.

It took him a long time to get home.

So here he was, at work, trying his best to pretend that things were normal and he could still get a date and that he had more than a few hours of sleep because he kept screaming himself awake from nightmares where his body didn’t listen to him. Here he was at work, striking out with Mandy with the great hair.

“Whatever, Robin, there’s lots of mermaids in the sea.”

“Fish. It’s fish in the sea.”

“I don’t think women like to be called fish,” Steve said absently, wrestling a fresh tub of Cherries Jubilee into the cooler. He could hear Robin let a groan out, but whatever she was going to say was washed out in a wave of static.

Starcourt Mall had the latest in innovation, which included this intercom system that Steve hated with a passion. It would have been bad enough, if it was just sale announcements, warnings about closing time, and the terrible muzak.

But this burst of static preceded the foreign ghost shouting at a volume that made Steve want to cover his ears.

“Vorota,” it shrieked at him, like it had lost patience with the fact that he couldn’t understand what it wanted.

“Vorota,” it insisted again, louder this time. There was a second of silence and Steve tightened his grip on the giant tub of ice cream that he was still holding, hoping that it was done.

“VOROTA” the intercom probably couldn’t even reach that volume normally, and Steve couldn’t help himself, he lost his grip on the tub of ice cream, which splattered on the floor with such force that the cardboard tub popped, some of the ice cream ended up on the ceiling, and clamped his hands over his ears.

“Steve?” He could hear Robin in the back room, coming to inspect his fuck up this time, but instead of panicking about the enormous mess that he had made, he felt her grip his shoulder. “Steve, are you okay? What happened? Did the hairspray finally get to your brain?” Her voice was muffled, Steve hadn’t taken his hands away from his ears yet. When fifteen seconds had passed, and he knew because he counted each one, he slowly peeled his hands from his ears and straightened up.

“Sorry, I uh, got a migraine,” he said, trying to look like he had a pounding headache and not a poltergeist. But Robin was staring at him, eyes wide, and she clearly hadn’t heard a word.

“Steve, are you alright?” she asked again, softer this time.

“I’m fine now,” he said, confused. “Look, I’m sorry about the mess, I’ll clean it up, I’m sure the mop works on the ceiling, it’s like the floor just upside - just reversed, right?” Robin clearly hadn’t heard a word that he said, reaching for one of the towels they kept under the counter for minor spills.

“Robin, I think we’re going to need a little more than that-” before he could finish his sentence, Robin pressed the towel - which was disgusting, there was melted ice cream all over that thing - to the side of his face.

“Robin, seriously, what the fuck?” Steve took a step away from her, slipped on some of the spilled Cherries Jubilee, and landed hard on his ass.

Robin held the towel out to him, the formerly (mostly) white fabric stained red with blood. Steve reached a shaking hand up to his left ear, the warm tacky feeling on his cheek a warning for what he was going to see. His fingers came back covered in blood, and a quick check revealed that he was also bleeding from his right ear.

“That’s a hell of a migraine,” Robin said, her voice coming in a rasped whisper. Steve shrugged up at her from the floor.

“I’ve had worse,” he said. It might not even have been a lie. “I’m going to go clean up,” and he swept a hand across his face to indicate what he was talking about, “and then I’m going to get to work cleaning up,” and he gestured at the general state of things, the mostly exploded tub of pink ice cream, the mess on the floors, the wall, and the ceiling.

Robin might have tried to stop him, but Steve was a runner, he was a trackstar, and he made it to the staff bathroom without a fuss worth commenting on.

The uniform was hopeless, covered in little pink ice cream stains that only smeared when he rubbed at them with a wet towel. The blood from his ears came away with a bit of scrubbing and it seemed like it wasn’t a huge amount of blood, except that any amount of ear blood seemed like too much ear blood. Whatever, it had stopped, he was fine. He was fine.

Exhausted, Steve leaned over the sink to splash his face with cold water, and if he took a minute to press the heels of his hands into his eyes and breathe, that was his own damn business. When he straightened up, there was someone behind him in the mirror.

Blond curls, huge biceps, blue eyes. For a second, Steve thought it was Billy.

“Tick tock, Stevie,” Vance sneered at him, before Steve felt something grab him by the back of the head and slam his face into the mirror. Steve’s vision blacked out, just for a second, but when it cleared enough that he could see, he was alone in his reflection.

Robin sent him home, she said they couldn’t afford to replace all the ice cream tubs if he had another “migraine” but she had sounded genuinely concerned, not annoyed. So Steve went. He didn’t know what else to do.

Whatever was happening, it was getting worse.

Chapter Text

When Steve tried to sleep that night, after he had showered all of the ice cream off of his skin and out of his hair, he found himself staring at the ceiling of his room as the hours ticked closer to dawn. He couldn’t feel the crackle of rage that meant Vance was there, and he didn’t know if that was a good thing or not.

Steve really wished he was being haunted by someone other than pinball Vance and the foreign ghost. There were so many better options, people who weren’t rage filled lunatics. Hell, Steve would have even taken -

And it was like his stomach fell into his feet.

How could he have forgotten?

Steve wasn’t not really one for horror movies, mostly because the people do stupid, stupid things in them. He had seen Texas Chainsaw once, because a friend had told him it was good, and really, the whole thing could have been avoided if they didn’t go in the house.

Just don’t go into the creepy house.

Just don’t walk into the basement when the power is out.

Just don’t walk downstairs to see if your pool is haunted by the ghost of the girl who died there.

Steve didn’t want to see Barb in his pool, he had a hard enough time living with it in his backyard, he didn’t want to know what it would be like if he knew that she was there, somehow. But now that the thought had occurred to him, he couldn’t not know. He felt like he owed her that much, at least.

Was a haunting still a haunting if you don’t know you’re being haunted?

The pool was steaming slightly into the air, even before Steve turned the underwater lights on. His hands were shaking.

He couldn’t make himself just walk out to the pool. His heart was pounding in his chest and his thoughts were racing. He had to break everything into smaller steps to keep moving forward, open the sliding glass door, take one step beyond the sliding glass door, close the sliding glass door, take one step towards the pool, breathe, look up.

There was no one there. Not even the shadows that lurked behind people, not a spark of energy that meant there was someone reaching from beyond. There was just his empty pool and his empty backyard.

Steve felt like crying, from relief, mostly. It made sense, Barb hadn’t cared for him much in life, she certainly wasn’t going to waste her afterlife haunting his stupid pool. He was just letting this whole situation get to him, he was freaking out for no reason.

Except when he turned to go back inside, there she was, inches from his face.

Steve hadn’t seen her body, hadn’t asked Hopper what had happened to her in the Upside Down. He hadn’t wanted to know. But now he did.

Her skin was sallow, a sickly yellow color except for the bruises around her eyes, so dark that they were purple. There was something, like slime or mucus or something else, beyond what Steve was capable of thinking of, falling from her mouth. Her chest and stomach were gaping wounds, bones and muscles ripped like they had been made of tissue paper, rather than part of a living person. Parts of her were just missing, likely eaten, Steve’s treacherous brain whispered to him and he almost vomited.

Instead, Steve reeled backwards, his first step on the concrete of the pool deck, his second on the open air over the pool.

He hadn’t been swimming in this pool since he knew what had happened to Barb, and this wasn’t swimming so much as being engulfed in the chlorinated water.

He may have been screaming when he fell in, he must have, that was the only reason to explain how his lungs were full of water already, how it felt like there were needles inside of him. The pool light flickered, for a second, plunging Steve into darkness before illuminating the pool deck again. Barbara Holland was standing there, head cocked to the side, the way she used to do in life, but she wasn’t smiling, she was just staring, watching.

Steve tried to swim, he really did - he didn’t want to drown in his own pool, he didn’t want his dad to come home and find him like this - that would break him, that would be the final straw that shattered his father. But Steve couldn’t make his limbs move, it was like the nightmares he kept having, where he couldn’t control his own body, where someone else was in the driver’s seat and Steve was just watching as he did horrible things to people.

His vision was going fuzzy on the edges, and Barb leaned over the pool and opened her mouth, that bile falling from her mouth into the pool in a stream. For a second, the slime flowed through the water in thick, dark streams, looking like vines, or blood vessels. Then Steve felt his heart thump weakly in his chest and everything went dark.

The gasp that tore itself out of his throat felt like razor blades, but he was breathing air, somehow.

He was on his back on the pool deck, and his ribs were fucking killing him, but he was breathing air and Barb was nowhere to be seen.

“This is getting to be a habit, Harrington,” came Billy’s voice from his left, and Steve barely had the energy to roll his head to the side to see the other boy crouched next to him, hands on his knees. Billy hair was stringy when wet, his stupid wife beater shirt was translucent with water, and he was still wearing his shoes. He hadn’t stopped to take his shoes off before going into the pool after Steve.

Steve had so many questions he couldn’t figure out what to ask first.

“What are you doing here?” Huh, apparently that was the one that wanted to be answered the most.

“A fucking thank you for saving your life wouldn’t go amiss, bitch,” Billy muttered, but he was avoiding Steve’s gaze, like the answer to that question was embarrassing.

“Thank you, Billy.” Steve didn’t have the energy to sit up, so he settled for thunking the back of his hand against Billy’s knee a few times. “But what were you doing here?” God his ribs hurt like a bitch. One of them was probably cracked, which was going to make scooping ice cream suck more than usual. Steve had been a lifeguard, had been on swim team for three years, he knew these cracked ribs meant he owed Billy his life.

“I had a dream about my mom,” Billy said, and he was so quiet that Steve had to strain to hear him over the crickets and the pool motor and his own pounding heart. “We were on a beach, which was normal. But then she grabbed my hand really hard, and said that you needed help, and I needed to go. And I woke up and I went.” He sounded angry about the whole thing. Steve didn’t blame him. But then Billy held up his hand so Steve could see the crescent indentations on the back, like someone with long nails had gripped his hand tight enough to bruise.

“Thank you, Billy.” Steve repeated. It didn’t seem like enough.

“You’re fucking lucky I know CPR,” Billy huffed, clearly trying to plow beyond whatever emotional vulnerability was going on here. “If I wasn’t so damn good at my job you’d be hanging out with your ghost friends right now.” Steve couldn’t help the shudder that worked through him at that thought.

“Not my friends,” Steve said, waiving a hand in the air to indicate the general presence of spirits in his life. “Some of them were, when they were alive. And some of them are helpful, but really only if I’m doing something they want to be doing in the first place. Vance is always good for a fight. But,” and Steve felt the words catch in his throat. He was shaking, he realized absently. He was terrified and he was shaking.

“None of the ghosts remember you need to breathe?” Billy snarked, but he was hauling Steve upright and tucking him against his chest with an arm around his shoulders in a way that was surprisingly gentle. Steve shuddered once, a spasm that set his cracked rib screaming and sent his forehead knocking gently into Billy’s shoulder.

“I think someone’s trying to kill me,” he whispered.

“Yeah, no shit,” Billy snapped, but his grip on Steve remained gentle.

“Did you know Barbara Holland died in my pool?” That wasn’t really what Steve had meant to say, but that was what came out of his mouth. That got a reaction out of Billy, regardless, a twitch of his fingers and a quick furrow of his brow.

“Heard the rumors,” was all he said in response.

“She’s still here. I don’t blame her for hating me, I would hate me too. It’s just,” Steve trailed off, not sure how to articulate what he was feeling. He wasn’t lying, he didn’t blame Barb for hating him. Nancy had been right, it was mostly his fault that Barb was dead. But Steve couldn’t fathom hating anyone enough to spend the rest of eternity where he died just to ruin their life. It seemed so wasteful.

“Is she here right now?” Billy asked, pulling Steve closer to his chest with one arm and clenching his other fist like he was going to fist fight the ghost of Barbara Holland over Steve.

“No, she’s gone.” And she was, the yard was empty save for them. Another shiver wracked Steve and he curled as far as he could with Billy’s grip on his shoulder and the pain of his cracked rib and coughed. It felt like that first gasp of air - like he was coughing up something made of razors that was ripping his insides to shreds.

“Come on, Harrington, we’ll get you inside and warmed up, gotta make sure you don’t get murdered by ghosts in your fancy house.” It was lucky that Billy was so damned strong, because Steve’s legs felt like noodles and he was definitely not pulling his own weight as Billy manhandled him back into the house and into one of the chairs in the living room. It was nice to not be outside, near the pool, and it was nice to be warm.

Billy threw a throw blanket and one of the stupid decorative pillows at him, neither of which he caught. Billy’s laugh at Steve’s subsequent pout was too loud in the quiet house.

“Thanks for saving me, Billy-buddy,” Steve said, his voice getting partially devoured by a jaw-cracking yawn.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Billy muttered, but he didn’t elaborate and Steve was asleep sitting upright in the chair before he could ask.

Steve was alone in the house when he woke up in the morning. Sitting on the kitchen counter was a bowl of diced fruit covered by plastic wrap, a glass of water and a small white pill on a napkin that Steve couldn’t identify.

Other than that, and the pain in Steve’s side from the cracked rib, there was no sign that Billy had been there the night before. There was no sign that anything at all had happened.

The white pill chased away most of the ache in his chest, enough that he could wrap it himself and struggle his way into his spare Scoops Ahoy uniform without embarrassing himself.

Robin was looking at him with concern when he clocked in that morning. The storefront was sparkling, not a single drop of the pink ice cream left on the ceiling.

“Thanks for cleaning up,” Steve said, busying himself with sorting the topping bins into their proper places, rather than making eye contact with Robin, who was staring at the side of his head so intensely that he could feel her gaze like a physical thing.

“So, do you get migraines often?” She asked, but her inflection on the word migraine made it clear that she didn’t think what happened yesterday was because of a migraine.

“I’ve had a couple of bad concussions, the headaches are because of that,” Steve shrugged, setting the chocolate chips and the sprinkles into their place in the set up. And that was true, he’d had a minor concussion after his fight with Jonathan Byers his junior year, and a slightly worse one from his kidnapping when he was younger. Come to think of it, Billy had rung his bell pretty good during their scuffle, it was possible he was dealing with the after effects of another concussion, in addition to the whole, you know, being haunted by ghosts thing.

“Migraines don’t make you bleed out your ears,” Robin said, hands on her hips in what was a fairly good imitation of the pose Steve used when talking to the gremlins (Party, Steve, we’re called The Party!).

“Maybe I have brain cancer,” Steve snapped, his patience shot to hell and it was only 9:05. “Maybe I have brain cancer and I didn’t want anyone to worry about me when I died so I’m keeping it secret.”

“You’re doing a great job not worrying anyone,” Robin matched his tone almost exactly. “Look, we’re friends-”

“We are?” News to Steve. He thought she barely tolerated him. Huh. Excellent, Steve had double the amount of friends his own age he had, and it wasn’t even 9:30, this was going to be a better morning.

“I was saying,” Robin continued over his interruption. “We’re friends, and I’m concerned about my friend who was bleeding out of his ears yesterday. Are you even okay to be here? What if you’ve got some kind of blood born disease that your gross ear juice was leaking into the ice cream?” Steve wanted to laugh, he really did, but then Robin elbowed him in the side in what he was sure was supposed to be a fun gesture of teasing. Instead, her pointy elbow drove right into his cracked rib and Steve almost went to his knees at the pain.

“Steve? Are you bleeding again?” Robin sounded more confused than concerned, which Steve appreciated.

“Bruised ribs,” he forced out, as he clawed his way back to standing with his white-knuckled grip on the counter and the sort of pigheaded stubbornness that drove his father crazy. “Fucked them up playing basketball yesterday.”

“You had a migraine so bad you were bleeding out your ears and you went home and played basketball that got so out of hand you bruised your ribs?” Now Robin sounded concerned, but it might have been for Steve’s piss-poor ability to lie, rather than his health.

“I’m a dumb jock, remember?” Steve shrugged, and smiled his “oh shucks, did I do something wrong? Butter won’t melt in my mouth” smile that had gotten him through school and out of more than a few potential fights.

Whatever Robin was going to say to that was interrupted by Erica Sinclair and her gaggle of tiny girlfriends, demanding their daily heaping of ice cream samples. And if Steve clutched at his ribs and tried to look pathetic in Robin’s direction to get out of handling them, well, he was not above using the tools at his disposal.

So he was in the back office, doing a quick inventory check, when the office phone rang. Steve had never heard it ring before, supposedly it was there to place delivery orders, or call security or something. Steve had never had to use it.

And before, before Dustin and the demodogs and that walkie, Steve might have answered the phone without thinking about it. But now he was hyper aware of the possibility that he was the only person who heard the phone ringing, that it wasn’t a manager calling to check on the ice cream store. So now, whenever Steve heard a phone ring, he watched the people around him. If someone else reacted to the noise, it was safe to answer. If Steve was the only one who heard it, that could go to voice mail. For ghosts. Voice ghost mail. Look, Steve never claimed to be clever, okay?

Erica and her girlfriends didn’t so much as blink at the noise, but they were customers, the ringing of the store phone was probably going in one ear and out the other. Robin, however, flinched a bit and looked over her shoulder into the office and at the phone when it continued to ring.

Guess it was a real phone call, and since she was busy, Steve would have to answer it. It took him a second to get to the phone, getting out of the chair without aggravating his recently elbowed cracked rib was sort of a trial.

“Scoops Ahoy, this is Steve speaking, how can I help you?”

There was static on the other end of the line, before the voice that had come out of the walkie last halloween, the one that had starting this whole cluster fuck that was Steve’s life, screamed down the phone at him.

“THE GATE IS OPEN.”

Steve slammed the phone back down into its cradle.

It took a split second for his brain to catch up with what had just happened.

The voice hadn’t been wrong before. The gate had been open, leaking those demodogs into Hawkins. But Hopper had promised that it was over. He said that the gate was closed. Steve wanted to bang his head against the wall until he got another concussion and maybe enough memory loss so that he could forget everything he had ever learned about the Upside Down. Instead, Steve closed his eyes, gave himself thirty seconds to just breathe, and promised that he would call Hopper after work and let the actual adults deal with it this time.

And then his brain caught up with what had just happened.

Robin had heard the phone ring.

It was a ghost on the other end of the phone, and Robin had heard the phone ring.

Chapter Text

It was the single most life changing thing that had ever happened to Steve.

Okay, that wasn’t true, he was exaggerating in his own head.

Still this was a big fucking deal, and Steve had literally not one second of time to address this with Robin,because Dustin found a secret code and Robin translated it and then a lot of other things happened and now Steve was here, in a Russian prison basement.

He would have been fine, really, except that the first blow had turned his cracked ribs into broken ribs. And it wasn’t like he had been tortured before, like he knew what the proper procedure for being interrogated was, but giving them such an obvious weakness to exploit seemed like a really, really fucking bad idea. But Steve didn’t bite the scream back soon enough, and the Russians weren’t idiots.

There was a pit in his stomach, just a roiling ball of acid as Steve grappled with the fact that he was probably going to die down here, in this Russian base.

He was trying to breathe around his broken ribs, his mouth full of blood from where he’d bitten his tongue, when he noticed it. There was a shadow, or a whisper of a shadow, behind the shoulder of the Head Russian. It refused to resolve itself into a person, remaining just the bare implication of a presence. But it was there, and it didn’t seem like it was going away.

Apparently, the Russian in charge of the actual punching liked spreading the pain around, liked forcing Steve to sit there with that ball of acid, waiting and anticipating the pain when they eventually went back to work on his ribs. So it was after a punch to the face that rocked Steve’s head back, sending a spike of pain through his skull that Steve managed to finally, finally put everything together. And he knew that he wasn’t the brightest lightbulb in the pack of crayons, okay, but this felt like something he maybe should have been able to put together when Dustin first brought him the secret code, instead of now, when he was getting the shit punched out of him. He’d been hearing a foreign ghost all summer, someone so frantic about their message that they would hijak his car radio, or the speakers at the mall, to try and get the message across.

“Vorota,” he whispered, mostly to himself, but the shadow behind the Head Russian vibrated, as if it was suddenly full of energy.

“What did you say?” the man in charge (Stepanov, a voice whispered in the back of his mind. The man was Major General Stepanov) snarled, practically lunging towards Steve to wrap a fist in the front of Steve’s stupid sailor uniform and yank him forward.

Steve went, his head rolling forwards of its own violation, so that he was staring at the man’s shoes, rather than the man’s face. He felt like a puppet with no one pulling at the strings, boneless and waiting.

“Vorota,” Steve wheezed, forcing the words out, before that crack of lightning shot down his spine.

He could tell that he wasn’t speaking English, the Russian falling cleanly from his lips like he had been born speaking the language. The understanding came a second behind, as if he was listening to a translator that was coming from inside his own brain. Steve’s head came up in a slow roll to the right, as if whoever was running his body right now had forgotten natural motion.

“Did you ever stop to wonder, Major General, what would find its way through the gate you were trying so desperately to open?”

“What are you…” Stepanov tailed off, turning purple with rage and confusion. The brute behind him looked less angry and more confused, but Steve imagined you didn’t hire a torture thug for their ability to think.

“It is a gate to hell, Major General, and you opened it enough for the demons to leak out. If you open it again, the devil himself will come for you.” Whatever Russian ghost was using Steve to talk right now certainly had a poetic streak that Steve wasn’t sure he admired. But it was keeping him from getting punched right this second, so he wasn’t going to say shit about it.

“Ozerov,” Stepanov stepped back, and gestured for the torture thug to resume his duties. “I think our guest could use some more…incentives.”

Fucking bitch wouldn’t even do his own goddamned dirty work.

The red lightning, the angry lightning crackled down his spine, forcing Steve’s back ramrod straight, but there wasn’t any room in his head for another person right now, because Russian kept falling from Steve’s lips, rather than the foul mouthed expletives that Vance favored.

“You cannot tame it. You cannot use it to destroy the Americans. Save yourself and your men, Major General, and go home, before you open a gate that cannot ever be closed and allow yourself to be devoured by the mouth of madness.”

Stepanov snarled, a wordless, rage-filled sound that paled in comparison to the hate that was bubbling inside of Steve at that moment. But instead of doing anything about it, he turned and stalked out of the room, leaving Steve alone with the torture thug, who cracked his knuckles and grinned.

Whoever had been in his head fled, clearly having spoken his piece, and it didn’t fucking matter what Vance wanted when Steve’s hands were tied like there were, he couldn’t do anything but scream around the pain and try and pray that Dustin had enough time to get out.

Eventually, mercifully, he blacked out.

When he came to, they had moved him, and he could hear Robin panicking from somewhere behind him.

“Hoping you’ve got a plan, Buckley, because I’m rocking concussion number three. Four? Maybe. Who knows? You’ve got to be the brains of the operation here,” He was also breathing around a set of broken ribs, but if he told her that she would worry, so he wasn’t going to tell her that.

“How is that any different from normal?” Robin said, but the tremor that had been in her voice earlier was missing now. Good job, Steve, mission accomplished. And then she laid out her plan and Steve wanted to curl into a ball and cry because this was gonna hurt real bad.

When the third hop sent them crashing to the floor, Steve bit a chunk out of his tongue to keep from screaming. If his ribs hadn’t been broken before, they definitely were now.

And Robin was laughing. Steve was glad he wasn’t the only one losing it.

“I’m sorry,” she said between giggles. “I can’t believe that I’m going to die in a secret Russian base with Steve “the Hair” Harrington. It’s just too trippy man!”

“You want to talk about trippy?” Steve said, something welling up in his throat. “I’ve never met anyone else who could hear those phones ring.”

And silence.

“Robin, please, don’t deny it,” Steve felt like he was pleading now. They could probably be strategizing, trying to find some way to work towards getting out of there, but the only thing that Steve could think about around the blinding pain in his chest was the fact that she might understand. That she might know what he was going through.

“What do you want me to say? Sometimes I answer calls from dead people? It’s not all it’s cracked up to be. Some of them are really chatty, Steve, and I can’t always come up with an excuse for why I’m talking on the phone that no one heard ring! My mother thinks I have a boyfriend I’m not telling her about.” Steve squeezed his eyes shut, relief flooding his body. He wasn’t going to be dealing with this alone. When they got out of here, he would have Billy and Robin and maybe they could help him figure out what had been happening to him.

“Did-” Steve spat a mouthful of blood onto the floor in front of his face and tried to come up with the words. “Have they been staying in the phones?”

“What kind of question is that? Can they get out of the phones? Is that something I have to worry about? That one day I’m gonna answer the phone and there will be like, a little ghost hand crawling out of the receiver and into my ear?” Robin’s voice was getting higher pitched with each word, and it was like someone had taken a pin and deflated all of the hope inside of Steve.

So it was just him getting extra haunted. Well, that was good to know, at least.

“I’ve been seeing them all summer,” Steve whispered. “And sometimes worse.”

“Worse? Worse how?” But Steve didn’t get to answer her, because now Stepanov was pulling in a “doctor” to “help” and yeah, this was not a gold star day for Steve Harrington.

Luckily (was this how he was measuring his luck now? God, his life had really gone off the rails) the doctor just shot them up with a disturbingly blue mixture and left, taking Stepanov and the other Russians with him.

And then there was a good period of time where they just got to be high, rather than high and tortured, but that didn’t last long. Because of course it didn’t. When they got out of here, Steve was going to have to lay off the weed for a while. This whole experience was putting him off of drugs a bit.

Stepanov and the doctor and the four Russian goons came back.

Except, this time there was someone else in the room. A woman, behind the doctor, old enough to be Steve’s mother, with dark hair and furious eyes. Her hands were a mangled, bloody mess, fingers bent and twisted, the tips each a ragged, open wound. She locked eyes with Steve over the doctor’s shoulder, opened her mouth and blood came pouring out in place of words. There was no sound, Steve could hear what she was saying as if she was whispering it into his ear.

The doctor leaned over Steve, his little silver pliers held in his hand and Steve just let the words flow out of him in a panic.

“Masha wants you to know that she will never forgive you.” The doctor’s head snapped up to look at Steve, an odd mix of confusion and anger on his face. Steve kept going, because Masha was still behind the doctor and Steve could feel her rage like a palpable thing in the room. Where Vance’s rage was lightning, Masha’s was a flood, a rising tide that was going to sweep everything away with it. “She says that you were always a coward, and she knew that about you, but she had hoped that you would be strong enough to do the right thing once in your miserable life. She says that even though you think every time you see a butterfly it’s her forgiving you and telling you she still loves you, she says each butterfly is a reminder that she hates you.”

Stepanov looked furious.

“Doctor Zharkov, we have work to do,” he snapped, stepping forward like he would rip those pliers out of the doctor’s hands and start pulling Steve’s fingernails out himself. But Steve wasn’t looking at him, Steve was focused on the forms that were appearing behind Masha, dozens of people, all bloody and angry, all focused on the doctor. Steve’s eyes landed on a boy, dark haired and solemn faced, younger Dustin, and the hate that he felt in that moment was his own.

“And then there was Nikolai, the farmer’s boy. Because there was nothing to the work if it was under orders, right? But he knows how you can’t sleep at night sometimes, because you are worried that what you have done has earned you a place in hell. He sees the drink you pour yourself so that you don’t dream.” Steve locked eyes with the doctor and fairly snarled, his own fear almost consumed by the anger he was feeling. This weasel of a man killed women and children for what? Some Russian program to open a gate to the Upside Down? Fuck him.

“They’ll never leave you. And those nights, when you think that you didn’t dream, they’re waiting for you. Go to hell, Ilya Zharkov.”

And then the sirens sounded and Stepanov and when the goons exited to investigate, some of the goons looked relieved to leave the room.

Behind Doctor Zharkov, first name, Ilya, husband to a woman named Masha who would spend her entire afterlife making sure that her husband never knew a moment’s peace, Dustin Henderson threw open the door.

And then everything became a blur of movement and light for a while, before Steve found himself emptying the contents of his stomach into one of the Starcourt mall’s public toilets.

“Robin? Are you alive?”

“The ceiling stopped spinning for me, is it still spinning for you?” She said, from one stall over, answering the question without actually answering the question. When Steve tilted his head back to look at the ceiling, the movement had stopped, but there was a shadow lurking at the edge of his vision that he was trying very hard not to look at properly.

“You think we puked it all up?” He asked, the sour taste in his mouth a disgusting reminder of the last five minutes. At least the bile washed out the taste of blood? Was that a good thing?

“Maybe. Ask me something? Interrogate me.” Her Russian accent wasn’t bad, actually.

“How long have you been hearing them?” Steve blurted out, before he could think of a less sensitive topic to ask about on the floor of the men’s room.

“Years,” Robin’s voice was soft. “Not often, but it’s been happening more recently. They don’t usually have much to say and it gets really repetitive, because they’re stuck in that loop, you know? Most of them don’t have anything to say that they haven’t said already.”

Steve thought of Vance, and the rage that never seemed to leave him anymore, and of Billy’s mother, who loved him both desperately and uselessly, how they seemed trapped by the things they hadn’t said or done.

“What about you?”

“When I was a kid my best friend’s name was Robin,” Steve whispered, surprised at how much the thought hurt, even all these years later.

“What happened to them?” Robin asked, her voice quiet, showing no surprise at Steve’s apparent change of subject.

“He was murdered. Grabbed off the street, kept in a basement and murdered,” and the anger he felt, the guilt at living when Robin hadn’t, still sat in his gut like a physical thing. Robin in the other stall, made a soft wounded sound and Steve abruptly realized that he didn’t want to have this conversation this far away from her. He managed to pull himself under the stall wall towards her and sit up again, but it was a near thing, his ribs a fiery line of agony in his chest.

“Same guy grabbed me less than a week later,” Steve whispered, desperately glad to not be alone, but terrified to look at Robin and see what she was thinking of him. “He said that he wouldn’t do anything to me that I didn’t like,” Robin made a punched out sound of agony and grabbed Steve’s hand, her grip an anchor point he didn’t know he needed. “He didn’t touch me, I’m fine. I mean, deeply traumatized, but the Russians did worse,” he rushed to assure her, to joke about it so she could see that he was fine, but the way her eyebrows climbed to her hairline made him realize that he probably wasn’t doing a great job at that.

“There was a phone in the basement he kept me in,” Steve said, and this, this right here was why he was telling Robin something he had never told anyone else. Because he could tell, by the way that she looked at him, that she knew what he was saying without actually saying it.

“Five boys. He’d killed five boys before me, and they each called and they each helped me. Robin,” and Steve had to choke around the lump in his throat now, “Robin was the last one. He helped me plan how to escape, and he said good-bye.” Robin’s grip on his hand tightened until he was sure the little bones in his hand were creaking from the pressure, but he was holding her back just as hard, so that was fine.

“I’ve got one of the other kids, he stuck around, but I never heard from Robin again. And that makes me really, really happy, because that means he moved on, but-” Steve had to fight to get these words out, and he may actually have been crying a little bit. “But I still miss my friend.”

Robin released her death grip on his hand and threw her arms around his neck, squeezing tight. Steve’s own arms wrapped around her waist and he dropped his head onto her shoulder. She didn’t say anything, just let him cling to her and sob.

He hadn’t been lying, he was glad that Robin wasn’t still here, haunting him. He was glad that Robin had moved on, to whatever waited afterwards. But there was a tiny part of him, the part that was always 12 year old Stevie, who wished that his best friend had been the one standing behind him during the fight at the Byers, rather than Vance. But he felt guilty about that too, and he didn’t know how to explain that to Robin, and probably couldn’t have found words around his tears at that moment if he had them.

It couldn’t have been more than five minutes later, but it felt like an eternity before Steve felt put together enough to pull back slightly. Robin was looking at him, really looking at him, and he felt seen for the first time in a very, very long time.

And then he had to go and fuck it up.

Steve’s a tactile person. He likes hugs and holding hands and kissing and Robin had held his hand and hugged him and she was funny and smart and so brave and she knew about the ghosts and Steve wanted to kiss her.

She must have read his intention in his eyes, because she jerked backwards so quickly that she banged her head against the tiled wall.

And then she was talking in a rapid fire hoarse whisper and Steve felt like a garbage person because she was so scared and he had to crush his own heartbreak under his foot and focus on making her feel better, letting her know that she’s safe with him, making sure that she knows that he still adored her.

He knew that his emotions weren’t her responsibility, and his desperate need to be loved wasn’t something he can just shove at her and make her deal with.

But then he was clutching her hand and they were both laughing and making muppet sounds on the floor of a dirty bathroom and this was so much better, because he knew, in his bones, in his soul, that they’ll be together forever and it doesn’t matter that she doesn’t love him like that, because they still love each other, and they still understand each other on a level that no one else ever will.

And then there is more running, and a moment of panic crouched behind the giant cookie place, when Steve caught a glimpse of the fear on Dustin’s face and he was gearing up to run, to distract the four Russian goons hunting them so the others might have a chance to get away. But he doesn’t need to, because El was there, and all the other kids, and Jonathan and Nancy, and if Steve’s heart did twist at that the way it used to, that’s growth right?

It’s a fast paced volley of words to get everyone caught up on what’s happening, but Steve really only hears part of it. He threw Robin in the spotlight, preening for her about her brains and the fact that she cracked the Russian code, but before he could track anymore of the conversation, there’s a pressure on his shoulders.

Two hands, fingernails long enough to leave crescent indentations on his skin. Steve knew before he turned to look who would be standing behind him. He’d been ignoring her shadow since the bathroom, but she was impossible to ignore at that moment. The noise of the group behind him faded as Billy’s mother stood before him, looking frantic. Normally she was a peaceful, if sad, looking woman, but the fear in her face at that moment reminded Steve of the frantic energy that had been simmering under Billy’s skin before the first punch on the Byers’ porch.

“Something’s wrong,” Steve whispered, he could tell that much without looking at her.

“Help him,” she insisted, reaching her hands out to clasp his. Her grip was vice-tight, her nails driving points into his skin. “Help him,” she insisted, louder this time. Steve was vaguely aware of a rattling sound all around him. She was squeezing his hand tight enough that her nails broke the skin, leaving small welling crescents of blood on the back of his hand, mirrors of the bruises that Billy had on his hands the night he saved Steve’s life. Her message was clear enough - my son saved your life, now save his.

Before Steve could promise her anything, to turn back to the group to find out what was going on, ask her to tell him what Billy needed help with -

“HELP HIM.” She said again, one final time, and then she disappeared, one of the neon tubes for the nearby Orange Julius popped in a crackle of sparks at the same moment.

Steve turned back to the group, tucking his bleeding hand into his pocket, but not before Robin saw. Steve shook his head quickly, a “not now” that he prayed she understood.

Odds were good that Billy was wrapped up in this Mindflayer thing, and if he helped with the plan, then maybe he would be able to save Billy without having to explain why that was important to him.

Because it was, he realized, even as he shifted poor Tod’s car into reverse and tore out of the parking lot. He knew the kids hated Billy, and they were absolutely justified in that. But Billy had been the first person who had believed Steve about the ghosts, without question. Billy had saved Steve’s life, twice. They were friends, maybe.

Except then they lost contact with the people still at the mall and it didn’t matter what Steve and Billy were, it mattered that the people that Steve cared about were in danger. It mattered that Robin had thrown herself into the passenger seat without hesitation, clutching a walkie to her chest and looking determined, rather than afraid. For a second, Steve was sure that it was going to be okay.

And then they were back at the Starcourt mall, tearing across the parking lot at a speed that was terrifying to think about.

He recognized that car.

He’d been smoking on or near that car all summer, he could recognize it by the roar of the engine even from across that parking lot.

He also recognized Nancy, feet planted and gun pointed and he didn’t have time to think about what he wanted, didn’t have time to think about how much this was going to hurt, didn’t have time to acknowledge the scream that was Billy’s mother coming through the car radio loud enough that Robin clapped her hands to her ears.

Steve just drove the gas pedal to the floor and tried not to feel like he was a monster.

Billy’s car was burning and Steve’s heart was pounding, he spared a second to check on Robin, before vaulting out of the car (ah, fuck, his broken ribs did not like that. He was definitely going to the hospital when this was over) and sprinting over to Billy’s camaro.

He was distantly aware of Nancy screaming his name, but he kept going, pulling on the driver’s side door with everything he had. There was a distant roaring, but that might have been the blood rushing in his ears, and the sound of a car pulling away, but Steve couldn’t leave.

“Go!” He shouted over his shoulder, hoping they listened.

“Come on, you asshole,” Steve swore, putting a foot on the side of the camaro to try and get leverage. The crash had warped the frame just enough that the door was sticking and Billy was limp, head hanging down so that Steve couldn’t see if he was unconscious or just woozy.

“Billy!” Steve gave up on the door and reached in through the window, but the second he got a hand on Billy, two things happened. The first was that Billy’s head snapped up, and all Steve could think was that he looked like absolute dog-shit. The second was Billy put a hand on the door and pushed and it rocketed open, slamming against the side of the camaro. The edge of the door caught Steve across the thigh, leaving a line of blood that began to pour down his leg, staining his stupid Scoops Ahoy socks red.

Billy pulled himself out of the wreckage of his car, his movement slow, before falling to the pavement on his hands and knees. His shirt was a bloody mess and he looked like he hadn’t slept since the last time Steve had seen him, which had to be days ago now.

Behind Billy, the ghost of his mother flickered in and out, like the picture on the TV when there was bad reception. Steve could hear her saying something, but it sounded distant and the words were garbled.

Steve held a hand out to help Billy up, but instead of taking it, the blond wrapped a hand around Steve’s calf and yanked, sending Steve to the ground in a move that set both his fucked up ribs and his head screaming.

“Billy, what the fuck,” Steve wheezed, but Billy didn’t answer him. Instead, he swung one leg over Steve’s thighs, their position an echo of their first fight. Only instead of punching him in the face, Billy wrapped one hand around Steve’s throat and squeezed.

All Steve knew was pain.

He was burning, there was fire inside of him consuming everything to get out. There was something tearing at his insides, ripping and clawing until there was room inside of his ribs to house a writhing mass of nothing but blood and agony. His lungs filled with fluid, but tainted water, made from bile and oil that would have made him wretch if his throat wasn’t being crushed.

Distantly, a part of him that existed beyond the pain, was aware of a sound - a metal door opening? And then feet running.

Above him, Billy growled, then there was a crunch, and a thud, and Steve was aware of nothing.

Chapter Text

Consciousness came back to Steve in fits and starts. The neon lights were flickering around him, every flare a spike of pain into Steve’s pounding head. He was dimly aware of movement to his right, but doing so much as turning his head was agony. He could hear whispers, someone speaking in a low voice, though he only caught the end of the sentence.

“...very still.” Billy was speaking directly into El’s ear, veins of black gunk, repulsively similar to what the ghost of Barb had vomited into his pool, running up and down his arms.

“Leave her alone, Billy,” Steve’s voice was weak, and forcing words out felt like vomiting barbed wire, probably from the grip Billy’d had on his throat earlier. Steve tried to roll over, to crawl to El, to do something, anything other than lie there, but he was literally shaking from the pain of whatever had happened in the parking lot and his limbs refused to obey him.

And then the Mind flayer descended from the ceiling, like some enormous meat spider and it suddenly didn’t matter how much pain Steve was in. El was crawling backwards, away from this monstrosity and its two mouths, and she was close enough for Steve to wrap a hand around her arm and tug her towards him. She startled at the first touch of his grip, but let herself be pulled.

“It’s just me,” Steve said, pushing himself to his knees and trying desperately to tuck her to his chest. He knew she had superpowers, but she was also bleeding from the head and clearly terrified in this moment and if he could do anything for her, he would.

Except then Billy reached down and wrapped his own hand around Steve’s bicep and the grip was tight enough that Steve just knew he was going to have a bruise in the shape of a handprint there when he was done. Billy pulled and it was enough to begin to lift Steve from the floor, away from El, and towards the Mind flayer.

And then there was an explosion of sound and light and it was the kids - those brave, reckless, stupid, wonderful kids, throwing fireworks at a two story tall monster made of dead people to try and save their friends. Each explosion sent the thing reeling, screaming in what might be pain. Steve heard Robin over the screams, “hey dipshit, over here!” and his heart grew ten sizes because he adored her.

The most important thing that happened was Billy let go of Steve’s arm, which Steve immediately used to his advantage to try and scooch him and El away from the line of fire. It was not very dignified, and when they were retelling this later Steve was definitely leaving the part where he shuffled backwards on his ass away from the monster because he couldn’t stand, but, well, he couldn’t stand.

Except, even twitching like he was suffering the hit of each firework, Billy was still on his feet, though his jaw was clenched so tightly that he was likely cracking teeth, and the black veins had crawled from his arms up to his neck now.

Despite the pain that he appeared to be in, he was still faster than Steve and El, two concussed people, both of which with leg wounds that made running almost impossible. In two stuttery, jerky steps, Billy closed the distance between them, wrapping a hand around El’s uninjured leg and pulling. Steve refused to let go of her, locking his arms together around her waist so that he was also drawn closer to the nightmare of flesh and evil that was rising up behind them.

And then, suddenly, they weren’t there anymore.

There was a flash of something, like they were standing in an endless mirrored surface, but then they were falling, and despite his best attempts to keep a hold of El, Steve lost her somewhere in the tumble.

Steve was standing on a beach, nothing but sand and waves and the soft call of gulls in every direction. For a minute that stretched into two, three, he was alone here. It was enough time for Steve to realize that he wasn’t in pain anymore. His ribs weren’t bothering him, the jittery pain that had been sitting under his skin like knives since the parking lot wasn’t there.

Oh. He was dead. He had to be dead.

The Mind flayer ate him and this was some sort of in between place.

God, he hoped the kids hadn’t seen that, that would fuck them up forever. Poor Dustin was going to need so much therapy. And Max. Poor Max. Her brother fed her best friend and her occasional baby-sitter to a monster, that was really fucked up.

Steve had to sit down.

The sand under his fingers was warm, but not scalding. There was something about the scene that suggested the sun had just come up, that there hadn’t been time for the sand to get too hot to walk on. As eternities went, this one was pretty nice.

“You’re not dead,” a voice said directly in his ear, and Steve startled so badly that sand flew everywhere.

When he did scramble to standing, he found himself blinking at the figure in front of him.

He was in a shirt that might have been white, once, but time in the basement had worn it to a dirty gray, save for the red rust spots around the collar. His black vest, ragged at the shoulders, was also soaked in blood. So was his hair, the curly mass of it matted and tangled, gold turning auburn from the blood.

“I’d say it’s nice to meet you in person, but we both know that’s a fucking lie,” Vance said, spreading his arms wide. “You’re not dead, Stevie, just in an in-between. Your little magic friend brought you here, but I don’t think she meant to take you too. You’re just full of surprises, aren’t you?” And Vance wrapped a hand around Steve’s bicep, his fingers sitting almost exactly where Billy’s had not five minutes previous. His grip was just as bruising.

“What the fuck is going on,” Steve dug his heels in and yanked at his arm. Where Billy’s grip earlier had been an unrelenting iron hold, Vance’s fell away when Steve pulled.

Oh. Vance had always been this larger than life figure made of rage in Steve’s mind. He was an insurmountable mountain. The fact that the Grabber had taken him, had managed to keep him, and had managed to kill him had only made him more terrifying to Steve. Except Steve had been twelve then, and in this moment, Steve realized how young Vance had been. How young he would be forever. He would never get to change or grow, he would always be that sixteen year old who died in a monster’s basement.

But Steve was eighteen now, stronger and faster than he had been at twelve. And while he hadn’t been a match for Billy, infected by whatever the Mindflayer had done to him, he noticed that he had a couple of inches on Vance, and more than a couple of pounds. Vance wasn’t an insurmountable mountain, he was just a scared kid who had died too soon and too angry.

“We’re going to find that possessed fuckwad, I’m going to smack him around for a bit, we’re going to rescue your magic friend and then you’re going to leave,” Vance ticked each thing off on his fingers as he listed it. Steve dug his heels into the ground, stubborn, and Vance grinned, a mean, angry expression on his face.

“Don’t get cocky, Stevie. You’re bigger now, but I could still put you on your ass if I wanted to. And you don’t stand a chance against that fucker without me, not with how you’re feeling.” Which, rude. Also true. Still rude. Vance sneered at him. “Tick tock, Stevie, time’s not on your side.”

The sand never warmed under their feet as they walked, the sun never rose any higher than it was when Steve arrived at the beach, so it was impossible to really tell how long they walked for.

“Do you have any idea on how we’re going to find Billy?” Steve asked, eventually. Vance bristled, like Steve’s very existence was an annoyance to him, and he didn’t bother to turn around when he answered.

“He’ll turn up,” was all he said, cryptic and cocky with it. Steve thought about punching him in the back of the head, fair turnabout for cracking Steve’s skull into the mirror that night, but decided against it, mostly because he was sure Vance wouldn’t let that lie and he was exhausted down to his bones.

Distantly, as if it was happening to someone else and Steve was just watching it, he became aware of the crackle of lightning under his skin. It didn’t feel like the violent shock that usually preceded Vance, or whatever the nightmare amalgamation from the parking lot had been. This felt like Steve was the storm, like there was something powerful inside of him.

As soon as he became aware of the lightning, as soon as he could put paid to the feeling, he noticed the red storm rolling down the horizon towards them, whipping sand in every direction and rumbling thunder that quaked the ground.

“Speak of the devil,” Vance muttered under his breath, but it was mostly swallowed in the roll of thunder as the red storm engulfed them.

It was like standing in the middle of a crowd, except no one seemed to notice them. Everywhere Steve turned, there was a little boy, he couldn’t have been older than eight, and one look at the curls and the necklace around his neck clued Steve in to his identity.

It looked like they had found Billy.

Except that wasn’t all they found, as Steve’s stomach rolled at the sights playing out in front of him. Tiny Billy, cradling his cheek and trying not to cry. Tiny Billy, fists flying as he got into fight after fight. Tiny Billy, his knees drawn up to his chest, begging his mother to come home over the phone. It hit Steve like a punch in the gut, the revelation that she had left. He had thought she had died, had no choice but to leave but she left. The worst of it, Steve realized, was that he had probably been the one who told Billy she was dead.

He was shocked that Billy didn’t throw him off the quarry that first night, talking the way he did, not knowing anything about anything. He was such a fuckup, it made him sick.

But then, then the storm stopped, the sky cleared, and Steve is staring at Tiny Billy, clutching a surfboard and just beaming at her. She was smiling in the moment, but Steve could see the way that the smile didn't reach her eyes. But then she looked over Tiny Billy’s shoulder and made eye contact with Steve, the way that none of the other apparitions had done in this place.

“Help him,” she insisted and Steve fucking lost it.

“Maybe I wouldn’t have to if you have done your fucking job! You were his mother,” and he could feel the bile in that phrase, he knew it was his own issues climbing up his throat, but he didn't care.

“Help him,” she insisted again, the thunder of the storm rolling with her words. The lightning inside Steve cracked its own answer.

“I’m not doing this for you,” Steve snapped, the old venom and authority of King Steve in his tone. He didn’t like the person he had been, he was trying to be better, but sometimes he missed being able to rip people down with his words and not feel guilty about it. But it didn’t seem to matter to Billy’s mother how much hate he poured into his words, because she just nodded, satisfied, before turning back to her son and smiling at him. Steve hated her so much his skin itched.

And then the storm cleared for just a second and there was Billy, not Tiny Billy, not weird veiny evil Billy, just Billy. His eyes were hard as he stared at Steve, one fist clenched at his side.

“Harrington,” Billy bit out, as if he was mad that Steve was here.

“Billy,” Steve nodded. The moment had the same energy as a showdown in the western movies Steve had liked when he was a kid. Each of them just waiting for the signal to start shooting. He should have expected the hostility, really.

“Who’s your friend?” Billy nodded to the space over Steve’s right shoulder, and when Steve turned to look, Vance was standing there, his feet planted, his shoulders forward, looking for all the world like a bull about to charge. Steve wanted to shake the two of them.

“Billy, this is Vance. He’s the kid from Denver I mentioned. You two have met, actually.” Billy’s gaze flicked from Steve to Vance and back again.

“What the fuck are you doing here, Harrington?”

“That part’s a little unclear, actually. You see, last I remember you were trying to feed me and my friend to a monster made of dead people and goo, and then I was here. You haven’t seen El around here, have you? She’s about yeah tall, terrible fashion sense, moves things with her mind?”

“Doesn’t ring a bell.”

“Billy,” Steve took a single step forward, but Billy was faster, clearing the distance between them at speed, fist drawn back for a punch that would have driven all of the wind out of Steve.

Except Vance was there first, tackling Billy to the ground and driving his fist into Billy’s face. Billy took the blow, got a hand around Vance’s throat, up under his jaw, and drove his other hand into Vance’s floating ribs.

Steve had an uncomfortable flashback to his fight with Jonathan in the alley, only he felt like this time he was Nancy.

Vance, who Billy was doing a good job of levering off of him with that hand on his jaw, drove a knee into Billy’s nuts with a ferocity that made Steve wince. Billy’s grip on his throat tightened, maybe just a pain reflex, but his other arm dropped, which Vance took advantage of to drive his own fist into Billy’s face over and over.

It was then that Steve remembered that Nancy had actually slapped him in the alley, rather than just stood there like a useless idiot, so he wrapped his arms around Vance’s waist and pulled, trying to separate the two of them without getting clocked. This was made more difficult by Billy’s refusal to release his grip on Vance’s throat, and Vance driving his foot into Steve’s shin as many times as he could.

“ENOUGH.” Steve shouted, finally pulling enough to get Vance away from Billy and dropping the younger man in the sand.

“This is idiotic! We have other shit to worry about!” Behind him, Vance was scrambling to his feet and Steve knew without looking that he was patting his pockets down for something to stab Billy with. “Billy, we need to find El so we can get you the fuck out of here and back in charge of your body. Vance, if you don’t chill the fuck out right now-” Steve didn’t have an adequate threat beyond pointing and looking angry, which probably wasn’t helped by the fact that he was still in his damn Scoops Ahoy uniform, but Vance just scowled at him, rather than tried to murder him, so he’d call that one a win.

Billy looked a little stunned.

“You’re actually here?”

“As opposed to what? One of the figments of your imagination? Why the fuck would you be imagining me in this stupid sailor suit, dude?”

“I’ve been seeing a whole bunch of shit, not all of it makes any sense,” Billy snapped, ignoring Steve’s outstretched hand to stand up by himself. “You showing up with a cheap imitation is hardly the weirdest thing I’ve seen.” Steve concealed his snort of laughter as a cough, but the furious sound Vance made behind him let him know that he hadn’t done a great job of that.

“Look, Billy,” Steve started and then he was kind of stuck on how to explain it. “Things are really, really bad right now. And we need you back in the driver’s seat, like, yesterday. So please, if you have any idea where El might be, we need to find her and get out of here.”

Billy’s shoulders were drawn up around his ears, practically. He looked feral and angry and scared all at once and if they were actually friends, rather than whatever they were, Steve might have hugged him. But then Billy clenched his jaw and squared his shoulders.

“She’s probably in there,” he waved a hand at a part of the storm that Steve hadn’t noticed before, swirling red and hateful in a way that the rest of it hadn’t managed to be. “Whatever this fucking thing in my head is, it’s mostly over there, and it’s angry.”

That was…not a lot to go on, honestly, but it was better than nothing. Steve shrugged and Billy took off in that direction. Steve turned to offer a hand up to Vance, but Vance was already standing, glaring at the back of Billy’s head.

“What the fuck is your problem?” Steve hissed, stopping short of driving his fingers into Vance’s shoulder because he was not an idiot. “We have bigger things to worry about than your pissing contest.”

“Do we?” Vance flashed a grin that had too many teeth at him, then took off after Billy. “Come on, Stevie, tick tock.”

The storm was more intense the further they walked. The memories got more volatile as well, Tiny Billy got smacked around for the slightest infraction, just for Steve to take two steps forward and watch Tiny Billy beat the shit out of another kid for the crime of breathing too loud. It made Steve a little nauseous, if he was going to be honest with himself.

From the tight line of Billy’s shoulders as he walked in front of them, he wasn’t too pleased with the situation either. Vance, on the other hand, was practically whistling a jaunty tune for their stroll through the nightmare storm of Billy’s mind.

Steve shot him a look out of the corner of his eye, but Vance just beamed the toothy grin at him.

“Fuck it,” Steve muttered to himself. He would deal with Vance later.

In another moment that Steve would have to rewrite when he retold this story later, they nearly tripped over El. She was standing still, her gaze darting left and right as she watched the images of Little Billy go flying by. Luckily, she stood out in that shirt of hers, which Steve was going to never ever make fun of where she could hear him.

“Oh thank god, you’re alright.” Steve swept her up into a hug, too relieved about the weirdness and happy that she was here to stop himself. She was such a superhuman force in his brain that he forgot sometimes she was just a kid.

“Steve?” She looked so confused that he was here, which was a bit concerning, because Steve couldn’t explain it beyond what little Vance had told him, so he just shrugged.

“How do we get out of here?” He asked, hoping that El had at least some plan. She did look resolute, which was a good thing. She also slipped her hand into Steve’s before squaring her shoulders and turning to face Billy, who she hadn’t acknowledged yet.

El’s hand was warm in his.

“We need to find happy memories,” she said, gesturing around them at the swirling storm and the cacophony of voices emanating from it. Billy scoffed, but El turned her gaze to him and he stifled whatever vulgar thing he was going to say.

“We need happy memories so you can fight,” she insisted.

“Well then, find me a fuckin happy memory,” Billy waved his hand at the storm all around them, the red sand whipping his hair into a mess of blond curls and red dust that made Steve’s stomach churn thinking of Vance, and the blood that soaked his hair.

“I think I know where to start,” Steve said, around the pit he could feel in his stomach. And that’s what this had been about since the first, with Billy, wasn’t it?

Billy blinked at him, and somehow it managed to be an aggressive act, which would be impressive if Steve wasn’t so exhausted. Except the storm was blowing faster now and it was harder to see any further than five feet in front of his face. El and Billy were both staring at him, and if the situation wasn’t so dire he would take this moment to point out the similarities in their flat-eyed stare to each other, but, well, not the time.

He’d tell them later.

“Are you going to share with the class, Harrington,” Billy bit out. Steve wanted to shove him.

“Nah, I’ll let her handle it,” he shot back, before turning to the storm and shouting. “Hey, if you wanted to be useful, now would be the fucking time!” Belatedly, he remembered El next to him and hoped Hopper would forgive him for teaching her a new swear. Then he remembered that he’d heard how Mike talked, so it was safe to say that she knew that one already.

Steve squeezed his eyes shut and forced his brain back on track. He felt woozy, suddenly, and was having problems maintaining focus.

“You’re bleeding out, back on the floor of the mall” Vance said, nastily, directly into Steve’s ear. “That’s what’s going on with you. You’re running out of time, Stevie. Tick tock.”

“Fuck off,” Billy shoved his way between Vance and Steve, wrapping an arm around Steve’s waist to keep him upright.

And then there she was, the ghost of Billy’s mom, the whipping storm around her falling away to show her smiling at Tiny Billy, who was clutching a surf board.

“It was at least seven feet!” Tiny Billy told his mother, smiling a gap-toothed grin at her. She smiled back at him, tucking his hair behind his ears and looking like she cared about him enough to not leave. Next to Steve, the only reaction that Billy showed was a tightening of his arm around Steve’s waist. And then she looked up, away from Tiny Billy, and locked eyes with Steve.

He was lucky Billy was holding him up, because Steve went completely limp in his grasp, she didn’t need his body for this, apparently.

“I’m so sorry Billy-buddy,” she said, and there was a strange doubling - Steve could hear his own voice saying it, but there was also the voice of Billy’s mother, looking at him from a memory and saying things she never said before. “I never stopped loving you.” She didn’t say she was proud of him, which was a gross thing to think about.

El squeezed Steve’s hand.

“Happier,” she insisted. Billy’s mother looked down at El and smiled sadly, before she reached a hand out to Billy, like she was going to cup his cheek. Billy didn’t move, didn’t flinch, didn’t lean into the touch. He might as well have been a statue.

Then Steve heard his own voice, from somewhere in the storm.

“Thanks for saving me, Billy-buddy.” Behind Steve, Vance cackled, the lightning crack of his glee too similar to his rage to really differentiate.

Billy’s mother stood there, smiling sadly at the son she had abandoned in every way but the last, as the scene around them changed. The sand of the beach fell away to become the edge of the quarry, the sunlight faded into moonlight and California because Hawkins, Indiana.

Billy sucked in a ragged breath.

This was Steve’s living room. Steve was asleep on one of the chairs, hideous throw pillow tucked behind his head and a blanket pulled up to his chin. Billy set a glass of water on the kitchen counter, next to a bowl that Steve knew contained fruit, and a little white pill on a napkin that had been the only way he made it to work that morning. Billy looked, soft, was the word for it, in the morning light. He was headed for the front door but he paused, just for a second, to brush some of the hair out of Steve’s face.

The real Billy was tense, the arm around Steve a rigid, immovable thing.

Oh. Oh.

Billy’s mom smiled placidly at Billy, and brushed his hair away from his face, like she had done for Tiny Billy, like Billy had done for the Steve who had been asleep in the chair. This was the first smile that reached her eyes.

Beside him, El squeezed his hand again. Steve barely had the strength to turn his head to look at her, but she wasn’t looking at him. Instead, her gaze was on Billy, who looked like he was going to start crying. There was a haunted, broken look on his face that Steve had never seen before.

“I love you,” Billy’s mother said again, more insistent this time.

And then they were back on the floor of the Starcourt mall, the disgusting meat conglomeration that was the Mind Flayer looming over them, Billy still gripping El’s ankle, Steve still wrapped around El. There was a heart beat, no more, before the second mouth, like some sort of frog tongue, shot towards El. Steve, who had never really enjoyed wrestling, but who had done the unit in PE sophomore year, rolled, putting his own back between El and that thing. He remembered what Vance said, he was already bleeding out. Tick tock, and all of that. If Steve was going out, he would go out doing what he could for El.

Except the mouth never made impact. Billy caught it, planted his feet, and held it, a single teenaged boy against a monster the size of a mall.

Steve shoved El out from under him, away from the chaos that was going on behind him. Mike and Max came running around a corner, from the employee halls, probably, and Steve pushed again, sending El another few inches towards her friends, towards safety.

Except Max was staring, horrified at the sight in front of her, and Steve looked back in time to watch more of those tongues slam into Billy’s side, his wife-beater turning from white to red with a speed that made Steve’s stomach drop.

Distantly, he could hear Max scream her step-brother’s name, but everything was coming to Steve like he was underwater. The Mind Flayer dropped Billy, twitching like a bug until it collapsed into a pile of goo, just seconds too late.

His body, moving under someone else’s control and headless of the damage it had suffered already, scrambled to Billy’s side, Max not a second behind him. Steve grabbed Billy’s hand and clung, Max on his other side pleading.

“Billy, Billy, get up, please, Billy, get up, please, please,” her hands were on his shoulders, clutching.

Billy’s mother lifted her dying son’s hand to her mouth and kissed it, gently.

“You did so good, Billy-buddy. I’m so proud of you,” she whispered, but she didn’t beg him to stay.

“I’m sorry,” Billy said around a mouth full of blood, his eyes already unfocused and staring past both of them.

Billy’s hand went limp in his grasp and Steve wasn’t sure - he would never be sure - whether it was him or Billy’s mother who let out the animalistic howl when he died.

It was Jonathan that pulled him away from Billy’s body.

They had to tell him later, he didn’t remember.

He spent four days in the hospital, doubling his previous record. Turned out he had a pretty serious concussion, three broken ribs, and the doctors had been worried that the gash on his leg would get infected, in addition to the blood loss he had suffered from said leg injury.

He missed the funeral.

Max came by his house, afterwards, when he was set up with enough blankets and glasses of water and painkillers that his father didn’t feel so bad about leaving again. Steve was okay in the empty house, the silence was nice.

He hadn’t seen Billy’s mom since Billy died, which made sense. She was attached to Billy, now that Billy wasn’t here, she didn’t need to be here anymore. He hadn’t seen or heard from Vance either, but that also made sense. Vance was around for a fight. No more Billy, no more fighting.

When the doorbell rang, it took Steve a minute to get up and get to the door. His leg was stiff, and moving at anything faster than a hobble made him wheeze. He was surprised to see Max there, her eyes were puffy like she had been crying a while ago, but wasn’t anymore. Her shoulders were up around her ears and Steve was reminded viscerally of a feral kitten, puffed up and ready to spit at the slightest provocation.

He opened the door wordlessly, letting her inside.

She walked like the floor offended her to be there, like she was so full of rage at the world and couldn’t think of a way to express it but to break things.

Steve shut the door behind her, already exhausted.

“I thought he had a girlfriend,” Max said, like that was a logical phrase to begin whatever this was. She wasn’t even in the house proper, had stopped inside the foyer and turned back to look at Steve, too full of whatever energy was propelling her forward to wait until they were sitting to begin talking. “He was out all the time and I thought he had a girlfriend.”

“No, just me, I think,” Steve wanted to sink into the floor and vanish.

“I don’t know what you saw in him,” she snarled, full up of pre-teen indignation and rage. Steve wanted very badly to hug her.

“He kept my secrets,” Steve shrugged, like that was enough. And maybe it was. “He also saved my life twice. Kept me from falling into the quarry, pulled me out of the pool after a bad fall.” Max’s brow unfurrows, a little bit, as if this is something that she could see her asshole brother doing, and maybe that explains things.

“We weren’t really friends,” which feels like a cheap way to explain it, but Billy kept Steve’s secret. The least Steve can do is keep his. “He was an absolute asshole, I’m not denying that. But he might have been better, given more time.”

“But now there’s no more time,” and Max’s eyes were welling up, and Steve took two steps forward and pulled her to his chest, broken ribs be damned, in the tightest hug that he could manage.

“I’m so sorry, Max,” he whispered. He thought he was out of his own tears, had sobbed and raged and wailed until there was nothing left inside of him, but for Max he found a few more. “I tried to save him.”

“I know you did,” Max choked out around sobs. “I know you did everything you could.” For a moment they stood there in the foyer, two ships meeting in a sea of grief, before Max pulled away and Steve let her.

“I wanted you to have these,” she said, holding out her clenched fist. Steve held his own hand out, tentative, and Max dropped a mess of chain and metal into his palm.

“I know he wouldn’t want Neil to have them, and I felt bad keeping them for myself. I think he’d be okay with you keeping them.” It took Steve a minute to decipher what he was holding - it was Billy’s necklace, the one with the St. Christopher medal, and the ring he always wore - two loops around a braided band.

“Max,” Steve started, but she shook her head sharply, cutting him off.

“Don’t argue with me, I could kick your ass right now. Have you ever won a fight?” And Steve let her both change the topic of conversation and bully him back towards the couch.

“I beat up a Russian guard,” Steve insisted while she fussed at him the best way she knew how - throwing blankets at his head. “And Billy, I won a fight with Billy.”

“No,” Max sniped, but there was a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. “I won a fight with Billy.”

Steve debated telling her about the throw down in the locker room showers, but decided against it. He hadn’t won that fight either, to be honest, that had mostly been Vance. He also felt like it would be a little weird telling Max about the time he and Billy fought when both of them were naked. And then he wanted to bang his head in the wall because he was an oblivious idiot.

Instead, he let Max settle down on the other side of the couch and offered her a corner of the blanket to tuck her feet into. They sat there in silence watching whatever daytime television was on, something about a twisted love triangle and clones? Siblings? Steve wasn’t really paying attention. But apparently this was the kind of thing that Max enjoyed because her eyes were glued to the screen.

Billy’s hands had been bigger than Steve’s, so the ring only fit securely on his thumb. The chain, however, was easy enough to slip over his neck and tuck into his shirt. The medallion was cool to the touch where it rested against his sternum.

He thought he saw a flash of blond curls out of the corner of his eye, but when he turned his head there was nothing there.

Chapter Text

August

Steve lost the rest of July to healing, the pain and the medication ensuring that he slept through most of the month, dozing alternately on the couch and his own bed, waking long enough to have a short conversation with either Robin or one of the kids, whoever had dropped by to check on him.

El waited as long as she could before she came to him. She was leaving with the Byers, Steve knew, since Hopper hadn’t made it out of the mall. And that twisted something inside of him, opened up a pit of guilt that he wanted to throw himself into.

Maybe it’s because she didn’t have the words, or maybe because she didn’t want to ask the question, but when she finally did visit him, El just sat on the loveseat, across from his sickbed couch, silent.

“I’m not like you,” Steve started, then winced. That sounded bad. “I mean I’m not the power, I’m not powerful. I’m the - the thing that power goes into - the conduit. I can talk to ghosts, sometimes. Sometimes I can see them too.” And he knew that was the wrong thing to say as soon as he said it, because there was a surge of hope in El’s eyes that just fed that guilt pit in his stomach.

“He’s not here,” Steve said quietly. He felt like a monster. “I haven’t seen anyone since the mall.” Since they had stood in Billy Hargrove’s mind and Vance had laughed in his ear.

“The boy - like Billy, but not Billy, he was?” And Steve shrugged, because yes, that was a good way to describe Vance.

“His name is Vance, he died six years ago, and-“ there had to be a PG-13 version of this story that he could tell her. “He was murdered, and it made him angry. So he hangs around me because sometimes he can fight things? And that helps with the anger.” He doesn’t know if it did, really, or just fed into it, so that everything that Vance was before was being eroded away by the anger. It didn’t really matter, Steve didn’t have any say in what Vance did or didn’t do.

“He was around a lot, right before the Mind Flayer. He didn’t like Billy, so he was there at the mall when we fell into Billy’s mind.” El blinked at him, looking a bit bereft and Steve wanted to hug her. He didn’t, because if she wanted a hug she would have come to him, but he still wanted to hug her.

El toyed with the blue hair tie that was sitting around her wrist, and Steve didn’t push.

“Why did you not say anything?”

“About the ghosts?” She nodded, solemn. She didn’t need to say ‘friends don’t lie’ out loud, he could read it in her eyes.

“Because it hadn’t happened for years, and it wasn’t something that would help. I’d never been somewhere like that storm before, that was all you. I just brought Vance along, and I’m pretty sure he was the opposite of helpful.”

El shook her head sharply, curls bouncing.

“You gave Billy his mama back,” she said, and Steve swallowed hard around the lump in his throat. That was true, but it hadn’t been enough, in the end. Or maybe it had been the best that they could have hoped for.

If wishes were horses, something about steak, as the saying went.

There was too much he wanted to say, and none of it felt like it was right for the moment.

“If you need anything in California, call me,” was what he settled on. “I’ll get on the first flight out, no questions asked. Hell, I’ll see if I can shove Mike in my suitcase for backup.” Her smile was wobbly, but it was there. “And uh, please don’t mention this to anyone else. It’s not something that can help, like you can and it just makes people uncomfortable if they think I’m hearing voices.” Never mind that he had been hearing voices. That wasn’t the point.

“I won’t tell.” She nodded decisively. “Take care, Steve,” she said, standing from her seat across from him and opening her arms. “We can hug now.”

He laughed, hugged her, and if he squeezed her a little tighter to try and dispel the memory of wrapping her in his arms on the floor of the mall, sure that he was going to die, well, she probably knew that was what he was doing and she tolerated it anyways.

September

Robin got him the job at Family Video, Steve knew that. Keith hated him with a vitriol the bullied in high school saved for their former tormentors. Steve couldn’t remember ever doing anything to Keith, specifically, but that didn’t mean anything. The body count that belonged to King Steve was large and unrelenting and continued to haunt Steve.

So, now Steve worked at the video store with Robin, which was fun, with Keith as a manager, which was less fun.

Except that Keith was so enamored with Robin that he basically let her get away with anything, which was how they ended up closing with no supervision on Tuesday nights less than a week after Steve got the job.

His leg was still fucked, which sucked, because he wasn’t used to being out of commission for this long, and he didn’t like the stillness that being unable to just move forced him into. It made his brain itch a bit. The worst part about this was that standing on his bad leg for too long was excruciating and also made him woozy sometimes.

Robin, genius that she was, solved this by stealing Keith’s special manager rolling chair, which he kept in the back office. He had bitched about it, of course, especially once he knew that she had committed the theft for Steve, but then Robin had started talking a million miles a minute about reasonable accommodations, and hazards of the workplace and Keith had stood there, looking like she smacked him in the face with a fish, and didn’t say another word about the chair.

Which meant that Steve spent eighty percent of his shifts being wheeled around the video store at top speed by Robin, who could actually get him going pretty fast sometimes. Once, she had lost focus when a cute red-head came in the store and had launched Steve and his chair directly into the cardboard cut out of Phoebe Cates.

They held a funeral for the cardboard figure behind the store when their shift was over, laughing so hard that they could barely breathe. It was the lightest that Steve had felt in a very long time.

He hadn’t seen or heard from a single ghost since July, it was as if they had all left when Billy died.

Steve was honestly trying not to think about it. Robin had noticed the ring, and probably the chain that always sat under his polos now, but she hadn’t commented on it, because she was the best person in the world and knew that he wasn’t ready to talk about it.

So they mourned the red bikini, despite Robin insisting that she wasn’t actually that into Phoebe Cates, because she had the worst taste, and they went to work together, and life went on.

September was also when the first cold snap happened, sending the temperatures from the 70s into the 30s one night, causing Steve to pull his good down comforter out of the linen closet.

It also, apparently, caused Robin to have her first really bad nightmare.

She called him at three in the morning that night, and she was breathing so fast on the other end of the line that Steve felt his own pulse begin to pound in sympathy.

For a minute, he was convinced that she wasn’t calling him so much as calling him, that the unthinkable had happened to her, but then she managed to choke some words out from around her gasps.

“Can I come over?” She sounded small, which made Steve want to bundle her up until she was larger than life again.

“I’ll come get you,” he said, already pulling the car keys from their hook by the door. “I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

“Turn the headlights off, my parents are still sleeping,” she said, and that was that.

Steve drove the miles to her house in silence, the sudden cold sending his breath misting into the car, because he wasn’t going to waste time on the car heating up when Robin needed him. He had taken the two seconds to grab a sweater for her, which sat in the passenger seat, because he didn’t want her to be cold.

She was waiting for him on the edge of her driveway, knees drawn up to her chest. The headlights were off, at her request, but the streetlights showed him enough that he could see she was shaking.

She didn’t say a word on the way back to his house, just tucked her fingers into the sleeves of the sweater without bothering to put it on properly.

Once inside, Steve made tea, something he had shared with his mother, whose only demonstrable form of love had been warm drinks when he didn’t feel well. The supply of tea was running low, but there was always dusty chamomile and the point of the tea wasn’t that it tasted good. It was that it was warm in your hands, it was like a hug, without needing to actually give a hug.

Steve pushed the mug into Robin’s hands, then gently wrapped his arms around her shoulders and pressed his face to the top of her head.

The mug of tea steamed between them.

“You know I thought you were dead, when they brought you in?” Robin’s voice sliced through the silence of the house. Steve’s arms tightened reflexively. No need for her to specify who “they” were.

“It was so cold in that room, and that stupid Scoops uniform didn’t help at all. Which is stupid, why did they give us a uniform with no insulation if we were going to be scooping ice cream?” Steve nodded, knowing that she would feel his agreement against her hair. “It was so cold in that room and they brought you in and you weren’t moving and they tied you to a chair and -” she choked a little bit, the sobs and panic from before fighting in her throat. “I thought they had killed you and tied you to a chair behind me and-”

Steve took the mug from her hands and ushered her to the couch that he had spent most of August on. There were still various blankets piled in easy reach and it was the work of a moment to wrap one around her shoulders.

“I’m not dead,” he said, and tucked another around her legs before sitting next to her and pulling her to his chest. Her head thunked against his collarbone and he remembered the moment of fear he had felt when she had called earlier. “Besides, even if I was, you’d never get rid of me, remember?”

Robin, because she was his soulmate, laughed at that, a weak, snotty sound, but a laugh nonetheless. Steve was going to count it as a victory.

That night in September was their first sleepover, bundled under the throw blankets from downstairs and Steve’s good down comforter. It was not their last.

October

As the last gasps of summer finally gave way to fall, Lucas Sinclair showed up at Steve’s door, dressed in baggy workout clothes, carrying a basketball.

“Lucas, hey man, what’s up?” Steve asked. It wasn’t that he had favorites among the kids (it was Dustin, but he wasn’t going to tell anyone that) but he and Lucas hadn’t spent a lot of time together when there wasn’t the whole, running and screaming and potentially dying thing going on.

“I want to try out for basketball,” Lucas said, throwing the ball at Steve’s chest. Steve caught it on reflex, which was good, because dropping the ball would have been embarrassing. “And I know you were captain your senior year, and I wanted to ask if you would give me some pointers, stuff that would give me a leg up.”

“Happy to, let me get changed into something I don’t mind sweating in and we can play in the driveway.” He held the door open a bit wider. “Feel free to come on in, meanwhile. There’s some water bottles in the fridge if you want.” Lucas nodded, but didn’t make a move towards the fridge. Instead, he looked at his feet, like he was too nervous to meet Steve’s eyes.

“Was there something else you wanted to talk about?” It was a hunch. He’d seen Max on and off during September, but since the pumpkins started turning up in force, she had started making herself scarce. It wasn’t a huge jump to suppose she was also avoiding her boyfriend.

“Nah, man, thanks though,” Lucas said, still not meeting Steve’s eyes. Steve wasn’t going to fight him about it, if he wanted to talk, he’d talk. In the meantime, he’d have to go find a pair of longer athletic shorts. The ones that he wore in highschool rode too high to cover the scar on his thigh and it wasn’t that he was self conscious about it, he wasn’t, but he just didn’t need to be reminded about it when playing a game with a kid.

“You know,” he said as he started back down the stairs, shorts and his old gym shirt acquired. “We didn’t win anything the year I was captain.” That was something like forty percent Billy’s fault, because he was both a showoff and a bully and Steve was proud that the thought didn’t twist his insides the way it would have a few weeks ago.

“I know, but you’re the only guy I know who even plays. I’m alright, but I want to get better and some of the guys on the team,” Lucas scrunched his face, like he was thinking of saying something nasty but didn’t want to be mean. Steve could guess what he was getting at.

“Look, basketball is the same as the rest of the school. There’s the people who think they’re on the top, and then there’s the people a little closer to the ground doing actual interesting things. So come on, Sinclair, let’s get you doing interesting things.”

It felt so good to just cut loose, toss the ball around and let himself sweat without worry. Lucas was good, had the arm and the eye to be great if he wanted. Steve was rusty, but had more experience, which meant that for now he was slightly better. It wouldn’t last long, so he made sure to be gracious about his point lead and give pointers when he could see where it would help.

There was. It wasn’t a moment, exactly, but a jump shot that Steve knew when he was setting it up wasn’t right. It was fine, he didn’t need to get them all, but then there was a twitch, his foot an inch to the right, a quarter turn of the wrist, and the ball swished clean through the hoop. He missed his landing and stumbled hard, he had forgotten the feeling of someone else using his body, he had thought that particular nightmare was over. Steve’s mouth felt dry and he was sweating as if he had been running in the summer heat.

Lucas jogged over to help him up, concern written on his face.

“Just pushed the leg too hard,” Steve took the hand gratefully. “I think I’ve gotta tap out for today, but if you want to come back I am always down for a game. Give it a month and you’ll be giving me a run for my money.” Lucas scoffed, but looked pleased with himself.

“Assuming you haven’t hurt yourself worse, old man,” Lucas jabbed, but there was a genuine tone of concern in his voice.

“Don’t worry about it,” Steve waved him off. “The doctor said the cut severed some muscle and it’ll be weak and tender for a while, I’m not going to need a walker yet, kid.”

“If you say so,” Lucas hummed, following Steve inside, supposedly to steal some sodas before he biked home, but the cautious look in his eyes made Steve think it was partially out of concern.

He never did mention what it was that was bothering him, other than basketball, but they played more often until it got too cold and Steve promised that he would go to every game when the season started.

November

Thanksgiving was Steve’s least favorite holiday. It had been for years now, but this year it felt extra draining to think about.

His father was back, doing that thing he did where he tried to be involved and earnest about Steve’s life and Steve tried to tell him enough to soothe his guilt but not enough to make him worried about Steve. Looming over the whole experience was the fact that Steve had told his father, under threat from the government after he signed those NDAs, that his wounds from Starcourt had been from falling debris. As far as James Harrington knew, Steve had a bad run in with a steel beam while trying to get people out of the burning mall. A steel beam with jagged edges, to explain the leg wound.

James Harrington had not taken the news well, and there had been many, many, many threats to sue the people who built Starcourt (who turned out to be Russians, apparently), the mayor for allowing the construction, and, in one particularly bad night, the estate of Billy Hargrove, when someone had implied in his father’s earshot that Steve’s injuries came from trying and failing to save Billy.

That had not been a fun screaming match.

It had ended, as most fights with his father did, with his father breaking down over his glass of scotch, one hand clutching at Steve’s shoulder while he sobbed. Steve had heard every variant of “I almost lost you once” by the time he was fifteen. And he didn’t mean to sound ungrateful, because his father was trying and he loved him, but since the day they had found him when he escaped from that basement, the entire thing was something that had happened to James Harrington, not little Stevie. And now that was something else that Steve had to deal with.

And so he hated Thanksgiving, because it was his father clutching at the perfect image of a nuclear family, despite the fact that they were anything but. Which was why Steve was here, holding a bouquet of flowers he had ordered the week before, wearing his nicest suit, in front of his mother’s grave.

Last year, and the year before, and the year before that, he had started this with “hi, mom,” but when he tried to say that it stuck in his throat. Instead what came out was something he had shoved so deep down inside of himself that he was surprised it was still there.

“I think I hate you.”

Steve winced, glad his father was far enough away that he hadn’t heard that.

“I have. Had. A friend. I had a friend. And his mother left too. Except that she came back because she loved him enough to care about him just a little bit.” Once he started, he couldn’t stop talking. It was all of the bile that he had buried inside of himself, that had been simmering to the surface since his mother had left him, that had been boiling since he had known that Billy’s mom loved him enough to follow him after death.

He had never spoken to the ghost of his mother.

He had found her, held her hand while he waited for the paramedics to arrive, had begged her to stay with him, and she hadn’t. Even afterwards, she hadn’t loved him enough to stay.

Every Thanksgiving, Steve and his father drove to the cemetery a few towns over and paid their respects to Caroline Harrington, loving wife and mother, who they had buried far enough away that her memory wasn’t going to haunt them, or something. It wasn’t like her ghost was bothering to do it, so Steve wasn’t sure what her memory could do except drive his father out of town on “business trips.”

“I don’t understand why you left,” Steve said, laying the flowers against the headstone. His father’s bouquet was there from his conversation earlier, whatever he had said had left him weeping in the car. Steve didn’t listen.

“I don’t understand why you left and I don’t understand why you don’t visit. And I miss you so much, but every time I think about you I just get angry. And I think that-” Here, Steve stopped, the words catching in his throat the way he wished his greeting had. “I almost died. I could have died and I wanted my mother and you weren’t there!”

“And it was fine before, because it was one thing to call - that was different. But I kept lying to myself and saying that maybe you were there anyway. But that wasn’t right, because you’re not here. You’ve never been here.”

Steve stood, wincing at the pull on his thigh.

“Happy Thanksgiving, mom,” he said, trying very hard to mean it.

December

Steve thought he was dreaming. He was walking, through an endless dark place, each footstep sending ripples through the water that covered the ground. He didn’t remember when he got there, just that he needed to find something in the dark, something that would explain what had happened last summer, something that would help him find his footing again.

Distantly, he heard someone calling his name. But it was so far away that as soon as it registered it fell out of his mind again. There was something more important here that he had to find.

No, not something, someone. He was looking for someone.

Under his feet, the water took on a red tinge, as the darkness began to lift slightly, a red light shining from all around him. It felt comforting, it felt like coming home after being away for a long time.

He heard his name again, and the light dimmed with it, sending him back into the dark. That didn’t feel right. Except-

“Steve!”

He snapped awake, someone clutching at his shoulders. It took a minute for his brain to catch up, his mind still in that endless dark.

“Munson?” Steve asked, blearily. Eddie Munson was clutching at his shoulders, looking panicked, his eyes wide. “What are you doing in my house?”

“We’re not in your house, Harrington!”

“Oh.” Steve’s brain was still waking up, still shaking off the darkness and the endless water, which was why it took Steve a minute to realize that he was outside, standing somewhere in the forest behind his house, in nothing but the sleep pants and old tee-shirt that he had gone to bed in.

The second he had realized where he was, it was as if the cold hit him like a ton of bricks. A thousand tiny points of needle sharp cold jammed into him all at once, so suddenly that he would have bent double for the pain of it if it wasn’t for Munson’s hands on his shoulders.

“What the fuck,” Steve started to say, but his teeth were chattering too hard to articulate. Munson yanked his leather jacket off and wrapped it around his shoulders. The jacket alone probably wasn’t going to be enough to really cut the chill of an Indiana winter, but the residual warmth from his skin made something unwind in Steve’s shoulders.

“I think you were sleepwalking, you didn’t hear me call you and you were completely,” he waved a hand near his eyes as if that would convey what had been going on with Steve. “It wasn’t until I started shaking you that you woke up,” Munson said, wrapping an arm around Steve’s shoulders and pulling him close. His body heat was a line of fire around Steve’s shoulders. “Not sure how you got all the way out here without waking up, but you’re lucky I found you. Frostbite can set in quick at these temperatures,” he was keeping a smooth cadence, like Steve was a spooked animal that he was trying to reassure.

“My van’s just over there, I can take you home,” he offered. Steve was shivering so fiercely that he might as well have been a bobblehead doll, but he managed a few more emphasized nods to show his agreement.

Each step was agony, knives slicing at his feet and the wind ripping any warmth he was getting from the jacket away from him.

Luckily, Munson hadn’t been lying, his van was nearby and Steve had never been so happy to see that rusty monstrosity in his life. He had a second of panic that he couldn’t unclench his fingers from where he’d gripped the leather jacket, but Munson leaned over his shoulder and yanked the passenger side door open without him having to ask.

“Come on, Harrington, up you get,” Munson set a hand on Steve’s elbow, still wrapped in the borrowed leather jacket and boosted him into the car. “Gimme a second, I’ll get the car started.” He shut the door behind him, hurrying over to the driver’s side and for a moment Steve was alone in the car, shivering so badly that his muscles hurt. If he closed his eyes, he could still see that endless blackness, tinged with that red light. Only now, it wasn’t comforting, it sent chills down his spine, completely separate from the aftereffects of his walk in the snow.

There was a touch on the back of his neck, warm and comforting, for just a second, before Munson wrenched open the driver’s side door and clambered into the car. It took two tries to get the van started, but once the engine turned over there was a blast of less frigid air that may have been one of the best things Steve had ever felt.

“When you get home, don’t go taking an incredibly hot shower or anything, no matter how bad you want to. Lukewarm at the hottest, okay? You’re lucky you didn’t get frostbite as it is, if you heat up too quickly it’ll shock your system and you’ll be in trouble.” Munson kept casting glances at Steve out of the corner of his eye, like he could see Steve’s intent to scald himself to death when he got home written all over his face.

“Where’d you hear that?” The chattering was subsiding, making it easier for Steve to get words out. The air was still running cool, but warmer than the air outside the car and his fingers finally unclenched, releasing the lapels of the borrowed jacket.

“My mom was a nurse,” Munson said quietly. Steve thought of the shadow of the woman he had seen looming over the older man’s shoulder last spring and ruthlessly stamped down his own jealousy.

“Then I guess I’m lucky that you found me,” Steve said quietly. “Thanks, Munson, you, uh, you really did me a solid.” Munson scoffed.

“I did you a solid by what? Not letting you die? That’s not a favor, dude, that’s basic human decency.”

Steve wasn’t sure what to do with that.

“Well, thanks anyways.” Munson scoffed again, but stayed quiet for the rest of the drive, until they were pulling past the signs for Loch Nora.

“What were you dreaming about?” He asked, even as Steve could see his own house down the block.

“I was looking for someone,” Steve said. Even as he said it, he could feel the details of the dream slipping away from him.

“Well, tell your dream girl to wait in the house next time, at least until summer.” Munson didn’t even put the car in park, just slid it up next to the BMW in the driveway.

“Yeah, that’s a good idea. Thanks again, Munson,” and Steve slid out of the passenger seat and back outside into the cold, making sure to leave that leather jacket on the seat. He didn’t need to be wearing Eddie Munson’s clothes.

The front door was locked, but the backdoor was wide open, which answered the question of how he had gotten out of the house in the first place.

It wasn’t until Steve was halfway up the stairs, flicking the hall light on to make sure that he didn’t trip, that he finally heard the van pull out of his driveway.

January

“Come on, Steve!” Dustin pleaded, shoving the movies he was definitely not old enough to rent even further across the counter. “You haven’t hung out with us forever and I know you haven’t seen any of these movies!”

“There’s a movie playing here literally all the time, dude, you can’t know what I haven’t seen.” Steve could feel a dull throbbing behind his eyes, either from the lack of sleep or from that particular pitch that Dustin usually reached right when he was gearing up to ask for something.

“That’s not the point!” Dustin stamped his foot, as if that would prove whatever point he was trying to make. Steve wasn’t sure what it was. His brain felt like it was wrapped in cotton, everything took a second for him to process. And Dustin, as much as he adored the kid, was really bad at giving him time to catch up even when he wasn’t a sleep deprived mess.

“Is the point that you want to watch R rated movies and your mother is home tonight?” Robin, bless her, leaned over Steve’s shoulder to look at what Dustin had put on the counter. “So you want to watch the movies at Steve’s place, where you won’t get in trouble, and possibly also badger him into ordering pizza?”

“Yes, that’s it exactly, thank you Robin,” Dustin nodded, waving at her while maintaining aggressive eye contact with Steve, as if trying to say “see, she gets it!”

On the one hand, it would be nice to have a night where he could just chill out, but then again, there was a chance that he would go sleepwalking again and then he would have to explain that to Dustin and it just seemed like too big a risk. But, on another, third hand, Steve just didn’t have the energy to explain all of that to Dustin. So it seemed -

“Fine, you can come over, and rent your movies. But Robin’s coming too-”

“Hey, don’t involve me in this-” She started, before Steve continued, plowing over her objections.

“Robin’s coming too, and we get mushrooms on the pizza.” Dustin’s nose wrinkled in disgust, before he nodded and held his hand out to shake.

“Your terms are acceptable, good sir.” Steve took his hand reluctantly.

“I’m not sure Eddie Munson and his fantasy club are a great influence on you, dude. You’re starting to talk weird.”

“You’re just jealous that I have another male role model in my life now,” Dustin snarked, grabbing the videos off of the counter and heading for the door. “I’ll be there at 8, make sure the soda is actually cold this time!”

“Hey, don’t you talk to your mother like that!” Robin shouted at his retreating back. Steve stifled a laugh. Maybe it was okay to take a night off from the creeping feeling of inevitable doom.

February

He was back in that endless expanse, except this time he could see the red glow very clearly. It was pulsing, slightly, as if it was beating in time with his own heart. For a few beats it felt like going home, like being welcomed with a hug that took every trouble from his shoulders.

Until something slammed into his back, sending him to his hands and knees.

“Fucking fight, Steve!”

The voice was familiar, but it was like listening to someone shout at him from underwater. He couldn’t identify who it was, just that it seemed incredibly out of place in this endless darkness.

The light throbbed again, but the pulse didn’t feel welcoming anymore, it felt cloying, invasive.

Suddenly, the light reminded Steve of the streetlight he could see from the basement, how close freedom had felt, how just out of reach it was. It felt like the time The Grabber left the basement door open as a lure - almost too tempting to pass up, if he hadn’t been warned what was waiting for him at the top of the stairs.

It felt like a taunt.

“Yes, finally! Fight it!”

The water under his hands felt warm, too thick to be water. He tried to push himself up, out of the water, away from this nightmare, but his body locked up. His heart rate skyrocketed. Steve hadn’t had so much as a beer since Starcourt, too afraid of losing what little bit of control he had left over his own limbs, and now he was losing even that in this place.

“Come on, Stevie, get the fuck up.”

“I’m fucking trying,” Steve forced out through gritted teeth, though even that seemed to take more energy than he thought was possible.

There was a hand on his shoulder, someone helping him stand.

Steve’s vision flickered, like someone had messed up on replacing the film reel at the theater. Just a flash, but Steve was sure he saw the edge of a forest, and a dirt road, and open air, before he was staring at the dark expanse again.

Steve knew what that was. He had been out there more times than he could count before Starcourt. It was the edge of the quarry, the same one that he had almost walked off before. Steve’s pulse began to pound in his ears. He was standing, but not completely, supported entirely by a hand at his ribs that belonged to someone he couldn’t see. He was shaking, he could feel his knees wobbling and he didn’t know if that was the dream or if that was from his body as it stumbled its way towards a drop that would kill him.

“Come on, Steve,” a different voice said and Steve wanted to scream. His legs were burning, and clenching and unclenching his hands felt like running a marathon. So he did the first thing he could think of and drove his fist into the scar on his leg. His thigh spasmed and a bolt of pain shot from his leg to his cut, like he had been sliced open all over again. The dark water around him rippled, as if he was a stone dropped in a pond. But the effect happened again, for longer this time, long enough for Steve to see that he was closer to the edge of the quarry, and to feel someone clutching at his waist and arm, trying to slow him down.

“Harrington, you’ve got to wake up, this is insane, please wake up.” He couldn’t recognize the voice, but it sounded familiar, and clearer than it had been before.

Steve tightened his fist and slammed it back down onto his leg. The ripples became waves, moving away from him and the pain was enough to send him back to his knees. The quarry edge remained where it was, but then the dark water snapped back around him, like a rubber band that he had stretched almost, but not quite to the breaking point. Gritting his teeth against the pain, Steve punched himself one more time and the water rushed away from him in a burst, leaving him standing a few feet from the edge of a cliff, Eddie Munson clinging to his waist.

Steve collapsed, like a puppet whose strings had been cut. Munson hadn’t been expecting it, apparently, because Steve’s dead weight took him down as well and they both landed in a heap in the dirt, Steve’s leg screaming in pain under him.

“Are you finally awake, Harrington?” Munson sounded frantic, his voice coming out higher than Steve had ever heard it. Steve wheezed in reply, meaning to answer him properly, but his voice got swallowed in his own throat.

One of his hands reached out, planted in the dirt, and pushed slowly, forcing him into a half crouch that turned the screaming in his leg into an almost tangible thing.

“Harrington?” Munson pushed back, enough to untangle their limbs, but still in grabbing distance if whoever was driving Steve’s body went for the edge. Steve was in a strange situation of being profoundly grateful for Eddie Munson for the second time this winter.

“Stevie can’t come to the phone right now,” a scratchy mockery of Steve’s voice issued from his throat. With his feet under him, his body rose to standing and for a second Steve was sure that he was going to die, whoever, whatever was in him was going to run him off the edge of the cliff and this was the end.

Except then the pain - the all consuming pain that he had felt before - the last time he was standing at the quarry’s edge, and again in the parking lot of Starcourt - the pain that made him feel like he was being flayed open inch by inch, something foul climbing inside of his skin to pull him apart from the inside - the pain wracked his body, sending him back to his knees.

The warm hand he had felt once before, when he was so close to freezing to death, settled on his neck, only this time it squeezed, scruffing Steve like he was an angry cat.

“Get out,” Steve said, but that wasn’t his voice either. This one felt familiar, but not like this. The pain surged again, Steve’s hands digging into the dirt, searching for something to hold onto, something to ground him. Eddie scooted a little further backwards, once it was clear that this wasn’t simple sleepwalking.

The warm hand pressed harder, driving Steve’s face to the dirt.

“I said, get out.” Steve must have bitten his tongue, he was drooling blood into the dirt, the taste of copper thick in his mouth. The pain spiked, it was like Steve’s inside were trying to force themselves out through his mouth, like there wasn’t room for anything other than the pain inside of him.

But then he was alone in his body. The pain was gone, the passenger that had tried to kill him was also gone, and the warm hand disappeared from the back of his neck.

“What, and I cannot stress this enough, the fuck?” Eddie gasped out, his eyes so wide that Steve could see whites all around his iris.

“I have no idea,” Steve managed, before collapsing face first into the dirt. The only sound between them was the sound of their breathing, Steve’s ragged and pained, Eddie’s a rapid staccato as he edged closer to panic.

“You should invest in a set of chains, tie yourself to your bed if this is going to keep happening,” Eddie said, suddenly. Steve, too tired to even pull his face out of the dirt, rolled his eyes.

“You know somewhere I can get chains for my bed, Munson?” There was a pause that stretched on just a little too long, and Steve snorted, a laugh ripping itself from his throat.

“Tell you what, if you help me get home, I will never mention the bed chain thing to anyone, does that sound fair?”

“No, but I’m magnanimous like that and I’ll take you home if you promise to keep whatever freaky possession shit is going on with you to yourself,” Eddie countered, pulling Steve gently to his feet. Huh. Steve had always thought that Eddie was taller the last few times they had talked, but looking him in the eye like this, Steve had an inch or so on him. It was the hair, he decided, letting his head roll forward for a second, just to rest before putting weight on his fucked up leg. It was the hair that made him taller.

March

It had been a dumb thing, to ask Brenda to the championship game, but he had promised Lucas he would be at every game, and it would suck to be the weird grad who came back alone like a loser.

So there Steve was, listening to Jason Carver try and hype the crowd up, except that he seemed to be trying to be really sincere about it, which was turning Steve’s stomach a little bit. Not to mention, the gym felt like it was a million degrees. Steve could feel himself flushing, which was strange, because Robin looked reasonably composed in her band uniform and he knew, from hearing her talk about it over and over and over, how stifling those uniforms were.

Jason was talking about what a hard year it had been for Hawkins and Steve wanted to roll his eyes. Like winning a basketball game would somehow undo all the horrible weirdness that was the Upside Down.

There was heat at the base of his spine, not unlike Vance’s lightning. Except, instead of the crack of rage that always accompanied Vance, this was a bonfire, a slowly building inferno that was working itself up his back. Steve tugged futilely at his collar, desperate for some air.

On the court, Jason kept droning, listing an almost obscene litany of the dead. For an instant, Steve thought Jason wouldn’t be crass enough to -

“Think of Billy,” and the fire inside Steve roared.

“Billy hated Jason,” Steve said, loud enough that the people in front of him turned and glared.

“What was that?” Brenda asked, her perfectly shaped eyebrows an arching question. The fire inside consumed everything, took all the air from his lungs. Steve felt hollow, burned out.

“Nothing,” he said. For a second, there was a touch on the back of his neck, searing like a brand, before all the fire vanished abruptly. “Nothing,” he repeated, dully.

Chapter Text

After the game, Brenda made it pretty clear that she was done with this date, and Steve was totally fine with that. He felt like his skin was too small, the heat from the gym leaving him wrung out and sweaty.

His plan had been to take a shower, maybe have a beer and see if there was anything interesting on TV. Normally, on nights where he felt like this, anxious and too full of energy, he would call Robin and see if she felt like hanging out with him, but he knew that she was at a band-kid party and didn’t want to crash her good night. He’d seen her talking to Vickie at the game and he had high hopes that maybe they’d finally get their shit together.

So he went home, he showered, the water tepid against his overheated skin, and tried to pretend that he didn’t feel like something was about to go horribly wrong.

It was fine, he told himself, yanking a beer from the fridge with more force than was necessary. If something was wrong, El would have told him when he called last week. But she had just been excited for Mike to visit and hadn’t said that there was anything out of the ordinary going on.

Everything was fine.

The crack of lightning down his spine was the only warning he got.

He heard a clock chiming, somewhere, but the sound was drowned out by the roaring of his own blood in his ears. Then it felt like every bone in his body snapped at once, agony racing through his limbs and even if he could force air into his lungs he knew that it would just feel like it had that night Billy pulled him from the pool - like breathing around barbed wire.

The clock chimed again, and a heavy hand landed on his shoulder. If Steve had air in his lungs to scream he would have.

“Tick tock, Stevie,” Vance whispered in his ear, but he sounded less manic than he had in July. He sounded…almost sad?

The lightning sparked at Vance’s touch, forcing the energy into his shaking legs and pushing the pain out with it. The remnants stayed, though, like sore muscles after a workout, the damage not forgotten yet.

“Stop with the clock shit,” Steve forced out between gritted teeth. Or, he would have, except that Vance clapped a hand around his mouth, silencing him.

“Shhhh, Stevie. He doesn’t know you’re here, let’s keep it that way.”

Here was a small, dimly lit room, crowded with the nick-knacks that meant this was a home. It was not a home that Steve recognized. In the middle of the room stood Chrissy Cunningham, wearing the cheerleading uniform she had been wearing at the game earlier and looking about as freaked out as Steve felt.

“Eddie? Did you find it?” She called to someone, Steve couldn’t see who from his position and the iron grip of Vance’s hands on him kept him from turning. When she ran down the hallway, she passed close enough by Steve that he could have reached out and touched her, but Vance tightened his grip, a warning and a threat in one motion.

Then a door slammed and everything changed. Gone was the homey, cluttered room. Now they were standing in what could have been Steve’s own home, for all the personality it showed. Pictures lined the walls, each a perfect posed display, showing what had to be the Cunningham family throughout the years. None of them looked like happy photos. The most garish was a large painting that Steve could see out of the corner of his eye. It was unsettling to look at, like it was a horrible mockery of a family portrait for reasons that Steve could not put a finger on.

Vance’s grip tightened, and Steve heard Chrissy shouting, and the pounding of a door. Again, she ran by him, the opposite direction this time, close enough to touch, and this time Steve tried to reach out, tried to stop her, to ask what was wrong, to try and help.

A hand latched around his wrist, the heat from it almost unbearable.

“Steve, if you don’t sit still and shut the fuck up you are going to die,” Billy said, his grip bruising around Steve’s wrist. “You can’t save her.”

Billy looked like he had when they had first met, angry and intentionally disheveled, which was a million miles better than he had looked the night he had died. There was none of the sunkenness about his eyes and those black veins were gone as well. His face was set in that quietly furious way he got when he was really angry, not just looking for a fight.

“Fuck you,” Steve tried to spit from behind Vance’s hand, but it came out muffled. Billy seemed to get the message, anyways, because something dangerous crossed his face for a second, the kind of manic violence that Steve had seen that night outside the Byers’ house.

And then he was gone.

Except, he wasn’t, really, because all of Steve’s muscles locked up, and his jaw clamped shut, hard enough that Steve was worried he cracked a tooth. Vance dropped the hands he had on Steve and sighed.

“You’ve always got to be difficult, don’t you, Stevie?” Steve couldn’t even turn his head to glare at Vance, he couldn’t move at all.

And then it stopped mattering so much how mad he was at Vance and Billy and whatever the fuck was going on here, because the lights were flickering and Steve felt the bottom drop out of his stomach.

The tread of heavy footfalls descended the stairs. Steve’s back was to the staircase, and he wanted desperately to turn and look, the stress of not knowing what was behind him twisted in his stomach, but Billy held his body firm.

Chrissy continued past him again, directions shifting and changing due to some horrible dream logic, away from whatever was coming, except her exit was blocked. She was screaming, throwing herself against the wooden planks stretching across the door, begging for help.

‘Please, Billy,’ Steve thought, mentally throwing himself forward, trying to get his body to do something, anything to help. But he still didn’t move.

And then, the thing that had walked down the stairs walked into the light and Steve was embarrassingly glad that Billy had control, because he would have shouted in horror, or disgust.

It looked like the Mind Flayer, if the Mind Flayer had been shaped like a person instead of that horrible meat spider, tentacles and disgusting, pale skin that reminded Steve viscerally of the demogorgon.

It didn’t see Steve, tucked in the corner of this place, as it stalked forwards towards Chrissy, leaving Steve with a view of this thing’s back and a few glimpses of Chrissy’s terrified face.

Its voice was deep, but hearing it pulled at the pain that Steve had felt earlier, the echo of his bones cracking resonated in his chest, as if being in this thing's presence was hurting him.

“Don’t cry, Chrissy,” the thing said, wiping tears from her face with a clawed finger. It was mocking, repulsive. Steve felt bile crawl up his throat and knew that he was only keeping the contents of his stomach down right now because Billy was in control of everything.

“It’s time for your suffering to end.” There was a deep rumble at that, the thing almost purring in pleasure at whatever it was planning to do. Steve, trapped inside his own body, could do nothing but watch. It held the clawed hand over her face, savoring this moment. From under this thing’s arm, Steve met Chrissy’s wide, terrified eyes as she looked right at him, before it struck.

When it pulled its hand back, poor Chrissy Cunningham crumbled to the floor, dead.

Then Steve was back in his own kitchen, the bottle of beer he had been holding shattered across the floor.

He made it the two steps to the sink to vomit, clutching the porcelain basin like it was a lifeline. A warm hand settled on his shoulder, but for the first time, Steve flinched away from it.

“Fuck off, Billy,” he snarled around retches. “Just fuck off.” The warmth didn’t go anywhere, settling against Steve’s back and caging him against the sink.

“What was the fucking point of that? Why did you make me watch that?” Steve spun until he was facing where he thought Billy’s presence was, warmth flush against his chest. “What do you expect me to do?!” His breath was coming in heaving gasps, and every time he closed his eyes he was back in that awful house, looking Chrissy in the eyes right before she died. “I can’t do anything against this! You didn’t let me help!” He was fairly screaming now, glad that his father was gone, that the neighbors were used to loud noises from the Harrington house after Steve’s run as King.

The heat crowded closer to him, like it was shoving at him, pushing him to the left. Steve wanted to hit something, but he couldn’t punch this. The heat flared for a moment, growing more intense, and Steve reeled backwards, his back connecting with the extended counter that sat directly next to the kitchen phone.

The heat dissipated, slowly. Steve closed his eyes and let the vision of Chrissy’s last moment sit for as long as he could stand, before he reached for the phone to call El.

El sounded sad and distracted on the phone, which made Steve’s heart ache for her. It wasn’t their regularly scheduled call time, so she had to know something was up, but it was the first time that Steve had ever heard her sound like a little girl, rather than a super powered badass.

“My battery is still empty,” she admitted, and it broke Steve’s heart to hear her sound like that.

“Don’t worry about it kiddo, I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about,” he started, but there was a press of heat against his throat, like Billy was trying to keep him from saying it.

“No,” she said, decisive. “I should come see, just to be sure.”

God, Steve was an asshole. What was he doing, calling a kid to deal with these problems?

“I’ll make you a deal, I’ll grab you a ticket on the same flight back as Mike, okay? You spend a few days hanging out with your boyfriend, enjoy being a kid. Worst comes to worst, you come visit for a few days. If we need you sooner, I'll book a whole bunch of flights for the entire family and you’ll be here then, okay?”

El made a small noise of agreement.

“Steve?” She asked, after a moment of silence.

“Yeah?” He was rooting through the drawer in the kitchen where he kept the credit card with the good limit on it, and a pen to write things down, because his next call was to his parents’ travel agent for the flights and he wanted to be organized about it.

“How do you make people like you in high school?” Well. Uh. Fuck.

“El, I am the worst person to ask about that. All of my friends in highschool were bullshit, they weren’t great people. If you just try and make people like you, you’ll end up with a bunch of awful people and no idea who you really are.” Which was probably not what she wanted to hear, but he wasn’t going to lie to her, not about this. “If you want to know how to make good friends in highschool, talk to Dustin. Or Mike. They’re still little weirdos and they’re doing alright.”

“Okay.” El sounded disappointed, but cheered slightly when Steve promised to call in the morning with the flight details.

The call to the travel agent was relatively painless, everything was easy to arrange and he went ahead and got seats for El on both flights, just in case.

That handled, Steve hung the phone up and waved his hands around him like he was trying to dissipate smoke, rather than a ghost.

“Are you happy now? You can fuck off, man!” Heat bloomed in the center of his chest, right over the St. Christopher medallion he still wore, like Billy had put a hand there, and then it was gone.

His call to El in the morning went to voicemail, because he forgot about the time difference, but that was fine, he just rattled off the flight details and promised to pick everyone up from the airport.

He meant to tell Robin everything the next morning, he really did, except that she was so excited about Vickie, and the band party and he didn’t want to ruin it. He’d give her a day, before he told her about his nightmare, and the return of the ghosts.

And then the news report told them that a Hawkins High student was dead and the world dropped out from under his feet.

“It’s Chrissy Cunningham,” he said, throat dry. He had almost managed to convince himself that it had been a dream, or a premonition, or something that wasn’t actually going to happen and was just a fucked up thing to look at. Almost. Whenever he got close enough, there was a brush of heat, like Billy wasn’t going to let him forget that it had happened.

“What?” Robin asked, turning to look at the TV, smile fading from her face.

“The dead student. It’s Chrissy Cunningham.”

“Did she tell you that?” Robin asked, glancing pointedly at the phone on the counter.

“No,” Steve admitted. He hated this. Hated that they were going to be doing this again, and worse, this time, because someone was already dead. Steve had known Chrissy, the way he had known everyone that orbited the basketball team. He had liked Chrissy, she was sweet and polite and managed to soothe some of Jason’s more intense edges.

“I think I saw it happen.”

And then, Dustin, with either the best or the worst timing, burst into the store, demanding their phones.

“I’m looking up Eddie’s friends’ phone numbers,” Dustin snapped, shouldering Steve away from the computer.

Last night, Chrissy had asked for Eddie. Had asked if he had found something. She had been with Eddie when it happened. And now Dustin was looking for Eddie, which could only mean one thing.

“Chrissy was at Eddie Munson’s last night?” Steve blurted out. Dustin nodded, distracted, but Max focused on Steve like a hawk.

“How did you know it was Chrissy?” For a second, Steve debated telling the truth, but then he thought of the press of heat at his back and decided that he didn’t want to dangle that in front of Max. It would be cruel.

“How did you know it was Chrissy?” He shot back, deflecting. Max’s flat eyed, unimpressed stare was almost chilling.

“I live across from the Munson’s trailer, I saw the body. How did you know it was Chrissy, Steve?”

“This isn’t helpful!” Dustin shouted, scribbling frantically on a white board. “We need to find Eddie before the cops do, because they’re definitely going to think that he did it and we know he didn’t do it!” He was glaring at Steve while he said it and still writing on the board, which was, frankly, a little impressive.

“Why do you assume I’m going to think Eddie did it?” Steve huffed, crossing his arms over his chest. “Because you think I don’t like him? That’s petty, dude.”

“No, I know you don’t like him because you have jealousy issues,” Dustin said. There was a point of fire in Steve’s ribs, like Billy had just poked him. Steve wanted very badly to go back to the day before, when none of this was happening.

So work became a few hours of Dustin and Max co-opting their phones, with Robin helping every way that she could because she had never met a mystery that she could leave alone, which left Steve on his own to actually try and run the video store.

Or, more accurately, pretend to try and run the video store while hissing at Billy under his breath.

“Do you want to say anything to Max?” He asked, because it seemed like a nice thing to offer.

As an answer, Billy tripped him into their entire horror section, which sent him, the shelves, and all of the movies to the ground.

“You’re a bitch,” Steve muttered under his breath before pushing himself up. Max and Dustin were staring at him like he had grown two heads and Robin was looking concerned, the little furrow appearing between her eyebrows. That furrow only showed up when she thought Steve was hiding something.

Luckily, that was when Max found the name Reefer Rick, and Robin, genius that she was, found an address. Which got Steve off of the hook for the mess he had made in the horror section, because they needed a driver. Ha, suck it, whoever had to open tomorrow, they had more important things to do.

When they were in the car, pulling away, Steve remembered that he was supposed to open tomorrow. Fuck.

It was dark by the time they pulled up to Reefer Rick’s place and Steve wished he hadn’t left the bat at home. Not that he thought he would need it to deal with Eddie, he just would feel safer if he had it on hand.

Luckily, there was an oar in the boat house and while he couldn’t get the same kind of speed with a swing, it did have better reach, so he would take what he could get, in this instance.

Apparently, what he could get was Eddie Munson shoving him up against a wall and holding a broken bottle to his throat.

Dustin was fairly screaming now, promising that this was Steve, and Steve wasn’t going to hurt Eddie.

Eddie looked like he very much did not believe that.

“I thought I told you to keep your freaky possession shit to yourself, Harrington?” Eddie’s voice was hard and Steve felt the glass jab a little into the soft skin under his jaw, forcing his neck back. There was a fire, burning at the base of Steve’s spine.

“You’re gonna wanna step back, Eddie,” Steve said softly, trying not to move his jaw while talking.

“Eddie! It’s me, it’s Dustin!” Dustin had a hand out, like he was trying to sooth a spooked animal, but Eddie wasn’t moving and the fire was crawling up Steve’s spine and they were running out of time here.

“Eddie, I mean it, I don’t want you to get hurt.” But Eddie didn’t step back, he was still crowded into Steve’s space when Billy decided he had been patient for long enough.

“I believe the man told you to step back, Munson,” Billy said, his usual cadence sounding wrong in Steve’s voice. He grabbed a fistfull of Eddie’s shirt with the hand not holding the oar, the hand that Steve still wore his ring on. For a second, Steve was sure that Billy was going to get him killed here, that he was going to bleed out on the floor of Reefer Rick’s boat house because Eddie Munson did what the Russians and the Upside Down and whatever ghosts still hated him and Billy himself could not do and just finished Steve off with a broken bottle jammed into his throat.

Except that didn’t happen, because Billy pushed with the hand against Eddie’s chest and Eddie slid, his grip on Steve’s shoulder going lax. Steve could feel that Eddie was pushing back, that he was fighting whatever force he was exerting, but Billy shoved him back just the same, like Eddie weighed nothing.

“You stay over there, Munson, and we won’t have any freaky possession problems, we clear?” Billy snapped, voice low enough that the kids and Robin couldn’t hear him. The fire was crawling its way down Steve’s arms now, until it vanished abruptly, leaving Steve in control again.

Steve took advantage of that fact to drop the oar he had still been clutching and back up, hands raised in the universal sign of “I don’t mean any harm, please don’t shank me with a broken bottle.” Eddie didn’t follow him, his hands were shaking, and he was darting his eyes around, looking for an escape.

Steve left Dustin and Max to the explanation, and backed himself away from the conversation slowly. He could feel blood trickling down his neck, where Eddie had nicked him with the bottle, but he’d cut himself worse shaving, he wasn’t worried about that.

What he was worried about, he realized, fingertips coming to rest against the St. Christopher medallion that he never took off anymore, was that he was pretty clearly getting close to the point where he wouldn’t be able to keep this a secret anymore.

“Are you okay?” Robin whispered, a gentle hand on his shoulder. He nodded, because he was fine.

“Barely scratched me, don’t worry about it.”

“I’m not talking about that, dingus,” she said, putting her hand over his own, where he hadn’t moved it from Billy’s necklace.

“I’m not sure,” he admitted. “But we have other things to worry about, at least he’s not trying to walk me off a cliff?” Robin’s eyebrows twitched, like she wasn’t sure if that was supposed to be a joke or not.

“It would almost look like dust, swirling dust,” Dustin was saying, clearly having reached the “filling Eddie in on the Upside Down” portion of the evening.

“No, man, there was nothing you could see” Eddie’s eyes met Steve’s over Dustin’s shoulder and there was something inscrutable in his gaze, “Or, uh, touch.”

Steve wondered what it had looked like to him, what had happened to Chrissy. He hoped it wasn’t horrible.

Then the lightning arched down his spine, and he didn’t have a thought to spare on Eddie, because the all consuming pain was back again, his bones shattering in more places than he could count, pressure building behind his eyes such that he was sure they were going to pop out of his skull, the nerves in his hands and feet screaming, like shards of glass were ripping through his skin.

Distantly, a clock chimed.

And then, like the time before, Vance was there, the lightning of his presence pushing the pain from his body. As happy as he was to not be in agony anymore, Steve was absolutely not happy to be standing at the bottom of what had to be grave, some weedy looking kid in a sweater vest scrambling at the dirt trying to escape. Vance was at his back, one hand wrapped around his mouth, the other jabbing what felt like a knife into his side.

“He will kill you, Steve,” Vance whispered in his ear, the sound barely more than an exhale. “This will all have been for nothing. Stay. Still.”

“Fred,” that same monster from the night before intoned, emerging from a tunnel at the foot of the grave. His footsteps squelched in the dirt, as if whatever muck from the Upside Down was running off him, into the real world. Steve tried to strain against Vance’s hold, because he couldn’t be useless again, he just couldn’t, but then there was the heat of Billy again, and again he was a prisoner in his own body, helpless to do anything but watch.

“What do you want?” The weedy kid, Fred, sobbed, as the monster closed the distance.

“I want you to join me,” it said, its voice that same growl Steve had heard the night before. It rose the hairs on his arms, would have run a shiver down his spine if he was still capable of involuntary motion.

Fred was shaking his head, whispering “no, no, no, no,” as the monster reached out and, with none of the delicacy that it had shown to Chrissy the night before, jammed its claws into Fred’s face.

Steve was on his hands and knees in the boathouse, retching violently.

Dustin and Max were shouting and Robin, when Steve looked up, was pale and shaking.

“You were screaming,” she said, her voice thick. She sounded like she might start crying.

“I’m fine,” Steve said, pushing himself to standing. He was immediately swarmed by pre-teens, Dustin frantically patting at every part of Steve that he could reach.

“You’re not fine, you were screaming, and then you were twitching, like there was something wrong, and then you just went still and you didn’t respond to us and Eddie said that’s what Chrissy looked like before she died and-”

“Breathe, Dustin. I’m fine, I promise.” He brought a hand to his temple and pressed, the phantom pressure from before not completely gone. “But, I think whatever happened to Chrissy just happened to someone else.” Dustin gaped at him, and if Steve didn’t feel like he’d been hit by a train, he may have poked fun at him.

“Yeah, he’s totally fine, now that he’s stopped screaming. Even better that there isn’t a cliff around here for him to throw himself off of,” Eddie drawled from his cobbled together box throne.

“Hey, asshole, that’s not funny,” Robin whirled on him, finger pointed like she was going to jab it at him. Steve snagged her wrist and gently turned her to face him.

He had kept the sleep walking a secret, because he didn’t want to worry anyone, and he had it mostly under control. Except that he didn’t, anymore, and now that they knew there was something more, something dangerous going on it was too dangerous to keep to himself.

“I haven’t been completely honest with you guys,” Steve said.

Chapter Text

Once he started talking, the story just spilled out of him.

“When I was twelve years old, I got kidnapped,” Steve said, because that was the beginning of the story. Dustin and Max looked like he told them he knew how to fly for all the sense that he was making, and Eddie was still trying to avoid his eyes. Robin, however, had a hand on his shoulder, standing as close to him as she could get without stepping on his toes. She was also glaring at Eddie like she would bite him if he said anything she thought was out of line, because she was the best.

“They called him The Grabber, because he’d grabbed five kids before me. He killed them. Kept each for about five days, as far as I know, and killed them. Buried them in a basement. A, uh, a different basement than the one he kept me in.”

Dustin’s eyes were wide, and Steve could practically see him vibrating with a desire to tell him to get to the point already. Max, however, looked a little drawn, like she was imagining a worse end for him than what had happened.

“There was a phone in the basement, but it wasn’t connected to anything, the wire leading into the wall was cut.” Eddie was looking at Steve now, out of the corner of his eyes.

“The first night, the phone rang - ” Dustin’s mouth opened, probably to tell Steve that the phone probably wasn’t working and he was hallucinating or something, but Steve hurried on before he got the chance. “- and on the other end of the line was a boy named Bruce Yamata. We’d played baseball together. He was the first boy The Grabber took.” Dustin’s mouth snapped shut with a click.

“All five of the other boys called me, and helped me plan an escape. And it worked. I tricked The Grabbed into a hole I dug in the foundation, beat him with the phone headset and snapped his neck. By the time I got outside the cops had found the first house, the one with the bodies in it, but they would have been too late to find me if I didn’t have help.” He could say that with detachment now, and not the paralyzing fear that he’d lived with for the first year - the knowledge of just how close he had gotten to dying. Since the Upside Down, human monsters didn’t scare him quite as much.

“Is the part of the story I’m supposed to be paying attention to the fact that you think you can talk to dead people or the fact that you’re a badass?” Dustin asked, unable to contain it anymore. Steve grabbed the bill of his hat and pulled it down over his eyes.

“I’m getting there, man, give me a minute.” Robin squeezed his shoulder and knocked her foot gently against his own in silent support.

So he told them the rest, about the walkie, and about Vance’s voice and Billy’s mom, the slide of a foot during a fist fight. He told them about the first real possession, that time in the locker room - but he left out that they were both naked, because Max didn’t need to know that. He told them about the car radio, and the Russian ghost, about the summer where he was sure that something was trying to kill him, and how Billy had saved his life.

He wanted to look at Max then, but there was that seering hand on the back of his neck and he was practically choking on the guilt already, so he didn’t.

He told them about Masha and her husband, with Robin backing him up - “He was speaking Russian! He doesn’t know Russian!” - and about the last request of Billy’s mom. He told them about the red storm in Billy’s mind, how Vance was there just to annoy them, how Billy’s mom finally got to say goodbye.

He told them that he had thought that he was sleepwalking, that winter. How Eddie had found him and driven him home and he had thought it was a fluke.

“Except it wasn’t a fluke, was it, Harrington?” Eddie snapped. “Cause not three weeks ago I found you blank and unresponsive and trying to throw your ass into the quarry!” Robin’s grip on his shoulder tightened to bruising.

“What.” It wasn’t a question.

“I think I was possessed,” Steve said. It felt dumb to say it out loud. “It’s happened before, Vance fought Billy, Billy’s mom at Starcourt, that first time at the quarry was that Russian trying to tell me something, I think. Because, no, see -” and he held his hand out to forestall Dustin’s yelling or Robin’s slowly mounting fury.

“The first time, I saw that hallway in the Russian base, and I thought I was walking down it, except that I wasn’t, I was walking my real body and it just happened to be near a cliff!”

“That’s not better!” Robin yelled, throwing her hands in the air. “Wait, is this was you meant when you said you could talk to them ‘and more?!’”

“Wait, Robin knew?” Max said, looking between the two of them.

“Secrets told while high on Russian drugs are secrets kept forever,” Robin crossed her arms over her chest because even though she was furious with him, she was still his best friend and she still had his back.

“But,” Steve shouted, determined to get this all out in one go, “I wasn’t seeing a Russian base last time. I was seeing a dark place, no lights, endless shallow water. Except there was something else there. I don’t know, but I think it’s connected to this stuff, because when Eddie found me, when I got out of the dark place, it hurt the same way these visions are hurting.”

“What. The. Fuck. Are you talking about?” Dustin demanded, his voice rising to a screech.

“With Chrissy and Fred, I think that was why I was screaming, because it felt like every bone in my body broke at once,” and Eddie startled so badly at that he nearly fell off of the box he was sitting on. “But then I was watching what Chrissy and Fred were seeing, I saw what they saw!”

At Dustin and Max’s blank looks, pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes before dragging his hands up and pulling at his hair.

“I know what we’re dealing with!”

“Oh, you do?” Eddie’s voice was a harsh line through Steve’s excitement. “You know what’s lifting a teenaged girl to the ceiling and snapping all of her bones and ripping her eyes out? And this is good news?” He stood, something about his presence and his simmering anger made Steve want to take a step back. “Because I’m having a really hard time seeing the difference between some invisible thing murdering Chrissy and whatever you’ve been carrying around inside you.”

“Hey,” Robin snapped, hackles up.

“What was it you said,” Eddie plowed over her, “Stevie can’t come to the phone right now? Who the fuck was that, Steve? How do we even know if you’re you right now?” Robin took a step forward, lip curled and fists balled. Steve reached for her, but she shrugged him off, angry in a way he had never seen her before.

Help came from an unexpected source.

“If you can’t tell when someone else is running the show, you’re not paying enough attention,” Vance sneered, his cadence running roughshod over Steve’s usual intonation. And Steve could hear it, like he had heard it in Billy’s mind - the doubling, a second voice over his own - Vance’s snarled consonants ripping through the air.

“And who are you?” Dustin asked, his eyes wide enough that Steve could see the whites around his irises. It was that, more than anything - Dustin’s ready acceptance that there was something else going on here, that Steve had been telling the truth, that loosened the knot in Steve’s stomach.

“I’m little Stevie’s guardian devil,” Vance said, his grin too many teeth. “You can call me Vance.” Robin inhaled sharply, she and Steve had been friends long enough that she recognized the name. Except, when Vance turned to look at her, she wasn’t making eye contact, instead staring at Steve’s chest, where Billy’s necklace sat. Vance laughed, a little meanly.

“Yeah, he’s not gonna show up here, you only get original flavor today.”

“Not that this isn’t a delightful conversation,” Max interrupted, her tone harsh, “but what the fuck are you doing here?” Steve, if he’d had his own voice, would have squawked at her about that language. He didn’t have his own voice, however, and Vance grinned delightedly.

“I’m just making sure your friend Eddie here doesn’t get the wrong idea about Stevie,” he said, waving his hand at Eddie with a pointedness that made it seem like a threat. “What’s that saying, there are more things on Heaven and Earth, Horatio…Stevie’s not the one that’s killing those kids.”

“And what is,” Eddie snapped, pushing himself to his feet.

“His name was Henry Creel, when he was human.”

“That’s not the creepiest sentence I’ve heard,” Robin muttered. Her arms were crossed and she was still refusing to look at Steve, which meant she was still really angry with him.

“So what do we do about him?” Max, ever practical, asked, but there was something else there, a fear that Steve hadn’t heard from her before. Vance shrugged.

“I’m just the messenger.” And then he was gone, leaving Steve with a suddenness that made him stumble, he’d forgotten to hold up his own body weight.

“Fucker,” Steve muttered, and the warm press of a hand on his back did little to comfort him. “Fat lot of help you were,” he snapped, patience worn thin. Steve felt bad the second the words left his mouth, but the hand stayed, shoving him off balance just a little bit.

“Steve, why the fuck didn’t you say something earlier?” Dustin demanded, hands on his hips like he was the pseudo parental figure in this arrangement.

“Yeah, that would have gone over real well,” Steve rolled his eyes. “And watch your language, dipshit, your mother hates when you swear.”

“Oh, yeah, that’s what we’re gonna focus on right now,” Robin hissed, jabbing two fingers at Steve’s chest. “How many times were you in trouble and you didn’t say anything?”

“Four,” Max chimed from the couch. Steve shot her a look that had people in highschool fleeing the halls to get away from him, but she just arched an eyebrow and glared.

“The quarry, the pool, the woods, the quarry,” she ticked off on her fingers.

“Fine, fine, fine, and fine,” Steve counted off right back.

“Only because you got lucky!” Robin shouted, and oh. She was crying a little bit.

“Robin,” he started, but she shook her head.

“No, I’m really mad at you. You could have died and no one would have known why and it would have been awful.” Fuck. Steve was a terrible friend, he really was.

“But I’m fine, Robin, really. And I promise, no more secrets,” he said, wrapping his arms around her. He loved hugging Robin, she fit just right for a cheek rest, and always squeezed just as tight as he did. Right now, she was squeezing tight enough that his ribs were protesting, but he knew better than to say anything.

“So, uh, not to be that guy, but what are we going to do? Chrissy’s dead, now Steve thinks someone else is too, because he saw, what? The alternate reality version of Hawkins where they died?”

Honestly, Steve couldn’t blame Eddie for being freaked out, but he missed the good humored version from the woods, who seemed to take everything in stride. Maybe it was easier to get through this stuff when it wasn’t happening to you, or something.

“We need El,” Dustin said, sounding dejected. “We’ve never had to do this without her.”

“And we won’t,” Steve said, grinning. “I bought her and the rest of the Byers’ plane tickets last night. They’ll be here tomorrow night.”

Except, because of course, they’re not that lucky.

“What the fuck do you mean El got arrested?!” Steve knew he sounded hysterical. He was aware. There was a murder suspect in a boat house he was doing grocery runs for, Nancy and Robin were trying to manufacture a cover story to get them into Pennhurst Asylum because Henry Creel was supposedly dead and his father was locked up in there, and Max and Dustin wanted to break into the school counselors office to try and find out what Chrissy and Fred had in common. Steve really, really hated this part of their annual Upside Down bullshit. He was good at the part when they knew what was going on, where there was something for him to hit, but the part where they were just wandering around, looking for answers? Yeah, fuck that.

So he had ducked into one of the other teacher’s offices to borrow the phone and call the Byers, make sure that, at least, was going to plan.

Except it wasn’t.

“She did what with a roller skate?”

“Broke a girl’s nose,” Jonathan said. He sounded a bit stressed, which Steve couldn’t blame him for. “Will says she deserved it.”

“Well if Will says it, then El should have hit her twice. And your mom’s really at a conference with Murray?”

“Yeah, which seems a bit odd? But frankly I’m a bit worried they’re actually going on a weird romantic date thing so I’m going to pretend that the conference thing wasn’t a lie.”

“That’s...uh, fair. I guess. And thank you for that horrifying mental image. Look, there’s no point in you getting on the flights and leaving El behind, especially if she’s in jail, and Nancy would kill me if Mike came back and just got dragged into this. Just promise me you’ll keep in touch?”

“Will do,” Jonathan hummed.

“And let me know if you need a lawyer for El, I’m sure I’ve got a card for one at the house.”

“Normally I’d tell you where to shove your fancy lawyer, but I’ll let you know if we need it.”

“Dude, I’m pretty sure I don’t want a lawyer up there anyways,” Steve said, mostly to make Jonathan laugh. They still weren’t friends, it was difficult to overcome the weight of the history between them, but something something soldiers in the same foxhole. That may actually have been about atheists, but eh.

“Thanks, Steve, I’ll call you after they let us see El, and you keep us updated about the Hawkins stuff, alright?” Steve agreed, said goodbye, and set the phone gently back in the cradle. Then he picked in back up and slammed it down repeatedly, because this whole situation was fucked and he didn’t have anything else to hit yet.

Except, then there was a noise in the hall and suddenly Steve may have had something to hit - except he didn’t, because it was Nancy and Robin, sprinting down the hall, because Max had called a code red.

Max, who was seeing visions, had headaches similar to what Chrissy and Fred had, who was so close to tears but still standing, back straight, and laying it out. Steve wanted to vomit.

There was heat building at the back of his spine but it felt like rage, it felt destructive and raw and wrong, in a way that it hadn’t before. And then Max turned to look at Steve and it vanished.

And somehow, after all of that, with Max living with that horrific time limit hanging over her head, they were all supposed to just go home and wait? Because the kids were still kids and they had parents who were worried about them, and Robin and Nancy had to prepare to con their way into Pennhurst and that just left Steve, who very much did not want to be alone.

Which was why he was here, back at Reefer Rick’s boathouse, clutching a six pack and a pillow and waving a flashlight at his feet.

“Eddie?” he called, quietly, in case the pack of basketball players that Lucas had warned them about was somehow here, right now. “It’s just Steve, but I brought beer, and uh a pillow.” Because there had been no place to sit in that damn boathouse, he couldn’t imagine that it was comfortable to sleep. “Please don’t stab me with a broken bottle again,” he said, opening the door as slowly as he could.

Eddie was sitting on the pile of boxes he had fashioned into a chair, looking incredibly unimpressed with Steve’s presence.

“What are you doing here?” He also sounded unimpressed with Steve’s presence, which was hurtful.

“I brought beer, and a pillow,” Steve said, again. Eddie stared at him without blinking.

“You said that already.”

“Okay, look, this sucks for you, I know it does, but Dustin and Nancy are going to figure it out and we’ll clear your name. In the meantime,” Steve shrugged, holding the beer in front of him like a peace offering, “I wish someone had sat and drank with me after my first run of this. But if you prefer, I’ll leave the stuff and go, I know you don’t like me.”

Eddie’s shoulder’s were up around his ears. Not that Steve could see his ears for all that hair, but that was still a true statement.

“I don’t not like you, you just scare the shit out of me,” Eddie muttered, but he held his hand out for a beer anyways. Steve handed him one, before he realized that he hadn’t brought a bottle opener. That didn’t stop Eddie, who cracked the top using one of the rings on his finger with a flourish and a small smile.

“I knew that party trick would come in handy one day,” he said, holding his hand out for Steve’s beer. “Come on, hand it over.” There’s a press of warmth on the back of his hand, accompanied by the knowledge that even if Steve didn’t know how to do that, Billy did, and had before, using the ring Steve was wearing on his thumb.

Steve handed Eddie the bottle.

“Thanks,” Eddie said, after an extended period of silence where they sat there, awkwardly, nursing their beers. “I appreciate you coming out here, even though I was an ass to you today.”

“Not like you didn’t have a reason,” Steve shrugged. “It makes sense, this whole thing is a freaky mess, what are the odds that my freaky mess isn’t connected?”

“I was terrified, that night I found you by the quarry,” Eddie admitted, sounding small for the first time Steve had known him. “You were so blank, like there was nothing behind your eyes, and so fucking strong, Steve. It took everything to slow you down, if you hadn’t come out of it, I couldn’t have stopped you. And then, with Chrissy, it was the same thing. She just went…blank. And then-” but he didn’t continue.

“It’ll be over soon,” Steve said, after a minute. “I know that’s not super comforting or anything, but these things don’t usually last that long. It’s like, a week of screaming and running and then everything goes back to normal. Usually some government suits swoop in at the end, make us sign a whole bunch of NDAs and give the press some bullshit story. We just have to keep you out of Jason Carver’s hands for a few more days and then the government will have some other boogyman to pin this shit on.”

“That’s actually surprisingly comforting, thanks Stevie,” Eddie said, brightening. Steve did not manage to hide his wince. “What, that’s what your little shoulder devil called you?”

“Yeah, but Vance met me when I was twelve and weedy and terrified of everything. And you try telling Pinball Vance anything.”

“His name is Pinball Vance?”

“That’s what we called him. He was incredible at the one machine we had in town, he had all the high scores. He once stabbed a kid over a game too.” Somehow, Steve managed not to sound fond over that fact.

“Jesus H. Christ,” Eddie whispered, but Steve could see the gleam of his teeth in the dim light of the boathouse, he was smiling too.

It didn’t feel like friendship, but it was certainly a step up from a broken bottle at his throat, so he’d take it.

In the morning, Steve called in sick to work, because fuck that right now, and went to the Wheeler’s house because that’s what the plan was.

This plan sucked, honestly, but Nancy wouldn’t hear about him doing anything useful and every time he looked at Max and thought about seeing her facing Henry in whatever nightmare he conjured for her, his stomach bottomed out.

Which was why he was here, now, watching Max kneel at Billy’s grave to say goodbye to her brother.

“You could save her a lot of grief,” he hissed, ignoring how Lucas and Dustin turned to look at him. There was a press of heat against his cheek, like Billy smacked him for it, but Steve snarled wordlessly, too sick with worry to let Billy make him feel bad.

“No, this is stupid, she’s been out there long enough,” Steve shoved himself out of the car.

“Steve, just give her some time,” Lucas insisted, but nah.

“I have. She’s had enough time,” Steve said. The pit of worry in his stomach felt like a gaping hole.

He wished he’d stayed in the car, though, because when the lightning and the agony hit, he was pretty sure he ate shit in the cemetery dirt.

And then he was still standing in the cemetery, except it was dark, a wind howling through the trees. It made the hair on his arms stand up.

He could see Max at the top of the hill, still kneeling at Billy’s grave.

And he could see Billy, drenched in blood, like he had been at Starcourt, like he had been the night he died.

Like the last time, Steve could feel Vance’s hand against his mouth, to keep him quiet, and that knife at his ribs, to keep him still. Unlike the last time, Steve cared more about Max than whatever it was that Vance wanted.

“Steve, you can’t save her,” Vance hissed in his ear, urgent and almost panicked. Steve decided that he didn’t give a fuck about what Vance thought.

There was that heat in his spine, but Steve ignored it, slamming his head backwards into Vance’s face. There was a crunch of snapping cartilage and Vance’s grip loosened enough that Steve was able to slip away, the knife drawing a thin line of blood through his shirt against his rib cage.

He closed the distance in time to hear Billy say, hand on Max’s cheek, “I think there was a part of you, buried somewhere deep, that wanted me to die that day,” before his fist slammed into the side of Billy’s face, an echo of that first fight so long ago.

“Shut the fuck up,” Steve snapped, planting his feet in front of Max, putting himself between her and the twisted nightmare of her dead step-brother. “You’re a piss poor imitation at best, but I’ll tell you one thing.” The heat was crawling up his spine, a spark, a bonfire, an inferno.

“You are not Billy Hargrove.”

Chapter Text

“You’d like to think that, wouldn’t you?” The shadow Billy said, sneer firmly in place. “It would make you feel better, make you feel less like you did something wrong.” He gestured at Max, behind Steve, the manic rage written all over his face. If Steve didn’t have the fire licking up his spine he might have been convinced. But he did have that fire, that certainty, and this fake was just pissing him off. “Less like you just stood there and watched me die, because you hoped your life would be better without me in it!”

“That’s why you feel such guilt, isn’t it,” he was still looking at Max, would have been advancing towards her but for Steve’s refusal to step back. He was chest to chest with Steve now, the blood from his shirt soaking into Steve’s jacket. It was still warm. It would have been convincing if Steve didn’t know. “That’s why, late at night, you have sometimes wished to follow me.” Steve heard Max’s refusal, felt the way she was shaking behind him, but that washed away in the flames that ripped out of him.

“That’s enough of you, fuckface,” Billy, the real Billy, fire and anger and that stupid unbuttoned red shirt, said, before he wrenched the shadow Billy backwards by his hair. The grip was tight enough that Steve could see his knuckles were white, and he used his free hand to rabbit punch the shadow in the kidneys hard enough that if this were a real person and not a nightmare they would be pissing blood for days.

“Get her out of here, Steve,” Billy said, eyes hard.

“Billy?” Behind Steve, Max made an abortive step forward and Billy - real Billy - just stared at Steve for a moment, that placid calm of genuine fury writ all over his face. Steve didn’t need to be told twice.

This would have been easier a few years ago, before the kids had become teenagers, but Steve was still strong enough to drop a shoulder to Max’s midsection and hoist her up, pulling her away from the hallucination wearing Billy’s face. She was shouting, but if he stopped to listen to her he would also hear whatever that thing was saying and neither of them needed that.

Max kicked him in the stomach.

He should have seen that coming, and she was vicious enough about it that he went to his knees, still trying to hang on to her.

Max, sharp, clever Max, who had threatened Billy with a baseball bat the first night Steve met her, who had brought El to Scoops Ahoy to make her smile, who had come to visit Steve after Starcourt, kicked Steve in the nuts.

The end result was Steve, on his knees and wheezing, with Max standing in front of him. Behind him, the sounds of whatever Billy was doing to that imitation had faded.

“You think I need you to save me, Steve?” Max snapped, looking furious. “You couldn’t save Billy, you told the Russian’s Dustin’s full name. And now you’re here to what? Run away from all of our problems? Face it, everyone would have been better off if you had just died in that basement like you were supposed to.”

It wasn’t anything that Steve hadn’t thought about himself in his darkest moments, that was true, but to hear it from Max hit him like a punch to the gut. She was glaring at him, looking for all the world like she had that night when she had grabbed his bat and pointed it at her step-brother, like she wanted nothing more than to swing for the fences and leave Steve nothing but a bloody smear on the ground.

Except she didn’t, she turned and ran, disappearing between two graves in a haze of fog that had sprung up out of nowhere. Steve pushed himself to his feet to follow after her, because no matter how much she hated him he was going to get her out of here alive.

But when he followed her, and he should have been right behind her, there was no way she was faster than he was, the dirt beneath his feet gave way to the garish, dirty tile that had lined the bathroom of the Starcourt mall.

Oh.

Distantly, Steve remembered the look of terror on Chrissy’s face, how the rooms around them had twisted and melted and changed as she ran, keeping her trapped until Henry decided he was done playing with her. And Max was still out there somewhere, probably running from her own nightmare visions. No wonder she was mad.

And here was Steve, standing in the bathroom that had got him his best friend in the world. There wasn’t anything here that could frighten him, he knew that. There was just Robin and that swooping moment in his stomach when he thought he was going to be alone again before he got over himself.

And there was Robin, her Scoops shirt covered in his blood, glaring at him from her position on the floor.

“No wonder you’re going to die alone,” she said, and Steve’s heart plummeted.

Oh.

This was. Worse. Somehow. He knew it was fake, he knew it, but it didn’t stop it from hurting, from reaching up under his chest and squeezing his heart until he couldn’t breathe from it.

She was talking again, but Steve turned and ran, like a coward, shoving the door to the bathroom open and out into the food court, knowing that he would probably find himself face to face with Billy and the Mind Flayer again.

Except he didn’t. He was standing in Tina’s bathroom, Nancy clutching the sink like she wanted to hurt something and it was the closest thing that she could grab.

“You’re bullshit,” she snarled at him and it was amazing how little this needed to change to hurt him. “You think if you hide for long enough you can pretend you’re not some freak, that you’re not just some puppet that better, stronger people pull out to play with when we need real help.”

Steve was thankful, at least, that the script had changed before she got to the part where she told him she never loved him, because that was his personal favorite part of this nightmare and he already relived it more often than he cared to admit. Instead of screaming, or telling this dream-memory of Nancy exactly what he thought of her bullshit, he opened the door behind him and walked back into Tina’s Halloween party.

He wondered, briefly, if Vance was watching this the way he had watched Chrissy and Fred die.

When he realized where the door had led him, he really hoped not.

He knew that he had been fourteen when this had happened, but he never felt like it. When he remembered it - or dreamed about it he always felt so young, so small.

“Stevie, baby,” his mother held one hand out to him, headless of the blood spilling down her wrist from where she had dragged the line of his father’s straight razor. She had been the last person to call him that, had refused all requests to call him “Steve, mom please” because Stevie was a baby’s name and he was trying to make varsity basketball.

“Stevie,” she insisted again.

When this had really happened, he had run, tearing down the hall for the phone to call 911, pleaded with the woman on the other end to send someone as fast as they could, and then when he had run back, she was gone.

Now, he knelt next to the bathtub and took her hand in his.

“Hi mom,” he whispered, his voice hoarse. She smiled at him, in that vaguely vacant way she had towards the end, where she wasn’t looking at him, but at something over his shoulder. “I’m still mad at you,” he said, instead of one of a hundred better things he could have said, because he was good at only a few things and one of them was saying the worst thing at any given moment.

Her hand tightened around his, her nails, bitten ragged, dug into the back of his hand. He was reminded, suddenly, of Billy’s mother and her pleas that he save her son - and just how badly he had failed at that.

As if sensing that his mind was wandering, the pressure increased and his skin gave way under her nails, not that he could tell what blood was his and what was hers, the bathroom seemed to be filling with it as each moment went on.

“Stevie,” she said, her voice taking on a frantic edge. Steve leaned in, because she was still his mother, no matter how she had abandoned him. But instead of an explanation, or an apology, or any of the things he’d wanted so badly to hear from her over the last few years -

“I should have drowned you when I had the chance,” she hissed, like something evil inside of her finally crawled its way out of her mouth. Or maybe, whispered the part of Steve that kept telling him he was bullshit, maybe she felt this way the whole time and this was why she slit her wrists when he was the only one home to find her.

Steve jerked backwards, pulling his hand out of her grip, heedless of the deep grooves of flesh her nails ripped from him.

“If you wanted to drown me you shouldn’t have killed yourself first,” he spat. Disgust curled in his stomach the second the words left his mouth. He was trying to be better, but when he was hurt he still tended to lash out. Robin said it was growth that he could recognize that. But Robin wasn’t here right now, and Steve threw open the door to this bathroom and fled, like he had the others. That, at least, mirrored real life.

On the one hand, at least this wasn’t a bathroom. However, Steve could think of few places he wanted to be less than the Starcourt food court with the Mind Flayer looming over him.

He didn’t want to watch Billy die again.

But Billy wasn’t there at all, instead it was just Steve there against the Mind Flayer, with El behind him and this wasn’t a choice. This had never been a choice. This would never be something Steve regretted. He could stand here at this moment a thousand times and he would always make the same choice.

Except, the first blow, the one that Billy had held, sent Steve to the ground like he was nothing but an afterthought, the wind knocked from him in a rush. He knew, he just knew, that if he turned he would watch this thing tear El apart, and then Max and Mike when they came from the back hallways, and then it would start on Dustin and Robin until there was just him. And it would leave him. He knew that, with the sort of surety that he didn’t have about anything else in his life. And call him a coward, but he didn’t want to watch. He didn’t want to watch them die.

So he curled up in the smallest ball he possibly could and strangled any sobs before they had a chance to escape his throat.

It was a change in the atmosphere that told him things had changed this time - he wasn’t smelling the pretzels and the stale popcorn, but instead the damp earth and mildew and rust that had marked The Grabber’s basement. Of course this was where this would end.

Steve was shaking a bit as he uncurled, his brain wrenched through nightmare after nightmare so quickly that he felt dizzy, nauseated, disoriented.

“It’s been a long time, Stevie,” a voice came from a chair in the corner.

It had been seven years, but Steve hadn’t forgotten what he sounded like.

Or what he looked like, either. Thick, bigger around the shoulders than Steve could aspire to, with that damned pale demon mask on his face, that gaping grin and the stupid horns and Steve wanted to rip it off of his face again just to hear him scream about it. He was still shaking, but it felt more like fury now, though he had to reach a little to remember what that felt like when it wasn’t accompanied by the fire of Billy’s anger. Behind The Grabber, light streamed through the unbarred window.

“You’re kidding, right?” Steve shouted into the ether, shoving himself off of the stained mattress and to his feet in the center of the room, something bubbling in his chest that might have been hysterical laughter. “This is the grand finale? The sad sack pedo I killed when I was twelve? News flash, asshole, he hasn’t scared me in years!” Except that was a lie, because sometimes he still dreamed that he woke up and this man was sitting at his desk, watching him sleep, wearing that creepy fucking mask and saying nothing no matter how much Steve screamed at him.

“He isn’t here to frighten you,” Henry’s voice came from directly behind him and oh, Steve was glad there was no one there to see him jump, because that rumble terrified him. But as much as he didn’t want to turn and look, he knew that he had to, because having that thing at his back was much worse. And between Henry and The Grabber, Steve would much rather show his back to the one he’d already beaten. “He’s here for him.” And Henry was looking behind Steve, like he could see something that Steve couldn’t. It wasn’t until the shudder of lightning worked its way up his spine that Steve realized he was looking at Vance. Vance who Steve couldn’t even see right now, but was somehow visible to Henry and his horrible black pits of eyes.

“I knew there was something scuttling around like a rat, but I have to say you’re not what I expected.” Henry sounded almost human. Not quite right, but like he’d watched enough people interacting that he can almost mimic human speech.

He probably should have picked a different nightmare vision to approach Steve in, because for all that this had been his prison, with nothing but time, there was nothing to do but learn every inch of the place. Which was to say, with The Grabber focused on Vance, wherever he was, it was muscle memory for Steve to take two halting steps backwards towards the hole that he knew was in the floor. Henry stalked after him, each step that same slow thud that he had heard descending the stairs of Chrissy’s nightmare house. Steve schooled his face into neutrality, hiding the disdain he felt, the sneer that King Steve had worn creeping at the edges of his lips. Henry liked his victims scared, needed them to be frightened of him, liked to chase them through nightmares until they were too tired to run anymore.

Joke was on him. Steve never knew when to quit.

He snuck the toe of a shoe under the edge of the rub covering the hole, and stepped forwards, kicking the rug away and snagging the metal grating that had been over the window - that he knew would be here, because it wasn’t on the window and this was the day that he had gotten free - the day that he knew that he was going to die if he didn’t do anything. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he heard Robin talk about cycles, how time wasn’t a circle, but a spiral, how everyone visited the same places over and over.

This was Steve’s spiral, his nightmare vision, and the metal grate in his hand wasn’t as satisfying as the bat, but it cracked just the same when he slammed it across Henry’s face. He hit him again, lower, driving him backwards, to the hole in the wall that Vance had left for him. He didn’t need to shove this wormy fuck into the freezer that lay on the other side of the mess of ripped concrete, he just needed to get him close enough that Steve could get around him and up the stairs.

Because fuck if he was going to die in this fucking basement.

The third hit sent Henry reeling, which was all the opening Steve needed to make it past him and up the stairs.

He knew he couldn’t run forever, but if he could run for long enough that Max could get out, he’d call that a win.

There was no bathroom, no neon flooded mall food court, no dank basement waiting for him at the top of the stairs. It was like a jigsaw nightmare that was covered in blood, everything washed with a red light that made Steve’s heart start to pound.

The ground under his feet sloshed, like it did in that dark place full of water, but when he looked down there was no mistake about the blood that coated the sides of his sneakers.

He could feel Henry behind him, that exaggerated footstep landing with a thud even on the moist ground. Despite feeling like he was being herded, Steve pressed on, leaving the blood behind for a dilapidated staircase and four wormy pillars.

It wasn’t until he passed the second of the pillars that he saw them, the twisted bodies of Fred and Chrissy, lashed to these posts. Their bodies were twisted, and Steve only glanced at their faces, the ruined hollows that were there before he had to look away.

No wonder Eddie was so fucked up about this, if that was what he had seen. The nightmares Steve had witnessed were mild compared to what Henry had done to them.

It also made the whole “feeling like every bone in his body had broken” thing he had been experiencing make a scary amount of sense. He couldn’t stop his eyes from flicking over to the third pillar, the one that would have been for Max. It was still empty, a fact that hit Steve in the gut with the amount of relief he felt.

“What are you doing here, little rat?” Henry rumbled from behind him. Steve didn’t run, because there was nowhere to run to, but he did keep going, towards another staircase and away from the thing behind him. Something popped under his foot, but he didn’t look down, because it didn’t really matter what it was, it was just something else in the never ending parade of nightmares that he didn’t need to see.

Except the staircases went to nowhere and when Steve turned, Henry was there, sickly white flesh gleaming like the demogorgon from years ago and Steve’s fingers positively itched for his bat. It was just Steve, this rotten shell of a man, and the two shattered corpses of people he had watched die between them.

“How do you like them, little rat?”

Steve’s throat felt tight, the words, any false bravado that he might be able to summon landing dead in his chest.

“I could use you, I suppose, as much as I would prefer it to have been Max. There’s irony in parallels.” Henry stalked closer, his disgusting claw hand reached out and Steve could not bring himself to move. He’d been heartbroken and angry and sad throughout this entire nightmare carnival, but this moment, knowing what he was staring down the barrel of? This was the first time he felt afraid.

When Henry hovered that clawed hand above Steve’s face, it was all of those moments of agony, at the quarry, in the parking lot at Starcourt, in his kitchen and the boat house, they all coalesced into this moment. Like the demogorgon trying to claw its way through the walls at the Byers’ house, something inside of him scratched at the inside and pushed until it felt like he was ripping apart at the seams. He had to be tearing apart, he was in too much pain to keep it all inside his body.

He would have given anything in the whole world for the fire that was Billy to burn this out of him, or for the lightning crack of Vance and his rage to bully the pain aside, but it was just him and the monster.

For the first time in his life, he was alone against the thing that went bump in the night, no Jonathan and Nancy with their reckless plans, no whispered assistance from the vengeful dead, no Vance at his back, no Robin, no Billy. Just him.

“You think you accomplished something, that you took Max from me,” Henry rumbled. The hair on the back of Steve’s neck stood up from how close he was, like a cat toying with a mouse it wasn’t bored of yet. “I’ll simply get her next. You’ve accomplished nothing.”

But Steve knew that wasn’t true.

Steve had gotten Max away from that nightmare Billy, long enough for her to run off, hopefully long enough for Dustin and Lucas to figure out a way to get her out of here. And if they could do that, they could figure out a way to kill Henry, especially if Nancy and Robin were in on it. They’d figure everything out, they’d put a stop to this.

There was a part of Steve that would have been content with that, with knowing that everyone else was going to be okay.

There was a different part of Steve that wanted to live. Wanted to live so badly, from the first moment he had woken up in that basement. He didn’t want to die, and fuck if he was going to let this slimy clawed monster be the one that would take him out. He hadn’t survived the kidnapping, the demogorgon, demodogs, the Mind Flayer, and whatever spirit kept trying to kill him to die here, like this.

Henry’s claws were descending now, but he must have sensed some sort of compliance in Steve, because there was a languidness to his movement, a taunting slowness he hadn’t shown with his previous victims.

There was heat running through Steve’s veins, but it wasn’t like before, when he knew that meant that Billy was here, or the crackle of lightning down his spine meant that Vance wanted a fight. This was just Steve, furious, frightened, feet planted.

So when Henry reached out his claws, Steve held himself still, counting in his mind until the last moment, before he did two things. The first, he sunk his teeth into the meat of what would have been Henry’s thumb, if he was a normal person. Second, he lashed out with a foot, cracking it solidly against the side of Henry’s knee, driving him to the ground.

Steve didn’t even take a second to spit the foul tar that was Henry’s blood out of his mouth before running, past Henry, past the bodies and the pillars, back into the blood pool that ringed this jigsaw puzzle house.

There was nowhere to go, no bathroom that appeared, no trauma dredged up from his past to soften him up for Henry’s talons. Just Steve and the endless expanse of black, the blood unspooling into water until Steve was alone.

Until he wasn’t, anymore.

Warm hands grabbed his arms, and Steve let himself be subjected to the roughest pat down he’d ever received.

“Thank fuck, you’re alright,” Billy exhaled, before he grabbed Steve by the shoulders and fairly shook him.

“You’re a fucking idiot, Harrington. How many times do we have to tell you that he’ll kill you before you listen to us?”

And Steve was tired, and angry, and done with this. He felt like he had after every swim meet, his limbs heavy weights and something iron sitting in his chest.

“Fuck you, Billy,” he snarled, planting his palms on Billy’s chest and shoving. Billy didn’t move, but it made Steve feel better so he kept pushing. “Fuck you for thinking I was just going to stand there and let Max die. You don’t get to show up after months and make me do what you want without even trying to explain yourself!”

“I had it fucking covered,” Billy snapped, his grip on Steve’s shoulders tight enough to bruise. “I wasn’t going to let Maxine die,” he added, quieter.

“How was I supposed to know that, Billy? I had to watch Chrissy and Fred die, and for what?” Steve kept pushing, but Billy was an immovable wall in front of him.

“Better them than you,” he said, something Steve didn’t want to name in his eyes.

In the distance, slightly muffled, Steve could make out the opening strains of Kate Bush.

“Listen,” Billy’s grip became even more insistent, “he knows you’re here now, and there will be more. You have to be careful, Steve. This isn’t like last time.” Last time, Steve had missed most of the actual Upside Down bullshit because he was getting tortured by Russians. He’d almost take the Russians over this fuckery.

The sound of Kate Bush was growing louder, telling Steve that there was thunder in our hearts.

Billy released Steve’s arms, but immediately set a hand on the back of his neck and pulled him in, close enough that he could whisper in Steve’s ear.

“And don’t trust Vance, he’s not telling you everything.”

“Like you are?” Steve tried to say, before he found himself staring at the sky, the dirt of the cemetery under his back.

Crowded over him, looking down, were Dustin, Lucas and Max, the last of whom was wearing a set of headphones playing “Running Up That Hill” so loudly that he could hear it.

Steve rolled over and spat, his mouth full of the taste of iron and blood and something rotten.

"Oh hey," he said, blinking at Max, "you're here."

Chapter Text

The original plan had been to go back to the Wheeler’s basement, but Steve was the one who was bleeding and he wanted to go home and change into something comfortable and not have to spend the rest of the night in that uncomfortable chair. Also, he had plenty of beds and couches and more comfortable places to sleep. And his house didn’t smell like an unwashed teenaged boy, which was an odor Mike was practically steeped in these days.

Dustin let him win that argument, but probably only because of the blood. He and Lucas were both clearly shaken, apparently Max had been completely unresponsive before Dustin had managed to reach Nancy and Robin. The girls’ musical solution worked, too, as far as they could tell. Max had snapped out of it almost immediately after they got the headphones on her, which explained the endless repeat of Kate Bush that Steve could make out when it was quiet.

It was Steve that had really scared them, because Dustin had seen the whole thing with Fred, in the boathouse, and he said this was different. For one, Steve had started bleeding almost immediately, a thin cut opening up through his shirt and across his ribcage, and more ragged tears on his hands a few minutes later. When Max had snapped back out of it Steve hadn’t moved, still “completely out of it” in the dirt, according to Dustin. There had been a scramble for a second walkman, then when they couldn’t find one, for his keys to turn on the car and play whatever cassette he had left in there.

Steve didn’t have the heart to tell them that it was Robin’s cassette, her “weekend mixtape” for when she was excited about something, that it wouldn’t have worked anyways.

It turned out they hadn’t needed the music, Steve had snapped out of it with no discernable reason that they could see, just a gasp and then he was awake, his mouth full of sludgey black blood that he knew wasn’t his own. No matter how much he spat, the taste lingered in his mouth for hours afterwards, tar and iron and rot.

Which brought them to now, with Steve hunched over his bathroom sink, running the tap over the ragged mess of torn flesh on the back of his hand. He was shirtless, as the first thing he had dressed was the cut on his ribcage, which wasn’t very deep, but had bled enough to send Dustin into hysterics about infections and sepsis. It had taken a minor miracle in the form of a perfectly timed pizza delivery for Steve to escape upstairs without a freshman bodyguard.

“Billy got me out,” came a voice from the door to the bathroom and Steve startled so badly that he knocked the, thankfully closed, bottle of peroxide off of the counter.

“Jesus, Max!” She was standing in the doorway to the bathroom, the expression on her face mulish. “Knock or something next time!”

“It’s not like you’ve got anything going on I haven’t seen before,” she shrugged, and given that she had lived with Billy, who had been all but allergic to shirts, that made sense. It didn’t mean that Steve wanted her sneaking up on him in the bathroom.

“What did you want?” He said, trying and mostly succeeding to modulate his tone into something not aggressive. He didn’t blame her for what she said in the graveyard, before things got bad, but he wasn’t enough of a saint to be able to shrug that off with a smile yet. He’d need a beer or three and a good night’s sleep, at the very least. And given how his day was going, he’d be lucky to get one of those things.

“Billy was with me, after you showed up. I lost you in the fog, but no matter how weird and twisty things got, Billy was there. The music helped, but after you showed up, he kept me running through a bunch of different memories. He said that Henry could really only find me in the bad ones, the ones that he was using for his nightmares.” Steve felt his mouth go dry and swallowed hard against the feeling. “He also said that I was fucking stupid for blaming myself for what happened to him.” Her voice caught a little bit, and it was like Steve was standing in the entrance hall last July, Max trying so hard not to cry.

He moved slowly, so she had time to duck away if she wanted, but she let him pull her in for a hug.

“He said that he doesn’t blame me, that it’s not my fault. He said that maybe we would have been better siblings, because he didn’t hate me-” whatever else Billy had said to her was too hard to get out around the sobs, which was fine, those words had been for Max.

She let him hold her for maybe twenty seconds, which was enough for three good sobs, and then her shoulders came back up and she stepped back.

“I uh, wanted to tell you that, because you’re,” she waved her hand at him, “you,” she finished, as if that actually explained anything.

“I’m glad you got out of there when you did,” Steve smiled at her. He wanted to reach out and ruffle her hair, but he was fairly sure that she would bite him if he tried. “Maybe don’t kick me in the nuts next time?” Max stared at him, the expression on her face shifting slightly from stubborn to confused.

“Steve, what are you talking about? I ran as soon as you punched Billy in the face. I wasn’t even sure if you were really there until afterwards, when you were laying in the dirt.”

Oh.

“Oh,” he said, and it sounded stupid when he said it, but there was something like relief blooming in his chest.

“Was your horrific nightmare me kicking you in the nuts?” Max asked, and he could see her fighting against a grin.

He couldn’t remember the last time he had seen her smile.

“Hey, don’t mock a man’s pain,” Steve said, instead of telling her how she had flayed him open with her words. She didn’t need to worry about that. It wasn’t her responsibility.

“Speaking of pain, should you get a bandage or something on that?” She pointed to his hand and the ragged tears the nightmare of his mom had left.

“That’s the plan,” Steve said, digging through the first aid kit he kept in his bathroom. “Antiseptic and a bandage, and then I’m going to go get Eddie.”

“What?”

“I was thinking about it, and it’s stupid that we left him there. I’ll put him in my trunk, drive him back here and no one will be the wiser. If the cops do show up here, I can stall them while he goes out the back towards Mirkwood until they’re gone.” The look on Max’s face was screaming “unimpressed teenager.”

“Also,” and this was the part that Steve was less hesitant to admit, but he knew that it would probably be the part that really convinced her that this was a good idea. “I can’t be driving anymore.” She opened her mouth and he waved a hand, cutting her off, “And you’re not driving my car. I remember the parking lot accident.”

Said accident had been one of Steve’s early attempts at hanging out with Max after Starcourt, and she has demanded that he teach her to drive.

It had gone horribly, and Steve had shelled out more hourly wages than he wanted to think about fixing the side mirror and the dent she had put in the door.

“But I’m completely out of it when those visions hit, I can’t be driving you around. And Nancy and Robin are doing their detective shit, so I need someone who can drive you, Lucas and Dustin, who isn’t gonna give me a heart attack. Eddie needs a place to stay, this is a perfect solution.” Max’s expressed dialed from unimpressed to slightly concerned, but she schooled that away while Steve finished wrapping the bandage.

“I’ll be right back,” he swore, setting a hand on Max’s shoulder. “I’ll have a radio, we’ll call if anything goes wrong, I promise.”

“Whatever.” She let him get all the way out the door to his room, almost to the stairs, before calling after him. “You may want to put a shirt on, before you go see Eddie!”

Shit, she was right.

The drive to Reefer Rick’s felt like it took longer this time than it had before, but that may have been that anytime the speedometer crept up, Steve couldn’t help but imagine falling into that dark place, foot still on the gas, and running the car off the road, where his mangled body would be found by the kids in the morning.

“I wouldn’t let you crash,” Billy said from the passenger seat where he was lounging, feet up on Steve’s dashboard and one arm out the window. “Though you’re going to be out here all night at this rate, Harrington, you drive like my grandmother.” Steve didn’t take his eyes off the road, save for that brief cut to the side when Billy had first appeared, heralded not by a burning inferno up his spine, but a warm blanket across his shoulders.

“Get your feet off my dashboard,” Steve muttered and Billy fairly roared with laughter.

“I’m dead, dumbass. Ghost shoes don’t leave scuff marks.”

“Ghost claws draw blood, man. I’m not risking it. Feet on the floor.” The sigh Billy heaved was both theatrical and completely over the top, but he did slam his ghost boots down on the floor mat. In moments like this, though Steve knew both would hate it if he said anything, he could really see how Billy and Max were siblings.

“It’s probably a good thing you’re going to go get Munson now,” he said after a moment of awkward silence.

“Why’s that?” The turn off to Reefer Rick’s was coming up and Steve hated that he knew that now.

“He could use a translator.”

“What the fuck does that mean, Billy?” Steve turned to glare at him, once he had safely thrown the car in park in the dark space between Rick’s house and the boathouse, but Billy was gone.

Well that wasn’t really fucking ominous.

“Eddie?” Steve called, trying to shut the car door as quietly as possible. “It’s Steve, again. Please don’t stab me with a bottle.” If he said it enough, it would become a fun in-joke between two people of a similar age, who hung out with the same group of people, right? Not just a pathetic reminder that he almost got ended by the head of the nerd brigade.

Eddie was sitting up against the wall, his knees pulled to his chest. He looked…small, for lack of a better term. Like this whole situation had finally caught up with him and sucked whatever manic energy he cloaked himself with to make him appear bigger.

And Chrissy Cunningham was sitting silently at his side, one hand set on his arm.

“So that’s what he meant by a translator,” Steve said to himself, easing the door of the boat house closed behind him. Eddie didn’t spare him a glance and it wasn’t until he settled himself a few feet away that he realized that he was asleep. Probably wasn’t a good thing that Steve had gotten all the way in here without waking Eddie up, but that adrenaline crash could be almost impossible to resist.

He’d let Eddie get a few more minutes of sleep. He had his own conversation to have, first.

“I’m sorry,” he said, to the shadow of Chrissy at Eddie’s side. “This shouldn’t have happened to you.” She smiled at him, a little drawn, a little pale, but shrugged.

“I saw you, at the end,” she said. Steve drove the heels of his hands into his eyes and sucked a breath in, the guilt hitting like a Russian’s fist in his gut.

“I’m so fucking sorry I didn’t do anything to help.”

“I don’t think you could have. He would have just killed you too. I’m glad I wasn’t alone.” And the way her hand tightened on Eddie’s shoulder, though he didn’t stir, Steve knew she wasn’t just talking about his useless presence in her mind.

“I can relay a message, if you want,” he said, gesturing at Eddie, like she didn’t know who he was talking about. He was tired, okay, he could be forgiven for being a total idiot right now. Chrissy nodded, her drawn smile turning into something a little more honest.

“Eddie,” Steve said, “Wake up, man.” And despite appearing not a minute before to be completely dead to the world, Eddie jolted awake, his right hand swinging in front of him with that same broken bottle clutched in his grip. Steve was very glad that he was out of slicing range.

“Eddie,” he said again, placating. This was the same tone of voice he used when Dustin was working himself into one of his nerd rages, Steve knew. Hopefully they worked on all the nerds. “It’s Steve, I’m here to take you to a different hiding space, okay? We’ve had a shit day and we don’t want the group split up right now.” Eddie’s eyes, wide with fear, caught on his own. His chest was heaving as he sucked in air and if he had been one of the kids, or Robin, Steve would have offered a hug, but Eddie didn’t seem like he would appreciate that just now.

“Jesus Christ, Harrington! You can’t sneak up on a guy like that!” Eddie hissed, having apparently gotten the reins on his panic.

“Yeah, learned that already. That’s why I’m over here,” Steve gestured at the space between them and tried to sound like he was joking, tried to be someone that Eddie could joke about this shit with.

“Before we go, though, I have a message.” Eddie blinked at him, not following. Which was fine, he’d known Steve for like, three days, he couldn’t be expected to jump to “ghost messenger” in that time period. “Promise me you won’t hit me for it.” Again, he was trying to be funny about it, but Eddie still hadn’t dropped the bottle and this was the sort of shit that he thought Eddie would hit him for if it was a joke.

“I promise to give you a head start if you need one,” Eddie said slowly, and he lowered the hand with the bottle until it was set against the dirty floor of the boat house, close enough to grab if he needed it, but not an overt threat.

“Chrissy wanted to say thank you,” Steve started, and threw his hands out in front of his face when Eddie twitched. “I swear I’m not joking, you were here for the whole ghost thing already, remember? She wanted me to tell you thank you, because, and I’m quoting here, I swear, because you were sweet to her, and it meant a lot to her. And she’s sorry, that you saw what you did, but she’s glad that she wasn’t alone, that you were with her and trying to help her.” Steve cleared his throat around the block that was rising in his throat. “She’s sorry she didn’t get to see you play at the Hideout, but she’s sure you’ll kill it next time.”

Eddie didn’t bother to hide his tears, either because he knew that Steve wouldn’t judge him or because he didn’t care about Steve’s opinion of him.

It was a silent ride back to the Harrington house. Despite knowing it would have been smarter to hide Eddie in the trunk, Steve just tossed a blanket at him and made him lie down in the back seat. It felt kinder.

Once back at the house, it was the work of a few minutes to find an unoccupied guest room for him, give him some spare clothes and point him at the shower.

“How do you take your coffee?” Steve asked, before Eddie shut the bathroom door. Eddie blinked at him, confused. “For the morning, I’ll probably be first up. How do you take your coffee?”

“Black, little sugar.” Eddie smiled at him, just a soft tug at one corner of his lips. “Thanks, Harrington.”

“Thank me if you manage to sleep through Dustin’s morning screeching,” Steve said, turning to head to his own room, where he knew he would find Robin sprawled out over his bed, already asleep. “Good night, Eddie.”

Eddie’s soft “good night, Steve” was almost lost in the quiet of the house.

Dustin’s morning shrieking was both epic and warranted, for once. Apparently, while they had been sleeping, Jason Carver and the rest of the basketball team had been combing the town, looking for Eddie. Because mob justice or something. And they had found Reefer Rick’s boathouse, and the signs that Eddie had been there.

If Steve saw Eddie slump against the wall a bit with relief that he hadn’t been there when they arrived, he didn’t need to tell that to anyone else.

But Jason and Patrick had taken the boat out, because Jason got it in his head that Eddie had, what, swam out to the floating dock in the middle of Lover’s Lake in March? Steve had never thought much of Jason, but his sanity was clearly taking a long walk off a short pier.

While they were out in the lake, Patrick had gone blank, then started to float, before cracking and falling back into the water, leaving Jason alone with the boat.

Steve had really hoped that one had been a bad dream, he really did. He should have known better. If it was a dream, he would have been watching one of the kids, or Robin, rather than Patrick, who he barely knew from basketball. There had been no Vance, no Billy, just him and Patrick, then him and Patrick and Henry, then just him and Henry.

Steve had jolted awake when Henry had turned, looked straight at him, and rumbled “I know you’re there, little rat.”

He didn’t feel the need to share that last bit with the rest of them over the breakfast table. Instead, he made pancakes and coffee and tried to keep his hands from shaking.

The good news was that this basically cleared Eddie off the cop’s radar, and Jason was actually starting to look pretty good for the murders, according to the police radio chatter they had intercepted. Jason was still telling anyone who would listen that it was Eddie, doing some sort of magic Satan sorcery, but the number of people who were willing to listen to him had decreased dramatically.

“Congrats on beating that murder rap, Munson,” Robin cracked at him, over her own cup of coffee, with copious amounts of both cream and sugar. Eddie’s echoed smile didn’t reach his eyes.

“So what now?”

“I called Jonathan this morning, but the line was busy. El missed her first flight out, but they all have tickets for the end of the week. But I don’t know if we can wait that long, to be honest,” Steve said, sliding Nancy a mug of black coffee.

“I haven’t been able to get through to them either,” she said and Steve was sort of surprised to hear her voice waiver, just a bit, before he remembered that yeah, Nancy was a badass most of the time, but her boyfriend and her little brother were on the other end of the country right now and no one could get ahold of them. She definitely allowed a freak out about this.

Robin hugged Nancy briefly, just a squeeze of one arm around her shoulders, but Steve caught the way that the smaller woman sagged against her in relief and barely managed to get his eyebrows under control. He did, however, make significant eye contact with Robin, because it wasn’t that long ago she had been calling Nancy “Miss Priss” with a significant amount of heat.

They’d talk about it later.

They did not, in fact, get to talk about it later. What they did get to talk about was the magnets that had fallen off of Steve’s fridge, sending his half complete shopping list and the note with the phone number for his father’s hotel to the floor. Then Dustin worked himself up into some sort tizzy about electrocution? Magnets? Radios? Steve stopped paying attention when Robin and Nancy started arguing with him about field strength and distance. He had a monster headache that the coffee was doing nothing to take the edge off of, and his scratched up hand ached.

“Harrington?” Eddie’s voice cut over Dustin’s and he jerked his head towards the back door. “Am I good to smoke out there?”

“Yeah,” Steve said, but Eddie continued to maintain sort of aggressive eye contact with him, like he hadn’t answered the question properly. “I’ll uh…I’ll join you, if that’s alright.”

In the dining room, Dustin tried to tell the girls that the south facing windows that looked out to the street were pointing north, which meant this argument was going absolutely nowhere fast.

Eddie nodded, and held the sliding glass door open for Steve before flinging himself in the nearest lawn chair.

“I don’t know how you do it, man” he said, pulling, not a joint like Steve had half expected, but a cigarette pack out of his pocket. “I’ve been here for three days and I hate it. You’ve been dealing with this, what, for four years? And you’re acting like this is just normal stuff to you!”

His hands were shaking, a little bit.

Steve settled into the closest chair and shrugged. “I mean, technically, I’ve known that there was weird shit out there that couldn’t be explained for a lot longer than that. And once you accept that humans can be monsters it's not that far for actual monsters.” He let that sit for a minute, before he leaned over, pulled both the pack and the lighter out of Eddie’s hands, lit one for him, and passed it back.

“I know this sucks, I really do,” he said. Eddie took the cigarette and ducked his head, hiding his face behind a curtain of hair.

“And this is really the worst part, because there’s fucking nothing to do.” Steve leaned back in the chair, let the tepid March sun warm his face. “But they’ll figure something out in there and we’ll go poke at it with a stick until something gives.”

Eddie snorted, which may have been either a disagreement or a laugh or a combination of both.

“You can sit the rest of this out, you know.” It wasn’t an option for the rest of them, too tied to this in ways that couldn’t be undone, but Eddie was still drifting at the periphery. He didn’t need to dive into this any further, he could spend the rest of this nightmare hanging out on Steve’s couch, watching dumb movies and drinking his dad’s whiskey and that would be totally fine.

“I wish I could,” Eddie’s voice was hoarse. “But Chrissy deserved better. I think-” He tried to hide the shake in his voice behind the cigarette. “I think we would have been friends, and I need to see this through, for her, at least.”

Steve nodded, and turned his face back to the sun.

“Besides, someone needs to drive your bougie-ass car around when you’re having ghost seizures at any given moment,” and there was enough laughter in his voice that Steve flipped him off, comfortable in the joke.

“You crash my car and I’ll kick your ass, Munson,” Steve warned, and Eddie laughed at him.

It turned out, the argument about direction had a point to it. Steve vaguely remembered Mrs. Byers talking about her magnets last time, when they had helped her pack, but he couldn’t for the life of him remember what that was about. Luckily, Dustin remembered, or at least, remembered enough to get them driving aimlessly around town while he took notes in his notebook and stared at the compass in his hands.

Apparently, the data Dustin collected pointed to three weird spots in Hawkins, spots where north didn’t actually mean north anymore.

“A random road in the middle of nowhere, Lover’s Lake and-” Max was staring at the map, looking confused.

“That’s my trailer,” Eddie said, finger on the last spot.

“It’s where Henry’s victims died,” Nancy pointed out, looking pale.

Eddie tried to make a vote for checking out the trailer, he really did, but that was an active crime scene. So was the road that must have been where Fred died. But the police couldn’t cordon off all of Lover’s Lake, which was how they ended up here- with Nancy, Robin, Eddie and Steve, crammed into a boat that probably wasn’t meant to hold all of them, rowing out to the middle of the lake in the cover of darkness.

And then Dustin’s borrowed compass began to spin wildly.

Steve barely had one shoe untied before lightning was crackling.

“Steve, this is a terrible idea,” Vance said, perched on the side of the boat in a way that would absolutely have capsized it if he was physically there. Steve ignored him, untying his other shoe and yanking them both off.

“I mean it, Steve,” Vance urged, leaning forward. He didn’t sound angry, which was honestly sort of a new experience. He sounded terrified. “I know you don’t believe me, but this is possibly the worst thing that you could be doing right now.”

Before the boathouse, Steve had trained himself out of talking to the ghosts at anything above a whisper, but everyone in the boat knew about him and, frankly, he was tired of Vance’s cryptic bullshit.

“You’re right,” he snapped, standing suddenly and pulling his sweater over his head. “I don’t believe you, because you’ve told me jack shit. So either be helpful or fuck off.”

Nancy cleared her throat.

“Steve, are you okay there?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. I’m going down there to find this stupid gate and I’ll be back in a few minutes.” Robin made a noise like she was going to disagree with that plan, but whatever she saw in Steve’s face shut that down.

Steve tossed his sweater at Eddie, mostly for the disgruntled look on the other man’s face. He caught Robin’s eye again when he turned away and she had an eyebrow cocked at him like she knew something that he didn’t. That wasn’t an unusual face for Robin to have, but it was difficult to interpret in this context. There were a lot of things that she knew that he didn’t.

“I’m serious, Steve, this is a really fucking stupid idea,” Vance snapped from behind him, but Steve ignored him. It’s not that he didn’t trust him, but the line on his ribs still stung and it was hard to listen to someone who stabbed you. Sliced you? Held a knife to your ribs and let you run into it? Semantics. The point was, Steve couldn’t get Billy’s warning out of his head. And for as much as he knew that he owed Vance his life, at least a little, it wasn’t his life that Steve was holding against Vance. It was Chrissy’s, and Fred’s, and Patrick’s and Max’s. It was easier to forgive Vance a betrayal that would have cost Steve his life than it was to forgive one that would have cost Max her’s.

It should have been easy - he could hold his breath for a fairly long time, more than enough to swim down there, figure out where the gate was (if there even was a gate) and get back to the boat.

Of course, it all went wrong, because that’s just how these things go when Steve was involved.

The vine that wrapped itself around his ankle squeezed tight enough to bruise, but that was easily the least of his worries. The rapid fire drag across the bottom of the Upside Down Lover’s Lake had torn skin from his back and arms, and his fight against the creepy flying things was cut short when one of them got a grip around his throat and yanked him to the ground.

If he hadn’t already known he was short on oxygen from being dragged through the lake, the tail trying to choke the life out of him was definitely making that apparent. Black spots burst at the edge of his vision, even as two more of those things sank their disgusting fangs into his stomach and ripped off pieces of him.

They were eating him.

The heat bloomed from nowhere, burning up his spine like a spark racing down a fuse, before exploding out of him, actual fire leaping from his skin before disappearing in the frigid air of the Upside Down.

The pressure around his throat was lessened and he took the opportunity that presented, snapping his teeth into the thing’s flesh. The tail that had been choking him released and Steve gasped a lungful of air, before lunging for one of the creatures that was tearing into his stomach. He caught a wing in each hand and pulled, until flesh and sinew gave and the wings tore from the thing’s body as it screeched and died. Another one, the one that had been trying to strangle him, dove for his back, but he caught the tail in his hands and used to momentum to batter it against the ground once, twice, and a third time, before he planted a food just out of biting distance and pulled, splitting this thing in half.

When he finally looked around, panting, mouth full of blood, he was confronted with the sight of Billy standing there, dressed not in the wife beater and jeans that he had died in, but what he had been wearing that night at the Byers’ house, which seemed to be his preferred afterlife outfit. His red shirt was unbuttoned practically to his navel, and his jeans were just as tight as ever. His hands were coated in gore, the remains of the final creature that had tried to eat Steve dripping from his fingers.

“Am I dreaming or is that you, Hargrove?” Steve managed around the pain in his throat. Billy smirked, looking for all the world like it was two years ago and they were posturing at each other in a driveway, not surrounded by creepy vines and the vaguely smoking remains of three twisted Upside Down bats.

“Yeah it’s me, don’t cream your pants.”

Steve couldn’t stifle the laugh that forced its way out of his throat, as much as it hurt coming out.

“Steve!” Someone called from behind him, and Steve whirled to see Nancy, Robin and Eddie standing there, dripping wet, Nancy clutching the second oar like a weapon, because she was practical like that. Robin rushed forward, throwing herself at Steve in a hug that was both comforting and incredibly painful.

“I’m fine, Robs, I’m fine,” Steve said, trying to hug her back without getting creature goop on her shirt.

“You’re bleeding too much to be fine,” she whispered in his ear, and okay, he would give her that.

“I’m alive, then,” he whispered back and her laugh was the best thing he’d heard that day.

“Uh, can anybody else see him or is it just me?” Eddie's voice came from behind them, and Steve had to give him props for making it this far and not having a complete meltdown, because this was definitely turning out to be one of their worst misadventures.

“I can see him,” Nancy’s voice was tight and her grip on the oar was tighter. Steve followed her gaze to Billy, who was rocked back on his heels, bloody thumbs stuck through his belt loops and that crazed grin on his face.

Robin nodded, pulling back from Steve enough to glance at Billy. “I can see him too.”

Billy laughed, then swept a gore covered hand towards the horizon and its skeletal, decrepit trees.

“Ladies, and Munson,” he added. “Welcome to Hell, where the dead can walk amongst the living,” his eyes cut to Steve, and his grin widened. “Hope you enjoy your stay.”

Chapter Text

They had to run. Steve and Billy handled the first three creepy bats, and they had been ready to take the next seven on to get through the gate, confident in their chances now that there were five people, but the swarm that was coming, that was beyond them.

“We need to leave,” Nancy said, with all of the authority that came from being the only one of them holding a weapon, and also just because she was Nancy Wheeler and she would be heeded.

Steve didn’t feel like arguing with her, but he could feel Billy gearing up to argue for the sake of being an asshole, the heat burning steady under his ribs, despite Billy standing right next to him.

“Yeah, I can get behind that,” Steve said, cutting any argument from Billy off at the pass. The flatly unimpressed look the blond shot him made him want to laugh, which felt like a strange reaction given the circumstances. Robin, because she knew everything about him, and because she was still hovering over his shoulder, squeezed his hand tight, both a reassurance and a question. He squeezed back, before following Nancy across the desiccated ground that was Lover’s Lake in the Upside Down.

Fuck he hated this place.

Running would have been difficult over this terrain in the best of circumstances, dodging vines like they were hurdles while trying to move fast enough to stay ahead of the bats. But every breath Steve managed was tinged with pain, his throat felt like it was lined with sandpaper, and his shoulders and his back were killing him, not to mention the actual pieces of his stomach that were missing. But Robin’s hand was warm in his and the steady bob of Nancy’s curls in front was a beacon - something for him to focus on instead of the pain he was in.

It isn’t until they’re tucked under Skull Rock, the slimy bat-octopi (octopuses? He asked Robin and she said octopodes, which definitely sounded wrong) swarming above them, their shrieks drilling relentlessly into his ears, that he was able to actually focus on how much pain he was in.

That wasn’t a good thing.

“Jesus, Harrington,” Billy snapped, when Steve tried to stand and stumbled, legs going out from under him. Nancy stepped forward, maybe intending to catch him, but Billy beat her to it by shoving her out of the way and wrapping an arm around his shoulders. The warmth of him against Steve’s side was surprising.

“We have to dress those,” Nancy gestured at Steve’s stomach. She looked a little ill, actually, and if this was a different situation Steve might have been insulted at that expression directed at his bare chest.

“You got a med-kit hidden in that hair of yours, Wheeler?” Billy asked, his tone missing playful by a fucking mile.

“No, sorry, I used the last one to bandage Steve up after you punched him in the face.” In the past, when they were dating, Steve had loved when Nancy got that tone, her “don’t fuck with me, I will absolutely fuck you up, never mind that I weigh less than a wet kitten and am wearing a frankly disturbing amount of purple” tone. Now it just set his teeth on edge.

“Can we play nice, children?” Steve tried to say, but what came out instead was a strangled yelp as Billy let go of his shoulders to tear off his shirt - not even stopping to unbutton the lone button he had done up in the first place, just yanking it off and sending that poor thing flying off into the creepy vine covered dirt - and wrap it around Steve’s stomach, tying the sleeves together with a yank that made Steve hiss.

“There, since apparently I have to do everything,” he snarled, before stalking off into the woods. He didn’t go far, Steve could feel that in the burn that sat in his chest, just far enough away that he wasn’t visible from their impromptu camp under Skull Rock. Probably trying to find out if his ghost outfit came with ghost cigarettes.

Nancy held Steve’s gaze for a minute, searching for something. Whatever she saw made her jaw clench before she also turned away and stepped out from under the rock. While she didn’t go stomping off into the trees, the tense line of her shoulder made it clear that she didn’t feel like talking.

“Do you think those bats have rabies?” Robin asked, directly in Steve’s ear.

“What the fuck, Robs?” Steve wheezed, caught somewhere between startled and amused. She didn’t really look like she was joking, her eyes were wide and Steve could see the way her hands were shaking.

“I just mean, rabies is my worst fear and once you have it there’s no chance. So we have to make sure that you don’t have rabies,” and her voice wobbled, just a little bit. Steve reached out, an offer for a hug if she wanted one, but she didn’t step closer.

“How do we make sure I don’t have rabies?” He asked.

“Well, the first thing is people get hydrophobic - afraid of water,” she explained, before Steve could ask. Which, rude, but fair. Also -

“Robin, I’m going to be honest, I just got sucked into an underwater portal to hell in the middle of a lake, and also my pool is literally haunted. I am allowed to be hydrophobic, or whatever.”

She blinked at him, before shuffling closer and letting him hug her.

“That’s not really what. Nevermind. There’s also violent tendencies, so let me know if you want to punch someone,” she said into his shoulder, and he squeezed her tight.

“You will be the first to know,” he promised.

“Wait, I’m sorry, can we go back to the part where your pool is haunted?” Eddie’s voice cut in and Steve did not jump. He didn’t. He had just, twitched, a little, because he was in pain. “Is this related to the whole, ghosts tried to drown you thing you mentioned?”

Right. He had told them that. Except, he hadn’t told them everything, had he? But it felt wrong to tell them the truth now, especially with Nancy so close by. This felt like something that he should tell her first, before he admitted it to everyone else.

“I’m pretty sure at this point I’m haunted,” Steve said, trying desperately to play it off.

“Yeah, I got that by the appearance of Hargrove, over there,” Eddie gestured at the woods where Billy had vanished. His eyes caught on the red shirt, cinched tight enough around Steve’s waist that drawing a full breath felt like a risk, and there was something there that Steve didn’t want to look too closely at.

“You, uh, neglected to mention him, earlier,” Robin said quietly, thunking him in the sternum with the back of one hand, the knuckles brushing against his medallion.

“It seems like there are quite a few things that Steve neglected to mention,” Nancy bit out, having apparently worked through whatever it was that she had originally been upset about and decided that she was going to get on Steve about this now.

He was glad, now, that she hadn’t been in the boat house when he explained originally. Was glad that she had gotten the watered down version of things that summed up as “Steve also has super powers and also some ghost shit” rather than the version that involved his near miss in the pool. She was too smart, she would have put it together too quickly.

“You don’t strike me as the kind of person that would have believed him without some concrete proof,” Eddie said, shrugging at her. At Nancy’s glare, he held his hands up in mock surrender. “It’s not a bad thing, Wheeler, that’s the reporter in you. It’s just,” his shoulder knocked against Steve’s gently. “I barely did and I saw some of it.” Steve could feel a flutter at his side, where Robin had gone for her standard finger in his ribs she used to tell Steve that she was having a thought, but remembered at the last minute that he was actually bleeding and stopped before she jabbed him in the open wound.

“I know you don’t know me that well,” Nancy was saying, hands on her hips, “but Steve and I have a history, this is the sort of thing that would have been helpful to know.”

The mention of their history, for as much as he knew that she was talking about the Upside Down and not their bullshit relationship, hurt a little bit.

“It wasn’t relevant before, there’s no talking to ghosts about fighting demodogs, and you didn’t know anything about the Russians until it was over,” Steve pushed himself away from the rock, more than ready to be done with this conversation. With this place. With this entire day. “I know you think you were being kept out of the loop or something, but Robin only knew because she was with me down there, I told everyone else two days ago, and we looped you in as soon as we could.”

There was something in Nancy’s eyes that made Steve feel small.

“And Billy Hargrove?” She bit out.

“Oh, he told me in May of ‘85,” Billy’s obnoxious drawl cut in. Apparently his ghost smoke break was over. “Guess that makes me the first person you told, huh, Harrington?”

“Billy, shut the fuck up,” Steve said, but it came out more exasperated than angry. Again, the flutter near his ribs of Robin having a thought that he needed to also be having, but he couldn’t catch what she was getting at.

“I meant why is he here.” It wasn’t a question, not really. Whatever Steve had seen in her eye was changing, catching more light, like how she got when she was digging for a story for the paper.

“Same reason you are, Harrington got sucked into a gash at the bottom of the lake and was working on being bat chow. I just happen to be faster than you.” Nancy’s focus shifted to Billy, who was managing to make lounging against Skull Rock look like a threat of some kind. Steve wanted to kick him in the knee.

No mention of the fire that was still sitting in Steve’s chest, of the burn that had been there almost constantly since the basketball game, or of his warning in that dark place.

“I’m dead, Wheeler, whatever you have to say to me isn’t really going to change anything.” Nancy shot him a glance, but it wasn’t anger in her eyes anymore.

“We need to get out of here,” she said, instead of whatever else she had been thinking about. The change of subject gave Steve whiplash.

Robin perked up from her spot under Steve’s arm.

“Everything from our world is still here, right, just, without the people? So, theoretically, we could go to the police station and get guns and grenades and whatever we need to blow up those bat things guarding the gate.”

Eddie made a noise of confusion and when Steve looked over at him he mouthed “grenades?” at Steve. Steve shrugged. He was pretty sure Hawkins PD didn’t have grenades, but there was a non-zero chance that Hopper had stored a flamethrower there and that would almost be better.

“We don’t need to go all the way downtown for guns,” Nancy said, and Steve was pretty sure he knew where this was going. “I have guns. In my bedroom.”

“You, Nancy Wheeler, have guns, plural, in your bedroom?” Eddie sounded incredulous, which Steve thought was funny. He’d followed Nancy into the depths of the lake and out the other side to hell, but guns was a bridge too far, apparently.

It was as good a plan as any, which was why that was where they decided they were going to go. Nancy leading, as always, shoulders back and spine straight. Billy was just a step behind her, probably to be annoying. Eddie was bringing up the rear, and Steve’s plan had been to hang back and check on him, until Robin hooked her hand around his upper arm and dragged him closer to her, until their elbows were knocking.

“You never told me,” and she paused, chewing on her bottom lip while she was searching for the words. “You never told me you were in love with him.”

Steve choked on air and almost tripped over a vine, which would have fucked the whole situation beyond recovery.

“Because I’m not?”

“Steve, you’re wearing his necklace, and his ring.” Steve knew that. He knew what it looked like. If this was anyone but Robin he would have been completely unable to explain it.

“I’m not in love with him,” he insisted and when she looked like she was gearing up to fight him, he held his hand out to stall her. “I’m not, I promise. We were friends that summer, before things got bad, and he was the first person I told about the phone calls who believed me. Without question. But we started too - too rough for it to be love, really.” He remembered the hand brushing the hair out of his eyes, the stiff line of Billy next to him in that red storm, something like fear keeping him still. He remembered, abruptly, the first night by the quarry, the black eye that Billy had been wearing, the glow of the moon, and Steve’s own stupid, stupid words.

“She’s got a lot of love for you, man.”

Ahead of them, Nancy’s curls and the broad line of Billy’s back both shone in the dim murk of the Upside Down.

Steve knew that he wasn’t in love with Billy. And he wasn’t enough of an ass to tell Robin that he thought Billy might have been in love with him. It didn’t matter anymore. That was the nature of death. It was permanent, in the way that nothing else was. And for all that Steve could reach out right now and touch Billy, it didn’t make Billy less dead.

It just prolonged that moment until he was gone forever.

“It’s just something that could have happened, maybe, if we had more time.” His throat felt dry. It was like the breakup with Nancy all over again, that horrible swooping in his stomach. “But we don’t have that time, not really.” He could see her raising her eyebrows at him, ready to argue that they did have that time, that Billy was here, right now, but Steve didn’t want to explain how he knew that they didn’t, not really.

“It’s okay, Robin,” he said, smiling at her, and if her own answering smile was more hesitant than normal, that was because she was worried that he was being stupid, which was fine. He was allowed to be stupid with his own heart.

“Eddie, hey,” Steve ducked away from Robin and waited for Eddie to catch up with him. “How are you holding up?”

“You mean how am I dealing with being in an alternate dimension, following Nancy “Priss” Wheeler and the ghost of Billy Hargrove through the creepiest forest I could ever have dreamed up, while a shirtless Steve Harrington tries to make small talk? I think I’m doing alright.” Eddie’s voice was pitched a little higher than Steve was used to hearing from him, but he was definitely justified in being freaked out. This was already shaping up to be the weirdest of their Upside Down adventures, even including the one with the Russians and the meat monster.

“Yeah, that’s what I mean,” Steve said easily. “Glad to hear that.”

“So, uh, you and Billy,” Eddie said, after a minute of walking in silence. Steve rolled his eyes.

“We were friends, before Starcourt.”

“Starcourt, was that the thing that could come through the walls, the dog things with too many teeth or the meat spider?” Steve wasn’t surprised Eddie couldn’t keep it all straight, he’d been given a crash course by Dustin and Lucas that had involved more “and then, but wait,” than Steve thought was necessary.

“Meat spider,” and then, asshole habits die hard, he added, “also the Russians that built their base under the mall.”

“Now I know you’re shitting me,” Eddie said, laughing. Steve grinned, but shook his head.

“No, I’m dead serious. The Russians apparently built all of Starcourt to hide their secret base under Hawkins, and Robin and I figured it out after Dustin intercepted a secret message. It was all fun spy shit until we got caught.”

“Fun spy shit, until you got caught. By Russians. In the secret Russian base under Hawkins.”

“Yup,” Steve popped the “p” just to continue to be obnoxious, because there was something about Eddie that seemed to respond well to that and because it was fun.

“Okay, cool, maybe we’ll circle back to that or something. I was asking about you and Billy.”

“And I told you. We were friends. He died, saved my life and El’s life in the process.” Eddie stopped walking and turned to look at Steve, something in his eyes that Steve couldn’t quite figure out.

“If you say so,” he said, eventually. Steve sort of wanted to pull his hair out. He didn’t care that they thought he was in love with Billy, not really, it was just annoying that no one was listening to him about it. “Also,” and he shrugged his vest off, the one that he had been wearing over his jacket, and held it out to Steve.

“For your, uh, modesty,” he said, waving a hand over his own chest, like that was supposed to mean something to Steve.

“Uh, thanks?” Steve took it, because there was something about being both barefoot and shirtless and bleeding that was making him feel vulnerable. Unnecessarily snackable, or something.

Wait.

Barefoot, shirtless, and bleeding.

“Oh fuck.”

“What, what?” Eddie spun around, trying to catch sight of whatever Steve may have seen. But it wasn’t that he had seen something. It was what he hadn’t seen.

“Nancy!” Steve called, trying not to sound too frantic. “Nancy!”

“What?” To her credit, she immediately turned to look at him. Steve pressed a hand - ah fuck that hurt - against his side, then held his bloody palm up for her to see.

“Shouldn’t this be more of a problem?” He asked.

“I’m confused, are we freaking out because you’re bleeding and we’re not making a big enough deal about it?” Eddie sounded frantic, like he hadn’t actually realized how much Steve was bleeding until now. And yeah, Billy’s shirt was doing an alright job holding his insides on the inside, but it wasn’t an actual bandage. There was no way of knowing if ghost clothes were sterile.

“When we fought the demogorgon, uh, the thing that came through the walls,” Steve added, mostly for Eddie’s sake, “Jonathan and Nancy both cut their hands to draw it to them, because it was like a shark. Could smell blood from miles away.” Nancy paled, catching on to Steve’s meaning almost immediately.

“So why haven’t we been attacked by anything?” Robin asked, looking at Steve’s bloody palm, still outstretched, then around them at the shadows of the dead forest, as if expecting to see something horrible come out from the trees at any second.

“Exactly. Will was vomiting up slugs that became demodogs that supposedly would become demogorgons. There can’t have been just one of those things, it doesn’t make sense. And even if there was only the one, shouldn’t the bats work the same way? Why isn’t anything hunting us?” Steve demanded.

Nancy swallowed, like she had an answer and didn’t want to say it, but Billy beat her to it.

“You are being hunted,” he said. His eyebrows twitched a little when he looked at Steve. “It’s cat and mouse.”

Steve’s stomach plummeted into his feet.

“He calls me little rat,” he said, something like fear and anger working its way through his limbs. It felt like Vance’s lightning, but smaller, darting and painful. “When Henry finds me in those visions, he calls me little rat.”

“Okay, I’ll say it,” Eddie said, after a moment. “Why don’t you two just smoke whatever’s out there?” And he waved between Steve and Billy like that made whatever he was talking about make sense. What the fuck was he talking about?

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Billy asked. Eddie blinked, like Billy’s confusion was confusing to him.

“The bats? That you lit on fire?”

“Have you been smoking your own product, Munson? There was no fire!”

Except, that wasn’t entirely right, because Steve remembered the heat that had blown out of him, like a house fire that had run out of space to consume inside and needed to get out. And the bats had been smoking, at the end, though he had attributed that to - what? Them dissolving? He couldn’t remember if he had paid it any mind. It hadn’t seemed important at the time.

“I would really like to be informed if you have more superpowers, Steve,” Robin said, wrapping a hand around his bicep. She may have been trying to keep him upright? He felt like he was wobbling, a little bit. The static twitches were getting stronger, and he could feel his bicep jump under her grip.

“I think-” he started, before the electricity slammed down his spine like he was a lightning rod. Steve heard Robin shriek, and Nancy yell something, but the lightning had a sound, too. A roar, a rumble like thunder, and a sizzling that may have been his blood boiling in his veins.

“You know, Stevie, I wouldn’t have to keep saving your ass if mullet over there didn’t keep fucking everything up,” Vance drawled, wrapping his hand almost exactly where Robin’s had been seconds before and hauling Steve upright. He wasn’t covered in blood, like he had been in Billy’s memories, but instead in the outfit that he had been wearing in his missing poster. Blue jeans, white shirt, denim vest covered in patches and pins. Vance was an echo of Billy wearing a mimic of Eddie’s clothes. And he was smaller than Steve, the difference more pronounced now than it had been last July. It made Steve’s heart hurt, a little bit, another reminder at how death stole futures.

Billy’s face contorted with rage at Vance’s words and it was like standing in front of a blast furnace, the wave of heat was sudden and immense.

“Ah, ah,” Vance snarled, his grip tightening to the point of bruising. “Do you want to waste more time posturing or do you want to get Stevie and his friends out of here alive?”

“Just so I’m clear-” Eddie spoke up, again, and for all his claims of being a coward he seemed to be the only one who was willing to speak up “who the fuck are you?”

“We’ve met before, boathouse blunder,” and Vance winked at Eddie, like that was a normal reaction to have.

“Steve’s guardian devil,” Robin said, and Vance pointed at her and nodded.

“Now, anymore stupid questions or can we move on?” He took a step forward, dragging Steve along with him. “After all, can’t let the puppet master know that you’ve caught on to his little trick, can you?”

Chapter Text

“I’ll say it, if no one else will,” Nancy said, arms crossed across her chest the way she did when she wouldn’t take no for an answer. “We don’t know you from a hole in the wall, why should we listen to a thing that you have to say?”

“I’m hurt, Nancy,” Vance bared his teeth in what might have been a smile had it been anyone else. “I’m here out of the goodness of my own heart, after I warned Steve that poking around the gate was dangerous.” His tone was all fake sugar, nasty and saccharine.

Steve took that opportunity to pry himself out of Vance’s grip and take a few steps back, towards Robin and Eddie.

Eddie was glancing frantically between Billy and Vance, looking like he was thinking very hard about something. Billy’s face was stone, not even the purposefully bland face he put up when he was angry, he was completely expressionless, set in hard lines, and avoiding Steve’s eye.

Robin hooked herself under Steve’s arm, which he appreciated because his entire body felt like a bruise right now and if he was going to negotiate a truce between Vance, Billy, and Nancy he needed to be more on his game than he felt right now.

“A golden retriever could have told Steve that checking for the gate was dangerous,” Nancy bit out. “He’s a big boy, he can handle himself.”

“Except you can’t, can you, Stevie?” Vance swiveled, “You haven’t handled anything by yourself since you were twelve years old.”

Steve’s mouth filled with the taste of tar, of the rot that had been in Henry’s blood, and he didn’t want to give Vance the satisfaction of knowing how close to the mark he had hit.

“If you’re not going to be useful, I think you should just fuck off,” Billy snarled, cracking his knuckles in a smooth roll of the heel of one hand across his knuckles. Vance grinned, and bounced on the balls of his feet a few times, like a boxer getting ready for a fight.

“Come on, then, I’ve always wondered how this would turn out without Stevie stepping in to stop the fun.”

“It’s gonna end up with you spitting those teeth out the back of your fucking skull,” Billy snapped, sounding like he was going to do his best to make good on that threat.

“Billy,” Steve snapped, when Billy rolled his neck like he was seriously considering fighting a sixteen year old. “Maybe, instead of punching Vance in the face, we could, I don’t know, focus on getting the fuck out of here?”

“Yeah, Billy,” Vance taunted, “be helpful. For once.”

“You shut the fuck up,” Steve turned to him, finger pointed.

“I am sick and tired of the both of you acting like I’m an idiot.” It was like a leak had sprung inside of Steve somewhere and all of the resentment that he hadn’t known he was feeling was flowing out of him. “Of course I’m not going to just do what you want me to because neither of you have explained what the fuck was going on. Of course I’m going to make things fucking difficult for your fucking plans when they involve me standing by and maybe letting Max die. And of course I’m going to be the one to go investigate the underwater gate because I’m the one with the fucking swim experience!” He was shouting, at the end, his grip on his temper gone.

Robin huffed out a laugh, buried it in Steve’s shoulder. The rest of them just stared at him like he had grown a second head.

“So we’re going to start with the easy questions. Vance, why the ever loving fuck do you think that we would just keep going along with Henry’s plan? How do you even know what Henry’s plan is?”

“You’d go along with it because at this point, he wants you to get out, and anything that gets out of here is a good thing,” Vance said, crossing his arms in an uncanny mimic of Nancy. “And I know what his plan is because,” and here, some of the boiling rage that Vance always carried with him seemed to melt away a little bit, leaving a scared teenager behind. God, he was only a little older than Dustin, really. It made Steve’s stomach twist.

“I can’t tell you,” he settled on, after grappling for his words for a long moment.

“Bullshit you can’t,” Billy snapped, taking a step towards Vance like he could shake the secrets out of him.

Steve wanted to shake the both of them, and probably would have, except that there was a sound from the woods, a low sort of rumble, a growl that made all of the hairs on Steve’s arms stand up, because he recognized that sound.

“Well, way to go, idiots,” Vance said, taking several steps away from everyone else. “Guess Henry got tired of playing cat and mouse.”

“I’m going to strangle you,” Billy said. Vance shrugged.

“I’m already dead, it won’t do much. But enjoy!”

It wasn’t like he faded out of existence, he was there, and then he wasn’t, the only evidence that he had been there at all was the tingling pins and needles feeling in Steve’s hands and feet.

Robin, under Steve’s arm, dug her fingers into his ribs and when he tried to squirm away, jerked her head towards Billy, who was standing there, shirtless, fists held in front of him like he was going to fistfight a demogorgon.

That brave, stupid man.

“Nancy,” Steve hissed, when another growl came, closer this time. “I can’t run for it, you have to take Robin and Eddie and get the fuck out of here.”

Robin and Eddie both protested at that, Robin’s grip tightening to the point where Steve knew that her nails would have his blood under them.

“I’m not leaving you here, you asshole,” she spat at him.

“Don’t worry, Buckley, you can’t get rid of me that easy,” Steve was trying for teasing, when he tugged on her hair, but her face crumpled. “I mean it, Robin, you have to go.” Please don’t make me watch you die, he didn’t say.

Nancy took a step towards them, like she was going to separate the two of them by force. In another lifetime, Steve may have fallen in love with her again in that moment.

“Fuck you, Harrington,” Eddie said, hand coming down on his shoulder with enough force to startle him. “Like hell we’re going to leave you here to play bait.”

“Please, Eddie,” Steve whispered, “there’s no shame in running.”

Scarlet bloomed across Eddie’s cheeks, like Steve had said something that made him embarrassed.

“Fuck you, Harrington,” Eddie repeated, but his voice was shaking. Steve turned to Nancy, even as more growls echoed across the field.

“Nancy, please,” he begged, would have gone to his knees if Robin wasn’t clinging to him. He would only slow them down, he knew that, he knew that if they tried to help him they would all get torn apart. He also knew every second they spent here was another second that they lost.

“How dare you ask this of me,” she hissed. Steve’s heart sank. He had been sure that she would side with him that this was the way to do it.

“I’ve got him, Wheeler,” Billy said, stepping around her to take Steve’s weight from Robin. His hand against Steve’s back was like a bonfire, heat sinking into that place behind his ribs. Robin didn’t want to let go of him, Steve could feel her grip tighten around his ribs.

“If you try and make me go,” Robin said, her mouth set in a thin line, “I will never, ever forgive you.”

“I’d rather that than watch you die because you stayed for me,” Steve replied, feeling like he was ripping his own heart out.

The growls were getting closer, close enough that Steve could hear the sound of those claws he sometimes still dreamed about ripping up the forest floor. They were out of time and Steve wanted to scream.

The first one got Nancy before she had a chance to scream, just a white blur from the side, knocking her to the ground and ripping into her with those claws, any sound she would have made lost in the foaming blood pumping from her chest. Steve was pretty sure that he wasn’t the one screaming, he could feel the fire burning inside of him, eating up any of the air that he would have had.

It was Robin, who was screaming.

The next dozen seconds were pure terror, Steve crushed Robin to his chest and reached a hand out to find Eddie. He caught the other man by the wrist and felt Eddie grip back, for a second, rings cool on the skin of Steve’s forearm, only for him to be ripped away with a scream that Steve knew would haunt his nightmares. The wet, crunching sound that followed after was something else he would never be able to unhear.

“Eddie!” Steve shouted, like he could somehow will him to get up and run, no matter that he knew it was too late.

Then he and Robin both went to the ground, born to the dirt by a heavy, fetid presence that set Steve’s sides screaming.

“Steve,” Robin gasped in his ear, her hands clutching at his waist before she was ripped from him, slamming into a nearby tree with a crack that finally tore that scream from Steve’s throat. When she fell, she was still, her eyes staring vacantly forward at nothing and no matter how hard he tried, Steve could not pull himself out from under the mass of the demogorgon that was on top of him, could not claw his way to Robin’s side.

He was sobbing, he could tell, and while he had known for years that he would have been able to face his own death dry eyed, this was too much for him to bear.

And then, the demogorgons were gone, leaving him alone with the savaged remains of Nancy and Eddie, and Robin’s broken body.

He scrambled towards her, hands on her cheeks, seeking desperately for a pulse that he knew that he wouldn’t find.

“Robs, Robbie, Robin,” he didn’t want to shake her, because that would probably hurt her, but he needed her to tell him that she was okay. “Robs, please,” he begged, pulling her into a hug as gently as he could. She was already cold in his hands.

“Robin,” it was hard to breathe around the sobs. “Robin, you said you’d come back, you promised me that you’d come back.”

He knew, in that distant sort of way that was across the chasm of grief that was opening up inside of him, that it took time for ghosts to figure out their afterlife, that it had taken months for Billy to show up, and that he still hadn’t seen Hopper. But that was a distant thought, one that wasn’t really landing for Steve right now.

All he could think about was his soulmate, his other half, dying without a word in the Upside Down.

There were footsteps.

Not the demogorgons, it wasn’t the hiss-drag of their claws in the dirt. It wasn’t Billy, or Vance, too heavy.

“I once promised you that I wouldn’t do anything to you that you didn’t like.”

Steve knew, he knew that he had seen this man’s face. But he couldn’t recall what he looked like. All he could see when he pictured him, or when he had a nightmare about that basement, was that grinning white devil mask. He couldn't bring himself to look up from Robin, just buried his face in her shoulder. She still smelled like that apple shampoo she used.

“This time, I think that I won’t do anything to you that you don’t deserve.”

It was ice, the feeling in the pit of his stomach. Nancy and Eddie lay torn apart at his feet, Billy and Vance were both gone, vanished to wherever they went when they weren’t here, Robin beyond his reach. It had been one thing to face this particular demon in what he knew was a nightmare, and another to face him surrounded by the corpses of his friends.

“I killed you once.” Around the grief, Steve found room for rage. Not Vance’s lighting, or Billy’s fire, or even the rising tide of Masha’s hatred. Steve’s rage was a pit, where everything that wasn’t his anger fell away until he was hollow with it.

“You did. And I am still here, somehow. Maybe you are haunted by the horrors that you have inflicted?”

Steve set Robin down as gently as he could, smoothed her hair out of her face, and turned to face his childhood nightmare.

The bottom half of the mask, that grinning demon face, was in place. The top half was missing, showing Steve those flat eyes. Steve imagined gouging them out with his thumbs.

“You’re one to talk of horrors,” he snapped. “I’m surprised you were able to crawl out of whatever pit in hell you went to, you sick fuck.”

Steve knew, objectively, that he would not win this fight. He knew that if he was at full strength, he might have been able to take him. If he had the bat, he might have been able to take him. But he was injured, and unarmed, and this man still had the weight advantage, if not the height.

“Oh, Stevie,” the Grabber crooned and to hear that name come from that mouth made the hairs on the back of Steve’s neck stand up. “I didn’t go to hell. I’ve been with you, the entire time.”

He spread his arms out, like he was a preacher welcoming his congregation to worship.

“We’ve all been here the whole time. We’ll never leave you.” It sounded like a threat.

The first form to emerge from the shadows was Barb, and Steve’s heart kicked in his chest at the sight of her. It was like that night at his pool all over again, but her eyes weren’t flat and uninterested like they had been that night at the pool. Now there was hatred in them.

Steve didn’t blame her. He’d gotten her killed, he’d gotten Nancy killed, Barb had every right to hate him.

Behind Barb was his mother, still in that flimsy robe she had died in, hair and makeup still immaculate as always, a strange patchwork vision cobbled together from his strongest memories of her. He had her eyes, he knew that. But the way that she was staring at him, like he was dirt beneath her feet, he wasn’t sure his eyes had ever looked like that, even during the height of King Steve.

It was both easier and harder to look at her. Steve didn’t blame Barb for hating him, that made sense. But this was his mother, she was supposed to love him, supposed to take care of him, not leave him and blame him and throw all of her mistakes on his shoulders. However, unlike Barb, Steve didn’t feel any guilt over hating her.

“You’ve made so many mistakes, Stevie,” The Grabber said.

There were more figures behind them, and Steve caught a single glance of the curls and knew who would be showing up next.

It wasn’t a comfort, to see their spirits standing there when their bodies were behind him.

“I’m sorry,” Steve whispered, the words catching in his throat. “I’m so fucking sorry.”

He turned and bolted.

He couldn’t listen to Robin and Nancy and Eddie tell him what a monster he was. He knew that already, he knew that it was his fault that they were dead. Hearing them say it might have killed him.

So he ran. Like he had told Eddie, there was no shame in running.

He felt sick, thinking of leaving his friends there, of trying to save himself when he had been able to do nothing to save them. But the thought of facing their ghosts, the parts of them that were so disappointed in him, that hated him so much that they had to stay and tell him that? That made him retch, burning the back of his throat with the guilt of it.

He didn’t hear anyone behind him, but that didn’t mean anything. It just meant that if they were coming for him, he didn’t know.

“Steve? Steve!”

He needed to get a weapon, he needed to get to the gate, he needed to get out of here so that he could get more weapons and help and come back for his friends. He wasn’t going to leave them here, he wasn’t going to let Robin lie in the dirt forever.

Steve was sobbing. Gasping, wet sobs that made it almost impossible to keep running, but he knew that he had to keep going or he was never going to get out of here.

That chasm inside him, of grief and rage, whispered that maybe that wasn’t a terrible thing. He had failed Nancy, and Eddie, and Robin. He wasn’t going to be able to save Max, or Dustin. Maybe it was better if he just died down here and then he would stop ruining everything for everyone.

He wasn’t running anymore, he realized, just stumbling from tree to tree, his feet barely leaving the ground. He wasn’t breathing right anymore either, wet gasps for air getting stuck in his throat.

“He’s not breathing! Steve, Steve come on, don’t do this to me.”

“Get the fuck out of my way, Buckley!”

Fire burned in his chest for a second, a spike of heat and pain that felt like it was being driven directly into his ribs. But it cleared his lungs and let him breathe around his guilt and grief.

“We have to keep moving.”

“Oh, do you want to carry him, Wheeler? Be my guest!”

There was a building, looming out of the forest in front of him. Steve didn’t recognize it, couldn’t place it, but before he could dwell on that for too long, there was that hiss-scrape of demogorgon claws on the dirt of the ground and he was running again.

It didn’t matter that he didn’t know what the building was, there was probably at least a door he could barricade and something heavy he could use as a weapon. He could drown himself in his own guilt once he got Robin and Nancy and Eddie home. He owed them that much.

The double doors slammed open under his palms, and Steve immediately wished that he had stayed outside, because this place was a horror show.

It looked like a hospital, all sterile lines and tile, save for the bodies and blood scattered everywhere. Was this the lab? Had he run all the way to Hawkins lab without realizing it? The lights were on, except they were flickering weakly and that just sent Steve’s adrenaline spiking. He didn’t know if the demogorgons could slide from the ceiling of this place like they had the Byers’ but he wasn’t going to chance it.

There was a broken gurney near the door, one of the metal railings dangling loosely, knocked off by something a long time ago. It was the work of a moment to wrench it off and shove it through the handles on the door that he had just come through. It wasn’t a perfect solution, but it would stall anything that tried to come in after him, or at the very least make enough noise that he would know that he was being followed.

Door secured, Steve picked his way carefully down the hallway. There were bodies everywhere, the copper tang of blood so thick in the air that Steve could almost taste it on his tongue.

Had they reopened the lab and something had gone wrong? Was that why there were fresh bodies here? Was that why Henry had been able to start killing people?

The flickering lights got worse the deeper into the hospital Steve went and none of the bodies had a weapon on them, whatever had killed them had done so before they could arm themselves.

It was stupid, coming to the Upside Down without a weapon.

Steve was self aware enough to include himself in that thought.

The lights flickered once again, plunging the hallway into darkness, save for one room on the far end that was still lit. It was difficult going, picking his way through the dark and the bodies to that room, but at least he wasn’t being further slowed by any more of those vines.

The room at the end of the hall was painted white, with a rainbow running the length of it. There were no bodies here, but blood enough that the smell turned Steve’s stomach and he had to step lightly to avoid stepping into a tacky red puddle.

“I finally caught you, little rat,” Henry rumbled from behind him and Steve turned so quickly he ended up slipping in the blood puddle, feet going out from under him and his back hitting the ground hard enough to force the air from his lungs.

Oh. That was why there were so many dead people here. Henry had killed all of them.

Henry loomed over him, his skin a revolting fish-belly pale where it wasn’t that choking vine red. His eyes were black pits.

Though it set Steve’s ragged wounds screaming, he shoved himself backwards, away from Henry’s slow advance and towards the back wall. He was trapped, Henry between him and the door and there was nothing to defend himself with except a child sized chair that made his heart seize if he thought about it for even a second.

Steve reached backwards like he was going to continue his crab crawl retreat and wrapped his hand around the leg of the chair, keeping as much of his torso between it and Henry, because he was only going to get one chance and he couldn’t fuck it up.

“I have so much to show you,” Henry said, each word laced with malicious glee. Steve waited as he closed the distance between them, slow lumbering step by slow lumbering step. He didn’t need to hurry, Steve was cornered.

Steve was not, however, helpless, and he swung that tiny chair like it was his nail bat and Henry was the demogorgon that had been about to eat Jonathan’s face.

He clipped him in the same knee he had gotten last time, sending the monstrosity stumbling to the side, which gave Steve just enough room to dart around him and into the hallway, feet scrambling for purchase on the blood soaked floor. For a second, they didn’t catch and he was sure that he was going to die here, but then he found traction and took off like a shot, leaving a trail of bloody footprints behind him.

The lights were on again in the hallway, but it was like years had passed in the time that Steve had been in the room, the bodies decayed and the walls dripping with rot and mold.

Steve didn’t get much of a chance to contemplate that - the echoing thuds of Henry’s footsteps came from behind him and he wasn’t really interested in sticking around to figure out what had gone weird with time here.

Except that every door he tried was boarded up, thick pieces of wood crossed over each other so tight that Steve would have needed a chainsaw to get through them. He could have sworn that they had all been open before, and he knew the front door at least should have been secured with just the gurney bar, but he couldn’t find that door. Everywhere he turned was more wooden barricades, more blocked exits and more rotted corpses.

He was trapped in this hallway, surrounded by death and the sharp copper smell of blood as Henry drew closer.

“What are you doing, little rat?” Henry rumbled and he sounded almost amused, which just made Steve’s heart kick up in panic. He yanked at the planks across the closest door, trying desperately to shove his fingers through enough of a gap to get some leverage, but all he succeeded in doing was ripping one of his fingernails out. The pain was sudden and bright and Steve bit back a shout and blood poured down his hand.

“It’s not time for you to leave.” Henry was so close now, close enough for Steve to see the half circle of black goo on his thumb, where Steve had bitten him before.

“Now you’ve seen where I’ve been. I would like very much to show you where I am going.” The lights went out, plunging the hallway into darkness and sending Steve into a panic, because he couldn’t see where Henry was and he needed to get away.

Except he couldn’t move, all of a sudden, and as the lights came back up he knew why.

He was no longer in that hallway, instead he was in what had to be the creepiest exam room ever, an observation desk against one wall. There was a chair in the middle of the room, which was what Steve was sitting in. Or, tied to, more aptly, as more of those creepy vines wound up his legs and around his arms, fixing him solidly to the chair, no matter how much he strained.

“Let me go,” Steve started, before another vine wrapped around his throat and tightened, cutting off both his words and his oxygen.

“I don’t desire to be bitten again, little rat,” Henry spoke from behind him. He was right behind him and Steve hadn’t been able to tell.

The pounding of his blood in his ears was competing with the pounding of his heart in his chest.

“I want you to tell Eleven everything you see,” he spoke directly into Steve’s ear. Steve wanted to tell him no, demand to know what Henry wanted with El, but the vine at his throat tightened and black spots began to grow at the edge of his vision. Henry’s clawed hand descended into view and Steve would have bitten him again, he really would have, except that vine yanked backwards.

“Tell her-” and Steve’s vision filled with the image of Henry’s plan - the destruction he had in mind for Hawkins, the death of everyone that Steve cared about.

Henry didn’t need to show him. Steve had already seen it.

“Tell her.” Henry insisted. If Steve had oxygen left, he would have told him where to shove his demands, but he didn’t. There was nothing left in his lungs, and Steve lost the battle to remain conscious.

“Steve!”

Chapter Text

Robin didn’t consider herself a violent person. She hadn’t so much as been in a fist fight before she met Steve and spat at a Russian and threw fireworks at a monster and rode shotgun when Steve drove straight into Billy’s car while a ghost screamed through the radio.

She didn’t consider herself to be a frightened person, either, despite the sort of fear that lived with her all the time. Fear born from how different she was, twice over. Fear that had lessened since that bathroom at Starcourt, since Steve had looked at her and known and had cried on her shoulder and held her hand. That fear was something that she felt, it wasn’t what she was.

But right now, she was both violent and frightened. She wanted to smack the shit out of Steve, dig her fingers into the wounds on his sides and squeeze until he saw some fucking sense. And she wanted to curl up into a little ball and scream and cry because she knew, with a bone deep certainty, that she was going to die down here.

She could hear whatever was hunting them getting closer, could hear the rustle as things moved in the dark. And for all his merits, Steve was not a very good storyteller, so she was left to cobble together an image of what was hunting them from his offhand remarks recounting the horror show that had been his life.

“We need to go,” Nancy said, her mouth set in a thin line. For the first time, Robin thought she might have been on exactly the same page as Nancy. For as angry as she was at Steve, for suggesting that they leave him here, the fact that he was bleeding was a real problem and they still needed to find a way to get out of here.

And then Steve had gone boneless the second Billy got an arm around him, sagging like a puppet whose strings had been cut. Robin was fiercely glad that the other boy was there, because there was no way she would have been able to take Steve’s weight on her own. She didn't think they could have managed it, between her and Eddie and Nancy, but Billy shouldered Steve into a fireman’s carry without so much as a hitch in his breath.

Robin only felt a little guilty for being glad that Steve had passed out now, because it meant that he couldn’t argue anymore about them leaving him.

She was going to smack him so hard when he was conscious.

“Lead the way, Wheeler,” Billy had said, and had taken off at a run right behind Nancy, easy and self-assured like he was going on a jog through the neighborhood, not running for his fucking life. Or, well, Steve’s life. Robin’s life.

Eddie came up beside her and gently knocked an elbow into her side.

“If I had known this was where my life was going I would have taken gym a little more seriously,” he said. And his tone was joking, but there was fear written in his eyes so clearly that Robin, who knew she missed a lot of social cues, could see it.

“Me too,” she said, before following Billy and Nancy deeper into hell.

Running the mile in gym was annoying, and tedious, and sort of embarrassing, because it had never been something she excelled at, and pair that with the stress of changing in the locker room, it had never been something that Robin had put a lot of focus on. The run through the Upside Down was the same, in a lot of ways, except that instead of her general concern about her classmates making fun of her, she was worried that she was going to be eaten alive by whatever was hunting them.

For the first time in her life, it was a blessing that Hawkins was so small, that they could clear the distance to Nancy’s and Robin’s legs only felt a little like jello. Eddie was doing a little better, but he still bent double when they finally stopped, hands on his knees. Ha. That’s what he got for smoking.

Billy, with Steve still in that fireman’s carry over his shoulders like he was a fur shrug or something, wasn’t even winded.

Bastard.

Nancy bounded upstairs as soon as the door was open, dodging the vines that draped themselves lazily across the staircase with ease. In another lifetime, Robin would have been right behind her, but whatever candle she was carrying for Nancy Wheeler could wait until she knew that Steve would be okay.

Luckily, there was a recliner in the corner of the living room that was vine free and Billy dropped Steve into it like he was a sack of potatoes.

“Hey!” Robin snapped, finally finding her voice again, no longer wheezing from the continuous running for their lives. “Be gentle with him!”

Billy sneered at her, all wrinkled nose and rolled eyes and it was a look that Robin had seen so often from Max that she had to remind herself they weren’t blood related.

“He’s had worse, Buckley. A little jostling isn’t going to break him.”

The worst part was Steve would have agreed with him, if he had been conscious.

And Steve wasn’t unconscious, not really. His eyes were rolled back in his head, eyelids fluttering like he’s dreaming and the sight made Eddie make a choked off, frightened noise.

“Robin?” He asked, wrapping a hand around her arm and gripping just a hair too tight. “Robin, what’s his favorite song?”

And she felt like the ground dropped out from under them, because this whole time Henry had been killing other people and Steve had been watching, but it hadn’t been happening to him. And now Eddie was gripping at her arm and practically shaking and she remembered that he had seen what had happened to Chrissy.

She wanted to vomit.

“Steve? Steve!” She shook his shoulders and his head bobbed uselessly with the movement.

She didn’t know his favorite song, because he always let her pick the music. He said he didn’t care, that whatever she put on was fine, as long as it wasn’t “screamy” and she didn’t know what her best friend’s favorite song was and he was going to die because of that.

Eddie said Chrissy had started floating, but he wasn’t floating, he was just limp, not reacting to her, no matter how hard she patted at his cheeks or shook his shoulders. His eye movement slowed, then stopped, and for a second Robin dared to hope that whatever was happening to him was over. Except -

“He’s not breathing! Steve, Steve come on, don’t do this to me.”

“Get the fuck out of my way, Buckley!” In a different time, she might have been upset at how violently Billy shoved her out of the way, but she couldn’t find space inside her for that right now, not when Steve wasn’t breathing. Eddie wrapped an arm around her shoulder and pulled her to him in a hug that she wasn’t sure was more for her or for him.

Billy pulled Steve out of the chair and laid him flat on the floor of the nightmare version of the Wheeler’s living room.

“Come on, you obnoxious ass, don’t do this to me” Billy muttered, and Robin was sure that she wasn’t meant to hear that.

It would be okay.

Billy had been a lifeguard.

Billy knew CPR.

Billy had done this for Steve before.

There was a crack, a revolting, sharp sound when Billy pushed down and that was one of Steve’s ribs. Robin almost vomited. Eddie’s arm tightened around her shoulder.

Billy had done this for Steve before. Had cracked one of his ribs giving him CPR when he wasn’t breathing.

Robin’s brain was doing that thing it did when she was nervous, which was starting counting heartbeats like they were measures of music.

One two three four.

Two two three four.

Three two three four.

It wasn’t a heaving gasp like it was in the movies, just the rise and fall of Steve’s chest without the assistance of Billy’s hands and Robin sobbed so hard it was like she couldn’t breathe.

It was like time had stopped, and then everything started moving again very quickly. Nancy’s guns weren’t in the closet, but then Eddie heard Dustin and Nancy got really excited - something about the lights?

There was a part of Robin that was really, really interested in all of this, that was sort of dying to know what was going on with the lights and the Upside Down in general. That part was very much being overridden by the sheer terror that was living in her stomach at the fact that Steve hadn’t woken up yet.

They sacrificed the bottom of Nancy’s shirt to bind Steve’s ribs, because Billy had definitely cracked one of them. They also rewrapped his bat bites, because as macho as him running around with Billy’s shirt cinched around his waist had been, it was not doing an excellent job of keeping his insides on the inside. When all that was done they - and by they she meant Billy, because he was freaky strong and a little overprotective - put Steve back in the recliner. Billy had then threaded Steve’s arms back through Eddie’s vest, but there was something in his eyes that made it clear he wasn’t pleased about it.

In Robin’s opinion, if Billy wanted Steve to wear his clothes, maybe Billy should have worn a little more himself. Hard to give your shirt to your crush when you’re never wearing one, apparently.

Robin might have been just a tinge hysterical.

“We have to keep moving.” And Nancy was right, she was remembering the bigger picture, they were still very much in danger here, but Steve hadn’t been breathing and what if moving him again made him stop? But she couldn’t pull the words out of her chest to say them.

“Oh, do you want to carry him, Wheeler? Be my guest!” Billy snarled. For all his vicious tone, his grip on Steve was delicate. Like he was also worried that Steve was going to break. His hand was soft on Steve’s cheek, the kind of touch that Steve may have leaned into, if he was awake.

It was both the most and the least he’d acted like the Billy that Robin remembered since they had arrived in the Upside Down.

He was softer, around Steve, than he had been when he was alive.

Billy Hargrove had been an asshole, and Robin had never seen anything in him when he was alive that would have implied there was something else there. But his hand was gentle on Steve’s face now, and Steve wouldn’t have found space in his heart for Billy if Billy was only an asshole.

Eddie had talked Nancy into waiting until Steve was at least conscious, because they had a long way to go to get to Forest Hills and even if Billy had been able to carry Steve the whole way, Robin and Eddie wouldn’t have been able to run it.

Nancy was looking for an extra bike, but there wasn’t much that they could do before Steve woke up. It was just the world’s worst waiting game. Robin was parked on the arm of the recliner, one hand holding Steve’s, the other alternating between checking his pulse and smoothing his hair off of his forehead.

“He’s not gonna fuck you,” Billy said and the words were tossed out so casually that Robin was sure that she must have misheard them. He wasn’t talking to her, was he? If he’d been haunting Steve for any length of time at all he would have known that wasn’t a concern.

“I am keenly aware of that fact, Hargrove,” Eddie said back. This was the first time that Eddie actually sounded like the kind of guy who would have pushed Steve against the wall with a bottle to his neck. Since this whole thing had started he’d been weird and shouty and freaked out, but now he sounded angry. Really angry.

“Then what the fuck are you doing panting over him like a bitch in heat? ‘For your modesty?’ Everyone with a brain saw that for the terrible come on it was.”

Oh.

This definitely felt like a conversation that neither of them would have wanted Robin to be hearing. But it wasn’t her fault that they forgot she was here. Because she hadn’t moved.
There was a beat of horrible silence.

“It’s not like he’s going to fuck you either,” Eddie snapped, and oh, this was why people thought that he could have killed Chrissy. There was something in his tone that just promised violence. Robin had never heard it before, even in the boat house, when he had been scared out of his mind and half convinced this entire thing was somehow Steve’s fault.

“I’m so glad their priorities are in order,” a voice whispered directly in her ear.

It was a miracle that she didn’t scream.

She hadn’t clocked him, she had assumed it was Billy, but it was Vance leaning down next to her. He was - far be it from her to call Billy Hargrove soft, but there was an edge to Vance that Billy lacked. For all that Billy wouldn’t hesitate to throw a punch - and Steve had told her that story, in vivid, vivid detail - there was something dark in Vance’s eyes that scared her, just a little bit.

“Do you know what’s happening to him?” She asked, her voice low. Something told her that as soon as Billy noticed Vance she wouldn’t get to ask any more questions. And for her friend, still unconscious on this stupid recliner, she would take anything she would get.

“Henry’s got him,” Vance replied, and the casual way he threw that out made a rock form in Robin’s stomach.

“Can you get him back?”

Vance hummed, like he was thinking about it.

“No, I can’t. Maybe if we were rightside up, but things don’t work right here. I’m either here or -” and he broke off, shuddering. Robin desperately wanted to ask, but see above re: Vance scaring the shit out of her. Before she lost that fight with her impulse control, Vance visibly collected himself, forcing his shoulders down and smoothing his face into an approximation of someone who had their shit together. “But, on the bright side, if Henry wanted him dead, he would be dead by now.”

“That’s not comforting,” Robin grit out. She was gripping Steve’s hand hard enough that her knuckles were turning white and it was an effort to to relax her hand.

“I’m not here to be comforting.”

“Then why are you here?” she asked.

“I wanted to check on him,” Vance said, and each word sounded like it hurt him a little to admit it.

“He’s not doing great,” Robin admitted. Until he had passed out she would have ranked this below the Russians, but he’d been so still and so pale for so long, and despite her fears when it had happened, the Russians had never made him stop breathing. He hadn’t needed CPR after the Russians.

Steve twitched, then, which was more movement than she had seen out of him since they got to the Wheeler’s house. It wasn’t much, just a pinch around his eyes and a jerk of his shoulders, but that was good, right?

“Come on, Steve,” Robin muttered, clenching her hands around his, trying to remember not to squeeze too tight.

Her palms were sweaty. She let go of Steve’s hand to wipe them on her pant legs and it was blood, not sweat, that had collected in the space between their palms. One of Steve’s fingernails was missing, replaced with an oozing wound seeping blood. This time she didn’t manage to suppress the scream and Billy was at her side in an instant - Vance gone between one blink and the next.

“Fuck,” he swore, taking one look at the blood and turning to stalk into the kitchen, like there was a solution there.

Eddie sat next to Robin on the floor and knocked his shoulder into her own.

“It’ll be okay,” he said, the violence from minutes ago nowhere to be found in his voice. “It’s not even his punching hand.”

The giggle was a little bit hysterical.

Billy hadn’t returned yet - though she could hear him wrenching open cabinets and drawers in the other room and swearing in increasingly creative ways - when Steve’s eyes opened.

“Robin?” His voice was hoarse, like he had been screaming.

“Steve?” She scrambled to her feet and leaned in to hug him, forgetting for a second just how badly he was wounded.

Steve didn’t seem to have the same concerns, because he flung himself off of the chair, wrapping his arms around her waist and sending both of them to the floor.

“I’m so sorry,” he said, voice muffled in her shirt. “I’m so fucking sorry.”

Chapter Text

It wasn’t exactly bright, but there was more light than there had been in Henry’s torture exam room. Steve cracked an eye open and found Robin staring at him.

“Robin?” He didn’t know if he could trust what he was seeing, which was the worst part. He had held her cold body in his hands, had heard the sound of her neck snapping. He knew that things worked differently here and even if he could touch her, could hug her, it didn’t mean anything.

“Steve?” She held her hands out towards him, like she was hesitant to touch him. Her palms were covered in blood.

Steve threw himself at her, the sound of her choked-off wheeze when he hugged her too tightly not enough to override the sound of her body breaking he would hear in his nightmares for the rest of his life. Hovering over her shoulder, one hand out to steady her was Eddie, his eyebrows pinched together in a look of concern.

Steve felt another wave of guilt, because Eddie had died too, hadn’t he? Steve had a hand on him, and then he didn’t, and then Eddie was dead.

It was nice of Eddie to stay with her, Steve thought abstractly, crushing Robin to his chest. Good of him to keep Robin company. He was a good guy.

“I’m so sorry,” he said into her shoulder. “I’m so fucking sorry.”

There was a hesitant touch at his shoulder, which became a squeeze when he looked up and made eye contact with Eddie.

“Don’t be sorry for getting injured, Steve,” Eddie said, but there was clear concern in his voice like he was worried about Steve’s babbled apologies. He should be, they weren’t enough for what had happened to Eddie, for getting dragged down into this hellscape and dying here. Steve had to remind himself of his promise to get their bodies back. He wasn’t going to let them rot down here.

There was a pair of searing hands on his arms, yanking him away from Robin and pulling him upright. Billy, still shirtless, pressed his hand on either side of Steve’s face, holding him in place. His gaze was electric, cataloging everything.

“You back with us, Harrington?”

Steve nodded. He wasn’t immediately sure where they were, until he looked around, looked past the specters of Robin and Eddie, and recognized the Wheeler’s living room. Granted, it was the upsetting Upside Down version, choked with vines and coated in a layer of that ashen dust that settled everywhere, but it was still recognizable.

“How did I get here?” Steve asked. The last thing he remembered was that exam room, Henry looming over him and the tight grip of the vines at his limbs and throat.

“I carried you,” Billy shrugged like it wasn’t a big deal. “Wheeler was very insistent that we keep moving, and as soon as she knows you’re awake she’s going to be right back on the warpath.”

“You-” Steve felt like he was coming off of a bad bender, his memories a sort of hazy soup that he was having problems matching up to his current reality. “Where did you go?” Billy had been gone, when the demogorgons attacked. He and Vance had both vanished, but at least Vance had made it clear that he wasn’t going to stick around.

“The fuck you talking about?” Billy looked hurt, almost. “I’ve been here the whole time?”

“It’s true,” Robin piped up, climbing to her feet and taking a step towards them. “If he hadn’t carried you out of the forest Eddie and I would have had to do it and then we definitely would have gotten eaten.”

“No,” Steve shook his head, fisting a hand in his hair and pulling, because that wasn’t what had happened. “No, the demogorgons showed up and-” he couldn’t bring himself to say it, but Robin could read it in his face, because she immediately bullied herself into the space between him and Billy, shoving Billy’s hands out of the way so that she could grab his cheeks.

“No, Steve. That didn’t happen. We’re all fine. Nancy and Eddie put together a plan to get us out of here, we’re going to be fine. Nothing happened, I promise.”

“Promise?” He whispered.

“I promise. We’re all fine.”

He wanted so badly to believe her.

When Nancy returned with the last bike, she didn’t seem surprised to see Steve up and awake.

“I knew you’d get it together, Steve,” she said, but there was a trace of something in her smile that didn’t reach her eyes. Steve could hazard a guess at what she wanted, but he wasn’t brave enough to offer it.

She was nice enough to wait until they were getting ready to get on the bikes before she asked, probably sensing that her window of opportunity was closing.

“You can talk to any ghost, right?” Steve could feel his shoulders climbing up to his ears. He didn’t want to have this conversation.

“Not any ghost. They have to want to talk to me.”

“So you couldn’t, do whatever it is, and summon Barb?” She dropped to a whisper at the name of her friend, still a raw nerve in her psyche. Steve didn’t blame her. But for all Nancy’s guilt about what had happened that night, he was the one who was literally haunted by it. And if he believed for a second that it would be Barb, prickly, uptight, shy, Barbara Holland, he would have done anything to give Nancy that. But he knew what would come if they rode their bikes to his house and looked in his pool. He knew the horror that was Barb now, and he would do everything he could to keep Nancy from having to see that.

“Barb doesn’t want to talk to me, Nance,” he said, as gently as he could. “And it’s trickier than that. Most people, when they die, they fade away really quickly. I knew one kid who lost his name within a month. Barb’s been dead for years, and -” he hesitated to finish the thought, because it was only a guess, but Nancy deserved this much from him. “And I think that whatever was Barb got eaten away by the Upside Down. It wouldn’t be your friend anymore.” He was shooting for a sympathetic tone, but Nancy just bristled at him.

“So what, Billy Hargrove, gets to swan around the afterlife while Barb just fades to nothing? How is that fair?!”

Her tone was eerily similar to that night in Tina’s bathroom, when she called him bullshit.

“I wish I could do something, I really do, but seeing her ghost here wouldn’t help anything.” Steve can’t help but remember the one time he had seen Barb’s ghost, the ruin of her chest cavity and the black goo pouring from her mouth. Whatever was left of Barb wasn’t someone that would help Nancy get closure.

“You don’t get to decide what could help me,” Nancy said, spinning on her heel and stalking over to her bike, closing the door on the conversation.

“I see what you saw in her,” Billy said from behind him. Steve didn’t jump. He didn’t.

“Not the time, Billy,” he sighed, turning to the bike that Nancy had found for him. The thought of riding that thing all the way across town made him want to curl up in a ball in Ted Wheeler’s Upside Down recliner and sleep forever.

“I meant what I said before, you know.” Billy was leaning casually against the garage wall, his bike on the driveway ready to go. “Plenty of other bitches in the sea.”

“Could we just not do this?” Steve spun to face him. “I don’t need your input on my relationship with Nancy, which, I might point out, has been over for years now.”

Behind Billy, Steve saw Robin snag Eddie’s sleeve and drag him away from the conversation, over to the final two bikes.

“Not the bitch I was referring to,” Billy said, but there was something hard in his eyes that hadn’t been there a moment ago.

“Billy-”

“Get your ass on the bike, Harrington,” Billy snapped and Steve was left feeling like he had missed something. Robin cast a glance at him from across the driveway and Steve could do nothing but shrug helplessly as Billy yanked his bike up and took off down the street, pausing at the exit of the cul-de-sac to wait for the rest of them.

The bike ride was agony, partially because every rotation of the pedals pulled at the wounds in Steve’s sides, partially because both Nancy and Billy were giving off such frosty energy that Steve wanted to shrivel up and apologize just to get them to stop. He didn’t. He thought about it, thought about what he could say to get either of them to unravel the tension from their shoulders, but he couldn’t bring himself to start either of those conversations.

But they made it to Eddie’s trailer, to the awful pulsing wound in the world in the ceiling without anything awful happening to them, which was about the best they could have hoped for that day.

Then the kids were poking a hole in the world using a broom, and Steve would never stop being in awe of how they took everything in stride.

Or, well, until they saw the fifth member of their little posse.

“Is that?”

“Billy?” Max’s voice was that perfect blend of hesitant and biting that only teenage girls could accomplish.

“What’s up, shitbird?” Billy tossed a two-fingered salute at the ceiling. Lucas and Dustin wrinkled their noses in twin looks of disgust.

“Is anyone going to explain that?” Dustin gestured at Billy, making it very clear what “that” he was talking about. Billy rolled his eyes.

“I’m still dead, Henderson. The rules just work a little differently here. You get the surround sound experience down here.”

“That’s really creepy,” Lucas said.

“Wait till you hear about how I’ve been there the whole time,” Billy snapped, but there was a grin tugging at the corners of his mouth. Steve shoved half-heartedly at his elbow. Billy glanced at him, but had apparently worked his way through whatever shit fit he had been throwing, because he only shrugged and grinned a little.

“Can we get out of here?” Robin asked, staring at the sheet rope that the kids tossed through the gate. “I’ve had quite enough of this place and Steve needs medical attention that isn’t in the form of a shirt.”

“What happened to Steve?” Dustin asked, sounding worried.

“Nothing, Dustin,” Steve called back, only for Eddie to immediately roll his eyes at him and shout,

“He got chunks torn out of him by flying octo-bats.”

“Snitch,” Steve muttered, low enough so that the kids couldn’t hear him.

Eddie winked, before turning back to the rope contemplatively. Which was good, because Steve was pretty sure he was blushing.

“You go first,” Steve said, gesturing at the rope. It was only partially because he was worried about them. He wasn’t completely sure that he could climb the rope without embarrassing himself given the wounds in his side. The real reason, the most important reason, was that for all Robin had promised him that nothing had happened, he couldn’t get the image of them lying dead out of his mind. He couldn’t trust that they weren’t just here in the same way Billy was until they were safe on the other side.

Dustin had told him about a cat in a box once. The cat was both alive and dead until you shot it, or something. Steve hadn’t been paying attention. But it felt like a good comparison at this moment. Robin, Eddie and Nancy were both alive and dead right now. And he wouldn’t know - couldn’t know - until they had their feet in the Rightside Up again.

“No way, Steve,” Eddie said, his face set. “I’ll give you Robin and Nancy-”

“Hey!” Robin protested, but Eddie plowed right over her.

“But I’ll be damned if you’re the last man standing. We’re gonna give that to Hargrove here, aren’t we?” He drove an elbow into Billy’s ribs and the look Billy shot him was positively murderous. But in an act of what he must have thought was supreme mercy, Billy only shoved Eddie off balance, rather than taking the swing he so desperately wanted to.

“Here!” Lucas and Max dropped a mattress down on the floor, a crash pad for their landing from the other side.

“Those stains are…” Eddie started, slightly defensive about the state of his sheets. Billy snorted a laugh into his fist and Eddie shrugged, giving up on an explanation. “I don’t know what those stains are.” Steve got the idea he might have been lying about that. Robin made a noise of disgust. Eddie was blushing, a little, which was charming.

And not something to think about right now, Steve. Focus, you idiot.

“I’ll go first,” Nancy said, clearly tired of the extended drama that was Steve’s life, and probably still angry with him. That was fine. Steve could handle Nancy being angry at him if it got them out of this place sooner.

After Nancy went Robin. Steve watched Dustin help Nancy off of the mattress, watched Nancy pull Robin up with a delicate grip on her wrists and his knees went weak from relief. They were alive. They were okay. He choked on something that was either a cough or a sob.

And then Eddie and Steve had a standoff that would have lasted forever had Billy not wrapped a hand around Steve’s bicep.

“Come on, Harrington,” he said, voice low. “Let’s get out of here while you’re still mostly in one piece, alright?” There was something in his eyes, not quite fear, but a sort of weariness that made Steve nod. Fine.

“Don’t blame me if I have to come back down here to give you a boost,” Steve said, pointing at Eddie. Eddie pressed a hand to his chest, fingers splayed wide, his face the very picture of “who, me?”

“Maxine!” Billy barked when Steve grasped the rope in both hands. “Whatever that slimy fuck says it’s not me. And I’ll kick his ass as many times as I need to for that lesson to stick.”

Steve couldn’t see Max at that moment, too concerned about using what felt like the last of his strength to pull himself up the rope. Except, when gravity spun and he started falling, instead of the mattress on the floor of Eddie’s trailer, he landed hard on his back in that endless expanse of black water.

There was that red glow behind him and something about it made the hairs on his arms stand up. That wasn’t the direction he wanted to go. That glow hand long lost any sort of comfort, instead lurking behind him like a sinister warning. That was Henry’s trophy room, where he kept the mangled bodies of the people he killed. Where he had a pillar waiting for Max.

When Steve turned back to the endless black, there was someone there with him. A teenage boy, dressed in a hospital gown, his hair shaved close to his head.

“It took you long enough, Steve,” the boy said. He sounded like he was trying to sound older and more important than he was.

“Who are you?” Clearly the boy was dead, the only people who Steve had met here were dead, oozing tentacle abomination Henry aside.

“You can call me Two.”

“Like Eleven?” Steve had never really dwelled on the fact that there were other children with powers out there. He knew that El had gone to find her sister at one point, had referred to her as “Kali” on their phone calls. Now, standing before him was the proof that maybe he should have put a little more thought into it.

“I am nothing like Eleven,” Two said and his face twisted with malice at the words. “We all died because of her. I’ve been forced to resort to this -” and he waved a hand around at the darkness “idiocy in order to exact my revenge.”

Steve bristled. He didn’t know this kid from a hole in the wall but El was one of his and he would be damned if he let this little shit hurt her.

“Relax, I don’t care about Eleven. She’s just as much of a useless pawn as she’s always been.” Something about that tickled the back of Steve’s brain, but he shut it down, kept his face bland. It felt like a bad idea to let Two know what he was thinking. “I want the man you know as Henry Creel dead. I want One dead.”

Oh, that would explain a lot, if Henry was like El, similar powers and some connection to the Upside Down.

“And lucky for me, there was someone nearby that had just enough latent ability that I could hide there until I was ready to take my revenge.”

Steve wasn’t an idiot. He knew where this was going.

“You’ve been haunting me since you died, haven’t you?”

“Haunting you? Please, Steve, I’m not a ghost. I’ve been in your brain, curled around the parts of you that made you useful, turning you into something better than that pathetic child you were when I found you.

“I’m not haunting you, Steve. But perhaps we can call this a possession, if you need simple terms to understand what’s happening to you.”

Steve’s gut rolled at that, at the way Two was talking about changing him to be something more useful, at digging around in his brain to make it more like what Two wanted it to be. He’d managed to avoid thinking of the puppet comparison too often, but it was hard to ignore that he had been playing host to a lot of people who weren’t him recently.

But this did explain the way things had shifted, from the phones to the walkies to the whispers in his ear, to the heat of Billy’s hand at the back of his neck. How the ghosts had become more solid over the years, more tangible. How they had managed to retain more of themselves, maybe.

“Of course, there were some side effects,” Two continued, as if he wasn’t already well on his way to the sort of villainous monologue that Steve and Robin always mocked in movies. “Henry absorbs everyone he kills, you see, so by hiding myself in you I created a tether, of sorts. And sometimes things would,” he paused, like he was actually looking for the word and not savoring the chance to explain his grand plan. Steve was beginning to think that he preferred fighting the demo-monsters to this, because at least they didn’t talk at him, “leak from one end to the other.”

He was talking about the visions, Steve realized. It wasn’t Henry's victims that were pulling Steve into the vision where they died, it was Henry. And Henry probably had no idea why that was happening.

“Of course, aside from the visions, and the pain that accompanied your brain trying to connect to the hive mind through Henry -” that first night at the quarry, feeling like there was something too big for his skin trying to claw its way out of him, the feeling of his bones twisting and snapping before watching Henry kill people. Steve shuddered so hard there was no way that Two didn’t register it.

“Your brain couldn’t really understand what was happening, which is to be expected, really. So it came up with the explanation that best fit what you knew.

“The ghosts aren’t real,” Two said, his face a placid mask that managed to just barely disguise his disgust with Steve. “They have never been real. You’ve been creating them, summoning them from the figments of your memories, because you are a sad, pathetic man who has never been able to stand on his own two feet in his entire life.”

Steve snarled wordlessly, his lip curling up in a perfect imitation of Vance’s sneer.

“Think about it, Steve,” Two said, and he began to pace, hands behind his back like he was lecturing Steve, like he was someone with any authority over Steve and not just a superpowered kid who had infected his brain like a termite. “You saw Billy that night at the Byers’ house, and he reminded you of Vance, who was the biggest, strongest person that you knew was dead. So Vance appeared to help you fight. You go out to your pool, expecting to find the ghost of Barbara Holland and your guilt shows her to you. Your guilt and self loathing kept you under the water that night, Steve, not any sort of supernatural influence. Just your own pathetic desire to die.”

A beat.

“I guess you are more like your mother than you thought.”

The rage - it was every bolt of lightning he had ever thought was Vance, every burning ember he had attributed to Billy, except that it was just him and Two here, and he knew that this was just him. It was the worst part of him, the part that railed and screamed and wanted to hurt people because he was hurting, that had worn the crown of King Steve, that had sung when he snapped The Grabber’s neck, when he swung that bat, when he could channel his own pain and making someone else hurt. It was his rage that roared in his blood, his fury that led to him driving his fist into this child’s face.

Two rocked backwards and laughed, the red mark blooming across his cheek not any sort of deterrent to his ranting.

“And don’t get me started on Billy. You’re so lonely, so desperate to be loved that you imagined a man was in love with you because you had, what, a dozen conversations and he fell for your delusions?

“You know they couldn’t be real. You know how quickly the pieces of who people are fall away when they die. There is nothing left in the world of Billy Hargrove. The endless fog of the afterlife consumed him until all that was left was the memory you desperately cling to like a frightened child with a doll.”

Steve’s chest hurt. It felt like Two was cracking him open, exposing everything he hated about himself and hanging them out like flags for everyone to see. Come look at pathetic Steve Harrington, who will never be loved.

Except, Two was wrong. He had to be. Because Steve hadn’t known about Billy-buddy, or the wave. He couldn’t possibly have known unless he had been told.

He didn’t speak Russian, but Robin swore she heard him speak it under Starcourt, that nameless Russian scientist spitting warnings that had gone unheeded. Chrissy had told him the name of Eddie’s band.

There was no way that he could know these things, unless Two was lying to him.

Not to mention Billy in the Upside Down with him. Robin, Eddie and Nancy had seen him, had talked to him. Robin had touched him. He had definitely been there.

So the question became - why was Two lying?

And if Two was as deep in Steve’s brain as he was claiming, shouldn’t he know that Steve would put that together?

He needed Steve to think the ghosts were really just Steve projecting.

It hit Steve like a ton of bricks.

Vance isn’t telling you everything.

That ass. The next time Steve saw him he was going to throttle him, figment of his own imagination or not.

“Why tell me any of this?” Steve asked, pulling enough of the mantle of “King Steve” over his shoulders so that he sounded bored with this. “You were doing a great job of hiding this from me, so why stop now?”

Two looked pleased, like Steve was a stupid dog that had mastered an easy trick and it made Steve’s blood boil. He wasn’t an idiot, despite what people thought, but it probably served him better here to have Two think that he was. No matter how demeaning he found it.

“Henry knows you’re here now. It’s really only a matter of time before he figures out how and why. So as much as I was looking forward to having him and Eleven destroy each other, I think it’s time to move on to plan B.” At Steve’s blank look, Two shook his head, the perfect picture of condescension. It probably would have worked better if Steve hadn’t mastered that look himself years ago.

“You don’t need to know the details, just keep bumbling around in Henry’s way, keep him distracted. You’ll know when I need you again.”

Steve wanted to tell Two where he could shove his “need” but then he was falling, the endless black water opening up and he tumbled through nothing until his back slammed into Eddie’s mattress.

Chapter Text

“Steve!”

Dustin’s voice was shrill in his ear.

“I’m here, buddy,” Steve said. Or, tried to say. His voice came out in a rasp, words stuck in the tangle of his throat.

He was on his back, staring up at the gate in the ceiling of Eddie’s home. Above him, Eddie and Billy’s eyes were fixed on him, twin looks of concern across their faces, an almost identical furrow between their eyebrows. It made Steve want to laugh, a bit, except that he couldn’t find the air to laugh. Even their hair looked similar, riots of curls only contrasted by their color.

“Are you okay, dingus?” Robin asked, her hand gentle on his shoulder. Steve managed a nod as his lungs got themselves under control - he recognized the sensation now, he had just gotten the wind knocked out of him when he landed, slammed, really, into the mattress they had laid out on the ground.

“You know, if you were going to just drop in, we probably could have saved the work of making the rope,” Max sniped, but it lacked any of the heat that she would usually have put on the words. Her eyes were darting back and forth between Steve, wheezing on the mattress, and Billy, frowning above them.

It took Steve a minute to realize that his conversation with Two, the way that he had slipped from the Upside Down to the dark place before slamming back into reality had gone completely unnoticed by anyone else. It just looked like he had messed up the rope climb, which was sort of embarrassing, but could probably be safely blamed on his injuries.

Which, ow, were making themselves known thanks to his extra hard landing. God, Eddie’s mattress was made of rocks, or something.

“Come on, Steve,” Nancy held a hand out for him, like she could pull him up on her own, “let’s get Eddie back on this side before we start napping.” Steve recognized her tone, it was her “I’m still annoyed at you, but I’m trying not to let everyone know that I’m annoyed with you” voice. He’d heard that tone a lot, at the end of their relationship.

Between Nancy and Robin, Steve let himself be pulled upright and off of the mattress, clearing the landing zone for Eddie, who, despite making an enormous scene every time they had to climb the rope in gym class, made the climb and subsequent flip look easy. Showoff.

“Harrington -” Billy called from his position, still in the Upside Down, “Sit down before you fall down.”

“You’re not my dad,” Steve muttered to himself. Eddie snorted, but had schooled his face into an over the top, wide-eyed expression of innocence when Steve looked at him. Billy scowled, before he vanished, disappearing between one blink and the next.

“Why didn’t he do that before?” Nancy asked. Robin and Eddie both cast sideways glances at Steve before making eye contact with each other and turning away, but they didn’t say anything. Steve shrugged. He wasn’t Billy’s keeper.

“Is anyone going to explain what the hell happened?” Dustin said, his hands on his hips in a position that was extraordinarily reminiscent of what the kids had dubbed Steve’s “mom pose.”

It was mayhem, when the older teens laid it out for the kids. The gate, the bats, their frantic dash to Nancy’s house, punctuated by Steve’s bout of unconsciousness (which sucked, by the way. If Steve’s life was going to be a horror movie, he would have much preferred to be the take charge jock rather than the fainting damsel) and their stay in the Wheeler’s house. Special mention went out to the reactions about the fact that the Upside Down was stuck in 1983, and Billy Hargrove’s physical appearance.

“I told you guys about the ghosts,” Steve insisted, when everyone turned to look accusingly at him like he had been hiding something. Max rolled her eyes at him and muttered something under her breath that may have been “dumbass” which seemed uncalled for, if you asked Steve.

Once the others had finished their version, it was time for Steve to lay out what he had seen.

And he did tell them most of it.

All the things that Henry had shown him, the planned destruction of the town, the need for a fourth gate (and Steve didn’t miss how Max pulled away at that, tucked her arms around her waist to make herself smaller and less approachable. He’d be damned if she ended up on Henry’s last pillar. The warmth of Billy’s hand on his neck told him he wasn’t the only one who made that promise) and the kicker - that Henry had a number, that he was like El, only evil. Dustin had muttered something about “Dark Phoenix” that Steve didn’t understand.

He just left out two things. The massacre that had kicked his vision off, because no. He wasn’t going to tell anyone about that, he’d just shove it into a mental box and never, ever ever think about it again. Tried and true method, had never failed him before. The other was Two and that moment where he slipped between spaces when he fell. He didn’t need to worry the kids with that. He knew if he brought up Two, they’d be worried about him, about some psychic kid inhabiting the dark spaces of his mind like a parasite. They needed to focus their attention elsewhere.

Steve forgot, sometimes, how smart all of the kids were. Not that they were smart, he knew that, but how smart they were. It was a matter of minutes for them to take the information, the jumble of images that Steve had seen, and turn it into something they could use.

“When El travels, she’s-” Max waived her hand in front of her own face, as if that was supposed to mean anything to Steve.

“She’s vulnerable,” Lucas said, shrugging when Max shot him a look, like that was a bad word choice. “She is! She’s not really aware of her surroundings. So if Henry is a number -”

“One,” Steve said, shrugging. That was what Two had told him, anyway.

“If Henry is a number,” Lucas continued, like Steve hadn’t spoken. Rude. The attitude on these kids was getting worse by the day. “Then he’ll be vulnerable too.”

And they were off.

Steve knew they’d come up with a solid plan, and he also knew that he wouldn’t be needed for this part. So he caught Robin’s eye, mimed smoking a cigarette, grinned at her grossed out facial expression, and snuck out the door.

Eddie’s trailer backed up near enough to the woods that it wasn’t difficult for him to disappear from view into the treeline. He didn’t need the kids seeing him waving his hands and ranting at thin air.

“Vance,” Steve called, feeling like an ass. Vance had never come when he was called before, he only seemed to show up when there would be violence or he could be obnoxious about things. Only this time, when Steve spun a slow circle to see if he had been heard, there was Vance, thankfully not bloody, head cocked, glare turned up to maximum.

“I met a friend of yours,” Steve said, trying to sound friendly about this whole thing. He had this sneaking feeling in his gut that Vance was not on his side, not like he had once hoped, but he refused to just turn his back on the other boy. They shared an experience that only three other people had. If Vance had lived, Steve wanted to imagine that their shared nightmare of the Grabber’s basement would have bound them together. Not like him and Robin, but maybe like him and Jonathan? Allies, if not friends.

Vance shrugged, his face completely impassive, which was new.

“Can you -” here, Steve paused. He wanted an explanation, he wanted Vance to justify himself to Steve, but even assuming that Vance gave him sort of explanation, it might have been playing into Two’s hands. “Can you explain it?” He settled for. It didn’t really matter if this was part of Two’s plan. If Steve started second guessing everything he would go crazy. He also sat down, clearing a small space on the dirt of poking branches, because as much as he hated to admit it, Billy had been right. If he didn’t sit down he was going to fall down.

“It’s just dark,” Vance said, abruptly. Steve blinked. There was a long moment where neither of them spoke. “Afterwards. It’s just dark and there’s this fog that comes and eats what you were. I found you through the phone, and suddenly it wasn’t dark anymore. There was red everywhere, this glowing red light and it made everything make sense again. And I was so angry.”

Every year that this Upside Down shit went on, the age gap between Vance and Steve widened. He had noticed it in Billy’s mind, and again in the Upside Down. Steve was getting older, he was broader and stronger and more tired than he had been when he was in the Grabber’s basement, than he had been that night in front of the Byers’ house. Vance would always be sixteen. That had never been more apparent than at this moment. Vance looked so young when he wasn’t throwing fists or covered in blood. He was closer in age to Dustin now than he was to Steve.

It hit with a pang that Billy would always be eighteen.

Steve crushed that thought immediately.

“Like the red light at Henry’s broken house?” Steve asked, because as much as his heart hurt, and his body ached and he needed probably fifteen hours of sleep and an entire bottle of pain killers, he had come out here on a mission and he was going to finish it, god damn it.

“Sort of. Less full of nightmares, though.” Vance shrugged. “I think they sort of turn their portion of the darkness into their freaky houses. It wasn’t Henry, but that other kid. Our mutual friend.”

“Not my friend,” Steve muttered. Vance shrugged again, like the minutiae of it didn’t matter to him.

“He explained how these things normally go, how spirits fade away unless there’s something there for them. It was how the other boys found the phone. He said revenge is a really strong motivator.”

That explained Two’s presence in Steve’s brain then, if his whole gig was revenge on Henry. And Steve wasn’t naive enough to hope that he was going to leave El alone, not with that look that Steve had seen in his eyes.

“So what, he pointed you in the direction of my brain and said ‘go hang out there, that traumatized teenager is going to need have someone on hand who can throw a punch?’”

“More or less.” The nonchalance in Vance’s voice made Steve want to throttle him.

“There’s more to it than that, though,” Vance continued. “There’s a thread that connects Two’s space in the dark to Henry’s space in the dark. He thought I didn’t know, but I’ve been with you since the basement, I know what that dark space used to look like. The more that you and I, I don’t know, traded energy, the more that thread grew. So Two was gaining power, but so was Henry, and so were you.”

Steve was beginning to regret not bringing Robin out here to explain what the fuck Vance was talking about to him. But Vance seemed to understand his confusion, given the eyeroll he gave.

“Henry absorbs every person that he kills, so he had a massive amount of power to begin with. But his red space was awful, and once you’re dead it’s pretty easy to sneak around unnoticed. Henry certainly didn’t seem to care that Two had wandered off. They can’t go far, really, and some of them are so consumed by Henry that there wasn’t much of them to go anywhere, but because of that thread that connected Henry to Two, and then Two to you, some of them were able to get away from Henry, enough to keep themselves mostly intact.

“This had the added benefit of making you stronger, too.” Steve blinked, and Vance grinned.

“We’re always here, you know,” and he waved his hand in the air, gesturing at the empty air around them. “I don’t claim to understand it, but the ones that escape the fog, or the black space, there’s always some dead guy hanging around. And most of the time they need a conduit to make contact, and even that requires the person on the other end to have some sort of power.”

“The phone.”

“The phone!” Vance pointed, like Steve was a genius for figuring that much out. “The phone in the basement was the perfect conduit. Not attached to the lines so it wasn’t clogged with electricity, it was just us in there. And you, you were nothing but a tiny, kid, more hair than person,” which Steve thought was rich, coming from Vance especially, “and you could hear the phone ring.

“And the more the energy leaked from Henry, to Two, to you, the less you needed the conduit. The more that you could be the conduit. And it was difficult to reach you, sometimes. I was screaming my head off that night my cheap replacement showed up to rock your shit and you barely heard me.

“But now. Now, Stevie, you shine in that dark place. I can find you without trying. And those of us that, say, have a more personal connection, well, they never really leave you.” His eyes darted down to Steve’s still bare chest, and Billy’s medallion that hung there. Steve could feel his cheeks heat.

“Except that goes both ways, doesn’t it?” Steve asked, as several things clicked into place for him. “If I shine in the dark, other people can find me, people that maybe I don’t want to find me.” Like Russian scientists, or Barb, so lost to the Upside Down that she carried it with her, even in the after.

Vance nodded.

“You’re a lighthouse, now. And you can’t help who sees you at sea. And,” Vance’s face scrunched in rage, hip upper lip curled to expose his teeth, his eyebrows furrowing, “the longer this goes on, the more that thread grows, the less you become like a lighthouse and the more you become a glass house with all the lights on.”

Steve was never any good at metaphors.

“People are going to start breaking windows to get inside.”

Oh.

“I think some of them already have,” Billy’s voice came from the edge of the field. He was wearing a shirt again, that denim on denim horror that he had been in the first time Steve had seen him. “There’s been a few that are hanging around, like curls here,” and he waved a dismissive hand at Vance, “but there’s one in particular, some fuck in a white mask that keeps trying to get in. It was him that night at the quarry, the one that freaked Munson out so bad. Probably the other time you went wandering too, if I’m going to be honest.” His voice was nonchalant, but Steve could see the line of tension in his shoulders.

Vance sucked a breath in that Steve could hear from across the clearing, never mind that he didn’t need to breathe anymore.

And it was. Odd. Steve had been terrified of the Grabber when he was alive. After that, after things like the demogorgon and the pack of demodogs and the Mind Flayer, made from the flesh of people that Steve knew, that fear was kind of cast into a different light.

That wasn’t to say that the thought of the Grabber’s spirit haunting him, possessing him, walking him across town and trying to throw his sleeping body into the quarry wasn’t horrifying. It was. Steve knew that. Objectively.

It just also seemed…sort of pathetic. Like an old football star trying to relive their glory days, or something.

But Steve had the benefit of having beaten that demon. He wasn’t haunted by the Grabber. Metaphorically. Apparently he was haunted by him literally. However, Vance had lost everything to that man, and even now, years later, when there was nothing else that the Grabber could do to him, Steve could see him shrink a bit as the fear ate at him.

“I don’t get it, though,” Steve said. “I mean, I understand most of it, but how is the Grabber still here? Didn’t you say the fog eats at you after a while? And why did Two want me to think the ghosts weren’t real? And why are you telling me this now instead of earlier?”

“You keep what you kill, Stevie,” Vance said, like that explained fucking anything. “Anyone with some measure of power, even you, who could hear a phone ring, never mind people like Henry and Two, who have wells and wells of the stuff, when they kill someone, that energy, that person, gets stuck to them. You killed him, Stevie, so he’s there forever.”

And wasn’t that just a horrifying thought.

“And I don’t know shit about what Henry has planned, no matter what you may think. But I do know that Two was concerned you would find a way to cut the thread if you thought that we were real.”

Steve, because he was not a fifteen year old girl, did not roll his eyes. But it was a close thing. He did look at Billy and his fucking heart hurt, because there was no way that he could cut that thread, not if the power that he was drawing from it was what let Billy be here.

It would be like killing him all over again.

And Steve would endure the Grabber poking at the edges of his mind if it meant that Billy could stay here.

Plus, a thought occurred to him, Vance had just told him that the thread pulled from Henry, so there was probably a way to use it to steal from him, make him less powerful, help keep him from killing Max and opening that last gate.

As for what Two wanted to do with that power - Steve shut that thought down before he could finish having it. Two was in his brain, and he didn’t know how much of what Steve thought or saw or heard the parasite could pick up on. That was alright. Steve wasn’t a planner, he worked better on impulse most of the time.

Vance was staring at him, his eyes narrowed, like Steve was a small prey animal that he was considering gutting to find out what was on the inside. Steve stared back, flat and level. For all that Vance had been an imposing figure when Steve was still Stevie, for all the lightning crack of his presence could be startling, he was still just a teenaged boy. Steve had fought worse and won. Except, in this moment, he really didn’t think Vance was contemplating violence.

There was the crunch of a branch breaking and Steve turned to see Eddie picking his way towards them. When he glanced back, Vance was gone.

“I was sent by vote to go make sure that you weren’t dead. Had to fight Buckley for the honor, and that girl is scrappy,” Eddie said, and his grin was hesitant, like he wasn’t sure that he was allowed to be joking about anything while the world was trying to end.

“Did she bite you? Because she’s bit me before,” Steve made to push himself up, but Eddie stopped him by flopping down next to him in a sprawl of limbs, laying his head on the dirt and immediately collecting a small museum’s worth of twigs and leaves in his hair.

Eddie hummed quietly, acknowledging Steve’s comment, but apparently not interested in continuing the conversation.

“They’re planning in there, choosing who goes where in this frankly insane plan to fight a guy who, honestly sounds like one of the BBEGs I would write for Hellfire. And I know I should be good at this, but when I do it it’s a game, not real life. Dustin’s in there offering ideas for how to be a better distraction and I-” Eddie trailed off, before he shoved the heels of his hands into his eyes and shouted, loud and wordless, into the sky. Steve really understood half the things Eddie said, but the meaning was easy enough to parse for context. Eddie was scared. Steve didn’t blame him.

“I get it,” Steve said, setting a hand on Eddie’s forearm and squeezing gently. “I really, really get it.” He was quiet for a moment as he tried to find the words to explain himself. “When I got involved in this, it turned out that the kids had done most of it completely by themselves and they were like, yeah high the whole time.” He held his hand off the ground, maybe a foot and a half in the air, trying to convey to Eddie that as young and small as the kids seemed now, they had been younger and smaller when they started.

“They’re just kids, man,” Eddie said brokenly, his hands still over his eyes.

“We all were,” Steve said. In the corner of his eye he watched Billy, forever eighteen, lean against a tree, his attention entirely on Eddie. “But we got through it before. And that’s what you and I are here for, right? Keep the kids from being complete idiots about their own mortality?”

“I was watching them argue about who got to go back to that place, not had to, got to, and I had this thought. And as soon as I had it, I felt like a monster for thinking it, because it wouldn’t have changed anything for anyone else, it would have just made my life easier.” Eddie’s voice was thick, like he was talking around tears.

“Eddie-” Steve started, squeezing a little more with the hand he still had on Eddie’s forearm, trying to pull him from the well his dark thoughts were digging him into.

“I wished Chrissy had died somewhere else.”

Steve thought of Chrissy, sitting with Eddie in that boathouse, so that she could thank him for being there for her, so that she could pass on the kindness that he had shown her. And Steve didn’t blame Eddie at all for thinking like that.

“The first time, the very first time I got involved, I ran all the way back to my car,” Steve said, tilting his head back to look at the sky. “Nancy had pointed a loaded gun at my face and she told me to run and then the lights started flickering and I did. I ran. But-” there weren’t really words to explain that feeling he had, standing at the open door of his BMW, hand on the wheel, and knowing that he would hate himself forever if he ran. “But I went back inside. I picked up this bat that Jonathan had pounded a bunch of nails into and I hit a monster in the face with it.”

Eddie muttered something that Steve didn’t catch, but Billy huffed a laugh from his spot against the tree.

“It’s okay to wish you had never gotten involved. And I said it before, I’ll say it again, you can be done. My dad’s out of town, no one would look for you at my house. We’ll drop you off and you can get horrifically stoned and watch the bad action movies I stole from work. No one would blame you.”

“I can’t,” Eddie said, his voice clear again. “I can’t do that.”

“Yeah,” Steve said quietly. “I know.” Because he did.

They sat in silence for a minute before Eddie stood abruptly, managing half a kip up before he overbalanced, then over corrected, arms pinwheeling wildly, and landed hard on his knees. Billy rolled his eyes, but Steve laughed, because that was what Eddie had been going for and it felt like something that Steve could let himself laugh at.

“Come on, let’s go make sure Dustin doesn’t decide that he’s going to try and teach the octo-bats how to use his radio tower.” Eddie held a hand out to help Steve up, but either Steve pushed too hard or Eddie pulled too much because Steve fairly rocketed off the ground and ended up pressed against Eddie’s chest.

“You have uh, stuff, in your hair,” Steve said, like a moron, before he reached up and gently pulled a stick from one of Eddie’s curls. Eddie’s cheeks were pink when Steve pulled away.

“Thanks,” Eddie said, quietly, his gaze somewhere below Steve’s eyes. “We should get back.” He was still holding Steve’s hand.

“Yeah. Yeah we should.”

Billy cleared his throat, loudly, and Steve pulled away, gesturing towards the direction of Eddie’s trailer and the rest of the group.

“Lead the way.”

Eddie cocked his head to look at Steve for a minute, before he turned on his heel and walked away, running rough hands through his hair to remove whatever plant detritus was still stuck there.

“Billy?” Steve called, quietly, so his voice didn’t carry to where Eddie was walking a few steps in front of him. “If we do fix this, and we take care of Henry and get Two out of my head and snap that thread, what will happen to you?”

There was no answer.

When they let themselves back in the trailer, it seemed like the planning was mostly done. Nancy was leaning over a piece of paper that was spread out across the table, and the kids were huddled in the living room, arguing about something that Steve didn’t have the energy to parse.

“Okay, I’ve retrieved the package, fill us in,” Eddie said, sliding into the space the kids had left for him on the couch. Robin, opening and closing cabinets in the kitchen like she was looking for something, cocked her head at Steve, her silent way of asking if he was okay. He nodded at her, and tried for a smile but the way she wrinkled her nose told him that he wasn’t on the mark.

“We’ve got everything laid out,” and Nancy gestured to the piece of paper on the table, “Except we’re not sure where to put you, Steve.” She looked vaguely apologetic as she said it.

“I’m flexible,” Steve shrugged. “Lay it out for me and I’ll see where I fit.”

“So Lucas, Erica and Max will be at the Creel house, because we need to get Henry into his trance before the rest of us move in.”

“How do you plan to-” Steve started to ask, before Billy cut in, swallowing the rest of the sentence.

“Abso-fucking-lutely not.”

Nancy reeled back, and Steve didn’t blame her. This would have been odd in the best of circumstance, but Billy was fairly on the warpath, whirling to point a finger at Max.

“I’m not going to let you dangle yourself like bait, Maxine!”

“There’s no other way!” Dustin tried to interrupt, before Billy spun to glare him into submission. And Dustin was a brave kid, Steve knew that, but the full attention of a furious Billy Hargrove was a lot to ask a fourteen year old to manage.

“He still wants me,” Max said, and for as scared as she had to be, her spine was straight and her gaze was steady. Steve’s heart ached for her. “I can feel him scratching at my mind.” A flicker behind her, Vance glanced down at her once, made steady eye contact with Steve, and then vanished again, so fast he would have missed it if he hadn’t been looking.

“You’re not the only one,” Steve said, bullying Billy aside so he could talk. “You’re his first choice, sure, but he’d take me instead if we made him.”

Robin made a noise of protest, but Steve barreled over her.

“Look, it makes more sense, okay? If we need to get him hunting to get him into a trance, I’m going to be useless anyways. I’m down for the count as soon as he starts with the visions. So what was the plan originally? Max takes the headphones off and lets him in?” Max and Lucas nodded, though Lucas looked a bit relieved that this plan was being picked apart. “Okay, so we do that-” more shouted protests, one of which was Billy, and Steve had to really shove to get him out of the way this time. “And then it’s just like the cemetery again. Lucas, you get the headphones on her as soon as she’s down. Billy can play backup, he’ll probably be there anyway. Then it’s just me and the wormy fucker, and it’s not like I haven’t done that tango before.”

There was silence.

“Uh, yeah, that would work,” Nancy said, turning back to the paper and crossing some things off.

“Like fuck that works!” Eddie burst out. “Or do you not remember that he stopped fucking breathing the last time he went ghost walking?” Eddie shoved himself up off the couch and threw his hands in the air, so full of nervous energy he couldn’t sit still.

“WHAT,” Dustin shouted, before turning to Steve and running hands over his chest, like he could feel where Steve’s lungs had stopped. What he did feel was the rib that Billy had cracked, which made Steve pull away from him with a hiss of pain. “You didn’t tell us that,” he said, voice small in a way it hadn’t been in years. It made Steve think, suddenly, of a smaller Dustin insisting “you die, I die” in an elevator below Starcourt and it made Steve want to vomit.

“Look, between Max and I, I’m the one who has backup in there.” Steve rapped his knuckles on the side of his head and smiled his ‘I’m a charming idiot’ smile that got him out of most of his missed assignments in school. “Got a whole ghost host who can kick some ass.” Steve held Eddie’s gaze, tried to tell him that this was the way it needed to be. That he had this. Eddie pulled a lock of hair across his face, obscuring his mouth, and his eyes were inscrutable.

“Relax, Munson,” Billy drawled, forcibly relaxing Steve’s shoulders. “I’ve got his back.”

“Does that ever stop being creepy?” Lucas asked. Robin shook her head.

“Also,” a thought occurred to Steve. “We probably shouldn’t put Max, Lucas and Erica at the Creel house. That seems like it’s asking for trouble.”

“We need them there so Erica can signal when Henry’s started hunting, we can’t use the walkies in the Upside Down or Henry will hear us.”

Steve caught Robin’s eye and grinned, wide and real this time.

“There are phones in the Creel house, right?”

“Yes, but-” Nancy started, exasperation in her tone.

“Henry won’t hear if I call,” Steve rushed. “Max gets Henry to start hunting and before I tag in, I’ll call the Creel house and let you know that he’s on the move.”

“I don’t understand,” Nancy started, but Dustin looked like he was catching on.

“The phone in the basement!”

“Yes!” God that kid was smart. “I could hear it ringing, but people who aren’t, I don’t know, ghost friendly, or whatever, couldn’t. So Henry wouldn’t be able to hear the phone ring.”

“But if people can’t hear the phone ring, how-” Eddie was asking, before Robin spoke up.

“I can hear the phone. I’ll hear the phone if Steve calls.” Nancy looked at Robin, really looked at her, that same look she got when she was sniffing the details of a story, and nodded once, decisive.

“So if they aren’t at the Creel house, where are they?”

“My place,” Steve shrugged. “My dad’s out of town, whatever basketball people Jason still has sway with won’t think to look there, it’s perfect. Plus, if things go wrong,” he swallowed hard around a sudden lump in his throat. “If things go wrong, my house has working phones, you could call for help.”

“Okay, so Max, Lucas and Erica at your house, Dustin and Eddie distract the octo-bats-”

“Demobats,” Dustin cut in, only for Nancy to shoot him a look that made lesser men quake in fear, and continue.

“Dustin and Eddie distract the octo-bats, which leaves Robin and I to kill this bitch.”

It was times like this that Steve remembered why he had loved her so much.

“I’ll be here,” Steve waved a hand around the trailer. “If something goes wrong and I can’t hold his attention, if I’m here I’ll be able to tell you guys that it’s going to go sideways, maybe be able to help.”

That was that. Their master plan to kill Henry Creel and maybe finally be shut of the Upside Down once and for all.

The rest, as they said, was gravy. They needed firepower, and they couldn’t go to Nancy’s to get her guns, because it was apparently crawling with cops. God, Steve missed Hopper. It stung, a little, that he still hadn’t visited, but Steve was fairly certain that Hop was firmly attached to El, so that made sense.

It was Eddie who suggested War Zone, and when faced with the problem of transportation, because Steve’s car was still parked by Lover’s Lake (ugh, he hoped it hadn’t been towed, it would be a bitch and a half to get back) it was Eddie who solved that problem as well.

“It’s not exactly a car, Steve,” Eddie was leaning into Steve’s space, “and it’s not exactly mine, but, well…”

Which is how Steve added grand theft auto (grand theft home?) to his Upside Down resume.

There was a moment of panic when Eddie got the RV started, grinning like a maniac the entire time and he leaned so close to Steve that his breath puffed across Steve’s cheek.

“Harrington’s got her, dontcha, Big Boy.” And that was. Well, that was something.

Except Steve did not, in fact, have her, as Robin shrieked when Steve slid into the driver’s seat and slammed his still bare foot down on the gas pedal.

“Steve can’t drive!” She called from her position of holding on for dear life to the dining room table. “He’s got ghost epilepsy!”

“Steve’s not driving!” Billy shouted back as he cranked the wheel to try and set them on the road.

From the back, Max, most familiar with Billy’s style of driving, muttered a quiet “oh fuck” before scrambling for her seatbelt. Billy cackled as there was a mad dash in the back for something to hold on to, and they were off.

Chapter Text

Despite the less than soothing start to the drive (Steve would swear up and down that Billy had gotten the RV on two wheels at least once), they got on the road with no problems beyond a few bruises.

It was Robin in the passenger seat as Nancy had taken one look at Billy’s manic grin on Steve’s face and retreated to the back of the RV. Eddie was sat up against the back of Steve’s chair, close enough to hold a whispered conversation with Robin.

“My dad used to promise he’d take me and mom on a roadtrip in one of these,” Eddie said, abruptly. Robin hummed noncommittally - she got horrifically car sick, Steve knew, and thought that family road trips were the secret, eighth circle of hell.

“Where was he gonna take you?” Billy asked. Robin cast a glance at him, that thing that had been in her eyes in the Upside Down, the one that Steve hadn’t been able to get a read on was loud and clear in her eyes now. He still didn’t know what she meant.

“Wherever,” Eddie shrugged, Steve could feel the movement against the back of his seat. “I don’t think it was the destination that mattered so much, just so long as we were going away.” There was a beat, before he continued in a softer voice, “Munson family legacy of fleeing in the face of, well, anything, really.” Steve’s heart ached for him, a bit. He had known that Eddie was still blaming himself for running when Chrissy had died, but he had to know that there was nothing that he could have done differently. He had to know that he had done the best he could.

It was different, sitting passenger in his own body, because he couldn’t say any of those things, but he got the feeling that Billy heard him, nonetheless.

“Could be worse,” Billy said, offhandedly. “Only place my old man ever drove us was to Hawkins, which, you know, is apparently actually hell.”

Steve had done a similar drive with his own family, fleeing Colorado and the shadow of the Grabber mere weeks after the whole thing had happened. Running from the worst thing that had ever happened to their family to Hawkins, Indiana, chosen from a list his mother had found in a magazine of “towns in America with the lowest crime statistics.” Steve was pretty sure that was ironic, you know, given the whole situation. Maybe. He wasn’t sure he understood irony.

He had really enjoyed the road trip. It had been fun seeing new things and his mother had let him pick some of the tapes they listened to. That whole trip was a bright spot in his memory, sandwiched between the darkness of the Grabber’s basement and the sheer terror of the Upside Down. When he and Nancy had been dating, he had fantasized about taking a similar trip with their family in the future, in an RV just like this one, their kids in the back seat. He wanted a huge family, he’d always imagined six kids.

He thought about driving to California and teaching them to surf.

Billy coughed around a lump in Steve’s throat, suddenly.

“Six?!” He said aloud, Robin and Eddie both startling at the sudden noise. “Steve’s imagining a family road trip, he just said he wants six kids.”

Billy was a snitch.

“Six?!” Robin looked both horrified and delighted, which was her default expression when Steve said something that she was going to use as blackmail against him forever.

“I always wanted a big family,” Eddie said.

Thank you, Eddie, for not being an ass about it.

“But six kids sounds like way too many.”

Nevermind. Screw you too, Eddie.

“Right?” Billy snorted, his normal laugh distorted by Steve’s crooked nose. “Six kids in an RV sounds like a nightmare. I pity the future Mrs. Harrington.”

When Steve had first had that dream, it had been Nancy beside him, but she never really fit. It hurt Steve to admit it, but he’d done damage to their relationship trying to make Nancy fit into the future that he wanted. For approximately 30 seconds last July he had thought of Robin, of her dry wit and her taste in music in his passenger seat, but well - Robin got carsick. Robin was his soulmate, but not the person next to him in the RV.

“I loved surfing,” Billy said, out of almost nowhere. Robin made her “what the fuck are you talking about” noise. Eddie, however, apparently was following the conversation that was only half occurring out loud.

“Yeah, but would you want to teach all six Harrington Jrs to surf? That sounds like a lesson that will end in drowning.”

Fucking rude.

“Like I haven’t dealt with that with the current model,” Billy bitched, waving his hand at Steve’s body like it was Steve’s fault he almost drowned.

It was probably a good thing that Billy was in control, because Steve could just tell that he would be blushing if he was the one driving. Hah. Driving. Cause Billy was -

“My god Harrington, you fucking dork,” Billy muttered.

There was a scramble when they got to Warzone, everyone insisting that they should be the ones buying things, until Billy stood, shoved two fingers in his mouth and whistled loud enough to blow the eardrums out of everyone in the RV.

“Jesus H. Christ,” Eddie swore, pinky in one ear like he could dig his ability to hear back out if he tried hard enough. Steve wouldn’t have been surprised if his ears were ringing, Eddie had been standing right next to Steve when Billy had done it.

“Munson, the jocks still hate you and I passed Andy’s car in the lot on the way in. You stay. Shitheads, you’re too young to buy anything and I’m not going to make Steve supervise your asses in there. The man is barefoot and bleeding, he will not also be babysitting. You stay. If you have an idea, write it down, we will see what we can do.”

“Fire,” Dustin said from the back. He, surprisingly, didn’t seem put out about being made to wait in the car. “They don’t like fire, we need all the literal firepower we can get.”

“Fire, got it.” Billy nodded, once, sharply, and that was all the warning Steve had before he was running the body again. His knees went out, and it was only Eddie’s quick reflexes in getting an arm around his waist that kept him from braining himself on the formica dining bench.

“You back with us, Steve?” Eddie asked, his free hand already up to forestall the inevitable shouting from the kids.

“Never really left,” Steve got his legs under him and pat Eddie on the back, as a thank you for not letting him get another concussion in a really embarrassing way. “Just wasn’t in the driver’s seat.”

“Except that you sort of were in the driver’s seat,” Eddie grinned, wide and unrepentant and Steve beamed.

“I made that joke, too!”

Robin cleared her throat, loudly, from right behind them.

“If we’re done with the puns, can we please go buy Steve some shoes? The feet are gross.”

“You shouldn’t say that about the man you love, Robin,” Dustin said, solemn and too invested. Robin made pointed eye contact with Steve, looked at Eddie’s arm around his waist, raised her eyebrows, and then turned back to Dustin.

“Just for that, I am not buying you a flamethrower, Steve’s tiny and annoying friend.”

Dustin’s yowl of protest followed them outside the RV.

Warzone was fine. Steve found a shirt that was loose enough that it wasn’t going to put pressure on his bites, and a pair of boots in his size and met up with Robin to put it in the cart. If everything went according to plan, he wasn’t going to need to cobble together armor like the rest of them, but it made him feel better anyway.

He found Robin in an aisle that was dedicated to fuel for fires, which seemed both excessive and exactly what they needed. She was working her way down the list the kids had given her with steely-eyed determination.

“Why does a place called Warzone not have a flamethrower?” She asked, when Steve slid in next to her to load cans of lighter fluid into the cart.

“False advertising, really,” he said, looking at the stock in the cart and adding a few more cans to it. They could afford it.

Robin froze next to him, her absence of movement a jarring contrast to her normal self.

“Robin?” Steve’s heart kicked in his ribs. If Henry stole her to his nightmare parade here, Steve would go with her. The kids would be stuck in the car, Andy and the rest of the basketball jocks would find Eddie -

She was staring across the aisle at a redheaded girl wearing a straw hat. Very Molly Ringwald, if you squinted.

“Vickie?” Steve asked, quiet. Robin nodded, still holding herself absolutely still save for the bob of her head.

“What are you going to do, Robin, just stand here and gawk at her?”

“Shut up.” But it lacked heat, and to Steve’s eternal joy, she actually took a step forward.

And then Vickie was being swept into her kiss by some guy, a dude that Steve vaguely recognized as having graduated some years before. And Robin’s face was pure heartbreak.

“Robin,” Steve had to force his throat to work, to reach out and put a hand on her shoulder. He wanted to hug her. To throw things at the universe in general until it gave her a woman who would see her the way he did. To give her someone worthy of her.

“I’m fine, Steve,” Robin insisted, and her eyes were set, the way they had been when she got into the car with him to drive back to the mall the previous summer. “We have other priorities, anyway.” She was right. One of those priorities happened to be looming in Nancy’s space, and despite knowing that she could absolutely eviscerate Jason Carver if she wanted to, there was a fire burning low in Steve’s spine that made him want to take his own shot.

“You go handle that,” Robin said, nodding her head towards Jason and Nancy, “I’ll finish the list.”

Steve pulled her into a hug and kissed her on the forehead, never mind that she was just as dirty from the Upside Down as he was.

“Love you,” he said, because she needed to know that.

“Love you too, dingus,” and she didn’t smile at him, but she did knock her forehead gently into his cheek, which was almost the same thing. “Go, before Nancy shoots him.” Which, good point.

“Carver,” Steve called, loud enough that people turned to look at him. “Last I heard you were wanted for murder.”

“Person of interest,” Jason gritted out, his teeth clenched so tightly that he might actually crack them. There was something about this situation that was tickling the back of Steve’s mind, something that he had expected but wasn’t there…

“Surprised to see you here, Harrington, everyone knows you hang out with those kids that worship Eddie Munson.” Jason let go of the gun in Nancy’s hand and turned fully to face Steve. Steve stepped forward, closed the distance between them and even without shoes, he still had some inches on the blond, enough to loom, to make his presence oppressive.

“Here, Nance,” Steve fished his wallet out of his pants (and deliberately did not think about what a miracle it was that he still had it), “put it on my card.”

“Get another one, if you can,” Billy said, his words falling out of Steve’s mouth smooth and easy. “Got a friend who used to be an alright shot.”

If Nancy thought anything of the exchange, she kept her face impassive. She took the wallet, and the gun, and turned away from Jason, which was what Steve wanted. Billy, his message conveyed, was content to sink to the background, his presence nothing but a warmth at the back of Steve’s neck. He was going to let Steve handle this on his own.

“Don’t ignore me, Harrington,” Jason took two steps forward, getting into Steve’s space, and grabbed at the vest that Steve was wearing over his bat bites. Eddie’s vest. Fuck. And Jason seemed to recognize it, too. “Where did you get this?” he hissed, and there was the same kind of manic energy that Steve had seen in Billy so often before he died, except where Billy had kept the reins on it, Jason seemed to be driven by it.

“Never taken a hunting trophy before, Carver?” Steve bluffed. He regretted the words as soon as they were out of his mouth, but the only way out was through. There was heat, the press of a hand on his shoulder and Billy’s amusement was an almost tangible thing.

“You’re saying you took out the Freak?” Jason looked, for a second, like he might buy it, before the mania rose again, washing away anything that might have been common sense. “He was mine to deal with, for Chrissy.” He jabbed a finger into Steve’s shoulder, but Steve barely felt it.

That was it. That was what had been missing. Chrissy was nowhere to be seen. She had made time and energy to talk to Eddie, to thank him for being there for her, but she wasn’t even a shadow over Jason’s shoulder. It seemed that Chrissy Cunningham had no space in her afterlife for Jason Carver. Steve was still pretty sure he didn’t really understand what irony was, but this probably qualified.

“Well, then,” Steve curled a hand around Jason’s where it gripped Eddie’s vest. “You can say ‘thank you for handling that for me, Steve,’ and go back needing a freshman to win games for you.”

The heat at the back of his neck blazed and Steve could practically hear Billy roaring with laughter.

“No,” Jason insisted. “If you had really taken care of the Freak you wouldn’t be here buying guns.”

“Maybe I’m here buying guns because some idiot’s riling the town up into a mob and I want to make sure they don’t get pointed at the wrong people.”

Steve was trying to keep his voice level, he really was, but beneath the heat of Billy’s laughter there was a crackle of lightning and the rage that meant he was rapidly losing control of the situation.

“Just face it, Jason, you’re a child who is throwing a temper tantrum because you lost your favorite toy. Nevermind that Chrissy was a person, who deserved better than you, even before you started dragging her name into your misguided, idiot fucking witchhunt.”

Steve may have been asking for that punch. Luckily, for all his basketball athleticism, Jason was not Billy. Or Jonathan. Or the Russians. Steve had been hit much harder and walked away before.

Plus, Vance, for all his faults, could be counted on when there was a fight, and Jason was definitely asking for Vance to plant Steve’s fist in his gut.

Lucky for Jason, the knife that Steve had pulled off the shelf was in the cart that he had left with Robin, or this would have gone very, very differently.

“Listen, buddy,” Steve wrapped an arm around Jason’s shoulders and pulled him in close. “Eddie didn’t kill Chrissy. And if you keep shouting about devil worship and trying to hurt him, or the people around him, I will bury you so deep that your ass lands in Satan’s front lawn.” He let go of Jason’s shoulders and tapped him once, hard on the cheek. “You get me?” The smile he flashed was all King Steve, lots of teeth and threat. Jason scowled, and Steve nodded at him once, spread his hands in a manner he knew he had to be borrowing from Eddie, and bowed.

“Make good choices, Carver!” He called over his shoulder when he turned his back on the other boy and walked out of the store.

It wasn’t until he was back in the car that he realized he had forgotten to buy a jacket. Hopefully Robin had picked one up for him.

Robin had, in fact, grabbed a leather jacket for him.

“This seems like an improbable coincidence,” Steve said, holding the brown leather jacket that Robin had shoved at him in front of his face. Max crowded in next to him, a hint of recognition in her eyes.

They had parked the RV in a field, the idea was to prepare as much as possible, grab what sleep they could before it got dark, and then head out. Robin had shoved a bag of clothes at him before exiting, claiming that she wanted nothing to do with his gross feet anymore.

It still smelled like him.

Almost a year later, however much time on the shelves of the Warzone thrift section and the jacket still smelled like Billy. That cheap cologne and too many cigarettes and whatever off brand hairspray he used.

“It’s yours when this is over, Max,” Steve said. And she ignored the hitch in his voice when he said it. She hugged him then, sudden and fierce in the way she was about most things, her arms careful to avoid the wrap of makeshift bandages around his waist. It reminded him of the last time they had hugged, when she had visited him the previous summer.

“I promise you will get this back in one piece, Max,” Steve said, and if Billy bled into his words, pressed himself so close to Steve that he was a line of fire up his spine so that Max was hugging the both of them, well, Steve wasn’t a snitch.

She let go and stepped back, scrubbing the back of her hand under her nose, and left without a word.

If Steve pressed the leather jacket to his face and inhaled, well, that was between him and Billy.

“Your cologne is awful,” he whispered to the empty RV.

There was no response.

He could hear muffled noise in the distance, could pick out Dustin and Eddie’s voices, Nancy’s furious cadence and Lucas and Erica’s chatter. Robin, funnel ready, was looking at him, that look that he couldn’t decipher in her eyes. He tried to distract her, he really did, but something about watching the girl that she had been crushing on for weeks kiss a guy in the Warzone mace section had made her really focused.

“In the face of the world ending, the stakes of my love life feel spectacularly low,” she said, that inscrutable look in her eyes.

“Yeah, I mean, I get you there, but I still have hope.” He meant for her, he really did. He had hope that somehow there would be a woman who would be worthy of his best friend, who would love her the way that she deserved.

“Not everything has a happy ending,” she said, and that inscrutable thing he had been seeing in her eyes for what felt like days now was front and center.

“Believe me, I know.”

He thought, maybe he knew what that look was now.

The jacket around his shoulders still smelled like Billy. He knew, probably better than most, that there weren’t always happy endings. His entire life was built on the graves of five other boys who did not get their happy endings.

“I just have this terrible, gnawing feeling that it’s not going to work out for us this time.”

In the corner of his eye, Steve could see Nancy showing Max how to aim their guns - the barrels sawed off and discarded. The Sinclairs were bent, heads together, tying the knives that Steve had picked out to sticks. Beyond them, Dustin and Eddie had abandoned their shield making and were scrabbling around in the grass.

“You think we shouldn’t be doing this?” he asked, but he knew the answer. No, no they shouldn’t be doing this. But someone had to. For Max and for Billy. For Chrissy and Fred and Patrick. For Barb.

For Vance, still tied to Steve in a way that neither of them fully understood.

“If we don’t, who will?” Robin asked, hand steady on her half full molotov. “We have to try, right?”

Her eyes were dry.

God, Steve loved her. Fuck Scoops Ahoy and the Russians and their gate and all of Starcourt, but at least he got Robin out of it.

“To killing Henry,” Steve said, tilting the neck of his own molotov out towards her.

“To coming home,” she said, clinking her own bottle against his.

It wasn’t dark yet when they started bedding down, exhausting claiming the kids until they were piled on the bed in the back of the RV in a mess - more like puppies than teenagers. It made Steve’s chest hurt to look at them a little bit. Robin folded herself into the driver’s seat, back up against the door and head cushioned by a throw pillow that she had stolen from the couch. Nancy was perched on the couch, gun in hand, ready to keep watch until it was go-time. Steve had entertained the idea of staying up with her, not because he wanted to, but because he felt like it was something that he had to do. And then Eddie had caught his eye, mimed smoking and jerked his head towards the door and yeah, Steve was absolutely going to take advantage of Robin being asleep and go have a cigarette.

It was almost chilly - the sun was going to set in a few hours and then they would be on their way, but for now it was enough to shrug on Billy’s thrifted jacket and stand in the waning sunlight.

“I actually,” Eddie hesitated once they were outside and away from the RV, cigarette clenched between his teeth. “I actually had a favor I wanted to ask.” His fingers were steadier than they had been that morning on Steve’s pool deck and the lighter sparked easy under his thumb.

“Shoot,” Steve shrugged, tilting a cig from the pack and leaning over to let Eddie light it.

“Not you,” Eddie sounded like this whole conversation was painful to him, actually. Now that Steve was looking, there was a line of tension that he hadn’t seen Eddie carry in his shoulders before. “Hargrove.”

“I don’t -” but it didn’t matter if Steve understood what was going on, because Billy slid into place like shrugging on an oversized sweater. A touch of warmth on his shoulders and Steve let himself fall out of the way, because if Eddie cared enough to ask and Billy cared enough to answer, he wasn’t going to stand in the way.

“You want driving tips or fashion advice, Munson?” Billy drawled, obnoxious on purpose the way that he could be sometimes. Steve usually kept his cigarette in his hands if he was talking, but Billy kept it clenched in his front teeth, like losing any of the nicotine was a waste.

“I’m not taking fashion advice from a man who doesn’t know how to button his own shirts,” Eddie snapped, too quick and too angry, before he visibly pulled it back, an inhale and an exhale and a forcible relaxation of his shoulders.

“Bring him home,” Eddie said, suddenly, softly. “He’s being a goddamned idiot about this and the only reason we got him out of the Upside Down the first time is because you were there. And I know your first priority is Max, but when she’s out and safely back in Sinclair the Elder’s hands, make sure Steve doesn’t jump on any unnecessary grenades?” Steve’s heart ached. He’d known Eddie, really known him for all of four days and here the guy was, losing out on valuable sleep and asking a favor from a man he acted like he could barely stand, thinking about Steve’s wellbeing.

“You didn’t have to ask, Munson,” Billy said, cigarette still between his teeth.

“No,” Eddie said softly, turned away from them and towards the slowly setting sun. “I did.”

Chapter Text

“Remember,” Steve said, doing what he thought was a pretty good job of keeping all of the tension out of his voice.

“The key is under the hide-a-frog, don’t turn on the living room lights until we’ve pulled the curtains in place, and keep our walkies on hand.” Max and Erica recited in frightening unison, their faces schooled into identical teenaged expressions of disdain.

“Hey, don’t give me that attitude!” Steve pointed his finger at them in the most aggressively parental way that he could manage. “None of us are going to be able to get back here if you get in trouble, so forgive me for making sure that you will be alright.”

“We’ll be fine, Steve,” Lucas said, and his expression was more resigned than anything. Steve wanted to fold the kid up in his arms, go back to that basketball game they had played last fall and just enjoy a moment without the gut churning horror. They were all too young for this.

“You better be,” Dustin said, pushing Steve aside to pull Lucas, Erica and a resigned looking Max into a single enormous hug.

“We’ll be back when it’s over,” Nancy said, her face set. Steve noticed that she had not said “we’ll be back when we’ve won.”

“Sleepover at Steve’s?” Dustin turned back to them to ask, one arm still slung around Lucas’ neck, his face schooled into a pleading expression so over the top that Steve choked on a laugh.

“Sure thing, Dustin,” he shrugged. Why the hell not. “After we stop the apocalypse, we can have a sleepover in my living room.”

They couldn’t drop the kids off in the driveway, not driving the RV and not with Steve’s extremely nosy neighbors, so they let them off a little ways down the road. It was just a small stretch of the woods to tromp through to get to his backyard, a section that Steve himself had walked through more than once when he was trying to avoid his dad knowing where he was going.

It was also the same woods where the Upside Down had first leaked out, had first vomited a demogorgon into the world and stolen Will Byers away.

“Keep them safe, you hear me?” Steve whispered, touching his fingers lightly to the back of his neck, to the smoldering heat that had sat there since the field, since Eddie had made Billy promise to look out for Steve.

There was a brush of warmth to the back of Steve’s hand and then the heat disappeared.

The kids and their flashlights vanished into the darkness, taking Billy with them.

There was a moment of silence, where Steve felt his new found solitude like it was an ice pick shoved into his chest. He swallowed forcibly, shoving past the sudden cold.

“Okay, someone else gets to drive this boat,” Steve gestured at the steering wheel. “My copilot is away, so I am not the driver, and as previously established, Robin doesn’t know how. So, for the first time in a very long time, I am going to sit here,” and Steve slid into the passenger seat, “and enjoy being ferried around.” He kicked his feet up on the dash, leaned back, hands behind his head and flashed Nancy and Eddie his best shit eating grin.

Nancy and Eddie cast a glance at each other and with no verbal communication at all, broke into the most furious game of rock, paper, scissors that Steve had ever seen.

After they both threw rock five times in a row, Eddie flashed paper to Nancy’s scissors, threw his arms up in exasperation and climbed into the driver’s seat.

“If we get pulled over by Hawkins most incompetent, I’m blaming you, Wheeler,” he said, but his voice lacked the heat that Steve had heard him put in it before. Nancy rolled her eyes good naturedly and settled into what had become “her spot” on the couch.

Eddie drove a bit like Billy, though Steve knew neither of them would thank him for saying that. He was all sharp turns and pedal to the metal acceleration, neither of which the RV was built for. Steve yanked his feet off the dash and planted them on the floor, desperately trying to keep from sliding all over the seat with every turn that Eddie took at speed. Steve found himself clutching what Robin referred to as “the Jesus handle” for most of the ride.

The absolutely nauseating drive did make Steve wonder, in an absentminded kind of way, what had happened to the Camero after Starcourt. He knew the beemer wasn’t quite the same, didn’t have the same sort of horsepower, but maybe when this was all over Billy and Eddie would like taking it to the abandoned mall parking lot and doing donuts, something Steve had never done himself but had always sort of kept in the back of his mind as something that sounded fun. Steve and Eddie could trade places in the driver’s seat, Billy and Eddie could take turns driving, pulling tighter and tighter turns until Steve was laughing himself sick.

He wondered if he was jinxing everything by making plans for the future.

No one said a word when they pulled up to Forest Hills. The RV’s owners were gone, and Steve felt a little less guilty for their grand theft auto when they parked the vehicle in the same place they had taken it from. Eddie managed to only crush one of the discarded lawn chairs under the tires, which, honestly, given the sort of week that they had been having, seemed like a win.

With the RV parked and the engine off, there was no sound but the pounding of Steve’s own heart and the ragged draws of his own breath. There was a lightning jittering in his veins, a power that screamed out to Steve the closer they got to Eddie’s trailer and the gate inside. It felt different from the lightning crack of Vance’s presence, it felt like more.

They managed a mostly stealthy exodus from the RV, sneaking into the trailer and pulling the door shut as quietly as possible. There was some banging, spears and nail shields getting caught in doorways and it was enough to make Steve miss his nail bat. At least that had been a compact and efficient weapon. If he had been on Team Firesquad (Dustin named them, no one had felt like arguing with him about the name), he probably would have made himself another one, but he wasn’t headed into the Upside Down. Steve was the sole remaining member of the Party that was staying right here.

Eddie’s curtains weren’t the blackout kind, but they pulled them shut anyways and kept the lights off. Once they got moving, the only one of them who would be in any danger of getting caught by the police, or by Jason’s mob of lunatics, was Steve, who had the best chance of talking himself out of trouble in either case. But there was no sense in courting danger.

“Do you think you’ll move after this?” Robin asked, staring at the gaping hole in reality on Eddie’s ceiling.

“I’d give it even odds on Owens taking the trailer, to be honest,” Nancy said.

“As long as they give us a new one, and let Wayne keep his mugs,” Eddie shrugged, “I don’t give a flying fuck what they do with this place.”

Steve could understand that. He really could. He hoped Eddie got a new trailer, and wasn’t haunted by what had happened here. It seemed like the government might be more willing to replace a trailer that was a scene of a murder than it had been to fill in a pool that a girl had not officially died in.

At least Starcourt had the decency to burn down.

“Is moving the trailer going to move the portal? Or, like, if the trailer gets moved to the lab would the portal still let out in the Upside Down version of Forest Hills?” Robin was looking thoughtful, like she was seriously considering finding a way to move the trailer and test that out right now. Steve and Eddie shared a glance over her shoulder and Eddie just shrugged helplessly, like it was his fault that he didn’t know what would happen to the hole in the world when his home got towed away.

“That’s why I think Owens is going to want it,” Nancy said, and the look she shot at Robin was the warmest that Steve had seen her all day.

Steve had argued about being the person who climbed the rope and got the mattress set up, but Eddie and Nancy had been firm that he was staying on this side of reality. They didn’t know how long they would have before Max got taken, and they had no way to get Steve back up the rope as dead weight. Robin had dug her elbow into his ribs like that was supposed to help with his feelings of being useless and not just remind him that he had a cracked rib or two.

God, this was going to be a long ass hospital stay when this was over, Steve could tell already.

As it was, Nancy let Steve boost her up the sheet rope and into the Upside Down, and toss various weapons and things up into the portal. Robin went next, after a hug that had lasted long enough for Dustin to cough pointedly, then Dustin, who got his own hug and a hair ruffle he protested almost violently. Finally it was just Eddie and Steve standing under the gate.

“Eddie, listen,” Steve grabbed Eddie’s jacket, keeping him on this side of reality for a moment longer. Eddie turned to him, his gaze so focused and intense that Steve found himself pulling his shoulders up and back to match him. “If things start to go south, at all, abort. Okay? Draw the attention of the bats, keep them busy, but just for a minute or two, okay? The girls will handle Henry’s meat suit, you don’t need -” the words caught in Steve’s throat.

“Don’t worry, Steve,” Eddie patted Steve’s cheek in a move that Steve might have thought was condescending a week ago, but Eddie’s voice lacked the heat that it had when he was really being an ass. “Look at me, I’m not a hero. Besides, I’ve got the fun job.” He raised his eyebrows high enough that they almost vanished under his bangs and Steve wanted to shake him. He settled instead for his own slightly condescending gesture, zipping up Eddie’s leather jacket for him like he was a child, instead of a man older than Steve was.

“I mean it, Eddie,” He couldn’t bring himself to let go of the zipper, his fingers shaking. Eddie’s hand, the one with all those hideous, distracting rings came up and wrapped around his, his touch warm.

“I promise, Steve. Dustin and I will be fine.”

“You better be.”

Eddie beamed at him, before gently tugging Steve’s hand away from his jacket and turning to the rope.

“Shame you’re going to miss the show,” he said, with what might have been genuine glee in his voice. “Even Ozzy didn’t get to play a concert in hell.” There was a second where Eddie paused, his hand on the rope, his back still to Steve.

“Steve?”

“Yeah?”

“Give him hell.”

And he was gone, up the rope and into the Upside Down. Steve found himself thinking, suddenly, horribly, of the morning after Billy had pulled him out of the pool, of the bowl of fruit and the brush of hair off of his forehead, and how that had been the last time he had seen Billy alive and well.

On the other side Robin’s gaze was sharp, that not-so-unamed thing front and center. Steve shrugged, helplessly, hoping his nerves weren’t visible on his face, before waving. There wasn’t anything he could say right now that hadn’t been said already.

And then it was just Steve and his own waiting.

He could hear Eddie and Dustin moving around on the other side of the portal, reinforcing the trailer walls with everything that they could scavenge, but he couldn’t make himself focus on what they were doing. Instead, he lay down on the couch, pulled his walkie up to his chest and clicked the talk button twice, holding it long enough for the feedback to squeal, before letting go.

He got a squeal of feedback in return a few seconds later and something in his heart hurt. They were ready. The girls were on their way to Henry, Dustin and Eddie were setting up for Eddie’s concert in hell, and in the Harrington house, on the other side of town, Max took off her headphones.

He didn’t know how long he sat there, waiting for the spike of electric pain that meant that Henry had found Max, waiting for the fall into her nightmares. He knew that it was long enough for him to wish that there was someone there to wait with him.

Maybe he was getting used to it, but when it came this time, the pain didn’t seem as bad. It was enough to arch his spine, to force his jaw shut around a scream, but it didn’t feel like every bone in his body was breaking, like there was something living under his skin that was trying to claw its way out. It felt like he had touched a power line, like there was a current running under his skin, tightening his muscles to where they might snap, sending his heart into a skipping rhythm that made his breath catch in his throat.

He had expected to open his eyes in the Creel house, if he was being honest. Something about symmetry and home turf advantage. Instead, he was standing in his own dining room, his mom at the head of the table, a mostly empty bottle of wine at her elbow.

Steve’s heart thudded against his ribs.

“Steve?” He was man enough to admit that he jumped. It was Max, looking as confused as he felt.

“Are you alright?” Steve asked, closing the distance between them.

“I’m fine. I just expected…” Max looked a little lost. Steve shrugged. He didn’t understand it either.

“It’s because you fucked it up, Stevie.” Steve’s mother called from her spot at the table. She was over enunciating, the way she did when she was drunk but trying to sound sober. The way that she had always sounded before the end. “You just couldn’t keep from shoving your nose where it didn’t belong and now you’ve fucked everything up.” Steve turned back to the dining room, keeping Max behind him as much as possible. She didn’t need to see this.

“When you were little,” and it sounded like a curse when she said it, “I looked at you and I knew what you would become. I could see death all around you. I could see the miserable end that was waiting for you.” Max’s hand grabbed at the back of his jacket, pulling, trying to get him to move, but Steve felt like he was rooted to the ground. His mother was leaning on the table, pressing down with her palms like she needed the leverage to stand, but her eyes were clear.

“It was so easy to hold you under the water,” she continued and Steve felt each word like it was a physical blow. Behind him, he heard Max bite off a curse under her breath and distantly, Steve wondered where Billy was. Why Billy wasn’t here to get Max out of this nightmare. “You were too little to struggle, really, all I had to do was push down on your shoulders and I’d save you from all of the horrors that were waiting for you in the dark.”

He remembered the last nightmare, that vision of her as she was dying, clutching his hand while she bled out and wishing she had drowned him when she had the chance. He remembered a screaming fight between his parents, one that ended with his mother sobbing, promising to get help.

He remembered, though it was fuzzy in the way that most of his childhood memories were, looking up at his mother from under the water, the ripples distorting her face, but not enough to hide the fact that she was crying.

It hurt, but in an abstract sort of way that was buried under all of the anger that clouded his memories of her.

“That’s the big secret?” He snapped, reaching back to grasp at Max’s wrist and walking her slowly backwards. Doors lead to new places, he could get her to the door to the basement and shove her through to a happy memory. “You hated me enough to try and kill me? Couldn’t manage that right so you had to go and kill yourself instead?” He could feel Max’s grip on his jacket tighten, pulling it tighter across his chest.

“No, no, baby,” Steve’s mother cooed, “I did it because I love you. I loved you enough to try and stop you from reaching this end.” She reached a hand towards them and despite the table between them, Steve could feel the cold press of her fingers against her cheek. It was enough to spur him into action, for him to turn and push Max forward, herding her away from the dining room and the nightmare specter of his dead mother.

“Of course,” Max huffed, when Steve yanked open the door to the basement and found it covered with planks, like the doors that had barred Steve’s way in the lab.

“Did you think you were hiding from me, little rat?” Henry’s voice rumbled from behind them, and Steve could hear Max’s unsteady inhale next to him. “Did you think that you were being clever?” His steps on the stairs were heavy as ever. Max shoved forward, yanking on the boards across the doorway, but Steve couldn’t bring himself to move.

“Did you think that I didn’t know what you had planned?” His hand on Steve’s shoulder felt like Steve’s mother’s had on his cheek - cold and dead.

“Get the fuck-” Max stepped forward, and Henry reached out with his free hand and pushed, sending her pinwheeling into the darkness of the basement, the planks that had been across the doorway gone in the blink of an eye.

“Max!” Steve turned to try and grab her, to keep her from falling down the stairs into the dark. Henry’s grip on his shoulder was strong, but Steve’s sudden movement must have surprised him, because he felt that grip go slack and found himself falling backwards, the living room of his house fading away until he slammed against the concrete floor of a basement that he was far too well acquainted with.

“Max?” He scrambled to his feet, but she wasn’t there with him. Small miracle, probably.

Instead, there was Vance, blood in his hair and on his clothes, seated on the mattress in the middle of the room.

He looked tense, his hands white knuckled on his knees and his shoulders drawn up around his ears.

On the wall behind him was the phone, the black monolith that had saved Steve’s life.

Steve took a step towards the phone, well aware that he probably should have used one of the phones in the nightmare of his own house to call, but it did seem sort of appropriate to be here, now. Full circle, and all that.

Except that Vance pushed himself off of the bed and got in Steve’s way, his feet planted and his shoulders square in a way that told Steve very clearly this was probably going to end in a fight.

“Vance?” Steve tried to step around him, to get closer to the phone, but Vance matched the movement, stepping in closer to Steve, almost within arm’s reach now. And it had been a long time since Steve had been properly afraid of Vance, probably since that first fight with Billy, or even when he heard Vance’s voice in his room. But now, with the squared shoulders and the look in Vance’s eyes, it was like that day at the gas station, the last time that Steve had ever seen Vance alive, when Vance had stabbed that other kid. What Steve had taken for tension previously was anticipation, Vance had been waiting for a fight that Steve hadn’t known was coming.

“I am sorry about this, Stevie,” Vance said, rolling his shoulders. “He said that if I could keep you occupied he’d let me out, that I could run the show once he had no more use for you.”

Steve had been through a lot of terrifying stuff in his life. The Grabber and the basement. Fighting the demogorgon in the Byers’ house. The tunnels with the kids. The Russians at Starcourt. The pool and the quarry, the surety that he would have died if not for Billy and Eddie. Watching Robin die, no matter that it had been just a nightmare.

He would add this moment to that list, if he lived through this. The idea that Two had promised Steve’s body to Vance in exchange for whatever Two’s fucked up plan was made Steve’s stomach roll. Billy hadn’t been kidding. Vance had not been telling him everything.

“I knew he was trouble,” came an unsettlingly familiar voice from the stairs. Steve didn’t need to turn to know who he would see there. He could picture that horrible white demon mask well enough. Steve did get a bit of sick satisfaction at the way that the color drained from Vance’s face. “But I just couldn’t help myself. It’s more fun when you have to work for it, you know?”

Sometimes, when Steve had been in the basement, the Grabber had tried to play friendly, like he really didn’t intend to hurt Steve, that this was just a game of some kind. He had that same tone now, the casual, “you and I have a secret” tone that set Steve’s teeth on edge.

“If you just step aside, Stevie, I’ll handle him for you,” the Grabber said, and his emphasis on the word “handle” made Vance flinch. Steve’s fingers itched for his bat.

“No deal,” he grit out, stepping sideways again so that he could get his back to the wall. He didn’t want to turn away from Vance, who was giving off the energy of a rabid animal, but he didn’t want the Grabber at his back either. “How about this? The both of you get the fuck out of my head?”

The Grabber’s answer to that was a laugh that raised the hairs on the back of Steve’s neck. Vance’s jaw was clenched so tightly Steve imagined he could hear the teeth cracking. Not for the first time, Steve wondered where Billy was. He would have really appreciated some back up.

“Vance,” Steve said, quietly, drying to drag Vance’s gaze away from the Grabber, who Steve still had not looked directly at, instead keeping him in the periphery of his vision. Vance didn’t so much as blink. There was a second, not even a heart beat, when nothing happened, before all hell broke loose.

Steve dodged around Vance, scrambling for the phone. There was an explosion of movement and noise behind him as he assumed Vance and the Grabber went for each other.

It wasn’t until Steve got his hand on the phone that he realized he had no idea how this worked. Luckily, he seemed to thrive when winging it, and he put the phone to his ear, picturing Robin as hard as he could.

She picked up on the second ring, her breathing pattern familiar enough for him to recognize it.

“Go, Robin,” he said, as quickly as he could get the words out. He could hear the scuffle behind him getting closer. “Go now -” whatever else he was going to say got punched out of him as Vance drove that pocket knife he always carried between Steve’s ribs.

Steve could hear Robin’s inhale, her concern for him after whatever noise he just made enough for her to risk speaking out loud in the Creel house, so Steve slammed the phone back on the hook before she had the chance. Vance yanked the knife out, the pain like fire through Steve’s veins, and drew his hand back for another go, so Steve threw himself forward, sending the two of them to the ground.

He knew he could beat Vance in a fist fight. He had the height and the weight advantage and normally that would have been enough. But he was bleeding, and there was a ferocity in Vance that Steve knew he wouldn’t be able to match. So Steve played a little dirty.

His tackle, his shoulder in Vance’s gut, was enough to get them on the ground, at which point he wrapped one of his hands in Vance’s hair and the other around the wrist of the hand holding the knife, pulled back just a bit with both, and then slammed them back into the ground. Vance’s teeth clacked shut around his tongue and he spit a mouthful of blood at Steve, his free hand scrabbling at the stab wound in Steve’s side, digging fingers in and yanking.

Steve wasn’t proud of the screech he let out, but he didn’t let go, cracking Vance’s head and wrist against the concrete again, and once more, until Vance let go of the knife.

Steve grabbed at it and scrambled, trying to get up and away before Vance could come to his senses, except he was a hair too slow.

Vance got a hand around his ankle and Steve went crashing back to the floor, and the time he lost kicking his way free of Vance’s grip was enough for the Grabber to grab a fistfull of Steve’s shirt and haul him up.

“Stevie, you’ve gotten bigger,” he said, like he was greeting a cousin he hadn’t seen in years. Steve liked to think he was a reasonable person. He didn’t get angry, not anymore, not unless he had Vance or Billy emoting at him, and he didn’t think that he really hated anyone. The Grabber hooked a finger under the chain that Steve never took off anymore, pulling Billy’s St. Christopher medallion out from under his collar. “Found something worth praying for?” He taunted.

Steve hated the man in front of him. This broad shouldered, pathetic asshole who murdered children and buried them in a basement and couldn’t even show his own face while he did it.

The first time, Steve had pulled his mask off, and he had screamed and hid his face behind his hands.

This time, Steve didn’t even bother with the mask, he just slammed the knife he stole from Vance straight into the side of the Grabber’s neck.

“I’ll kill you as many times as I need to, you pathetic fuck.” The Grabber let go of Steve’s shirt to press a hand to his throat, like that would keep his blood in his neck. Steve yanked on the knife, pulling forward as well as out, and was rewarded for his efforts with a spray of blood that soaked his hands and the front of his shirt.

There was a noise behind him, something between a whine and a moan, and Steve turned to see Vance, blood dripping down his chin, staring at the two of them. Steve shoved at the Grabber, sending the mostly dead weight of the larger man into the wall, where he slumped over, not moving. Steve pointed his stolen knife at Vance.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he said, and was only a bit surprised to discover that it was true. “But I don’t care what the telepathetic psychopath told you, you’re not getting the reins here.” Vance’s gaze was hard, and he spat a mouthful of blood on the ground without breaking eye contact. Steve took a step backwards, and then another, Vance mirroring each step.

“I’m not going back in the dark, Stevie,” Vance said. There had been a while there where Steve thought Vance might have been using the nickname with something close to affection, but he could tell now that he was mocking him. His interventions had never been in the name of Steve’s wellbeing, but instead the preservation of Steve’s body for Vance to possess. It felt more like betrayal than Steve had expected.

“I wouldn’t have sent you there,” Steve said.

“You’re not going to have a say here much longer.” Vance lunged forward, but Steve had both reach and a knife, and he was able to hold him at bay. Out of the corner of his eye, Steve watched the Grabber stagger to his feet and he decided that he was done with this basement.

“Go to hell, Vance,” Steve snarled, before spinning on his heel and taking off for the staircase.

Chapter Text

It wasn’t the Grabber’s house in Colorado when he got upstairs, that heavy metal door to the basement slamming shut behind him. It wasn’t even his house in Hawkins. It was instead the bathroom at his old middle school. The one in Colorado, the one that he had left behind when he had moved to Hawkins.

The last place that he had talked to Robin. His first Robin. Steve had been standing at the sink, washing his hands, Robin leaning against one of the stall dividers, talking about watching Texas Chainsaw Massacre with his dad and about doing math homework later. About how, eventually, Robin wouldn’t be there to protect him and Stevie would need to stand up for himself.

There was no Robin in this bathroom. It was just Steve, staring at himself in the scratched and graffitied mirror. He was twelve years old, his hair was parted the wrong way, and his eyes were too big for his face. It was hard to look at himself in the mirror and know this was what he looked like when the Grabber had taken him. It was an older Steve who picked up the nail bat, an older Steve who held a dying Billy Hargrove’s hand, an older Steve who had walked barefoot through literal hell. But it was twelve year old Stevie who had killed a man.

The stall behind him creaked open and there was Henry in all his disgusting, vine covered glory. And despite the fissure of fear that Steve felt run down his spine, there was something so absurd about Henry coming at him from the stall of a middle school boy’s bathroom that Steve had to tamp down on the reflexive giggles.

“Did you think you could hide from me, little rat?” Henry asked, and Steve blinked. He had not been hiding, not really, not intentionally. There had been discussion, when they had first made the plan, about finding a happy memory, something that Henry would have a harder time following him into, but Steve had simply fallen into the basement. And he knew Henry could follow him down there - he had done it before.

There was a flicker in the mirror - blink and you’d miss it - of a teenage boy in some sort of hospital scrubs, his hair shorn short, and Steve understood.

The basement had not been a part of Henry’s nightmare parade for him. It had been part of Two’s. That also explained why Billy hadn’t shown up - he had been able to follow Steve in Henry’s mindscape, but Two seemed to be buried deep enough in Steve’s brain that no one could find him when he was down there. Two had set up the basement, had put Vance there with the instruction to keep Steve busy.

It made Steve shiver, almost, to think about what would have happened if he had not gotten out of that basement. It also made him wonder exactly what had been going on in his brain while Vance was distracting him.

Steve felt like he was just this chewtoy that these psychic assholes were fighting over.

“Didn’t think you were worth hiding from,” Steve managed, despite how dry with fear his mouth was. He was no longer twelve in the mirror. Instead he was nineteen, with bruises around his throat and a sluggishly bleeding wound at his side. He was tired.

“You do not need to run anymore, Steve.” A pair of heavy, dead hands came down on his shoulders. He wondered if Henry thought this was mercy, calling him by his name instead of “little rat,” in what he thought were Steve’s last moments. The bathroom around them waivered, the sickening red of Henry’s broken home showing through for just a second, before the dirty tile and puke green stall walls reasserted themselves. Henry’s grip on his shoulders flexed, in what Steve was going to assume was a gesture of surprise, but he wasn’t going to spend too long thinking about it, to be honest.

Steve turned to run, to scramble his way out the door and into whatever new horrific memory Henry was going to play with, but apparently he had gotten tired of the chase, and before he could take a single step, Steve found himself lifted into the air and slammed into the wall, arms outstretched. He was eye to eye with Henry and furious with embarrassment to find that meant his toes were dangling an inch or so off of the ground.

“You are brave, Steve, much braver than Billy. But in the end, you are weak and fragile. Just. Like. Him. Just like all the rest of them.” The walls of the bathroom were beginning to fall away behind Henry, as more of that horrid red light leaked in, flashing like lightning across the sky. “And you. Will. Break.” His massive clawed hand came up to Steve’s face, close enough for Steve to see the crescent of teeth marks that he had left during their first encounter. Steve tried to pull his head back, tried to squirm or kick or bite his way out of this, but he was held fast, pinned to a bathroom wall like a butterfly in a museum.

There was a high pitched ringing sound growing in Steve’s ears.

And then Henry was gone, yanked across the floor like there was a string tied around him, going through the wall to the outside, where he hung suspended against the red sky like the world’s most demented Christmas tree angel.

Whatever power Henry was expending to keep Steve against the wall was gone, so he landed on his knees on the filthy floor of the mental bathroom. When this whole thing was over, he was going to have a special moment with someone and it was not going to take place in a bathroom, Steve promised himself.

It took Steve a minute to recognize the figure picking her way through the broken chunks of Creel house towards Henry’s floating form. In his defense, it had been a hectic couple of days, and the last he had heard El had been arrested for violence inflicted with a roller skate.

Watching her fling Henry around, tossing him through a piece of floating wall so viciously that he bounced, a little, when he landed, Steve vowed that he would never, make El mad enough to hit him with a roller skate.

He was shaky, when he pushed himself to his feet. Blood loss, probably, it felt similar to the floaty way he had felt in the red storm of Billy’s memories last summer. He pressed a hand to his side and hissed at the sheer amount of blood that covered his palm.

El rushed to his side, holding a hand out to help him up, which was sweet of her.

“Steve, are you okay?” she asked, like that was the most important question.

“I’m fine, El, really,” he lied. He was on a ticking clock, now, but there was no need to worry her with that. He did have to check though, reaching out and poking her gently on her cheek. “Are you alive?”

If he had asked any of the other kids that question, the look they would have given him would have curdled milk. But El was the sweet one, and instead answered his question earnestly.

“I am alive, Steve. I piggybacked from a pizza dough freezer.”

Which. What the fuck.

He had to physically shake his head to move his brain on from that weird ass sentence, and to try and warn El about what he knew was waiting for her.

“El, Henry’s not your only sibling here,” Steve started, frantic, remembering with a sick sense of clarity the hatred that Two had in his voice for El. Before he could get more words out, before he could explain, it was like the world tipped sideways and he was falling into the endless black, water forcing its way up his nose and into his lungs. He reached out, scrabbling for purchase but found nothing to grasp onto in the dark.

A familiar hand reached down through the blackness, grabbed him by his forearm and pulled him out of the water.

Steve coughed so hard, expelling that black water from his lungs, that the only thing keeping him upright was Billy’s grip.

“It’s about time you showed up,” he tried to say around hacking coughs, only to pull himself upright and realize that something was very, very wrong.

“You always have to make everything so difficult, don’t you, Steve?” Billy hissed, his grip on his arms bruising. And Steve knew that he wasn’t as smart as, say, Dustin, but he certainly wasn’t an idiot.

The first time this had happened, at the cemetery with Max, he’d had the warmth of Billy’s spirit against his back to help tell the difference. He didn’t have that now, but truth be told, he didn’t need it. Whoever had built this nightmare version of Billy - Two or Henry, Steve didn’t really care which one - they hadn’t gotten the eyes right, even at his angriest, Steve had never seen this sort of flat fury in Billy’s eyes.

Unfortunately, they had gotten Billy’s freaky grip strength right and Steve wasn’t able to wrench himself out of nightmare Billy’s grasp, especially not considering how woozy he was, how much blood he had lost.

God, he was probably bleeding all over Eddie’s couch. He really hoped the government took the trailer and gave Eddie somewhere new to live, it would suck having to go back to a home that two people had died in.

Billy’s grip tightened further and Steve knew for sure he would have bruises now.

“What the fuck were you thinking -” And Steve was sure that this was going to be a really cutting speech. Really delve into his insecurities and poke at them, make him try and feel like shit. It would probably end with a redux of the fight in front of the Byers’ house, only Steve would be unable to stop Billy from beating him unconscious. Or maybe they would just go for broke and shoot for the food court at Starcourt.

Steve was tired. He was hurting, and he was scared for El, and for Max, who for all he knew was still somewhere in this parade of nightmares. He was terrified for Eddie and Dustin, Nancy and Robin, marching through the Upside Down with a plan and a prayer. So he lost his temper. Just a little bit.

“You know, I figured that you assholes,” the last word was shouted into the void over nightmare Billy’s shoulder, drowning out what he was sure was an excellent monologue about all of his failures as a person, “would at least pull something out that would frighten me. Isn’t that the point? Overwhelm me with nightmares about the things I feel guilty about? Instead you’ve got, what? My parental trauma? Boring! An angry dead teenager and a middle-aged pervert I’ve already killed? Do better.

“And, what, you think having Billy Hargrove spout all my insecurities in my face is going to be what breaks me?

“You’re dead, Billy,” Steve screamed, losing his last grip on his temper, on that squirming feeling inside of himself that he hadn’t been ready to confront. He felt like he had taken some impossibly fragile thing and shattered across the floor. “It doesn’t matter how good a fake those assholes cook up, I will never, ever, believe a thing that comes out of its mouth. Because you’re dead. And I haven’t been able to forget that fact. Not for a second.” The flat fury in Billy’s eyes melted, a little, before a fist came flying out of what felt like nowhere, connecting with nightmare Billy’s face hard enough to snap his head to the side.

“Knew I recognized your dulcet tones, Harrington,” Billy - the real Billy - said, shaking his fist out. Steve used the moment of surprise to wrench himself out of nightmare Billy’s grip, stumbling only a little bit from dizziness. Billy got a hand on his shoulder to steady him and he was so warm Steve could feel him through the leather jacket.

“Took you long enough,” Steve managed. Something was horribly wrong. He could barely hold himself up, could barely think enough to form a coherent sentence.

“Had to get Max squirreled away somewhere safe,” Billy said, his grip tightening on Steve’s shoulder. “Did you know that her happy memory was that middle school dance? Right down to the lame tables and the decorations.”

“Ha.” That was supposed to be a laugh, but it felt like it would take too much energy to manage a proper one.

“You doing alright there?” Billy asked. He shifted his grip and for a second Steve thought Billy was going to actually pick him up and carry him somewhere - where? there was nowhere to go in this endless black - but instead he huffed an annoyed breath, muttered what might have been “you have got to be fucking kidding me,” and basically dropped Steve so he landed on his ass with a splash.

There was a muffled thud, and then a second splash, and the sound of Billy shouting, except his words were indistinct. Steve flopped backwards, letting the cold of the dark water of this place soak into his skin.

He knew, in an abstract sort of way, that he needed to get up. That he needed to keep going. Except he couldn’t find the energy to move.

There was a final thudding noise, followed by a splash, then Billy was leaning over him again.

“Steve, are you okay?”

“Don’t think so.” It was a challenge getting those three words out. Steve couldn’t make his eyes focus, Billy’s face was nothing but a blur hovering over him.

“Fuck, fuck, shit,” Steve felt warm hands on his neck. “Steve, look at me,” Billy demanded.

And Steve tried, he really did, but his eyes refused to focus.

“You’re really making a habit of this,” Billy snapped, but his touch was gentle. One hand went to Steve’s chest, just below his sternum, where Billy’s medallion sat under Steve’s shirt, the other cradled the back of his neck. Each touch was a burning point of contact.

Then there was a third, as Billy slotted his lips over Steve’s mouth and exhaled. It wasn’t a kiss, exactly, and it wasn’t like when Billy had given him CPR after the pool. It was almost like shotgunning, except there was no smoke to inhale. Just the gentle push of Billy until everything resolved into almost painful sharpness in between one heartbeat and the next.

Billy pulled away then, his hand still on Steve’s chest. Not exerting any pressure, just a steady presence against the pounding of his heart.

“...what?” Nothing was fuzzy anymore, Steve could focus on Billy’s face, could see how concerned he was.

“Something’s pulling all of your,” and Billy waved a hand over Steve’s face, like that explained the hell he was talking about, “out. I gave you a little boost, but it won’t last forever. You’ve got to find whoever it is and cut that connection.”

He stood, holding a hand out in front of him.

For a second, it was like they were back in PE, playing basketball and shoving each other around because they could. But when Steve took Billy’s hand, Billy just hauled him to his feet like he weighed nothing and clapped him on the back.

“Almost done, Harrington,” he said, and his hand lingered on Steve’s back for a moment. “We’re almost done. Just bring it home, okay?”

“I can do this all day,” Steve lied. Even with the energy that Billy had given him, he was exhausted. He hoped Nancy and El managed to finish Henry off soon.

“Sure you can,” Billy snorted a laugh, and Steve had a second to watch the way that laugh crinkled at the corners of his eyes before something shifted and he found himself falling again. It was like being dragged through Lover’s Lake, a sudden jerk and then water in his nose and his mouth and over his head. And then, again like Lover’s Lake, he was thrown from the water to land gasping in a heap on the ground.

Two, still in his hospital garb and sock feet, stood looming over him.

“You’ve lasted longer than I thought you would.”

Steve pushed himself to hands and knees before he got his feet under him. Like hell was he going to let this snot nosed brat tower over him.

“I’m resilient,” Steve shrugged, the gesture designed to annoy, his half smile as fake as possible. He wasn’t a psychic powerhouse, and since it seemed like Two had the home field advantage here, his best course of action was just to keep him on his toes until El finished with Henry and found her way here.

“I am aware.” God, Steve wanted to punch him in his smug fucking face. “It’s part of the reason that this has worked out so well for me, actually.

“You know the best part of this whole thing?” Two said, not even pausing to let Steve answer. Prick. “I barely needed to do anything. I just set up the connection by virtue of existing and the two of you passed energy back and forth for years. It was so easy to siphon what I needed, until I had enough power of my own to do this.” He squeezed his right hand into a fist and it was like something had stolen all of the air from Steve’s lungs. His vision swam and his legs went out from under him, sending him back to his knees in the dark water.

“I can take everything I need from you, now. I don’t even need One and his link to his precious monster world, I can siphon all of that through you.”

Another tug, pain scraped the inside of Steve’s throat, like something was trying to crawl out from inside of him and couldn’t fit, but retching did nothing. He tried to breathe around the pain, but there was no air in his lungs, nothing inside of him but space for more pain. The thing inside of his throat was made of razor blades and as he heaved again he vomited blood into the water of the endless black. The taste of iron was on his tongue and there was blood in his teeth and something was rolling around inside of him, tearing his insides apart and-

“Stop.”

While Steve had been struggling against Two and his weird life stealing bullshit, it looked like El had fought her own battles. There was a bruise around her throat that Steve winced at, and a line of blood dried under her nose, but she was standing. Dirty, bruised and bleeding, but she was standing. Steve hoped viciously that Henry could not say the same thing.

“Oh, look, it’s Eleven.” The way Two sneered her name made Steve try to push himself back to his feet, because fuck this mental squatter if he thought that he could talk to her that way. “I’m so glad to see that you got to grow up and have a life. You know, since you got all of us killed.”

“Henry killed you,” El said, her face set. Steve was more than a little lost, but he didn’t need to know exactly what had happened between these two to know that he was going to plant himself in front of El.

“No!” And Two lost his grip on his composure, just a little bit, his shout loud and manic in the endless dark. “You got us killed, when you took that rabid dog off his leash. We would have been fine if you weren’t so useless! None of this would have happened if you hadn’t tried to be special!”

“You tried to kill a child because you could not handle being just like the rest of us,” El snapped, vicious and sudden.

“And my only regret in life is that I didn’t snap your neck when I had the chance,” Two snarled, baring his teeth like a rabid animal. There was something like static in the air, the power that simmered under the skin of these two kids so thick in the air that Steve could practically taste it. And then there was him. Ghost conduit, occasional babysitter, front line fighter.

One day, Steve was going to come up with a plan that was not “tackle the problem,” but today was not that day.

Two may have been a super powered teenager who could snap his neck with a thought, but Steve had almost a foot on the kid and more than enough weight to take him to the ground. He planted one of his knees on Two’s ribs and cracked him in the face with a closed fist, breaking the boy’s nose with a sickening crack and a gout of blood.

That was as far as he got before Two got a hand out and Steve went flying, landing hard on his side in the water, bat bites and cracked ribs screaming at him. If Vance’s stab wound didn’t kill him, his dad was going to finish the job when Steve ended up in the hospital again. Assuming he made it out of this alive.

El was at his side in an instant, helping him to his feet and he was reminded of the last time he had seen her, and the hug in his living room. He hoped Hopper could see her now, he would be so proud of her.

“He has tied you to both his mind and Henry’s. If you cut that connection, Two and Henry will be left adrift in this place without their bodies to return to,” El said, sounding years and years older than she really was.

“Except, you see, here’s the thing,” Two stood, wiping blood from his upper lip and grinning. It was a frightening replica of Steve’s old “King Steve” smile. Seeing it on this dipshit’s face made Steve understand why Jonathan had hit him so hard.

“If he severs this connection, he’ll die here,” Two said, shrugging like it was nothing to him either way. “That thread is the only reason he’s here in the first place, he doesn’t have enough of his own power to manage it. So if he cuts it, he’ll wander endlessly in the dark until he fades away, like the rest of One’s victims. So it wouldn’t just be One and I lost here, he would wander the dark forever, leaving his physical body in the hands of whoever claimed it first. I wonder who that would be.”

And fuck that noise.

“You never intended to honor your deal with Vance,” Steve said, filled with something that might have been disappointment, for Vance, for the future he had been promised but would never receive. It was easier to feel something like pity now, with the knowledge that he had been just as used in this whole mess as Steve had been.

“Of course I didn’t intend to honor my deal with that idiot. Why would I let him have your body when I could get such use out of it myself?”

“You expect me to just, what, lay down and die here?”

“Something like that,” Two sneered, looking all the world like a bitchy teenaged boy, rather than the psychic brain tumor he was.

El threw her hand out, her face contorted with rage, and Two slid backwards, his feet dragging in the water, before he got his own hand out in front of him. There was a taste in the air, something between the copper tang of blood and the dry bite of the air before a storm. For a second, nothing happened.

That second was all Steve needed to do something that was probably a horrible idea.

He wasn’t sure that either El or Two had meant it as a literal string, but given the whole dream-like nature of the situation, Steve wasn’t surprised that when he really looked for it, there was a small, almost glowing thread that connected him to Two. And while the little parasite was busy, hand outstretched and straining towards El, nose just beginning to drip more blood, Steve reached out to touch it.

It was warm. And there was something that sounded almost like music as it vibrated a little under his fingers.

Two spun to face him, his face screwed up in a rictus of fear and anger and he was screaming something, but whatever it was Steve didn’t catch, because Two had taken his focus off of El. When he turned to face Steve, El won whatever contest of superpowered wills they had been having and Two went flying, crashing to the watery ground several feet away from them. There was a slight tug at the string between them as Two pushed himself to his feet.

Steve had never really been a planner.

He wrapped his hand around the string between them, savored the warmth in the palm of his hand for a second before he pulled.

There was a wrenching feeling as something inside of him shifted and popped free, like a cork from a bottle, and then everything went white.

A short list of things that Steve Harrington did not see, but were directly caused by this metaphysical string pull:

He did not see Chrissy Cunningham, still dressed in her cheer uniform, appear on the roof of the Upside Down version of the Munson trailer in a literal shower of sparks, seconds after Eddie put his fingers to the strings of his guitar.

He did not see the slight skip and fumble of Eddie’s fingers, nor Dustin falling flat on his ass in surprise.

He did not see Chrissy beam at Eddie, a smile that reached her eyes, open and honest and real.

He did not see Chrissy bang her head to the music, strawberry blond ponytail whipping back and forth, help Dustin off the roof, or press a kiss to Eddie’s cheek before she vanished again.

He did not see Billy, shirt fully buttoned for once, appear at Max’s shoulder in Steve’s living room when Andy and Jason kicked in the front door looking for Steve, convinced after the encounter at Warzone that he had been “converted to satan” by Eddie.

He did not see Andy chase Erica deeper into the house when she went for the phone to call 9-1-1, he did not see Jason send Lucas to his knees with a gut punch.

He did not see Billy crank the volume knob on the Harrington sound system, ‘Running Up That Hill’ playing loud enough that the neighbors would consider calling in a noise complaint.

He did not see Jason pull a gun on Lucas and Max, convinced by the presence of a dead man that they were in league with the devil.

He did not see Billy break Jason’s nose and four of his fingers while Max, pulled from her cursed coma by the still blaring Kate Bush, shoved the snub nose of the second shotgun into the small of Andy’s back.

He did not see Billy put a hand on Max’s shoulder and jostle her when Lucas broke a lamp over Jason’s head, sending Hawkins’ former golden boy, current person of interest, to the floor unconscious.

He did not see Nancy come to a dead stop on the landing of the dilapidated staircase in the Creel house.

He did not see Barbara Holland, looking exactly as she had the morning that she had disappeared, hug her best friend for the first time in years.

He did not see Nancy sob into Barb’s shirt, whispering apologies and explanations and begging for forgiveness.

He did not see Barb whisper into Nancy’s ear or zip up Robin’s jacket for her before the trio of women headed further up the stairs.

He did not see Barb yank Robin out of the way of a roving vine, saving her from being dragged down the stairs or worse.

He did not see Robin press a molotov into Barb’s hands when they opened the door to the attic.

He did not see Barb throw the opening salvo, sending fire and glass raining down on Henry’s head, before Nancy advanced with her gun, the first shot removing most of Henry’s head from his shoulders.

Steve did not see any of that. What Steve did see, when the blinding light faded from his vision and he had blinked the spots away, was the endless black, and his mother.

A quick glance around showed him that they were alone.

“Oh, Stevie,” his mother said, in that tone she used to use when he had scraped his knee really bad sliding home at t-ball, or when he had spilled something in the kitchen trying to make breakfast for her. It was the tone she used when she had arrived at the police station after he emerged from the Grabber’s basement and she had seen him for the first time in days, wrapped in a blanket out of some deputy’s truck. It was a tone that tried to say “I love you” but ended up sounding more like “what am I going to do with you?”

Steve had hated it when she was alive.

He hated it more now that she was dead.

“Mom.”

“Oh, Stevie, I’m so proud of you.”

That was new.

She must have registered the surprise on his face, because her own expression softened, warming at the edges into something that might have been love.

“Oh, I’ve done everything wrong, baby. I’m so sorry.”

Steve wasn’t sure what to do with that. He had buried his complicated feelings about his mother in the same grave they had laid her in. He wasn’t sure what to do with this version of her, a ghost from his childhood, a softer version of the woman he had found dead in a bathtub.

“I never wanted this for you,” she said and Steve wanted to scream.

“It doesn’t matter if you wanted this for me or not, this is what it is. I’m here because this is just the way it is.”

“No, no, Stevie,” and she reached out, like she was going to put her hands on his cheeks, like he was still a little boy who needed his mother to comfort him after he had a nightmare and it was instinct and fury that had him jerk his head backwards, out of her grip. “I did this to you, it was my fault.”

It felt like someone had reached into Steve’s chest and squeezed, wrapped iron fingers around his heart and clenched until it gave up on beating, on feeling anything and every part of his body just went numb.

“I knew you were like me, that you could hear them too, and it terrified me.” and wasn’t that a punch to the gut, the idea that maybe the ghosts hadn’t been something he had needed to figure out on his own, that maybe his mother could have been there by his side. Except she hadn’t been. She had left him, and then she hadn’t come back.

“So, what, you tried to drown me in a bathtub and then killed yourself when that didn’t work?”

“I never wanted this end for you,” she said, like it was a justification.

“And yet,” and there was a little bit of Eddie in the way that Steve threw his arms wide, gesturing at the endless black all around them. “So what now, mom?”

“Now, you have to learn to say good-bye,” she whispered. “He’ll take everything that he can from you, until there’s nothing of you left. So you have to pull him out, Stevie, root and stem. Even the good things.”

It would have been kinder if she had struck him.

There would be no after, no donuts in the beemer in the abandoned parking lot, no more basketball or conversations out by the quarry. Just Steve, left alone with a memory because he didn’t get to keep a dead boy.

“I never wanted this end for you,” she repeated.

“I would take this ending a thousand times because it’s better than the one that you tried to give me,” Steve snapped, but it lacked the heat that it maybe deserved. He was too sad to be properly angry, too busy mourning for the second time.

The look on her face was pensive, flat in a way that he had never seen from her before.

“I am proud of you, Stevie,” she said, reaching a hand out towards him. There was a petty part of Steve, the part that he had been working to repress, working to keep a tighter leash on, that wanted to step backwards again, out of her reach. But she was still his mother, and he was trying to be better, so he reached out and took her hand.

“A vessel can only hold so much before it spills over. You have to get rid of the excess before it shatters you apart from the inside. Pull the boy out, and send that stolen power with him. Set them free.”

“Are you going to be more specific than that?” No, shit, too angry, pull it back a bit, Steve.

“You’ve done alright on your own so far,” she said, and it didn’t matter how much Steve was trying to be a better person, or how much he had thought his anger was smothered by grief, because:

“I shouldn’t have had to!” The words burst out of him, loud enough that there was almost an echo in the endless black. “You should have been there to help me!”

He had grown so used to the fire that was Billy that he had forgotten what his own rage felt like in the pit of his stomach.

“You abandoned me!” And she had. Had left him in that huge, empty house with his father who had never been able to move past the basement, the fear that Steve had died. Had left him to fight whatever insane, incomprehensible secret war was raging in Hawkins. Had left him to stumble his way through this thing with the ghosts, living through huge chunks of it by sheer, dumb luck.

The rage left him bit by bit, like the air leaking out of a balloon, when she didn’t react.

“I am proud of you,” she said again, when he had no more words to scream in the darkness.

Steve remembered the red storm of Billy’s mind, of Billy’s mother telling him that she loved him, but not that she was proud of him. He wondered if that had hurt Billy the same way this was hurting Steve.

“I don’t care,” Steve said tiredly, putting the heels of his hands to his eyes and pushing until bursts of color bloomed behind his closed lids. “I don’t care.”

There was a sound like rushing wind, or maybe it was his own blood moving in his veins, and then a jolt under his feet and when he pulled his hands away from his eyes, his mother was gone.

It was like no time at all had passed, Two was staggering to his feet, El still had her hand outstretched, and Steve had no idea how the fuck he was going to get Two out of his head.

And, a thought that he probably shouldn’t have relegated to an afterthought, Henry was still out there, somewhere.

Or, maybe the universe was a kind and generous place that was willing to cut Steve a break, for once in his life.

The ground of the endless black shook beneath his feet and there was a rush, a wave of energy so strong that Steve almost went to his knees with it. It was like someone had replaced his nerves with livewire, a jolting power humming under his skin with such ferocity that he could hardly breathe around it.

(Another thing Steve did not see: Nancy Wheeler pumping shot after shot into the smoking corpse of what had once been Henry Creel, Barb and Robin behind her, throwing molotovs with almost pinpoint precision.)

The connection between them surged, as Two scrambled with whatever power he had to pull Henry’s energy towards himself. Steve, always a more visual learner, always a more physical person, and currently in desperate need of some sort of outlet, grabbed again at the string and yanked.

He remembered Vance telling him “you keep what you kill” and he would be damned before he let Chrissy and Barb and Billy and everyone else Henry had killed end up as batteries for this piece of shit. They deserved better.

So Steve grit his teeth, planted his feet, and pulled.

It was enough to knock Two off kilter, enough to send him stumbling a step sideways. It was not enough to knock him off his high horse.

“One down,” Two grinned, baring his teeth like a feral animal. “I have to say, I’m surprised your genius plan of ‘light him on fire’ turned out to work in the end.”

Steve wondered, with the small part of his brain that could focus on anything other than the steady hum of power inside of him, the electric burn of that string against his palm, if this fucker would be so confidant if he had been the one facing Nancy Wheeler and her shotgun. He didn’t think so.

He spared a thought for Robin and Nancy and prayed they were okay, that they were on their way back to Dustin and Eddie now and that they would finally, finally, be shut of this whole situation.

“No, two,” El said, and Steve would blame the blood loss for how it took him a minute to realize that she was making a joke.

Dustin had told him, just once, about what had happened at the school in ‘83. While Steve, Nancy and Jonathan had been fighting the demogorgon, El had snapped the necks of the government agents that had come to take her away.

Dustin had told Steve that the suits had started bleeding from their noses, before El had twitched her head to the side and their necks had snapped.

Dustin had not managed to convey how sudden it was.

Two was standing there, looking for all the world like he had won, and then there was a single twitch of El’s hand and a jerk of her head and he dropped like a puppet with cut strings, neck twisted at an unnatural angle.

“That will not hold him forever,” El said, as if this was an everyday occurrence. “If you take enough from him, I should be able to pull him from your mind.”

That string, that small, glowing, singing thing, still sat between them.

Without Two awake to fight him, Steve could pull hand over fist, yanking feet of the metaphor string towards him at a time. With each pull, Two seemed to lose substance, become less realized around the edges.

The problem was, the more that Steve pulled, the more of that power he pulled into himself, the less in control of it he felt. It was like he was drinking from a fire hose, trying to shove some energy inside of himself that he couldn’t contain, could barely understand.

And then it was like Steve had run out of rope. The string jerked to a stop, and no amount of tugging would move it. Two’s neck snapped back into place with a noise that was almost more unsettling than when El had broken it in the first place.

He was unsteady getting to his feet, and he was transparent, the endless black showing through behind him when he moved.

“You think you’re so clever,” Two said, but his words were slurring together. He sounded drunk, or disoriented. “You’re still going to die here when you sever the connection. So what’s it going to be, Steve? Are you willing to die to kill me? Are you going to let Billy die again because you don’t understand what I’m trying to do?”

“I understand plenty,” Steve snapped. His grip on the string between them tightened, he could feel the humming power biting into his palm.

Two changed tracks, throwing his hands in front of himself, palms out - the universal sign for “don’t shoot.” He looked, for the first time, like a scared kid.

“Come on, Steve, wasn’t it better when you knew you had people? When you could call on the dead to help you when you needed it? Don’t you want to know that you’ll never be alone again?”

“That tactic might have worked better if you hadn’t already sent Vance to try and mentally murder me so you could drive my body like a meat suit.” Steve yanked on the string again, a short jerk that made Two stumble.

There was a hand on his back, as El came up beside him.

“He will not be alone,” El said, quietly.

Another thing Dustin had told him about that first time in the school, how El had held her hand out and the demogorgon had dissolved, torn to pieces like the ash that littered the air of the Upside Down.

He wondered if the demogorgon had sounded anything like Two did, just now.

Two screamed until the last moment, falling to his knees and crawling towards them even as bits of him fell off and sunk into the water.

He held a hand out in front of his body, shaking so badly that he nearly fell, but despite his screams and the blood that was fairly pouring from his nose, nothing happened.

In what had to be a last ditch effort, Two wrapped his own hands around the string, scrabbling for purchase and trying to pull, but Steve held fast. Without any psychic power, Two was just a scrawny kid. No matter how hard he pulled, he would never be able to pull any of this power away from Steve.

Once, when they had been bored during a Tuesday shift at Family Video, Robin had made Steve help her with her English paper. It was excruciating for both of them and she never did it again. But Steve remembered that poem that she had been writing about, or, part of it at least.

This is the way the world ends / not with a bang but a whimper.

And that was how Two went, in the end. Despite all of his scheming, his plans he’d mastered from the shadows, all of the power that he had carefully hoarded for years, all in the name of getting a body back? Getting a chance to live?

It all came to nothing, as El shattered him into pieces in the endless dark.

There was a hiccup. Not the great rush of power that had accompanied Henry’s death, but something like a dying exhale as the last bit of energy Two had dribbled out into the world, and the string that had tied him to Steve went slack, before vanishing entirely.

Steve didn’t feel any noticeable difference. Maybe a lightening of some pressure behind his eyes, or a loosening of some of the muscles in his back, but it didn’t feel like he had just pulled the ghost of a psychic teenager out of his brain.

“Is it over?” Steve asked, immediately feeling like an idiot.

El was fairly beaming at him, and even if he didn’t feel any different, she looked like she just had a massive weight pulled off of her shoulders.

“It is over.”

Except for that power under his skin that didn’t belong to him. Power that, if the ghost of his dead mother was to be believed, he needed to get rid of, so that Two didn’t find a way to grow back into the cracks in his brain, like a weed through concrete. But that was his problem to figure out. Not El’s.

He was going to let her have this moment to celebrate.

He wasn’t ready to say good-bye, yet. That was all.

“We are coming to Hawkins, I will see you in a few days,” El said, and there was something like a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. “I think you will like Jonathan’s friend.”

“Well if he has your seal of approval, El, I don’t see how I won’t.” The hug was brief, just a wrap of an arm around her shoulder and a squeeze, because he could still feel the slow leak of blood from the stab wound Vance gave him. That seemed so long ago now.

When he went to pull away, El snagged his hand, squeezed hard, a ‘thank you’ and a ‘you’re welcome’ in a single gesture, before she was gone.

For a moment, Steve wondered how he was going to get out of this place, wondered if maybe Two had been right and he was just going to wander here forever in the black while his body wasted away. With the way today was going, the way that things were fuzzy on the edges and how his hand still came away wet with blood when he pressed it to his side, Steve imagined that wouldn’t take that long at all.

And then there was a warm hand on his shoulder, and he turned to find Billy standing there.

“Sorry I missed the party,” Billy said, reaching a hand up to cup the side of Steve’s face. And if Steve leaned into the touch, well, there was no one but him who had to know that. “There was a slight issue at the house, but Max and Lucas got it taken care of. Just didn’t want you to be worried when you saw the state of the place.”

“You’re not telling me everything, but I think just this one time, I’m going to let it go.”

He meant it as a joke, but there was something in Billy’s eyes, a sort of tired recognition that made Steve think he had said something wrong.

“You’re right,” Billy said, quietly, after a long minute of silence. “I haven’t been telling you everything.”

A beat, and then Billy broke Steve’s heart into pieces.

“I’m not really Billy Hargrove,” Billy said, his hand warm on the back of Steve’s neck. “Not in the way that you think I am. The worm in your brain was right about that much, as least. I am what you made me.” Steve’s stomach revolted at that, at the implication of what Billy was saying. He tried to pull away, but Billy’s grip was firm. He didn’t let Steve squirm away from him. “When Billy died, he was surrounded by the only three people that he loved in this world.”

It was the first time either of them had blatantly acknowledged what they both knew. Steve stopped fighting, leaned into Billy’s grip, a little bit, and let himself have this, just for this moment. Even if this wasn’t really Billy, even if everything had just been something that he made up because he was lonely.

“I am what Billy could have been, had he been shaped by love, instead of the fear and anger that made him what he was when he was alive. The afterwards, it just takes what we were at the end and makes us more of that. It’s part of why murder is such a great perversion. Vance died alone, afraid and angry and he will only be that for the rest of eternity. He can only become more afraid and more angry. There is nothing you can do to change that fact.

“You gave Billy Hargrove the greatest gift that you could have given anyone, Steve. You gave him an afterwards forged by love, rather than hate and fear. You saved him. For that grace alone, there is nothing that I wouldn’t do for you.”

The hand at the back of Steve’s neck slid around to cup his cheek.

“I love you,” Billy said. It sounded like good-bye.

When Steve had allowed himself to think of kissing Billy, he had always imagined a clash, a fight of some kind. Pulling hair and biting and a ceaseless push and pull. This wasn’t that. This was gentle and soft, a blossoming warmth in Steve’s chest. It was that power that was in his bones singing louder and louder before it all fell out of him in a rush. Like he was a spigot that had just needed opened but he hadn’t known how, and Billy’s hands in his hair and tongue behind his teeth had cracked him open. Like Billy, this Billy that wasn’t really Billy Hargrove, but was the ghost of his love, or maybe his ghost born of love, had reached inside of Steve with both hands and done what Steve was too scared to do by himself.

And then Billy pulled away and gently brushed some of Steve’s hair off of his forehead.

The moment in the black fell away and Steve woke to the pulsing portal in the roof of Eddie’s trailer and the distant sound of Dustin screaming.

Chapter Text

Dustin was screaming, but the sound was distant. It took Steve a minute to realize that he was screaming Eddie’s name and then it was like all the sound resolved in perfect clarity.

Oh no. Please no.

Steve lurched upright and the sluggishly bleeding stab wound in his side made itself known. He managed to keep the scream of pain locked behind his teeth, but just barely. There were other hurts, pain on the back of his hand and the side of his neck, ragged almost holes in the leather jacket he had been wearing, but he couldn’t make his brain make sense of them.

The rope was gone. Or, not gone, but fallen in a heap on the ground and shoved into a corner. So was the mattress they’d used as a crash pad. Instead, there was a single chair, tipped over on its side, and the dead bodies of some of the octo-bats.

There were octo-bats. In Eddie’s living room. In the rightside up.

Steve forced himself upright, panic and adrenaline overriding the pain enough to get him moving.

It took him a second, and he was going to blame the blood loss, to put together some sort of plan for how to get back into the Upside Down. He was forward thinking enough to grab the fallen sheet rope to take with him before he set the chair upright in the middle of the room and lined up for the jump. He was mostly hoping that Nancy or Robin could figure out a way back over, because -

Fuck, ow, that sucked so much worse without the crash pad.

Steve was definitely not going to be able to do that again.

He dropped the coil of sheet rope on the ground and staggered out of the trailer, crunching the bodies on more octo-bats under his feet as he went.

There was a kitchen knife sitting on the ground in front of the trailer, blade stained with enough blood to turn Steve’s stomach. It was not the black ichor of the creatures of the Upside Down, it was bright red. Human blood.

Steve didn’t have any time to ponder what that meant, because he could still hear Dustin screaming, and could see his form in the distance hunched over something on the ground.

No.

Please no.

He was not as fast as he wanted, but at the same time he would have rather it taken forever to cross the pavement, rather have died without knowing what Eddie Munson looked like when he was dying.

Dustin startled at his approach, looked up in time to see Steve stagger over and drop to his knees by Eddie’s head.

“The bats,” Dustin was saying, forcing each word out around sobs. “There was so much blood and they were getting through the gate and -” Steve’s heart sank.

The bats had been going for him. Like all of Henry’s fucked up creations, they hunted by the smell of blood. And once they breached the trailer walls, the closest bleeding person would have been Steve, unconscious on the couch.

“He said he wasn’t going to run anymore,” Dustin choked out. “He said -” but Dustin was sobbing too hard to repeat whatever else it was that Eddie had said.

Steve remembered the cut rope and the bloody kitchen knife and he wanted to scream at Eddie for playing bait, running back into the Upside Down after cutting himself open, just so the bats would chase him and not Steve or Dustin.

“You promised you would be fine,” Steve whispered. Eddie didn't respond. Would probably never respond to anything ever again.

The worst part was he might have been okay, the octo-bats hadn’t gotten through the leather jacket he was wearing and there were just a few small wounds bleeding through Eddie’s jeans. But there was nothing they could do for the ragged open wound that was Eddie’s throat, blood pouring out over Dustin’s hands and drying in the creases of his fingers.

It was blind hope that pushed Steve’s fingers to the other side Eddie’s neck, blind hope and a stubborn refusal to lose anyone else today. He was torn open inside, grieving all over again for the loss of his mother, dead for years now, for Vance, as angry and misguided as he was, and for Billy, who would never get to be more than a maybe. He did not have space left inside of himself to grieve for Eddie as well.

It was blind hope that made Steve search for Eddie’s pulse.

It was a miracle that he found it.

Any joy Steve might have had at discovering that Eddie was still alive came crashing down around him when he took stock of the actual reality of their situation. Steve could not get Eddie back through the gate, he had lost too much blood. At this point, Steve wasn’t sure that he would be able to get himself back through the gate. Beyond that, Eddie was too injured to move. If Steve tried to drag him across the pavement, he would just make things worse.

The only thing he could do for Eddie…

“An afterwards forged by love,” Steve whispered. Dustin blinked at him, like Steve was talking crazy.

“Eddie,” Steve took one of Eddie’s hands, the one with all the rings on it, and clutched it as tight as he could. “Eddie, I’m here, okay? Dustin’s here.” He looked up to see Dustin staring at him like he had grown a second head and he didn’t have the time to explain that he couldn’t save Eddie, he couldn’t bring about the miracle that Dustin needed him to. He couldn’t explain that he was doing the best he could.

He didn’t need Dustin to tell him it wasn’t enough.

“Dustin,” Steve said, and again, louder, when Dustin didn’t respond to him, “Dustin. Take his hand. Hold his hand, Dustin.” Steve was crying, had to force each word around the sob that was caught in his throat, that he strangled and shoved at and promised later to, so that he could hold it together here and now for Dustin. For Eddie.

“Steve,” Dustin’s voice was thick with tears.

“I can’t,” Steve whispered, forcing each word around the sob he had trapped in his throat. “I can’t save him. I’ve got nothing left.” It hurt so badly to admit it.

There was a burning heat from Billy’s medallion, the metal almost searing against his skin, before it bloomed into the warmth of a person next to him.

“That’s not quite true.” Billy settled on his heels next to Steve, and Steve would spare a moment to be embarrassed about the tears that were streaming down his cheeks. Right now, he was too relieved - and too confused - to be embarrassed.

“How?” He asked, setting his free hand on Billy’s cheek.

“Fuck if I know,” Billy said, but there was something soft in his eyes. “It’s not forever, Steve. I can feel something pulling at me. I can’t stay. But I’m a stubborn asshole and I’ll be damned if I’m not going out on my terms.”

Billy’s fingers were fire hot as he gently pulled Steve’s hand away from his face. He slid his ring, the one that Max had given Steve after Starcourt, the one that Steve barely ever took off, off of Steve’s thumb, and onto Eddie’s.

“This is easier if I have a connection of some kind.” His eyes slipped to the chain, the medallion that Steve never took off, and Steve remembered the pressure of Billy’s fingers against his chest in the endless dark, when Steve had barely had the strength to stand, let alone fight.

“Can you help him?” Dustin asked, sounding so much younger than he actually was.

“Hopefully,” Billy said, before leaning over Eddie. He wrapped his left hand around Steve and Eddie’s clasped hands, holding both of their hands at the same time, pressing their palms together, and set his right on Eddie’s chest.

“Don’t you do this to him, Munson,” Billy whispered, his mouth against the shell of Eddie’s ear. “If you die you’re stuck with me forever and how much would that suck for you, huh?”

And then he slotted his lips over Eddie’s and exhaled, like he had for Steve in the endless dark.

It was like an ember in a dying fire, a warm glow rising from Billy’s throat and moving through to Eddie’s, where it flickered and died, smothered by the seemingly endless gush of blood. But Billy kept breathing, each breath fire and life and each held on a little longer, glowed a little bit more before being snuffed out by the blood.

And with each breath, Billy was growling less substantial, the solidness of him fading away.

“Billy?” Steve hated how weak his voice was.

“Tell Munson I held up my end of the bargain,” Billy said, tilting Eddie’s head back further and breathing again into Eddie’s mouth. Steve could see through him now, could see beyond to the edge of the trailer park, to Nancy and Robin coming through the trees, their joy falling off their faces at the gruesome sight in front of them.

Billy’s grip on their hands was fading, becoming less the tangible pressure of fingers and more gentle warmth.

He looked up and locked eyes with Steve.

Steve had to say it. He could feel in his bones that he would never get another chance.

“I love you too,” he whispered. It hurt. It hurt more than he thought it would. But every minute they had after Starcourt was borrowed, was stolen. And now they were out of time.

Billy grinned at him, completely unabashedly, before he leaned back over Eddie and exhaled for the last time.

Two things happened at the exact same moment:

Billy Hargrove vanished from the Upside Down in the same way that he arrived that first time - in an explosion of fire.

Eddie Munson gasped awake, the ragged wound that had marred his neck healed to a puckered scar.

When the flames cleared, Robin was at his side in a heartbeat, throwing her arms around his shoulders and clinging.

“Did you get him?” Eddie asked, his voice hoarse. Dustin wailed something incoherent at Eddie, but Nancy nodded once, decisive.

“We got him. With a little help.”

Her gaze was soft when she looked at Steve.

“We should get out of here, though, right?” Robin asked, her words partially muffled from where she had buried her face in Steve’s neck, like she was trying to check his pulse with her nose.

“Good luck with that,” Steve muttered, gesturing back towards the trailer. “Someone cut the rope.” Eddie didn’t even have the decency to look shamefaced about it. Instead, he just grabbed onto the front of Dustin’s shirt and hauled himself up so he was sitting.

“Come on, Harrington, what’s the point of all those sports you played if you can’t handle a little high jump?” It would have been funnier if he wasn’t covered in his own blood. Dustin glared at him too, but couldn’t manage to hold the look in the face of overwhelming relief.

Steve tried to come up with some kind of comeback, something about one of the many times he had watched Eddie try and fail to climb the rope in gym had Robin not found his stab wound with her elbow at that moment.

“Ow, fuck,” Steve tried to pull away from her and the sudden movement made his vision blurr.

Oh, hello adrenaline crash, Steve’s old friend.

Steve had no idea how he got from the pavement in front of Eddie’s trailer to the hospital. Robin, Dustin and Eddie all told wildly different versions of the story and Nancy’s only contribution was to say, pointedly, “does it look like I carried you?”

They put him and Eddie in the same hospital room, which was nice of them, at least. Apparently, in addition to the scar that Eddie had been completely unable to explain to anyone, Eddie had suffered some pretty severe blood loss. Not enough to keep him from annoying the nurses at every opportunity he was presented with, but enough to keep him in the hospital bed for at least a few days. Though Steve was pretty sure they were mostly keeping Eddie for observation because they had no idea how to explain what happened to him.

Steve, on the other hand, had two broken ribs, one additional cracked rib, a stab wound that had apparently done some damage to his spleen, bruising around his throat that made the doctors look concerned, a missing fingernail, and his octo-bat bites had gotten infected.

On the plus side - no concussion!

Robin was the only one who celebrated that with him as a victory. Nancy had gotten that little furrow that meant she was concerned between her eyebrows and Eddie had just stared at him like he was worried for Steve’s sanity.

They had called his dad, who had been in London for a work thing but apparently immediately started the scramble to get back. The last they heard, he’d be landing in Chicago in a few days, at which point he had said something about having to rent a car. Steve had tried to tell him not to worry about it, but his dad had refused to hear it.

“I couldn’t be there for you the way I wanted to be,” he said, and Steve could hear the slur in his voice that meant he had been hitting the airport bar before making the call. “But I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

Even with his dad on another continent, between Eddie and Robin, who had been home only to shower and change, Steve was never alone.

It helped, when he woke up in the middle of the night and could barely breathe around the feeling of being so alone for the first time in years.

Of course, as soon as he felt that the loneliness was immediately consumed by guilt and confusion, because a lot of the last few years had been horrible. He missed Billy and he missed the sort of friendship that he thought he had with Vance, but there was a part of him that missed all of it. Even the screaming pain from the Upside Down, or the possessions that stole his own body from him.

And he would rather choke on his own tongue than admit this part out loud, but he missed Two. Except, that wasn’t really true. It was like he had a rotten tooth pulled and couldn’t stop poking at the hole left behind. There was an absence in his brain that he couldn’t stop poking at the edges of. He’d never noticed it before, but now that it was gone he couldn’t stop noticing the hole that it left behind.

Then, there was the part of him that couldn’t stop remembering his mother, and how she had thought that whatever he was going to go through would be so bad it would be better to die. So there was Steve, staring at the ceiling in his hospital room, his body always hurting in that low-level way that made it difficult to sleep, wondering if this was what she had been trying to spare him.

This gnawing ache in his heart because he had fallen in love with a dead boy.

But then Eddie would mumble something in his sleep, or Robin would snore directly into his ear and it would hurt a little less.

He was alone in a way he hadn’t been in years, but he wasn’t lonely. He had his friends. He had his kids, too.

Dustin spent almost every waking hour in their room, either chattering the ear off of whoever was awake or reading his way through the books on Eddie’s bedside table. He went home at night only because his mother stopped in at the end of her shift and almost literally dragged him away, but he was back bright and early the next morning, usually with something for breakfast that wasn’t hospital food.

Lucas, Max and Erica had stopped by, Lucas sporting a black eye and Erica with a scrape on her cheek, but they were otherwise unharmed. They were the ones to relay that Jason and Andy had both been arrested. Currently it was just for breaking into Steve’s house, but the fact they had brought a gun was making Hawkins PD look at the two of them a lot closer for the rest of Henry’s murders.

It was at the end of this visit that Steve got a fuller picture of what had happened to the rest of the group, as Max had described Billy’s presence, how he had ripped the gun out of Jason’s hands so violently that fingers had snapped. Steve wondered if Jason was telling Chief Powell about being attacked by a ghost, before deciding that he didn’t care. Jason could rot.

After Max had finished, Robin told them about Barb, about how she had thrown the opening salvo, raining fire and glass down on Henry, how she had saved Robin from that roving vine.

Eddie, looking down at his hands, told them about Chrissy appearing on the roof of the trailer.

In the silence afterwards, Steve could feel their eyes turning to him.

He didn’t tell them everything. He didn’t want to tell them about Two, because it was over and it would just make everyone sad. So he spun it a bit, told them about stealing power from Henry, how that apparently opened a gap wide enough for some of his victims to appear again. He didn’t mention what else he saw in the dark, save to credit El for his rescue and mention her imminent arrival.

At one point Max caught his eyes and arched an eyebrow at him, a question without words. Steve had to shake his head, swallow around the lump that was in his throat. Max wrapped a hand around his ankle and squeezed. It was just as good as that hug they shared in his foyer almost a year ago, the first time they had grieved for Billy.

On day three of their stay, the door to their shared room opened and El peeked in.

“Hey, Supergirl, I presume!” Eddie fairly beamed at her from his bed. El blinked at him in that way she had that made Steve feel like he was being examined under a microscope.

It lasted only a second before her gaze was broken by Dustin throwing himself at her in a crushing hug.

El apparently rode most of the way here in the back of a pizza van that Jonathan’s friend Argyle had stolen from his job back in California. From the sound of the raised voices in the hall, Mike was busy telling Nancy a similar story, because Steve very distinctly heard her say, “you did what?” more than once.

Of course, El’s arrival with her entourage of teenaged boys was overshadowed the next morning when Joyce Byers appeared at the hospital with a balding man that she introduced as Murray, and the ghost of Jim Hopper.

Or, not ghost, as it turned out.

Steve had been entirely ready to believe that this was the ghost of the former police chief until El had thrown herself at him in a hug that had nearly taken the both of them to the floor.

The third and final round of exchanging information took almost five hours, everyone crammed into Steve and Eddie’s hospital room, talking over each other. Something that might have been joy was bubbling between everyone.

They had won. It was over.

Well, mostly.

Steve was the last one released from the hospital, almost entirely thanks to the infection from the bat bites. Apparently, wrapping a shirt around an open wound and then running around an alternate dimension wasn’t sanitary. Who knew?

Steve’s father blew in like a hurricane of guilt and worry to take him home.

The front door had been replaced, apparently thanks to the combined efforts of Argyle (El was right, Steve did really like him) and Wayne Muson.

The doctor had mentioned when Steve was discharged that he would have to take it easy for a while, which Steve’s father interpreted to mean ‘strict bed rest and limited visiting hours.’

Luckily, it was apparently surprisingly easy to climb in through Steve’s bedroom window, as Robin, Dustin, and, somewhat surprisingly, Eddie, proceeded to prove.

That first night home from the hospital Steve had been worried that he would lose that sense of warmth and camaraderie that he had found there. With no one breathing around him, nothing to drown out his own thoughts, he had clutched at Billy’s medallion and sobbed.

Before this last encounter with the Upside Down, Steve had been fairly sure that he had finished mourning Billy. Now, in the dark of his room, he wondered if he would ever be done.

That was how Robin found him, when she pushed the window open. Because she was the best person in the entire universe, she just slid into the bed with him and held him until he stopped crying.

That was when Steve told her everything. The parts that he had left out at the hospital, or in any of the debriefs they had done. He told her about Two, about seeing his mother and what she said. He told her about Billy, who wasn’t really Billy, but was still enough of him to matter. She listened, without interrupting, and only jammed him with her bony elbows a few times when they shuffled around.

When he was done, and he was out of tears, she hugged him tight enough that she left the shadow of a bruise around his ribs.

“So much for not being in love with him, huh?”

Steve hit her with a pillow, but he was laughing for the first time in what felt like days.

The next night it was Dustin, clutching one of those books that Eddie loved and insisting that Steve would love it, he promised.

Steve wasn’t sure that “love” was the right word, but it was a pretty good story and Dustin gave the characters different voices while he read, which was entertaining at the very least.

Fantasy would probably never be Steve’s preferred genre, but he liked spending time with Dustin and he liked seeing what it was that Dustin liked about these stories.

When Robin climbed through the window halfway through a chapter, she added a running commentary that made Dustin roll his eyes at her, but everyone was smiling and it was the warmest Steve had felt in days.

The third night, it was Eddie, wearing his only slightly blood stained vest over a red henley and making a racket as he tried to somersault from the windowsill to the floor.

Steve mimed holding up a scorecard and frowned. Eddie stuck his tongue out at him, before settling at the foot of the bed.

“I asked Buckley and Henderson to give us the room tonight,” he said, after a moment of thought. “I, uh, I wanted to talk to you without prying ears.”

Steve leaned back against his headboard and nodded for Eddie to continue.

“I’m…” and he trailed off, biting at his lower lip hard enough that it looked like it might start to bleed. “I’m sorry.”

Steve hadn’t been sure where this conversation was going, but it definitely wasn’t that direction.

“Sorry for what?”

“I think I have something of yours,” and Eddie held his hand out to Steve. On the thumb of Eddie’s right hand was Billy’s ring.

Steve’s mouth went dry.

“I didn’t even notice it was there until I took it off at the hospital,” Eddie said quietly. “I’ve seen you wearing it, but I remember who it used to belong to.” He didn’t say how he knew. Steve didn’t really need to know. “Why was I wearing this, Steve?”

Steve closed his eyes, and tried to find the words in the darkness behind his eyelids.

“You were going to die,” was what he found. Just saying it felt awful. “You were bleeding so much and Dustin was crying and I couldn’t carry you to the gate and -” Eddie’s hand was warm around his wrist.

“Breathe, Steve.”

Steve inhaled, forced the memory of how Eddie’s had looked so pale and so still out by opening his eyes. Eddie was fine. They were both fine. Steve twisted his wrist in Eddie’s grip, not to pull away, but to get his fingers against the beat of Eddie’s pulse in his own wrist.

“Billy gave you that ring, because he said it was easier with a connection.”

“What was?”

“I’m not sure, exactly. Ghost CPR?” He was shooting for a sort of wry joke, but it fell flat. “He was giving you his energy, I think. Your body took it and healed up your neck so you wouldn’t keep bleeding.”

“And won’t Hargrove be pissed I kept it?”

“Billy’s gone, Eddie.” It was the first time he said it out loud. He and Max hadn’t spoken, just shared their moment of grief, and he had spoken around the actual words when he was telling Robin the story.

“What do you mean?” Eddie had the same furrow between his eyebrows that Nancy got when she was worried, but on Eddie it read more as confusion.

“He’s gone. They’re all gone. The only reason I was seeing ghosts was because I got tied to Henry accidentally. Now that Henry’s gone, so are the ghosts.”

“But didn’t you say that you had talked to them before Henry? Through that phone? I mean, it’s like the longest distance relationship ever, but I’m sure Hargrove will call when he can.”

Steve wasn’t sure that he would ever hear the phone ring again. Robin had said that she hadn’t, not since Henry had died.

“I don’t think that there was enough of Billy left at the end to call.”

For all that Eddie was held back twice, it didn’t take more than a second or two for the furrow of confusion to vanish.

“Why would he do that?” he breathed, his free hand going to touch the scar tissue on his neck.

“He said to tell you that he held up his end of the deal,” Steve said.

“That rat bastard, I asked him to look after you!”

Under Steve’s fingers, Eddie’s pulse was pounding. He was alive.

“Maybe this was his way of doing that,” Steve said quietly. Eddie’s fingers tightened around his wrist. “You should keep the ring, it suits you better anyway.”

Eddie took his fingers from his own neck and reached across the bed to gently brush some of Steve’s hair away from his forehead.

“If you’re sure.”

“I’m sure.”

They were both alive. The Upside Down was gone, and it had been over a week since Steve had heard the voice of a dead person. And maybe he would always mourn Billy, but Eddie was alive, and so was Steve.