Alone In The Hellfire

You nod automatically, even as his hands move, one at your back, the other sliding to your upper arm, simply wanting to feel you.

“I’m fine, Steve,” you say quietly. “Really.”

He leans back just enough to look at you, eyes scanning your face the way they always do now. He’s looking for signs, anything that seems even remotely out of the ordinary, because he knows you won’t say anything otherwise.

“You sure?” He asks.

“I’m sure,” you repeat, softer this time. You give him a small, reassuring smile, and after a moment, he nods, though the worry doesn’t leave his eyes.

You look over his shoulder and your heart drops at the sight of Dustin. He’s leaning against the van, bike tipped awkwardly beside him. His face is bruised, split lip already scabbed over, one eye darker than it should be. His shirt is torn, dirt ground into the fabric.

“Holy shit,” Mike blurts, eyes wide.

Dustin straightens a little, forcing a grin that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Yep. Bike crash. Flew headfirst into a light post. Look, I’m sorry about missing the crawl, about everything.”

Steve scoffs quietly, frowning at his words. You’re the only one who hears it.

Mike looks him over again and shakes his head. “It’s not your fault. Don’t beat yourself up.”

Lucas squints. He could tell Dustin is lying. “Yeah, looks like he already did.” He lifts his finger to point at his crooked nose. “Is that broken?”

”I dunno,” Dustin shrugs. Lucas tries to touch it and Dustin slaps his hand away. “Don’t touch it.”

”Dustin, what the hell!?” You sped over, hands raised as you took in the sight of him. “Who the hell did this to you?!” You step closer to Dustin, your stomach twisting as you really look at him. You notice the way his shoulders tense and how he won’t quite meet your eyes.

He shifts, suddenly very interested in the ground. “I already said. I just fell.”

“That doesn’t look like a fall,” you press, anger and worry bleeding together in your chest. “Tell me who did this.”

His jaw tightens. “No one did this. I fell. That’s it.”

Your brows knit together. “Dustin—”

“Nothing happened!” He snaps, finally looking up at you. His voice wasn’t loud, but it was sharp. A wall slams down between you, and you feel it immediately.

You hesitate, torn between pushing and respecting the way he’s clearly barely holding himself together. You may be a hypocrite, since you were doing the same exact thing, but you hated seeing any of them hurt.

Before you can decide, the door to the Squawk flies open.

“Hey!” Robin shouts, waving her arms around. “This isn’t a social call, kiddos. Let’s go!”

She doesn’t wait for an answer before she runs back inside. The group starts moving after her, and you feel Steve’s hand gently touching the small of your back as he moves you forward.

You cast one last look at Dustin, who avoids your gaze entirely.

The group crowds into the Squawk, the door shutting behind them as Robin ushered everyone to sit. The room feels too small for the number of people packed inside it, voices overlapping until Yasmin clapped her hands once to catch everyone’s attention. Slowly, the noise dies down.

Will is standing at the center, shoulders tense, looking around the room as he speaks. You took a seat beside Steve, your knee brushing his. He notices immediately, his hand hovering near yours, debating whether to take it.

Steve squints when Will mentions a familiar name. “Derek? Derek Turnbow?” He asks. “As in the Turnbow family? Like Turnbow Realty?”

Robin nods. “The one and only.”

Lucas shakes his head from the end of the couch. “Whole family’s a menace.”

Nancy frowns, leaning forward in her seat. “How can you be sure?” Her voice is calm, but you can hear an edge to it. “Sure that Derek’s the next target?”

Will swallows, pointing a hand at himself. “Because I saw.” He hesitates, then forces the words out anyway. “I’ve learned that when I’m close enough to the hive mind, I can tap into it. Into Vecna’s mind. I can see who he’s targeting. The first time it happened, I saw through Holly’s eyes—the same day she was taken. And this morning, it happened again.”

You watch Will carefully as he explains his vision. You furrowed your eyebrows, thinking as the implications settle in, and somehow it makes an uncomfortable amount of sense. Ever since he was taken all those years ago, a piece of the Upside Down never fully let go of him, and it doesn’t feel like much of a stretch to believe that Henry still has some sort of connection even after all this time.

Holly’s name sits somewhere in the back of your mind, a quiet but persistent thought, as if it was a sort of splinter you can’t quite reach.

After Nancy and Mike told you about Holly’s “imaginary friend” named Henry, it all clicked for you instantly. You hadn’t known that the two siblings snuck off to talk to their mom in the hospital, but you were glad they had. Henry seemed to have been laying the groundwork for this for a long time. He had been earning Holly’s trust, planting himself into her life before taking her. If Will was right, it was only a matter of time before Henry came for this kid named Derek next.

Will shakes his head. “I wasn’t Holly this time. I was someone else. I was Derek Turnbow,” he says firmly. “I’m positive.”

Steve blinks, rubbing a hand down his face. “Hold on. I’m a little lost.”

Dustin mutters immediately, rolling his eyes. “Shocking.”

You glance at Dustin, narrowing your eyes at the younger boy and his tone, but Steve’s voice pulls your attention back.

Steve decided to pay no mind to Dustin, continuing to talk with furrowed brows. “Were you seeing through the eyes of Vecna…or Derek?”

“Both,” Will answers, a little hesitant, hands settling on his hips. “I was Vecna, but inside Derek’s mind.”

You tilt your head as you think it through, letting his words settle in your mind. “So it’s like…a double vision,” you say slowly. “You’re seeing through Vecna, who’s already inside Derek’s head. You’re basically just…channeling the connection?”

Steve glances at you sideways when you speak, something attentive in his expression. You don’t look at him but you feel it anyway.

Robin leans forward, trying to explain it to Steve who still seemed confused. “Vecna’s like a psychic serial killer. He stalks his victims, but he does it by invading their minds. That’s what he did with Chrissy and Max.”

Nancy sighs, looking down. “Yeah, but the way he’s doing it this time…it’s different this time. We did some digging at the hospital. It turns out that before he took Holly, Vecna stalked her—but he didn’t appear as Vecna. He appeared as Henry. As a friend.”

Mike picks up from there. “We think he was trying to earn her trust. Now, why he went to all that trouble, we don’t know. But I highly doubt his endgame is friendship.”

Your chest tightens at that. The word trust sits wrong in your stomach. Henry didn’t just take Holly, he worked his way into her life, made her feel safe, made her believe he was someone she could rely on. You know what it feels like to have that stripped away. Your stomach twists into knots.

Will speaks again. “Whatever it is, whatever he’s planning, we have to stop him. And we have to save Derek.”

He turns and heads toward the meeting room, the rest of you following close behind. Will spreads a folded map beneath the projector, and everyone gathers around as he begins explaining his plan, pointer tapping against different locations.

“The Turnbows live here,” he says, indicating a marked spot. “We wait in a van across the street. Once they’re asleep, we move in, grab Derek, and take him here—the McCorkle farm. It’s abandoned. Completely isolated. The only thing is…we can’t let him see us or know where he is. We’ll need to blindfold him.”

Steve straightens, completely thrown off. “Wait—what?!”

“So Vecna can’t find him,” Robin explains, arms crossed.

Jonathan exhales sharply. “Yeah. And mom—” he looks at Joyce, incredulous, “—you’re okay with just kidnapping a kid?”

Joyce doesn’t hesitate, nodding her head as Will comes over to stand next to her. “We’re saving a child via kidnapping. And yes, it’s fine…I think. Now’s not the time to play it safe, Jonathan.”

Yasmin finally speaks, tilting her head, though she doesn’t object. She’s dealt with a lot of crazy shit in her life. Kidnapping a child isn’t the worst thing she’s done. “As much as I would like to dismiss this idea, Vecna doesn’t play by rules, and neither can we. If this keeps another child alive, then this is the way.”

You clear your throat, trying to lighten the weight in the room. “I mean,” you say dryly, “speaking as someone who has been kidnapped, this is definitely the nicer version. Blindfolds and abandoned farms beat syringes and government facilities any day.”

The room goes silent as everyone stares at you.

You blink, brows furrowing in confusion as to why no one was laughing. “...What? That was funny.”

Dustin clears his throat, breaking the silence as he raises a finger. “If I may—though I’m not morally opposed—there are a few holes.”

Lucas leans back. “Yeah. Like what if Derek falls asleep before the Demogorgon attacks?”

“That’s one,” Dustin says.

Nancy nods. “Or what if he wakes up while we’re grabbing him and alerts his family? We’ll go to jail.”

“Not happening on my watch,” Yasmin says confidently.

Dustin continues. “Even if we somehow don’t go to jail, there’s the third, most gaping hole. Even if by some miracle this plan even works, Holly’s still missing. Hop and El are still MIA. This doesn’t bring us any closer to finding Vecna. This plan just buys us and Derek some time. That’s it.”

“Not necessarily,” Mike says, causing everyone to turn their heads towards him. “There might be a way. A way to save Derek and find Holly.”

All of you gather around the table as he pulls out a small bag and dumps its contents onto the surface. Figurines scatter across the wood, and you stare down at them, confusion creeping in as you wait for him to explain what this has to do with anything.

“This is Derek,” Mike says as he picks up one of the figurines, setting it down on the table. He grabs a few more and lines them up beside it. “And this is the rest of the Turnbow family. We’re gonna need to recruit someone the family trusts, someone that can gain access to the house.” He reaches for another figurine and places it next to the row of toys. “This person will knock the family out. Then we’ll extract the family from the house.”

Joyce blinks, clearly caught off guard, her brows knitting together as she looks at Mike. “Knock them out?”

“Well, safely,” Mike reassures quickly. “With sleeping pills or something.”

Robin perks up instantly, an idea popping in her head. “I might know where we could get some benzos. Those things could knock an elephant on its ass.”

Joyce turns her attention to Robin, still visibly unsure, her lips pressing into a thin line. You’re honestly surprised she’s even entertaining the plan at all. You expected Yasmin to be on board without hesitation, but Joyce’s reluctant acceptance is not something you saw coming.

Mike nods. “Perfect. That way if Vecna spies, he’ll just assume Derek is fast asleep in bed. He’ll send his Demos to grab him.” He reaches for another figurine, this one unmistakably a demogorgon, and sets it on the table with a soft tap. “Only he won’t find Derek. He’ll find us.”

You think over the plan, knowing that though this was extremely risky, it was still a good one. Without getting Derek and his family out this way, Vecna would be sure to capture him and take him just like he took Holly.

“We’ll get Murray to supply us with the traps,” Mike adds. “We’ll burn the sucker. Send him scramping home to its master, but not before we stick him with one of these.”

He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small device, holding it up before setting it on the table. The telemetry blinks red softly.

“We’ll track the Demo across the Upside Down in the Squawk van just like we did with Hopper,” Mike says, moving a toy car behind the demogorgon figurine to demonstrate his plan. “And if we’re lucky, the Demo will lead us back to its lair, to Vecna, to Holly.”

Her name lands differently this time. You think about a little girl who trusted someone she thought was her friend, who had no idea what was coming. You know that feeling in a different way, and it makes something protective and desperate curl tight in your chest.

You force yourself to meet Mike’s gaze as he looks around the room. Everyone stays silent, thinking over the plan and the consequences that come with it. You already know there isn’t another option.

Mike exhales slowly before speaking again. “Holes?”

You lift an eyebrow, a bit impressed despite yourself. You’ve always known Mike was a smart kid, but moments like this remind you just how sharp he really is. You shrug as the others exchange glances and faint smirks. You meet Yasmin’s eyes, who only gives a single nod, your mom approving the plan as well.

The plan is set.

By the time Murray hops out, you’re pushing through the front door. He gives you a look that’s both impressed and concerned as he opens the back of the truck.

“Careful with those,” he says, handing over a heavy crate. “If any of that explodes prematurely, I don’t want it on my conscience.”

You huff out a breath that might almost be a laugh. “Relax. If it explodes, it’ll be on purpose.”

“That is…not reassuring,” Murray mutters, but he helps you unload anyway.

You don’t stay long. The moment everything is stacked on the pavement, you grab what you need and slip back inside, already mentally imagining all of the pieces put together.

The door to the underground setup closes behind you, muffling the voices upstairs. Down here, it’s much different. It’s a place that is quiet, helping you stay focused as you work. The room next to the meeting space has become yours over the last few months. It was a half workshop and half bunker. Tools were spread across the table, blueprints and sketches layered over one another, wires hung around waiting to be connected. This is where you were able to breathe easier.

You shrug out of your jacket and get to work, hands moving on instinct as you integrate the new materials into what you’ve been building. The suit is laid out in sections, dark and sleek, as well as flexible. It was something you can move in and fight in.

You’re adjusting a shoulder plate when you hear the door open. You don’t look up at first. “If you touch anything down here, I swear to God—”

“I won’t,” Steve says quickly. “I learned my lesson.”

You glance over your shoulder and raise an eyebrow. “Why do you look like someone kicked your dog?”

He steps inside fully, hands on his hips, eyes darting over the table, the suit, and the scattered weapons. His jaw tightens, then relaxes, then tightens again, not knowing whether to be impressed or terrified.

Steve exhales sharply, dragging a hand down his face. “Henderson drilled a hole into my beamer.”

You freeze, before slowly turning your head to stare at him. “He did what?”

“A hole,” Steve repeats, wincing as if he was in pain. He shakes his head, running a hand through his hair. “An actual hole. Right through the top so he could install an antenna. Said the van was too much to handle and that we didn’t need all the extra bullshit anyway.”

Your mouth drops open. “Steve. That’s—that’s your baby.”

“I know,” he says, sounding genuinely miserable. “I raised that car.”

The words pull a rush of memories into your chest before you can stop them. Late night drives with the windows cracked, Steve picking you up and dropping you off from school, long conversations about your day, makeout sessions in the backseat when neither of you wanted the night to end. Now all you can picture is a thick metal antenna bolted into the roof.

Despite yourself, a giggle slips out. It’s quiet, but Steve hears it anyway. His shoulders loosen just a fraction, tension easing as if he’s been waiting for that sound without realizing it.

He steps closer, eyes drifting past you to the pieces spread across the worktable. “You’ve been busy,” he says quietly.

You shrug, suddenly aware of how close he is. “Someone has to make sure you idiots don’t die.”

“That’s very romantic of you,” Steve says, smiling. There’s a pause, and the two of you don’t say anything. Steve just stares at you while you work. You don’t know what to say so you just try to keep your hands moving. Steve suddenly clears his throat. “You know…when this is over, I was thinking maybe we could go on a date.”

Your hands pause over the plating, the tools suddenly heavier in your grip.

A date. The fragile word settles between you, like glass balanced on the edge of a table. You can already imagine it slipping, shattering the moment you reach for it.

You and Steve haven’t done anything together since the day you found out about the cancer. Somewhere between the hospital visits and the quiet looks you didn’t know how to answer, you started pulling away. You told yourself you were busy, that there was always something to fix or build or improve, but really you were just hiding behind your tools. It was easier to disappear into metal and wiring than to sit across from him and watch his face fall apart. You couldn’t handle the way his eyes shined with fear, the way his mouth would tighten to brace himself for bad news. Facing that meant admitting how scared you were too, and that felt unbearable. So you kept your distance, not because you loved him any less, but because loving him suddenly felt like something that might break you both.

“I don’t know,” you admit quietly, eyes fixed on the workbench instead of his face. “There’s…a lot going on right now. With Holly and everything.”

“I know,” Steve says, and he doesn’t push you. He steps closer, close enough that you can feel his warmth, and his thumb brushes gently over your knuckles to comfort you. “I just thought it’d be nice to have something waiting for us when this is over, you know? Something good. It’s been a while since I’ve taken you out.”

Your resolve loosens despite yourself. It always does with him. With the way his touch is careful instead of cautious, the way he looks at you like you hung the stars, and not something that might fall apart in his hands.

You exhale, shoulders dropping a fraction. “…Okay.”

His reaction is instant. His face lights up, full of relief and hope, as if you just handed him the best news he’s gotten in weeks. “Yeah?” He asks, already smiling.

“Yeah,” you say again, the word slipping out with a quiet smile before you can stop it, your chest warming at the sight of his face lighting up like that. It hits you then how long it’s been since you’ve seen Steve smile so freely, without worry pulling at the corners of his mouth or fear lurking behind his eyes, and the realization makes your throat tighten just a little.

His attention drifts from you to the table, curiosity taking over as he squints at the spread of metal plates. “So,” he starts slowly, tilting his head in confusion. “What exactly am I looking at here?”

You straighten instinctively, pride blooming in your chest despite everything, despite the fear and exhaustion you’ve been carrying around like a second skin. “Armor,” you explain, reaching out to adjust one of the plates spread across the table. “It’s flexible plating. It’s lightweight enough that it won’t slow me down when I’m wearing it, but reinforced enough to take a hit if it has to.”

Your fingers linger on the edge of the piece, tracing the seams where you fused the materials together. You hesitate, then glance up at him, lifting one of the plates with a faint, almost mischievous glint in your eyes.

“I figured carrying a shield out there while shooting probably isn’t the best idea,” you add quietly. “So the suit has to be one.” You tilt the plate toward him, brows lifting just slightly. “I just need someone to test it.”

Steve’s eyes widen immediately when he notices the tone in your voice and sees the smirk forming on your face, his body leaning back instinctively. “Absolutely not,” he says, shaking his head hard enough that his hair flops into his eyes.

Before he can retreat any farther, you grab one of the guns and press it into his hands, your fingers lingering just long enough to steady his grip. “Just hold it,” you say, trying to sound calmer than you feel.

He stares down at the weapon with wide eyes. “I don’t know how to work this,” he says, panic creeping into his voice. “What if I accidentally shoot you?!”

“You won’t, Steve,” you reply immediately, not even hesitating.

“What if I trip?” He adds, glancing up at you. “I’m really clumsy.”

You sigh, already knowing where this is going. “Fine,” you say, reaching for the gun. “I’ll shoot.”

His head snaps up so fast you’re surprised he doesn’t snap his neck. “What?!”

You lift the armor and position it between the two of you, bracing it carefully. “You hold this.”

Steve just stares at you, disbelief written all over his face. “Are you trying to kill me?”

“I am not going to shoot you, Steve,” you say exasperated, meeting his eyes.

That does not stop him from rambling, of course. His hands hold the armor tightly as he launches into a frantic, breathless spiral about lawsuits and liability and wrongful death suits, about internal bleeding and freak ricochets, about how this would somehow end with a judge shaking their head and writing ‘Steve Harrington, an idiot’ into the record. You roll your eyes hard enough it almost hurts, because you were literally a law student and your mom is an FBI agent who would absolutely have something to say about her daughter accidentally shooting her boyfriend in an underground bunker. He keeps going anyway, voice cracking with nerves as he insists this would be the dumbest, most humiliating way to die after surviving monsters, Russians, and the literal end of the world, and you can’t tell if he’s more scared of the gun or of Yasmin finding out.

Then you pull the trigger.

Bang!

The shot rings out, sharp and loud in the enclosed space, and the bullet strikes the armor in a straight line before deflecting cleanly to the side, skidding harmlessly across the concrete floor.

For a split second, neither of you move.

Then you both explode at once.

“It worked!” You gasp, adrenaline flooding your veins as you stare at the untouched armor in disbelief.

“Holy shit!” Steve laughs, his voice bright and unrestrained, awe lighting up his face in a way that makes your chest ache.

He drops the armor without a second thought, the metal clattering to the floor as his hands slide instinctively to your waist, and then suddenly Steve is lifting you and spinning you around. You laugh into his shoulder, the sound surprised out of you, breathless and bright, echoing off the concrete walls as you cling to him, fingers curling into the fabric of his jacket so tight.

“Do you have any idea how insane that was?” He says, laughing too, voice a little breathless as he finally slows and sets you back down, though his hands never leave your waist. His eyes are shining when he looks at you, full of love. “My girlfriend just shot a bullet at a piece of armor she built herself, and it worked. It actually worked.”

You feel your cheeks heat under his stare, pride and adrenaline and something softer tangling together in your chest.

“You are—” He shakes his head like he can’t even find the words, thumbs brushing absently at your sides. “You are a genius. Like, actually. The smartest woman in the world. I can’t believe I get to be with you.”

The way he says get to, like it’s a privilege, as if it’s something fragile and precious, makes your heart stumble painfully in your chest. For just a second, everything else fades, and the only thing you are aware of is Steve Harrington looking at you like you hung the stars, holding you like he never wants to let go.

You smile up at him, soft and a little stunned, letting yourself exist in that warmth and praise, that uncomplicated happiness, even if you know it won’t last. For one brief moment, you let yourself believe in it anyway.

And then it hits you. The closeness, the warmth of his arms wrapped around you, the way his body feels so safe, like it’s been made to fit against yours. Your chest tightens and you stiffen instinctively, pulling back just enough, and the fragile bubble of the moment shatters.

Steve lets you go immediately, his hands dropping slowly to his sides, his expression shifting from bliss to confusion as he watches you step back, folding your arms across your chest like a shield you didn’t even realize you’d been building for yourself. The wall slides back into place, a boundary you create even when every instinct in you wants to let it fall.

He clears his throat, a little awkward. “I’ll go check on Dustin,” he says instead, his eyes flicking toward the door. “See if he’s completely destroyed my car, and…I’ll let you get back to work.” There’s a brief pause, and then he adds softly, almost like he can’t help himself. “And…I’m so proud of you. What you’re building here—it’s amazing. You’re amazing.”

Your chest tightens at his words, the sincerity in his voice pulling at something deep inside you. You can feel the pride, the admiration, the absolute awe he has for you in every syllable, and it’s almost too much to bear. It’s not just about the armor or the plating or the weapons. It’s about you, all of you, and the fact that someone like Steve sees you, really sees you, as the brilliant, unstoppable person you’ve always been, even when you’ve tried to hide it.

He steps toward the door, glancing back one last time at the suit on the table, and you stay frozen for a moment, letting the words sink in, letting the warmth and affection linger even as the ache in your chest returns, reminding you of everything else you’re trying to fight. And then he’s gone, leaving you alone again in the silence, with the faint scent of oil and metal in the air, and the realization that even the armor you built to protect yourself can’t keep out the parts of life that scare you the most.

The workshop is quieter without Steve in it. You’d expected the silence to feel like relief, but instead it just feels like the walls moved closer.

You’re bent over the table, hands moving through the motions of adjusting one of the shoulder plates, when you hear the door again. You already know it’s her before you look up. Your mom always has a particular way of entering a room.

“Hey,” Yasmin says, closing the door softly behind her.

“Hey,” you reply without turning around.

She doesn’t say anything for a moment. You can feel her eyes moving over the suit, the tools, everything you’ve built down here. Then she steps closer, her footsteps quiet against the concrete. “Lucas told me about the hospital last night,” she says. “How you held it together for Nancy and Mike. I’m proud of you. It’s not easy.”

“Thanks,” you say flatly, hands not stopping.

There was another few seconds of silence until she spoke again. “I called the doctor’s office this morning.”

Your hands slow.

“They told me you cancelled,” Yasmin says. Her voice is still careful, but there’s something underneath it now, something that wasn’t there before. “Again.”

You don’t say anything.

“Sweetheart.” She steps closer, and you can hear her trying to keep her voice even. “This is the fifth time. I need you to talk to me.”

“There’s nothing to talk about,” you say.

“There is,” she says. “You promised me you’d go. You looked me in the eyes and you promised.”

“And I didn’t.” You set the tool down harder than you mean to, the clatter ringing out across the table. “I made a choice.”

“A bad one.”

“My choice to make.”

Yasmin exhales through her nose. “Not entirely. Not when I’m your mother and I’m standing here watching you—”

“I’m fine,” you cut in.

“You are not fine.” Her voice sharpens slightly, the softness thinning at the edges. “You almost fainted in front of Steve and the others two days ago.” You rolled your eyes, silently yelling at Steve for most likely being the one to tell her about this. “You have headaches you’re not telling me about. And now you’re cancelling appointments every time as if this will magically go away.”

“Maybe it will,” you mutter.

“That is not funny.”

“I wasn’t joking.”

There was a second of silence until Yasmin moved around the table so she’s in your eyeline, arms crossed, and when you finally look at her, her expression has shifted. She was still your mother, still had the love underneath all of it, but the patience was wearing thin and you can see it.

“I have rearranged my entire schedule around these appointments,” she says, her voice controlled but firmer now. “I have called in favors at the office, I have driven you there myself, and every single time you find a reason not to go through with it. I am done pretending that’s okay.”

You look away. “Then stop rearranging your schedule.”

“Excuse me?”

“I didn’t ask you to do any of that,” you say, and there’s an edge to your voice that you can’t quite pull back. “I didn’t ask you to call the office or drive me or hover. I’m not twelve anymore.”

Yasmin stares at you. “I am not hovering. I am trying to keep my daughter alive.”

“Well maybe I don’t want your help with that.”

The words hang there. Yasmin’s jaw tightens, and you watch something shift in her expression, the soft concern hardening into something more frustrated, more exhausted, the look of a woman who has been patient for a very long time and is finally running low.

“I don’t know what you want me to do,” she says, her voice clipped now. “You won’t go to your appointments. You won’t take your medication consistently. You won’t talk to me, you won’t talk to Steve, you won’t talk to Jonathan, you won’t talk to Hopper. You are shutting every single person out and you’re acting like that’s brave when really you’re just—”

“Don’t,” you warn.

“—scared,” she finishes anyway.

You laugh, and it comes out sharp and hollow. “Oh, that’s rich. Coming from you.”

Yasmin’s eyes narrow. “What does that mean?”

“It means you do this.” You gesture vaguely, something hot and uncontrollable pushing up through your chest. “You get attached and then you try to dominate everything around you so it doesn’t fall apart. That’s not love, that’s another word for controlling.”

“That is not fair—”

“You scheduled my appointments without asking me,” you snapped. “You called my doctors. You talked to Steve behind my back. I am not a case file. You can’t just manage me until the problem goes away.”

“I am not trying to manage you!” Her voice rises, frustration finally breaking through. “I am trying to make sure you are still here next year! Do you understand that? Do you have any idea what it would—” She stops, pressing her lips together, reigning herself back in. When she speaks again her voice is quieter but no less fierce. “I have already buried one daughter. I will not do it again without a fight. Even if that fight is with you.”

The room goes very still.

You feel the words land somewhere deep, somewhere you didn’t mean to leave unguarded. And instead of letting them in, instead of softening, something in you doubles down. The hot ugly thing in your chest keeps pushing and you are so tired, so unbelievably tired, and you don’t know how to make it stop.

“Then maybe you should have thought about that before you decided to have another daughter who’s a lost cause,” you say quietly.

Yasmin goes still.

“Because that’s what I am, right?” Your voice drops, almost toneless. "Another Nora. Another daughter you’re going to lose. And I’m sorry, I am, but I can’t keep carrying that for you. I can’t keep going to appointments and pretending to fight just so you don’t have to feel like you failed again.”

The silence that follows is the worst kind. There was no anger, but complete hollowness.

Yasmin doesn’t move. She doesn’t flinch or cry or raise her voice. She just looks at you, and something behind her eyes cracks. Her expression doesn’t crumble. It just empties, and somehow that is so much worse.

You open your mouth, your words finally catching up to your brain. “Mom—”

“Finish getting ready,” she says. Her voice is steady, in a way it only gets when she is trying to hold herself together through years of training that taught her not to break in front of anyone. She turns toward the door without looking at you again.

“I didn’t mean—”

“I know,” she says softly.

And that’s the most devastating part, that she already knows. That she’s already deciding not to let it destroy what’s between you, even now, even after that.

She pauses at the door, her hand resting on the frame, her back to you. She doesn’t turn around.

“Eat something before tonight,” she says quietly. “You need your strength.”

The door clicks shut behind her.

You stand there for a long moment, staring at where she was, your chest hollowed out. The echo of Nora’s name is still hanging in the air between the walls, and you put it there, and you know it, and there is nothing you can do about it now.

Your hands are trembling slightly when you turn back to the table. You pick up the tool. You keep working.

You don’t cry. You just keep moving, because stopping means sitting with what you just did, and you can’t afford that. Not when there’s still so much left to do.

The van smells like coffee and there are too many people crammed into too small a space. You’re wedged between Nancy and Robin, knees almost touching the equipment bolted to the wall across from you. Yasmin is in the driver’s seat next to Joyce, who is in the passenger’s seat.

You haven’t looked at her since that conversation.

The walkie crackles on Lucas’s end, and everyone stills.

“She’s in.” Steve's voice comes through.

There’s a second of shuffling, then Dustin's voice cuts over him. “Sinclair, come in. Do you copy?”

Lucas lifts the walkie, leaning forward slightly. “Yep, this is Sinclair. Copy. Go ahead.”

“Sinclair, I’m confused.” Dustin’s voice sounds genuinely puzzled. “I thought your sister said that Tina was mean.”

Lucas lets out a short breath. “Oh, no, no. She’s not mean. She’s a villain. Kill the puppies for a fur coat kind of villain. Trust me.”

A second of silence passes through the van as his words settle. Joyce shifts in her seat, pressing her lips together as she turns around to look at everyone. “How long before the drugs kick in?”

Robin tilts her head, already running the variables. “Depends how much pie they eat.”

“And how fast they eat it,” Mike adds.

Robin nods, ticking off on her fingers. “What they had for lunch. When they had lunch.”

“Caffeine intake, alcohol intake,” Mike continues, before looking at Joyce. “It’s a lot of variables.”

Robin exhales, shaking her head. “Yeah, what could go wrong, right?”

“Aside from everything,” Lucas mutters.

You lean your head back against the van wall, staring at the ceiling. “Well,” you say quietly. “On the bright side, if this goes sideways, at least we’ll have pie.”

Nobody laughs, but you catch the corner of Nancy’s mouth twitch. That’s enough to make you smile.

You close your eyes for just a second, letting the low hum of the van fill your ears. Holly’s name is somewhere behind your sternum, a dull persistent ache that hasn’t left since last night. You think about a little girl somewhere in the dark, waiting for someone to come find her. You think about Erica walking through that front door alone, the whole plan balanced on her shoulders.

You think about Yasmin sitting in the front, not looking at you either.

You open your eyes and keep them fixed forward.

Now isn’t the time. It’s never the time, and you know that’s your fault, but right now Holly needs you focused and the plan needs you present and falling apart is a luxury you can’t afford tonight.

So you breathe, and you wait, and you keep Nora’s name buried somewhere you can’t reach until this is over.

The van rolls back into the Turnbow garage with barely a sound, Yasmin’s hands steady on the wheel. The engine cuts. The doors open and everyone spills out instantly.

Yasmin was supposed to be with you. That was the original plan. Joyce, Robin, and Will would handle the barn, moving the Turnbows while you and the others stayed behind to set the trap. However, back at the Squawk, Yasmin quietly changed it, suggesting she take the barn instead in case anything went wrong. She was the FBI agent, she could handle it. It was a reasonable call and nobody thought twice about it.

You did. You knew better.

You tried to open your mouth. The words were right there, sitting at the back of your throat. Though, even if you spoke, you don’t even know what you would say. Sorry feels too small and too late, and anything else risks cracking something open in front of everyone that you are not prepared to deal with right now.

So you close your mouth and watch.

The guys help move the Turnbows carefully, lifting them onto the back of the van. Joyce moves to sit in the passenger seat, while Robin and Will jump in the back. Yasmin moves with them, her back to you now, already heading towards the driver’s seat. She doesn’t look back.

The van doors close, the engine starts, and then suddenly the taillights disappear out of the garage and down the driveway, and just like that the distance between you becomes physical, measured in the actual space between where you’re standing and where she’s gone.

You stand there for exactly one second longer than you mean to. That’s when you feel Steve’s eyes on the side of your face. You don’t turn to look at him. You already know what his expression looks like, that particular furrow between his brows, choosing not to push yet. He’s noticed the lack of communication between you, how the two of you didn't exchange a single word or glance the entire time, and Steve knows you well enough to know that isn’t nothing.

He doesn’t say anything though. He simply falls into step beside you as you turn toward the house.

You’re grateful for that more than you can say.

You walk inside. The Turnbow house feels strange with the family gone, too still, the furniture slightly out of place from where you’d already started shifting things before loading them into the van. Everyone moves without being told, falling into the work quietly and efficiently.

The curtains are already drawn. The furniture gets pushed back, clearing the center of the family room, the scrape of it against the floor filling the silence. You set your bag down and unzip it, laying everything out in a row. You check your guns, making sure Nancy has hers, while Jonathan gets the flares. Some of you begin to pour gasoline into balloons, which get handled carefully by Lucas. The axes and the chainsaw are still in the garage where you spotted them earlier, and you make a mental note to send someone for them once the floor is dealt with.

You crouch in the center of the room, pressing your palm flat against the carpet, feeling for the floorboards underneath. This is where the hole goes, leading straight down to the basement. You peel the rug back, grab a sharpie from your bag, and outline the square directly onto the wood beneath it, marking exactly where the cut needs to go. It was big enough for it to fall through, but small enough that the rug covers it completely once it’s back in place.

You all head to the garage and come back with axes under your arms. You position yourselves around the marked outline and get to work, the blades biting into the wood, the noise swallowed by the thick walls of the house. Then Steve comes back through the garage door with a chainsaw.

He’s holding it loosely at his side, hair slightly disheveled from moving furniture. He lifts it slightly when he sees you looking, one eyebrow raised, a slow smirk on his face. Everyone stops and stares at him.

You stare at him too, though for a different reason.

It is not the time. You are standing in a stranger’s living room preparing a trap for a creature from another dimension while your mom is somewhere across town not looking at you and your head has been throbbing for the past hour and a little girl is still missing in the dark.

It is genuinely not the time.

And yet Steve Harrington standing there with a chainsaw and that expression does something to your brain that you are not going to think about right now or possibly ever.

You clear your throat. “Yeah,” you say, your voice even. “That works.”

He revs it once. You turn away before your face can betray you.

Steve puts on goggles and works the chainsaw carefully, the blade cutting clean through the floorboards in a rough square. Lucas and Mike push the cut section free, and the hole opens up in the center of the room, dropping straight down to the basement below. All of you gather around and look down at the damage that has been done.

Nancy and Jonathan get to work immediately, descending to the basement and stringing the wires on a table, looping and layering it into a ball. You and the others pull the rug back over the hole and staple it to the floor, pressing the edges down until the seams disappear and it looks like solid ground again.

You head upstairs with Mike and set up the dummy in Derek’s room, positioning it carefully beneath the blankets, shaped enough like a human to pass at a glance.

Back downstairs, you do a final check. Lucas has the gasoline filled balloons, and the weapons are distributed. Steve and Dustin slip out through the front door quietly, heading back to the beamer to wait. You watch them go, then turn toward the basement door. Nancy and Jonathan are already heading down, weapons in hand. You follow, pulling the door shut behind you. Lucas and Mike take their hiding places upstairs.

The basement is dark and smells like dust and old wood. The three of you find your positions behind the bar counter.

You look at Jonathan and Nancy, watching them breathe a little heavier as you all wait for the demogorgon to show itself at the house. Your head has been aching ever since you arrived, but you didn’t say anything. If you were to tell anyone at all, they would have made you sit out of this mission, and you weren’t going to do that.

“Just a final check,” Jonathan murmured, catching both your and Nancy’s attention. “Both of your guns are loaded, right?”

Nancy nodded. “Yeah.”

“Yup,” you answered.

Jonathan turned to Nancy. “And the telemetry tag is in there?”

Nancy nodded.

“Don’t worry Jonathan,” you spoke softly, reassuring him. “Everything is ready.”

He smiled but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Kind of hard not to worry.”

Even after years of fighting off the same evil, it never got any easier. It was a miracle that all of you have made it this far, but you were afraid that your luck was running out.

“It’ll be okay,” you said, though the words felt thin even as you said them. “Vecna and his goons won’t know what’s coming their way. This is going to work.”

“It has to work,” Nancy said, a slight crack in her voice before she cleared her throat. Her eyes locked with yours. “Holly’s life depends on it.”

You held her gaze for a moment. Then you looked at Jonathan. The three of you had been here before in different ways, waiting in the dark for something terrible, hoping the plan held. It never got easier. First it was Will, now it was Holly. You thought about Barbara, briefly, and understood exactly what was sitting behind Nancy’s eyes.

The walkie crackled in your hand, Steve’s voice coming through low and controlled. “South down Arlington, T-minus thirty seconds. Status check. Taggers?”

You brought the walkie close. “In position and set.”

“Launcher?”

“Set,” Lucas answered.

“Catcher?”

“Set,” Mike responded. “Trackers?”

“Set,” Steve said.

You lowered the walkie and looked up at the ceiling. The square cut in the floorboard above was barely visible in the dark, just a thin seam in the wood, invisible unless you knew exactly where to look. That was where it would fall through, where the wires were waiting to trap it.

The rational part of you registered the fear. It was there quietly, the same low hum that had lived in your chest since the first time you learned what lived in the dark. But underneath it was something else, something that had been growing for so long. You were tired. Tired in a way that had nothing to do with sleep, a bone deep exhaustion that came from years of this, years of standing in dark rooms with weapons in your hands waiting for something terrible to arrive. You wanted it to be over. Not just tonight, but all of it. You just wanted to live a normal life.

You suppose that was never going to happen for you.

You pushed the thought down before it could take root.

Steve’s voice came through again, quieter now. “It’s inside. Keep your traps shut.”

Complete silence fell over the basement. You looked at Nancy, then Jonathan. Nobody moved. Nobody spoke. You controlled your breathing, eyes fixed on the ceiling, every muscle locked in place.

Then the crash came from upstairs, sudden and violent enough to make your grip tighten on the shotgun. A growl rolled through the house, low and guttural, and above you came the sound of Lucas and Mike, the shouting, the thuds, everything going exactly the way it was supposed to.

You kept your eyes on the ceiling.

Another crash. Another roar. The house shook slightly with the weight of the monster moving through the rooms above, and then, without warning, the floorboard collapsed and the demogorgon plummeted through the hole.

It hit the wires instantly, the tangle catching it, and all three of you moved at once.

You were up from behind the counter before it finished thrashing, shotgun raised. You waited, watching Nancy line up her shot, and the second the telemetry tag fired and stuck clean to its back you turned to Jonathan. “Now!”

Jonathan threw the flares. The gasoline caught, and fire ripped across the demogorgon’s body in a sudden violent bloom. It shrieked, a horrible tearing sound that vibrated through your sternum, flailing against the wires as the flames climbed higher. You fired your shotgun, the recoil jolting through your shoulder, and the creature lurched backward, roaring, scrambling upward with burning limbs and disappearing back through the hole above.

“Let’s go!” You shouted. You were already running, Nancy and Jonathan right behind you as you took the stairs two at a time and burst through the front door into the cold night air.

Steve’s beamer sat across the street and you ran for it, slamming your palm against the passenger window hard enough to make both Steve and Dustin scream from inside. The doors unlocked and you pulled the back door open, shoving yourself in, Jonathan sliding into the middle, Nancy pulling the door shut behind her.

“Where is it?!” Jonathan demanded.

Dustin was already working the tracker, forcing himself to focus. “Hold your horses.” He angled the antenna toward the signal. “Bearing northwest and fast.”

Steve shoved the key into the ignition, but the car stuttered.

“Oh, come on,” Steve muttered, jaw tight, trying again.

You watched his hands on the wheel, your breath held, while Dustin grabbed the radio. “Demo tagged and released. Trackers in pursuit.”

The engine turned over and finally started.

“Repeat, trackers in pursuit. Hit it!” Dustin shouted at Steve.

Steve floored it. The tires screamed against the pavement and the car launched forward, and you hadn’t buckled your seatbelt yet so your body pitched hard toward the back of Steve’s seat. Jonathan’s arm shot out across your chest, catching you and pushing you back before you hit anything.

“Shit, thanks, Jon,” you breathed, gripping his arm while you found your balance again.

Steve kept driving, eyes forward, hands tight on the wheel.

“Signal holding,” Dustin said, watching the tracker. “Just keep steady. Holding…turn right.”

Steve’s eyes flicked to the right. Houses. Yards. No road. “Right?!”

“Right! Turn right! Right now!”

Steve jerked the wheel and the car lurched hard to the right, all three of you sliding into Nancy, who hit the door with a yelp. Jonathan grabbed her, pulling himself and you back off of her as the beamer crashed through a fence, then another, the wood splintering under the tires.

“Sorry, sorry, sorry!” The man behind the wheel apologized.

“You’re gonna crash!” Dustin shrieked.

“You said right!”

“Jesus Christ!” Jonathan braced himself against the seat.

The car bounced violently over uneven ground, the suspension shuddering with every dip and rise, and each jolt sent a fresh spike of pain through the back of your skull. The headache that had been sitting quietly behind your eyes since you arrived at the Turnbow house was no longer quiet. It was spreading, pressing outward from somewhere deep and unreachable, and the motion of the car was making it worse by the second.

You buckled your seatbelt without thinking, hands moving on autopilot while your vision swam slightly at the edges.

“Stop! Stop! Stop right here!” Dustin told Steve.

Steve slammed the brakes and everyone lurched forward. You caught yourself against the seat in front of you, the seatbelt locking hard across your chest.

Steve let out a sigh of frustration. “God damn it, Henderson, what are we doing?”

Dustin stared at the tracker. "We lost the signal."

Silence dropped over the car. The five of you watched the blinking light, not breathing. You waited, until suddenly, Dustin shouted once more.

“I got it! Southeast, it’s headed southeast!”

Steve groaned and spun the wheel, and the car took off again.

“God damn it!” Jonathan’s head cracked back against the seat. “Jesus!”

“Sorry!”

“It’s okay.” Jonathan rubbed the back of his head.

You pressed yourself into the corner of the backseat and gripped the handle above the door. The turns kept coming, the car kept pitching, and with every jolt the pain behind your eyes climbed higher, spreading down into your jaw, your neck, the base of your skull. Dots were starting to form at the edges of your vision, small and dark, flickering in and out with the rhythm of your pulse.

Your stomach turned over. You pressed one hand flat against your abdomen and brought the other up to your temple, closing your eyes against the spinning. The noise in the car, Steve and Dustin’s back and forth, Jonathan steadying himself beside you, Nancy’s sharp inhales every time the car lurched, it all blurred together into something distant and underwater.

You breathed through your nose slowly, the way you’d taught yourself a long time ago when everything was too loud and too much and the only way out was through. You kept your eyes closed and held on.

The heat of the explosion fanned across his face, throwing him back into the mall with enough force to stretch a burning pain across his body. He gasps for air, vision blurring in the smoke, lungs barely taking a breath.

Something sharp hits his stomach, but he barely notices, eyes watching a shadow move closer to him, heart leaping into his throat.

“Harrington, you okay? Harrington!”

He knew that voice, but his mind still swarmed, fading in and out as he struggled to stay awake.

Another shadow. This one, much bigger. The voice in front of him turns to it, something incomprehensible falling from their lips as they take one last look down at Steve’s almost lifeless body.

“Tell…”

The rest of the sentence goes unheard, something like a roar piercing through the room. He can barely see now, his ears all he had left to make sense of what was happening around him.

Gunshots, screams. Horrific sounds of something slicing into meat.

Then a hard thud of a body hitting the ground in front of him, a strange pain in his heart until he succumbed to unconsciousness completely.

“Steve.”

“Steve, wake up.”

“Steve!”

Steve jolts awake, head whipping up as he breaks away from his dreams, body slick with sweat.

“Hey, hey. You’re okay.”

He blinks through the dark room, feeling the soft touch of hands caress his face as he pants for air, searching for the person beside him.

“I’m right here, Steve. It’s okay.”

His glassy eyes finally settle on you, your beautifully concerned face illuminated under the rare sighting of a moon from the curtainless window behind him. He instantly reaches out for you, and you hold him close, your heartbeat all he needs to hear to steady his own.

“What happened?” You whisper into his hair, and the words stay stuck in his throat. “Another nightmare?”

“Something like that.” He mumbles, taking a deep breath and pulling away, something like guilt twisting his insides. “Shit, sorry. What time is it?”

“Um…” You hazily gaze at the small clock on your bedside table, “Four-ish.”

“I didn’t mean to wake you.” Steve sighs, running a hand down his face.

“It’s okay-”

“No, it’s not.”

The dark circles you wore beneath your eyes had, for the most part, appeared because of him. Steve couldn’t sleep anymore without the night at the mall creeping back into his consciousness. At first, it had been easier to deal with; just a recollection of the event exactly how he remembered it. But it’s become so much more than that. He’s started dreaming things he didn’t remember about that night, shadows that felt familiar yet alien at the same time. Like his memory was trying to show him things he had repressed.

And each time it tried, he woke up in a cold sweat and embraced in a helpless show of affection that only made him feel guiltier. You had enough to deal with. He didn’t need you worrying about him, either.

“Maybe… maybe I should start sleeping in my own room.” He says quietly, and he can feel your hands still at his side. “Just until… until I stop having these nightmares. It’s not fair that you’re not getting any sleep over this.”

“Steve. Look at me.”

He manages to drag his eyes over to you, your hand sliding up his arm to rest around the nape of his neck, ensuring he doesn’t look away.

“What’s going on?” You ask so innocently it physically hurts. “You can tell me.”

I’m the reason Billy is dead. I lost Robin. I lied to everyone for months because I couldn’t let you go. The guilt is tearing me apart on the inside to the point where I can’t even stand to look in the mirror. I’m selfish, I’m unworthy, I-

“Nothing.” He replies, patting your arm and sliding out of the sheets, away from your touch. As soon as your fingertips left his skin, the voices stopped, and he cleared his throat. “I’m gonna shower, before everyone else wakes up. Get some sleep, okay?”

The hurt on your face didn’t go unnoticed, but you didn’t beg him to stay. Instead, you nod faintly, laying back down. His throat tightens as he grabs his clothes, taking one last look at your figure in the dark before he closes the door behind him.

“You’re up early.”

Your head turns to see Eddie’s tired expression, his hands already finding a coffee mug on the counter and searching for the cure to his early morning fatigue.

“Couldn’t sleep.” You respond, handing over the coffee jug to his delight.

“Hm.” He sounds knowingly, pouring a cup.

You lean back against the kitchen island, narrowing your eyes. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“What?” He smirks, taking a sip, a lightness in his eyes that shouldn’t be making your stomach crawl.

“The ‘hm’.” You repeat, and Eddie shrugs.

“Just… hm. That’s all.”

“It was a weird ‘hm’.”

“You’re the one making it weird.” He raises his free hand as a surrender, grinning now as you bite back a smile.

When you meet his eyes in the comfortable silence, your smile starts to drop, hands tightening around your mug.

Eddie Munson was once your closest friend. When you first moved to Hawkins, your father had been living in the trailer park and somehow managed to squeeze your entire life into the only room he had, his nights mostly spent on the couch since he was never home much. It was lonely at the beginning. Until you met Eddie.

He was an outcast kid armed with a humorous wit in one hand and a blunt in the other. Robin had actually been the one to introduce you both, even if unknowingly. She called in sick to school, leaving you without a science partner. Lucky for you, the resident school burnout decided to grace the class with his presence that day, choosing the seat beside you, and you had been friends ever since.

Until you were caught smoking weed in the woods. Everything came tumbling down after that.

There was once a time where sharing a space like this would have come so easy to you. Now, it felt like you were tugging at a thread that had already come loose.

Eddie senses the shift in the air, his shoulders tightening. He bites his lip, studying the ground, searching for the words to say. Not that he got to say them.

“I, uh-”

“Morning.”

Jonathan Byers slips into the room with a practiced quietness, studying the coffee pot with a hesitant stare.

“Are we running low, yet?” He asks no one in particular, eyeing the last empty cup on the counter.

“We have enough to give an elephant the zoomies.” You respond with a snort, gesturing to the cupboard above his head. “It’s like, the only thing Hop ever brings back from the scavenges.”

“I think you mean looting expeditions.” Jonathan murmurs, lowering his voice to mimic the older man. “Why are you guys up so early anyway?”

He eyes Eddie’s tired body slumped against the wall, eyes barely staying open.

“The stupid moon kept me up.” Eddie grumbles and Jonathan frowns, sharing a look with you. You merely shrug. “Hey, it was bright, okay?”

“What about you?” Jonathan asks, setting his coffee down as he took a seat on the other side of the island. Before you can answer, he rests his chin on his hand and lowers his voice. “And please, I don’t want the gruesome details.”

You almost splutter up your coffee, glaring at the way both boys are snickering into their own cups. “You are both children.”

“As long as you don’t bring anymore in here. We’re a full house already.” Jonathan laughs, and you immediately throw a dishcloth at him.

While you and Steve were trying to keep your relationship a secret, there was only so much you could hide from your friends. You all lived under the same roof, ate dinner together, shared walls… Simply put, it was hard to keep a secret in this house.

“What’s the plan for today, anyway?” Jonathan changes the subject, the mood now solemn. “Did Hopper say anything after last night?”

“You mean when an evil mind lord locked us up like we’re in a snow globe?” Eddie mutters, eyes flickering to the window. Nothing could be seen from it, however. The planks of wood made sure of that.

The reminder of what lays behind it was like a punch to the gut. You kept slipping away from reality, becoming comfortable in the domestic nature of being surrounded by your friends and family. It made you feel sick, if anything, that you kept unknowingly pretending everything was fine.

“No, he didn’t.” You say quietly, “I overheard him talking to Joyce, though.”

“Anything we should know?” Jonathan queries, and Eddie straightens up now. You fully have their attention.

“They were talking about the kids.” You say quietly, reminded of the hushed voices behind the office door before you went to bed last night, the tremor in the mother’s voice. “I think they’re trying to figure out how to keep them safe.”

“How come Chief didn’t send them away in the first place? You know, when the military wanted to evacuate any survivors?”

Eddie posed a great question, one you’ve been asking yourself for the longest time. Your dad wouldn’t willingly keep young kids around during something like this unless it was absolutely necessary.

“I don’t know. But he wouldn’t be hiding them here if he didn’t have a good reason. He probably knows something we don’t.”

“Sounds about right.” Jonathan sighs, tapping his mug. He notices Eddie’s frown. “We usually don’t find anything out until we figure it out for ourselves. Welcome to the group.”

Eddie slowly nods, casting a glance at you, the look lingering longer than it should have. If Jonathan noticed the rising tension, he didn’t get the chance to voice his observation.

“Will?”

You’re the first to notice the young boy, setting your coffee mug down when you see him standing in the doorway, pajamas still on and a piece of paper in his right hand.

“Why are you up, buddy? Couldn’t sleep, either?” Jonathan asks with a tender voice he only used with his younger brother. He sees the glassy look on the boy’s face and immediately moves toward him, kneeling down.

“I saw something.” Will’s small voice explained.

“Like a nightmare?” Jonathan suggests, but his eyes are already finding yours, panicked.

“She needs help.”

“Who?”

Will hands his brother the paper, eyes trained to the floor. He looked more than spooked. Haunted, maybe. By whatever was on that paper.

“Y/n.” Jonathan whispers, and you quickly join his side, frowning when he hands you the paper.

You carefully take it from him, immediately recognising the strokes of crayon on the image presented to you.

The drawing was far too precise to be a coincidence. A small figure in the middle of the paper was unmistakenly Robin. She stood in what looked eerily similar to her real life room, the same Madonna and Bowie posters coating the walls if only recognisable by shape and colour.

In the corner of this room, however, was a shadow, darker and much more pigmented than the rest of the drawing, like Will had scribbled it over and over again.

“What is this?” You ask shakily, a distant look in the young boy’s eye that had your skin crawling.

Will doesn’t look at you, his arms trembling with fear. “She’s trapped. She can’t leave. It won’t let her.”

“Hey, it’s alright, it was just a nightmare, okay?” His older brother soothes.

Jonathan looks up at you as he pulls Will into a hug, searching your face as if you had the answers. You were still staring at the drawing, looking at the walls of your best friend’s bedroom with a fixed frown.

If it was just a nightmare, how did Will know what Robin’s room looked like?

Steve had been staring at the ceiling far longer than he’d care to admit, laying atop his bedsheets feeling cold and alone. He should have stayed with you. God knows he couldn’t sleep unless you were there beside him.

That look on your face when he left… ugh. As if he didn’t feel guilty enough already, he managed to outdo himself with every single mistake.

And you hadn’t said anything. You didn’t stop him from leaving, or argue with his self-deprecating thoughts like you usually would on nights his dreams tried to drown him. Maybe you were starting to see what Steve believed this entire time.

He was unfixable.

That’s not fair to you, he thinks, rolling over and closing his eyes. You just found out your best friend was somewhere out there and you had no idea how to reach her. You’ve already been through so much.

You didn’t deserve someone so selfish.

Because that’s who you are, Steve. You’re a selfish, miserable liar-

Loud voices echo from the hallway, relieving him from his own torture. He looks at the time. 7am.

“What do you mean it’s not important?!”

He flies out of bed at the sound of your voice, immediately pulling a sweatshirt over his bare torso and pulling open his door.

Across the hall, he can see the small gap in the office door, shapes moving behind them. You, mostly, your hands wild as Steve catches the desperate glare in your eye. Shit. Whatever it was, it was bad.

“I didn’t say that!” 

Hopper looks at you with wide eyes, jaw set. You weren’t entirely sure how you got from softly knocking his office door to an argument in a matter of seconds. A genetic trait, you think. It would be impressive if it weren’t so damaging.

“What are you really expecting is gonna happen?” Hopper continues, shaking his head like you were a child again. “That she’s just gonna be back home, patiently waiting in her room?! Do you understand how ridiculous that sounds?!”

You huff out a heated breath. He wasn’t listening. “Will saw-”

“Will had a nightmare and drew something about it! You can’t just risk lives over a doodle, Y/n! We need actual concrete evidence because if we’re dead, we ain’t helping her! Why can’t you just think before you-”

“Why don’t you ever listen to me?!” 

Something snaps in your voice, a break that sounds like a repressed cry. 

Unbeknownst to you, Steve abandons his doorway and instinctively moves closer to you, needing to be near you. 

“I know she’s there, dad, I can feel it.”

“I just got you back.” Hopper breaks now, and Steve pauses outside the door. “I can’t lose you over a feeling. Why can’t you just understand I’m trying to protect you?”

“Like you protected Robin?”

Hopper’s face falls, any rage dissipating into the air like he’d had a sharp slap to the face. You felt a bite of regret once the words left your mouth, but it wasn’t as if they weren’t truthful.

Robin had disappeared and been replaced by a shapeshifter. A monster. And no one had noticed. They couldn’t even be sure when the switch happened, and that’s what hurt you the most. It could have been a few days. It could have been months.

You wipe your eyes, swallowing the sobs scratching at your throat. You barely look at your father, already turning to the exit. “I didn’t come here for your permission, I just thought that maybe you’d want to know. Clearly I’m the only person that gives a shit about my best friend.”

The door swings open, and you halt at the sight of Steve. He gulps, looking between you and Hopper, caught.

“I…”

You don’t wait around for an excuse. You brush past him, not in hate but rather haste, needing to leave the room as quickly as possible. He watches you disappear down the staircase, his body aching to follow.

“She thinks she had a lead on Robin.” Hopper explains, voice hoarse from anger and exhaustion.

“You don’t think we should check it out?” Steve frowns, and Hopper sighs.

“That’s the thing. She wasn’t suggesting we do anything.” His eyes look up with a pleading nature he had only seen during that fight in the bunker several months back. The look only his daughter could create. “She wants to go alone.”

Steve’s jaw clenches.

“I know you two are… friends.” Hopper says, and Steve barely controls the hitch in his throat. “Can you-”

“I’ll talk to her.” He promises. Hopper pinches the bridge of his nose, eyeing the boy still stood in the doorway like he had something else to say.

Steve just nods, heading down the staircase, immediately spotting the gap in the front door. You’re sat outside now, knees brought up to your chest as you stared out past the wired fences on the porch.

He takes a breath, hand already on the door, when he sees you’re not alone.

“He’s right about one thing. You can’t go alone.” Jonathan says with a soothing voice that makes Steve’s fists curl. Of course, it had to be Jonathan.

“I’m just sick of people getting hurt because of me.” You admit, voice sadder than Steve has heard it before. “It’s like… I always make the wrong decisions. Or I think I’m helping, but I’m just making everything worse. And I don’t know how to stop feeling that way.”

Steve’s heart wrenches. You never told him that.

“No one thinks that.” Jonathan assures, “Hey, I’m serious. We’ve all done some pretty stupid things but I don’t think you’re even a contender for that list.”

“I don’t know about that.”

“Did something happen?” Jonathan lowers his voice, sneaking a glance behind him. Steve is thankfully hidden behind the door, holding his breath. “Did something happen with Steve?”

Steve’s shoulders stiffen. Fuck, he really shouldn’t be listening to this. Unfortunately, his curiosity got the better of him.

“Jon, seriously?” You say, faking a laugh. It wasn’t nearly as bright as your real laugh. “I told you, nothing is happening between us. We’re just friends.”

“Doesn’t mean you can’t fall out.”

“It…” You start, and then hesitate, sighing. “Nothing. It’s nothing.”

Footsteps can be heard approaching from the parlour, and Steve steps away from the door with a silent groan. He really didn’t want to be caught eavesdropping, and he certainly didn’t want to wrestle any longer with the image of you seeking Jonathan for comfort rather than him.

Did something happen with Steve?

You had an answer. Even if you didn’t say it, you had an answer. And all he could think about was what happened this morning. He was failing at everything, it seemed.

He wasn’t going to let you down this time. He was going to bring Robin back, whatever it takes.

“Shit.” He curses as he almost runs into someone, clearly far too distracted by his own thoughts to be paying attention to his surroundings.

“Sorry.” Nancy halts, raising her hands. “I wasn’t-”

She looks up at him, taken aback.

“Whoa, you look like hell.” She frowns, and Steve runs a hand through his hair, glancing over his shoulder. You were both still outside, thankfully. 

Steve goes to dismiss anything and brush past when an idea suddenly strikes his mind.

“Uh, Steve?” Nancy waves a hand in his face, confused as to why he was still standing there.

“I need your help.”

El looked scarily similar to Sara like this. Her smaller body hidden beneath the sheets, head resting gently against the pillow, her short curls framing her face. Except Sara never got up again, and El shifted in her bed with a bright smile when she saw you enter the room.

“Hi.” You smile, moving to close the door when you remember El’s preference, leaving it open by 3 inches instead. “I didn’t know if you were hungry, so I grabbed you a cookie. It’s no Eggo, but it’s pretty tasty.”

You leave the tissue-wrapped treat on her bedside table, perching beside her on the bed.

“Thank you.” She says, eyes drifting to the sheets at her legs.

“You okay?” You ask gently, noting how her face falls every so slightly.

Ever since the Voice got to her at the mall, she’s barely been able to walk without feeling fatigued. And her powers hadn’t returned to her, yet. She was clearly struggling, and it pained you to see it more than words could say.

“I wish I could help.” She finally says, looking up at you with her sweet doe eyes.

“You are.” You assure, grabbing her hand. “If it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t know Robin was out there still. Because of you, we might be able to save her.”

El hums, relaxing her shoulders. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to settle her mind for a while.

“Max was asking about you.” You change the subject, eyeing how El’s face twists with indecision. “You guys are friends, right?”

She huffs, “Friends don’t lie.”

You frown, shifting closer to her. “What do you mean?”

“Mike told me friends don’t lie.” She reiterates, frowning. “And Max lied.”

“About what?”

Her mouth parts, but she doesn’t speak, swallowing whatever response was on her tongue. You narrow your eyes, playfully prodding at her arm.

“Hey. Tell me the gossip, El.” When she doesn’t respond, you let out an exaggerated sigh and swing your legs onto the bed, shuffling her over so you could lay down next to her. She looks at you with wide eyes, amused. “Fine. But I’m not leaving this bed until you do. I’ll sleep here if I have to, and you should know, I’ve been told I kick.”

You demonstrate with little force, making her break out of her stubborn silence with a giggle.

“Okay, okay!” She laughs when you continue, grabbing your leg with her hands. “I will tell you!”

“Alright, I’ll stop.” You grin, settling back into the bed. “What did Max lie about?”

El sighs, resting her head on your shoulder. “She said… she wasn’t sad.”

That makes you frown, already confused.

“She lied about being sad?”

El nods against you. “I saw her crying. I asked if she was okay, and she said she was fine. But she isn’t. Billy died, and she’s sad. She won’t talk to me about it.”

You place a kiss to the top of El’s head, pulling away just enough to look at her properly. She looked genuinely hurt at the memory, and you had to remind yourself El wasn’t like the other kids. She had even less of a grasp on emotions and friendships than any of you did.

“Sometimes we lie about how we feel because…I guess, because of so many reasons.”

“Like?” She asks innocently, and you purse your lips.

“Well, when we’re sad, we don’t always want people to know.” You try to explain as simply as you could, hoping it could make sense for her. “It’s complicated, but I don’t think Max wants to lie, she just… she wants to pretend.”

“Pretend?”

“Yeah.” You nod. “She wants to pretend she’s okay so it doesn’t hurt so much anymore. So, I guess she did lie. But I think she just needs a friend right now.”

El nods along to your words, frowning at the bedroom door, probably imagining Max and the potential of your proposal.

“Sometimes friends lie because the truth hurts them.” She decides, briefly smiling to herself like everything suddenly made sense.

Your breath hitches slightly at her discovery, blinking at how simple it all seemed to a girl who was still learning what it meant to be human.

“Yeah.” You sigh, “Yeah, I think you’re right.”

“Do daughters lie?” She suddenly asks and you clear your throat.

“Sometimes.” You shrug, trying not to think too hard about it. “But it’s mostly because we don’t want our parents to worry about us.”

“Like your fight with Hopper?”

You mentally curse. Of course she heard that. “Yeah, kinda. But I didn’t lie to him.”

“Do… sisters lie?”

She was sitting fully upright now, looking up at you with furrowed brows and an expression that told you she’d been thinking about this question for a long time.

“No.” You smile, holding her hand. “They tell each other everything. Even if it’s bad.”

Staring down at your hand, she starts to bite her bottom lip, a habit she was surely picking up from you now you spent so much time together. Eventually, she sighs.

“I have to tell you something.”

“About Max?” You frown, still smiling. The look on her face wipes away the smile immediately when she raises her head.

“About Steve.”

“And Hopper doesn’t want us investigating?”

“He doesn’t want her investigating.” Steve says, continuously looking over his shoulder to check the door was, in fact, closed. “I mean, can you blame him? He lost her for months, he’s clearly just scared something’s gonna happen again.”

Nancy’s arms were folded, her lips pursed together. A look she wore when she was concentrating on the facts, analysing and weighing up the cost of important decisions. Steve told her what he heard about Robin, hoping for some much needed help behind the closed door of his bedroom.

“Will saw something. Like a vision?” She asks again, and Steve just nods. “And Y/n thinks she’s at her house?”

“Apparently his drawing was super specific.”

Nancy looks back up at him, eyes flickering between his. “So, what are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking Robin needs help.” He says, leaning against his dresser. He remembers the desperation in your eyes. You needed her back more than anything. “And I want to bring her back. I just can’t do it by myself.”

“Is Hopper even gonna let us do this?” She asks knowingly, and Steve shrugs.

“If we have a concrete plan and a good team, yeah. I don’t see why he’d say no.”

“There’s a lot more to think about now, Steve.” Nancy bites her lip, shaking her head. “We don’t have an escape route if something goes wrong. We don’t even know what’s trapped in Hawkins with us, or if more gates are being opened- We…”

She takes a deep breath, eyes wide with sadness. “We don’t even know if she’s alive. For all we know, this is just a trap. That thing already got inside El’s head, and now Will? Like it isn’t a coincidence they both had visions of Robin barely a day apart?”

Nancy was always good at rationalising certain questions. It proved how smart she was to be able to study a problem from every angle possible. Far different from how Steve approached things. Especially now, as he attempted to consider her justification while pretending like his own guilt wasn’t outweighing his voice of reason.

“I keep trying to remember the last time I saw her. The real Robin.” He stares at his shoes now, ignoring the sharp pain of his gut twisting with his confession. “I remember talking to her before we went out to Weathertop, before… before everything changed again. And then I shut myself in my room and didn’t talk to anyone for days. When I finally had the guts to face you all, she was colder to me. I just assumed it was because of what I’ve done, but now I’m not so sure. Which sucks. It fucking sucks, because maybe she needed someone and I was too busy pretending like I was the only one missing Y/n when she was everything Robin had, like she wasn’t even Hopper’s daughter, and I did that-”

He takes a deep breath, stopping himself from saying anything further. I lied to you all, and if I didn’t Robin would still be here and no one would have gotten hurt-

“Steve.”

When he looks back at Nancy, her head is tilted, eyes light with sorrow and comfort.

“None of us knew.” She says softly, her voice much steadier than her trembling bottom lip. “I mean, I spent a whole day with her after we got that radio transmission, and I didn’t notice anything different. Which, yeah, you’re right, it does suck. But I didn’t know her well enough to realise she wasn’t the same. Neither did you. So, please, for your sake… stop blaming yourself.”

Steve is taken aback, blinking at her. “I’m not-”

“You are. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have asked me to help you.” She shrugs when Steve has nothing else to say. Her body shifts, eyes flickering to the ground. “Uh, unless… unless you’re doing this for Y/n. Which might have a completely different reason?”

He purses his lips, struggling to find anyway to avoid what she is insinuating.

“We, uh…”

Three taps rattle against his bedroom door before it’s propped open. Steve and Nancy both turn to the intrusion, faces falling when the name on their lips stands in front of them with a surprised frown.

“Oh, I, um…” You retract your hand from the doorknob, already backing away, “Sorry, I can come back later-”

“No.” Steve says quickly. Far too quickly, in fact, making your eyebrow raise. “Uh, no, we were just- It’s okay, really.”

Nancy can sense the tension before either of you can say anything further, offering a polite smile to you both. “I should make sure my brother’s up before Dustin and Lucas inhale all the cereal.”

She nods at you as she passes, avoiding your eyes with an ease that makes you frown all over again.

“You okay?” Steve asks before you can question their previous conversation, his brown eyes taking in all of you with a concern that always manages to make your heart flutter.

“Yeah.” You breathe out, slipping into the room and gently leaning against the door to close it. “I just… I actually wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“Me?” He scrunches his face, drifting closer to you naturally. “Why wouldn’t I be okay?”

“Earlier.” You say, noting the way his jaw clenches immediately. “You just seemed pretty out of it, I guess. Not to sound like that kind of girl, but you’ve never just… left like that before. If there’s something I did-”

“Woah, wait, no.”

His arms are around you within seconds, tugging you closer until your face is almost buried into his chest. You sigh into the embrace, the relief lifting the weight you had been carrying.

Steve can feel it, too. He almost winces when he realises how much one simple, stupid decision made you feel like this.

“I’m sorry. You didn’t do anything wrong, I promise. I thought at least one of us should be getting some sleep, you know?”

You hum against him, pulling away just enough to look up at him with those beautiful eyes that made him weak in the knees. “For the record, I didn’t fall back asleep when you left. And it wasn’t because of your nightmare.”

His hand slips up your side and brushes a hair from your face, thumb stroking your cheek.

“I sleep better with you next to me, Harrington. Bad dreams and all.”

Waves of feeling wash him back to shore. Any doubt he had about himself faded behind the bright light of your smile. There was too much to say, so he settled for the comfortable option.

“Wow, didn't realise you liked me that much.”

You laugh, making him grin wider. “You’re such a doofus.”

“Uh, a doofus you have a crush on.”

“Oh my god, you’re so vain.”

“Kinda expected when the prettiest girl has a crush on you.”

“Wow.”

“I mean, really, you’re like, obsessed with me, so it must be for a good reason-”

“Just shut up and kiss me.”

You didn’t have to tell him twice. 

The moment your lips touched his, the world bled into a haze like it was a second-thought, his hand gently caressing your cheek as you sigh into his mouth. At first it was soft, just a small burst of light until it burned bright enough to heat up, the air shifting before either of you could notice it. His hand slips from your cheek to your neck, his other snaked around your hip, trying to desperately pull you closer. You cling to his sweatshirt, lost in his taste and touch, mind melting until only his name could be thought.

It wasn’t until you gasped for air that Steve realised he had been leading you to the bed, halting his movement and separating your lips. He rested his forehead against yours, catching his breath.

“Holy shit.” He breathes out, and you smile with your lips still tingling with his lingering kiss.

“I should probably leave before we, uh…” You couldn’t hide your grin as you slowly step back, his hand staying on your hip until you were too far to reach.

“Yeah, yeah, for sure.” He coughs, cheeks burning. You bite your lip as you look back at him, ready to leave. The glint in your eye was almost enough to make him fall to his knees.

“See you later, Harrington.” You say knowingly, and he could have fainted as you slip out of the room into the hallway.

His hands rake through his hair, poorly attempting to compose himself like the ghost of your lips wasn’t still whispering those sweet gasps into his ear.

Jesus, you were surely going to be the death of him.

Steve feels something hit his top lip, swiping at the strange sensation as his giddy smile slowly faded. He stares down at his fingers. Was that…

He rushes to the mirror in his room, wiping more away. His nose was bleeding, not an unusual occurrence, and he sighs. Way to ruin a perfect moment, he thinks, wiping his hands with a tissue.

A giant crash and a debilitating scream echo out from the house, making him viciously flinch in shock.

His hand had already found the bat resting against his nightstand, rushing out of his room and almost colliding with you as he did.

“Shit, are you okay?!” He asks, scanning you over.

“Yeah, I’m fine, I think it came from downstairs.” You shake your head, looking behind you to where Hopper was leaving his office, shotgun in hand.

“What the hell was that?” He asks, and the answer comes barrelling up the stairs.

Dustin pants, eyes wide with horror as he stumbles up the last step. You manage to catch him before he falls, and he clings to your arms, making Steve’s stomach twist.

“It- there’s-”

“Dustin, breathe.” Steve begs, watching the tears start to spill from the young boy’s eyes.

“It’s in the house.” Dustin gasps, and you look back at Steve with a fearful gaze. “Lucas and Max-”

Steve doesn’t wait to hear the rest. He practically flies down the staircase, vaguely hearing Hopper tell Dustin to hide with El, your footsteps shadowing Steve’s already.

It was eerily silent in the foyer, a disturbing notion for a house usually beaming with noise. Steve watches you grab a metal poker from the cold fireplace to his right just as Hopper taps his shoulder, a finger to his lips.

He signals for you both to check the kitchen while he checks the parlour, moving quietly, his gun raised.

Steve ensures you’re safely behind him as he inches closer to the kitchen door, the unfortunate memory of what he had found months ago when the apocalypse first started infiltrating his mind. Talk about deja-vu.

He swings the door open, and the first thing he sees is Max. She’s crying, her back pressed against the kitchen island, clutching her gut as blood spilled out onto the floor.

Your breath hitches behind him, your arm brushing against his as you rush past and kneel beside her, frantically shrugging off your jacket to press against her wound.

Steve wanted to help, but his eyes were fixated on the broken window behind you both, the wooden boards mere splinters on the ground. He grips his bat, moving further into the kitchen, turning the corner to the back door. He stills completely, heart wrenching.

Lucas is on the floor, arms splayed either side of him as a demogorgon finishes off his prey with a final strike to his chest, blood splattering the walls.

Steve roars with rage, striking the monster as hard as he possibly can. It rolls away from Lucas’ body, snarling at Steve as it rises back onto its feet. Its claws were dripping with blood, raising one of its arms to attack him instead.

The bat in his hand drives directly into the creature’s mouth, slamming it back into the ground. Steve plants his foot on its chest as he drives the bat into his head over and over again, the thing screeching with each hit until it starts to become nothing but mush beneath his relentless attack.

When it finally stops struggling, Steve drops his bat with a cry and sprints over to Lucas, knees soaking into the blood pooling around him.

“L-lucas? Hey, it’s me, can you-”

It was too late. Steve was staring down at a child’s dead body, eyes open and glassy.

“No.” Steve whispers, backing away. “No, no, no, no!”

He turns around, hands on his head, barely breathing in any oxygen as he starts to gasp for air. His shaking legs drift back to the kitchen counters, tears streaming down his face. This couldn’t be happening, this wasn’t-

You were gone.

Max’s eyes were shut, head resting against the wood, the metal poker abandoned at her feet. Her lips were already pale, and he’s practically scratching at his own throat to release the broken cry trapped in it.

A sharp breeze hits his face, and he stumbles over to the kitchen door. It was propped open by a fallen side table, giving him full view of the hallway. When had that fallen?

You’re stood there, facing the front doors, your back to him completely.

“Y/n?” He manages to breathe out, goosebumps trailing his skin as the lights start to flicker.

“No.” You say, voice rough, your head twitching. He stops moving. “She left a long time ago.”

You turn around to show him the truth. Your usual expression was replaced with a bone-chilling smile. Your hands flexed long grey fingers.

Shapeshifter.

“No…” He shakes his head, backing away. He slips on the floor, glancing down momentarily to find a pool of blood below his sneakers.

Hopper’s throat was slit, gun twisted and mangled. His body hadn’t even been there a moment ago. Or had it? Steve didn’t know anymore, becoming consumed in the death around him.

“I haven’t been Y/n for a long time.” You say, face dropping, completely void of emotion. “And you never even noticed.”

Steve starts to cry, retreating, watching you step closer.

“You did this, Steve.”

He shakes his head, praying for his mouth to scream something, anything. 

“YOU DID THIS!”

Something grabs him from behind, and he finally yells out, squeezing his eyes shut and fighting through the fits of tears to escape. 

“Steve!”

“Steve!”

He gasps when he feels himself fall back, eyes flashing open and looking at the dull walls of his bedroom. He frowns. Wait-

Arms are wrapped around him, a muffled voice calling out to him. He immediately twists out of their hold, scrambling away. His back hits his dresser and accidentally knocks his bat over. He pants in the dim light, shaking his head. No, he left his bat by the demogorgon. He wasn’t meant to be here. He wasn’t here. How was he here?

“Steve.”

He finally looks at the other person, shoulders dropping.

“Nancy?”

Her face was twisted with fear, sat on the ground like she had fallen over. Or… caught someone.

“You’re okay, you- you were in some… some trance, or something.” She hurriedly explains, and it’s the first time in a long time Steve has seen her struggle to find words. “I- I tried waking you up, and then you fell-”

Steve blinks at her, confused. He was just downstairs, and everyone-

“Are Lucas and Max okay?” He asks, and Nancy frowns then, shaking her head.

“Yeah- yeah, they’re fine. Eating breakfast- Steve, what the hell is going on?”

Steve rests his head back against the foot of his bed, feeling far too numb despite it all, head swarming with questions.

“I… I have no idea.”

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There’s no answer. 

Just thunder so loud it sounds like artillery.

But then something else.

Crack. Not thunder.

Steve goes still. Every hair on his arms lifts. Something moves in the woods ahead of him. Something fast and low. He ducks. Freezes. His heart feels like it’s trying to claw out of his chest.

A guttural sound echoes through the trees.

…not possible…

That’s a Demogorgon.

His breath is jagged now. He looks up with dread...

Something streaks across the sky.

At first, he thinks it’s bats. Then… he sees the hard lines, the jagged shape. Aircraft. Like flying stingrays made of steel. No insignias. No lights.

But fuck, the wings look exactly like the demobats.

They screech like the demobats.

Steve swallows down bile. “No, it’s not real,” he says to himself, breath heaving. “It’s a dream. It’s not real, it’s not real, I’m not—”

He doesn’t believe it.

But then he sees her.

Crushed into the dirt ahead of him. A flash of red hair. 

A pale face that had slipped beneath slumber again…

“—M-Max—?!”

He bolts. Skids on his knees beside her, grabbing her shoulders. “Max, hey—hey, come on—Max, wake up—”

Max doesn’t move.

Max looks just like she did in the hospital bed. Comatose. Lifeless. Asleep, never to be reached again.

“Shit,” he chokes, hands shaking. “Come on, no no no—”

But now her body suddenly sinks. It sinks down, straight into the ground, being swallowed up like quicksand. And Steve can’t stop it, he can’t breathe—

“MAX!”

He digs and claws at the dirt with frantic fingers, damp mud under his nails, scrabbling, raking.

…but she’s gone.

And before he can scream, someone else precious does.

Steve whirls around. “D-Dust—Dustin—?!”

The sound came from deep in the trees. 

Steve takes off like hell itself is on his heels, panicking, losing his mind, tearing through the branches and soaked underbrush. He hears barking, growling snarls that echo behind him and pursue. 

Demodogs. 

An entire pack of them. He’s fucking sure of it. But Steve can’t see them. He sees nothing but fog and trees and—

Another shape. 

The shape of a person.

Small. Ahead. Not a monster.

…it’s a kid. 

A kid with buzzed hair, and she’s… ...she’s so eerily still.

“El… El, El…EL—!! !”

Steve reaches her in seconds and spins her around by the shoulders with ferocious force.

Her eyes are white.

Vacant. Possessed.

Gone.

“Shit,” Steve whispers, stepping back, and she doesn’t move. Just stares through him. Her lips twitch like she’s trying to speak, but all that comes out is static. Crackling air. A sound like radio distortion.

“Jesus—no, El, come on—WAKE UP—”

He’s gripping her now. Shaking her. She doesn’t fucking flinch. Not even a little. She doesn’t blink once.

And behind her, in the dark… is a fence.

Steve’s breath catches.

He knows it.

He’s seen that fence.

It’s a tall, electric perimeter fence. Wrought iron and topped in coil. Buzzing. Crackling. Somehow alive.

Now he knows that this has to be a dream.

“No, you’re gone,” he whispers, still clinging to Eleven’s motionless form, shaking his head as the rain blinds him, blurring his vision as he stares with dread.

I’m asleep.

I’m asleep.

I’m asleep.

I have to be asleep.

God, let me be asleep.

Help me wake up.

Help me. Help me help me help me help me—

And then he sees it. A small figure, crumpled at the base of the fence. Small arms limp. Little legs twisted.

Steve staggers toward it. “No… no, no, please—”

The rain slows down like time itself has decided to pause and reflect from another perspective. It soaks the shape until it glistens. Pale. No longer shivering.

The figure is a little girl.

Six years old. Tiny. Soaking wet. Skin like porcelain. Wet dark hair matted to her cold cheeks. Palms mauled — gashed from the voltage. She’s not moving. She’s not breathing.

She’s dead.

“No,” Steve barely breathes it, barely whimpers it, barely says it at all…

He drops to his knees. Heart falling out of his chest.

It’s you.

A child-version of you.

He picks you up like you weigh nothing and cradles your body into his chest. “No, baby—no, no, no—”

Your tiny head lolls, your small lips a casket’s shade of blue. Not the kind you love. Not your favorite hue—no, this isn’t the color of a safe sky in the normal world. This isn’t the swatch of blue you’d told him barely two months ago was your favorite color while he held you after he’d brought you back to life, carried you home, had held you in his arms against his chest while you drank soup while making small talk and letting yourself belong to him…

“I n-n-need to wake—u-u-uppp.” 

Steve clutches you tighter, gritting his teeth as he holds your lifeless frame, helpless and small and too young to die, to be gone, to stop breathing this early. His tears mix with the rain as his damp hair flops in his face because of how hard he’s profusely shaking his head and forbidding himself to ask you not to leave him.

Because you haven’t.

You haven’t.

You haven’t.

You haven’t.

“You’re not—g-g-gone, you’re not dead, not d-dead—”

And just beyond the fence, that’s when reality steps up closer to his fraying, subconscious soul as it lingers for too long inside of this tragic nightmare…

Dustin. Mike. Lucas. Will.

Crying. Screaming. Hands pressed to the wire.

“Help us—!”

“Please—Steve—”

“Help—help her—help us—”

“STEEEEEEVE!”

Now Steve screams.

Not a cry. Not a shout. A horrific, animalistic scream that rips through the night, long and raw and desperate and endless and refusing to let him wake—

…and then he’s gasping.

Eyes open to metal. Thunder.

Loud thunder.

Not the dreamscape kind.

Not the hellscape kind.

A dim red light is above, but it’s not the upside down. It’s not a nightmare anymore. It’s no longer a vision. 

And you are no longer six years old.

“Steve—?”

Because your body is pressed against his chest and it’s the same weight that Steve has now memorized, every single time that she’s carried you or held you close, both awake and asleep. 

You'd jolted awake with a sharp inhale the second that his gasp had rattled beneath your chest draped across his own torso… and now his big eyes are darting around in the dark.

The tank.

He’s in the tank.

Steve is awake at long last.

“Steve, hey,” your voice is groggy, frightened. Your hands instantly come up to frame his face. “Hey—baby, hey hey, what happened—?”

He’s soaked in sweat.

Breathing like he’s been running.

He clutches you like you might vanish. Like the rain might claim you too. His fingers dig into your back, clawing just to be sure as he frantically takes in your face with bugged out, big brown eyes that still shine, even in the darkness.

“Wh—whah…y-y—??”

Rain drums hard on the tank roof and drowns out Steve’s inability to speak, to form words, form sentences. But all the while, your eyes stay locked on his and something in you already knows what’s wrong.

He doesn’t say a word. Just yanks you in tighter, pressing your heart to his, like it’s the only way he’ll believe you’re real. Like it’s the only way that he knows for a fact you’re not still at the bottom of that fence, and you’re not lifeless. You’re not a dead child in his arms, you made it here. You lived to see twenty-one years old, just like he has. Yes, your heart still isn’t beating right. No, the arrhythmia is not reversed. But so help him God, it’s beating and you’re fine.

Steve looks up fast, scanning the tank.

The kids. Dustin. Mike. Lucas. Max.

All awake. All startled by the storm outside, huddled in a cluster near the back wall of the moving beast.

Fuck, the thunder must’ve woken them too.

Steve doesn’t bother to think. Doesn’t bother to explain. He just drags you across the floor, over to them, pulls the entire cluster of you into his strong grasp, legs stretched wide and apart as he leans against the tank’s wall. Dustin and Mike fall into one side, Lucas and Max into the other.

Because he can’t breathe unless they’re all touching and breathing deeply right beside him so that he makes sure it stays that way.

No one protests.

No one fucking wants to protest.

He’s still not speaking.

You don’t say anything either. You just fold into his chest, your fingers pressing softly underneath his shirt… feeling the racing beat of his heart.

He’s shaking badly. You all are.

The storm outside is relentless.

Max is clutching a blanket around her shoulders. Lucas gently rubs her back. Dustin is pale. Mike’s knobby knees are tucked up to his chest.

No one asks Steve what happened. No one asks if it was the storm that woke him up, too. They don’t have to. They saw the way that he woke up. They know better.

But Steve doesn’t let himself cry or sob. And he won’t. But his breathing is still a wreck. And when you shift slightly to ask… just in a whisper…

“...nightmare?”

He cuts it off with a rough, low, “I can't.”

It’s not cruel. It’s not sharp. Just final.

You nod once, resting your forehead against his throat. “Okay.”

He doesn’t apologize. But the way his grip tightens says he wants to. That he feels awful. Which is why you softly tell him that’s it alright, just loud enough for him to hear.

But that’s exactly when Mike lets out a tiny, high-pitched sound. Somewhere between a whimper and a muffled up sob that he won’t release, and he covers his face with his hands in shame and fear and dread... but Dustin reaches for him at the same time that Steve does, knowing that he’s overwhelmed with worry about El and Will. Which is why all curl in tighter.

From across the tank, Robin sees it. So does Eddie.

Neither one of them says a word.

Joyce is already on her feet. She’s shaking too, but you wouldn’t know it if you weren’t watching closely.

She’s busy. Heating something. Coffee. Tea. Something warm so that it can ease the chill and soothe everyone’s rattled up bones. 

No one’s going back to sleep tonight. That’s obvious.

But the tank itself? Still moving.

It’s navigating slick terrain under the storm, Hopper and Murray up front. Headlights off. Going by compass, map, instinct, and sheer dumb luck and prayer.

You’d all agreed on the plan hours ago. Move at night. No helicopters. No drones. Just storm and dark and motion.

Hopper drives. Murray calls direction. And Steve helped plot the course with Dustin back when the sky was clear and hope still felt like a real thing.

Nancy is curled up in the far corner of the tank with her arms wrapped around her knees. She’s silent… her jaw locked, swatting at her eyes. Trying not to cry.

She fails. Then rises.

Argyle is already perched near the turret viewfinder. He’s been up keeping watch for a long time and now he scoots over without a word. She joins him with tearful gratitude.

Back where you are, Jonathan has also quietly woken up in a nearby corner. He starts to stand… but Steve moves, like he’s about to get up too.

“Don’t,” Jonathan says gently.

Steve freezes.

“Just—don’t,” Jonathan says. No judgment. Just certainty. And firm assurance, even though he’s wobbly. “I got it.”

And he does. Shaking and pale and exhausted. But he knows that Steve just saw nightmares behind his eyes instead of finding sleep or much needed, long overdue rest. Even without knowing the details, Jonathan knows that whatever the fuck he dreamt about… was hell.

Robin and Eddie shift to either side of him as he settles along the wall, co-guarding from the dark like dogs on a leash at their posts.

Eventually, Joyce returns. She kneels in front of you all, passing out mismatched mugs and thermoses. Hot tea. Coffee. Decaf for you.

“Might be the only time I’ve been grateful for the lack of jitters in the juice,” you murmured as you took your tin. 

“If it makes you feel any better?” Joyce says with a light shrug. “I’ve actually gotten used to it. Pretty sure it’s just mostly mindset that kickstarts the caffeinated kick.”

You hiss at the hot liquid scorching your tongue. “I can dabble with that.” 

Joyce winks at you with a faint smirk. And she doesn’t ask what happened… She just gently touches Steve’s cheek as she hands him his own thermos, giving your forearm a small squeeze before making sure that all of the kids approve of their own… and of course they do.

Everyone drinks.

The storm still howls outside. Wind buffets the tank. But inside, it’s warm now. At least physically.

Joyce settles in beside you all, gathering up Dustin and underneath the same blanket. Dustin leans his head on Steve’s shoulder while Mike is curled up into Joyce now while she sighs between them. 

Lucas watches the door. “Bet he’s airbending right now.”

Max peeks up at him through her lashes, the rim of her hot thermos to her lips with the waft of lemon swirling up. “I actually see that vividly in my head.”

You all know that they’re talking about Will. 

No doubt in your minds that he’s back at the safe haven, trying to bend the rain with his mind while Eleven smiles big and shows him how, all while Dmitri stands watch and Owens doesn’t let any of them catch a cold. 

Joyce grins. “Trust me. My boy’s gone full karate kid with this thing tonight.” She nudges Mike, kissing the crown of his head. “And he’s taking good care of your girl.”

Mike’s face crumples but he just keeps leaning into her as he tries not to imagine his best friend or his girl in any sort of pain or distress.

Joyce sighs and softly changes the subject. “You know what I miss? Ice cream. Real ice cream. Not that weird soy stuff.”

Max turns to her. “Strawberry or bust.”

“Rocky Road,” Dustin mumbles.

“Mint chocolate chip is the worst,” Lucas adds.

“…take that back,” Mike croaks, and the quietest smile flickers across his face.

You grin sadly, peering over at him. “So that wasn’t a phase, huh?” you murmur, gently teasing.

He sniffs, shaking his head and giving you a tragic little smile and opting out of trying to speak again without fat tears cutting him off. You just scrunch your nose at him sleepily and with heavily lidded eyes.

Then you glance up at Steve. “This one knows that I’m good old fashioned vanilla. Boring as ever.”

His lips twitch. His color’s coming back. He lifts his mug, then murmurs, “My weapon of choice doesn’t need ice cream. Just caffeine and spite.”

You smirk, biting your lip. “Deadly combo.”

“Damn right,” he murmurs hoarsely. And he means it. He’s not okay. But you’re here.

And that’s something.

Joyce keeps talking, so do the kids, about nothing and everything. TV shows. Weird cereal brands, and whether Nancy and Argyle would win in a trivia contest, which now gets their attention and their thoughts are being thrown in the mix of things. Eddie and Robin softly contribute to all of it, too. Same as Jonathan. Talking about nonsense and anything that comes to mind.

Anything except what’s out there.

And still, Steve doesn’t cry. But he keeps you pressed close, one hand resting on your chest, feeling the beat of your unsteady heart beneath his palm.

Alive and grown. 

Here with him, not leaving him alone.

The tank rumbles forward through the storm.

Toward a checkpoint. Toward a plan.

Toward the end of whatever this is.

And none of you voice the one truth shared between every heart in the dark:

No one is coming to save you.

But you’re going anyway.

Together.

Chapter Seventy-Nine Fuck Papa.

DAY 2 | 7:08 AM

The storm hasn’t let up.

If anything, it’s gotten worse.

But the sun has risen now, pale and useless and barely distinguishable beyond the black, roiling clouds above... It’s morning now. A bleak, oyster gray morning splintered by sleet, hail, and an endless stretch of forest roads that look more like jagged scars than anything made for wheels. 

Dingus-1 groans its way over another ridge, rain hammering the roof like nails from God. And up front, Steve Harrington’s knuckles are white as he steers it.

Dustin Henderson is slumped with focus in the passenger seat beside him, half-wrapped in a thrifted flannel that is definitely not his and has not been washed in weeks. His socked feet are propped up like he owns the place, and a laminated map is spread across his lap with sticky notes fluttering off it like feathers. A compass sits wedged in the crook of his elbow. And a hand-scrawled note in Hopper’s bad handwriting is taped to the dash: “NO HEADLIGHTS. STAY QUIET. TRUST INSTINCT.”

Steve squints through a slab of fog. “I miss blizzards,” he mutters.

Dustin doesn’t even look up. “You’re mental.”

“No, seriously,” Steve says. “Snow is romantic. This is just God’s car wash from hell.”

A beat. 

Then…

“…that’s the stupidest sentence I’ve ever heard.”

“Yeah? Well, it’s early.” 

Steve’s voice is gravel. His chestnut hair is a mess under his beanie that you knitted for him. The pastel yellow one. He hasn’t really slept since the nightmare, and his right foot is cramping from keeping the pressure light and even on a vehicle pedal that was never designed for finesse. But his grip is steady. His jaw is set. He’s focused.

“You realize we’re technically fugitives,” Dustin says conversationally. “And this storm’s like our one good disguise, right?”

“Yeah. I’m driving blind through a thunder-monsoon at seven miles per hour. Don’t you dare say I’m not making it count.”

“You’re doing great, Loverboy,” Max pipes up from where she sits between them, casually pulling one headphone off her ear. 

She’s got a tiny transceiver balanced in her lap, her red hair tucked under a hoodie. “Storm’s holding. Still got a full eighteen-hour safety window if we stick to the route. Two hours after that if we don’t mind a high-stakes game of dodge-the-drone.”

Dustin turns toward her. “And the broadcast?”

Max sighs, switching dials. Her expression tightens, but she relays it anyway. “US martial law’s still in full effect. National Guard’s all over Indiana. Hawkins evac complete as of last night.”

Steve’s jaw ticks.

“Same updates, different phrasing,” Max adds. “Still no real answers. No press allowed inside the state line. Lotta speculation. Some stations think it’s bioterrorism. Others think it’s a coordinated attack. One guy said aliens.”

Dustin mutters, “He’s not completely wrong.”

“They’re all wrong,” Max says. “And also… kinda right.”

A beat passes. The tank rumbles forward.

Steve breathes through his nose. “You think they’re ever gonna say it? Like, actually say it?”

“Doubt it,” Max says. “But the world’s catching on.”

“Can’t lie forever,” Dustin adds, watching a branch scrape the side window. “Eventually the stories won’t line up.”

“Eventually,” Steve mutters, adjusting his grip. “That word’s doing a lot of heavy lifting lately.”

Silence settles.

Outside, hail pelts the windshield with icy ping-ping-pings. The trees bend and bow under the weight of rain. Somewhere, thunder splits the sky into jagged halves.

Max takes off her other headphone.

“Y’know,” she says slowly, watching the road ahead, “I still expect a nine-month catch-up session, by the way.”

Steve chokes on nothing. “I’m sorry—what?”

Max shrugs, devilish grin curling. “You heard me. I want the whole story. Every messy, awkward, ridiculous thing that I missed.”

Dustin grins. “That’s gonna take a decade.”

“We’ve got time,” she says innocently, eyes on Steve now. “I wanna hear it.”

Steve side-eyes her. “While I’m driving a war tank?”

“Yup,” Max says. “Keeps you distracted. Less awkward.”

Dustin smirks. “She’s not wrong.”

“And,” Max says, aiming a finger at Dustin, “you’re only allowed to interrupt if it contributes to the story. Not if you are just gonna shit on it.”

He holds up both hands. “Fair.”

Steve exhales, amused. He stares out through the veil of water for a long beat. “Okay,” he says finally. “Where do I even start?”

Max folds her arms, boots tucked under her knees. “Start with when you figured it out.”

He arched one brow. “What, that I’m in love with her?”

“Yup.”

He laughs under his breath. “It wasn’t one moment. It was a lotta little ones.”

Max tilts her head. “Pick one.”

Steve chews the inside of his cheek. Dustin watches him from the side, suddenly more still than before, eyes curious.

“There was one night,” Steve says slowly. “I was cleaning up a cut on her hand after one of the missions. Dumb little scrape, barely even bled. She was joking the whole time, jus' sorta... being ridiculous, trying to distract me. And I jus’ remember thinking… I'd actually hate it if she stopped trying to bug me.”

Dustin doesn’t speak. Max stays silent too.

Steve adds, “She was eating a cherry Tootsie Pop. The red ones she always hides inside her coat pocket. And I realized I’d memorized the sound of her unwrapping it.”

Max’s smile softens.

“And there was this other time,” Steve lightly chuckles, thinking back in real time, “I was carrying this... giant basket of laundry that'd started piling up, and—she rounded the corner, right as I walked outta one of the rooms. Tryna be a good host.” He pauses to look pointedly at Dustin, even though there's not real heat behind it. “Even if you all kept just acting like ungrateful bastards anyway.”

Dustin just smiled wryly, sarcastic as ever. “Our version of grateful actually means living our best life without tryna kiss your ass, Steve.”

“Psh, you've never kissed my ass,” Steve mutters, but his smirk betrays him.

Max clears her throat mock-primly. “Anyway...?!”

Steve's smirk deepens, eyes soft all over again. “Anyway,” he echoes teasingly before he keeps going. “We bumped into each other. Sorta just... bantered and riffed. Not fighting or bickering, just—” He slowly shrugs, brown eyes twinkling, even though he tries to look casual about it. Of course, he doesn't. “Bounced off one another, and just... started doing all the laundry together.”

Max's blue eyes shine with wordless awe and joy as she listens, staring at him.

“She actually tripped me,” he suddenly says, eyes full of mischief and nostalgia as he thinks back on it. “Not even on purpose, dude. She straight up got into a tussle with me in the laundry room and slipped on a dryer sheet. Took me down with her.”

Max's brows shoot up in delight, smile growing. “So you both fell.”

Steve's grin dissolves into something lovesick and tender as he feels those words hit him square in the chest.

“Yeah,” he finally whispers, staring out the dash as he steers, remembering the way your laughter that day had made him feel alive again. Made him find his own laugh again... after spending fuck knows how long, wondering how to do it without forcing himself to find humor in anything anymore. “We both fell.”

The redhead grins deeply now, brows wiggling.

“Took you long enough,” she mutters warmly.

Steve ruffles her hair, smirking. “Yeah, well,” he sighs, “She sorta beat me to the punch. I was just... really tardy ton the party.”

Dustin snorts, grinning smugly at the icy dash. “Dude, you were tardy as shit.”

“Henderson? She said no snark.”

The kid groaned. “It's just soooo easy.”

Max snickered gleefully, crunching into her granola bar again before lightly shoving Steve, urging him to keep going. “Okay, okay, so...? And??”

“And I dunno. After that,” Steve goes on, voice quieter now, “it was everything. The way she calls me ‘Lover,’ like it’s a sort of reminder we made it here, or… y'know, the way she says the word ‘brutal.’ Her heartbeat when she sleeps. Arrhythmia or not. The way she takes care of people like it’s her whole purpose.”

Dustin shrugged. “Only took him three years,” he muttered. Max almost scolded him but he wasn’t being smug. “Just to stop focusing on the wrong thing.”

Steve shrugs, eyes still on the rain. “Yeah, I was being a dumbass. I just thought I was supposed to be with Nance forever. Like it was some kind of script.”

“It wasn’t dumb,” Max says quietly, eyes softer. “You just got caught up in the story you thought you had to live.”

Steve glances at her, surprised.

She shrugs. “But… it’s not the story you’re in, so. You just had to read the new plot and get on board.”

That lands. 

Steve feels it settle in his chest like a second heartbeat. “Well, she saved me,” he sighs. “She’s still saving me.”

Max smirks. “Yeah. I heard. Might not’a been conscious. But I heard.”

Steve squints at her slyly. “Oh yeah?”

She taps her temple. “I heard you. Not all of it. But I remember the morning she read my letter to you. The one I left… in case.”

Oh, shit.

Steve’s jaw opens slightly. “You… heard that?”

“I did,” Max confessed softly. “I couldn’t move. Couldn’t speak. But... I heard her tell you that every word I wrote was true. That you’re a beautiful person.”

He swallows hard.

Yeah, he really is better off having a distraction as he does this so that he doesn’t weep from exhaustion.

“And I knew something shifted after that,” Max goes on. “Even with my eyes closed. I could feel it. And later that night? Whenever she and Lucas were both handling my like, feeding tube—”

“Wait, you—” Steve did a double take. “—heard that too...?”

“Yeah, I heard her tell you to go to bed, and you didn’t say anything. You just went to her room and kissed her face.”

Dustin looks up sharply. “What?”

Max is too busy smugly beaming at Steve, who stared out the windshield in stunned silence with a shade of crimson creeping up his neck. “That part’s just theory, but am I wrong?…”

Steve groaned. “Jesus Christ, Max.”

“Knew it.”

“Oh my God,” Dustin howls. “You’re so sappy—”

“I wasn’t—shut up—”

“I KNEW it,” Max is beaming even bigger now. “Sheez, that’s adorable. I can’t believe I missed it.”

Steve’s ears are red. “You didn’t miss it, you were unconscious—”

“And yet somehow,” she says, reaching out to squeeze his forearm where it’s tensed on the steering column, “I still knew it mattered.”

That stops him cold.

“I hated not being able to hug you,” she added, “…when you got home after she was brought back. Whenever you were carrying her, crying your eyes out and saying she was breathing again. I wanted to hug you so bad.”

Steve doesn’t say anything. Instead, he reaches over and covers Max’s hand with his own palm.

They drive like that for a while.

Quietly.

Warmly.

As a unit

As a family.

Suddenly, a BOLT of lightning rips across the sky like the hand of God.

It strikes a tree not twenty feet ahead of the tank.

“SHIT—!” Steve slams the brakes.

The whole vehicle lurches. Dustin and Max lurch with it. The scorched tree comes down hard—just missing the front right tread by a literal foot. Steam and smoke rise from the blackened bark.

The three of them sit there, hearts in their throats.

And then, for no real reason, all of them start laughing.

Manic. Giddy. Stupid laughter.

“Oh my God,” Max wheezes. “That almost killed us—”

Steve is breathless. “I just—steered around a goddamn lightning tree—”

Dustin whoops. “That was the most metal thing I’ve ever seen in my life—”

Behind them, a voice says flatly: “I’m sorry, are we now treating vehicular evasion of divine judgment as a party trick?”

They all jump.

Murray Bauman is standing directly behind them, arms crossed, looking done.

“Jesus, Murray—” Steve says, clutching his chest.

Murray ignores him. “Congratulations on not crashing into God’s wrath. Do me a favor and don’t do it again.”

Steve mutters, “Yes, sir.”

Murray squints at him. Then added, dry as sin, “Nice driving, Harrington.”

Steve blinks. “Thank... you?”

Dustin fake-sniffles. “Is that praise? Is Murray proud? I think I’m gonna cry.”

“Save your tears for the hailstones, Henderson,” Murray deadpans.

Max spins around in her seat, now blinking sweetly up at Murray. “Grandpa? Can you go get me a snack?”

There is a beat of silence. Pure, bewildered silence.

Then Murray asked, “…Grandpa…?”

Max just keeps beaming. “Pleeeeease?”

Murray blinks twice. “You know what? Fine.”

He leaves to oblige her request.

Steve gapes, leaning over to Dustin. “How the hell did she do that?”

“She’s terrifying,” he whispers reverently.

Max smirked proudly.

A few minutes later, Murray returned with the best snack anyone could manage: a peanut butter granola bar and a Capri Sun, which he placed in Max’s lap as though he’s presenting an offering to a dark god.

She grinned. “Fankzzz.”

Murray pointed. “As long as I’m never called Papa, we’re fine,” he muttered.

From the back of the tank, a chorus erupts.

“OH, FUCK PAPA!”

Mike. Lucas. You. Jonathan. Argyle. Nancy cackling and then repeating it. Robin sleep-laughs. Joyce, half-asleep, mutters, “What he said.”

Hopper, still dead asleep, growls, “Fuck Papa.”

“Fuccccckkk Papa,” Eddie whined groggily, as if singing onstage at an emo rock concert mid-nap.

Max was snickering, while Steve and Dustin looked at each other… then nodded solemnly.

“Yeah,” Steve says. “Fuck Papa.”

“Fuck Papa,” Dustin echoes.

Max lazily waved her hands like a conductor with a large mouthful of granola. “Again, from the top.”

They steer the tank forward into the rain.

The forest gets thinner.

The tree line is close.

And inside Dingus-1, through laughter, through grief, through the storm and static and silence…

The heartbeat of something unstoppable begins to pound louder. Not just survival. Not just escape.

But the sound of family.

Chapter Eighty The Laundry Room

💭 Hawkins, Indiana • October 1986 Casa Harrington {4 months after the quakes}

There was a sock on the chandelier.

No one quite knew how it got there, but there it was. Just dangling from the crystal edge like it only belonged to the swanky décor. And Dustin, his arms crossed and his jaw slack with disbelief, stood beneath it like a man plotting a murder.

“Lucas,” he said in a very flat, very unamused voice.

Next to him, Lucas stood on the arm of the couch with a feather duster, now blinking innocently down at him. “Yes, dearie?”

“…you absolute twatwaffle.”

Will snorted from where he sat cross-legged on the floor, carefully stacking Steve’s VHS tapes. “I mean, you’re the one who gave him the duster.”

“I didn’t think he’d use it as a goddamn weapon!” Dustin hissed.

Mike, from the fireplace, where he was using a broom as a javelin to knock cobwebs from the corner, shamelessly chimed in. “It’s literally Lucas. What did you expect.”

Lucas turned slightly, smirking, looking proud. “I’m adding personality to the room.”

“Dude.”

“Bruh.”

“Guys,” Eleven tried softly, holding a stack of fresh towels near the stairs, her brows furrowed. “Focus. We’re trying to help.”

They were, unbelievably, all trying to help. 

Somehow, against every expectation, a very coordinated house cleaning effort had broken out. Led by Lucas, of all people, who had declared (…without consulting anyone) that the house needed to be clean and sparkling for when Max woke up.

No one argued. No one dared argue.

Plus, they all got to live here for free and not feel as though they were being watched and held under lock and key by all of their oblivious parents.

Casa Harrington had gone from big and empty to loud and full, all over the course of the last five months since Steve.

So now, in the warm light of a hazy afternoon, despite the Upside Down related molecules and ash that swirled just outside the windows, Steve Harrington’s giant house had become a makeshift HQ, a hospital ward, a bomb shelter, and apparently, a spontaneous youth volunteer program.

Joyce was in the kitchen doing dishes. Hopper had now claimed the back porch with a cigar and toolbox. Murray was barricaded in the old home office, radio frequencies buzzing like a beehive behind closed doors. Robin floated in and out like a chaotic godmother.

And you… well, you had just made it halfway down the stairs, a laundry basket balanced on your hip, when the sock hit you in the face.

“What the hell.”

“Sorry!” Lucas called down from the couch. “That was not an attack—!”

“It was accidental crossfire!” Dustin shouted, right before he squawked as another sock (and shoe) got launched at his head..

“Jesus,” you snorted, shaking it off and stepping over a discarded Nerf gun. “Who gave you gremlins caffeine?”

“We found Mike’s stash of M&Ms,” Will offered helpfully. “They were in the freezer.”

“Those were in my emergency stash,” Mike snapped. “Which—hello?! Is this city not in the literal goddamn state of emergency—?!”

“Guys,” Eleven reminded, her voice firm now, but also trying not to burst out laughing. “Focus. Max would have this done in two seconds flat, even with our sugar-high.”

The room settled briefly. 

Briefly.

Because that was when Eddie tried to stand up.

“Alright,” he grunted from the couch. “Chitlins, lemme—”

“NOPE!” Dustin nearly shrieked, throwing a hand out like he was summoning the force. “Down! Sit! Sit your ass down!”

Eddie froze halfway upright, grimacing as he balanced on one elbow. “What, I was just gonna help fold—”

“Fold? Fold?!” Mike looked horrified, somewhat feral, one eye twitching. “Your entire stomach looks like friggin’ Frankenstein’s homework.”

“Jesus Christ,” Will muttered through a laugh.

“Seriously, sit the hell down,” Lucas added, pointing the feather duster at him threateningly. “Do you want stitches in your stitches?”

“I was gonna fold linens!” Eddie said again, throwing his hands up. “Not breakdance!”

“STOP FLAILING!” Dustin screeched, scandalized. “Fold with your mind, Munson!” 

Will grinned as he tried to suppress a snort. “You guys could try telling him nicely, maybe.”

“Well where’s the fun in that?” Mike muttered.

Eddie wigged on the couch like an impish middle schooler. “C’mon, dudes. It’s been what—half a year since I got my guts chewed out by devil bats?”

“Five months,” Will corrected quickly, pointing. “And you’re still healing from the last three stitches you pulled.”

Eddie posted theatrically. “Aww, Willyyyyy… you’re supposed to be good cop.”

“No, that’s El,” Mike deadpanned, arms crossed around her as she smirked — vacuum still in hand, hip cocked to the side. “And that was before Steve put her in charge of your middle school rebellion.”

Eddie just gestured with both hands, grinning broadly. “WHAT HAPPENED TO ALL AL MY FLOCK OF REBELS? ALL MY LIL BLACK SHEEP?”

The kids stared itch wide-eyed disapproval.

Even you did now, brows shot then the ceiling with a morbid smirk.

“Munsonnnn,” you warned in a deep, low chuckle.

“C’monnnn,” Eddie teased, rebellious as ever, “look’a’how these war wounds are already healing up—”

“Edward Munson.”

Uh-oh.

That was mama bear.

From the kitchen, Joyce’s voice rang out. “If you don’t sit your ass down, I will come in there with a wooden spoon like it’s medieval times and you’re misbehaving!”

That did it. 

Eddie plopped back onto the couch so fast that his unruly curls bounced with fright as he blinked, questioning all of his decisions or near decisions.

The entire living room erupted into laughter, sputtering and wheezing and tripping over itself. 

You threw your head back with a cackle, your shoulders shaking as you moved past them all with the basket, and you heard Eddie saying something along the lines of, “I shan’t rise again,” whenever you nearly rammed directly into—

“Jesus, Harrington—”

“Whoaaa, hey—easy, killer,” Steve drawled, one hand steadying the side of your giant basket. “Didn’t know they sent in the Marines.”

He was holding a pillowcase under one arm and a set of sheets under the other. His hoodie sleeves were shoved to his elbows, hair an intentional mess, face flushed and bright from the energy of the house. 

And there was something unique glittering inside his big brown eyes. Something sharp, bright, amused.

You grinned back. “Laundry’s my contribution today,” you explained. “Gotta make it count.”

“Sure,” he said, eyeing the basket. “Yours or your ego’s?”

You snorted. “This is everyone’s, jackass.”

“Uh-huh.” He leaned slightly to peek in. “Is that my polo shirt?”

“It might be.”

“Is it also my towel? My socks?”

You cocked your head. “You act like you only own one of each.”

“That depends,” Steve said, eyes gleaming. “How many have you stolen?”

You smirked. “How many have I washed for you, you mean?”

“Alright, alright,” he said, feigning defeat, backing toward the hallway. “You win this round, Laundry Princess.”

You lightly scoffed and sauntered on past him. “That’s Laundry Queen to you, peasant.”

“Unbelievable,” Steve muttered, turning to watch you go, still grinning. Then, like a young man newly possessed by a very stupid idea, “Hey. Wait up.”

You didn’t even look back, just called over your shoulder. “Scared to let me wash your underwear?”

He was already following.

And definitely enjoying the view.

And definitely trying not to wonder why he did.

His house still roared around him as you ducked into the laundry room. The moment the door shut behind Steve, the world muffled. It was quieter here. Smaller. Cozy.

A little too cozy.

“Well, well, well,” you dropped the overloaded basket to the folding table and spun. “You’re really gonna help?”

Steve leaned against the dryer like he owned the place. (He did.) “I’m here for moral support.”

“Moral support my ass.” You snapped open a detergent lid. “You’re helping.”

He raised his brows, not moving. “You’re bossy today.”

“I’m bossy every day.”

Steve grinned. “You say that like it’s not the sole reason anyone’s doing anything around here.”

You gave him a faux-shocked look. “You saying that I've got an agenda?”

“I’m saying you’re terrifying.”

You gasped, pretending the reel. “That’s rich coming from someone who threatened a grocery bagger because they smushed your strawberries.”

“That was justified,” he pointed, “and you know it.”

“That kid was sixteen!”

“She had an attitude.”

“Your sass beg to differ.”

“She crushed my produce and scoffed like a brat.”

You pointed at him with a dryer sheet. “You need help. Seek the Lord.”

“Oh, do not give me that,” he lackadaisically droned. “Not the Jesus talk in my laundry room.”

“Don’t you mean your goddamn laundry room…?” you all but drawled as you grabbed the detergent by its neck.

Steve crossed his arms, squinting through a smirk. “You are so spicy today.”

“And you’re so lazy.”

“I’m literally the reason this house has a functioning water heater for the twenty-or-more showers a day!”

“And I’m the reason this house has enough soap.”

He opened his mouth. 

Then he closed it. 

“Touché.”

You smirked, heart flipping. “Now sort that pile. I’m on towels.”

Steve groaned. “Why are there so many colors?”

“Because people wear clothes, Steve,” you deadpanned.

He dramatically slumped to the floor. “This is oppression.”

You snickered. “This’s adulthood, baby.”

He made a face like that word physically wounded him. “Stop that.”

“Stop what?”

“Sounding like a hot, terrifying future wife.”

…you paused at that.

…just brief enough to feel it slip underneath your ribs like a flaming hot, fever spiked four-year-long secret.

“…I sound hot?”

Steve looked up at you, playfully. “I said what I said.”

You arched a brow. “Careful, Harrington.”

“What.”

“Caaaaarefulllll.”

“Why?”

“Because if you keep talking like that, you’re gonna end up folding all this shit by yourself while I watch.”

Steve narrowed his eyes into slits, slowly tilting his head and rising to stand. “You wanna run that by me again?”

“Nope,” you chirped, turning and flapping a towel with flourish. “Ya heard me just fine.”

The rest of your shared banter devolved from there into snarky, reckless flirtatiousness. 

You scolded him for trying to toss reds in with whit... 

“Okay, so you are colorblind—”

“It’s maroon, not blood—”

“Either way? They bleed.”

He accused you of mixing the cottons and linens like a psychopath... 

“You don’t even separate the textures…?”

“Are we washing them or enrolling them in private school?”

“You’re gonna give me hives—”

You lobbed a detergent cap at his face, and he retaliated by yeeting a dryer sheet into your hair like a ninja star.

“You missed my face—”

“Didn’t wanna ruin the only thing that keeps on surviving hit after hit after powpow—”

“Oh my god, Bauman, you’re—”

“I’m a humanitarian, really—”

It all crescendoed in a chaotic tumble of loose limbs and giddy laughter as Steve tripped trying to scoop up a sock and you tripped by trying to trip him…

“You good there, Bambi—?”

“Sock’s a trap. You planted it—!”

(shuffle shuffle)

“Oh no—oh hell, hell—”

“TIMBERRRR—”

“YOU’RE—”

…and suddenly you were both in a heap against the side of the washing machine, laughing so hard it went silent.

That kind of laughter. The wheezing kind. The kind that made your stomach ache and your ribs cramp and your eyes blur with the rare joy that didn’t ask for permission.

“I think I sprained—something—”

“Your dignity.”

“Pah, that died years ago, actually—”

“Where was my funeral invite—?!”

“You’re—” Steve wheezed, covering his face. “You’re actually a terrorist.”

You gasped theatrically through your own laughter, ready to rebuttal as you sat up — only to bump your head on a low hanging shelf. You grimaced hard while rubbing your head, your mouth hung open as you looked up toward the shelf like it was a monster.

Steve made a strangled sound, half-choke, half-cackle. “Fuck—you okay?!”

“—we’re not gon’ make it to rinse cycle.”

Steve threw his head back in silent, uncontrollable laughter. 

You collapsed sideways over the half-full laundry basket, breathless and limp with mirth, as Steve lay flat on his back, laughing into his own arm, flushed pink and absolutely glowing.

…and then came silence.

Not heavy. Not awkward.

Just… different. Just charged.

You were still smiling, your eyes glowing. He was still catching his breath. But the energy shifted in that small, sacred, suspended moment.

Steve’s head turned slightly.

His eyes landed on you. 

And they lingered.

It wasn’t the first time he’d looked at you like that. But it was the first time it felt like he knew he was looking like that, and like he knew you were catching it this time.

Like he wasn’t even trying to hide it anymore.

You blinked up at him, heart pounding. Still breathless. Still stunned.

He reached out, slowly. Gently. “You’ve got—” his voice cracked slightly, but he cleared it. “—a little lint.”

His fingers brushed your hairline, soft and warm and careful.

You didn’t fucking move.

He was closer now. Hovering... looking at you as though you were made of something silky and deadly. Like he’d never seen anything quite so infuriating or mesmerizing.

You wondered, for half a second, if he was going to kiss you. If he might actually close the distance and kiss your lips right here inside his laundry room.

So did he.

…but then he stood.

One smooth movement. One clean breath.

And then his hand was in yours, helping you up. Steady, gentlemanly and suave, just totally Steve Harrington.

Neither of you said much after that. 

You folded. He loaded. Your arms brushed once, twice. Three times. Four times. But the quiet buzz under your skin wouldn’t go away, even when there wasn’t touch. 

Not yours.

Not his.

Because inside Steve’s chest, something was beginning to hum. Loud and soft and more terrifying than anything he’d ever been made to face.

He looked at you and thought of all the mornings that he wanted like this. All the fights over laundry. All the kisses over breakfast. All the nights that you’d argue with him over which movie to watch. All the days that you’d hold hands… just because.

For the first time since losing Nancy, he dared to dream again. Only this time, it felt impossibly bigger. And for the first time in a long, long time… Steve Harrington wasn’t afraid of wanting it.

He was afraid he already needed it.

…with you.

But he didn’t say that. Didn’t breathe it. Didn’t even look at it too long or let his mind sink into it too deeply.

Instead? Steve simply passed you a towel from your self appointed task and let you grin him straight to hell. 

And he smiled like the whole house wasn’t already on fire inside his chest.

🖤

Forever dedicated to Cherie & @aloneinthehellfire 🖤 TAGLIST {full} @moonlightdreamer111 @tangledluver @aloneinthehellfire @silkholland @ihaveproblemsihaveproblems @brinleighsstuff @definitelynotherr @silkholland @sucker-4-angst @bookkeeperlove @xblueriddlex @madaboutjoe @ucannotcompare @goosy-goose  @ashkuuuu @ashbye@soybeans-and-coffee  @yourelivingwrong @scaredofbeingbasic  @cathx91  @just-a-harmless-patato @unlikelytacotheorist  @chloewatersss  @cherrynukas  @cheugy-djobe @delulu4bucky  @calszonex @thecreelhouse @nancywalkemdownwheeler

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Max blinked at him. Then, slowly, she smiled and nodded. “Thanks, Harrington.”

“Anytime, Mayfield,” he murmured, squeezing your side unconsciously.

You were seated between him and Eddie, both of whom had taken turns staying up all night again, half-listening, half-focusing on the beat of your own heart. You didn’t even realize that your fingers were still curled around the portable monitor strapped to your chest until Steve’s hand ghosted over yours to check the reading again.

“Still steady,” he said under his breath.

You nodded. “Feels okay.”

“Okay-ish,” he corrected, eyeing you like he might laser-beam the arrhythmia into submission.

Across from you, Robin stretched her legs out until they hit Jonathan’s hip, then leaned over with a mischievous grin. “Do you think Murray’s dead?”

“Honestly,” you whispered back, “I think he became the tank.”

Robin snorted.

You glanced up front where, sure enough, Murray hadn’t moved in hours. He’s still slouched forward with the same comically oversized headphones on, listening to Dustin’s makeshift shortwave radio looped in a beat-up Walkman. Eyes glazed. Neck stiff. Hands limp. He was a permanent fixture now.

“Maybe we should poke him,” Robin offered.

“I think we should bury him,” you said solemnly.

Dustin, who'd overheard, tried so hard not to laugh that his face turned red.

Up front, Hopper turned around with a long-suffering look. “Do I need to separate you two?”

Steve, grinning, shook his head. “Please don’t. They get worse when you split them up.”

Robin raised her hand proudly. “Confirmed.”

Up by Hopper, Dimitri now muttered something under his breath in Russian. Hopper chuckled darkly.

Meanwhile, Eddie was still curled into an exhausted pile of limbs and curls against your opposite side. He groaned softly into the crook of his elbow.

“Whose bright idea was it to not sleep for three days straight?” he mumbled groggily.

“Yours,” you and Steve said in unison.

Eddie lifted a limp hand between you both. “Join hands with me, you degenerates. I am the goddamn meat filling in this sandwich of mutual codependence.”

You rolled your eyes and obliged, resting your hand in his while Steve did the same with an annoyed (albeit fond) sigh.

“Can’t believe this is what stabilizes my heart rhythm,” you muttered.

“Same,” Steve said.

“I’m honored,” Eddie mumbled.

“That’s sweet,” Robin wryly added. “Gross. But sweet.”

At that exact moment, Argyle — from tucked against the opposite wall with his arms behind his head — groaned dramatically. “Duuuuude.”

Everyone paused.

“Knew I should’ve brought my knitting stuff,” he lamented. “Could be makin’ a whole stress scarf right now. Like… catharsis in textile form.”

You gasped audibly. “That would be incredible.”

Eddie sat up just enough to peer at you blearily. “You’ve seriously gone pro with knitting now.”

“I stress knit,” you clarified. “With unorthodox flourish.”

Steve looked between you two like this was the beginning of the end. “Oh God,” he mumbled.

Eddie stared. Then grinned, delirious. “This is amazing. I want a friendship scarf.”

“You’re gonna get a friendship noose if you keep acting like this,” Steve muttered.

Eddie clutched his chest. “Jesus, Harrington.”

Robin reached into one of the ration bags and pulled out a crumbled protein bar. “You’re both cracked out.”

Max pointed. “Pot. Kettle.”

As the groggy laughter died down, you cast a glance up front again. Murray still hadn’t moved. Still locked in that same wide-eyed state of half-conscious vigilance.

You sighed. Then stood carefully, disentangling from Steve and Eddie before you padded your way up front and crouched beside him.

Murray didn’t even blink.

Gently, you tapped his shoulder. “Hey, Uncle M?”

His eyes finally slid toward you like rusted gears turning.

“You’ve been on radio duty for nearly twelve hours,” you said gently. “Let me take over.”

Murray blinked. Then slowly removed the headphones, unhooked the makeshift wiring, and wordlessly handed you the gear.

You accepted it without hesitation. He took your hands briefly, gave them a quick squeeze… then, like a man clocking out of a week-long shift, faceplanted into the dash with an audible thud.

“Jesus Christ,” Hopper muttered.

Dimitri didn’t even flinch. “He is corpse now.”

You chuckled softly and made your way back to your seat, carefully fitting the headphones over your own ears and settling the Walkman in your lap. And you could still hear the muffled, soft voices of your friends. All of them were now engaged in some sorta half-meditative, half-chaotic group sprawl.

Jonathan sat cross-legged, eyes shut, trying valiantly to meditate. Argyle was right beside him, lowly whispering encouragement like a very baked life coach.

“You are the cloud, bro. You are the whole sky.”

Max actually looked pretty into it. El was laser-focused. Nancy had one hand resting lightly in Jonathan’s, like a peace offering. Joyce was visibly trying. Dr. Owens was already knee deep in it.

Even Steve had his head tilted back… eyes closed, one hand still clasped loosely in yours. Eddie was horizontal, but had joined the circle in spirit. Robin was upside down, legs draped over a pile of coats. Will looked serene next to Lucas, who seemed to be having a spiritual experience of his own.

And Mike… deeply sighed.

Argyle, soft-voiced, murmured, “As above, so below.”

Everyone exhaled.

“As within… so without.”

A beat of silence.

Another.

Another.

Another.

And another.

And another.

…another another another…

Mike’s brow furrowed, almost reverently. Then he peeked one eye open. “Uhm,” he said quietly, “I hate to break this… but I have to piss.”

Every kid immediately echoed him in a whispered chorus.

“Oh my god, me too.”

“Wait yeah same.”

“I’ve had to pee for like an hour.”

“Wait, why did nobody say anything—??”

“Because it was peaceful,” Will hissed.

Argyle solemnly opened his eyes with a soft exhale. “So much for the inner void.”

You pulled off your headphones with a snort. “Alright. We need a plan.”

Everyone sobered quickly. Because yeah, it was honestly hilarious. But it was also risky as hell.

The forest was clear right now, yeah. 

But the sky was watching. Always watching. 

Drones. Helicopters. Something worse.

“We’ll do bathroom runs in small groups,” Joyce leaned forward. “Quick trips.”

“Winnebago’s just under twenty feet,” Hopper said. “We can make that.”

“Three kids per trip,” Steve suggested. “No more. One adult per group. Someone armed.”

“I’ll go with every group,” El offered.

“No,” Steve and Hopper said at the same time.

But then they paused, looking at each other, exchanging a wordless glance. Both of them nodded.

“Actually,” Hopper corrected, “That’s smart.”

“One adult, and El,” Steve confirmed.

Dimitri shifted. “I go as the adult. Always.”

Nancy nodded. “I’ll hold the line here.”

Dr. Owens made notes. “We’ll rotate. Three every thirty minutes. Keep it quiet. No lights.”

“Good luck to the group that has Dustin,” Max muttered.

“I HEARD THAT.”

“Exhibit A,” she smirked.

The plans went into motion. Outside, the snow remained eerily silent. The wind refused to return.

And inside the tank, a strange kind of peace settled over all of you. Paranoia and exhaustion and laughter and love all tangled up like too many blankets on a winter floor.

None of it made sense.

But somehow, you were still here.

Still breathing.

Still fighting.

Still holding hands.

In the dark.

Outside Dingus-1 • 10:57 AM

The first bathroom group came back in quiet formation, boots crunching lightly in the snow.

You, Will, Mike, Eleven and Dimitri had only been gone ten minutes. A quick and clean mission to the Winnebago and back, but the moment that Hopper opened the tank’s hatch and Steve ushered you all inside like a frantic hen with her chicks returning, it felt like the collective breath in Dingus-1 finally released.

“We made it,” Mike whispered with faux gravitas.

Steve pulled you in first, scanning all his kids, counting heads, then quick once-over-ing of your face, hands, pulse. “You okay??”

“Still breathing,” you whispered.

His exhale practically knocked you over with its relief.

He pressed his hand to your lower back protectively as the rest of the group still clambered inside. Mike was pale and trying not to look proud; Will was still very much in his bathroom-mode nerves, El was calm and steady as ever and Dimitri had entered last, tall and glacial, with a subtle twitch at the corner of his eye that might’ve been relief or just his Slavic version of smiling.

The hatch thunked closed.

A few of you collapsed back down into the blankets and bedrolls and coats like it had been a ten-mile trek, not a twenty-foot walk in daylight.

But no one said otherwise.

Because the forest was still silent.

No wind. No birds. No crunch of animal footfall.

And that meant perfect drone weather.

You all gave it five full minutes before the next group of survivors mobilized.

Dustin, Lucas, Max and Steve were next, while El and Dimitri took the same formation.

Max was on Steve’s back, arms looped loose around his neck, her cheek resting against his shoulder as his locks of chestnut hair tickled her temple. She squinted out towards the clearing with both boredom and dread.

“Can we go already?” she whispered shakily.

Dimitri opened the hatch.

“Alright,” Steve murmured, softly shifting her weight easily against him. “No one says a damn word once we’re out there. Not a peep.”

“I can’t promise that,” Dustin whispered solemnly. “I might see a cool stick.”

Steve just shook his head, his eyeroll nearly causing him a migraine. “Come on.”

They all stepped out into the blinding brightness.

Snow. Trees. Still no wind.

Their group crept quietly across to the Winnebago, with El sweeping each quadrant of the woods with her eyes, hand hovering slightly midair like a soft-tuned antenna. Dimitri trailed behind them all with his gun slung, discreet but ready to rumble.

When they reached the door, El took the lead, cracking it open… then they slipped inside one by one.

Max immediately raised her head from Steve’s shoulder. “Okay, but like, I’m not going first,” she whispered carefully.

Steve blinked. “You sure?”

“I’ve got—pee pressure,” she whispered urgently.

His brows pinched. “You mean peer pressure?”

“No,” Max hissed. “Pee pressure. Like, I can’t go when I know people are waiting.”

Steve blinked again. “That’s… so real.”

Max nodded solemnly. “I’m a private pisser.”

Dustin coughed into his shoulder to stop from laughing. Lucas turned to the wall and grinned into his elbow.

“Can confirm,” Lucas smirked quietly. She’s pee-shy.”

Max blushed as Steve, with the solemnity of a battlefield medic, gently set her down into a chair near the kitchen area.

“You wait here. I’ll guard the pissing zone.”

“Thought you said no talking,” Dustin snarked.

“Henderson? Shut it.”

“You shut it.”

Lucas darted into the bathroom first. The others waited in silence, huddled around the kitchen nook, weapons slung low, breath fogging in the cold air.

Max nibbled at her lower lip, staring at Steve. “You’re gonna make fun of me for the rest of my life, aren’t you.”

“No way,” Steve whispered mock-seriously. “I am in awe of your courage.”

Max tried not to smile and failed spectacularly.

Lucas emerged a minute later, looking relieved and proud.

“You good, Sinclair?” Steve asked, voice hushed.

Lucas gave a thumbs-up, then immediately crouched beside Max like he was her bodyguard now. She rested her foot lightly against his.

“Your turn, Henderson,” Steve said.

“Cool. Uh—sorry in advance, though,” Dustin muttered as he passed them. “Might be a… double feature.”

“Jesus Christ,” Lucas groaned.

Steve made a face. “Get the sequel over with, please.”

“The plot’s thick,” Dustin whispered as he hauled ass into the bathroom. From inside, he could be heard grumbling about the state of things. There was a spritz-spritz-spritz sound. Too much air freshener. Possibly half the can.

Steve tilted his head toward Max. “Still pee pressured?”

“Psh, nah I’m good now.”

“My condolences in advance,” Steve mumbled.

Max sighed as Dustin emerged, and he immediately gave her a hand, helping her stand up along with Lucas.

Steve jutted his chin at her. “Go for it.”

She took the bathroom next, while Steve kept watch with El and Dmitri. It didn’t take more than five or so minutes, but every passing second felt like centuries. 

The sound of something falling made everyone stiffen with fear, all eyes scanning for signs of life outside of the Winnebago.

Steve shuddered. “You good in there, Red?”

“All clear,” Max carefully whispered back.

When the door opened, Steve was already there with a warm, steady grip. Max lifted her arms wordlessly while Steve ducked, scooping her up like it was instinct.

She settled on his back again, her arms looped around his neck, chin pressed to his shoulder.

“Okay,” Steve said, low and steady, “now we just—”

“Dude,” Dustin interrupted in a fierce whisper. “You should pee too.”

Steve blinked at him. “What?”

“You’re gonna explode,” Dustin hissed. “You’ve been babysitting everyone else. Just do it.”

Lucas nodded solemnly. “Seriously, man. You’ve had to go since last night. You’re doing the Mom Thing again.”

Steve hesitated. Jaw clenched. “But—”

“We got her,” Lucas said, already stepping closer, one hand lifting toward Max.

“I give you my blessing,” Max added dryly, arms raising from Steve’s shoulders. “Go piss, king.”

Steve stared at all of them like they’d gone collectively insane. Like this was the worst possible moment for them to start playing sacrificial lambs about his bladder. 

But then Dimitri gave him the tiniest nod, just once, slow, deliberate. It was the kind of nod a soldier gave. A quiet transfer of duty.

So Steve let out a breath through his nose, muttering an, “Alright, fine,” and carefully handed Max off to Lucas. His fingers lingered just a second too long on her arm before he stepped back… still watching everyone as if he might need to turn around mid-stream and throw hands.

With one last glance at them, a look that made his heart stutter hard in his chest, he turned and disappeared into the Winnebago’s bathroom.

El shifted seamlessly into position beside the inner door. Dimitri moved up front, standing guard again, whole body angled, his face carved from stone. The kids settled into a hush so tense it almost vibrated.

Two minutes passed.

Three.

From the tank, you glanced toward the Winnebago in silent, fervent prayer, waiting for your love and flock to make it back in one piece. 

The trees outside didn’t move.

Inside the bathroom, Steve had one hand braced to the wall, the other fumbling with the zipper of his jeans. Head tipped forward. Shoulders tense. Getting it over with.

His big brown eyes flicked to the window…

Nothing.

The mirror was foggy from cold breath. The sink was coated in dust. The air smelled like Lysol and fear.

Okay, he thought to himself, in and out, let’s this over—

Scrape.

He froze, body locking up mid-stream. Eyes wide. Neck going rigid. Chillbumps raised.

That wasn’t wind.

That wasn’t snow.

That was movement.

Unnatural movement.

Lingering…

Searching…

Prowling the prey.

Outside the far wall of the Winnebago, something was dragging itself against the siding. Steve didn’t breathe. Didn’t blink. Didn’t even dare finish zipping up until the last few drops hit the toilet water.

His chest rose.

Fell.

Silence.

Then another scrape. 

Closer.

The air turned thick. Steve’s blood chilled in his veins as he zipped his pants in one quiet, swiftly practiced motion, skipped washing his hands and moved for the door like a man possessed. His boots hit the floor like soft whispers. Muscles coiled.

He opened the bathroom door.

Everyone was already staring at him.

Dustin and Lucas had gone completely still, while El was still braced beside the door… fingers twitching, face taut, her eyes locked on his like they were the only two people in the world. 

Dimitri’s gun was halfway raised, jaw clenched, every single inch of him screaming tension.

Steve didn’t need anyone to say a word.

He knew.

He knew.

He stepped forward. In a single motion, Max was lifted, hoisted up, both arms looping around his neck as if her own instinct had already made the call for her. Her legs bent against his ribs. Her cheek pressed to his shoulder.

He glanced over his shoulder once, spotting the yellow knitted beanie that you’d finished knitting for him just a few days after you’d all made it here to this safe haven…

In that split second of peril, Steve imagined you now.

Back inside the tank, waiting for him.

Praying for him.

Holding your breath, eyes wide, your unsteady heartbeat thudding mercilessly inside your chest, trying to claim you and keep him from having you so long as you both shall live…

The image of you standing there, terrified and burning, rattled his brain as he stared at the knit beanie and let your unassigned nickname fall off his lips in prayer…

“Angel...”

No one else even heard it.

But it lit him up like a fuse.

Dustin and Lucas took their places at his flanks. El shifted closer to the opposite exit, hands glowing faintly now, the air around her crackling.

Outside the Winnebago, something began to circle.

It didn’t stomp. 

It didn’t growl.

It shuffled and sniffed.

It breathed in a way no lungs should.

Wet. Snarled. Viscous. 

Like its body moved on the memory of anatomy.

Dimitri locked eyes with Steve.

Steve looked at El.

El nodded.

Dimitri nodded.

Steve gritted his teeth.

Max clung tighter.

BOOM.

Eleven SLAMMED the door open and flung both arms out, a blast of force so violent it shook the pine needles loose from trees. Soil flew. Branches cracked. Something huge, glistening, warped, was now FLUNG backward into a trunk with a wet crunch.

Steve snatched up the beanie.

And on his mark, the kids bolted.

“GO!” Steve hissed, spinning toward the clearing. Max stayed tight on his back, her face buried in his neck as though she were hiding inside his shell.

Lucas and Dustin hauled ass. Footsteps kicking up all the brittle leaves, breath tight in their throats.

Steve kept Max locked against him with one strong arm, sprinting in perfect rhythm like she wasn’t even there.

El ran backward, both arms raised — eyes narrowed, another blast waiting in her palms.

Dimitri didn’t fire.

No shells, no bullets, no proof, no signs of life, no dead giveaways, no breadcrumbs left behind.

That’s what he kept telling himself while whirling around in a full 360. But his entire body and his eyes tracked the otherworldly creature in full perimeter sweeps, rifle raised, finger hovering over the trigger.

Then Dustin tripped.

He hit the earth with a crunch.

Steve pivoted on instinct, skidded, hauled him up with one hand, eyes darting to Max on his back, making sure she hadn’t slipped. She hadn’t. She just whimpered and clutched his jacket tighter.

“GO, GO, GO,” Lucas hissed from ahead. “MOVE—”

The creature lunged again, some horrific mass of bone and vine and ash and skin — and El BLASTED it sideways again, into the undergrowth.

Everyone’s mouths moved with frantic terror, the shape of this mystery monster ripping manic questions from all the deepest pits of their souls in soundless appall.

What the fuck is that?

What the SHIT?!

Another one?! ANOTHER ONE?!

Fucker’s UGLIER THAN A BITCH—

All of it was soundless, merely words shaped with six sets of petrified, trembling lips, heads whipping in all directions as they made the thirty second stretchers the way.

They were almost there.

The tank was in sight.

The snow burned their lungs.

Twenty feet total.

Fifteen.

Ten.

The hatch slammed open, Hopper’s arm reaching out like God himself calling his children home.

He hauled Dustin first. Then Lucas.

Then Steve, stumbling forward, shoved Max into your open arms, his voice cracking “Take her—”

You caught her. Collapsed backward, your hand already at her pulse. “Are you okay? Are you okay—?”

Max just nodded, dazed, shocky, breath caught halfway down her throat.

Then Steve crashed into your lap too, dragging half the earth’s flooring with him. You yanked him in like gravity, like instinct, like a lover, curling one hand into his jacket and the other into his hair.

Behind him, Dimitri and El dove in last, just as the hatch slammed shut — BOOM — sealing all of you in.

And suddenly you were all inside.

Crammed into the tank.

Breathless.

Sweating.

Alive.

Every adult was wide awake now. Joyce. Owens. Nancy. Eddie. Jonathan. Robin. Murray. Faces pale. Hands white-knuckled.

You gripped Steve’s face in both hands. “You good?” you whispered frantically. “Baby, you okay??”

Steve panted. Laughed, wheezily. “Thank fuck I pissed.”

You blinked. “What?”

“I got to piss,” he panted. “So… that’s something.”

You barked out a laugh and immediately kissed him all over. Sloppy, urgent kisses to his forehead, his scratchy jaw, the corner of his mouth, everywhere you could reach while still holding Max’s wrist in one hand and Dustin’s coat in the other.

“Christ, Harrington,” Murray muttered from up in the front, rubbing his face harshly. “The FUCK was out there?!”

“El neutralized it,” Dimitri added, panting. “Whatever it was. Creature is from down. And is down. For now.”

“Sick pun,” Robin trembled from the side of the tank, still perched at its canons. “Very good. Nice. 10/10!”

“No one makes a goddamn sound,” Hopper barked. “No lights. That was way too loud.”

Eddie huffed into the wall. “Shit sounded so fucked,” he barely muttered, still earning him some hissed shushing.

Lucas cradled Max next to Mike, who was trembling and looking over El with frantic worry. 

“Imagine if you hadn’t pissed,” Lucas carefully hissed, eyes on Steve as he engulfed Max’s shaky frame.

Steve dropped flat onto his back, dragging you down with him. “I’d seriously have piss-streaked Levi’s right now.”

“You’re welcome,” Dustin muttered, still wheezing. “Better than pissing yourself mid-sprint, though I can’t say it wouldn’t have made me laugh.”

“Shhhhhhh!…”

Dustin just waved off whichever group had thrown that his way. Likely the adults. Whatever, they lived. 

Another relieved huff rushed from your lips as you laid your head against Steve’s shoulder. “God bless.”

Dr. Owens was scribbling something down as he peeked out one of the small hatches with frantic eyes. But Murray just stood up like a corpse in a business suit.

“Welp,” he hissed. “Good day to be constipated.”

You choked on a laugh.

Steve snorted.

Eddie made a sound like he’d been exorcised.

Then Hopper added, “I’m gonna shit myself right now.”

“Same,” Joyce mumbled, looking dazed and completely serious. “It’s borderlining diarrhea territory.”

Jonathan looked scandalized but muffled his own snort into his palm next to Will, who basically did the same.

Nancy and Argyle sat nearby, guns in their laps, both still visibly pale. Eddie looked ready to pass out, while Robin had her head thrown back with silent laughter… probably picturing Hopper yelling about his explosive diarrhea.

Dimitri looked personally offended. “Americans.”

Owens didn’t look up from his notes or the slit in the tank. “One more person mentions bowel evacuation, I’ll sedate you all with diazepam.”

That did it.

The dam broke.

Everyone lost it — quietly, desperately, shoulders shaking as they tried not to scream. You collapsed onto Steve’s chest, Max’s long red locks of flaming hair brushing Lucas’s arm as she curled up in the crook of his hip. Dustin slumped sideways into Will. Lucas nudged Mike, who looked like he might just start sobbing. El knelt beside Max and touched her hand… and after a moment, she smiled at her, weak but real. Unshakeable.

You buried your face in Steve’s neck as his arm wrapped around your shoulder tightly.

“You got me here,” he whispered.

You didn’t lift your head. “Yeah? How’s that, Lover?”

He laughed again, breath catching. Suddenly, he tugged something out from his coat. Yellow tinged yarn… woven with love.

The beanie.

“…wh-what…?” 

The air left your lungs, your eyes brimming with hot, fresh tears as your gaze flicked up from the knitted gift to his pretty face.

His own eyes shone with mischief and defiance piercing through. “Couldn’t let whatever’s out there steal this bad boy. This is designer.”

Your chest bubbled with full lovesick laughter, agonizingly tight, but it had nothing to do with the incessantly irregular heartbeat themed beneath your skin. This tightness only ever came from Steve, ever since this whole thing began. Ever since you’d spoken to him for the first time, not just in passing, back in November 1984.

He smiled now, too. You felt it under your cheek. The kind of smile that only happened when everyone made it out alive. Then Steve laughed again. Breathlessly. You didn’t even need to look to know that he was smiling like a dork. That look on his face only happened when everyone was alive and accounted for.

Murray slouched back up in the front like he was already regretting waking up today. “We’re never doing bathroom shifts again,” you whispered.

“I’m holding it forever,” Steve agreed.

Max groaned. “My pee pressure will never recover now.”

Steve and Dustin both silently wheeze as Lucas leaned against her shoulder, murmuring, “Sorry, baby.”

You blinked, craning your neck. “Your—what…?”

The world creaked slightly around you all from outside of these war-built walls. But inside of Dingus 1…in this tin can packed with too many bodies and too many feelings, there was safety.

However temporary that safety might be.

Steve’s hand tugged Dustin into the mix. Eleven joined silently. Then Lucas and Max. Then Will and Mike. All of you were now linked, tangled up together like threadbare rope that refused the fray until it broke.

Chapter Seventy-Five Undisclosed Species

Last Week of March • 1987 DAY [?] • Inside Dingus-1 • 11:12 AM

“What the shit was that?”

It wasn’t even clear who asked it first. Maybe Hopper. Or maybe Eddie. Maybe all of you, psychically. But it didn’t matter, because the question tore through the inside of the tank with the ferocity of an earthquake, bouncing off every wall like a ricochet bullet.

“Like no, seriously,” Dustin barked, chest still heaving, “what in the everlasting, demonic, walking, wheezing, death-fart was that?”

“It moved like a drunk skeleton,” Robin whispered, still pressed against the side of the tank, shaking her head with short, staccato jerks. “A big… fungus skeleton. With like, what, like—vines?? Are we doing vines again?!”

“No.” Nancy’s voice came sharply from beside her. “No. Those weren’t vines. That wasn’t even—I dunno…”

“Well what was it, then?” Eddie demanded. “Because that thing wasn’t from this planet.” He was pacing already, hair unruly, a tank trench forming with every frantic pass of his boots. “It looked like an inside-out cryptid that learned to do pilates!”

“It didn’t have a face,” Lucas said, still curled around Max, his hand gripping her elbow like he could anchor her to the present. “That wasn’t an animal.”

Nancy’s haunted blue eyes stared into oblivion. “They never have a face…” 

“That was otherworldly,” Lucas emphasized. “But not the shit we’ve seen before. Nah, that was—”

“Not one of the usual Demogorgon types, no,” Hopper growled, arms crossed. “I’ve never seen it. Not even in the lab files.”

“…El?” Mike asked, quietly.

She shook her head. “I’ve never seen it either.”

“Maybe no one has,” you stressed, still holding Steve’s hand, your other arm looped loosely around Max where she sat quietly beside you. “Because if that thing’s a new addition to the apocalypse, I’d really like to unsubscribe.”

Steve gave your hand the softest squeeze, but his other hand still trembled faintly against your knee. Also, bless him, the beanie was now tucked into his belt. The yellow yarn stood out like defiance in the dim lighting of the tank.

“No, seriously,” Argyle said, completely sincere, staring at the group like he’d just walked into the world’s worst art gallery. “Can anyone just, like, circle back to the fact that that thing sniffed at us…?”

Jonathan’s voice was gravelly. “That wasn’t a sniff, man. That was like… a slurp.”

“Oh God,” Will muttered.

“…think I might vomit,” Nancy mumbled, then looked surprised at herself for saying it.

Robin pointed at her dramatically. “You’re freaking out.”

“I am not freaking out,” Nancy snapped.

“You are. You’re literally sweating.”

“Our friends ran for their life, Robin.”

“You’re doing the thing where your voice gets high.”

“You’re doing the thing where you talk without stopping.”

“She’s becoming me!” Robin yelled, to the room at large. “She’s Nancy Buckley now, and I’m so proud—”

Witnessing this was, truly, something else entirely.

Jonathan’s slow head turn towards them was somehow the funniest thing that had happened in hours.

You’d clapped your hand over your mouth, shoulders shaking. Eddie slowed his pacing just long enough to glance their way, his voice coming out ragged after he spent a solid minute staring at them with raised brows.

“We’re all gonna die…” he morbidly mused, “…and that’s what you’re worried about...”

“We are not all gonna die,” Joyce corrected firmly, from her position at the front. “But we do need to talk about what this means.”

Murray stood up. “It means our lovely little vacation resort is probably over.”

No one laughed.

Neither did he.

“I’m serious,” he continued, eyes dark behind his glasses. “That wasn’t a fluke. It didn’t just wander here.”

“So what then?” you asked curiously. “It tracked us?”

Steve’s jaw flexed. “Or it was sent.”

That hushed the tank.

“…sent,” Hopper repeated, flatly. “You think the military sent it and dropped it like a holiday package?”

“They’d never,” Dr. Owens muttered. Those were his first words in nearly twenty minutes, and they landed.

You actually believe that.

Eddie? Not so much.

“You sure?” Eddie said, voice acidic. “Because that thing felt like bait.”

“Or a bloodhound,” Will murmured. “Something to sniff out survivors. Wanted survivors on the run.”

Steve looked at him sharply. “Exactly.”

“No,” Owens said again, more loudly this time. “Listen to me. There’s no official protocol for creature deployment. None. I worked in that system for years. That thing… it’s either rogue, or…”

“Or…?” Hopper pushed.

Owens hesitated.

“…or someone’s trying to draw you out,” he finally said.

The silence that followed was so suffocating, it felt like even the steel around your group flinched.

Dmitri cleared his throat, slow and deliberate. “You saw how I didn’t fire.”

Steve nodded once. “I saw.”

“There was good reason.”

You looked up at him. “Risk of exposure.”

“Exactly,” Dmitri said. “Gunfire. Heat flashes. Blood trails. Any of that, it draws eyes. Drones. Satellites. Troops. We shoot, we sign our death certificates.”

“Which means no one goes out there,” Hopper said. “Not until we decide what the hell we’re doing.”

Max was still quiet. Dustin’s voice broke through gently. “Do we even know if that thing’s gone?”

Everyone went still.

It hadn’t occurred to you.

It hadn’t occurred to any of you.

“Fuck,” Steve breathed, running a hand down his face. “We didn’t see a body.”

“We didn’t see anything,” Robin whispered.

“I should’ve checked,” El muttered shamefully. “I should’ve made sure—”

“No,” Steve cut in immediately. “You did exactly what you were supposed to do. You saved us.”

Eleven looked at him sadly. But Steve’s eyes never wavered. Eventually, she gave him a small smile of gratitude. But the tension sat, bloated and unmovable.

“We made a deal,” Joyce’s voice broke the spiral. “That if something gives us a reason to leave… we leave.”

You turned toward her, your stupid heart thudding.

Steve looked haunted by her reminder.

“We all agreed,” Joyce repeated. “No debate. No pride. No half-measures.”

Her eyes flicked, almost painfully, towards Steve.

You felt him tense beside you. Because Joyce now had her gaze fixed on him for confirmation. For leadership.

For approval.

“…Joyce,” Hopper murmured, but she shook her head.

“He’s the one who’s been keeping us alive,” she said, not unkindly. “Not that you haven’t, Jim, but he’s the one who knows how to balance family with facts. With structure.”

Steve could have fucking bawled at her words. At her blind faith in him. Her loyalty, her trust…

Joyce Byers didn’t offer that to anyone, not on this level, except for Hopper. But now, she was giving it to him and going as far as making that known to everyone.

“I trust him,” she continued gently, but just as adamant. “All of us do. We agreed on that.”

Jim nodded humbly. 

Sincerely.

“We did,” he confirmed quietly, his usually hardened eyes flicking over kindly to Steve… who now stared between the two of them with every wordless emotion flooding his big brown eyes.

He gave them a quick, grateful nod. Swallowed the lump in his throat. Flexed his jaw to keep it from quivering.

“And we all agreed,” Hopper continued, “Like Joyce said, we agreed that if it came to this—”

“It came to this,” Murray interrupted, loud and dry.

Everyone turned.

He was standing in the center of the tank, arms crossed, and for once? Your uncle was deadly serious.

Zero snark.

Zero sarcasm.

Zero assholery.

“This place has been good,” he said. “We’ve had heat. Food. No sightings. Three whole weeks, and yeah, that’s a miracle. A big one. But that thing out there? That was a storm warning. And I hate to say it, but…” Murray pursed his lips beneath his scruff, sucking them in before letting them pop back open. “I don’t think… we’re the only ones who don’t know what it is.”

You blinked at him, eyes wide, lips parting in anticipation.

“That’s what’s scariest,” Murray added. “Not that it found us. That they might not have a clue what it is either.”

“So what, we… so we move?” Robin asked.

“We have to,” Murray said.

Steve was deadly quiet now.

You looked over at him, your voice soft. “Hey, lover?”

He exhaled, brow furrowed, his voice cracking. “I know.”

His soft eyes met yours, warm and wrecked.

But you just smiled, albeit barely, nose scrunching. “You grabbed the beanie.”

That gently broke something in him. His face softened all at once, a sobered shadow washing over his features.

“I wasn’t gonna let it go,” he said, almost sheepishly.

Argyle, bless his soul, looked downright moved. “Bro,” he whispered. “That thing’s like… hand-woven loyalty. That’s true love.”

You blinked, biting your lip. “Don’t say that. I will cry.”

“I hope you do,” Steve whispered, nudging your leg. “You cry so cute.”

“Don’t make me fall in love with you again,” you hissed.

“Too late,” Eddie muttered from across the tank. “It’s disgusting how in love you two are. You should be ashamed.”

You shot him the most perplexed look, zero heat or actual frustration behind it. Just unconditional love, mixed with a lot of rattled up feels.

Steve warmly kissed your temple without missing a beat. But even as you curled in closer, your irregular heartbeat still thudded with the bittersweet truth.

This place was no longer safe.

It was no longer a safe haven. 

Not anymore.

“Alright,” Hopper said. “So what are our options?”

“We don’t go toward it,” Nancy said.

“Obviously,” Max mumbled, voice dry but small.

“But do we try and find it…?” Lucas asked.

“Hell no,” Steve said instantly. “Love you, Sinclair? But yeah, that’s a no.”

“But what if it brings others?” Mike asked. “What if there’s more of them?”

You could feel the tide of dread swelling again.

“We scout only if necessary,” Dmitri compromised. “I don’t like gambling on an unknown species. Especially not one smart enough to circle the Winnebago like a shark.”

“And not one that walked away,” Will added.

Everyone went still again.

Then Owens stood. 

“This is the call,” he said, firmly. “You’re moving. You’ll break down the Winnebago and the tank, make it look abandoned. No trace. No tracks.”

“You’re with us?” Joyce asked.

“Joyce, I’ve been with you,” Owens snapped, face red with resolve. “I am not letting any of you outta my sight, nor am I gonna watch any of you go out there alone. And if we’re dealing with something new, then we have bigger problems than just staying hidden.”

He looked around.

“We all move at first light.”

There was a new silence now. 

A shared silence. 

It breathed, it waited, it let the old words die off so that new words could be found. It allowed everyone to find each other in the stillness, and to make sure everyone was on the same page simply with glances, unblinking eye contact and quiet trust.

Everyone eventually turned to Steve.

And then he nodded first, setting it in stone.

You reached over, taking his hand in yours.

El took Max’s, while Robin linked her fingers with Nancy.

Eddie clapped Steve’s shoulder, the two of them sharing an all-knowing look of trust and brotherhood. Dustin did the same.

And slowly, everyone breathed in…

…and then breathed out.

“I’m really gonna hate carrying all this shit,” Murray now muttered, dry and dreaded.

Argyle raised a finger. “I’ll handle the canned goods.”

Steve leaned his head back.

Three weeks.

This place had felt like hope for three full weeks.

And maybe that was the tragedy of it.

Even safety had an expiration date.

Inside Dingus-1 • 9:42 PM

The tank was quiet.

Well, relatively.

From up front, you could hear the low static click of the Walkman rig as Murray passed it from one shoulder to the next, the wired headphones split between him and Jim and Steve. 

The three of them sat up front in a hushed little triangle, heads slightly bowed, sharing a silent kind of gravity that came with the weight of knowing something none of the others knew yet.

The weather broadcast cut through faint static. Clipped, low-pitched and clinical… like it was being read from a bunker.

“…Environment Canada reporting cold front pushing southward from James Bay… expected to stall over the Algoma District and wider southern Ontario corridor by early Friday morning…”

“…precipitation models indicate potential for heavy rainfall with transitional freezing conditions across inland elevations… probability of whiteout event remains low but rising if temperatures drop below forecasted thresholds…”

“…wind gusts exceeding 50 kilometers per hour anticipated, low-level aviation not advised… sustained cloud ceiling projected below five hundred feet… ground visibility will fluctuate…”

“…communication interference possible… monitor regional bands for local advisories… transport activity should remain minimal…”

“…further bulletins to follow.”

“Three days,” Murray whispered, pulling the headphones off, rubbing his scruff like it personally owed him money. “We’ve got three fucking days.”

Hopper leaned back in the driver’s seat, eyes forward on the tank’s windshield even though there was nothing but darkness and pine shadow outside.

“That storm hits right,” he muttered, “we’ll be ghosts. No satellites, no drones. Nothing flies in that shit.”

Steve sat quietly between them. His thumb was pressed to his lip like he’d been biting it too hard again. When he spoke, it was low and deliberate.

“So we wait.”

Murray squinted over at him. “You sure?”

Hopper glanced Steve’s way too. But not because he doubted him. Just because he wanted to see it in his eyes, just like Murray.

The younger man nodded once. “Yeah. We move when the skies shut down. Narrows down who and what we’ve all gotta avoid, and we’re best off with less to dodge.” 

No dramatics. No heroic speech. Just a decision. Clean. Final. Leadership by clarity alone.

Murray leaned back, giving Hopper a look like, Jesus Christ, this kid makes fewer bad calls than we do.

The cynic clicked his tongue.

“You know,” he muttered, “I’ve watched you get handed nothing but goddamn impossible decisions for weeks. Not once have you made a dumb one.”

Steve faintly sniffed a laugh. “Don’t jinx me.”

“No, seriously,” Murray pressed, eyeing Hopper sidelong. “It’s fucking whack. Like how do you even do that? Who taught you that? Jesus? Bob Newby? Mr. Miyagi?”

“Sure wasn’t Rick,” Hopper muttered smugly.

Steve snorted, barely biting back a grin. Hopper chuckled under his breath. Because yeah… Rick Harrington was a world class dick. And not a wise one.

“I think it’s called trauma,” Steve said dryly.

“Whatever it is, it works,” Hopper murmured, quietly proud.

Steve just gently sighed and leaned forward, pressing his fingers to the bridge of his nose. The silence that settled between the three of them was heavy in that warm, male camaraderie kind of way. Shared trust, and mutual weight bearing.

Behind them?

The entire opposite tone.

You were nestled in the belly of the tank like a goddamn chaos magnet, cradled in warmth and surrounded by limbs. Jonathan and Argyle were flanking you like two very stoned brotherly bookends. Dustin and Lucas had been whispering about something involving RPG stats, while Mike was ranting about someone being a warlock “build-wise” and not “by class,” and Max had curled up beside you like a cat made of nerves and sarcasm, just close enough to be held if she needed. You didn’t press. You never did. 

And that’s why she stayed.

“It’s a meditative act, bro,” Argyle mused. “And lowkey survivalist. Like, warm socks? Fire.”

Jonathan was on your left, eyes barely open, mumbling the occasional yeah or true into whatever passing cloud of thought drifted by. Argyle sat on your right, humming softly as he absentmindedly unraveled a piece of thread from the edge of his sleeve, clearly imagining it was yarn and that he had needles in his hands. 

He’d already brought up knitting twice tonight.

“You gonna knit me a whole hoodie whenever we make it outta this?” you asked.

“Make it out?” he repeated dreamily. “Girl, whenever our gang makes it out, I’m gonna crochet you a whole-ass house.”

That earned a snort from Jonathan and a slow clap from Max, while Eleven moved to giggle against her now.

You were halfway through re-teaching the group the rules of Would You Rather: Apocalypse Edition, when Eddie dropped to the floor across from you with a dramatic sigh and a smirk that spelled trouble in three dialects.

“I heard there was a party,” he sang, flopping onto his elbows.

“There was,” you said. “Then you got here.”

“Ouch,” Eddie grinned, dragging his booted feet forward until he was stretched out like the prince of chaos, eyes zeroed in on yours. “I don’t know why you flirt with me if you’re gonna be mean.”

You raised an eyebrow. “Keeps you humble.”

Eddie tilted his head, feigning contemplation. “Does it?”

“…Edward,” Dustin muttered, mid-sip of a juice box he’d stolen from the Winnebago stash. “I know this is the end of the world, but can we maybe not traumatize me before bedtime?”

That only earned a mischievous glint from Eddie. “Psh, traumatize? You’re dramatic. It’s called friendly flattery, Henderson. Try flirting sometime, you'll get it.”

“I have,” Dustin deadpanned. “With Suzie.”

Eddie tilted his head like an owl with a hooted, “Who?” just to fuck with him.

“My long lost flame, you asshole!”

Eddie grinned devilishly, pointing. “Different type'a flirting going on here.”

Lucas cocked his head at Eddie. “Wait… are you flirting?”

“He’s flirting with trouble,” you snorted and clarified.

“Technically, she started it,” Eddie declared proudly.

The boys gawked.

“She has a boyfriend,” Mike whisper-yelled, now looking betrayed on Steve’s behalf like someone had just spit on the American flag.

“Oh my God,” you laughed heartily, covering your mouth. “Michael. Relax, boo, he’s just being an idiot—”

“Uh, he’s being a traitor,” Dustin sassed, eyes on Eddie as he jabbed an accusing finger. 

“Damn,” Eddie arched a brow. “Your extremist verbiage tonight is next level.”

Dustin stared. “Dog. You’re up against Steve.”

“Uh-huh.”

“That’s like—like—like her having the Holy Grail and then letting some crusty ass goblin come sniffing around.”

“Right, so I’m gonna need you to never call me a goblin again,” Eddie said. “At least not with crustyass attached to it.”

Jesus, his delivery was so dry.

You were already losing it, snorting as you leaned into Max, who was slowly curling backward into your lap like she physically could not handle just how stupid this was getting. Jonathan had given up pretending to be asleep and was now shaking silently, his hand over his face.

That was when El, that sweet and wide-eyed baby girl, tilted her head at you and asked, “…wait. What does flirting mean again?”

You wheezed. “Okay, okay,” you laughed, pressing a hand to your mouth. “It’s when someone’s being extra nice but in a weirdly charming way. Like they’re teasing you because they’re into you.”

“She’s talking about me,” Eddie said proudly, perched right across from you, his legs stretched out, arms draped dramatically across his bent knees. “And I was absolutely flirting with her. I also regret nothing.”

“She has a boyfriend!” Dustin repeated, like the concept still wasn’t clicking.

“She has Steve!” Mike added, just as scandalized, as if that clarified anything. “You can’t just—!”

“Jesus,” Eddie said, mock-aghast. “What is this, Puritan New England?”

Lucas, somehow the most solemn of the trio, glared at Eddie like he’d committed a war crime. “Dude. Nuh-uh.”

“Back me up, Sinclair. C’mon.”

“Not cool,” Lucas shook his head like a disappointed dad. “Not cool, in the name of brotherhood.”

You nearly burst into tears laughing. “Boys, it’s fine!” you gasped, waving both hands at them, your voice hiccuping from the effort. “He’s kidding, he’s being Eddie!”

“He’s being an ass,” Dustin stated. “Ass with no class.”

“I’m being fun,” Eddie countered, then turned while raising his brows at you. “Also, you’re adorable whenever you crinkle up your nose like that.”

“Ope,” Max chirped with morbid glee. 

Lucas pointed sharply. “Munson...”

“Munson, you’re making my kids mad,” you warned him, deeply chuckling the entire time as they scowled at your sides.

“Nah. Even Mike can’t be mad.”

“I am definitely fucking mad,” Mike said, arms crossed, but his expression was more confused than angry. “Dude, what even is this dynamic right now?”

“Beautiful polyamorous chaos,” Argyle answered, smiling peacefully as he leaned his head on Jonathan’s shoulder. “Platonically, of course.”

Jonathan choked on his own laughter. “Bro. I can’t breathe.”

“Oh my God,” Max snickered, flopping backward across your lap. “This is so stupid.”

“What… is going on back here?” 

Hopper had asked it from up front.

Sure enough? He and Murray were both looking back, and from the looks on their faces, they’d been listening to this dumpster fire for at least three minutes too long.

Steve was already turned halfway around in his seat with his brows raised, caught somewhere between horrified, confused and inexplicably fond. 

Murray didn’t even ask. He just muttered, “You’re raising feral baby wolves.”

Your eyes were already watering. “Don’t diss my pack,” you said with a grin too wide to contain. “They’re yours, too.”

“Oh I don’t think so, Chick.”

He hadn’t even finished that sentence before your eyes had gone as wide as saucers with the most manic here’s Johnny a la ‘The Shining’ type of expressions, all while you exaggeratedly mouthed to him… ‘GRAND-PUPPIES.’

He mouthed back, ‘NOOO,’ just as theatrically. And then it was just a crazy-eyed staredown as your children kept on bickering with Eddie, Jonathan and Argyle.

Steve, though? That handsome boy of yours didn’t even look mad. Just tired. And in love. And a little in disbelief… and also, lovesick and willingly overstimulated.

You simply smiled back at him with a sheepish shrug and mouthed, “Sorry.”

He only mouthed back, ‘marrying you.’

“You’re all very loud,” Robin muttered dryly from her post by the back slat. She gestured between you and her best friend. “You two especially.”

She was pacing in a tight little oval, alongside Nancy, who was holding a set of binoculars like a weapon. Dmitri was at the top of the ladder, silently watching the woods out of the narrow slats of the tank like some avenging guardian angel of sorts. He had one arm propped in a side slit, his eyes peeled, scanning for movement.

“If we’re so loud, come join us!” Eddie jeered cheerfully.

Robin scoffed. “Can’t. Kinda busy channeling my anxiety productively right now.”

Nancy smirked. “It’s working.”

Dimitri didn’t turn, but he nodded “It is. You have walked six laps, Buckley.”

Robin looked stunned. “You’re counting?”

He nodded solemnly.

“You’re count—Nance,” she turned to Nancy. “Nance, he's counting! This is so validating.”

“He is also judging,” Nancy said wryly.

“I am not judging,” Dimitri replied, bone dry. “But if I were, I would say your pacing is slightly deranged.”

Nancy grinned to herself.

Robin just looked smug. “He thinks I’m deranged. That means we’re bonding.”

Dimitri didn’t answer, but a faint grin twitched the corner of his mouth. Nancy caught it.

She said nothing, but she saw it.

Steve saw the whole thing. You’d caught most of it but got pulled back into the kids’ nonsense with Eddie, and Hopper was already grinning upfront with both your boy and your uncle, all while Joyce and Owens were dead to the world, getting hardcore sleep (like the icons they are.)

And then it happened.

The giggle from Jonathan cracked first, high-pitched and stupid. Argyle followed, nearly wheezing. Then you were doubled over laughing again, your arms clutched to your sides, Eddie grinning like a devil, talking mad shit.

It spread fast. Robin was snorting. Max giggled. El looked lost, but giggled too, asking, “Why is it funny?” which only made it worse.

But then something sharp hit you.

Right in the chest.

The laughter cut off like a vinyl scratch.

“Tahahaha—skkkktsaaah—!!”

Your hand flew to your ribs, the ache harsh and sick and sudden, and your full body tilted sideways like your own blood had turned on you. Your smile faltered mid-breath.

Dustin saw it first. “Wait—wait, are you—?”

“Hey—hey, hey, hey,” Eddie switched gears, eyes going wide. “What’s wrong? Bauman??”

Your breath came out ragged. The pain spiked again. Not a heart attack, no but something mean and jagged ripped across your heartbeat, making your limbs tingle and your chest seize. Like your heart was lurching just out of reach of itself.

“It’s okay,” you managed, smiling grimly through clenched teeth. You exhaled, grit your teeth, winced through it. “It’s just my asshole heart.”

That sentence made everyone go still.

You weren’t even crying.

You were smiling.

And somehow? That was worse.

“Jesus Christ,” Steve muttered, dropping down in front of you like he’d been teleported.

Murray was right behind him.

Dr. Owens was already awake, like he’d been listening in his sleep. He crossed over to you and knelt beside Steve, quietly pulling out a stethoscope.

Seriously, they all gathered round within blinks of an eye.

“Still beating,” Owens said softly. “Irregular. But stable.”

You looked up at Steve as he cupped your cheek in one trembling hand.

“I’m okay,” you whispered, and it was even true.

But Steve looked broken. Not angry. Not frantic. Just broken in that deep, helpless, why can’t I fix this? way that cracked every rib in your body with love.

“You can’t laugh now…?” he said, voice hoarse.

“Hey, I’ll take pain if it comes with joy,” you wheezed back with that defiant smile. 

“Don’t say that,” Steve huffed. “Don’t—don’t make it sound like you’re settling.”

You tilted your head, your palm touching his wrist. “I’m not settling, lover,” you murmured. “Just choosing what matters.”

He dropped his head, eyes closing for one long second before they met your gaze again with ferocious intensity.

Eleven sat down beside you and reached over to clutch your other hand. Robin hovered just behind Steve, her palm firm on his shoulder, while Eddie stared at the floor like he might punch it into the earth’s core.

Mike looked wrecked. Dustin looked furious. Lucas blinked fast and looked away. 

Will, poor baby, had woken up from his sleep to stare tearfully, as Joyce made her way over with a water, as though she hadn’t just been fast asleep.

“Here, hun,” she murmured gently, already popping the cap so that you could hydrate. 

Dr. Owens…?

He stayed silent. But his eyes flicked to Steve. To Eleven.

And you saw it.

The quiet knowledge.

Not yet.

Maybe someday.

But not yet.

Eventually, you took a breath. And then another. And you looked at all of them, these people you’d kill for, that you would die for and ache with if it’s the last thing you do.

“S’okay,” you said softly, nodding at Steve with a wink. “Still on.”

The first time you’d told him something similar to that… was right after he’d spent too many minutes pounding your chest and ribs, all while whimpering oxygen back into your airwaves.

S’back on… you did it…

Now, he gave you a wobbly smile as you looked at him with that same survivalist exhaustion that refused to quit. And even if you did try to quit, Steve wouldn’t let it happen. Ever.

You didn’t get that choice.

Steve would give you every single choice in this world, but when it came to being without you? No. That wasn’t up to you. Not anymore.

“This thing onnnn?”

The most random, nasally voice sounded off from… of all the people inside the tank…

Nancy.

She gave your chest the sweetest little knock-knock with her knuckles, gently and with an exaggeratedly perplexed expression, as if trying to solve a mystery as she squinted right where your heart was.

“Hmm,” Nancy hummed. “Hulloh-oh. Hulloh-ohhhh?”

“Errrpern urrrrpppp,” someone else joined her.

It was freaking Argyle. 

They sounded like muppets on acid as they knocked on your chest like it was their neighbor’s house, like they just wanted to come inside and have a nice chat.

Steve and Robin both stared, lips parted in soft surprise. All the kids looked the exact same way, their eyes big and wide and round and curious.

Your face wore something similar, but only for a flickering handful of seconds before you subtly reeled, sputtering with hesitant laughter. 

“Are you guys—??”

“Erts mai money and I want it naaaoooww,” Jonathan cut you off, now fully engaged in Nancy and Jonathan’s act.

Murray glared from right beside Steve. His narrowed eyes flicked between all of you, dissecting the situation in that usual I’m judging all of you sort of way… but he actually stayed quiet and let it happen, and the pinch between his brows eased.

Dmitri hummed, startling everyone, despite its low volume. “Debt collectors,” he deadpanned.

Eddie snorted at that, finally done with burning a hole in the floor and deciding to just let the continued nonsense that you, Nancy, Jonathan and Argyle had going on was all that mattered right now.

Dr. Owens also smiled as he kept monitoring quietly, all while Joyce embraced the boys, who kept scowling back fears and maybe tears, too. But they softened and eased up more, as your muppet impression made all of them finally smirk at the sight.

Steve now just wore the most unusually fond, lovesick expression in his pretty face, and Robin leaned against his shoulder, her freckled face tender with amusement.

Max and El cuddled. 

The redhead grinned brightly. “Grief in this house ain’t never been normal,” she murmured.

“It really hasn’t,” El whispered back to her.

That’s when Hopper’s voice came from the front. “Hey, so, uhhh,” he said. “If everyone’s done emotionally combusting back there—Murray? Steve? You wanna tell ‘em?”

You blinked as Murray huffed a sigh, then stood.

Steve rose beside him. “We got three days,” he stated simply. “Storm’s rolling in. No air travel. Total whiteout.”

“Radar goes dead,” Murray added. “Everything goes dark. We move then.”

A beat of silence.

And then? Everyone nodded.

All at once. No protest. No debate.

Just relief.

Even if it meant sitting inside a steel tube for three more nights, you’d earned the right to exhale. You could finally rest.

Together.

Somewhere in the back, Argyle now exhaled deeply and flopped backward like he’d just won the lottery. “I can totally wait three days,” he whispered.

Jonathan laughed softly, still holding back the tears you didn’t even know were there.

And Steve, now kneeling back down beside you, took your hand in both of his.

His lips pressed warmly to the clump of intertwined fingers and palms while his forehead rested against your temple, both eyes closed as he claimed his spot for the night, just breathing you in… and you sighed right into him, nuzzling.

Three full weeks of safety.

Three more days on the clock.

🖤

Forever dedicated to Cherie & @aloneinthehellfire 🖤 TAGLIST {full} @moonlightdreamer111 @tangledluver @aloneinthehellfire @silkholland @ihaveproblemsihaveproblems @brinleighsstuff @definitelynotherr @silkholland @sucker-4-angst @bookkeeperlove @xblueriddlex @madaboutjoe @ucannotcompare @goosy-goose  @ashkuuuu @ashbye@soybeans-and-coffee  @yourelivingwrong @scaredofbeingbasic  @cathx91  @just-a-harmless-patato @unlikelytacotheorist  @chloewatersss  @cherrynukas  @cheugy-djobe @delulu4bucky  @calszonex @thecreelhouse @nancywalkemdownwheeler