Harringrove Big Bang

He’s only vaguely aware of the kids running behind him, or of the nurses who shout at them that visiting hours are over, unaware that they have a free pass, a special government sanctioned patient to visit. He thinks he hears Max, just as breathless as he is, shout something vulgar back at one of them.

They pass by room after room, Steve muttering the numbers under his breath as they skip the until they reach the start of the wing Billy’s being kept in, and he sprints so fast the numbers are too blurry to count.

He catches himself with both hands on the door frame of 340, leaving small scuff marks on the floor as he skids to a stop. There isn’t even time to take a breath and prepare himself before he’s rushing into the room.

The small group that he hadn’t left out in the hall is already in the tiny hospital room, Kali and El and Robin standing around the bed, talking to Billy. That’s a good enough sign, but they’re still in Steve’s way, the one last barrier keeping him from reuniting with his love. He has to see him.

“Move.” He hears himself breathe out, and they do, stepping aside each with matching looks of respect and sympathy for all that had got them to this point.

Billy looks up at him, the closed off, traumatized expression behind his eyes melting into one of relief and love that was mirrored perfectly in Steve’s own features. He’s sitting on the side of the bed, feet flat on the floor so he’s facing the door. An oxygen mask not much unlike the one that had kept him, or not really him, alive for so many months strapped to his face and a bandage wrapped tightly around his arm. Tired, deep blue eyes glassy with tears stare straight back at him.

Steve is completely frozen in place, can’t process the fact that he’s standing across from the boy he’d buried a year ago now. The one he never stopped mourning. Never stopped loving.

Billy’s the first of the two to say something, his voice cracking with the effort, with emotion , as a tear slips down his grimy cheek, “C’mere, Stevie.”

Steve practically trips over his own two feet, throwing himself into Billy’s open arms, “Baby, oh my god.”

“I know, Stevie.” Billy comforts, rubbing soothing circles into his back, but it only makes Steve cry harder, nuzzling Billy’s mess of hair and sobbing, “I lost you.”

“No, baby, I was here. I was here the whole time.”

Steve nods, sniffling as he tries to calm his tears, “I’m sorry.” He’s apologizing for everything, from crying to not saving him sooner to not being there in the first place.

“Sorry? Stevie, you saved me.” He thumbs over the bloody scratch on Steve’s cheek, “You could’ve been killed doing that for me with just a baseball bat.”

Insistently, Steve shakes his head, “Don’t make this about me. Look at you , you’re covered in blood.”

“Most of it’s not mine. There’s so many of those fuckers over there. They used to mind their own but something was different. Had to kill tons of ‘em.”

“But you’re okay?”

“Mhm. Doc says I’ll be on oxygen for as long as I breathed that shit in, maybe longer, and this damn bite’s getting infected, but s’nothin they can’t fix.”

“Good. I was so scared.” Steve sighs, relieved, and Billy chuckles, somehow despite everything still like himself as he teases, “You were scared? How do you think I felt?”

“Oh shut up. I’m serious. I thought you were gone, and then they said you might not make it.”

“We’ll I’m here now, baby, and I’m doing just fine.” Billy assures, so much confidence in his voice, albeit tired and worn, that Steve believes him.

Steve smiles, Billy’s attitude being back such a relief to his worry, “I love you, Bill.”

“Love you too.”

“Is that my bandana?” Steve gently tugs on the bandana tied at the back of Billy’s neck, the tiniest blush appearing on his face, but before he can answer, Max pipes up from the doorway, “And is that my watch?”

Billy’s face lights up all over again, “Maxi! C’mere, shitbird.”

Max runs up to her brother, stopping just short of the bed, her freckled cheeks already tracked with tears, “Am I allowed to hug you?”

“I fought monsters and you’re worried a hug’s gonna hurt me?” Billy smiles and holds his arms out for her, “Give your big brother a hug.”

Still just on the side of apprehensive, Max hugs him, and Billy starts to interrogate her, asking quietly, “Are you okay, Maxi? How’s home been? Has Neil hurt you?”

Max shakes her head, “Your dad’s been all depressed since you.. well since you died. He hasn’t hit my mom since before your funeral.”

“You telling me the truth?” He looks to Steve for confirmation, who nods as well, had heard the same from Max.

“Well don't congratulate him for that. I have half a mind to take that shotgun down there and give it to him for everything he did before.” Billy continues, voice grumbly, but Max pulls away from his hug to tell him, “Please don’t. You don’t ever even have to come home again. I never want to see you act how you used to have to around your dad again.”

“I’m not leaving you, Max.”

“You won’t be. Like I said, he doesn’t bother us anymore.” Max drops her voice to a whisper, her face somber and serious, “Just move in with Steve, please. That would make me feel better.”

It won’t be that easy, the two of them both know that if the glance they share says anything, but Billy agrees regardless, can’t bear to crush his sisters optimism after everything she already had gone through because of him.

“Alright, Maxi. I trust you.” Billy undoes the small yellow watch on his wrist, handing it back to her, “You can have this back. Sorry if it’s broken.”

Max takes the watch gently, holding it tightly in her hand and throwing herself into him for another hug, sobbing hard into Billy’s chest as her well-kept composure comes undone. He holds her and runs his fingers through her hair, mumbling on repeat, “I gotcha, Maxi. M’sorry.”

It takes until Joyce comes back in the room with news for her crying to calm down, pulling away from him and retreating to stand by El while she listens, a couple of the other kids thumbing away discreet tears from the emotional display as well.

Joyce had at first ushered all the kids in the room and told them to be supportive of Max, before leaving to talk with Billy’s doctors in the absence of his parents. Now she was back with something to say, and Billy looks to her expectantly, “So? How long’re they keepin’ me in this hell hole?”

“A month at least. They’re going to want to do a lot of tests. Monitor how you’re adjusting.” She smiles sympathetically, “I wish I had better news, but it’s for the best they keep you a while.”

Steve leads the way because he knows these woods, grew up playing in them with all the other snot-nosed brats in the area who would never have to know the truth about what lurked in the outskirts of their childhood memories. He wishes he was still that kid, who was clueless about

After a while of wandering, the directions from Kali seeming to lead them only to fallen down trees and a frozen creek, Steve wonders aloud, “You said he’s looking for a gate?”

“Yes. There’s one in these woods even. Before, there was a girl taken in your backyard, correct?”

Steve frowns, answering, unsure how Kali knows that or what the relevance is, “Uh. Yeah?”

“I believe the gate was created in the woods by the monster when it took her through. Billy must have found or been led to that old, now sealed gate, and is trying to escape through it now.”

“How do we find it though?”

“I know. I saw it.” El chimes in, with her powers gone, her other natural senses like memory stronger.

“You saw it? When was this?” Kali asks, a gentle coach for her apprehensive sister, who explains, “Before. When Will was lost.”

“So it’s been awhile. Do you still remember the way?”

El nods, and Kali smiles encouragingly, “Then take us there, Jane.”

The woods seem so much bigger when it’s dark and Steve is looking for his dying boyfriend, the tension and frustration as they pass by endless rows of trees in the freezing cold air with no signs of Billy draining away the hope he’d been building, and making him irritated with their seemingly unhurried pace.

Finally, once Steve feels like he’s going to panic, El whispers, pointing to a dead tree, a faint red glow emanating from under its bark, “There.”

Putting her arm out across Robin's chest and holding El’s hand to keep the group from moving further, Kali warns, “Stay away from it. It’s been used recently.”

But Steve ignores her warning, ignoring the threat of whatever was in there and approaching the tree, “That means Billy could be out here.”

He disturbs the quiet they were moving slowly to try to preserve, calling out, “Bills? Billy baby, where are you?”

A faint growl from an unseen monster sends shivers up the spines of the three girls, but Steve is still too distracted, his rational sense too entrapped in the throes of panic to notice the sound, and, as he is holding heir only weapon, Robin hisses at him, “Steve, I love you, but please shut up. There could be a monster out here.”

“No. Billy is out here too, and I have to help him, Rob.” He insists, turning and “Billy? Are you out here? Please!”

“Steve, just listen to me for five seconds!”

“What is it, Robin!”

She stays silent, gesturing to the empty air, and Steve is about to ask what he’s supposed to be looking at when he hears the snarls and chitters she must have been hearing, his stomach dropping at the realization that there was something close by, “Oh shit..”

“Yeah, oh shit!” Robin whisper-yells, “What the hell are we going to do now, dingus?”

Steve bites his lip, has to think hard about how to fix this mistake he’d made, “Kali, do you feel Billy?”

She nods seriously, “I do, and I can reach him and guide him from here, but I will only do it once it’s safe.”

“Then I’ll keep the monster held off. You just stay here and start looking.” He plots, and Kali nods again, doesn’t like taking orders but recognizes the urgency and danger of the situation is to blame for Steve’s bluntness with her.

Robin also knows Steve well enough to know what he means by that declaration, and she instantly insists, her town laced with desperation, “I’m coming with you.”

“We’ve only got one nail bat, Robs. Stay here with El and Kali. I want Billy to see a familiar face when he gets out anyways.”

Robin’s lip quivers slightly, and she throws her arms around Steve, despite the awkward one armed hug he has to give her because of the bat. She mumbles into his shirt, “I love you, Stevie. Please be safe.” She chuckles wetly, tears obvious in her voice, “I’ll kill you if you die out there.”

Holding her tight, but not letting his emotions through, not yet anyways, he assures her, “Love you too, Robs. I’ll be careful, I promise.”

Breaking the hug with Robin, he waves to the sisters and sets off from the group, waiting until he can’t see them anymore to call, “Hey!! Come out and get me, you big asshole!”

When there’s nothing but the distant sound of rustling, like it heard him but won’t come, he has the sense that the monster is aware of both groups, and is deciding which to go after, so Steve pricks the his finger on the end of the sharpest nail on purpose, hoping his blood will attract the monster more than Kali’s, “That’s right, come this way and fight me!”

That catches its interest, and for the first time he is able to make out the creature's figure as it moves closer to him. What he’s expecting is for it to charge at him at any second, that was his goal after all, but what Steve is very much not anticipating, is for it to rise to its back legs, a fully grown demogorgon only slightly smaller than the first one he’d faced, “Oh shit. Shit, shit, shit.”

Steve raises his bat, taking in every detail of the monster before they have to fight. It’s more frail than the one he’d fought before, he guesses because it has no leader. It seems less violent, from the way it just sort of watches him, not immediately starting its attack. He notices then, that this demogorgon is not more good natured or more weak than the other, but that it’s already been injured in a fight.

Right in the center of its chest is a bleeding hole almost as wide as the demogorgon itself, seemingly made by a shotgun blast. Because of the way this thing is, Steve knows that the wound isn’t hurting it much, but also that it’s exploitable. That, if he can just drive the end of his bat through that tender spot, it will die.

He decides he’s not going to wait for it to recuperate, and he charges first, bat clutched in both hands and raised over his head, his focus on driving through.

But as small a threat as this demogorgon seems, it still has a lot of teeth and a good bit of fight left in it, because it swipes Steve out of the way like a small annoyance, claws catching on his face just enough to leave two small, stinging scratches, and knock the bat out of his hands.

He scrambles for his weapon, dodging an attempt at a bite on his arm when he reaches for the bat, swinging it as soon as it’s back in his hands, hitting its face and tearing its flesh.

While it roars, in anger and pain and probably frustration that he’s beating it, Steve backs away, avoiding the blind, angry swings of its claws at him,

Again, he doesn’t give the demogorgon the chance to recover before he attacks, this time going for its legs, hoping to get the advantage by getting it on the ground. It easily dodges those swings, so Steve switches tactics, afraid to let the thing get too much confidence that it can beat him and tear him to shreds for making it mad, instead swinging and sticking that nails in its back repeatedly.

The combination of making it turn trying to grab for him behind it and the attack works, the creature sinking to its knees, the ultimate sign of submission and weakness.

Steve takes a deep breath, hoping this isn’t just a trap, the monster trying to look weak so it can trick him into coming close and finish him off. He raises the bat high over his head, plunging it with both hands through the already weak center of its chest.

It wasn’t a trap. The demogorgon hisses and shrieks, horrible sounds that make Steve let go of the bat and cover his ears, without the support of the bat, the monster falling to the dirt, dead if he’d ever seen one.

Steve puts his shoe on its neck, just in case, and pries the bat back out from its body, halfway down past the nails now completely coated in thick monster blood and gore. He grimaces, sticking it instead in the mud and leaning on it while he catches his breath, too terrified of what he’d been able to do, or rather, what he had to do in order to save his friends and Billy, who still might not survive all of this, to celebrate his own victory.

While it sits with him, and the adrenaline rush that carried him to killing a demogorgon gradually calms down, the radio in his pocket starts up. Through the intense static, he’s able to hear broken up bits of his name, but the words are stuck in his throat, unable yet to respond.

“Steve?” Slowly he can make out that it’s Robin’s voice calling to him, her tone getting gradually more desperate, “Steven Carson Harrington, come through right the hell now!”

He recognizes her fear, and that he should probably be dead right now, and only after he’s had enough time to sit with that thought is he ready to respond, “M’here, Rob. I’m here.”

On the other end, Robin sighs, immensely relieved by him making contact, has apparently been trying for longer than Steve had been able to hear in close range of the monster, “Jesus, Steve. I thought you were..”

“Not yet, Robs. I’m not that easy to get rid of.”

“And the demogorgon?”

“It’s dead.” Steve answers quickly, though he can’t find it in himself to give any details, anxiously moving the conversation along to, “Please tell me you have good news for me.”