i can still make the whole place shimmer

Somewhere in the distance the sound of your footsteps echo into the dark, bitter night. 

Clenched within your hand are your knives. Their metal glints in the streetlights as you run past every lonesome car, avoiding their collisions. 

One of them slams their horn at you, screeching to a stop just before it collides into your fleeing body, but you hardly even flinch.

You don’t care. 

All you do is run.

Minutes pass. You hardly process any of it. 

The only indication of the passage of time are the ringing in your ears increasing in volume and how badly your chest burns for oxygen as you run as far as your aching legs will allow. 

Up the crest of the hill, the Wheeler’s house shines untouched. Safe. The relief of it being intact  strengthens you to keep going, to run for just a little longer, until a horrible, eerily familiar screech pierces through the silence of the night. 

The mangled sound chokes you. 

Only a Demogorgon’s cry could paralyze you so viciously. 

“Mr. and Mrs. Wheeler?” your throat strains to be heard over the monster’s cries as you force the last of your sanity into running faster, harder, towards the Wheeler’s front door with your knives at the ready. “Holly?”

But no one answers.

Heart beating of your chest, you fling the door open with more cries on the tip of your tongue, searching through the living room and stumbling back at its disarray, but they all die at the sight of red.

Everywhere. 

The red is everywhere. 

It pools on the floor, drips down the walls, and covers the limp body of Karen Wheeler, leaving her almost unrecognizable.

The red glues your cowardly feet to the floor, rendering you unable to move. For what feels like an eternity you stand in the kitchen’s doorway, horror consuming you as you stare at Mrs. Wheeler’s mangled mess of a body on the ground. 

Her body? Or her corpse?

“Oh my god.” Bile rises in your throat. The sharp smell of blood stings your nose and you choke back grieving gags at the knowledge of who it belongs to.

This woman baked cookies for you every Christmas, always excited to share her recipes with you. She fed you dinners, countless breakfasts, endless snacks for long days with the boys in her basement. 

Karen Wheeler helped soothe your childhood wounds through her unyielding empathy.

Now she lies before you, motionless. 

Yet in your horror, you remember who else the woman fed and soothed. Mike’s teary eyes looking up at his mother and Nancy’s gentle voice and Holly’s small hands all reaching for Karen in your memories. 

They’d be lost without their mother. Her death would ruin them.

The realization forces you to your knees. The blood pooled on the floor soaks through your jeans and onto your skin. Its warmth unsettles you. But when you see Karen’s eyes wide and panic stricken staring back at you, your body moves to hers. 

“Mrs. Wheeler,” you press your hands against her jugular, suppressing a gag at the sensation of her thick blood between your fingers. She stiffens at the touch, tries to get away from the uncomfortable pressure, but you frantically shake your head and keep your grip firm. “It’s okay, I’m right here, alright? Just-just stop moving.”

Karen tries to say something, causing even more blood to bubble over her torn skin, and you’re quick to quiet the woman once more. Her eyes beg you for answers that you can’t give her. All you can do is stroke her cheek and whisper apologies to her over and over again. 

“Nancy will be here soon,” you try to reassure her, ignoring how cold her body now feels. “Just hold on a little while longer. I’m so, so sorry, Mrs. Wheeler.”

Her eyes flicker briefly, a question within them. She doesn’t know why you keep apologizing. She doesn’t know that the claw marks on her ribcage mirror the very same ones that mar your own ribcage. 

“Mom!” 

Nancy’s tormented scream haunts you. 

“I-I found her like this.” Your knees slide against the bloodied kitchen tiles in your haste to allow Nancy beside her mother. “The blood–”

But Nancy doesn’t acknowledge your presence. She tears her jacket off and pries your hands away from her mother’s neck before pressing it tightly against the wound. “Don’t try to talk, okay? Just stay calm.”

As she consoles Karen, you follow her daughter’s lead and quickly tear off your own jacket to tie around Karen’s abdomen. As you’re messily dressing her wounds you feel someone’s hand land against your arm. 

“Will she be okay?” El’s soft voice asks. 

You don’t know whether she means Nancy or Karen. Maybe both. 

“We need to get Mrs. Wheeler to the hospital–”

“H-Holly.”

Karen’s strained, broken vocal chords piece together only one name. The ringing in your ears crescendos into a deafening end. 

Nancy quickly turns to you. “Did you find anyone else in the house?”

“No, I–” You hadn’t even thought to look for anyone else. You’d been too focused on Karen to consider who else may still be missing. Ashamed and overwhelmed, your stomach churns and your head shakes violently. “I didn’t even think to look–”

“Then where’s my sister?” Nancy’s panic swells the room. “Why isn’t she–”

Her voice dies in her throat as something catches her attention. You twist your head around, trying to find the cause, and your own voice dies at the sight of a gate to the Upside Down, slowly closing into itself upon the front door. 

“Go.” Nancy snaps her attention back to El. She’s realized what you’re too afraid to comprehend. “Go, go, go, go!”

El looks between the two of you, torn and confused. She doesn’t want to leave you behind, not while covered in Mrs. Wheeler’s blood and unsure whether she’ll ever see her alive again, but you shake your head slightly, softly. 

“Find Holly.” You tell El, forcing down your own urge to follow. The Upside Down almost killed you once before. “Please.”

Nothing else has to be said. El doesn’t turn back even once as she runs towards the gate and into hell. She isn’t afraid. Not anymore. 

The gate closes behind her. 

“You’re gonna be okay, Mom.” Nancy’s tears break you back to reality as she clings onto her mother’s limp hand. “I promise I won’t let anything happen to you.”

You reach for Nancy’s other hand. While she doesn’t accept the endearment, you cling onto it regardless to remind her that she isn’t alone. She will never be alone as long as she has you. 

You’re not sure how long you kneel in Karen Wheeler’s blood listening to her daughter’s pleas to stay alive. All you know is that you never once let go of the girl’s hand. You never once stop caressing the woman’s cheek. You watch other both Wheeler women, caring for them how they’ve always cared for you. 

And when you hear Mike’s urgent voice outside the house, you know what your final act of mercy will be. 

No child should ever have to endure seeing their family home covered in blood.

“You can’t come inside.” They’re the only words you say to the boy at the door, blocking him from entering. 

Mike’s chest heaves. “What the hell, Y/N?”

Lucas stands behind him. He catches your pleading look and understands. Squaring his shoulders, he grabs Mike’s forearm and tries to pull him back. “Mike, you shouldn’t–”

“Where the fuck are my parents?” Mike slams his body back, fighting against Lucas and shoving even harder against you when he notices the blood that stains your clothing. “Where are my sisters?”

“Mike–” You wish there was more you could do.

He only fights harder. His elbow digs into your ribcage and you know his nails will leave marks later. But you don’t blame the kid. He’s worried, terrified of what his family has become. “Let me go!”

Lucas roughly grabs Mike’s shoulders, forcing him off of you. “Enough, Mike!

“I have to help!”

“We’re not letting you inside!” Lucas screams over Mike’s insistent terror. He grabs harshly at the kid’s body, forcing him to look at you and Lucas in a vain attempt he’ll listen. “You can’t go inside, alright? We won’t let you–”

Blinding lights fill the Wheeler’s driveway. The paramedics’ arrival stuns Mike long enough to force him away from the front door. The EMTs rush inside, and just as you’ve secured Mike underneath your arms, the first of the gurneys crashes through the door. 

Ted Wheeler. Multiple puncture wounds to his chest and abdomen. 

Mike’s body collapses. You’re there to catch him.

Karen Wheeler follows. Nancy runs beside the gurney as she whistles off every piece of vital information she can think of to the emergency responders. 

When she sees Mike, she lunges towards him and pulls him into her arms. 

You and Lucas step back to give the siblings space. They’re all the other has left. 

Numb fingers worry away at your nailbeds, picking at the tender skin that never has enough time to heal before its next slaughter. The sharp pain of the bloodied wounds soothes the itch underneath your skin to crowd Nancy and Mike. To fret over them, to do more than what you already have because it’s what you do. 

It was all you were ever meant to do.

Lucas grabs your hands, intercepting the next wave of destruction they’ll endure. 

“Enough,” he gently chides, allowing the smallest of smiles to peek back at you. “I don’t want you hurting yourself.”

“That’s what I’m supposed to tell you.” Though you smile back at him, the effort exhausts you. 

Lucas notices and sighs, releasing your hands. His mouth opens as if to chide you once again, but one of the EMTs begins guiding Nancy and Mike into the back of the ambulance and you’re following after them immediately. 

“I’m coming with you guys.” The tone of your voice doesn’t suggest a question. 

Mike quickly grabs your hand to pull you inside the vehicle, but it’s Nancy who stops him. “You have to stay, Y/N.”

Your face pinches together. “Absolutely not. There’s no way I’m letting you face this alone.”

Nancy shakes her head violently. Her entire body ruptures at the movement, fresh tears spill down her face. “No, I need you to keep looking for Hopper.”

“Steve and Jonathan are already–”

“Then go find El!” The last of Nancy’s resolve breaks. She jumps to her feet, flings her arms out and gestures wildly as if to articulate her despair and delirium even more. “Find someone, anyone, who will lead you to my little sister.”

Find Holly for me.

A heavy burden to carry, the trust of finding one’s little sister.

Yet you’d do it in a heartbeat for Nancy. Time and time again, you would carry the burden and smile in its wake, full of gratitude. 

“I-I will.” You promise her, pulling her shaking body into yours one final time. She trembles at the touch. Her hair tickles your cheek and your lips press to her scalp. “I’ll find Holly.”

“Thank you.” Nancy’s wet voice breaks you. 

Your hand cradles her head. “Of course.”

“We need to get your parents to the hospital.” An EMT interrupts, not unkind, but firm. 

Nancy forces herself away, but you manage to grab the back of Mike’s neck and pull his head within your reach so that you can kiss his forehead goodbye. His body crumbles at the affection, he holds your hand so tightly that it cuts off the circulation, but you don’t care.

Instead you watch as the Wheeler children crawl into the ambulance with their mother while Lucas rides with their father. They leave in a storm of flashing lights and harsh sirens.

Mike’s old, abandoned bike remains the only thing left in its wake. 

You grab it, feeling your promise to Nancy etching itself into your skin. 

I’ll find Holly.

The promise rings in the air around you. Its tone mirrors the same cadence as the promise you once made to Jonathan about finding Will. 

In the end, you found him. But not before he became someone else. Someone different from the little bee you once adored. 

Swallowing down the overheated adrenaline coursing through your system, your feet kick off the bike’s pedals, ignoring how badly your hands shake as you do so. 

Jonathan and Steve will be worried about you. 

Yet the knowledge of their concern isn’t enough to suppress the gory images of Mrs. Wheeler’s body on the kitchen floor from flooding your mind. 

They will haunt you forever. 

– 

Steve stands outside the WSQK van with its engine tethered to a jeep. The owner of the vehicle, a girl you’re unfamiliar with, has her arms defensively crossed and an agitated expression of obvious disdain for your boyfriend. 

Steve’s uncomfortable stance reveals that he’s painfully aware of her feelings towards him. 

“Can I, uh. Offer you a Bopper?” You overhear him offer the girl, clearing his throat awkwardly. 

She doesn’t bother to respond, only making the uncomfortable situation worse. 

When Steve sees your silhouette in the distance, he exhales in relief and practically runs away from the girl in order to get to you. He would’ve much rather have spent his night alone with you, tucked away together somewhere no one else could find you, safe and sound. 

“I’ve been missing you all night, angel.” His head tilts when he notices you’re on a bike rather than on foot. But then his eyes fall to your chest, your stained hands and stomach, and the red that cakes your body strikes Steve’s aorta so deeply that he struggles to breathe. “Y/N.”

Steve’s hands fall to your waist immediately, helping you off the bike and sitting you onto the ground in a frenzy of concern and fear. He traces every inch of your skin repeatedly, trying to find the source of the pain. “Where the hell is the blood coming from? I-I have to stop the bleeding–”

“The blood isn’t mine.” Your hands grab his, quelling their weathered fears as Steve’s expression morphs from terror to confusion. 

“I don’t understand…”

“It’s Mrs. Wheeler’s.”

Despite how softly you say it, Steve hears the broken confession and closes his eyes in stunned remorse. “Will she be okay?”

The innocent question exhausts you. Mind nearly melted from the night’s events, you push yourself up and start walking towards the van. Your body moves on autopilot, brain only focusing on what comes next and the necessary steps. “We need to leave.”

“Woah, hey!” Steve scrambles after you. “Y/N, I really don’t think you should be running around right now.”

You ignore him and climb inside the van, only to startle Jonathan sitting in the passenger seat.

“Jesus, bug. You scared me–” But just as Steve’s worried eyes scoured your body, Jonathan does, too. He nearly chokes on his spit seeing all the blood. “Fuck, are you alright?”

“It isn’t her blood.” Steve answers for you, slamming the driver’s side door closed before crawling over the driver’s seat and pulling you into his lap. His fingers wipe away at the dried blood on your face tenderly, carefully, delicate in a way only love can provide. “C’mere, angel.”

He begins cleaning you, uncaring of the fact that Jonathan sits just a foot away. And while Steve’s touch has only ever brought solace to your tumultuous life, tonight it burns your skin and leaves you feeling raw, exposed. 

You pull away, just out of reach. “The Demogorgon got to the Wheeler’s before we could. Mrs. Wheeler, she…”

The unnatural angle of her arm, its protrusion and the lacerations on her throat and chest and all the exposed flesh and meat of her body all echo in your mind and bring bitter bile up your throat at the onslaught of memories. 

But you promised Nancy you’d find her sister. 

“I was trying to stop her bleeding when Nancy and El found us.” Swallowing down the nausea, you do your best to block out the memories, but they come pouring out anyways like a ruptured dam. “We think Holly was taken to the Upside Down, just like Will was, and-and Nancy sent El there to save Holly and forced me to come here so that we can find Hopper–”

You don’t notice your tears until Steve’s gentle fingers wipe them from your face. “Y/N, you need to breathe.”

As you manage a quick inhale that leaves your weak lungs craving more, Jonathan leans over the passenger seat and lowers his voice, eyes wanting. “What about Nancy, bug? Can you tell me if she’s alright?”

Steve reels at him. “For fucks sake, man. Can’t you see that she’s barely able to get a breath in?”

“I’m sorry, is my concern for my girlfriend really that distressing to you?” Jonathan scoffs in disgust. “I understand that Y/N’s had a hard night, but from what she’s just told us, Nancy’s entire family is in critical danger and I’d really like to know how I can help her.”

They argue with each other as if you aren’t even there. As if you aren’t sitting on the floor of the van, wishing you were anywhere but here, surrounded by two boys whose childish ego battle threatens to send you over the edge. 

“But unlike Nancy, Y/N is actually here. Covered in someone else’s blood.” Steve wraps a protective arm over you, pulling you away from Jonathan and deeper into his chest. “What we need to do is get her cleaned up and–”

Their voices pound inside your head until you can’t take it anymore. Until all that’s left to do is scream.

“Stop it!”

You’ve never heard your voice so shrill before. You almost don’t recognize it to be your own, but when Steve’s grip loosens in surprise and Jonathan’s eyes stare back at you wide, unnerved, you know that it had been you screamed. 

Suddenly overly aware of both boys’ eyes on you, you shrink in on yourself, covering your body with your arms as you crawl out of Steve’s grasp and towards the van’s doors. “I-I didn’t mean to yell. I’m sorry, I just… We have to stick to the plan. Nancy made me promise we’d find Holly. We have to find Holly.”

Bile rises in your throat yet again. It burns through the strain in your vocal chords from all the yelling. If you don’t leave now, you’ll do something you regret. 

“I-I need some air.” Hand on the door, your fingernails dig into the metal as you fling it open. The minute the fresh air hits your face, the tightness in your chest dissipates. Inhaling deeply, you throw your body up and quickly call over your shoulder to Steve and Jonathan as you flee, “don’t follow.”

You fall against the nearest tree you find just within reach of the van’s headlights. The girl Steve was talking to earlier who helps jumpstart the van gives you an odd look, but you simply drop your head to your knees and breathe in the night air, basking in the silence. 

Steve watches you through the windshield, lazily returning to the driver’s seat in frustration. He picks at his nails nervously, his worried eyes trace over your exhausted body over and over again. 

“We need to take Y/N home.”

Jonathan whips his head to look at Steve, completely in awe of his stupidity. “You can’t be serious.”

Steve bristles at his annoyed tone. “She’s obviously in shock and currently looks like she’s five seconds away from passing out.”

“Alright, and then what? What’s your genius plan after we tuck Y/N into bed, huh?”

“I don’t know,” Steve shifts in his seat, eyes never leaving your body just a few feet away. He watches for any more signs of distress, worried he’ll look and find you passed out moments later. “The hospital isn’t far from the Henderson’s. We can go there after, make sure Nancy is okay and maybe get some more intel.”

Jonathan rubs the crease between his brows. “No. No, we stick to the plan. Find Hopper, find Eleven, and find Holly. That’s what Y/N said, and it’s what she promised Nancy.”

“Right, but we don’t know how long it’ll take for us to locate Hopper’s telemetry tag again.” Steve’s knee bounces up and down. He hates being stuck inside the van, so far from you. “I’m worried Y/N has pushed herself too hard this time. I mean, she always pushes herself too hard, but this time she looks exhausted, dude.” 

“You can’t just sideline Y/N.” Jonathan shakes his head. He did that to you, once, when he tried sneaking out of the middle school with Nancy one night to go fight a Demogorgon. Jonathan will never forget the hurt on your face when you caught them. “She’d never forgive you.”

Something stirs within Steve’s stomach at the somberness in Jonathan’s voice, obviously recounting an old, nostalgic memory. A bitterness overtakes him. “Sounds like you’d know from experience.”

“Jesus Christ,” an exasperated breath rattles Jonathan’s chest, bordering between exhaustion and disbelief. He resents Steve’s bitterness over your history together, it isn’t fair. He gets a future with you while all Jonathan has left is the history. 

“What?” Immediately Steve feels defensive, caught. 

Jonathan stares out the window, his own eyes tracing your silhouette. Once, proximity didn’t exist between the two of you. Once, nothing else in the world existed outside of your own, small universe where your planets orbited around each other and your suns were intertwined. 

Now you can’t even bear to be in the same car as Jonathan. 

“I just thought that, tonight of all nights, you might just… give it a rest.”

Steve frowns. “Give what a rest?”

“This bullshit competition for Y/N and Nancy’s attention.” Jonathan hates the words coming out of his mouth. He knows you’d despise them as well. It’s embarrassing, groveling for his best friend’s attention and his girlfriend’s adoration. 

Yet here Jonathan is, on his knees with only bruises left to show for it. 

“What the hell are you talking about?” Rarely does anything Jonathan says makes sense to Steve, but tonight he’s convinced the guy has smoked a stash behind your back, yet again. “No one is competing for anything.”

“Dude, ever since I got back from Lenora, you’ve been constantly injecting yourself into every one of my conversations with Y/N.” Jonathan’s own bitterness bleeds into his voice. “It’s as if you’ve become physically incapable of leaving her alone with me. She’s my best friend, we have a history together that you could never understand, and it’s fucking childish to hold it over my head as if it’s somehow all my fault that you’re uncomfortable with the history.”

Steve’s fingernails dig into the steering wheel. An old, familiar fury rises in his throat. “Careful there, Byers. It almost sounds like you forgot who Y/N is in love with.”

The words are like cold water poured upon Jonathan’s skin. “I’m not the one constantly showing off for Nancy, trying to remind her of how much better I am than you.” He swallows thickly, turns away from Steve, and says into the night, “seems you forgot who she’s in love with, too.”

Steve doesn’t say anything, obviously uncomfortable with Jonathan’s insinuation, and Jonathan latches onto the moment of vulnerability like a rabid dog. 

“Which is ironic, if you ask me, because while all you can focus on is Y/N, I’m actively trying to make sure that Nancy has a chance of surviving this shitshow of a night, because I could never forget who she’s in love with, despite your selfishish delusions.”

Years of built up resentment simmer between the two men. Neither one of them has anything else to say. The battlefield has been drawn, uneven grounds left in wreckage with no clear winning side. 

A series of staccato horns breaks the silence. Both Jonathan and Steve jump up in alarm, heads turning towards the direction of the sound and finding the girl they’d forgotten about, sitting in her car with nothing but disdain on her face, angrily gesturing to the van. 

The sound catches your attention, causing you to carefully stand up and begin making your way back to the van, seemingly ready to finally leave. 

Steve reaches for the keys and places them into the ignition. He notices the hesitancy in your steps, how slowly you drag your feet as if walking into a minefield. 

“You know what, Byers?” Suddenly everything Steve has ever wanted to say to Jonathan becomes a race against the clock, to get everything out before you walk back inside the van and force the reality into another endless silence. “You’re totally right about my ‘selfish delusions’.”

Jonathan’s head falls into his hands, clearly wanting the conversation to just end, but Steve doesn’t care. You’ll be back any minute, and for once in Steve’s life he can’t bite his tongue for your mercy. Not this time.

“Y/N told me about your little phone call.” And there it is. Steve has revealed his final card, and it's dealt as a javelin to Jonathan’s stoic demeanor. He stiffens in his seat, and Steve gets a sickening sense of satisfaction watching his facade crumble. “What did you say again? Something about whether you and Y/N made a mistake?” 

A ringing fills Jonathan’s eardrums. Cold, metallic ringing. The taste of betrayal and shock linger on Jonathan’s tongue, mixed with embarrassment and shame.

He never thought you’d tell anyone about the phone call. 

Then again, Jonathan never thought you’d do a lot of the things you’ve done since he lost you.

Humorless laughter drips from Steve’s cruel mouth as he watches Jonathan’s face twist in shocked grief. He has him right where he wants him. “And I’m the fucking delusional one.”

Shoving the key into the ignition, the van sputters once, twice, before dying again. All Steve wants is to leave.

“I’ve known all along how miserable you and Nancy are, from the minute you decided to call my girlfriend, high as a kite, trying to get her to leave me for you.” You’re only a few feet away now. Throwing all caution to the wind, Steve lays his final blow. “Maybe if you stopped living in some idealized past life with Y/N, a past life that is dead, and instead focused on your current life with Nancy, maybe then the two of you would finally be happy. Maybe then you’d finally have your best friend back.”

Then the van comes to life, its engine loud and daunting. The headlights come on and your arm reaching for the van’s backseat doors, a question on the tip of your tongue about how long it will take to recalibrate the telemetry tag, when suddenly the question dies on your lips as you see your little brother, bloodied and bruised, stumbling up the street. 

“Dustin!”

The sight of him breaks you completely. 

You grab for his broken body blindly, tears blurring your vision as you cradle Dustin’s head to your chest. Struggling to breathe, you finally allow the sobs that have been building within your frigid body to come crashing out in waves, no longer able to pretend that tonight hasn’t been one of the worst nights in your entire life. 

“I’m fine, Y/N.” Dustin’s body remains stiff, uncomfortable in your embrace. He places his hands awkwardly on your arms in a weak attempt to pull away, almost as if he hadn’t been expecting such a volatile reaction. 

“You don’t look fine,” Steve yanks Dustin’s bike out of his hands, uncaring of the boy’s bruises and bloody nose. “You chose a spectacular night to ditch us.”

Dustin opens his mouth to argue, maybe even defend himself and provide an answer to his disappearance, but Steve cuts him off. 

“Save the bullshit excuses for later,” he hauls the bike into the van and slams the door shut. “We need to leave. Now.”

Dustin looks to you for an answer you can’t give him. His eyes land on the dark stains of blood clinging to your sweater and the shell shocked tears that won’t stop falling. “What the hell did I miss?”

You wipe a stray tear, smearing even more blood on your face.

“It’s been a long night.”

– 

Your back presses into the van’s floor as you stare up at its ceiling, watching the streetlamps flash across like streaks of lightning. Every bump of the rough road digs harshly into your spine, but you’ve gone numb to it. 

Jonathan sits beside you, one hand pressing the headphones tightly to his ear, trying to catch any hint of Hopper’s telemetry tag, while the other hand carefully steers the antenna attached to the roof. 

“And by sheer luck, Jessica was coming back from a party and I charmed my way into getting us a jump.” Steve explains everything to your brother as he drives, eyes never straying from the windsheild. “Which brings us to you, arriving looking like Rocky Balboa.”

“Y/N’s the one who looks like she barely escaped Leatherface.” Dustin quips back, slouching further into the passenger seat at the idea of you covered in someone else’s blood. “So I think I’ll be okay.”

“This isn’t funny, alright? Out of all the crawls, this was like, the one to miss.” Steve rolls his eyes. The annoyance in his voice is like a jagged edge, piercing your thin membrane of patience. “So, well done, Henderson. Really, really well done.”

You roll onto your side, finding your brother’s eyes in the rearview mirror as you hand him a tissue for his wounds. His hard gaze softens slightly, accepting the small offer, and something loosens within your chest. “Are you sure you’re okay, Dustin?”

He purposely misinterprets your question as concern for his sanity, shoving the tissue up his broken nose. “It’s a lot to process… I mean, why Holly?”

“Maybe Eleven could tell us, but it’s a bit difficult to contact her now that we’ve lost our connection to the Upside Down.” Steve not to gently reminds Dustin. 

“We just have to keep trying,” uncomfortable with the quickly rising animosity, you sit up and force yourself between the two boys. “That’s what we should be focusing on right now.”

But Dustin has already latched onto Steve’s pointed finger. “You guys should’ve turned everything off the second the lights went from really bright to really dim. I’ve told you before that it means the generator is surging.”

Naturally, Steve doesn’t take the criticism well. “Yeah, great. I’ll remember that for next time, or, and this is a suggestion, you could be where you’re supposed to be.”

“Steve,” you kick the back of his seat, worried he’ll push Dustin too hard and create yet another blowout. “Leave it.”

“C’mon, Y/N!” He waves his hands in the air, exasperated. “You can’t seriously believe that the kid just fell off his bike and gave himself two black eyes.”

The indignation pisses you off. Of course you don’t believe that Dustin’s shitty excuse for his injuries. Of course the sight of his bent nose and swollen eyes makes you sick to your stomach, because Mike and Lucas fucking told you about some douchebag named Andy and you know Dustin has become only more bitter and swallowed whole by his grief. 

You know the bruises on your little brother’s face were caused by angry fists. Of course you know. 

But Dustin hasn’t been honest with you in a long, long time. 

You’re just relieved to see that he’s still breathing.

Dustin stares back at you, almost daring you to call him out on his bullshit, but you’ve come to accept that you’ll take whatever he’ll give you. Lies and distance and all. 

“Hey!” Jonathan snaps from the backseat, headphones in his hand and worried eyes on you. He sees the clench of your fists, the hardness in your shoulders and how close you are to spiraling. “Can you guys keep it down up there? I’m listening for a signal, in case you forgot.”

Steve flashes him a sarcastic thumbs up, but even before he opens his mouth you know that there’s no end to his merciless antagonization. 

“Who was it?” He questions Dustin, licking his lips in anticipation, eager for a reaction. “It was Andy and his goons, wasn’t it?”

“Steve!”

“He’s always practically begging to get his ass kicked, Y/N!” 

Cleaning his injuries, Dustin sighs, unamused. “Your concern for me is overwhelming.”

“We have shown nothing but concern for you since forever,” Steve keeps pushing, keeps instigating and insisting on berating your brother to the point of exhaustion. “And we’ve been repeatedly ignored, and now look what’s happened. We’re completely fucking screwed.”

The dam breaks. Dustin’s vitriol foams out his mouth. 

“Correction!” He exclaims, laughing manically to himself as he falls off the edge. “We’re screwed because you don’t know how to do the most basic thing like prevent a power surge.”

All night you’ve been pulled too far, stretched too thin until you have nothing left inside you. Steve and Dustin bite back and forth at each other with viscous words and over-saturated egos and you’re too used up to suppress the overflowing aggression. 

Their voices overlap in a pounding, splitting headache that numbs your tongue. Curling into yourself, you squeeze your eyes shut and breathe in through your nose, out through your mouth, anything to digest the turmoil that nauseates you. 

“Jesus Christ, just admit it for once!” Steve’s hard, loud voice squeezes at your lungs, flinching at the harsh finality. “You’re wrong, Henderson. You screwed up!”

Steve never, ever raises his voice. He knows how much you despise it. You’ve spent endless sleepless nights confessing to Steve how your father used to yell at you, how his anger haunted your childhood home. 

And now Steve screams at your baby brother. 

You’re no longer numb.

“Stop it!” Your head nearly hits the roof of the van from how quickly you sit up, throwing yourself against the boys’ seats in a desperate attempt to get it all to stop. “Jesus, both of you just shut up.”

Both Dustin and Steve jump at the sudden outburst. Neither of them had been expecting it, both too lost in their own passive aggressive world to notice the signs of your brewing collapse. 

“I’m so fucking sick of this,” the timbre of your voice shakes, unable to hide the devastation that coincides with all the anger within you. “The arguing. The snarky comments and excessive defensiveness. I-I can’t do it anymore.”

Dustin offers you a concerned glance. “Y/N–” 

“You’re in desperate need of help and it’s fucking infuriating that you refuse to accept it.” No longer do you dread upsetting your brother. For months all you’ve done is tip-toe around his feelings, but in the end all it’s done is drive him further away, and you’re tired of pretending that it isn’t killing you. “All you’re doing is hurting the ones who love you.”

Steve gestures wildly. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell him!”

“And you,” immediately you turn Steve, your eyes hard and narrow and lacking their usual warmth when you look at the boy. “You need to act your own age. It’s so fucking infuriating having to deal with your insatiable need to always pick a fight with a literal child.”

“Until you both figure out whatever the hell is going on between the two of you,” hands shaking, you bite down on your teeth and spit out your final words, “leave me out of it.”

The sound of your uneven breaths become the only exhale that fills the silence in the van. Fragments of your ribcage rattle with every sharp inhale, heart on edge as it tries to piece together whether tonight has been real or if any second you’ll wake from the horrible, awful dream. 

But a rough, nostalgic hand cups the back of your neck. Its presence grounds you, it soothes the sporadic beating in your chest like a magnet to a nail. 

Falling back into the touch, your back presses against Jonathan’s legs, his body firm, unyielding, and you allow his touch to lull you into a bittersweet, endless silence. 

No one in the car speaks. 

– 

The hours pass by slowly.

Steve drives the same monotonous route over and over again, the four of you waiting for something, anything to happen. 

But Jonathan never gets a signal. The radios remain silent. 

As the hours drag on, the exhaustion from the night creeps in. Your eyes struggle to remain open. The adrenaline crashed long ago, with the only thing keeping you going is the fear that you’ve lost Hopper all over again.

You don’t know what you’d do if that were true. 

You’ve grown too used to grief, but you don’t think you’ll ever recover from losing Hopper. Not again, at least. 

“One more loop around the zone?” Steve asks Jonathan, navigation being the only conversation left to be had anymore.

Jonathan adjusts the antenna and checks for any new signal. His shoulders drop when he finds no difference. “Yeah,” he sighs. “Go ahead.”

The wheels of the van veer to a turn, but just as the tired gain traction, Jonathan’s hand flies to his headphones as he grips onto it harshly, face narrowed in concentration as he listens for something. “No, wait.”

“What is it?” You’re alert immediately, crawling onto your knees as you anxiously peer at the decibel meter. 

“Is it Hop?” Dustin’s voice laces with naive hope.

You shake your head, squinting at the meter, which has remained the same all night. “I don’t see anything on the decoder.”

“No, but I can hear something.” Jonathan’s body visibly strains, his eyes squeezing shut as he presses the headphones tightly to his ears. Suddenly he sits up in his seat, tired eyes now alight. “Yeah, I can definitely hear something.”

Dustin’s foot catches the base of your skull as he haphazardly crawls over the passenger seat and next to Jonathan.

“Fuck,” you duck to avoid further damage, wincing at the explosion of pain in your head. “Why is it always me you bruise?”

Your brother shushes you aggressively, shoving past you to get a better look at the meter himself just as Joyce’s voice sounds from the walkie.

“Is that him?”

Dustin yanks the headphones off of Jonathan and shoves them onto his own head, forcing the older boy to respond to Joyce. “We’re not sure.”

Both you and Jonathan stare at Dustin, baited breaths as you wait for his answer. But just as you allow a grimace of hope to build, he tears it down with one single sentence. 

“No, it’s not Hopper.”

“Then what the hell is it?” You bite back tears of frustration, fingernails cutting in your palms. “What else could you possibly be hearing?”

“I don’t know, alright? It could be a million things.” Dustin wrings his hands together, anxious. His own hope has died alongside yours. “Military broadcast, TV channel, any EMI within our frequency zone.”

Yet you’re a hopeless naive. “But we’ve been driving the same route all night without hearing anything. Why start now?”

“I can’t answer that,” your brother admits, shrugging. “But I can tell you that it’s not Hopper’s telemetry tag. If it was, it would show up on the decoder. So… the search continues.”

He crawls back to the passenger seat, unphased, yet you can’t move on. You know Dustin is right. There isn’t any other possible explanation, but it still feels as if a hammer has torn a nail through your chest. 

Jonathan senses your disappointment and squeezes your wrist, a silent, gentle acknowledgement of your exhaustion. Raising the walkie to his lips, he delivers the news to Joyce. “Hey, mom, um. Disregard. It’s a false alarm.”

She remains quiet for a moment before responding. “Jonathan, is your receiver in any way connected to the flux capacitor?”

Simultaneously you, Steve, Dustin, and Jonathan all cock your heads at the question, each of you trying to figure out whether or not you heard Joyce correctly. While your time at the radio tower has been limited, and while almost all of the hard labor has fallen onto Dustin’s shoulders, none of you know what the hell the woman is asking. 

“Uh, sorry, mom. Can you… repeat that?” The tailed raise in Jonathan’s cadence, hints of amusement and disbelief, somehow gets you to laugh, if even for a second. 

“The flux capacitor.” Joyce explains confidently. “Robin said it was down, but she and Will are working on it. I wanted to make sure it wasn’t messing with your connection.”

And there it is. 

Robin Buckley. 

Somehow it’s always her.

Steve catches your eye in the rearview mirror, his thoughts echoing yours. He raises his eyebrow, chuckles to himself, and you find yourself biting back a smile as well while Dustin fully turns around in his seat. 

Joyce’s voice sounds from the walkie again. “Hello?”

“You gonna tell her, or am I?” Dustin asks you, highly amused. 

You huff an amused laugh, reaching for the walkie from Jonathan. “I’ll tell her, though I can’t imagine it’ll sound any better coming from me.”

“Are you guys still there?” 

“We’re still here, Mrs. Byers.” You answer the woman, unable to suppress the smile that won’t leave your wanton lips. “Did you, uh. Say that Robin went off with Will?”

“Yeah, to fix the flux capacitor.” Joyce’s tone shifts, teetering on suspicion. “...Why?”

“I regret to inform you that Robin Buckley is a liar,” you tell her, giggling despite your best efforts not to. “And you should probably start looking for them.”

A beat passes.

“Oh, those little shits–”

The signal quickly disconnects and the walkie shuts off. 

For a brief moment, the van fills with a warm, honeyed hue. Jonathan snorts in disbelief, Steve shakes his head as he chuckles to himself, Dustin rolls his eyes, though not even he can mask his pleasure in hearing of Robin’s ability to deceive even the most vulnerable of parties. 

The honeyed hue lingers as the night stretches on, though all good things must come to an end, and when the radio’s silence dregs over into the next hour with nothing to show for it, no signs of Hopper or updates from Nancy, the hue becomes bitter once more. 

Eventually the beginning rays of early morning sunlight ebbs over the van’s dashboard. Its light kisses your eyelids and coaxes them shut. 

Steve lays his jacket over you. 

No one wakes you up.

-

⌑ series masterlist

⌑ if youd like to buy me a coffee ☕︎

Another noise sounds from somewhere above you.

“Mark, if you so much as breathe like that one more time, I will throw myself fucking overboard.”

Your mother.

Alive, then. Tragic.

You bite your lip to keep from laughing and push up onto your elbows. The little cabin still smells faintly like sunscreen and sea salt, and the expensive perfume your mother wears like armor. Your limbs are pleasantly sore from yesterday in that bone-deep, good way that only comes from actual fun… the kind that lives inside of your muscles afterward and makes you feel like your body belongs to you.

You climb out from under the blanket and pad barefoot toward the tiny bathroom to brush your teeth, pausing when you catch sight of yourself in the mirror.

Your hair is wild from sleep and salt. Your cheeks are still sunkissed a rosy shade of pink. There’s a little half-moon mark on your shoulder from where your swimsuit strap sat too long yesterday.

You look… different, maybe?

Not older. Just… brighter. Like some lightbulb inside you got switched on and decided to stay that way overnight.

You know exactly why.

Especially when grabbing your cell phone off the charger, and swelling at the sight of yesterday’s candids on their camera roll.

When you finally climb up onto the deck, your father is stretched out on one of the benches in sunglasses with his arm thrown over his face like a war casualty. Your mother is curled into the corner bench in one of his old Oxford shirts, hair piled on top of her head in a disintegrating knot, scrolling on her phone like the screen personally wronged her.

They both look like shit.

There is something almost moving about how equalizing a hangover can be. Wealth, status, social poise… none of it matters when your mouth tastes like old pennies and your own spouse’s breathing makes you want to commit a felony.

Your father lowers the sunglasses just enough to squint at you. “Jesus.”

“Top’a the day,” you salute.

“How are you a person already?”

You lean against the table and reach for a bottle of orange juice from the little mini fridge. “Because I’m twelve and sober. Lousy, really.”

Your mother lets out a low noise of misery. “Don’t speak. It’s violent.”

You slowly twist the cap anyway. “Morning to you too.”

“And don’t suddenly act cheerful near me, kitty.”

“Wouldn’t dare.”

“Or a smart-alec with a resting bitch face.”

Your father huffs. “Wendy.”

You just shrug. “This is just my face. Got it from you.”

Mark makes a dry little sound that might be a laugh. Your mother glares at him without lifting her head.

“You two need anything?” you ask, because despite everything, it is hard to be entirely unmoved by the sight of your glamorous parents — now flattened into pathetic, over-served beach casualties.

“Silence,” your mother deadpans.

“Death,” adds your father.

You take a sip of juice. “Noted.”

Wendy groans again, rubbing her temple with two fingers. “We’re supposed to go back to the club tonight.”

The words come out like a diagnosis.

Your father doesn’t move. “We’re absolutely not talking about tonight right now.”

“I can’t even think in a straight line.”

“Good,” he mutters. “Try not to.”

That should probably be meaner than it is, but your mother only rolls her eyes and goes right back to staring at her phone.

There are whole marriages in the way adults talk to each other before nine in the morning.

You drift a little farther down the deck, looking out over the bay. The water is calm and silver-blue, so gorgeous that it almost pisses you off because it has the nerve to be fresh and beautiful while every adult in your orbit is spiritually in triage.

And then you see him.

Down on the dock, barefoot in swim trunks and a gray T-shirt, one hand shielding his eyes against the sun as he looks up toward the yacht like he’s trying not to be obvious about it.

Steve.

Your new one pal.

Your new companion.

Your new… best friend.

The second your eyes land on him, something in you lights up so fast and naturally that it almost embarrasses you. Because there he is. There’s your whole goddamn day, standing on the dock like summer itself decided to take shape as a twelve-year-old boy with good hair.

He catches sight of you and lifts one hand in a little wave.

Nothing big or overzealous. Just a small, boyish little hey.

Your stomach does a strange, warm flip.

You wave back so fast it nearly sloshes your orange juice. “Dad,” you call out over your shoulder, already halfway moving for the gangway. “I’m going to—”

“Mm-hm,” your father mumbles from under his arm, not remotely interested in where. “Don’t drown.”

Your mother doesn’t even look up from her phone. “Wear sunscreen.”

You glance back at both of them, a little stunned by how little convincing this is actually taking.

“…cool,” you say.

Neither responds.

Which is how you end up tearing down the dock, not thirty seconds later, with your hair still slightly damp from brushing with a wet round brush earlier and your heart doing cartwheels for reasons it absolutely refuses to explain.

Steve’s already smiling by the time you reach him.

“Wow,” he drawls. “You’re alive.”

“So are you,” you respond breathlessly.

“Barely. My mom looks like somebody exhumed her.”

You clap a hand over your mouth and laugh.

He grins, pleased with himself. “My dad’s in a hammock staring at nothing. Which, to be fair, is kind of his brand.”

You shake your head. “My parents look like casualties of war.”

“Nice.”

“Honestly, it’s kind of awesome.”

“It is,” he agrees. “I’ve been awake since seven and no one’s noticed.”

“That’s because all the adults poisoned themselves yesterday.”

“True.” He glances down at your orange juice. “That from the yacht?”

“Yeah.”

“Can I have some?”

You hand it over. He drinks straight from the bottle without the slightest bit of self-consciousness, or wariness about germs, and hands it back.

Something about that makes your chest flutter.

There’s something so absurdly intimate about this sort of thing at the age of twelve — sharing a drink, not caring. There’s still a kind of innocence to your bodies then. They belong to you in this unremarkable, practical little way that children’s bodies do. Touch is easy. Germs are theoretical. Everything is far simpler because nothing has become loaded yet.

At least not on purpose.

Steve jerks his head toward the stretch of beach beyond the docks. “Wanna go?”

“Obviously.”

And just like that, you do.

That becomes the shape of the whole day, really. 

The easiest fucking thing in the world.

The two of you spend the morning down by the bay where the sand is soft and damp near the waterline and the air still has that early-day cleanliness to it. You leave your Jack Rogers sandals abandoned underneath a deck chair somewhere next to his Sperry’s, then wade in until the water reaches your knees, then your thighs, then your waists.

Steve is exactly what you suspect a dreamy middle-school boy should be: half gentleman, half complete menace.

He holds out a hand when the rocks get slippery. He says ladies first with a little bow that is just obnoxious enough to be funny. He also absolutely dunks you under the second you get comfortable and then acts shocked, absolutely gobsmacked when you come up sputtering and tackle him from the side with all the force your twelve-year-old body can manage.

You snort water from your nose. “You asshole!”

“You were talking too much!”

“I said one thing!”

“You say many things—”

You lunge for him again. Steve yelps and grabs your wrists, the both of you half-laughing and half-fighting in the water while a little wave slaps into your backs and nearly sends you both under again.

Everything about it is so stupid. So completely, gloriously stupid.

That’s why it feels so good.

At twelve, fun is still allowed to be this simple. It doesn’t have to be filmed or documented or aestheticized or explained. There’s no deeper reason for any of it. You’re simply in water with somebody who makes you laugh — so you laugh. He throws a handful of water at your face, so you scream and swear revenge. You both start daring each other into increasingly ridiculous acts of courage — jumping from the old retaining wall into the deeper part of the bay, swimming out a little farther, balancing on the slick rocks like idiots.

Steve never treats you like you’re weaker than him.

But when you start to hesitate on one of the rocks, he turns back and softens immediately.

“You got it,” he says, not coddling, just certain. “C’mon, kid.”

And because he says it like you already can, you do.

That’s the thing Steve keeps doing without seeming to notice it. Handing you your own courage back.

By ten thirty, you’re both starving and windblown and dripping in bay water as you run down the back stairs of the Harringtons’ beach house, which is all white clapboard and huge windows and that aggressively tasteful coastal decor that rich people seem to think all happens naturally if you own enough driftwood.

Inside, the whole place is still under the spell of an adult hangover.

The television is on somewhere downstairs playing a home renovation show to no one. There’s the faint smell of freshly brewed coffee, aspirin powder and expensive shampoo. From one of the bedrooms, you can hear Roz Harrington whining, “Danny, if you’re making eggs, don’t let me smell them or I’ll die.”

A lingers before Danny, from somewhere else in the house, responds.

“I’m not making eggs.”

Another pause.

“Good,” Roz calls weakly. “I’d divorce you.”

Little does she know just how much she will eat those words one day.

Meanwhile, Steve doesn’t even break stride. He just glances at you and flatly mutters, “Romance.”

You nearly choke trying not to laugh too loud.

In the kitchen, you find exactly what children abandoned by hungover adults always find eventually: enough food to survive, none of it coherent.

Steve makes you both toaster waffles. You steal strawberries from the fridge. There’s whipped cream. Somehow there’s always whipped cream in houses like this — as if no one with less than four bathrooms has ever considered dessert before noon.

You sit on the kitchen island in wet swimsuits and oversized towels while Steve butchers the waffles with the side of a butter knife.

“That is not how anyone cuts anything,” you tell him.

“It’s an Eggo, not surgery.”

“It still deserves dignity.”

He glances down at the hacked-up little squares with a pensive expression. “I think it’s too late for dignity.”

You snort. “Fair.”

Steve sprays too much whipped cream on yours, just to be annoying. You retaliate by stealing half his strawberries. He steals the bottle of orange juice again. You call him a thief. He says your legal team will be hearing from his.

The whole scene is so domestic it would be a little haunting if either of you had the life experience yet to know that.

After breakfast, you head back outside.

The day stretches out into something golden and lazy around you, and the best part is that it’s all yours.

Nobody interrupts. Nobody asks what you’re doing or where you’re headed or whether you should be under some kind of supervision. Every adult in either household appears to have silently agreed that as long as the children remain wealthy and vaguely sunlit with working cellulars, they are probably fine.

It should feel sadder than it does.

Because yes, there is a tragedy under it. Two nice houses by the bay full of adults too hungover, too self-involved, too exhausted by themselves to notice their children have vanished into a whole separate world for twelve straight hours.

But loneliness is a strange thing. It doesn’t always announce itself when it ought to. Sometimes it’s fully present and still loses… simply because there’s somebody else with you and that changes the weather of everything.

That’s what Steve is becoming, you realize slowly over the course of the day.

A weather change.

By early afternoon, the two of you are back in the water with boogie boards, inventing idiotic competitions nobody can win with dignity.

“Best cannonball,” Steve declares.

“There’s no best cannonball, there’s just splash.”

“That’s quitter talk.”

“You have quitter talk.”

“I don’t even know what that means.”

“Neither do I! Weeeeee!—”

You both laugh so hard you can barely stand upright long enough to attempt the cannonballs in question. Steve’s is objectively better. You deny this on moral grounds. He performs a little victory lap in waist-high water and then immediately gets nailed in the shoulder by a floating board, which you decide is justice.

Later, you lie on your stomach on the warm dock planks, heads hanging over the edge to watch little fish flicker through the pilings below.

Steve squints into the water. “You think fish know they’re fish?”

You turn to look at him. “What kind of question is that?”

“A valid one.”

You purse your lips, watching the schools of fish move in formation.

“…how would they know?”

He shrugs. “Maybe they have fish thoughts.”

“Yeah,” you nod slowly, still watching the little shapes move in unison under the clear surface of the bay. “Probably stuff like… oh no, people...”

Steve snickers. “Shut up.”

“I’m just saying, if I was a fish, I’d be concerned.”

“About what?”

“You know.” You gesture vaguely at the water. “The crushing inevitability of… fishhood.”

He stares at you for a second, then bursts out laughing so hard that he has to press his forehead to the dock.

You grin to yourself, stupidly pleased.

There it is again — that bright little rush every time he finds you funny.

Eventually you both drift back inside, because the sun has far become less playful and more murderous. Blistering heat now clings to your skin. Your shoulders are rosy. Your nose feels suspiciously tender and warm.

Steve takes one look at you and points. “You’re getting fried.”

You shift. “I am not.”

“You absolutely are.”

“I’m tan.”

“You’re pink.”

“That’s just my undertone.”

He squints. “That’s not a thing.”

“It is a thing.”

“On your face right now? No.”

You swat at him with your beach towel. He dodges and nearly knocks over a decorative shell bowl in the foyer.

“Jesus,” he mutters, catching it just in time. “Your undertone almost broke my mom’s dead sea life centerpiece.”

“You’re gonna get haunted by my ancestors if you keep talking like that,” you shoot back.

He reels. “What ancestors?”

You run laps around him, chanting. “Pocahontas.”

The two of you chant and battle-cry all the way back to your house.

Back at the Waldorfs’ place, the adults are somehow still barely animate.

Your father is asleep in a recliner with a CNBC ticker moving silently under the television like capitalism itself is trying not to wake him. Your mother is in bed with sunglasses on and one hand lying limply across her stomach with a half-watched reality show flickering in front of her while her phone glows in the other hand.

She lifts the glasses just enough to see you in the doorway.

“Oh,” she says faintly. “There’s my baby.”

“Hi, Mum.”

“You’ve gone brown.”

“I’m sunburned.”

She gives a sleepy little wave. “Same family.”

Then she closes her eyes again, already drifting off again.

Steve, beside you in the hall, leans in and whispers, “She’s kind of iconic.”

You smile despite yourself. “Sometimes.”

By late afternoon the adults begin — in terribly slow stages — to resurrect themselves for yet another night out.

Which is how you and Steve end up effectively left alone between the two houses while everybody showers, dresses, swears they are “never drinking again,” then proceed to discuss which yacht they’re starting on first… whilst pre-gaming.

You both freshen up too, because the sun and salt have started drying your skin tight.

After your shower, you pull on a soft T-shirt and little gym shorts, hair damp and tangled around your shoulders. The sunburn on your back announces itself with a low throbbing sting the moment the hot water stops.

You hiss under your breath.

Shit.

When you come out of the bathroom, Steve is in the hall outside your room with clean hair, a faded navy T-shirt, and basketball shorts, somehow looking both younger and cuter for having freshly showered. The whole sun-kissed, scrubbed-clean thing should not be allowed at twelve. It feels like cheating.

He notices your face immediately. “What?”

“My back hurts.”

He frowns. “Sunburn?”

You nod once.

He thinks for half a second. “You got aloe?”

“Probably.”

Turns out you do. It’s inside the big linen closet, and because the universe is occasionally a comedian, that is how you end up sitting cross-legged on the edge of your bed while Steve stands awkwardly behind you with a bottle of aloe vera gel and the concentration level of a boy trying to diffuse a bomb.

“This feels weird,” you mutter.

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”

His brows pinch. “You want me to not do it?”

“No!” you say too fast, then immediately want to throw yourself into the bay. Or out the window. Whatever’s faster. “I just mean—no, it’s fine.”

Steve, blessedly, takes that entirely at face value.

“Okay,” he says. “Then hold still, kid.”

You gather the hem of your shirt in both hands and lift it carefully up to your shoulders, hugging your arms against your chest so he can see the flushed skin of your back while you keep your chest covered.

You suddenly remember your mother’s comment that she made yesterday… about how you don’t have tits yet. 

And that thought alone makes you feel somehow self-conscious…yet weirdly relieved, as you stay awkwardly hunched over and silently grateful that there isn’t much of a chest you have to hide yet.

The room goes very, very quiet.

Not weird quiet. Not exactly.

Just that hyper-aware kind where every little thing suddenly feels huge. The tick of the ceiling fan. The damp ends of your hair touching your neck. The little cold squelch of aloe hitting Steve’s palm.

Then his hand touches your back.

Ice cold.

You gasp. Goosebumps race all over your arms.

“Too cold?” he asks immediately.

“No,” you blurt. “It’s just—sunburn.”

“Right.”

He says it with such simple concern that you almost laugh from relief.

Because yes, that is actually the truth. It is the cold. It is the sting. It is the weird sensitivity of too much sun and skin that feels newly alive.

It is also, unfortunately, Steve.

His hands are careful. More careful than they need to be, probably, but he doesn’t know that. He smooths the aloe over your shoulders and down the burn with the kind of solemn concentration he seems to reserve for helping. Your whole back goes cool and tingling under his palms.

You stare fixedly at your own knees and try not to combust.

Behind you, Steve is thinking in his own twelve-year-old way that girls are maybe a little more complicated than boys in certain unfortunate logistical moments, but also that this isn’t actually weird. It’s just… helping. 

She’s sunburned. I’m helping. That is the whole thing.

Still, he notices the fine line of your spine. The way your wet hair sticks in strands to the side of your neck. The goosebumps that keep rising under his hands and then smoothing away.

“You okay?” he asks quietly.

“Mm-hm.”

“…you’re really red.”

You want to die. “My back is red.”

“Your face too.”

“It’s the sun!”

“Right,” he says, entirely sincere. And when he’s done, he re-caps the bottle and steps back. “There.”

You let your shirt fall back down and turn around slowly. “Thanks.”

He shrugs in that boyish little way of his. “No problem.” Then his big brown eyes land on the stack of video game cases on your shelf and his whole face changes. “Whoa.”

You glance over. “What?”

“You have Mario Kart.”

“Yeah.”

“And Smash?”

“Yeah.”

“And—hold on, is that Tony Hawk?”

You grin.

Turns out, it’s deeply satisfying to surprise a boy.

“What?” you ask, smugly. “You think I just read horse books and braid ribbon into my hair?”

Steve looks over his shoulder at you, his eyebrows practically in his hairline. “Maybe a little.”

“That’s rude,” you say mock-primly.

“It’s not rude, it’s—” He gestures helplessly at you. “You wear those little girly headbands.”

“…that means nothing.”

“It means a lot, actually.”

You climb onto the floor beside him and start stacking games. “You’re saying girls with accessories can’t kick your ass at Nintendo?”

“I’m saying I’m excited to find out.”

You do, in fact, kick his ass at Mario Kart.

Not every round. Just enough to be satisfying.

He’s louder inside than he is outside, you realize. That’s one of the funniest things about him. Around the adults, he can look almost bored into another dimension. But when it’s just the two of you on the floor of your room with controllers in your hands and wet hair drying at your necks, Steve becomes this whole different creature — animated, dramatic, funny as hell.

“No, that is complete bullshit,” he exclaims when you pass him on Rainbow Road. “That’s cheating.”

“How?!” you giggle.

“I don’t know, but you are.”

“You sound like a sore loser.”

“I’m not a sore loser, I’m peeved.”

You hum once, satisfied. “You’re a deeply sore loser who keeps falling for my mystery boxes and tripping on his own bananas.”

He slowly turns, pointing at you with his controller. “You’re getting cocky.”

“Maybe because I’m winning.”

He groans and flops backward onto the rug. “I hate girls.”

You bark out a laugh. “You literally don’t.”

“True,” he admits to the ceiling. “I think girls are great. This is awful.”

You chuckle, ignoring the nausea in your stomach as you wonder if he might have a crush on another girl at school somewhere. Someone who isn’t you.

By the time you both get hungry, the adults are fully restyled and pre-gaming for their next round of social self-destruction. Your parents are heading back to the club with the Harringtons for another night “among friends” — which in rich-people language, often means proximity to other damaged people with expensive shoes.

“You two can order whatever you like,” your dad calls out from the doorway, already checking his watch.

“Go crazy,” your mother adds, fastening an earring.

Steve’s parents are on speaker from the hall, with Roz insisting that the two of you are “sweet lil’ angels” and Danny asking if you both have your phones charged.

Steve lifts his out of his pocket. “Yeah.”

Your father nods. “Keep them on. Answer if we call.”

“We will,” you say.

And then they’re gone.

And it’s strange how little fanfare abandonment can have when dressed well enough.

The front door shuts. The house goes quiet.

You and Steve stand in the middle of the kitchen for a second looking at each other.

Then, simultaneously:

“Pizza?”

“Pizza?”

He laughs. “Okay, what toppings do you like?—no wait, lemme guess.” His expression turns cartoonishly impish. “You like… anchovies.”

Your eyes light up. “Yes.”

He recoils in horror. “I was kidding.”

“I’m not!”

“That is disgusting.”

“Pfft,” you roll your eyes. “You’re a wimp.”

“Those are fish.”

“They’re delicious.”

“They smell like if the ocean died and got salty about it.”

You snort. “That was good.”

“Thank you.”

When the pizza arrives, you order one half anchovies, half plain cheese, and Steve watches the box open like someone being shown a crime scene.

“That’s vile.”

“Try it.”

“No.”

“Try it!”

He squints at you. “You just wanna see me suffer.”

“Correct.”

Steve stares down at the little silvery strips on your half of the pizza like they have insulted his family. But then, because he cannot seem to help himself when you’re looking at him like that, he pinches off one… and drops it onto a bite of his own.

He chews.

His whole face goes through six emotions.

You’re already laughing before he swallows.

“Well?” you demand gleefully.

He helps up a fingers, then points at you accusingly. “It’s so friggin’ salty.”

“But?”

“But…” He takes another bite, smaller this time. “It’s not as bad as it…should be.”

You beam. “See?”

“That doesn’t mean you’re right.”

“It absolutely does.”

He shakes his head and reaches for another piece anyway.

This somehow devolves into a debate over what the worst possible pizza topping might be, which turns into Steve dumping M&M’s onto one slice with all the confidence of a deeply unserious little psychopath.

You stare at it in stunned silence.

He grins around the next mouthful. “What?”

“That is revolting.”

“Coward.”

You narrow your eyes… then reach for your Gushers and upend half the bag onto your own slice before diving in, staring him down without blinking.

Steve goes dead still.

Then he starts laughing so hard he has to brace one hand on the counter.

“Oh my God,” he wheezes. “You actually did it.”

“You started this.”

“You’re insane.”

You both proceed to eat your cursed little dessert pizzas anyway, because twelve-year-olds are nature’s bravest and most disgusting experimental little chefs. The Gushers burst hot and weird in your mouth against the anchovies. The M&M’s on Steve’s slice get sort of melty and upsetting.

“This is horrible,” he mumbles through a laugh.

“This is art.”

“This is child endangerment.”

Suddenly you gasp. “Wait. Have you seen that Mary-Kate and Ashley video? The one with the pizza making?”

Steve blinks a few times, but then slowly begins to grin. “It’s got that song…”

You point enthusiastically, eyes shining with excitement as you shout out the lyrics. “PUT IT IN THE PIZZAAAAAA!”

He cackles and echoes it back, which then turns into both of you looking it up on YouTube and snickering over it too hard.

There are empty pizza boxes all over the floor by the time you move back to your room with a DVD stack and sodas and the kind of silly exhaustion that only comes from an entire day spent fully alive.

You text each other from two feet away at one point just because you can.

Steve: ur room is cool You: you are literally in it Steve: yeah but now its in writing

You grin so hard your face hurts.

“Promise we’ll still write letters?” you ask after a while, more serious. “While I’m at school, I mean.”

Steve looks over from where he’s half-reclined against your bed. “Even if we text?”

“Yeah. We’re not allowed our phones all the time at school.”

He nods immediately. “Then yeah. Both.”

Your eyes shine. “Both?”

“Texts and letters.” He picks at the edge of the blanket under his hand. “That way if you can’t answer one, I can still do the other.”

Something in your chest goes soft.

“Okay,” you say shyly.

Steve smirks, pointing. “Digital pen pals and pen-pen pals.”

You giggle, suddenly very grateful that you’re sunburned — which helps your flushed cheeks not give you away.

The storm starts late.

Not dramatic at first. Just a low roll of thunder somewhere out over the bay while a movie plays too quietly in the background and both of you are too tired to really follow the plot anymore.

The room has gone dim. The pizza boxes sit collapsed and greasy on the floor. There’s a controller under your bed, an open soda gone flat on the nightstand, and two pillows dragged down onto the rug… because at some point sitting turned into sprawling, and sprawling turned into not bothering to get back up.

You fall asleep like that.

Not intentionally. Just because you are twelve and spent and happy in a way that makes sleep feel less like something you choose and more like being gently knocked over by life.

Steve falls asleep, too. And when he wakes, the room is dark except for the little lamp by your desk and the flicker of lightning outside the window.

He lies still for a second, confused.

Then he remembers where he is.

The movie menu screen is looping soundlessly on the TV. Rain taps softly at the glass now, the thunderstorm finally close enough to matter. Somewhere downstairs the house settles with a wooden sigh.

Then he glances over.

You’re curled up on the floor a few feet away — cheek pressed to one of the pillows, one hand tucked under it. Your hair’s gone half-wild all over again in slumber. Your lips are parted just slightly. In the low light you look… younger somehow. Softer. Small in that way children only get to be when no one is asking anything of them.

Steve blinks at you, feeling something warm and strange pass through him.

Not huge. Not terrifying. Not anything he could name even if he tried.

Just fondness, maybe…? Pure and uncomplicated and so immediate it feels almost like hunger.

He pushes himself up quietly and looks around until he finds one of the throw blankets folded over the chair by your fully stacked bookshelf. He shakes it out and drapes it carefully over you, trying not to wake you.

You only nuzzle deeper into the pillow.

His mouth twitches into the softest smile.

Then he fishes his phone out of his pocket and squints at the screen.

1:07 AM.

There’s already one text from his dad in their family group chat.

Dad: you good?

Steve thumbs back quickly.

Steve: yeah im at hers. storm got bad. Steve: gonna crash here if thats ok

He waits.

A few seconds later, the typing bubble appears.

Dad: okay Dad: lock the back door if its not already Dad: love you

Steve stares at the screen for a second.

Then types:

Steve: ok Steve: love you too

No response after that. Just the silence of a conversation that doesn’t need to keep proving itself.

He sets the phone down and looks back at the rain.

The weird thing about childhood is how often it feels enormous while you’re in it and tiny once it’s gone. A storm at one in the morning. Falling asleep on the floor. Pizza boxes and movie main menus and a pretty girl from boarding school curled under a throw blanket in the next patch of light over. The kind of night adults would later reduce to nothing with a hand wave and endearing terms like ‘harmless,’ and ‘cute,’ and ‘awh, kids…’

Harmless. Cute. Kids.

And maybe they would be right.

But right now, to Steve, it feels like one of those little moments his life has no business keeping so carefully… and still somehow will.

He finds another blanket for himself and lowers back down onto the floor… beside you. Not too close, just close enough. Outside, lightning flickers pale at the edge of the curtains. Rain keeps time against the glass.

This is the most unusual little sleepover he’s ever had.

And also? The nicest.

He’s used to sleepovers with boys, Nerf gun wars, prank calls and gross boy movies or rowdy shouting over video games and scattered chicken nuggets. Not impromptu sleepovers with sweet boarding school girls he meets while on summer vacation…  

That thought comes with another one close behind it, darker and heavier.

Tomorrow, you go home.

Tomorrow this whole strange, bright pocket of summer closes up.

Tomorrow you will still have phones and letters and all the ways that people promise not to disappear from each other… but tomorrow, you also won’t just be right here. Not in the next room. Not laughing in the water. Not letting him steal your orange juice. Not making him eat fucking anchovies and somehow winning the war against his picky tastebuds.

The sadness of it arrives so quietly it almost catches him off guard.

Steve turns onto his side and looks toward the window instead.

Twelve-year-old boys do not have language yet for a lot of the things that happen inside them. They know the feeling before they know the word. They know the ache before they know the cost. They know enough to close their eyes and breathe through it and hope morning doesn’t come too fast.

On the floor across from him, you sleep on… warm under your blanket, one hand curled near your face, breathing softly and steadily.

Steve watches the rain for another minute.

Then he closes his eyes too and tries not to think about tomorrow.

🩵

END OF CHAPTER

Written by Misha St. James 🤍

Another noise sounds from somewhere above you.

“Mark, if you so much as breathe like that one more time, I will throw myself fucking overboard.”

Your mother.

Alive, then. Tragic.

You bite your lip to keep from laughing and push up onto your elbows. The little cabin still smells faintly like sunscreen and sea salt, and the expensive perfume your mother wears like armor. Your limbs are pleasantly sore from yesterday in that bone-deep, good way that only comes from actual fun… the kind that lives inside of your muscles afterward and makes you feel like your body belongs to you.

You climb out from under the blanket and pad barefoot toward the tiny bathroom to brush your teeth, pausing when you catch sight of yourself in the mirror.

Your hair is wild from sleep and salt. Your cheeks are still sunkissed a rosy shade of pink. There’s a little half-moon mark on your shoulder from where your swimsuit strap sat too long yesterday.

You look… different, maybe?

Not older. Just… brighter. Like some lightbulb inside you got switched on and decided to stay that way overnight.

You know exactly why.

Especially when grabbing your cell phone off the charger, and swelling at the sight of yesterday’s candids on their camera roll.

When you finally climb up onto the deck, your father is stretched out on one of the benches in sunglasses with his arm thrown over his face like a war casualty. Your mother is curled into the corner bench in one of his old Oxford shirts, hair piled on top of her head in a disintegrating knot, scrolling on her phone like the screen personally wronged her.

They both look like shit.

There is something almost moving about how equalizing a hangover can be. Wealth, status, social poise… none of it matters when your mouth tastes like old pennies and your own spouse’s breathing makes you want to commit a felony.

Your father lowers the sunglasses just enough to squint at you. “Jesus.”

“Top’a the day,” you salute.

“How are you a person already?”

You lean against the table and reach for a bottle of orange juice from the little mini fridge. “Because I’m twelve and sober. Lousy, really.”

Your mother lets out a low noise of misery. “Don’t speak. It’s violent.”

You slowly twist the cap anyway. “Morning to you too.”

“And don’t suddenly act cheerful near me, kitty.”

“Wouldn’t dare.”

“Or a smart-alec with a resting bitch face.”

Your father huffs. “Wendy.”

You just shrug. “This is just my face. Got it from you.”

Mark makes a dry little sound that might be a laugh. Your mother glares at him without lifting her head.

“You two need anything?” you ask, because despite everything, it is hard to be entirely unmoved by the sight of your glamorous parents — now flattened into pathetic, over-served beach casualties.

“Silence,” your mother deadpans.

“Death,” adds your father.

You take a sip of juice. “Noted.”

Wendy groans again, rubbing her temple with two fingers. “We’re supposed to go back to the club tonight.”

The words come out like a diagnosis.

Your father doesn’t move. “We’re absolutely not talking about tonight right now.”

“I can’t even think in a straight line.”

“Good,” he mutters. “Try not to.”

That should probably be meaner than it is, but your mother only rolls her eyes and goes right back to staring at her phone.

There are whole marriages in the way adults talk to each other before nine in the morning.

You drift a little farther down the deck, looking out over the bay. The water is calm and silver-blue, so gorgeous that it almost pisses you off because it has the nerve to be fresh and beautiful while every adult in your orbit is spiritually in triage.

And then you see him.

Down on the dock, barefoot in swim trunks and a gray T-shirt, one hand shielding his eyes against the sun as he looks up toward the yacht like he’s trying not to be obvious about it.

Steve.

Your new one pal.

Your new companion.

Your new… best friend.

The second your eyes land on him, something in you lights up so fast and naturally that it almost embarrasses you. Because there he is. There’s your whole goddamn day, standing on the dock like summer itself decided to take shape as a twelve-year-old boy with good hair.

He catches sight of you and lifts one hand in a little wave.

Nothing big or overzealous. Just a small, boyish little hey.

Your stomach does a strange, warm flip.

You wave back so fast it nearly sloshes your orange juice. “Dad,” you call out over your shoulder, already halfway moving for the gangway. “I’m going to—”

“Mm-hm,” your father mumbles from under his arm, not remotely interested in where. “Don’t drown.”

Your mother doesn’t even look up from her phone. “Wear sunscreen.”

You glance back at both of them, a little stunned by how little convincing this is actually taking.

“…cool,” you say.

Neither responds.

Which is how you end up tearing down the dock, not thirty seconds later, with your hair still slightly damp from brushing with a wet round brush earlier and your heart doing cartwheels for reasons it absolutely refuses to explain.

Steve’s already smiling by the time you reach him.

“Wow,” he drawls. “You’re alive.”

“So are you,” you respond breathlessly.

“Barely. My mom looks like somebody exhumed her.”

You clap a hand over your mouth and laugh.

He grins, pleased with himself. “My dad’s in a hammock staring at nothing. Which, to be fair, is kind of his brand.”

You shake your head. “My parents look like casualties of war.”

“Nice.”

“Honestly, it’s kind of awesome.”

“It is,” he agrees. “I’ve been awake since seven and no one’s noticed.”

“That’s because all the adults poisoned themselves yesterday.”

“True.” He glances down at your orange juice. “That from the yacht?”

“Yeah.”

“Can I have some?”

You hand it over. He drinks straight from the bottle without the slightest bit of self-consciousness, or wariness about germs, and hands it back.

Something about that makes your chest flutter.

There’s something so absurdly intimate about this sort of thing at the age of twelve — sharing a drink, not caring. There’s still a kind of innocence to your bodies then. They belong to you in this unremarkable, practical little way that children’s bodies do. Touch is easy. Germs are theoretical. Everything is far simpler because nothing has become loaded yet.

At least not on purpose.

Steve jerks his head toward the stretch of beach beyond the docks. “Wanna go?”

“Obviously.”

And just like that, you do.

That becomes the shape of the whole day, really. 

The easiest fucking thing in the world.

The two of you spend the morning down by the bay where the sand is soft and damp near the waterline and the air still has that early-day cleanliness to it. You leave your Jack Rogers sandals abandoned underneath a deck chair somewhere next to his Sperry’s, then wade in until the water reaches your knees, then your thighs, then your waists.

Steve is exactly what you suspect a dreamy middle-school boy should be: half gentleman, half complete menace.

He holds out a hand when the rocks get slippery. He says ladies first with a little bow that is just obnoxious enough to be funny. He also absolutely dunks you under the second you get comfortable and then acts shocked, absolutely gobsmacked when you come up sputtering and tackle him from the side with all the force your twelve-year-old body can manage.

You snort water from your nose. “You asshole!”

“You were talking too much!”

“I said one thing!”

“You say many things—”

You lunge for him again. Steve yelps and grabs your wrists, the both of you half-laughing and half-fighting in the water while a little wave slaps into your backs and nearly sends you both under again.

Everything about it is so stupid. So completely, gloriously stupid.

That’s why it feels so good.

At twelve, fun is still allowed to be this simple. It doesn’t have to be filmed or documented or aestheticized or explained. There’s no deeper reason for any of it. You’re simply in water with somebody who makes you laugh — so you laugh. He throws a handful of water at your face, so you scream and swear revenge. You both start daring each other into increasingly ridiculous acts of courage — jumping from the old retaining wall into the deeper part of the bay, swimming out a little farther, balancing on the slick rocks like idiots.

Steve never treats you like you’re weaker than him.

But when you start to hesitate on one of the rocks, he turns back and softens immediately.

“You got it,” he says, not coddling, just certain. “C’mon, kid.”

And because he says it like you already can, you do.

That’s the thing Steve keeps doing without seeming to notice it. Handing you your own courage back.

By ten thirty, you’re both starving and windblown and dripping in bay water as you run down the back stairs of the Harringtons’ beach house, which is all white clapboard and huge windows and that aggressively tasteful coastal decor that rich people seem to think all happens naturally if you own enough driftwood.

Inside, the whole place is still under the spell of an adult hangover.

The television is on somewhere downstairs playing a home renovation show to no one. There’s the faint smell of freshly brewed coffee, aspirin powder and expensive shampoo. From one of the bedrooms, you can hear Roz Harrington whining, “Danny, if you’re making eggs, don’t let me smell them or I’ll die.”

A lingers before Danny, from somewhere else in the house, responds.

“I’m not making eggs.”

Another pause.

“Good,” Roz calls weakly. “I’d divorce you.”

Little does she know just how much she will eat those words one day.

Meanwhile, Steve doesn’t even break stride. He just glances at you and flatly mutters, “Romance.”

You nearly choke trying not to laugh too loud.

In the kitchen, you find exactly what children abandoned by hungover adults always find eventually: enough food to survive, none of it coherent.

Steve makes you both toaster waffles. You steal strawberries from the fridge. There’s whipped cream. Somehow there’s always whipped cream in houses like this — as if no one with less than four bathrooms has ever considered dessert before noon.

You sit on the kitchen island in wet swimsuits and oversized towels while Steve butchers the waffles with the side of a butter knife.

“That is not how anyone cuts anything,” you tell him.

“It’s an Eggo, not surgery.”

“It still deserves dignity.”

He glances down at the hacked-up little squares with a pensive expression. “I think it’s too late for dignity.”

You snort. “Fair.”

Steve sprays too much whipped cream on yours, just to be annoying. You retaliate by stealing half his strawberries. He steals the bottle of orange juice again. You call him a thief. He says your legal team will be hearing from his.

The whole scene is so domestic it would be a little haunting if either of you had the life experience yet to know that.

After breakfast, you head back outside.

The day stretches out into something golden and lazy around you, and the best part is that it’s all yours.

Nobody interrupts. Nobody asks what you’re doing or where you’re headed or whether you should be under some kind of supervision. Every adult in either household appears to have silently agreed that as long as the children remain wealthy and vaguely sunlit with working cellulars, they are probably fine.

It should feel sadder than it does.

Because yes, there is a tragedy under it. Two nice houses by the bay full of adults too hungover, too self-involved, too exhausted by themselves to notice their children have vanished into a whole separate world for twelve straight hours.

But loneliness is a strange thing. It doesn’t always announce itself when it ought to. Sometimes it’s fully present and still loses… simply because there’s somebody else with you and that changes the weather of everything.

That’s what Steve is becoming, you realize slowly over the course of the day.

A weather change.

By early afternoon, the two of you are back in the water with boogie boards, inventing idiotic competitions nobody can win with dignity.

“Best cannonball,” Steve declares.

“There’s no best cannonball, there’s just splash.”

“That’s quitter talk.”

“You have quitter talk.”

“I don’t even know what that means.”

“Neither do I! Weeeeee!—”

You both laugh so hard you can barely stand upright long enough to attempt the cannonballs in question. Steve’s is objectively better. You deny this on moral grounds. He performs a little victory lap in waist-high water and then immediately gets nailed in the shoulder by a floating board, which you decide is justice.

Later, you lie on your stomach on the warm dock planks, heads hanging over the edge to watch little fish flicker through the pilings below.

Steve squints into the water. “You think fish know they’re fish?”

You turn to look at him. “What kind of question is that?”

“A valid one.”

You purse your lips, watching the schools of fish move in formation.

“…how would they know?”

He shrugs. “Maybe they have fish thoughts.”

“Yeah,” you nod slowly, still watching the little shapes move in unison under the clear surface of the bay. “Probably stuff like… oh no, people...”

Steve snickers. “Shut up.”

“I’m just saying, if I was a fish, I’d be concerned.”

“About what?”

“You know.” You gesture vaguely at the water. “The crushing inevitability of… fishhood.”

He stares at you for a second, then bursts out laughing so hard that he has to press his forehead to the dock.

You grin to yourself, stupidly pleased.

There it is again — that bright little rush every time he finds you funny.

Eventually you both drift back inside, because the sun has far become less playful and more murderous. Blistering heat now clings to your skin. Your shoulders are rosy. Your nose feels suspiciously tender and warm.

Steve takes one look at you and points. “You’re getting fried.”

You shift. “I am not.”

“You absolutely are.”

“I’m tan.”

“You’re pink.”

“That’s just my undertone.”

He squints. “That’s not a thing.”

“It is a thing.”

“On your face right now? No.”

You swat at him with your beach towel. He dodges and nearly knocks over a decorative shell bowl in the foyer.

“Jesus,” he mutters, catching it just in time. “Your undertone almost broke my mom’s dead sea life centerpiece.”

“You’re gonna get haunted by my ancestors if you keep talking like that,” you shoot back.

He reels. “What ancestors?”

You run laps around him, chanting. “Pocahontas.”

The two of you chant and battle-cry all the way back to your house.

Back at the Waldorfs’ place, the adults are somehow still barely animate.

Your father is asleep in a recliner with a CNBC ticker moving silently under the television like capitalism itself is trying not to wake him. Your mother is in bed with sunglasses on and one hand lying limply across her stomach with a half-watched reality show flickering in front of her while her phone glows in the other hand.

She lifts the glasses just enough to see you in the doorway.

“Oh,” she says faintly. “There’s my baby.”

“Hi, Mum.”

“You’ve gone brown.”

“I’m sunburned.”

She gives a sleepy little wave. “Same family.”

Then she closes her eyes again, already drifting off again.

Steve, beside you in the hall, leans in and whispers, “She’s kind of iconic.”

You smile despite yourself. “Sometimes.”

By late afternoon the adults begin — in terribly slow stages — to resurrect themselves for yet another night out.

Which is how you and Steve end up effectively left alone between the two houses while everybody showers, dresses, swears they are “never drinking again,” then proceed to discuss which yacht they’re starting on first… whilst pre-gaming.

You both freshen up too, because the sun and salt have started drying your skin tight.

After your shower, you pull on a soft T-shirt and little gym shorts, hair damp and tangled around your shoulders. The sunburn on your back announces itself with a low throbbing sting the moment the hot water stops.

You hiss under your breath.

Shit.

When you come out of the bathroom, Steve is in the hall outside your room with clean hair, a faded navy T-shirt, and basketball shorts, somehow looking both younger and cuter for having freshly showered. The whole sun-kissed, scrubbed-clean thing should not be allowed at twelve. It feels like cheating.

He notices your face immediately. “What?”

“My back hurts.”

He frowns. “Sunburn?”

You nod once.

He thinks for half a second. “You got aloe?”

“Probably.”

Turns out you do. It’s inside the big linen closet, and because the universe is occasionally a comedian, that is how you end up sitting cross-legged on the edge of your bed while Steve stands awkwardly behind you with a bottle of aloe vera gel and the concentration level of a boy trying to diffuse a bomb.

“This feels weird,” you mutter.

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”

His brows pinch. “You want me to not do it?”

“No!” you say too fast, then immediately want to throw yourself into the bay. Or out the window. Whatever’s faster. “I just mean—no, it’s fine.”

Steve, blessedly, takes that entirely at face value.

“Okay,” he says. “Then hold still, kid.”

You gather the hem of your shirt in both hands and lift it carefully up to your shoulders, hugging your arms against your chest so he can see the flushed skin of your back while you keep your chest covered.

You suddenly remember your mother’s comment that she made yesterday… about how you don’t have tits yet. 

And that thought alone makes you feel somehow self-conscious…yet weirdly relieved, as you stay awkwardly hunched over and silently grateful that there isn’t much of a chest you have to hide yet.

The room goes very, very quiet.

Not weird quiet. Not exactly.

Just that hyper-aware kind where every little thing suddenly feels huge. The tick of the ceiling fan. The damp ends of your hair touching your neck. The little cold squelch of aloe hitting Steve’s palm.

Then his hand touches your back.

Ice cold.

You gasp. Goosebumps race all over your arms.

“Too cold?” he asks immediately.

“No,” you blurt. “It’s just—sunburn.”

“Right.”

He says it with such simple concern that you almost laugh from relief.

Because yes, that is actually the truth. It is the cold. It is the sting. It is the weird sensitivity of too much sun and skin that feels newly alive.

It is also, unfortunately, Steve.

His hands are careful. More careful than they need to be, probably, but he doesn’t know that. He smooths the aloe over your shoulders and down the burn with the kind of solemn concentration he seems to reserve for helping. Your whole back goes cool and tingling under his palms.

You stare fixedly at your own knees and try not to combust.

Behind you, Steve is thinking in his own twelve-year-old way that girls are maybe a little more complicated than boys in certain unfortunate logistical moments, but also that this isn’t actually weird. It’s just… helping. 

She’s sunburned. I’m helping. That is the whole thing.

Still, he notices the fine line of your spine. The way your wet hair sticks in strands to the side of your neck. The goosebumps that keep rising under his hands and then smoothing away.

“You okay?” he asks quietly.

“Mm-hm.”

“…you’re really red.”

You want to die. “My back is red.”

“Your face too.”

“It’s the sun!”

“Right,” he says, entirely sincere. And when he’s done, he re-caps the bottle and steps back. “There.”

You let your shirt fall back down and turn around slowly. “Thanks.”

He shrugs in that boyish little way of his. “No problem.” Then his big brown eyes land on the stack of video game cases on your shelf and his whole face changes. “Whoa.”

You glance over. “What?”

“You have Mario Kart.”

“Yeah.”

“And Smash?”

“Yeah.”

“And—hold on, is that Tony Hawk?”

You grin.

Turns out, it’s deeply satisfying to surprise a boy.

“What?” you ask, smugly. “You think I just read horse books and braid ribbon into my hair?”

Steve looks over his shoulder at you, his eyebrows practically in his hairline. “Maybe a little.”

“That’s rude,” you say mock-primly.

“It’s not rude, it’s—” He gestures helplessly at you. “You wear those little girly headbands.”

“…that means nothing.”

“It means a lot, actually.”

You climb onto the floor beside him and start stacking games. “You’re saying girls with accessories can’t kick your ass at Nintendo?”

“I’m saying I’m excited to find out.”

You do, in fact, kick his ass at Mario Kart.

Not every round. Just enough to be satisfying.

He’s louder inside than he is outside, you realize. That’s one of the funniest things about him. Around the adults, he can look almost bored into another dimension. But when it’s just the two of you on the floor of your room with controllers in your hands and wet hair drying at your necks, Steve becomes this whole different creature — animated, dramatic, funny as hell.

“No, that is complete bullshit,” he exclaims when you pass him on Rainbow Road. “That’s cheating.”

“How?!” you giggle.

“I don’t know, but you are.”

“You sound like a sore loser.”

“I’m not a sore loser, I’m peeved.”

You hum once, satisfied. “You’re a deeply sore loser who keeps falling for my mystery boxes and tripping on his own bananas.”

He slowly turns, pointing at you with his controller. “You’re getting cocky.”

“Maybe because I’m winning.”

He groans and flops backward onto the rug. “I hate girls.”

You bark out a laugh. “You literally don’t.”

“True,” he admits to the ceiling. “I think girls are great. This is awful.”

You chuckle, ignoring the nausea in your stomach as you wonder if he might have a crush on another girl at school somewhere. Someone who isn’t you.

By the time you both get hungry, the adults are fully restyled and pre-gaming for their next round of social self-destruction. Your parents are heading back to the club with the Harringtons for another night “among friends” — which in rich-people language, often means proximity to other damaged people with expensive shoes.

“You two can order whatever you like,” your dad calls out from the doorway, already checking his watch.

“Go crazy,” your mother adds, fastening an earring.

Steve’s parents are on speaker from the hall, with Roz insisting that the two of you are “sweet lil’ angels” and Danny asking if you both have your phones charged.

Steve lifts his out of his pocket. “Yeah.”

Your father nods. “Keep them on. Answer if we call.”

“We will,” you say.

And then they’re gone.

And it’s strange how little fanfare abandonment can have when dressed well enough.

The front door shuts. The house goes quiet.

You and Steve stand in the middle of the kitchen for a second looking at each other.

Then, simultaneously:

“Pizza?”

“Pizza?”

He laughs. “Okay, what toppings do you like?—no wait, lemme guess.” His expression turns cartoonishly impish. “You like… anchovies.”

Your eyes light up. “Yes.”

He recoils in horror. “I was kidding.”

“I’m not!”

“That is disgusting.”

“Pfft,” you roll your eyes. “You’re a wimp.”

“Those are fish.”

“They’re delicious.”

“They smell like if the ocean died and got salty about it.”

You snort. “That was good.”

“Thank you.”

When the pizza arrives, you order one half anchovies, half plain cheese, and Steve watches the box open like someone being shown a crime scene.

“That’s vile.”

“Try it.”

“No.”

“Try it!”

He squints at you. “You just wanna see me suffer.”

“Correct.”

Steve stares down at the little silvery strips on your half of the pizza like they have insulted his family. But then, because he cannot seem to help himself when you’re looking at him like that, he pinches off one… and drops it onto a bite of his own.

He chews.

His whole face goes through six emotions.

You’re already laughing before he swallows.

“Well?” you demand gleefully.

He helps up a fingers, then points at you accusingly. “It’s so friggin’ salty.”

“But?”

“But…” He takes another bite, smaller this time. “It’s not as bad as it…should be.”

You beam. “See?”

“That doesn’t mean you’re right.”

“It absolutely does.”

He shakes his head and reaches for another piece anyway.

This somehow devolves into a debate over what the worst possible pizza topping might be, which turns into Steve dumping M&M’s onto one slice with all the confidence of a deeply unserious little psychopath.

You stare at it in stunned silence.

He grins around the next mouthful. “What?”

“That is revolting.”

“Coward.”

You narrow your eyes… then reach for your Gushers and upend half the bag onto your own slice before diving in, staring him down without blinking.

Steve goes dead still.

Then he starts laughing so hard he has to brace one hand on the counter.

“Oh my God,” he wheezes. “You actually did it.”

“You started this.”

“You’re insane.”

You both proceed to eat your cursed little dessert pizzas anyway, because twelve-year-olds are nature’s bravest and most disgusting experimental little chefs. The Gushers burst hot and weird in your mouth against the anchovies. The M&M’s on Steve’s slice get sort of melty and upsetting.

“This is horrible,” he mumbles through a laugh.

“This is art.”

“This is child endangerment.”

Suddenly you gasp. “Wait. Have you seen that Mary-Kate and Ashley video? The one with the pizza making?”

Steve blinks a few times, but then slowly begins to grin. “It’s got that song…”

You point enthusiastically, eyes shining with excitement as you shout out the lyrics. “PUT IT IN THE PIZZAAAAAA!”

He cackles and echoes it back, which then turns into both of you looking it up on YouTube and snickering over it too hard.

There are empty pizza boxes all over the floor by the time you move back to your room with a DVD stack and sodas and the kind of silly exhaustion that only comes from an entire day spent fully alive.

You text each other from two feet away at one point just because you can.

Steve: ur room is cool You: you are literally in it Steve: yeah but now its in writing

You grin so hard your face hurts.

“Promise we’ll still write letters?” you ask after a while, more serious. “While I’m at school, I mean.”

Steve looks over from where he’s half-reclined against your bed. “Even if we text?”

“Yeah. We’re not allowed our phones all the time at school.”

He nods immediately. “Then yeah. Both.”

Your eyes shine. “Both?”

“Texts and letters.” He picks at the edge of the blanket under his hand. “That way if you can’t answer one, I can still do the other.”

Something in your chest goes soft.

“Okay,” you say shyly.

Steve smirks, pointing. “Digital pen pals and pen-pen pals.”

You giggle, suddenly very grateful that you’re sunburned — which helps your flushed cheeks not give you away.

The storm starts late.

Not dramatic at first. Just a low roll of thunder somewhere out over the bay while a movie plays too quietly in the background and both of you are too tired to really follow the plot anymore.

The room has gone dim. The pizza boxes sit collapsed and greasy on the floor. There’s a controller under your bed, an open soda gone flat on the nightstand, and two pillows dragged down onto the rug… because at some point sitting turned into sprawling, and sprawling turned into not bothering to get back up.

You fall asleep like that.

Not intentionally. Just because you are twelve and spent and happy in a way that makes sleep feel less like something you choose and more like being gently knocked over by life.

Steve falls asleep, too. And when he wakes, the room is dark except for the little lamp by your desk and the flicker of lightning outside the window.

He lies still for a second, confused.

Then he remembers where he is.

The movie menu screen is looping soundlessly on the TV. Rain taps softly at the glass now, the thunderstorm finally close enough to matter. Somewhere downstairs the house settles with a wooden sigh.

Then he glances over.

You’re curled up on the floor a few feet away — cheek pressed to one of the pillows, one hand tucked under it. Your hair’s gone half-wild all over again in slumber. Your lips are parted just slightly. In the low light you look… younger somehow. Softer. Small in that way children only get to be when no one is asking anything of them.

Steve blinks at you, feeling something warm and strange pass through him.

Not huge. Not terrifying. Not anything he could name even if he tried.

Just fondness, maybe…? Pure and uncomplicated and so immediate it feels almost like hunger.

He pushes himself up quietly and looks around until he finds one of the throw blankets folded over the chair by your fully stacked bookshelf. He shakes it out and drapes it carefully over you, trying not to wake you.

You only nuzzle deeper into the pillow.

His mouth twitches into the softest smile.

Then he fishes his phone out of his pocket and squints at the screen.

1:07 AM.

There’s already one text from his dad in their family group chat.

Dad: you good?

Steve thumbs back quickly.

Steve: yeah im at hers. storm got bad. Steve: gonna crash here if thats ok

He waits.

A few seconds later, the typing bubble appears.

Dad: okay Dad: lock the back door if its not already Dad: love you

Steve stares at the screen for a second.

Then types:

Steve: ok Steve: love you too

No response after that. Just the silence of a conversation that doesn’t need to keep proving itself.

He sets the phone down and looks back at the rain.

The weird thing about childhood is how often it feels enormous while you’re in it and tiny once it’s gone. A storm at one in the morning. Falling asleep on the floor. Pizza boxes and movie main menus and a pretty girl from boarding school curled under a throw blanket in the next patch of light over. The kind of night adults would later reduce to nothing with a hand wave and endearing terms like ‘harmless,’ and ‘cute,’ and ‘awh, kids…’

Harmless. Cute. Kids.

And maybe they would be right.

But right now, to Steve, it feels like one of those little moments his life has no business keeping so carefully… and still somehow will.

He finds another blanket for himself and lowers back down onto the floor… beside you. Not too close, just close enough. Outside, lightning flickers pale at the edge of the curtains. Rain keeps time against the glass.

This is the most unusual little sleepover he’s ever had.

And also? The nicest.

He’s used to sleepovers with boys, Nerf gun wars, prank calls and gross boy movies or rowdy shouting over video games and scattered chicken nuggets. Not impromptu sleepovers with sweet boarding school girls he meets while on summer vacation…  

That thought comes with another one close behind it, darker and heavier.

Tomorrow, you go home.

Tomorrow this whole strange, bright pocket of summer closes up.

Tomorrow you will still have phones and letters and all the ways that people promise not to disappear from each other… but tomorrow, you also won’t just be right here. Not in the next room. Not laughing in the water. Not letting him steal your orange juice. Not making him eat fucking anchovies and somehow winning the war against his picky tastebuds.

The sadness of it arrives so quietly it almost catches him off guard.

Steve turns onto his side and looks toward the window instead.

Twelve-year-old boys do not have language yet for a lot of the things that happen inside them. They know the feeling before they know the word. They know the ache before they know the cost. They know enough to close their eyes and breathe through it and hope morning doesn’t come too fast.

On the floor across from him, you sleep on… warm under your blanket, one hand curled near your face, breathing softly and steadily.

Steve watches the rain for another minute.

Then he closes his eyes too and tries not to think about tomorrow.

🩵

END OF CHAPTER

Written by Misha St. James 🤍

November 3rd, 1987.

The rush of blood pounds against your ears, deafening the silence in your head. With every uneven breath, your heartbeat steadies itself. Inside your lungs resides the cold sting of the air, reminding your body of the hill still ahead of you. 

You stare at it, hunched over your knees as you struggle to return the much needed air into your lungs. The steep hill of a road has long since been worn down due to use. Its concrete cracked and freckled with debris. Your mother once told you it was the oldest road in Hawkins. The unimportant fact was once the only thing you knew about the road. 

Then one November night Will rode his bike down this very hill, before disappearing, changing everything you once knew. 

You stare at the stretch of road before you. Every morning you run the same path over and over again. Around Lover’s Lake, through the woods, past the Byers’ old home, before finally coming to the hill. Its steep surface always taunts you. 

It knows the reason why you run. It’s embedded with the remnants of the nightmares from the night before. 

Running has become all you have left to burn off the exhaustion that follows. 

Your legs scream at you to rest. The lactic acid within them burns, but you’ve grown used to the sensation. Struggling to catch your breath, your fingers dig into your knees and your head falls. The lack of sleep snaps every muscle in your body. 

Yet you force your legs to push off the concrete, running as hard as you physically can. You have to finish the hill. You have to keep running. It’s the only thing that drives out the screaming within your head. 

“Y/N!”

Your mother’s voice causes you to trip. The landing isn’t graceful by any means. You scrape your knees, cutting the inside of your palms and fingertips.

“Oh, sorry, sweetie!” Your mother shouts from the car, parking herself next to you. You hadn’t even heard her driving so closely to you. “Though, I do feel that I need to remind you that this is exactly why I hate you running in the road. There are plenty of perfectly good sidewalks all around Hawkins.”

“Thanks for the concern, mom,” you mumble, slowly wiping your hands off on your leggings as you evaluate whether or not you can stand. The blood that spills from your knees makes you wince. They’ll be a bitch to heal. Sighing, you look up at your mother, “What do you need?”

She sticks her head out of her window even further, doing her best to make eye contact with you from the awkward angle. She flashes you an apologetic smile that you don’t trust. “Well, my sweet girl, I need your help.”

Immediately you know what she wants you to do. “No.”

Your mother pinches her cheeks. “Y/N, dear, I really need to get to work and I’ve already tried–”

“I’m not waking him up.”

“He’s your brother.”

“And he’s your son.”

“Y/N,” your mother’s usually patient and sweet voice turns fatigued. “Please.”

Sympathy floods through you. You know she’s had yet another unpleasant morning trying to wake your brother up for school. Dropping your head, you stare down at the ground. “Fine.”

“Thank you, sweetie.” Relief floods your mother’s voice. She then puts on her sunglasses, fixes her hair, and honks a friendly goodbye as she leaves. Before rolling up her window she shouts, “and please don’t get hit by any cars! Have a great day!”

Claudia Henderson speeds away in her car, leaving you to deal with Dustin all on your own. 

As usual.

The walk back down the hill serves as a small grace period before the inevitable storm. You dread what will come when you walk through your front door and into Dustin’s room. 

You used to love waking him up for school. You’d have pancakes ready for him on the table by the time he finished getting dressed. 

Now you stand before Dustin’s bedroom door, hesitant to even breathe too deeply in case he hears you. 

Fist hovering over the door, you brace yourself for impact. You knock gently the first few times, hoping the tenderness of the knocks will convince Dustin to finally let you in. “Dustin, you awake in there?”

But all that can be heard on the other side is silence. 

You’ve come to expect Dustin’s silence. 

Frustrated, with little patience left for the silence, you straighten your shoulders and start pounding on the door. Your fists turn red at the harshness, but you don’t care. The sting in your knuckles gets lost in the insistence that maybe today Dustin will open the door for you. You don’t care whether he gives in due to annoyance or to something else. 

All you want is for your brother to let you in again. 

“C’mon, Dustin,” you call through the door, voice edging on irritation. “It’s time to get up. You know mom doesn’t want you missing any more school.”

No response. 

Your palm slams against the door. “Dustin!”

Yet it all amounts to nothing.

Exhausted from more than just your run, you press your head against the door and softly say, “I love you, you know.”

Silence echoes back at you.

Forcing down the tears that threaten to spill over, you close your eyes. “I’ll wait as long as you need me to for you to come back.”

It’s what you did for me.

Though it goes unspoken, you know that Dustin hears it. 

“Come back, please.” Your fingers trace the ridges in the wood of the door. Faint, worn initials are carved into it, down near the hinges: D.H. He used to be such a lively, excited kid. 

Grief took him away. 

“I miss you.” You exhale softly, before pressing one final kiss against the door that your brother refuses to open. Swallowing down the grief, you know that you’ve done all you can. At least for now. “Have a good day at school, Dust.”

From the kitchen rings the telephone. You glance at the watch on your wrist, though you already know the time. Steve always calls just before he leaves his house to come pick you up. An old, familiar routine. 

Though your fingers linger on Dustin’s door. Steve will be expecting you to answer any second, but you can’t bear to leave your brother just yet. But his room remains silent and you know that it’s useless pulling a response from him. 

“Hi, angel.”

Steve’s voice is honey. It soothes the wounds in your skin, grazing over the cuts on your knees and the scrapes on your hands. Honey. An old remedy for childhood aches. 

“Hi, honey.” Your finger twirls around the phone’s cord. Another familiar routine. 

“You guys all set for me to be at yours in fifteen?”

You look at Dustin’s door one last time, biting your lip. It remains silent. Dustin won’t be ready in time for Steve to drive him to school. “It’ll just be me, actually.”

“Oh. Interesting.” Steve clicks his tongue. “That’s the sixth time in two weeks, angel.”

“Yeah.” Your eyes close. “Thanks for the reminder.”

Steve winces. “Sorry, I know it’s been hard–”

“I should get ready.” You interrupt your boyfriend, though not unkindly. The conversation just makes you miserable and you still need to shower. “I’ll see you soon. I love you.”

“I love you, too.” Steve mumbles softly. There’s more he wants to say, but he knows that now just isn’t the time. 

The line disconnects. You don’t have any time to ruminate over the morning’s events as you quickly get ready. You’d hate to keep Steve waiting. Not when your skin buzzes at the idea of being near to him after a night apart. 

True to his word, Steve arrives in your driveway soon after. He beams at you through the windshield, winking playfully as he parks the car and gets out, eager to open the passenger door for you because he knows it makes you laugh. 

But as you giggle over how ridiculous Steve looks, sprinting over before you can beat him to the car’s door, movement behind the front porch catches your eye. You stop, squinting to figure out what lies behind the brustle, only to catch Dustin trying, and failing, to sneak off on his bike before either you or Steve spot him. 

At first you’re stunned, and relieved, he’s even awake and heading to school.

Then you see that he’s wearing Eddie’s old Hellfire Club shirt and immediately you’re pissed off that your brother could be so stupid and infuriating.

Dustin Henderson’s specialty. 

“Dustin!” You shout after him. You must not mask your anger very well given the fact that the kid nearly topples over on his bike. Worried you’ll only upset him further, you quickly run after him. “Wait, no. I’m not angry, I-I just wanted you to hitch a ride with me and Steve!”

“Fat chance.” Dustin shouts over his shoulder, already beginning to pedal away. “No way in hell I’m third wheeling with you and Harrington for the millionth time.”

“But–”

“Bye, Y/N.” And then Dustin is gone. 

You stand in the driveway, watching him disappear down the hill. At least he’s going towards the high school rather than away. 

How depressing it must be that your once prodigious brother now having a dwindling attendance record makes you grateful. 

“Is your brother seriously wearing that Hellfire shirt?” Steve scoffs next to you, squinting at the sun.

“It’s been a rough morning.”

“Aren’t they always rough?”

You pinch the bridge of your nose, harshly squeezing your eyes shut as if that will somehow dim the sun and diminish your growing resentment. “Not now, Steve.”

“Listen, all I’m saying is–”

“Get in the car before I leave you.”

“What?” Steve whips around to face you, baffled. “I’m the one who drove here, how could you even–”

“You have five more seconds to get in the car before you find out exactly how I’ll leave you behind.”

He drops his head, slowly walking back to the car, though not without mumbling under his breath, “have fun opening your own car door.”

You smile. “I heard you.”

“Didn’t intend for you not to.”

“Start the car, smartass.”

“Yes, dear.”

– 

When you first heard of New York University, you’d been twelve. Jonathan had tugged you through the woods, swatting away bugs before they could get to you. It had been the early stages of your first summer in Hawkins.

He dragged you through the thick leaves and tall grass and brought you to a giant field that slowly ascended into a hilltop. Embedded in its weeds were beautiful yellow dandelions and their white seeds. 

Jonathan, long past his shyness around you, tackled you to the ground and laughed over your surprised squeals. He had made sure that your head would land on hand, safe, soft. He’s always been soft with you. 

It was that day that Jonathan confessed to you that he’d always wanted to attend NYU. Showcase his photography, something he picked up earlier that winter. He asked whether you’d thought about college yet, where you wanted to go. 

Truthfully, you hadn’t ever thought about your future. 

But then Jonathan had smiled at you, plucking a dandelion seed out of your hair as he did so, and you knew then that you’d never be able to leave him. His dream became yours, though in the end it was only yours to have.

Until Hawkins fell under quarantine and any chance of escaping its nightmares became a dream in itself. 

You would’ve been a sophomore at NYU by now, had you stopped Vecna.

Except you didn’t. 

Instead, Max lies in a coma while you sit in a formerly abandoned radio station amongst everyone else suffering the consequences of that bastard’s victory. 

“Count me in, pretty girl.” Robin’s gentle voice breaks you out of your spell. She looks at you expectantly, though with a fondness that makes you ache. 

You’d gotten lost in your own thoughts. Again. 

“Right, sorry.” You clear your throat, ignoring Steve’s concerned eyes as you straighten in your seat. Fingers hovering over the radio’s control panel, you adjust your headphones and give Robin a thumbs up. “You’re live in three… two…”

You mouth the final number before pointing both fingers at Robin, her designated signal that the show has begun, and she smiles wide. 

“Good morning, Hawkins!” She greets enthusiastically. “This is WSQK The Squawk.”

Quickly you flash a notebook page at Steve, which simply has the words chicken! now! scrawled on it. He salutes you and rushes to punch the poor rubber chicken wired to a mic. It’s a job he takes very seriously. 

When Robin first started her show, she was in charge of both directing Steve’s sound cues and hosting. A daunting task, but she managed to make it work. 

Then Steve accidentally cued up an applause track for someone’s funeral announcement rather than the mournful piano Robin had originally wanted. 

After that she dropped the cue job onto you, all but forcing you to join the production. While you protested and tried to get out of it, secretly you were relieved to have something to do in the mornings to distract yourself. 

It also helps that the sound booth is so small that you have to practically sit in Steve’s lap in between cues and that he always kisses the base of your neck in an attempt to get you to break out into giggles that the entire town will hear.

Robin hates it.

It’s her fault for forcing you into the job. 

“It’s my 500th broadcast,” Robin spins around in her chair after having made her usual announcements regarding the weather and cues up a celebratory song while you motion to Steve for applause. “Yeah, you heard that right, folks. Five-double-O!”

The cheesy audience applause plays over the broadcast and you can’t help but laugh. Who knew Robin Buckley would one day terrorize the town with 500 days worth of broadcasts in the midst of a military coup? 

Robin goes into the monologue she’s been writing all week full of not so subtle jabs at all Hawkins has been through this year and the unrealistic regulations you’ve been forced to endure since then. 

“And now, I’m stuck here with you, my fellow quarantine compatriots.” Robin says, snickering when you salute at her like the diligent soldier Hawkins expects you to be. “And, if I can be brutally honest, I couldn’t be happier. Because when you really think about it, why would you want to live anywhere else?”

You cue to Steve for a booing crowd, but Robin sees and reaches over to tear the page out.

Absolutely not, she mouths at you, eyebrows furrowed. 

Lame, you mouth back. 

Steve watches the interaction in amusement, deciding to resolve the issue with a sliding whistle he found the other day. Its unexpectedly pathetic sound distracts you long enough for Robin to continue her spiel.

The traitor took her side. 

With a sigh, you walk over to Steve and help him find the rest of the tracks needed for the broadcast. The two of you work fluidly together, always anticipating the other’s needs and moving just where needed. He hands you a freshly brewed cup of coffee after a sickly cough tape plays and you couldn’t be more grateful for him as the liquid warms your ever cold hands. 

You’re quiet for the rest of Robin’s broadcast, content simply handing Steve the necessary tapes and ordering him around via cues. 

“And go on that date! Which, by the way, is exactly what yours truly is doing tonight.”

A loud, shocked gasp slips from your lips before you can stop it. Embarrassed, you clamp your hands over your mouth and pray that it escaped Robin’s notice. 

You should know better by now. 

Hearing your shock, Robin spins in her chair and grabs her chest, feigning pain. “Did you hear that cute little gasp, folks? It seems that Hawkins’ sweetheart is surprised that I have my own sweetheart. Or, maybe…” she leans in close to you now, wiggling her eyebrows at your horror of being publicly denounced, “she’s just jealous that she isn’t the only person in town who gets serenaded via broadcast.”

Steve just barely suppresses his laughter with a cough, which only mortifies you more. Pinching his side, you harshly whisper at Robin, “I’m not jealous! I just didn’t think you’d announce your relationship so openly!”

“Regardless,” Robin ignores your frantic explanation and cues up her next song. “This one’s for you, babe.”

Some new song plays, but you don’t hear it over your struggle against Steve’s hands around your waist preventing you from jumping over the tape player and tugging Robin’s headphones off in retaliation.

“Let go of me!” You whisper as loud as you dare, trying to twist out of Steve’s grasp.

“Not worth it, angel,” he sighs into your ear. “I’ll help you sneak coffee grounds into her shoes after this but–”

Suddenly the broadcast begins cutting in and out. Static leaks into the audio as you and Steve look at each other in alarm. Then, at the same time, you both run to the control panel, hitting every button you can think of in a vain attempt to fix whatever has gone wrong. 

Probably not the most efficient method, but the two of you have never been the best under pressure together. 

“What the hell?” Robin shouts, watching you and Steve running around like headless chickens. “What did you guys do?”

“Nothing!” You both exclaim in unison, just before the broadcast completely shuts off. 

“Oh,” you wince. “That can’t be good.”

Robin tears off her headphones. “Shit!”

She runs out of the sound booth with you and Steve close behind. Irritation and disappointment radiates off of her skin while remorse coats yours. You can’t imagine how excited Robin had been to play her song for Vickie. 

“I told you to stop thumbing your nose at the military.” Steve berates as Robin scours the station for any sign of technical issues that can quickly be resolved. 

“You really think the military did this?” You ask, scrunching your nose. “I mean, Robin wasn’t as snarky as she could’ve been. I thought it was relatively tame.”

“Thank you, pretty girl.” Robin slams her hand against one of the station’s panels. “Seriously, I was just reiterating their goddamn rules, encouraging compliance!”

Steve sighs. “Right. No sarcasm there.”

“Says the dingus with the rubber chicken.”

“These are very serious people, Robin.”

“They’re morons, not ‘serious people’.” You scoff, but when you see the panic growing in Robin’s eyes, you tuck your hair behind your ears and exhale slowly. There’s only one person you know who’ll be of any use. “Listen, I’ll radio Dustin and see what he thinks.”

Robin doesn’t acknowledge what you’ve said, focused on turning some random dial she’s found over and over again without any luck. 

It’s Steve who hears you, and he’s the one who grabs the walkie before you can. 

“You sure you want to call the kid right now?” He asks you, holding the device over your head. “I mean, no offense, but do you really think he’ll answer after the psychological warfare I witnessed this morning?”

“He’s my brother,” the excuse has become an old friend on your tongue. You’ve repeated it every day, every time, for months now. “We have to at least try before Robin loses her mind.”

Steve wants to argue further, but Robin’s voice starts to raise and you both know she’s five seconds away from a breakdown. Reluctant, he grabs the nearest walkie and extends its antenna. “Henderson, you copy?”

You hold your breath at the silence that follows. Steve looks at you, shaking his head slightly when still no response comes. Growing anxious at the silence, you grab the walkie from him. “Dustin? Can you hear me?”

“Yeah, I hear you.” He sounds tired, edging on the annoyance you’ve become familiar with.

Yet hearing Dustin’s voice, regardless of the displeasure that intertwines within his cadence that stings your skin, causes you to exhale in relief.

“Hey, buddy. Listen, we’re having some trouble with the tower.”

“Took you long enough.” Steve snatches the walkie from you, frustration cutting through the room. 

“God, you sound swell.” You can practically hear Dustin rolling his eyes at Steve’s impatience. Something you find yourself doing as well. “Let me take a wild guess, you and my sister aren’t calling to wish me a good morning.”

“You’re the one who refused to ride with us,” you snatch the walkie back from Steve, now annoyed with both of the boys. “And I know you heard me standing outside your door this morning.”

“Are you seriously calling just to berate me? Jesus, can’t you just–”

Steve cuts in before Dustin ever growing resentment spikes. “Alright, we really don’t have time for this seeing as how we’ve got a situation down here at the Squawk. The signal’s gone all wonky.”

“I was getting there,” you say through gritted teeth, glaring at your boyfriend. He takes a cautious step back. A wise choice. Exhaling the last of your frustration, you continue. “But Steve’s right. We think Robin finally pissed off the higher ups.”

“Doubtful. She was encouraging compliance.” 

“Told you!” Robin shouts, which Steve waves an annoyed hand at. 

Biting back a smile, you press for more. “That’s what I figured, but the broadcast suddenly went out and we can’t get the signal back. Any ideas?”

“Check the remote radio head.” Dustin suggests. Faintly you can hear a mixture of voices behind him. He must’ve just arrived at the school. 

Steve crosses his arms. “What the hell is a radio head?”

“Remote radio head,” your brother sighs tiredly. “Just read the manual, guys.”

To be completely honest, you had no idea that the radio tower came with an instruction manual. 

“Sure, we could read it, but…” You pause, trying to find the right words. “You know I’m pretty horrible with AV stuff. Maybe you could walk us through the more complicated parts? Help us with the terminology?”

Selfishly, you just want to hear your brother’s voice for a little while longer. Even if all he does is give curt, short responses. 

You miss him. 

“Find a dictionary and learn the terminology yourself.” Dustin huffs into the walkie. You flinch at the tone. “I can’t always be there to solve your problems for you, Y/N.”

Steve bristles next to you.

You try to still the slight tremor of your hands. 

Despite how many times Dustin has rejected you, you don’t think you’ll ever get used to how deeply the sting cuts into your pulse. 

“But what if I always want you to be there?” You hate how small your voice sounds. How, even with how hard you try for it not to, the waver in your vocal chords reveals the hurt. 

A beat of silence passes. Dustin doesn’t say anything. 

Instead the walkie shuts off. 

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Steve runs an angry hand through his hair. “Does he seriously have to ignore you every time you try to reach out to him?”

He throws the walkie onto the couch and paces the room. “It’s his tone. It’s always his goddamn tone!” 

Robin turns to you, eyes weary as Steve continues to pace around the room and mumble angrily to himself. She silently asks what you want to do, but you just shake your head. 

You’re familiar with Steve’s anger directed towards your brother.

You despise it. 

“I don’t know how you aren’t sick of it by now, Y/N.” Steve laughs humorlessly. “I sure as hell am.”

And there it is. The insistence that you be in the middle of Steve and Dustin constantly arguing. As if you aren’t already dangerously close to losing your little brother in his grief. As if you want to constantly be begging for Steve’s understanding and Dustin’s vulnerability. 

But as Steve tugs at his hair and continues to talk a mile a minute about how much your brother pisses him off, you just choose to bite your tongue. Like you always seem to do these days. 

“We should look for the manual.” You say instead, needing something to distract yourself with.

Steve’s footsteps falter, having not expected you to move on from Dustin’s dismissal so quickly, but Robin seems to sense what he can’t and nods eagerly. “I couldn’t agree more!”

Before Steve can say anything else, Robin takes your arm and drags you away from him, the two of you giggling at Steve’s almost immediate protests.

It’s enough to distract you. If even for a little while.

– 

Finding the instruction manual turns out to be a shockingly difficult task. 

With how large the radio station’s infrastructure is, trying to find some ancient document is like trying to find a needle in the haystack. 

“I swear to God this stupid thing does not exist.” Robin slams yet another filing cabinet closed. Seems her search through the office hadn’t gone well. 

“It fucking better exist.” You roll your shoulders in an attempt to lessen the tension within your spine from crouching over a rack of files. “This really isn’t a pleasant experience.”

Jonathan snorts next to you. He’d shown up alongside Nancy just as you, Steve, and Robin started scouring the tower for the alleged manual. While Nancy chose to search through the bookshelf, Jonathan announced that he would search alongside you.

Something that Steve narrows his eyes at. 

You choose to pretend that you don’t notice. 

“Can you try Dustin again, bug?” Jonathan asks after rifling through the fifth file without any luck. 

“He turned off his walkie!” Robin answers for you, rushing over to search through yet another pile of boxes. 

“What’s been up with him lately?” Your head falls against the wall at Nancy’s question. Hearing your defeat, she hums to herself. “Noted.”

Eventually Nancy manages to find the manual, which ends up being a giant binder held together with a rather concerning amount of paperclips and tape. She holds it up gleefully and beckons everyone over to a table, dropping the thing down. 

You all crowd around Nancy as she quickly flips through the pages, searching for anything that even remotely resembles what Dustin had been talking about. 

“Wait, there it is,” Steve reaches over to point at a figure, inadvertently placing the majority of his body against Nancy’s as their hands graze. She tenses at the touch. “There it is. Remote radio head.”

It takes Nancy a second to respond. You watch as she swallows nervously, obviously uncomfortable with how close Steve has become. A thick, dark cloud of uncertain tension ebbs off them, and an unpleasant taste sours your mouth. 

The taste only bitters more when you notice the way Jonathan’s disdainful eyes linger on Steve. 

He knows just as well as you do why Nancy shifts away from your boyfriend. While you trust Steve more than anything, Jonathan doesn’t. 

The small, innocent touch will be yet another rift between Nancy and Jonathan. It will become yet another thing you have to pretend you don’t notice. Something you can’t talk about. Not with anyone. 

Steve hasn’t quite forgiven Jonathan for the phone call. 

Do you ever wonder if we’ve made a mistake?

And Jonathan hasn’t quite forgiven Steve for falling in love with you. 

I’ll always love you the most, bug.

Lost in your thoughts, you miss Robin asking how to find the remote radio head and Nancy’s terrifying, yet genius mind coming up with the solution: the radio tower itself. 

– 

Immediately you hate the plan. 

You’ve never stepped foot anywhere close to the radio tower due to its unnatural size and the unease it brings you. 

As you stand before the tower alongside the others, squinting against the harsh sunlight and height, you’re reminded yet again of how much you loathe the ideas Nancy comes up with. 

“It’s up there somewhere,” she says, squinting at the sun as well. “It’s gotta be.”

“Are we going based on fact or a hunch?” You ask. “Because as much as I adore you, I’m getting nauseous just looking at this thing.”

Robin pokes your side. “Scared of heights, pretty girl?”

“As if you would climb up there.”

“Oh, absolutely not.” Robin laughs, looking around at everyone else. “But, that does beg the question of who will climb to the tippy top of this bad boy.”

Nancy studies the tower, unsure. “Without a harness or anything, it does seem kind of dangerous.”

You choke back a scoff. “Kind of dangerous? C’mon, Wheeler. It’s a death trap.”

“Sounds like a job for me.”

Immediately you grab the back of Steve’s jacket and yank him to your side. “I’ll kill you.”

“Sounds pretty death trap-y to me.” He smirks at you, grabbing the hand that holds him back to kiss the inside of your wrist. He caresses the skin tenderly, amused by your reaction. “Relax, angel.”

In all honesty, he doesn’t actually want to climb the tower. Steve only volunteered because he thinks you’re adorable when you fret over him. He’s about to say as much when Jonathan suddenly steps forward and puffs his chest. 

“I actually think this might be a better job for me.”

What little rationality that Steve has quickly gets forgotten when Jonathan opens his mouth. 

“I got this Byers,” Steve throws his jacket off and slams it against the other’s chest. A small rush of satisfaction courses through him when Jonathan grimaces at the force. “Don’t sweat it.”

“Steve Harrington.” His name barrels through your gritted teeth. You know that he’s only trying to show off for you. “Don’t you dare.”

Hearing the finality in your voice is almost enough to get Steve to back down. But then Jonathan starts taking his jacket off as well and walks towards the tower and Steve really does wish he knew how to not make stupid decisions based around his pride. 

“I’ll be fine, angel.” He calls over his shoulder, unable to turn fully to look at you in fear that your beauty will break him. “Don’t worry.”

“Don’t forget about the voltage, dingus.” Robin shouts at him. “Unless you want to fry.”

Embarrassment washes over Steve. He can feel your eyes burning into his back and how eagerly you want to scream “I told you so”. 

He’s in way too deep now to back down.

“Yeah, I know.” Steve directs his path towards the tower’s electricity shed, pretending it had been his plan the entire time. “I’m not an idiot.” 

“You sure?” You call out, annoyance clear in your voice. 

Steve ducks his head and continues walking. He knows it’s best not to keep engaging with you. You’re already pissed off at him as it is. 

Finding the necessary dial to shut off the tower’s power surge, he turns it all the way to the left until the faint electric hum shuts off. One step down. Pleased with himself, Steve exits the shed and is about to brag before he sees Jonathan dangling off the tower’s ladder like a fucking idiot. 

“What the hell are you doing?”

“I got this, dude.” Jonathan’s smug face pisses Steve off even more. “Don’t sweat it.”

And the race is on. 

Steve runs towards the tower’s ladder and throws himself up, climbing as fast as he physically can to make up for Jonathan’s head start.

You watch from the ground, not even bothering to try and stop what’s happening. It’s embarrassingly immature. While you understand Steve’s feelings towards Jonathan, you hate how he feeds into them. Anyone can see how fragile Jonathan’s relationship with both you and Nancy has become, and everyone knows that you’ll always be Steve’s.

Yet instead of having a conversation about it, or even allowing himself to be the bigger person, Steve feeds into Jonathan’s insecurity like he’s chasing after the high. 

Nancy turns away in disgust as Jonathan and Steve race to the top of the tower, and her sigh echoes your own disappointment. 

“How committed are the four of you to monogamy?” Robin throws her around you and Nancy, squeezing the two of you together with a glint in her eyes.

You shove her away. “Please stop talking, Robin.”

She pinches your cheek as she grins wickedly, far too amused with the situation. “Aw, c’mon, I’m sure there’s plenty of room for more in your relationship–”

The rev of an engine cuts Robin off, its harsh sound loudly announcing Murray’s arrival. He waves excitedly from his giant cargo truck and for once in your life you’re relieved to see the bastard. 

“I thought the next delivery was scheduled for tomorrow?” You tilt your head in confusion. 

Nancy’s eyes draw together. Concern sketches her features. “Me, too.”

Your teeth scrape over your lips. While you’re grateful Murray’s arrival has given you an excuse to turn away from your idiotic boyfriend and best friend, you know that Murray’s early delivery can’t mean anything good. 

Something is about to happen. You’re sure of it. 

Murray waits for you down the hill. He rubs his hands together in anticipation, eager to show what he’s smuggled in this time. 

“Ladies, hello!” He cackles in glee, yellow teeth and all. “Always a pleasure to see your beautiful faces.”

You don’t bother to mask your disgust. “Yeah. Right back at ya.”

“Santa’s brought a full sack today.” Murray ignores your indifference and opens the truck’s backdoor in a flourish. He grabs a large sack of supplies and throws it onto the ground before you. “A fresh telemetry bag. Scarcer than hen’s teeth, these things.”

He hands you the box and you carefully inspect the thing. “This is what Dustin wanted, right?”

“Correct, little miss. His requests are always the most annoying things on God’s green earth to find.” The disdain in Murray’s voice pleases you. He then turns to Nancy and hands her two large metal containers. “As for you, here are enough bullets and shells for Hop to start a small war, if he so chooses.”

Nancy accepts the containers with a small nod. 

“And did someone order a salad?” Murray holds up what you sincerely hope isn’t a grenade, but when he smiles wide with a crazed look in his eyes, you know it can only be a lethal weapon he’s playing with in his hands. “A grenade salad. Ha! Get it? I hid the grenades under the lettuce, and–”

“Is there anything else?” You interject, long fed up with the man’s horrible jokes and monologues. 

Murray glares at you. “You know, I work really hard to provide for your needs. A little respect wouldn’t hurt.”

You shrug. “I think I’ll pass.”

Robin snickers behind you and Nancy covers her mouth, hiding a pleased smile. Knowing he’s outnumbered, Murray purses his mouth and finishes his haul. “I also brought Gatorade for El’s battery, in case anyone was wondering.”

“God, please toss me one,” Steve slides next to you, severely out of breath and apparently alive with Jonathan, who doesn’t look any better. “I’m dying here.”

Murray happily complies, tossing the Gatorade bottle in the air, not anticipating that you’d intercept it and take the drink for yourself. “Thanks, Bauman.” 

“What the hell, Y/N?” Steve exclaims, choking on his own shock and eliciting several dry, overexhausted coughs after you elbow him in the ribs. “Fuck!”

“On a tight leash, Harrington?” Murray clicks his tongue, smug. 

Unscrewing the cap off the bottle, you flick the small piece of metal at the guy’s head. “Aren’t you a grown man?”

Murray steps closer to you, eyes seething and on the brink of losing all composure. “Alright, listen here, you little shit–”

“Is there anything else?” Nancy clears her throat expectantly. While she understands your prolonged annoyance for Murray, she wishes you’d piss him off after he’s delivered everything, rather than during. “We were kind of in the middle of something.”

The man inhales sharply for a moment, clenching his jaw as if to steady himself. You watch the overdramatic show of patience in obvious amusement. “Yeah, anything else, Bauman?”

“No,” Murray spits out venomously. “At least, not for you.” He turns back to his truck and fishes out an old cassette tape and dangles it in Jonathan’s face. “As for you, Mr. Byers, I know you’re allergic to jazz, but just a whirl. You might find it rather engaging.”

He then proceeds to use his entire face to wink at Jonathan, laughing to himself over a joke none of you seem to understand. Jonathan quickly snatches the tape from Murray and shoves it into his pocket, face red in embarrassment. 

Jonathan’s reaction unsettles something within your chest. The strings snap together in a brutal crescendo, pricking your skin as the lines break apart inside your ribcage. Jonathan keeps his eyes down, low enough that you can’t look into them. 

You dislike the way Murray presented the cassette tape. The words he used. 

But it all gets forgotten when the man hits Nancy’s head with an envelope of papers. “And for the station manager, the reason for my premature delivery.”

She snatches the envelope and fingers through its contents without hesitation. You all crowd around her, silent. You’ve become familiar with the envelopes and what they bring. 

The crack in your left ribcage seeps open. 

Dread creeps in. 

“A burn? Tonight?” Nancy asks, shaking her head. “But it’s–”

“Too soon. I know.” Murray’s normally overzealous nature falters. Even he can’t mask the worry. “Whatever they’re doing in the Upside Down evidently needs a serious injection of resources.”

Nancy flips through the pages of the leaked document. All crowded with numbers and orders, you’ve lost count of how many correspondences you’ve read through by now. They blur together, yet even as the numbers become harder to decipher due to how quickly Nancy rifles through them, you know why Murray came when he did. 

“They’re requesting more supplies than they normally do,” you peer over Nancy’s shoulder, face twisting in concern. “The supply drop could take hours.” 

Murray shrugs. “Two, at the minimum.”

“Which gives Hopper plenty of time for a crawl.” The rough timbre of Nancy’s voice reveals more than her words do. 

The dread seeps into your lungs. Thick like molasses, you know there isn’t any use trying to escape it. 

“Maybe tonight’s the night we finally find that bastard and end this.” 

Murray’s words hang in the air. 

End this.

But will it ever really end?

You’ve long stopped believing in miracles or that retribution can exist alongside the cruelty that predates it. 

Except Nancy’s hands remain steady, without any tremor, still somehow always firm in her belief that one day Vecna’s blood will finally cease the nightmares. 

You wish you had her faith. 

But for now, all you can do is prepare for yet another crawl. 

–

The beginning is always the same. 

Nancy’s quick eyes skim through the document’s pages as instructs you to write down every piece of information she deems relevant to the crawl. What time it will begin, how many men will be sent, which route they’ll take. 

Once completed, the two of you then pour over the details and try to piece them into a jigsaw code of a puzzle only few will understand. 

Steve adds in pieces of his own humor in an attempt to mask the code even further, while Jonathan selects the music that will play and alert the rest of the party to be ready. 

Then all Robin has to do is go on air as Rockin’ Robin with her script in hand and deliver the code while you and the others sit quietly behind her, bracing for what’s to come. 

The beginning has always been the easiest. 

In the midst of creating ciphers and analyzing complex military documents, you can usually convince yourself that maybe this time it’ll be different. Maybe this time the crawl will amount to anything other than disappointment and frustration. 

But then you’re perpetually reminded that you will never get what you want.

Nancy always insists that she have you, Robin, Steve, and Jonathan go over what you’ve found in the documents together in the radio station’s basement with nothing but a projector to light the room. 

Though you understand why she remains adamant about going over the details and plan, it's become the thing you hate most about the crawls. Being stuck in the dark, rotting basement going over the same gridlines of Hawkins that you memorized well over a year ago as Nancy recites the same plan she always does creates a misery you never thought possible. 

“If Murray’s intel is correct, the supply convoy is set to reach Hawkins at 10:00 sharp. Meaning I want Hopper in the tunnels and en route to MAC-Z no later than 9:00.” Nancy motions to the military base on the gridmap with a pointer Robin jokingly got her months ago that she still hasn’t thrown away. 

Nancy conveys so much confidence as she speaks. It’s a shame it centers around a topic you really, really hate. 

“Barring any delays, I expect that the convoy will reach MAC-Z by about 10:15.”

“And the crawl begins." You finish for Nancy with a sigh.

Her pointer now aims at you. “Exactly, meaning Hop will be going a gentle 30 miles per hour while you, Dustin, and Steve do your best to keep up with his telemetry tag’s signal.”

“I’ll blow through any red lights we come across so we stay within range.” Steve nods to himself, satisfied with his own plan that he spoke with no one else about. A terrible plan, at that.

Your foot kicks the edge of his chair fondly, getting his attention. “And that’s why I’ll be the one driving.”

“Oh, in your dreams, angel.” He sticks his tongue out at you childishly, leaning back in his chair so his hair splays across your lap. “My car’s too pretty for you to drive.”

“More importantly,” the slight rise in Nancy’s voice is enough to snap Steve’s chair back to the ground, forcing his attention back to her. “We’ll lose Hopper if you get pulled over,” she then looks pointedly at you, “Regardless of who’s driving.”

Steve waves his hands up in surrender, knowing better than to argue with the girl. You simply place your chin in your hand, bored. Beneath the table you sit at hides your clenched fists. “Carry on, Wheeler.”

She purses her lips and exhales curtly before continuing. “As I was saying, Hop will have two whole hours to search for Vecna, which is ample time. He’s cleared zones faster, meaning all signs point to yet another successful crawl.”

Successful.

“An interesting word choice.” The molten dread within your chest solidifies to bitterness, and you don’t realize you’ve voiced your resentful thoughts until Nancy’s contempt eyes bear into yours. 

“I’m sorry?” She asks defensively, arms crossed over her chest. “Is there a problem, Y/N?”

Awkwardly you clear your throat. “Nothing, it’s just…”

“We’re good.” Jonathan shuffles his feet, anxious to move onto a different conversation. He can feel a shift in the air, the charged static forming between you and Nancy that he desperately wants to avoid. “Promise.”

“We definitely aren’t good. I mean, no offense, but Zone G1 is not that exciting or Vecna-y.” Robin’s bluntness cuts through the room, voicing what you’ve been too afraid to.

Taking the risk, you swallow down your own hesitations as well and bite the bullet that Robin has inexplicably shot. “There’s nothing in the zone, either. Nowhere he could hide in that Hopper wouldn’t be able to find.”

The stiffness in Nancy’s posture sends pins through your body. Her eyes, always cunning and alert, darken into something malicious, almost even protective. She doesn’t say anything, though. She simply sets her cold gaze on the room, studying everyone before her. 

“Or maybe…” Steve’s loose arm around you flicks in the air, indifferent. “He’s already dead.”

Robin shot the gun, you bit its bullet, and Steve echos its finality. 

“Your plan is great, Nance, but this is crawl what? Aren’t we in the thirties now?” He continues, voicing the dread and contempt that has consumed you for months.

“Thrity-three,” you speak slowly, quietly. As if it will hide the pain that the knowledge plagues you with. You’ve written to Max thirty-three times now about the crawls. “This would be crawl thirty-four.”

Steve’s hand rubs up and down your back. Only he knows why you’ve counted each and every crawl. Why their every failure cuts deeper and deeper into your chest, like a landmine waiting to blow. 

“El can’t find him in her bath and that Will and Y/N haven’t felt Vecna since the world basically fell apart,” Steve scratches his face, worried he’s overstepping with the reminder that you’re still marked, still a target. “Don’t you feel like we’re scouring a battlefield that we already won?”

“Have you forgotten what he showed Nancy? Hawkins on fire.” Jonathan stands in for Nancy’s silence, infuriated. “Karen, Holly, everyone dead.”

“And what about what he showed me?” Your anger flings from your throat harsher than you intend for it to. The anger rings throughout the room, forcing everyone to stand in its messy wake, silent. Fingers digging into your palms, your eyes close and exhale slowly. “He showed me my father. He made me relive Will’s disappearance and-and…”

Your voice trails off as Nancy’s eyes avert yours. She shifts ever so slightly, the only indication of her unease, and you choke back your own discomfort at the memory you both share.

Did you really think I’d forget her, Y/N?

The venom that had laced Steve’s voice will always fester your skin, no matter how many nights you’ve spent trying to forget them. 

I can’t. At least, not as easily as your dad forgot you.

You wonder if Nancy has forgotten the venom, or if it haunts her, too. 

“What I’m trying to say is that Vecna only shows your worst fears,” your fingers scratch the tabletop beneath you, unable to look at anyone. “He’ll do anything to get into your head and scare you.”

“Yeah, well he did a good job because I am scared.” Nancy blurts out, her composure finally gone. “And you should be scared, Y/N. Because if he’s still out there, I can promise you that he’ll finish you off and end our world.”

As soon as she’s said it, the fire in Nancy’s eyes dims. A frail hand covers her mouth, but the damage has been done. She drops her head in shame. “I-I’m sorry. That was unfair.”

So deeply you want to scream at her how exhausted you are of trying to hold onto a hope that refuses to be grasped after every failed crawl. You want to scream at Nancy that every morning you run until you can’t breathe because it’s the only sensation similar enough to the death that took Max from you. You want to scream that you’re sick of pretending you don’t have the same bloodlust for Vecna’s body, a yearning so intense that it terrifies you. 

Above all, you just want to scream at Nancy that all your life all you’ve ever done is fail again and again in what matters the most, in protecting who you love. 

To expect you to want to endure it all over again is a fate much more cruel than Vecna’s curse. 

But rather than scream until your throat becomes a bloodied mess of vocal chords, you just stare back at Nancy’s mournful eyes and force a smile.

“It’s alright,” you tell her, too tired to mask the apathy. You’re sick of pretending. “Let’s just stick to the original plan for tonight.”

The frown line between Nancy’s brows only deepens. “Are you sure? If you really feel strongly about something, you know I’d trust whatever call you make.”

“I want him dead.” The words come out softly, an exhale more than anything. But they’re the only semblance of truth that you can provide Nancy. 

She studies your face, eyes silently caressing the silhouette of your body. The gaze lingers on your chapped lips, your nailbeds that have been picked raw, the way your hair hides more of your face than it used to. 

“Then it’s settled,” she eventually announces, gesturing to the others. “Tonight, kill Vecna.”

The declaration should provoke celebration and inspire awe. But no one stirs. Steve remains lock-jawed by your side, fingers pressed lightly into your skin to calm his own uncertainties. Jonathan keeps his head down, caught between relief and mourning. You’re no better, gnawing at your lip until you taste the familiar metallic consequence while Robin picks at her own nails and shifts in her seat, never one for being in a stuffy room for long. 

She breaks first. 

“Well, this was certainly a pleasant and absolutely not at all uncomfortable conversation,” Robin jumps up from her seat, wringing her hands out as if it will disperse her nausea. “And while I totally long to stay here with you guys, I unfortunately have to go make a rather doomed phone call and cancel a date that I was actually really looking forward to.” 

Hand at her temples, Robin salutes the room and leaves you stranded with the ensemble to your estranged love triangle that you want no part of. 

Lovely. 

“I should go, too.” Desperate for air, you quickly stand and head for the staircase. “Need to call Dustin and make sure he has everything for the crawl tonight.”

Steve jumps to his feet as well. “I’ll help you call him–”

“I’d rather do it alone, actually.” You don’t mean to interrupt him, but it’s obvious how anxious Steve is to go with you and while you adore how tenderly he treats you, you’re terrified that he’ll start yet another argument with Dustin and become the crux of your brewing breakdown. 

Seeing the disappointment on Steve’s face, you kiss the crown of his head, stroking his cheek. “I’ll be right back, honey. Promise.” 

He sighs into the touch, mumbling softly enough so that only you will hear, “Can’t believe you’re leaving me alone with Byers and Nancy.”

“Why do you think I want to leave?” You whisper, laughing under your breath. 

Steve’s eyes shine back, full of the ever present boyish charm that you stood no chance of surviving. 

– 

You radio Dustin a total of fourty-nine times.

Not once does he answer. 

Steve finds you in a spare closet, screaming into a walkie over and over again demanding that your brother respond. 

“Dustin Henderson, I swear to God if you don’t answer me I will shove Tew’s litter down your pillowcase and make sure you get pinkeye for the rest of your life!”

“What did the kid do now?” Your boyfriend comes up behind you, wrapping a loose arm over your shoulders. 

You brush him off, too worried and overwhelmed to stand still. “He’s not answering.”

Steve snorts. “Shocking.”

“I’m serious, Steve.” You spin around, facing him with anxious eyes. “I’m starting to worry. He’s never been radio silent like this.”

“Are you forgetting what happened this morning? The little shit totally shut you out. Again, might I add. Like he does every time. I’m not surprised he’s decided to go full AWOL.”

“He always answers eventually.” You argue weakly, knowing how pathetic it sounds. “Dustin’s never just gone completely silent without warning.”

“The kid also never used to spit profanities at you until one day he thought it’d be a brilliant idea,” Steve shrugs. “Now it’s all he does.”

Your eyes sting in frustration, though you have nothing left to say. Not to Steve, anyways. He used to be the only other person in your life who truly understood your brother, but lately you wonder if Steve ever knew Dustin at all. 

“Y/N? Steve?” A hesitant knock sounds against the closet door. “You guys in there? And, uh, are you… decent?”

Will’s shy voice accompanies the knock, and you swing the door open without second thought, startling both him and Steve. 

“Where’s my brother?” You demand immediately, not bothering to acknowledge Will’s previous implications. 

He stumbles back, slightly alarmed. “Dustin isn’t here yet?”

It’s the absolute worst thing Will could’ve ever said. 

You barrel out of the doorway, ignoring Steve’s small yelp of pain when you accidentally elbow his chest trying to get out of the closet. Instead you start scouring the radio station, slamming every door open and shouting Dustin’s name until your tongue goes numb. 

On your rampage you run into Mike and Lucas in the field, both attempting to radio your brother as well. Seeing them prompts bile to rise in your throat. 

They don’t know where he is, either. 

“When was the last time you saw Dustin?” You demand the minute you’re close enough to the boys, Will and Steve struggling to keep up behind you. “Why didn’t you guys bike here with him? Where did he go?”

“Woah, slow down.” Mike throws his hands up in defense. “We just got here and I can guarantee that we know shit else like you.”

Lucas rubs the back of his neck. “We gotta tell her about Andy, man.”

“Who the fuck is Andy?” Heart rate spiking, you almost pass out from how fast you turn to face Lucas. “What the hell is going on?”

“I just got off the phone with Mrs. Henderson.” Robin joins the group, unaware of the argument unfolding. “She hasn’t heard from Dustin all day.”

“No way we’re telling Y/N about Andy.” Mike scoffs at Lucas, ignoring what Robin has said. “You know that Dustin would kill us.”

Lucas slaps the kid’s shoulder childishly. “We have to! He almost gave Dustin a black eye today for wearing that stupid Hellfire shirt–”

“Where’s my brother?” 

Your shout echoes off the woodline. Its reverberation cascades down your spine. 

Yet no one can expel the remnants of the outburst with any semblance of what you want to hear. 

“We don’t know, Y/N.” Mike murmurs, his careful hand grazing yours. He doesn’t want to give you unnecessary false hope. He understands better than anyone how painful it can be. “He didn’t meet us after school. That’s all I can tell you.”

“But he’ll be here soon.” Will offers, trying to comfort you as best as he can. “Dustin always shows up for a crawl.”

The tall grass beneath your feet tempts you to lay amongst them. You’re so exhausted from it all. “He should be here by now.”

“Yet he’s an hour late.” Robin not so gently reminds you. 

“So we go and look for him.” It’s the only answer you’ll accept. You’re not going on a goddamn crawl without knowing whether or not your little brother is okay. 

But a look gets passed between the boys. An underlying understanding seems to connect the three of them together, unifying against you before you can even come up with a defense. 

“You know we don’t have time, Y/N.” Lucas says delicately, eyes apologetic. 

“But–”

“Dustin would want us to do the crawl without him.” Mike cuts in, not unkindly, though firm. “Look, we’re all worried about him, but this is our shot at Vecna that we can’t miss. And if we don’t have your brother… someone has to step in for him.”

They want you to take your brother’s place.

Steve carefully takes your hand, risking everything when he says, “Dustin isn’t a kid anymore, angel.”

I can’t always be there to solve your problems for you, Y/N.

But what if I always want you there?

The silence that followed had been Dustin’s answer. 

You just have to accept it. 

“Fine,” you spit out, always prone to succumbing to the needs of others. “But the minute we’re done with this, we’re looking for Dustin.”

“No member of the party gets left behind.” Mike interlocks his pinky with yours. “Promise.”

While the gesture warms your skin, you wish you could believe that its sentiment was sacred and untouchable. 

Instead it leaves a hollow pit in your stomach.

– 

Everyone gathers their things in silence. No one needs to ask what to bring or where to go. You all have your designated areas and tasks from dozens of crawls before. 

Nancy and Will help Mike and Lucas ready their gear for the stakeout. While you’ve always hated sending them so close to MAC-Z, you’re at least comforted by the fact that you were able to secure Bookstrordinary as their base, providing them with information about where to hide and how to escape the building quickly if they were to get caught. 

Joyce helps Hopper with his bullet proof vest and readies his gun, Robin readies the radio signal, and Jonathan prepares the telemetry tracker.

You sit in the WSQK van with Steve, going over Dustin’s detailed instructions about how to signal for the tracker.

“Jesus, this kid has awful handwriting.” Steve sighs under his breath, eyes straining at your brother’s messy scrawls. 

“No one in our family has nice handwriting.” You sort through your own papers, making sure you have all the necessary data from last week’s crawl. Dustin insists that you help him track the exact distance of each route for crawls as a way to compile more data that could help in the future. 

You think it’s unnecessary, but arguing with Dustin never ends well. 

The reminder of him tugs at your chest. You wish he was here, you wish you knew where he was and why he always chooses to run away these days. 

Steve playfully tosses a pen at you. “I like your handwriting.”

“You’re easy to please.”

“Watch it, angel.”

You giggle despite the grief in your chest, tossing the pen back at him, and for a moment you’re just two kids in a car, happy and in love. 

“Harrington, Henderson, you guys getting any signal? Tag is active.” Robin’s voice interrupts from the walkie. 

“Yeah, just give us a second.” Steve bites the pen in his mouth and grabs the walkie. He then throws his legs over the driver’s seat and crawls towards the back of the van where the hatch to the antenna resides. He frowns for a moment, unsure what to do next. “Any idea what to do next, Henderson?”

You shake your head. Dustin never taught you. “Maybe twist it?”

Steve spits the pen out and sighs, fixing his hair. “Well, here goes nothing.”

He grabs the handle to the wheel and attempts to turn it. Except it never moves. He tugs at it with more force, but the wheel remains locked. With a frustrated huff he grabs the walkie again. “Anybody know how Henderson’s wheelie thing works?”

Robin takes a moment to respond. “Uh, there should be a safety lock under the wheel.”

“Safety lock, real necessary.” Steve laughs in disbelief, but when he sees your pointed glare, he drops the subject and tries the wheel again. This time, it moves. He turns the antenna towards the station as you hand him a pair of headphones to put on. 

“Okay,” he says into the walkie. “I’m getting a signal. It’s pretty quiet, though.”

Steve slowly turns the wheel’s handle, eyes steady on the decibel meter attached to the van. “Okay, signal’s holding a steady 90 dB… But how am I supposed to monitor this and drive without Henderson?”

“Isn’t Y/N already with you?” Robin’s confusion rings clear through the static. 

You crawl over to Steve and take over the walkie. “I have to track the route and time how long it takes us. Dustin uses it to calibrate the telemetry tags.”

The walkie goes quiet. 

“Robin?” You look down to see if the signal somehow has been cut off. “Hello?”

“Guess they didn’t consider who to send beforehand.” Steve yanks the headphones off. “They must’ve thought Dustin would show by now.”

“He still might.” You aren’t sure why vehemently insist on believing the impossible.

Steve spares you pity, choosing to change the subject. “Who do you think they’ll send, anyways? I mean, no one really understands this stuff like Dustin does.”

“Nancy should be able to do it.” You say hopefully. “She’s smart enough to figure it out quickly.”

“As if Byers would let her anywhere near me–”

The van’s backdoors swing open.

You turn, expecting to find Nancy climbing through them, but when you see Jonathan, you freeze. 

“Oh,” the words tumble out on their own as you stare at him. “They sent you.”

He fixes his jacket, eyes avoiding yours. “Don’t sound too excited, bug.”

In the corner of your eye you notice Steve’s fingers clenching the steering wheel at the nickname. You hadn’t even noticed he went back to the driver’s seat. 

Knowing that nothing you can say will alleviate the already choking tension, you force a smile at Jonathan before crawling back to the passenger seat. 

“You comfortable back there, Byers?” Steve asks, innocently enough. For a moment you think he’s playing nice, trying to appease you, but instead he turns to look at Jonathan with cruel, teasing eyes. “Or do you want me to get you a pillow?”

Jonathan forces the headphones on. “Just focus on driving.”

Your head drops to your hands. Running on little sleep and emotionally drained, you aren’t sure you’ll make it through the night trapped in a van with the two idiots. 

From the rear window you spot Mike on his bike alongside Lucas, waving his hands in the air to signal that they’re ready to head towards the meeting point.

It’s time. 

Fingers grazing over the knives in your back pocket, you turn to Steve. “Let’s go.”

He nods, starting the engine.

The crawl has begun. 

–

Waiting in the hidden alleyway with Steve and Jonathan quickly becomes a nightmare.

While no one talks, the silence weighs so heavily within the van that it cracks open your chest and steals any oxygen left in it. 

Your fingers trace over the papers for the crawl, scratching at the ink splotches of numbers and miles written within it and trying to busy your mind to prevent yourself from spiraling.

Steve busies himself with a snack he stole from Murray. He eats messily, noisily, and with every grotesque swallow you can feel Jonathan’s patience waning. 

You dread the inevitable explosion. 

“We got action.” The crackle of the walkie coming to life with Mike’s voice startles you. You’d almost forgotten why you were even stuck in the van in the first place. “Four trucks, outer east gate on Main.”

Jonathan’s hand comes up to his headphones, the other to the wheel. He readies himself for a signal. He knows how crucial the timing is. 

You hold your breath as Mike counts down to the burn. If all goes well, you should be driving in minutes. 

“Hopper’s in.”

You allow yourself to exhale. All Hopper has to do now is get through the gate undetected. Your eyes close, silently hoping your luck hasn’t run out just yet as you whisper, “C’mon, Hop.”

Seconds later Mike announces, “He’s flipped.”

Steve fist bumps the air. “We’re in!”

But his celebration is short lived once Joyce takes over the walkie, directing the attention to her son. “Jonathan, signal?”

Jonathan turns the wheel painstakingly slowly, careful not to go over or under. Once he finds Hopper’s signal, he walkies back to his mother, “Snagged it.”

“Should I go?” Steve asks, mouth full of food.

“No… hold.” Jonathan shakes his head. His eyes never leave the monitor as his fingers twist the wheel. You can see he’s holding his breath. “Hold… hold… Go!”

He locks the antenna’s wheel before he can lose Hopper again and Steve speeds off, flinging the van sideways at the abrupt turn. You brace yourself on the dashboard, forcing down the nausea so that you can monitor the car’s speed. You still have a job to do. 

You’ve driven this route a dozen times. Looking at your notes, you notice that every time prior the military tanks consistently drove slower. Yet tonight the van flies down the route, struggling to keep up with the telemetry tag in the Upside Down. 

At first you think you’ve miscalculated something. Maybe you started the stopwatch too soon, or maybe the speedometer in the van has malfunctioned in some way.

That’s when it all goes wrong. 

“We’re losing him!” Jonathan shouts from the backseat, alarmed. 

“How?” You spin around in your seat, fearful that he’s simply misread the decibels.

“I-I don’t know–” Jonathan’s eyes suddenly widen. “Wait, stop! We need to stop!”

Steve flings an arm over your chest as he slams on the brakes, the force nearly sending you through the windshield. He looks at you in concern. “Christ, are you alright, Y/N?”

Except you don’t hear him. Your head swarms with dread as you stumble to your feet and kneel besides Jonathan. “What the hell is going on?”

He doesn’t answer you, too busy forcing the antenna whatever way it will go in a desperate attempt to locate Hopper again. Your teeth dig into your lips. 

You can’t lose him. Not again. 

“We got him.” Jonathan’s relief rivals your own as you both breathe heavily against each other.

You cling to his knee, unsteady as all the dread that built its way to the crevice of your collarbones spikes your blood.

Steve’s gentle voice attempts to coax your heartbeat back down. “Breathe, angel. We got Hop, it’s okay.”

Your nails dig into Jonathan’s skin. “Then why are we stopped?”

Neither Steve nor Jonathan can give you an answer. The three of you sit in silence, all unable to voice what you desperately hope isn’t true. 

Suddenly the lights in the van begin to flicker.

The rapid flash of light elicits a sickening sense of deja-vu. It’s happening again. It always happens again. 

Something has gone wrong. 

“What’s going on?” Steve exclaims, now rushing to join you and Jonathan in the back. “What the hell is this thing doing?”

You lunge for the walkie, shaking as you scream, “Joyce? Joyce?”

No one answers. 

“Answer me!” Your vocal chords strain against your screams. “Someone answer! What happened to Hopper?”

But all contact has been lost. The radio station’s power must have gone out.

Back pressed against Steve’s chest, you sit in complete shock as the terror consumes you. You’re helpless against it. That’s all you ever are.

Helpless. 

Muffled, static filled panic screeches from your bag. 

“Y/N? Do you–copy?” Barely able to decipher the words, you scramble to the bag and find the source of the voice. Dustin left his personal walkie. Robin must’ve remembered.

“Robin?” The panic in your shrill voice nearly deafens you. 

“There’s a–demogorgon–” Whatever Robin is saying is barely audible. The walkie isn’t within its normal range. Static infiltrates every word that comes through.

You bring the walkie closer to your lips. “Robin, I-I can’t understand what you’re saying–”

“The Wheelers!” She screams at you, loud enough that the static doesn’t drown her. “There’s a demogorgon–running towards–Wheelers!” 

A metallic ringing pierces your ear drums. 

The Wheelers are in danger. 

Adrenaline infiltrates your veins. Every one of your senses sharpens. 

You’re not far from their home. A mile, maybe even less. 

You’ve spent all summer running. You could be there within minutes if you left now. 

The only thought running through your head as you fling open the van’s doors is Holly, alone without her siblings in the home. She needs you. 

They need you. 

“Y/N, where are you going?” Steve shouts after you, already stumbling to his feet to follow you into the dark. 

Jonathan isn’t any better as he tears his headphones off and nearly falls out of the van. “What the hell?”

“Nancy and Mike need me!” You’re standing in the middle of the road, torn between staying or leaving. But it was never really a decision. “Stay here, alright?”

“Didn’t you hear Robin?” Steve reaches out for you, tries to pull you back into the van. “There’s a demogorgon out there, no way am I letting you go by yourself!”

“I’m going.”

And before Steve’s hand can land on your wrist, you run. 

All you do is run.

-

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