sunrisedaydreamer

He's falling. Everything around him is pitch black, and he is falling. He thinks he’s heard of a term for it before, somewhere between freshman and sophomore year, it’s called free fall if he’s not mistaken. His physics teacher explained once on the blackboard.

"In mechanics, free falling is the state of a body that moves in any manner in the presence of gravity." Mr. Phillip's voice says, reading from the textbook. It zones out the further he goes into explaining the subject.

Then, suddenly, he is lying on his back. The sky is different, he notices, there are stars there. The Upside Down has no stars. He makes out the sound of laughter nearby, and tries to get back on both feet. He struggles a bit, the action causing blood to leak onto his bandages, but manages to do so. He whimpers in pain and wraps an arm around his torso as if that alone would ease it. The sting from the bites feels brutal. His eyes land on the source of sound he heard earlier.

There is a girl sitting by a pool — wait, a…

Barbara Holland is sitting by the pool in his backyard, and she is laughing maniacally. She laughs like someone who's heard the best joke ever told.

"Barb…?" Steve asks, taking a few steps ahead, limping as he does.

"Look what you've done to me, Steve. You and Nancy. I never liked you, always thought you were bad news, even tried to warn her but, ah…" She laughs some more, loud, and even if he never talked to her much, it sounds nothing like Barb. "I never expected you to be a murderer."

The voice changes as she rises up — no it's no longer her, she is transforming into someone different before his eyes. Red locks shifting into brown ones, taking on the face of a distant memory, yet someone he has never really forgotten about.

Vecna, this is Vecna.

“If I had never met you, my life would've been so much better, Steven. You fucking coward, couldn't even face your father.” Manic laughter transforms into a wide grin. "Come with me, Steven. End your suffering."

He takes four steps back before turning all the way around. His feet touch a new texture on the ground of the pool, it’s something wet. He looks down and sees red rapidly covering them up, at ankle height by now, blood paints his skin contrasting a dark night. More twisted laughter from behind, closer now as Vecna stalkers toward him. Steve runs towards the ladder, almost falls down as he reaches the top, the wetness makes the climbing slippery. He makes it out of the pool, only a fingertip touch away. Nothing besides survival instincts takes over. He flees into the woods.

Shaking, torn apart, he wonders if anyone bothered to guess his favorite song. He runs, his feet moving without direction.

With blood spilling from his flesh and staining his skin, scared out of his mind, Steve Harrington runs for his life.

‿︵‿୨💿🎵୧‿︵‿

The second time he falls, it's no fall at all.

He is sitting down in a chair. He's alone in a white room and his outfit has changed — blue, it's ocean blue now.

Scoops Ahoy. Nineteen eighty-five.

The memory that haunts him still, the cause of many sleepless nights.

He fidgets with his hands that are tied up behind the chair. If he remembers clearly, there was a pair of sharp scissors nearby that he tried to use so he and Robin could escape, before the russians had burst into the room with their torture arsenal...

He sees it on the corner of the nearest table. He attempts to hop the chair over to reach his target. It takes him four tries, he’s only successful in the final one. With his feet, he kicks into the table to try to get the scissors to fall; it lands on the floor by the chair. He bounces the chair to both sides, but slips and lands on his own. Somehow, he grabs ahold of the scissors and frees himself.

He whimpers through more blood and even more pain.

An echoing voice speaks, and he wishes he didn't know who it belongs to. "Steven, did you really think you could free yourself from me?”

He runs to the door and opens it. It leads to the hallway — ironically, as blue as the Upside Down, and just as cold too. He trudges down the hall, but soon finds there is another door there, barricaded with wooden planks. Time to test the remaining strength he has left.

He thinks he hears something, but he pays it no mind. It's Vecna playing with him.

It's always. fucking. Vecna.

He grunts, hands gripping the wooden planks blocking his escape as he yanks and manages to take two out. He tries slamming his own body into the door without success.

"Steeeveen." Vecna is a sick, sick fuck. It's his fucking father talking now: John. Motherfucker Harrington. "Why did you let her die?! Why did you have to hang around that fucking queer, huh?! Have you no goddamn respect for the family name?!"

He doesn't answer. He keeps on trying.

"Come on son, what bullshit excuse are you gonna give me this time? What is your fucking excuse for breathing after you and your bitch murdered someone in my own fucking house?! Answer your father, Steven!"

Steve Harrington yells. His curled up fists slam against the door one last time, creates a hole, and he tears it down.

He's falling once more.

He thinks he hears the sound of an electric guitar in the back of his mind.

‿︵‿୨💿🎵୧‿︵‿

t's red, it's Upside Down-lightning red. This place is new. It's one he hasn't – no, he has. Max showed everyone; they've been there in person.

This is Vecna's mind. It's his house.

Or, at least, the way he views it, himself. A destruction of his old self, the ultimatum of no return. The beginning of a new journey.

How odd Steve ended up here. Perhaps only the victims of the four chimes of a grandfather clock gain exclusive entry.

He looks around, almost stumbling on the debris by the unsteady floor. There are bodies restrained by the vines, their faces disfigured. What once were human beings now look like fragile, broken dolls. Steve wants to puke at the sight.

Before he can do anything, though, Vecna makes himself present.

"Steeeveeen," His steps are louder now. "I want you to listen closely."

Suddenly Steve is pushed into a pillar of vines, hands once more bound behind him, his ankles gripped just as tight. He grunts, trying to move, and is as unsuccessful as expected. The abrupt movements spill even more blood from the wounds on his sides than before.

And Steve Harrington listens, finally.

Tears For Fears: Songs From The Big Chair, track seven.

The song he heard on the radio that got stuck in his head, the one that made him buy the album on cassette; the song Dustin Henderson constantly kept trying to change to a heavy metal one — "Metallica is so much better, Steve." / "Who says that?!" / "Eddie." / "Of course it's Eddie, because his music taste is so much cooler than mine." — on the first days he was driven to Hellfire; the song he listened to while driving to Family Video, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel to the beat of the synth while Robin did her makeup in the passenger seat.

The song that Eddie Munson is somehow playing flawlessly on guitar in the real world.

The song that will save his life.

Eddie Munson is trying to save his life. It has to be a team task, so now it’s time for Steve to play his part.

Vecna's hand – claw? – hangs in the air, pushing Steve's body against the vines with an invisible but strong force. Steve feels like he is going to be split in half. When Vecna reaches over with his arm standing, Steve's head tilts upward.

"I. Want. You. To. See." Vecna says, in a low hum.

Images flash in sequence: a white room, a bloodied room, a small girl covered in blood, crying out with her hand in the air.

It's Hawkins, the real Hawkins, torn apart by four immense gates. The Upside Down's lightning is the only light in the atmosphere; the sky is no longer starry or sunny, but gray, depressingly gray. There’s an army marching towards the town, led by a titanic creature — the Mind Flayer. And something else lurking in the back too, just as threatening. Maybe even more so.

The Mind Flayer is made of flesh and bodies, bodies of people he doesn't even know, bodies of people he does; bodies of people he’s never met to care about, and bodies of the ones that he would kill and be killed for.

It's Henderson. It's Robin. It's Nancy. It's Max. It's everyone.

Tell Eleven she is next, as are her little friends." Vecna’s hand comes down as his image and presence becomes distant.

Steve Harrington —

‿︵‿୨💿🎵୧‿︵‿

Steve Harrington crashes down into the arms of Robin Buckley.

Eddie stops playing, hurrying to take the guitar strap off his torso and lean the instrument against the closest surface. Robin doesn’t speak a word, tears running down her face as she just holds him close. He crouches in front of Steve to look at his body for any signs of injuries, his head still spinning from adrenaline, and lets out a breath realizing there are none. In the edge of desperation it didn’t sink in that Steve’s arms or legs weren’t bending when he was in a trance. Eddie turns to the Right-Side-Up group. “Harrington is alive!” He exclaims.

Lucas and Max are still holding onto each other. Nancy places a hand on her chest, releases a sigh of relief, the anxiety leaving her body. Henderson and Sinclair Junior high-five.

“I knew it had to be Tears For Fears!” Dustin exclaims with a wide grin. Genuine happiness expressing itself on his face.

Steve breathes heavily while Robin's hands hold and soothe him. "It's okay, you're here with us, you're safe now." She whispers into his ear.

"He – he showed me…" Steve's voice cracks, a slight bit of terror still present.

Robin runs her fingers through his hair. "Shh, I know, I know. It’s okay now, dingus. He can’t come after you here, or Max." She kisses the top of his head.

Steve nods, then looks at Eddie's direction. "Thanks." He mutters.

Eddie offers an earnest smile and nods slightly. "Saved your own ass again, man, there’s nothing to thank me for."

"I wouldn’t be here now if it wasn’t for you. All of you, but specifically you."

Before Eddie can say anything in return, Dustin shouts from up above. "Steve I swear on my mother, if you don’t come back up here right now —"