#dancing through time

It was dark, that's the first thing that Steve noticed; not dark like night, he could still see himself and his reflection just fine, but dark in that way that space was dark. 

There was light but nothing but himself for it to hit; nothing but the depthless shallow water beneath his feet. He could feel his mind bending in the contradictions and impossibility of the space and could feel it wasn’t a dream, the curtain it seemed to try and hide behind a sheer gossamer his mind found easily ignorable after no time at all.

He could almost hear the footsteps approaching as they tapped through the surface of the water, but was unable to see anyone approaching, No matter what way he turned the barley there sound echoed from what seaweed to be behind him. Until it stopped.

It stopped and he turned slowly, scanning the area around him. He heard a sharp breath behind him and whirled around quickly.

“Found you!”

°•○•°

Steve awoke in his bed with a weird feeling in his chest. The dream was real, he knew that. The tinny El had done her best to contact him, and with what she’d been able to remember so far and haltingly explain, he could now say with an amount of certainty he didn’t have before that for one, everything was real, and secondly what had caused them to travel through time. 

He felt an exhilaration as he shot from his bed and tore across the room to his desk, eager to write as much down as he could for Eddie. As he wrote furiously he glanced up at his alarm clock, ‘8:30, plenty of time.’

He still had an hour ‘til he Wayne swung by to pick him up for “school shopping”, meaning grocery shopping for both households with the addition of some new notebooks and the other bits they needed for the start of the school year. 

‘Eddie’s gonna love this.’

He was less surprised when the kid started coming over all the time the Harringtons hadn't been in Hawkins for the last few years, word was they were gonna sell that house soon, until the Earthquake- what with his parents being gone every other week, and according to Steve, working late even when they were home. Wayne couldn't say he was impressed with how hands off their parenting was, even with working long hours in the mines, he and Al still at least knew where their father was more times than not.

At least the kid had him and Eddie now.

Wayne dried his hands off on the dish towel, he only had a few more dishes in the sink, but the pot from lunch could soak while they talked. 

He heaved out a sigh, “Alright boys, might as well sit down,” he nodded to the seats, “no need for standing the whole time.”

The boys moved to sit on the couch together, still clutched together tightly, while Wayne took a seat in his recliner, “Alright now, whenever you boys are ready.”

The two kept looking at one another, making faces to try and prompt the other to start, eventually Steve just hissed out- “He's your uncle, he should hear it from you.”

Eddie let out a gust of air at that, turning forwards with a sharp nod, “Okay, yeah, that- yeah you're not wrong there,” he said with a nervous laugh.

So Wayne waited patiently as Eddie seemed to struggle to find the words, he knew he shouldn't rush him, he freaked out pretty badly when he said he already knew about- he had a feeling it wouldn't go well.

“So, um, Uncle Wayne, you may have noticed over the past couple of weeks that I've been acting, uh, stranger than normal?”

A smile twitched at the corners of his mouth, and catching this, Eddie smiled back sheepishly, “There’s a good reason for that, like, reaaally good, I swear!”

He hemmed and hawed a bit more, and Steve, who seemed to also see the blatant stalling, poked him in the side, jerking his head in a ‘get on with it!’ kind of way. Eddie grit his teeth and looked to gather his courage, and Wayne braced himself for what his nephew was about to say.

“We're, well, Wayne. We're from the future.”

Huh?!?

------------------

The boys had tried their best to explain to Wayne what they’d figured was happening, but to be completely honest with himself he wasn’t quite sure what they were going on about.

What was obvious to the older man was that these boys were convinced that something had happened and they now knew the future. 

“Well,” said Steve, his tone speculative, “it’s more a future than the  future if you think about it. Doubt everything’s gonna happen the same with us knowing about it, yeah? Like, we’ve already changed things, right?”

Wayne hummed while Eddie nodded his head, “No, yeah, you’re right. For starts we definitely became friends a lot sooner than we did the first time…”

“Well kid,” Wayne stopped for a moment, not sure how to say it, “I’ll be honest, this wasn’t what I thought you wanted to talk to me about.”

“What did you think we wanted to talk about?” Steve sounded genuinely curious, and Wayne couldn't help the amused huff he let out as he pushed himself to his feet. 

As he walked back to the sink he mused a hand through the middle schoolers hair, “Don’t you worry ‘bout that now, ‘s not important.” He couldn't help but smile at how Steve tried to hide his smile at the action, trying hard to pretend to be annoyed about it. “I can’t say I believe it, not yet at least. But you boys believe in it something fierce. I ain’t gon’ta even try and deny that.”

And while he could see that neither Eddie or Steve were completely happy with that, but as he started scrubbing at the pot in the sink Eddie stood up from the couch. 

“Thanks for listening anyways Uncle Wayne,” Eddie muttered into his shoulder as he leaned into him. When’d my kid get so big? Wayne couldn’t help but think, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. 

They stood there for a time before Eddie pulled away, clearing his throat and swiped his wrist across his face. “Stevie and are gonna go, um, we’ve been planning to start reading ‘The Fellowship’ today, so, yeah.”

With that Eddie followed Steve back to his room where Steve had been watching from the door. 

Wayne listened as the door snicked shut behind them, and sighed as he placed the now washed and rinsed pot into the drain board. 

He had some thinking to do, because those boys hadn’t been lying.

°•○•°

Ever since they’d told Wayne about the time travel situation Steve’s noticed something strange.

Everynow and then Wayne would say something in reference to the future. They had explained quite a bit of the future, so it wasn’t strange on its own when Wayne would ask his questions in an ever present drive to understand them and help prepare for the potential conflicts. 

It had been about a week after they’d first explained that Wayne had started asking about the more common kinds of injuries and dangers that came up during ‘these situations’ as he put it.

“Uh, bruises and, like, slashes or cuts, and also bites I guess,” Steve replied, rubbing his side a bit with the phantom memories, “why'd ya ask?” 

The older man had chuckled a bit at that, placing a hand on the kids shoulder, “Need to start looking stuff up now so that if it happens we know what to do. Besides, the more we can prepare now, the less time it'll take later.”

Steve could only nod at that, now that he'd said it it made complete sense.

However, that brought his mind to the other instances, the things that hadn't been talked about. He'd mention things absentmindedly, from Hellfire (by name!) or the new road, or ‘that tornado that came close last year’, and the problem was that none of those things had happened yet. 

Eddie didn't start Hellfire till his sophomore year, he hadn't even told Wayne the name of it when it came up in the future explanation. The road he was talking about wouldn't go into planning for another year, and the tornado he was talking about was definitely the one in May of ‘86 from what Wayne had said about it ‘being lucky it went towards Ohio ‘stead of coming our way’.

It itched at his brain near constantly, never truly leaving his mind. 

It was a few weeks before the new school year when Steve finally felt confident enough in his observations to tell Eddie about it. He watched Eddie's thoughtful face, anxious at the long silence that followed. 

“Well… I don't think you're imagining it. I've been noticing shit like that too, it's been happening more and more since we told him about the Upside Down. D'you think it's like, some kinda leak by or something? Like, what if being around us is making him remember?”

“I was thinking that too. It's honestly a little scary to think about.”

Eddie hummed in thought, “What d’ya mean? Could be a good thing, if Nancy and them start to remember too we'd have more people and less to try and convince them of, yeah?”

“I mean, yeah,” Steve shifted nervously, “but what if they're not the only ones to remember? What if Vecna remembers too?”

It was comforting, especially when the librarian had seen how lost he was on his first visit and stopped to talk to him. When she's asked what he'd like to read, his response of “I don't know, um, do you have something like Star Trek?” was met with a smile and directions to the shelves of science fiction. 

Two days later she helped him get a library card (she didn't need to know his parents signature was fake) and he would bring whatever book he decided to read home to finish at the end of the day.

Wednesday felt like it was different, when he woke up. A sense of anticipation was in the air, ‘Something is gonna happen today,’ he thought excitedly and he ate his honey nut cheerios, ‘something good!’

He parked his bike in the rack by the library, and almost bounced his way inside, giving the librarian a grin and a wave that she patiently returned as he dropped his book from yesterday off and went to find his next book.

He'd been there for almost an hour, carefully choosing his next book, when someone else came into the library. He could hear them humming as they walked through the stacks, getting closer to where he'd been nose deep in the first chapter of his book (he might chose this one for the day). The person stopped at the end of his aisle, the humming stopped and he vaguely heard a shaky gasp.

“Steve?” he heard, looking up at what turned out to be an older boy he didn't know remembered from his dreams, even if they were younger now. His jaw dropped, “Eddie?”

With a shaking smile Eddie rushed forwards pulling the smaller boy into a crushing hug, “I wasn't sure if you were even real,” he muttered, “does that mean the dreams are real? That they're like, future memories or some shit?”

Steve was hugging back just as hard, but gave a little wiggle that was almost a shrug. “Maybe? I donno man, it has to be, right? We know each other, but we haven't even met! I didn't remember your name until I saw you!” he was getting excited now, “Do you think it's actually the future?”

Eddie pulled back, still not letting go, and Steve let him, still holding onto his arms, not wanting him to go further away. 

He frowned, “I think I died,” Steve's grin flattered, “I think I died, and that's a part of why I came back to here, to now . But Steve,” he shook the younger boy by the shoulders a little bit at that, “Does that mean you died too?!” 

He furrowed his eyebrows at that, clutching the taller boy's arms a bit more tightly as he sorted through his dream memories. “I think so,” he said softly, suddenly vividly aware that they were in the library, “Um, I think it was a long while after you. I- I think- I think I moved you. After- after you died” It hurt to think about it, he could almost swear he could feel the weight of his corpse in his arms, feel it as blood seeped into his clothes, he didn't want another person left dead in the Upside Down, not if he could do anything about it- “Steve.” There were hands on his face. He could see Eddie now, alive, (Alive! Not dead!) and so much younger than the one in the future memories. “Sorry,” he said, chewing his tongue, not able to look Eddie in the eyes as he moved his hands back to his shoulders, “I- um, just, sorry.”

Eddie was so much more confused at the apology, “Why are you sorry? It's okay, Steve.” he watched as Steve's face twisted, watched as he scrubs a hand at his eyes, saw tears escaping in spite of it, “oh Stevie, go ahead and cry man, shit.” He crushed him back into a hug as the younger boy cried quietly into his shirt, his sobs near silent in effort to not be heard by anyone but Eddie.

It was better now that he was here.

°•○•°

After a while the two had calmed down enough to let go of their death grips on one another. Eddie led Steve off to a reading nook by a window near the corner. Not letting go of the others wrist for even that short of a distance. 

Steve didn't mind though, it kept him grounded, the firm grim helping to cement in his mind that this was actually happening. That the dreams were real and not him going crazy.

‘Or that I'm not going crazy alone.’ Steve thought, before shaking his head in denial. He hadn't seen Eddie before today, wasn’t even convinced before the other boy had found him five minutes ago that he hadn’t made him up. Even in the dreams, that Eddie was so much older than the one in front of him, it felt further away, unreal in a visceral way.

They settled into the corner on the floor, tucked away out of immediate  view, cuddled together with Steve  tucked under Eddie’s chin.  It felt so nice to just be held by someone for the first time since his Grandma died, to no longer feel like he had to handle everything on his own. He sank further into the older boy’s hold, after a time he let out a sigh of content and as he felt a smile start to creep onto his face he turned his head to bury it in Eddie’s t-shirt. 

“How ya doin’ there, Stevie?”

“Better,” he murmured into the other boy, “I think I can talk about it now, if you want…”

Eddie hummed as he trailed off, letting the thought sit for a moment. 

“Well,” he started, furrowing his brows a bit, he bit his lip, before starting again, “Well, we don’t have to talk about everything . But, uh, we should probably figure some of it out. Like, my emotions have been so weird since I started remembering shit. I sometimes feel older?  But then I’ll kinda like, snap back, and it’s like, what?? Ya’know?”

With a snort and a growing grin Steve pushed himself up and resettled so he could see Eddie better, “Um, yeah, I do know what you mean. Like, I made myself lasagna the other day, I didn’t know how to make it before that, so I was just, so confused dude.”

“Boom, lasagna!”

“Ha! Yeah, basically! It’s been weird settling into whatever this is,” he sighed and leaned his head on Eddie’s shoulder, “I’ve felt more alone than ever…”

“Yeah, it’s been hard not tellin Uncle Wayne what’s wrong, your parents and friends must’ve noticed something, right?”

Steve shifted uncomfortably and pulled away, settling against the wall  with his knees to his chest, wrapping his arms around them. “No, can’t say I’ve had that problem man. They, um, kinda have to be around for that to happen. Doubt they'd notice even if they were.” The last part was muttered, as if he didn't expect the older boy to hear it from half a foot away. 

Eddie still definitely heard it.

Oh.

He reached out and wrapped his hand around the younger boy’s wrist. “We should tell someone Stevie.”

Steve tensed and clenched his eyes shut, “What if they find out? What if they come after us for telling someone about all this?”

“Steve,” He moves to look him in the eyes, “ They don’t know about any of this. Like, dude, none of this has happened yet, those lab fucks don’t know to watch out for what we’re talking about and like fuck they know about anything todo with the Upside Down. You told me yourself that they only learned about it in ‘83, and all the names we use for this shit we made up!”

Steve twisted his hand around in Eddie’s grip and held onto the older boy’s wrist too. “Who would we tell? Would they even believe us?”

“Well, I don’t know if Wayne's gonna believe us, not right away, but he’ll probably believe that something’s going on.”

“You wanna tell Wayne? You-  you’re sure about this?” The hazel eyed boy was incredibly nervous about this, the idea of pulling more people into it all.

“Steve, I’m gonna be real honest here man, if I hadn’t died, I would have told Wayne everything. I don’t keep those kinds of secrets from him.” He ran his hand through his shaggy hair, “I need him to be the first person we tell, but I get it dude. It’s-, dude we just found each other, we’re still getting, well, settled , I guess. We don’t gotta tell him right now, we can wait.” He wrapped his arm around his shoulder and pulled him in closer to himself, and Steve let himself relax into him.

“We can wait until you’re ready.”

°•○•°

011 has been having dreams. Ever since she woke up from that really long nap, (“You have been in a coma for seven days Eleven. That's quite the long time to sleep, yes? Do you remember what happened?” 011 shook her head, at the time, all she remembered was terror.) she'd been remembering what she must have forgotten. But it felt strange, like it was too much that she forgot. How could she be so much taller in her memories? 

A few weeks later and instead of dreaming, she was in the finding space. 011 knew she was looking for someone, could feel them, just out of reach, but she couldn't find them yet. 

Even though she woke up every morning with no blood dripping out of her nose, she knew it was real. She'd know who she was looking for soon.

Until then she'd walk through the darkness, and listen to the melody in the air.

It was such beautiful music.

Always alone, always, especially when he's in danger, because he needs them to be safe. To the point that in one of the dreams, the first one that sent him gasping, crying out in this horrible empty house. With tears on his face the young boy went shaking to where he felt safest. Down to the basement bedroom that had belonged to his grandmother, to hide in the wardrobe that still smelt like her.

He imagined being able to travel through the wardrobe, like in the book, to a world where magic was real, and he wasn't alone and so very scared.

The second time he was sent running had a different horror to it, instead of having something taken, he himself was lost. He woke with a sob, and loneliness threatened to bury him. 

Once more, he sought refuge with the memory of his grandmother, burying himself instead in what comfort he had. 

It was only then did he recall the dream that felt so much like a memory that he feared it was.

He could almost tell it would end soon, at least for him. The group had gone out together, primarily to celebrate the younger teenagers' passing of sophomore year (and Erica's success in 7th grade), but more so as a reminder that they were still alive, and to remember the ones they had lost.

In all fairness, it had been going well. Which would have been their first clue if everything hadn't been so quiet since the Creal House, outside of a few wandering demodogs and a half dead demogorgon crawling out of the cracks in the earth from the Upside Down. 

Steve had been preparing to move out, so he had decided to use his parents house for one more get together for the Party.

Everyone had shown up, bringing food and drinks, and it was a good time, despite everything.  They had mostly finished eating, moving on to a handful of them playing around with Steve and a frisbee outside while Dustin tried to organize a game of Trivia Pursuit (to mild success).

Then things started going sideways.

It was the silence they noticed first; no longer were birds singing, no dogs barking, no chittering of squirrels. The off-putting feeling grew as chittering did return, sounding far off and distinctly different from that of squirrels.

 “Shit!” Steve cursed with wide eyes, he would never forget what demodogs sounded like, “Get away from the woods!”

They all hurried closer to the house as El rushed out Hopper and the rest close behind. Robin passed Steve his bat as she stumbled to a stop beside him, and he gripped it tightly.

El squared her shoulders, sharing a look with her dad, and then one with Will, “He's ready, so we also must be ready.”

The dream memories blurred together, a mash of tense planning and preparation, of hurried defense and a difficult parting of the Party as the plan was set into motion.

As always, it was going well until it wasn’t. 

His team was in the Upside Down, making their way through downtown Hawkins towards where El had felt Creel had set up.

 The Wheeler’s house wasn’t horribly far from where they had entered, and the fact that Vecna had decided to set up shop in the twisted version of one of the safe havens to the party felt particularly vile. They were only a few blocks away when they were found by yet another pack of demodogs. 

They were closing in, slinking towards them clearly intending to back them into a corner and Steve knew there was no real chance of all of them getting out, especially if they tried to hold their ground, move closer to 001 instead of running to a way out.

Convincing the others would have been hard, so he didn’t give them a chance to argue. 

There  was  no  time.

He nudged Nancy and she glanced over, “I’ll take the long way around, get them out,” he whispered, “There’s no way we’ll make it to your house or back to a gate if we let them surround us.”

Her jaw, already tense, somehow clenched even more.

“But what about you?” she hissed, “They’ll tear you apart!”

“Only if I’m caught,” he gritted out of a grin that felt forced as fuck, he hoped it didn’t look like it was. 

“Go!” he shouted as he sprinted forwards, right at one of the warped dogs, surprising it enough to slam his bat into it. Steve could feel the nails catch on the things skin, tearing it out as he booked it away from the others.

He hoped they got out, that Nancy went with his plan and convinced them to get out of this hell. For now all he could do was lead the demodogs away, to be one last distraction. 

Maybe they’ll go the rest of the way to the Wheeler house, and burn it to the ground. Do enough damage to get rid of the monsters chasing him. 

‘Even if they did,’ he thought, ‘It’d be too late for me.’ Resigned to death though he may be, Steve refused to go down easy, and pushed himself to run faster. 

The fight, if one could call it that, was a blur of adrenaline, he knew he’d managed to kill at least one of them, and injured several others. As the remaining ones turned his abdomen to mince meat he lost the air to scream, and by the time the last one had its fill of his guts the numbness had set in, blinding him to the pain. 

He watched with a detached sense of curiosity as his own blood and viscera painted the muted world with vibrant hues of red. How much longer would he last?

He never did want to die alone, but hopefully it would mean the others were safe. 

Death curled around him with its numb embrace, and with a sigh he closed his eyes. A small smile on his face despite everything.

They fade into nothing for a time, yet a moment later they felt it. With a tentative step, their dance had begun, it continued to be what it always was.

He didn’t know for sure, but the feeling that the dreams were real continued to grow.

°•○•°

He wouldn't call the first week after he had screamed both himself and his uncle awake the worst week of his life (how could he, since he had his Uncle Wayne there to comfort him, to help him through it), but with the pervasive feeling of something missing it was definitely in the top ten.

The first dream had been gut wrenching, watching a girl get dragged up to the ceiling of his uncle's trailer; her limbs snapped like tinder. The one he had on Thursday was a different horror show,

It felt as though he had been torn apart by what he knew were needle sharp teeth, ripped into by terrible bat-like creatures, eager to eat their fill of his flesh. Warm blood poured like water from a river, the damn that was his skin and veins, broken far too easily. 

It was a sudden thing, when they stopped their feast, he would have welcomed it if he hadn't felt the slow creep of death as it curled up on him, nudging his limbs into numbness. With a faint sense of resigned horror, he heard him.

Dustin.

He didn't want the kid to see this if it were to happen (and he knew it would).

There was nothing he could do about it now, ‘Literally nothing,’ he mused, it creeped ever closer.

“EDDIE! EDDIE! Oh god, oh god Eddie…” 

“Bad, huh?”

 “No. Nononono, you’re gonna be fine, we just gotta get you to a hospital, okay?”

 “Okay.” Dustin wraps his arms around his torso and tries to pull him up, struggling under the older boy's weight, the pain sharpened with a vengeance, tearing through him, “ Just give me a second- give me a second, okay?” 

“Okay, okay,” they stop, and as they gaze at each other, Eddie knows, he just knows, and he gives Dustin a wretched smile, “I didn't run away this time, right?” Dustin shakes his head, “No. Nonono no, you didn’t run.” “You’re gonna have to look after those little sheep for me, okay?” “No, you’re gonna do that yourself!” “Nah, man, say ‘I’m gonna look after them’, say it.” “I’m- I’m gonna look after them” “Good.” A few beats pass, “‘Cause I think I’m actually gonna graduate. I think it’s my year, Henderson. I think it’s finally my year.” He struggles through a few more breaths, the world’s fading out around him, and Dustin’s sobs are getting harder to hear, “I love you man.” A tear rolls down his face, he can’t feel the pain anymore, “I love you too.” and everything faded out around him.

°•○•°

It'd been about two weeks since the dreams started, and Eddie was half convinced that they were real.

It was more of a feeling than any actual proof, but it was enough that he wanted to try and find some of the people from them. And if he was going to go through with looking he almost had an idea of who to start with.

It couldn't be the younger boys from the memories dreams, they had to be around eight now, there was no way he was going to walk up to that disaster. 

In some of the dreams, some of the nice ones, he'd be talking to an older boy. Dream him knew they were about the same age, so if they were real, if he was real, then it had to be true now too.

He remembered one of the dreams, he and the brown eyed boy had been in a disused boathouse together. 

“C'mon man, play along, what if time travel was real?” Eddie was grinning as he asked his question, if the pretty boy was gonna be here he wanted to talk about something that would take his mind off of what happened to Crissy.

The other boy huffed, rolling his eyes, “Like Back to the Future, or are we, like, possessing ourselves, or some shit?” He was definitely trying not to smile (he was close to failing).

“Ooo, the second one sounds weirder, I like how you think!”

“Is there more than just me time traveling? I'd hate being-” he cut himself off with a frown.

“No, fair enough, I hate being alone too,” Eddie gave him a softer smile with that, “I go with you, then, but we don't know.”

“But we know it's possible?”

“Yeah,”

“Probably go to the library, or something, it's a normal place to go, but it'd be weird if I was going everyday, or something like that.”

“Yeah, no, that's fair, good idea S●●●●!”

Maybe the other boy would be in the library, if he was real, maybe Eddie wasn't going crazy. 

It took a few more days for him to work up the nerve to go back to the library. He spent those days convincing himself that even if the brown eyed boy wasn't there, he'd be able to get some new books to read. So that Wednesday, he got on his bike and started over.

It felt like dancing, as ephemeral as it always was, yet as a present time, never was. Sometimes together, sometimes apart, always aware of everything else, only focused on each other. It was unfathomable to have a different partner in this strange dance, but for all the familiarity there was, even if they could talk, they wouldn't know what to call the other, not anything except for ‘mine’.

But there was no form. No flesh to mingle between them in this dance. Just presence, and the passing knowledge of feeling and knowledge of one another, a knowing of ‘self’ and ‘other’.

Something was searching, they didn't want it to see, to reach and pull, to take with no remorse. They danced and they hid, blended into the crowd, and faded into the nothing, simpler alone, better together.

And existence went on.

However, one day it changed. They found themselves no longer two halves of a whole, but two beings who complimented each other oh so well. The presence that found them wasn't the foul one from before, but one that was recognized by the one, and trusted through that by the other.

“Found you,” the presence said, “I need your help, I think- if this goes right- you can make it better, stop 01 before it is too late. Please.”

And with that, the dance changed.

The song of the universe rang out with a dissonance that was all together unfamiliar, before it warped and settled into a rhyme of before.

It sang so beautifully…

Then they could no longer dance, were no longer twined together, so much more alone; they had been dragged apart.

°•○•°

His eyes opened into a familiar room that felt foreign for a beat too long. A body that felt too young for a few beats more.

Then everything was right again (why did it feel so w r o n g) and he knew where he was, and who,

He was Eddie Munson.

He was Steve Harrington.

And he didn't know why, but someone new, someone he knew, was suddenly missing.

Like a limb detached, horrible in its nothingness.

Everything that was right, is so very, very, wrong, and he doesn't know why.