#forgivennotforgottenficlet

Eddie didn’t talk much, he had no friends to speak of, kept to himself in the playground, either reading an impossibly thick book with a pretty picture on the front that Steve couldn’t quite make out, sat under the jungle gym, or laid under the jungle gym scribbling things into a black notebook covered in stickers and scribbled paint marker marks.

He carried a big guitar case sometimes, and Steve occasionally caught him coming from the music rooms, but he’d never heard him play. He wanted too, but hadn’t quite worked out how to make that happen without being forced to talk to him.

And that. That was just far too scary.

He was an older kid from seventh grade, and from what little he’d heard him speak, he had a nice southern twang to his accent that made Steve’s hands all clammy and his chest feel so full of butterflies that he feared he’d float away.

Too scary basically. But he could watch from afar! Afar was safe. Afar was—

“Hey trailer park FREAK!” Oh boy. The biggest kids. Eighth graders. Eddie was just going to the jungle gym, notebook in hand to get a little light doodling in, when they descended upon him. The sporty kids that dominated in dodgeball, the mean ones that picked on the nerds, the popular ones his parents had told him to steer clear of.

“They’re bad influences” his father would say. “Just focus on your classes and keep your distance from those troublemakers.” Steve was happy to do just that. He had a couple of friends but… he kept to his studies and steered clear.

Eddie was quiet, he had no friends, he hung out in the same place every day doing the same thing, he was an easy target. Steve looked for the teachers, any teachers, any grown-ups, but they were all busy elsewhere, Eddie didn’t have any friends to stand up for him, anyone to back him up as the big kids descended, shoving him against the jungle gym’s climbing net, he barely even complained, just told them to leave him alone, which obviously they weren’t going to do, leaving Steve with a choice to make.

He could stay there, where he was, and keep watch from a far as his crushes notebook was stolen, the panic kicking up a notch from Eddie as he rushed forward to try and get it back, demanding “Not my notebook!! Give it back! Please give it back!” To no avail, the two flanking the main bully just shoving him back against the netting while the main bully roughly ransacked through the pages, uncaring as to the damage he was doing despite Eddie’s continued cries for him to stop, he looked again, any adult, any adult would do.

How had no adult noticed yet?!

Steve found himself crossing the distance before he could even think about it, just in time to watch Eddie be thumped in the gut by the biggest of the three, “trailer trash nerd” spat down at him, his torn notebook thrown to the floor, papers torn free from the seam falling out across the woodchip floor, Steve was too late to stop the worse of it but— he could do something.

“Hey!” All three eyes were on him, Eddies not included, he was too busy clutching his gut and trying to reach for his book at the same time “U-uh… uhm” Steve turned his head and holy shit hallelujah “teachers coming! Better scram before she catches you!” She wasn’t even coming, she was just there, close enough that it made a difference.

The boys got out of there, each one pushing the other to move faster to get out of dodge before the teacher came. At least Steve hadn’t had to stand up to them, just… make them leave. They were probably about to go anyway, given they’d already done enough damage to put their point across.

Eddie was right there, nursing his wounds, trying to gather his papers up, so close, Steve could feel his palms clam up, his heart beating a thousand miles a minute. He pushed through, bending down to pick up a scrunched up ball of paper, he gently began unfolding it. It was nerve wracking, every second he spent in Eddies presence, the boy watching him hesitantly, big dark eyes rimmed red with unshed tears, brown. His eyes were brown. Steve gulped down his own saliva.

“You should uh… you should ignore those guys.” WORDS! He managed words. Okay. He could do this.

“Yeah? What’s it to you?” Eddie was upset, he probably didn’t mean the bite to his tone, it was okay, it’d be okay.

“I just… I mean, it’s not bad, y’know. To be like… nerdy and stuff, you shouldn’t listen to them. They’re just jealous cause you’re… y’know, creative and uhm… an smart, an really talented at drawing and—and people really like that.” He offered the creased paper back as Eddie rose to his feet, wrecked notebook tightly clutched in his arms, he took it back, not quite snatched but… it wasn’t taken gently.

“Yeah, what people? So far things ain’t exactly been makin me feel welcome here.” He shoved the paper full of… god Steve didn’t even know, but Steve knew they were doodles of some kind, winged things, and skeleton monsters, they were cool! Eddie could draw! Steve couldn’t draw, he could barely make stickmen work, the legs were always mismatched lengths, and the arms were never coming from the same point of the stickman’s stick body.

“I mean…” Steve fumbled with his own fingers, warmth decorating his cheeks, pinking the tips of his ears this was it! He could do it, he could tell him, and it’d be fine, and maybe they could hold hands or something, that’d be neat “people… people like me… I—I like you, I mean… I like you a lot and—and I just… I was just wondering if—if maybe—”

“Ew” Steve stopped dead, eyes snapping to the other boy, the other boy who looked at him with an icy disgust that wrapped its frozen claws around Steve’s heart and clenched “that’s gross. Boys can’t like other boys, that’s so fuckin weird!” Weird? It was weird? Steve looked around him, panic filling his very being, from his head to his toes every inch of him felt wrong all of a sudden, his heart beating faster and faster only this time it wasn’t good “and they call me a freak, freak.”

His small fist connected with Eddie’s face without thought, right in the nose. Instinct to fight rearing its head for the first time in his life, panic replaced so swiftly by an anger so unlike him he was consumed by it, and the resulting pained cries filled him with a sick sense of satisfaction that he enjoyed far more than the panic, than the sense of wrong in himself at Eddie’s words.

He didn’t say anything else to Eddie, he just, left him there by the jungle gym, crying in pain holding a bleeding nose. His book dropped to the floor, ruined papers strewn across the woodchip.

And his dimples?

Never to be thought of again.

—Until the boathouse in '86 when everything went to shit for the fourth time in a row.

He pulled away from his parents. And they, baffled as to why, were unable to keep him from withdrawing, were left with a mere shell of the bright little star-kissed boy they’d brought into the world.

Talking to him became difficult, he didn’t talk about his crushes anymore, he didn’t talk about anything to them anymore.

His new friends, Tommy, and Carol, they were… an interesting pair, but… their little boy had friends, so the Harringtons tolerated them, even when they convinced their little boy to go after the sports teams,  to sign up for basketball try-outs and swim team, even when Steve came home with a spot on both, seemingly proud of himself.

Lynda Harrington could see that something was missing. A bright spark, an ember that’d been slowly building, that’d been slowly growing larger and larger as he grew until she’d hoped it’d become a sun had been snuffed out by things unknown. Her baby wouldn’t speak to her like he used to, wouldn’t wear his cute little chef apron, or do ‘girl stuff’ like play dress up or help his mama with her makeup anymore, it was like, overnight, their son had been replaced with an imposter.

John Harrington hated it the most though. Struggled to keep himself in the house, made excuses to stay at work, unable to handle the fact that he could see his son reshaping himself into something he’d never been before, and he couldn’t do anything to stop it.

He hated the sports teams, although the men who worked for him often congratulated him on having a star athlete for a son. He hated the people that came with them, the people his son claimed to be friends with, they were awful children, who grew into awful teenagers, the majority bullies, those bad influences gradually influencing their son into something his friends dubbed King Steve. A boy he and his wife no longer recognised.

A boy who threw parties at the house while his parents weren’t home, forced away on business trips they couldn’t get out of and couldn’t take him along with thanks to school, allowing them to come home to precious possessions smashed, beer cans littered around the house, around the pool, the stank of marijuana clinging to their soft furnishings.

His own wife now questioned their marriage, his faithfulness, all because she’d found a bra in their bedroom that didn’t belong to her, spoke to her friends about it before confronting him. All John could assume was that one of Steve’s little parties had included teens getting up to no good in the bedrooms.

Safe to say the entire closet of bed linens had been burned, new were bought immediately, and cameras were installed around the house. Lynda still didn’t trust him.

And then work picked up. John Harrington’s firm went global, their money increased tenfold, but so did the workload, and with Lynda no longer trusting him, she was always by his side, watching, waiting for a sign, any kind of hint, a scrap of infidelity to prove it to herself… John hadn’t ever so much as looked at another woman, how could he? He’d married his high school sweetheart and even through her paranoia, she was still the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.

It meant Steve was alone more often as he grew older, but… John couldn’t spend too much time around his son anymore anyway, he wished he could. He wished he could sit his boy down, wished he could wrap him in his arms and tell him it was going to be okay, that whatever it was that’d done that damage so long ago, they’d face it, they’d deal with it, and they’d put it behind them.

It was too late. His son had grown up. His bright star of a little boy was gone and neither he, nor his wife, could get an answer out of him as to why. John never claimed that to be good parenting either, avoiding the problem, he knew he was taking the cowards way out, it ate at him more than he ever allowed show. That didn’t help their home life.

And then a young woman disappeared from their pool. The cameras around the house picked up nothing, the image flickering with static, showing the poor girl there one moment, then gone the next, no sign of where she’d gone between the brief flicker of static. The government had shown up and confiscated the tapes before the police could come by. Not that the police knew about the cameras.

They weren’t exactly obvious.

And Steve, for the first time in his life, came home with a girlfriend. And a face full of injuries. But a girlfriend! Something steady, something stable, with someone from a respectable family, someone with brains, someone with a good head on her shoulders, something that spontaneously combusted about a year later.

Disappointing, but the face full of injuries was more important. Even if Steve wouldn’t tell them about it.

Steve dropped the swimming team.

Then came Steve’s spectacularly bad grades in school leaving him graduating but going nowhere fast in terms of college. Then came John Harrington putting his foot down, demanding Steve get a job, he’d even grabbed a ‘We’re Hiring’ flyer from the new mall after he and Lynda had gone shopping the day before.

Then the mall fire. More bruises, this time scars. The nightmares that woke their son up, and them, in the middle of the night with his screaming that he’d never explain. This time eye doctors, otolaryngologists, their boy suffered a ruptured eardrum the doctor claimed would likely get worse with time, that he’d eventually need hearing aids, another concussion, he couldn’t get his son to explain where the blunt force trauma had come from, but John swore never to force his son into work again.

Steve still grabbed a new job with his new friend Robin at the local Family Video store. A glimmer of that ember they’d thought had died out, peeking through the cracks in the walls Steve had long since put up.

The Harringtons had been proud, for the first time in so very long, they’d been proud. Thrilled. They’d spent much longer in Hawkins after that, attempting to build bridges that’d long since been destroyed, before they’d had to go again, “There’s utter chaos in the London branch, Steve, we’ll send you money for groceries every week and don’t forget to water the plants! We should be home by the end of the month okay?”

Then came the serial killer.

The Earthquake.

Then, the phone call.

“Mom, just… just stay out of Hawkins okay, just… just stay on your business trip with dad, alright?” The line was crackly at best, Lynda on the phone from their hotel room in London, John close by, listening as best he could.

“Sweetheart we saw on the news, that girl, the Earthqua—”

“Yeah, yeah mom, it’s… it’s bad here, look just stay there. Wherever you are right now, just stay there until I call again, alright? Just don’t come home. I’ll stay in touch as best I can okay? Just sta—”

“Steve? Steve?! Steve!!” Lynda pulled the phone away from her ear, the steady beep of a call disconnected going off from the speaker. Her panicked gaze turning from the handset to her husband “John!”

“Give me the phone, I’m getting us home.”

He wasn’t able to get them home. Not all the way. Hawkins was locked down solid. They got as close as six miles away, holed up in a motel close enough to see the plumes of black, billowing up into the skies above filled with angry red lights flashing intermittently like lightning, as if a volcano had erupted and the pyroclastic flow just wouldn’t stop, helicopters circled the town daily but reports never made it out of the little town.

They heard nothing for weeks, for months. There was no news on Hawkins anywhere on the channels, it was as though the place had vanished from the face of the Earth despite constant surveillance, but they watched from a hill high enough to see the town in the distance.

They watched it every single day, a radio on, the TV on, waiting for news, waiting for something, anything. Months turned into a year, in that time the Harringtons moved their things from the motel into a town a few miles further south, renting a modest two bed there, watching the smoke, waiting for a call, for anything to say their son was okay.

Anything to say that he was alive.

A year turned into two. Arguments led to tears, led to apologies, led to promises that if, if he were alive in there, they’d try harder, they’d figure it out. They’d get their little boy back, the one that loved freely, openly, the one that talked to them, the one that played house, played dress up with his mom, who cooked with his little apron on, they’d get their little boy back no matter what it took.

That they wouldnt stop hoping until news came to tell them he was gone.

And then just like that. The smoke disappeared. Swallowed up, gone. The skies slowly cleared above a dead Hawkins, revealing shrivelled trees, a horrorscape of a place that looked as though it'd been left to rot decades ago.

Lynda’s incredibly expensive mobile phone rang.

“…Mom?”

One of the reasons they even chose the bigger property was because “It’s big enough for you all to be there.” That’s what Lynda had told Steve when he’d asked about it. “It’s not going to happen for another couple of weeks, so the house is still going to be a little cramped with everyone in it, but…”

“We have no intentions of separating you from your family, Steven.” John finished for her, nodding over Steve’s shoulder to the multiple sets of eyes watching them. “Like your mother said, what we have now is too cramped, this new place will have plenty of room for everyone.”

“And… what about when their parents turn up?” Because it was a when, not an if. “Just gonna go back to an empty house?” They were operating on when. Nevermind that they’d never seen their parents get out of Hawkins. Nevermind that the only parent they knew for certain was alive and well outside of Joyce and Hopper, was Karen Wheeler, Ted having put himself between his kids and a Demogorgon during the early days and hadn’t come out as the victor. It didn’t matter that they’d seen horrors beyond anything a child should have to witness.

The kids needed to operate on when.

“Then we’ll help them find homes in the area, but until then, the house will be… a home base of sorts. A comfortable starting point for all of you so you’re not too far away from each other, it’ll never be an empty house, Steven. I know it might look like we’re just spending money for the sake of it but… it’s not like that anymore.” They weren’t doing that anymore. They’d found a better way than being away from home all the time. John worked from a home office and delegated important tasks and jobs to others to free up his time, and Lynda decided she wanted to be at home.

They were just glad Steve was allowing them to just decide to be there for him all of a sudden. He didn’t have to.

“…Forgive me if I still doubt that.” No amount of tearful apologies could erase all that history “But thanks, for… for thinking of us. It’s true, we kinda stuck together like glue after Mr Wheeler…” he trailed off. After they’d gotten Karen and Holly out of that house while Ted held back that shaking door, huge, clawed fingers tearing through wood. He still remembered Holly’s screams, still remembered Karen crying, begging them to go back as Nancy and Mike dragged her out, Holly running straight to Steve. “We were never far apart from each other.” It’d be weird without them, unsettling when the dust finally settled. When parents returned to claim their kids.

“And you wont be.” John placed a hand on his son’s shoulder, firm, squeezing it in comforting reassurance. “You won’t be.”

~~

“Aaaand this is your room.” Had it not been for the fact that Eddie had been in a coma for the last god only knows, where he could, with rules, conjure ridiculous shit, he’d have probably assumed he was still out.

He had a room. In what was essentially. A mansion. But he’d never seen it before, so he wasn’t still in his funky little void because he wouldn’t have been able to conjure it.

Only what he’d seen, only places he’d been.

He had his own room. Bigger than his old one at the trailer because of course it was. Currently empty of personal belongings, void of personality, but Steve was holding boxes. Boxes with stuff in them, rolled up tubes of paper, stuff wrapped in newspapers, and he was setting those boxes down one by one inside the room. “…What’s in those?”

“Shit we saved from the trailer, it’s not much but… it’s something.” Eddie silently turned to just. Stare at him. Brows furrowed, confusion so evident Steve had to ask “what?”

“…How long has it been since I died, Steve?” He had to ask again, just to be sure of something, even if it was a weird question to ask.

“Bout two years, why?”

“… And in that time, Hawkins basically ate shit, right?”

“Yup, where’s this going?”

“How’d you save my stuff for that long? Why did you save my stuff for that long? Shit couldn’t have been easy to keep safe, right? So… why?” Steve fell silent, his jaw shifting, lips pursing, visibly going through all the possible reasons he could have saved that stuff, all the reasons why he would have saved that stuff, all the potential excuses, the boy would be terrible at poker.

He settled on shrugging his shoulders.

“Because I did. Because I could. Like I said, it’s not much.” It was so much. Not quantity wise, no… Steve was right there wasn’t much in those boxes, probably why Steve could carry multiple at a time but it meant so much. Steve obviously wasn’t going to go into the why’s or the how’s with him though. He was going to brush them away, without answers. “We saved some mugs, there’s some posters in here, uhh, I got a bunch of your tapes and your deck, I wish I could say I saved your guitars but… I’m sorry man, it was just too risky carting around something that could make noise. I think… they might still be there but—”

“It’s fine, Steve… this—this is way more than I could have asked for.” He could always get a new guitar, eventually. It’d mean saving up somehow, or using some of the hush money that the government had promised him for signing, he was planning on using that to find Wayne though.

It’d been over a week, the hospital had slowly been cleared of survivors, the Sinclair’s were the only parents who’d made it thus far, having been staying with Sue’s sister a few towns over doing the exact same thing as the Harringtons. Waiting. Hoping. Praying for news on their kids, any news. Anything.

They’d taken the Harrington’s offer to stay in the converted pool house with Karen until they could get housing arranged, the kids staying in the main house with everyone else.

“Yeah well… we’ll sort you out a new one eventually. Can’t leave the bard without his instrument, right?” Eddie’s wide eyes were on him again, a beaming smile spreading across his lips, dimpling his cheeks, stretching the scar tissue on his jaw, and Steve had to look away, he had to, because otherwise he just might fall again, and he couldn’t… he couldn’t make that mistake twice.

“Be still my beating heart, was that a D&D reference, Harrington?” He could feel the warmth seeping into his cheeks at the attention, as Eddie leaned in a little closer, got into his space, it’d been so long since someone had paid him any attention. Even if it meant nothing to Eddie, even if he was just being silly, be still his own beating heart.

“Maybe. Now get to unpacking your shit.” He put the last of the boxes down on the bed, purposefully turning away from Eddie to hide his reddening face, to hide what he knew Eddie had never wanted to see. “We’ll be heading out into town in an hour to find us all some new clothes, maybe some new stuff for the rooms too. Hop to it.”

“You’re not gonna help lil ol me unpack? I just got out of hospital!” Eddie called after him as Steve made to leave the room.

“Stinson?” Steve was the first to identify her, while the others just looked on in surprise “you’re alive? Is Owens—”

“Despite the real effort those things put in to make it otherwise, yes. I’m here. Owens is permanently wheelchair bound but he’s okay. Mr and Mrs Harrington” She nodded to the two in the back, Steve’s parents holy shit. Okay. “I’ll allow you to stay on account of the fact that I don’t know what you’ve been told already. Mr Thompson, I thank you for your attendance however the government will take over from here. You’re not needed.” ‘Harold’ took one look at the Harringtons, then another to the men waiting outside the door, and chose wisely.

“Sorry John, government. I’m way over my head here.” He uttered, before making his quiet exit.

“I’m never hiring him again.” John sighed with a roll of his eyes, while Lynda stared Stinson down with an air of contempt.

“As if you could make us lea—"

“I’m the government, Mrs Harrington, I absolutely could have you removed. Now—” she turned back to the kids “I’ve already spoken with Hopper and the others, this… this issue is more important than their involvement. I know you don’t want to sign them, I know you have every right to tell the government to go fuck itself, I would too in your situation.” She rummaged through her bag, it took a little more effort than it would have normally given the missing other arm, but she made do, producing a folder from within. She placed it on the bed and opened it. A stack of NDA’s. “The government are prepared to clear Mr. Munson’s name, completely, without it ever going to trial, we have a number of names to take the fall for it, all perfectly believable with fabricated eye witnesses, but they only do this, if these are signed.”

“Are you blackmailin—” John spoke up, only to be cut off by the woman with a stern glare.

“Yes. Yes I am. I would rather not be. Listen, they will throw Mr. Munson under the bus, without hesitation, he’s the easiest person to pin this on as the story is already out there and people already believe it. You want their help, it needs to be a two way street. They are prepared to completely clear Munson’s name, and pin the crimes on someone else, they are prepared to create false witnesses, they’re even offering money. What you know is worth millions, and they will pay it to keep you quiet, but if you do not sign these… the second he’s cleared for release, he goes to jail for the murders of Chrissy Cunningham, Fred Benson, Patrick McKinney, and the attempted murder of Maxine Mayfield. You sign them, he leaves with you, a free man. His name will be publicly cleared by the days end. We’ll even make a hero out of him.”

“He is a hero” Dustin argued, a frown on his face.

“Exactly, I agree. The public don’t though. They will when we’re done with them. We need you to sign these” She looked at the Harringtons. “All of you. I’ll leave you with these and wait outside, call me back in when you’ve made your decision.” And with that, she walked out unhindered, leaving them all struck silent.

Until Steve moved. He grabbed the folder first, picking up the pen.

“Steve” Eddie started before anyone else could.

“You’re not going to jail, Eddie. I don’t give a fuck. It’s one piece of paper to sign and honestly who’d believe us if we told anyone anyway? Monsters running or flying through town killing people? Evil vines putting slugs in dead people, spores that kill shit, toxic air? Other dimensions? We’d be called insane, they’d probably class it as a mass hallucination from a gas leak or some shit, they’d put us all in the looney bin the second we opened our mouths. They’re offering to clear your name, and all we have to do is sign some stupid piece of paper. So I’m signing it.”

It was signed before anyone could stop him. And being legally an adult, it was binding. He passed the folder to Dustin, who while not legally an adult, signed it anyway. Then, both young men turned to the adults.

“Steven…”

“Sign it. Sign it and he’s cleared. These people don’t mess around, mom. No doubt the others have already signed. I get you don’t think it’s right, really I do, but—”

“Give it here, son.” John stepped forward and took the offered folder and pen, and was about to sign on the dotted line when—

“Good heavens, at least read it, John” Lynda took the folder from him, eyes on the document, skimming the lines on the page for anything that could fuck them over. “…Oh, give me the damn pen” she took that too, quickly scribbling her signature on her own before passing it back to her husband to sign. “The nerve of these people. This is blatant blackmail. Did he even—was he ever even guilty? Of anything?”

“No, he wasn’t. Unfortunate case of wrong place wrong time… twice. As unbelievable as that is.” Steve sighed, a huge feeling of relief washing over him. Eddie would be okay. He wasn’t dead, he wasn’t going to jail, he’d be fine. This incredibly stupid boy would be okay. “He’ll need a place to stay, Wayne’s—"

Eddie was sat up in an instant, his body complaining but he ignored it “Where’s Wayne? Is he okay? Is he safe? Is he—"

“Whoa whoa, big guy,” Dustin was quick to his side, a hand on his shoulder to steady him as that heart monitor went wild “calm down, Wayne’s okay, he got out before the barricades went up. We don’t know exactly where he went, but we’ll find him, okay? It just might take a bit of time.”

“In the meantime, he can stay with us.” All three sets of eyes turned to John Harrington as he closed the folder, holding it in one hand, Lynda smiling beside him, apparently content with the idea “Our current house only has two bedrooms, but we’ll make do until we can arrange to purchase something larger. I assume Miss Buckley will be staying too until we can find her parents. It’ll be a full house, might be a bit cramped, but we’ll manage. I’ve been stuck in stuffy boardrooms with more people for hours on end, and we hated each other. It’ll be okay.”

“I… dunno, is that—” Steve hesitated, of course Steve hesitated, Eddie didn’t blame him, they barely knew each other. Sure they had shared trauma but that didn’t really mean much between complete strangers. “I mean—” Steve looked at him “will you be comfortable? Staying with… with me?” and wasn’t that just the weirdest question Steve could have asked him.

“Dude… shouldn’t I be asking you that? I’m the freak here, why wouldn’t I be—sure! I’m fine with that, I mean, stranger things have happened, right?”

“Heh, right… if—if you’re sure it won’t make you uncomfortable or anything…”

“A jester in a palace, hanging out with a king, my my, how in the world could I be uncomfortable with that?” He smiled, wide, teasing, his cheeks dimpled as Steve rolled his eyes with obvious fondness.

Lynda grabbed her husbands’ arm subtly, taking his attention just long enough for her to utter the word “Dimples” at him while Dustin kept the others attention with his complaining about Steve getting to stay with Eddie. Steve immediately firing back with the fact that Dustin was staying too until they could find Claudia and not to be dumb.

He looked down at her with a small frown, then back at Eddie, realisation dawning on him just as quickly as it did his wife.

“Dimples.”

It wasn’t a torture chamber, or the semi-dark space behind his eyelids, it was a black void, the floor covered with water, or… some kind of liquid, he didn’t know what it was, but if he thought really hard, usually he could conjure something in there and that something wouldn’t be damp, the water wouldn’t touch it.

Be it that couch from Max’s trailer to lounge on, his bedroom, or a lone, solitary picnic table for him to sit upon and ponder life’s great mysteries. If he thought hard enough, he could make any place he knew appear for a time.

Was he dead? He assumed he should be, given his spectacular final act… but something about the void felt… purgatorial.

Not quite the pearly gates he never expected to get within an mile of, not quite the burning pits of Hell people assumed he’d somehow claim a throne in, but a middle ground. The waiting room between life and death. Limbo, Purgatory, not the up, or the down, but the middle where the powers that be left you until they could determine your fate.

Eddie liked conjuring his bedroom.

It was pretty accurate too!

He had his little fidget toys, he had his baby, which honestly sounded a little funky in the void space, but hey, he could practice things in there! He had his yoyo, was getting pretty good at the rock the baby trick, he had that basketball that he’d stolen from the gymnasium on a dare. He had his handcuffs from that time Hopper had forgotten to link his cuffs to anything, and just allowed him to bolt into the woods to figure out the cuffs somewhere else, he had his notebooks to scribble in.

Although nothing he scribbled ever actually stuck around.

He didn’t like looking in the mirror. The mirror… it felt. Wrong somehow. He couldn’t quite place why it felt wrong. The image looking back at him. It was him, but… it was wrong. Didn’t know how to explain it. Like he was staring into the face of something else wearing his skin, something else standing in a place somewhere else, even though it did look like him, it did look like his room. It felt wrong.

That was really the only thing that felt wrong in his void. The mirror. It was easy to ignore.

Most things were easy to ignore there. Like the strange passing of time. If time actually passed. Eddie had no idea, given his scribbles never stuck around he figured time was pretty much set in stone where he was, it didn’t pass. It didn’t matter really. Not much mattered. He was dead after all right? He’d gone lights out, and frankly had he any choice in his way to go? He’d have probably picked the one he went with.

He just wished it wouldn’t have dealt a crushing blow of trauma to the boy who’d quickly wormed his way into Eddie’s cold, cynical heart. He should apologise for that. Maybe in his next life, or maybe when the powers that be figured out where to drop his ass, he could get one of whoever shared the eternity, to pass on a message for him.

Like some kind of supernatural game of Broken Telephone.

Dustin had a friend with superpowers right? Or at least she’d had superpowers at one point, playing Broken Telephone from the great beyond couldn’t be that farfetched right?

God he was tired. Which was new. His limbs felt… heavy. Which was funny because he’d honestly forgot what his limbs were supposed to feel like. But all of a sudden, while sprawled out on his bed, he just felt… heavy. Eyelids drooped shut, breathing slowed, weighted down, he could hear the faintest beep, repeating, over and over again, it’d never been in his void before but—

It was fine. He could… he could handle a beep in his void. His void that seemed to grow a warmer shade of brown, details of his bedroom blowing away like wisps of smoke on a gentle breeze

Figures moved across his warm brown void, it wasn’t even a void anymore though if he were honest. It felt impossibly small. More just a space. A space behind his eyelids. Eyelids which struggled to open but seemed to want to.

Maybe he wasn’t dead. Maybe he was and this was just the process of waking up in the afterlife. Who knew. Not him. He’d been stuck in a void for… a few weeks maybe? Few days?

Probably a couple of days.

“—e’s coming back… heart rate is steady, vitals seem normal, Mr. Munson, can you hear us?”

“Mnnhhh” oh cool, his voice! There was a crack in his brown space, a crack that looked blurry, like looking through water, through tears, and sleep trapped in thick eyelashes, he tried to lift a hand to clear his eyes but found it locked down, trapped by something he couldn’t see.

“Get those damn things off my client this instant.” That was a voice he didn’t recognise.

“It’s a precaution.”

“Against what exactly? Please, in your infinite wisdom, officer, tell me what exactly this semi-lucid young man could ACTUALLY do to you in his current state? What? Are you scared that he’ll wiggle a pinkie at you? You’re grown men, act like it for heavens sake.” A different voice, feminine, commanding, didn’t recognise it though, respected it a little, but he didn’t recognise it.

“Mom… Officer, please… just take the handcuffs off of him, he didn’t do anything. He wouldn’t do anything. He wouldn’t hurt a fly, knowing him he’d open all the windows in the house just to waft the damn thing out” Oh. Oh now that—That voice. He recognised that voice. The weight on his wrist seemed to vanish. Awesome.

“Oh now… I must be dead” his voice, sure, but awfully croaky, like he’d smoked a full six pack every five hours for a month. “Although how I went up I dunno…” didn’t hurt to speak but… it felt weird.

“Munson? The hell are you—”

“Pretty sure that could only be the voice of an angel.”

“He’s… very medicated.” the first voice seemed hesitant to speak, Eddie assumed doctor.

“Hiiiigh as a kite” he managed to croak out with a crackly chuckle that cut short with a grunt and a pained wince. He preferred his void. He didn’t hurt in his void.

“Jesus Christ, Munson.” His favourite voice was back! “Doc can we get some kind of wipes or something here?” Moments later, the gentle touch of large, rough hands on his cheek had that funny little heart monitor pick up its pace. It largely went ignored, although the silence while it went wild was pretty condemning. “Calm down, I’m just wiping your face.”

Don’t do it, don’t do it, don’t say it. Dooon’t—“sponge bath from Steeeeeeve Harrington, what a thing to wake up to.” Dammit.

“Maybe we should—" another man’s voice he didn’t recognise.

“Don’t even think about leave me alone with this.”

“Awww” that hand gently whapped his face, it didn’t hurt, just served to shut him up. Weird that it didn’t hurt though, he was pretty sure he’d been bitten on his face, a tap should hurt even if he was high.

“Don’t aww me, you did this shit to yourself. I told you, what the fuck did I tell you, Eddie? Don’t be a hero, don’t be a goddamn hero, and what do you do?” Steve angrily, yet still somehow gently, wiping the gunk away from his eyes as he spoke like some kind of vexed mother hen.

“…”

“That’s right, you got yourself ate. What. What REASON? What could you have POSSIBLY—”

“Would have gotten us both if I hadn’t. They came in… came in through the vents in my room… if I hadn’t—hadn’t drawn em out—Dustin was right there, man… they’d have come through the door. It was me or both of us. Shit—M’sorry Steve… is… is he okay? He hurt his ankle, was limping I think… is he—” oh hey light, everything coming back so quickly as his eyes were cleared up, the light was a lot, but not enough to detract from Steve’s face right there and— “Where’s all your hair gone? I swear you had it last time I saw you… Max! Where’s Max? Did—is she..?”

“Dustin’s fine. Max is fine. Doctors say they think she’s gonna wake up soon. Eddie… what do you remember?”

“…Most metal concert that the world never saw, evil bat tornado. Then… pretty sure I died. I mean. I did right? There’s no ifs or buts there, I kicked the bucket, hopped off this mortal coil, one with the wiiin—”

“Eddie.”

“Right, sorry. Uhm… yeah, not much, Harrington, sorry to say memories kinda end after death. Not that I was ever a believer of the pearly gates but—would have been nice to be proven wrong.” He remembered the void. Remembered every waking second of the void, but… with so many people around him, he wasn’t about to mention the void. “Why, should I be remembering something?”

“…No. No this… this is better. This is proof enough.” Steve turned to the soldiers in the room, right at the back where Eddie hadn’t looked. Not the police who looked cramped and uncomfortable. The soldiers standing rigid in the back, eyeing the bed and its occupant with suspicion. One standing in front of the others, stoic, his uniform adorned with the medals of rank. “You lot hear that? That’s proof enough, right?”

“…For now.” The one in front spoke “We’ll be keeping an eye on you all though, as a precaution.”

Steve narrowed his eyes, his expression one of pure hatred, one that looked so foreign on his face to Eddie, yet… it seemed so at home there now, it became it so easily. “You’d better believe we’ll be doing the same to you too, sir.” The soldiers left, the front man first, then the other two followed stiffly, and Steve relaxed, expression softening, he released a soft breath through his nose, then turned back to Eddie.

Eddie who found the silence that followed just suffocating enough to come to an unsurprising conclusion. Something that should have been obvious from the clues around him but yet he still had to ask about.

“…I wasn’t just out for a few days. Was I?”

“Robin!!” Lynda gasped, loud enough to catch the girls attention, her head snapping up, eyes wide as the parents rushed forward, Robin rose to her feet, stumbled almost just in time to be gathered up into Lynda’s arms, much to her surprise. She didn’t fight it though, no… instead she melted into it, as though it was the first physical contact she’d had that didn’t involve fighting for her life in two whole years. “Where—where are your parents, Robin?”

“T-They… I don’t know, they got out… I think… but I—I haven’t seen them, I think people are still learning that they can come back, if they even want to come back, I mean… there isn’t much left back there for anyone to come back to—Steve! Steve you want—you want Steve right?” The other kids seemed to have perked up, watching the interaction in confusion.

“Where is he, Robin?” Robin looked to John, her gaze a mixture of uncertainty and hesitance. “Please… we know he’s here, he called us, sounded—”

“He’s been in and out, worlds best babysitter took a beating from something… big, protecting these idiots.” They hadn’t been made to sign anything yet, but it was hard to explain what exactly had come for them in the end without sounding like she should be in a hug me jacket getting thrown into a rubber room. “C’mon, I’ll take you to him.”

“Robin? Who’s—” one of the kids started to rise from his seat, or… not a kid, probably closer to a young adult at that point, forced to grow up far too quickly.

“Steve’s parents.”

“Holy shit, they exist?” Both parents cast similar frowns in the boys direction for that little quip “—sorry It’s just… I’ve known him for years and never met you, doesn’t even—”

“That’s enough Dustin” Robin cut him off, sharply but not unkindly. “You don’t know everything, just drop it. C’mon, this way.” She seemed to be walking on a limp, but she was walking, leading them down a corridor until she made it to a door left slightly ajar, the one opposite it flanked on either side by a pair of soldiers. The Harringtons assumed she’d be leading them to the other. But no. She stopped outside of the one closed too and looked at the pair like they’d personally offended her.

They didn’t even try and stop her when she grabbed the handle, instead stepping a little further apart to allow her and her guests to enter with her, John closed the door behind him.

The room was quiet, mostly, save for a radio playing quietly by the window, a genre that no-one would ever assume could be played quietly, and the steady beep of life saving machines. It wasn’t a large room, only big enough for a single bed, the machines, some room to walk around, and a couple of chairs, private, but it housed two people anyway. One on the bed, hooked up to all those machines, skin pale, scarred, his hair long and messy in a way Lynda would probably guess he’d had curls at one point.

Not anymore, it was just a matted mess by that point, one of his hands resting in the linens, handcuffs on his wrist linking him to the bed, the other wrapped in someone else’s grip.

That someone else… the other—

“Steven?” His head snapped up at his father’s voice, hand swiftly withdrawing from the man’s in the bed, his hair had been cut short, possibly to the scalp for convenience, the lengths seemingly only just growing back, he had scars around his neck from what looked like barbs, scars down his arms, both old and new, bruising, treated injuries that'd likely looked way worse when he was admitted.

another round of injuries his parents figured he'd struggle to tell them about.

He rose to his feet, he looked… thin beneath the hospital garbs they’d put him in. Thinner than he should have been, he’d always been broad but now… it was as though he hadn’t had a decent meal in two years. Likely living off of whatever they could scrounge together.

“Stevie, my baby…” Lynda’s voice sounded more like a pained whine, but it was the only warning Steve got before his mother lurched forward and wrapped him up in a fierce hug, adjusting only when her son winced and hissed in pain “you—you were s-supposed to—you were supposed to call to—to contact us, you—”

“I know… I know I—we got cut off, that call, it was the last one any of us could make, those bastards cut us off when they realised it wasn’t gonna be like the times before.” It wasn’t going to be a quick one and done. That the thing they were dealing with was much bigger than just one evil.

It was a whole hoard of evil. Not just Henry. Henry had back up in the form of a gigantic evil cloud, monsters of all shapes and sizes, and an arsenal of loved ones to use as his own personal puppets to terrorize and destroy the people left behind. Eddie being the only one actually there.

“The times before?” John’s voice had his son looking up from the hug his mother had trapped him in. His eyes seemed to dip “Steven… please…”

Steve shook his head, he couldn’t, not there anyway. “I’m fine though,” he’d change the subject instead, a regular instance in the Harrington household, hide the truth and mask it with an “I‘m fine” “bit banged up, but I’ll live…” he released the hold on his mother, even if she didn’t want to let go just yet.

“Who’s this…?” And they let it happen. Every time they let it happen, let the subject go, let it switch to something new, John would allow it for now, but… once out of there, once the dust settled, they’d be having that talk. For now, he was okay with letting the subject change. Aiming it instead at the elephant in the room.

The unconscious man in the bed his son had been holding onto moments ago. That ember, that tiny spark in his son, perhaps… perhaps it was still there.

“Eddie… he uh… he helped, at the end… he—we wouldn’t be alive without him… we thought—we thought he was dead for months but… he wasn’t.” Another touchy subject, but at least that one his son was willing to talk about.

“The handcuffs?”

“Police still think he killed a bunch of kids before the earthquake, the handcuffs are a ‘precaution’ apparently, as if he’s going anywhere.” The serial killer. Eddie Munson. Lynda’s head snapped to the man, eyes wide “he didn’t!” Steve was quick to assure her “It looked bad, it did, it looked like he did it, but he didn’t, he wouldn’t he—he’s good… he’s good. He saved us.”

“Saved you? How?”

“It’s hard to explain…”

Robin on the other hand, didn’t care quite as much as their son did when it came to hiding the facts. “Evil guy, Henry Creel, actual culprit in the Creel murders of ’59 and actual serial killer, we thought Eddie died before the earthquake cause he basically got ate alive by a bunch of evil bats, but Henry was using him as a henchman of sorts, kept him alive to use against us cause we all felt guilty over it which… y’know, fair, he didn’t have to stay involved but he did, and he got ate of course, we felt guilty. I dunno how, but he snapped out of it at like… the last minute, and bought us enough time to take him down, now he’s just…” she motioned to the bed, the steady beep of the monitor going off rhythmically. “We got him out this time though.”

“…What?” Both Harringtons asked in unison.

“Robin” Steve hissed.

“What? Jeez, they haven’t made us sign anything yet.”

“…Sign something? What do you mean sign something?” Lynda looked between them, the two young adults clearly exhausted. “Steven? What have you signed?”

“NDA’s mom, each time, they’ve forced us to sign these Non-Disclosur—”

“Who?”

“Y’know… the government?”

There was something distinctly satisfying about watching a 5’4" woman demolishing a government agent. Something almost the entirety of the Party managed to witness when someone from said government finally decided to grace them with their presence to sign those pretty shut your mouth documents they were so fond of dolling out.

John Harrington watched with what could only be described as a dopey grin on his face as he leaned in to whoever was closest, this being one very tired Mike Wheeler, to say “You know she majored in Contract Law back in the day? Minor in Ethics too. God look at her go.” Totally and completely smitten over his own wife’s rage.

Apparently forcing minors to sign NDA’s, while technically legal for them to scribble on the dotted line, couldn’t actually be held up anywhere in court due to age and how dare they force children, not just her OWN but other children to sign that shit without a parent or legal guardian present.

It ended with her loudly declaring that “NOBODY in this hallway will be signing your goddamn papers, and as for the previous ones? You’ll be hearing from our lawyers.” Then, on her heel she turned, and returned to the group, leaving a stunned government agent floundering in the hallway having clearly expected an easy ride. “Everyone, get your things, you’re coming home with us.” Too revved up to stop just yet.

“Excuse me, why would we go with you? Ain’t you ever heard of stranger danger, ma’am?”

“Erica Sinclair, I held you when you were just 3 months old and I bought you and your brother your first strollers, now get your backside out to that car this instant.” Erica shut up, momentarily subdued, but she did have to wonder when exactly her parents had met the Harringtons, later, questions for later. Maybe when she and her brother found their parents. “We have a house with two bathrooms and enough food to feed an army, let’s go.” Not quite the six bathroom four bedroom estate they’d had in Hawkins but…

They weren’t going back there. Nobody was going back there.

The modest two bed close by would do as home base for now, even if it wasn’t quite big enough to hold everyone, they’d make do. John stepped forward to add, “we have a working phone too, get you in touch with the people you need to be in touch with, and we’ll let the front desk know to inform anyone who comes looking where you’ve gone. It’ll be okay, let’s get you out of here and cleaned up.”

“Mom… I’m not leaving Eddie, we’re not… not again, he’s—he’s all on his own I—I can’t.”

“Honey…” Lynda started, but… that little boy they’d long since watched withdraw into himself, he was just… there, for the briefest of moments, showing himself, his emotions, raw, and tired, but it was enough, her son was in there, clawing back to the surface, she wasn’t about to ruin it now. “How about we go home, we get you all cleaned up, get you something to eat, and then we come back and figure out what to do about Eddie, how’s that sound?”

“We have plenty of world class lawyers on our side, Son, we’ll get him out of here in no time, just… let’s get you cleaned up first, Okay? The house is only half an hour away.” Close, they’d be close, the hesitation on all of their faces though, this poor boy, whoever he was… they all hesitated to leave him, there was a lot of love in that hallway, each one as determined as the last to stay with their friend.

“…Alright shitheads, to the car.” Not a single one of those kids argued, Steve was in charge, but Mike and Lucas both hung back.

“I’m gonna stay with the Byers, Nance, Holly, and my mom are with them so—”

“An I’m gonna stick with Max until her mom gets here.” Doctors said she could wake up at any time after her brain activity kicked back up when the dust settled… when Henry died. He wanted to be there when she did. “I’ll be fine though, promise.”

And when Lynda stepped forward to hand Mike a little card with a number scribbled on it, saying “This is our home number, If anything changes with your friend, Eddie while we’re gone, call us, okay? We’ll be right back here in a flash.” She caught the faint smile on her sons face in her peripheral vision.

Baby steps.

Even at the house, the comforts of modern society feeling foreign, hot water burned for a moment, but in a way that seeped into their bones leaving them loose limbed and floaty, in a way that left them lightheaded when they stepped out, but laughing at the absurdity of how they never thought they’d forget what hot water felt like.

His parents weren’t kidding about the food either, after showers were had and clothes were changed, a feast of quick bite foods were laid out onto the modest kitchen table. Finger sandwiches that his mother seemed to be making at rapid speed, cocktail sausages, cheese, things they could grab and snack on quick.

It struck Steve a little stupid for a moment, just watching his mother there, two completely unrelated young adults stuffing their faces while his mother worked diligently to feed them.

It'd been a long time since he’d seen his mother doing anything in the kitchen. A long time since she’d been anywhere but following his father around, attempting to catch him in the act of adultery.

“Best grab something quick, kids, we’re meeting Harold at the hospital in an hour.”

“Harold?” Why did that name sound familiar? Robin didn’t question it like Steve did, content to hurry into a spot not occupied to gorge herself on finger foods to leave Steve running the name over in his head on his own. Groaning in delight over the cucumber sandwiches. Such simple things. She’d never take cucumber for granted ever again.

“Closest lawyer we have on the books thats any use, your father is in the living room on the phone with him now, he’s commuting from Indianapolis to meet us there.” Once again he found himself shocked. Who were these people?

“You’re actually…” they were actually going to help? Don’t question it, don’t question it, it’d just go away if he questioned it, just— “I’m sorry, but you’re actually going to help?”

Lynda paused in her sandwich spree, those gorging themselves on finger foods already prepared pausing momentarily as the atmosphere thickened with that one question. He didn’t believe it. Not for one second, he hadn’t believed that his parents would actually help. He’d just put the kids into the car because he knew it was better than staying at that hospital.

He knew a break from the sterile white walls, a break from the crying families, from the loss and pain around them, he knew a break from it would do the kids good.

“Robin… would you… would you take over for a moment, please?”

“Huh?” Robin startled, eyes darting to Lynda, before she stumbled out of her seat to take Lynda’s place “s-sure, yeah, got it.”

“Come with me, Steven.” She untied the apron from around her waist and hung it on a small hook by the door as she walked by, wordlessly, with the kids eyes on his back, he followed her out of the kitchen, out of the back door, into the spacious back yard where she stopped on the decking, her arms wrapped around her torso, fingers clutching her own biceps as she just. Looked out into the garden.

He closed the back door behind him.

“What’s going on, mom?” He half expected to be berated, how could he question her in front of people, make her look bad as though she wouldn’t help. How dare he allude to the idea that she wasn’t the perfect parent around people. What would they think?!

That wasn’t what he got. “…Do you remember when you were small?” He frowned a little, expression scrunching in confusion, she let out a soft huff of sad, short laughter at his lack of an answer. “No, I suppose you might not. Steven… we lost you. Your father and I. We didn’t mean to, but we did. There’s no excuse for it, nothing I say here can excuse letting my son disappear, so many should haves, could haves, and would haves. I could say we were young, stupid, didn’t have experience with a child to know what to do, but… it was as though one minute you were there, our bright, perfect little ball of sunshine, and the next…” she shook her head “you weren’t there anymore. Or you were, you were there, but— but that sunshine was gone. And we didn’t try to get you back. We didn't know where to begin looking, so we didn't.”

Steve swallowed hard, eyes diverting to the ground, that… wasn’t what he expected at all. He remained silent. Jaw clenched tight. He remembered. Of course he remembered. Remembered feeling wrong. Feeling dirty, gross, feeling… unclean.

Feeling like his parents had betrayed him by letting him be himself. By not nipping what people deemed wrong in the bud before it’d had chance to bloom.

For setting him up for heartbreak.

It wasn’t their fault. None of it was their fault. Time had just moved too quickly to fix what one stupid boy had so carelessly broken in him.

“Like I said, there’s no excuse… there’s nothing I can say that’d make up for letting you suffer like that, letting you suffer on your own instead of just… being there for you. Or trying harder to be there when I could have been, when your father and I could have been, I spent so long chasing him thinking… it doesn’t matter what I thought. It was stupid. I let stupid people feed my own stupid insecurities. But… we promised… we made a promise when we moved here, that if you came home… we’d try.”

“You’d try?” He failed to keep the waver out of his voice, she turned to look at him, a sadness in her gaze that seemed endless.

“To be there, in any way we could be, to stop just leaving you, to try and understand. I know it’s a little late to be your parents at this point, Steven… we missed you growing up, and now you’re grown, and the things you’ve been though… you don’t need us telling you how to live your life. We missed that chance to be impossibly overbearing and that’s entirely on us. But we still want you to know that we’re here… we’re not leaving you alone anymore. So, whatever you need… be it a roof over your head, a meal, or… or getting your friend out of a tight situation with the law then… we’re here. We’re going to help, and we’ll use every resource we have to do it.”

What did one say to that? How could he speak without his voice breaking? Without all those bubbling feelings overflowing? She was right, time had passed, too much had passed to simply ignore, and old wounds would always be there until he figured out a way to close them.

He never claimed to be emotionally mature. In fact he was usually pretty useless when it came to emotions.

Always feeling too much, never knowing how to control it.

So he breathed in sharply through his nose, and turned his head, swallowing harshly, jaw clenched, eyes stinging as he blinked away the water rapidly gathering, and he nodded. Nodded as she uttered a quiet “oh sweetheart” and crossed the short distance between them to wrap him up in her arms, wrapped his own arms around her and simply held on tight.

“Steven, your—” John cut into the moment unintentionally as he walked out into the back garden, but it didn’t break them apart, he offered a small smile to the two of them after taking the sight in, holding the wireless handset in his hand “It’s Nancy, she says the doctors are bringing Eddie out of his coma, she says they’ll wait for us, but we should head out. Harold will probably be there by the time we arrive too.”

“Right… right, okay” he wiped the side of his palm over his eyes, dragging the dampness away. He released a shaky breath, and then let his mother go. “Alright.” Time to face the man of the hour.

It turned out, he remembered nothing from after he took his seemingly last breath, to waking up in that room. Or at least that was what he was sticking to. Until the doctors left and everyone decided to leave Steve on his own in that room with him. The Harringtons gently guiding Dustin out as well, offering to get him something from the vending machines as their sandwiches had been distributed already to those sitting in with Max, Will, and Eleven via Robin.

Stinson had already collected the documents and was likely off to do whatever she had to do to fulfil her promises.

“I do remember some stuff.” Eddie finally broke the silence that seemed to fall over them the second everyone left the room. Steve’s eyes shot to him, wide, fearful? Why was he afraid? He held up a hand quickly, then got up out of his chair. Eddie watched in confused silence as Steve rummaged around the room, checking around things, the flowers people had left, the plant in the corner of the room, the TV that hadn’t been turned on, each of the little machines, he even checked the lights, and only when apparently satisfied, his search coming up empty-handed, did he finally turn back to Eddie.

“What do you remember, Eddie?”

“Nothing out here I guess.” He wasn’t going to ask why Steve ransacked the room, it didn’t really matter. “The real world I mean. It was like… a void. This big, dark space. It felt like I was stuck in limbo, but I could like… make stuff appear if I thought about it hard enough.” Steve’s continued silence only prompted him to talk more “like—like my bedroom back at the trailer? I could make that appear, everything in it, crystal clear, I could use stuff in it like my guitar, or my yo-yo! I could make the picnic table behind the school appear, I could even make Red’s living room appear if I thought about it hard enough… it was like… like I was stuck in my own brain or something, it was only places I’d been too. Time didn’t really… move there, y’know? I thought I’d only been gone a few days.”

Steve was looking down at the floor, brows furrowed, eyes flicking as if searching for answers in his own mind, working through theory after theory in silence. “Was it just you in there?”

“Mhm yeah, I mean… sorta. I think so. I mean, the mirror in my room always freaked me out a little bit but… I dunno, it was me just—”

“Not you.”

“Yeah. How’d you—"

“Don’t talk about this. At all, with anyone else. Okay? Nobody else. Not even the kids. This cannot leave this room, alright?” Eddie’s eyes flicked to the door, before he nodded “you stick to your story, you don’t remember anything. Nothing. You got ate, you woke up here. Nothing in between. Not the void. Nothing. That’s the story you stick to. Got it?”

“…Steve… what happened?” Steve sat back down beside his bed.

“Nothing good, nothing good happened these past two years okay? But as long as you don’t remember, and with what we know, I don’t think there’s anything out there that could jog that memory, you’ll be fine.” Eddie let his eyes drop to his lap, fingers fiddling with the blankets, full of nervous, uncertain energy. He was missing something. He was missing a lot of somethings, but Steve was right. It wasn’t like there was a fog in his mind where memories should have been, he remembered dying, the void, and then waking up. Nothing was missing there. He didn’t even feel like he was missing something. “I’m not going to tell you what happened, Eddie so don’t ask. There are things that you don’t need to know, things that you wouldn’t want to know. Just be grateful that you don’t remember them, and that you’re here, alright?”

“…I still don’t know how I’m here.”

“You don’t need to, just… be glad you are. We all are.”

“…All of you?”

“All of us, Munson.”

They fell into silence again, not uncomfortable, Steve seemed content where he was, a little troubled maybe, there were lines on his face that weren’t there before, stress and worry having etched permanent lines into his skin the past two years, but he was content. “Steve I—”

The door bursting open cut off anything Eddie would have said, he wasn’t even sure what he was going to say, he didn't have a plan but Steve was staying so he had to say something even if it would have been dumb... so he was sort of glad it happened.

He was glad Robin burst in and immediately took to reaching for the TV with a “you have to see this shit.” As her explanation as a news channel, the screen split between two women quickly came into view. one in a news studio, one backed by a horrorscape the people in the room unfortunately recognised.

“—he closest we’ve been allowed to get to Hawkins Indiana in the last two years, after a 7.4 magnitude earthquake rocked this quaint town 80 miles outside of Indianapolis. This town, once struck by tragedy, after tragedy, now lays desolate, a wasteland, and although the government remains tight lipped as to the exact cause of the decay which has steadily overcome this town for the last two years, government operatives who have been slowly picking through the wreckage of this disaster looking for more survivors, have assured us that it is a contained and isolated incident.”

“And this decay… I’m sure towns nearby will be worried, it can’t spread further, right?” The anchor prompted.

“No Judy, we have been assured that, while it remains classified, the cause has been located, and destroyed by a combined herculean effort from both civilian, and government forces.”

“Is there any further information on the murders that took place just before this disaster struck? If you recall some were claiming these disasters were tied to satanism and caused by ritualistic sacrifices at work?”

“Unfortunately the losses sustained in this catastrophe include the majority of the police force investigating this heinous crime, however our sources have revealed the true identity of the perpetrator, to be none other than a Mr Henry Creel, brought to justice by the very man he framed for the murders of Chrissy Cunningham, Patrick McKinney, Fredrick Benson, and the attempted murder of Maxine Mayfield. Eyewitnesses have come forward to reveal Edward Munson was seen alongside several other civilians who will remain nameless, heroically subduing the man in his attempt to flee a second thankfully unsuccessful attempt on miss Mayfields life. His reign of terror over this small town, finally ended by the very people he tormented.”

“I have here that Henry Creel was presumed deceased several years ago, is that correct?”

It was so scripted, everything about it, nothing felt real but… they were at least pinning it on the actual guilty party.

Creel’s human face revealed on screen in between the two video feeds, a blurry ID photo with no discernible origin used as the picture. It disappeared again shortly after, the two feeds growing larger once more to fill the split screen.

“Yes. Perhaps that is what gave him the freedom to enact this terrible crime without suspicion. He was being held in a private psychiatric facility which cares for mentally traumatised youths, pronounced deceased to protect him from association with his father, Victor Creel. He escaped spring of '86 under the name Peter Ballard, and immediately took to live up to his fathers’ terrible legacy.”

“And what can you tell us about the survivors of this catastrophe?”

“Once a population of just under 15,000, survivors have been spread across just four hospitals in Roane County. The death toll…” the reporter appeared to breathe, she looked down for a moment, clearly emotional “unfathomable. This will surely go down in history as one of the worst natural disasters The United States has ever experienced.”

“Thank you, Harriet.” The second feed was cut, the anchor taking up the entirety of the screen once more. “Government officials have stated that the names and current locations of identified survivors will be made available at this free to call automated line.” A number flashed up on the screen. It stayed there for just long enough to write it down “it will be shown over the course of the following weeks until all survivors are claimed by family or friends.”

The camera switched to another anchor, a man. “In lighter news, Washin—” Robin turned off the TV. Screw lighter news.

Steve stared at the now blank screen, mouth hanging open, “Did they just—”

“Pin the blame on the actual guy who did it while giving Eddie the credit for taking his ass down? Haha, yeah. Stinson didn’t fuck around.”

“Holy shit. That was like, an hour. Maximum.”

“Stinson, didn’t fuck around. Also your parents have been calling estate agents in Bloomington.”

“Huh?”

Eddie needed a nap.