The problem is that a part of Steve knows the spider isn’t real.
But it’s the suggestion of it, right? Cobwebs in his hair, movement just out the corner of his eye; it’s all enough to convince him that there’s something crawling on his skin, to let out a panicked whisper to Nancy, there was a spider. It’s a black widow.
He tries to disregard it as a one-off. It’s an old creepy house. Just got him spooked for a bit, that’s all.
But then… diving into Lover’s Lake. Bats biting into his flesh. Overwhelming dizziness.
Nancy wrapping torn strips of clothing tight around—there’s something crawling, crawling underneath his skin, no, there isn’t, no, there—a bike ride through The Upside Down; one hacking cough, pushing through it, pushing through it—
Swallows it all down. Ignores the sweat, the tackiness around his bandage. Shh. Calm, calm.
Drives the RV. Doesn’t know how he’s even moving, is just grateful—grateful that his mind on autopilot seems to still function.
The War Zone. In and out. Parked. Sun in his eyes. Kids outside.
The feeling comes back. Something. Something under his skin. (In his blood, in all of him—)
“S’there something in my hair?” he asks Eddie, who’s mid-step out of the RV.
Eddie turns back with an air of amusement. “Nope,” he says. “Looks perfectly coiffed to me, man.”
“Uh, sure,” Eddie says, bemused. He sits next to Steve and tilts his head before lifting a hand uncertainly. “You want me to, uh?”
“Yeah, thanks. Just… there was a spider on me.”
It’s not what Steve wants to say at all, but there’s a sudden, terrifying disconnect between the thoughts in his head and what actually comes out of his mouth.
“Oh, you don’t like them, huh?”
Eddie’s not even teasing, just sounds understanding; he lifts up a few sections of hair carefully, taking his time. He’s so kind. Steve abruptly wants to cry.
“Yeah, I don’t blame you,” Eddie continues. “I have the same thing with mice. The way they move. Creepy little feet.” He shudders dramatically.
Steve wants to laugh at that. Can’t.
Eddie runs his fingers through Steve’s hair a couple more times, gentle.
You don’t have to, Steve thinks. Make it hurt. Get it out. Did you find it? Please say you found it.
Eddie pauses again, halfway out the door. “Hey, you okay?”
“Yeah,” Steve says. “Just need some air.”
He goes through the motions of prepping for the fight. Chats with Robin. She talks about a terrible, gnawing feeling, and he wants to scream yes, I know, I know, but he can’t tell her, why can’t he tell her?
Shh. Calm, calm.
Drives the RV. Forest Hills.
He brakes with no warning, sends bottles of alcohol rolling across the floor. He’s mad suddenly that they didn’t smash. He’s so—
Slip away.
Eddie’s trailer. Lets himself in.
Bathroom.
The wound on his stomach pulses. He doubles over the toilet. Throws up.
His skin is crawling.
There, in the back of his mind, a creeping coldness. A thought that is not his own.
I will kill them all. And I will make you watch.
Oh, God. Oh, God, he’s been so stupid.
-
Eddie finds him first.
He picks up one fallen bottle of alcohol before a gut feeling pulls him out of the RV—because Steve Harrington is a good driver, and he’d only brake like that if he had no choice.
“Steve?”
But Steve’s not waiting for them on the porch, he’s not even by the Gate.
Clattering; a strangled cry.
Eddie’s stomach lurches.
He runs towards the noise, opens the bathroom door and is instantly hit by the acrid smell of vomit.
“Steve! Jesus Christ.”
Steve’s pushed up against the cistern. There’s a damp patch all across his stomach, and his chest is heaving.
“Oh my God, Steve, what’s—”
Eddie reaches for him instinctively, and Steve flinches as if he’s been struck.
“No, don’t!”
“Jesus, you’re burning up,” Eddie whispers, drawing his hand back; Steve’s skin is feverishly hot, slick with sweat. He looks around frantically for a cloth, turns on the cold water. “Gotta get you cooled—”
Something slams into him; he’s pinned against the sink, Steve’s hand clamped around his throat.
“No,” Steve repeats. “Don’t.”
“Okay,” Eddie manages. He chokes on a swallow. “S-Steve, you’re—you’re—”
His hand flails, trying to pry Steve’s fingers off.
Steve’s grip loosens ever so slightly. His eyes are wide, bloodshot. Pleading.
“Eddie,” he says through gritted teeth. “You need to hurt me.”
With the last of his strength, Eddie gets his knee up and jabs—it’s barely anything, but it works enough to break Steve’s hold.
Eddie staggers; his back slams against the door. He’s shaking.
Steve stares at him. He’s gripping onto the sink so tightly that Eddie thinks it’s a miracle that it doesn’t crack.
And then there’s a horrible, guttural noise like Steve’s started to choke too, like he’s at war with himself.
Barely audible, he says, “Get… get Nancy.”
Eddie runs.
He nearly falls into Nancy as he opens the front door. He’s breathless, can’t think of what to say, save from—
“Wheeler, he needs you.”
It happens in an instant: Nancy’s brow pinches, and then she goes very pale, and she’s shouting for Robin and Dustin to stay in the RV, like she can turn on a dime, launched into an unknown crisis.
She pushes past Eddie, and he follows her, back into the bathroom.
The cold water is still running.
Steve’s got his hands in the sink. He looks at Nancy desperately.
“S-stop me.”
Another choking sound is ripped from Steve’s throat; Eddie realises that it’s actually a dry sob.
“Nance,” Steve says. It’s half her name, half a pained whine. “Fuck. I’m sorry. I—I know everything.”
And then he’s suddenly launching towards them—it’s only the fact that he’s so completely freaked out that makes Eddie move in time, saves him from getting strangled again.
He grabs Steve’s wet hands, pins them behind his back and tries to hold him still.
“Jesus! Wheeler, what the fuck is going—”
“Do you have anything that can knock him out?” Nancy says.
“What?”
“Drugs, Eddie!”
“Are you crazy? There’s no way—oh my God, what are you—”
Crack.
Nancy’s grabbed the cistern lid, brought it down upon Steve’s head. Eddie looks at Steve lying eerily still on the floor in abject horror.
There’s blood in his hair.
Eddie feels sick.
But Nancy just watches, as if to confirm that Steve’s not moving. She looks Eddie in the eye.
“Come on. That’s only gonna work for so long.”
Eddie just follows her out, too shocked to even attempt speaking.
It’s chaotic at the RV; Dustin sees them coming, leaps out of the door as Robin yells at him.
“Where’s Steve?”
“Get back inside.”
“Nancy, where the hell is he?”
“We can talk inside.”
“Bullshit, I’m—”
“Dustin, he’s Flayed,” Nancy says, her voice breaking, and all the fight goes out of Dustin at once.
“No, that’s—he can’t—”
Eddie finally finds his voice. “Can someone tell me what the fuck you’re talking about?”
Nancy doesn’t speak, not until they’re in the RV, the door locked behind her.
“I think it’s the—the bites—”
Robin swears, a hand over her mouth.
“Flayed?” Eddie persists.
“The Mind Flayer,” Dustin says numbly. “It’s what we—it’s a part of The Upside Down. It—it used Will to… to spy on…”
“And what, it’s—” Eddie swallows. “It’s inside him?”
“Like a virus. He’s part of the Hive Mind,” Nancy says.
Eddie’s knees feel weak.
“Fuck,” Dustin says. “He knows where we are, he’ll know—”
“It’s too late to change that,” Nancy says. “We just have to—at least someone needs to stay with him.”
“I will,” Robin says instantly, eyes blazing.
“Me too,” Dustin says.
Nancy glances at him, shakes her head—firm but apologetic. “You can join Erica.” And as Dustin opens his mouth, no doubt to argue, she adds, “I’m sorry, Dustin. It’s just—we might need to… to fight him.”
Dustin doesn’t reply, but looks so utterly devastated that Eddie wishes he’d insisted on diving first, that the bats had torn into him instead.
“Keep him warm,” Nancy tells Robin urgently. “And I don’t mean just—it’s got to be unbearable.”
Robin nods, ashen-faced.
Nancy catches Eddie’s eye. “The one thing that fucker can’t stand is heat.”
She paces up and down the RV, checking for stray bottles. Then she comes to a stop right in front of Robin.
“He—he might beg,” she whispers. “And it won’t—it’ll sound like him. Like he just wants the pain to stop.”
Robin’s eyes look glassy. “Nance, I don’t—don’t know if I can—”
“I’ll do it,” Eddie says.
He feels everyone’s eyes on him, but he just looks at Nancy, at the determined set to her jaw.
He doesn’t know when he made the decision, if he can even pinpoint a conscious moment of thought—but now that the words are out, he feels the vow he’s made, deep in his chest.
Nancy hands him a bottle and cloth.
A lighter.
She fixes Eddie with a piercing look. “It’s going to look like you’re killing him,” she says.
Eddie nods.
He turns, offers Robin his hand.
“C’mon, Buckley. Let’s get that bastard out of him.”
okay imagine this, a stranger things fanfic where instead of robin and steve getting drugged, they get mind flayed
like in season 3, they sacrifice themselves to save dustin and erica, right? so in this fic the russian's intended to drug them but then a higher up comes in and tells them that they're being transported. steve and robin are confused, and scared. they get taken by this person (who will end up being a random oc maybe?? the don't really matter too much to the story) they reveal that they are here to save them and the two are very relieved, and trust them immediately since they are kinda desperate. but when it's too late they figure out this person is flayed and they are bringing them to the mind flayer, which is not very slay
robin and steve get flayed, they become hosts to the mind flayer and start working under it's doing. instead of erica and dustin finding them, they end up finding out somehow that someone who isn't one of the russians took them
they probably would have an encounter with flayed!steve and flayed!robin and get the party to help them get them back. but like them being evil like that?? omg I want it
The grip on the back of Billy’s neck is strong, the fingers digging into his skin tightening in warning as he shakes his head in denial.
“No …”
The voice, achingly familiar and too close, comes again. “You did. We wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you.”
Billy tries again to break free, throwing back an elbow, but all that happens is that his arm is caught in an iron grip and wrenched behind his back. The hand on his neck disappears, and in the next second his other arm is wrenched back, too.
“You were with him all that time,” the voice behind him continues, way too calmly, “and you didn’t suspect a thing.” Billy wriggles, and is slammed back onto the hood of the Camaro, face first. There’s a laugh; one that makes tears sting in Billy’s eyes. “He sat beside you in the hospital, helped you eat when your hands shook too much to grab a fork. He helped you move out, he hung out with you while you fixed up your car, he held you close when you woke up screaming.”
The tears fall. Billy squeezes his eyes shut. “Shut up,” he says. Begs.
“Did you really think that Steve – the real Steve – would willingly spend time with you?”
“Shut up.”
Billy can’t move. Can’t even shy away as Steve – as this twisted, nightmare version of Steve – leans in closer and breathes, right next to his ear:
“After everything you did?”
He flinches, tries to turn away. The thing posing as Steve lets out a chuckle, and he’s so close that Billy feels his warm breath on the shell of his ear. It makes goosebumps pop up on his skin.
“Please,” he says, voice like a whisper.
Steve hums and straightens up some – he’s no longer pressed up against Billy’s back, but he’s still pinning him to the car. Still holding him down with unnatural strength. “Please what?”
“Let …” Billy falters, licks his lips. “Let him go.”
His eyes snap open when Steve lets out a laugh, loud and boisterous. “Let him go? Billy, baby –“, and his tone is mocking, making Billy grimace, “– he’s not the one currently pinned to a car, at our mercy.”
“Let me go, then.” He tries to sound assertive. Fails.
His arms are twisted higher and he lets out a strangled yell at the strain in his shoulders as Steve leans in close again. All humor suddenly gone from his voice as he hisses, “Look at you. You’re weak. Pathetic. He doesn’t want anything to do with you.”
Billy’s gasping for breath, and only partly because he’s pinned down. But he doesn’t speak. His silence seems to please Steve, for he eases up a bit.
“He hates you, you know,” he says, casually, as if the words aren’t meant to hurt. “He can’t express it right now, but we can feel it. You remember how that felt, right Billy? When you had no control, and all you could do was rage against us, powerless.” His arms are twisted again, for emphasis, and he winces. “Not all that different from where you are right now.”
The tears burn as they fall. He keeps his mouth shut.
“Nothing to say, Billy? No more pleas, no more denials?”
Billy clenches his jaw, stubbornly refuses to look up.
“Good,” Steve’s voice says behind him. “Stop fighting us. You can’t win. You know that.”
He makes a break for it, then. Kicks out with a leg and manages to catch Steve’s knee, dislodges him enough to be able to rip his arms out of his grip. He claws at the hood of the car, tries to drag himself away –
– but he’s grabbed again, swung around so that his back is to the car, and thrown against the side of it so hard that the window on the driver’s side shatters. He would have cried out, if it wasn’t for the hand on his face, gripping his jaw and digging into his skin, pressing his head down on the roof of the car and forcing him to bend his body in a way it’s not supposed to bend.
Somehow, Steve grabs a hold of his flailing arms, and effortlessly holds him by his wrists with one hand. Billy’s back throbs with pain, his shoulders ache, his face hurts where it feels like it’s being crushed under unyielding fingers – but the worst thing about this new position is that now he’s face to face with Steve. Or, this thing that pretends to be Steve.
Not counting the dark veins creeping up his skin, it looks just like him. There’s not a hair out of place, not even a wrinkle on his clothes. He looks carefree and borderline bored as he’s holding Billy in place without breaking a sweat. Even the look in his eyes is the same. This could be the Steve that Billy knows. This could be the Steve that Billy’s known for months.
It’s chilling, that the Steve that Billy knows might never have been Steve at all.
Steve tuts, as if disappointed. “You never did learn when to stop.”
Billy can’t move his head, can’t move his hands – so he kicks out again, aims a knee at Steve’s crotch, but Steve gives him a flat look and grounds the heel of his shoe into Billy’s sneaker, crushing his foot against the ground. Billy lets out a strangled scream, to which Steve cocks his head to the side. He looks honestly sympathetic when he speaks.
“We get it. It hurts. You thought you were friends. Best friends.” It’s said with a hint of mockery, and Billy jolts at the memory that pops up in his brain. And Steve, or the thing that’s controlling him, must see it, because he smiles. “Remember, Billy? A couple of weeks ago, when you told him you haven’t ever had a best friend before, and that you’re glad that you have one, now? We were tempted to let him out, then, to tell you how he really feels.”
He ignores the way Billy shudders beneath him, and continues, “But Billy –“ He leans in closer, and even in the low light of dusk Billy can see the veins spreading further over his skin, “– what kind of friend doesn’t notice when his friend – his very best friend – is taken over by us? You should have noticed. You should have seen the signs. After all, you know us better than anyone.”
Billy doesn’t beg. He looks into Steve’s dark brown eyes and he can’t make himself form words.
“We could kill you,” Steve says, and suddenly his fingers aren’t gripping Billy’s face anymore, but his throat, “right here.” The pressure increases, and Billy can’t breathe. Steve bends even closer, fills Billy’s vision, watches him impassively as dark spots starts to dance in in front of Billy’s eyes. He must make some kind of noise, because Steve’s face softens. The grip on his throat loosens, and Billy draws in a rattling breath; coughs. Steve’s voice sounds further away when he says, “But we won’t.” The hand isn’t cutting off air anymore, but it’s still holding Billy in place; like a threat.
“He’s not your friend, Billy. It’s been us from the beginning. It’s always been us.” Billy coughs again, and shudders as Steve’s fingers gently caress the bruised skin around his neck. “He doesn’t care about you. But we do. We are the only ones who do.” Abruptly, he lets go of Billy completely and takes a step back. Waits there, as Billy wills his legs bear his weight again. “Join us.”
Billy cautiously straightens up, biting back a groan as his body protests the movement. He shakes his head and blinks rapidly, prepares for more pain.
It doesn’t come. If anything, Steve looks understanding. Caring, almost. “You have no one else to turn to, Billy. Nowhere to go.” He reaches out a hand, ignores the way Billy flinches back from it, and lets the back of his fingers touch Billy’s cheek, a gesture that is almost painfully intimate. “We know what you want, Billy. At least with us, you can be with him.”
Billy shakes his head again, not even attempting, now, to hold back tears. “No,” he croaks, clumsily swatting Steve’s hand away from his face. He takes a step to the side, stumbles, has to lean on his car so he won’t fall. “No,” he says again and adds, entirely unconvincingly, “I’ll kill you. I’ll get him back.”
Steve’s understanding smile broadens into a grin. “Oh you will, will you?”
“Yeah,” Billy says, and it would have sounded more impressive if his voice didn’t break.
“You forget, Billy,” Steve says, voice smooth like velvet, “that he doesn’t want you.”
“I don’t care,” Billy says, lies, sounding like he’s been gargling broken glass, “he may not be my friend for real, but I am his. And I’ll get him back.”
“Mm,” Steve hums, and looks him over thoughtfully. “And just how will you do that?”
“I don’t know.” Steve takes a step closer, and Billy can’t help but flinch back. He’s still trapped against the car, so he has nowhere to run. “You can kill me, I don’t care. But the others, they’ll know, and they’ll burn you out of him, like last time. They’ll kill you, even if I can’t.”
Steve laughs again, and it sounds so much like the real Steve that for a second, Billy thinks he’s hallucinated the last ten minutes. “’They’ll know’? Billy, they haven’t noticed for months. You haven’t noticed for months – what makes you think they will?”
Then he smiles, and the veins melt away and leaves pale, mole-dotted skin. He looks for all the world like his normal, dorky self. There’s not a trace of the monster Billy knows is there. “But by all means, give it a try. Tell them.” The smile is genuine, the twinkle in his eyes so real. “Let’s see who they believe. Steve Harrington, beloved friend who’s saved the day more than once … or Billy Hargrove. Violent and moody, who got himself possessed and killed half the town.” Billy exhales like the breath has been punched out of him, and Steve smirks.
He digs into his jeans and produces a lighter – a cheap gas station one that Billy gave him about a month ago – and flicks it to produce a flame. “And as for the burning …”
As if putting on a show, he gestures dramatically with his other hand, before slowly lowering it over the flame. Billy watches, eyes wide, as Steve maintains his grin even while the little flame licks at the skin of his palm. After a couple of seconds, he turns the lighter off and makes a show out of shaking his hand out with a little wince, so human-like, and smiles proudly as if he’d just performed a great party trick. “Let’s just say we’ve learned a thing or two since last time.”
((It’s @rascheln’s birthday today, so I wrote them some Flayed!Steve.))
Today was his last day in Italy with his grandmother. They stood outside on the veranda, her house situated at the top of the hill, and they had been staring off into the valley as the sun rose.
Nonna made sure to wake him up extra early so he could see it.
It was beautiful.
“Mio bambino,” nonna whispered, smiling and cupping his cheeks in either of her hands. She leaned down and pressed a kiss to his forehead.
Steve reached up to hold her hands there and smiled right back, the missing-front-tooth grin of his seven-year-old self. He loved his nonna, loved how she smelled of rosemary and sunshine, loved her cooking and the smells of the kitchen, loved the way she loved him.
The hugs, the kisses, the cuddles on her couch while they watched an old black-and-white movie in Italian.
“I will always be here for you, mio bambino, never forget.”
“Mio… bambino,” Eleven whispered, and when Steve came to his senses, he couldn’t focus on anything but her big brown eyes staring up at him with fear and hope sparkling in them. “She called you… she called you mio bambino. You held onto her hands when she touched your cheeks.”
Steve shivered, half stuck beneath the fuzzy veil of his memories, lived in and repeated for weeks now.
“She smelled like rosemary,” Eleven continues, tears in her eyes. “She woke you up... to watch the sunrise. Red and orange on the horizon. Light spilling over the hills. Green, everything was so green.”
Steve froze above her, breath caught in his chest. Light exploded around them in different colors; something shrieked, loud and ominous. Eleven had a cut on her head, a scrape, but it was her eyes that caught him.
“It was beautiful,” Eleven whispered. Steve turned his head aside. Eyes closing. Processing. What was going on? “She loved you.” She let out a soft sob, and Steve nodded, tears forming in his own eyes. “She really loved you. And you… you were happy.”
Steve couldn’t keep his eyes open as she reached up to touch his cheek, just like his nonna used to. He squeezed his eyes shut even as tears slipped out, dripping down his cheeks. He took a deep, shaking breath.
He’d been losing time for so long lately, weeks, unsure of how he got one place or another. Between his new job at the ice cream place and the Russian army base below the mall, things got a little fuzzy. He’d been waking up in random places, unsure of how he’d gotten there. He’d go to his shift, hang out in the freezer, and couldn’t pinpoint why, exactly, being cold felt so good. And then… then things would grow fuzzy.
He looked to the side and saw the monster, fully fledged and ready to attack Eleven. He knew it without knowing why, just as he knew he’d have to stop it.
Steve stood up, squaring off to face the Mind Flayer directly. A tentacle shot out at him, undoubtedly trying to get to Eleven, but Steve held his arms up to protect her and screamed at the pain of this- this thing, screamed from the effort of holding it back from Eleven.
Then more tentacles came, attaching all around his body.
He’d been so fuzzy when he woke up, but now, everything hurt. He had no idea what was going on, with all the yelling and shrieking around him.
He just knew he had to protect Eleven. He had to.
He let his eyes flutter open only for an immense amount of pain to come crashing into his chest, a shot to the sternum, echoing throughout his body… he screamed and screamed and screamed until he passed out.
When Robin and Eddie return to the trailer, Steve is still unconscious.
“Fuck, should we be worried that—how long can someone…?”
Eddie trails off, goes to check his watch reflexively before remembering that it’s stopped.
Robin shakes her head.
“This kinda thing happened, um. Before. I didn’t see much, but I… I don’t think… Billy Hargrove was completely—well. Steve had to, like, crash a car into him, and I, uh, sorta blacked out? For a bit of it? But he just walked it off, I think. Eventually. Billy, I mean. Like his body wasn’t fully… Like he didn’t really feel it.”
Eddie stares at her, reeling. A dozen thoughts scramble to be heard, many not helpful in the slightest—namely that Billy Hargrove stalked the basketball court like there was something seething within him every goddamn school day, so he can’t even imagine what that combined with the uncanny strength of The Mind Flayer would bring.
And the real major concern is—
“But Hargrove died.”
Robin looks up from where she’s been checking Steve’s head. Her fingertips are flecked with blood.
“He didn’t die from—he wasn’t killed by. By a person,” she says jerkily. “So we… we should be fine to…” She eyes the cistern lid, but her face drains of colour again.
Eddie exhales. “One problem at a time.”
He grabs Steve underneath the armpits, Robin holding his legs up.
They take him to the bedroom. Set him down, back leaning against the cabinet.
Eddie finds the handcuffs and gingerly attaches one end to a drawer handle, the other around Steve’s wrist.
Steve doesn’t even stir at the touch. His head lolls down unnaturally.
“They better not be the shitty plastic kind,” Robin says. “I’m not having him escape cause all you had was a Baby’s First Magic Set.”
Eddie’s startled into a weak chuckle.
“Excuse you, Buckley, these are the bona fide, genuine article.”
It had become a joke in the first place, actually keeping them. A year ago, maybe two. A girl from Loch Nora with a college boyfriend had either naively or intentionally thrown an open invite party—Eddie had only gone out of curiosity, wanting to see just how impressive the living space was.
He’d barely lasted an hour there, because a shithead of a ‘concerned’ neighbour called the cops on young people ‘loitering sinisterly’—as if their precious hydrangeas were in danger of being uprooted and sold.
Eddie got grouped in with a select lucky few accused of stealing. He hadn’t been, but he figured he might as well try and get something out of it. It was either Callahan’s wallet or his cuffs; Eddie picked the wrong pocket.
Now he thinks he actually lucked out, in a grim kind of way.
They take stock of everything they’ve got: lighter fluid; a couple space heaters discovered in the RV, another one found next to Wayne’s folding bed. A few bottles of alcohol along with cloths and spears. One walkie. Lighters.
Rope.
-
Nancy had left with Dustin in the RV. The plan had been for her to drop him off at the Creel House before returning to the Gate at the trailer.
But Eddie caught the steely glint in her eye as she readied herself in the driver’s seat.
Dustin sat by the table. He pinched his bottom lip between his fingers and tugged, harsh enough to draw blood. His hand was shaking.
Eddie couldn’t look at him.
He turned to Nancy.
“You’re not coming back,” he said in an undertone.
It was only once he’d spoken that he realised it didn’t come out as a question.
Nancy grabbed him by the wrist, pulled him close to whisper in his ear.
“Going to another Gate. Where Fred…”
Eddie understood: it was a last-minute change that she alone was in control of. One that Steve didn’t know.
And if Steve didn’t know, then…
The engine rumbled into life.
Eddie got out—had one last look, hand on the door. There were tanks of gasoline wedged behind Nancy’s seat.
Dread chilled him. He wanted to tell her that she shouldn’t be alone. That when she burned it all down, she needed someone to pull her back lest she get caught in the flames, too.
He didn’t say any of that.
Because Nancy just looked at him with something close to sympathy, as if she could tell everything he was thinking; it was already clear that whatever he said, it wouldn’t make a difference.
It didn’t stop him from trying.
“Nancy. Be careful.”
She nodded. “You too.”
Eddie shut the door behind him.
He was halfway back to the porch when he realised that the RV hadn’t pulled away. He heard the door opening again, began to turn, and was almost bowled over by the force of Dustin’s hug.
“Hey,” he said softly, once he’d caught his breath.
He ruffled Dustin’s hair and then stopped near the end of the motion, kept his hand there. Just held him.
He didn’t say it was okay, because it wasn’t.
Dustin sniffed. He pulled back and finally looked Eddie right in the eye.
“We’ll get him back,” Dustin said.
His voice wavered in the middle. But his determination was much stronger than the falter had been.
Eddie put his hands on Dustin’s shoulders. Nodded.
It was obvious that when it came to Steve Harrington, Dustin would go to the ends of the earth for him. And here he was, doing the hardest thing in the world: leaving Steve behind.
Compared to everyone else, Eddie thought, his job was simple, really. All he had to do was prove Dustin’s trust in him.
-
Steve’s face twitches when Robin shuts the window.
Eddie watches closely, holding his breath.
One eye opens, barely a slit. Moves sluggishly before finding Eddie.
“Hi,” Steve says.
He sounds… normal.
“Hi,” Eddie echoes cautiously. “Are you—um. Are you…?”
He trails off, feeling immensely stupid. What was he even gonna ask? Are you okay? Like he honestly was expecting Steve to say, Oh, could be better, but the malevolent entity inside me is a fucking bummer, man.
“How’re you feeling?” he settles on, because Steve still hasn’t moved, at least seems in control, and Eddie’ll take any semblance of normality he can get.
“M’okay,” Steve says, after a pause.
He lifts his head up slightly, notices the handcuffs. Gives a faint nod of approval. With his free hand, he gestures vaguely to the back of his skull.
“Feels… distant. I dunno.”
“Good, uh, that’s good,” Eddie says conversationally, like that will take away the reality of what he’s currently doing: tying Steve’s legs together with rope.
Both of Steve’s eyes open, his gaze turns sharper, calculating, and Eddie tenses—
“Eddie,” Steve drawls. He sounds supremely unimpressed. He shifts his legs and the knot Eddie made goes slack. “Tighter, dude.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, not of all of us got our Scout’s badge.”
“Here,” Robin says. She nudges Eddie out of the way and binds Steve’s legs; the knots don’t budge. She gives a half smile. “At least Starcourt was educational.”
Steve laughs through his nose, but he grimaces a bit, like something Robin’s said is distasteful.
She puts a hand on his knee, peers at him. “Still here,” she says.
It isn’t a question, but Steve answers anyway. “Still here.”
Robin ties his free hand to another drawer handle.
Eddie catches a glimpse while he’s turning on the heaters, and his stomach twists—unbidden, thinks of Christ on the cross.
Steve nods at the heaters. “Put ‘em closer.”
Eddie does. He keeps waiting for a change, ready to leap back, but it doesn’t come. The only difference is that the pulse point in Steve’s neck starts to jump rapidly when the heaters are tilted towards him, but even that’s nothing like before, nothing like the frenzy in the bathroom.
Eddie puts his palm in front of one of the grilles. It’s only just been turned on, sure, but he can’t help thinking that it’s not nearly strong enough.
He stands in front of Steve, Robin by his side.
No-one moves.
Then Robin speaks out the side of her mouth. “Should you still…?”
Her fingers curl, palm up, and Eddie realises that she’s mimicking fret positions.
“Yeah,” Steve says before Eddie can answer, and Robin jumps. “Should still work.” His cuffed hand twitches. “S’in… Vecna. Me. Not enough… can’t control bats, too. Not—not all of ‘em at once.”
His throat clicks as he swallows, like the words are getting stuck.
“Should follow. Like… like, um.” His eyes widen for a split second, as if in panic, before he swallows again and says, a little clearer, “Pied Piper.”
Eddie glances between Steve and Robin. “Okay,” he says eventually. He steps back while Robin remains where she is. “I’ll—”
“No,” Steve says, and this time the panic remains; he shakes his head urgently. “Not alone. Don’t—not alone with—with me.”
“Steve,” Robin says.
“No,” Steve repeats, and there’s a fierceness to the word—Eddie feels it thrum in his chest, and he somehow knows that it’s not from any unnatural force, that the power is being drawn from Steve alone.
“Buckley,” Eddie says reluctantly.
She squares her shoulders. Takes a step back, eyes never leaving Steve.
Something in Steve unwinds, relaxes. His head droops, almost like he’s falling asleep. A stark vein in his neck pulses.
“Good,” he murmurs. “Good.”
Robin pauses at the door. Her eyes dart to the heaters, then Eddie.
“Are they…?”
“Highest they’ll go,” Eddie says.
Robin bites her lip.
Eddie knows what she’s thinking: that Nancy said unbearable, and right now barely one corner of the room is being warmed.
“It just takes time to, uh, kick in,” Eddie says.
It doesn’t sound convincing—sounds like he’s free-falling, desperately searching for something to hang onto.
But Robin accepts it, Eddie thinks, because what choice does she have? What choice do any of them have?
“Eddie,” Steve says, just as Robin’s stepped out of the room.
“Yeah?”
Steve wets his lips. Swallows again. It looks painful.
“It’s gonna… make him mad.”
Fear seeps down Eddie’s spine.
“We’ll come back,” he says, because right now, it’s the only promise he can make. “We’re not leaving you alone.”
“S’okay,” Steve says. He’s starting to slur his words. “Better this way.”
-
They tumble through the Gate as quickly as they can, then immediately set up the trailer defences.
“We’re lucky this is here,” Eddie says when they’re done, as he picks his electric guitar off the wall, untouched by vines.
“Yeah,” Robin says. “Lucky…”
She abruptly gasps and runs from the room.
Eddie curses, follows her—flinging the guitar across his back.
But there’s nothing in the living room, no bats to fight—just Robin pulling something out from behind Wayne’s bed, laughing with a touch of hysteria.
“Jesus,” Eddie breathes, “you’re gonna give me a heart attack.”
Then he actually processes what he’s looking at. Robin’s brought out a space heater, a bulky kerosene-fuelled one, much larger than what they’d originally rustled up.
“But that—that broke last winter,” Eddie says, bewildered.
Robin doesn’t say anything, just turns it on. The effect is almost immediate compared to what they’ve been working with: the heater glows red-hot, and Eddie already feels the urge to take off his jacket.
“Eddie,” Robin says slowly. “It’s 1983.”
“Holy shit,” Eddie says. He grabs her by the shoulders. “You’re a fucking genius.”
Robin turns the heater off, drags it to a point just underneath the Gate.
There’s a couple more treasures they manage to stash away: a match box found on the counter, thrown into a deep cooking pot Robin snatches from a cupboard.
“Oh, you mean business,” Eddie says. “That’s the good pot.”
Robin grins, and it makes Eddie’s heart ache—he knows what they’re doing, forcing smiles to hide their shaking hands.
“And what goddamn atrocity befalls it in the future?”
“That’s between me and God.”
They’re up on the roof, Robin crouched by the amp, when Eddie hears the Walkie crackle.
“Max is—bait’s still been taken,” comes Erica’s staticky voice.
“Uh, copy that,” Eddie says. “Sinclair. Henderson with you?”
A click.
“I’m here,” Dustin says quietly.
Eddie breathes out. “Good. Stick together.”
He sets the walkie down and yanks off his guitar pick. He thinks of Chrissy, her body contorting. Of Patrick, dragged from the water.
Steve’s hands clenched around the sink.
“Showtime, Buckley.”
The noise is explosive. It barely takes a few seconds for the bats to start coming; Eddie watches the horizon as his fingers fly over the strings.
Underneath everything, he can hear Robin counting out bars like she’s in band: One, two, three, four. Two, two, three, four.
Prestissimo.
“Eddie, two more bars!”
He nods in acknowledgement. Feels his heart pound as if in time with the music.
“Now!”
They run. The bats circle dumbly round the roof, some clustered onto the still ringing amp, like moths drawn to light.
Pied Piper.
“Go, go, go!” Eddie urges.
It’s tricky getting the heater through, but they manage it between them, an awkward handover across the Gate.
And then Eddie’s falling, landing next to Robin, breathless. They sit up as one, give each other a speechless high five.
Robin moves first. But she stops midway to Eddie’s room—like a reversal of when he was first brought to a standstill, seeing Chrissy’s eyelids fluttering erratically.
“Eddie,” Robin says. “You—you closed the door, right?”
“Yeah,” Eddie says, mouth dry.
He knows that for certain because as he shut the door, his last glimpse was of Steve leaning the back of his head against the cabinet drawers, eyes closed.
Now the door’s ajar.
Eddie strains to listen, but he can’t hear anything.
He feels Robin’s hand dart into his. He squeezes tight before letting go. She picks up the heater. He’s got the cooking pot under his arm.
Together, they open the door.
The space heaters they’d left are broken, cracked down the middle. The handcuffs are dangling from the drawer handle, pried open, the ropes frayed apart—and the whole room is littered with…
Shards of wood. Snapped strings.
Eddie’s guitars. They’re shattered beyond repair, the red of the Warlock mixed with the dark wood of the acoustic.
And there, backed into the far corner, is Steve.
He’s cradling his wrist to his chest—it looks badly broken. Even from here, Eddie can see evidence of splinters embedded in both hands.
But above all, what’s drawing Eddie’s attention is that his shirt is off, revealing the state of his stomach, the bandages shoddily ripped away. The wound is oozing slow, thick trickles of black and red.
Steve doesn’t seem aware that anyone’s entered the room, just mutters indecipherably to himself, hair hanging down in front of his eyes.
Eddie manages to set the pot down silently—takes one hesitant step forward, cringes when he jostles a piece of wood.
Steve’s head jerks up at the sound. He stares at Eddie, a crease in his forehead.
“Who’re you?”
Robin lets out a breath like she’s been punched in the stomach.
“It’s…” Eddie clears his throat. Stays as still as he can. “It’s me, man. It’s Eddie.”
Steve doesn’t reply.
More wood scatters across the floor—Robin stepping forward frantically, “Steve, it’s me, it’s—”
Eddie stops her with a touch to the back of her hand.
“Steve,” he says, digs deep to find a calm tone. “Who’s this?”
Steve’s jaw works.
“R… R…”
Robin’s face shatters.
She sets the heater down. Turns it on full blast.
“Robin!” Steve gasps. “Robin, it’s me, I’m still—Robin, Robin, please—”
Robin takes another step—“Careful,” Eddie whispers, heart in his throat—and forcibly shoves the heater across the room.
Steve tries to dodge it, but he’s not quick enough; the grille slams against his arm, and Eddie inhales sharply as the skin blisters an angry, weeping red.
Steve’s cries are piercing.
But they reach a peak than taper off into whimpers; he presses himself against the wall, curls his upper body around his blistered arm.
He starts to sob.
They have to get closer to hear, stepping into the circle of heat radiating from the grille, Eddie just behind Robin; sweat pools in the small of his back.
“No, no…”
It’s a dreadful whisper.
They crouch down. Slow.
It doesn’t look like Steve notices: his eyes are shut tight, lashes damp as he continues to plead, “Don’t make me. Please don’t make me.”
Eddie can’t blame Robin for what she does next.
It’s instinct—he’d seen it in his peripheral vision at the boathouse, her hand reaching out to comfort, like she couldn’t stop herself.
No, he can’t blame her. Because Steve is hurting, sobbing like his heart is going to break from it, and he’s right there.
Robin’s hand moves forward.
Eddie sees the moment Steve’s eyes open, cold and inhuman, and Christ, for a millisecond too long, he’d forgotten that they had stepped into the ring with a cobra.
“Robin,” Eddie warns, too late, as Steve’s hand seizes her wrist.
“Don’t worry,” he says, and it’s almost perfect, almost Steve’s gentle concern, but there’s something off in the inflection, a misplaced note—“I’m not killing you first.”
He twists Robin’s hand.
She doesn’t scream, doesn’t even try to move, like she’s holding her breath just to stay silent.
“I can…” Steve breathes in and out through his nose. Predatory. “I can feel her.”
“Who?” Robin says.
A vague noise rumbles from Steve’s chest, like he’s searching for a name again.
“N… Nancy,” he says eventually. “She’s dying,” he says, off-hand. “She can’t breathe.”
Eddie reaches behind. Feels carpet beneath his palm. Steve doesn’t track the movement, eyes fixed on Robin.
“She will be like… like her friend. She will know how it feels to die alone.”
Steve grunts, and then…
Eddie has to bite down on his tongue to stop himself from making a sound; the skin around Steve’s stomach wound ripples, like there’s something bubbling up underneath, moving, alive, crawling up, up, up—mottled veins spreading, black as tar.
Eddie swallows back bile as his hand finds something solid. Wood.
He feels for the lighter in his pocket.
Steve leans towards Robin, baring his teeth.
“I will—”
Click.
“—consume her.”
The jagged piece of guitar burns in Eddie’s hand.
He throws it.
Sparks fly, land directly in Steve’s eyes, and he yells, lets go of Robin—with such an impact that she’s thrown across the room, landing slumped against the cabinet.
“Robin!”
But Eddie doesn’t have any time to help her, because there’s another click, a crackle, and the walkie comes to life, and it must be on accident because all he can hear is the sound of someone—Dustin and Erica—breathing quickly. Running.
Steve’s eyes narrow.
Eddie thinks of Dustin saying, “He knows where we are, he’ll know—”
“Shit,” Eddie hisses.
He tries, desperately, to turn the walkie off, but it suddenly feels like all the air leaves his lungs, and he’s pinned against the wall, Steve’s hand on his chest.
The walkie’s wedged between them. Steve’s somehow using his broken wrist to still Eddie’s hand, to keep the walkie turned on.
Eddie has no choice but to listen to what comes through the static.
It’s chaos. Heavy, frantic breathing; it’s like he can feel the kids clutching their sides as they run. In the distance, a car, the engine stopping. A door opens.
Jason Carver’s voice. “Did you see them?”
Behind Steve, Eddie spots Robin stirring.
Steve keeps staring down at the walkie.
An abrupt cry of pain, and another voice curses, says, “Shit, Jason, I think it’s broken.”
“El?” Dustin breathes.
Something in Steve’s face flickers, but Eddie’s too terrified to know what it means—tries and fails to turn the walkie off again, but he doesn’t even know what’s the right thing to do anymore. He just wants them to be okay, he just wants—
“Jason, no-one’s fucking there. You—you can’t even stand, I’m taking you to the hosp—”
A car door slamming shut. An engine starting up, fading…
Gone.
Dustin and Erica exhale shakily. Running again, footsteps pounding up the stairs, across floorboards…
The walkie cuts off.
Steve grits his teeth.
“Please,” Eddie whispers.
Robin’s up, moving so quietly—scooping the remnants of his guitars into the pot.
Another crackle.
“Eddie!” Dustin’s voice again, up close. “Max is—the music’s not working! I—I don’t know what to—”
There it is again: that flicker across Steve’s face. A ripple in a lake.
“Max,” he says.
The name cracks with emotion, and although his voice has been used before, an uncanny imitation, Eddie knows this is different, feels it in his gut; it’s him, it’s him, it’s him.
The snick of a match being struck.
Steve’s head tilts ever so slightly, but he doesn’t turn around. Like he already knows Robin is right behind him.
Instead—
Steve pries the walkie out of Eddie’s hand. Presses down on the button. Inhales.
“Run.”
The walkie drops with a clatter. Behind them, the fierce roar of flames; Eddie’s face stings.
He can feel Steve’s grip on him loosening, feels himself sliding down the wall.
Steve’s eyes bore into his—and although dark veins have spread across the whites, like spider webs, Eddie can still see the slightest gleam of something real in them.
Something human.
Steve’s lips move, cracked and bleeding.
Now, he mouths.
“Robin!” Eddie yells.
Steve lets him go, and Eddie sees a flash of Robin throwing the entire contents of the pot over Steve, raining fire upon him; Eddie covers his face from the scorching heat, scrambling to get away, relying on touch alone, and his hand hits something, the crunch of plastic, fuck, the walkie—
He’s by the doorway, gasping for breath.
Awareness comes in stages: the fire’s gone out, charred remains of the guitars on the ground where Steve once stood; Robin’s there, her hands red raw, and she’s looking at something, what’s she…?
Steve.
Steve dragging himself across the floor, his broken wrist pressed against his stomach. Crawling to sit next to the space heater, head tipped back against the wall, eyes closed. Breathing.
Just breathing.
Then, so faintly, Eddie almost thinks he’s imagined it.
“Railroad… Snow Ball… Muppet.”
Steve thumps the back of his head against the wall with each word.
Robin goes to him.
Eddie can only watch. He feels like he’s staring at a puzzle with too many missing pieces.
Despite everything, Robin reaches out with her hand again. She touches Steve’s knee gently, and Steve falls silent, stops hitting his head.
Robin smiles, tearful.
“You’ve—you’ve changed that song for me forever,” she says, choked up, and although Eddie can’t really understand, he senses the heart in it, the echoes of their story, of their love hitting him square in the chest.
“Do you remember,” Robin goes on, laughing through it, “the first time we were closing, and you—you got that whole bag of chocolate chips? Tore the corner and just, like, scarfed it. You looked like a chipmunk. It was—it was so gross. And you just said let’s see you do better, then. So we just kept eating them, and we had to pretend we had, like, a whole week where every order had chocolate chips just so we could get another shipment. You… you made me feel like I was five years old. That’s—that’s when I knew.” Robin takes a shuddering breath. Keeps smiling. “Right there. I wanted to be your friend.”
Steve just looks at her. He blinks, and a tear falls down his face, and Eddie can see it, like the sun briefly appearing through storm clouds, can see more of him breaking through, and for a moment, just a moment, there could be a chance, please, please…
Steve’s stomach spasms, and he groans, inhales short and sharp, twists away from Robin’s touch; the litany starts again, fever-slurred.
Eddie rediscovers the walkie. There’s cracks all through the plastic—it might not even work.
But Steve keens, pressing, pressing as blood flows through his fingers, as he trips up on the words, almost insensible now, and Eddie knows he has to take the risk.
His thumb pushes the button.
“Dustin,” he murmurs, “don’t tell me where you are. But if you’re—if you’re safe. Christ, please say you’re… Steve, he—he needs you.”
Silence.
Eddie closes his eyes.
“—safe. We’re all safe. I copy.”
Eddie thinks he laughs or something close to it. Maybe something else, too. He presses his forehead against the walkie. A benediction answered.
“Eddie?” Dustin says, and his speech keeps crackling, keeps threatening to cut out, but he’s there, he’s there.
Steve blinks, turns towards the sound of Dustin’s voice.
But Eddie’s not afraid this time.
“Railroad,” Steve repeats. Soft yet intentional, like he means it with everything he has left. “Railroad.”
Eddie passes the word on to Dustin. Waits.
Dustin takes a little while to figure it out—or maybe he solves it almost instantly, but here, time moves slow: just Robin and Eddie holding their breath, Steve only mouthing the words now. Barely there.
Dustin must push his button down mid-gasp, the words rushing out.
“That’s how we—that’s when everything—”
What follows is a garbled speech Eddie can barely make sense of, as static obscures every third word or so: about the junkyard and demodogs, and tunnels, and…
“D-different details, Henderson,” Eddie says with a choked laugh.
Fondness wells up; for a second it had felt like he was listening to Dustin in the middle of a campaign, on a tangent, and Eddie knows he just has to nudge him down the right path and then he’ll work it out, because the kid’s a goddamn genius.
“Stuff he can feel,” Eddie tries.
Steve looks at him, unblinking, and God he’s still in there, Eddie thinks, there’s so many thoughts, so much of him trapped beneath the surface.
So Dustin talks about Queen playing in Steve’s car, of how the fall leaves looked as they walked, of his shoelaces coming loose, and Steve getting down on his knees in exaggerated exasperation, you’re gonna fall flat on your face, dickhead, we’ve got enough going on.
Eddie takes the thread he’s been given, adds embellishments where he can—the crunch of leaves underfoot, the steady clunk of walking on the tracks, Dustin sometimes hurrying a little, just to match Steve’s stride—and as Steve finally blinks slowly, Eddie prays.
Can you feel it? Please go there. Go somewhere safe. Go somewhere it can’t find you.
“What—what else did he say?” Robin says, when Steve lips stops moving, and his eyes close; he looks so tired. “Snow Ball?”
“Yeah, that’s—” Eddie pushes the walkie button again, so Dustin can hear. “Didn’t the Middle School have something… Did you do anything for it? Like put up decorations or…?”
Robin shakes her head.
Eddie furiously racks his brains for one detail, anything—curses himself for not paying attention, for shirking the ‘volunteering’ he was forced to do that December in lieu of detention; for viewing it all with a petty indifference, when for others, it must’ve meant so—
He releases the button.
“Did you say Snow Ball?” Dustin asks, before he launches into Steve shielding his eyes from hairspray, of the forest green gift bag his mom had passed into Steve’s hands, of Steve’s surprise, his shy smile—and then it’s Erica who takes over, calling over somewhere, “Lucas, remember when we came to pick you up?”
And the Sinclairs had stayed much longer than expected because Max’s folks were late in collecting her; and when Steve came to pick up Dustin, he’d noticed and stayed, too.
“He didn’t make a big thing of it,” Max says quietly, somewhere distant; Lucas adds that Steve opened up all his car doors so the tape he was playing could be heard: The Carpenters, some Christmas medley.
“He danced with Max,” Lucas says. “We were betting on how many times he could spin her in a row.”
“Ugh, shut up.”
Eddie can hear Max’s eye roll. Her smile.
“And,” Erica says, “he actually enjoyed dad’s small talk. Like, he was fully hooked on mom and Uncle Jack’s gift wrapping contest.”
Eddie smiles, covers his mouth just in case a traitorous noise slips out. The kids sound happy, and he doesn’t want to ruin that for the world.
Steve’s eyes shine, almost like he’s thinking the same thing.
Sorry, he mouths. I’m sorry.
The walkie dies.
Steve groans again, pushing down on his stomach wound. He’s trying to hide it from view, Eddie realises.
Robin keeps reaching for him. “Steve, don’t—let me help. Please.”
Steve shakes his head. “Can’t—can’t hold it back.” His voice is rasping.
“I saw you,” Eddie says, and Robin glances at him. “Last year. At school.”
The memory comes to him all at once, sparked by the kids and the thought of Steve chatting in a parking lot, so at ease.
“I was pissed ‘cause I’d just flunked—doesn’t matter. Was walking it off outside, and you turned into the parking lot, windows down, and you looked so fucking pleased with yourself cause you’d already passed everything. You must’ve had a free period, maybe a double, I dunno. I was,” Eddie huffs self-deprecatingly, “jealous.”
Steve’s head slumps against the wall. His chest rises and falls rapidly, laden with sweat. Eddie tries not to look at the marks—where the burning pieces of wood struck his skin.
Steve’s eyes find his. One long blink.
Keep going.
“You—you were wearing these sunglasses,” Eddie says, and Robin sobs, laughs, like she knows exactly the pair he means. “And you—the radio was on, but I—I can’t remember what was—anyway, you were kinda. Singing. Or, like, humming to yourself. And you were walking to the middle school, you kept throwing your keys in the air. You caught ‘em every damn time.” Eddie chuckles. “Do you know how annoying that was? And I—I just kept watching, ‘till the bell rang, and I just didn’t get it. Didn’t get why you looked so… so happy. But I—” Eddie swallows. “I know now.”
Steve’s mouth tilts, not quite a smile—he’s trying, he’s trying.
“You were gonna go see the kids, huh?” Eddie says. “Surprise them or something, I don’t know. You can tell me later. Promise me? And you—” His voice threatens to go, but he pushes through it, because if there’s one thing Steve needs to hear, it’s this.
Just this.
“You were happy. Because you loved them,” Eddie whispers. “And they loved you.”
Steve breathes in.
And he rises up so suddenly that Robin falls back in alarm. He hits the space heater as he goes, and while it still blisters his skin, he doesn’t cringe away, more deliberately leans into it—
“Quick,” Steve mutters. “He’s mad, he’s mad, we don’t have much—”
And he lies down directly on the bed frame, his stomach still oozing that viscous black and red; Eddie’s stomach drops.
He feels strange, like his body already knows what’s coming before his mind’s caught up.
“Quick, quick—”
The smash of a bottle as Steve fumbles it, spilling alcohol on the floor—he tries again, reaches for lighter fluid and douses the whole bed frame in it.
“Robin,” he says, “Robin, please.”
She’s watching Steve’s every move with wide eyes; Eddie just looks on helplessly.
Fucking move.
“Robin!”
“Steve, I—” She shakes her head, uncomprehending—more like she doesn’t want to understand. “I don’t—”
Steve doubles over, picks something off the floor. Eddie’s distracted—stupid, stupid—watching in horror as more black veins spread up, across Steve’s shoulders, the strained muscles in his neck, and too late, he realises that Steve’s holding a lighter in his hand.
Click.
Steve drops it.
Sets the wooden slats ablaze.
He cries out, back arching—the flames lick higher, higher, and Robin’s screaming Steve’s name, running to him, like she can pull him from the flames…
There’s something else in Steve’s hand.
Robin’s trapped where she’s stood, a broken piece of glass to her neck—and Steve’s struggling against it, but his hand doesn’t move, as beads of blood dot Robin’s skin—
Eddie doesn’t know when it happened. Just knows that he’s holding a spear, and it’s on fire too, flames creeping up…
“Eddie!” Steve says. “Finish it!”
His skin writhes, contorting; Eddie thinks of Chrissy again, of Patrick—and a faint memory of Will Byers, vanishing without a trace.
It was you, Eddie thinks numbly. It was all you.
The glass presses closer still against Robin’s neck. She gasps—
And Steve begs.
“Kill me!”
The stomach wound heaves like a living creature, gaping and monstrous.
“Give him back, you son of a bitch,” Eddie breathes.
He lunges forward.
With all his strength, he digs the spear straight into Steve’s stomach; the flames surge, engulf—
Steve screams.
A black mass pours out of his mouth, and Eddie thinks he’s screaming, too, but he can’t hear anything, can’t hear anything but Steve, the torture in his voice, fuck, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, and the mass hits him; he flies through the air, feels his head smack against something solid.
Then nothing.
He comes to in the living room. Blood dampens the back of his head.
Sits up. Blinks dazedly at the ceiling. The Gate… the Gate’s gone.
Bedroom. Has to… Steve, Robin. Bedroom.
He shoves himself up, wobbles. Forces himself on.
He knows he’s lost time when he nears the room: a chill hits him from the broken window, and the flames have been put out.
Robin. Robin kneeling by the bed, burns all up her arms.
“—open your eyes,” she’s saying. “Oh my God, oh my God.”
Eddie very deliberately doesn’t fully register who she’s talking to. If he does, he’ll freeze, useless. He will never forgive himself.
“Band lungs, Buckley,” he croaks, and then he falls beside her.
Starts compressions.
You’re not going, you’re not going. You’ve got so many people to see again. No. You’re not going.
He tries just to count out loud, but even as he’s doing it, something crumbles, something breaks apart irreparably inside of him, “Don’t you dare leave, don’t you…”
Robin. Two breaths.
“I wanna talk to you, Steve Harrington, and you’re gonna fucking be there to listen, do you understand, do you…”
He loses track of what he’s saying completely, lost to wilder and wilder promises, but it doesn’t matter, nothing matters except this, except the desperate push of his hands, the crack of Steve’s ribs, Robin’s long breaths; and God, Eddie would give anything, anything at all, would tear his fucking heart out if it would help, if it meant that Steve would—
“—just breathe!”
Something jolts underneath his fingers; for a moment, it destroys him: it’s back, it’s—
Eddie staggers over to the window. Makes the hole bigger, again and again. Glass slices through his palms.
“That’s better, huh?” Robin’s murmuring, and Eddie can’t look at her, can’t look at who’s in her arms; if he does, the proof will shatter, and that can’t… he has to…
The phone rings.
Eddie goes to it. His arm lifts, heavy and delayed. Like he’s in a dream.
On the other end, a terrified voice.
Mike. Mike Wheeler crying.
“Did it work?”
“I—” There’s a high-pitched ringing in Eddie’s ears; he shakes his head. “I don’t—”
“I-is Nancy there? Where’s Nancy?”
And there’s that gut feeling again, the one that pulled Eddie out of the RV in the first place; “Hang on,” he says to Mike, and he lets the phone fall, pushes the front door open to stand on the porch, breathing in shallow, frigid breaths.
There’s something coming out from behind the trees.
Closer and closer, and Eddie almost assumes the worst.
But it’s Nancy. There’s ash in her hair, and she’s drenched, coated in black sludge; her teeth flash as she smiles, a pocket knife gleaming in her hand.
“I made my own Gate,” she says.
Barely missing a beat, she tilts her head to the side to throw up. She wipes her mouth with the back of her sleeve, spreads more thick tar across her face.
Underneath everything, there’s a scarlet ring around her throat.
“Your brother,” is all Eddie can get out.
Her eyes blaze white-hot.
“Mike,” she says, clutching the phone so tightly, like she would do the very same if she could hold his hand. “It’s gone, it’s all gone.” And then, louder, louder, trembling, “And whoever’s fucking listening on here, get us help. I know you’re there. I won’t stop. I won’t—”
Eddie knows she says more. She must do.
But he can’t stop staring down at his hands. At the blood.
He steps forward—almost sways, and Nancy catches his wrist.
“Don’t go outside without me. Don’t talk to anyone apart from us, Eddie. Okay? They won’t touch you. I won’t let them.”
Eddie thinks he manages a nod. He believes her. Her jaw quivers, but her head’s held up high: if a gun was pressed to her head, he knows the bullet wouldn’t take.
The phone call continues, but the sound is muffled, underwater.
Eddie comes back to himself in the bedroom doorway.
Robin’s still by the bed.
Steve’s lying there, eyes closed. His stomach’s still bleeding, slow, slow, but the veins have gone, they’ve…
“Eddie.” Robin reaches out a hand to him. “Come on. You… you can feel him breathing from here.”
Why don’t you hate me?
He should leave. He should leave.
He doesn’t deserve…
But Robin keeps reaching, and Eddie’s on his knees next to her, a coward, you’re a fucking coward.
“Here,” Robin says.
She guides Eddie’s hand. Places it on Steve’s sternum, above the awful wound, above all the pain Eddie caused—
There. A rise and fall.
Just breathing.
Eddie’s breath catches.
“I thought—” He shudders. “I thought I’d—”
Robin must sense it before he does, before he even really knows it’s happening.
“You’re okay,” she says, and she pulls him into her embrace—keeps one hand on Steve as she does.
Good, Eddie thinks. He needs to know you’re there. He shouldn’t be alone.
He turns his face into Robin’s shoulder, and weeps.
