What Was Missed

Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at http://archiveofourown.org/works/47208724.

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Category: Gen
Fandom: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Relationships: Chrissy Cunningham & Eddie Munson, Robin Buckley & Steve
Harrington, Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson, Robin Buckley/Chrissy
Cunningham, Will Byers/Mike Wheeler
Characters: Chrissy Cunningham, Eddie Munson, Steve Harrington, Robin Buckley,
Maxine "Max" Mayfield, Dustin Henderson, Nancy Wheeler, Wayne
Munson, Lucas Sinclair, Erica Sinclair, Jason Carver, Will Byers, Mike
Wheeler, Minor Characters, Henry Creel | One | Vecna, Eleven | Jane
Hopper
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, References to Drugs, Platonic
Relationships, Chrissy Cunningham Lives, Eddie Munson Lives,
Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Pansexual Chrissy
Cunningham, Gay Eddie Munson, Bisexual Steve Harrington, Lesbian
Robin Buckley, Happy Ending, hot take: nancy wheeler is overrated,
references to rebel robin, Jason Carver Being an Asshole, POV Multiple,
POV Alternating, another hot take: mike wheeler isnt that bad, Romantic
relationships are background, the focus is platonic bonds, because im
aromantic and not about to write kissing, also i love my friends and wish
there was more emphasis on platonic relations in media, Fix-It, Not
Canon Compliant, no shit really???, parallels between steve & robin and
chrissy & eddie, Coming Out, Everyone Is Gay, Fluff
Language: English
Collections: Anonymous
Stats: Published: 2023-05-16 Completed: 2023-05-20 Words: 25,324 Chapters:
8/8
 What Was Missed
by Anonymous

Summary

“You sure you have it?”

“No, no, no, I got it. Um, somewhere.”

They stare at each other for a second, he’s scrambling to give her something to focus on
while he looks. Doing that would probably make her more comfortable.

His eyes land on the record player, and he waves toward it, “How about you play something
while I look. ‘Kay?”

———

Or: Chrissy Cunningham survives Vecna's assault with a broken arm. Without a murder
charge on his hands, Eddie isn't hunted and Jason doesn't go totally psycho. Well, you'd think.

———
Or: I struggle to keep the plot in line for 25,000 words
 Day 1
Chapter Notes

im so so sorry about the second sentence, i promise it doesnt happen again. i just couldnt
resist

im only rewriting scenes relevant to eddie & chrissy, as they're the focus, or steve &
robin bc i love them
if any scene i wanted to edit was the same outside of a few lines i didnt touch it

the title is boring but i used all my creative energy butchering the summary bc i forgot i
had to write that

See the end of the chapter for more notes

Selling drugs to Chrissy Cunningham…

Well, stranger things have happened, he supposes. Or maybe not. Getting to hang out around
the Queen of Hawkins High once again? Laughable fantasy. Chrissy is a sweet girl, but she’s
not going to stick around.

She’s going inside, and he’s following. And the place is a mess, but he wasn’t exactly
expecting guests. Plus, she’ll leave and then they’ll both pretend they’ve forgotten about this
whole thing. Really, she should be impressing him, not the other way around.

Regardless, he apologizes for the mess and starts rooting through the cabinets and drawers
while she idly examines everything.

“You, um… You live here alone?”

“With my uncle. But, uh, he works nights at the plant… Bringing home the big bucks.”

She just shuffles in place and glances around again. Suddenly he regrets bringing her here.
Not like she doesn’t know what she’s getting into, but she looks so out of place. It feels like
he’s tainted her, almost, by bringing her somewhere so… grungy.

“How long does it take?”

“Sorry?”

“The… Special K. How long does it take to kick in?”

She’s obviously nervous, hasn’t ever even smoked before, why is he giving her ketamine,
again? She’s paying, but still. The least he could do is ease her worries.
“Oh, uh, well, it depends if you snort it or not. Uh, if you do, then, yeah. It’ll, uh… kick in
pretty quick. Oh, shit.”

“You sure you have it?”

Or try to ease them, at least.

“No, no, no, I got it. Um, somewhere.”

They stare at each other for a second, he’s scrambling to give her something to focus on
while he looks. Doing that would probably make her more comfortable.

His eyes land on the record player, and he waves toward it, “How about you play something
while I look. ‘Kay?”

Yeah, this probably isn’t going to be worth it. He could use the money, but she’s clearly
incredibly uncomfortable and has no idea what she’s doing. Damn empathy.

Chrissy nods and quietly moves towards the record player, so he scurries off to his room.
When he finally finds it he calls out to her, notifying her.

He turns up the music, she had it practically muted, “Killer Queen, good choice.”

Then he looks up at Chrissy, who’s frozen. She’s standing perfectly straight, arms at her
sides, staring… not ahead. Her eyes are rolled up and all he can see are the whites. Her
eyelids are fluttering, rapidly, and she’s unresponsive when he calls out.

He looks at Chrissy, who appears to be having some kind of… standing seizure?

“Hey… Chrissy?” He claps his hands in front of her face. There’s no response.

“Wake up!”

———

The lights in Max’s trailer had never been particularly reliable, but this is excessive. Really
excessive, although it lasted only for a second or two.

But just as the flickering stopped she heard a somewhat distant scream from the front of her
home.

She carefully examined everything in the window’s view, and for a while, no one showed up.

She was about to go back to the couch when the door of the trailer opposite hers is thrown
open and Chrissy Cunningham exited the Munson’s, crying and clutching her arm, Eddie
following her and helping her into his van.

She should probably tell Dustin about this, he’d want to know. In the morning, she decided,
she’d skate over.
Chapter End Notes

so good at writing dialogue yet so shit at action

for a story about chrissy escaping vecna, ill be real, he really doesnt do much

when i was transcribing eddies dialog i found out that like every three words he says um
or uh

this first chapter is so short for no reason i shoulda just made it a prologue or smn

who knows when ill update this, i already have it all written but im lazy and forgetful
 Day 2
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

That evening Hawkins Memorial Hospital saw two patients. A high school basketball player
who sprained his ankle during a game and a cheerleader who’d severely broken her arm and
refused to say how.

In the morning, the hospital saw three visitors for the cheerleader, Chrissy Cunningham’s
frantic boyfriend, and two children who didn’t know her.

Jason Carver called Chrissy’s home, then after learning she wasn’t there promptly demanded
the hospital staff tell him who she left with before storming out when he learned who it was.

The two children were faster. When they found out Chrissy wasn’t there they only exchanged
a look and said “Family Video” before running away.

———

When Wayne Munson got home in the morning, the last thing he expected was for the door to
be left wide open. Yes, sometimes Eddie didn’t shut it quite right, but he never left it wide
open the way it was.

An open door wasn’t anythin’ to the mess inside. There were open drawers and cabinets,
things strewn ‘bout the floor, somehow the ceiling was cracked, and the record player was
still spinning a finished record from presumably hours ago.

The worst thing was that there was no sign of his nephew.

Now, let it be known, Wayne was no paranoid. He just didn’t overthink things. But Eddie was
gone and he couldn’t find a note or remember him mentionin’ going out that morning.
Which left only one option, Eddie was missing.

It’d been a long day. His nephew was gone, and the police couldn’t do anything ‘bout since it
hadn’t yet been 24 hours. It was a complete load of bullshit, his nephew wasn’t like this. If
some richer kid had gone missing there would be entire search parties out the instant they
were reported.

Somehow a few journalists had caught wind of the news (this godforsaken town and its
gossip) and came ‘round to drill him with questions about his kid for a story where they’d
make all sorts of horrible things up.

He was out killing time at a picnic bench, in a reverie, when some teen journalist approached
him.
“Hi. Um, I’m a friend of Max Mayfield’s, over there,” She pointed to the Hargrove trailer,
“Ah, you’re Wayne Munson, aren’t you? Eddie’s uncle?”

“That’s right.”

“I heard that he’s missing. The neighbors, they were—”

“Like to gossip. And I’m not interested in gossipin’ no more. Certainly not to a reporter.”

“What gave me away?” She smiles, and when he doesn’t reciprocate she sits down on the
table beside Wayne, “Look, let me level with you, Mr. Munson. The paper I write for is…
small. We don’t have the staff to keep up with the big guys. And I’m just… looking for
something, anything really, about what happened.”

“Why? Far as I can tell, y'all have it figured out already. My nephew’s a freak. He grabbed
some cash and ran away. Ain’t that ‘bout right?”

“Let me guess. You’ve been speaking to the Hawkins Post. Chuck Bailey? Yeah, I used to
work with him. I mean, that guy doesn’t know his ass from his elbow.”

The girl was right, of course, that asshole would make anything up for publicity.

“Let me tell your side of the story.”

“My nephew, he may act different. Erratic, weird. But he wouldn’t run away. He clings to
things for as long as he can, refuses to let go. He’s a stubborn kid, runs into things without
thinking. Yeah, he’s run away from things before. Only when things get real rough, way past
when he should’ve already been gone. He’s a fighter. No matter what anyone says, and they
will say things, believe you me. But… Eddie doesn’t run. I don’t know where he is, but I will
find him.”

The journalist girl looks away from him, and it seems like she’s about to speak before
something stops her.

She gets up and starts walking away, then turns back, "Um, I’ll be right back.”

He waves her away, “Take your time, I haven’t got anything better to be doin’.”

———

Reefer Rick’s boat shed was a miserable, damp, decrepit building. Maybe ‘building’ is a bit
too liberal of a term. It had been falling apart since it was built, especially with the complete
lack of maintenance.

Chrissy had asked him to spend the day with her, said she didn’t want to go back to her place.
He’d asked if she wanted to go back to his place, but they didn’t know if whatever the fuck
happened to her would happen again if they went back.

So he’d driven them to Reefer Rick’s, although it wasn’t exactly the ideal place to hang
around, especially with her severely broken arm.
They stood in the doorway, staring at the moldy interior. He sure didn’t want to go in, but this
wasn’t about him (although he could hope she’d take a look and decide home wasn’t too bad
after all).

The smell of mold hangs in the air, and there are broken things scattered everywhere. At least
the boat hasn’t been left to rot in the water. The windows are covered in grime and the light
that’s able to get in tints the room sepia. Dust motes drift through the draft he’s created,
making him sneeze. It’s like stepping into a vintage photograph, if said vintage photograph
was taken of the shittiest place possible, for whatever reason.

“So… why would you rather hang around in some dingy building than go home? Y’know,
where you can rest comfortably. And it’s not wet.”

“Um, well, I’m not exactly sure how comfortably I’d be resting.”

He glances over at her, where she’s cradling her arm and staring at the ground, “You mean
your arm?”

“Well, no, I just— I mean my mom can be very… forget it.”

“No, no, I get it. I can’t exactly say I have the greatest parents either.”

Chrissy hums questioningly and looks up at him.

“I live with my uncle. Remember?”

“Right.”

She nods and takes a step toward the door, but stops and grimaces when she sees the broken-
down interior.

He’s again hit with the need to make her more comfortable. If he tells her about his own
parental issues, maybe she’ll feel more secure in hers. Or something. It’s not the best plan,
and most people wouldn’t appreciate knowing so much so soon in a friendship (if this can
even become that), but the circumstances here are a bit different.

“Yeah, uh, one day little Eddie decided to do something he knew his dad would hate.
Obviously, he got caught. I knew my dad would get… worse, and uh, my mom… Well, she
never really knew how to stand up for herself. So I just packed up and left. Went to
Wayne’s.”

"Oh. I’m sorry."

"Yeah, well, I’m better off now. Would’ve gotten kicked out for something way more stupid
if I stayed there any longer. Fuck ‘em anyway, they’re assholes."

She finally went inside and paced around the room, examining the interior before sitting
down on the ledge by the water.
She reached down and flicked at the waves, “My mom, she doesn’t ever listen to me. She’s
so pushy too. And a massive hypocrite. I just don’t think I could handle being around her
right now, she’d find some way to blame me for this.”

He knows a thing or two about parents who’re like that, “She sounds like a piece of work.”

“I guess you could say that.”

He closes the door and crosses the room to sit down beside her. He kicks his feet in the water
while she sighs and slumps over, “Well, at least here you can enjoy my shitty company.”

Eddie never would’ve thought he’d have so much in common with Chrissy Cunningham. But
in retrospect, after a whole day of talking, it made sense. They spent the whole day
discussing their hobbies, bitching about family, and reveling in their surprisingly similar
music tastes. Before they knew it, the sun was setting and yells were coming from
somewhere near the road.

———

Nancy had scoured the entire trailer park. She asked everyone she saw about Fred, and he
was decidedly nowhere. It was getting dark, but she was going to keep looking until she
found him.

She was about to enter the edge of the woods near where she left him when she noticed the
Munson’s door was open. She knew he liked seeing things for himself, it was a good trait to
have, but not if that meant he’d decided to investigate the scene on his own, without asking if
he could.

"Uh, Mr. Munson, I think there's a chance, my friend, he may have gone inside your trailer to
look at the scene, see, the door is open. Do you mind if I check inside?"

He got up and waved her ahead of him, “Might as well head in after you.”

They walk up the porch, Nancy pushes open the door calling out Fred’s name, but her voice
dies in her throat at the sight before her.

She immediately stumbles back into Mr. Munson, who stables her with a hand on her
shoulder.

Fred, he’s— he’s on the floor. His arms and legs are— his eyes—

She’s going to be sick.

———

After the hospital, Max and Dustin crossed the rest of town for Family Video and hijacked
the place.

She’d say they’d wasted away their day on the phones, but if Chrissy was hurt like that,
especially after the lights had gone haywire…
So now here she is, outside what is hypothetically Reefer Rick’s dump of a home. They’re
probably right on this one, but she’s not seeing anyone around.

Dustin rings the doorbell. Again. And again. He obnoxiously keeps hitting it, as though if
anyone’s there it’ll make them show up faster.

Steve settles on the obvious solution, “Okay. Well, that’s settled. I guess they’re not here.”

"His van was by the road."

She didn’t see it. Well, it’s not like she wasn’t properly looking, though. But it at least means
they’ve been here, so they might as well look around.

Dustin rings the doorbell a few more times and then knocks, really hard, and screams,
“Eddie! It’s Dustin!”

“Great.”

“Look, we wanna see you're okay!”

This is ridiculous. If they are in there, they’re not going to answer Dustin's frantic screaming.
They’re going to have left signs, so she leaves the door.

Robin has the same idea, and they shine their lights in the windows, looking for trash or
lights deeper in the house.

It’s… a mess. Rick clearly didn’t keep his space too clean, but she can’t see lights or anything
possibly unusual. She leaves Dustin and Steve squabbling, and Robin still peering inside to
look in through the windows along the side of the place.

A short distance down the hill there’s a rusting old shed. The light over the door flickers,
undoubtedly old wiring giving out, but she can’t help the feeling of unease crawling through
her.

“Hey, guys?”

The hill is steep, and she nearly trips on hidden rocks and potholes in the dark. Ultimately,
they get down just fine, although Robin does screech at one point and nearly falls on her face.

They all jump when the door is thrown open in front of them. It slams against the wall and
Eddie Munson leans out of the entry, staring them down.

When he sees Dustin he relaxes a bit, and waves them inside with an offhanded, “Uh,
welcome, I guess.”

Dingy and rank, probably, would be the best words to describe the interior.

In one of the corners of the shed, as far away from the water as they could get, presumably,
there’s something like a shelter.gmh Chrissy and Eddie have thrown blankets down there, and
they have the broken-off top of a table with food laid out on it. Emergency car rations, she’s
guessing, based on how it’s all non-perishable. Which, yeah, fair. But they found Chrissy,
which was the goal for her, even if not for Dustin (who just wanted to make sure Eddie was
okay after she told him about the lights and how he hadn’t been back home as far as she
could tell).

There’s a tense moment where everyone tries to figure out why the others are here before
Dustin breaks the silence, “Why are you two hanging out in Reefer Rick’s boat shed?”

Crickets. Eddie shrugs when she looks at him, and Chrissy shuffles uncomfortably.
“I…” Chrissy’s voice breaks and she clears her throat, “I didn’t want to go home. Or be
alone.”

“Yeah, well, we, uh, we would’ve gone back to my place, but, uh, we didn’t want it to happen
again,” Eddie passes by them to collapse onto the blankets next to Chrissy.

“It? What happened?”

Eddie glances at Chrissy, who shrugs, and he turns back to them, “You… wouldn’t believe
us. I don’t even believe us.”

Which is sounding a lot like exactly what she doesn’t want to hear. Not after the lights last
night.

“We want to know what happened.”

Neither of them say anything, and this time Eddie is the one who shrugs when Chrissy looks
at him.

“I’ve been… seeing things. I saw a clock… yesterday. Heard chimes. Before that, I saw
things in the school bathroom. I thought I was hallucinating at first. I’m not, though. I’m not”

She has a whispered conversation with Eddie, and Max is feeling like these negotiations are
going nowhere, but then Chrissy curls in on herself and tells Eddie to tell the story.

“We met up, she wanted to buy drugs,” Eddie glares at them, almost daring them to comment
on it, “Ketamine. So we went back to my trailer for it. When we got there she went into
this… trance, I guess. Her eyes, they were rolled up into the back of her head. She was
standing completely still and straight.”

“A seizure?”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought at first. But then she just… shot up into the air. Her arm broke,
just on its own, and she fell back to the ground.”

It all sounds exactly like what she doesn’t want to hear, and it seems like everyone else agrees
with her.

“Were you unconscious for this?” Dustin directs his question toward Chrissy.
“No. No, I wasn’t. I was, like, trapped in my head. Um, I went to see what was taking Eddie
so long, and then… I was in my house.”

She stops, swallows, takes a deep breath.

“I wasn’t, not really. I was still at Eddie’s, but I was in that trance… Everything was wrong,
and rotting. I was trapped, I couldn’t leave.”

She rubs her face, Eddie puts a reassuring hand on her shoulder and nods.

“There was this… guy, I guess. He was rotten too, and slimy and covered in vines. He said it
was time for my suffering to end. Then he reached toward me. But I could hear music, I
noticed I could hear music.”

There are tears in Chrissy’s eyes, and she seems close to hysterical. Her description, and the
lights last night? Yeah, this is the work of the Upside Down.

“I could hear the music I put on, coming from the real world. It was ‘Killer Queen’, by…
Queen.”

Max can almost hear the music, and she realizes she wants to put herself in Chrissy’s shoes.
She wants to understand how it felt. For a song she loves to be tainted by the Upside Down.

She keeps Moët et Chandon in her pretty cabinet

“He reached toward me.”

At any time, an invitation you can’t decline

“I saw a portal behind him. To the real world. I could see myself through it, I could see
Eddie.”

Extraordinarily polite

“I kicked him, as hard as I could. I ran toward it, I ran.”

She’s a Killer Queen

“He was angry. So angry. And he was doing things to the house, trying to stop me.”

Insatiable an appetite

“But I got there, I reached it.”

Wanna try?

“And I was out.”

They’re all silent.

She can hear distant birdsong muffled by the shed walls and the lapping of the lake against
the edge of the shed.

Chrissy shakes her head and rubs at her eyes, “You all think we’re crazy, right?”

“No. We don’t think you’re crazy.”

Which was definitely the wrong tone to take in front of Eddie, who snaps, “Really? You
don’t? Seriously?”

“It sounds absolutely ridiculous.”

Max interrupts before Dustin can make this worse, “No. We’re not bullshitting you. We’ve
seen stuff like this before.”

Robin cuts in, “We believe you.”

There’s a palpable moment where she can feel them all collectively making the decision. It’s
a curse, really, to know about the Upside Down, because once you know there is no going
back. But there’s no other choice for the people in front of them right now.

“Look, what I’m about to tell you might be a little… difficult to take.”

“Okay.”

“You know how people say Hawkins is… cursed? They’re not… way off.”

———

Fred had died inside the Munson trailer, only a short reach away from them. And they hadn’t
heard a thing.

Once again Nancy was sitting beside Wayne Munson on the picnic table, just processing.
Waiting until she felt stable enough to drive home in the dark.

“Do you… have any sort of clue on how someone possibly could’ve done that?”

He shakes his head but says, “You ever hear the name Victor Creel?”

It sounds like it might be familiar. It’s the sort of name she’d think she'd heard on her way out
of a movie theater, going by a crowd coming out of a horror show. Like Jason Voorhees, or
Freddy Kreuger. But she knows it isn’t, with the way Wayne says it.

“I guess you’re too young, but back when I was a kid, everybody knew the name Victor
Creel. He lost his mind. Killed his whole family. Kids and wife. Took their eyes. Cut ‘em
right out.”

“God…”

“That poor boy, same exact thing. So I’m thinking maybe he broke out.”
“Victor Creel is still alive?”

“They locked him away in Pennhurst Asylum. Yeah, as far as I know, he’s still there. That is,
unless he broke out. Like that… What’s his name? That white mask and killed the
babysitters?”

“Michael Myers?”

“Yeah, Michael Myers. You ask me, Victor’s like that. He’s a real boogeyman.”

It would’ve been… a long time ago. More than thirty years ago, she’d guess. Victor Creel
would have to be incredibly old, at this point. Dead, possibly. How would he have gotten out
of an asylum, and why would he be here? Really, it doesn’t make sense, but… neither does
Fred. And it’s the closest thing to an explanation she has.

Tires crunching on gravel is what draws Nancy back to the real world. A busted-up van
speeds into a spot beside the Munson’s trailer, and Wayne is pushing himself off the table
beside her.

Three people climb out of the van. Eddie Munson, who she could’ve guessed would come
out, Chrissy Cunningham, for some reason, and… “Max?”

Hopping off the table, she fumbles her way down the slope toward the van, “What’re you
doing here?”

Max shrugs, “I live here.”

She glances at Wayne, who’s scolding Eddie, and then back at Max, “You— that’s not what I
meant. You know that.”

“Well, what did you mean?”

“I meant to ask why you're with them.”

“Just getting a ride. The better question is why you’re here.”

How does Steve deal with these kids?

Max rolls her eyes and sighs, “We have a code red. Come back here tomorrow morning,” she
pokes Chrissy’s arm, “You guys too.”

And Chrissy Cunningham nods. Because her arm is broken, and Nancy can extrapolate that
she escaped what happened to Fred. Which would mean—

“Yeah. It’s back.”

Oh. Oh, shit. Not this again, not when her brother has just left, and Eleven is all the way in
California without her powers. But she can already feel herself nodding and backing away to
her car.
 Maybe she’ll have an unstable night drive, anyway.

Chapter End Notes

Eddie Munson: inadvertent trauma dumping on anyone who is remotely nice to him™

i know that Fred going in the trailer is is unrealistic, but allow me suspension of
disbelief
how else am i supposed to get a gate inside there?
 Day 3
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

When Lucas woke up Sunday morning the guys were all outside packing tools into the trunk
of Jason’s car. Jason, who he hadn’t seen since Kyle showed up sometime in the afternoon
yesterday and told him he’d seen Chrissy in the hospital while they were fixing his sprain.
Jason, who had been out the entire day looking for Chrissy.

He stumbled out the door, squinting in the harsh sunlight at the blurry shapes around Jason’s
car.

“Well, well, look who’s decided to join,” Andy snarks.

They’re all loading tools into Jason’s trunk. He catches sight of what might be a bat near the
back of the compartment, “What’re you guys doing?”

“We’re gearing up.”

“Preparing for the hunt.”

Are they looking for Chrissy? He’d think they’re looking for Chrissy, but all this extra stuff is
saying something else. Are they looking for someone else? Who? Jason couldn’t find Chrissy
yesterday, do they think someone did something to her? Did someone do something to her?

“Hey man, relax.”

Jason tosses a crowbar in the car and power walks up the parking lot to Lucas, where he rests
his hand on his shoulder, “See, I went to see Chrissy at the hospital yesterday, and apparently
she left with that freak, Munson. I know he did something to Chrissy, I couldn’t find her. So
we just want to talk to him. Find Chrissy, get him to admit he did something.”

“Yeah, a little friendly neighborhood chat,” Andy calls over.

“Hey. You don't know Chris. If you’re not up to this, you can go home. There’s no
judgement. You’ll still be one of us, alright?”

So they think Eddie did something to Chrissy. Was he at the hospital? Where is this coming
from? Eddie wouldn’t have hurt anyone. He wouldn’t. But they’d definitely hurt him, given
everything they’re loading up on.

“No. I’m good. I wanna help.”

“Alright,” Jason smiles at him and pats his shoulder. Then he heads back to his car and
reaches for the trunk door, “Let’s capture us a freak.”

This can’t bode well for anyone who’s going to be involved.

———

Eddie wasn’t sure how he was going to spend his spring break. Probably with the band guys,
indulging in whatever whim struck him.

But here he is. Gathered around a picnic table with Chrissy Cunningham and fucking monster
hunters. And these monster hunters? They’re all high schoolers. Except for Harrington, but
he only just got out of that shit, so does it really count?

The girls and Dustin are all actively engaging in conversation at the table. Because they’re
the brains, they know what’s happening, and Chrissy has some extra insight. There’s no room
for anyone else on the benches, so he and Steve, who don’t have anything to add, are both
leaning on the supports of the shelter over the bench.

The day was a nice seventy degrees, with a cool breeze. Essentially perfect, and Eddie would
love to be spending it doing literally anything other than this. Because this? This is crazy.

What are they trying to do? Are they planning and brainstorming? Do they have a step-by-
step plan on how to fix this? Because apparently this has happened before. He’s barely even
following what anyone is saying, and, apparently, Nancy Wheeler is here. Does this mean the
mini-her knows about this shit too? Who is he kidding, Dustin does. Max does. Of course
Mike knows.

“So, you’re saying this thing that killed Fred and went after Chrissy, it’s from the Upside
Down?”

And what is the Upside Down?

“Our working theory is that he attacks with a spell or a curse. Now, whether or not he’s doing
the bidding of the Mind Flayer or just loves killing teens, we don’t know.”

“All we know is that this is something different. Something new.”

Okay, okay. They’re brainstorming. That’s fine, it’s fine.

“No. Fred and Chrissy don’t make sense. I mean, why you two?”

“Maybe they were just in the wrong place? They were both at the game."

“And at Eddie’s.”

He slept in there last night. So did Wayne. Does this mean they both could’ve died at any
point last night?

“Great. Are you telling me my place is haunted?”

“Not necessarily.”

“We’re near Eddie’s. Uh, should we maybe not be here?”

They don't have a plan, and they don't know what they're doing, and evidently Vecna is
completely new too. But it’s fine, they’re not all going to die when Vecna inevitably keeps
killing, and every last person in this town dies, including them. And that point— He should
sit down.

He should go sit down. Chrissy has been absorbed into the conversation. She's giving them
her statement, telling them more about what she's seen. If he slips away now no one will
notice and he can be updated later.

So he does. He stops leaning on the supporting pole of the shelter and heads back to his
home. Saying that makes it sound like he has to walk, like, a mile or something. But no, it’s
right there, and then he can sit down outside and wait for everyone.

As he’s sinking down to the floor he looks back up at the group, but instead, he sees Steve
Harrington following him. Harrington stops once he realizes he’s been noticed, and shuffles
awkwardly in place for a second. Awkwardly. Who the fuck is this, and what did he do with
the Steve Harrington from high school’s past?

“Hey, man. Are you okay? I saw you leaving, and…”

“No, no yeah, I’m fine. I’m good.”

There’s a stalemate, he doesn’t know what to say to Steve, and Steve clearly doesn’t have any
lines prepared for him. Can probably tell he’s lying, though.

“Are you sure? ‘Cause I know all this stuff is kinda crazy.”

“Yeah, crazy is one way to put it.”

Once again they just stare at each other.

“Uh, look, everything will work out. It always does. And you don’t have to come with us to
do anything, we don’t really have enough car space anyway.”

“Well, what am I supposed to do here? It’s not like I have any clue what’s happening.”

His brow furrows and he crosses his arms and shuffles for a minute, thinking, “How about
you and Chrissy draw what she saw? I’m not sure how useful it’ll be… but maybe we’ll be
able to figure something out. See if anything’s familiar.”

“Okay, we can do that.”

Then Dustin screams from the table, “Steve! We need your car!”

He rolls his eyes, “That kid.”

“Put him in time out.”

Steve actually laughs at his shitty joke, and his deprived mind is instantly running away with
it. So he shoots up to standing and nods before leaning on the wall and staring up at the
clouds, because he’s not going to look at Harrington.

“I guess we’re going. Someone will radio you when we need to meet back up.”

Steve leaves to go rejoin the group who are all moving out, Nancy starts walking toward her
car.

Harrington nods at him the way only a jock would, then spins on his heels and darts back to
his group, jolting when he sees Nancy splitting off.

“Woah, woah, Nance. Nance! Nance, where you going?”

“Oh, there’s just something I want to check on first.”

Well, whatever it is, it doesn’t concern him. Chrissy is still sitting on the benches, looking a
bit lost. He catches her eye and waves her over.

And so they split into three groups. Robin joins Nancy’s side quest, Steve, Max, and Dustin
head… somewhere. He and Chrissy hunt around his place for drawing supplies.

———

Max managed to get in. Steve had thought the counselor would either be out on vacation or
just not home. If she wasn’t, they’d probably have to break into the school, which… wouldn’t
have been the first illegal thing they’ve used the government to get out of.

“So, we gonna talk about… it?”

Dustin’s voice rips him out of his thoughts.

“Huh? Sorry, talk about what?”

“Your temporary insanity earlier today when you basically threw yourself at Nance?”

For a second he doesn’t even know what Dustin is talking about, but then remembers
Nancy’s ‘shot in the dark’.

“Okay, first of all, that’s not what happened.”

“Pretty sure that’s what happened. It was public. There were, like, a lot of witnesses.”

“Are you implying I still have a thing for Nance?”

“No, I’m not implying. I’m stating. And, as it relates to your steadfast refusal to date Robin,
it’s pretty much the only logical explanation.”

He really doesn’t understand Dustin’s strange insistence on interfering with his love life,
“That’s not the only one.”

He remembers when he had a crush on Robin, but now just thinking that feels so wrong.
She’s basically his sister. Luckily, he’d quickly gotten over it when she threw up on him
immediately after the Russians in the Starcourt parking lot.

“And as for Nance, I was just trying to protect a friend.”

Dustin raises his eyebrows and gazes ahead skeptically.

“A friend, Henderson. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“I don’t wanna find her with her eyes sucked out of her skull by this Vecna creep.”

“You’re, like, bright red in the face right now.”

He scoffs, “No, I’m not. I don’t wanna talk about it. I’ll punch you so hard in the face your
teeth will fall back out.”

“Woah. Too far.”

“Yeah, well, so is saying I still have a thing for Nance and not listening when I say I won’t
date Robin.”

“Well, why won’t you?”

He loves this kid, really, Dustin is great. But sometimes he doesn’t know when to stop, and
outing Robin to get him to shut up is about as far as he could get from an ideal plan.

“My love life is none of your business. I’m over Nance, and I’m never going to date Robin.
That’s all you need to know.”

Dustin still seems to be grappling with the concept of boundaries, so he turns away to watch
for Max.

Unfortunately, being stubborn is Dustin’s thing, and doesn’t just back down, “Steve, you—”

“Drop. It.”

“Alright, alright,” He can hear Dustin shuffling behind him, probably doing his thing where
he holds up his hands guiltily.

He does feel bad for snapping at Dustin, but he’s sick of all the prodding about him and
Robin. And if Dustin starts probing about Nancy too he’ll probably go crazy.

“Look. If I find someone, you’ll be the second to know. Only because Robin would somehow
know before I could tell her. Alright?”

“Yup. Okay.”

He holds out his fist to Dustin, who bumps it. Which means he’s evaded more of this
romance talk for at least a few hours. Probably more with all the shit happening.
———

He did end up finding colored pencils and some scrap paper for Chrissy to draw on the back
of. She sat down at his desk and he’d collapsed on his bed. They’ve been sitting in silence for
a while. All he can hear is the sound of her pencils and his own breathing.

“I’m sorry.”

He doesn’t realize she’s said anything for a second, but eventually it breaks through the
absent-minded shield of static around his brain, “What? Why’re you sorry?”

“For bringing you into this. I shouldn’t have been buying drugs to deal with the stress Vecna
was giving me.”

“No, no. What? I should be apologizing to you. I mean, you’ve never even smoked before
and I decided that giving you anything harder was an okay thing to do? Buying drugs, I’ll
admit, not the greatest coping mechanism, but absolutely reasonable.”

“I almost died in your home! If I hadn’t seen that portal—”

“Come on, don’t do this. There’s no way in hell you could’ve anticipated this bullshit.”

“I thought I was hallucinating in the school bathroom, and then I saw that damn clock again
right before we met.”

“Yeah. You thought you were hallucinating. Not seeing real shit. Stop trying to apologize,
Vecna’s the one who owes me.”

She sighs and he rolls off his bed and goes to peek over her shoulder at the drawing. It’s
messy and it’s clear she can’t remember what he looks like too well, aside from being slimy
and noseless. One of his hands looks normal and the other is scribbled out, looking like she’s
unsure of what she saw.

“Yeesh. He’s fucking ugly.”

She lets out a shocked laugh and waves her hand over the drawing, “This probably isn’t even
super accurate, I mean, I was panicking and didn’t get a good look. He probably doesn’t look
so…”

“Humanoid? Yeah, he really is. Why do you think he’s humanoid? That’s weird, right? He
looks like they just skinned a guy and shoved him down there. He’s, like, way too humanoid,
that can’t just be a coincidence. What if he is human? Does that sound crazy?”

She giggles, “He does know English.”

“He does, you did say that. Holy shit, what if he’s just some guy who’s… I don’t know, not
quite just some guy.”

Eddie backs away from Chrissy until his shins hit his mattress and he lets himself collapse
onto his bed, spreading his limbs out like starfish, “Chrissy Cunningham, you are a wonder to
behold.”

There’s some shuffling while she turns to look at him, “What does that mean?”

“It means you’ve bounced back awfully fast from everything.”

“I really haven’t. I’m just trying not to completely fall apart reliving it right now.”

He props himself up on his elbows so he can look her in the eyes, “If it’s hurting you, you
should stop.”

“Well, I want to help.”

“I would’ve completely backed out at this point if I were you. How’re you making yourself
do this shit?”

“They think it might help, so I’ll do it. I’m not going to stand by.”

“See, there it is. You’re brave. You’re not running away from this whole thing and hiding.”

“I’m not saying that I don’t want to go home and nap until everyone else solves this, I’m
saying that if I can help, I will. Running isn’t a bad thing to do, if I couldn’t handle it, I’d go
home.”

It makes sense, what she’s saying. But he can’t help lingering feelings of anxiety. Like he’ll
never be able to compare to these people around him, he’s not any help, “Well, if you run
away you’re not helping anyone.”

“What if I hadn’t run from Vecna? I’d be dead. It’s the only option, a lot of the time. You said
you ran away from home, right? Well, what if you didn’t? Just think about that for a second.”

He does. Running was probably the best choice he’s made. It took a while, and there was
strife, but it worked out. Although, when he thinks more, he still feels useless. He hasn’t done
anything to help, but he hasn’t really had options either.

“Okay, I guess I see your point now,” Even if he doesn’t quite.

“It was brave, what you did. You saw problems you couldn’t fix or wait out, so you left your
home of… however long.”

And all he can do is let it go, and tell her she’s unbelievable again. Because she honestly is,
he wishes he could be half as bold.

She tells him he’s incredible too, and he just can’t buy into it, “What you think is incredible is
an act.”

“Why do you say that?”

It’s obvious, really. If anyone decided they should take the time to look at the school weirdo
just a little closer, they’d notice. He causes problems in the halls and at lunch and picks fights
with teachers when they confront him about things. But he doesn’t actually do anything
outside of those. He’s not trying to be a complete asshole, just enough of one to be left alone.
He learned too quickly how well being an aggressive nuisance works.

“It’s armor. I walk on tables and say mean things because if I don’t I’ll be targeted. I’m not
that brave.”

“You could’ve just been ordinary instead. Blended into the background.”

“I didn’t have that option. Sometimes there are just… things people can tell.”

“So you made up an aggressive persona to hide those things?”

She clearly hasn’t heard many rumors about him. Or she’s ignored them, decided what she
could see on her own was enough. He buries his face in his hands, “Not quite. I made a freak
persona so people would subconsciously think they were stereotyping those things instead of
them actually being true. At least that way people are slightly less horrible.”

“Is there something so terrible about that? Protecting yourself, I mean.”

He drops his hands back into his lap, “It’s just all fake.”

“Yet here you are.”

Yeah, here he is. Still hidden, but he can try to tell her some things. So he asks, “Do you
remember Mr. Miller’s class? Last year, fifth period.”

“You were there?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh, I don’t think I ever noticed you. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize. I purposefully stayed in the back, tried not to be too visible. I may cause
problems at lunch, but I’m not going to disrupt learning time. My record’s already messed up
enough.”

Chrissy grimaces at the thought.

“But, uh, I was kinda infatuated with you back then. Borderline obsessed… which sounds
really stalkerish, I didn’t mean it like that—”

“Eddie, Eddie, it’s fine, whatever, I get what you’re trying to say.”

He can still back out, because he knows this is going to sound really weird. Hateful, almost,
and he doesn’t want her to be uncomfortable.

“You sat in front of me, and to the left by a seat. And every day you’d pay so much attention
and people would ask you for help, so you’d help them, because you’re just so smart and
nice.”
 “Eddie, you’re just as smart—”

“You always helped everyone around you. And I was just so… I don’t know, jealous.
Because everyone loved you, and there I was, brooding in the back of the room.”

“If you ever needed help, you always could’ve asked.”

“No, no, I didn’t, I wasn’t even trying to do the work in the first place.”

She’s frowning, trying to sort out what any of what he’s saying means. If there’s any reason
he’s telling her this shit. Which, is there one? He’s probably just weirding her out, but what’s
new? Eddie Munson is a freak, therefore he freaks people out.

“But I’d watch you talk to everyone around you and it’s amazing, you know. I wished I could
like you just like everyone else, but, uh… I felt differently, for, um, reasons.”

“Reasons?”

“Yeah. Reasons. See, people like me, we pretend we’re so much better. But like I said, it’s all
an act, we’re just lonely. I have friends, you know that. But not many. And that doesn’t mean
it doesn’t suck to sit in the back of the room in silence.”

She’s still quiet, hugging her knees on the chair. Mouth opening, then closing.

He jolts when the walkie crackles from the nightstand, “—py, Eddie, Chrissy, Do—” it cuts
out, “—copy?”

He snatches it off his nightstand, “Yeah, we copy.”

“Great, now get your asses to the school. And bring the drawings with you. Over.”

The nerve of this kid.

“A please, maybe?”

“Fine. Please. Over and out.”

Eddie rolls his eyes, “We’ll be there, over and out.”

Chrissy’s already stood with her drawings all gathered, so he jams the antenna back into
place and follows her out the door.

Chapter End Notes

not me projecting my first thoughts about vecna onto eddie

this all felt like filler but also these scenes needed a little fixing
i dont think jason would normally go after eddie as intensely as i wrote unless pressured
by someone, and andy is giving me those pressuring vibes
 Day 4
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

Max is cursed. Of course she’s cursed, this is so damn typical! And they have no idea what
Vecna even is, what he’s trying to do. They’re so absolutely, monumentally, colossally
fucked.

She keeps reminding herself ‘Chrissy survived’ over and over, like a mantra. As though Fred
and Patrick and the rest of the Creel family didn’t.

She can’t fucking believe this shit. This could be her last day, but here she is, sitting in Mike
Wheeler’s disgusting basement, writing letters, with eyes boring into her back and whispers
she can’t hear over Kate Bush.

“I know you guys are staring at me.”

She can’t hear them too well, but she knows they’re making excuses. Pretending they’ve
been doing stuff the entire time. At least Eddie and Chrissy aren’t watching, but they don’t
know Max, not really.

She sighs as she finally finishes addressing the last envelope, “How you think your eyes
boring into the back of my head is protecting me from Vecna, I don’t know.”

Sorting through her letters, she gets up and rejoins the group.

Steve, Lucas, and Dustin, the idiots with no class they are, continue to idly interact with the
objects they chose to grab instead of acknowledging her approach.

“You can look at me now.”

They all apologize and put down their distractions.

She hands out her letters to everyone. One for Chrissy and Eddie, one for Dustin, one for
Steve, and a bunch for Lucas because she trusts him to get them to get to the Byers and Mike.

She hears some rustling and she panics for a second when she sees Dustin opening his, she
doesn’t want to see their reactions to what’s inside. She doesn’t want them to even know
what’s inside unless she’s not around.

“Hey, what are you doing? No, don’t. That’s not for now, don’t open it now.”

“Don’t… okay. I’m sorry, what is this?”

“It’s, um… it’s a fail-safe. For after. If things, if they don’t work out.”

Lucas cuts in quickly, “Wait, woah. Max, things are going to work out.”
“No! No, I don’t need you to reassure me right now and tell me that it’s all going to work out.
Because people have been telling me that my entire life and it’s almost never true. It’s never
true. I mean, of course this asshole curses me. Should’ve seen that one coming.”

There’s a moment of silence. Clearly, she’s right about this, so no one’s fighting her on it.

“Max, that portal will be there. You’ll see it. I don’t know if it was closer for me and Victor
Creel than it was for Fred and Victor's family, but you’re prepared. You know what’s coming.
You can fight him.”

Chrissy is right too, though. And she can’t look at any of them anymore. When she turns
away, the reflective surface of Dustin’s super walkie glints in what little light is coming
through the windows.

She grabs it off the table, “If we go to East Hawkins, will this thing reach Pennhurst?”

“Of course. Yeah.”

Steve jolts in his seat, “Why are we talking about East Hawkins?”

Why shouldn’t they? She raises her eyebrows.

“No. No. No!”

Once he’s gotten the memo, she leaves. She marches up those stairs and for a second no one
follows her, but then there’s a sudden clamor of everyone putting their stuff down and
scrambling up the stairs after her.

She power walks past Mrs. Wheeler and it takes until she’s outside for Steve to catch up
enough to call after her.

“Max, Max. Seriously. Seriously, I’m not joking, I’m not driving you anywhere.”

“Okay, then Eddie will.”

“Wait, what? I’m not signing up for anything. Chrissy and I have to go talk to Jason!”

She wasn’t expecting that to work, but it would’ve been nice if it did. Regardless, she
continues down the Wheeler’s long driveway.

“Well, if you think I’m going to spend what is possibly the last day of my life in the armpit
that is Mike Wheeler’s basement, then you’re out of your mind. So either take me where I
need to go, or you’re gonna have to tie me down, which is technically kidnapping of a minor.
And if I live to see another day, Steve, I swear to god, I will prosecute.”

When she finally reaches the end of the driveway she tries the door of Steve’s car, but it’s
locked, “Open the door.”

“Uh, no.”
 “I know a good lawyer.”

He gives her an incredulous look as though not wanting to be cooped up in a basement is

truly an unreasonable thing and shakes his head before getting his keys out of his pocket,
“Henderson, that superwalkie of yours better reach Pennhurst.”

“Wait, wait,” Eddie grabs Steve’s arm and turns him around, “we’ll just meet back here
eventually? When we’re done with our shit?”

Steve goes a bit red and pulls away from Eddie’s touch (does he think Eddie has freak cooties
or something?) then ducks his head, “Uh, yeah. Yeah, we’ll do that.”

Eddie nods and spins around to join Chrissy at his van.

He finally unlocks the door, and as she opens the door she hears that damned distorted
drawn-out chiming. It’s coming from somewhere behind them, beckoning her, almost, to
follow it.
Shit.

Later, when they’re all back in the Wheelers, and she’s sitting with Lucas, Max thinks.

It all makes sense. Chrissy had been saved by music, Victor Creel had been saved by music,
and she was too. They probably could’ve figured it out faster if they took the time to really
think about it, but they didn’t have time to spare.

Chrissy nearly hadn’t made it. If she hadn’t… Well, Max probably wouldn’t have either.
Eddie would’ve been in such a shitty situation, they may never have found out it was the
doing of the Upside Down if she hadn’t made it.

They haven’t figured out why Chrissy hasn’t been pulled under again. Maybe Vecna has
some form of empathy if he let Chrissy go, but not Max, who knows about the Upside Down.
Probably not. Nothing else down there does.

For now, she focuses on Kate Bush’s voice through her headphones, and her friends who’re
all eating leftover takeout from last night.

If I only could, I’d make a deal with God.

She lived though, she lived. And she will continue to, fuck what anyone else says.

Chapter End Notes

very short, very max

 Day 5
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

This was the fourth time Jason was checking Chrissy’s house, and he was getting worried.

Saturday, he’d rang the doorbell and her mom said she hadn’t been home since Friday
morning. He decided he should cover for her, so she wouldn’t have a reason to keep hiding.

Sunday, he’d rang the doorbell and Mrs. Cunningham had told him he’d just missed her. Said
she’d left with friends five minutes prior. He’d looked for Chrissy’s friends and found most
of them, without her, at one of their houses. The others were all at home, without Chrissy.
Which meant Chrissy was either out with a friend he didn’t know (which he knew wasn’t the
case), or she was with Munson again.

Yesterday, he rang the doorbell and, once again, Chrissy was not home. Mrs. Cunningham
told him she’d called from her ‘new friend’ Nancy Wheeler’s house and said she was staying
the night.

His next step, of course, was to look for Chrissy at the Wheeler’s.

When he rang the Wheeler’s doorbell Mrs. Wheeler told him they’d left half an hour ago,
although she didn’t know where to.

He felt like he was going insane. Chrissy didn’t seem like she was trying to hide, but he
couldn’t find her either. She’d never been so hard to get a hold of before. Munson was
probably keeping her away, making her run around with him for his little game. He might’ve
even made her hurt the Hawkins High student who had died on Sunday.

Once again he was on the front step of Chrissy’s house, ringing the doorbell.

Once again Mrs. Cunningham answered the door.

“Jason? You’re here again? Are you still looking for Chrissy?”

“Yes miss, is she home?”

“No, she stayed the night at Nancy’s again. Although, she did come home for a few minutes
yesterday. Asked if you’d been by.”

“Did she say anything else?”

“It just seemed like she was looking for you, that’s all.”

“Alright, thank you, Mrs. Cunningham.”

He turned away and started down the little path from the door.
“And, Jason?”

He looked back, “Yeah?”

“If you find her, tell her to come home, okay? Her family misses her.”

“Of course.”

He checked the Wheeler’s again, right after. And once again he had missed all of them by
half an hour. It really seemed like Munson was playing keep-away now. Chrissy had probably
managed to get away from him, and she went home. But he wasn’t there to help her, so Eddie
found her, and she probably wouldn’t be able to get away again.

If he wanted to find them, he’d need more help than Andy and Patrick. If he got the whole
team, they could split up, make a list of every place Eddie frequented, fan out and search all
of them until they finally found him. No stone left unturned.

———

Light penetrates her eyelids, which means no matter how hard she tries, she’s not falling back
asleep. Not that Robin thinks she should, she can already feel how fucked up her back is
going to be after sleeping on the floor.

She jolts up and stretches, body all cold sweat. Her mouth tastes funny, one pant leg is rucked
up, and her left sock is clinging to her as best it can.

Slouching and yawning, she takes in the room. Lucas is sleeping in a pile of blankets, Eddie
is sprawled out on an air mattress and Steve is knocked out of the couch (What the hell,
Steve? Sharing is caring).

“Hey.”

Robin jumps and whips around to see who spoke, Chrissy is on a chair with a book in her lap,
wide-eyed, “Oh, sorry. Did I scare you?”

“What? No, no, I’m good.”

Looking closer at the book, she thinks she recognizes the red cover, “Is that Carmilla?
Sheridan Le Fanu?”

“Oh, uh,” Chrissy checks the cover, “ yeah. Nancy gave it to me, I asked for something to
read. She said she didn’t want it anymore.”

Her loss, Chrissy’s gain. Carmilla is peak lesbian literature. It seems like Chrissy is only
twenty pages in, so it’s possible she hasn’t realized it’s gay yet. Although… it’s only, like, a
hundred pages long. Maybe she has? And still likes it? Does she like it? Or will she be
disgusted when she realizes?

“What do you think? Of it. The book. What do you think of the book?”
“Well, I haven’t gotten too far, but I think it’s pretty good.”

Okay, cool. Cool. She thinks a lesbian vampire romance novel is good. That might mean
she’s also—

Robin! A straight girl can think a lesbian book is good. It doesn’t necessarily mean anything.
She has a boyfriend.

She realizes she still hasn’t replied to Chrissy, “Uh… How are you holding up?”

“I’m not sure, honestly.”

“That’s totally fair. I’m not either. Did, um, did you get to talk to Jason yesterday?”

Chrissy sighs, “No, we completely missed him. I’m not sure how.”

“You guys going to look for him again today?”

“It’s not like we have anything else to do.”

It’s unrealistic, and she knows it, they’ve got to fix this shit. But it would be nice if they
could get a down day. Even just an hour or two, she’s sure their brainstorming and problem-
solving stamina would be renewed if they relaxed for just a bit. It’s not like they have any
clue what to do next, anyway.

“I feel bad leaching from the Wheelers like this,” Chrissy is worrying her lip, looking
genuinely perturbed by it.

“Yeah, but, like, we’ve got to stick together right now. I mean, I guess we could, like, go by a
diner for breakfast before heading out today. I mean, all of us. It’s better than taking from
Mrs. Wheeler again.”

“That’s a good idea.”

Chrissy’s small smile is contagious and she can feel the corners of her mouth rising too.

She can already tell she’s going to obsess over this interaction with Steve later. She’s going to
tell him that a pretty girl smiled at her and complimented her, and he’ll tell her that she needs
to talk to Chrissy if she ever wants a shot. Which, she is, brain Steve, right now! They’re
talking!

She slumps against the front of the chair and she hears Chrissy turn a page of her book before
sighing, “If we don’t fix everything before school starts again do you think we’ll just have to
ditch class?”

“We’ll be done soon. From what I’ve been told it’s never taken more than a week.”

“...Okay.”
While telling her that doesn’t seem to have made her feel worse, she doesn’t seem any better,
still dejected.

“Hey, uh, if you ever just need someone to talk to about this stuff during school, or any time,
really, I’m always available. I mean, I don’t have much of a life, so,” Robin, stop talking,
that’s pathetic, “uh, yeah.”

Chrissy’s smile is small but grateful and she nods, whispering, “Thanks.”

The door to the basement creaks open, and footsteps rapidly descend to their level. Nancy
appears at the base of the steps, “Wake everyone up, we have a plan.”

———

While everyone else headed to the old Creel house to investigate, he and Chrissy were back
out on the road again. Looking for Jason. Who they’d managed to completely miss yesterday.
And today too. Hawkins is a small town, but if Jason’s moving around looking for them, and
they’re moving around looking for him, it’s possible they’d completely miss each other
(especially since they’d both been a bit too preoccupied with worrying about Red to really
look yesterday).

They were on the back roads, as a last-ditch effort to find him, heading back to the Wheeler’s.
6:30 in the evening felt like a perfectly reasonable time to call it quits, especially when the
sun was going to go down soon. Jason was probably already back home, but they’d decided
they didn’t want to confront him on his turf.

“This is ridiculous. Two days in a row we can’t find your lunatic boyfriend.”

Chrissy turned in her seat and looked at him for a long minute, “You think I should break up
with him.”

“Well, I— okay, yeah, I do. He’s an asshole, okay? Can you really blame me?”

“You’re right.”

“Wha— I am?”

“He was always so nice to me, I ignored how he treated other people. I don’t think he wanted
me to see that side of him, either. I guess I didn’t realize how terribly he treats people who
are different. I should’ve paid more attention to how he acts.”

“Come on, it’s fine. You don’t treat people like that, and he doesn’t want anyone to know he
treats people like that. The fact that you’re so ready to break up with him is enough in itself.”

She’s silent, thinking about everything, but only a few minutes later she jolts and gently
backhands Eddie’s arm, “Woah, wait, stop! Pull over! That was Jason’s car back there.”

He pulls off the road, a fair distance away from Jason’s car, and they hop out.
How Jason had figured out they’d been at Rick’s, Eddie would never be sure. But he was
here, and they were finally done searching for him.

They dart down the slope to the house, using its porch light to avoid tripping on the porch
steps. He grabs the doorknob but doesn’t turn, not yet ready to confront Jason.

“Breaking and entering? He’d really go that far to look for me?”

“I’d say ‘I’m shocked,’ or ‘he’s not normally like this’, but…”

“And I’d say ‘let’s go in,’ but I feel like he’d jump me from behind.”

“He might, actually. We should…” Chrissy leaves him by the door and heads down to the
shed, “Let’s just wait for him in here. He probably won’t be long.”

He follows her to the shed, and they sit down where they’d spent their whole Saturday.

A long enough time passes that he’s starting to think they’ve probably already checked the
shed and he’s falling asleep when the door is abruptly kicked in and slams against the wall.
He jolts awake and pushes himself to sit up properly.

“Chrissy? Are you okay?”

He watches Chrissy stand up and approach Jason, meeting him in the middle of the building.

Patrick comes in after him and he sends a friendly wave his way before getting absorbed in
the drama unfolding in front of him.

“I’m fine, Jason. I’ve been fine this entire time. You can stop looking for me now, I’m safe.”

“Have you been in here since Friday?”

“No, no, what? I’ve been preoccupied, all over the place. I’m fine, Jason, you should go
home.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Patrick hesitate before sending a confused wave back.

“How did your arm break? Did Munson do something to you?”

“No, Jason! I said I’m fine! He didn’t do anything, he’s been helping me.”

“Chrissy, you don’t have to lie to me. I can help you.”

He sees Patrick’s head snap away from the conversation, attention diverted by something he
seems like he heard. Eddie watches him approach the edge of the water and stare out of the
boathouse, across the lake.

“Why is it so hard for you to believe Eddie’s a good person? He’s my friend!”

“What do you mean, he’s…”

At this point, Chrissy and Jason’s argument has faded into the background. Patrick is
standing completely still by the edge of the water. It’s like how Chrissy was… arms plastered
to his sides, totally still.

“Uh, Patrick? Hey, dude. Are you good?”

Chrissy and Jason are still quarreling behind him, not paying attention to what’s around them.

He gets up and tries to get Patrick's attention again. When it doesn’t work he spins him
around, and his eyes are rolled up into the back of his head, just like Chrissy’s were.

He breathes a frantic laugh and desperately shakes Patrick again.

“Hey… uh, guys, enough chit-chat, something’s wrong with your buddy, Jason.”

They finally stop bickering and he steps aside so they can see what’s happening to Patrick.
Jason immediately rushes to Patrick’s side and tentatively reaches out.

Right as his little shove connects Patrick shoots into the air, propelled over the water by the
slight force of Jason’s push.

He can hear screaming— that might be him, that’s probably him. This is what happened to
Chrissy, and now she has to see it too. She shouldn’t have to see this from both sides, how
horrible it is.

The sound of crunching bones comes shortly before a loud splash as Patrick’s body hits the
water.

There’s a tense moment of silence before Jason dives after him.

The police questioned them all individually as soon as they arrived. It was all a blurry mess
to Eddie. Although he’s fairly certain they’d all told the same story. They were having a
confrontation in the boat house, and then Patrick had risen into the air. He had snapped apart
up there and then fell into the water.

Well, Jason was probably trying to put all the blame on him. But that’s fine, he didn’t have a
way of proving Eddie did it. They wouldn’t even believe Jason if he and Chrissy didn’t have
the same story.

Which, in retrospect, they probably shouldn’t have told the cops what actually happened. In
all fairness though, they didn’t have time to make anything good up. What were they
supposed to say? Patrick fell in the water and didn’t come out, then when Jason fished him
out he was just broken? No way.

Whatever. It would be fine. They were going to kill Vecna, and then everything would be
okay again. They could all go back to their normal, pathetic lives.
The police told them they were to go straight home with other vague threats about what
would happen if they stayed out, then they were released.

Well, he and Chrissy were. Jason was still being questioned. Probably because there was no
way he’d let go of his little fact that Eddie was absolutely the one who did this.

Not even ten feet from his van when he hears footsteps on the gravel behind them and Jason’s
strained voice, “Hey! Freak!”

Of fucking course he’d catch them before they could ditch.

He slowly turns on his heels and levels Jason with a disinterested gaze.

Carver ends up right in front of him, red-faced and trying to appear menacing, “What did you
do to Patrick?”

“Dude, seriously? I didn’t do anything to him!”

“I know you did.”

He’s serious. Jason is really serious. He’s angrier than he’s ever seen him, angrier than after
every time they’ve antagonized each other. He just lost a friend, and Eddie gets it, that shit
hurts. But blaming that on the nearest person he doesn’t like?

“He was floating! How the fuck could I have done something like that?”

“You’re a devil-worshipping psycho.”

Like he hasn’t heard that one before, “You’re awfully uninspired, Carver.”

He probably shouldn’t be aggravating him right now, seeing how he’s making fists and looks
just about ready to break Eddie’s nose, but the civilized gentleman he is, he redirects his
attention to, “Chrissy. You’re just going to let him get away with this?”

Chrissy, who had been slowly backing away from them, flinches but defends Eddie, “He
didn’t do anything.”

“Come on, Chrissy, seriously? You can’t really be that blind, you’re not stupid.”

Something snaps inside Eddie, and he shoves him back, “Don’t talk to her like that.”

Jason freezes, would’ve probably punched him if not for the police still around, “What?”

“Don’t talk to her like that.”

“Don’t tell me how to talk to my girlfriend.”

He knows Jason is terrible, but he didn’t realize he was one of those. When Eddie doesn’t
respond to him he turns to Chrissy and says, “Chrissy, come on.”

Chrissy shakes her head and backs farther away, toward Eddie’s van.
 Finally realizing his girlfriend is about to leave with Eddie, his jaw drops in disbelief.
“You’re leaving with him,” it’s not a question, the way Jason says it.

“He’s going to take me home.”

“I could take you home.”

“Eddie’s my friend, I’m going with him.”

He immediately turns on Eddie, “What did you do to her?”

“Treat her with kindness and respect.”

Jason is quiet, fists tightening, clearly gearing up to actually clock him in the face this time.

“Boys, is there an issue here?” An officer’s voice cuts through the tension between the three
of them. He undoubtedly saves Eddie, there’s a first time for everything, he supposes.

“No, sir,” they both spit simultaneously.

“Then y’all best be getting home, right?”

He turns around and follows Chrissy the rest of the way to his van. When he opens the door
he glances back at Jason. He’s glaring at him, fuming. He shouldn’t. He definitely shouldn’t.
But…

He lifts his hands to the side of his head as horns and sticks his tongue out. Jason only goes
redder, but had the good sense to stomp away.

When he hops into the van Chrissy lightly backhands his arm, “Don’t encourage him!”

“I should totally get a restraining order against him.”

Chrissy snorts and then claps a hand over her mouth, “Eddie!”

“And if anyone asks any questions I could call him my crazy toxic ex.”

She breaks down in giggles, “Oh my god, don’t! That would piss him off so much!”

“Well, I have to defend your honor somehow. I’m not letting anyone know he’s your crazy
toxic ex.”

She manages to let out an exasperated sigh while still giggling and shakes her head, “Go
ahead. I can’t stop you, can I?”

“Nope.”

Chapter End Notes

read Carmilla, its pre-dracula lesbian vampire romace
also, its ancient, so you can just search up a pdf and read it online

the pacing of this chapter is fucking weird, but i decided to do this thing day by day, so
you get what you get

the rest of the gang is investigating the creel house at this time, and you know what
steve does in canon?
hes asks if nancy and jonathan would like to go out with robin and him, and the duffers
made it weird
the song playing in that scene is called "This Isn't You" and thats the only hope i have
left that he and nancy wont get back together
 Day 6
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

Erica couldn’t believe her brother had gotten into this shit. He was a dumbass, yeah, but
having that religious psycho after him was ridiculous.

Jason had riled up about a third of the people in the stupid town meeting, but she’d called
him out on his bullshit which was probably going to end up saving Lucas's sorry ass.

Now she was in the Wheeler’s living room, where her idiot brother and his friends should’ve
been. Apparently, they’d said they’d gone to see a movie, but clearly they were lying. How
Mrs. Wheeler didn’t pick up on it? Who knows.

And now all their parents were making giant leaps in logic to try and figure out where their
children had gone. Sure, they’d lied and now had a mob of angry basketball players after
them, but she knew they’d dealt with worse than that. They’d be fine, so long as they got
back before the curfew. Cops were not going to be as forgiving as their parents.

But then Mrs. Wheeler called the police to look for Lucas and his friends, so they
were definitely going to be even less forgiving than they would’ve been before.

———

Nancy had described to him the Upside Down, after her brief trip back in ’83. Yeah, that had
nothing on this.

They’d been brainstorming and wandering around the area of all the kills, just looking for
some sort of clue, when something happened with Dustin’s compass. Then Dustin had run
off, and they’d ended up by the water in Reefer Rick’s shed again.

He’d volunteered to dive and found the gate. The drop-off was steep, and the water
surprisingly deep, so it took a few minutes for him to find the gate. But Dustin’s hypothesis
was right. A decently sized gate was pulsing and probably poisoning the water around it.

So he swam back up to the surface and told everyone. Then the vine wrapped around his
ankle, and he was pulled under. He almost died, but delaying the inevitable crisis of it seemed
like the only viable option for now. Then Nancy and Robin and Eddie were all there fighting
the bat things.

Of course, Nancy and Robin would’ve followed him. They’re both so incredibly brave, it’s
insane. But Eddie? Why had Eddie followed him?

Chrissy hadn’t come down, and he could already tell those two were going to become like
Robin and him. Conjoined twins, codependent, Robin said one time.
Don’t get him wrong, he definitely appreciated the help. They probably would’ve been
fucked if he hadn’t come through. He’s not too far ahead of Steve, he should probably say
something to him.

He calls after Eddie, tries to get his attention, but he appears to be completely spaced out,
bewildered by the scenery around him. Fuck speeding up to reach him, he’s injured. What
else is he supposed to do though?

He calls out again, and this time Eddie hears him and turns around to wait.

“Hey, man. Uh… Listen, I just, I want to say thanks. For saving my ass back there.” Yeah,
real smooth, Steve.

“Shit. You saved your own ass, man. I mean, that was a real Ozzy move you pulled back
there.”

That’s definitely a reference to something important to Eddie, “Ozzy?”

“When you took a bite out of that bat. Ozzy Osbourne? Black Sabbath? He bit a bat’s head
off on stage?”

What he did wasn’t incredibly remarkable, he didn’t even bite it, “I don’t—”

“Doesn’t matter. It’s very metal, what you did. That’s all I’m saying.”

He seems put off, did he offend Eddie by not knowing? Is this some sort of basic knowledge
for metalheads? Does Eddie think he’s a moron now (if he didn’t already)?

“Thanks.”

Eddie seems to be unable to withstand silence, it only takes a minute of Steve not saying
anything for him to start talking about something new.

“Henderson told me you were a badass. Insisted on the matter, in fact.”

“Wait, Henderson said that?”

“Oh yeah. Shit. Kid worships you, dude. Like, you have no idea. It’s kinda annoying, to be
honest. I don’t even know why I care what that little shrimp thinks, but, uh, I guess I got a
little jealous, Steve.”

It’s both relieving and mortifying to know Eddie’s been hearing the same acclaiming words
about him he’s been hearing about Eddie. He doesn’t have to be so jealous anymore (let’s be
honest, it was definitely jealousy), but who knows what sort of things he’d been saying. It
sounds like it’s all positive, but Eddie could be sparing his feelings.

Then Eddie is going on a rant, complimenting him. It sounds like it’s all good things, but
does he really want that to be all Eddie’s heard about him? He seems to have disregarded the
whole King Steve phase, but both sides of this don’t sound great.
Eddie’s quiet, but it’s only a second before he leans into Steve’s space, “Still super jealous as
hell, by the way.”

He reflexively pushes Eddie away with his shoulder, but it doesn’t stop his grin. Eddie is
strangely disarming, it’s unnerving how he doesn’t hesitate to push into Steve’s space. And
how he just says everything he’s thinking.

Although, what Eddie said… He’s being identified by money, looks, and girls. Hasn’t he
moved past that, especially with Robin’s help? Maybe people will always see him like that,
but he doesn’t want it to be all there is to him.

Eddie’s still talking, though, so he can’t counter that thought.

He talks about being a coward, running away from things. As though with all this
supernatural bullshit there’s anything else you can do.

Eddie stops walking and addresses him directly, “See? I’m not sure why I didn’t stay back
with the kids and Chrissy. Would’ve been a whole lot safer. Probably because those ladies
came in straight after you. I just followed on impulse.”

He seems to hesitate for a second, debating on what’s best to say next, “But Wheeler right
there, she didn’t waste a second. Not one second. She just dove right in. Now, I don't know
what happened between you two, but if I were you, I would get her back. Or, shit, are you
dating Robin?”

“What? No, no. I’m not dating Robin, that’s not ever going to happen.”

He glances at Nancy, then looks back at Eddie, Nancy again, finally ending up staring at the
ground, and starts walking again.

That hurt, probably an unreasonable amount. Of course, Eddie would know about him and
Nancy, they were all anyone at Hawkins High talked about for too long.

When they broke up he’d been hoping something interesting would happen soon after, and
everyone’s attention would be diverted. But it’s Hawkins, the only interesting things ever
happening are government cover-ups.

Yet apparently, Eddie knew they were together, but didn’t hear about how it ended. Didn’t
hear people talking about how Nancy dumped him for Jonathan Byers.

Things are definitely better this way, but things didn’t end too well between them. Not that
Eddie would know. He should clear things up.

“What happened was, uh, she cheated on me.”

“Oh, shit. Uh, sorry, I—”

“No, no, it’s fine. You didn’t know. She’s happier with Jonathan anyway. And I’m over her. It
took a while, but we’re better as friends.”
Eddie is silent for once, embarrassed. It almost seems like Eddie didn’t even mean it, with the
way he immediately nods and relaxes after confirmation of his relationship status with
Nancy.

“And as for running, you’re here, right?”

“Well, yeah, but—”

“Chrissy isn’t. Is she a coward?”

“No, but she has a broken arm. And she definitely stayed back to stop the kids from
following us.”

“Pretend the kids aren’t there. What if she was here, and you stayed back. Do you think she’d
say you’re a coward?”

“No.”

Steve nods, “She wouldn’t. And what else are you supposed to do?”

“What?”

Steve isn’t sure why Eddie seems so bent on seeing himself so negatively, but he has a
feeling it might have to do with the way certain people treat him. People like how he was,
back in high school, and suddenly he’s hit with an overwhelming desire to hug Eddie and
apologize even though he’s fairly certain he never actually said anything to him.

“When someone gets hurt and you can’t help them, what else are you supposed to do? Just
stand there and wait for it to happen to you too? Running is the smartest, and sometimes only,
option.”

“Well, how many times have you faced this shit and ran in instead of away?”

“Three times, but there was always someone to help.”

Eddie just sighs distantly, and once again Steve has the urge to kick Carver’s high-strung ass.

They revel in the not-quite-silent silence of the Upside Down for a while before Steve speaks
up again, “You know, Henderson talks a lot about you too.”

“He does?”

“Yeah, it’s always ‘Eddie did this one thing at lunch,’ or ‘Eddie did this other thing in our
campaign’... That’s what it’s called, right? A campaign?”

In an uncharacteristically shy maneuver, Eddie pulls his hair over his mouth, it’s honestly
kind of adorable.

He mutters something before flicking the strands over his shoulder and getting his voice
back, “Yeah. Yeah, it’s called a campaign.”
He’s surprised he got it right and hopes having even a minuscule amount of D&D knowledge
will make Eddie think he’s worth knowing. Because now that he’s talked to the guy, he gets
what Dustin’s hype was about. Even if their opinions don’t match up reason-wise.

“I guess I felt like I couldn’t compare to you, you had way more in common with him. I got a
little jealous too.”

For a song second, they’re in a stalemate of continuous eye contact, neither of them looking
away. Eddie opens his mouth to speak but before he can is thrown into Steve by the ground
heaving itself vertically and horizontally at the same time.

Robin starts yelling Nancy’s name from somewhere ahead of them, and they both stumble
over the rumbling ground after the girls who are somehow running ahead over the turbulent
ground.

———

Steve, Nancy, Robin, and Eddie had all gone under and hadn’t come out. She’d barely
stopped Dusting from going under too. The police had shown up right then, apparently the
kids’ parents were worried about them with the state of everything and called the cops.

She was hunched over in the Wheeler’s kitchen, stress-sipping water, waiting for the officers
to finish questioning the kids, and worrying.

She was trying not to focus on the gate, it was out of her control and she’d go crazy if she
didn’t focus on what was in front of her instead. Still, a few questions managed to slip
through (Steve’s probably really hurt. They’re all probably hurt. Did Eddie even realize what
he was doing when he went down there? How was Robin so ready to follow him immediately?
Are they even alive?)

She’d told the police she had gone back to the boatshed to take a look around, see if she
could find anything to possibly explain what happened to Patrick. It was to no avail, although
she did find those three.

The kids were doing an alarmingly good job at making things up, although they weren’t
convincing in the slightest. It did get the police to question them individually, though.

Dustin and Lucas joined her in the kitchen and immediately started conspiring about the next
best action. At least until they got sidetracked by Lucas’s little sister (why does an 11-year-
old know about this stuff?).

It was all a bit of a mess after that. Dustin made some kind of hypothesis, apparently there
might be a gate in Eddie’s trailer? Then they were contacted through the lights (she still
doesn’t understand what was happening there), Erica slashed a cop’s tire, and suddenly they
were biking to Eddie’s because there might be a gate there… Why were they going toward
the gate? Well, their friends were in there, but still.

It was going to be a long night.

Chapter End Notes

if the duffers can use the upside down quakes as a conveniently timed plot device to get
steve and eddie to shut up, so can i

im honestly surprised how many people have just forgotten that nancy cheated on steve
in season two
they had a fight, took a break from each other, nancy cheated with jonathan, they came
back together and steve just knew what happened and was just resigned to being okay
with it
shes actually done some pretty shitty things every season; including but not limited to
being a dick to barb (albeit temporarily (but barb did die immediately afterward)) in s1
and pressuring jonathan into sleuthing with her which got them fired from their job that
he needed to help support his family in s3
she's done some cool stuff, but it just annoys me how many people disregard that whole
facet of her character

hey look, that hot take in the tags did turn out to be relevant
 Day 7
Chapter Notes

all the action parts of this are so shit, give me a break, i dont even write as a hobby

longest chapter so far, theres just a lot to fix here

some of these scenes may seem pretty similar to the original, just trust me

See the end of the chapter for more notes

If there’s anything Nancy Wheeler is, it is not easily cowed. Vecna/Henry/One (seriously,
what were they supposed to call him now?) could show her as many nightmares as he
wanted, but she would not back down.

They were going to get weapons and make Vecna a piece of the past. He was human, not
another intangible smoke demon, they could kill him. And they would do it easily.

Max said she could still feel Vecna, although Chrissy could not. It was unclear why Vecna let
Chrissy go, although when he tried to take her she didn’t know about the Upside Down, but
Max did know about it. It was likely he was still after Max because she posed a threat to him.

Now they were in a stolen camper, going to The War Zone, some military surplus store Eddie
knew about… for some reason. But they were going to gear up, head into the Upside Down,
and blast Vecna to bits.

She’d written up a shopping list and was surveying the camper when she noticed Steve on his
own in the front. She would’ve thought he’d be talking to Robin, but she seemed to be having
a rather intense conversation with herself.

She decided she probably shouldn’t leave him to his own devices and sat down in the
passenger seat beside him, “How’s it handle?”

“Not half bad. Considering that this is a… house”

Which, yeah. That’s fair. Taking someone’s house wasn’t ideal, but it was for the greater
good.

“Yeah, it’s… it’s silly, but I’ve actually, um… I always had this dream that I’d have this, like,
this really big family. I’m talking a full brood of Harringtons. Like five, six kids.”

“Six?”
“Yeah, six little nuggets. Three girls, three boys. And, uh, and every summer, I’d figure all of
us Harringtons, we would pack into something like this and… just see the country. Y’know,
the Rockies, Grand Canyon, maybe Yellowstone. End up in some beachside town in
California. Spend a week parked in the sand. Learn how to surf, or something.”

It suits him, the dream. She really couldn’t imagine ever enjoying traveling without a plan
and six kids, but she’s never been very flexible or incredibly fond of kids.

“That sounds nice.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Well, um, except for the six-kid part. That sounds like a total nightmare.”

“If only I had some practice.”

“All right. Fair. That’s… fair.”

He goes quiet, and she looks out at the road in front of them. Trees breeze past, and she
watches their shadows cross over the interior of the camper. It’s a bit cold in here, and she
rubs her arm to try and restore warmth to them.

“For a while there, when we were dating, it was you.”

“What?”

“When we were dating it was always you who I imagined beside me. But, uh, not anymore.
I’m not sure who it is.”

She doesn’t regret leaving him, but she doesn’t like how he seems to feel alone. She believed
him and Robin when they said they weren’t dating, although assumed they probably would
be soon, but right now her impression doesn’t seem to match up with what he’s just told her.

“Well, you’re still there. You’d probably be the weird aunt who shows up every few years
and teaches the kids how to do things that are illegal outside of America.”

That startles a real laugh out of her, and it does sound nice, still being there, “That’s a sweet
dream, Steve. I’ll be the crazy aunt to your future kids.”

———

Eddie is talking with Dustin and Erica, leaving Chrissy to sit in a reverie on her own. She
doesn’t mind, though, they’ve been hanging out for six days straight at this point. He’s pretty
great, but sometimes you reach a limit on how much time you can spend around the same
people.

Someone drops down next to her and says, “Hey.”

She opens her eyes and Robin Buckley is staring right back at her, “Oh, hi.”
Robin doesn’t say anything for a minute, mouth opening and closing a few times, looking for
words. She doesn’t break eye contact either, eventually settling on “So, uh, this is all pretty
crazy, right?”

She breathes a laugh, “Uh, yeah. It’s really something.”

Robin seems to realize how long they’ve been staring at each other and abruptly snaps her
head away, “You know, I’m pretty new to this too. Well, uh, not as new as you are. I’ve been
through this once before, last summer. See, uh, Starcourt actually didn’t burn down, there was
this whole mess with a human-flesh monster, and also Russians.”

She feels her jaw slack as she asks, “Human flesh monster? Russians?”

“Yeah. There was a secret Russian base under Starcourt, that I helped infiltrate, and then
Steve and I got captured and totally tortured a bit, and then we were busted out, and then we
had to blow up this giant flesh monster. Which, if that hadn’t been a thing, Starcourt would
totally still exist, capitalism, y’know? But the meat monster kinda dropped through the roof
and wrecked the interior, so they had to light Starcourt on fire to get rid of its body. Which
wasn’t really its body because it was made of melted humans congealed together. But they
had to light Starcourt on fire to dispose of it and to cover up all the deaths, and— I’m
rambling, aren’t I? Sorry, I tend to do that.”

“No, no, it’s fine. I think I need to be caught up on everything…” The way she glossed over
being tortured by Russians doesn’t sit right with Chrissy. It seems like she’s fine with the way
she didn’t miss a beat, but she knows a big part of covering things up is desensitizing
yourself.

“Yeah, uh, there’s a lot. And that was only a part of my experience, and this stuff has
happened twice before that.”

“So three times total? Four now?”

Robin lifts her hands and sarcastically shakes them, miming celebration, “Yup.”

If she thought about it, she could probably figure out when each thing happened.
Unexplained inconsistencies where something terrible happened, but suddenly everything
was resolved and everyone forgot the people who were hurt.

“Y’know, it’s not all bad. Well, I mean, it is. But, like, I got my best friend from this.”

“Steve?”

“Yeah. We trauma-bonded. He’s my capital-p Platonic soulmate now.”

“Oh, I thought you two might be dating.”

“Ugh, gross. Please tell me you don’t think girls and guys can’t just be friends.”

She definitely seems like the kind of person who would think those kinds of things. Her mom
thinks that way, and she probably would too if they didn’t hate each other so much.
“No, no, of course not! Eddie’s just my friend.”

“Well, you’re still dating Jason, right?”

“I was going to break up with him the other night, but then…”

“Right. Uh, sorry if what I just said sounded condescending or rude. Sometimes I have issues
using the right tone, or I say things that sound rude when I don’t mean them like that.”

“No, no. It wasn’t, I get what you mean.”

If Chrissy hadn’t had so much practice with sounding perfect she’d be exactly like Robin.
She used to accidentally offend people when she was young all the time, until her mother
decided she was old enough to know better. It’s sad how Robin seems to think she needs to
censor herself too. She’d gladly listen to her talk all day, everything she’s said and the way
she says things is so interesting.

“I’ll break up with him the next time I see him, I can promise you that.”

Robin’s stare is blank, and for a second Chrissy feels as though she’s somehow insulted her,
but then Robin’s face splits into a grin and she says, “Good, that’s good… Because he’s an
asshole.”

An airy giggle slips out of her as she says, “I know, right? I can’t believe I’m dating him!”

“What if he just ignores you, or blames Eddie? That seems like something he’d do.”

“I’m sure he will blame Eddie, he already is. But if he ignores me… I feel like I have some
new friends who I could rely on to help me get rid of him.”

“Wouldn’t relying on Eddie just aggravate him more?”

“Well, yeah, probably. But I’m thinking about some other new friends.”

“You are?”

“Yeah, especially this one girl. She says a lot of cool things, and she says them really well.
I’m not sure Jason would stand a chance against her.”

“Wait, are you talking about me?” Robin squeaks out.

“If you want to be my friend, is what I mean. Because you’re... pretty cool.”

Robin is strangely pink when she whispers, “I want to be your friend. You’re pretty cool too.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

———
The War Zone wasn’t super overcrowded, but it was definitely getting more business than
usual. They were roaming the store in three groups, Nancy was somewhere on her own, Erica
and Chrissy were getting miscellaneous supplies for improv weapons, and he and Robin were
loading up on kerosene for Molotovs.

They’d sent Eddie and Dustin to nearby stores for industrial-grade nails, rags, and first aid
supplies. Lucas was staying back in the camper to make sure Max would be okay.

“How many of these do you think we need?”

“Five or six.”

The sound of the canisters dropping into the cart hurts his head (he probably has another
concussion), but he doesn’t say anything.

He feels Robin still beside him, and when he looks at her she’s gaping at something. He
tracks her line of sight and, wow, why would Vickie be here?

“What’re you gonna do, Robin? Just gonna stand here and gawk at her?”

“Shut up.”

He can see her wavering on the edge of a decision, so he nudges her forward. She trips over
her own feet, but before she can get anywhere some guy comes out of the shelves and kisses
Vickie directly on the mouth.

Robin stands in place for a second, probably willing herself back in time, then shakes her
head and grabs the handlebars of their cart to turn around.

“Robin. Robin!”

“Come on, Steve. Let’s go find Chrissy and everyone else.”

“We still have to get—”

“Yeah, okay. Then we can go find Chrissy.”

Directly naming Chrissy feels like an awfully peculiar thing for Robin to do, she often forgets
names and avoids using them because of it. He doesn’t think she’d forget Chrissy’s name that
easily, but… he wouldn’t be surprised if there’s another reason.

———

Erica is a surprisingly cool kid, despite her snark. Chrissy can tell she already has this place
mentally mapped out and is guiding them to exactly where everything on their list is.
She’s idly rolling their cart back and forth while Chrissy examines the knives in front of them
for something they could easily tie to a stick.

“Hey, Chrissy, isn’t that your psycho boyfriend.”

Erica was right. Jason was at the end of the aisle to their right, looking at some ropes. He
hadn’t noticed them, but he’d look up soon, and she did not want to deal with his bullshit.
Especially if his bullshit was paranoid enough to push him into The War Zone.

“Shit, yeah, let’s get out of here.”

She snatched a few random knives and dropped them in the cart while Erica maneuvered it to
head back toward the front of the store, but before they could get out of the sightline of
anyone in the aisle Chrissy heard Jason call out.

“Chrissy, is that you?”

She sighs, “Get everyone out of here, I’ll deal with him.”

“You better go tell him off. Break up with him too, otherwise, he won’t leave us alone.”

“Erica.”

“Just the facts!”

Chrissy slowly turns around and trudges over to Jason.

“What are you doing here?”

“What are you doing here? I’m just trying to fix this!” She waves toward the arm Vecna
broke.

“Chrissy, I know what Munson’s doing, he’s brainwashed you.”

Brainwashed? There was no way Jason could really believe this shit. He believed in God,
yes. But he’d never been one to spew supernatural rhetoric. Although, if she didn’t
understand what happened to Patrick, she’d probably freak out like this too.

Jason was probably thinking Eddie was the Devil incarnate, or something similar. Eddie, the
Devil incarnate. She couldn’t fucking believe that, not after everything. If he’d treated Eddie
like a real person there was no way he’d be able to either.

“Jason, he’s trying to help me protect more people from what happened to me. Why can’t you
accept that?”

“We both saw what he did to Patrick!”

“You really believe anyone could throw someone in the air? And if they could, they’d be
living a normal life up until that point?”

“That’s the thing, Chrissy, he’s not normal!”

“Yes, he is! He’s just like us. Maybe he acts in ways you’re not used to and likes things you
don’t, and he’s different from you, but why does it make him a freak?”
“He’s dangerous!”

“What’s dangerous is the way you treat people like him! If it was one of your basketball
buddies you wouldn’t have thought he’d done it for a second.”

“It wouldn’t have happened in the first place if it was one of them!”

“You’re not listening to me! You don’t even know what happened!”

“You’re brainwashed, I know exactly what happened!”

She thinks of Robin, and how she promised her that she’d break up with Jason the next time
she saw him. She fully expected it to happen at school, but here he is, now. She’s not going to
break her promise, either.

“You’re crazy, Jason. We’re done, I don’t want to see you ever again.”

“Chris— Chrissy! Where are you going? Don’t just leave like that!”

She can hear Jason following her, still trying to convince her she has to go with him, “Don’t
tell me you’re going back to him.”

His hand lands on her shoulder, trying to turn her to face him. She turns with it and shoves
his arm away from her.

“I am. And you’re going to leave us alone.”

“Come on, Chrissy, just come back with me. Your family— they miss you.”

She knows that line. She knows it too well. It’s her mother’s favorite thing to say when she
goes out with friends multiple days in a row.

She’d been home two days ago, for a short enough time to avoid it. And she kept her phone
calls home quick enough to stop her mom from saying it. But now she was hearing it from
Jason’s mouth, and she knew what it meant.

She’d been pushing it, she knew that. The only thing saving her was Nancy. If her mom
thought she was spending lots of time with new friends, she was making a good impression.
A good impression was everything.

If she went back with Jason now, instead of with Eddie later, she’d be better off. Jason knew
her relationship with her mom wasn’t great (but not to the extent “wasn’t great” means), he’d
stay with her long enough for her mom to calm down. Eddie wouldn’t be able to. If she went
with Jason, she’d be able to bypass the full brunt of her mother’s outrage.

She wishes she can tell him what happened, but she can tell he won’t listen. Maybe one day.
For now, though, she can’t stand being around someone who won’t open his mind to any
reality other than the one he wants.
“I’m going with Eddie and my new friends. You will leave us alone. Do you understand?”
He stood, silent, confused.

She jabbed her finger in his chest, “You will leave us alone.”

He still did not reply, looking at her as though she was the crazy one. So she scoffed at him
and left him standing there, gaping.

———

They’d camped out on the field side of a hill overlooking Hawkins. They’d all set up stations
and started making improv weapons. It was somewhat peaceful being out here. A short
respite from the terrors of the Upside Down. It was easy to pretend they were all out here
playing around, doing arts and crafts.

If making Molotov Cocktails counts as arts and crafts.

“I mean, it just doesn’t make sense.”

Steve’s voice snapped Robin out of her daydreams, “What doesn’t make sense?”

“That was Dan Shelter. He graduated, like, two years ago.”

“So?”

“So he’s in college. Which means he was visiting on spring break. Fast Times was returned,
like, I don’t know, a week ago? Right? Unless she’s got some horndog brother we don’t know
about. Which is possible. Or she’s just, like, really into Judge Reinhold.”

“Steve.”

“What?”

“I don’t care. And I don’t understand why you do either with everything that’s going on.
Honestly, this feels like the perfect time for that little pull of the rug, because… in the face of
the world ending, the stakes of my love life feel spectacularly low.”

“Yeah. I mean, I get you there, but… I still have hope.”

Hope. She wished she had hope. Not about Vickie, no, but about this whole thing. She just
had this horrible feeling. Maybe that’s what Steve is doing. He could sense her anxiety and
was trying to distract her.

“Why? She’s clearly dating that guy, and they look happy. They’re not just going to break
up.”

“You never know. She could still like girls too. That’s something you can do… right? Like
both?”

“Of course it is,” She didn’t actually know, but why wouldn’t it be a thing?
“What would you call that?”

“I don’t know. Do you think I’d be stupid enough to ask those questions? In Hawkins?”

“No, I don’t know. I just…”

They’re both quiet for a minute, Robin waiting for Steve to finish. He doesn’t, but his
question didn’t feel as off-handed as he probably wanted her to think it was. It felt… longing,
almost.

“Steve… is there something you might want to tell me?”

He shakes his head, and Robin continues to try to shove a rag down the neck of a bottle.
“I think maybe—” He goes silent again.

She manages to get the rag in, then looks at Steve again, who is staring at the left side of the
field. Toward Dustin, Chrissy, and Eddie.

“How did you know?”

Robin quickly scans the field, makes sure she knows where everyone is, then leans in close
and whispers, “That I’m lesbian?”

“Yeah.”

“I guess I always felt as though I was a bit different from everyone else. Although, I didn’t
figure it out for a long time. I almost didn’t realize why I was staring at Tammy Thompson so
much. I guess I just wasn’t as boy-crazy as everyone else, and I always got frustrated when
everyone else would freak out about boys.”

Steve scoffs, “So you were just special? Not like the other girls?”

“That’s not what I meant, and you know it.”

“Well, that’s how you knew you didn’t like guys. Not how you figured out you liked girls.”
Robin sighs, “It’s kind of an embarrassing story, honestly. Do you remember when I told you
about Operation Croissant?”

“Yeah. Is that even still on?”

“Absolutely. We could go after this, get away from Hawkins— And that’s not the point. Um,
I was bored in class one day, and at the time I wanted to ask Tammy to go with me. So I was
writing a note about all the things we could do in Paris. It was stupid. When I threw it away I
missed the trash and it landed on some other girl’s desk. And then I heard her talking to her
friends about it after class, she was enthusing about how romantic it was. And that made me
think about it. I wasn’t opposed to doing those romantic things with Tammy, but I was with
any guy I could think of.”
“That is embarrassing.”

She punches Steve’s arm, fairly hard, and he wrinkles his nose at her.

They sit in silence for a good chunk of time, constructing their Molotovs, before Steve breaks
the silence, “And it definitely wouldn’t be abnormal for someone to not feel opposed to doing
romantic things with both men and women?”

“It would not.”

He’s quiet for a few more seconds, she can tell he’s really thinking hard about something.
“I think I may have a crush on Eddie.”

Robin springs out of her chair and tackles Steve in a hug, “Thanks for trusting me with that.”

She gazes across the field, really looking at Eddie, and giggles, "Holy shit."

"What?"

She extracts herself from their hug and places herself back in her chair.

"One, I can't believe I have another gay, well… half-gay, I guess, friend. Two… you totally
have a type."

"Fuck off, like you don't."

"Oh, really?"

"Redheads who are nice to you. You turn red every time you talk to Chrissy!"

She shrieks and dives at Steve to cover his mouth with her hand, "Don't even!"

———

The plan was echoing through Eddie’s head, and he couldn’t focus on anything except the
dread hanging over them all.

This is ridiculous, this is crazy. We’re all going to die and our bodies will never be found.

They were staying low, sneaking through the woods and trailer park. Like criminals, because
they’d stolen the RV, and now they couldn’t be exposed here. How were they supposed to get
out of it? Oh, officers, we just needed a ride to take, like, ten people to the town over to buy
weapons so we could fight a psychic in another dimension. We swear we were going to return
it once we were done. Oh, them? Yeah, those are children, why do you ask? Yeah, likely story.
They’re so fucked, what was he thinking when he recommended it?

Before he knew it they were all inside his place, and all the anxiety was for naught. The gate
in his ceiling pulses, radiating anger and malevolence. It gives a clear message, stay away or
suffer. And yet here they all are, staring up at it and trying to muster the courage to go
through.
“Wait, how do we get Chrissy through?”

Robin has a point, they’d all completely forgotten about her arm and how fucked up it is.

But Chrissy confidently shakes her head and pulls on the rope, testing it, “No, I can do it. If I
can grab the rope with my good arm, I’ll be able to flip through if someone gives me a leg up.
I have good form, I’ll be fine if there’s padding.”

Steve then throws his stuff down and starts climbing through. He uses the change in gravity
to pull him through when he flips. It’s a bit impressive, is all. He certainly couldn’t do that.

He hears Robin snark to Chrissy, “Oh, what does he want us to do, applaud?” and Chrissy’s
resulting giggle.

Except apparently, some people don’t appreciate good acrobatics (it’s probably light work to
Chrissy, though).

The sound of things falling over comes from above (below? Behind? Around?) them, and
Steve reappears, throwing the fucked up version of his mattress on the floor.

“Alright. Let’s go.”

Wheeler immediately shucks off her stuff and hoists herself through the hole in his ceiling.

Seriously, how has Wayne not noticed this thing? How are they going to get it fixed? He
doesn’t want an interdimensional portal to hell in his ceiling, despite Jason’s insistence of his
non-existent satanic activities. If Jason knew about this shit he’d be dead by the end of the
week, wouldn’t he?

He’s snapped out of his thoughts when Dustin pushes him toward the rope and stumbles
toward it muttering some not-so-kind choice words directed at Dustin under his breath.

Eddie takes a deep breath, grabs the rope, and gazes through the rift above him. He can see
Nancy sorting through their stuff on the fucked up version of his couch, and Steve is standing
at the base of the mattress to spot him when he comes through.

Biting the bullet, he climbs through.

Landing kind of hurts. Probably because he’s been sleeping on Wheeler’s basement floor for
the past couple of days, too busy saving the world to go home for a good rest. A hand appears
in front of his face. He grins up at Steve and takes it, being yanked into his face.

Steve doesn’t let go of his hand and step away the instant Eddie is on his feet, it’s actually the
opposite. His gaze drops, and he sways forward like he wants to say something. Instead, he
lightly squeezes Eddie’s hand in what he assumes is meant to be a reassuring gesture and
backs away after another short second.

Something smacks the mattress behind him and he turns to glare at the shield that almost hit
him. He looks up and Dustin is giving him an annoyed shit-eating look. Chrissy blocks his
view before he can start anything and grabs the rope.
“Hey, Robin, can you give me a leg up?”

She absolutely leaps at the opportunity to help Chrissy and kneels with her hands cupped to
make a platform.

Chrissy tests the rope and smiles at him, then looking back at Robin says, “Okay, if you give
me a good push when I say so I’ll make this no problem.”

Of course, she makes it through and lands perfectly. It was sickening to watch because of his
top-down perspective, but impressive nonetheless.

Feeling ill after the display of acrobatics, he stumbles over to his couch and sinks to the floor
beside it.

It doesn’t take too much longer before everyone is collecting their stuff and heading out
his(?) door.

He thinks they aren’t going to say goodbyes, for a minute, before Steve turns back to the
decoy group.

“Hey, guys, listen. If things here start to go south, I mean, at all, you abort. Okay? Draw the
attention of the bats. Keep ‘em busy for a minute or two. We’ll take care of Vecna. Don’t try
to be cute or be a hero or something. Okay? You guys are just—”

Dustin interrupts, “Decoys. Don’t worry. You can be the hero, Steve.”

“Absolutely. I mean, look at us. We are not heroes.”

Steve seems confused, for a second, “What? That’s— that’s not what this is about. If
everything goes to plan, no one will know anything, and we’ll go back to our lives. It’s get in,
get out, stay alive. Okay?”

Once he’s made sure they all agree he turns to leave.

“Hey, Steve?”

And now Steve is staring at him, waiting for him to finish when he doesn’t even know why
he said anything. He doesn’t have anything to say, nothing meaningful, and he can see
everyone looking at him. What’s he supposed to say? Good luck? Stay alive? It’s all implied
by the situation. It’s not like he can tell him anything, not here.

“Make him pay,” he settles on instead.

And they’re off, gone in the ashy haze of the Upside Down.

———

The Upside Down Creel house couldn’t be far at this point, but all Nancy could see was
twisted trees and the light from her flashlight reflecting off the thin layer of slime over almost
everything.
Robin swings her light over a tree and slows down, “Uh, I don’t mean to freak anyone out,
but I swear we’ve seen this tree before.”

“That’s impossible.”

“That would suck, right? If Vecna destroyed the world because…” She shines the light away
from the tree and power walks away onward, “‘cause we got lost in the woods?”

“We’re not lost, Robin.”

She nervously laughs and runs into the woods, stopping to shine her light on everything, then
running again.

“Robin, hey. Watch out for the vines! Hive mind. Remember?”

She can hardly hear Robin’s distant call back, “Thank you!”

It’s all she can do to try and trust Robin not to stumble over a vine. She’s too far away now to
hear, and it would be worse to keep Robin in place instead of letting her burn off excess
energy.

Steve cuts through her thoughts, “Don’t worry about her. She’s just stressed. You know,
scared.”

“Yeah. Yeah. I… I know. It’s just…”

“She’s a super klutz?”

That’s one way to put it, “She did tell me it took her longer to walk than most babies, so...”

He snorts, “I really shouldn’t laugh. When I was a baby, I actually crawled backward.”

“Crawled backwards?”

“You know, I’d push with my little hands like this,” he holds out his hands palm-first and
pushes ahead, “Always in reverse, you know? I mean, come on, it makes sense. You push to
move, right?”

“No, no. It doesn’t make sense.”

“Well, it did to my tiny little Harrington brain. That is, of course, until I reversed my baby
butt down a flight of stairs and thumped my head real good.”

“Wow. That explains… so much.”

It doesn’t, not really, but who is she to complain about who Steve was, and is? After they
broke up, she stopped being there. Didn’t even try to stay his friend.

“Yeah. It kinda does. I think, like, right out of the gate, I’m super confident, y’know. But I’m
also, like, an idiot. Which is just, I mean, it’s a brutal combination. But, I mean, the good
news is, I get a big enough thump on my head, I can change, you know? Uh, I can learn. I
can… crawl forward.”

She does remember, back when they were dating. She’d call him an idiot, sometimes, as a
term of endearment. But maybe he didn’t take it that way, or other things were making him
feel stupid, and he took her words as further proof.

Steve halts and turns to face her, “Listen, I guess what I’m trying to say, in a really stupid
roundabout way, is, um… is thank you.”

“Thank me?”

“Yeah.”

“For?”

“For giving my head the biggest thump of its life two years ago.”

Which she didn’t do, not really. Maybe she was the catalyst for all this, but wasn’t the
demogorgon what caused this big shift? Dustin and Robin seem to have made him happier
than she did.

“I needed it.”

And he’s walking again, “It’s changed my life. And now I’m crawling forward. Slowly.
Because now I’m finally figuring some shit out. And if you hadn’t given me that thump, I’m
sure I would’ve just… ignored all of it, brushed it off. I’d push those things away, end up
worse off than I already was.”

“What kind of stuff?”

“Oh, uh, nothing too important. Honestly. Don’t worry about it,” she sees the way he cages
up when she pries and wishes she’d stuck around. Maybe then he’d feel like he could tell her
things.

She jumps when Robin materializes next to them, out of breath, “Hey guys! You guys!”

She stumbles to a halt and heaves a gulping breath “Awesome news! Looks like we weren’t
going the wrong way after all.”

With the way Steve grins at her, she thinks maybe Robin knows what he’s been sorting
through.

“Come on. Let’s go!”

Steve lurches after her, trying to reach her side.

“Ro… slow down! Ro— Robin! I’m injured!”

She follows. She follows and hopes she’ll catch up.

———

Here he is, on the roof of not quite his trailer. Checking amps Chrissy Cunningham has
rigged up. Because they’re about to summon demon bats with the power of music. Eddie isn’t
religious, but picking a fight with whoever wrote their lives seems like a fair thing to do,
honestly.

And it turns out Chrissy has a natural talent for electronics, she’d rigged it up pretty much
perfectly.

There’s a clattering of metal on metal, and then Dustin is pulling himself onto the roof next to
them, “What are you doing?”

He’s about to ask what Dustin means when he hears a clanking sound behind him.
Chrissy is crouching, with her fingers caught on the edge of a vent. She pushes down, and it
almost gives in, “I think if I were a demon bat, I’d probably get in through that.”

Well, shit. What would they do without her? Die, probably.

He slides off the roof and throws fortifying supplies up to Dustin, then scrambles his way
back up top while trying to cover his ears from the sounds of hammering.

When Dustin’s finished he asks, “Any other insightful tips?”

“No, I think that’s it.”

And right that instant Dustin’s walkie came to life, Robin’s voice filtering through, “She’s in.
Move on to phase three.”

“Copy that. Initiating phase three,” Dustin drops the walkie and reaches to crank up the amps,
“let’s hope they can hear this.”

Everything gets real messy after the song. Chrissy hops off the roof ten seconds before
lockdown, then he and Dustin are dropping everything and scurrying down after her. She’d
rushed to the improvised cage over the porch, holding the door open for them to slam it shut
and bar it once they were all in.

Dustin is frantically chattering, and he’s out of breath, but grinning. And then Chrissy is
shoving both of them, saying, “I totally understand where you two are coming from but we
should get out of here, like, right now.”

The bats were, well, battering the walls around them. They were small, but there were also a
lot of them, and they weren’t going to give up so easily.

Dustin climbs through first, then he gives Chrissy a leg up. When he grabs the rope, it goes
silent, someone calls his name.

“They, uh, they… stopped attacking.”

They all stood in silence for a minute, but no sooner had they begun to relax when the entire
trailer was struck by the bats, all of them crashing into it at once.

The way he reacted was out-of-body. He was watching himself back away from the rope,
staring at the door. Dustin and Chrissy’s voices screaming at him were distant.

“Edward Munson, you get your ass down here, right now!”

“Eddie, come on man, we’ve gotta leave!”

Then the bats slam into the trailer again, ripping him out of his trance, and he’s climbing the
rope. Falling through and desperately scrambling to his feet, reaching for a nearby chair,
telling either of them to cut the rope.

Dustin cuts the rope while he’s jumping onto the chair and lodging his shield as best he can
over the gate.

He doubts Vecna would let his bats through before he’s ready. They still hunker down and
stay quiet, even when the warped sounds of pummeling from the other side have stopped.
They stay silent, and he falls asleep.

———

Eddie’s trailer, well, the Upside Down version, was in an unprecedented state of disrepair.
There was an entire layer of dead demobats around the place, there were dents in all the
walls. Robin couldn’t hear any sort of noise, and no one was coming out.

She broke into a sprint and raced the rest of the way to the door. She tried to yank it open, but
it got caught on a plank of wood shoved through the handle, essentially locking it.

“Hey! Guys? Anyone in there?”

She rattled the mesh door again, then stepped away when Steve came up beside her.

“They’re not in there?”

“No.”

Steve drops his bag on the ground and untangles his axe from it. He hacks through the plank,
then rattles the door until the halves fall out, and holds it open for her to dart in.

“Is anyone here? Did you guys go through?”

There was no response, and she couldn’t see any bodies (bat or human) inside, so they must
have retreated through the gate. As she approached the gate, she noticed the lack of a rope or
light coming through.
 Once she got close enough to properly look at it she could tell something was covering it on
the Rightside Up. As hard as she could, she chucked her flashlight at it, and it fell away.

She heard a shriek before Chrissy’s face appeared above (below? Maybe they were the ones
above, these gates were trippy) her.

“You’re back!”

Once in the Rightside Up, they all ran through the woods toward the Creel house, and
halfway there they collided with Max and the Sinclairs. Steve was crying, so, of course, she
was crying too, which meant Chrissy started crying, and then everyone except Erica and Max
were crying. But she could see their wet eyes and runny noses. It was such a relief to meet
back up with everyone else, there were no complications and Vecna’s body was a pile of
beheaded ashes.

Max told a story where Eleven had torn the manifestation of Vecna’s consciousness in half.
She said the Byers and Mike were going to be back in Hawkins, soon. And Vecna was
definitely, surely, truly, 100% dead. Gone and rotting. The four-year crisis of terror that was
the Upside Down was finally over, and they could move on.

They hugged, cried, and stayed together for another night.

Chapter End Notes

the ending to this was abrupt but i didnt really have anything unique to write, youve
probably read plenty of other fics and can get the gist from those

i appreciate robin being able to tell steve hes bi because she's gay, but lets be honest, she
wouldnt know shit—he will be labeled bi by the time this is over tho

this one is for everyone whos read rebel robin

theres still the epilogue/two days later, then this is done

 Two Days Later/Epilogue
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

Arriving back in Hawkins was more relieving than Will thought it could ever be. He was
expecting to catch sight of the town and feel the oppressive cold of the Upside Down come
right back, but there was nothing like that.

Instead, he was ready to see his friends and tell his mom all about what happened. He wanted
to do all those things with Mike they used to and he wanted to play D&D with everyone
again.

It was strange not having seen Hawkins for so long, to come back and see how ordinary
everything was. To be able to view it through a clean lens. The Upside Down had defined his
life for so long… the last time he was here he could see it in the roots springing through
cracks in the sidewalks, or the way dirt collects in the crevices of buildings.

It was so easy to look past the grime of Hawkins, now, and see it how everyone else did. It
was unnerving, although that probably wasn’t quite the right word for it.

The first thing they did once they got back was to go to the Wheelers. Mike got to surprise
his family and come up with a believable excuse for why the phone was always busy.

They had to hide El again. Nancy called up everyone in the know to see if they’d be
available, then they all got back into Argyle’s van. For even more driving. What a wondrous
experience this return was.

He knew Hopper’s old cabin was wrecked. He was there when the fleshy version of the mind
flayer (meat flayer?) attacked them. But in daylight? Wow. It was a mess.
But here he was, back with all his friends. And they were safe, and they’d never worry about
interdimensional threats again.

———

Family Video had been dead all day. Not a single customer. All the tapes were miraculously
rewound and sorted, Robin was losing. Her. Mind.

And it wasn’t like there was a reason for the sudden decrease in customers. It was Saturday,
why shouldn’t anyone be renting movies? Yes, it was morning, but people could pick up
some tapes before spending their day doing whatever it is those not confined to the terrors of
customer service did, instead of picking up their tapes all at once after their day. And causing
a massive unwanted rush of customers. Did she mention that retail work is a nightmare?

Regardless, she’d been waiting for Steve to finally look up from his stupid magazine for five
minutes now. He wasn’t fulfilling his best friend duties very well today, she was burning a
hole in the back of his head and there was no way he was unaware of it.
There were so many things to talk about now she knows they’re both gay. Half-gay, in
Steve’s case. Well, as a combined force they were three-quarters gay. She can just round up
and call them both gay, right? See, on one hand, she didn’t want to force him to talk about it
if he wasn’t ready yet, on the other hand, her mind was melting, all structure lost to disuse.
Any second now brains would ooze out of her nose.

Wow, surprisingly morbid mental image. Maybe the Upside Down changed her more than
she thought.

Robin circled the store five times and then stared at the back of Steve’s head for another five
minutes. How was a girl to thrive in these inhospitable conditions? There was only one way.

She let out a very loud, very pointed sigh, and Steve did not look up. The magazine (there’s
no way he’s even reading it) is the bane of her existence.

“Steven! Entertain me!”

“Wow, Robin, you’re really putting me on the spot here. How am I supposed to come up with
something while you’re staring a hole through my head.”

He doesn’t look up.

“So you have been ignoring me?”

“Yes.”

Clearly, the next step here is to ask him a question, engage him in conversation. She snatches
the magazine away.

“What the hell, Robin?”

“What even are you read— this is just a map of Hawkins. Why have you been staring at a
map of Hawkins for the past twenty minutes?”

“Honestly, no clue. What do you want, I’m assuming you want something.”

Romin chews on her thumbnail (she needs to stop doing that), “Okay, well, I know I’ve had a
crush on Vickie for a while. But, like, what if I don’t anymore? And what if I like Chrissy?
What do I do, how do I get her to like me, do you think she even likes girls, what if—”

“Robin! Slow down! One question at a time.”

“Steve, she promised me she’d break up with Jason the next time she saw him, and then she
did! Does that mean something? Was she hinting at me?”

“She might’ve been, actually.”

“Okay, okay. But that doesn’t have to mean anything, because what if—”

He rests his hand on her shoulder, “Breathe, Robin.”

Do you think there’s even a teeny tiny,” Robin pinches her fingers together, “smidgen of a
chance she likes girls?”

“Probably.”

“And how would you know? You’ve only been gay— half-gay— gayish, whatever, for two
days.”

“You know that’s not how it works.”

“Well, how would you know?”

“I don’t know, it’s like this vibe I’m getting. Vickie had it too, Fast Times just made it more
obvious.”

Robin sits down on the counter, “And you’ve always gotten this vibe?”

“No. It was like when you told me you’re lesbian suddenly I just realized, or accepted, I
guess, that gay people are, like, actually real and everywhere, apparently.”

“So now you have gay-sense.”

“Or something. It’s more like a radar, when I scan a group of people I just pick up their gay
signals.”

“Like a gaydar?”

He snapped and pointed at her, “Exactly.”

“Why do you get to be charismatic and have a gaydar? You don’t even need it, you’re only
half-gay, you’d do fine without it. But I’m socially awkward, full-gay, and can’t have that?”

Steve shrugged and took his magazine back, “I’m just saying, it was pretty clear to me that
Vickie likes girls. I don't know how you couldn't see it.”

“She had a boyfriend, Steve! There’s no way she likes girls!”

That did the trick, he finally put away the magazine.

“Look me in the eyes and say that again.”

“Fine, okay, she could be gayish too. Can we stop talking about my pathetic crushes now, and
start talking about yours?”

“There’s nothing to talk about, he probably doesn’t even like me.”

“Come on, seriously? Do you at least think he’s gay, Mr. Gaydar?”
“Okay, yeah, I’m like 99 percent sure he’s some sort of gay. But if he is, there’s no way I’m
his type.”

“Sure, sure, yeah. So he wasn’t hitting on you when he called you ‘big boy’ in the RV?”
Steve flushes and turns away to sort the candy rack she knows doesn’t need sorting.

You know, sometimes she can’t stand this man. He’ll go and make observations and tell her
the girls she likes like her too, and he does it with barely any evidence. He’s always
completely confident too, and she can’t even prove him wrong. But then she goes and tells
him the guy he likes, likes him too, and he denies it? She had real evidence too, Eddie had
been capital-f Flirting.

“Okay, fine, ignore all the times he got in your face while you’re at it. Suppress those gay
feelings and keep flirting with all the zero girls who are in here.”

“Come on, Robin, I’m not saying there’s no way he’ll ever like me, I’m saying I want more
proof if I’m going to do anything about it.”

Holy. Fucking. Shit.

“Ask him if he’s gay, then. And tell him you’re gayish while you’re at it.”

He sits down on the counter beside her, “Can we stop calling it gayish?”

“Okay. Straightish.”

Yeah, she probably deserved that look.

She heaved a sigh, “The quote-unquote scientific word for gay is homosexual. So what if we
called you, I don’t know, something-sexual? You’d replace homo with some other root word.
That would make sense, right?”

“If you say so. You have any clue what that ‘root word’ would be?”

“It’s not my sexuality, you pick.”

It’s always fun to watch Steve’s face while he’s thinking. He doesn’t bother hiding his
expressions and sometimes she can tell exactly the train of thought he’s on. Right now he’s
working that one brain cell as hard as he can.

“I’ve got nothing.”

“Well come up with something, then.”

And, oh, the sound of Family Video’s door chimes. How holy it is to hear on a dead day
when she doesn’t want to talk to Steve anymore.

“I’ll help this customer, you figure something out, okay?”

Why would she kid herself? The Family Video door chimes are never a good thing. All
customers are terrible, and she’d rather subject herself to brain-rotting boredom than ever
help someone try to find… god, she doesn’t even want to say its name, it’s that terrible.

At least Steve had come up with something.

“So it's guys and girls, right? That’s two, so what’s the word for two?”

“Uh, bicycle has bi in it. Bi means two. You could use that. Bisexual. That good enough for
you?”

“Well, it’s not gayish, so sure.”

“Congratulations, Steve, you’re bisexual. How do you feel?”

“I’m on top of the world, Robin, really, I am.”

———

He and Mike are sweeping in silence, although they have a good rhythm going. They both
sweep into one big pile, then Mike holds the dustpan for him to sweep into. Most of the work
is happening outside, so it’s fairly peaceful outside of the occasional muffled sounds of
hammering.

At some point, El whisks past them, into her room with a garbage bag in hand. They both
stop sweeping in favor of staring after her.

After the whole… everything she’d been a bit quiet. Well, quieter than usual. He’d ended up
sitting in the middle seat between her and Mike on the way to Hawkins when he would’ve
thought she’d want to sit next to Mike.

“Did she… talk to you at all?”

“Not much. I mean, a little bit.”

Mike leans his broom against the wall, paces over to the couch, and sighs as he collapses
onto it.

“Dr. Brenner. He said she wasn’t ready. And now she’s thinking about all of it. She says she’s
figuring herself out.”

“Obviously she was ready. If it wasn’t for her, if she hadn’t left the lab, Max wouldn’t be
alive right now.”

“I know. It’s just, she’s, um… She said she doesn’t think we should be together anymore.”

“She broke up with you?”

“Yeah, uh, she said she wants to figure out who she is without me.”

He’s not going to say it out loud, but honestly? This is a step in the right direction for El.
Both of them, maybe. But it doesn’t mean Mike isn’t going to be miserable about it like he
was the last time she broke up with him. Or that they won’t get back together.

“Oh, okay… And how do you feel about that?”

“It’s fine, really. It’s what she wants. I’m happy if she’s happy.”

“Mike, it’s okay to be upset that your girlfriend broke up with you.”

“That’s the thing, I’m not actually that upset. I guess, for some reason, I feel… relieved?”

It’s good he isn’t upset like last time, but being relieved doesn’t sound like the Mike he
knows. Because the Mike he knows loves El, and always wants to be with her.

He’s about to ask what he means by that when the sound of gravel under tires and a running
engine comes into earshot.

When they look out the window it’s a sleek black (clearly government) car that’s parking in
the driveway. He can tell Mike is tensing up next to him, without even having to look.
But the people who step out of the car? Those are friends. And all friends are welcome.

———

It felt wrong to be near the dead chief of police’s cabin, especially given Eddie’s relationship
to the late Chief. But apparently, he’d known about the Upside Down and died beneath
Starcourt (side note: there were fucking Russians under Starcourt).

Chief Hopper was Eleven’s adopted father and he’d want them to keep her safe. So be it if
that was by hiding her in his cabin again. Something she’d had to do for a year and hated.
That was what Nancy said, at least.

The superpowered girl was real, that was the most surprising thing to Eddie (aside from the
Russians). Not that he thought everyone was lying about her. No way he’d think that after
everything, but still. Holy shit. There’s a girl with psychic fucking superpowers.

He and Chrissy had been put on roof duty. Which meant they were tearing every broken
plank off the roof, throwing it down, repeat. Currently, they didn’t have any new planks to
replace it all with, so now that they were finished they threw a tarp over it, pulled it tight, and
nailed it down.

Nancy called up to them when the hammering ceased, “Alright, you two should take a break,
go eat, we have some pizza in Argyle’s van. Yes, I know it has pineapple on it, that wasn’t
my choice.”

So there he was, in the middle of the woods beside a cabin destroyed by a giant flesh
monster. Hanging out with Chrissy Cunningham after what had almost been the end of the
world.

“This is all so surreal, y’know?”

“Hm?”

“I mean, fuck the monsters part of it all,” he laid down on the grass and stared at the
cloudless sky through a gap in the branches, “Would you have thought you’d end up
spending your spring break with Eddie ‘the Freak’ Munson?”
“Of course not. I thought I’d spend it with Jason. I mean, it’s not exactly easy to predict
something like Vecna.”

“Hey, I said fuck the monsters, if I’d actually asked you to hang out with me last Friday, what
would you have done?”

“I’d be tempted to say yes, I think, maybe I’m biased now that you’re my best friend—”

“Chrissy! You flatterer, I’m your best friend?”

“Oh my god, shut up. We’re, like, trauma-bonded now, or something.” She thinks about his
question for a minute, before replying with, “I don’t think I would have accepted your offer,
though.”

“Let me guess, Carver?”

“That would’ve been a factor, yeah. But I did break up with him, you know.”

“I know I’m your best friend now and all, but don’t lie for my sake. When would you have
had time to do that?”

“He was at The War Zone, didn’t anyone tell you?”

At that, he sat up on his elbows, “A public breakup in The War Zone? Do tell me more.”

Chrissy gently kicked his shin, “You gossip!”

“It takes one to know one!”

She sighed and shook her head, “You’re going to ask a question you shouldn’t have asked
someday, and you’re going to get in a lot of trouble.”

“Oh, I already have, many times. You should see my detention record. Or ask my parents, if
you can find them.”

“There is seriously something wrong with you.”

“Tell me something I don’t know— like if you’ve got sights on someone new. I’ve never
been able to talk crushes before, the band guys don’t trust me with their secrets anymore.”

“Should I trust you with mine, then?”

“You should, yes, absolutely.”

For a minute she gives Eddie a critical look, “This person I like, I never talked to them in
school. We only ever had the same classes a few times, so I just never really got a chance. I
mean, how do you approach someone like that?”

Chrissy laid down on the grass too, “This person, they’re pretty funny, y’know?”

“Tell me more, and maybe I will.”

“They’re smart, creative. Brave. They’re so weird and dramatic, hyper too. They’ve done
drama, and they’re in band… And I really shouldn’t know this much about them, but I guess
I’ve been watching even if I haven’t consciously acknowledged that,” she breathes a laugh.

Well, shit. It sure sounds like him. It would be fine, he could just reject her, they could just be
friends. She’d probably be okay with staying friends.

“What do you think?”

“About?”

“This person.”

Except he’d implied he liked her only a few days ago. She’d totally remember that.

“He… sounds awesome.”

“They are awesome. Do you think I could possibly have a chance?”

“I think that anyone would be lucky to have you.”

She smiles at him, and she looks so hopeful. He can’t just lie to her.

“Look, you… you don’t even really know him.”

“I want to.”

“And if you did know him, like— like, really know him… you wouldn’t even want to be his
friend.”

Her expression shifted, multiple times. Like she was confused at first, but then she
understood something and landed right back on confused.

“That’s not true. There’s nothing that could stop me from wanting to be your friend, Eddie.”

He couldn’t look at her, not for this.

“Do you… do you remember what I said about Mr. Miller’s class? About being jealous,
borderline obsessed?”

“I do.”

“It isn’t because I had a crush on you. It’s because— because he’d talk to you.”

“Mr. Miller?”

God, he wished it was something stupid like that. Being upset an asshole teacher would help
with her work, but not his, “No, not Mr. Miller. Steve Harrington.”

“I wanted him to talk to me. And he’d talk to you, so I’d think to myself, ‘Chrissy
Cunningham? She’s not that bad. How can I be more like her?’ Then I’d go home, and I’d
play music too loud, and hate myself. Because he was a douchebag! And I… I still wished I
could be you, for just one hour of the day.”

“But Steve Harrington is a boy.”

“Chrissy…”

She went silent, then, “Oh.”

Again, she’s silent.

“Chrissy, can you please say something?”

“I’m thinking.”

He nodded and laid back down on the grass again.

“I can see how you’d think I was talking about you, but… I was talking about Robin. At least
until I figured out you thought I was talking about you. I just— I never thought I’d meet
someone else like me.”

“What?” Wow, his voice hadn’t been that squeaky even when he was going through puberty.

“I was talking about Robin. When we had time to talk in the camper I realized how amazing
she is.”

“You like girls?”

“And guys, still. Anyone, really. Personality matters to me a lot more than gender does.
Which is why I’m so appalled at myself for how long I’ve stuck around Jason.”

“Holy shit…”

“Wasn’t Steve dating Nancy back then? Why be jealous of me?”

“I was lucky enough not to share classes with Nancy. Who knows how I would’ve been if I
did.”

“...Steve Harrington, though?”

“Shush! I don’t want to hear it! Yes, I’m aware I’m just like every other Hawkins high school
girl. I’ve been dealing with this crisis for four years, and I’m done giving myself shit. I’ve
accepted that no matter what I do, or how I act, I will always be a weak man.”

“Four years? Eddie! He was such a self-absorbed asshole four years ago!”

“I am well aware of that, thank you. Why do you think I call it a crisis?”

“Because you’re dramatic?”

He grumbled and rolled on his side away from her, “Fuck you.”
“You’re only proving my point.”

He shot back up to sitting, “Well, apparently you like dramatic people, so shut up.”

“And apparently you like jocks!”

“Iknowthatyoudon’tneedtoremindmeofmysins,” He rushed out, all in one word.

“Oh my god, so you totally were flirting with him, like, this entire time!”

Maybe there was a reason he never talked about crushes with anyone, Steve Harrington was
the most embarrassing crush for him to possibly have. Four years, too, but… “Sue me! It’s
Steve fucking Harrington, the world is ending and he’s right there, morally redeemed or
something, and hot! I can risk a little something in the face of imminent doom, okay?
Chrissy, you should have seen him fight off those demobats.”

“Oh, ew, gross. I don’t want to hear about your—”

“Let’s talk about Robin! Yeah? And not my pathetic ass? Okay, great. Anyway, I think you
have a shot with her.”

“Ignoring that blatantly horrible segue, what makes you say that?”

“She and Steve aren’t dating, that’s green flag number one. Have you seen how she dresses? I
swear I saw her wearing suspenders one time. Suspenders, Cunningham! Her accessories—
she was wearing some rings the other day. Have you ever seen anyone who you know is
straight wear that many rings?”

“Are you saying that if someone wears multiple rings they’re gay?”

“Multiple rings on one hand, yes.”

She turned her head toward him, “You said she and Steve aren’t dating?”

“He told me they aren’t. Also said it wouldn’t ever happen.”

“Robin told me they aren’t too, and said something else about just being friends. Which, I
know means my chances have improved, but you know that means there’s a decent chance
that if Robin is actually gay Steve knows, right?”

“No, no way, he wouldn’t! He’s a decent guy now, yeah, but that doesn’t mean he suddenly
accepts gay people.”

“Well, they’re trauma-bonded, too. Maybe she felt like she could trust him enough. Just, I
don’t know, come out to her or something. Ask her if Steve’s cool.”

“You come out to her, you’re the one who wants to date her!”

“What if she’s not gay, though? Are you sure she’d be safe?.”
“I’m totally sure she’d be safe.”

“Maybe I will, then. She did say some stuff about guys and girls just being friends when we
talked.”

“Seems like you’re in, Cunningham.”

They lapse into silence and stare up through the canopy the trees have made.

He drifts, thinks about this new friend, thinks about how she might be the single best person
he’s ever met. Thinks about how they complement each other, and how this is as close to a
good shot at anything he’s had in a while. Graduating, new friends with new interests,
romance (although that last one is a bit of a long shot).

“Chrissy Cunningham, queer? Life is strange, I couldn’t have seen that one coming. Next
thing you know someone’s going to come back from the dead—”

“Chrissy! Eddie! Are you guys going to come back sometime soon?” Nancy Wheeler yelled
from somewhere closer to the cabin.

They both stood up and stretched, Chrissy started through the trees ahead of him, “I think
someone coming back from the dead is a bit of a stretch.”

“You never know anymore. A week ago I’d say a psychic wizard is a bit of a stretch. Now
look at us.”

She stopped in front of him, at the tree line, and he ran into her back, “Eddie, please tell me
I’m not seeing Nancy talking to the dead chief of police like that’s how she spends her
Sundays.”

He looked over her shoulder, and holy shit. There’s Chief— not chief anymore, he supposes
— Hopper talking to Nancy like it was a normal day, “You really never know anymore,
Chrissy. What did I just say?”

He walked around her and headed toward Nancy for their next assignment.

She calls after him, “You’re accepting this awfully fast for someone who says he’s nearly
been arrested by him multiple times!”

“Let bygones be bygones!”

———

Will’s been scrubbing down the counters on his own. Jonathan is catching up with their mom,
so he’s waiting for his turn for one-on-one. But he knows that’ll take a while, so right now
he’s just waiting for Mike to finish cleaning the roof with Dustin. He’d jumped to help for
some reason, maybe he was getting bored of hanging around Will.

Whatever, the quiet is nice anyway.

The door creaks and in comes the guy Mike called Eddie. He’s mentioned him a few times,
but never in a huge amount of depth. He doesn’t feel like talking, so he just goes back to
scrubbing. Eddie takes a broom from the wall and ends up sweeping the floor near him.

He’s starting to get used to Eddie’s presence, when he asks, “So, you’re Will, right?”

“You know about me?”

“Of course I do, ‘Will the Wise.’ Mike never shuts up about you, y’know?”

Why would Mike talk about him? He seemed pretty eager to ditch earlier. Maybe he just read
the situation wrong, and Mike just wanted a small change of scenery, “He talks about me?”

“Oh, all the time. Every possible opportunity ‘if Will was here we would’ve survived that’ or
‘Will would’ve figured that puzzle out’ or ’Will would’ve known what to do there.’ Geez kid,
he’s obsessed with you.”

Which, wow. He thought Mike had barely thought about him once they’d left. Although, if he
talked about Will all the time… “What about El?”

Eddie stops sweeping and leans on the handle of his broom, considering, “Uh, he mentioned
her once, I think. When he went on a rant about you after he mentioned you the first time.
She’s your sister, right?”

“Uh, yeah, she is. She was Mike’s girlfriend, though.”

Eddie just raises his eyebrows and gives him a blank stare, “He has a girlfriend?”

Will nods, “Well, until a few days ago.”

Eddie turned away to sweep a different section of the floor, “News to me.”

It takes a while of silent cleaning for Will to remember something Mike mentioned, one time,
“They told me you run a D&D club.”

“I do. Hellfire. Did you play back in California?”

“Uh, no.”

“Oh. Wait, I think Mike said something about that once. Didn’t you say you weren’t going to
play without the rest of them?”

“Yeah.”

“But then… they went and joined a group without you?”

“I guess so.”

“Wow. That’s a dick move.”

“I never thought about it like that.”

They’re quiet for a while, the only sounds between them being the clattering of broken glass,
rustling trash bags, and broom bristles against the floor.

Lucas had told him about the championship game. He wished he could’ve been there to
support him. Apparently Mike, Dustin, and even Erica had missed it for Hellfire.

Hesitantly, he speaks up, “Lucas told me that you were always really hard on them. Never
even canceled a session.”

“Yeah. I really should’ve, that last one. I know that game’s important to him. I let my own
biases get in the way of one of his passions.”

“Well, you should tell him that, not me.”

“Don’t worry, kid. I will.”

———

Life proceeded as though it had always been a reasonable thing, and had always brought
them down a safe path.

With Hopper back and the Upside Down permanently locked away (El swears on it), they’ve
moved back to Hawkins. Neither he nor El had made any real friends back in California, and
Jonathan was college-bound, so it was only natural they move back.

Will would like it to be noted that he’s going through something akin to culture shock.

He has friends again, which he was getting pretty used to not having.

Not that he couldn’t have made any friends in California, but the Upside Down can cheapen
relationships with people. Especially that first stage of friendship when you know each other,
but you don’t know each other.

But now he has real friends again.

There are other things, too, that keep disorienting him.

For the first time in his life, his family is… stable.

Although, he can’t say that a stable family is the most shocking thing. In California, they
were close to that.

It’s having parents that love each other that’s throwing him off so much.

Of course, he’s seen Lucas’s parents, he’s gone through the mental gymnastics of seeing
someone else’s parents happy together.

Now it’s a constant thing, both having a dad to love his mom and having a dad that does love
his mom.
He still jumps every time Hoppers is in a room he enters. His head momentarily freaks out
over someone he’s not used to in his home while his body momentarily freaks out over a
dead man walking and how that means there’s something wrong.

He knows he’ll stop freaking out, eventually.

El is beyond ecstatic, she’s absolutely elated. It’s probably the happiest he’s ever seen her.

The government has resigned itself to leaving her alone after they saw that she has a family
that’s taking care of her and that she’s living ordinarily.

He thinks her mood probably also has to do with her breakup with Mike.

Neither of them realized it, but their relationship in California was strained. And he hates to
say it, but it was probably because of her relationship with Mike.

Not that he’s blaming himself, though. He isn’t.

But now they can talk to each other about anything. There’s no invisible wall between them.

She feels like his real twin now, too.

He knows the whole ‘twins have mind powers’ thing is bullshit, but maybe it’s a thing
because there’s some level of truth to it. Maybe he’s just buying into it more because his twin
actually does have mind powers.

He told her about his crush on Mike.

It was probably the most calculated decision he’d ever made. He knew she wouldn’t hate him
for being gay (she just shrugged and said she “never thought about it like that, boys liking
boys makes sense”), but she might hate him for liking her ex.

She didn’t, of course she didn’t, El doesn’t hate people. She said she understood, and that if
Make made him happy, he could have Mike.

He hasn’t had the courage to explain homophobia to her yet.

He’s not so sure Mike would hate him, anymore.

His breakup with El has made them closer too. Something’s changed, he thinks. Mike’s been
a lot more emotionally mature, although still perpetually snide.

He and El stayed friends, and he’s done so much apologizing. It’s a bit tiring at this point,
Mike will tell him he’s sorry for something, he’ll say it’s fine, and then the next time they talk
Mike has something new to apologize for. Half of the stuff Mike apologizes for, he doesn’t
even remember.

It’s late at night in the Wheeler's basement, he’s seconds away from sleep when the walls
they built finally finish coming down.
“Will?”

For a second, Will thinks he imagined it. Mike isn’t normally quiet.

He rolls over to see Mike’s face, only to find him already staring, looking perplexed.

“Why do you keep me around?”

“What?”

“I treated you like garbage for so long. I still do, sometimes.”

It was only about a two-year-long period when Mike would ignore him. Two years in ten
years of friendship, it wouldn’t be fair to ditch him. Not when he still talked to him if El
wasn’t around.

“But you realized that, and you don’t anymore.”

“But I did.”

“Well…” he wants to tell Mike a version of the whole truth, but it doesn’t seem like that’s
what he’d want to hear right now, “You were my first friend. And who else in this town
would’ve given me a chance? I guess it was a matter of necessity and options.”

“Max would’ve. When El broke up with me, the first time, I think she was thinking of
inviting you to join them.”

“She didn’t, though.”

“She would’ve if you did ditch us. Me.”

At the time, if Max had invited him… he thinks he would’ve joined them. The whole day, he
remembers that he’d been thinking about how much more fun he’d be having if he’d just
stayed home and drawn, or even if he left when they went by Scoops.

“Yeah, you were an asshole.”

Mike nods.

“But I could tell you still cared. So I kept you around, and I’ve not regretted it yet, so I don’t
think I will.

“What about in California?”

“California was different.”

Mike shakes his head, “No, no, it wasn’t, not really. In the van, when you showed me your
painting… El told me she thought you were making it for a girl.”

She’d told him when he’d told her he likes Mike, that she thought his painting was a good
gift for Mike. He didn’t tell her that Mike thought that she commissioned it.
“I guess you’d’ve figured it out eventually. She didn’t ask me to make it.”

“But you told me all about El when you gave it to me,” Mike waits for some kind of
response, and when he nods, he barrels on, “I needed that, right then. So, thanks. But I know
you didn’t mean it the way I thought you did.”

He knows. Mike knows, and he’s going to leave him. That’s why he’s talking about this, he
wants Will to realize how clingy he’s been so that he won’t stick around when Mike starts
ignoring him again.

“I don’t know what you meant, though. You said El would always need me, but she doesn’t. I
don’t think she’s ever needed me.”

He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know he needs Mike. He wants to tell him that, but Mike seems
so close to figuring him out, and he’s not ready yet, “Someone does, though.”

Mike rolls onto his back and stares at the basement ceiling, then he gets up and stumbles off
to a corner.

He sits up, to try and figure out what Mike’s blobby shadow is doing. It takes about a minute,
a few curses, and the sounds of paper getting crushed. He comes back with something in his
hands, “I did write.”

“What?”

Mike shuffles awkwardly on his feet, “I did write.”

“I never got anything.”

It’s a near whisper, when Mike responds, “I know. I never sent them.”

“...Why not?”

“I don’t— it’s not—” he huffs, “Nothing ever came out right. And it all sounded stupid, and
nothing I wrote was good enough, so I never sent anything.”

“Mike…”

“Just— look, you can read these if you want,” he passes the letters to Will, “I don’t really
want to think about them, though.”

Will flips through the stack, trying to discern a few of the words with the moonlight that
comes through the shades of the small windows around them. Ultimately, it’s fruitless so he
sets them aside to put in his bag later.

When he stands he finds himself well below Mike’s head, but he doesn’t feel like he’s being
looked down at.

When he hugs Mike, he crumples into his arms.

 Holding a friend is something that all their terrors cannot touch, and he won’t let go for as
long as Mike doesn’t.

This is what he missed.

Chapter End Notes

it was secretly a byler fic all along

got a lil carried away with just writing and having fun with the characters for this
chapter

robin couldnt tell vickie was gay but steve could, so i dont know where yall keep getting
robin having a gaydar and steve not having one from

turns out i left out a fairly important scene at the beginning of chapter 5 so go back and
read that if you want
Please drop by the Archive and comment to let the creator know if you enjoyed their work!