Chapter Text
“Henderson RUN” Steve screams, running as fast as he can towards Dustin who uselessly swings his trash can lid at demo-bats to protect Eddie's corpse. He limps closer to Eddy and stands above his body screaming as he takes a bat out of the sky. Dustin turns, makes eye contact, and shouts “Steve! Help me! Help Eddie!” right before his body starts to hover slightly off the ground, a glazed expression taking over his panicked features. His limbs straighten out and he starts to float higher and higher. The bats fly at Henderson tearing chunks out of him so that blood drips down his face and arms, as he floats above the dried-out earth.
“Dustin, please no! Take me! Please take me!” Steve shouts, pleading to Vecna or the Mind Flayer, or whoever the fuck can stop this to spare Henderson. He tries to take a step forward, to protect Dustin or die with him, but he can’t move as vines snake up his legs and lash over his torso. “No no no no no, please please no. HENDERSON! Dustin, wake up!” He is forced down to his knees on the rocky ground, helpless to do anything but watch as Dustin hovers about 10 feet off the ground. Steve hears the first snap of bone and jolts out of his bed.
Scanning the area, he realizes that he’s in his bedroom. He sees the blue comforter and the soft glow of the lamp that he left on to keep himself awake. He sprints to the attached bathroom and pukes up every bit of food in his stomach. He dry-heaves for the next 10 minutes, splayed out on the tile floor as he desperately tries to get oxygen to his lungs. “A dream, it was just a dream. He’s fine, everything is okay. We made it out again” he chants to himself, over and over again. He repeats the mantra until he can stand up and make his way back to his bed. He lays down, barely registering that the sheets are drenched with his sweat.
He stares at the popcorn ceiling and berates himself for doing this again. Sinclair had to watch this happen to Max in real life, and he isn’t having breakdowns every night. He let the children go into the mansion, he is responsible for what happened to Max, he was responsible for her and now she is laying in the hospital no better off than a vegetable. He left Munson to die, he knew the bats would come and that he would protect Henderson with his life. He has never felt so guilty about something in his life. He let Henderson and Munson act as live bait while he ran off with two other adults to deal with the bad guy. In the end, none of it mattered. He didn’t make a difference. Vecna is still alive. He hates himself a little more as he rolls over and stares into his open closet doors, at the denim vest that hangs there. “I’m sorry, it should have been me,” he whispers into the dark. Seconds or hours later he finally drifts off to a fitful sleep again.
– – –
The next day, Steve parks his car about 3 blocks from the video store and walks the rest of the way. He reflects on his latest night of no sleep as he skips over the deepest cracks and grooves in the sidewalk. He is exhausted and his body aches like he just worked out for hours. He decides that nightmares must tense up muscles or something, as he steps over the massive rubble-filled cracks in the street in front of the video shop. He would like to drive his car to the parking lot attached to the video store, but the cracks in the streets are being filled very slowly by the city.
“At least they aren’t still portals to another world” he mutters as he enters the video store. The air is musty and smells faintly like plasticky VHS tapes.
“Please tell me you aren’t still fixated on the fact that Vecna and the upside down went MIA after he trashed Hawkins, it’s been weeks Harrington. Plenty of time to completely recover from major psychological trauma” Robin jokes from directly behind him. She must have been following him on his walk to the store, and he must have been so badly zoned out that he didn’t notice.
“First off, you stalker, announce yourself when you’re behind someone. What if I had my bat? And second, I have never fixated on a single thing in my life. My interests are fleeting at best.” Steve airily explains. Steve hasn’t carried the bat in a long time, he wonders when he stopped caring about something killing him.
Robin rolls her eyes so far back, Steve is frankly surprised that she didn’t catch a glimpse of her teeny tiny little brain. He is starting to spiral, his train of thought is getting darker and darker. He wonders if it is healthy to feel disinterested in everything after you almost die - for what feels like the tenth time. He hasn’t been on a date or even thought about girls in the weeks since the incident.
Robin keeps insisting that girls come into the shop to scope him out for a hookup, she describes it as “trauma-fucking”, whatever the hell that means.
He just can’t seem to care about what they could want, they have no idea what he’s been through. How could they possibly want to be with him, he is damaged goods at this point.
Yikes- that’s enough of that train of thought. He needs to focus on whatever is coming out of Robin's mouth right now, not his intrusive thoughts.
“- Wheeler and the on again off again thing, plus that denim vest you have displayed in your closet. You can’t even close the door!” Robin exclaims, flailing her arms around.
Steve levels her with a look. “ I caught about half of what you said because I was wondering if you can see any type of brain when you roll your eyes, or if it's just all hot air back there.” Robin opens her mouth to retort. “Also”, Steve loudly interjects before she can say anything, “We have been over the thing with me and Nance, it wasn’t going to work. It just felt like we were going to die and I’d rather face Vecna while tricking myself into thinking that I have love to live for. It got weird after everything ended, we talked about it and decided that we are better off as friends. She seemed to connect with you after the breakup with Jonathan though.” Steve purposely steers the conversation away from the vest comment. He isn’t ready to unpack his feelings surrounding Eddie right now, or probably ever.
“Touche,” Robin says slowly, looking him up and down. “Truce?” she asks, holding her hand out.
“Truce,” Steve says, shaking her hand.
This has been their agreement since they got back to the real world. When things get too real, or someone scratches a little too hard at a fresh wound they call a truce. It’s not so much of an agreement to never talk about it again, just more of a promise to return to it some other day.
“Maybe someday we won’t have to call truces Rob,” Steve says, his thoughts still a little far away as he walks over to the counter to start sorting through returned movies. “Maybe someday we will actually be able to talk about things. Someday we might just be well-adjusted best friends.”
“Ah yes, someday when the sky turns green and I decide that I like boys, we will for sure become well adjusted” Robin retorts as she makes he way to the back to clock both of them in.
“What a positive outlook on life. You are a real peach, ya know that?” Steve says dryly as she returns to help him start re-stocking the returns.
It will never fail to boggle his mind that, weeks after the city gets ripped apart by a “natural gas explosion”, people can rent movies. He wonders how there are people in the world who have just gone back to normal.
About three-quarters of the non-essential shops in town have closed down. It’s like a ghost town in the shopping district. For some ungodly reason, the video store has just about as many customers as it ever did, which is impressive since about half of the town evacuated and never came back.
Robin has theorized that people are dealing with grief and trauma by getting lost in movies, she thinks that people want to escape reality- even for just two hours. Steve is of a different opinion, he thinks that Robin's theory is unlikely since people have mostly been renting movies that include hot babes, and sci-fi disasters. He thinks that people just don’t give a shit anymore, they hole themselves up in their homes and don’t come outside until it's necessary. What better way to pass the time than watching alien disaster movies and adding some images to the spank bank?
“Earth to Steve.” Robin drawls to him from the front of the store, “Isn’t that one of your children?”
Steve whips around to face the front window as Dustin hustles past the store, very obviously keeping his eyes on the sidewalk. Steve rushes around the aisle, dodging the candy rack that he still needs to organize, and jogs over to the door. He opens it and calls “Henderson! Hey! Get your ass back here right now.”
Dustin stops in his tracks, and Steve could swear that he takes a slow, deep breath as he slowly turns around. Steve notes that Dustin is wearing a hooded sweatshirt, which is strange because it's late spring and the afternoons are getting hot.
“Dustin slowly walks over, rubbing his neck, and says, “Hey Steve, what’s up?”
“Hey buddy, are you doing okay? I haven’t seen you in a week. You never pass up the opportunity to fuck up the candy counter in the store.” Steve vaguely gestures at the counter in the shop behind the large tinted windows.
Dustin flushes and looks a little frustrated, “Sorry, I’m just not feeling good right now. I’m heading home so I can go to sleep.”
“Do you want me to drive you? You might also feel a little better if you take the sweatshirt off, I’m sweating just lookin at you, and I know you’ve got at least another 15 minutes until you make it home.” Steve asks concern creeping into his tone.
“No!” Dustin exclaims. “- I mean, no I’m good on the ride, it might be nice to walk and clear my head. Plus can’t take this bad boy off,” he gestures to his sweatshirt,” I’m freezing! Brrr, how can you possibly think it's hot outside? Haha, Steve, you’re hilarious. Well, best be on my way I need to get home and, um, feed the cat. Yeah, so, see you tomorrow for DnD!” Dustin all but word-vomits at him.
By the time Steve sorts through everything Henderson said, Dustin is crossing the street (without looking both ways).
“Hey! Henderson! Watch out for traffic! Come on, do you have a death wish?” Steve shouts at him.
Dustin keeps walking but flips him off from a distance. Steve returns to the store shaking his head.
“Did you give him a good talking to, Mom?” Robin asks sarcastically.
Unfortunately, this comment doesn’t even phase Steve. He’s used to being called mom by Robin and half of the gaggle of idiots he feels personally responsible for.
“Henderson is acting really weird Rob, he has been MIA for the past week. I finally see him; he won’t look me in the eye and keeps fidgeting with his hood. I’d think he had a hickey or something if he was anyone else.” Steve says worriedly.
“Yeah, that’s unlikely. He probably just caught a spring cold. Check in with his mom tomorrow and make sure that he’s doing okay before we go over there. I don’t want to get sick because of those sticky little weirdos.” Robin says with a look of fondness for the kids.
“Yeah, good idea Rob,” Steve says distractedly, wondering what’s up with Henderson and why he wouldn’t just tell him about it, as he stocks more movies.
The rest of their shift passed by pretty quickly, he only had to chase out two groups of teens who were going to try to rent a rated R movie, and deal with one little kid opening packages of candy right out in the open.
At the end of his shift, he shuts off the lights and makes his way toward the front of the store. He glances at the windows to make sure that nothing is waiting for him outside, when he swears he sees a very familiar head of curly black hair quickly walking past the front window. He pales and sprints to the door to see if he really just saw Eddie Munson. He sticks his head out of the front door but sees no one.
It’s not possible, Eddie’s gone, and no amount of guilt or wishful thinking is going to bring him back. It’s also the 80s, for all he knows he just saw a teen girl with a bad perm walk by. Not every head of unruly black hair is Munson.
“Super, add delusions to the list,” Steve mutters as he pulls out his keys and locks the door.
He starts the annoyingly long walk to his car and notices an extremely shiny penny on the ground. Thinking he could use a little bit of luck, he picks it up and pockets it. He decides that he probably needs a room full of lucky pennies to counter his bad luck at this point. He reaches his car and hops in, puts the penny in the cupholder, and makes his way back to his empty house.
His mom checked in last week and said that she and his dad are staying at the vacation home in California until after Christmas and that Steve could come live with them. He decided against it since the kids will probably need him, also the world might explode again so he needs to be in Hawkins.
He offhandedly hopes that he will just have nightmares about the Demogorgon chasing him tonight, those are easier than watching his friends die. “Wow, that’s heavy. Have I always been this depressing?” he says to no one. Shaking his head, he turns on the radio and starts blasting some music for a nice distraction.
By the time he gets home, it’s dark out. The only thing Steve is thinking about is what he’s going to make himself for dinner. He could zone out to a movie and just eat leftover chicken bake, or he could put actual effort into his life and make food. He glances at the sink, which already had 2 pans “soaking off the grease”, and decides that tonight is a movie night.
He settles down on the couch and eats his reheated leftovers while he watches The Goonies. Tonight's pick is lighthearted and reminds him of his little squad of idiots. He misses them, that’s the only way that they could con him into coming to watch them play DnD tomorrow. Robin also helped them, she wants to go and “check it out” for some reason. He just wants to be in a room with other people that get it, people that he doesn’t have to pretend to be totally fine around.
He really needs to interrogate Henderson tomorrow. Good for him if he was hiding a hickey.
Wait, shit, does that mean he is going to have to give him the sex talk? Steve drifts off to sleep on the couch to thoughts of that absolute train wreck.
That night is the first night in two months that he doesn’t wake up and throw up everything he had to eat that day. He is woken up by the sun shining through the living room windows and is mildly impressed that he slept through the night. The pillow and his blanket are totally soaked with sweat still, but hey, little wins. Maybe today won’t be so shit after all.