Chapter Text
Hawkins is in limbo. It is split open and bleeding out, and nobody seems to know what to do about it. Most of its residents have already started to pack their belongings and leave, too confused and angry about everything that has happened recently to even attempt to save their dying town.
After the ground had torn itself open, it became difficult to focus. All that Steve can really remember of it now, hours later, is the panic and the grief that rapidly took hold of him. The chimes of the grandfather clock are still ringing in his ears. There is still blood caked under his fingernails. He sits on his hands and stares at the wall and tries not to think about any of it too much.
The first thing that he did after crawling out of the Upside Down was call his parents. They’re on a business trip, as usual. He’d told them not to come home. His mother ended the call with a sigh and a plea to Steve to stay safe.
Next, he returned to his too-big and too-empty house to shower and sleep. Grime from the Upside Down was clinging to his skin as if it craved his warmth. He wouldn’t be surprised if it did; maybe, just like everything else down there, it was alive and hungry. He wasn’t going to risk letting it consume him, even if the sensation of water dripping from his hair and beating down onto his back in the shower almost sent him into a panic.
And now he’s here; clean and dry, and sitting on the couch with every light in the house switched on. The world outside is burning, and Steve Harrington is acting like a child who’s afraid of the dark. But what else is there to do? What else is there that he can do?
There is one thing that he needs to do, he decides. He makes his way out into the hallway and picks up the phone, then dials the number for the Henderson household.
It’s Dustin’s mother who picks up the phone on the other end of the line. Steve hears the exhaustion in her voice and decides that it isn’t worth asking for Dustin.
“How is he holding up?” he asks instead.
There’s a tense pause. Steve’s stomach sinks.
“He cried himself to sleep a little over an hour ago,” she finally says. “He wouldn’t eat anything. He wouldn’t even take off those damn clothes. I don’t know what to do, Steve.”
Steve’s throat swells and his eyes burn. He swallows thickly, runs a hand over his face, and sighs.
“I’ll come over tomorrow and keep him company for a while.”
“That would be nice,” Ms. Henderson says. “Thank you.”
Neither of them can muster the strength for further small-talk. Not when it’s late, Hawkins is falling apart around them, and Dustin is sick with grief. Steve ends the call and slumps against the wall, sliding down it until he’s sitting on his ass in the hallway with his legs stretched out in front of him and the silence of his house pressing down, down, down on his shoulders.
The Upside Down is swallowing Hawkins whole. Vecna is still out there somewhere. Max Mayfield and Eddie Munson are dead.
Steve has never felt so hopeless.
He wakes up in that same position on the floor, just as the sun is beginning to rise outside. The hallway has an odd blue tinge to it, and for a brief moment it makes his heart rise to his throat. But then he cranes his neck to look out of the nearest window and sees that it’s only lingering moonlight that’s to blame. The sky will brighten soon, filling Steve’s house with warmer hues.
His neck and shoulders ache, and his ass is numb, but he doesn’t move until the sun has risen fully. Its rays worm their way into the hallway, leaving warm kisses on Steve’s cheeks. He closes his eyes and basks in the feeling for several minutes. When his heart has stopped racing and his shoulders no longer feel uncomfortably tense, he pushes himself up to his feet. He wobbles a little at first, and his left leg lights up in pins and needles that have him wincing as he stumbles towards the stairs, but he manages to stay upright.
It's a force of habit that has him brushing his teeth and combing his hair as if the world isn’t ending. That isn’t a bad thing, he supposes. If he has his shit together, Dustin might be able to follow his example. Steve doubts that the kid has showered since they left the Upside Down. If Steve had been as close to Eddie as Dustin was—
He tries not to think about it. Steve heads downstairs again, gripping the railings in case the sudden weight in his chest makes his knees buckle.
The clock on the kitchen wall tells him that it’s not even eight in the morning yet. Steve hadn’t told Ms. Henderson what time she should expect him to arrive, but he decides that the earlier he visits Dustin, the better. He might be able to convince the kid to eat breakfast and take a shower. At the very least, he thinks that Dustin will appreciate not having to wake up alone.
He grabs his wallet and keys, then lingers in the hallway for a while. He wishes that he had something more to offer Dustin. Some of his favourite candies to drown his sorrows with; a movie to watch, or some music to listen to; or even something of Eddie’s. He knows that Dustin kept Eddie’s necklace, but he’d mentioned something about needing to pass it on to someone. He probably meant Eddie’s uncle, Steve realises now.
But Steve doesn’t have anything to give other than himself. His house is as barren as it always is, and the trailer park has been abandoned since the gate in Eddie’s trailer stretched into a gaping chasm. Even if he wanted to go back there in search of something to give Dustin, the risk of accidentally stumbling back into the Upside Down is too great. Those who remain in Hawkins seem to have a new unspoken agreement: stay far away from the scars in the ground.
So, with a dejected sigh, Steve turns his back on the rest of his empty house and swings open the front door.
Something is on his doorstep; a dark, writhing mass with bared teeth and beady eyes. Steve instinctively staggers backwards and reaches blindly for anything to use as a weapon. His hand wraps around the handle of his father’s umbrella at the same time that he finally identifies what the creature on his doorstep is.
He isn’t sure whether he should be relieved or more terrified knowing that it’s just a bat. The former, probably, because he can tell with a single glance that it isn’t one of the bastards from the Upside Down. It’s also not attacking him, which is always generally a positive thing.
But it doesn't matter how much he wills himself to relax; fear continues to twist in his gut. Pain shoots through his sides. For a second, he thinks that he can taste blood.
The bat is still staring at him. He steels himself and prods it gently with the end of the umbrella, which makes the bat screech loudly and roll over. Steve takes another step backwards as his heart rises into his throat. He waits there for a few seconds, eyes blown wide and lungs burning. The bat twists and makes a series of clicking sounds, but it doesn’t advance.
“Scram,” Steve says. He raises the umbrella higher and gives it a threatening wave. “Go on. Get out of here.”
The bat makes an almost pitiful sound that has a crease forming between Steve’s brows. He squints and leans a little closer.
“Just fly away, man.” His voice sounds pleading and afraid even to his own ears, and he winces. “You have wings, don’t you?”
One of the bat’s wings shoots up into the air, as if to confirm that yes, it does have wings. Steve nods.
“Okay. So, you can fly.”
Alas, the bat topples sideways and remains on his doorstep. Steve takes a tentative step closer and lowers the umbrella, although his grip on the handle remains tight.
“You… can fly, right?”
The bat squeaks. Steve bends at the knees, and that’s when he sees it. The bat’s other wing is twisted, and while Steve is certainly no veterinarian, he can tell immediately that it doesn’t look normal.
“Oh,” he breathes. “You’re injured.”
Shit. What is he supposed to do now? The old Steve would probably shove the bat off of his doorstep with the end of the umbrella and leave it to die alone, but the old Steve was an asshole and the new Steve would beat the shit out of him for even considering it. New Steve makes a habit out of checking every injury, even if it’s minor. New Steve tries his best to never abandon someone who needs him.
Even if that someone—or, rather, something—is a bat.
“Alright,” he mutters. He slowly sets the umbrella down, then rolls up his sleeves. “I need you to cooperate with me. Don’t even think about scratching my eyes out.”
Surprisingly enough, the bat seems to listen to him. Or maybe it’s just too injured to put up a fight as Steve scoops it up off of the concrete step and carries it inside. He takes it into the kitchen and places it gently into the sink. When he pulls his hands back to himself, he sees blood and dirt caking his palms. That is decidedly not a good sign. A broken wing is bad enough—again, Steve is no veterinarian, and he is absolutely making this shit up as he goes—but the bat clearly has more injuries than Steve initially thought. For all he knows, it could already be too late.
He tries not to think about the last time that he was too late to save a life; pressing his hands down against a chest that had already grown cold, and searching lifeless eyes for even a flicker of light as Dustin sat beside him and cried until he vomited. Instead, he heads to the bathroom to grab a clean towel and some of the cream that he’s using to treat his own injuries. The bat is still in the sink when he returns, and it seems to be moving more sluggishly by the second.
“I’m going to get you cleaned up,” Steve tells it. Later, he’ll wonder why he even bothers to talk to the bat. It’s not as if it can understand him. But it’s comforting, he thinks, to hear someone assuring you that everything will be okay even when you’re moments away from death. Sometimes, hope is the only difference between holding on and letting go.
And the bat? It holds on.
There are deep cuts across its chest that Steve cleans as carefully as he can. Upon closer inspection, he sees that the bat’s wing isn’t twisted—it’s been shredded. While he’s relieved that the wing isn’t broken, he also has no idea how to piece it back together again.
For now, he can’t do much more for the bat than clean its wounds and keep it warm and safe. After rinsing the last of the blood from the bat’s fur and rubbing some of the cream into its wounds, Steve grabs the largest tupperware container he can find and lays a dry towel in the bottom of it. The bat wriggles when he picks it up again, but allows him to move it into the tupperware.
Steve sighs quietly when the bat is safely inside. He bends at the waist to stare through the plastic and into the bat’s freaky, dark eyes.
“I hope you can heal that wing of yours by yourself. There’s not much else I can do.”
The bat stares back at him, silent and unblinking.
“God, I’m going to have to, like, research this shit. I have no idea how to take care of a bat. What do you even eat?”
The bat does not answer. Steve resigns himself to having to gather information in a different way. Maybe one of the kids knows something about bats. Not Dustin, though—Steve won’t ask Dustin about this. He has too much on his plate already.
Speaking of Dustin…
“I’d stick around to keep you company, but you actually aren’t my only patient today,” Steve tells the bat. “I’ve got a kid waiting for me who’s in desperate need of some cheering up. You’ll be alright here by yourself for a few hours, won’t you?”
The bat blinks slowly, which Steve hopes is a yes. In any case, he’s pretty sure that the bat can’t fly at the moment with its wing so mangled, so there shouldn’t be any harm in leaving the bat in the tupperware until he returns. He drapes another dry towel over the top of the container to give the bat a little more warmth, then backs out of the room.
He knows the route to the Henderson house like the back of his hand, so he’s thankfully able to follow it on autopilot as his mind wanders. After everything that has happened recently, of course he ends up stuck with an injured bat to take care of.
“Always the goddamn babysitter,” he mumbles. He snickers quietly, but the smile soon slips from his face. It feels wrong to find anything about this situation amusing.
By the time he pulls into the driveway outside Dustin’s house, he’s already an hour later than he intended to be. Not that it matters much; it’s Ms. Henderson who opens the door for him when he knocks, and her face crumples with relief and a tinge of her own grief when she sees him.
“Come in, Steve,” she says, moving aside so that he can enter the house. She closes the door while he takes off his shoes. “He’s still in bed, I’m afraid. I was hoping that he’d have at least eaten something by now.”
Even though Steve has been expecting this, it still hurts. The thought of Dustin hurting so much that he won’t even leave his bed or eat anything is enough to make Steve’s chest ache.
“Is he awake, at least?” he asks.
Ms. Henderson nods. “He hasn’t told me much, but maybe he’ll talk to you.”
This must all be so confusing for Dustin’s mother, and he wonders how much she really knows. He’s fairly certain that the rest of Hawkins simply thinks that their town was destroyed by a freak earthquake. She’s probably under the impression that it’s the earthquake that caused Eddie’s death. It would have been a kinder way to go, Steve thinks. The reality is much, much worse.
Ms. Henderson disappears into the kitchen while Steve makes his way to Dustin’s bedroom. The door is already open, but the room is dark and quiet. Steve knocks quietly and lingers in the doorway as the Dustin-shaped lump on the bed twitches. Steve squints and, through the darkness, sees a head poke out from beneath the blankets.
“Steve?” Dustin croaks.
“Hey, man. Is it alright if I come in?”
Dustin makes a vague noise and retreats under the blankets again. It’s not a no. Steve enters the room and kneels down beside Dustin’s bed.
“What are you doing here?” Dustin asks. His voice is muffled by the blankets. It’s a miracle that he hasn’t already started to suffocate under them.
“Just checking in,” Steve says. “How are you holding up?”
There’s a brief shuffle, as if Dustin is shrugging. “Been better.”
“Listen, you gotta look after yourself, okay? Your mom is worried. She says you haven’t eaten anything.”
“‘M not hungry.”
“I know, but you have to eat. Hey, I haven’t eaten yet, either. You want to eat together? I’ll even bring the food in here so you don’t need to get out of bed. One thing at a time, yeah?”
Dustin sniffles quietly. After a minute or two of silence, he slowly emerges from the blankets again.
“Okay,” he says. “Thanks, Steve.”
Steve smiles and smooths down a few of the boy’s stray curls. He swipes his thumb beneath Dustin’s eye, then gives his cheek a gentle pat.
One step at a time, he thinks.
He can’t remember the last time he cooked a decent meal for himself, but it turns out that he doesn’t have to worry about cooking. Ms. Henderson is plating up some scrambled eggs and bacon when he enters the kitchen. She turns to him, spatula in hand, and shoots him a wobbly smile.
“I thought I’d put something together, just in case,” she says. “Even if Dustin won’t eat, I thought you might appreciate some warm food.”
“Thank you,” he says, taking the plate from her hand. “He told me he’ll try to eat something. Is it alright if he eats in his room?”
“If you can get some food into that boy’s stomach, I don’t care where it happens,” Ms. Henderson says.
She scrapes the rest of the eggs onto a second plate, then passes it to Steve along with two forks. He’s just about to leave the kitchen when she reaches out to him, wrapping a hand around his arm. The sight of the tears in her eyes makes his heart break.
“Thank you,” she whispers. “I know I’ve already said it, but— I’m serious, Steve. Thank you so much for being there for my boy.”
Steve can’t speak around the lump in his throat. Fortunately, Ms. Henderson seems to understand. She gives his arm a squeeze and then releases him, and he leaves the kitchen so that he doesn’t end up bursting into tears in front of her.
Back in Dustin’s room, he finds the boy sitting up and staring at something in his lap. He’s changed into a clean shirt, which Steve is really fucking proud of him for. His hair is still a mess, but they’ll deal with that after breakfast. One step at a time.
“Your mom made us some bacon and eggs.”
Dustin startles and drops whatever he’d been holding. Steve pretends not to notice that it’s Eddie’s necklace. He smiles at Dustin and holds one of the plates towards him.
“Oh,” Dustin says. He looks at the plate as if he doesn’t quite know what to do with it. “Thanks.”
“Don’t thank me.”
Dustin takes the plate and one of the forks. He eats at a slower pace than usual, but the important thing is that he eats. Steve watches him clear half of his plate before digging into his own breakfast. He hadn’t even realised how hungry he was until now. Thank god for Ms. Henderson.
“Anything from Will and Mike yet?” Steve asks, once they’ve both finished eating.
“Not a peep,” Dustin says. “It was bad enough before, but now— I just wish I could tell them about what happened. They’re a part of this too, and it just feels weird not knowing where they are or what they’re doing. We don’t even know if they’re safe.”
“Hey.” Steve pats Dustin’s shoulder in a way that he hopes is comforting. “Don’t think about that right now, okay? I’m sure we’ll hear something from them soon. If something was seriously wrong, don’t you think that El would’ve reached out to us somehow by now?”
“What if El is in trouble too?”
God, Steve hates how smart this kid is. He sighs and shakes his head.
“They’re all fine,” he says. He prays that he sounds more confident than he feels. “How about Lucas, hm? Have you spoken to him since yesterday?”
Dustin glances at the walkie-talkie on his bedside table. He nods. “A little. I think he’s still at the hospital.”
“Did he get hurt?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Did Erica get hurt?”
“Not seriously. But one of those assholes from the basketball team did apparently tackle her to the ground.”
“Fuck,” Steve hisses. “Do you know which one of them it was?”
“I don’t know, man. They’re all the same, you know? Besides, he’s probably long gone by now. Chances are that he either ran away or died when the gates opened up.”
“Either way, good riddance,” Steve says. Then he remembers why they’re having this conversation in the first place, and he shakes his head. “Wait, but I’m still confused. Why is Lucas in the hospital?”
Dustin frowns. “Because of Max, obviously.”
“Obviously? What do you mean, obviously? She— Max died. The chimes—”
“She came back, Steve. We don’t know how, but she did.”
Steve is so relieved that he could cry. Fuck, he is crying. He sets his plate aside, then scrubs both of his hands over his face and sucks in a shaky breath.
“She’s alive?”
“Yeah,” Dustin says. “Lucas told me a few hours ago that she’s in a coma. The doctors aren’t sure when she’ll wake up.”
“But she will,” Steve says, and he’s so sure of it that he doesn’t even acknowledge any alternative possibilities. Max has always been a fighter. If she’s already managed to come back from death, then it’s inevitable that she’ll wake up. She just needs time.
“Sorry for not telling you sooner,” Dustin says quietly. “I’ve just been—”
“I know, buddy. I know.”
They don’t talk about anything else regarding the Upside Down or Vecna for the rest of the morning. The wounds are still too fresh. It’s Steve’s job to take Dustin’s mind off of things, to help him relax, and maybe—hopefully—to help him start healing.
Which is why he refuses to tell Dustin about his distinctly bat-shaped dilemma right away. He doesn’t think it would be fair of him to do that, given the circumstances. Dustin’s mourning period is far from over, and he doesn’t need another reminder of Eddie’s death. Even Steve was shaken when he first discovered the bat on his doorstep earlier; he doesn’t want to think about how badly Dustin would react. The kid’s fear of bats is different from Steve’s—in a way, it’s worse. When Steve thinks of bats, he thinks of teeth like razors tearing through his skin, and blood sitting heavy on his tongue. But there’s slightly more to it than that. He thinks of surviving and having the scars to show for it, too.
When Dustin thinks of bats, it’s much more simple. Bats undoubtedly make him think about his friend dying in his arms. There’s no possible way to put a positive spin on that.
So Steve keeps Dustin entertained with stories about his regular Family Video customers, the multiple unsuccessful dates he’s been on in the last few months, and the time he and Robin accidentally got way too drunk at his house and she passed out in his bathtub. Dustin smiles, and it’s only a small thing, but it feels like more. It feels like progress. It feels a little like hope.
There are still some good moments dotted amongst the bad. Two days on from the events in the Upside Down, Robin suggests volunteering at the school. There are beds there for the wounded and the lost, and donation stations, and a wall of missing posters. For once, it seems like Hawkins is a real community. The people left behind are banding together in ways that they never have before.
Everyone scrounges together as many old clothes and tins of food as they can, and Steve even manages to persuade Dustin to help. Robin spends time with Vickie, and Dustin talks to Wayne Munson. At first, Steve worries that it might all be happening too quickly for Dustin. But then he notices the way that his shoulders relax slightly as he sits with Wayne, as if he’s no longer carrying such a heavy weight. When Dustin hands Eddie’s necklace to Wayne, he almost looks relieved. Steve knows that it will take a long time for Dustin to truly heal, but this is a step in the right direction. Despite everything that’s happening around them, the sight of Dustin and Wayne sitting beside each other gives Steve hope.
The sky fills with spores that day, and a sombre mood settles over Hawkins. They’re running out of time, and they all know it. They just don’t know how to fix it.
Steve continues to treat the bat daily. He rubs cream into its fur and inspects its wing as carefully as he can. He gathers more clean towels and blankets to make the bat’s new home in the tupperware cosier, and feeds it food from his own plate. He’s not entirely sure what the bat is supposed to be eating, so he tries a little of everything. Fruit, vegetables, meat, nuts. He’s pretty sure that different bats eat different things, but this one doesn’t seem picky. It’ll eat anything that Steve waves in front of its face.
On particularly bad days, he talks to the bat. Only a little. Just enough so that his head and chest feel clearer. It’s not a big deal. The bat can’t understand him, after all. Not when he tells it that he’s terrified of what might happen when Vecna inevitably comes back; not when he admits that he feels lost and lonely in his own house; not when he says that he’s worried about the kids; and certainly not when he talks about Eddie.
He doesn’t talk about Eddie much—not to anyone. Part of him thinks that he doesn’t even have a reason to think about him, let alone talk about him. They weren’t really friends. They hardly spoke to each other. They only spent time together when the world was about to end.
But Eddie is still there, sometimes, in his head. The fear in his eyes as he backed Steve against a wall in that boat shed, the dimples in his cheeks when he smiled, and the blood on his lips as he—
Steve doesn’t like thinking about Eddie. Thinking about Eddie is a bit like thinking about failure. And Steve has always hated failing. Maybe that’s why he tries so hard to keep the bat alive now. The last thing that he wants to do is fail to save a life again.
In the end, he waits for a week. Seven whole days of taking care of the bat by himself, spending time with Dustin, and trying not to let his nightmares consume him. The cuts on the bat’s body heal quickly, but its wing is a different story. Steve has already entertained the possibility that nothing more can be done for it. Maybe he’s just delaying the inevitable. If the bat can’t fly, then it can’t survive in the wild. It certainly can’t stay with Steve forever, either. Frankly, he doesn’t know what to do. The only thing he can do is keep the bat alive and bide his time.
But a week has passed, and Steve has started to think that he should ask for advice. While he’s fairly certain that he’s handling things well enough by himself, it’s never a bad idea to get a second opinion. He’s also just itching to tell someone about the bat. Now that Dustin has had some time to recover and seems to be in a better mood, Steve decides that it’s safe to share his secret. There’s really nobody else that he’d rather tell, when it comes to this stuff. And if he’s wrong about this—if Dustin isn’t ready—then he’s prepared to deal with the consequences.
They’re eating lunch together at the Henderson house when he brings it up. They’re sitting at the dining room table this time, because they could only eat so many meals in Dustin’s bedroom before his mother started to worry about him forming a bad habit. Steve finishes picking the tomatoes out of his sandwich and licks his fingers clean.
“Do you know anything about bats?” he asks. Best to rip the bandaid off in one go, right?
Dustin’s eyes widen in horror for a split-second, and Steve wants to snatch his words back and shove them down his own throat. Idiot. He should have known that it’s still too soon, that Dustin isn’t ready yet, that he’s just doing more harm than good by bringing this up—
But then Dustin relaxes and shakes his head. “Not really. Mike used to be obsessed with them. He kept trying to convince Will to incorporate them into our campaigns somehow, but Will didn’t think they were cool enough.”
“Uh, okay,” Steve says. “Not exactly the answer I was hoping for.”
“What answer were you hoping for?”
Steve sighs. “Hypothetically, if you found an injured bat on your doorstep one day, what would you do with it?”
“Wow, um. I’d probably take it to a vet?”
“You’d take a wild bat to the same place that everyone takes their pet dogs?”
“Oh.” Dustin scrunches his nose. “Yeah, alright, maybe that wouldn’t be the best thing to do. Why are you asking all of this, anyway? Is this hypothetical bat real?”
Always so perceptive, Steve thinks fondly.
“Yeah,” he says. “I found it last week. It was the morning after… You know.”
“Oh. And you’ve been… taking care of it?”
Steve nods slowly. “It was pretty bashed up when I found it. I’m talking cuts all over its body, and a wing that looked pretty unsalvageable. I honestly didn’t expect it to survive past a day, but here I am a week later, wondering what the hell I’m going to do with a goddamn bat.”
“Can I see it?”
“Do you really want to?” Steve asks, even though what he actually wants to ask is, Are you sure that’s a good idea?
“Yeah.” Dustin nods. He has that determined look in his eyes that Steve usually hates, because it has landed them in dangerous situations more times than he can count. Right now, though, Dustin looks more alive than he has in the past week. “I want to see it.”
Steve has never been good at putting up a fight against Dustin—or any of the kids, really—but now in particular, he really can’t deny Dustin anything. He stands and stretches, then walks towards the door.
“Get some clean clothes on,” he says before he leaves. “I’ll meet you out in the car.”
As he slides the door shut, he sees Dustin smile and fist-pump the air. Steve pauses for a moment to bask in the warmth and relief that Dustin’s reaction has made him feel. Then, with a final bang on the door and a demand to hurry up before he changes his mind, he heads back out to his car to wait.
“So,” Steve says, a little over thirty minutes later. He’s leaning against the island in his kitchen, trying for nonchalance. He doesn’t think it’s working. He clears his throat and gestures towards the blanket-covered tupperware next to the sink. “This is the bat.”
Dustin is staring. He’s frozen to the spot at Steve’s side, eyes wide and lips parted. On the other side of the room, the bat has its head poking between the blankets. It’s staring right back at Dustin. Steve doesn’t think that either of them have blinked since he and Dustin stepped into the room.
“It’s bigger than I expected it to be,” Dustin eventually says. “What have you been feeding it?”
“Um, everything?”
Dustin clicks his tongue. “Oh, Steve.”
He steps forward before Steve has a chance to defend himself, so he’s left spluttering helplessly as Dustin approaches the bat. He hunches over slightly for a better look. The bat meets him halfway, stretching upwards until its head bumps into Dustin’s nose. Dustin flinches back, but quickly leans in again.
“Hi, buddy,” he says. “Has Steve been taking good care of you?”
The bat nudges Dustin’s nose again. He seems to take that as a yes, because he turns to Steve with a blinding smile.
“He’s cool,” he says. “I think he likes me. I’m pretty sure he likes you, too.”
Steve can’t help but feel pleased at that. He likes being liked—sue him.
“So, what do you think?” he asks.
“I think you have a new pet, Steve. Get used to it.”
“Dustin, I can’t keep this bat forever.”
“Why not? It might liven your house up a bit. Besides, it’s cute.”
“You think everything is cute. You thought a demodog was cute.”
“Dart was cute! Well… He was cute before he got really big and ate my cat.” Dustin shakes his head. He straightens his back and turns to Steve, pointing a stern finger at him. “But that was a totally different situation. This is just a normal bat. If you let it go, it will die. You’ve already looked after it for a week, so you clearly care about it. Look, Steve. We’re a team, right? And not just the two of us. You have the whole party on your side, plus Robin and Nancy. Jonathan, maybe. I’m not sure about his new Californian friend.”
“Argyle? I think he likes everyone, he’s just a little… spacey.”
“You can say high,” Dustin says, which makes Steve snort.
“Okay, he’s just high all the time. It’s hard to know what he’s thinking.”
“Uh-huh. Anyway. My point is that you have people who will help you.”
“Yeah, but— I mean, take a look around, man. Hawkins is halfway underground, and Vecna could come back at any time. There are bigger fish to fry. Nobody’s going to care about a stupid bat.”
He shouldn’t even care about this stupid bat. He should be thinking of ways to take Vecna down for good. He should be helping out at the school more. He should be doing something other than worrying about what will happen if the bat’s wing doesn’t heal, and worrying even more about what might happen if it does.
“I do,” Dustin says quietly. There’s that determination in his eyes again, but Steve finds it more comforting now. “Steve, I care.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. I'll help you look after it.” He pauses to glance over his shoulder at the bat, which has been watching them silently the entire time. “And when the bat is finally healed… We’ll figure something out together.”
Steve smiles. “Yeah, okay. That sounds good.”
“In the meantime, you’d better think of a name.”
“A name?”
“Every pet needs a name,” Dustin says matter-of-factly. He shrugs. “You want the bat to feel accepted and loved, right? That way, it will trust you to take care of it. So, it needs a name.”
Steve’s eyes meet the bat’s again. There’s something so achingly familiar about those eyes. There’s a name on the tip of Steve’s tongue. He swallows it back down.
“Alright,” he says, biting back a grimace when his voice cracks. “I’ll think of a name.”
The bat retreats into its mound of blankets as if it’s disappointed. Steve resolutely ignores the ache in his sides and the burning in his chest.
You’re an idiot, Harrington, says a voice in the back of his mind, and that, too, is familiar.