Chapter Text
Sometimes, when things are at their worst, Steve can shrug and say, “hey - it’s not the end of the world.”
Of course, in Hawkins, it often is the end of the world. So now, Steve has no idea what to tell himself.
His hometown, which - let’s be real - was never that glamorous, is now in shambles. After the “earthquake,” almost everyone fled, which was valid. The ones who stayed were mainly those who’d been directly involved, or those who have nowhere else to go. Many people lost everything, and Steve tries to give back where he can - they all do - but a lot of the time he’s just sad.
His hometown was split in four, and all of his friends are in love.
Steve feels so dumb for even caring, but he does. All he ever wanted was to be loved, really, and he’s gotten the short end of the stick the last few years. He used to feel on top of the world, and now he’s - well, he had been in the Upside Down, which was probably as close as he could get to the literal opposite of the top of the world.
His friends found happiness where they could - mostly through crushes and girlfriends and boyfriends. Steve doesn’t have any of that right now. He doesn’t even know where to look. Everything around him is sad.
Robin and Vickie bonded over peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, of all things. Since then, she’s been volunteering every chance she can with Vickie. Steve joins too, sometimes, but he feels very much like a third wheel.
Some random dude with incredible hair and an even more incredible name (seriously, who names their kid Argyle?) showed up with Mike, Will, El, and Jonathan in a pizza van. A day later, the guy decided to drive back to Utah to visit his one true love or something. A woman with an equally badass name - Eden.
Steve wasn’t surprised when Dustin wanted to join, because apparently Eden lives with Suzie. Still, Steve was baffled by the whole thing. Usually, some sort of alarm would go off in his head about his surrogate little brother going on a road trip with a stoner, but Argyle seemed nice enough.
Although, he did unironically use the word “brochacho,” and Steve didn’t really know how he felt about that.
Steve knew Dustin was taking - uh, things - super hard, and so Steve encouraged any sort of break for the guy. Visiting Suzie seemed like the perfect way for Dustin to decompress, especially after what happened.
So, Dustin took off. Robin’s busy. Steve is too mortified to even look at Nancy after he’d basically professed his love for her and she brutally rejected him and stayed with Jonathan. Lucas spends all of his time with Max. El and Mike are inseparable.
That leaves Will. Steve doesn’t know Will that well, but he’s so lonely he doesn’t care if he comes off desperate or weird or whatever.
Steve shows up at the Byers’ residence one Saturday morning, looking like a total dork. Hopper answers the door, even though Steve would have far preferred Joyce. She’s less, uhhh -
“Steve?” Hopper asks, gruffly. “What are you doing here?”
“I, um - I’m looking for -”
“Is that Steve?” a familiar voice calls from the living room.
Ah, shit.
“Hey, uh, Nancy,” Steve says, giving a small wave.
“Is something wrong?” she asks, joining Hopper at the door.
“No, I -” Steve sighs. He’s mortified to even be in this situation. It was such a stupid plan in the first place. “I’m looking for Will. Is Will here?”
“Umm, yeah,” Nancy responds, retreating back into the house to presumably get her boyfriend’s little brother.
“What do you need Will for?” Hopper asks, suspiciously.
“Jeez, relax, Sheriff,” Steve replies. “I just wanted to talk to him. I’m the babysitter, remember?”
This explanation seems good enough for Hopper, even though Steve hasn’t really interacted with Will much prior to this. Not directly, anyway. He’d let the kids in to see movies for free back when he worked at Scoops, but that was it.
After a full thirty seconds of awkward, painful silence, Will comes to the door.
“Hey, kid,” Steve says. Hopper and the others had thankfully walked away to give them some privacy. “Do you - do you want to go to the music store with me?”
Will stares at him blankly for a moment, then shouts to the others behind him.
“Mom! I’ll be back later!”
Steve smiles, triumphantly.
“Okay, have fun!” Joyce’s voice rings from somewhere in the house. “Be home by 5 for dinner!”
“You got it, Mrs. Byers!” Steve yells into the void. “Okay, let’s go.”
Will hurriedly walks out of the house and shuts the door behind him, then sighs in relief.
“Thank god you’re here,” he says. “All the couples are driving me crazy.” Steve chuckles.
“You and me both.”
-
Will turns out to be excellent company. He has good taste in music, and he’s funny. A little nerdy, like Dustin, but much quieter about it. They get along great, and end up spending a few hours together.
“My brother said he’d be there for me, and now he’s back to spending all his time with Nancy,” Will complains.
“Yeah, well Nancy broke my heart into a million pieces, so,” Steve replies.
Then, they riff on how annoying Jonathan and Nancy’s relationship is for a while. They aren’t saying anything out of genuine dislike for either party, but it’s still some much needed venting. Steve listens to Will talk about Mike and El, and that’s when he picks up on some things in between the lines.
Maybe having a gay best friend makes him better at detecting that sort of thing.
They pick out a bunch of music and listen to it as they drive around for a while. They both are big fans of Queen, so they blast that first. They get a little too into singing along to Somebody to Love, but neither of them poke fun at the other for it. As much as Steve and Dustin tease each other, and as much as he complains about being the babysitter, Steve loves these kids with all his heart. All of them, even the ones he doesn’t know as well, like Will. He would do anything to protect them. He’d done quite a bit already.
He drops Will off before dinner as promised, then heads home. It’s only after he passes by Forest Hills that he starts to think about Things again. The Things that he tries to suppress. The Things that bubble beneath the surface at any given moment.
The Things that led up to the Earthquake. He isn’t ready to think about them. Not yet, maybe not ever.
So yes, it’s far easier to reach out to other people who understand, and to cling to them as long as he can. And then he goes home, and instead of letting his mind drift to those dark places, he starts singing Queen under his breath.
It’s stupid. It won't fix anything. But still, the need is there.
All he wants is somebody to love.
-
Hawkins has begun to crack open, and soon what lay beneath will rise.
It’s a dark place - somewhere that’s always on the verge of a storm. The energy in the air is thick with dread and impending doom. The creatures that live there are something that people may cast off as fictional, because their eyes aren’t open yet to how terrifying and big the world really is.
Monsters, of all kinds. Some who had once been human, some who prey on humanity. Evil forces that keep kids awake at night. Forces that their parents insist are in their imagination.
How foolish to think an imagination could be so vivid. Then again, perhaps imagination is what created this place to begin with. It could also be what sustains it.
A flash of lightning. Bats scattering.
There’s a body somewhere in the fog, going through a transformation. Wings, teeth, and hunger. It takes several days for the body to resemble its altered form - one of strength, intimidation, and a deeply-rooted instinct for evil.
Once complete, the body gasps in its new life. The soul of a tortured boy once occupied this space, but now there’s something else within him too - something ancient.
Eddie Munson’s glowing eyes snap open.
He’s starving.