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It’s Saturday night. Date night, or at least what used to be.
Unlike Robin, who had finally plucked up the courage to ask out Vickie after their stint together volunteering at the hospital in the aftermath of Hawkins’ so-called earthquake, Steve hasn’t been on a proper date in ages. Between the Squawk and the crawls and trying to keep Dustin’s increasingly self-destructive ass out of trouble, there hasn’t exactly been time to continue his pursuit of trying to find ‘the one.’
Besides, it just hadn’t felt…right. Not with everything going on, and not after everything that had happened last Spring Break.
Red light flashing in the sky. The swarm of bats, like some kind of hellish tornado, finally dissipating. The sound of Dustin’s sobs.
Eddie, on his back in the dirt, blood-stained and ripped apart.
Steve shakes his head, rubs at his eyes, trying to clear the vision.
“Rockin’ Robin here, ladies and gents. We’re riding that midnight train,” Steve pops in the appropriate tape, the choo choo punctuating Robin’s words, “straight into the early morning hours, and since at WSQK we are dedicated to our hard-working night shift employees, we’ve got just the thing to keep you up. This next one goes out to…an old friend.”
The smile Robin gives him is tight as the opening chords of “Master of Puppets” fill the air. The absolute worst time for it, really, given Steve’s reminiscing…but even after everything, the anger and frustration and pain it stirs up, he can’t find it in himself to hate the song.
The Midnight Metal Melody hour had been Steve’s bright idea, after all.
“You’ve heard that shit Dustin’s always playing in the car, that screeching could wake the actual dead,” he’d given as his dismissive explanation, when he suggested it. Robin hadn’t called him on how flimsy an excuse it was. Didn’t mention all the times Steve had recommended a Dio or Judas Priest song for the next track, or how often she’d found him listening to that “shrill, shrieking crap” on his Walkman, down in their makeshift headquarters under the studio.
She just watched him with that knowing look for one long, silent beat, and then–a little too enthusiastically–agreed, saying she thought it was a great idea.
A stare not too far off from the one she’s giving him right now, a mix of sympathy and exasperation and an understanding he doesn’t want to study too closely, as Metallica’s pounding first lyrics spill into the studio’s late night stillness.
“…crumbling away, I'm your source of self-destruction…”
Steve decides he doesn’t want to think about that line too closely, either. Not when refusing to dwell has been working out so well for him already.
Because they haven’t talked about it, him and Robin. The tattoo-covered elephant in the room, lingering like a ghost in every agonized conversation he has with Henderson.
About Eddie.
And definitely not about the cyclone of mixed emotions–fury and betrayal Steve’s not sure he’s earned, something that aches an awful lot like heartbreaking regret–that tumble around inside him every time he looks over expecting to see that mop of long, unruly hair and doesn’t find it, in every strained pause where Eddie’s name should be and instead there’s only silence.
But even though he hasn’t said anything, he gets the sense that Robin knows. She’s good like that. Gets him, sometimes even better than Steve gets himself.
The point is that Steve can’t really think about any of that, right now, not when they’re busy giving it their all just trying to get by.
Crawling forward, that’s what he’s good at. That’s what Steve has to do.
The song’s not really helping him out with that particular plan, though.
“Your life burns faster…”
Yeah, well, Eddie’s definitely had. Speaking of plans, why couldn’t he have just stuck to theirs?
Instead, he’d decided to break his promise to Steve and just charge straight ahead, reckless and hairbrained and heroic, like he was the lead in one of his Dwarves and Dorks campaigns.
…Except this wasn’t a game. Steve had tried to warn him, for all the good it had done.
“Life of death becoming clearer…”
The image from before washes over him again, ears roaring with it.
Eddie lying there, eyes empty, so unnaturally still.
Steve’s not sure he had ever seen the guy stop moving, across the entirety of Spring Break. Not until that dull, sickening moment.
The memory of it seems so close, so real, that he can practically hear the flap of the bat wings, feel the sting of the bites. Steve would almost swear, in that moment, that his chest and stomach ache in all the same places where Eddie’s open wounds were.
He gets far more lost in the thought than he realizes–and feels relieved Dustin isn’t there to make some scathing crack about how There’s a first time for everything, or…something like it, with the way things have been going lately.
Because when Robin rolls across the space, bumps her chair into his, and hooks a chin over his shoulder, he startles.
“Why the long face, dingus?” she asks, words muffled, her face pressed into his shoulder.
“What the hell is this crap even about, anyway?” Steve says instead of answering, gesturing at the record, an attempt to distract from the throb in his chest. “It’s all so…seriously depressing.”
Robin hums, sounding less worried and more amused. Score one for Harrington.
“Some people think that’s deep, you know. Tapping into the dark side of life, the eternal turmoil of the human spirit, that sort of thing.”
“Yeah, well, personally? I’ve had enough ‘turmoil,’” Steve places the word in sarcastic air quotes, “for one lifetime, and then some, thank you very much. Isn’t there any–I don’t know, upbeat metal we could play instead?”
He does get it, actually. That music–it feels exactly the way Steve has, for the last 14 months. Angry and raw, like everything is spilling out of him, an ugly mess bleeding across the grimy station floor.
But that…Steve can’t talk about that, either.
“Pretty sure we all have,” Robin agrees easily, before giving his shoulder a sharp poke. He bats at her hand with an, Ouch, Robin! that she completely ignores. “And you tell me, Stevie-Evie. You listen to way more of the stuff than I do.”
Steve huffs, but doesn’t dignify the comment with a response. Robin’s broken their unspoken vow of silence around a subject as sore as a bruise, and he’s not about to reward her for it.
Instead, he turns his focus back to the music.
“Where's the dreams that I've been after?”
There had been other moments, though. Less depressing ones.
Eddie, telling him what a badass he was, a genuinely “good dude” rather than the King Steve of legend, all while his own vest clung tightly to Steve’s shoulders.
Eddie, hotwiring the RV, throwing Steve for a total loop with his “big boy” comment.
Countless little things, the other boy always there with a joke or a smile or an eyeroll of solidarity.
But it hurts remembering those, too. Almost feels like Steve’s having an out-of-body experience, trying to picture every single scattered but oh-so-significant exchange. Clinging onto them tightly, a lifeline seconds from slipping out of his grasp.
“Fix me…”
Steve blinks, and this time he sees…some place he’s never been before.
It reminds him of the Upside Down, his stomach giving a sick twist, the red lightning that sometimes streaks across the whole sky there. Except everything he sees in that brief second is awash in an eerie crimson glow.
Blink.
There’s spikes, twisting upward like vines, sprawled out across a barren, desolate wasteland.
God, he really has been listening to the kids ramble on about their nerd game for way too long, if his brain has decided to marry a setting perfect for one of their campaign thingies with shit straight out of his own nightmares.
Steve rubs at his eyes. He’s gotta be more tired than he thought he was.
Shit, shit, shit!
The sudden, panting voice makes Steve jolt. His movement jostles Robin from her position leaning against him, nearly sending her sprawling onto the floor in all of her flailing, uncoordinated glory.
Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ! This is what you get, man, smoking a pack a day and skipping all those stupid ass gym classes.
“Whazzit?!” Robin asks unintelligibly. Her grumpy scowl and bleary blue eyes make it clear she had been close to dozing off. “Um, what gives, Harrington?! Where’s the fire, exactly?”
The confusion in her expression gives no indication she had heard anything. Maybe she’d just been too close to sleep to catch anything?
Or…was it possible Steve had just imagined it, given how out of it he’s felt all night?
The words had sounded quiet but close, but…there’s no way he could have thought them. Right? Steve’s never skipped gym class a day in his life.
“I will occupy…”
Before he can even try to answer, the voice is back, even louder, now, practically shouting.
Okay, alright! Come on, goddamnit, come on! Just a little closer…
Steve’s head throbs, and he covers his ears to muffle the sound, for all the good it does.
“I will run through you…”
Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit!
Steve jerks as he feels something slam into him, his chair sliding with the sheer force of it. He gasps, sucking down a lungful of air greedily, same as he used to when coming up out of the water after a swim meet
Where in the hell am I, man?
“Oh my god, oh my god, Steve!” Robin is there, wide-eyed, grasping his face in both her hands. “What is happening?! Are you okay?”
Buckley? Christ almighty, are you a sight for sore eyes! Thought I was never gonna make it topside again.
“What do you mean? Duh, no, I’m definitely not alright!” Steve spins around, trying to locate the voice, his body on high alert. “You heard that, right?”
“Uh…” Robin’s frown deepens, and she gives a quick nod to the record, rapidly approaching its closing sting, “you mean our friends Metallica, over there?”
“No, Robin, not Metallica!” Steve snaps, unable to stop himself. “A man! I heard–a man was talking. I mean, more like babbling, honestly–”
Damn straight I was! Hell, you’d babble, too, if you’d been through the shit I have!
“There it is again!” Steve thrusts an emphatic arm into the empty air, frustrated.
“Steve…” Robin grabs onto his wrist, giving it a comforting squeeze, “I don’t hear anything.”
But he shakes her off, snatching up his mic stand as a make-shift weapon. Then he’s marching out of the booth to stalk deeper into the station, bound and determined to put a face to that mysterious voice.
Who would just show up at the Squawk unannounced in the middle of the night, anyway? The military?
Uh…HELLO?! Anybody gonna help me out here, man, actually talk to me and tell me what the hell’s going on?!
Steve snorts instinctively. That’s what he’d like to know, too.
But…wait. Despite the distance he’s crossed, the man sounds exactly as far away as he had in the booth. Which is to say, still incredibly close.
Shit. Maybe that means this is all just his brain playing tricks on him.
“Get it together, Harrington!” Steve rubs his hands hard over his face. “You’re cracking up.”
Harrington? The voice in his head repeats, and, wow, he really is in a bad way if he doesn’t know his own name. Jesus Christ, man, is that really you?!
Steve’s heart starts to rabbit wildly in his chest. Because he recognizes that voice, suddenly.
And it definitely isn’t his own. No, it’s…
“...Eddie?”