Chapter Text
“So, like, why do we want to find this gate?” Eddie asks as they row the boat toward the center of the lake.
Nancy has her eyes locked on the compass and Robin’s peering into the darkness all around them, but Steve can’t stop staring at the shoreline. He doesn’t trust the kids. Hell yes he’s going to bitch about being the babysitter every time the apocalypse comes around, but that doesn’t mean he wants the Mousekateers left to their own devices either.
“Mini-gate,” Nancy corrects distractedly.
“Because it could help us find Vecna,” Robin answers.
Steve doesn’t know if finding Vecna is really a good thing. Eddie, apparently, agrees. “Is that a good idea?” he asks, voice drifting off into a nervous chuckle.
“If you don’t want to get blamed for the Excorcist murders happening in Hawkins, then yeah, I’d say finding Vecna is a really good idea.” Robin flashes her light in Eddie’s face before fanning it back over the obsidian water.
“Right,” Eddie answers quietly.
Steve doesn’t get that part of the plan though. So what? They find Vecna and they are going to what? Record a confession of his crimes? Play it for the police department and say, see, told you so! Interdimensional alien demon!
“Shut up!” Nancy suddenly hisses and Steve’s horrified he’s said that outloud. But Nancy’s shushing everyone, holding her arm out above the water. “This is it! It’s right here!”
Steve looks over Nancy’s shoulder to see the compass pointer spinning wildly. He glances around the boat. “So, why can’t we see it?”
“What if it’s in the water?” Robin points her flashlight directly down at the quietly lapping waves.
“Wait! What’s that?” Eddie leans against the side of the boat, tipping them slightly.
“What’s what?” Robin asks. She swings her flashlight around and blinds Steve. He snatches the flashlight from her and turns it off.
“Jesus, Robin, you’re a menace with that thing.” Steve tries to blink the light out of his eyes so he can try and see whatever it is that Eddie is seeing.
“I see it!” Nancy exclaims. She grabs an oar and paddles them to the right. “See? Steve, do you see it?”
“Shit,” Steve whispers, eyes adjusted to the dark once more. “Yeah, I see it.”
Deep beneath the surface of the lake, a red glow pulses maliciously. From the boat, it almost looks like a volcano is lurking down below, waiting ever so patiently to erupt.
“What now?” Robin asks, voice hushed.
“I - I don’t know.” Nancy looks from the still spinning compass to the blood red glow below them.
“Now we ask the nerds,” Steve decides. He hands Eddie the flashlight to keep it out of Robin’s dangerous hands. Then he grabs both the oars and turns them back toward shore.
~*~*~
“Did you find it?” Dustin asks, splashing into the shallow water but not actually helping drag the rowboat ashore.
“Yes, dufus,” Steve sighs, exasperated. He pushes Dustin out of the way and with Eddie’s help hauls the rowboat back onto land.
“Yes!” Dustin fist pumps triumphantly. “I was right! A water-gate!”
“Yeah, woohoo!” Steve says with a pointed lack of enthusiasm. “Another gateway into hell in our fine city of Hawkins.” He turns around and offers a hand to Robin, helping her climb steadily out of the boat. He does the same for Nancy.
“Okay,” Lucas says, nodding briskly. “Okay, we found the gate. So now we just need -” he breaks off.
“El,” Max says flatly. “We need El. But she’s not here. So what’s the next plan, Dustin?”
“El?” Eddie asks, leaning in way too close to Steve’s personal space. “Is that the mind powers one?”
Steve elbows him away. “Yeah, that’s her.”
“We know that Vecna is somehow connected to the old Creel house, right?” Nancy asks. She has the flashlight and is pointing it at the ground, letting everyone see but not blinding them. Steve thinks she could give Robin a few lessons in flashlight handling.
“Yes, totally,” Robin agrees, nodding her head. “Max saw that when she got Vecna’d and we know that’s where Victor Creel was when his family got Vecna’d in the original Vecna-ing? Am I saying Vecna too much?”
“Yes,” the group choruses.
Her shoulders drop. “Right, sorry, my bad. I’m just kind of freaked that we have a portal to hell under Lover’s Lake.”
“I want to see it,” Max declares. “The water-gate.”
Steve whirls around to stare at her. “What? Why?”
“Because I’m the one Vecna’s coming after and I want to see where he’s trying to claw his way through.” She crosses her arms tightly over her chest.
“I, for one, think that’s a really bad idea,” Robin says. She looks to Steve for support.
“Max, it’s exactly because you’re the one that Vecna is after that I don’t think you should be going anywhere close to the land where he has the most power.” Steve reaches out and gently shakes her shoulder. “We don’t want you going all freaky and levitating into the sky again.”
“Yeah, Max,” Lucas says. “I like it when I can see your feet touching the ground.” His reassuring grin glows in the night.
And, Steve really does try to stay out of the kids drama because there is always so much of it going on. But Lucas and Max? Well, Steve’s kind of hoping they work out whatever is going on with them. They were such a stabilizing presence over the summer while Mike and Dustin made Steve want to throw himself in a ditch. Wanting to go to the media about the Russians, about the Hawkins Lab.
But something happened, right before school started for them. Steve doesn’t know if it was the change to high school from middle school. He doesn’t know if it was Lucas being so amped to join the basketball team that he spent the last two weeks of summer having Steve practice with him at the middle school court. He doesn’t know if it was Billy’s death.
Steve thinks it was Billy. Steve thinks the gaping Billy shaped hole in Max’s life has created a gaping Max shaped hole in Lucas and the other kids’ lives. He thinks that when summer ended and school started and Max walked from her trailer to the bus stop it all came slamming home. Billy was never coming back. He was never going to roar his Camaro into the Hawkins High student parking lot. He was never going to slap Max’s hand away from the radio dial. He was never going to ditch her if she was late from her AV club. He was never going to be there again.
And that really fucking sucks. So Steve’s holding out hope that after all of this life or death shit has hopefully passed them by once more, Max can step back into the space her friends have kept open for her.
Max makes a point of digging her shoes into the dirt. “Well, I’m touching the ground right now, so.”
Dustin shakes his head. “Uh-uh. Nope. I think we should regroup. Call Eleven, ask her what she thinks we should do.”
“I’m with Dustin,” Steve says quickly before Max can argue him.
“Me too,” Nancy agrees. “El’s been to the Upside Down before. She knows better than we do what we are up against down there. I mean, in my brief walk through, I was scared to death.” She looks pointedly at Max.
“I’m down for avoiding hell holes,” Eddie says. “But, like, where the hell am I going to stay tonight because getting strung up for homicide would really put a damper on my evening.”
Everyone falls quiet for a moment. Then Steve snaps his fingers. “What about Hopper’s old trailer?”
“Yes!” Dustin shouts.
“Does that thing even have power?” Lucas asks.
“It’s got a generator in the back,” Nancy says. “Jonathan had to help Hopper start it one time. You know, before he and El moved into the cabin.”
“Then let’s go,” Robin says. She grabs the flashlight out of Lucas’s lax grip and immediately points it directly in Steve’s face.
“Robin!” he yells, trying to bat the flashlight out of her hand.
“Oops!” she trills with absolutely no remorse. She spans the light to the left and points it up the trail. “Onward, troops!”
Everyone falls into line behind her. Steve hangs at the back, counting heads as they start up the trail. And he comes up one head short. One redhead, to be specific. “Fuck! Wait! Where’s Max?”
Behind him, water splashes quickly in the shadows. Steve’s stomach plummets.
“Max?” Lucas shouts frantically.
“Shit! She’s going for the boat!” Steve sprints back to the shore but Max has already climbed into the boat and is quickly rowing herself into the lake. “Max, stop!” Steve shouts desperately.
She doesn’t respond, just keeps rowing.
“What’s going on?” Nancy’s panicked voice calls over the trampling of leaves and sticks as Lucas and Dustin try to get back down to Steve.
“Ouch! Fuck!” Lucas shouts before Steve hears him hit the ground and groan.
“Man down!” Dustin declares. Then he trips over Lucas, smashes into a tree, and goes down with a wail.
But Steve doesn’t have time for any of this shit, so he runs a few feet into the lake before diving in and swimming after the boat.
“Steve!” Robin shrieks, her flashlight casting dark shadows over the water in front of him.
“Holy shit!” Eddie shouts. “What the fuck is everyone doing?”
Steve is fairly certain what they are doing is collectively losing their minds. But he doesn’t have time to say that as he freestyles through the freezing lake water. It takes him less than thirty seconds to catch up with the boat and snag a half-numb hand on the side. There’s a reason Steve was the swimming team’s freestyle champion all four years at Hawkins.
“Max!” Steve gasps, rocking against the boat as he hauls himself over the side and lands in a soaking wet heap in the back of the boat. “What the hell are you doing?”
“I’m going to the gate,” she says firmly.
“Max, don’t be crazy. We don’t know anything about this gate. We don’t know where it goes or what will happen to you if you get near it.” Steve reaches out slowly, tries to cover her hands with his to stop her from rowing them further out.
But Max jerks her hands back and keeps tugging the boat through the dark water. “I don’t care. I'm going through.”
Shock silences Steve. From the shore, he can hear the pleas of their friends for Max to turn around and come back. Against the boat, the water splashes with every plunge of the oars. Around them, though, the forest is eerily silent.
“Max,” Steve says carefully, gently. “Why do you need to go through the gate?”
For a moment, Max hesitates and the boat drifts only marginally forward. She squeezes her eyes shut tight and Steve realizes she’s fighting back tears.
“Whatever it is, you can tell me. You know I won’t judge you, Max. You know I’ll hear you out,” Steve promises.
It’s not the first time he’s made that promise. In those last few dying weeks of summer, Steve had begun to seriously worry about Max. So he tried to be there, tried to fill in some of Billy’s shadow. At first it was Max refusing to get ice cream with them at the Dairy Dog on main street. She said she didn’t have the money for it and Steve had offered to pay, he didn’t care. It was a one dollar cone. But Max’s eyes went hard and she’d told Steve she didn’t need charity.
When Dustin begged Steve to drive them to the closest mall, an hour away, so they could get some ‘high school cool’ clothes, whatever the fuck that meant, Steve had agreed because he wanted to get some new sneakers anyway. At the mall, the kids had fanned out, scoping out all the different stores. Except Max. She had hung back, waited until everyone else was disappearing into a brand name store, then detoured to the mall’s only resale shop.
“If you want a shirt or something, I can pick it up, no problem,” Steve had offered when she met back up with him near the mall’s fountain. The three goofballs were still yucking it up, trying on shirts and jeans. Max and Steve were the first two finished.
“I’m fine,” Max had said.
“Cool,” Steve said, nodding. “Can I see what you got then?”
She rolled her eyes and tossed him her paper bag. He sifted through the contents. All of it was oversized. None of it was particularly fashionable. All of it was dark blue, green, or black. None of it looked like the happy, bright Max of the summer.
He’d handed the bag back with an empty smile. “Cool finds.”
She hadn’t answered.
And then there was the end of summer bonfire in Steve’s backyard. He and Robin had thrown it for the kids but also to celebrate Robin’s last year of educational hell in Hawkins. Max had shown up in her new baggy clothes, the dark shades muting all of her coloring, making her skin and even her hair look dull and faded. She’d sat alone, to the side of everyone else, kept her new ever present headphones around her neck, and ignored all of Steve’s attempts to get her to roast a marshmallow.
When he’d driven her home that night, he put the car in park outside of the Mayfield’s new, sad trailer and clicked off the radio. Max had made a grab for the door handle, but Steve didn’t let that deter him.
“I’m sorry,” he said, looking at her profile and the downward turn of her mouth that never seemed to go away now.
Max had frowned deeper. “About what?”
“About Billy.”
Max’s hand fell away from the handle. She breathed in sharply and refused to look at him. “How could that be your fault?”
“No,” Steve said, “I mean, I’m sorry that he’s gone.”
Max’s chin trembled, then she stiffened her shoulders and clenched her jaw. “Well, you’d be the only one. Nobody else seems to care that he’s - that he’s gone.”
“I know you care,” Steve said gently.
Max’s hands tensed into fists against her knees. “He was my brother. Of course I care.”
“I know,” Steve agreed. “And I’m sorry he’s gone. Nobody deserves to be killed, especially not by a monster like the Mind Flayer. And Billy could be a complete asshole, but I would never have wanted him to die.”
Max’s voice quivered on the brink of tears. “Then why does nobody else feel that way?”
Steve wrapped his arm around her small shoulders, pulled her against his side. Max hid her face against his shirt, letting her tears slip down her cheeks and fade into the fabric of Steve’s polo. “They do, Max.”
“No, they don’t,” Max said fiercely, her voice thick. “They think he died a hero. That he finally did something right with his life. Like the only way Billy could ever be a good guy is if he died trying to save us and I - I - “
Her tears choked off her words. She sobbed against Steve’s chest, blunt finger nails digging into his back as she clung to him. Steve pressed his cheek to the top of her head and let her cry, knowing nothing he could say would take her pain away.
“It’s not fair,” Steve said quietly. “It’s not fair that Billy isn’t here. And I’m so sorry about that, Max.” He rubbed her back. “But you're not alone, okay? I’m here, whenever you need me. You need to talk, you need to cry, you need to scream? I’ll listen, okay? Because we are all in this bullshit together.”
When Max had cried herself out, when her eyes were bloodshot and puff, she pulled away from Steve, wiped her nose on her sleeve, and nodded. “Okay, Steve.” Then she had opened the car door and stepped out into the darkness of the night, walking alone up to the unlit front door of her new home. When the door closed behind her, Steve hoped things might change.
Instead, Max just continued to withdraw from the group. Even when Steve hadn’t wanted Max to take the bus to school, at least not on her first day of high school, she’d said no. He’d called her up the night before, offered to give her a ride the same way he was giving one to Robin. But Max had refused. Said that she was too far out of Steve’s way and there was no reason to waste the gas. The bus would get her there just as easily.
Steve didn’t give up. He still offered her rides, gave her free movie rentals at Family Video, always let her check-out the R rated horror movies she got all starry-eyed over. She’d never asked him to listen though.
But right now, he needs Max to talk to him. He needs her to let him listen to the reasons she’s ignoring every single screaming warning sign they have. He needs her to tell him why she’s putting herself directly within Vecna’s reach.
“Max?” Steve asks again, ignoring the frantic voices of their friends at the water’s edge.
“You’re going to think I’m crazy,” Max finally says.
“I won’t, Steve promises. “With everything we’ve been through, you could tell me the Care Bears were real and I’d believe it.”
She glances up at him. “I saw Billy.”
Steve frowns. “What?”
“When Vecna took me at the graveyard I saw Billy.”
“Okay,” Steve says uncertainly.
“Billy talked to me. As Vecna, but it was Billy, I know it.” Max’s eyes lock onto Steve’s, daring him to disagree.
“Max, we don’t know what Vecna is capable of,” Steve says, still not sure where Max is going with this.
“I don’t care,” Max says. “I only care about Billy. And he’s down there,” she jabs her oars back into the water, “and I’m going to get him back.”
“Max,” Steve shakes his head, “Max, we don’t know what’s down there. And even if it is Billy, we don’t know that it’s our Billy. The one before the Mind Flayer took him.”
“I don’t care,” Max says again. “I don’t care what Billy it is. As long as it’s Billy, I’m getting him back.”
“Max, I’m serious,” Steve says, reaching out and wrapping his hands around hers to stop her from bringing them closer to the dully throbbing red glow in the distance. “Whatever Billy you saw could be one that wants to kill us. It could be a Billy who is not your brother.”
“You promised,” Max cuts him off. “You promised you would be there for me when I needed you. So be there for me now. Help me get Billy back.”
Steve feels nauseous and desperate. They’re so far from the shore now that Nancy, Robin, Eddie, Dustin, and Lucas are barely silhouettes against the trees. Their voices are nothing more than whispers on the wind of the lake.
And the stupid fucking boat keeps moving, like it’s being dragged toward the gate, like the magentic force it pumps out is conveying them closer. A few more feet and they’ll be right above it.
“I’m going,” Max tells him, “with or without you, I’m going to get Billy back.”
“Fuck,” Steve whispers, teeth biting into his bottom lip. His mind scrambles to come up with a solution, one that will keep Max safe. The only one he’s got sucks. “I'll do it,” he says. “I’ll go in and try to find Billy, but only if you stay here.”
Max’s mouth lifts in a half smile, something so rare it blinds Steve just as successfully as Robin’s flashlight had. “I’m sorry, Steve,” Max says. Then she launches herself into the lake.
Steve barely has a chance to scream Max’s name before she’s plunging beneath the surface and into the fiery glow of the gate. Steve doesn’t hesitate before he jumps in after her.
~*~*~
Steve’s expecting the icy chill of the spring lake, the same one that had his teeth chattering when he slogged after Max in the first place. Instead, a gust of desert dry heat engulfs him and sucks him rapidly downward. The air burns in his throat, makes his eyes snap shut to keep the insufferable heat at bay. And then just as suddenly, it’s gone.
Steve hits hard packed earth on his hands on knees, coughing up dry lungfuls of baked air. He squints his eyes open, vision blurring as tears stream down his cheeks. Above him, thunder rolls and red lightning splits the sky.
“Steve!” A small body throws itself on top of him and crushes Steve to the hard, cold earth beneath him.
He reaches behind him and anchors Max against him. “Jesus, Max! Are you okay?”
“We’re really here,” she says with surprised awe, like she didn’t think her plan would really work.
Max pulls away from him and Steve pushes up to his feet. His clothes that had been soaking wet moments before are now dry to the touch. His hair that had been dripping down his neck is stiff and hot.
“I fucking knew it was a hell hole,” Steve says, raking his fingers through his hair to get it to lay flatter. He looks around them and stares. Parts of broken boats, forgotten anchors, lost fishing poles litter the cracked dirt around them. “This is Lover’s Lake?”
“I think the gate evaporates the water?” Max says.
“Something did,” Steve agrees. He closes his eyes and blinks them open. “Fuck. We’re really in the Upside Down.”
“This isn’t a mistake,” Max promises. “We’re going to find Billy. I”m going to make things right.”
As if in answer to her declaration, a piercing shriek slices through the rainless thunder. It reverberates in Steve’s eardrums and sets his every sense on high alert. “We need to get out of here, that’s a Demogorgan.”
“The cemetery,” Max says, turning to run back toward the shore. “That’s where I saw Billy.”
“Max,” Steve says, running after her, “we need to get weapons. We need to find something to protect ourselves with first!”
He knows Max isn’t listening to him. She’s sprinting as fast as she can for the shore where there are barren rocks and skeleton trees that are all dankly illuminated in the permanent twilight that shrouds the Upside Down. The endless floating ash swirls after her as she runs.
Steve chases her, listening as another distorted howl shatters the gaping silence. “Max! We will find Billy, I promise! But first we need to find a way to protect ourselves!”
“My house!” Max throws out her right arm, pointing in the general direction of the trailer park. “Neil was a total freak about Vietnam memorabilia. He’s got a plethora of super dangerous stuff that my mom made him lock up in a trunk in their bedroom closet. He hasn’t come back yet to pick it up.”
“Okay,” Steve agrees, catching up to Max and running alongside her. “Not that that’s concerning or anything.” He gives her a sidelong look.
Max rolls her eyes. “Neil’s a total whackjob. We’re in the trailer because he wouldn’t accept the government hush money after Billy - after the mall. He’s in D.C. or some bullshit trying to argue that he is entitled to a lifelong money train since his only son was killed by sketchy quasi-government operations.”
“He’s an asshole for running out on you guys like that,” Steve says, knowing that now is a shitty time to be offering support but since they could get eaten by a Demogorgan at any moment he figures it’s better to lay it all out on the line.
“He’s a piece of shit,” Max scowls. She bites her lips together, looks over her shoulder to the mess of bare trees now obscuring their view of the empty Lover’s Lake. “I think he used to - “ she breaks off.
Steve’s stomach yo-yos. “Used to what, Max?”
She squares her shoulders, runs just a little faster. “I think he used to hit Billy.”
“What?” Steve stumbles, his right foot hitting the ground a stride too soon. “Max, why do you think that?”
She shrugs. “Stuff he said, after Billy died. And those bruises Billy had sometimes. You know on his ribs and stuff? He said it was from basketball but -” She glances at Steve. “You remember Billy’s funeral?”
Steve nods. It had been a bleak affair. Each of the different churches in Hawkins, all four denominations of them, had held a memorial mass the week after the mall collapse. All of the dead were commemorated together before families dispersed to Hawkins cemetery. With the explosion, there were no bodies to bury, at least as far as the residents of Hawkins knew.
Of course, Steve and the others knew worse. There were no bodies to bury because the people who died hadn’t died that day in the mall, they had died in the days prior when the Mind Flayer had taken them and transformed them. The mall was just their sacrificial pyre, all their bodies laid to sludge waste at the feet of the Mind Flayer.
But for the peace of mind of the families, little urns were given out to each family, filled with ash from the mall. The majority of families chose to bury those urns in the cemetery, including Billy’s dad.
Steve had stood shoulder to shoulder with Dustin and Lucas, and the rest of their friends when Billy’s black urn was lowered into its little plot of land. The headstone glaring out at them with a name Billy would have punched anyone in the face for using.
“You remember Neil at the funeral?” Max asks. “Do you remember how he stood next to my mom while she cried through an entire box of tissues? And I cried into El’s shoulder while she held me? But Neil? He didn’t even blink. He didn’t shut his eyes and fight back tears. He just stood there, cold as stone, and threw a handful of dirt on Billy’s grave. He didn’t care.”
“Max,” Steve hushes, terrified of believing her. Because it would be so much worse if she’s right. Steve can’t imagine the kind of monster someone would have to be to hit their kid. He can’t imagine the kind of monster someone would have to be to not care when their child died.
Like, Steve knows his own family dynamics are pretty out of whack, but when his parents heard about Steve’s place of employment imploding, they were on the next plane home. Steve’s mom had suffocated him in attention for the month until Steve got the job at Family Video. She made every homemade dinner Steve had loved from his childhood. Watched late night talk shows with him in the living room. Pressed a kiss to his forehead when he went up to bed.
His dad kept coming into his room in the evening to talk about the ‘future’ and how the Harrington name didn’t mean a thing without a son to pass it onto. His dad wanted him to join his company, to learn about stocks and trades and bulls and bears. Steve had managed to talk his dad into giving him a year to ‘make it on his own.’ Anything to escape a tie and the nine-to-five for one more year. But all the same, he knew it was his dad’s way of saying he cared about Steve.
“Maybe - I mean, people grieve in different ways,” Steve says. The words sound hollow to his own ears.
Max scoffs darkly. “When we got home, after we changed and were all just sitting at the kitchen table, trying not to stare at Billy’s empty chair - “ Max inhales sharply. Steve knows she’s keeping herself from crying and just barely succeeding. “Neil said he always knew Billy was going to amount to nothing. He said he knew Billy was headed to an early grave as soon as Billy turned sixteen and started driving like a bat out of hell. He made it sound like it was Billy’s fault. That Billy had it coming to him for being at the mall on the wrong night.”
“I’m sorry, Max. That’s messed up.” Steve reaches out, squeezes her hand in his and tugs her after him. They’re still winding their way through the desolate forest, getting closer to Max’s trailer, but in the distance, Steve hears more than one howl streak through the air.
“I tried to tell him that Billy had saved me. I just - I made up some story about him throwing me out of the way of the explosion. Neil didn’t care. He told me that Billy was trying to get me out of his way so he could make a run for it first.” Max loses her fight and bitter tears cut jagged lines down the grime on her cheeks.
Steve doesn’t know what to say. Telling Max that he hopes Neil fucks off and dies is probably not all that helpful right now. So he settles for something close enough. “Then I guess we better find Billy so he can tell his dad to go to hell.”
Caught off guard, Max chokes out a laugh. She flashes a grateful smile at him. She nods and releases Steve’s hand. “Last one to my house is a Demogoran!” She puts on a burst of speed and breaks the treeline onto the road beyond.
Steve laughs unexpectedly. It might be the end of the world for the fourth time in three years, but the fourth time’s a charm right? If they beat it this time, maybe the Upside Down will leave them alone long enough for Robin to graduate and Steve to follow her off to college.
Steve amps up from a jog to a run, not wanting Max to get out of sight. He prays to whatever deity illuminated this spark of hope in Max. He prays that Billy is alive.
~*~*~
The trailer is covered in vines. Thick undulating vines with dripping yellow ooze. It’s fucking gross. Max pauses at the door, one hand outstretched but not touching the handle. “Do you think it’s okay to - ?” She looks to Steve for guidance.
He shrugs. “Your guess is as good as mine.”
Max furrows her brow in determination and pulls her sleeve over her hand before she grabs the door handle. She gives the door a shove and it creaks open. Steve holds his hand out, silently telling Max to let him go first. He steps into the dark trailer and tries to see through the gloom.
There’s ash swirling even in here. Steve dreads to even guess what the ash is or what it’s doing to their lungs as they breathe it in. He turns over his shoulder and asks, “Do you guys have flashlights?”
Fifteen minutes later, he and Max are armed with a pair of heavy duty flashlights, a fucking grenade, four different kinds of guns that Steve doesn’t know the names of, and every can of hairspray Susan kept under the bathroom sink. They’ve also raided the house for lighters and thicker clothes. Steve’s going on the concept that with enough sweatshirts, even a Demogorgan or Demodog will have trouble biting them.
Sitting next to Max on the couch, Steve finishes shoving the last of their weaponry into a backpack. “Okay, Max, what’s the plan? We can’t stay down here for too long. We need to find a way to get back through. At worst, we’ll have to just throw ourselves through the gate in Lover’s Lake and hope we can swim to the top.”
Max nods seriously. “I’ve been thinking about it and it’s not like Billy is really a ghost. So he won’t be haunting his grave.”
Steve keeps his thoughts to himself. This is still mostly a suicide mission in his opinion. They have no reason to think that Billy is alive. Especially not when some fucked up demon corpse is passing out halluciantions like Halloween candy. But he doesn’t say that, it’s not what Max needs to hear.
“And Billy wouldn’t know that we’ve moved to the trailer. So - so I think we should try my old house first. He’s probably there, you know, scared. Alone and confused.” She wraps her arms around herself. Well, as best she can wearing two long sleeve shirts, one sweatshirt, and an old hoodie of Billy’s.
Steve’s chest had ached seeing the cardboard box hiding on the top shelf of Max’s closet. She carefully pulled open the top and sifted through the contents. All the pieces of Billy that had been left behind when he died were shoved carefully inside. An old lighter, a bunch of his tapes, the license plate from his car - blackened and twisted, his brown leather jacket, a couple of his t-shirts, a hoodie with the name of some surf shop on it.
At the bottom of the box was a small plastic photo album. Written in sharp on the front cover were the words “Billy and Mom.” Sadness twisted through Steve as he watched Max carefully pile Billy’s things back in, like she was packing them protectively on top of the photo album. She’d left out the sweatshirt, which she had pulled on.
Then she held out the leather jacket to Steve. “We don’t have anything else that will fit you.”
Steve was already wearing Susan’s only corduroy button down over his own yellow sweatshirt. He’d accepted the jacket with a nod of thanks. Slipping it up his arms, unease chased down Steve’s spine. It felt far too much like walking over Billy’s grave.
Now, Steve fiddles with the worn cuffs of the jacket. “Okay, we’ll check your house. But if he’s not there?”
Max juts out her chin. “He will be.” She clicks on the tape deck connected to her jeans.
Her real headphones and player had been left on the shore back in Hawkins. Steve had freaked out watching her pull out the Upside Down player from her nightstand and shouted at her. Did she even know if the player would work in the Upside Down? Max had defiantly clicked on Kate Bush and smashed the headphones over Steve’s ears.
Every second of their time spent in the Upside Down is eating away an ulcer in Steve’s stomach that he knows he is much too young to have. And Max’s unwavering belief that Billy is somehow trapped in this hell hole is probably going to give him arthritis or some other Dad type illness.
“Okay, but if he’s not?” Steve presses. “We need to agree that if Billy isn’t at your old house, we are finding a way back to Hawkins.”
Max presses her lips into a thin line. “If he’s not at the house, then we need to check - “
“Max,” Steve cuts in gently. “I have to keep you safe. That means finding a way back, with or without Billy. So if he’s not at the house -”
“Billy’s here,” Max repeats, voice hard.
Steve sighs and runs an anxious hand through his hair. Maybe Max needs to see that Billy isn’t here. Maybe seeing the empty house will be enough to convince Max that Billy is dead and that the only thing they can do is go home.
Steve stands up and shoulders the backpack filled with their supplies. He tosses a can of hairspray and a lighter to Max. “Remember, we come up against something, you light it up as fast as you can and then we run like hell to the first building we see.”
Max tucks her chin in a nod. Her clear blue eyes skirt away from him and then back. She squares her shoulders. “Thank you, Steve.”
He lifts his brows. “Don’t thank me yet, Maximum Overdrive. We’ve still got to survive walking out that door and biking to your house. And that’s only half of the journey.”
Max makes a show of rolling her eyes. “God, who knew you were such a Debbie Downer.”
Steve’s mouth quirks in a wry grin. He grabs the hood of Billy’s old hoodie and tows Max with him to the front door. “You ready to face the evils of this world?”
“There’s two bikes at the side of the house. Mine and - “ she darts a glance at the leather jacket Steve’s wearing.
“Got it,” Steve says. “Right then. Let’s get this shitshow on the road.” He flashes a cocky grin at Max that drops as soon as she looks away.
Steve reaches out, opens the trailer door, and prays to the sun, the moon, and the stars that he and Max make it to her old house in one piece.
~*~*~
“Get in! Get inside!” Steve screams. He pulls out the gun wedged against his hip. He drops to one knee, shooting desperately at the Demodog charging through the swirling ash on Cherry Street.
It’s shrieking and dodging left and right. The left side of its flower head is charred meat from a good blast of hairspray fire. Max emptied the canister on it when it came lunging out at them from behind one of the cars parked in the driveway of the empty houses lining Max’s street.
Max slams into her front door, jiggling the handle and gasping for breath. “Steve! Steve, another one is coming!”
“Open the door!” Steve pops off three shots.
The Demodog falls back, cocks its head to the side, then yips for the other Demodog to join it. Steve uses the brief respite to sprint up the steps to Max’s old house. Max kicks the bottom of the door, wedging it open. Steve shoves her through, passes her the backpack, then whirls around.
The two Demodogs chirp to one another, their heads facing Steve. He backs up, covers the six inch gap in the door with his body. Steve holds out the gun, shifts it between the two Demodogs. Behind him, Max is screaming for him, her small hands scrabbling against the smooth leather of Billy’s jacket. She’s trying to pull him into the house, but they don’t have enough time.
If Steve goes in, so will the Dogs. Max won’t be able to get the door shut in time. Steve snaps off a shot at the Dog on the right. It takes the hit and shrieks. The Dog on the left leaps forward, mouth open wide, hundreds of vicious teeth on full display.
“Fuck,” Steve hisses. He takes a shot at the Dog on the left. It bounds forward, mouth snapping shut and flaring back open with an ear piercing howl.
Steve doesn’t want to die. He really, really doesn’t. But it's looking like the end right now and, well, at least Max is safe. And she’s smart. She’ll find a way out of here. He knows she will.
He also knows that if she doesn’t stop jabbing him in the back, he’s going to end up fucking up a shot and missing the Dogs entirely. “Max! Quit it!” he snaps.
The next jab is harder, right to his spine. “Then hold out your hand, dickhead!”
Steve takes two quick shots, one at each Dog, then thrusts his left hand backwards. “This better be good, Max.”
She closes his fingers around a metal canister. Steve pulls his hand back and looks down at what he’s holding. Then he grins. Turns out the grenade wasn’t what he thought.
Tucking the gun back in his waistband, Steve yanks on the metal top of the canister. An ominous hissing fills the air. The Dogs stop moving forward, they call gratingly to each other. Steve hefts the tear gas canister and tosses it at them. As it hits the grass, it begins to spin wildly, grey smoke pouring forth. The Dogs snap at it and back up.
Max’s fingers finally clench in the back of Steve’s borrowed jacket and she yanks him into the house. Steve shoves the door closed and locks it. Panting, he turns around and scans the house.
It’s vein covered and oozing yellow goo just like the trailer. And just like the trailer, Billy’s not here. No one’s here. “Max?” Steve looks anxiously around for her.
“Billy!” Her voice seems to echo through the empty house.
The sad beach theme that Steve had noticed when Max lived here has been replaced by floral patterns on everything. The couch, the wallpaper, the curtains. Steve can’t even begin to imagine Billy setting foot in a place like this.
“Max, I don’t think -”
“Billy!” Max darts through the short hallway.
Steve doesn’t chase after her. She can’t go far and the most pertinent danger is outside the front door. Steve moves around to the living room and pulls away one of the floral curtains.
The street is obscured by thick grey smoke. Through it, he can still hear the Dogs, but they sound further away now. Not that far, maybe only a house or two away. But that’s lightyears ahead of them being ten feet outside the front door.
~*~*~
It takes Max less than five minutes to search every corner of the house. When she’s done, she stands in the middle of the living room blinking. Steve takes a last look out the front window, making sure the Dogs aren’t creeping up on them. Then he steps towards Max.
“Max, I -”
Max’s chin wobbles, her red rimmed eyes lock onto Steve, and she sobs. Her knees bend and she hits the floor hard, hands covering her face. She gasps for breath between heaving sobs.
Steve drops down in front of her, wraps his arms around her, and just pulls her into his chest. “I know, Max. Fuck, I know. I’m so sorry. So fucking sorry.”
“I - I really thought -” She buries her face against his neck, clings to Steve like he’s the only thing keeping her tethered.
“I know you did,” Steve says. He presses his cheek to the top of her head. “I would give anything to fix this for you. God, Max. I’m just so sorry.”
She hitches in a breath, fingers digging into Steve’s back even through the leather jacket and extra layers. “I used to - used to pray. Used to pray he’d just go away.” She breaks down again.
“That’s okay, Max,” Steve soothes, heart aching. “I used to wish every birthday that my Uncle Mark would turn out to be my real dad. I used to blow out those candles and wish that this birthday, Uncle Mark would pull me aside and let me know, ‘Hey, kid, it’s me. I’m your dad and I love you and I’m proud of you.’”
“I - I hated him,” Max confesses, words rough and uneven as she cries. “He was so awful. So fucking awful to me and - and to my friends. And, god, the year we moved here. I just - I just wanted him to run away, back to California, disappear, leave me alone.”
“We don’t choose who we love,” Steve tells her. “I hate my dad most of the time, but fuck, what I wouldn’t give for him to care about me. To take me by the shoulders and tell me that I’m everything he could have asked for in a son. It’s okay, Max. Everything you’re feeling, it’s okay.” He squeezes her tighter, tries to shield her with his body from everything that’s ever hurt her.
“I want him back,” Max sobs. “Steve, I want him back! Please, please, bring him back. Please, Steve. He’s my brother. I want him back. I want him back, please!”
There’s nothing Steve can do. He picks Max up, cradles her carefully in his arms, and carries her into the basement. His first job is to keep her safe.
Steve sets Max on a hideous plaid couch tucked into the corner and mostly clear of vines. She holds onto his hand, not letting him go.
“I’ve got to get the backpack, Max. I’ll be back. I won’t leave you.” He bends and presses a hard kiss to her forehead. “I’m right here, Max, with you.”
She curls into the couch, burying her face in the cushions. They muffle her crying, but every sound still shatters Steve’s heart. He gives the basement a brief once over. There aren’t any windows and there’s only the one door to the first floor. It’ll be safe enough, he hopes, for a few hours. Long enough to let Max recharge.
In a few hours, he’ll make a plan. In a few hours he’ll get them out of here.
~*~*~
There’s no sense of time in the Upside Down. Steve’s watch said it was midnight when he laid down on a blanket over the vined carpet next to the couch Max is sleeping. His watch says it’s now five in the morning. In Hawkins, the sun would be pushing pink rays against the skyline. In the Upside Down, the endless blue glow hangs heavy over them and the swirling ash continues to fall like snow.
Steve leaves Max in the basement while he goes upstairs and carefully peers out the front window. The Demodogs aren’t in sight. He opens the front door next, whistles into the eerie stillness of this other world. No shrieks answer his call.
When he gets back downstairs, Max is sitting up and blinking tiredly at her lap. “We’re going home, aren’t we?”
Steve bites his lip as he nods. “I’m sorry, Max. We just - we can’t stay here.”
She glances at him. “You don’t think Billy is here, in the Upside Down, do you?”
Steve crosses to the couch and sits down beside her. “I don’t think anyone could survive what happened to Billy,” he says.
Max shifts. She rests her head against Steve’s shoulder. “I just - I wanted my brother back, you know? Even if he was awful and a piece of shit most of the time, he was still my brother. And I - “
Steve wraps an arm around her shoulders. “I know, Max.”
“I love him,” she whispers. “And I don’t think he ever knew that. And I just - I hate myself for never telling him. Never telling him before it was too late.”
Unlike last night, Max doesn’t break down crying. She breathes shakily, but Steve can tell she’s moving toward acceptance. That whatever Vecna showed her, it was never really real.
Steve gives her a few minutes, then pats her shoulder. “Okay, Maximum Overdrive, you ready to escape this hellscape?”
She tilts a look at him. “Are we going to go back through Lover’s Lake?”
Steve runs a hand through his hair. “Actually, I was thinking we go to my house. I’ve got the walkie-talkie Dustin gave me there. I have this, probably crazy, idea that we can reach them through it. And like, I’d rather Dustin genius our way out of here than rely on my sketchy understanding of the Upside Down.”
Max grins at him. “Don’t ever let Dustin hear you say that. Or we’re never going to hear the end of it.”
Steve grins back. “Yeah, well, it’ll be our secret?”
Max nods. Then she throws her arms around Steve and gives him a split-second, but asphyxiating hug. “Thank you for believing me, Steve. Even if I was wrong. And stupid. And could have gotten us killed.”
Steve grabs her back and pulls her in for a proper hug. “Of course, Max. What else are pseudo-babysitters for?”
Max giggles and it’s the best sound Steve has heard in the last twenty-four hours.
~*~*~
Steve’s learning a lot about the Upside Down. Things like, if it doesn’t run on batteries, it doesn’t run at all. Things like, running water is an illusion of pipes and handles. Things like cars are nonfunctional hulking masses of steel. Things like, the Demodogs and the Demogorgans don’t roam the streets. They seem to stick to the woods and the nature beyond Hawkins proper.
Max and Steve bike down silent, still streets. Nothing moves. There’s no wind in the Upside Down. The closer they get to Steve’s house, the more worried he is. Because his house is bordered by woods. His house is where a Demogogran got Barb. His house is probably the last place they should be going.
“Maybe we should go to Dustin’s house instead,” Steve says, keeping his voice quiet since anything louder than a whisper sounds like a shout in the silence surrounding them.
They’re biking down Nancy’s street and Steve can’t help but stare at the darkened windows of her house. Where is she now? What do Nancy and Robin and the others think happened to them? He fucking hopes they don’t try to come in after him and Max.
“No,” Max whispers back. “I think your idea is solid. I’ve been thinking about, like, the duality of this place? Like, I think if we use Dustin’s walkie, it wouldn’t work. Because it’s the echo of his, right? But if we use yours, then some kind of mirror of your voice should come through?”
Steve squints at her. “Uhm, hopefully?”
She sighs. “Let’s try it first, at least. And then if it doesn’t work, we can think of something new.”
Steve leans to his left and guides his bike from Nancy’s street to the main road that will lead them to Steve’s neighborhood. He shifts his shoulder, readjusting the weight of the backpack. Last night he had tossed out the gun he used against the Demodogs, it was out of bullets and they didn’t have any extras to reload it with.
They’ve each got their mega-watt flashlights strapped sideways across their chests using spare belts from the closest of whoever is currently living in Max’s old house. It was the best solution Steve could come up with for keeping the flashlights with them at all times. Last night they’d nearly lost them when they had to swing off their bikes and make a run for Max’s old house.
A few minutes later, they turn onto Steve’s street. Steve looks at Max and presses a finger against his lips then tilts his head toward the trees behind the houses. The forest is a dense, stretching blue darkness. Steve knows that somewhere in that darkness there are Demogorgans hunting for living creatures to eat. Steve can’t even begin to imagine what lives in the Upside Down that Demogorgans eat, but he assumes that whatever it is, it has a shit ton of teeth.
Max slows in front of Steve’s house and waits for him to decide their next move. Steve hops off the bike and wheels it quietly up to the house. He leans it up against his porch, in case they need to make a break for it. Max follows suit.
Steve holds his hand out, silently telling Max to wait until he checks the house first. Steve walks carefully back down his driveway, trying to make as little noise as possible. He peers up at his house.
It’s wrapped in vines the same way that Max’s trailer and house had been. But unlike either of those places, all of Steve’s windows have been boarded shut on the inside. He frowns. Why would this house be different from the others in Hawkins?
He motions for Max to come to him. She darts over on silent tiptoes. Steve points up at the house. Max leans her head back and stares. She shoots a confused look at Steve. Then she grabs the sleeve of Billy’s leather jacket and yanks Steve down to her height.
“Do you think - could someone be living here?” she whispers frantically.
“Like who?” Steve whispers back.
“Will lived in the Upside Down, didn’t he? When he got taken?”
Steve shakes his head. “That was different. He was chased into the Upside Down by a Demogorgan. I don’t know anybody else who got trapped here. Do you?”
Max purses her lips. “What if it’s Chrissy?”
“Max,” Steve cautions, “her body got pretzeled. I don’t think -”
“But you don’t know,” Max counters. “So let’s go find out.”
And, well, at the very least, Steve highly doubts Demogorgans are out here boarding up windows. So, probably, they won’t die.
Steve leads the way back up to his front door. He wraps his hand around the handle and pulls.
Nothing happens. Because the door is locked. Steve slides a sideways glance at Max. She looks pointedly at the door and then back at Steve. He rolls his eyes and motions for her to hang on.
Climbing off the porch, Steve rounds the side of his Upside Down home and picks up the potted plant next to the hose. Underneath is a spare key, just like in Hawkins. Except this key is covered in disgusting yellow goo that Steve hastily wipes off on his pant leg.
He returns to the front door with the key held up for Max to see. She grins sarcastically at him and flashes a thumbs up. The kid is such a little shit. Steve just wants to suffocate her with, like, noogies.
“Ready?” he asks, voice hushed.
Max squares her shoulders and nods. “You have a gun?”
Steve shakes his head and pulls the backpack around to his chest to take one out. He checks that it’s loaded and takes off the safety. Max gives Steve another quick nod.
Slotting the key into the lock, Steve turns it to the left. In the silence pressing down on them, they hear the tumblers turn over. Steve leans some of his weight against the door. It readily eases open, like the door is frequently used.
Nerves jangle along Steve’s shoulder blades. Someone is here. Or something.
Not having a better idea, Steve takes a step inside and calls out, “Hello?”
Seeing his house strangled by the thick black vines of the Upside Down is surreal. All of the familiar furniture and pictures on the wall are corrupted by the writhing black shapes that snake and twist across every surface. But no one answers Steve’s call. It only makes him more uneasy.
“Is anyone here?” Steve asks, raising his voice louder than before.
Max presses up close behind him, pulling the door closed behind her, and clicks on her flashlight. She plays the beam of light over the dark house. Steve squints, reaching out and holding her flashlight in place. Together, they stare at the pile of large planks of wood stored next to the foyer window.
Max shakes off Steve’s grip and walks towards the kitchen. Steve sticks close to her side, gun held steady in his left hand. As they pass through the living room, Steve lifts his own flashlight to shine at the fireplace. Logs are piled inside on top of the ashes of previous fires. Next to the fireplace is a neat stack of freshly chopped logs.
“What the fuck?” Steve hisses quietly.
Max gives him a bewildered shrug.
In the kitchen they find every cupboard jammed with canned food. It’s like someone went out to the store and brought back every single canned item they had. Steve uses his flashlight to illuminate the cans and finds that they aren’t just haphazardly shoved in. No, the cans are arranged by what type of food they are. On a whim, Steve pulls open one of the cabinet drawers not locked shut by vines. Inside, a seemingly endless supply of plastic silverware is organized by utensil.
“Okay,” Steve decides, “this is really fucking weird and someone is very obviously living here, so let’s get the walkie-talkie and then get the fuck out of here.”
Max pans her flashlight around the rest of the room. “Where do you keep it?”
“In my room.”
They both look up at the ceiling.
“I’ll go up,” Steve says, “you stay down here. If anything goes wrong up there, just get the hell out of here, okay?”
Max holds out her empty hand. “Give me a gun.”
“I’m not giving you a gun,” Steve says aghast. “You’re a baby child!”
Max gives him a flat look. “I’ll be a dead baby child if the owner of this place comes home and I don’t have a gun to defend myself with.”
Steve hates her logic. Still, he hands over the gun he’s holding and slips a different one from the backpack, repeating the ritual of checking the ammunition and clicking off the safety. “Don’t shoot unless you absolutely have to,” Steve tells her firmly.
Max rolls her eyes. “I’m not a moron, Steve. It’s not like I want to shoot anyone. But I really don’t want to die here either, so.”
Steve edges toward the staircase with Max following behind him. “Stick close to the door,” he says, “in case you need to run.”
Max mock salutes him.
“Right,” Steve says to himself.
He takes the stairs two at a time, reaches the landing and whirls on his heel to speed walk down the hallway to his bedroom. He kicks his door open, gun held at the ready, flashlight spinning across the open space. But there’s no one inside.
Quickly, Steve drops to his knees and reaches over the thick vines beneath his bed and grabs for the old shoe box he keeps Dustin’s walkie-talkie. He pulls it out and flips open the box. “Yes!” Steve exhales.
The walkie-talkie is covered in a layer of dust that Steve attributes to the Upside Down’s ash, but otherwise, it looks as good as new. Wiping the walkie off on his sheets, Steve checks the back for batteries.
“Here goes nothing,” he mutters. Then he clicks the walkie on and twists the channel knob to get to Dustin’s channel. A hiss of static crackles from the speaker. Steve holds down on the talk button and squeezes his eyes shut. “Dustin? Are you there? It’s Steve!”
He releases the talk button and waits. Seconds tick by. First five then ten then thirty. His heartbeat kicks into overdrive. If this doesn’t work - if Dustin can’t hear them - if -
“Steve!”
Max’s terrified scream rips through Steve like a bullet. He drops the walkie-talkie and sprints out of the room, down the stairs, and into the living room. “Max! Where are you?” He wildly aims the gun, ready to shoot at anything without red hair that moves.
He sees a streak of light down the hallway near his dad’s office. “I’m coming! Max!” Steve runs, palms sweating, heart trying to lodge itself in his throat.
He skids to a stop at Max’s dropped flashlight. It spins idly on its side, splashing light across the dark hallway and the doorway of the office. From the depths of the office, Steve hears the choked off sound of Max crying.
Steve aims his own flashlight inside. “I’ll fucking kill you if you hurt her!” Steve shouts as his eyes scan the room.
And then he freezes, bright beam of light laser sharp on Max in the back corner, on her knees, with her arms wrapped tightly around - around Billy. Steve takes a faltering step into the room. Has to brace himself on the door frame when his knees decide to lock up.
“Max?” Steve asks, sounding as shocked and winded as he feels.
The person, who can’t be Billy because Steve saw him die, turns and glares at Steve. Ocean blue eyes spark sharply above a full, but well trimmed beard. Hair that is wildly curly, no longer a mullet, is twisted into a mess of a bun at the nape of his neck. Bangs still brush against his forehead and the scar in his right eyebrow matches the white scars slashed over the back of his hands.
Hands that are holding Max tight.
Billy, who can’t be Billy, darts an angry look from Steve to Max. “You’re not real,” he growls. His voice is deeper. There’s a gravelly rumble to his words too, like this Billy isn’t used to talking all that often.
“Billy?” Steve asks, his question hanging heavier than the ash in the air.
“Billy, Billy it’s me. It’s Max.” Max peels herself marginally away from this Billy’s chest, tries to angle her face so he’ll look at her.
This Billy shakes his head, only looking at Max for quick seconds at time, then shifting his gaze to Steve, like he thinks Steve is going to attack him the moment he’s distracted. “You’re not Max,” Billy says, glancing at her. “You’re not anything. You’re just my mind finally fucking imploding on itself.”
“Billy, no,” Max pleads, one hand trying to reach up and touch her maybe brother’s face.
Billy ignores her, centers his untamed gaze on Steve. “And you. I don’t know what the fuck you are.”
Which, like, whoa. Because Steve very vividly remembers Billy taking every chance he could to be up in Steve’s space to annoy the shit out of him during Steve’s senior year. And he remembers Billy showing up at Scoops every Friday near closing, not to get anything, just to sit at a booth and heckle Steve while he cleaned up all the spilled ice cream and sticky tables.
“Holy shit, nice to see you too, Hargrove,” Steve chokes out, feeling like he’s probably losing his own mind right now, because there is no way this is Billy. It can’t be. Steve saw him die. “I saw you die!” Steve repeats aloud. “So, like, fuck you. If anyone’s not real here, it’s you.” Steve kind of shakes his gun at Billy since he has no free fingers to point accusingly with.
And, okay, probably not the best idea because Billy promptly flips the fuck out. He throws Max to the ground, shields her with his body and then whips a fucking knife at Steve that Steve barely dodges.
Or doesn’t really dodge because the blade slices through the shoulder of the leather jacket. Steve thanks all his fucking lucky stars that he’s got so many layers on because the knife doesn’t make contact with his skin.
“Billy, no!” Max screams, pouncing on her brother and dragging him down to the ground with her. “Steve, put down the gun, you moron!”
“Shut up!” Billy shouts, and it’s unclear who he’s trying to reprimand.
“Oh my god, I’m sorry! This is all a bit much, holy fucking shit!” Steve snaps the safety back on and tosses the gun to the floor.
It pinwheels across the hardwood before coming to a stop near the combat boots Billy is wearing. Billy wrestles himself out of Max’s reach and grabs for the gun. He clicks the safety off and aims directly at Steve’s forehead. “Who the fuck are you?” Billy demands. “What the fuck is going on? I’m in fucking hell! So what are you doing here, Harrington?”
Max makes a noise like Billy’s stabbed her, which distracts him long enough that Steve is able to snatch a new gun from his backpack. There’s only one more left and Steve really hopes they can all lay their weapons down instead of trying to re-enact a Wild West stand-off.
“You’re not in Hell, Billy. This isn’t Hell this is -” Max tries to explain, hands latched onto the sides of her brother’s face, keeping his eyes on her.
“Then what the hell else could it be?” Billy shouts at her. “I killed people. I did horrible things. I woke up here. There’s no one else here. I’m alone. There are monsters here. Everywhere. Waiting to eat me. I’m in hell.” Billy’s voice breaks.
Steve nervously edges closer. “To be fair, it’s kind of offensive that you think Hell is Hawkins.”
Billy’s wide blue eyes blink once, then twice. And then he drops the gun and crushes Max back against him in what Steve assumes is supposed to be a hug. Steve drops to his knees and quickly scoops up the discarded gun, locking the safety into place once more. Then he shoves both his gun and the one Billy stole into his backpack.
“Oh my god, Billy,” Max gasps, hugging him back just as fiercely as Billy is hugging her. “I thought you were dead. We had a fucking funeral. You fucking asshole.” She chokes on her tears, trying to laugh but mostly still crying.
“What kind of bullshit did they write on my headstone?” Billy asks, voice gruff and suffused with desperation.
“I made them put in all caps, World’s Worst Brother,” Max says. Then she breaks down crying, arms clinging around Billy’s neck.
Billy laughs hoarsely, saying, “You would, you brat.” He stands up, hitching Max up, she readily wraps her legs around his waist, holding on like a koala.
Steve backs up to let them by and tries not to feel like too much of an intruder in his own Upside Down house. Billy leaves the office and turns left down the hallway. Steve watches from the office doorway. When Billy gets to the basement door, he looks back at Steve. “Well, are you coming or what, Harrington?”