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curiositydooropened · 3 months ago

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night terrors (steve harrington x fem!reader)

Summary: (Season 5 AU) Steve's being haunted by someone. By you. But are you one of Vecna's cronies? Or one of his victims? / Word Count: ~13k / Some angst, some fluff, some hurt/comfort

Warnings: Language; abduction & emotional abuse at the hands of Vecna; death of a grandparent; reader is Steve's age in 1986; slightest "the first shadow" spoilers and the mention of a set piece that, based on leaks, I believe is part of ST5. I apologize if Jonathan Byers is very OOC in this; I made him kind of bitchy by accident.

a/n: the Wuthering Heights-inspired Steve fic that I teased 4+ months ago on my bday is finally done! It ended up taking a different turn than I expected and is a little bit more like a Rapunzel story, almost? Sometimes the muse takes over and we just have to go where it takes us. Enjoy!

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September 1986

Haunted, or hunted?

Steve Harrington wasn’t sure which of the two was happening to him.

It started six months after they tried to kill Vecna the first time. At the time, Steve attempted to distract himself from the looming threat of that beast (and from the fact that Max was still comatose) by throwing himself into his studies.

He was a first-year student at the local community college now, same as Robin. For English class, they were assigned to read Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë. The text was a little more complex than the fare Steve usually gravitated toward—whatever comic Dustin forced him to read—but Steve enjoyed it just fine. A story within a story, his professor had called it a “frame narrative.”

Late one September night, Steve found himself drifting off to sleep while reading about Heathcliff and Catherine’s insanely fucked-up relationship dynamic. He rubbed his eyes and shut the book, figuring he’d finish the chapter at breakfast tomorrow.

He stood from his desk chair, stretched, and crawled into bed. As for the hope of sweet dreams, Steve’s would be anything but.

He dreamed of drowning in choppy oceans, of being shot point-blank by an evil government agent, of being chased by a bloodthirsty demodog. Steve woke with a start just before his dream self was torn limb from limb.

The horror continued when he heard a scratching at his bedroom window, which caused him to flinch. The shadows of tree branches danced behind the thin white curtain, looking like claws reaching for him as they hit the glass.

“It’s the tree,” Steve mumbled to himself, in the hopes to slow his pounding heartbeat. “Just foliage. You’re afraid of foliage, you big pussy.”

He started to roll over, but the scratching got louder and louder.

Angry and scared and stressed, Steve huffed and stomped over to the window. Maybe he could use his bat to knock down those pesky branches, and—

He tore open the curtains and gasped, stumbling backward and falling on his back.

There was a woman floating behind the window.

A woman, wearing a long white nightdress, hair blowing in the wind. Her eyes and mouth were open wide, as if she was silently screaming for something. Like a banshee.

Her fingernails clawed at the glass, desperate to get inside.

Paralyzed in fear, Steve could only watch from his spot on the ground as she eased the window open and clamored into his room. She was barefoot, and Steve could now see that her legs and the bottom of her white dress were caked in mud and…was that blood?

She staggered forward a la Frankenstein’s Monster, and something flipped in Steve. He dove for the nail bat resting by his closet door and held it aloft, ready to swing.

But he hesitated, because the woman wasn’t chasing after him. She stood in the middle of the room, arms outstretched, but she was completely still.

Steve’s chest heaved as he panted, unsure of what to do. He adjusted his grip on the bat, opening his mouth to demand her explain herself, when she rasped: “He—he—help.”

“Help?” Steve repeated, lowering the bat. “You…you need help? You’re not here to kill me, or something?”

“Help,” she rasped again, still unmoving—except for a quiver in her lower lip and tears rolling down her cheeks.

When she was outside the window, her ghastly appearance gave the impression that she was much older than she really was. Now, just a few feet from Steve, she looked to be in her early 20s—just like him.

And she looked completely terrified.

Steve’s common sense blew away with the wind. He cautiously put the bat down and inched closer, justifying his possibly idiotic decision by reminding himself that maybe this was another dream. A dream-within-a-dream. His very own frame narrative.

“I can try to help,” he said gently. “Just tell me your name. And, uh, what you’re doing in my house?”

“He’s going to find me,” she whispered. “He’s going to take me back.”

Alarm bells rang out in Steve’s head.

“Who?” he demanded.

“Please, help.”

“Yeah, I know, you need help,” Steve said, frustration seeping into his tone. “But I can’t help you unless you give me some more information.”

The woman shivered from head to toe.

“Let me get you a blanket, or something,” Steve said. Against his better judgment, he turned his back to her to open his closet. He pulled a knitted blanket from the shelf and turned to give it to her—

But the woman was gone. The only sign that she had ever been there at all was the still-open window and the sound of whistling wind.

***

“I’m telling you, it was so real!”

Steve recounted the dream to Robin the next day after their English 101 class.

Well, he wasn’t fully convinced it was a dream. But he preferred thinking that than the alternative—that a woman with supernatural powers had broken into his home, and he was the dingus with no sense of self-preservation who offered her a blanket.

“Did you eat pepperoni before bed?” Robin asked as they ate lunch in the college’s dining hall. “You know that messes with your dreams.”

“No, Mom. I didn’t. But I fell asleep reading Wuthering Heights.”

“Well, that explains it!”

“Yeah.” Steve cleared his throat and shoved his sweaty palms in his jacket pockets. “I guess.”

“Okay, getting the sense you have more to say.”

“I don’t know. It’s just…it felt so real.”

“So you’ve said.”

“No, I know,” Steve said. He ran a hand through his hair, causing it to stick up in a million different directions. “But I mean, seriously, it was so lifelike. Like, scary lifelike. And all the crazy shit that goes on in this town has me wondering…what if it was? What if that woman really did visit me?”

Robin raised an eyebrow.

“Sorry, are you saying Catherine Earnshaw actually, legitimately broke into your room last night?”

“Not her, obviously. But someone else.” Steve stabbed his salad with his fork, moving olives around. “What if it’s someone who escaped the lab like Eleven? And they’ve been, like, living off the land since then?”

“What if she’s a trick from Vecna?” Robin fired back. “And engaging with her is just a way to let him inside your mind?”

Steve sighed.

“I’ve thought of that too. But when she started crying…my heart just broke for her. Even if she is evil, or part of the Upside Down, or whatever. And I know that makes me a gullible idiot and a sap.”

Robin’s expression softened.

“Sap? Yes,” she said. She gently squeezed the back of his hand. “But you are not an idiot. You have a big heart. And that’s admirable. But it’s also making your subconscious feed you dreams where scary monster women need saving, which is feeding your savior complex.”

Steve frowned.

“What savior complex?”

Robin laughed loudly, causing a few other students to look toward their table.

“Seriously?” she said through snickers. “Dude. You have a terrible habit of throwing yourself into harm’s way to protect other people.”

“Sue me for trying to keep everybody safe,” Steve grumbled. He yawned behind his fist.

“You need sleep,” Robin said. “Real sleep. Why don’t you head home and take a power nap before we visit Max tonight?”

It was Steve and Robin’s shift to be there for Max during the hospital’s visiting hours. Everyone in the party took turns so she was never alone for too long.

Steve had so much to do, but he knew Robin was right—he needed rest.

So he drove Robin home, took himself home, and took himself to bed.

Shortly after he started to drift off, even though it was still light outside, he heard the scratching on his window again.

He shot up to a sitting position as the window opened and the woman pushed her way past his curtains.

“Oh, fuck me,” Steve mumbled. He blushed at his poor choice of words and cleared his throat.

“Help me,” the woman rasped. Again, she stood in the middle of the room, leaving a wide berth of space between herself and Steve. This time, instead of her arms outstretched, she had them wrapped around herself. “Please. Help.”

Steve scrubbed his face with his hands roughly, as if trying to peel back the top layer of skin.

“You’re dreaming, Harrington. This is a dream.”

“You’re not dreaming.”

That caused Steve to snap his head up, surprise etched across his features.

“I am real,” the woman said slowly. “As real as you.”

Steve cautiously stood from bed.

“How?” he said. He crossed his arms, ignoring the alarm bells in his mind that advised him to absolutely not engage with the phantom in his room at 4 in the afternoon. “How is it that you’re real? Last night, you were, I don’t know, floating, or something—"

“He taught me how to travel here,” she said. She pointed at Steve’s nose—no, at his forehead. His mind?

The more she spoke, the less hoarse she sounded, as if she was getting used to speaking again after staying silent for a long time. “He wants me to be like him,” she continued.

Steve had a sneaking suspicion he knew who this “He” was, but he asked anyway: “Who are you talking about?”

Fear flashed across the woman’s face.

“Henry Creel.”

The name sent a spark down Steve’s spine. He shuddered involuntarily.

And he had a flash of Max laying in her hospital bed, covered in casts and hooked up to wires, and he said, “Get out.”

“Please, help me—”

“No!” Steve said, voice raised. He stepped closer to the woman and she flinched backward. Steve didn’t have it in himself to feel bad, not right now. “No. I will not help you, because you’re obviously working for Vecna.”

“I—I don’t know who that is.”

“Henry,” Steve corrected, exasperated. “You must be working for him. You’re a trick, a mirage, whatever. Meant to twist my mind and manipulate me into doing his bidding, or to kill me, or something. Well, I’m here to tell you, Cathy: it won’t work!”

The woman tilted her head slightly to the side, like a curious labrador retriever, and said, “Who is Cathy?”

“It’s a stupid reference to a stupid book that I’m not going to explain to you.”

The woman blinked slowly, her owlish eyes boring into Steve’s. He felt unsettled by that gaze. Another zap of fear trickled across his back, along with something else he didn’t fully understand.

The woman lurched forward and grabbed both of his shoulders with a vice grip. Steve yelped and tried to push her off, but she didn’t let go, her fingernails digging into his skin through his T-shirt. Her ice-cold hands sent goosebumps crawling up his arms.

“Please, you have to trust me,” she said, hurriedly. The cloudiness in her eyes and the shakiness in her voice dissipated. She seemed a lot more lucid as she said, “I know you have no reason to, but please, Steve, I—”

“How do you know my name?!” Steve shouted. “Let go of me!”

She did. She stumbled backward, looking down at her own hands as if she were ashamed.

Before Steve’s very eyes, she faded away, until Steve was alone in his room once more.

He took a few centering, calming breaths. They didn’t do shit.

“You’re losing it, man,” Steve said, shaking his head frantically as if he could knock the memory of the last five minutes loose. “Get it together. You’re sleepwalking. You must be.”

But then he glanced down at his shirtsleeve—where she had touched him.

He’d felt that touch. And it was real.

Wasn't it?

***

It went on like that for days, weeks. Every time Steve tried to sleep, at some point, he was awoken by the woman entering his room via the window. She’d beg and cry for help.

Steve tried everything. He yelled at her to leave and never come back; he listened to his Walkman to drown out her sorrowful sobs; he took melatonin to knock himself out, to no avail. Cathy was persistent, he’d give her that.

After a month straight of visits, Steve felt more like a zombie than a real person. He was bone tired all the time.

Eventually, Nancy brought Steve to the Wheelers’ basement for a surprise intervention.

He groaned when he saw Robin, Dustin, and Jonathan all seated around the room, the former two looking at him expectantly and the latter looking bored.

“Please tell me this isn’t what I think it is,” Steve said.

“Steve,” Dustin said, beginning to read aloud from a crumpled paper in his hands. “We brought you here because we love you and we’re worried about you—"

“Okay, I’m going to stop you right there,” Steve said, refusing to take a seat in the armchair Nancy offered him. “I have no idea what this is for.”

“Well, something’s keeping you from sleeping!” Robin said. “It’s downers, isn’t it? Or uppers? Or a combination of both?”

“Oh lord,” Jonathan mumbled.

Robin narrowed her eyes at him and said, “Something to share with the class, Byers?”

“Sorry,” Jonathan said. “It’s just…this is a waste of time. Steve's not an addict.”

“Thank you.”

“He’s probably just wracked with guilt,” Jonathan said. “Since, you know, you all couldn’t kill Vecna the first time.”

Well, that hurt. Steve tried not to let it show on his face, keeping a cool composure.

“Jonathan,” Nancy said, voice strained. “I believe we agreed not to say you-know-who’s name tonight?”

Jonathan held his hands up in a mock surrender.

“Right, right,” he said. “And I mean no offense, Harrington. I know Vec—uh, that guy—was way stronger than anyone expected.”

Steve didn’t respond. Simply shook his head and turned toward to leave.

He ascended a step or two, but descended back to ground level when he noticed a bulletin board on the wall to the right of the staircase.

“What’s all this?” Steve said, nodding at all the posters and newspaper clippings (and ignoring the way Robin, Nancy, and Dustin whispered to each other about their now-useless intervention letters).

Jonathan wandered over to the display and shrugged.

“Probably useless information,” he said. “But it’s a record of everyone else that went missing in Hawkins that same week that Will and Barb did. Everyone else who was taken to the Upside Down and killed by the Demogorgon.”

Steve nodded and rustled through a few of the papers pinned to the board.

“I feel like it might be useful to see if the Demogorgon had a rhyme or reason to who he took,” Jonathan continued. “That way, we might be able to predict if it directly correlates to who Vecna might try for next…hey, you good, man?”

Holding a newspaper clipping from November 1983, Steve felt his heart had stopped.

He saw a page devoted to a missing teen girl, who would now be 21 years old:

HAVE YOU SEEN ME? Y/N Y/L/N, 18 YEARS OLD

“Guys?” Jonathan said, waving the others over. “I think Steve is having a stroke.”

Nancy, Robin, and Dustin gathered around, asking Steve a million questions. He had no answers, not really. But he choked out: “Her.”

“Who?” Robin said. She read over his shoulder: “‘Y/N Y/L/N.’ I don’t think I’ve heard of her?”

“I have,” Nancy said. “She didn’t go to our school, but she was dating a Hawkins High football player before she went missing. She’s from somewhere else in Roane County. I think everyone assumed she ran away from home. Same as…um, Barb.”

“She’s the woman,” Steve said, throat tightening.

“The woman from your night terrors?” Robin asked, eyes wide.

Steve nodded. “She’s Cathy.”

“Makes sense,” Jonathan said, plucking the clipping out of Steve’s hands and pinning it back his bulletin board. “Vecna’s probably using the image of someone he thinks you might know to get in your head.”

“I don’t think Cathy, or Y/N, is from Vecna,” Steve said.

“But you said that she said she learned stuff from him?” Dustin piped up.

“Yeah, but I don’t think that was by choice. You know?” Steve said. He ran a hand through his hair. “I’ve been trying to ignore her lately, but she says things that make me think he’s holding her hostage. Making her do stuff she doesn’t want to do. Training her to be like him, I think. I don’t know exactly.”

No one knew how to respond to that. Steve, transfixed by Y/N’s photo, wasn’t sure what to think either. He had no proof that this so-called Cathy was Vecna’s victim and not his partner-in-crime. In his head, he knew it was stupid not to keep his guard up. But in his heart, Steve wanted to think the best of Cathy—or Y/N.

“Don’t you dare,” Jonathan warned.

Steve looked over to the younger boy with surprise.

“Huh?”

“I know that look,” Jonathan said. “You want to try and save her, or something.”

“No!” Steve said. “Or, well…”

Jonathan rolled his eyes.

“Goddammit, Steve,” he said.

Defensiveness creeped over Steve.

“What?!” he snapped, glowering at Jonathan.

“You can’t be this stupid,” Jonathan said. “Even if she is real, and not an illusion, you really think she needs help? She’s obviously been flayed by Vecna! They’re working together. She’s playing you, Steve.”

“If she was, she wouldn’t come to me begging for help every night,” Steve pointed out. “She would’ve killed me in my sleep, or flayed me too, or something. What point does she have to play the ‘long game’?”

“That does make sense,” Dustin said. Robin nodded.

Steve took a deep breath and decided, fuck it. He was following his heart instead of his head. Hopefully that wouldn’t massively backfire on him later.

He pointed to Y/N’s “Have You Seen Me?” poster. “Cathy is Y/N, I just know it. She needs our help. If she’s being held hostage by Vecna, we need to help her and—”

“And nothing!” Jonathan exploded. Nancy’s frown deepened as she looked between Jonathan and Steve. Jonathan added, “Sorry, but I’m not putting my family in danger because you’re falling right into Vecna’s trap.”

“Doing this might stop Vecna, the demogorgons, and the Mind Flayer once and for all!” Steve said, feeling exasperated that Jonathan wouldn’t see his side.

“Don’t act so noble,” Jonathan said. He jabbed a finger in Steve’s chest. “You, Steve Harrington, aren’t a selfless person. You’re doing this to help yourself.”

Steve’s face burned with shame. It’s true, he hadn’t always been kind or good.

Jonathan ignored his girlfriend’s protests to calm down, and the tense looks Robin and Dustin were exchanging, and continued his rant against Steve.

“And let me guess,” Jonathan taunted. “You can’t steal my girlfriend, so you decide you’re going to pursue a monster instead?!”

“Jonathan!” Nancy shouted, her face turning red as a tomato with anger.

Steve swallowed hard. More shame spread over him from head to toe.

“I know all about your little confession,” Jonathan continued. “All that bullshit about ‘six little nuggets.’ Give me a break!”

“Okay,” Robin said with an awkward laugh, trying to step in between the boys before they began to brawl. “Maybe we should all take a breath and—”

“I’m sorry,” Steve said, looking at Nancy. “I shouldn’t have said those things to you when I knew you were with him. It wasn’t right.” He turned to Jonathan and cleared his throat. “And I’m sorry to you, too.”

Surprise flashed across Jonathan’s features. He must’ve been expecting more pushback from Steve.

“You all have no reason to help me,” Steve said, now addressing the full group. “I know it’s dangerous. But I want to try and do something, because I wholly believe that Y/N needs our help. And maybe if we do help her, she’ll help us save Max and stop all this madness once and for all.”

He waited with bated breath.

After a moment, Jonathan shook his head.

“Like I said,” Jonathan said quietly. “I’m not doing anything that could harm my family.”

He stormed off without another word.

Nancy shot Steve an apologetic look and followed.

Robin squeezed Steve’s shoulder.

“I trust your judgment,” she said. “But we can’t just storm the Upside Down. We need to talk to the others.”

“I have a feeling Hopper won’t like this plan,” Dustin added.

“Promise you won’t go off on your own?” Robin said.

Steve nodded.

“Yeah,” he said flatly. “Promise.”

***

Eleven always says “Friends don’t lie.”

Steve was feeling like a shitty friend, having lied to Robin and Dustin’s faces earlier that night. But he wasn’t going to wait around. He wasn’t going to let Hopper, Murray, and Joyce dictate what he could or couldn’t do for Y/N.

He was going to save her, because if she’d been trapped in the Upside Down for three years…no one deserved to go through that. No one deserved to be left behind.

Steve pushed aside his own complicated feelings about being left behind by his parents. After the earthquakes, they relocated to the California coast. They invited him to come along, although when he refused, saying he wanted to stay with his friends, they didn’t fight too hard for him to change his mind. That stung.

Lying in bed, he ruminated on that last conversation they’d had. His train of thought was interrupted by the tell-tale scratching at the window.

Y/N made her way inside, as per usual. Before she could even speak, Steve sat up and said, “I’m going to help you.”

Her eyes widened.

“R-really?” she asked. “What changed?”

“I saw your picture,” Steve said. He stood up and pulled out his desk chair, offering it for Y/N to sit in.

She did not. After a moment, Steve took the seat instead, gesturing to the newspaper scrap he’d stolen from Jonathan’s bulletin board.

Y/N cautiously stepped closer, looking over his shoulder. She traced her finger on the photo of her younger self. Steve shivered when the sleeve of her white dress—a nightgown of some sort—brushed his wrist.

“Y/N,” she said quietly, reading the headline. “Is that me?”

Steve looked up, startled.

“Uh, yes,” he said. He looked between the photo and the real girl in front of him to confirm, but it was definitely the same face, albeit three years apart. “It’s you. Do you…not remember what you look like?”

Y/N shook her head.

“My mind is…cold,” Y/N said. She squeezed her eyes shut. “Ah. Wrong word. Sorry, that happens sometimes...”

“It’s okay,” Steve said gently. He had no way of understanding what Y/N had been through at the hands of Vecna, but he knew what it was like to struggle to express yourself. To stumble over your words, feeling rather stupid about everything as you failed to express yourself properly.

“Void,” Y/N continued. “Dark. Ahh…empty. It’s hard to remember much of before, after I’ve been away for so long.”

“Is there anything you remember?” Steve said. “Nancy said that you were, uh, you were dating this guy at our school.”

There was a flash in Y/N’s eyes. That seemed to trigger a memory.

“Oscar,” she said. “His name was Oscar. Is he all right? Did…did he get taken too?”

“Oscar DiLaurentis?” Steve prompted, remembering a classmate from years ago.

Y/N nodded frantically.

Oscar hadn’t been a victim of the Demogorgon. Steve vaguely remembered the weeks of school after their fight with the Demogorgon in 1983. Oscar had been beside himself with worry for his girlfriend from the next town over, but at the time, Steve was laser-focused on dealing with his trauma and survivor’s guilt surrounding Barb. He didn’t have the wherewithal to see if a classmate he barely knew was okay.

Teenagers can be cruel, and Steve recalled how that December, speculation spread that Oscar killed his girlfriend and buried her at the quarry.

Hopper didn’t take any of that seriously, of course. He knew the truth of what dangers lurked in town. But that didn’t stop the rumor mill from spin, spin, spinning.

Oscar retreated into himself, becoming quite depressed. As soon as he graduated spring of 1984, he left town. Steve wasn’t sure what had come of him after that.

“I’m sure he’s fine,” he said.

“And my grandpa?”

Steve shrugged.

“I’m sorry, Y/N. I don’t know…but we’ll find him after I rescue you. Uh, how exactly can I rescue you? You’re here now, right? So can’t you just…not go back?”

“I am not here,” Y/N said. She pointed a finger at Steve’s forehead, gently tapping it. “I am here.”

“In my mind?”

Y/N nodded.

“Like a projector at a movie theater,” Steve said, connecting the dots and thinking of Vecna’s mind tricks. “Not physically here?”

“Yes. You are smart.”

Steve furrowed his brow and shook his head.

“Oh, no.” He let out an awkward chuckle. “I’m really not.”

Y/N’s penetrating gaze made Steve feel a little uncomfortable. He shifted in his seat.

She gingerly reached her hand out and touched Steve’s arm.

“You are smart. And kind.”

Steve almost felt mesmerized. He was suddenly, sharply aware that Y/N—despite her initial haunting nature—was incredibly beautiful.

Steve cleared his throat, embarrassed, and stood from his chair, causing Y/N’s hand to fall. He wasn’t falling for this girl. He wasn’t. That was fucked up. Right? To have feelings for someone that needed his help? That he was trying to save?

Maybe Robin was right. Steve had a savior complex.

Maybe Jonathan was right. Steve couldn’t have Nancy, so he was going after the only woman in his vicinity giving him the time of day.

No. It was just because Steve hadn’t felt the touch of a woman in half a year. And the sleep deprivation. That was all.

“Are you all right?” Y/N asked as Steve stumbled away from her.

“Yes!” he said. “Yes. Sorry. I just—I haven’t been sleeping well, on account of…well, you. But it’s okay! I want to help. What do I need to do?”

Y/N pointed to his bookshelf.

“I am there,” she said. “Library. By the clock tower.”

That complicated things. The clock tower above the library had been badly damaged in Vecna’s earthquakes. The military was stationed right outside it to keep anyone from going in and getting into the Upside Down.

Before Steve could explain, Y/N threw another wrench into things.

“There is a room under the clock,” Y/N said. “That is where Henry keeps me. There is a tear nearby, but I cannot get through. Because bats.”

Steve assumed “tear” is what Y/N called a “gate.” The slightly faded scar around his neck and the scars on his ribs twinged with phantom pain at the mention of bats.

“I have watched you and your friends from there,” Y/N said, “the way Henry taught me after he first took me. Months ago, you entered. You exited. You can find a new way to get to me.”

Steve swallowed hard. This was going to be difficult, and he sincerely hoped Henry/Vecna wasn’t watching him now. But he wasn’t giving up yet.

“I will,” he said. “I promise.”

For the first time since she started showing up, Y/N smiled.

Steve couldn’t help but smile back. Oh, wow. Now that he knew she wasn’t a monstrous illusion or something, she looked radiant in the moonlight, and…

Oh, he was so fucked.

***

Steve knew that if he was going to go into the Upside Down alone, he needed to make a plan so airtight that nothing could go wrong.

For one thing, he needed to find a gate that wasn’t being protected by the military. Most of the four large gates were under military surveillance, but there was one sliver in a tree trunk behind the trailer park that he could (hopefully) slip through. He would have a portable heater strapped to his backpack to blast heat at demo-creatures. If any got too close anyway, he’d hit them with his nail bat.

Then, he’d make his way to the library. That’s where Y/N would be. Before she’d left the night prior, he’d told her to shimmy out her loft’s window at 12 p.m. sharp. She’d crawl down the ledge with his help, hopefully avoiding any detection from the bats. Steve would bring her to the gate in the woods, take her back to Hawkins, and then he’d face his friends and admit he lied to their faces.

They wouldn’t be mad. Right? Right. Or maybe they would. Who gives a fuck. Steve was doing it anyway.

The plan went off without a hitch—at first. He made it to the gate and into the Upside Down without breaking a metaphorical sweat. Physically, the heater was causing him to sweat profusely, but at least it was a beacon to keep demobats away.

Steve slunk through the hellish dimension, avoiding the sentient vines as much as he could. By some miracle, he made it to the library with no trouble.

One odd thing about the Upside Down was that it was trapped in November 6th, 1983. The day El opened the gate. The day the Demogorgon took Will. The day before it took Y/N and many other people in town.

But the clocktower still worked, chiming off every hour as if time was moving forward. Time didn’t make sense here. Nothing did.

Bats hung upside-down on the eaves of the clocktower, sleeping soundly. Nocturnal even when it was dark all the time.

Chime! Chime! Chime! Chime! Chime! Chime! Chime! Chime! Chime! Chime! Chime! Chime!

12 o’clock. Sure enough, the window below the clocktower creaked open. Y/N stuck her head out the window, her hair whipping in the cool wind. Her eyes were wide and fearful, until she noticed Steve standing below. Her face broke into a grin.

“It’s you,” she whispered. “You found me.”

Steve’s heart stuttered at seeing her—really seeing her—for the first time.

“I did,” Steve said. He glanced up at the sleeping bats. “Now, before those hungry beasties wake up, wanna get out of here?”

Y/N nodded frantically. She stuck one leg out the window, gingerly stepping onto the ledge. Then the other joined, but she began to lose her balance, letting out a squeak of fright.

Steve gasped, charging ahead to try and catch her. She caught herself on the sides of the open window at the last moment. Steve’s heart rate returned to normal.

“Okay,” Steve said, calling up as loud as he dared too without disturbing the creatures nearby. “I have a rope ladder that I’ll toss up to you, and—”

“No need!” Y/N said. “I can use the ivy!”

Steve sucked in a breath as she reached her hand toward desiccated plants crawling up the clocktower.

“No!” he shouted. “Don’t touch it!”

Y/N pulled her hand away, but it was too late. Her fingertips had grazed the foliage, waking the forces of the Upside Down.

An earthquake rattled the whole dimension, sending Steve sprawling to the ground. Y/N scrabbled to hold on, but this time, she pitched off the ledge and to the ground below.

“NO!” Steve yelled. He stumbled to his feet, struggling to balance as the world around him rocked.

Thankfully, a bush had broken Y/N’s fall. But tangled in the thorny branches of an Upside Down rosebush, she was a sitting duck as the demobats began to swarm. She held her hands up to shield her face as they dove at her.

Steve cranked up the heat on his heater and pointed it at the bats, causing them to squeal and chitter louder. Most of them flew away, likely to nestle somewhere cold, but three stubborn bastards kept biting and scratching at Y/N.

Steve dropped the heater at his feet and spun his nail bat, whacking one of the creatures and smacking it against the outer brick wall of the library. The second swooped him, but he was prepared, hitting it twice as hard.

The third demobat bit Y/N shoulder, causing her to howl in pain. Steve raised his bat, but there was no need.

Y/N held out a hand and let out a guttural yell. Before his own eyes, Steve watched as she tore the thing apart with telekinesis.

Steve raced over to Y/N and helped her out of the bush.

“Are you okay?” he asked, still holding her hands with his. “Let me see your shoulder.”

“No time,” Y/N said. “He knows what we’re doing.”

“Who?”

“H-Henry,” she said. She sniffled, eyes watering. “I didn’t mean to alert him. I’m so sorry, Steve. I put you in danger.”

“Save your apologies for when we’re on my side of the universe,” he said, squeezing her hands.

Y/N nodded and wiped her tears away.

Steve tore the backpack off his back and unzipped it frantically, before tossing a pair of socks at Y/N.

“Put those on,” he said. “And these.” He handed her a pair of Nikes.

“I told you,” Y/N said as she pulled the socks and shoes onto her bleeding bare feet. “You are smart.”

The compliment made Steve feel warm and fuzzy inside. He pushed those feelings aside.

Once Y/N was ready, Steve handed her the heater to carry as he held his nail bat aloft for their journey to the trailer park. They ran as fast as they could, fighting monsters along the way.

When they were mere yards away from the gate, another earthquake shook the world.

“Y/N Y/L/N!” a voice boomed like thunder through the Upside Down. “Now, where do you think you are going? You’re leaving, after all the hospitality I’ve shown you?!”

Y/N shuddered from head to toe.

“It’s him!” she hissed. “He’s not going to let us go.”

Sure enough, Steve saw the gate in the distance slowly seal itself up as vines began to choke it closed.

“Oh, no you don’t!” Steve mumbled.

He grabbed Y/N’s hand and yanked her the last few feet to their destination. In an ungentlemanly move that would make his grandmother pass out, Steve manhandled her and shoved her through the gate’s opening.

She yelped as she was pushed into a new plane of existence, landing on the inflatable raft Steve had set up on the ground next to the tree gate.

Before she could move, blink, or catch her breath, Steve dove through, landing smack on top of her.

In the nick of time, too. She watched over Steve’s shoulder as the gate zipped into nothingness, leaving the tree trunk unmarred except for a miniscule crack with sap seeping out of it.

“Sorry,” Steve said, untangling his limbs from Y/N’s. Since it was midday, the blush on his cheeks was very evident. He sat up let out a breath. “I don’t usually toss people around like that.”

Y/N sat up slowly and didn’t respond. Instead, she just looked around at the world. The real world. Not the poisoned, dark world she’d been trapped in for three years.

“Here, let me help you up,” Steve said, guiding Y/N to stand.

Tears welled up in her eyes as she spun in a circle, looking at the forest around them.

“What’s wrong?” Steve asked, panic rising. “Is it the bite on your shoulder? I have a first aid kit in the car, and—”

Y/N cut him off by throwing her arms around his neck and hugging him as tightly as she could. She cried into his shoulder, but Steve quickly found out they were happy tears.

“Thank you!” she said, hiccupping through her sobs. “Thank you, Steve! I just…I…oh, thank you so much!”

Steve, unsure of how to respond, gingerly hugged her back.

“I’ve got you,” he said, after a moment. “Welcome home.”

***

The whole drive back to the Harrington house, Y/N looked out the window, enamored at everything from the leaves to the crows to the bright blue sky. Steve had given her one of his Member’s Only jackets to wear over her nightgown and bandaged shoulder, because there was a slight nip in the mid-October air.

“The world is so colorful,” she murmured. “I…I started to forget.”

Steve wanted to relax and feel proud of himself for doing a good thing. But guilt gnawed in the back of his mind, guilt that he lied to his friends and pissed Vecna off. If Vecna lashed out and sent an army of demodogs into town, would he be responsible?

But how could he feel bad when Y/N looked so happy?

“Who are they?” she asked, pointing to the soldiers at a roadblock in the outskirts of town. A soldier holding a small stop sign directed Steve to a detour.

“The army,” Steve said. “They’re here because of Henry and the earthquakes. I’ll get you caught up on everything once we’re at my place, okay?”

As Steve drove past the bored-looking soldier directing traffic, Y/N beamed and waved at him excitedly. The soldier looked a little surprised, but smiled and waved back.

“Maybe don’t interact with them,” Steve said quickly. “They’re hunting one of my friends, so it’s best if we just…don’t draw attention to ourselves. Okay?”

“Oh, sorry.”

“Don’t apologize. Like I said, I’ll tell you everything later.”

“And then we can find my grandpa?” she asked, a hopeful edge to her voice.

“Totally!” Steve said, kicking himself for possibly giving her false hope. Finding her grandpa in the phone book should be easy enough…right?

Even if they succeeded, Steve wasn’t sure how they were going to explain to Y/N’s grandpa where she’s been the past three years. She couldn’t tell them the truth, but would they really believe that she ran away? Did they assume she was dead, “poisoned” like Barb?

Y/N didn’t pick up on Steve’s unease. She settled in the passenger seat, head on a swivel as they drove through town.

Steve saw destruction at every corner: houses crumbled by the gates. Signs for missing people and pets, or pleas for the able-bodied to donate blood, food, clothes. Protestors on street corners holding signs about D&D and devil worship making it necessary to “REPENT!”

So it was a little jarring when Y/N saw the world around all those same things and whispered, “This place is so beautiful.”

Equally awestruck by the Harrington house, Y/N inspected every room. The pool especially excited her.

“A pool in your very own backyard!” she said. “That is amazing!”

Steve didn’t have the heart to tell her that he rarely used the pool anymore. After Barb died in it, it didn’t have the same luster it used to.

“So,” Steve said, after he’d given Y/N a tour of the downstairs and upstairs. “I dug around in my mom’s closet and found some clothes you can wear. I figured you’d want to shower, and then we can have some food?”

Y/N nodded, so Steve led her to the guest room with its adjoining ensuite bathroom.

“The dial’s a little finicky,” he said, “so if the water gets too cold, just turn it all the way to the left and back again.”

Before he could exit the bathroom, Y/N reached out and squeezed his wrist.

“Thank you again, Steve,” she said.

He smiled and ducked out.

As he worked to make mac & cheese for dinner, the phone rang.

“Hello?” Steve said.

“Where the hell are you? You weren’t in English class, and I need a ride over to the meeting!”

Steve’s heart sunk as he glanced at the clock. Shit. It was almost 6 o’clock. He was supposed to take Robin to the abandoned WSQK radio station building for a party meeting. That’s where Hopper and El were hiding out, now that the government was looking for her.

During weekly meetings, their crew of so-called heroes discussed how things were going in town; if Vecna had been seen, heard, or felt; and how they could work to sever Hawkins’ connection to the Upside Down for good.

“Sorry,” Steve said. He faked a cough and rasped, “I’m feeling pretty sick. I think the lack of sleep has caught up to me. I can’t go. Can Nancy drive you?”

“You have to go!” Robin said, exasperated. “This whole meeting is so we can talk about you-know-who.”

Ah, yes. The you-know-who that was currently in Steve’s guest bathroom.

“Your nighttime friend?” Robin prompted, as if Steve had forgotten.

“Please don’t call her that,” Steve said. “And, uh, you know what? Why don’t we just save that for next week’s meeting, and…”

Steve trailed off when he heard a huff of air. There was a moment of silence, and then: “You are so dead.”

“Excuse me?”

“Dead, Steve Harrington! Dead. Hopper is going to kill you for going into the Upside Down alone and bringing someone back from there.”

“What?! No, I—”

“Don’t lie!” Robin warned. “I’m not psychic like El, but I can practically read your mind. We’ve been friends for too long.”

Steve sighed, stirring cheese sauce into noodles as he spoke, the phone cradled between his shoulder and ear.

“Okay, fine. You caught me. But trust me, Y/N is not dangerous, or working with Vecna, or whatever. She just wanted to come home. To be free of that place.”

“I want to believe you,” Robin said. “But…Steve, I don’t trust her.”

“I know,” Steve begged. “But please, please, I swear on my life that she’s good.”

Robin tutted.

“Steve Harrington, always taking in strays. Ugh, fine. I’ll try to trust her if you do. But I hope you know I’m going to have to rat you out—I’m terrible at lying to Hopper. He gets that crease between his eyes that looks like a tiny knife. It intimidates me.”

Steve assured Robin that he understood, thanked her profusely for not being too mad, and promised that he’d call her in three hours to assure that Y/N hadn’t killed him, or something.

The girl in question came into the kitchen with damp hair, wearing her borrowed clothes and shoes.

“The Bird doesn’t trust me?” she asked, settling into a bar stool.

“‘The bird’? You mean Robin?”

Y/N nodded.

“How do you…right, psychic powers.”

Y/N looked at her lap sheepishly.

“Sorry. Sometimes my mind runs away from me. I can’t always control what I see or hear. It’s not a problem when there isn’t much out there to focus on. Now, there are people around me again. So many people to see and places to explore.”

Steve served up the mac & cheese onto two plates. As they ate in silence, Steve noticed that Y/N only took a few small bites here and there. He had expected her to be voraciously hungry.

“If you don’t mind me asking,” he said, “what kind of food did you eat in the Upside Down?” When she tilted her head, a little confused, he corrected, “Uh, Henry’s dimension.”

Y/N shuddered.

“He would bring me food,” she said. “I do not know where it came from. It was mushy. Gross. Cold. He said a warm meal was an unnecessary luxury.”

“That sounds like him,” Steve mumbled. “I mean, based on what Nance said after the freaky vision he showed her.”

“Your girlfriend Nancy?” Y/N asked.

Steve almost choked again.

“N-no! She’s not my girlfriend. Not anymore.”

“Oh.”

“I’m single,” Steve added.

“Ah. I see.”

“Unattached,” he corrected. He seemed unable to stop rambling as Y/N gazed at him with a curious look. “Admittedly, it’s been a while since I had a date, but that’s by design. It’s the bachelor lifestyle.”

It wasn’t by design. And if “bachelor lifestyle” was code for “too busy worrying about the end of the world to date,” well, then, yes. Steve Harrington was a strong proponent of the bachelor lifestyle.

“I sometimes only see part of the puzzle,” Y/N said, tapping her temple. “So that’s why I thought you two were still together.”

Desperate to change the subject, Steve’s mind wandered to something he’d been worrying about for a while.

“I hope this isn’t too forward,” Steve asked quietly. “But…did Henry…hurt you?”

Y/N blanched, dropping her fork into her barely touched noodles.

“Please don’t feel like you have to answer if you don’t want to,” Steve said quickly. “I just don’t know the best way to help you. I don’t know if talking about things would make it worse, or better, but I—I want to help.”

Y/N scratched at the countertop, not making eye contact.

“It’s not what you’re thinking,” she said after a long stretch of silence, barely above a whisper. “Henry…he told me he used to have a sister.”

“Alice,” Steve supplied.

“That’s a pretty name,” Y/N said, with a faraway look in her eye. She cleared her throat. “I think he saw me as a replacement. He said Alice didn’t understand what he wanted to do. How he saw the world. Henry thought he could morph me into his perfect sister, so we could…I’m not sure. Rule together?”

Y/N shuddered. “But he’s cruel. And he kept telling me for so, so long that he would let me come home eventually and see my grandpa again. But he never let me leave. And then, when he could tell I was getting restless, he wouldn’t let me stay in his family home anymore or wander his dimension. Instead, he banished me to the clocktower. Told me I’d stay longer the more insubordinate I became.”

Y/N sniffled, a few stray tears rolling down her face. “He didn’t want a sister. He wanted a subject he could control.”

Steve frowned, and it felt like a rock was in his stomach. Y/N rubbed her eyes.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I talk too much.”

“You don’t,” Steve promised. “Thank you for talking to me about what you went through. I know it’s not easy.”

They continued to eat in silence. Y/N could tell he had another question on the tip of his tongue, but he stayed quiet.

She considered using her powers to reach into his mind, but it felt wholly invasive. She decided against it.

“You’re nice,” she said quietly.

“I’m just trying to help.”

“Why?”

Steve shrugged.

“Because…because I know what it’s like to be alone.”

She nodded.

“I know.”

Steve frowned, tilted his head.

“Henry knows,” Y/N continued. Steve felt a chill down his spine. “He keeps track of everyone in Hawkins. So he knows when they’re sad. When they’re…vulnerable.”

“Like a fucked-up Santa Claus?” Steve deadpanned.

“Yes. Like Santa.”

Steve wasn’t sure if Y/N was kidding or not. She continued, “He wants to open more gates to let his monsters through, but he’s still weak. So he psychically monitors without interfering. And when he’s all better, he’ll pounce.”

“When do you think that will be?”

“Soon.”

Steve felt a shiver down his spine.

***

That night, Y/N slept fitfully.

She tossed. She turned. She removed blankets. She added more. She was in a soft bed, not a rough cot, for the first time in years, and she was safe. But she didn’t feel like it.

Henry Creel tried to reach into her mind. She could feel his icy claws as they wrapped around all her synapses and neurons, looking for something to grasp onto.

Y/N didn’t let him. She pushed him out every time. But she knew if she let her guard down too much, he would strike and try and take her back…

Or kill her.

The next morning, Y/N tried to pay attention to what Steve was saying at breakfast: something about taking her shopping to buy new clothes.

“You don’t have to do that,” she said. “I just need to get back to my grandpa’s house. He has all my things.”

Steve avoided eye contact as he cut into some pancakes. They were burned, but he’d tried his best.

“Right,” he said. “Uh, actually, we need to talk about that…”

“I don’t remember where he lives,” Y/N admitted, poking at her own breakfast with her fork. “Some memories are still just gone. But bit by bit, things are coming back to me. I remember his name is Lawrence, but he goes by Larry. I call him Grandpop.”

She closed her eyes, envisioning the home she grew up in.

“His house is made of red brick with a red door,” she continued. “There’s a hand-painted mailbox with my handprints on the outside, and…”

She startled when she felt Steve’s hand on her arm. Y/N opened her eyes. The look on Steve’s face sent worry churning through her.

“Steve?” she said, barely above a whisper. “What’s going on?”

“My friends are on their way,” he said softly. “Uh, maybe I should wait for them to get here before I…they’re better at explaining this stuff, and—”

Y/N scowled. She shoved Steve’s hand off, the sudden movement making him flinch.

She didn’t care about being invasive anymore—Y/N narrowed her eyes at Steve and wormed her way into his mind, blood rolling out of her nose.

“Wait—”

She heard it. Clear as day. Clear as a bell. The Bird’s voice from a phone call late last night, after Y/N had gone to bed: “Nancy’s Hawkins Post connections came through. But Lawrence Banes is dead. He died almost two years ago, in January 1985.”

Y/N gasped and stumbled out of her seat.

“I should’ve told you right away,” Steve said, standing as well. “But I didn’t want to upset you. I’m sorry.”

He watched the blood roll out of Y/N’s nostril, down her lip, and onto her chin. She didn’t move to wipe it away, nor did she even blink. She just stared back at him, stone-faced.

The fear that Steve had initially felt when Y/N burst into his life washed over him tenfold. He didn’t want to be afraid of her—he knew she wasn’t like Vecna, she just wasn’t—but she was grieving, and grief and anger went hand-in-hand.

After a moment, Y/N closed her eyes and sighed.

“He wouldn’t let me go,” she mumbled. “Henry…he wouldn’t let me go.” She shook her head and paced in the kitchen back, and forth. Back, and forth. “But I should’ve—I could’ve—I should’ve fought harder. Fought more to get out of there.”

“Don’t blame yourself,” Steve said.

“Who else do I blame?” she said with a hollow laugh.

“Henry! It’s his fault any of this happened to you.”

“But why!” she yelled. She let out a frustrated scream and stabbed her fork into her stack of pancakes, causing it to stand straight up. “WHY did this happen?! Why me?!?!”

Steve didn’t have a good answer for that.

Y/N stormed off. Steve heard her footsteps stomp up the stairs and the door to the guest room slam.

***

When Nancy, Robin, Jonathan, Joyce, and Hopper arrived, Steve was surprised to see a disguised, shorter person with them. The mystery figure was wearing a baseball cap, large sunglasses, and a hoodie with a scarf wrapped around their mouth and neck.

“Hey, guys,” Steve said, eyeing the figure warily.

As soon as the door to the Harrington house was closed, Hopper went through and closed all the downstairs blinds. The figure began to remove their accessories, revealing that it was Eleven.

“Where is she?” Eleven asked, eyes narrowed.

“Upstairs,” Steve said. “But she’s pretty upset. She knows about her grandfather already.”

“How?” Joyce asked.

Steve swallowed hard. “Uh…”

“Let me guess,” Jonathan said with a sigh. “She read your mind?”

“Well, yes.”

“I was afraid of that,” Nancy said.

“I want to talk to her,” Eleven said, inclining her chin slightly.

“I’m not sure that’s such a good idea.”

Eleven huffed.

“Why not? I’m the only person who can understand her. Who has been around Henry as much as she has. All those years in the Lab…”

“El’s going to check things out,” Hopper said. “Use her powers to make sure Y/N’s intentions really are good. I told her she could do that from the radio station, but—”

“We’re sisters,” Eleven said firmly. “Sisters stick together.”

Hopper didn’t look too happy about it, but he allowed Steve to lead him and El upstairs while the others waited.

“Just so you know, Harrington,” Hopper mumbled when they were on the second step from the top. “If anything happens to anyone in our group because you went on this unsanctioned rescue mission, I will kick your ass halfway to Poughkeepsie.”

Steve gulped and nodded. But he trusted Y/N. So there was nothing to worry about. Right?

He knocked on the guest room door.

“Hey,” he called. “I have some friends here who want to meet you.”

No response, but Y/N’s quiet cries could be heard through the door. It broke Steve’s heart.

“Y/N,” Eleven said. “I want to talk to you. I’m like you. Sort of.”

Again, no response. But this time, the trio heard the door unlock. Y/N opened it a crack.

“You’re Eleven,” Y/N said. She didn’t need to see the tattoo inked on the girl’s arm to know. “Or Jane. Henry talked about you.”

If this revelation surprised Eleven, it didn’t show on her face.

“Can we come in?” Eleven asked.

Y/N opened the door a little wider and turned, sitting on the window seat and looking out over the Harrington’s backyard.

Hopper and Steve went to follow Eleven into the room, but she used her powers to close and lock the door. Hopper scowled.

“Kid!” he said, pounding on the wood. “This isn’t what we agreed to!”

Eleven ignored him, wiping a nosebleed away. She sat on the edge of the bed, watching Y/N curiously.

“I know what you’re here to do,” Y/N said, not looking up. She pointed at her temple. “You want to look in here. Make sure I’m not like Henry.”

“Yes. I want to make sure my friends are safe.”

“They aren’t,” Y/N said sharply, turning to look at Eleven. “Henry is going to regain his strength. Then, he’ll come after you all. And me.”

Eleven didn’t respond for a while. Y/N turned away again.

“Go ahead,” Y/N said with a sigh. “Do your background check.”

Eleven used her powers to turn on the TV in the corner of the room. She tuned it until she saw nothing but static, heard nothing but white noise.

She retied her scarf, his time around her eyes, and entered Y/N’s mind.

Eleven saw flashes of the past three years:

Y/N, driving home and listening to the newest Duran Duran song after a date night with her boyfriend Oscar.

Something running in front of her car, causing her to crash in the woods between Hawkins and the next town over.

Her waking up in the Upside Down version of the Creel House, scared of the beastly man lurking in the corner.

Y/N in the Upside Down version of Hawkins Lab, grimacing as Henry injects her with his blood, turning her into a super-person too.

Henry Creel promising that he’ll let her go back home, “Soon,” once she was fully trained and powerful.

Y/N exploring the Upside Down, befriending the creatures there.

Henry changing his tune, locking Y/N up under the clocktower and telling the demo-creatures to attack if she tries to escape.

Y/N unable to track her Grandpop with her powers, no matter how much she tries.

Y/N successfully using her powers when she gets the sense there are new people in the Upside Down: Steve, Nancy, Robin, and a fourth person that Eleven only knows to be Eddie based on Mike, Lucas, and Dustin’s stories.

Y/N spending the past few months honing her skills, exploring the people of Hawkins, and choosing Steve to be her rescuer.

Reaching out to Steve.

Being rescued by Steve.

Y/N and Steve’s hug in the woods.

Feeling sufficiently caught up, Eleven took off her scarf and wiped blood on her sleeve. She nodded in the direction of the TV, powering it off.

“You are like me,” Eleven said, satisfied. “Not Henry.”

“I don’t have a number,” Y/N said. She rolled up the sleeve of the shirt she borrowed from Steve, showing Eleven scabbed-over pockmarks from when Henry used needles for blood transfusions. “But yes.”

“I’m sorry he did that to you,” Eleven said. She frowned and shook her head. “I wish I had never sent him to the Upside Down.”

“It’s not your fault,” Y/N said. “Like it’s not my fault that I was trapped there and my Grandpop was out here, and he…”

“I’m sorry he’s gone.”

“Thank you. It’s okay. Or, it will be.”

With that, Eleven shot Y/N a smile before heading toward the door.

She stepped into the hall, where Steve and Hopper were waiting.

“She is good,” Eleven said. “She was Henry’s victim. She told Steve the truth.”

Steve looked to Hopper. Hopper raised an eyebrow.

“Huh. Well. Looks like I’m not kicking your ass today.”

***

Y/N ventured downstairs shortly after, surprised to see so many new faces. Steve introduced her to everyone—even the ever-cranky Jonathan, who simply grunted in greeting—but before he could stop them, the group started asking Y/N questions about Vecna’s plans.

She reiterated what she’d already told Steve and Eleven: he wanted to curse more people, open more gates, and send his armies to attack the town, but he needed to wait until he was fully ready.

“Will he send the Mind Flayer after anyone else?” Joyce asked, a crease between her brows as she remembered what the Flayer did to Will merely two years prior.

Y/N shook her head.

“No need. He has plenty of creatures at his disposal.”

“Don’t like the sound of that,” Jonathan grumbled.

Y/N had a deer-in-the-headlights kind of look, prompting Steve to say, “Well, that’s enough of that for today. Shopping?”

“Is she okay to be out and about?” Hopper said, eyes narrowed. “If Sullivan’s men find her and realize who she is, they might bring her in for questioning…”

“They won’t,” Steve said firmly. “We’ll come up with a cover story. Right?”

He gave Robin a pleading look.

“Uh, right!” she said. “We can say Y/N is actually…Sparrow. My cousin from Cincinnati. Sparrow Buckley.”

“Robin and Sparrow,” Nancy said. “That’s cute!”

So it was decided. Joyce drove Hopper and the disguised Eleven back to the radio station. Jonathan, Nancy, and Robin squeezed in the backseat of Steve’s BMW, accompanying him and Y/N to the local Belk department store.

Steve had a nagging feeling it was because his friends didn’t trust her. Especially not Jonathan, who kept shooting her suspicious looks from the backseat.

Thankfully, they didn’t have to worry about anyone seeing and recognizing Y/N. The store was practically dead. Nowadays, most Hawkins residents spent their time hiding out at home, buying up weapons from the War Zone and practicing their aim at the gun range, or praying at church for the gates in town to close. Stray demodog attacks were few and fair between, but the town was still on edge.

Y/N felt a little guilty that she didn’t have her own money to pay for the clothes she picked out, but Steve waved away her concerns.

“I’ll repay you one day,” she said. She wondered if her grandfather left her an inheritance…but if she tried to collect it, would that mean the soldier Sullivan would take her away and interrogate her about Henry and the Upside Down?

“Consider it a gift,” Steve said.

“Well, then I owe you a gift!”

Steve laughed and shook his head.

“No, no. It’s really okay.”

They shared a smile. Jonathan rolled his eyes and Nancy elbowed him.

“Agh! What was that for?”

She gave him a withering look as they group headed back to Steve’s car.

***

Y/N was trying her best to acclimate to so-called normal life again, though it wasn’t all that normal due to Hawkins’ descent into a near-apocalyptic world. However, her emotions were of rollercoaster proportions as she tried to balance mourning Grandpop and giving Steve and his friends advice on how to deal with Vecna.

It didn’t help that she felt Vecna lurking in the back of her mind from time to time, trying to take over.

She pushed him out over and over, but doing so was mentally exhausting. She also didn’t sleep soundly, haunted by what she’d witnessed in the Upside Down.

Steve felt similar pressure mounting. He knew he was at the top of Vecna’s shit list for freeing Y/N. And although he no longer had to worry about Y/N bursting through his window and disrupting his sleep, he still had nightmares constantly about all the things he’d faced. About his failures—like his failure to protect Max. To protect Lucas and Erica and Dustin and Eddie, too.

“You couldn’t be in two places at once,” Robin told him once after one of their clandestine radio station meetings, when Steve opened up about how shitty he’d been feeling lately. “And you helped me and Nancy subdue Vecna. And you saved Y/N from that creep, and now she can help us kill him once and for all. You’ve done good, Steve.”

It didn’t feel like it.

He wasn’t sleeping well, and his friends were worried about him, and that made Steve feel worse about himself. And his pounding headaches were getting to be too much to bear. And there was the occasion he felt blood pooling down his lip…

Steve wasn’t delusional. After his second nosebleed, which occurred while he was brushing his teeth one night, he knew it wasn’t a fluke or a coincidence. Nosebleeds + headaches + nightmares = Vecna’s curse.

He didn’t want to worry Y/N or any of his friends, but he knew he couldn’t face this alone. And he didn’t need to. So he promised himself he would tell them first thing tomorrow morning.

Only, Steve didn’t have until morning. As soon as his head hit the pillow, he was transported to a memory…

***

November, 1983. Steve races up the stairs of the Harrington home, heading toward his room. He’s walking on air after swimming with Nancy. She’s about to come up to his room, and if she’s interested in taking their relationship up a level, Steve’s going to make a move.

He hears Nancy and Barb speaking downstairs, and Steve’s heart drops. Wait, he’s been here before. Mind like mush, Steve runs a hand through his hair and struggles to remember: what’s about to happen? Why can’t he let Barb go outside?

He hears a roar and remembers. The Demogorgon. The first one. The one that got them into this mess.

“BARB!” Steve shouts, turning on his heel and racing back downstairs. “Barb, don’t go out to the pool!”

Too late. Steve watches in horror as Barb—and Nancy!—scream and get dragged under the teal blue water of the Harrington pool by the fearsome creature, into the Upside Down.

“NO!” he yells, before ripping off his shoes and socks and diving in after them.

He’s underwater now, weightless. At the mercy of a rip tide as he’s dragged farther down—too far down to be the bottom of his pool. Steve struggles back toward the surface—

And he’s in the middle of Lover’s Lake. Eddie, Robin, and Nancy are on a rowboat in front of him, and he grabs onto the side.

“Finally, dingus!” Robin scoffs. “I told you two he was a fuck-up.”

Steve’s heart shrinks.

“Huh?”

“You were gone forever,” Nancy groans. “So useless. If Jonathan was here, he would’ve found the gate faster.”

“Hell, even I would’ve found it faster!” Eddie quips. “And I’m high right now.”

Steve feels the tug of a demobat tail around his ankle. He gasps and holds out a hand. “Rob, help me! Pull me up!”

“Nah,” Robin says. “I’m going to let the lake monster drown you, I think. You’re kind of a waste of space.”

Waste of space. Waste of space. Steve’s heard those words hurled at him before, by his father after a particularly bad report card. And again, after a failure on the basketball court. And a third time, when Steve confided in his mother that Mr. Harrington had another trip coming up, and his secretary was coming along.

The demobat pulls Steve down, down, down, into the depths.

Steve is dragged all the way to the Upside Down, same as what happened before they fought Vecna the first time. This time, it’s not a hoard of demobats waiting to greet him. No, it’s the man himself.

Steve struggles to his feet and stands tall to address the villain. “Henry Creel.”

Vecna’s lips curl into a malicious smile, much like a wild animal baring its teeth.

“Hello, Steven. I have to say, you’re much less impressive than I thought. Based on the way Y/N thinks about you, I would’ve thought you were some kind of hero or god. But you’re just pathetic.”

“You’ve been reading Y/N’s mind?” Steve asked, though he wasn’t too surprised to hear that.

“Well of course,” Vecna drawled. “After you took her from her home, I had to keep tabs. Make sure she’s all right. Try and convince her to come back, to turn on you and your equally pathetic friends…but no. She pushed me out every time. She may be too good to rule alongside me, once I take over Hawkins and then the rest of the world. It will be a grand extinction event.”

Bile rose in Steve’s throat.

“We’ll stop you!” he said, voice wavering.

“I’m sure your friends will certainly try…but you’ll be dead before they can.”

Vecna shot a hand out. Steve turned on his heel and ran across the barren, dried-out lake, dodging Vecna’s vines.

***

Y/N awoke with a start, heart skipping a beat. Something was wrong.

An off feeling settled across the room, like humidity clinging to the air. She freed herself from a tangle of blankets and stood, looking around for the source of her apprehension.

Her powers gave her slightly heightened senses, but nothing was amiss. In fact, Y/N’s mind felt a lot less cluttered than it had for weeks, as if she was physically uneasy but mentally at peace. It was funny; ever since Steve had rescued her from Henry, she’d still felt his presence, but tonight the beast wasn’t—

Y/N bolted down the hall to Steve’s room. If Henry wasn’t in her mind anymore…it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure who he’d go after next. The person Y/N was closest to after everything happened.

“Steve!” Y/N yelled, pounding on the door. “Wake up!”

She prayed for Steve to open his bedroom door, looking groggy and pissed that she woke him from a completely normal sleep. Because that would mean he was okay and not currently being tortured in Henry’s mindscape.

She counted out five seconds before bursting inside. She let out a gasp when she saw Steve: laying on his bed with his eyes fully open, and glazed-over white.

Y/N dove for the walkie-talkie on Steve’s bedside table. “Red alert! Red alert! Henry Creel got Steve!”

A cacophony of voices greeted Y/N as his friends began to panic over the radio waves.

“Play his favorite song!” Jonathan said. “We’ll be right over.”

Y/N pressed play on Steve’s boombox, where a Paul McCartney cassette was already loaded up. But she didn’t trust the music to work on its own, not this time. Henry wanted revenge for Steve rescuing Y/N, and there was no guarantee that he still could be defeated with a few bars of a song.

Steve was in this mess because of her, so she was going to fix it, goddammit.

“I’m going in!” Y/N said. “Back in his mind, like I had been doing. I can save him!”

“Wait!” Nancy said. “Are you sure that’s—”

Y/N didn’t want to hear the rest of Nancy’s question. She pulled Steve’s desk chair next to his bed, held his hand in hers, and focused her breathing. In seconds, she was transported to the nightmare he was trapped in.

She stood in a blood-red landscape, with pieces of wood and furniture floating all around. Henry Creel had Steve tied up with vines, one hand hovering above his victim’s face. Steve winced, eyes screwed shut.

“Say goodbye, Steven,” Henry cackled.

“Get away from him!” Y/N yelled, using her powers to throw a plank of wood at the back of Vecna’s skull. He ducked and whipped around, smirking.

“You!” the monster bellowed. “I have been waiting for you to come to your senses. Return to me, sister. And apologize for abandoning me.”

“I’m not your sister!” Y/N said. “And I’m not fucking sorry. You took me from my real family. You kept me locked away! Isolated! For three fucking years!”

More debris flew toward Henry, which he sent flying back in her direction with his powers.

“Y/N!” Steve cried out. “Look out!”

She dodged the debris, just barely. What ensued was a tennis match of supernatural proportions, with the two telekinetics trying to outmatch each other. However, Y/N didn’t use her full strength on her attacks — she used a fraction of her powers to loosen those vines around Steve, hoping he’d be able to feel it and slip out of them.

The double duty caused Y/N to get tired quickly. She didn’t duck out of the way of a piece of rock in time, causing her to fall to the ground with a groan.

“Give in,” Henry said. “Or else I will kill your dear Steven.”

He raised his hand toward Steve once more. Steve grimaced in pain as the vines Y/N had psychically loosened tightened once more.

“I know how much you care for him,” Henry taunted. “How your heart beats for him.”

If Y/N wasn’t possibly concussed, she would’ve been embarrassed at Henry from exposing her crush. Instead, she came up with a new plan. Fast.

“I do care for him,” Y/N said, mind racing, “so I’ll take your deal. If you let him go—unharmed—I’ll come back to your realm…and I won’t run away again.”

“No!” Steve begged. “Don’t do it.”

“Quiet!” Henry snapped. He turned back to Y/N, an unsettling smile spreading across his features.

“That’s the correct answer,” he said. “Once you awake to Hawkins, find the nearest gate and return to your real home. Return to me.”

“Y/N, please,” Steve said, tears welling in his eyes. “I’m not worth it.”

Y/N’s heart cracked in two, hearing Steve talk about himself like that.

“You are, Steve,” she said. “I’ll be fine.”

Henry waved his hand, and a portal opened underneath Steve. He fell into it, to regain consciousness in his bedroom once more.

“We didn’t shake,” Y/N said, before Henry could wave a hand and send her back to the Harrington house, to her physical form.

“Excuse me?”

“Shake on it,” Y/N said. She held out a hand. “You know, like people do for verbal contracts?”

Henry looked at her palm with disdain, but held out his own right hand. As soon as Y/N had a grip on it, she pulled Henry to her with all her might, turning him around so his back was to her, and trapped him in a headlock.

“LET GO OF ME!!!” Henry bellowed. Before he could use telekinesis to send Y/N flying, she screwed her eyes shut and used his biggest telepathic trick against him: she pumped his mind with his own bad memories.

Memories of Nevada. Of a dank, cold cave. Of a dank, cold alternate dimension. Of returning different. Darker. An outcast, even in his own family. And then, a murderer. All at the hands of the monstrous creature that Y/N knew he served like a knight.

When Henry finally regained some semblance of control, he didn’t use his powers on Y/N. Instead, he simply shoved and stumbled a few feet away. He glowered at her.

He seemed more shaken up than Y/N had ever seen him. She would’ve felt bad, if not for all the horrible things he’d done.

“You are pathetic,” Henry snarled, quickly recovering.

“Just doing what you taught me,” Y/N said. “Invading people’s minds, finding their most vulnerable memories. Like brother, like sister, huh?”

“Don’t bother returning to me,” Henry said coldly. “We are done. When all you hold dear is wiped from the face of the planet, don’t come crawling back to me for forgiveness.”

With that, he snapped his fingers.

***

When Steve awoke in his room with a gasp, Hopper, Jonathan, Nancy, and Robin were all standing around his bed.

“Oh thank god!” Robin said, throwing his arm around Steve’s neck. “I thought you were a goner!”

“Nope, still here,” Steve said, hugging her back. “But where is—”

His heart sunk when he saw Y/N sitting in his desk chair with her eyes closed, moving back and forth under her eyelids like the pendulum of a clock. A steady nosebleed rolled off her nose. She was in a trance. Vecna’s trance.

“Huh?” Steve said. “No, she was supposed to be awake by now.”

He stumbled out of bed and shook her shoulder.

“Hey, wake up!”

“Kid, what happened?” Hopper asked.

Steve explained how Y/N had shown up and fought Vecna, and how she’d made a deal to go back to him.

“I begged her not to,” Steve said. “And now she’s still not awake, and I bet Vecna double-crossed her, and—”

Her eyes popped open, and the whole room let out a sigh of relief. Even Jonathan, who’d never been particularly fond of Y/N.

She looked up and grinned.

“You’re okay!” Y/N said, leaping up from the chair and tackling Steve in a hug. He hugged her back, holding on tightly and not wanting to let go.

“Just shaken up,” Steve said. He pulled away and gripped her shoulders. “Listen, you can’t go back to the Upside Down.”

“Steve—”

“No, let me finish!” he said frantically. All his feelings came spilling out in a big rush. “I like you a lot, Y/N. And I want you to stay. Not just to fight Vecna, but I want you to just…I don’t know, be in my life!”

“Steve, listen—”

“Oh my god, I’m coming on too strong,” Steve said, removing his hands from Y/N’s shoulders. He opened and closed his palms at his sides, looking like a deer in the headlights.

“No, it’s fine, but let me explain—”

“I like being your friend, but maybe I think sometimes that I want to be more, but please tell me to shut the fuck up if I’m—”

“Steve!” Nancy said with a laugh. “Shut up and let her talk!”

Steve shrank away from the way his friends snickered at his flustered state. Even Hopper had a smirk on his face.

He wasn’t embarrassed for too long, because Y/N reached for his hand and gave it a gentle squeeze.

“I’m not going back to him,” Y/N said. “I gave Henry a taste of his own medicine, and he doesn’t want anything to do with me anymore. I mean, he still wants to try and take over the world and kill us all, but he’s not going to take me back to the Upside Down.”

Relieved, Steve let out a breath.

“Oh. Good.”

“And all that other stuff you said…I want you in my life too, Steve.”

She gave him a quick kiss on the cheek, and Steve blushed.

“Okay, that’s our cue to leave,” Hopper said. “Glad you two are okay. Meet us at the radio station at 0800 hours tomorrow. Y/N, I want to hear how you overpowered Vecna. It could come in handy when we make our plan of attack.”

With that, the others left, Jonathan mumbling something about, “Don’t be late” on the way out. Y/N didn’t take offense, remembering how worried Jonathan sounded when Steve was in trouble, and how slightly happy he was to see her awake. He seemed to be their friend, even if he didn’t want to admit it.

Y/N knew things weren’t going to be easy for their group the next few months. But she knew they could handle whatever Henry, and the Mind Flayer, and anything else threw their way.

And maybe, just maybe, once things settled down, she could go back to having a somewhat normal life again, alongside Steve.

Maybe. Possibly. Hopefully.

⚡️⚡️⚡️

tagging those who expressed interest in this + some of my mutuals!: @aloneinthehellfire @procrastinationprincesses @thecreelhouse @roanofarcc @sunshine-daydreams0809 @somethingnonenatural @starry-eyed-steve @scaredofbeingbasic @huffledor-able541 @curiositydooropened @crappymixtape @springautumn

#ahhhhhhhhh #tbr #amanda's favorites #amanda's fic recs #steve harrington x reader #i already know um gonna love it

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