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collectivecloseness · 2 years ago

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I have this angsty mess of ideas that I don't know how to put together but I'm gonna try to explain it. So like Steve has been in love with you since like forever and you become friends in season one blah blah blah you're inseparable etc, you have the tendency saving Steve's ass everytime but then you die while saving him and steve never got the chance to confess (not really that important but I guess it adds emotional damage idk) he obviously blames himself for it and everytime his phone rings he answers with the hope that for some fucked up reasons it's you and you're actually still alive but stuck in the upside down. Everyone is concerned about him bc it feels like he's slowly going crazy and is very much delusional.

Idk if that's like very long or makes no sense at all so sorry in advance, your eyes must be bleeding after reading this. :/

Robin being the one to always check on Steve after he loses you. She knew what you meant to Steve, most shifts mentioned you, and your recent interactions with Steve, most nights were him- were the both of them, talking on the phone about you. She loved the whole will they won’t they, and the puppy love gossip with Steve. Now she wished she’d pushed more, at least Steve would feel better if you’d known.

Robin’s learnt to be more open and vulnerable, since she’s been the one to look after Steve, being emotional and like a true friend, rather than snarky and quippy and teasing with him. She’s always coming in to check on him with her key to his house, pressing her hand on his shoulders each time she says hi, unless she’s rushing to comfort him again.

Robin tells him a few times “You know I said I can move in, or we could both move to our own place! I’m lonely! Besides, I love spending time with my best friend.” Robin’s been encouraging it. Her and Steve had breiefly passed the ideas before, before you, but she got the feeling back then they both badly would have liked it, living together, but neither wanted to be the first to come on too strong and vulnerable. It was different now. And Robin really didn’t want Steve to be lonely either. Besides, Robin came over to Steve’s literally every day she could anyway.

But to Steve, Robin wasn’t you. He still loves Robin, as her own person and his friend, he doesn’t compare you two at all. But Steve worried the constant company might make him go crazier than he already feels. It also wouldn’t allow for any of his unhealthier coping mechanisms. Steve would argue in his head, even crying or screaming himself to sleep, he wouldn’t be able to do anymore, but he’d done that in front of some of his friends anyways.

Robin, Nancy, Eddie, Dustin, all of his friends all worried about him. Max, Lucas and El had come over yesterday. Joyce makes sure to drop by a couple of times a week at least. Robin came every day, while the others did sometimes, varying in frequency. They knew Steve wasn’t healthy.

Sometimes, Steve whipped his head to the side, out of nowhere, or maybe with a small sound one of them picked up, from years of fear of monsters from other dimensions. But they knew it wasn’t Steve being scared of bumps in the night. It was because he thought he may have heard you. It was a glimmer of hope, just for a second, and they hated seeing it shatter each time.

Steve did worry about bumps in the night too. Steve worried about the next time he’d have to fight, no matter what it might be. Because this time, no one would come to save him.

You were always the first to come for him. You specifically sought Steve out first, checked on him first, he was always your first choice, the one you always checked on, the one you’d always save. You were with Steve for all his fuck ups. You’d seen him grow, and he knows you’d never judged him for his past once he actually got better. Not once. No one else had done that. But you also made Steve better. And he was still scared he won’t be as much now, without you.

But on the other hand, Steve wasn’t sure he really wanted anyone to save him next time. If the next time he dies saving the others, then whatever. He couldn’t save you. At least he could be with you then.

No one would be designated to check Steve first, to save him first, and that’s what he got. Steve always put himself in front of danger first, and now he’d lost you, there would be no one to save him. It was his price.

Steve wanted to go back straight after. He wanted to go back for you the next day, and the day after. To the place he’d left you. At the end of the week, he told Robin his plans, with his rucksack already on his back. And not only did she physically hold Steve to the floor, but she locked all the doors as she walkied Eddie and Nancy - not the kids, she knew when Steve was better, even now, he wouldn’t want the kids to see him like this - and Eddie had to bear hug Steve so he wouldn’t try to leave, while all of them gently tried to talk their friend down. They said it was a suicide mission! And that’s when Steve screamed “I DON’T CARE!” Trapped in his friends arms. Screaming those words not enough overemotionally, but too genuinely, that it really got them worried. Steve was still fighting to leave. He had collapsed into tears after that. He wanted to go and he meant it.

Nancy wanted to sedate him by that point, because she was too worried Steve would leave. But Robin put her foot down at that thought. It would create a super bad spiral, and Steve wouldn’t trust them, she knew they had to do something else! Luckily Robin thought of something. Mixed in with Steve’s yells at Eddie, Eddie trying to talk to Steve, and Nancy on edge and trying to not look as upset as she probably was while getting Robin to think of something else before she snapped.

Robin called the number she knew to, and soon afterwards, Joyce was entering Steve’s home with her own spare key. Joyce let Steve cry into her lap, and she stroked his back, talking when Steve wanted to, only lulling her own assurances when he didn’t, and just soothing Steve, until he fell asleep like that, in his room with her. Robin knew Steve wouldn’t fight Joyce to leave, or yell too much at her or anything. Steve had fallen asleep early in the afternoon, and Nancy didn’t even need to sedate him because he stayed asleep, luckily for the entire night. Joyce wouldn’t leave. She wanted to stay until morning, she didn’t want to leave Steve overnight, or at all right now.

Joyce even made breakfast the morning after, making sure to stay by Steve’s side because he’d always eat her cooking if she was there. And it was a sickly sweet feeling for everyone watching whenever that happened, because Steve would take a few bites and then finish his plate clean. But they knew he’d probably only had a few bites the day before, with how much he gorged on Joyce’s dishes when she was around to eat with him.

Robin stayed in bed with Steve most nights for sleepovers. That night Joyce had, which she’d done quite a few times. Nancy or Eddie had done it several times more, too. Sometimes Steve would say look, he really just wanted tonight alone. And if they trusted the way he said it, he got that. They understood sometimes he did need that. But Robin also hates leaving Steve alone, because she knows nights are worse for him (and in general as well). She didn’t want to be overbearing though, something friends when she was younger would stop being her friends for, but a trait she’d stopped shielding when she needed to be Steve’s open support. But to be honest, even if Steve couldn’t mourn as well if he wasn’t alone at night, those mostly seemed like mourning in the destructive ways.

Steve knew he was safe with Robin, or Nance, or Eddie, or Joyce there, from monsters, and from himself. Not that he was thinking of that last part, he was trying to convince them, but he wasn’t very good at stopping his brain from eating himself alive, because he didn’t feel like he wanted to stop. He wanted punishment.

At one point, after you’d died, Eddie had tried to give Steve something of yours, an item he got from your house when he went to visit your family. When he’d explored your now, forevermore, empty room. But Steve had a moment, and was mad that Eddie had ruined your shirt, forever tainting it with his smell, and his touch, and not leaving it the way you had the day you’d gone to meet Steve and the others. Steve had later apologised for freaking out on Eddie about it. Something Eddie casually waved his hand over, promising Steve never could be freaky, and saying it was okay, he was sorry too. Steve didn’t really want to think about anymore. That top still felt slightly tainted, no matter how ridiculous Steve knew it was. He just didn’t have much left of you, that was still untouched. That was yours, and had still last been touched, moved, adored, by you. So Robin didn’t bring Steve things from your house. She’d just tell him if she found something, if he wanted to look at it, or go over later. To which Steve would generally just nod at her.

Steve had had a few moments, but luckily, he’d had friends there every single time. No matter how different the moments were. If it was him spiralling, down dangerous paths for himself. Him accidentally spooking someone, maybe by lashing out, or just not having the energy to look after someone else, even if they were upset because of his crumbling. Including the ones, where Steve would adamantly deny the facts in front of him. It was like the first two days, Steve knew you were dead. And he always did, of course. The fact never left his soul. But after that things changed, and became slightly more of a purgatory, Steve always seemed even just a fraction hazy.

One time Robin had come back to Nancy crying, and Steve sobbing loud like a broken child on the floor. Steve had sworn it was you who had called. But he’d missed the call, running and slipping since he’d been in the shower when it rang. Nancy and Robin guessed he’d been thinking about you. And with a hand to his forehead between his wails on the floor, Robin knew he’d made the water too hot, again. Steve had tried to call back, but it wouldn’t work. And he yelled at Nancy for not picking up the phone, but that was only after she’d tried to gently remind him that it couldn’t be you. And then Steve had done everything to try and call back, almost breaking his phone till Nancy had wrestled it away from him. And when he realised he couldn’t, either call back, or call you, Robin hadn’t quite gotten through to him about it, Steve had collapsed into pained sobs, so distraught, and so unable to be taken out of his pain, that Nancy was sobbing too.

El had left inconsolable once, because Steve had asked multiples times if she could somehow contact you in the upside down. No one had realised, Steve had gotten El to agree one time, until she called Joyce crying because she couldn’t find you, and now she couldn’t get Steve to talk, he just had his head in his hands. But the next day, when El came to visit, with chocolates she always liked to give Steve since she heard they were good for making people happy, he’d apologised and she was herself quite easily again. Something Robin was very relieved with, knowing it would have wrecked Steve if he thought he’d hurt one of the kids.

Dustin had been turned away by Eddie before, on days Steve said he didn’t want to see anyone, which if he said that exactly, made people come over to check if he was okay. And on a day Steve wasn’t doing very well, and had Nancy and Robin bandaging his hands up because he’d punched a mirror, swearing he saw you in the reflection in a blink of his eye, and thinking for that split second maybe it was a gateway to the upside down. Although they were pretty relieved he realised that wasn’t the case straight away, no one wanted Dustin to see Steve like that, least of all Steve. But even Dustin’s visits, as the encouraging little brother, didn’t always bring a smile to Steve’s face, even a fake one he couldn’t muster. Some days, there was just little that could help.

Robin thought maybe Steve only sometimes thought this, even if there was a 0.5% chance always in the back of his head, that maybe, somehow, you were still alive somewhere. It wouldn’t matter where, because then Steve would find you. Robin wished more than anything they had your body, mostly for you, but also for Steve, and for all your friends and family. But she wasn’t going to risk anyone, to go on a suicide mission. And she didn’t want anyone else to leave Steve either. Steve wouldn’t always bring it up. But occasionally there’d be flare ups, where Steve would go on about how you could be out there. Robin was the one who’d decided she’d never flat out disagree with Steve if he got like that. He always needed one person he felt like he could always trust. So even though she never encouraged it, even if for the first week, and now she still had that 0.4% chance in the back of her mind, she’d more try to go through why Steve thought that, and be by his side as the others tried to explain.

But Robin felt at least slightly successful with every little breakthrough she and Steve had together. She was normally there for his, even if she wasn’t the one helping him get to that point anyways. But the biggest breakthrough came a night, where the day leading up to it had been pretty normal.

Keith had actually been very generous with bereavement leave for Steve, even indulging Robin every time Steve called the store in tears, panicking, and needing Robin back immediately. Today had been okay. None of them were good. But she’d come over about 9am, Eddie calling right before he knew she’d leave, to say he was dropping off McDonald’s breakfast for them both just before ten, because he had to go help his uncle with some errands today.

Robin had helped set out a fresh set of clothes for Steve, ones Nancy had left in a pile in his room yesterday afternoon when she’d been with him. Robin smiled at her little post it notes Nancy left around, for Steve, and for his friends around the house. But Robin setting out Steve’s clothes always helped kick him up just a notch enough to get out of bed and go shower. Eddie had stayed for fifteen minutes, and Steve had even watched this time as he and Robin threw hash browns off each other’s faces. Steve sometimes found it hard to watch, when other people were smiling. Robin had been really proud of him today.

Then Steve even picked out what they should have for lunch, and although Robin wasn’t sure Steve could exactly be craving a salad, she was still really happy he’d suggested something, and got to work on Nancy’s refrigerated Tupperware boxes and groceries. Nancy liked to cut things up when she had the time. Robin was pretty slow no matter what she had to cook, because otherwise she was clumsy, and no one liked to focus on something and leave Steve alone. Nancy probably chopped things up yesterday when Joyce came to visit Steve as well.

The one time Robin cut her finger when cooking for Steve with Eddie, Steve had had a full blown panic attack, but he also either thought it was your blood he was seeing, or remembered yours. Steve threw the knife to the side, grabbing Robin’s wrists and panicking, until she soothed him into remembering where he was, and who he was with, and that she was unharmed, and when Steve was back, Eddie could take him away for a second while Robin found the newly restocked first aid kit. The other times she’d hurt herself since, she’d hidden them from Steve’s sight very quickly.

Steve had picked between a variety of activities Robin suggested after lunch, and two person board and card games it had been. Everyone had been buying or donating games to the Harrington household, even the kids had been giving theirs over. So Steve never was bored of any of the games, and he could play them.

Hopper and Karen had actually both taught Steve how to play solitaire, when Mike and El had dropped off some more game to donate. A joke even Steve gave a breathy chuckle at when Eddie said there two people to explain the most famous one player game. But Robin was glad Steve might have something to do to take his mind off things when alone. She knew focusing could be hard sometimes right now for him, so she got that they both tried to explain the game. Also, Karen and Hopper did talk over each other quite a bit in explanation.

But after that, Robin had whipped something quick together for dinner, and Steve had stayed to talk with her in the kitchen the entire time. He even got out glasses and some soda. Even though Robin did most of the talking, Steve took part, which was good. But also, Steve liked talking with Robin. Because she’d talk so much, and be so passionate about what she was saying, he didn’t even need to say much to be part of the conversation, and it was something about his best friend he really appreciated at the moment, even though he used to joke about never getting a word in edgeways. Eddie was a bit the same.

Steve held the remote as they channel surfed, sitting on the couch together with their meals on their laps, since neither of them really liked the silence while eating, and Robin was pretty talked out after finishing her story in the kitchen.

But when Steve had flicked through two news channels, he froze as he immediately recognised the scene in front of him. It was from a romance film you loved, about two thirds of the way through. Steve recognised it from the first frame, from the first note of its score, as he turned over the channel.

Robin recognised it too, although she hadn’t watched it fully, and she hadn’t watched it nearly as many times as Steve had with you. She tried to keep her face blank as she looked to Steve, only a light questioning, curious expression, to see how he was feeling, before she let any of her own thoughts and feelings make him spiral. But Steve simply said “Gotta put something on, the food.” and picked up his fork, turning the volume up enough to cover any chewing sounds, like he’d done for Robin since the first time they watched tv and ate together. That had been long before he lost you.

Steve had finished quickly, but that was just a few scenes before the most important part of the romance film. The confession scene. And Steve was crying before it had even started.

Tears streamed down his face, the two leads finally starting to open up, and explain how they were really feeling. His eyes not even brown, but looking black, so big and red ridden, his cheeks drowned. Robin felt her heart hammering watching Steve crushed again, but she tried to be the best friend she possibly could, as she was always learning to now. Robin reached just a little for the remote on the coffee table, eyes questioning on Steve. But he turned to her and shook his head, so she leaned back and kept the movie on. Steve watched the film, as Robin watched both it and him. Scooting even closer, so their sides were pressed together, as Steve continued to cry. And then, even Robin was tearing up. Especially as the scene continued. And Robin wrapped her arm around Steve’s waist, her other holding his closest hip, and they both quietly sobbed watching the love confession scene, of your favourite romantic movie you’d watched a thousand times.

Just a scene you never got to live out in your young life. A scene Steve never gave you.

Steve turned to Robin as the couple shared their first kiss, the happy score coming on as the confession was over, it all goes well, and with the way Steve’s shoulders are shaking and his chest is heaving, Robin knows he needs her. She immediately opens her arms, pulling Steve in who sobs heartily into her shoulder, all her shirts used to having snot and tears and spit on them now. And she cries too, quieter than Steve, but still all the same, as she rocks him, holding him close through his heart break, through his loss, through his pain, as Steve cries loud into his best friend.

Steve mumbles everything he’s said a thousand times over. How he’s lost you. How he needs you. How you can’t be gone. That Steve wants you. That you’re dead. And that word hits hard. That word took him a while to say, after the second day of screaming it.

And when Steve pulls back, and Robin holds him still, Steve looks deep into his best friends eyes, and he shakes as he tells her the one thing he still hasn’t said yet. “I loved them.”

And Robin rubs her hands up and down Steve’s arms, as she smiled so sadly, and wept so dearly. “I know.”

Steve hiccuped, and a small groan left him. Robin still smiling sadly, still stroking him. Steve looks down, but not a lot, and Robin can always tell Steve’s thoughts, even if it’s gotten harder now. Steve just wants to think.

“How did you?” He asks, sniffling, and swallowing.

Did you know too? Maybe if Robin knew... maybe you did too. Steve just wanted you to know. He should have given you that. But maybe if you knew... even if you didn’t feel the same way, maybe you knew somebody loved you, maybe you knew he saw you just like you did him, before you were stolen.

“Well first of all, you were very romantic, lover boy, always talking about them, always filling the world with your golden thoughts about them.”

Steve liked the way Robin spoke. He thought maybe she’d picked some stuff up from Eddie too. Even knowing his loving thoughts about you had been spoken into the world you’d been living in... even if it wasn’t the one your body was in now, it gave him just a flicker of hope. A bite less of guilt.

“And...” Robin faltered now. He hands falling to Steve’s wrists, and he looked up more inquisitive now.

“And they talked about their crush on you. It’d only been a couple of days before... into the whole upside down thing. Otherwise I’d have manoeuvred you two into each other as soon as I knew, even if I had to trick you and lock you dinguses in a room or something. But that’s all y/n talked about those days.

Steve sucked in air. People didn’t say your name much anymore. Probably scared of his reaction, but Steve missed it. He needed people to bring you up, to remember you, to say your name.

“All they talked about was how they’d been in love with you for years, but recently it was too much to bear, and they just had to tell you. I told them to go for it, that I thought you might realllly like them back! But, y/n wanted to wait to tell you after we saved the world.”

Robin looked up at Steve. He was still crying, and she was joining him again. Her hands squeezed his wrists, and Steve’s knees turned to face Robin those few centimetres more, leaning warmly against her own. “And I agreed. And I wanted to wait until you brought it up again. Until you said again, that you loved them, like you used to tell me every day.”

Robin had hoped it would be less painful that way. While Steve wished it had been you he’d been telling it to every day instead.

“And... was it the right thing to do?” Robin gasps for air with her sob, shaking under Steve now.

And his breaths were gasping, his best friends starting to mirror, as his head shook up and down. “Yeah... it was.”

Robin threw her arms around Steve again, and he moaned as he held her back, so so tightly. Gripping onto Robin’s shoulders like he’d never have to let go again, as Robin nearly scrambled on top of his legs. Both of them crying open mouthed into each others shoulders. Teeth and spit and tears latched on. Neither of the best friends caring about being any semblance of perfect, and not wrecked, not when they were with each other. And they held each other so tight, so hard, as if the grief in their hearts was a magnet, pushing them even closer, but Steve and Robin never wanted to let go of each other, to help the burden of that grief.

Steve and Robin missed you, so much.

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