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afewproblems · 2 years ago

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Lost and Lonely, Just Like Heaven (Part Two)

You can read part one here!

Steve sits frozen, upright against the headboard staring at the man they had left behind, he had left behind, in the Upside Down just weeks ago.

He doesn’t scream. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d dreamt of Eddie, coming back to haunt him, his bloody hands reaching for his throat with pallid blue tinged fingers, ‘Your fault Harrington, you let me die Steve, you let me die,’ warbling out of ripped vocal chords and torn lips.

But this Eddie is different. He's lost some of the unnatural pallor, and the gore that had painted his body is gone.

He’s clean.

The wounds on his face and neck are still red and raw but don’t appear to be actively seeping. The bandana is missing, leaving Eddie’s mop of brown curls free flowing down his shoulders and back. The battle vest and jacket are gone as well, leaving him in the Hellfire shirt - which is miraculously spotless. He looks as though he has wandered straight out of the Hawkins High music room, out of the latest D&D session, rather than the noxious wasteland he’d been discarded in.

This Eddie also hasn’t said a word the entire time he’s been in Steve’s bedroom.

He wanders around, inspecting Steve’s desk and the corkboard above it, leaning forward to take in the pinned polaroids and ticket stubs, old memories that used to make Steve grin when he’d see them.

It’s hard to smile like that now.

This Eddie reaches for a framed photo on the desk, one of Steve and Robin that Jonathan had taken the year before, but his hands travel through it and Steve’s heart drops into his stomach as Eddie tries again and again to pick up the photo.

His arms fly out to grip at his hair in silent frustration as Eddie paces back and forth, he still hasn’t made a sound.

But that's when he notices Steve.

He’s making his way from the farthest corner of the room and turns back to stalk towards the desk once more but not before halting as he seems to spot the bed where Steve still sits, frozen, not daring to even breath at this point.

“Steve?” Eddie whispers once, the words are croaky and soft as though Eddie hasn’t spoken for ages.

And in a blink, he’s gone.

Every night without fail Eddie appears in his room, sometimes pacing, sometimes looking out the window, sometimes sitting on the edge of the bed.

These nights are the worst.

Eddie is close enough to touch, but the bed does not dip from the weight of Eddie’s presence and the warmth of him does not seep into the blankets like it should.

He only ever manages to say Steve’s name before he disappears, blinking out of existence like he was never there.

It happens every night for a week straight before Steve tells someone.

“What is up with you lately,” Robin asks on the following Tuesday as she gets into Steve’s car after school, he’s already dressed in the Family Video vest for their evening shift, ready to stand around and sort movie titles for the next six hours before heading home to his dark and empty house.

It's probably the most he can handle at the moment if he’s being honest with himself.

There were a few businesses that had survived the wreckage of the quakes, the arcade, the old cafe run by Ms. Benly, an older lady who took no shit and made the best apple pound cake on weekends; this too had become a regular haunt for Steve and Robin in between hospital visits and school. Mevalds general store was still running despite the hole in their roof, a large blue tarp had been fixed over it to stop the spring rain from coming in and causing even more damage.

The rebuilding efforts were certainly coming along, but the fact that their rental place had been left completely untouched meant that the Family Video store was now a strange mixture of busy, with rushes that left Steve and Robin dead on their feet some nights, and slow. Some people still had the money to come in for a movie, some people simply needed the distraction.

Tuesday would be slow, weeknights still typically were.

He startles at the hand suddenly waving in front of his face, “He-llooo? Earth to Steve? Do I need to throw on ‘Head over Heels’?” Robin chirps nervously, she already has the tape in her hands and Steve winces at having brought back even the smallest memory of Vecna for her.

“Sorry,” he says softly as he puts the car into drive, his movements sluggish, and pulls away from the street, “lost in thought”.

Robin watches him from the passenger seat, and snorts as she buckles up, “I’d offer you a penny for them but we both know they aren’t worth that much,” she snickers, flashing a soft smile his way.

“Rude,” Steve grumbles, but he can’t help the small laugh that bubbles up out of him, tension broken for the time being.

She’s quiet for a moment, he can feel her blue eyes on him for the majority of the drive as they eventually pull into the parking lot and Steve puts the beemer into park and turns off the engine.

She leans over him and reaches into the back to pull out her bag from the seat, letting it catch him on the back of the head as she brings it up front, “Asshole,” he snorts, rubbing his ear as Robin laughs and gets out of the car.

Steve follows her through the double doors as Robin greets Keith who nods at her before going back to the book he’s reading at the counter. He ignores Steve, which is fine by him. It seems that Keith has moved on from actively threatening to fire him for the smallest offenses to merely pretending Steve doesn’t exist.

It’s the small victories that count.

They drop their things off in the backroom, Robin tosses her bag into one of the four lockers, not bothering to even close it properly before she heads out front to clock in. Steve rolls his eyes and flips the locker closed before putting his own jacket away. As he steps back to follow Robin the overhead fluorescent light flickers once.

Steve swallows.

He shakes his head and brings up a hand to pinch into his eyes roughly, lights flicker, these things happen, get a grip. The shadows around the room seem larger now, they seem to move as the lights flicker again.

Robin's locker suddenly takes this as an opportunity to slowly creak open as all of the lights flicker rapidly, over and over.

Steve's breathing catches in his chest as the small table set in the corner begins to shake, an old newspaper and several pens that had been left for the crossword slip off the table and roll into the dark. The violent rocking of the table set is just slightly offset from the rhythmic swinging of Robin's locker door.

No, no, no, why was this happening?

"What do you want?!" Steve shouts as he raises his hands to cover his ears, he shuts his eyes tight, willing it all to stop.

"Steve?" Says a voice behind him, he cries out sharply as he whirls around with his arms raised, only to see a startled Robin in front of him.

"Woah! What the fuck man?" She yells, taking two steps back.

The break room is normal.

The lockers are closed, as he had left them. The newspaper and pens are still sitting on the table undisturbed. The low hum of the fluorescent light above then continues on, the harsh white light illuminates every corner of the sparse room.

Steve wills himself to slow down his breathing; he grabs his hips to hide the shaking of his hands as he stutters out an apology.

"Sorry, got distracted, I'll-I'll be right out," he tries for a small smile but feels his face fall into a grimace the longer Robin stands there.

Robin stares at him, one eyebrow cocked in barely disguised skepticism before she sighs.

"Hurry up, Keith is unbearable today," she mutters before turning on her heel and walking back out the door.

Steve slowly releases a long breath through his mouth. He lifts a shaking hand to slide through his hair. This was the first time that this…whatever it was, had followed him, that it had happened outside of the darkest corners of the Harrington home.

Maybe he's finally lost it, Steve thinks bitterly as he makes his way after Robin, leaving the empty break room behind him.

As he crosses the threshold he spots at the counter with Robin. She's inside the square employee's only desk and sitting at the computer while Keith prattles on at her. He slides a paper across the counter to Robin as he shrugs on a jean jacket.

"Try and get through these before close," Keith mutters, "don't let Harrington slack off," he continues, still refusing to look at Steve even once.

Robin nods and gives an exaggerated salute as Keith walks out the door, she turns away from the glass windows to make a face at Steve as she wags a finger at him, "you heard him, no slacking Harrington".

He snorts and finishes stuffing his time card into the machine on the side of the counter, clocking in before taking a look at the list.

"So," she says quietly, "are we going to talk about what happened back there?"

Steve sighs and grabs the list and steps back, reading the first bullet point in Keith's messy scrawl, "I told you--"

"Yeah," Robin snaps, crossing her arms over her chest, the pins and her name tag on her vest click together from the sudden motion, "you were pretty convincing," she uncrosses her arms to place her hands on her hips and in a strained deep voice she says, "Sorry got distracted”.

She lets her voice warble and shake and bites her lip as she lifts a hand to rest on her forehead like a distressed southern Belle.

Steve rolls his eyes, cheeks burning, his fingers crease the paper in his hands slightly, he resists the urge to crumple it up to toss in her face.

"I don't sound like that, and nothing happened," he bites out before he walks to the returns cart and begins pushing it towards their New Releases section.

He tries not to shout as Eddie's reflection stares at him from the window, as though he's standing in the stacks behind Steve and Robin.

"Yeah, okay," Robin says slowly, looking from Steve to the empty window, "did you take something? Do I need to call a DARE officer? Joyce? Maybe a priest?"

Steve swallows as Eddie's reflection takes a step closer to him, "Maybe a priest Robs".

Robin's face seems to vibrate with the number of expressions she moves through in a matter of six seconds, she eventually settles on a worried grimace -the small vein throbbing in her temple is new though so, more worried than annoyed Steve thinks to himself as he forces himself away from the window.

Steve can't quite bear to see Eddie right now, not when he knows he isn’t really there.

"Explain. Quickly," Robin says, her voice clipped but soft as she throws the, 'Back in 1 Hour', sign on the door and hauls him into the backroom. It's only 4:45PM but no one's even walked past the front of the store in the last half hour so it feels safe enough to close for a bit.

Steve sighs as he takes a hesitant seat in the rickety chair that had been shaking and seizing only a few moments before.

"Do you, and I know how stupid this sounds," Steve mumbles, licking his lips, his eyes trained firmly on the breakroom floor, "do you believe in ghosts?"

When he finally raises his gaze, Robin is looking at him with raised eyebrows that nearly disappear into her curly fringe, great.

"Forget it," Steve sighs as he brings his hands to his knees and rises from the chair, but Robin steps in his path and places a firm hand on his arm.

"Okay stop, first of all -it's only a little stupid," she says with a wry grin that tilts the corners of her mouth up until faint dimples form between her freckles, Steve rolls his eyes and tries to step past her but she moves with him, keeping her hand on his arm.

Her blue eyes dart back and forth between his own as she continues slowly, "And second, I think people can be haunted? Like things from the past or whatever, maybe that's all ghosts are?"

And, huh.

That, that makes some sense doesn't it? He hasn't been sleeping well, they could be dreams, do people have waking dreams though? If they are tired enough?

He doesn't want to think about the possibility of hallucinations.

Not yet.

"Is it," Robin bites her lip as though to catch the words, to stuff them back down before they can escape, "is it Eddie?"

Steve nods and brings both hands up to grip the back of his neck, hard. She's always been perceptive, or maybe he's just too easy to read, either way, he's grateful for it. Robin's warm hand falls away from his arm as she lifts it to chew on her nails.

He tuts at the sight, she'd finally started growing them out, having proudly mentioned to Steve her attempts to break her old nervous habit.

"Hey, hey" he says gently, grabbing her hand to pull it away from her teeth, "you know, it's probably just a nightmare or something Robs, you're right, okay?"

She nods and grins, it doesn't quite reach her eyes like the last one but at least she doesn't seem moments away from deadbolting the door anymore.

"Yeah, I mean, what would Eddie even want to say to you of all people," she snorts, letting the tension fall away with her laugh.

And that's when the radio turns on.

Steve and Robin slowly turn to the old Seville Radio that had been donated to the breakroom by a predecessor.

The sound jumbles from station to station, a mixture of static and voices spread through the room as the fluorescent light flickers again, just as it had earlier. Robin freezes beside him and Steve feels himself stop breathing.

He wasn’t crazy, this was happening.

The stations change again and again, moving around faster and faster until the slightest pattern emerges.

"Som-"

"Tele-"

"Evan-"

And again.

"Se-"

"Ton-"

"Edu-"

"Van-"

And again.

"S-"

"T-"

"E"

"V"

"E"

...

"Ssss-"

"T-"

"Eeeee"

"Vvvvv"

"Eeeeee"

And as suddenly as it starts, it stops, leaving the room in silence.

If it hadn't been for the small shuddering breaths from Robin, Steve would have thought he had gone deaf. She slips closer to him, her face white as a sheet.

"I guess I stand corrected," Robin whispers, "what the fuck Steve?"

Part three now up!

#stranger things #steve harrington #eddie munson #stranger things season 4 #upside down shenanigans #stranger things season 4 aftermath #robin buckley #supportive robin buckley #this one is spooky y'all #the mystery continues #a ghost? In this economy?#part two

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