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afewproblems · 1 year ago

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Season Two Halloween AU Part Five

Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four

Synopsis: What if Eddie had been at Tina's Halloween Party in Season Two? Featuring Steve!Whump, Stancy Breakup, and Eddie just trying to keep up with all these new revelations about who King-Steve actually is...

Huge huge HUGE shout-out to Jess @strangersteddierthings for being my sounding board and letting me send such long messages full of spoilers!! I can't thank you enough!

***

“Dustin, what the hell are you doing here?” Steve says as he hurries towards the kid, he looks around as though expecting another person to follow behind him.

“I can’t find Nancy or Jonathan, you’re the only other one who knows about--”

The kid, Dustin, tilts himself to look past Steve at Eddie with suspicious eyes, “you know”.

Steve freezes, his shoulders a rigid line of tension as Dustin steps around him to head for the screen door.

Eddie had to give it to the kid, he certainly had guts just waltzing in here like this.

“You still have your bat?”

Steve looks from Dustin to Eddie and lowers his voice to mutter something that has Dustin shaking his head rapidly.

"The one with nails, Steve".

"Your what?" Eddie blurts out, forcing the other two to turn towards him. Dustin full on glares. His eyes narrow in irritation while Steve's face pales before smoothing out in that same guarded expression from earlier.

Dustin steps closer to Eddie and crosses his arms over his chest, "who are you?"

"Dustin--"

"That was a rule," Dustin cuts across Steve, smacking the back of one hand into the palm of the other, "no one else gets to know, and I can't tell Max, so you can't just tell him--"

Steve jerks his head as if slapped, a flush building on his cheeks and ears, "I haven't--Eddie's not, I don't--"

Dustin waves his hand dismissively and turns towards Eddie once again.

"Look, it's cool that Steve is expanding his social circle but you should leave".

The attitude on this kid.

Eddie holds out a hand at Dustin and laughs but it tumbles out with a tinge of hysteria, "I'm sorry, I'm still stuck on the whole Nail Bat thing?"

Steve groans, his head swings back and forth from Eddie to Dustin as though he's not sure who to answer first.

He sighs and runs one hand over his face, roughly from the slight wince he makes as he brushes the black eye, "look," Steve barks out, "he's a friend".

Something in Eddie's chest warms at the words despite the incredulous scoff that threatens to tumble out. Steve Harrington, friends with Eddie Munson?

Dustin snorts, "you don't have friends? I only ever see you with Nancy and Jonathan".

Steve flinches slightly at the words, but Dustin carries on talking, brushing past Steve to the house.

"We don't have time for this, I've been looking for you guys all day and now it's dark and there are lives at stake--"

"Je-sus, okay, okay," Steve takes three long strides to catch up to Dustin and steps in front of him, he reaches out for the kids shoulder but seems to think better of it and instead runs the hand through his hair.

"You said lives are at stake?"

It's like a switch is flipped in the kid, he whirls around on Steve, a stream of near gibberish falling out of his mouth at a mile a minute, Eddie can hardly follow it.

"And now he's this big," Dustin hisses, throwing his hands nearly two feet apart from one another.

Steve holds up his hands, "okay, Christ, how do you know it's not just a lizard, Dustin?"

"Because its face opened up and ate my cat, Steve".

Steve looks up at Eddie, meeting his gaze with a nervous laugh, "listen, Dustin, uh, he watches too many B-Monster movies, I'm just gonna take him back to his house".

Now Eddie wouldn't say he's necessarily a, 'go-with-the-flow' kind of guy, but he can roll with the punches --any Dungeon Master worth their salt needed to be able to think on their feet when the time came.

Which is probably why he opens his big fucking mouth.

"I mean, life and death situations with cat-eating Kobolds sounds exactly like my kind of night fellas".

Steve frowns and tilts his head, staring at Eddie while Dustin perks up, his eyes widen in surprise.

"Kobolds? You play D&D?" Dustin says skeptically, pushing past Steve to make his way up to Eddie now.

Eddie laughs at the question, "kid, I run the D&D club at Hawkins High".

Suddenly it's like there's a different kid standing in front of him, his face lights up in wonder and he opens his mouth to continue when Steve makes a sputtering noise behind him.

"Henderson," Steve bites out, hands on his hips, "I swear to God, if you interrupted us for some Halloween prank, you're dead".

He stands there for a moment scowling at the pair of them before turning on his heel and walking towards the house.

"It's not a prank," Dustin huffs defensively, his arms cross over his chest and his face scrunches into a frown.

He looks up at Eddie briefly, all good will from the D&D revelation earlier now forgotten as Dustin follows Steve's path towards the door.

Eddie sighs, he could just leave at this point. Either this is the most elaborate way someone has ended a smoke session with him, or the weirdest role playing game Eddie has ever found himself in the middle of.

But something about the fear in Dustin's voice has Eddie lingering beside the abandoned loungers. He bends down to pick up the forgotten joints and puts them back in his lunchbox before putting the lunchbox back in the backpack. No sense in letting some perfectly good jays go to waste.

The screen door slides open again revealing Steve, who blinks in surprise, "you stayed?"

Eddie shrugs, "I said I would, didn't I?"

Steve nods, and ducks his face, but he can't quite hide the smile that blooms, his eyes crinkle at the corners for the briefest moment before it falls.

"Listen, I know that it sounds like a load of shit--"

"Understatement," Eddie cuts in with a shake of his head.

"Yeah, but you need to know, if you come with us, you're in it. I'm not joking, this is your chance to just walk away".

It's almost as if Steve is pleading with him, and it's then that Eddie notices what Steve has gripped between his hands.

A fucking baseball ball bat, studded with nails that have been haphazardly hammered into the end of it.

Eddie looks from the bat, to Steve's face as Dustin steps out of the house now with two walkie talkies in his hand. He reaches for Steve's backpack and unzips it to place them inside before zipping it up again. There's a grim determination on both of their faces that Eddie has never seen on another person in real life and suddenly he's speaking without thinking again.

"Well, what are we waiting for?"

***

Eddie swipes a shaking hand through his sweat matted hair as he watches Steve and the rest of the party move about the Byers living room.

As though mere hours ago they didn’t just fend off a group of flower faced creatures hellbent on entering their fortified school bus to tear them apart.

It was crazy.

It was absolutely batshit that all this time there were creatures from another dimension running around their sleepy little backwoods town.

Eddie shudders at the memory of the sounds they made, the horrible grating wails like metal on metal, echoes in his mind.

And now…a person was dead. Mr. Newby.

Eddie had met him once while buying a used amp at the Radio Shack just a few months ago. He was nice, asked about the band and what instrument Eddie played. He had even offered to help Eddie get the amp out to his van.

And now, he was dead.

Mr. Newby would never take Joyce out for another date, he would never walk into his job and help take inventory, he would never offer a helping hand or piece of advice ever again.

Eddie can't help but think about how close they had all come to ending up like Bob, how one of these things had almost crawled into the bus.

What if they hadn't been called away? Bob had a gun and that hadn't been enough to stop the pack of creatures from…

Eddie looks to Steve.

Steve who hasn't stopped pacing the Byers living room since Hopper herded all of them into the house.

He takes five steps to the window at the front of the room, and five steps back to the door of the kitchen, again and again.

And suddenly, things make so much more sense.

The strange haunted expression on Steve's face Eddie would see between classes whenever he thought no one was looking.

The way the three of them, Jonathan, Nancy, and Steve never let the kids go anywhere without a ride.

The way Steve had looked at his empty pool yesterday.

Things happen in the dark, in the woods.

On the fifth pass, Eddie reaches out to Steve and catches the hand closest to him.

Whatever trance Steve was in dissipates, leaving him to blink once and look down at Eddie's hand before slowly curling his fingers more firmly around Eddie's and squeezing gently.

"How're you holding up?" Steve asks quietly as he drops Eddie's hand to pull a dining chair up to where Eddie is seated on a beaten up recliner.

Eddie scoffs at the question and shrugs, "when I figure that out, you'll be the first to know".

Steve nods, a small half smile climbs up his face.

It drops as he looks across the room at Will.

Jonathan kneels beside the couch, talking quietly to his brother, who stares blankly at the ceiling while Nancy watches on beside them.

Eddie's eyes follow Nancy's hands, the way she hesitates to touch Jonathan before eventually giving in and draping her hands over his shoulders.

He looks back at Steve who also seems to be watching Nancy. He breathes out a long sigh and shakes his head, before turning back to Eddie.

"If it makes you feel better, you're taking it better than I did the first time".

Eddie raises one skeptical eyebrow and smirks, "I highly doubt that--"

"I ran away," Steve cuts across him with wide eyes, "I almost left Nance and Jon with a monster, one of those things that took Will," he holds Eddie's gaze for another beat before dropping it to the floor.

"So, don't sell yourself short".

Eddie opens his mouth to tell Steve he should take his own advice but Hopper suddenly makes his presence known once more as he closes the door to Joyce's room behind him and walks back into the living room.

"Okay, we may not have backup on route for a few more hours--"

"If they're even coming," Mike scoffs from the corner, "who says they believed you anyway?"

"Listen, until we are told otherwise, we need to sit tight," Hopper barks, sending a glare Mike's way.

Hopper deflates slightly, as though realizing who he's talking to, and takes a deep steddying breath which he releases slowly through his nose, “we can't just charge in without backup--"

"If we sit here on our asses those things will eventually make it to town, you saw the tunnels Hop," Dustin bites out this time, shooting his own fierce glare at the chief as he stands beside Mike.

"They'll tear everything apart," Max says softly from the floor. She's settled against the back wall of the living room against the collage of drawings that Will had completed in his frenzied state, Lucas sits closer and takes her hand in his own.

"Oh no," Steve mutters under his breath, he spares Eddie a glance before standing up from the chair, "no, no, we can't fight these things by ourselves, we're outmatched here Henderson".

"Not if we know how they work," Mike insists. He walks towards where Max and Lucas are sitting, nearly stepping on the pair of them in his haste.

"Jesus Mike," Lucas hisses under his breath while Max settles for stomping her foot against Mike's own. He jumps at the sudden pain and the three of them dissolve into vicious bickering and name calling until Steve and Nancy pull the kids away from each other.

"Okay, just, keep going Mike," Nancy tells him, once everyone has settled down once more. She gestures to the drawings taped up around the room.

"As I was trying to say," Mike sneers at Max who scoffs and crosses her arms, "what if it's all connected, the tunnels, the dogs, Will?"

No one speaks, the words seem to hang in the air as all eyes move to the couch where Will lays wrapped in blankets and staring unseeing at the ceiling.

Mike continues, "this all started after that day in the field--"

"And if he was infected," Dustin interrupts with a gasp as Mike nods rapidly, pointing at him and then the drawings again.

"It's like a virus, connecting him to this, this--"

"Hivemind," Lucas supplies, his voice hollow as he stands up to join the rest of the kids, "like what Mr. Clarke told us".

"Okay, okay, slow down God Dammit," Hopper huffs as he lifts his hand to pinch his fingers into his eyes.

"Hivemind?" Steve says slowly, as though rolling the word around on his tongue, "like bees?"

Dustin blinks once, his face morphing in surprise, "kind of, it's like a superorganism made up of several others all working together, one collective consciousness".

"A Mindflayer," Eddie whispers, just loud enough for the kids to turn their heads towards him.

He's been quiet for so long, sitting on the sidelines of this group that had clearly worked together in a crisis before. It was almost like listening to Jeff, Gareth, and Grant in a Hellfire session, watching them work out a trap in real time before executing their plan.

It would be endearing if there weren't actual monsters running about.

"Holy shit," Mike breathes out while Dustin darts off towards the bookshelf in the corner.

He flips up some of the drawings until he finds what he's looking for and loudly crows, "yes!"

Dustin marches back to the kitchen table and slams the book down on the surface before flipping several pages. He slaps the back of his hand on the page in triumph as he sends Eddie a confident grin.

"This isn't a game kid," Hopper sighs but steps closer to look at the book nonetheless.

"But it's the closest metaphor we have," Dustin argues back.

"Analogy," Lucas says as he steps towards the table, a shit eating grin pulls at his mouth as he catches Dustin's eye.

"Fine, analogy, whatever!" Dustin mutters, a red flush climbs up his neck until it settles on his ears, he slaps his hand on the books again, "can I get on with it or do you have more vocab for me?"

"Dustin," Nancy sighs, reaching out for his shoulder with one hand, she gives it a slight shake, "what would this even tell us?"

"Well," Dustin turns to Nancy now and points at a section below a horrifying drawing of a humanoid man with a squid for a head. Four tentacles point in all directions while its hands wield a terrifying glowing orb.

It's not something that Eddie has thrown at his players in years now that he's managed to figure out how to balance his encounters properly.

Because Mindflayers…were horrific.

"They're basically from another dimension, and they travel to different worlds to conquer other species that they see as inferior to themselves".

"Conquer," Steve breathes out beside Eddie who can't help but shuffle closer to brush his shoulder against Steve's own.

Steve gives Eddie a brief smile before looking back to where Dustin and Hopper are arguing once again.

Eddie lets his gaze drift only to find Nancy staring at him curiously, her sharp blue eyes flit from Steve and back to himself, the weight of her gaze makes Eddie want to pull away from Steve but he holds his ground and stares right back.

Nancy offers him a tentative smile, which does nothing to ease the sudden tension in Eddie's chest, feeling as though he's been caught.

He could easily explain this away, despite the rumors running rampant at school about Eddie, there is no way anyone would believe the same would be true of Steve Harrington.

Eddie ignores the unhappy weight that settles in his stomach at the thought, he let himself get way too close, way too quickly.

Besides, there wasn’t a chance in hell that Steve was, that he could be…

Eddie shakes himself and moves away, lamenting the loss of Steve’s warm shoulder as he lets Hopper's voice pull him back to the matter at hand.

"Okay then," Hopper nods, looking around the room.

"How do we kill it?"

***

They have a plan.

Or at least, half of them do.

Going based off a thirteen year olds hypothesis that their friend is basically a spy for a creature from another dimension -which in hindsight is definitely not the craziest thing they’ve experienced today.

Is it something that Eddie would have never come up with in his wildest dreams? Undoubtedly.

But that was before a girl with literal mind-powers showed up and tossed a dead demodog through the Byers window.

Jesus Christ.

So, with El and Hopper on their way to the lab, the rest of the party busies themselves by packing the Byers Station Wagon for the drive to Hopper's cabin.

They have to flush this thing possessing Will out of him before it's too late and the cabin is far enough out of town that whatever happens hopefully won’t affect anyone else.

Eddie tries not to think too deeply about what that might mean.

He manages to find another portable heater in the Byers basement and hauls it into his arms before turning around to walk back up the stairs.

When Eddie reaches the landing his heart stops for just a moment when he realizes he can't see the kids. He takes another step into the kitchen and breathes out a sigh of relief when he sees the four of them huddled around the kitchen table with the still open Monster Manual.

Eddie pauses for just a moment when he spots a Hawkins County map beside the book.

It's covered in red marker.

An intricate design of lines ending with two circles…both around areas outside of the city center.

Eddie shakes his head and keeps moving, much to the visible relief of the kids as he makes his way to the back door.

One problem at a time.

He knows that Steve is around here somewhere, he was helping Jonathan carry Will to the car while Joyce and Nancy gathered as much rope from the shed as they could carry.

God, it's so dark now.

Eddie understands what Steve meant before, the way the trees rustle in the wind and the moonlight catches on animal eyes that shine in the dark. It's enough to put him on edge as he makes his way around the Byers property.

Every snap of a branch was a demodog prowling in the brush, every distant howl was a monster coming to drag him into the Underdark.

He shivers and keeps moving, fighting the urge to look over his shoulder every few steps.

Eddie finally makes his way to the shed, peering inside only to startle as Nancy's voice floats through the cool November air.

"Thank you, for staying with the kids," she says quietly.

Eddie freezes where he stands with the heater in hand. He knows he shouldn't be here for whatever this is, listening in on yet another private conversation between Nancy and Steve but his feet remain planted in the earth.

"Yeah well, I might be a shitty boyfriend, but it turns out I'm a pretty damn good babysitter," Steve hums so casually that Eddie wonders if it's really him speaking. They’re on the other side of the Byers shed, Eddie can almost make out their shapes between the uneven slates of the wood.

"Steve--"

"It's okay, really," Steve takes a deep breath, "you should go with Jonathan".

"Steve," Nancy's voice is wet this time as she speaks but Steve hushes her with a sigh.

"It's okay Nance,” he pauses for a beat, “all I want is for you to be happy, and I don’t think you’ve been happy for a long time”.

“What about you,” Nancy whispers, so softly that Eddie almost misses it this time.

Eddie hears the sounds of footsteps and the rustle of fabric, a muffled sniffle and several whispered words that he can't make out from this distance.

The whispering goes on for another minute or two before they fall silent, only the sound of cicadas and frogs echo in the midnight air around them.

Eddie takes this as his cue to begin to loudly walk over, purposefully grinding his steps into the gravel and walking more heavily than he normally would.

He comes around the corner of the shed to find Steve holding Nancy, his head on top of her own as she presses her face into his chest.

Eddie clears his throat and watches as Nancy steps away from Steve. He lets her go, both of their movements lighter than they have been in days.

"If you guys checked the shed, Joyce said it's now or never".

Nancy nods and walks over to take the heater from Eddie, giving him a warm smile as her gentle hands brush his own, and huh --he kinda gets it now. How Steve could have fallen head over heels for this secret badass girl, Nancy Wheeler.

"Thank you," Nancy smiles and Eddie sputters, running his now free hands through his hair.

"For what, I didn't--"

She raises a single eyebrow, and looks from Steve, before bringing her gaze back to Eddie.

"For being there, for all of them".

With that, Nancy walks back towards the house leaving Eddie to feel as though he missed a lot more of that conversation than he should have.

***

They finish refortifying the Byers house, boarding up the broken window that El had tossed the dead demodog through. Eddie adds one last nail and hammers it in before stepping back to admire their handiwork.

Steve lowers his hand from where he held the board in place and shoots Eddie a grin before he collects the box of nails from the floor and turns to put it on the coffee table.

"Steve?" Eddie says quietly. He doesn’t need to really, the kids aren't paying attention to the pair of them, but this is just for Steve. Eddie doesn't need four pairs of eyes staring at him as he tries to say this.

"I just, I'm sorry about Nancy".

Steve tilts his head in confusion, but Eddie keeps going.

"If we do make it out of this, I don't want you to think you were a 'shitty' anything".

Eddie winces as Steve's eyes narrow slightly.

"I'm guessing you were standing by the shed a lot longer than we thought," Steve says slowly as he looks back at the kids and takes another step even closer.

Eddie winces at being caught and nods, “I was looking for you originally to see if you guys needed any more help, and then I heard voices and just,” he shrugs, “I wasn’t sure if you’d be okay or not, after that”.

“And for what is worth, you definitely have changed,” Eddie offers with a sly grin, “I don’t think anyone would have expected Steve-the Hair-Harrington to use Faberge, let alone let us plebs in on his secret”.

Steve’s mouth opens and closes before breaking into a wide grin, a startled laugh falling from his mouth, growing in volume until Eddie can’t help but join him.

Steve raises his hands to run over his face and into his hair as he looks at Eddie, the grin on his face softens slightly the longer he looks.

Suddenly, his eyes harden and the look of determination from yesterday takes over. Steve squares his shoulders and breathes out a strangely broken sigh before he reaches out for Eddie's hands. He takes the hammer from him and sets it down on the coffee table beside them.

"My Nonna told me once," Steve whispers, using his hand to point into the middle distance, "Steven, people will come in and out of your life all the time, and the ones that are meant to be there will stay, and if they go, then it wasn't meant to be".

Steve breathes out a sudden nervous laugh, "she was so straightforward and I loved that about her".

Eddie doesn’t dare to breathe as Steve shakes his head.

"And you, you stayed," Steve continues softly, "and I just…"

Eddie's own breathing picks up as Steve leans closer, enough that Eddie can count the freckles on the bridge of his nose.

"Fuck what Dustin said, I think I need more people in my life like that".

Eddie's eyes widen slightly as the words begin to register. No, no way, this can’t be happening.

He lets out a strangled laugh and leans away from Steve’s space, “more friends in your life right?”

It all happens so quickly after that.

Steve freezes where he stands. His face moves through several expressions, some so brief that Eddie can’t quite tell what is going on before it smoothes out once again into something blank; Steve lifts his hand to pinch the bridge of his nose before dropping it to his side and nodding.

“Yes, right, friends, duh,” Steve laughs but it's not at all like the bright wild one he let out just a few seconds ago.

This one was dull, hollow.

Eddie opens his mouth to say something, anything to wipe away the horrible emptiness in Steve's eyes but Dustin suddenly pushes past Eddie to grab the sleeve of Steve’s jacket.

"Steve!" Dustin says frantically, "Steve, we have a problem!"

The sound of a car door slamming outside catches their attention and a sinking feeling begins to form in the pit of Eddie's stomach. There's no way Hopper and El would be back from the lab yet, and Jonathan said they would radio if there were any changes.

So who the hell was outside?

Part Six

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and for some peeps that I think may be interested! @steddierthings @steddie-there @steves-strapcollection @henderdads @stevesbipanic @spooky-brakers

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henrysglock · 12 days ago

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Adoptive Sibling Relationships: The Newby family and the Byers family

Taking a break from my usual analysis style to do a little comparison between two families with adopted daughters and how the brothers in those families handle their relationships with their sisters.

As I've discussed in previous posts, Will isn't exactly the poster child for adoptive siblings. While El's struggling to stay afloat in the wake of Hopper's death, paired with being tossed into 9th grade as her very first year in school, Will lets her flounder.

Will doesn't help her with her school assignment (and as I've said before, following around behind El isn't Will's "job", but offering a little advice would be the compassionate and kind thing to do, especially seeing that El has only been exposed to greater society for the past year. Singular. One year. She's been in school for six months. Total. She hasn't even been out of the lab for 5 years. Will knows this. He knows she's undersupported, and he's the one in the best position to offer like 2 sentences of advice at home where the bullies can't get him. Would it have stopped the bullying in total for El? No. But at least the bullies wouldn't have been right. Capiche?), he doesn't step in when El's being physically harassed, he makes pointed jabs at her in front of Mike, and per the VR game, he harbors a decent amount of resentment towards her.

None of that makes Will a bad person, necessarily. He still does a multitude of good things. A lot of the negative things, especially re: bullies, are a result of his freeze response from being bullied himself. His resentment towards isn't exactly unjustified, either.

None of this means Will is bad. It just means his relationship with El isn't strong.

He's also not unique in this pattern of behavior!

There's another set of adoptive siblings that displays many of the same behaviors.

Bob and Patty Newby mimic Will and El's relationship—complete with many of the same struggles. Their relationship isn't strong.

Bob and Patty have a tenuous relationship, put nicely. It's clear that they care for each other, but there are a lot of external factors that make their relationship difficult.

Patty was adopted by Mr. Newby as a baby in hopes of saving his marriage to his wife. It didn't work, and the family broke up. That already puts Patty in a tough position with Bob in much the same way that Max was in a tough position with Billy re: broken families. No doubt there's at least a little unresolved resentment in that relationship, just like there was unresolved resentment from Billy towards Max, and there's unresolved resentment from Will towards El for her role in "breaking up" his relationship with Mike. Variations on a theme, and all that jazz.

Anyway, Mr. Newby takes his own his resentment re: Mrs. Newby out on Patty, and Bob does nothing to stop it. She's the family scapegoat, and he lets it happen. He doesn't stand up to his father on her behalf.

He doesn't stand up to Patty's bullies at school, either. When Patty's facing the brunt of her bullying from Walter during Dark of the Moon auditions, Bob is present! He doesn't do anything, though. Much like Will with El and Angela, Bob sits there and watches. He freezes. It's Sue and Charles who step in on Patty's behalf when the bullying turns blatantly racist.

While Bob does encourage Patty, particularly re: her participation in Dark of the Moon, he does not support her. He doesn't have Patty's back. Will is much the same re: the presentation. He encourages her, but he doesn't support her.

In fact, in-show Bob himself acknowledges his similarities to Will, particularly in regards to this specific shortcoming:

He and Will are not ones who punch back. They don't stand up and fight, and we can see it harming their relationships in real-time. It is an explanation, but it is not an excuse. In situations where they hold power, whether it be as a white boy in the 50s defending his black sister or as a normally-socialized boy in the 80s defending his struggling lab-raised sister, both of them flounder and fail. Both sisters are harmed because their brothers failed to use their positions of power to help them. These are things that both Bob and Will need to work on.

This is, however, where one key difference between Bob and Will comes into play:

Bob apologizes. Genuinely. Sincerely.

He acknowledges his shortcomings, he clearly and openly expresses to Patty in person, face to face, how much he loves and values her, and he refuses to allow Patty to put the blame for the situation on herself (similarly to how Mike refuses to allow Will to put all the blame on himself regarding the deterioration of their relationship).

Will gets his Bob-and-Patty-like apology from Jonathan in the pizza shop, but he does not pay it forward. Will never apologizes for not standing up on El's behalf when he was in a position to do so. We never get a tender one-on-one between El and Will wherein they talk about and resolve that tension.

This is something that, in parallel, eats Max alive regarding Billy. They never got to fix their relationship either, before Billy dies (regardless of the fact that the onus was on Billy to do so)—and it would have eaten Bob alive too, if he hadn't managed to fix his relationship with Patty before the accident and her departure for Nevada (and vice versa were Bob the one to be hurt).

(See: Patty's grief over Mr. Newby being hurt/her thinking she had a hand in his injuries because she was hanging around Henry despite how poorly Mr. Newby treated her. See also: Mr. Newby apologizing to Patty for his behavior after a near-death experience, since the onus was on him to fix the relationship he damaged).

Will and El's relationship is weaker than Bob and Patty's, and that's not El's fault—just like how the weakness in Bob and Patty's relationship wasn't Patty's fault, just like how the weakness in Will's relationship with Jonathan wasn't Will's fault. With El, the onus is on Will to strengthen their relationship, if that's something he wants to do. It's up to Will to strengthen his relationship with El. If he really cares for her, it would eat him alive if she died or was gravely injured before he got the chance to be that loving and supportive brother for her. It's up to him to acknowledge his flaws—even if they're "justified" flaws, because they're doing harm all the same. Impact >>> Intent.

El needed a friend, needed a brother, and Will wasn't there for her when the stakes were low.

We see that need crop back up in NINA, which initially (and for the majority of the arc) posits Henry as a protector/older brother for her to latch onto; the parallel/foilism between Will and Henry in NINA serve as a reflection of what El's lacking in her real life relationships...but now with far higher stakes. Can't wait to see how that set of parallels finishes out, especially with "Henry" turning on El at the last minute/when she needs him most. I won't say more than that, though, because that starts to get outside the bounds of this post.

Lastly, and I don't mean this as a "tallying up flashy heroic acts to see who's a better person" thing (because there's a lot of negativity tied up in El's belief that she always has to be the superhero/it blocks a lot of other people from growing into their possible hero roles/it's a trauma-borne flaw in El the same way freezing is a trauma-borne response in Will), but how many times has El stood up for Will? How many times has she put herself in mortal danger to protect him? El is not the one who needs to extend an olive branch to Will re: their weakened relationship going into ST5. The onus is not on her to mend a relationship she consistently puts her blood, sweat, and tears into physically preserving. If Will can't defend El physically in return, that's fine. He's not part of the X-Men. He's not Superman. But he can at least offer her a little emotional support and a little guidance, then. That's how relationships work, I fear. There's a balance to respect.

It's hard to call them loving siblings when one half doesn't act like it. Instead, it just feels like Will and his guard dog against the supernatural.

Or...maybe just Will and Mommy Byers 2.0.