i get myself twisted in threads
Chapter 1: to meet you at the Alcott
Chapters: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15
“Run!” Steve shoves at Nancy, then at him, hard.
The same way he’d forced the kids out earlier.
“Get out of here!”
“We’re not leaving you!” Jonathan isn’t sure what makes this worse: that the three of them have finally fallen into an easy friendship, no one left out, or that conversation Steve had walked in on, at the absolute worst moment, with no time to explain because Dustin and Lucas had found something in the woods.
Even after what he’d heard, he’s still putting them before him.
Nancy’s still holding his arm, just a little too tightly, so when she falls through the gate, he goes with her.
And they both get to watch as it closes, Steve still on the other side.
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He doesn’t regret it. He can’t regret it, not when it means his the kids are safe, that Nancy and Jonathan are safe, that someone is there to explain this to Hopper and Joyce and make sure no one else gets sucked in.
They’re safe. The kids—the kids are all smart as fuck, if anyone can find a way to get him back out of here, it’ll be them.
If he even survives that long.
He can’t afford to think like that, though. Not if he wants to survive.
It would be easier.
He can’t let the kids down like that.
He won't.
At this point, Steve just counts himself as lucky that he has his nail bat.
He watches the place where the gate closed up, trying to forget the looks and Nancy and Jonathan’s faces as he'd shoved them through instead of letting them get trapped here with him.
He'll be fine.
Mike would have to explain his sister's disappearance to their parents, and Joyce doesn't need to worry about her eldest being stuck here.
He’s got the bat, he’s only bleeding a little, and since this place is Hawkins, just… creepier and monster-y, he even knows his way around.
As he walks, heading back in the direction of the main road, Steve makes a checklist in his head of all the things he’ll need.
One: Food and water.
Can he trust any food he finds, though? He’s pretty sure Will didn’t eat anything, holed up in this world’s version of Castle Byers, but he hasn’t exactly asked.
Maybe another gate will open up right in front of him, and that won’t be a problem.
Two: Shelter.
All the buildings will hopefully be empty, shouldn’t be too hard.
It’s not a long checklist, but maybe it will keep him alive.
“What do you mean, Steve’s still in there?” Dustin’s red in the face, yelling, but it seems like he’s trying not to cry.
“Dustin, please.” She sighs, trying to hold it together herself. Steve’s got good survival instincts—she thinks, anyway, he’s always good at protecting the kids—and he’s got his bat. He’s not on the baseball team for no reason, and she knows sometimes he’ll go to the woods behind his house and whack the shit out of trees with it.
“We have to go get him!”
“We will.” Jonathan says, quiet as always, but it’s enough to get Dustin to stop yelling. “But we need to tell Mom and Hopper first. We’re not going looking for it alone.”
They shouldn’t have this time, but none of them thought this would happen.
“I’ll call Hopper,” Nancy squeezes her eyes shut, trying to get the image of Steve, dirt streaked on his face, hands a little bloody, out of her mind. “Jon—”
“I’ll call Mom.” He nods when she looks at him. “Kids, get blankets and pillows and set up on the floor. I don’t care if you actually sleep, but try and rest. We’ll need it.”
Will is the only one who listens right away, and she immediately misses the way all of them listen to Steve, despite complaints and protests.
“We’re going to find him.” Jonathan tilts her head up and makes her meet his eyes. “We’re going to find him, and he’ll be okay.”
“Maybe he won’t get a concussion this time.” She laughs, though it’s not that funny.
She’d pay to have a concussed Steve here, safe on this side of the gates, and not in there.
Jonathan calls Joyce first; he keeps his voice low for the kids’ sake; none of them will admit it, but they’re tired. Max and Lucas are half-asleep against each other, while Dustin, Mike, and Will lay in the circle, heads together as they whisper.
Getting through Flo to Hopper is a little harder, and for a minute, she regrets saying she’d call him.
“Hopper, it’s Steve.” That could mean any number of things, she knows: Steve’s at the quarry again, his parents are in town, or he’s having/had a panic attack and is refusing to let the kids out of his sight. Usually, it doesn’t mean that Steve’s gone missing in the Upside Down.
She wishes it were a simple problem like that. Something Hopper might even be able to fix with a few words over the phone.
“What happened?”
“He’s on the other side of a gate.”
“You went looking for one?”
“Lucas and Dustin found something in the woods and came running to Steve. We all went out. He just—” At the gate, they’d entered, he’d shoved the kids out right away. At the next one, he’d shoved them out. And they let him. “He did what he usually does.”
“I’ll be there soon.” He doesn’t have to ask, he knows they’re at the Byers’— as small as it is, it’s become their gathering place.
“What about El?” Nancy jumps, not expecting Jonathon’s voice in her eye. “She’s at the cabin, right?”
“I’ll go get her.” She says. “Steve and I have been alternating afternoons with her.”
Since Steve is still benched because of his concussion, it’s really been more him than her. “I’ll be back soon.” She kisses his cheek and grabs his keys off the counter.
“Nancy? Where are you going?” Mike sits up, like he’s going to come with her.
“To get El. Stay here. Sleep, or maybe come up with a plan.”
It doesn’t take long for him to realize there’s no way he’s going to be able to tell time here.
He heads into town first. If they’re going to have food anywhere, it would be in town, right?
The school, maybe?
He goes there first.
He finds bags of crackers, but pretty much everything else is worthless. Cans that he can’t open, perishable food he definitely can’t take with him, and that looks half-rotted anyway.
“Come on, Steve.” He says, just to hear something other than silence. “You can come up with a better plan than this.”
He opens one packet of crackers, and shoves the rest into his pockets.
He’s always been better at thinking when he’s moving, so he walks around the school, trying to figure out where he should search next. Should he go to his house? Or the Byers’? Will figured out a way to communicate, right? Maybe he can do that, too. The kids are certainly there by now, and maybe Nancy and Jonathan too.
Steve doesn’t let himself think about them for too long.
Maybe El will be able to find him. Maybe he got hit over the head and he’s going to wake up and find out this was all some shitty concussion dream.
If only it could be that easy.
Deciding to try somewhere else for food before something comes looking for him in the school, he walks to Melveld’s.
It’s the same there. Nothing refrigerated is trustworthy. He’s reaching for a can opener—maybe he can get a little variety, even though he doesn’t think he’ll be able to cook anything while he’s here—when the growl behind him sets panic ringing in his ears, his heartbeat almost covering it up completely.
There’s a demodog at the end of the aisle, and when he looks out the window, he can see another one waiting.
Are they smart enough for that?
Steve brings the bat up in front of him, wincing at the sting in his palms.
He manages to back out of the aisle, the demodog hardly moving, but he’s not lucky enough to make it to the back door.
It charges, snarling, and for a minute he’s back in the tunnels. It’s only the fact that he doesn’t have Dustin’s weight to hold up that he remembers that he’s not in the tunnels, he’s somewhere far worse.
And he’s alone, this time.
Not concussed, though. Probably.
There are more than two once he stumbles outside, nearly right into them. He doesn’t take the time to do a headcount, but even he isn’t good enough with a bat to fight them all and come out alive.
So he does the next best thing: hits the ones close to him as hard as he can.
He runs, ignoring the bites at his ankles and legs and swinging wildly in any direction.
He gets out, but they keep following him, and then he remembers: Blood.
He’s bleeding.
From his hands, his ankles now, probably—he can’t feel the pain yet, too hopped up on adrenaline, but they’ve been biting.
He shoulders the bat and runs as fast as he can, heading for the woods.
Up is probably his only option.
Steve hasn’t climbed a tree in years, and the bat in his hands just makes it even harder, but he gets up high enough that the demodogs can’t reach him.
He rips his shirt, using the pieces to wrap around his ankles. Now that he’s relatively safe, he can feel them throbbing. It’s hard to look at them properly, eyes blurry with tears.
He ignores the flash of white that he thinks might be bone and pulls the makeshift bandages just a little too tight.
They don’t bleed through immediately, so maybe he did something right. It’s hard to get comfortable in a tree, but he’s not leaving until all the demodogs below him have left. If it means sleeping here, it means sleeping here.
By the time he wakes up, just moving his ankles makes him want to cry. But he can’t stay in a tree forever. He needs to find a way out of here.
The Byers’ place is closer than his; he's comfortable there, too. He knows Joyce keeps a shotgun in the house, just in case. He’s not the greatest with them, but he’ll manage to figure it out.
Despite the strangeness of this version of the house, it’s still familiar. Normal, almost. If he tries hard enough, he can picture everyone sitting around the table, laughing. Or maybe planning. He’s not sure which, but it feels real either way.
Are demodogs venomous? Poisonous? Steve’s not sure which word would be used to describe them.
Fuck, he doesn’t even know anything about them and he’s got multiple bites on his ankles.
Sitting on the cleanest spot on the couch, he opens another packet of crackers.
This time, he only eats half.
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Whumptober No. 17- Hanging by a Thread
“Caretaker, you gotta help me, please.”
“I don’t have to do anything,” Caretaker said, slowly taking a sip of their tea. “I didn’t even have to let you in here in the first place.”
“I know. I know. I know you didn’t.” Whumpee put their hands on their head and sighed. “But I didn’t mean to disappear. I meant to come back, I really did.”
Caretaker raised an eyebrow. Whumpee’s movement had lifted the hem of their shirt just a touch. Caretaker could see that they’d lost weight. A part of them wanted to reach out and hug Whumpee, but another more reluctant part told them to stay put. Nobody just up and left without a reason, especially not the person who promised to marry them.
“Then where did you go?” Anger forced its way through Caretaker’s mouth and tainted their words. They wanted to take it back so bad, but they just couldn’t. Not after all they’d been through. “Where the hell did you go? Nobody leaves for two years unannounced!”
“I didn’t mean to!” Whumpee let out a sob.
“Then what did you mean to do? Take a little vacation and come back on our supposed-to-be-wedding day!”
“It wasn’t my fault! I… I got mixed up with the wrong people. And they hurt me Caretaker. They hurt me so bad. I… I didn’t think I’d escape.”
Caretaker’s breathing slowed. “They… you mean… you didn’t run away?”
“Of course not! I mean yeah, I was mad after the fight. But I always meant to come back.”
“So who are these people? Who hurt you? What did they do to you?” Caretaker stood, hands shaking. “What do I have to do?”
“I…”
They were interrupted by the front door slamming open, and Whumper standing on the doormat, dripping.
“Whumper!”
“Caretaker.” Whumper strode across the floor, putting an arm around their shoulder and glaring at Whumpee. “Who’s this?”
“This… this is my ex-fiancé,” Caretaker said, wincing at the sad little squeak Whumpee let out as they said it. “I… I thought they left me. But I guess there’s more to the story?”
Whumpee let out a terrified whimper, wrapping their arms around themself and looking up at Whumper.
“I see.” Whumper said, looking down at Whumpee. “Are they hurt?”
“I… I think so. I hadn’t thought to check.” Caretaker spoke softly, sinking into Whumper’s embrace. They hadn’t been prepared for this. They weren’t prepared for this.
“Well, how about I take Whumpee away for now, hmm?” Whumper spoke softly, dragging a finger down Caretaker’s cheek. “I’ll take them to a doctor, get them checked out, find out what’s really going on.”
“Right. I’ll go find the keys to the car, and—”
“Oh, that won’t be necessary.” Whumper pushed them back into their armchair. “It’s been a rough week for you, and I’d hate to put anymore stress than I have to.”
“Al-alright.” Caretaker took a deep shuddering breath. “Whumpee, you’ll be with Whumper, okay? They’re really nice, I promise. They’ll take good care of you, okay?”
“O-okay.” Whumpee said, tears pouring down their cheeks, slowly following Whumper. “Goodbye then, Caretaker.”
“Why are you saying bye? I’ll see you again, right?”
But Whumpee just looked at them with haunted eyes, as Whumper grabbed their hand and led them away.
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