Chapter Text
Looking around Mike’s armpit of a basement, Dustin groaned loudly; he couldn’t be the only one in the room who saw that it was going to be a very tight space for all of them to rest in.
From his place next to him, Steve reached over the small distance between them to hit Dustin’s upper arm, giving him a total mom look that clearly said, ‘Shut the fuck up.’ Heavily rolling his eyes in a manner similar to Erica’s, Dustin pushed himself further into Mike’s lumpy brown couch that had seen better days in Dustin’s scientific opinion.
He understood that not one of them wanted to be alone right now; he understood that everyone felt safer sharing a space than they did by themselves.
Dustin himself shared those same feelings; he wasn’t by any means ready to separate from his ragtag group of friends just yet.
However, they had just taken a real beating from Vecna; no one was without injuries, and no one was without fear at that moment.
And all Dustin wanted to do was lie down in a comfortable space so he could go to sleep; he wanted to have the room to move and kick as he liked, as he’s prone to do—he was a restless sleeper; he deserved that space.
They all deserved that space after getting their asses handed to them on a silver platter.
Glancing around the basement again reminded Dustin that getting room to move around as he pleased was not something that could be arranged that night.
Mike’s basement wasn’t small by any means, but stuffed to the brim with eight people in it, the space shrunk in on itself, not feeling as open or airy anymore. He held back another loud groan that wanted to croak out of his throat; he felt like he had little reason to be upset at the space when they scarcely survived Vecna.
How they all had made it out alive was a mystery to Dustin.
They had gotten lucky.
Or more accurately, he guessed luck had less to do with it than Eleven did—Max had recounted to them how she had seen El in her freaky-ass possession episode. She said Eleven fought Vecna and that she had saved her.
Where Eleven was now, none of them knew.
She basically kicked Max out of her possession before continuing on her fight against Vecna. El wasn’t the only one they knew nothing about either. Mike, Will, Jonathan, and Mrs. Byers were also on that list. Dustin could not even remember the last time he spoke to any of the Byers family, and the last time he spoke to Mike was just before he left for his visit to California.
To say that was suspicious and worrying was an understatement.
“Are we okay to be here?” Robin broke the rigid silence that had enveloped the room; with none of them knowing what step to take next, the silence was heavy.
Truly, all they knew was that they were hurting, they were tired, and they were scared.
“Like your mom and dad won’t mind all these random people in their basement? Because I feel like maybe they would, and I don’t know about anyone else, but I really, really don’t want to be woken up to screaming because I feel like we’ve had enough screaming to last a lifetime, or at least I know I’ve had enough screaming, but that could just be—”
“Robin, breathe before you pass out.” Steve interrupted, cutting Robin off from her long-winded rant she hadn’t even realized she was doing. She hated when she couldn’t seem to stop talking when she got nervous; it was a pain in the ass to always have her mouth run away from her without permission.
“Right, breathe.” Robin quietly repeated to herself.
She was leaning up against one of the walls to the basement; not having the energy to stand anymore, she slid herself down the wall until she was seated on the carpeted floor. Trying to even out her breathing, she rested her head against her pulled-up knees.
“My parents won’t care; I already told them that the “earthquake” really freaked everybody out and everyone wanted to be together for tonight.” Nancy said to the whole room with her eyes on Robin, watching as the other girl had a small panic attack.
Steve got off the couch to sit with his best friend; wrapping his arm around her shoulders, he pulled her to his chest and calmly spoke to Robin in a voice too low for anyone else to understand what he was saying.
Nancy found herself almost jealous at the display of support and affection Steve easily showed to Robin before she reminded herself that she was with Jonathan—her boyfriend who was MIA at the moment—and she had no right to be jealous.
Plus, according to Steve and Robin’s words, they were Platonic with a capital P.
“So, we’re all going to sleep here tonight?” Erica snappily asked from her place at the table with Max and Lucas. Earlier when they had sat down at the table, they had pushed away the DnD board and mini figurines Mike still had on it for them to rest their arms and heads on the flat cooling surface of the tabletop.
“Because if we are, I’m saying it now, I’m not sharing a sleeping bag.”
“Erica.” Lucas half-heartedly scolded her with no real annoyance in his voice.
He was glad to see that Erica could still demand things of the people around her after what they had gone through—she wouldn’t be his little sister if she didn’t feel entitled to anything and everything she demanded—which surprisingly Lucas found comfort in, something he desperately needed more of after witnessing Max nearly dying.
Lucas had really thought he was going to lose Max at the Creel House; he didn’t know what he would have done had he actually lost her.
She meant so much to him. Everything to him.
Lying in Vecna’s dirty attic with Max crying hysterically in his arms after being pushed from her possession by Eleven was single-handedly one of the worst things he’s ever had to face. Lucas never wanted to experience that type of fear again.
“I’m just saying.” Erica said back, rolling her eyes at Lucas with a huff.
She watched as her brother moved even closer to Max than he already was, trying to mold his body to hers on the other side of the table; the sight softened her gaze. He hadn’t stopped touching Max since catching her from her fall after coming out of Vecna’s curse.
Since then, he looked a thread away from breaking apart, like he was on the verge of insanity.
Erica’s bottom lip started to tremble when Lucas’s voice involuntarily echoed in her mind again—as it had been doing since leaving the Creel House, "Erica, help!’
She turned her attention away from her brother before she started crying.
Ercia had to be the strong one right now; Lucas needed her to be strong for both of them. She couldn’t afford to show weakness, yet as strong as she pretended to be, Erica knew she would never be able to forget those two words her brother sobbed out to her in Vecna’s attic when he thought Max had already died in his arms.
She'd never forget how helpless she felt, having been unable to do anything but stare wide-eyed at her brother and Max.
“I’m guessing you didn’t tell your parents you’re harboring an accused “murderer” in the basement too?” Eddie lightly chuckled to himself.
The couch Dustin had pushed him to sit on was lumpy but comfy in a nostalgic way, like a granny's couch; considering his recent sleeping arrangements as of late, he certainly wasn't complaining.
The lumpy couch cushions felt like heaven beneath him, better than his own worn-down couch in the trailer he shared with his uncle even. Dustin kept fidgeting next to him, which was slightly annoying, but he knew the younger boy had some pent-up energy; the adrenaline from their fight hadn’t quite worn off just yet, and all of them were still a little frazzled, still on edge, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
More than anything, in that moment he felt lucky to be alive; had Dustin not come back for him when he did, Eddie would be dead.
He owed everything to Dustin; he quite literally owed him his life. The impossibility of it made him wonder how in the world a screw-up like him was able to gain such a genuine friendship from someone like Dustin.
Regardless, he was entirely grateful that the other boy seemed to see something in him that Eddie didn’t even see in himself.
“Well…no.” Nancy admitted. She noticed she was the only one left standing in the basement; everyone else had taken seats in various areas of the basement.
For whatever reason, that made her uncomfortable, like more attention was on her than what was strictly necessary.
“They won’t come down here though, so you don’t have to worry.” She said, Eddie raised a dubious eyebrow at her but didn’t comment back. It wasn’t like he had anywhere else to go other than the Wheeler’s basement, so either way, he would have to trust her word.
Plus, like everyone else, he wasn’t quite ready to separate from anyone in the room; they had just gone through hell and back together, they were bonded now.
Trauma bonded, but bonded nonetheless.
“Do you think El made it out?” Max’s wobbling voice rang through the room.
This was the first time since making it out of Vecna's curse that Max had talked; she had shut down after telling them that El had saved her from Vecna. She hadn’t talked to anyone or looked at anyone since then; she simply cried to herself, praying to whoever was listening that Eleven was alive and well.
The details on how Eleven was able to come into Max's possession the way she did were still unclear—something about a piggyback and a pizza dough freezer—but Max didn’t care how her friend was able to go into her mind as long as it meant she and Eleven would see each other again.
“I’m sure she’s fine, Max.” Steve spoke up when everyone else hesitated to say anything. Robin had calmed down enough that he felt okay to leave her on the floor to go to Max’s side. He pulled the last chair out from the table to sit next to Max, careful not to invade Lucas’s space with her.
He put his hand on her shoulder, giving it a firm squeeze. “She wouldn’t give up to that son of a bitch, not after he’s hurt her friends. She’s obviously gotten her powers back too, so don’t go writing her off just yet.”
“She saved me,” Max whispered, barely audible enough for Lucas and Steve to hear her.
“She saved me.” The tears coming out of her eyes doubled when she repeated herself.
Max didn’t have to say she felt guilty leaving Eleven with Vecna—it was written plain on her face.
“Of course she did, Max; you’re her friend, her family.” Steve told her. He couldn’t do much for the guilt that was consuming her, and he hated that.
These kids have been through so much—too much.
They didn’t deserve to be put back into the shitshow that was the Upside Down. They should be normal kids running around playing nerdy games and laughing together, not fighting alternate-dimensional monsters and praying they’ll live to see the end of that fight.
“How about we get some rest for tonight, and tomorrow we’ll figure out a way to get in contact with El…with all of them?” Steve waited for her to nod before squeezing her shoulder again; he wasn’t sure how they would get in contact with the Byers-Hopper family and Mike, considering they hadn’t been successful thus far in that endeavor, but at the very least, they could try.
Steve knew they were going to need every hand on deck for the next fight against the Upside Down, so they had to find a way to get them here if they weren’t already on their way themselves.
With one last reassuring look to Max, Steve got off the table chair to start looking around the basement for the sleeping bags he was positive were here somewhere.
“Where’s everyone sleeping?” Robin asked as she pulled herself off the floor to help Steve’s dingus self find the sleeping bags that he was so obviously looking for; she held back a laugh when she saw them across the way, sticking out of some shelves that had boxes of holiday decorations in them. Steve had walked right in front of them three times with a clueless expression before Robin took pity on him, directing him to the sleeping bags.
She fondly smiled at her best friend; attractive to the ladies—excluding her—he may be, but Jesus on a cracker, he was not the brightest bulb in the light store.
“Eddie should take the couch; he’s been sleeping on the ground for a long time, so he needs a comfortable place to rest more than anyone." Dustin told them, leaving no room for arguments, not that there were any.
“And he almost died so…” He left his sentence hanging after catching everyone’s grimace. They had all almost died, but Max and Eddie were quite literally on the verge of death; had he and El not come to the rescue, they wouldn’t be here with them.
“Alright, that’s settled, Eddie gets the couch. There should be a full-sized air mattress next to the sleeping bags you guys are pulling out.” Nancy nodded to Steve and Robin; it was an old full-sized air mattress really only ever used by Mike and Will in the sleepovers they had alone without the other two party members when they didn’t want to stay upstairs in Mike’s room. The air mattress—though old—should still be working well enough to last the night.
“Lucas, Max, and Erica can share the air mattress; the rest of us will sleep on the floor in sleeping bags.” Nancy didn’t technically have to sleep on the floor in a sleeping bag, her room being upstairs waiting for her, but the thought of leaving the basement and everyone in it was a terrifying one that she didn’t want to think about.
“I don’t want to share—” Erica started to say in a loud, whiny voice that made everyone twitch.
“You’re sharing with us. No ifs, ands, or buts about it.” Lucas told her in a firm tone he hoped resembled their mother’s—the only person to ever really be able to shut his sister up without too much trouble. It seemed to work much better than he expected because Erica only narrowed her eyes at him threateningly and scoffed at him but didn’t argue her point further.
“You guys are sure I can take the couch?” Eddie asked hesitantly; he really wanted to sleep on the next comfortable thing in the room besides the air mattress, which was the couch, he felt weird though, letting the others lie on the floor to satisfy his comfort.
“Yeah, man, of course.” Steve saw in Eddie’s eyes the hesitance to accept any form of nicety or comfort from them.
It was significantly less than he remembered seeing when they first found Eddie hiding out but still there nonetheless. It sent a weird jolt of sympathy through his heart that made him want to bring the other man closer for reassurance, but Steve pushed that feeling away, not ready to acknowledge it.
“Like Dusty-Bun here said, you almost died; you need decent sleep if you want to recover.” Steve’s eyes traveled down to Eddie’s torso; he had a jacket wrapped around him to put pressure on the multiple bite wounds from the Demobats in the Upside Down. His blood was seeping through his shirt and the jacket, staining them a dirty red color. Steve didn’t like the look of that; it resembled his own torso too much for comfort.
Before anyone could catch on to his lingering gaze, he looked away.
“Hey! Only Suzie can call me that!” Dustin exclaimed with false anger; Steve laughed at him as he set the three sleeping bags he found on the floor.
“Guys, maybe we should actually clean up a little before lying down. I’m not sure if any of you have noticed, but we look like shit.” Robin stared down at herself; she was one of the luckier ones in their group. She didn’t have blood staining her clothing like she was a gory Halloween prop; she really only had a few cuts and bruises to deal with, her biggest injury being the ring of purple and red bruising around her neck that she shared with Steve and Nancy. She felt a tiny smile grace her lips when she was met with several people snorting around the room.
“I hate to be the bearer of even more bad news, but we’re one sleeping bag short; someone’s going to have to share.” Steve announced.
It wasn’t the most terrible news all in all, but even though everyone wasn’t comfortable leaving each other quite yet, everyone still wanted their own space to sleep in.
Briefly a treacherous thought came to Steve’s mind that he and Nancy could share a sleeping bag; he chased that thought away before it could really take hold of his mind. Nancy was with Jonathan; he had no right to insert himself as a problem in their relationship. No matter how much he missed Nancy, he only had to keep repeating that to himself until he finally got it.
Another treacherous thought followed the previous one; the little voice in Steve’s head told him he could share the couch with Eddie. He tried to chase that thought away just as he did the thought of Nancy, but stubbornly it refused to leave, telling him there wasn’t any reason to hold back with Eddie; they were both single and free to do what they wanted.
Thankfully, before he could really think any more about it or, worse, blurt out that he was willing to volunteer to share the couch with Eddie, Nancy started talking.
“Okay, I’ll get some stuff to help everyone clean up and take care of any injuries.” Nancy made a point to look straight at Eddie’s torso, where he was trying hard to cover how much blood had already seeped through his shirt and jacket.
“In Mike’s room there should be another sleeping bag we can use; Dustin can go get that so no one has to share,” Nancy told Dustin, nodding to the stairs that led up to the house. “And my mom normally overcooks, so there should be a ton of leftovers in the refrigerator for us to eat, and drinks in there too. Erica and Robin can go up and get them."
She had self-appointed herself the leader in this moment, hoping that with some direction everyone could start relaxing their tense postures and start winding down to rest for the night.
“Alright, you heard the lady!” Steve called out when no one moved from their positions; everyone but him was staring at Nancy like she grew a second head.
He was too busy fighting with the air mattress to stare at her with them.
All at once everyone moved to do something to help get them all situated and ready for the night.
Nancy, Robin, Erica, and Dustin went upstairs; Lucas and Max walked together to the air mattress to take over for Steve, who was struggling and losing his fight against the air mattress. Steve instead decided to unroll the sleeping bags for them, placing them around the room, not too close together and not too far away from each other either. Eddie was the last one to move; he got up from the couch to unwrap the jacket from his torso and roll up his shirt, so his injuries were better accessed.
Trying to be as quiet as he could, Dustin crept by Mr. and Mrs. Wheeler’s bedroom door that was shut to get to Mike’s door, which was on the other end of the hallway he was in.
They were lucky that this night seemed to be a rare night that Mr. Wheeler slept in his room with his wife and not on the La-Z-Boy recliner in the living room. It was no secret that the marriage between Mike’s parents was a loveless one; everyone knew this.
For as long as Dustin could remember, Mike’s dad spent ninety-five percent of his free time watching the news in his favorite chair, not bothering to show interest in his wife, his kids, or his house.
It was a topic that had often upset Mike when they were younger; Will was the only one in their Party that was ever able to calm him down after working himself up over his dad.
Standing in front of Mike’s door, Dustin turned the knob slowly and pushed the door open; it made a loud squeaking sound that Dustin didn’t appreciate, with him having made the effort to be silent this entire time.
“Shhh.” He shushed the bedroom door.
Cautiously, he stepped into the room, closing the door halfway behind him.
He felt weird being in his friend’s room without him knowing. This was maybe the third or fourth time Dustin had been in Mike’s room in all the years that he has known him. Having a cool basement like Mike’s that his parents didn’t use for themselves made for a better hangout space to play DnD, watch movies, and talk in than Mike’s bedroom did, so the Party rarely ever ventured in here.
Trying not to step on the random items Mike left thrown on the floor of his room, Dustin made his way to the desk lamp. He turned it on, surprised the little lamp provided more light than he thought it would; Dustin curiously looked around.
Not much had changed in Mike’s bedroom from the last time he was in here: the bed was upgraded from his childhood one to a queen one, his sports-themed sheets were replaced for plain navy blue ones and a beige comforter, and there were more things on his walls than before—signs and odd knick-knacks that Dustin didn’t find too much interest in and drawings that he recognized as Will’s.
The most notable difference in the room, though, was the dirtiness of it; there was trash and clothing thrown everywhere.
The cleanest thing in the room was Mike’s desk. He had his desk lamp, some containers holding pens, markers, and pencils, and some books and regular notebooks organized on top of it.
Sitting front and center on the desk was a red journal notebook opened to a seemingly blank page with a pen sitting right next to it. Looking closer at the blank notebook, Dustin read out loud to himself, “(Letter Thirty-Eight) Will,” at the top of the page. He assumed this was a letter Mike was writing to send to their friend before he had left for California. Probably abandoned in favor of actually seeing Will in person.
Dustin could admit to himself that he was a little jealous that Mike got to go see their friend and he didn’t. Mike’s parents could afford the plane ticket to California, whereas his single mom couldn’t.
Thankfully, he was here in Hawkins for the shit show that occurred and not in California, but it would have been nice to see Will again. Dustin didn’t always get the chance to talk to him as often as he wanted to since Will moved out of state, nor did he always have the time to write him as many letters as he wanted to either.
To put it simply, Dustin was missing his friend.
Shutting the red journal closed, he turned away from the desk to walk to Mike’s closet, where he was sure the sleeping bag was located. Switching the light on in Mike’s walk-in closet, he took his time looking at the items on the top shelves above Mike’s clothing.
Finally spotting the black sleeping bag, Dustin wasted no time in tugging it free from the shelf, accidentally knocking over a blue binder and a plain brown box to the floor.
They both made a loud noise when they fell.
Dustin hissed out a sharp “Shhh” to the binder and box, like he had done to the door when he came into the room, as if the inanimate objects could understand him.
He listened closely to see if he could hear Mike’s parents waking up or Nancy coming to scold him to keep quiet.
After a few minutes of hearing nothing but the distant clatter of moving dishes coming from the kitchen, he stopped listening.
Dustin threw the sleeping bag on the bed before going back into the closet to pick up the mess he made, though he didn’t think the two things on the floor made a difference from all the other things on the floor.
First, he picked up the blue binder; it had flipped open when it hit the floor, revealing Will’s art that Dustin knew Mike cherished as if each art piece was made of pure gold. Mike had always been Will’s biggest supporter and fan when it came to their friend’s artistic abilities. Flipping through the binder, Dustin saw more time-consuming drawings and small paintings inside, with a couple of nonsense doodles thrown in. The majority of the art had little circle stains randomly on them, like water drops.
He also knew that out of everyone in the Party, Mike was the one who was mostly gifted Will’s art; that was no secret. Dustin and Lucas only had a few handfuls of art pieces themselves, but Mike had even more than Dustin had thought. Will’s art covered the basement walls and Mike’s bedroom walls; now he was finding even more of his friend’s drawings and paintings hidden away in a binder in Mike’s closet.
Will’s art was amazing, of course; as Dustin flipped through the binder, he became more and more impressed with the quality of Will’s artistic ability.
It was clear in the drawings themselves which ones were more recent and which ones were from when they were kids. Dustin figured these weren’t adorning the walls like the other ones because these ones were clearly more thought-out and meaningful than those other art pieces, excluding the random doodles. Mike wanted to protect them, so he encased them in the blue binder and hid them away in the closet.
Dustin did think that was a little weird, but everyone knew how much Will’s art meant to Mike, so he didn’t think too much about it before he slid the binder back into its place on top of the closet.
Reaching down to take hold of the other item that fell from the shelf, Dustin picked up the plain brown box.
The lid was the only thing that had separated from the actual box, only the slightest bit, not enough to reveal the insides of the box; finding himself curious, Dustin carefully lifted the lid to see what was inside, hoping he wouldn’t find something gross or weird.
Tilting his head with confusion, he ran his fingers over what appeared to be letters.
There was a stack of them neatly together, bound by a thick rubber band. It wasn’t at all what he had expected to find in the brown box; it was a wonder why Mike kept these hidden away like they were some big secret he had to hide.
Walking out of the closet, Dustin sat on Mike’s bed with the box on his lap. Picking up the stack of letters, he unwrapped them from the rubber band encasing them in order to read the front of them right, hoping to get some idea about who they were for and who they were from.
Dustin's confusion and curiosity grew when he realized that all the letters had Will’s name and address on them in the space of the receiver and Mike’s name and address in the space of the sender of the letters.
These were letters to Will? Why didn’t Mike send them out? Why did he lock them away in a box?
Creaking from the stairs alerted him to someone coming up them through the half-open door. Dustin saw Nancy peeking through the other side, silently waving at him to hurry up; she had a look of frustration on her face. Dustin figured he had been up in Mike’s room too long for her liking.
Getting up from the bed, Dustin made a move to put the letters back where he got them from, but unable to hold back his curious nature, he instead took the box and sleeping bag in his arms, turned off the lamp light on Mike’s desk, and quietly made his way to the stairs. Nancy was in front leading him; looking back at him, she threw a curious glance of her own at the box in his arms, a look that Dustin pretended not to notice.