Chapter Text
Robin fiddles with the vodka bottle full of gasoline in her hands, her mouth tugged down in a frown, “It's just, in the face of the world ending, the stakes of my love life feel spectacularly low.” She sighs sadly, stuffing one of their rags into the mouth of the clear glass and completing their next Molotov cocktail. Steve watches the resignation on her face and thinks that if anyone deserves to have a moment of love and joy in the face of the world ending, it’s Robin.
It’s all of them, he reflects, looking out onto the grassy clearing.
The forest of trees behind Lucas and Erica reminds him of where they will be taking their battle to shortly. Vecna waiting in the Upside Down like a venomous spider in his web. Manipulating the troubled emotions and frightening visions of his victims, ready to break them in more than one way for his selfish desires.
Exuberant laughter draws his eyes over Nancy tailoring her weapon to Dustin as he dodges Eddie’s outstretched hands. Fondness rises within Steve like the warmth of rising bread. The fading sun frames the two boys as Eddie speaks earnestly into Dustin’s grinning face, the bond between them obvious even from here.
“Maybe it’s not the time for romance,” he admits, pensive as he watches Eddie tackle Dustin to the ground with a cackle. “But isn't love the most important thing when it is the end of the world.”
Robin knocks her knees amicably against his and he knows that this is her way of saying she loves him. He smiles back at her; he loves her too. He says it silently because he does, more than he can say at this moment. The words heavy and stuck at the back of his throat.
He wishes she could have had her moment with Vickie before they face the coming danger. The fragility of their situation leaves him with a disturbing feeling of unease churning in his gut.
It’s the fear of losing Robin that further feeds into Steve’s increasing sense of foreboding, making his teeth clench and nails dig into his palms. He has to Know, Steve decides; he needs to make sure there is hope for a later where love and romance can be indulged.
In the heart of the quiet afternoon, Steve allows the sounds of the boys roughhousing and Erica’s sharp, but not unkind, words to become muffled. While he relaxes his fists and Robin fades from his sight, Steve unfurls his uncanny gift to see into the murky depths of their futures. He hears a soft, haunting melody reaching out to him through the ethereal and a glimmering sheen covers his vision.
Like a weaver of fate, he gently unravels the white threads of destiny that intertwine around the lives of those he cherishes. Even Eddie, new to the party but just as entrenched in their fight, running scared; yet Steve thinks, just as courageously meeting the more experienced members toe to toe.
And it is only Eddie’s fate that gleams a terrible ox-blood red, a twisted tapestry of the future revealing a grim reality. Steve’s unease deepens as he Sees two roads diverging before Eddie, each leading to vastly different destinies.
One road, he is unsurprised to find, is golden bright and brilliant, full of joy, love, and friendship. This Eddie would be the guiding light for those he loves and who will love him just as fiercely as he holds them to his heart.
Steve swallows over the hard knot in his throat at the thought of all the beauty that is stolen if Eddie loses that path: because the other is shrouded in a terrible darkness.
If Eddie chooses this road, a jagged tear will be torn through the tapestry of too many lives. An unravelling thread that leads to the frayed fabric of its survivors in a way that Steve thinks the self-deprecating Eddie would never suspect.
Aside from family, only one other person knows Steve’s truth. Keeps his secret close to her breast, alongside twin confessions on a bathroom floor. Robin haltingly refusing Steve’s advances to favour Tammy Thompson and Steve blurting out that he comes from a long line of Witches. Taught at his nana’s knee and made to understand that this is something just as private to him as Robin understands her sexuality to be to her.
He watches Dustin’s wide smile, still innocent amongst a grim collection of dark moments, and Knows that this will be a turning point for his young friend. One in which Dustin lives a life spirited and mirthful or another irrecoverable scarred and linked to a critical event of grief and regret. A shiver runs down Steve’s spine and he decides he can’t stand idly by, watching as Eddie teeters on the precipice of these two divergent paths.
Drawing from long lessons of heritage and the power he and his kind hold, Steve decides on a potent action that will allow him to weave a new pattern.
Scarlet lightning roars in the darkness behind Eddie and Dustin as the boys wait for Steve, Robin and Nancy to depart and attack Vecna. The trailer behind the boys is tightly wrapped in the sinister vines of the Upside Down and the smell of sulphur rains down with the grey ash that coats the world in a bitter blanket. Steve watches the ghostly flakes drift onto the cloud of Eddie’s bound-back hair, and he knows that this is the moment that he readied for.
Steve reaches out to Eddie with his uncanny gift — a glass sphere, like a marble, is cradled innocently at the centre of his hand. It is as big as an apricot pit and strangely swirls with warm browns and flecks of gold, like the gentle play of sunlight flickering through to a forest floor. Steve holds his open palm out to Eddie, his hazel eyes filled with a heartfelt entreaty.
"Eddie," he asks softly, "take the marble and swallow it. Please, trust me."
Even in the short time that Steve has known Eddie, he gets that the other guy isn’t known for his impulse control. Despite this, he’s still somewhat surprised when Eddie, with no hesitation, takes the marble and swallows it down. Doe-eyed pools of warm brown look up at him through dark bangs.
“I do,” Eddie shrugs with a enigmatic smile.
“What was that” Dustin's tone pierces the air, the faux military tags he had insisted on wearing jingle in agitation.
Robin stays silent behind him; Steve knows she’s holding her questions for later, having cottoned onto that he was up to something mystical when he’d hidden in the RV for a while. Only clasping his arm briefly in support when he had walked past, sweating and still pale.
Nancy though is just as surprised as Dustin and looks on at them suspiciously.
Eddie knocks an arm lightly into Dustin’s side, “I don’t know, but it tastes like hot chocolate. Warm,” he chuckles softly, “even comforting.” He turns questioning eyes back to Steve, “but, yeah, what was that?”
Steve feels how tight his smile is. “A little insurance.”
He talks to both of them, trying to instil them to obey by the force of his words alone. Knows that Dustin can be a stubborn little shit. “Just… if this goes south, I mean, at all. You abort.” But his focus turns, inevitably, to Eddie. “Don’t be a hero, man. Okay?”
A flash of emotion crosses Eddie’s face too quickly for Steve to understand before he slings an arm around Dustin’s skinny shoulders. “Of course, look at us. We are not heroes.” Under his hoodie and headband, Dustin grimaces in agreement.
The deep feeling of foreboding in his gut is untouched by their reassurance, but Steve doesn’t bother to unravel his Sight again. He’s done what he can and now he follows the girls to battle Vecna and maybe free them all from this nightmare once and for damn good.
As they travel through the dark forest, neither girl notices the small glowing pulse that Steve presses to each of them. The marks fade softly before the other can notice it. Transported by a light brush over Nancy’s tight shoulders and a firm squeeze of Robin’s sweaty hand in his.
The attack against Vecna is fierce but the three of them have never struck more certain or true. Steve with his axe, Robin and her cocktails, and Nancy with the shorn-off shotgun. Their attacks land every time and between their physical assault and Max’s diversion, something must go right because the world shudders once, then twice, but stays steady before Vecna screams harshly and his pale, grotesque body falls broken to floor. His web of terror finally shattered.
The rest of the decrepit house, vines and all, quickly catch from the blazing gasoline and the three stumble after each other, racing to the still-rancid outdoor air. But it’s air free of Vecna and that makes it all the sweeter.
With a whoop, Robin jumps into Steve’s waiting arms and breathlessly he swings her in joy. Resting his forehead on hers, he knows she can see every nuance of his relief, sensing him finally releasing the suffocating fear of the Upside Down. “This is it, Robin. I can feel it.” Steve exclaims.
Robin’s blue eyes, which sometimes can be so cynical for a person this young, gleam in belief. Belief in Steve and that he can See the truth of it all. She wraps her hands around his shoulders and is shaking in a combination of comfort and ebbing adrenalin. “Thank god,” she breathes.
“Let’s hope so,” Nancy interrupts. But she’s looking on at them with a small smile.
Steve knows it will take a long time for her to believe that it is true. And she doesn’t have the benefit of Steve’s Knowing as they do. But she’ll get there, he thinks. Much like it will take them all time to heal, they will. And the kids will bounce back, he thinks with faith. They’ve been made to be too resilient for children their age but he’s grateful for it, nonetheless.
It’s at the thought of Dustin that Steve remembers Eddie and those two paths he had seen; he urges the girls on, back to the uncanny version of the trailer park. Impatience sparking through to his fingertips.
They’ve not quite reached it yet when Steve hears the haunting cries of anguish that echo through the empty forest and roads of the Upside Down.
Dustin is hunched over the still-warm but devastatingly motionless body of his beloved Dungeon Master and friend. Bright red blood spills everywhere, coating Dustin's hands and across his face where he has smeared a hand over his cheeks. Eyes filled with tears and pain, Dustin looks up at Steve and cries out that the older boy had tried to save him.
“He said he didn’t run, Steve. But he did. He did. He ran to the demo-bats and they— they—"
Dustin starts hiccupping between tears and short, frantic breaths. He grabs at Eddie’s camouflage jacket, shaking the body as if it will jolt the older boy awake.
“Eddie!” Dustin cries. His voice, often bigger and louder than his short body would seem, breaks through the empty quiet of the Upside Down. No more swarming bats or jagged bolts of red lightning to distract from the palpable sense of grief saturating into their tired bodies. The only cruel answer is the flakes of ash gathering over Eddie’s unresponsive body like this terrible world is already trying to bury him away.
Steve’s heart is breaking, he feels the crack of it cleanly through his chest and in the thickening at the back of his throat and burning behind his eyes. But he is not powerless; this is exactly what he prepared for.
With a firm, yet gentle hand, Steve unlocks Dustin’s stiff fingers and shifts him into Nancy’s waiting embrace. She tries to turn him in her arms, but Dustin refuses to look away.
Nancy must think that Steve is going to quietly close the lids over Eddie’s blank eyes, which should be bright and expressive; eyes that were full of mischief just hours ago. Or that Steve will try to pick up the body and take it back with them, impossible as it seems in the moment, to think of carrying a heavy and limp weight vertically and against gravity where climbing through the Upside Down gates, with only their own bodies to support them, had been hard enough.
He’s not going to do any of those things, Steve thinks fiercely. He won’t need to.
With an unwavering determination, Steve drops to his knees and pushes his left hand down, through and deep into the realm of the mystical, until he finds an answering beat, a corresponding warmth. He pulls, straining with every ounce of physical and spiritual strength he possesses. A pearlescent light suddenly pushes out from Steve's link to Eddie, it pours unendingly into the dark landscape before pulsing sharply. The ethereal cuts precisely through the unclean atmosphere before rapidly shrinking back into the connection between the two boys.
Steve's own spirit is being drained, a live wire shooting up his arm and threading through every vein of his body in a white, blinding heat. But Steve knows that it is in this critical moment where he could lose his own body and soul, where the world hangs in the balance between life and death, that something miraculous can happen.
And it does.
Eddie draws a shuddering breath and his eyelids flutter open. His chest starts to rise even as his gaze looks unsteadily out into the living world once more.
“Steve?” he whispers hoarsely.
“I’ve got you, Eddie,” Steve murmurs, checking that the wounds are healing under the slick blood. His left arm is numb, but he uses the shaking right to examine Eddie’s torso where jagged gashes are rapidly closing over.
“It’s all right, we’ll get you help, you’re gonna be okay."
“No, Steve, your eyes…” Eddie lifts a shaking finger to touch Steve’s face, leaving a red fingerprint behind to mark Steve with the very essence of his mortal life.
Steve knows what he must see since this has worked. Because reality is not the same as when Eddie had closed his eyes for seemingly the last time. As Eddie returned from the brink of death, Steve now sees the world through one rich hazel eye, while the other will remain forever white and sightless, an eerie testament to the price paid to mend the shattered threads of destiny.