Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The familiar buzz of chatter and excitement filled Steve’s house as it normally did on Saturday nights. After dealing with everything that the Upside Down threw at them and finally defeating Vecna, the party had decided to dedicate at least two days a month to hanging out and checking on each other. Friday’s were for everyone to come over, the kids roughhousing and talking throughout whatever movie or game or other activity they picked to fight over that night, and Saturday nights were for the older people in the group. The teens (because Steve was still only nineteen and as much as he argued that he was basically adult, he knew that in the grand scheme of things he would always feel like a child) and the two adults who were involved in all of the Upside Down stuff would spend time sitting around and just talking.

It usually got heavy pretty quickly, with talk about how the monsters and people they’ve had to fight had affected them or how it really wasn’t normal for Steve’s parents to not give a shit that he’s almost died multiple times in the span of a few years and they haven’t once called to check in on him. The heavy discussions were the main reason that they had decided to have one night without the kids. 

It was barely nine o’clock as Steve was putting on a movie as some background noise a different tape was placed next to him.

“I found this in the stock room at work, thought it looked interesting.” Robin shrugged as she pushed the tape even closer to Steve. He picked it up and turned it over to read the back only to find that it was completely blank. There was no title, no description, just a plain black movie tape.

“Robbie, there’s literally nothing on this.” Steve rolled his eyes as he flipped the tape over again.

“That’s what makes it fun, dingus. Mystery movie!” Robin grinned at him and knocked her shoulder into his. She turned on her heel and went back to her spot on the couch, the corner closest to the side table so she had somewhere to put her drink. She refused to hold onto it the entire time but she wanted it in reach. Steve’s spot was right next to hers, of course. 

“Mystery movie.” Steve grumbled under his breath but he put it into the VCR and hit the play button. The T.V. screen lit up and immediately showed a guy cracking open a beer. There’s various people yelling over what sounds like a baseball game. Happy with getting the movie playing, Steve goes over to the couch and sits down between Robin and Jonathan. 

“Come on, Finney. Come on!”

That made him freeze. There’s no way, right? It was just a coincidence, Finney and a baseball game. It didn’t mean anything.

But he looked up at the screen and saw a painfully familiar face with two long braids of brown hair that matched his own. His little sister, Gwen. 

“You okay, man?” Jonathan was looking at him with concern but all Finney Steve could focus on was his sister’s face on the screen. 

“Yes, Finney! Nice, Finney!” Gwen cheered for her brother from the stands, clapping louder and louder with every strike.

“Robbie, where did you find this?”

“I told you, just the back of Family Video.” Robin was looking at him now, worry almost leaking from her eyes as she stared at him.

“Rob, that’s Gwen.” She knew about his past. Most of it, anyway. While they were high out of their mind on Russian drugs, she’d confessed to him about liking Tammy Thompson and he’d told her about his less than platonic feelings for his childhood best friend. He told her all about living in Denver, told her that something had happened (though he hadn’t elaborated on what exactly for a while) that caused him to end up being adopted by the Harrington’s in Hawkins. He’d told her about Gwen, his dad, his mom, his Robin. She was the only one he ever told. He didn't, however, tell her about the phone calls, about only being able to escape death with the help of the dead. He had a sinking feeling that he wasn't going to be able to keep it a secret much longer.

“Holy shit. Are you sure?” Robin places a hand on his leg, always using physical touch as a grounding method. All Steve could do was nod, his throat suddenly blocked. He didn’t know what the hell was going on, but he didn’t like it. At all.

“Who’s Gwen?” Nancy asks from her spot on the other side of Jonathan. He can’t answer her though, his eyes now glued to the new familiar figure on the screen.

“Bruce! Bruce! Bruce! Bruce! Bruce! Bruce!” Dozens of people cheered the boy’s name from the stands. After two strikes, Bruce finally hits the ball thrown his way, winning the game. Even more cheers erupt.

“Robin. Turn it off. Please, turn it off.” Finney Steve forced himself to turn away from the screen. He couldn’t stand seeing Bruce’s face. Not when he knew that this was the last time anyone had ever seen him alive. This baseball game was the last one Bruce ‘Golden Boy’ Yamada had ever played in his painfully short life.

“Okay, hold on.” Robin squeezed his hand as she got up to go turn off the movie. She pressed the eject button and froze. Steve could see her hesitation as she turned over to look at him, “It’s gone. The tape’s gone, Steve.”

“Fuck.” 

“Hey, dude. Your arm is mint! You almost had me.” Bruce smiled at Finney ” Bruce smiled at Finney as he complimented the other boy's skills. Finney became flustered and mumbled a thanks before grabbing his gear and walking off. Bruce grinned even more and shook his head with amusement. 

"Steve, what's going on?" Mrs. Byers, who was sitting next to Hopper, was looking at him with the same kind eyes full of concern that Jonathan had. That all the Byers had, really. All three of them had the kindest brown eyes he'd ever seen.

"That’s, that's me. I'm Finney."

Chapter Text

“What do you mean, Steve? What’re you talking about?” Nancy has that look in her eye that means she’s trying to figure something out. He used to love it, but right now, it makes him want to throw up.

“My real name isn’t Steve.” He takes a deep breath before he decides that he’s actually going to do this. Whatever is happening, whatever this mystery tape is going to show, Steve has a feeling it’ll be easier to understand if he just up and explains what he can. “It’s Finn, or Finney, Blake. The Harrington’s changed it when I moved here.”

“That makes sense. I mean, you don’t look like Dick at all.” Hopper, having been the only one to have seen Steve and his adoptive parents in the same room before, states.

“Steve’s from Colorado.” Robin emphasizes the state like it’s something absolutely crazy. Steve rolls his eyes fondly at her, a small grin forming on his lips.

“I moved to Hawkins when I was thirteen. Some shit happened back home, in Colorado, and the state decided that my dad wasn’t fit to take care of me anymore.”

“What about your mom?” Joyce’s almost hesitant voice questioned, like she already knew what he was going to say but asked anyway.

“She died when I was eight.” He’ll always remember finding his mother’s swinging body in the garage, his father crying, begging on his knees for her to wake up, and little Gwen hovering by the door, not really sure what was going on but tears flowing down her cheeks all the same. That was truly the day that everything had changed. He’ll always love his mom, but a part of him can’t help but resent her for leaving them, for leaving Gwen.

“I’m so sorry, honey.” Joyce reached across and placed a hand on his leg, rubbing her thumb along his knee. Steve gave her a small smile and shrugged. 

“So is this movie showing us your life before Hawkins?” Robin turned their attention back to the screen, which was paused on a frame of Bruce grinning. Steve looks to find the remote, spotting Jonathan holding it, likely the one who paused it. He smiles at him and nods in thanks, Jonathan flushes and nods back.

“I guess so.” Steve shrugs.

“Is this something to do with the Upside Down?” Nancy squared her shoulders like she's preparing to fight something there and then.

“I don’t think so. I mean, both Ellie and Will said they couldn’t feel anything anymore. I think this is something different.” He, unfortunately, had an idea of what it was. Steve wasn’t sure if The Grabber could pull off some shit like this, but he wouldn’t put it past him.

“I don’t know how I feel about watching this. I mean, it feels wrong to see this and not have you tell everyone when you’re ready.” Robin tapped her fingers against Steve’s arm anxiously. She was always worrying and looking out for him. God, he loved her.

“It’s fine. You guys would’ve found out at some point. I guess now’s the time.” Of course, Steve wasn’t exactly unbothered by his life being played out in front of them, but he’s just glad the kids aren’t there. He didn’t want them to watch what happened to him. What he did to him. (Robin had thrown up when he told her what he did. Steve can’t imagine how the group of fifteen year-olds would react to their babysitter not being as strong as they thought he was.)

“Are you sure?” Jonathan asks this time, eyes flickering from Steve to the TV that was still showing Bruce.

“I’m sure. Play it.” Steve smiled at Jonathan who gave a light sigh and reluctantly pressed the play button.

Bruce is now on a bike, Free Ride is playing as he pedals along the street. A few people call out “Hi, Bruce!” as he goes down the sidewalk, he smiles and waves back.

“He seems well-known.” Hopper points out.

“He’s the town’s golden boy. Everyone knew him, he was super nice.” Steve confirms. He doesn’t see Nancy turn and mouth ‘was’ at Jonathan who just shrugs with a grimace.

It cuts back to Finney who is still on the Baseball field. He has a toy rocket set up and launches it. Bruce watches it from his bike and smiles as it goes in the air.

“Awww, little Steve was a nerd! Or little Finney? What do I call you now?” Robin squints at Steve who fondly shakes his head.

“How about call me Steve” He points to himself, “And call my past-self Finn.” Steve points to the screen. Robin nods and settles back to continue watching.

Bruce continues riding his bike, his smile fading as he slows down when a van approaches. The screen darkens as the black van gets closer and closer before fading out completely. 

No one says anything, but everyone can see how tense Steve has gotten since the van appeared on screen.

It cuts to show a montage of different missing posters, kids running, cars passing by, kids on bikes, the van again, different kids wiping up blood, someone tying a bandanna around the fist, a little boy putting band-aids on his knees, trash around town, more missing posters, various bloody wounds on people, and finally black balloons floating up into the sky before blood splatters across the screen, ending the montage.

“What the hell was that?” Mike’s voice cuts through the thick silence that the montage left. 

“The fuck? Why are you guys here?” Steve immediately stands up as he sees all the kids (besides Max, who is still in the hospital for the next few days while the doctors keep an eye on her) pour in from the kitchen to the living room.

“El said something was wrong, that you were in trouble. We tried to radio but you didn’t answer.” Dustin was clearly trying his best to sound annoyed, but everyone could hear the worry that consumed his words. 

“Shit, sorry. My walkie’s upstairs. Everything’s fine, though. No one’s hurt or anything, we’re just watching a movie.” Steve may be underselling it a little bit, but he really didn’t want the kids to be here for this. If he could convince them that everything was fine, then they would go back to the Wheeler’s place and continue whatever they were doing.

“That looks like a horror movie. You never let us watch horror movies. You don’t even like horror.” Mike whines as he steps further into the living room, Will and El following him closely. The rest of the kids follow in after them, all heading to their normal spots for movie nights.

“Is this why we can never come to these movie nights? You guys watch scary movies?” Will turns to Jonathan as he takes his seat on Mike's right.

“No, this is different. Steve’s, well, ask him, actually.” Jonathan pauses, not sure what he’s allowed to tell the various children that have attached themselves to Steve.

“Ellie, why did you think I was in trouble?” Steve asks the girl on Mike’s left instead of answering any of the other kid’s questions.

“He told me you were. That we should be with you while you watch.” El had gotten better at not sounding monotone every time she said something, but that didn’t mean she stopped sounding ominous as shit.

“Who did, sweets?” 

“He said he was the paper-boy.” El scrunched her nose up, something she always did when she didn’t exactly understand something. But Steve understood. Well, he understood who Paper-Boy was, he didn’t understand how or why he was talking to Ellie.

“How did he tell you?” Steve ignored the increasingly confused looks coming from the rest of the group.

“She said the phone was ringing, but no one else could hear it. She just told us we had to come here so we did.” Lucas said from his spot alone on the love-seat.

“Right, okay.” Steve took a deep breath to calm himself down. For some reason, Billy (Showalter, not Harrgrove. What a coincidence that he knew two dead Billy’s. Crazy) had called Ellie and told her to get everyone to Steve’s house to watch the movie about his life. Did Billy have something to do with the tape? Did the other dead boys? “The movie isn’t a normal horror movie, it’s somehow a movie about my life before I moved to Hawkins. My real name isn’t Steve Harrington, it’s Finney Blake and I’m from Colorado. I moved to Hawkins when I was thirteen and got adopted by the Harrington’s who changed my name. Any other questions?”

After a few moments of silence, Dustin asked, “Why’d you never say anything? Friends don’t lie.” The rest of the kids nodded along, especially Ellie.

“I don’t like talking about my past, in all honesty. It’s a really sore subject and I’m sure you’ll see why soon. I wasn’t lying, though. There’s a difference between lying and having privacy, okay?” The kids look down as they nod. The movie, that Steve hadn’t noticed had stopped, started back up again.

A house comes into view. A man is pouring coffee in a kitchen, boxes of cereal are spilled on the counter. Finney is sitting at a table where the man walks over and places his coffee. The man sits and opens a newspaper while Finney eats cereal. The man pauses and glares at Finney, who looks up.

“You think you can slurp that a little louder? I don’t think they can hear you up in Boulder.” 

The girl that was cheering for Finney during the baseball game walks in and heads over to the breadbox. She opens the lid and it slams down onto the counter. Both the girl and Finney flinch as the man closes his eyes and groans. 

“Sorry, daddy.” Both kids wait to see how the man will react before looking at each other and making faces when nothing happens.

“Who are those two?” Will looks over at Steve.

“That’s my dad and Gwen, my little sister.” Steve smiles.

“You have a sister?” Dustin sounds offended at this, for God knows what reason.

“Yep. We haven’t talked in years, though. After I moved, I had no idea where she went or how to reach her.” Steve’s missed Gwen every single day that they’ve been apart. He really, really misses his little sister.

“I don’t think I like your dad.” Joyce says lowly. Steve’s not sure if he was meant to hear it, but he does.

“It’s alright, I don’t like him much either.” He huffs out a laugh. It wasn’t always true. Before his mom had died, his dad had been great. He’d taught Steve how to play baseball, would help him with his toy rockets and would come home from work everyday with little presents from Gwen and himself. He would even comfort Gwen after a nightmare, rocking her back to sleep and running a soothing hand through her hair. After his mom died though, it was like the man that Steve had called his dad was completely gone. He’d started drinking, started yelling, and started hitting them and throwing things. It only got worse after Gwen’s dreams started plaguing her every night.

“I don’t know…I think I’ll just stick with my current plan and marry Danny Bonaduce.” Gwen and Finney walk together on the sidewalk with their backpacks.

“You’re not gonna marry a member of the Partridge family.” Finney rolls his eyes and it’s clear that this is an ongoing argument between the siblings.

“He’s so crucial. I love his voice.” Gwen grins and keeps walking as Finney pauses.

“It’s new.”

Gwen stops walking and looks over at Finney.

“What is?” Mike questions.

“Watch and you’ll find out.” Steve reaches down and flicks him on the back of the head, getting a smack to the arm in response.”

“What?”

“The flyer. Mr. Yamada is putting them up again.” The angle switches to show a missing poster on the fence with Bruce Yamada’s grinning face on it.

“Shit, he went missing?” All Jonathan can think about is when he had to make missing posters for Will. When he had no idea about any of the supernatural shit going on and thought Will had gotten lost or taken or killed.

“It’s not any kind of Upside Down stuff, I promise.” Steve reassures Jonathan. Everyone is still tense about the idea of a missing boy and the possibility of a case like Will’s. 

“You don’t think they’re gonna find them, do you?” Finney looks at her sister as he avoids eye contact.

“Not how they want to. Come on, let’s go. We’re gonna be late.” She starts walking away. Finney takes one last look at the poster and follows her.

“How would she know that?” Nancy turns to Steve with a questioning glare. He bites his lip, trying to decide what to tell her. 

“Gwen is special. She has these dreams. Dreams that show her things she should have no idea about.” 

“What do you mean? Like, she’s like El?” Mike furrows his eyebrows the way that all the Wheeler’s do when they’re confused.

“No, not exactly. She got it from our mom. My mom could see and hear things that other people didn’t. She had dreams about things that she wouldn’t talk about in front of me or Gwen. Gwen had dreams about things she shouldn’t know. She only ever got showed the past, or well, it’s hard to explain.”

“What happened to your mom?” Ellie asked this time, her voice soft.

“She killed herself. The visions and dreams got too much for her and she couldn’t take it anymore.” It didn’t hurt to talk about it anymore. He wouldn’t say he got over his mom’s suicide, but he was eight when it happened and he’s seen a lot more shit in his life since then.

“What about you? Did you get any weird powers from your mom?” Robin, who had mostly stayed quiet until now, tilted her head at him.

He just shrugged and nodded towards the screen with his head.

As the two walk onto school grounds, kids chanting “Fight!” can be heard close by. Gwen starts running, forcing Finney to run after her. There are two boys in the middle of the circle of kids chanting. 

“You think you’re so tough, huh?” The taller of the two boys asks.

“Let’s find out.” The shorter one with his hair tied up in a bandana shakes his shoulders out as he gets ready to fight.

“That’s Robin.” Steve’s staring at the screen at his late best friend. It’s been so long since he’d seen him. He misses him so, so much. He’ll always wonder what could’ve happened between the two of them if Robin had lived. If neither of them had ever been kidnapped. If none of the boys had been taken and killed. 

“Who?” Will asked.

“The kid with his hair tied up is Robin, my childhood best friend.”

“Your best friend’s name as a kid was Robin? And now your new best friend's name is also Robin?” Lucas points out incredulously. 

“The irony isn’t lost on me, Sinclair.”

“I thought I was your best friend?” Dustin sounds almost genuinely hurt. Steve frowns as the sadness in the boy’s eyes.

“You and Rob are both my best friends, Henderson.” Steve is quick to correct and ruffles Dustin’s hair through his hat. Dustin swats his hand away but he’s smiling now, so Steve counts it as a win.

“I will bound you like a nail, you scrawny little-” 

Everyone besides Ellie gasps at that. When El looks around confused on why everyone reacted like that, Steve explains.

“That word he said, that’s a slur, a really bad word, used against Mexican people. No one should say it, ever. The kid, Moose, was just saying it to try to provoke Robin.” El nodded at his explanation and turned back to the screen.

The crowd gasped and moved in closer.

“Then do it. Unless you’re scared.” Robin teases as the crowd starts getting more restless, continuing to either chant or murmur among themselves.

Moose swings quickly but Robin dodges it easily. He picks up his backpack from the ground and hits Moose with it in the gut who doubles over. Robin then spins and kicks him in the face, launching him into the pole behind him. Moose turns and swings again but Robin catches it, punches him in the gut, and gets his arm around Moose to put him in a chokehold.

“Get him, Robin!” Gwen cheers.

Along with Gwen, the other kids in the room are all cheering for Robin to beat Moose in the fight. Steve smiles as he watches Robin. He always hated it whenever Robin fought, but watching his best friend actually be able to put up a fight, to do something that Steve knows he took pride in, he can’t help but feel proud.

Moose is still trying to swing at Robin, but Robin shifts the position so Moose is now facing upwards, still in a chokehold. Despite Robin being shorter than Moose, he’s got the upper hand. He holds on to Moose before he turns and throws him onto the ground. Robin stands above him, grabs his shirt collar, and pulls him closer. Robin makes a fist and repeatedly punches Moose in the face. Blood gushes out of Moose’s nose as the crowd starts screaming more and more.

“Come on.” Finney grabs his sister and turns her away from the fight.

“Holy shit.” Gwen keeps watching, not moving.

“Let’s go. Let’s go.” He finally pushes Gwen away and they start walking.

It cuts back to Moose’s face, which is not covered in blood, as is Robin’s fist. Robin hits him a few more times until he’s unconscious before he gets up and walks away.

“That kid sure is violent.” Hopper mutters just loud enough for Steve to hear.

“I don’t want to hear shit about Robin. Yeah, he gets in a lot of fights but he had too. No one took him seriously before he started fighting people and besides, he only ever fought someone if they started it.” Steve was quick to jump to Robin’s defense. Hopper didn’t know Robin. Not how he did.

He hadn’t been there when Robin first moved to Colorado, when he couldn’t speak English very well and had slurs hurled at him by kids like Moose. Hopper didn’t see Robin learn how to fight so he could protect himself and Steve Finn. Hopper had no right to judge Robin doing what he had to to survive.

“If your best friend as a kid was such a badass, how come you don’t know how to fight?” Dustin hears Steve’s venomous tone and changes the subject and Steve’s focus.

“I do know how to fight, Henderson. I just don’t like to, alright? You’ll see later.” Steve cuts him off before he can ask anymore questions about that. In actuality, there were two main reasons why Steve didn’t or wouldn’t fight. Being violent always reminded Steve of the basement. Of how he killed someone. Sure, The Grabber was scum on Earth, the worst kind of person ever, but he was still a life that Steve ended.

 The other reason was actually the fact that Robin never got the chance to teach him how to fight. Robin and him would always make plans about how he was gonna teach him to fight so Robin wouldn’t have to swoop in to rescue him all the time. They never got around to it.

“Y’know, I think he liked you back.” Robbie whispers in his ear so only he can hear it.

“What?” Steve asks. Not only because it catches him off guard, but because he’s not sure he heard her right. After all the head injuries he’s had, his hearing isn’t what it used to be.

“I think Robin liked you back. He didn’t start fighting Moose until you were there and he stopped immediately after you left. He was trying to impress you, like a male bird.” She wiggles her eyebrows at him and grinned like a lunatic.

“Robin, shut up.” Steve elbowed her and rolled his eyes at her antics but he was smiling. 

“What the hell? That was Moose” Gwen complains as she and Finney continue walking away.

“I don’t care.”

The dismissive tone he used got a snort out of quite a few people.

“Moose is a giant asshole.” Gwen said, trying to prove her point.

“I know.” Finney nodded.

“But last year, when he made you nose bleed-”

“Gwen.” Finney cut her off, his tone warning her to drop it.

She paused for a second, “He had it coming.”

“No one has that coming.” Finney shook his head.

“Finney, he beat you up.”

“What? Did he bully you?” Jonathan was frowning as he and Will turned to look at him in sync. 

“Yeah. I got bullied a lot when I was a kid, actually.” Steve shrugged.

“No way.” Mike denied, shaking his head.

“Yes way. People in Colorado didn’t really like me or my family. My mom was always known as the crazy lady, it got even worse after she killed herself. Then Gwen started getting called crazy but a lot of kids learned not to mess with her pretty quickly. She could and would beat the shit out of people if they talked shit.” Finney smiled when he thought of how well Gwen could hold her own. He was always worried about her being alone, but he knew she was easily able to protect herself.

“I know, Gwen. I was there, remember? I just don’t want to talk about it.”

“Well, he was stupid to pick a fight with Robin Arellano. He’s the toughest kid in school since The Grabber got ‘Pinball’ Vance Hopper.” Gwen drops the topic, seeing how much Finney truly didn't want to talk about it.

“Hopper?” Nancy asked at the same time Chief Hopper said “Vance?”

“Did you know him, Chief?” Steve focused on Hopper. He’d always had his suspicions that Jim Hopper and Vance Hopper were related but he could never find the time to ask.

“The kid was my nephew on my brother’s side. He went missing sometime in ‘79 and his body wasn’t found until 1980 when- Oh, shit.” Hopper stared at Steve like he suddenly realized something. Steve’s pretty sure he just connected the fact that he was the one who killed his nephew's kidnapper.

“When what?” Nancy probed, trying to get Hopper to keep talking. He just shook his head, still looking at Steve who nodded and smiled at him, thanking him for not saying anything. Steve didn’t want anyone else to know before they watched the full story. Without context, if Steve just told everyone he killed a guy, it sounded really bad.

“We’re talking later, Harrington.” Hopper muttered before leaning back in his seat and focusing on the screen again.

“Sounds good, Chief.”

Chapter Text

“I wish you wouldn’t call him that.” Finney keeps his eyes on the sidewalk, clearly uncomfortable.

“Everyone called him Pinball Vance.”

“Why was he called Pinball?” Mike sneered at the nickname like it was the dumbest thing he’d ever heard.

“There was this pinball game in the Grab ‘N Go store in town. He was always playing it and held the top score. If anyone messed with the game, he’d beat the hell out of them.” Steve winced as he remembered seeing Vance carve his high score into a kid’s arm for messing with him while he was playing. After Vance had gone missing, the owner of the Grab ‘N’ Go blocked off the game in honor of Vance. Even if no one really liked the violent kid, he was still just a kid.

“No, I mean-”

“I know who you mean, jerkface. Even the papers call him The Grabber.” Gwen cut Finney off and rolled her eyes.

Steve visibly flinched when the name was said and Robin grabbed hold of his hand, squeezing it three times. It was their silent way to say ‘I love you, I’m here’. Dustin felt more than saw Steve flinch, but he wiggled closer to him and pressed his weight against his side, also letting Steve know he was there. Steve smiled at each of them, squeezing Robin’s hand back and ruffling Dustin’s hair with his other hand.

“Wait, who’s The Grabber?” Will’s voice was quiet, like he wasn’t sure if he was allowed to ask.

“This guy who kidnapped and killed kids. After the third kid went missing, the local news started calling whoever it was ‘The Grabber’ ‘cause he grabbed boys off the street.” Steve was steadily getting more tense, but he made sure to answer Will’s question. As much as he hated talking about anything to do with The Grabber, or Denver in general, he’s sure this’ll all go way faster if he doesn’t beat around the bush and just tells them what they need to know.

“Just, I wish you wouldn’t say his name.” Finney was hesitant and kept avoiding eye contact with Gwen.

“You don’t actually believe that story, do you?” 

Steve saw Nancy open her mouth to question what Gwen was talking about, “There was a rumor that if you said his name, he’d be able to find you and take you.” Nancy nodded at him and turned back to the screen.

“No.” He said it too quickly, making it clear he did in fact believe the story.

“Because he can’t hear you. He doesn’t really take kids who say it.”

“I know that.” Finney rushed out, trying to defend himself but failing.

“Finney.” Gwen’s voice was hard, you’d almost think she was the older sibling.

“I said I know.”

“Then say it.”

“No.” Finney laughs as he tries to avoid saying the name.

“Are you chicken?” Gwen asks. Finney stops smiling and doesn’t answer her, “I didn’t mean it.” She quickly tries to make peace with him.

“I know.” He says but still doesn’t look at her.

“Were you really afraid to say The Grabber’s name?” Ellie tilts her head as she considers the idea that Steve was afraid of saying two simple words.

“I was, yeah. I mean, I was thirteen and all thirteen year-olds are pretty paranoid about stuff like that.” Steve wasn’t ashamed to admit it. Hell, he’s still scared of the name now. He does have more reason to fear his name now though, considering it wasn’t just a fairy tale that he would get taken if he said it. He did get taken.

As the two kids walk out of frame, the same black van from earlier pulls up behind them. The word ‘Abracadabra’ could be seen on the side in teal paint. The van drove off, but the scene cuts off and doesn’t show which way it goes.

“Holy shit.” Steve breathes out. He hadn’t even noticed the van that day. Did that mean he had been watching him? He wouldn’t put it past him. Steve doubts all the kidnappings were random, he would’ve had to plan out how to get Paper-Boy on his paper route, would have to know where Bruce lives to have intercepted him between a baseball game and home, he had to know Robin’s favorite store to be able to get to him before he got to Finn’s house. He wasn’t grabbing random kids off the street, he was planning and waiting. 

“That’s The Grabber, isn’t it? That’s the same van that was shown before Bruce likely went missing, and the movie wouldn’t focus on it for no reason.” Nancy has that tone she gets when she’s figured out a mystery. It’s the same tone she had when she connected the dots on needing music to break out of Vecna’s trance. 

Steve didn’t say anything, but he looked directly at her and nodded once before turning back to the TV.

“The inner core is solid…but the interior was still very hot.” Finney’s teacher continues to talk but Finney’s focus is on his toy rocket. He pulls it up so the flashlight shines on the paper. He turns his attention to someone a few seats away from him, staring at the back of their head. The person turns, feeling Finney’s stare and he quickly turns away. The girl’s face is shown and she smiles once Finney turns away.

“Oh my god, I forgot about Donna.”  

“Was she your friend?” Robin knows better than to ask if he liked her. 

“Kind of? She was nice enough to me but we weren’t close.” Donna had only really started talking to him after everything with him happened, and he was too busy focusing on other things to even think about her.

The bell rings for lunch and every kid gets up and puts their stuff away. Finney walks down the hall and passes by a boy standing at a locker, “Hey, Finney.” The black haired boy called out. Finney keeps walking, ignoring him as two other boys follow the black haired boy.

Finney walks faster through the hall as the three boys trail behind him. He dodges through the crowd and eventually walks into a bathroom, slamming into a stall. He sits on the seat and pulls his knees up to his chest, clearly trying to hide.

The door opens and the same boy from earlier calls out again, “Hey, Finney. Come on out, dick weed.”

“Did they bully you too?” Lucas raised his eyebrow from where he was fully sprawled out on the love seat.

“Mhm. Matty is the one with black hair, Matt is the one with curly hair, and Buzz is the redhead. They hated me since like, third grade.” Steve honestly thought it was funny now, looking back. These kids hated him for really no reason besides they thought he was gay. If they had any idea what horrors were actually in the world, they’d have way bigger things to worry about.

“Not fooling anyone, Noid.” Buzz calls out to Finney.

Finney seemed to realize he couldn’t keep hiding and walked out of the stall.

“What’re you doing in our bathroom, huh?” Matty stuffs his hands in his pockets.

“See the sign, it says ‘boys’.” Matt points over to the wall.

“Yeah, ‘boys’. Not ‘fags’.”

Everyone winced once again, but Steve could see that the Byer’s and Robin had the most violent reaction. Steve felt a pit of regret form in his stomach, thinking about all those years ago when he had gotten in the fight with Jonathan and called him a queer. It wasn’t as bad as what Steve had been called growing up, but he regretted it all the same. If Robin (his Robin, of course) had seen him in Hawkins High, he’s sure he would've hated him.

“That’s another bad word, right?” Ellie gathers everyone's reactions, specifically Will’s, and turns to her brother.

“Yeah, Ellie. It’s used against queer people. Boys who like boys and girls who like girls and anyone else who doesn’t like what’s ‘normal’.” Will puts normal in quotation marks.

“There’s nothing wrong with being queer, though. A lot of people have problems with it because they’re mouth breathers who care too much about other people’s lives.” Steve makes sure his stance is clear to everyone in the room. His eyes flicker from Robin, to Will, and to Jonathan, hoping he can portray his sincerity through his eyes.

“Exactly as Stevie said, there’s nothing wrong with not being quote unquote, ‘normal’.” Robin smiled at him and squeezed his hand once again.

The door opened and all four boys turned to watch Robin walk into the room. Matty, Matt, and Buzz are avoiding looking at Robin as he surveys what’s going on in front of him.

“Dipshits, move.” He walks forward as the boys make room for him, a roll of tape clutched in his left hand. He gets to the sink and turns the water on, running his bloody knuckles under the stream. “Hey, Finn. What’s happening?”

“You know, just keeping on keeping on, I guess.” Finney keeps his eyes on the bullies.

“Uh huh.” Robin looks at the bullies as well before going back to washing the blood off his hand. “Moose got some damn sharp teeth. Knuckles bled all first period.” Matty, Matt, and Buzz seem to have a silent agreement as they all start walking towards the exit.

“Wait.” Robin calls out and they all stop. “Fuck with Finn again, and I fuck with you.” The three boys look nervous but nod slightly. “You can leave now.” Robin gestured for them to go and they rushed out of the room.

“It’s sweet that he was sticking up for you.” Joyce smiles as the boys on screen remind her of the friendship that her son has with his group of friends.

“He was always looking out for me, no matter what.” Steve tried to smile but he’s sure it came out more like a grimace. It was true, Robin was consistently at his side from the day they met to the day he got taken. Even in death, Robin stayed by Finn’s side and helped him defend himself at long last.

“Thank you.” Finn 

“You’re gonna have to stick up for yourself one of these days.”

“Yeah, I know. Hey, why’d you fight Moose?” Finn questions as Robin wraps his hand with tape.

“Is that safe? Patching his wounds with tape?”

“Not really, but it’s all he had on him to stop the bleeding. He also thought it made him look tough.” 

“He was just shit-talking. I was pretty sure he’d back down. Nope.” Both of them smiled and laughed. “I was so surprised when he swung, to be honest.

“I mean, did you have to? Looked like you really hurt him.” They swap where they’re standing, Finn washing his hands and Robin leaning on a bathroom stall.

“I was just gonna knock his ass down. Whale on him a bit. But that wouldn’t draw no blood. In a situation like that, the more blood, the better. For the crowd, you know? It makes a stronger point.” Finn keeps his eyes on Robin as he explains himself. Finn nods, his face serious.

“So he fights people to prove a point? That’s stupid.” Mike rolls his eyes, like always.

“Kind of. I think he fights to show people that they shouldn’t mess with him. I mean, it works. You saw how scared those boys were of him and he got them to leave Finney alone.” Jonathan looked at Steve to see if he got the right idea and he nodded at him. 

“I’ve seen Texas Chainsaw Massacre Friday night, you seen it?” Robin changes the subject and smiles.

“That movie’s rated R. My dad would never take me to see that.” Finn smiles back, clearly glad for the topic change.

“My uncle takes me to the drive-in. We see everything. But, man, that movie, it’s the best ever.” Robin’s obviously trying to convince Finn that it’s the best. 

“Better than Enter the Dragon?” Finn questions seriously.

“Well, okay. Maybe second best.” Robin shakes his head and grins.

“You know, I want to see a Bruce Lee movie one day. Like, um, maybe if it comes on TV, you know?”

“Why couldn’t you see it in theaters or something?” Lucas’s head is tilted in the same way every member of the party’s is when they’re confused. Steve’s not sure who it came from originally, but it’s infected every single one of them. They’re like a group of confused puppy dogs.

“My dad wouldn’t let me go. Or well, a lot of the movies needed an adult to be there and my dad wouldn’t go with me.” He didn’t mention that his dad was usually too drunk to even be able to acknowledge when Finn or Gwen were talking to him or that any time he asked his dear old dad for anything, it usually ended in screaming and bruises.

“Yeah, yeah, you will.” Robin hesitates for a second, seemingly trying to decide if he should say what he does next, “Hey, um, you got time to stop by my house after school?” Robin walks towards Finn a little.

“Is it math again?” Finn quickly checks to see what Robin’s asking about, like this is a regular occurrence.

“He’s asking you for help with school? That’s insane.” Dustin sounds truly befuddled at the idea of anyone asking Steve for academic help.

“Guys, I’m not actually stupid, you know that, right? I just kind of gave up in school once I moved to Hawkins.”

“But you barely know what we’re talking about half the time.” Mike snarks.

“Yeah, ‘cause I’ve had like four concussions in the past few years, man. My hearing isn’t as good as it used to be and neither is my memory. Cut me some slack.”

All the kids kind of wilted at this, like they’re reflecting on what he said. Steve rolls his eyes and focuses back on the Robin on the screen. This was the last time he saw his best friends alive, talking about hanging out later. Steve’s pretty sure Robin was using studying as an excuse to hand out, not that he had minded.

“Mr. Johnson talks too fast. He doesn’t explain it right. Not like you. Can you walk me through it? If I get another F, I’m suspended.” 

“Yeah, sure.”

The scene cuts to Gwen in her classroom. “So, when we subtract six from 11, we find that the value of X is five.” The teacher stops talking as someone walks in the room.

A woman and two men are standing in a different room as Gwen walks in, “You wanted to see me?”

“Gwendolyn Blake, this is Detective Wright and Detective Miller.” The principal of the school introduces them.

“God, these idiots.” Steve couldn’t hide his disdain for the two cops. They were completely useless during the entire investigation and then took all the credit. Steve doesn’t remember Gwen telling him about this, though.

“Miss Blake.” Detective Wright gestures for her to take a seat and she does.

“They would like to talk to you about something.”

“Is it, is it true you’re friends with Amy Yamada?” Detective Wright asks as Detective Miller pulls out a notepad and a pen.

“We have homeroom together.” Gwen tells them. “Is she okay?”

“She’s fine. You know what this is about.” Detective Miller leans towards her, his voice harsh and accusatory.

“What did you say to Amy about her brother Bruce?” Wright’s tone is firm but not unkind.

“It’s like the detectives are trying a good-cop bad-cop method.” Robin’s voice is laced with disgust. 

“Or Miller is just a dick.” Steve whispers back at her, causing her to giggle.

“The Russians were much better at interrogations.” Robin grins at him and he bursts out laughing. The others look at them weirdly but don’t say anything, causing the two to laugh harder.

“Just that I had a dream about him.” Gwen hesitates for a second but she tells them the truth.

“What kind of dream?” 

“Just a weird one.” Gwen keeps eye contact with Wright, not backing down.

“What happened in your dream?” 

“He was taken. That’s all.” Gwen stands her ground, keeping her story straight and clear.

“By a man with black balloons in a van.” Wright states, not asking this time.

“Yes.” She nods.

“What else can you tell us about your dream?” 

“Why? It was just a dream.” She says it like she’s repeating something that had been said to her before.

“Our dad always said that.” Steve says to no one in particular, really just thinking out loud. “After our mom died, any time Gwen brought up her dreams, he’d just brush her off.” Or if he was in a really bad mood, he’d get really pissed and escalate things. He didn’t need to mention that, though. Steve’s sure they’ll see how his dad could get at some point. 

“If she was like your mom, why would he brush her off? Did he think both of them were crazy?” Ellie sounded subdued and Steve didn’t want to imagine her relating to Gwen’s treatment by adults. It made him almost unreasonably mad. 

“He didn’t like being reminded of her. Anything to do with mom, like Gwen’s dreams, were basically a forbidden topic in our house. I don’t think he thought Gwen or my mom were crazy, I just think he didn’t want to believe anything was wrong, if that makes sense.” Steve could see Robin wrinkle her nose at the reminder of what kind of man Terrence Blake was. Ever since Steve confided in her about his dad, she’d had a deep-rooted hatred for him. It probably shouldn’t make Steve as happy as it did but oh well. 

“Who else knows about the dream?” Miller’s voice is still harsh.

“Nobody.”

“We found two black balloons at the scene, Gwen.” Wright slowly tells her.

“Oh.” Her face falls but she doesn’t actually seem too surprised by this.

“We also found one black balloon at the scene of Griffin Stagg’s abduction.” Wright told her gently.

“And we never released those details, so.” Miller trailed off, waiting to see what she’d say.

“So the question is, where did you hear about the balloons?” Wright asks her.

“I didn’t.” Gwen insists as leans forward, her expression closed off.

“I’m gonna ask you again. How did you know about the balloons?” Miller is trying to intimidate her but it isn’t working, she just looks annoyed.

What aren’t you telling us, Gwen?” 

“Either there’s a leak in the department, or” Miller trails off again.

“Or what? I’m The Grabber?” Gwen sits forward in her chair. 

“No.” Wright tries to stop her but she talks over him.

“You think I kidnapped Vance Hopper last spring? Is that it? Vance got held back twice. I’ve seen him fight, and trust me, he could kick the shit out of either of you blindfolded.” She seems so utterly annoyed, it’s almost funny. 

“I don’t know, from what we’ve seen so far, I think Gwen could hold her own in a fight.” Nancy claimed with a smug grin.

“Oh, absolutely. She could’ve beaten his ass if she wanted to.” Steve truly didn’t doubt that. If he hadn’t grown up with Gwen, he would be scared shitless of her. He still kind of is.

“Gwen, watch your language.” The principal calls from her desk as she and Detective Miller are caught off guard by her swearing.

“Yeah, I took him down ’cause obviously I’m The Grabber, you dumb fucking fart knockers.” Gwen huffs and leans back in her chair, scowling at all three adults in the room.

“Gwendolyn Blake!” The principal yells as she stands up.

“Gwen. What aren’t you telling us?” Detective Wright asks again.

“That sometimes my dreams are right.” She looks down at her hands and starts picking at the skin around her fingernails. The two detectives look at each other.

“She told the cops about her powers? Wouldn’t that be super dangerous?” 

“Mhm. She never actually told me about this. I think it helped in the end, though. I doubt they really believed her in the first place, especially since everyone had their opinions on my family already.” Steve saw Jonathan nod along, and he felt a pool of guilt form. He'd been like that to the Byer's. He'd heard the rumors about crazy Joyce Byers and ran with it, calling her crazy and calling Jonathan a queer. The fact that any members of the family were even willing to talk to him, let alone be friendly with him, was beyond him.

"I feel bad for Gwen. I mean, imagine having to deal with dreams about kids being taken and not being able to do anything about it." Nancy bit her lip before she looked towards Steve who nodded at her. He knew how badly it messed with Gwen that she couldn't help the boys who were taken. He definitely didn't help her guilt when he asked her to try to dream about Robin.

The scene changes to show Gwen running a hand along a chain-link fence as she and Finney walk home.

“There he is.” Buzz and the other two boys from the bathroom are standing and turn to look at Finney. They don’t do anything though, just stand and glare at him.

“What was that?” Gwen questions as she glares back at the three boys.

“Nothing.” Finney sighs but he sounds happy.

“I’m staying over at Susie’s tonight. It’s Friday, so you know what that means.” Gwen tells him when they reach the part of the path that curves to a different neighborhood.

“I’ll look after Dad.” Finney nods, clearly this is a routine that happens often.

“I’ll be home in the morning. And you better not eat all the ice cream.” Gwen calls as she splits off from him, Finney walking home and Gwen walking to her friend Susie’s house.

“You shouldn’t have to look after your dad, whatever that means.” Joyce’s face pinches as she looks over at Jonathan. Steve’s sure all the Byer’s have already realized why he and his sister were so wary around their dad or why little Finn would have to look after him.

“She’s right, you shouldn’t.” Robin covered his mouth with her hand when he went to disagree with Joyce. “He’s a grown ass man, he should be able to take care of himself. You were what, like ten?”

“I was thirteen.” Steve licked her hand to get it off of his face, ignoring her shrieking about it being gross.

“Damn, I think I was taller than you at thirteen.” Dustin teased.

“I don’t wanna hear it, Henderson. I’ve got like a foot on you now.” He held up his hand and mined the height difference between himself and the younger boy.

“Yeah, ‘cause you’re like a decade older than me.” Dustin rolled his eyes and crossed his arms in a way that was much too similar to Steve.

“Okay, I’m literally five years older than you, calm down.” Now it was Steve’s turn to roll his eyes and huff.

“Yeah, maybe in dog years.” Mike said this time, way too snarky for Steve’s liking.

“All right, all of you can shut up, actually.” Steve flicked both Dustin’s and Mike’s heads at the same time, grumbling about asshole kids and them being the reason he has grey hairs.

Chapter Text

The scene changed to the Blake household, a Blind Blake record is playing faintly. The fireplace is lit, casting the room in an orange glow just bright enough to show Finney’s dad asleep in a chair, a bottle of beer in his hand and two empty bottles on the table next to him. Finney carefully grabs the bottle from his dad’s hand and stops the record player. He turns off a lamp and quietly heads to the kitchen, grabbing an ice scream scoop from the counter.

“I’m guessing you ate all the ice cream?” Robin quirked her eyebrow up and smiled at him.

“Oh, absolutely.” Steve grinned back at her.

Finney is sitting in front of the TV while The Tingler, an old horror movie plays. He’s eating vanilla ice cream and fiddling with a toy rocket. The movie shows a bathtub full of blood with a hand sticking out. Finney gasps at the scene and looks back towards his dad. He turns back to the screen and keeps watching the movie, clearly startled by it.

“That wasn’t even that scary.” Dustin sounds like he’s about to start laughing at little him being scared of the movie.

“I hated horror movies, alright. I was also thirteen.” Steve rolls his eyes and lightly slaps Dustin’s leg.

Finney is now asleep in front of the TV, his rocket clutched in his hand.

“You and that damn rocket.” Robin knew that he kept the rocket, it stayed in the drawer of his nightstand.

“What can I say, I liked space.” It was true, when he was a kid he was obsessed with anything and everything to do with space. He even wanted to work at NASA. 

The scene cuts to the outside of the Blake house again, now lit up in the daytime. Finney is still asleep but yelling can be heard faintly in the distance. Eventually, it gets loud enough to wake Finney up, and the voices can be made out to be Gwen and their father. As soon as he realizes what’s going on, Finney rushes to get to the other room. Gwen is leaning on the kitchen counter while Terrence Blake is holding a belt and hitting her with it.

Steve freezes as he watches his dad whip his little sister. He’d seen it plenty of times when he lived with them, but seeing it from an outside perspective felt different. He felt even more helpless than he did when he was in the same room as them. 

Everyone else either flinched or gasped when the first hit was shown. The three older teens all looked over at Steve who had his eyes glued to the screen. Will, Jonathan, and Joyce all held sympathy and understanding in their eyes, knowing exactly what Steve and his sister had gone through.

“I’m sorry!” Gwen yelled as she cried.

“Dad! Stop!” Finney desperately yelled from the door.

“Hey!” Terrence moved to point the belt at Finney. “You stay out of this! Gwenny. They came to my work. Why did the police come to my work?”

“I don't know! I’m sorry!” Gwen cries out.

“You need to tell me what you know about this investigation.” Terrence raises the belt once again.

“Nothing!” She screamed.

“Tell me what. What?”

“Nothing.” Gwen repeated, holding her ground.

“Huh?” Terrence raised the belt again, threatening her to tell the truth.

“Nothing!” She insisted.

“What?!” Terrence asked again, the belt still raised

“Nothing!” Gwen backed up, grabbing a bottle of Vodka from the counter. “Hit me again, and I’m dropping it!”

Nancy and Robin both nod in support of the girl while Jonathan winces, knowing that fighting back usually makes it worse.

“You drop that, and I will beat your ass twice as hard.” Terrence muttered through gritted teeth. He makes a move like he’s going to hit Gwen and she doesn’t hesitate to drop the bottle. It shatters on the floor and Terrence grabs onto Gwen’s shoulder, throwing her down on the ground next to the broken bottle.

“No, Dad!” Finney begs from the door frame, helpless as he watches their dad continue to strike Gwen.

“That was an eight-dollar bottle of goddamn vodka!” He strikes harder and harder, Gwen’s screams and cries continuing.

“Oh, now you listen to me. Listen to me. You are not your mother!” The belt is raised in his fist, trembling with his arm.

“I know.” Gwen backs away, further and further as he keeps talking.

“That means you do not hear things that are not there. You do not see things that are not there!”

“Okay.” 

“They’re not there, Gwenny!”

“Okay.”

“And your dreams, they’re just fucking dreams. Do you understand me?” Terrence moves like he’s going to hit her again, but the belt just stays raised, never coming down.

“Yes!”

“Do you understand me?!”

“Yes!”

“Say it. I want to hear you say it.”

“My dreams are just dreams.” There are tears dripping down her scrunched up face as she repeats the words.

“Say it again!”

“My dreams are just dreams!”

“Say it again.”

“My dreams are just dreams!” Her teeth are gritted, forcing the words out.

“Go watch some television or something. And no ice on that bottom, young lady. I want you to think about what you did.” Gwen stumbles as she walks to the living room, clearly in pain.

“Did you know anything about this?” When Finney shakes his head, he continues, “Same goes for you. You got that? You got that? Now, get out.”

Finney heads back to the living room, sitting next to Gwen who is still crying. A claymation show is playing on the TV, but neither of them are truly watching it. Gwen leans her head against Finney’s shoulder, the two siblings being each other’s only source of comfort.

“Jesus fucking Christ.” Hopper is the first to speak after the beating on screen stops. The movie itself stops as well, and Steve sees Jonathan holding the remote.

“Yeah, uhm, my dad wasn’t the best.” Steve tries to laugh, but it just comes out forced and pathetic.

“Was he always that bad?” Joyce’s voice is soft as she regards Steve, who shakes his head.

“Before my mom died, he was great. Once she was gone, though, it’s like something snapped inside of him. He started drinking and it just got worse from there.” What he didn’t say is that they hadn’t seen the worst of it. Gwenny’s beating for getting the police sent to their dad’s work was almost tame in comparison to the time Finney had accidentally told one of his teachers about the abuse.

That led to the first concussion he’d ever got, shards of glass embedded in different parts of his skin that he had to pick out, a few broken ribs and lots and lots of bruises. He didn’t go to school for two weeks to avoid questions. (Robin was really worried. He’d just told him he was sick.)

“Did you ever tell anyone? Get help?” Nancy asked, always one to try to fix things.

“Gwenny and I didn’t wanna get split up. For years, we were all we had and the moment our dad got looked into, we got separated.” Of course, it also had to do with Finney killing a guy, but the abuse was a huge part of it as well.

“Did he hurt you like that?” Will’s voice was small but steady, though there were tears gathered in his eyes. 

“Sometimes. Gwen got hurt more, though.” While Gwen did get hurt more, Finney had always gotten hurt worse. It’s like all the times their dad didn’t hit him would bubble up, so when he eventually did, it would boil over and he’d get hurt so hard he would fear for his life.

Dustin sniffles from next to Steve and he immediately turns to bring the kid into a hug. He rubs a hand up and down his back and mumbles, “It’s okay. I’m okay.” to him a few times. Dustin nods eventually so Steve lets go, but Dustin leans close and keeps his head on Steve’s shoulder. He looks over at Jonathan and nods towards the TV, hoping he gets the hint to unpause it.

The scene changes to show Robin Arelleno walking down the street. He’s in an alley, behind some kind of building. The movie slows down as he turns the corner, the black van coming into view. Robin freezes for a moment before continuing to walk. The door to the driver’s seat opens and a distorted figure wearing a red shirt and black cape walks out. Robin keeps walking, so does the figure, and the screen blacks out.

Steve has gone rigid. He just kept walking. Robin just kept fucking walking when he saw The Grabber. Steve’s not sure if he knew it was Him, but Robin had to have some kind of a bad feeling about a van parked in the alleyway. But no, Robin, stupid, brave Robin had just kept walking. Sometimes, Steve wonders what it would’ve been like if Robin wasn’t so insanely brave, if for once, he backed down from a fight. He’ll never know.

“Holy shit, Robin got taken?” Mike asked and instantly got smacked by Will.

“Yeah, he did.” Steve guesses there was something in his voice that told the others not to ask anymore questions about it.

It’s nighttime again, different houses are shown before going into the Blake house again. The phone rings and Terrence answers it. The title screen of whatever is playing on the TV that Gwen and Finney are watching starts. The kids seem to be doing better.

“I understand. Thank you for calling.” He hangs up the phone and heads to the living room. 

“Finney?” At his voice, both Gwen and Finney jump and turn to look at him.

“Yeah?” Finney looks to his sister then back to their dad.

“Do you know a kid named Robin Are-ar-” Terrence struggles with the name until Finney cuts him off.

“Arelleno?” Finney asks, concerned.

“Yeah, that’s it.”

“He’s a friend from school, why?” Terence shakes his head and walks back into the kitchen. Finney frowns as he and Gwen share a look.

“The fact he doesn’t even know your best friend’s name is crazy.” Robin huffs and leans her head against Steve’s arm, mimicking Dustin’s position.

“Well, we never hung out at my place for obvious reasons and I tried not to talk to my dad if I could avoid it.” Steve tries to make it a joke, but it comes out more sardonic than anything.

Police cars are scattered over a plot of grass as people walk around with flashlights, a search party. They walk through the woods, clearly looking for the now missing kid. Finney is staring outside his window as Gwen knocks on his door.

“I’m really sorry, Finney. I know he was your friend.” Gwen looks truly sincere.

“Don’t say ‘was’. He is my friend.” Finney got down from the window and pulled his blanket over himself.

“Sorry.” She says again.

“Gwen. Can you do that dream thing?” There’s a spark of hope in Finney’s voice.

“It doesn’t work that way.” Gwen tells him regretfully.

“Have you tried?”

“Of course I have.” 

“Then try again. Please.” His voice cracks and Gwen frowns, shutting the door as she leaves.

“It wasn’t fair of me to ask her that.” Steve mumbles, mostly to himself but loud enough that Robin could hear.

“You were a kid who just found out his best friend was missing, cut yourself some slack.” Robin whispers to him. He shrugs, clearly not fully believing her but not wanting to argue.

Gwen opens her dollhouse to reveal a small cross, a bible, and a picture of Jesus inside of it.

“Why’d she keep that in there?” Lucas questions, utterly confused as why she seemingly had to hide her religious belongings.

“Dad.” Is the only explanation Steve gives but it seems to be good enough as no one asks any clarifying questions.

She lines up all her things, which now include a wood carving that says ‘Jesus’ and a bundled up necklace with a cross. She grips onto the small cross and looks up, “Jesus, I know you know what I’m going to ask you, but I’m going to ask you anyway. My brother, he needs his friend…. But if you could help me have a dream or two and just see something that could help the police or me or anyone find him, I will follow you forever.”

A light in the hallway turns on and she hurries to shove everything back in the dollhouse before running back into her bed. She jumps off again, grabs the cross and says “Amen.” before hopping into bed again.

“Don’t think I don’t know what’s going on in here. No playing after lights out.”

“Sorry, daddy.” The fear on her face is clear as she apologizes.

“Go to sleep. I love you.”

“Love you too, daddy.” She looks relieved as the light in the hallway goes out.

“She looked so scared.” Will mumbles and Steve nods. It always hurt to see how scared Gwen was of their dad. She was one of the bravest people he knew, never taking shit from the bullies at school or teachers who thought they were better than her just because she was a kid and a girl. But at home, she jumped at any kind of noise and walked around the house like she would be attacked at any moment. And honestly, she had a right to act like that.

Terrence opens the door the next day to see Detective Wright and Miller on the porch. Terrence hangs his head and grumbles, “Goddamn it, Gwenny.”

“What the hell did she do now?” He asks the two men in front of him.

“We’re sorry, Mr. Blake. Your daughter hasn’t done anything.” Wright tells him.

“But is there any way we can speak with her?” Miller is already stepping towards the door.

The scene changes to show Gwen, Terrence, and the two detectives in the living room. Music is playing and drowns out their words, the conversation completely inaudible.

“What were they talking about?” Ellie tilts her head.

“Probably seeing if she had and dreams about Robin’s disappearance.” Steve shrugged.

Robin’s missing poster is shown posted on a board with other random flyers. The camera pans to the sidewalk to show Finney running away from the three bullies from earlier. Matty grabs hold of Finney and shoves him to the ground. All three boys start punching and kicking Finney. Gwen is shown picking up a rock and running towards the boys. 

“Fucking cock-sucking cowards!” Gwen pushes Buzz away from her brother, grabs Matty, and smashes the rock into his face. “Fuck you too, ugly ass face.” She throws the rock at Buzz but misses. Matty crawls away and leans on the fence. Gwen charges at Buzz but he grabs her and flips her over. Blood is shown dripping steadily from Matty’s head. Buzz stops Matt from moving and kicks Gwen in the face.

“Gwen!” Finney calls out for her but it only leads to him catching Matt and Buzz’s attention. The two boys continue to kick him as Gwen goes over to the fence, sitting next to Matty. He doesn’t look at her, but she glances at him. Her teeth are covered in blood and it’s clear she’s trying not to move her face too much. The two boys continue to beat on Finney, his nose now bleeding.

“You guys just can’t catch a fucking break, huh?” Jonathan’s voice was stilted, like he was trying to make a joke but it didn’t land quite right.

“Once word got around that Robin was gone, Matty’s little gang was ready to beat the shit out of me.” Steve smiled wryly.

“Can I ask something?” Nancy lowered her voice and leaned closer to Steve, clearly wanting to talk about something she didn’t want the kids to hear. Steve nodded and leaned over Robin to hear her better.

“If you got bullied like this when you were a kid, why did you act how you did in high school? I mean, you seem completely different from then compared to now.” Her voice was hushed but considering how quiet everyone else was, he’s sure most of the people in the room could hear them. Steve didn’t mind too much, it’s not like they didn’t know how much of a dick he was.

“I think you’ll understand better as we continue watching, but a big part of it is because I got bullied. I didn’t want to be that kid anymore, the one that everyone thought they could beat up for fun and while trying to protect myself, I took it too far and became a giant asshole.” He’s not trying to make excuses for himself, he’s Acutely aware of how he’s turned into the very thing he despised growing up. (How he was so scared of turning into his mom that he turned into his dad instead).

Nancy nodded, seemingly satisfied with his answer, or at least thinking it over as she bit her lip and sat back in her spot.

A dead frog is shown on a plastic tray as the science teacher speaks, “All right, class. It is the day you’ve been dreading all semester. Frog dissection day. Uh, pick a partner. Remember, you will be paired with this partner for the rest of the year.”

Finney is staring straight ahead, the bruises from the beating he got earlier clear on his face. Everyone gets up to go sit by their chosen partner. Finney gets up as well before he seems to realize he has no one to partner with.

“Do you need a partner?” Donna, the girl from the day before, comes up to ask him with her books in hand.

“Uh no, no. I mean yeah, I don’t have a partner yet.” Finney stutters through his sentence as they both sit down.

“Those guys are assholes.” Donna claims as she sets her books down.

“What?” Finney looks around like he’s trying to see who she’s talking about.

Robin snorts next to him and he elbows her in the side.

“This morning? Everybody’s talking about it.” 

“Oh.” Finney looks forward again and scoffs.

“Your sister’s really cool, though. I wish my brother and I were friends like that.” Finney smiles when Donna compliments Gwen.

“Eyes up here. All right, let's cut open a frog.”

“Ooooh, do you like her?” Dustin wiggles his eyebrows at him and Steve cringed.

“Donna? No, man. I had like, way more important stuff going on. She was nice and all but no.” No matter how much Gwen teased him for it, he never did actually like Donna. Unfortunately, he was stuck on Robin. 

“Donna, Donna, Donna.” Gwen chants as the two kids walk on the sidewalk, clearly mocking Finney. She makes kissing noises, “Oh, Finney, will you be my lab partner?”

“Stop.” Finney rolls his eyes as she keeps making kissing sounds. “Shut up, you jerk.” He’s smiling though, so Gwen just laughs it off.

Steve can feel Dustin’s stare burning a hole into his skull, but he’s not focused on Donna’s or Gwen’s teasing. This is it. They’re about to see him get taken by The Grabber. This is where it all really starts going downhill.

“All right, see you tomorrow.” Gwen says when they get to a familiar fork in the sidewalk.

“Where are you going?”

“I’m staying over at Susie’s tonight. It’s Friday, so.” Gwen trails off, already starting to turn.

“I’ll look after Dad.” Finney nods and smiles at her.

“See you, kid.” Gwen smiles back and Finney laughs as they walk their separate directions.

Finney keeps walking home, kids walk behind him but eventually turn to get to their own houses. After a bit, Finney is completely alone. That is until he turns the corner and sees a black van with ‘Abracadabra Entertainment Supplies’ written on the side of it.

“Fuck, no. Are you serious?” Mike gasps as he pieces together what’s about to happen, what that van means.

“Steve, please tell me you’re not-” Steve cuts Nancy off with a shush and everyone forces their eyes back to the screen.

A man in a black suit and a top hat emerges from behind the van, holding two bags of groceries and dropping on the floor as he seemingly trips over something. “Oh, nuts! You goof! Well, isn’t that just peachy keen.” The man is directly in front of Finney as he bends over to pick up the various dropped items.

“You need some help?” Finney asks, moving to put his bag down and help the man.

“You see that?” The man laughs as he picks up a broken egg to show Finney before throwing it into a nearby yard.

“Yeah.” Finney laughs too.

“Would you hand me my hat?” Finney bends down and grabs the man's hat, handing it to him. “Yes, sir. I am a part time magician. Would you like to see a magic trick?”

“Yeah.” Finney smiles enthusiastically.

“No, no. Absolutely not, say no!” Dustin is yelling at the on-screen version of Steve. In fact, a lot of people are yelling at on-screen him to run or stop or do anything to get away from the man. He wished younger him could hear them, but he knows there’s no changing the past.

“Yeah?” The man starts shaking a black can with no label on it as Finney looks into the tinted windows of the van. 

“Are those black balloons in there?” Finney asks, squinting to be able to see through the tint.

“Yeah.” The man opens the door and quickly grabs hold of both the balloons and Finney. Finney, tangles up in the bunch of balloons, tightens his grip on his toy rocket and drags the tip of it into the man’s arm, cutting it open. Both of them are screaming and the man sprays whatever was in the black can directly into Finney’s open mouth and then his eyes. They continue to struggle and fight until eventually the man wrestles Finney into the back of the van. The man gets out and lets go of the balloons, glaring at Finney and then slamming the door shut.

“You really were the sixth victim, then.” Hopper said, turning his gaze fully away from the screen and to Steve. Steve just nodded, unable to find his words at the moment.

“Sixth? That psycho took six kids?” Lucas sounded incredulous as he did a double take towards Hopper.

“My nephew, Vance, was the third. I don’t know the names of the others, but I know only one kid survived.” Hopper gestured to Steve.

“Just Steve?” Ellie’s tone was probably the saddest that he’s ever heard her, and it honestly made him want to cry. He pulled his knees up to his chest, wrapping his arms around them to keep them in place. Robin readjusted herself to continue laying on him, Dustin doing the same. Both of them were crying, but he didn’t acknowledge it.

“They found the guy, right? He’s locked up or something?” Mike sounded genuinely angry and it was almost nice to hear, if it wasn’t for the circumstances. Steve knows Mike isn’t exactly his biggest fan, so hearing the kid angry for him instead of at him is nice.

“Or something.” Steve mumbles and causes Robin to snort before placing her hand in front of her mouth, realizing that she shouldn’t exactly be laughing at the moment. Her reaction causes Steve to laugh as well, which then makes Robin continue to laugh and then they sit there giggling like a bunch of middle schoolers. 

They both stop where they hear a shout come from Lucas and a familiar red-head’s voice fills the room.

“Are you guys having movie night without me?”

Chapter Text

“Max? How the hell’d you get here?” Dustin perks up at the sound of the final party member's voice and twists his head so fast to look at her that Steve’s sure he’s got whiplash.

“I’m not sure, to be honest. This is gonna sound crazy,” That gets a few snorts out of a few different people, “but I think a like, ghost dropped me here.” Max hesitated like they were going to laugh at her, but relaxed when no one seemed freaked out.

“Dropped you here?” Steve decides to focus on instead of the ghost part, already pretty sure he knows who it is.

“Yeah. He said I needed to join you guys and then grabbed my shoulder, which was weird as hell by the way, and cold, and then I was here.” She shivered at the memory of the cold phantom hand on her shoulder.

“Did you see him?” Steve had a few guesses of who it could be. If Paper-Boy had caused Ellie and the other kids to come here, Steve was pretty sure it was either him, Griffin, or Bruce who got Max here. 

“Kind of? He was almost blurry, in a way? He sounded young and he was really short. And he was dripping blood.” Max’s face was even paler than normal

“Hmm. Well, we’re watching a movie about my life before Hawkins, Lucas can fill you in on the rest.” So it was Griffin. He was the youngest and shortest of all of The Grabber’s victims. 

“Are we not gonna talk about the ghost thing?” Mike looked accusatory towards Steve. 

“Not right now.” Steve says and points back to the screen. He can vaguely hear Lucas whispering what’s happened so far to Max and smiles at how cute the two of them are together before looking at the screen and instantly sobering.

Finney was being carried in The Grabber’s arms down a flight of stairs and into a room with dark gray walls.

“My fucking arm. I should snap your neck for what you did to my arm.” The Grabber threw Finney onto a dirty mattress. Finey’s eyes opened before closing again, like keeping them open was painful.

The room is shown from Finney’s perspective, blurry and distorted. The walls are scratched up and there are splotches or what’s likely blood. The Grabber comes into view as Finney sits up. He’s wearing a mask with devil horns and no mouth but the impression that he's frowining is still given.  

“Jesus. It’s covered in blood. It’s like I killed someone.” The Grabber touches his arm where Finney’s rocket had split it open. “You see that? It’s not like you can see shit, huh.” He waves a hand in front of Finney’s eyes, which aren’t focusing on anything.

“What’d he spray in your eyes?” Hopper asks. 

“I think it was wasp spray, I’m not really sure.” Steve shrugs and he can just barely hear Robin mumble “Damn.” next to him.

“I know you’re scared, but I’m not gonna hurt you anymore.”

“Oh, he’s so full of shit.” Max huffs with her arms crossed. Steve shoots her a smile and nods because she was right, he was absolutely full of shit.

“What I said about snapping your neck, I was angry, is all. And you did a number on my arm. I’m not gonna hold it against you, hmm? I guess, now we’re even. You don’t have to be scared, because nothing bad is going to happen here. On that, you have my word, Johnny.” The Grabber moves his hand that was playing with Finney’s hair to do a boy scout salute.

“Johnny? I thought your name was Finney?”

“It’s both. My full name’s Johnny Finney Hope Blake. I only went by Finney though, literally no one called me Johnny. I don’t even know how he knew that.” After seeing that The Grabber had been at least watching him for a few weeks before taking him, he wouldn’t be all that shocked to find that he’d been stalking him for much longer.

“That’s so fucking creepy.” 

“You like soda, hmm? I’m gonna go get you a soda, and then-.” Whatever The Grabber’s about to say is cut off by a phone ringing in the distance. “Is that the phone? You hear a phone ringing? I’m gonna go see who it is. Then I’ll get you a soda. Then I’ll come back and explain everything, hmm?” He pats Finney’s face before sighing and getting up off the mattress and going upstairs, closing the door behind him.

Finney clutches his now bloody toy rocket and stands up, walking towards the door. His eyes are squinted, his vision still clearly blurry as he pulls on the handle of the door only to find it locked. He sees a part of the basement that leads to a different area and walks towards it, pulling a chain to turn the light on of what is revealed to be the bathroom, which just has a toilet and a few carpets rolled up next to it. 

He goes back to the main area and spots an old black phone on the wall. He picks up the receiver but it doesn’t make any noise. He clicks different parts of the phone before finding that a wire is cut, making it clear it doesn’t work. He puts the receiver back down, scoffing and lying down on the mattress. He eventually closes his eyes, trying to get some rest.

“Obviously the phone wouldn’t work. Why would he keep a working phone in the room where he kept the kids he kidnapped?” The words sounded almost hostile, but there was an undertone of sadness that reminded Steve that Mike was just a kid. A kid who had thought he lost his best friend at twelve, a kid who had gone through so, so much. Steve reaches out and ruffles the teenager’s hair, getting his hand swatted away lightly for the action.

“Gwenny, your dad’s on the phone.” A woman hands the phone she’s holding to Gwen, who was playing with her friend but quickly stands up.

“Hi, daddy.” Her voice is hesitant, clearly thinking she’s in some kind of trouble. “No, I haven’t. Not since school.” She looks scared and quickly drops the phone, running out of the house. Police cars surround the street as well as people with flashlights, another search party. Detective Miller and Detective Wright are talking with Terrence as Gwen sits on the sidewalk, a blanket clutched around her shoulders and a helpless look on her face. The scene changes to show Gwen praying at her dollhouse, crying.

“That poor girl.” Joyce mumbles as she shakes her head. 

A phone rings as Finney is shown again. He stares at the old black phone for a moment before getting up and putting it to his ear.

“It doesn’t work. Not since I was a kid. Hang it up.” The Grabber turns on the lights and it’s shown that his injured arm is wrapped up and he has a different mask on now, one with a sinister smile. “I know you’re scared and you wanna go home. I’ll take you home soon. It’s just a, oh everything’s all fucked. I got to be upstairs for a while, something’s come up.”

“What?” Finney asks, still holding the phone.

“Never mind what.” There’s a threat in The Grabber’s voice.

“Did someone see something? Are the police coming? If you let me go before they get here, I promise I won’t tell.” Finney pleads.

“That would never work.” Nancy shakes her head as she runs through the possibility of The Grabber letting Finney go.

“I know that, Nance. I was desperate though, I had to try whatever I could.”  He had to do whatever he could to get out. Including killing.

“It’s not the police.” The Grabber laughs tauntingly.

“Someone, though? Someone’s coming. I’ll scream. If someone’s upstairs, they’ll hear me.”

“No, he won’t. Not with the door shut.” 

“He?” Finney repeats and The Grabber sighs.

“He?” Dustin, Will, and Robin all repeat at the same time Finney does.

“He.” Steve nods.

“With the door shut, no one can hear anything down here. I soundproofed it myself. So shout if you like. You won’t bother anyone.”

“You’re the one who killed the others. Bruce. Robin."

“That wasn’t me. That was someone else. I will never make you do anything that you won’t…like.”

Robin audibly gags next to him and Steve can see Will tense up. Mrs. Byers mumbles something that he can’t make out, but both her and Hopper are pale. Nancy and Jonathan aren’t doing much better, Nancy looks like she’s going to throw up and Jonathan’s eyes are suspiciously wet. Steve remembers the fear that struck through him the first time he heard those words, the first time he truly realized what being trapped in the basement entailed. Robin, the only one who knew (almost) the full story, pressed closer to him like they could meld together if she tried hard enough.

“Why’d he say it like that?” Mike turned to look at his sickly-looking sister and then at Steve, who just shook his head. This is exactly why he didn’t want the kids to be here. God, he hopes the movie or tape or whatever doesn’t show how bad it really got. He doesn’t think he could survive if his family saw him like that.

“If you try to touch me, I’ll scratch your face.” Finney backs up a little, his face full of disgust. “And whoever’s coming will see and ask why.”

“This face?” The Grabber looks up so the light is shining on the mask as he uses both hands to point out the fact that if Finney scratched his ‘face’, he’d just be scratching the mask.

 “Hang up the phone now.” Finney glares but he turns and hangs up the phone. “I was down here once when it rang. Ooh, creepiest damn thing. I think it’s static electricity that does it. It went off while I was right next to it. I picked it up without thinking. To see if anyone was there.”

“Was there?” Finney questions.

“No.” The Grabber turns and leaves, shutting the door loudly behind him.

“That’s not how static electricity works. Sure, it could cause buzzing or something that sounds like a phone ringing, but it wouldn’t cause the phone to ring.” Dustin rants, animatedly explaining why The Grabber was wrong before Steve stops him.

“Calm down, pointdexter, just watch and you’ll understand.” He places a hand on Dustin’s shoulder and squeezes it a little.

Finney walks towards the middle of the room as the lights turn off and begins yelling “Help! Help! Please!” The shot turns to show the outside of the boarded up window where Finney’s yelling is extremely muffled. “Help! Help me! Somebody, please!” The words are barely audible.

“Help!” It turns back to show Finney in the basement where his yelling can be heard. He stops, realizing the yelling is no use, and looks around. He sees the window and even though it’s boarded up, there’s still a decent amount of light coming through. 

He jumps up to try to reach it, almost hitting the window. He backs up and gets a running start, jumping again. He repeats the same thing, getting further before he ends up hanging on the window sill but eventually lets go. He walks to the mattress to try to move it and give himself a boost, but he finds that it’s bolted to the floor. He keeps trying to pull it, but to no avail.

“Stop. Stop. Stop it. If anyone could’ve broken that window, they already would’ve done it. Robin would’ve done it.” Finney quits his pacing and sits on the mattress. “You’re not getting out of here. I’m not getting out of here.” 

“No, don’t give up that easily!” Dustin stretches his arm out and almost hits Joyce as he yells at the TV.

“He’s right there, Dustin. He’s fine.” Max rolls her eyes but after spending so much time with her, Steve knows she’s just as worried as Dustin is. Max reminds Steve a lot of Gwen, he’s sure those two would get on like a house on fire if they ever met.

“Max is right. I’m okay, Henderson.” Steve twists his knuckles into Dustin’s hair in the way he knows Dustin hates, just to get some kind of reaction out of him.

The phone rings and Finney turns to look at it. It rings again and he leaps up to answer it before deciding against it and stepping back, staring at the phone. It rings for a third time and he walks slowly to it, finally answering it.

“Hello?” There’s a very faint clicking sound from the phone, almost like there’s someone on the other side. “Hello?” Finney tries again. When nothing happens, he hangs up the phone.

“How is the broken phone making noise?” Ellie turns to ask Mike who shrugs, just as confused.

“Maybe it’s like when I was in the Upsidedown? I could call the phone’s but it was really hard to hear anything and they’d explode afterwards.” Will looks towards Steve to try and see if his theory is right, but he just smiles.

“Something like that.” Is all Steve says as he points back to the screen.

Finney is curled up on the mattress, trying to sleep but a creaking noise keeps him from closing his eyes for more than a few seconds. He looks at the phone, which looks like it’s breathing, pulsing in and out. “Stop it.” He mumbles to the phone.

“Stop what?” Finney jumps at the sound of The Grabber’s voice and immediately turns to look at the man who is crouched by the wall, staring at Finney. The Grabber only has the bottom half of a mask on, covering his mouth with a face-splitting smile.

“Fuck!” Lucas, as well as everyone else, yells at the sudden appearance of The Grabber.

“God, he’s so fucking creepy.” Robin spits as the man is shown. Steve nods into her hair which has somehow been tucked under his chin. He’s sure her position is wildly uncomfortable, but she’d move if she wanted to so he didn’t say anything.

“I’m hungry. I need food.”

“How are your eyes?” The Grabber asks instead of acknowledging what Finney said.

“They hurt.” Finney tells him.

“Well, I can’t bring you anything to eat. You’ll have to wait.” The Grabber stands up and walks towards the door.

“Is there someone upstairs who will see you bring me food?”

“Don’t you worry about that.” He says as he continues walking.

“If you weren’t going to feed me, why’d you even come down here?” The Grabber pauses and turns at Finney’s question.

“Just to look at you. I just wanted to look at you. I’ll go.” The door slams shut behind him. Finney looks disgusted and backs up towards the nearest wall, not taking his eyes off the door. He’s laying on the bed again as the phone rings. As it keeps ringing, he stands up and answers it, bringing the receiver to his ear.

“Hello? Is somebody there? I need help. Hello?” He begs into the phone for help.

“Finney.” A voice draws out from the other end and Finney gasps, slamming the phone down.

“Holy shit!” Mike yells as he and the others jump at the voice.

“Steve, what the hell?!” Robin, who has been pretty well informed about everything so far, sits up straight and stares at him. 

“Just watch, it’ll make more sense in a second.” Steve promises, placing a hand on hers and begging her to trust him. She sighs but nods, shuffling close to him once again.

Finney backs away from the phone and trips, still sliding away as he hits the ground. He’s trembling as he looks at the phone, waiting for something to happen. It rings again and he stands up, backing away even further. It rings another time and he walks towards it, picking up the receiver and quickly putting it down again to stop the noise. Backing up once again, he stares at the phone until it rings again. This time, it’s not ringing like a normal phone, it’s continuous without any breaks.

He picks up the phone. Static can be heard from the other side.

“Don’t hang up.” The voice on the other side says.

“I won’t. Who is this?” Finney questioned, staring at the wall.

“I don’t remember my name.” The voice tells him.

“Why not?” Finney prods for answers.

“It’s the first thing you lose.” The answer is staticy and distorted.

“First thing you lose when?” He shakes his head, not understanding.

“You know when.” 

“How do you know my name?”

“We met once. Your arm is mint. You almost had me.” The words spark recognition in Finney as he turns around.

“Mint?” Ellie whispers as she looks up at Steve, clearly trying not to interrupt.

“It means good. Like bitchin’.” Steve smiles at her as she nods and turns back to the TV.

“Bruce? Bruce Yamada?” Finney’s voice is disbelieving, like he thinks he’s insane for even saying the name.

“Yeah. Bruce. Uh, I’m Bruce. Your arm is mint. You almost had me.” The voice, Bruce, confirms.

“Bruce? Like the missing kid? Holy shit, he’s alive?” Lucas shoots to sit up straight and dislodges Max from her position next to him.

“There’s no way. Finney would’ve seen him if he was in the basement too.” Mike rolls his eyes like Lucas was being an idiot.

“Clearly he’s somewhere else, that’s why he’s using the phone.” Dustin argues

“The broken phone?” Will remind everyone about the phone’s cord being cut.

“I’ll explain in a second, just keep watching.” Steve tells them when they all look at him for an explanation.

“Did the phone ring for you?” His voice verges on desperation.

“It rang, but none of us heard it. Just you. The Grabber hears the phone, too, but he doesn’t want to believe it.” Bruce’s voice is steadier now, more coherent.

“Why are you calling me?” Any hope that Finney seemed to have when he realized it was Bruce had disappeared.

“Your arm is mint. You almost had me. I’m glad it’s you. Finney?” Bruce repeats for the third time.

“Yeah?”

“There’s a dirt section of the floor in the hallway where the tile is loose.” Finney turns to look at the area Bruce is describing, nodding when he sees it.

“Okay.”

“Dig down underneath the foundation. I tried, but there wasn’t time for me to dig up and out the other side.” Bruce’s voice is monotone, like he’s stating a fact.

“Will I have enough time?” The phone clicks like someone hung up and static comes from the other side. “Hello? Bruce? Bruce?”

“Start explaining, right now.” Dustin’s arms are crossed and his expression is cloudy. The movie had paused, this time with the remote in Nancy’s hand.

“You remember when you asked if I had any special abilities from my mom?” When he got a few nods in conformation, he continued. “Yeah well, I did. It only started in the basement, but it’s continued on after then. I can get calls from dead people over broken phones. I dunno why it has to be a broken phone, but it does. Sometimes I see ghosts too, but it’s only happened a few times.

“And you’ve never thought to mention this before?” Robin’s voice is high pitched and incredulous.

“What did you want me to say? Oh yeah, by the way guys, I can talk to ghosts sometimes but only when they call me and also I’ve pretty much been lying about my life for the entire time you’ve known me!” Steve flares out his arm as he rants. He knows how much the kids value honesty with their whole ‘Friends don’t lie’ belief. It’s one of the major codes for the party.

“Have you ever been called by Barb?” Nancy’s voice is quiet but hard and she’s not looking directly at him.

“No. I doubt she’d want to talk to me, Nancy.” Steve answered her just as quietly. He didn’t tell her that sometimes he saw Barb by his pool, sitting there like she had when she was alive. Her hand bleeding as she dangled her legs in the water. Her skin pale and blue like she’d drowned, but split open and torn from where the Demogorgon had ripped her apart. Nancy didn’t need to know that.

“I have a question.” Max announces, dragging everyone’s attention to her. “Why did he, Bruce, keep repeating the same thing? About your arm being mint or whatever.”

“I don’t really know, honestly. A lot of them kept repeating themselves when they spoke to me. I think it’s because of how they died? Since they didn’t get justice or whatever, and since they couldn’t remember a lot, they would cling onto what they could remember and focus on that, if that makes sense.” Steve’s actually thought about it a lot, the fact that the boys would repeat themselves. Or the fact that Bruce remembered the fact that he’d told him his arm was mint but couldn’t remember his own name. A lot of it didn’t make sense to him, and it probably never would.

“So you got multiple calls in the basement?” Jonathan changes the subject slightly, focusing on what Steve could actually answer.

“Mhm, one from every boy.” Steve nodded. There was also the final call, but that wasn’t for him, so he didn’t count it.

—--

“Seems like they’re handling it well.” Griffin grins from where he’s draped out across the top of the couch.

“After all the shit they’ve seen, they’d be pussies to freak out about Blake talking to ghosts.” Vance huffs at his spot next to the youngest Byers. He claimed it’s because the kid seemed the most tense, but the other ghost boys agreed it was because it was the closest spot to his uncle.

“When should we try calling Finn?” Bruce nudges Robin who has been staring at Finn (or Steve, who knows anymore) for what seems like hours.

“Maybe after PB’s call?” Robin shrugs, tilting his head in thought.

“I told you to stop calling me that, Arelleno!” Billy shrieked.

“Well I’m not calling you Paper-Boy, so it’s PB, Billy, or nothing!” Robin yells back, wiping away some of the blood that’s collected on his face.

“You’re so annoying.” Billy whines as he floats over to Robin.

“All of you are annoying, now shut up, the movie’s playing.” Vance rolls his eyes and hits Billy on the shoulder when he comes within reach. Billy huffs and goes over to sit with Sinclair and Mayfield, muttering about stupid boys that he’s stuck with for eternity. Vance rolls his eyes again and focuses back on the screen.

Chapter Text

The screen changes to an orange kind of shade before cutting to a video of a family of three, two parents and a kid. The little boy crawls on the grass while his parents watch, then it cuts to him slightly older, holding a bat and playing baseball. It changes to the boy, older now, saying the pledge of allegiance in a classroom before going back to him playing baseball, but for an actual team this time. It ends with showing the boy, who is now clearly Bruce, getting abducted by The Grabber the same way that Finney was. Finney is then shown, the same blurry film over what’s being played, as he screams for help and bangs against a screen door.

Gwen sits up in bed, panting and covered in sweat. She’s then riding her bike around the neighborhood, looking for the house she saw in her dream.

“It’s dangerous for her to be biking around at night.” Hopper grumbles out.

“She knows that, but she’d willingly be in danger if it meant finding me.” For years, even before their mom died, all Finn and Gwen had were each other. Gwen would do anything for him, and he’d do anything for her.

Finney is shown now, no longer fuzzy, and is standing on the tile that Bruce was talking about. He lifts up a piece of the tile revealing the dirt underneath. Gwen is still biking around, frantically looking for the house from her dream. Finney is digging the dirt up with his hands, shoving it to the side as more piles up around him. The hole gets bigger and bigger as Finney keeps digging. He flushes the dirt down the toilet as the pile grows. He grabs one of the rugs from next to the toilet and places it over the hole, hiding all evidence of it.

“That’s actually really smart.” Dustin mutters mostly to himself. Steve rolls his eyes but smiles a little anyway.

Finney flops down onto the mattress, clearly exhausted as he curls up around himself. Gwen is sitting in the bleachers in the gym, surrounded by kids. The principal of the school is speaking but it’s muted. The principal clearly says something about Finney as multiple kids turn to look at Gwen. Donna is shown who looks shocked and close to tears.

Finney is glaring at the phone like he’s daring it to ring again when he hears the door open. He stands and rushes away from the door just as The Grabber opens it, holding a tray. On it, there’s a plate of scrambled eggs and an open soda that looks flat.

“I made you some breakfast.” The Grabber says happily.

“What’d you put in that?” Finney questions as he glares at the food.

“Salt and pepper.” He laughs as he sets the tray down. “Eat it. Don’t eat it. You’re already down here. What do I need to drug you for?” He turns and closes the door but doesn’t shut it fully.

“Is that why you don’t like eggs?” Ellie bends her neck backwards to look at Steve without turning.

“What?” 

“You never eat eggs when you make breakfast. Or you don’t make them at all.” Ellie claims in her signature monotone voice.

“Oh, yeah. It’s all he fed me down there so y’know, bad memories and such.” Steve waves a hand in a dismissive way, trying to get everyone to drop the subject. They get the hint as no one else comments on it.

“Wait, is the door open?” Max turns to look at Steve, whipping her head back and forth between him and the screen.

“Holy shit, yeah it is.” Dustin makes a move like he’s going to stand up but Steve stops him.

“Watch.” Steve nods to the screen.

Finney sees that the door isn’t fully closed and starts to pull it open when the phone rings. He stands there for a moment, deciding whether he should answer it or not before scowling and walking towards it.

“Hello?” Finney asks into the phone.

“Don’t go upstairs.” A new voice says after a moment. 

“Why not?” Finney turns and looks at the slightly open door.

“It’s a trap.” The boy says.

“Are you, are you Bruce?”  Finney questions into the phone.

“Who’s Bruce?” The boy, not Bruce, asks.

“Uh, I was just talking to Bruce.”

“I don’t know any Bruce.”

“He’s the baseball player.”

“We don’t play baseball here.”

“Who are you?” As Finney turns, a boy is shown standing next to him. There’s a giant cut on his cheek that is oozing blood, as well as a more hidden one on his forehead.

“Jesus fuck!” Dustin yells at the appearance of Billy. Steve can admit that he jumped too. He’d never seen Billy dead before, never even saw his body after he’d escaped and killed The Grabber. Seeing the kid, who was younger than him then and way younger than him now, bloodied and beaten made it feel like someone had grabbed his heart and pulled. He hadn’t known Billy well, but Steve mourns the life the boy could’ve had if he’s survived or if he was never taken.

“Who is that? I don’t remember him.” Nancy asks as she worries her lip between her teeth.

“He was The Grabber’s second victim. You’ll get his name soon.” Steve answered her.

“I don’t remember.” His voice is distorted, even though he isn’t shown talking into the phone.

“Did you play soccer? Football?” 

“I delivered newspapers.”

“Billy. You’re Billy Showalter.” Realization sparks in Finney’s eyes.

“Maybe.”

“No, you’re Billy.” Finney insists.

“Do not go upstairs.” The boy, Billy, slowly walks away, revealing his even more bloodied jacket.

“What is he doing?” 

He’s waiting… on the other side with that fucking belt. He didn’t say you can leave, so if you try, he’ll punish you. He’ll beat you with that belt until you pass out. It hurts, kid. It hurts real bad. You’ll cry. You’ll beg him to stop. We all did. But he just keeps beating you.” Billy turns and presses down on the switch hook, ending the call.

“Hello? Hello?” Finney realizes the call has ended and hangs up the receiver.

“You couldn’t see him?” Jonathan 

“No, I only ever saw one of the boys in the basement.” Steve only saw Griffin for a split second before the kid vanished. It was so quick that sometimes he wonders if he had imagined it.

Finney turns and opens the door and quietly walks a few stairs. He stops before he gets to the top as he sees The Grabber sitting in the kitchen, a belt in his hand, his shirt off, and a mask that’s frowning deeply on his face.

“He said not to go upstairs! Why would you go upstairs?!” Lucas shouts from the love-seat. He’s not actually talking to Steve, so he doesn’t answer him, just lets him yell at his past self.

“Why isn’t he wearing a shirt? That’s so fucking weird.” Mike mutters at Will who just shakes his head.

Finney slowly walks back down stairs, closing the door so it’s slightly open like how The Grabber had left it. He drops down in front of the tray and shovels the eggs into his mouth along with the flat soda.

“Oh, you poor dear. Go to the nurse’s office and get a nap.” Gwen is woken up and sent out of the room by her teacher.

“How old is Gwen, Steve?” Joyce calls so he can hear her. His hearing is pretty bad in his left ear, so she needs to speak up a little for him to actually be able to hear it.

“She’s two years younger than me, so she was eleven when all this happened but she’d be seventeen right now.” She nods at his answer, but he can tell she isn’t happy about it.

The phone rings again, waking Finney up. He gets up and answers it, not needing to speak first for once.

“You said my name was Billy.” 

“Billy Showalter.” Finney confirms.

“Don’t call me that. I don’t remember it. It’s not who I am now.” The empty bottle of soda starts moving and rattling on the stone floor.

“What do you want me to call you, then? What do you remember?” The bottle stops moving but falls to the floor as Finney walks towards it.

“I told you. I was a paperboy.” He says.

“Okay. Paperboy.”

“Like the paperboy that called El?” Dustin jumps in recognition of the name.

“I’m pretty sure, yeah.” Steve nods. 

“Why, though? Why would he call her to get us here?” Will asks.

“I dunno.” Steve shrugs and shushes the kids when they protest and keep talking. He truthfully, didn’t know. He has a vague idea of all of the Denver Boys being involved in this somehow, but he’s not sure. 

“See the wall in front of you? See how the wall is separated from the floor?” The small gap is shown between the wall and the floor, but it’s notable when you know what you’re looking for.

“Yeah.” Finney nods.

“I tore a long cable loose from down there. I kept it hidden.”

“What am I supposed to do with that?” The bottle starts spinning again before eventually pointing upwards to the boarded up window.

Gwen is asleep on a bed in the nurses office. As she dreams, she sees a dog and then a boy. Billy Showalter, the paperboy, is putting rubber bands around the newspapers before putting them in the basket on his bike. He bikes around with his dog, tossing out papers to people’s homes. A final paper is thrown before the paperboy’s bike is shown discarded next to his dog as a black van drives away. The Grabber stands in front of a house holding a bunch of black balloons and wearing a smiling mask. He sticks his hand out and points to the tree in the front yard before vanishing as Gwen wakes up. She runs out of the room, startling the nurse.

“Jesus, he looks so young.” Nancy murmurs just loud enough to be heard.

“He was twelve when he was taken.” More than half the people in the room flinch at that. Will looks particularly pale and Steve’s sure he’s comparing his own time as a missing kid to the dead boy that was on screen. 

When Will had first gone missing, even though Steve hadn’t known him and was still in his asshole phase, he’d taken the news like a stab to the heart. All he could think was that it was happening again. The Grabber was back somehow and had found him in Hawkins, Indiana of all fucking places. But no, Will was just dragged into a supernatural dimension. (Depp down in the most shameful parts of his brain, Finn thinks that Will got the better deal. At least in Super Hell, all of the monsters were just that, monsters. In the basement, Finn got to know just how monstrous man could be.)

“Was he the youngest of the-what was it? Five?” Nancy asks.

“Yeah, five. And I think technically Griffin would’ve been the youngest, I think.” He can’t recall if Griffin was eleven or twelve when he was taken, but he knows that he was scarily small. In the brief moment that he saw him before Griffin had called him, he looked almost worryingly tiny.

“How old was the oldest one?” Robin asks hesitantly, like she doesn’t really want to know.

“Vance. He was fifteen.” Steve pointedly avoids looking at Hopper when he says this. Steve’s not going to outright say it (well, to anyone other than Robin) but it’s glaringly obvious what kind of man monster The Grabber was. There was a reason he only took young boys. Steve’s sure that the older people of their little monster hunting group have figured it out, and he’s pretty sure Will knows as well, but for the other younger teens, he kind of hopes they’re still in the dark, about this at least.

Finney reaches into the wall and pulls out the thin cord. He runs over to the window and forms it into a kind of lasso shape as he throws it at the bars. He keeps throwing it and trying to loop it through one of the bars, but it keeps falling. He slides down the wall, seemingly giving up before getting an idea. He jumps over the rug placed over the hole he’s dug and grabs the longest rolled up carpet. He leans it against the wall and feeds the rope through the middle until it reaches the window. It goes through and under the bars and Finney grabs the side that’s gone through and pushes the carpet away to get a grip on both ends of the rope.

He tries to use the rope to climb up, but he can’t support himself. He ties the two ends together to make a kind of platform to stand on as he hauls himself up. He makes it to the window and gets a grip on the metal bars blocking it, pulling and pulling until they eventually become loose. Unfortunately, he falls with them as he and the metal collide with the floor and each other.

“Shit, were you okay? That looked like it hurt.” Robin, now back to trying to merge with him, looks at him worryingly. 

“I honestly don’t remember. I definitely got a concussion from that, though.” One of the many, many concussions he’s gotten over the course of his nineteen years of life.

“Daddy?” Gwen stands at the doorway of the living room.

“Yes, honey?” Terrence asks from his chair, a bottle of beer on the side table next to him.

“His son’s missing and he’s still drinking. What a bastard.” Hopper mumbles so only Joyce can hear, who nods solemnly as she agrees with him.

“Reminds me of Lonnie.”

“Can I ask you a question?” She walks closer to him, but still far enough away that she could bolt if needed.

“Of course. Come sit. Come. There you go.” He grabs a chair for her to sit on and places it in front of himself.

“But you promise you won’t get mad?”

“I promise, honey.” He toasts to her with a cup full of alcohol, which she glares at.

“It’s about my dreams.” Gwen tells him hesitantly.

“What about your dreams?” Terrence takes a drink from his glass before setting it down.

“Well, what if they, you know, they’re, well,” Gwen trails off, waiting to see how her father will react.

“Gwen. Your mother, she was a special soul…And eventually, they told her to do things. Terrible things. And so she took her own life. But they weren’t real, sweetheart. They just weren’t real.” Terrence stumbled through his little speech as Gwen got visibly more and more agitated.

“I loved Mom.” Gwen says after a moment, her voice hard.

“I-I loved her, too.” Terrence nods, truly meaning what he says.

“I mean, I loved her the way she was.” Gwen glares at him.

“I know, sweetheart.” Terrence moves to put a hand on her shoulder but stops when she flinches away. “I just, I don’t want that future for you, sweetheart. Do you understand?”

“But what if it could help me find Finney?” Terrence turns away and Gwen looks on the verge of tears before the scene changes to show both of them in the car, driving around. Gwen glances out the window, desperately trying to find the house from her dreams. 

“Damn, I didn’t think he’d actually do anything to help.” Steve sounded amused at the idea of his father helping look for him.

“If I even meet Terrence Blake, I’m gonna knee him in the dick.” Robin states firmly which gets a startled laugh out of everyone and a few agreeing nods.

Detective Wright and Miller walk up to a house as police cars and people searching with flashlights fill the neighborhood. As Wright knocks on the door a dog barking and a man’s voice can be heard from inside. “Hey, Samson! Stop! Come here! Come on, boy. Come on. Hold on one second. Get in here. Go.” Eventually the sound of a dog crate shutting is heard as the door finally opens.

“Hello?” A man opens the door, he’s wearing a blue Hawaiian shirt and his hair is messy, unkempt.

“Good evening, sir. We’re canvassing your neighborhood, talking to residents, and we were wondering, have you seen this boy?” Wright holds out a picture of Finney to show the man.

“You’re the police.” The man says like he just now realized who he was talking to.

“Yes. Denver PD.” Wright confirms.

“Uh huh. You’re here for the missing kids.”

“I don’t trust this guy, he sounds super suspicious.” Dustin crosses his arms and glares at the screen.

“Seems like he’s on something.” Hopper says. In his years of working for different police departments, he’s had his fair share of interacting with people under the influence, whether that’s alcohol or some kind of drug.

“Yes, sir. If there’s anything at all-” Miller is cut off as the man shakes his head.

“No, no. Come inside.” He gestures for the two detectives to follow him in, who glance at each other before stepping inside. The dog from earlier starts barking again, “Come on, Samson! Stop it!”

“Right. I want to show you something. Yeah, right over here. So, all the kids live in the same district, right? They all walk to and from school.” The man walks over to a bulletin board full of pictures and notes, like something that’d be seen in an old detective movie. Miller is glancing around the room, his eyes catching on something on the coffee table.

“Jesus Christ, he’s crazy.” Jonathan mutters which gets a laugh out of Steve. He had nothing against Max, really. He felt more sorry for the guy than anything, considering he was trying to help and ended up getting axed in the head by his own brother for his efforts. Steve winces slightly as he remembers that the tape is likely going to show Max getting murdered and he hopes that none of the kids will be too put off by it.

“They were all grabbed on the way home from school except for Robin Arellano, he was grabbed on a Saturday afternoon on his way to the store to get some pop and a candy bar, right?” He continues talking, pointing to different parts on his board as he explains.

“Sir, we’re well aware of that.” Wright tells him as he walks closer to the man and the board.

“Just listen. He has to be able to grab these kids and get them back to his place very quickly, which means he’s got a house with a garage. And he can’t risk them getting away or waking up if he’s knocking them out. Which means that The Grabber has to live somewhere in this area right here.” He yells as he points to a small area on the map. 

“Mr-” Wright hesitates.

“It’s Max.” The man now known as Max says.

“Oh, good. I share a name with the crazy guy.” Max rolls her eyes and her dry tone causes the kids to giggle.

“Mr. Max-” Miller is cut off once again.

“No, not Mr. Max. It’s just, it’s just Max. My friends call me Max. And since we’re all working on this case together, you know, I figured.” Max trails off.

“How long have you lived in the area, Max?” Detective Wright asks as Miller looks around again.

“No, I live down in Durango. I’m just crashing here. This is my brother’s place. I’ve been reading about this case a lot, and I’m in between jobs right now, and you guys could really use my help on this.” Wright and Miller give each other a look at this, clearly not taking Max seriously.

“You keep working at this, but if you see any of these boys, give us a call.” Wright hands Max a business card.

“Wait. Uh, or if I have any new leads, right?” Max follows after Wright who has gone to the door.

“If you see any of these boys, then call.” Wright repeats, stepping out of the house.

“And, uh, might want to tidy up before your brother gets home.” Miller points to the coffee table and follows behind Wright. Max’s face falls as he realizes what the detectives had seen as the angle changes to show three lines of white powder on the table.

“Oh. Stupid, stupid, stupid moron. Goddamn it, Max.” Max sits defeatedly on the couch before picking up a rolled up piece of paper and snorting the lines.

“Holy shit, he was on coke.” Nancy exclaims when it’s revealed that the man on screen was in fact on something.

“He was on soda?” Ellie tilts her head in confusion.

“Coke, the white powder that was on the table, is a drug. If you ever touch it, you’ll have another thing coming, young lady. Understand?” Hopper’s voice is gruff but everyone can hear the fondness and his voice. Ellie nods in understanding as the movie continues playing.

The camera pans down until it shows the basement where Finney is sitting on the bed, staring at the wall.

“Holy shit! You were right there! The cops were right there!” Mike throws his hands up like yelling at the TV will fix anything.

“So, Max is The Grabber?” Ellie questions, not fully following along.

“No, his brother is. Remember? Max said he’s staying at his brother’s place and The Grabber had said something about not being able to feed Finney because of a guy upstairs.” Will flushes at everyone’s attention on him but Steve just smiles and nods, confirming that he’s right.

“Kind of ironic that he’s put so much effort into finding The Grabber when he was living with him.” Robin says and gets hums of agreement from around the room.

Finney gets up and walks to the hole that he’s been digging which is now deep enough to go up to his waist. He continues digging before it cuts to him sitting on the mattress and glaring at the door again. The light turns on and Finney moves instantly to lie down, pretending he’s asleep. The Grabber opens the door, holding the same tray with the same contents as before.

“I know you’re not sleeping.” He says in a sing-songy voice and Finney opens his eyes.

“I’m starving.” Finney claims as he sits up.

“Tell me your name.” The Grabber doesn’t move, not stepping out from the darkness. 

“Why do you care?” Finney asks

“I usually don’t. I find out eventually in the paper. They always print a nice, big photo with all the details I could ever want. All the things you boys lie about.”

“Doesn’t he already know your name? He called you Johnny earlier, right?” Robin recalls as she sits up slightly.

“Fuck, I didn’t even think about that.” Steve admits. To be fair, he’d been barely conscious when The Grabber had said his first name and he'd already been in the basement for a few days by then. But watching it back, he realizes that The grabber had always known his name, of course he had. Steve’s still not sure why The Grabber asked for it, or what would’ve happened had he told the truth.

“What’s different this time?” Finney questions.

“Oh, oh it’s complicated. It’s too complicated.” He looks upstairs for a moment when the dog, Samson, starts barking. “Everything’s different. Nothing’s going right.”

“You could let me go.”

“I’m thinking about it.” Finney perks up at this, hope bleeding into his expression.

“I promise I won’t tell anyone. You can blindfold me, drop me off on the street. I’ll walk home.” Finney moves closer to him slightly before pleading and trying to convince The Grabber to let him go.

“Well, tell me your name.”

“Taylor. Taylor Mullen.” At Finney’s words The Grabber finally steps out of the darkness and throws the tray of food on the ground. His mask has a deep frown on it, like it did when he was sitting upstairs. He grabs the newspaper that was tucked under his arm and sighs as he throws it at Finney. Finney unravels it to show a picture of himself with the headline 'Suburb Rocked as Another Child Goes Missing’.

“I was really starting to like you, Finney. I almost let you go.” He kicks the tray as he turns and leaves, leaving the door open behind him.

“I severely doubt that.” Lucas grumbles as he messes with Max’s fingers.

“Me too. Honestly, I don’t know what he would’ve done if I hadn’t lied.” Steve tells them.

“There’s no way he would’ve let you go either way. He would have no way to make sure you didn’t snitch once you got home. And with Max there, he really couldn’t have let you go without someone seeing him.” Nancy points out all the flaws with being let go and Steve can’t help but agree. Truly, the only way he was ever going to have gotten out of the basement was by killing The Grabber.

Chapter Text

Finney stands up and throws the newspaper to the ground, realizing that the door’s unlocked. He goes to open it before hearing the phone ring and answering it instead.

“Why would you try to go upstairs? Have you learned nothing!?” Dustin shouted at the TV and then at Steve.

“Shush, Henderson.” He pointed back towards the screen. He knew exactly why he had tried to go upstairs. He was angry, sad and scared too of course, but also really fucking angry. Steve’s pretty sure that was The Grabber’s goal, to goad him into going upstairs by dangling freedom just within his reach before pulling it away like a fish right about to get the bait. It was stupid, but he wasn’t thinking rationally, hadn’t been for a long time while he was down there.

“Hello?” There was just the faint sound of static from the other side, no voices this time. “Bruce? Bil- Paperboy?” The phone clicks as the call ends. Finney stares for a moment before hanging up. 

The Grabber is shown, sitting in the kitchen again with a belt in hand, wearing an unzipped jacket and his frowning mask. He’s rolling his neck out as he tries to stay awake. For a moment, he closes his eyes but snorts and wakes himself up again. He looks around for a moment before closing his eyes once again and falling asleep.

The plate of spilled eggs is shown on the basement floor, Finney gathering them and putting them back onto the plate.

“Ugh, that’s so gross.” Mike scrunches his nose up at the thought of eating the eggs from the floor.

“It was that or nothing, Wheeler.” Steve reminded him and Mike’s expression dropped and he focused back on the screen.

Finney is laying back on the bed, looking up at the phone even though it hasn't rung. Instead, there’s a dripping noise coming from somewhere in the basement. It’s too dark to see what the cause of it is, so he pulls his rocket out of his back pocket and turns on the flashlight. He points it at the phone, then along the crack in the rest of the wall. He spots something in the corner of his eye before quickly pointing the flashlight up and towards the middle of the room.

A boy is floating there, bent like he’s on the arm of a couch. Finney gasps and straightens his back. The boy’s body spins to reveal his bloodied neck and arms. The dripping noise is revealed to be blood splattering from the boy’s wounds onto the tile floor.

“I’m gonna be sick.” Dustin mutters as he presses his eyes closed.

“Me too.” Max agrees but doesn’t take her eyes off the screen.

“Jesus Christ, poor kid.” Hopper runs a hand through his hair before resting it on Joyce’s shoulder. She’s been staring at the screen, images of Will replacing the poor kid. All she can think about is how she almost lost her baby boy. She reaches out to try to grab Will, but he’s too far. Almost like he senses her, Will turns and reaches an arm out towards his mom and locks his fingers with hers.

“He’s the one you saw in the basement?” Robin asks after a moment while everyone is trying to get their bearings. They had seen Paperboy, but he had been moving and talking. There’s something different about how this boy was dead. Of course, Paperboy was as well, but he still acted as if he was alive. The floating boy was still and silent, a complete corpse.

Steve just nodded in confirmation, choosing to keep his gaze forward instead of seeing everyone else’s reactions to Griffin. For a moment, he could’ve sworn he heard a drip and felt something fall on his neck, but as soon as he turned around, he was just met with the top of the coach and the wall. Weird.

Finney kept his gaze on the boy until his arm shot up and pointed towards the phone. He stood up, and even though it hadn’t been ringing, he picked up the receiver and placed it to his ear.

“Hello?” Finney turns to look for the floating boy, but he and the blood on the floor are gone when he looks. “Hello? Hello?”

“You don’t have much time.” A young boy's voice says over the phone.

“Holy shit. That’s the kid that brought me here. That’s his voice.” Max realized suddenly as she recalled the voice who told her she was needed at Steve’s place.

“Thought so.” Steve nodded but didn’t say anything else.

“The Grabber hasn’t been sleeping. He thinks this might be it. That he’s gonna figure it out.” The young boy continues.

“Who’s gonna figure it out?” Finney asks, clutching his still lit rocket.

“His brother upstairs.” The boy starts laughing almost manically. 

“Are you Griffin?” Finney turns and begins pacing.

“Who?”

“Griffin Stagg.” Finney repeats.

“Probably. It’s all a little hazy, but I imagine you know all our names.”

“Every kid does. I didn’t know you.” Finney says after a moment of hesitation.

“Nobody did. You spend so many years invisible, and then every kid in the state knows your name. You don’t have much time.” Griffin’s voice is bitter, much too bitter for a young boy.

“Why hasn’t he killed me?” The camera zooms in on Finney’s face.

“You won’t play the game. You have to play the game. If you don’t play, he can’t win.” Griffin’s voice has gone from bitter to almost scared. 

“What game?”

“Naughty Boy. If you don’t play Naughty Boy, The Grabber can’t beat you. And if he can’t beat you, he can’t move on to the next part. And the next part of Naughty Boy is his favorite part.” He whispers the last part, speaking from his own experience.

“God, if that son of a bitch wasn’t already dead, I’d slit his throat myself. He thinks being a creep is a game, what a piece of shit.” Robin hisses, seething with rage.

“It’s alright, Robbie. All he can do now is haunt me in my nightmares.” He tries to laugh it off but both of them know just exactly how true that is.

“What’s the next part?” Finney’s voice trembles as he asks. Griffin just laughs.

“You don’t have much time.” Griffin says again, emphasizing each word.

“You said that.”

“He’s not been sleeping.”

“You said that, too.” Finney's clearly getting more and more exasperated with the ghost on the other line.

“Yeah, well, he is now. In his chair. He passed out waiting for you to play.” Griffin sounds annoyed now, like talking to Finney is a chore.

“What good does that do me?” He realizes something suddenly as his head snaps towards the door. “Wait. The door is still unlocked.”

“The door is still unlocked.” Griffin parrots.

“Do I just go?”

“There’s a combination lock on the inside of the storm door. It was my bike lock.”

“Your bike lock?” Finney repeats, sounding hopeful.

“Yeah. He took it when he took me.” Griffin hesitates but eventually gets the words out.

“What’s the combination?”

“I don’t remember.”

“God, this guy’s useless.” Mike huffs as he gets annoyed with the younger boy talking on screen.

“Cut him some slack, Wheeler. The dead don’t remember a lot and he really was trying to help.” Sure, even Steve got annoyed at Griffin for his lack of knowledge, but the poor boy was using all he had to try to offer him an escape route. 

“Griffin!” Finney mutters exasperatedly.

“I remember being afraid I’d forget it. That’s why I wrote it down.” 

“What? Where?” Finney frantically looks around.

“I carved it with a bottle cap in the wall.”

“Which wall? Which wall?!” 

“The one on the right, about shoulder height when you’re sitting down.” Finney drops the phone on the mattress and runs up to the wall. He gets on his knees and uses his flashlight to look for the carving. Eventually, he finds five numbers carved into the stone. 

“Two, three, three, one, seven. Two, three, three, one, seven. Two, three, three, one, seven.” He repeats it to himself three times so he won’t forget before standing up and grabbing the phone. “Two, three, three, one, seven?” 

“If you say so.”

“But is it 23-31-7 or 23-3-17 or 2-33-17?” Finney lists the three different combinations, hoping to know the right one.

“I can’t remember.”

“Griffin.” Finney sounds annoyed but is also clearly pleading to know which one is right.

“I can’t remember. You’ll have to try them all. And you’ll have to be very quiet about it.” Griffin reminds him as his voice slowly fades out.

“Yeah. Okay. Thanks.” Finney hangs up the phone, turns off his flashlight, clenches his fists, and heads towards the door. “Two, three, three, one, seven. Two, three, three, one, seven.” He repeats to himself as he walks.

“Holy shit, you’re gonna get out!” Dustin yells from next to Steve, throwing his arms up joyfully. Robin and Steve share a look. He’s told her that this attempt ended up with him getting hurt and violated for his efforts. Everyone else looks hopeful though, truly believing that he’s going to get out with Griffin’s plan. Nancy, though, is biting her lip like she’s contemplating saying something.

“Didn’t you say you got a call from each of the boys?” Steve nodded so Nancy continued, speaking low enough that only the older teens could hear her.“There’s only been three to call so far, so there’s still two calls. This doesn’t work, does it?” Steve grimaces and shakes his head, which causes Nancy and Jonathan’s mood to drop instantly. 

Finney opens the door slowly as he heads upstairs. There’s another door that separates the stairs to the basement from the rest of the house that he gently opens as well. The Grabber is sitting in the same position as before, still sleeping. Finney slowly approaches him, stalling right next to The Grabber for a moment before turning and seeing the front door. He opens the first door which leads to the storm door that has Griffin’s bike lock on it.

He tries 2-33-17 first, pulling on the lock but it stays in place. Finney quickly turns to look at The Grabber, who is thankfully still asleep. He trembles as he tries the next code, 23-3-17, with still no luck. Finally, he puts in 23-33-7 and the lock opens. 

“Yes! Yes!” The younger teens in the room cheer, not knowing that this escape attempt doesn’t end well. Dustin, Mike, Will, and Ellie are all standing and cheering as Finney opens the door like it’s a sports match.

“C’mon, Finney! Run!” Mike cheers the loudest and Steve smiles for a moment at the kids enthusiasm. 

The noise of the lock clicking open causes Samson to start barking as Finney pushes through the door. The Grabber wakes up, taking off the top part of his mask and staring at the open door.

“Fuck! No!” Max shouts as it becomes clear that this isn’t going to end well.

“Stupid dog!” Dustin flops back down on the couch and huddles up close to Steve.

Finney is outside now, running as fast as he can. The Grabber’s van pulls out of the driveway behind him and catches up to him, Finney on the sidewalk and The Grabber on the road.

“Help!” Finney keeps running and can’t stop in time as The Grabber drives his van in front of Finney, who hits it and goes down hard. The Grabber gets out of the van and runs to the other side where Finney is. Finney stands up and starts running again, The Grabber right behind him.

“Help! The Grabber!” The Grabber tackles Finney to the ground, both of them rolling as Finney tries to break free from his grip. The porch light on a nearby house turns on as The Grabber pulls a knife from his pocket, putting it to Finney’s throat.

“Say one fucking word, and I will gut you like a pig right here in the street. And strangle you with your own intestines.” Another porch light turns on as The Grabber keeps the knife to Finney’s throat. After a little bit, both lights turn off and The Grabber leaps up to face Finney. “Nighty night, naughty boy.” He says before he punches Finney in the face, knocking him out.

The Grabber carries Finney back to the basement, harshly dropping him back onto the mattress. Finney’s nose is bloody and he’s still unconscious.

“Hey, what was all that noise I heard?” Max calls from upstairs.

“Samson was barking at something. It’s nothing. Go back to bed, Max.” The Grabber yells as he leaves and slams the door shut.

Steve grabs Robin’s hand and squeezes it, hard. He can almost feel everything that happened that night all over again the fear that clung to his body with the knife held up to his throat. The Grabber’s hands on him as he finally gets to play Naughty Boy with him. He wants to throw up or scream or cry. Instead, he just holds onto Robin.

“Jesus, what the fuck? I mean, what the fuck?” Gwen grabs her stuff from her dollhouse and looks up as she yells.

The sudden change in tone causes a few people to laugh and Steve smiles. His sister always had a way of making him feel better, even when she wasn’t actually there. In all honesty, the only reason he hadn’t given up on trying to escape was so he could get back to her. He wasn’t going to leave her alone with Terrence, or at least, that was the plan before the state and social services decided to split them up.

“I ask you for help, and you give me these clues that don’t mean anything. And now this morning, I wake up without any dream at all? Seriously, what the hell is wrong with you?

You let The Grabber take Finney, right? And don’t tell me that you don’t get involved, because you’ve been giving me these dreams. Unless, “Gwen pauses and sighs, “Maybe you’re not even real.”

Steve’s heart shatters as he sees his little sister so distraught. As long as he could remember, she always used religion as a kind of coping mechanism. She used it to explain her dreams, to say that everything happened for a reason, that mom wasn’t crazy, God just had a special plan for her. Finn was never religious himself, but if it helped his sister, it helped. He went to church with her when their dad was too drunk or too angry to, he was even the one that got her her miniature bible and cross.

Seeing her so ready to give up on something that meant so much to her felt like a punch to the gut.

“Son of a bitch.” Finney mutters as he realizes he’s covered in blood. The phone starts ringing, continuously like how it had when he hung up on Bruce. “No. Fuck you” He tries to ignore the phone but it just kept ringing. “Goddamn it.” Eventually he gets up and answers it before sitting back on the mattress.

“Why didn’t you want to answer it?” Ellie asks.

“Probably since the last time a ghost tried to help, he ended up getting hurt even worse.” Dustin answers for Steve. Usually he’d get on him for speaking for someone else, but he was right so he let it slide and just nodded.

“What? You gonna say something? Do you even know who you are?” Finney yells into the phone angrily.

“What the shit kind of question is that? Do you even know who you are?” The voice on the other end is aggressive and one that hasn’t been heard before. The camera pans to show that there’s a boy sitting on the mattress on the opposite side of Finney, with long, curly blonde hair and wearing a jean vest.

“Vance.” Hopper says in recognition. He hadn’t ever been close to the boy, but seeing him in a corporeal form after years of just seeing his picture felt like a bucket of cold water dumped over him.

“I’m Finney Blake.”

“Well nice to fucking meet you, Finney Blake.” Vance suddenly points at something, revealing his bloodied arm and blood stained hair. “Right here, this is it.”

“What’s he pointing at?” Dustin asks.

“I dunno. I couldn’t see him, remember?” Steve dismisses him as they continue to watch.

“This is what?”

“The horrifying nightmare end of your pathetic little life.”

“Holy shit. You’re Vance Hopper. I remember you. You used to scare me.

“Trust me, Finney Blake, if you knew what you had coming, you’d be fucking terrified. Today’s the day, motherfucker.” Vance stands up and kicks at seemingly nothing before the screen cuts as Fox on the Run plays.

The outside of the Grab ‘N’ Go is shown, kids walking around or biking. Vance is shown at the pinball machine, intensely playing as another kid comes up to watch him.

“Huh, Pinball Vance.” Jonathan says as they watch the blonde expertly hit the small ball in the machine. Steve lets out a laugh as he nods, “Pinball Vance.”

“Vance, you’re gonna beat your high score.”

“Of course I’m gonna do it, dumb shit. I said I would.” Two boys who had walked into the store together begin messing around and roughhousing, one of them shoving the other into the machine and causing Vance to lose. “Motherfucker? You fucked with my game!” Vance grabs the boy that hit the machine and shoves him to the ground. The boy's friend pulls out a switchblade and flicks it open, advancing towards Vance. As the scene goes on, it flashes from black and white to being in color again.

“Oh, for Pete’s sake.” The woman behind the counter reaches to grab the phone, presumably calling the police.

“I get the feeling this happens often, considering that lady’s reaction.” Robin muses as they watch the fight on screen.

“He reminds me of Billy.” Max claims.

“I know, right. When you guys first came to town, I honestly thought he was Vance for a good few days.” Steve tells her as he runs a hand through his hair. The resemblance was truly uncanny, down the to hair, the striking blue eyes, and the asshole ‘I’ll fuck you up’ attidues that both of them had.

“Come here, bitch.” Vance calls out to the kid with the blade, who tries to stab Vance before Vance dodges it and punches the boy in the face. Vance knees the kid in the arm, getting him down when the other boy comes up behind Vance and grabs him. In the background, Finney can be seen wearing the same blue and gray sweater he wears in the basement. 

Vance continues wriggling in the boy’s grasp, still kicking the kid with the knife even as the other boy had him in a chokehold. Kids from outside walk up to the window to watch the fight go down. Vance ends up throwing an elbow backwards to hit the kid holding him in the face before shoving him in front of him and tossing him to the floor.

“Don’t fuck with me again!” Vance grabs the boy that had the blade and knocks his head into his, throwing him down on the ground and shoving his head into the floor. Finney is still in the background watching the fight go down.

“Why are you just standing there and watching?” Nancy has an accusatory tone as she watches young Steve just stand to the side as a kid is beat up.

“What did you want me to do? Interfere and get my ass beat too?” Steve defends himself. 

Vance grabs the knife that had been dropped and carves the numbers 7741 into the boy's arm.

“Seven, seven, four, one? Didn’t you say he carved his high score into the guy’s arm?” Will points out after he gets over seeing the boy on screen getting injured like that.

“Yeah, it was like eighty-thousand something. Why’d he put seven, seven, four, one?” Dustin perks up at the mention of the twisted information.

“Just watch, guys.” Steve says instead of answering any of the questions being asked.

Vance flips off the boy before walking back to the pinball machine. The scene changes to show Finney opening the door to the store as two police officers carry Vance out. He’s clearly struggling in their grip, trying to get out as he snarls at the onlookers. Gwen walks by as the cops shove Vance into the car and she gets in on the other side.

“Oh, it’s a dream!” Lucas snaps his fingers as he realizes what’s going on. The other younger members of the part make realization noises as the odd nature of what was shown finally makes sense.

“Do you even know who you are?” Finney’s voice cuts in through the radio of the car, causing Vance to sit forward.

“What the shit kind of question is that? Do you even know who you are?”

“I’m Finney Blake.” As he says his name, Gwen perks up and starts shouting ‘Finney’ but it isn’t heard.

“Yeah, well, nice to fucking meet you, Finney Blake. Right here. This is it.” Vance points at a house as the police car rolls to a stop.

“This is what?” Finney’s voice through the radio asks.

“The horrifying nightmare end of your pathetic little life.” Gwen gets out of the car and walks up to the house. The tree in the front yard is the same one she had seen in a previous dream

“Holy shit. You’re Vance Hopper. I remember you. You used to scare me.” As Finney continues talking, the details of the house are zoomed in on. The screen door from another dream, as well as the address on the brick exterior, 7741. 

“Trust me, Finney Blake, if you knew what you had coming, you’d be fucking terrified. Today’s the day, motherfucker.” Vance comes up to the gate that Gwen is standing at and kicks it open.

“So what, he was in the basement talking to Finney and in Gwen’s dream at the same time?” Max twists over to look at Steve for an explanation, only to be answered by Will instead.

“I think the ghosts are trying to help Gwen out. Maybe they can manipulate her dreams to help her find Finney the same way they’re using the phone to try and help Finney.” Will looks to Steve as well, trying to gauge if his theory is right.

“Mhm, I think so. Like you said, Mini Byers, I think the boy’s used Gwen’s dreams to show her what she needed to see.” Steve really had no idea how Gwen’s or his own powers worked, but it seemed like the most likely solution.

Gwen startles awake in a bathtub, her eyes darting around as she processes her dream.

“Gwenny, hurry up. You’re gonna be late for school.” Terrence calls from somewhere in the house.

“Sorry, Daddy.” Gwen continues looking around instead of getting up.

“Holy shit. You’re Vance Hopper. I remember you. You used to scare me.” Finney’s voice echos before finally showing him in the basement again.

“Trust me, Finney Blake,  if you knew what you had coming, you’d be fucking terrified. Today’s the day, motherfucker. Have you tried stacking the carpets to reach the window?”

“I’ve tried everything.” Finney shakes his head.

“No, not everything. When The Grabber saw what I had done, that was it. And he took his time with me, too.” Vance sounds amused but there's a slight waver in his voice.

The people in the room who had caught on to what The Grabber does to his victims winced at Vance's words. Hopper specifically mutters, "Jesus Christ." as Joyce squeezes his hand.

“What did you do?”

“Oh, that fucker had to spend a fortune to repair all the damages.”

“What did you do?” Finney repeats.

“I’m getting to that, cunt wad! Or do you have some other important shit you have to do right now?”

The insults get snickers from a few people in the room, namely Mike and Max, who glare at each other for laughing which then causes Steve and Robin to laugh at their petty rivalry. 

“No, no, no, no,  I’m listening.” Finney stands up as he waits for Vance to speak.

“There’s an outlet in the shitter, across from the john.”

“Who is John?” Ellie crunches up her nose in confusion.

“It’s another word for toilet.” Steve explains

“Yeah, I’ve seen it.” Finney nods in confirmation.

“On the other side of that wall, there’s a storage room. You can’t get into that room, because there’s a bigass upright freezer in the way.”

“Okay.” 

“Break into the wall about two feet above the outlet till you get to a panel with screws in it. Get the panel off, you’re into the freezer.” Vance stands towards the middle of the room, watching Finney.

“And then out into the storage room. Thank you.” Finney mutters into the phone.

“For what?” Vance’s outline is unfocused as he rocks back and forth.

“For helping me.” Clarifies Finney.

“Helping you? This isn’t about you. Fuck him!” As Vance gets closer, his voice gets louder and Finney moves the phone away from his ear. Vance’s shout trails off as he’s thrown by something and disappears. The shout reverberates though as Finney clutches his hands to his ears and the room begins to shake, two empty soda bottles get thrown at either side of Finney who screams.

“Throwing the bottles seems a bit dramatic.” Robin comments snidely as she watches the younger version of her best friend pant and cover his ears. 

“Vance was a dramatic motherfucker.” Steve laughs before suddenly realizing something and turning to Hopper. “Chief, how you doing?”

“I’m alright, kid. How about you? This whole thing must be an experience for you for sure.” Hopper runs a hand over his shaved head like he’s trying to push back hair that’s not there.

“Honestly? I’m good. Obviously I don’t love having everyone watch the part of my life I’ve been trying to keep a secret, but I guess it’s nice to not be keeping it a secret anymore, you know?” Steve smiles and finds that he truly does feel better to not be hiding his life before Hawkins anymore.

“On a scale from one to ten, one being job interviews and ten being getting drugged by Russians, what would you rate this experience?” Robin makes a fist like she’s holding a microphone and points it from herself to Steve.

“Hmm, I’d probably save like a five, definitely better than the first encounter with a demogorgon but not worse than T-boning Harrgrove’s car.” Steve pretends to put a lot of thought into his answer but he’s just spewing nonsense in all reality. Him and Robin had started this as a running joke, comparing minor inconveniences or anything that pissed them off to some of the earth-shattering shit that they’d gotten themselves into.

“Drugged by Russians?” Nancy repeats after a moment which causes Robin and Steve to lock eyes and double over as they cackle.

“Another time, Nance.” Steve waves a hand to dismiss her as they all focus back on the screen.