Chapter Text
It was surreal to close his eyes and open them to nothing but a black void. At least he wasn't alone; El, Max, and Will were standing by his side. Steve was looking around, trying to see how far out the darkness stretched. He shifted from foot to foot, making small rings in the shallow water they stood in, wondering why it didn’t feel wet but still splashed around.
This place was weird. It looked cold, but he wasn’t shivering. It seemed big and small at the same time. There was no light, yet he could still somehow see the others' faces.
But Steve had experienced tons of weird things over the last couple of years, so it didn’t take him that long to get over it.
It did help that Max pulled him out of his thoughts.
“Okay, so, we stick together,” she said, before turning to Steve, “and if we somehow lose each other, we meet up in the forest by the Creel House, okay?”
Steve immediately turned defensive, “Hey, I think I know how to keep track of you guys by now. I’ve been your unofficial babysitter for years. I’m not completely incompetent.”
Max sighed and rolled her eyes, “Jesus, that’s not what I meant, Steve.” Her voice took on a softer tone, “It’s just that being in there can be confusing, it can mess with your mind, and we need to know what to do in case we get split up.”
Steve’s ears burned with shame. Max was trying to prepare him for what was to come. He shouldn’t have assumed she was insulting him. But he had just gotten so used to mean and belittling comments from Dustin, and he’d always thought Max and Dustin were very similar when coping with stress and grief - it often turned into anger. It wouldn’t really have surprised him to hear a cutting remark, directed at him, from her.
Max once again interrupted his thoughts.
“But if one of us were to get distracted and end up on some side quest, it would be you,” she said, with a teasing smile that made it impossible to do anything but nod and return the smile.
They didn’t have time for any more banter anyway. Their friends and family needed them.
El held out her hands. Max took one and Will the other. Steve joined them, and they formed a small circle of pure determination. They would do anything it took to save their loved ones.
That was the last thought Steve had before El closed her eyes and the ground disappeared beneath them.
Steve tried to keep a tight hold on their hands, but the force that pulled them down also pulled Steve away from them, and he screamed their names as he watched them disappear from his sight.
Falling felt endless. Plenty of time to think about how he had already let them down. He was supposed to protect them, look out for them, and he couldn’t even hold onto their goddamn hands long enough to even attempt to see that through.
He shut his eyes tightly and waited to hit the ground, or whatever would happen; he wasn’t well-versed in this whole mind-wandering thing. The others hadn’t told him about this part of the journey. Was there a possibility that he would be falling forever?
He did not fall forever. He did land suspiciously softly, though. And he wouldn't really describe it as landing. It felt more like he had simply stopped falling. That did not change the fact that wherever he ended up was far too comfortable considering that it was inside Vecna’s mind.
Steve did, however, take notice of the massive headache forming behind his eyes. It was probably a side effect of entering Vecna’s mind, but if he didn’t know that, he would have assumed it was a hangover.
Or one of those migraines he started getting after his fight with Billy that only ever worsened after their adventure under Starcourt Mall.
He gathered the courage to open his eyes to whatever hell he might have ended up in. Steve wasn’t surprised when he didn’t see the kids there. The minute they slipped out of his grasp, he knew they would all end up in different places. It didn't matter, though. He knew the plan; if they somehow got split up, which they evidently did, they would meet up at the Creel House, so that's where he had to go.
What surprised Steve was where he was. He thought he would have ended up in a field or a desert or something - Max hadn’t been very descriptive of Vecna’s mind - but instead, he was in a bed. Glancing around, he quickly gathered that it wasn’t in his house. It did look like his house, though. Walls barren of any traces of love. No picture frames with memories you never wanted to forget.
Steve remembered feeling jealous when he visited Dustin’s house because his house emanated joy and comfort. Claudia liked to take pictures - capture moments - and every single one of them was proudly displayed. Steve particularly liked the one that stood on the table beside the TV. He could see it clearly in his mind - Dustin smiling from ear to ear, holding up a science fair trophy, and Claudia standing beside him with proud tears shining bright in her eyes.
Though there weren’t any pictures from before they had moved to Hawkins.
Steve had only heard bits and pieces about Dustin’s life before his parents' divorce, but from what he gathered, Dustin’s father had been quite the asshole. He was always calling Dustin worthless and stupid, which was the farthest thing from the truth. Should Steve ever have the displeasure of meeting the man, he would definitely greet him with a fist to his face.
Steve was so glad Dustin had Claudia because, as overbearing and emotional as she could be, she loved her son to the moon and back. Steve knew that she had worked hard to make sure his father’s words hadn’t etched scars too deep. That didn’t mean damage hadn’t already been done.
Even if Dustin acted like he hadn’t been affected by it, the insecurities he had regarding his worth and the way he always needed to show off how smart he was said otherwise. Steve didn’t want to think about how Dustin would have turned out if Claudia had stayed with that awful excuse of a man.
And his mind didn’t even have a chance to dwell on such thoughts before his eyes fell on what surprised him most about his surroundings. There was someone in the bed with him. But not just anyone. Nancy.
He sat up so fast his headache made its presence known again, and he fought to suppress a groan. A losing battle. It woke Nancy, who yawned and looked up at him through her eyelashes with a sleepy smile. Steve just stared back.
This didn’t make any sense. How was she here? They had left her on the other side to look over them while they retrieved her brother and their friends. And why was she smiling? The last look she had given Steve before El pulled him from the conscious world was one of somber devastation accompanied by a nod of trust. Did something go wrong on the other side?
“What are you doing here?” he asked her, dumbfounded with a barely contained trace of panic.
She looked at him with confusion, “I live here, silly,” she said, draping a hand over his middle and closing her eyes again. It felt too intimate, and Steve shivered with discomfort.
It didn’t feel right. For a brief second, he wondered if Vecna had gotten him too. Maybe that was why he was suddenly pulled away from El and the others. Once that thought entered his mind, it made a lot of sense to him.
Maybe Vecna had remade the world so that Steve had gotten everything he wanted. That would make someone less likely to try to escape. Or maybe Vecna had taken Nancy. But she would definitely not be fooled by this place. She had made it very clear that she was not interested in him like that.
So it had to be him who was trapped. That didn’t really change the plan, though. He still had to find the others and escape with them. But it couldn’t really hurt to find out more about this new world. It’s what Dustin would have done, maybe what he was currently doing wherever he was.
“Where is here?” he asked.
“Our apartment, near college?” she answered, that signature questioning look in her eyes, “Are you okay? How much did you drink last night at Carol’s party? Are you still drunk?”
Ah, so the headache was a hangover. It was weird that it was possible to get hangovers in a vision, but trying to wrap his head around how that worked would give him an even bigger headache. He ignored it instead and focused on the current conversation.
“No, I’m fine. Emerson?” he asked because he knew that’s where Nancy wanted to go.
“You sure you’re okay?” Steve nodded, and Nancy gave him a suspicious look before answering, “I gave up on Emerson to go to college with you.”
Now that was wrong on so many levels. Nancy would never give up on her dream for him. Would she have done that if they had stayed together? Why had they stayed together in this world? Steve thought back to the nail in the coffin of their real relationship.
“What about Barb?” he asked. Her disappearance and Steve's failure to be there for Nancy afterwards were what had doomed them.
Nancy scoffed, “Barb stopped talking to me after that party in '83. I thought if she couldn’t support my happiness, then maybe she wasn’t really my friend after all, so I ditched her.”
Steve didn’t miss the bitter yet sad look in her eyes, so he knew it was a sore subject. He cared about Nancy, even if this one wasn’t real, so he didn’t want to upset her further by asking her for more info regarding that.
It didn’t really bother him to drop that topic because it meant he could move on to the one question that he really wanted an answer to.
“Do you know where Dustin is?”
“Who? Is that someone from campus?”
Did Nancy not remember Dustin? Had she just left everything to do with Hawkins in the dust? Disappearing the way the cops told them Barb had done? He would have to jog her memory.
“Dustin Henderson. Y’know, great hair, curly. Funny little shit. Genius kid? That Dustin”
“Doesn’t ring a bell. Steve, you’re starting to freak me out. Did you hit your head last night?”
Steve was pretty sure Nancy was the one who had hit her head. It was impossible to forget Dustin Henderson. He had a way of worming his way into everyone's heart and leaving an imprint, whether you wanted him to or not.
“C’mon, Nance, you know him. He’s Mike’s best friend!”
“Mike doesn’t have a friend named Dustin. He hasn’t had any best friends since-” she got a faraway look in her eyes before she visibly shook the thought away, “Doesn’t matter. I’m getting really worried about you, Steve. What’s going on?”
He ignored her inquiry about his well-being. He even brushed past what Nancy had said about Mike. A part of him knew he was supposed to ask about Mike’s whereabouts too, but Steve was far too busy freaking out to do so.
“This isn’t funny, Nancy. You danced with him at the Snow Ball after every girl had rejected him. It meant the world to him, even if he tried to pretend it didn’t. Please remember him.” He was aware he was begging, but he was getting desperate.
“We skipped out on chaperoning the Snow Ball to go to Tommy’s party. You’re making no sense, Steve.”
He didn’t answer her this time. He just sprang out of bed and got dressed. He ignored her concerned and frustrated yells behind him. Luckily, he found his car keys without having to ask her where they were, and he left their shared apartment, void of any signs of love. The place felt suffocating.
Steve was hit with the realization that this life, this world, Vecna had trapped him in, was far from perfect. It wasn’t at all what he would have wanted.
All he ever wanted was love. Something opposite his parents, who only ever settled for each other because it was easier than admitting that they weren’t actually in love. He wanted warmth, joy, comfort, and affection.
Love could be found in many places. Sometimes it was romantic - filled with butterflies, nervous glances, electricity, and kisses in the moonlight. And sometimes it was platonic - filled with infectious laughter, silly jokes, nerdy references, and shaped like one Dustin Henderson.
He had to find his little brother. His best friend.
Steve had driven for several miles before his heart stopped pounding halfway out of his chest, before the tears that wouldn’t stop coming had dried down on his cheeks. What Nancy had said concerned him deeply. Why didn’t she remember Dustin, and what if no one else did? How would they find him then?
He couldn’t help the guilt that crept up on him. Steve had only just made up with Dustin. What if the reason Dustin had been so susceptible to Vecna was that Steve hadn’t been there for him in his grief for Eddie? Well, he had been there just not enough or in the way he had needed. That was how he had lost Nancy, too.
Was this world that Vecna had made a way of mocking him somehow?
Something was screaming at him to find Dustin, and he had half a mind to ditch the original plan of meeting up at the Creel House and search for him alone. But he also knew that Dustin would be angry at him if he did that because the last time someone had strayed from the original plan, he had lost his best friend. And if Steve somehow got himself killed because he was a fool who was too desperate to stick to a plan, then Dustin would surely turn full mad scientist and bring him back to life just so he could berate him for it.
So he set the course for Hawkins, more specifically, the Creel House. When he left the apartment, he had just booked it out of there as quickly as possible. Luckily for him, he had driven in the right direction. However, according to the map that he had gotten at a gas station a few miles out of town, the journey to Hawkins would take him half a day.
Hopefully, the others had landed closer to Hawkins and closer to the friends they had to rescue. Steve wouldn’t even be mad if they had decided to ditch the plan and gone to rescue their friends without him. Even if he felt the frustration of not being there to protect them gnaw at him. The sooner they could get out of here, the better.
About halfway through the drive, he felt a subtle pressure in his head, different from the headache he was already sporting. It felt gentle yet strong, and he knew it was El - could almost hear her telling him to hurry up in his mind. He tried not to think about the fact that, according to Nancy, he had been drinking last night, so he should probably not be driving at all. He stepped harder on the gas and hoped he wouldn’t get pulled over.
It scared him how real this world felt when it was entirely made up in Vecna’s mind, and he wondered what he had changed about the others’ lives in an attempt to keep them trapped.