Disclaimer: I do not own Stranger Things and do not profit from writing this.
Summary: If a person gave Steve a quarter for every time they'd called him useless or stupid, he'd be as rich as his dad. Actually, no, he'd have all his dad's money because that was all the man ever seemed to say to him. Now he's stuck in some weird world that looks like his world but isn't, and the survival of some kid depends on him proving his dad wrong.
A/N: I hope you all like this fic. It's going to be focused more on Steve and Will developing a friendship and the consequences of having Steve out of the picture. Anyways, hope you all enjoy. With love ~ depressedchildren
Chapter 1: Never-ending Night
Useless.
Steve Harrington glared at the road ahead of him, illuminated in narrow beams by his headlights. His hands curled tighter around the leather steering wheel of his Beamer. That's right, run off in the car I bought you. I'd like to see you go one day without my money!
He gritted his teeth and let his foot fall heavier on the gas pedal. The rumble of the engine grew, but it wasn't enough to drown out his father's words. When are you going to apply yourself?!
He was applying himself, damnit! He was trying as hard as he could to keep up with his classes—to meet every deadline and expectation his old man set before him. He was trying, alright?
What is this I hear about another girl? That's the problem, right there! These whores are all distractions, son!
They're not whores, and Nancy…she is the farthest thing from one. She is the most conservative girl he's ever gone out with—okay, they haven't gone out yet, but he's aiming for it. He was supposed to call her tonight before he got in it with his dad. The old man had found the report card Steve had hidden.
How do you expect to make anything of yourself? Are you just going to live off my money like a useless bum?
Steve's eyes blurred with tears, but he saw a payphone just up the way off the side of the road near the old steel factory. He slammed on the breaks, his tires screeching slightly. He then stumbled out of the car and managed to find a couple of coins to feed the machine.
…my money…
With shaking hands, he dialed up Tommy's number and it rang for a beat or two. He needed to get his breathing under control. He couldn't talk to Tommy while he was blubbering away like some girl.
Useless.
"Hello?" Mrs. Hagan answered the phone.
Pathetic.
"Hi, Mrs. Hagan," Steve greeted with a strained voice and forced smile. "Could I talk to Tommy, please?" He had to turn away from the receiver to cough and try to loosen his throat.
Disgrace.
"Hello," Tommy greeted after a couple beats of silence.
"Hey man," Steve replied and had to cough again to ease the strain from his voice. "Can you meet me at the quarry. I need to blow off some steam."
"What, can't get Wheeler to blow it for you?" he joked crudely.
"Funny man, real funny," Steve responded in a dry, unimpressed manner. It was getting easier to talk, to pretend that everything was normal even if it wasn't.
There was a beat of silence. "Need me to bring my stash?" Tommy asked more quietly.
"Yeah," Steve croaked out. Damnit! He'd been doing so good for moment there.
Disgrace.
"Fine, but you owe me. I was saving this for Carol's birthday, which means, you gotta buy it next time."
"Yeah, yeah, Tommy, I go it," Steve said as dismissively as he could. "You know I'm good for it."
…my money!
Steve winced and nearly missed Tommy's goodbye. He mumbled his own and leadenly went back to his car. He was on the opposite side of the town as the quarry, but hopefully that would give him time to be more presentable.
I should cut you off.
His dad was always threatening to cut him off, this was nothing new. This was nothing new.
Useless.
This was nothing new, he told himself as he drove to the Sattler Quarry. Nothing new. Their fight was nothing new, and nothing new was said. He just had to toughen up and stop being such a baby. So, his dad said some mean things? Who cares? Steve sure has hell doesn't! Nope, no sir!
Still, no matter what he told himself, all he could hear was his father.
You're a disgrace to the Harrington name, you know that? Men in our family are supposed to leaders, innovators, and here you are a useless idiot! You can't even pass English!
When are you going to apply yourself?! Huh, son?
How do you expect to make anything of yourself? Are you just going to live off my money like a useless bum?
At this rate, we'll be lucky if you even graduate! Steven, what are you even going to do with your life? Keep sleeping around with these dumb whores?
—Nancy's not a whore.—
Oh? What is this I hear about another girl? That's the problem, right there! These whores are all distractions, son!
—Like your secretaries aren't distractions? They're the actual whores, Dad!—
What did you just say?!
—Where do you think I picked up the whole sleeping around thing, huh?—
I should cut you off. The disrespect you've shown…
—Then do it, already!—
Fine, I will!
Don't you walk away from me! We're not done here, Steven!
—Yeah, well I am—
Heh. That's right, run off in the car I bought you. I'd like to see you go one day without my money!
Tommy was waiting for him at the Quarry when Steve arrived. The drive hadn't calmed him down; it just gave him more time to go over the fight.
Tommy raised an eyebrow as Steve got out of the Beamer but didn't comment on his tears and instead threw him a beer. The freckled boy was sitting on the hood of his car with a six pack beside him and rolling papers in his lap. He likely had a dime bag of weed off to the side that Steve couldn't see.
Steve popped the tab on the cheap beer and began drinking hurriedly. Tommy busied himself with rolling a joint. They didn't talk, even after Steve finished the first beer. The cheap liquid sloshed around in his stomach uneasily. Steve grabbed a second can and started on it at a more sedate pace. Tommy lit up the joint and took the first hit.
As he exhaled, he passed the joint over. He waited until Steve had taken a drag before speaking. "So…wanna talk about it?" Tommy asked as he opened one of the beers.
"Not particularly," Steve replied and took another hit before passing the joint back to Tommy.
"Have you and miss priss done it yet?" he asked instead.
Steve gave Tommy a deadpan look. "No, Tommy, we haven't. That hasn't changed since the last time you asked me this afternoon."
Tommy just shrugged and inhaled. "I got five bucks riding on you two doing it in the first week of dating. I gotta ask." He passed the joint back as he exhaled.
Steve felt his eye twitch. "Who'd you make that bet with?" he asked a bit more sharply than he intended as he accepted the joint. It was almost out and so was his beer. He took the last hit while Tommy pussyfooted around the answer.
"It was Carol, wasn't it?" Steve asked with a sigh as he snubbed out the remainder of the joint against the hood of his car.
"Yeah…" Tommy confessed.
Steven shook his head as he looked down at the loose gravel. "She always wins her bets, man. You gotta give up."
"I have a good feeling about this one, though."
Steve looked up and glared at his freckled friend. "She's not a whore!" he snapped.
Tommy rolled his eyes. "I dunno, man. She's got that uptight look, sure, but she looks like a wild thing ready to rebel against mommy and daddy." He mocked.
Steve scowled at the other boy. His jaw was tense. "Shut up, Tommy!"
The boy snorted in a laugh. "Come on, Stevie! You barely know her and you're getting all…" he trailed off and made a vague waving gesture at Steve. "She's not some princess with a chastity belt—even if she acts like one."
"Screw you, man!" Steve shouts. He was angry enough from all the shit his dad said, and now Tommy was repeating parts of it—even if he didn't know.
"No! Screw you! I let you have some of my stash. I met you out in this shitty-ass place to cheer your dumb ass up and you get all defensive about some prissy bitch you don't even know!"
Steve had been itching for a fight all night, ever since his dad started laying into him about his grades. So, Steve was happy to punch that freckled face. Tommy tackled Steve to the ground and began punching him in the side. Steve got Tommy across the face again before flipping them over and straddling Tommy's stomach. Tommy had raised his arms and blocked the attack before grappling Steve's arm. Their positions flipped again and now it was Steve getting punched in the face.
Steve was getting ready to flip their positions again when they both heard a car coming, and then there were red and blue flashing lights. Shit!
"Freeze, this is private property!"
Tommy was off Steve the moment the lights started flashing, and in his car by the end of the officer's demand. Steve was just the getting off the ground and trying to fish out his keys from his coat pocket—except, he couldn't find them. Did they fall out of his pockets during the fight?
Steve started to panic and look at the ground. Tommy's high beams came on with his car and momentarily blinded Steve. "Hey! Get out of the car!" the officer yelled. Shit! He was closer now, and because Tommy was driving off like an asshole, Steve was going to be the one caught with the weed and beers. In fact, the dime bag had already rolled off the car hood and onto the ground near him.
"Asshole!" Steve yelled as Tommy kicked up gravel in his retreat. The bastard didn't even let him in his car! Steve glanced over at the stunned Officer twenty feet away. He could outrun the guy, yeah.
Giving up on his keys for the time being, Steve booked it toward the forest. His legs pumped as quickly as they could. He heard the officer curse behind him but kept moving forward. He managed to avoid most of the roots and branches as he made his mad dash through the trees—he still received some bumps and scratches from his unfortunate run-ins with trees and the forest floor. Regardless, by the time is eyes had fully adjusted to the darkness, he could see the faint light of a streetlamp off in the distance through the trees.
Maybe it was the pot and shitty beer, but he could have sworn he heard a door slam and a dog barking. Blinking and heading toward the faint light, he realized he was not imaging things. There was a creepy looking ranch or bungalow style house out here, completely isolated at the long end of a gravel road (or maybe it was a driveway?). A dog was barking like crazy, and Steve worried it was barking at him and would alert the police officer he had lost back at the Quarry.
Before he could panic about that further, the back door to the creepy house banged open and a kid raced down the stairs and towards a shed not too far from where Steve was leaning against a tree and recovering his breath. The kid looked scared, like scared. It made something in Steve's gut twist.
He watched intently as the light in the shed came on and then he started slowly forward. Something had spooked the kid and was causing the dog to bark (that clearly wasn't him), so he cautiously crept forward. Then the lights in the shed got bright, real bright before going out for a second. What?! Steve raced toward the shed and…no kid.
There were bullets strewn across an old wooden workbench, and a rifle was on the ground, but there was no kid. Did Tommy lace the pot with something? But the dog was still barking, and the hair was raised on the back of Steve's neck. Something wasn't right here.
There! He heard a scream. He raced toward the boxes at the back of the shed to find—what the hell? It was like a weird, wet, fleshy cobweb hole. Steve reached out a hand but quickly recoiled at the texture. What the hell?
Before his eyes, he saw the wood planks of the shed begin to reappear but with some weird goop spewing between the boards. Another scream, and Steve shook himself. There was a kid in danger, and maybe it was the pot and alcohol making him brave, but he sure as shit wasn't going to be useless. He reached his hand forward into the cold, wet cobweb material before shoving the rest of him through.
It took a brief moment for him to realize he was at the back of the shed and facing the forest again. There was an ungodly screeching noise that sent terror throughout his entire body. A small whimper came next, and Steve ran around the corner of the shed and back toward the house.
"What the—" he gasped. There was a tall, thin creature with long arms and sharp claws. At his words, it turned its body around to face him, but-but there was no face!
And just beyond this thing of nightmares was the kid. He had a stupid bowl cut that reminded Steve of someone, but his terror and pot fueled mind couldn't think of who. The tall nightmare creature's face opened! Like one of his mom's lilies. There were rows and rows of sharp teeth as it gave out yet another horrific screech.
Steve stared with his eyes wide. The creature turned back to the kid and began to raise a clawed hand—oh hell no!
Steve didn't think. He grabbed a fallen branch—the wood gave with a wet squelch he tried not to think about—and threw it at the creature. It hit dead on.
"Hey! Ugly! Pick on someone your own size!" he shouted at the thing before bending down to pick up another hefty stick-branch-piece-of-wood. The kid scrambled back from the no-faced creature, but his eyes were transfixed on Steve—like he couldn't believe this was happening, and Steve couldn't really either.
"Come on, big, tall, and ugly, I'm right here!" he taunted the creature as he reached for more ammunition. Oh! This one didn't immediately cave under his grasp. Maybe he could use it like a bat?
The tall creature with no-face gave another scream and took a step towards Steve. "That's right, asshole! Come get me." Steve looked back at the kid as he took a step back. "Run," Steve mouthed as he gave a few swings with his makeshift bat. The creature took another lurching step forward before rushing him. Steve managed to duck under its reaching arms and give it a good whack, but then the already half-rotted wood gave way. Shit!
Steve stumbled backwards, towards the house and the still sprawled out kid. "Kid, run!" Steve said this time as he grabbed a half-rotted and rusty hand axe that had been leaning against the shed. Oh…this was not going to last long.
Steve heard scrambling behind him and then footsteps running off to his right. Good, now Steve just had to lead the creature off to the left. Steve managed to block the creature's next swipe at him, but that broke the stupid axe. Seriously? Why was everything at this house rotting and falling apart!?
"Alright ugly, just you and me!" Steve shouted as he backed up and ducked to the side. His adrenaline was singing, and the blood pulsed in his ears.
He'd never been more graceful in his life—or so he thought. The creature made mad swipes at him, but he managed to avoid them all and throw decaying wood back at the thing. Then he started to book it down the drive. In his excitement, he didn't notice the stillness to the air or the motes of dust floating about. He didn't notice the black, fleshy vines covering most everything, or notice how wrong everything was. All he could pay attention to was running from and dodging this thing at his back.
He cut through the forest, hoping to lose it in the trees. He used his momentum to swing around a tree and change trajectory. Then he grabbed another piece of something—wood or a rock—and threw it carelessly behind him. It must have hit because the creature made that ungodly noise again. Steve didn't take a chance to look though.
He quickly changed direction again and found a fallen log. He could hear the creature, but it was some ways away. He slid against the dead leaves and found another heavy object to throw, but this time he threw it off to the side, not behind. He was hoping to distract the creature, get it turned around.
He waited with bated breath and then heard the creature screech farther off. Yes! Steve smiled even as he panted for breath. Then he looked down and…his hands were bleeding from thin scratches. Worse, there was a faint claw mark going down one arm and a set of three deeper marks cutting through his side. Shit…so he hadn't been as graceful as he thought. The cuts were starting to hurt too.
Steve took off his jacket and tied it tightly to his side where he was bleeding the most. He then balled the sleeves of his sweater in his hands to stop the blood a little that way. However, before he could relax, he heard the shifting of the leaves again and another screech from that no-faced creature.
Seriously! It was on him again? But he'd been so quiet!
Cursing, Steve got up and began to run, and run, and run. Every chance he got, he'd throw rocks and branches off in different directions, but it only stalled the creature for a moment before it would refocus on him. It was like it was sniffing him out or something. But what was there even to sniff?
Steve made it to a main road but there weren't any cars and none of the streetlamps were on. What the hell? Steve kept running as he heard the creature getting closer. His heart was pounding in his ears and his head was light from blood loss, or maybe just the adrenaline and pot. He had to keep moving, no mater how bad his lungs and sides hurt, no matter how sore he was. He had to keep moving.
Steve turned off the road and back into the woods. He slipped on some of the decaying leaves but then kept running. He was going deeper into the woods and then—was that a building?! There was a fence around it, and a road led into the place. It was like some kind of government facility.
Steve raced toward the road he could see between the trees and began running down it toward what appeared to be a guard station. This was a government facility, but where was everyone and why was it dark? Why did it look like the people here had just up and left one day and let nature reclaim the space?
Steve stumbled into the guard station and found a rusted handgun. He tried to cock the hammer back, but the safety was stuck; still, it had a lot of heft to it. There was a broken first aid box and a flashlight, but the flashlight was dead. Still…it too had some weight to it.
Steve looked down at his wounded side and saw the blood soaking through his thin jacket. Damnit!
The creature was coming, he knew that, but he was so tired and—Steve tore off the jacket in his frustration and wrapped it around the useless flashlight before throwing it as far as he could from himself. He collapsed to his knees and pressed his arm close to the wounded side. He needed to stop the bleeding, or it wouldn't matter that he could outrun this no-faced creature.
Steve looked to the broken first aid box. There was a filthy roll of gauze and some rusted scissors. The packets of bandages disintegrated on contact, but the gauze was holding up. Steve lifted his shirt and began to wrap the gauze around his torso tightly. In the distance he saw the creature burst from the trees and immediately go toward the blood-soaked coat. It was sniffing at it and then sniffing the air. Oh. Oh!
Steve shakily stood to his feet just as the creature turned its sights on him (did it even have eyes?). Steve quickly took off his bloodied sweatshirt. There was some sharp jutting metal at the side of the guard station that he used to tear the sleeves off his sweatshirt.
The creature took one menacing step in his direction and Steve decided he should leave the guard station. "Alright, ugly," he muttered as he carefully moved around the small shelter with bloody pieces of fabric in his arms.
It was almost like a stand-still in one of those westerns, or maybe like the tipoff at a basketball game. There was tension and then, like they were on the same brainwave, they both moved. The creature towards Steve, and Steve with his arm raised, rusted gun at the ready. He then launched it at the face-less creature. It nailed it right in the head and it seemed dazed for a moment. Steve took that as his opportunity to run. He snagged a rock from the ground and wrapped one of his sweatshirt sleeves around it as he ran into the woods, consequently back the way he initially came (maybe his old blood would distract it further?).
As the creature started to close in, Steve threw the rock off to the side and hid around a tree. The sound plus blood drew the creature away from him, and Steve was free to run off again. He repeated this three times before having to resort to taking off his shirt and using that too. Soon he'd have to take off the dirty gauze just to keep this creature off him!
Steve was taking a breather against a tree, his ears straining to pick up anything in the stillness of these woods. The creature was still in them, he could hear its frustrated screeches, but they seemed a long way off now. There was something more concerning though, the shuffling of leaves closer to him. Steve glanced around the tree he was pressed against, his hand clutching to his side to press the gauze tighter.
Steve blinked bewildered. What was the kid doing in the woods? It wasn't safe! That thing could get him!
Steve stumbled forward from his hiding spot, which startled the kid. However, the boy recovered and hurried over to him. "I thought you might be hurt," the kid whispered.
"I told you to run," Steve mumbled
"What happened to your clothes?" the kid asked with his face scrunched up.
"Got blood on 'em and that thing can smell it." Steve's body was feeling heavier now.
The boy nodded slowly and then came up to Steve's uninjured side, like he was going to help him walk. It was Steve's turn to scrunch up his face. "Nuh-uh, I told you to run, kid," he said, his words were clunky.
"I did, but with all the blood you got thrown around the woods, I think it's okay to go elsewhere and hide," the boy reasoned.
There was another distant frustrated screech as if to prove the kid's point. "Come on," the kid coaxed. "My mom has a first aid kid, and my brother has some clothes you could borrow."
"Brother?" Steve meant to think that, but the words came out.
"Yeah, you probably go to school with him. Jonathan."
"Byers," Steve gasped. Of course, that was why the kid's stupid bowl cut looked familiar. The kid nodded and began to help Steve make his way through the woods.
"Wait a minute kid," Steve took a moment to really look around them. Yeah, the creature was pretty far off, but these woods looked familiar. "You know how long you went looking for me for?" he asked
The kid shuffled beside him, "I'm not sure, a while."
"Yeah, exactly. We're closer to my place than yours now," Steve stated more steadily than he felt. He didn't want to see his parents, but at the same time…maybe they could help? "Besides, my folks are home."
That seemed to stop the kid's protests, and so Steve course corrected. He'd spent his whole life in Hawkins, and quite a bit of that time was also spent in the woods surrounding his home, so he knew where to go.
Every now and then, they heard the distant screech of that creature, but it was steadily getting farther and farther away. Sure, it was slow moving for them now that his body had finally caught up with him, but it seemed like they'd truly ditched that creature. The bleeding in his hands and arm had stopped at this point, and hopefully his side would follow suit shortly.
The kid was breathing heavily by the time they reached Steve's back yard. He frowned. The cover on the pool was gone and it was empty, plus there were all those vines. What the hell.
"What's wrong?" the kid, baby Byers, asked.
"The pool should be filled. We don't empty it for another week, if at all."
"Have you noticed," the kid began haltingly, "that things feel wrong."
Steve swallowed and looked around at his dark house. "How'd you mean?"
"It's too still and I haven't heard or seen anyone else around."
"You've been in the woods all night," Steve pointed out uneasily.
"Sure, but you can usually hear cars driving down the roads."
Yeah, Steve had noticed that too but didn't want to acknowledge it. "Plus," baby Byers continued, "someone should have heard that thing, right?"
Steve licked his lips and nodded. "Yeah, but where does that leave us, huh? Everything's just like home but…not." Steve shivered. He was really feeling the cold the longer he was here.
"Shadowfell," the kid mumbled.
"Uh, bless you?"
"The plane of shadow and death parallel to the material world." At Steve's raised eyebrow, baby Byers elaborated. "It's like our world but the opposite. Instead of being bright and full of life, it's not."
"Okay, so how do we get out of this Shadowfell," Steve asked tiredly. It didn't look like his parents were in the house—in fact, it felt like no one but the two of them were in this world—so maybe this was some parallel world?
"I—it's from Dungeons and Dragons."
Steve just stared at the kid who blushed and fidgeted at his side.
"Y-you know the game?" baby Byers' voice got all squeaky, and Steve felt the corner of his mouth twitch up a little. "L-let's just get inside," the kid hastily mumbled.
Steve shrugged and moved forward with the kid. He was leaning more heavily on baby Byers now that the fatigue from all his running was finally setting in. They hugged the vine covered wall of his house and eventually came to the glass sliding doors.
The door frame was rusted, just like all the other metal he had come across in this place, but it didn't look locked. Steve reached toward the handle and tugged. A horrendous screech of metal on metal filled the oddly still and quiet air. They both winced, but Steve persevered. It took more effort than he thought it should, but he got the sliding doors open just enough for them to slip through if Steve held his breath.
There was another distant screech—one that was more haltingly familiar.
"We need to hide," baby Byers whispered with his eyes wide and frantic.
"Attic," Steve replied and began to hobble toward the stairs. Once on the second floor, he pulled down the ladder stairs that led to the cramped, small attic. It smelled like something had died up there, and there were vines covering everything. Where exactly they come from was a question Steve really wanted the answer to. Still, there were lots of heavy boxes that he was able to move over the trapdoor once he pulled the ladder back up. There was no way that creature could find them now.
Steve then remembered his side. Damnit! Opening the door and then shoving all those boxes had restarted the bleeding. Steve started to look at the faded writing on the various boxes, but so far nothing looked promising.
He was about to give up when a moth-eaten handkerchief was waved in his face. Steve blinked at baby Byers who smiled and gestured to a small wooden chest filled with these kinds of rags. Steve distantly realized they were his nana's embroidery and shouldn't look this old or worn.
Steve held the kerchief and stared at the pale blue lilac design. "These shouldn't look this…decayed," he mumbled.
"I know it's from a game, but I think we really are in a parallel universe just like the Shadowfell. A universe or dimension like ours but dead or dying," baby Byers restated.
Steve sighed in defeat and took a bundle of his nana's embroidery to begin staunching the blood flow. He felt momentarily bad for it, but surely this had no impact on their world if they really were in an alternate one.
"This game have any suggestions on how to get out?" Steve asked tiredly.
"Plane-walking potion, but that doesn't exist."
Steve nodded. He figured as much. "Right, well, I'll keep an eye on things and you get some sleep, okay."
"You're the one who's hurt," baby Byers reasoned.
"It's not up for debate, kid," Steve said as he applied a "fresh" kerchief to his side. He was probably getting a bunch of shadow-world germs in his wounds. He shuddered and not just from the pervasive cold.
Baby Byers watched him for a long moment but eventually curled up with his back to some of the boxes. Steve continued to staunch the bleeding and eventually, his side closed enough that he didn't need to keep constant pressure. He gathered up all the bloodied kerchiefs and began to look through the boxes for little objects to wrap the soiled fabric around. He was making some good headway in creating further no-face creature distractors when that horrific screech reached his ears.
Baby Byers jolted awake and began gasping for breath. "It wasn't a dream," he mumbled while Steve made a shushing motion. "What are—?" the kid started to ask as he gestured to the crumpled bloody fabric. Steve shushed him again.
The sliding backdoors shrieked again before there was the sound of shattering glass. Shit, it was inside. Steve quickly swept the bloody rags into a corner and then frantically looked around. He used to hide up here when he was playing hide-and-seek with Tommy and his nanny. Now where did he hide!?
The crawl space between the slanted roofing and the attic. He stopped going in there after he had been bitten by a bat, but there wouldn't be any such creatures here (at least he didn't think there would be). Steve crept over to the hidden door to the crawl space. It was one of those doors that matched the paneling of the wall and had a barely-there doorknob. Steve pulled on the knob and gestured for baby Byers to follow him into the crawl space.
The insulation between the roof slats was non-existent, just hints of it remained like cobwebbing. Steve pulled baby Byers close to his chest so he didn't end up touching any of that grossness—he imagined the fiberglass would still itch like a bitch even if it was rotted away. With his foot, he managed to catch the handle on the inside of the door and pulled it closed.
Baby Byers was shaking like a leaf, so Steve made another shushing noise. "I got you kid, I got you," he whispered. "I'm not gonna let anything happen to you."
The kid ducked his head under Steve's chin and nodded. He wrapped his own arms around Steve and held on tightly.
They could hear the creature moving through the house beneath them. They could hear when it reached the ladder to the attic, heard it yank open the trapdoor and all the heavy boxes fall on top of it. Then they heard something else—something that made Steve's blood freeze.
"What the hell was that!?" his mom exclaimed—her voice sounded like some kind of echo. "Honey! Wake up! The lights are acting up."
Steve felt his throat close around his fear. His parents, they couldn't… the creature wasn't moving any closer to them, wasn't climbing the ladder to the attic. It was like it was tuned into his parents. No…
Steve jolted, but baby Byers held him more tightly. "Don't," he whispered.
"My parents," Steve began falteringly.
He didn't hear his father's reply, didn't hear his mother's next words. He wasn't sure if it was the blood pulsing in his ears or something else, but he couldn't hear anything—was that monster already coming after his parents!?
Steve hit his head against the rafters as he extricated himself from baby Byers. He then began to crawl backwards out of the crawlspace. "Stay," he urged baby Byers who was crying quietly and shaking his head.
"I can't sit back and do nothing," he told the boy when he looked about to protest. Baby Byers nodded then and curled up to hold himself. Steve closed the crawlspace door as he distantly heard his mother scream. No!
He was stumbled around the attic, grabbed some of the forgotten bloody fabrics, and tripped down the ladder-stairs.
"What the hell is wrong with you woman?!" his father yelled from downstairs as Steve barely managed to avoid another fleshy cobweb hole—this time in the middle of the upstairs hallway.
"I'm telling you, there was a man upstairs!" his mother shrieked, and Steve rushed down the stairs, but his parents weren't there.
"There's no one—" Steve heard the front door slam over his father's words, but the door in front of Steve had already been closed, so where did that sound come from? "Damn woman," his father muttered. He sounded like he was right beside Steve.
"Dad, run!" he yelled to the empty entryway. "Run!"
"Steven?" He heard his dad's growing anger. "How dare you scare your mother like that. Come out here this instant!"
He heard the stairs creak, but there was no movement on them. "No, run!" Steve screamed as he followed the noise.
Where was his dad, where was that creature?! It was like they were here but not! He couldn't see them, but he could feel them there like it was some sixth sense. He was useless, he was useless.
"What the hell…?" he heard his father breathe in horror, then Steve heard the creature scream.
No!
Blood! He needed blood to attract the creature.
"Come on ugly, you already got me, I'm right here!" Steve screamed as he dug his fingers into the broken skin at his side. The bleeding began anew, and he heard the creature screech again. Then, its head pierced that fleshy cobwebbed hole further down the upstairs hallway.
Holy shit, that was the way home, wasn't it? He could have fallen home, could have kept his father from seeing this terror. No. No time to think, it was time to act. The creature was pulling itself up through the floor and Steve did his best to ignore the red he saw on its claws. Another screech and Steve ran, all the while taunting the thing.
He burst out his front door and hopped a neighbor's fence. He pressed the balled-up handkerchiefs to his bleeding side and then threw them one by one—already neatly wrapped around some small trinket he'd found in the attic, so they'd be weighed down. Through this tactic, he diverted its attention until he was able to break into a house several blocks away. He was beyond tired, but he needed to stop the bleeding at his side, and he needed to go back and look after baby Byers.
There was some moldy dishtowel on the stove of whoever's house. He grabbed it and pressed it tight to his side. The running had caused the wound at his side to steadily pump blood. He'd need to get a good lead on that monster before he stopped and tended to his side again. Damnit.
The creature gave another distant screech, so Steve grabbed more ratty dishtowels and hurried back out the house and headed toward downtown. By the time he circled back to his house, he was running on fumes, but he had thoroughly confused that creature.
As he approached his house, he looked down at his side. He was holding a dishtowel to the wound, but it didn't seem to be bleeding anymore. He supposed he was finally clotting or whatever; well, that or walking was better for him than running.
Steve found some random object to weigh the bloody dishtowel down with before throwing it off to the side. He hadn't heard the no-faced creature in some time—probably around when he'd reached downtown. Steve hoped this meant they were both finally safe
Nodding, he made it back into his home and heard no echoey sound of his parents. He walked to the still descended ladder and slowly climbed it.
"Hey, baby Byers, it's safe to come out," He called tiredly once he was in the attic. He was too tired to move any more.
"Baby Byers?" the kid's voice came questioningly from the crawlspace door. Then the kid was making his way backwards out of the cramped space.
"Yeah, you're Byers' baby brother, aren't you," Steve replied with a tired smile.
"My name's Will, you know," the boy replied almost petulantly. It made Steve smile broader.
"And mine's Steve," he said with his hand held out.
"Yeah, I know, you're Steve "the Hair" Harrington."
"'The Hair,' huh? I like it. I do have great hair." Steve might be a little loopy from blood loss, and all the running he's done.
"You need to sleep," baby Byers announced with a concerned frown.
Steve nodded slowly. "Sure, but only for a bit." He was laying down fully now and hadn't bothered to pull up the ladder or the trapdoor. "We need to find a weapon for that thing, 'cause I am not a runner." His eyes were already drooping shut.
"I think I got a bat downstairs," Steve mused out loud before giving a jaw breaking yawn. He had a couple bats down in the garage, though he wasn't sure how much good they'd do. When Steve had swung branches at that thing earlier in this never-ending night, it would catch them and crush them like twigs. "Maybe if I put nails in it, it couldn't crush 'em," he muttered sleepily. His body was finally relaxing and his mind going blank.
"You just sleep, I'll look after you this time," baby Byers's voice was miles away, and soon, Steve was dead to the world.
TBC
A/N: So, I know it feels like Steve got out of trouble pretty easy with the Demogorgon, but I've decided to believe they are blind and rely solely on scent and sound—and the Mind Flayer. I honestly have no clue how the Upside Down is supposed to work in conjunction with the real world, but we saw that people in the Upside Down can hear people in the real world and there's a sort of frozen, decaying quality to the whole place.
I probably won't update until the new year, just cause I'm still working on this fic and have a shit ton of actual work to do. This will be a fairly contained story though so I don't imagine it being more than six or so chapters. Hope you all enjoyed the chapter. Stay safe ~ depressedchildren