Chapter Text
Steve awakes from a short nap to find Eddie's trailer eerily quiet and cool. Cooler than the previous night that he and the girls spent out in the woods. Maybe it was because they were in the upside down. Maybe it was because the trailer was poorly insulated. Maybe it was because he wasn’t wearing much clothes. He doesn’t know or quite care.
Steve sits up slowly from Eddie's bed, careful of the bandages clinging to his side and looks around. The only window in the room is to his right and has been covered with black plastic— maybe a garbage bag or two, cut to fit just right and sealed with duct tape all around the edges.
He assumes Robin or Nancy came in while he was sleeping, so that the light emitting from the lamp on the small desk in the corner didn’t attract anything from the outside. Because it doesn’t seem like it was made to protect against cold, only to stop someone or something from looking in.
For a second Steve thinks he hears the distant sound of demobats, screeching in the air and reaches for the nail bat he left leaning against the nightstand beside the bed. Then he decides after a few more seconds that they’re far enough away. He gets up and moves through the trailer hesitantly, the bat still in his hand.
The sound in the front of the trailer is louder, despite Robin sitting quietly to herself, fiddling with something that belonged to Wayne or Eddie and Nancy peeking through one of the front windows, through the same black plastic that covered the window in Eddie's room. Everything made Steve’s heart race from the way he breathed to the way Nancy shuffled her feet.
Steve sits next to Robin and sees that the object in her hand is a cassette labeled ‘fuckin tunes’. And he comes to the realization that it's definitely Eddies. The plastic case scratches against Robin's ammo belt as she sets it down on the coffee table in front of her. She leans back and drops her head onto Steve's shoulder, the military beret squishing against her hair.
Robin reaches for his hand and the realness of the last couple hours finally hits Steve. Dustin is injured, not badly thank god and back in Hawkins, hiding out god knows where and nobody has heard from Eddie since he drew the demobats to the same trailer they were huddled up in when they went to vecna’s lair, the creel house and into the forest behind the trailer, which was hours ago.
Robin opens her mouth once, twice, only for nothing but silence to come out. Finally she pushes. Forcing her mouth to catch up with her brain. “Tired?” She doesn’t look up at him, or really move at all. But she’s quiet so only Steve could really hear her.
“No.” Steve rubs the frown lines along his forehead and looks down at his watch. The time reads 4:03am. Which meant he had only slept for a few minutes while Nancy and Robin covered the windows and waited around in the living room. “Surprised I even slept the amount I did. I’m just–”
“Scared that you’ll be next?” Robin's voice is frail, like she doesn’t really believe this is happening. Like she didn’t almost witness Nancy die. Like she didn’t almost die.
“Something like that.” He says and begins nursing an unpleasant feeling in his stomach. Like that feeling you get right before nausea hits you. He looks over at Nancy, who doesn’t seem to be listening in on the conversation.
She’s okay— at least physically. But she seems to be carrying herself in a heavier way than before and Steve doesn’t know what he would’ve done if Robin hadn’t looked at those cassette tapes on her nightstand. He doesn’t know what he would’ve done if he hadn’t gotten Robin out of the grips of those vines. He doesn’t know what he would’ve done if Dustin didn’t make it through the gate where Fred Benson was killed. And he sure as hell doesn’t know what he’s going to do if he doesn’t hear Eddie's voice over the radio soon like he promised. He wasn’t sure who was next. And that was probably the scariest part to him.
Steve threads his fingers through Robins and bites at his lip anxiously. “Have you heard anything yet?”
He’s not really talking to either one of them specifically but Nancy peels away from the window, the gun and the walkie from the night before never having left her hands. She rubs her face and sighs, shaking her head. “Nothing but static.”
Steve wants to cry. But he thinks he’s too scraped out to even try. He swallows an all too terribly familiar lump in his throat. “Do you think–”
Nancy interrupts Steve with a quiet shush and moves back to the window. A light brown Ford Pinto is parked at the end of the road near the entrance of the trailer park. She leans closer and watches because she knows that car wasn’t there the last time she looked out. The lights aren't on and the engine has been cut but a trail of dust hovers around the trunk indicating it was definitely just parked there. “Guys,” Nancy hisses, barely above a whisper. “Has that car always been there?”
Robin levers to her feet, nearly falling to the floor just before Steve stands and catches her from behind. Steve offers the bat to her and she takes it, stepping carefully over some vines and looks through the window where Nancy points just before reeling away.
Robin seems surprised when she holds the tape back from sticking to itself and looks behind the plastic and Steve hates that. Because in the upside down surprises are never good. “Definitely not.”
“You think it’s Eddie?” Steve says, even though he knows that it’s likely not. But there’s just this part of him that hopes. That aches for it to be him.
“I don’t know, I didn’t see anyone.” Robin says, placing the bat against a small part of the wall under the window. They sit in silence for a couple seconds. Steve wants to say something, but he can’t imagine how to phrase it properly. Every word he can think of feels like it will completely misrepresent what he really means. So he swallows. “Nance?”
Steve can hear Nancy sigh from where she’s moved to in the kitchen. He turns to her, his eyes now adjusted to the low light and sees that her hair has flattened, the products in her hair now void and she’s no longer wearing her jacket. The gun and walkie are now on the counter beside her. “I mean, I-I don’t know this trailer park very well, y’know?” Tears immediately come to Nancy’s eyes. Because ever since Vecna went into her head she isn’t sure what’s real anymore. Because Barb died. Because they have to deal with this fucking shit again. “I guess it could be Eddie.”
Robin dives towards Nancy and gives her a hug. Nancy is surprised and balances herself out so she doesn’t fall back into a cabinet. She just stands there with her hands at her sides for a couple seconds before bringing her hands around Robin's body and patting her on the back and then on the cheek when they pull away from each other. “What was that for?”
“Sorry.” Robin smiles. “I’m just glad you’re okay, Nance.” She pushes herself on top of the counter where Nancy had placed the gun and the walkie, avoiding any vines and looks back at the front door. “If it is Eddie, he’ll just come through the front door right?” She says, like there might be something more to the sentence. But then there isn’t.
Steve places his hands on his hips. “I don’t know.” He feels oddly disappointed in his response and the nausea he had been trying to fight finally settles in his stomach like a rock sinking to the bottom of a lake. He looks over at Nancy again only to see her staring at him intently, tears still threatening to stain her dirtied face. “You okay, Nance?”
“Yeah.” She looks away. “Let's worry about Eddie, okay?”
But those are just words. Steve knows she’s not going to say more, at least not to him and he’s not going to push it. So instead he braces himself for the announcement of how much longer they’re going to wait. He doesn’t really want to know. He would wait forever if he was being honest. But he knows it’s probably not much longer.
Then the walkie clicks. There’s static. And then a breath. And then another. Steve jumps at the noise and reaches for the walkie, even though he’s the furthest from it. He braces himself beside Robin and pushes the button on the side of it, and speaks hesitantly. “Hello? Eddie that you?”
There's more static. Then finally there’s another click. And then someone is speaking. But none of them can quite make it out because it’s too garbled and staticky. Robin uses Steve's hand to press the button. “Eddie you there?”