Chapter Text
By midday, Steve Harrington was weaving through the crowded school halls on his way to class, listening as another student rambled beside him about the lab that somehow counted as a test grade. Papers shuffled between them, lockers slammed in the distance, and the whole hallway buzzed with that restless energy only high school could hold between periods.
At the next intersection, they split off with a quick goodbye, Steve turning toward his classroom. He’d barely made it a few steps before he felt a gentle tug on the sleeve of his jacket. He turned, and immediately softened.
Nancy Wheeler stood there looking up at him, small hands still curled in his sleeve. Her hair was pinned back neatly, and her wide blue eyes were fixed on him with an urgency he couldn’t quite place. A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth before he could stop it.
“Nance?”
But instead of answering, she grabbed his hand and pulled him along. Steve let himself be dragged through the side doors without protest, following her across the edge of the football field and into the narrow alleyway. The farther they got from the noise of the school, the more the knot between his brows deepened. Nancy was moving fast and she still hadn’t said a word.
“What’s wrong Nance? You usually don’t skip like this?”
“I—” She hesitated, eyes flickering away from him like she was trying to decide what to say. Steve waited, patient despite the growing pit in his chest.
Then, quietly, she admitted, “I went to your house yesterday.”
Steve blinked.
For a second, the only sound was the football team shouting somewhere nearby as they passed the field.
“You went back to my house?”
“To look for Barb.” Her voice tightened immediately after. “Steve, I think I saw someone in your backyard.”
He stared at her.
“A person,” she continued, words rushing now. “But he—he didn’t have a face.”
The sentence hit him like cold water.
Steve just looked at her for a long moment, his thoughts tangling over each other too fast to make sense of. A faceless man? In his backyard? The entire thing sounded insane. And buried underneath that confusion was another realization slowly starting to settle in: Nancy had gone back to his house without telling him. Alone.
And for what?
Barb.
His jaw tightened slightly as the name settled into place. Barb was supposed to be home by now. Studying. Reading. Doing whatever girls like Barb Holland—
No.
Steve cut the thought off before it could spiral further. Nancy was standing right in front of him, visibly terrified, and he still hadn’t answered her.
“Okay, hold on,” he said slowly, rubbing a hand over his face. “You went back to my house?”
“To look for Barb,” Nancy repeated immediately, stepping closer like it would somehow make the explanation sound more reasonable.
“Yeah, I got that part,” Steve said, disbelief slipping into his voice. “But why wouldn’t you just talk to me first? Nance, that’s actually crazy.”
He left out the part where sneaking onto someone else’s property was technically illegal. Barely.
“I didn’t know what to do,” she admitted softly. “I was scared.”
Steve exhaled sharply, trying to force logic back into the conversation. “You seriously think you saw…” He paused, searching for literally any explanation that sounded sane. “A guy in a mask just hanging around my backyard?”
Nancy looked him dead in the eye.
“I don’t think it was a mask.”
Something uncomfortable crawled up Steve’s spine.
“But he had no face?” he pressed carefully. “Nance, are you sure you even saw him right? Maybe it was dark or he moved too fast or something—”
“I don’t know!” she snapped, panic cracking through her voice before she dragged a hand through her hair. “I don’t know, okay? I just…”
Her expression faltered.
“I have a really bad feeling about this.”
And just like that, Steve’s thoughts flashed back to the radio that morning.
Will Byers’ body found in the quarry.
The words had been looping in the back of his head all day, impossible and wrong. The idea that Nancy’s story could somehow connect to any of it made something cold settle heavily in his chest.
“You don’t think that’s weird?” Nancy asked quietly, frustration bleeding into her voice. “Steve, Barb is missing.”
“I know she’s missing.” Steve’s response came quickly, more serious than defensive. He rubbed a hand over the back of his neck, trying to sort through the mess in his head. “I’m just saying this whole thing sounds… insane.”
Nancy’s expression hardened immediately. “So you don’t believe me.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“But you’re acting like I imagined it.”
“Look Nance if you’re right… if something happened in my backyard after that…” He stopped, swallowing. “Then that means there was actually some creep around watching us doing who knows what and, not just some guy wandering around the forest taking pictures like the school creep.”
The idea made his stomach turn, but he pushed through it.
“And you still went back there alone?” he added, sharper now—not angry, but genuinely shaken. “Nancy, that’s not safe. At all.”
Nancy blinked at him, caught off guard by the shift.
“I didn’t think—”
“Yeah, exactly.” Steve cut in, immediately softer again. “You didn’t think. Because you were scared. I get that.”
He hesitated, then shook his head slightly.
“But that’s what I’m talking about. If something is actually going on, then you don’t go sneaking around my house by yourself. You could’ve gotten hurt.”
Nancy’s face tightened. “So what, I was supposed to just do nothing?”
“No,” Steve said quickly. “That’s not what I’m saying.”
But the frustration was building in her now, and he could see it.
“It just sounds like you’re trying to explain it away,” she said, voice rising. “Like there has to be some normal reason for all of it.”
Steve’s expression shifted, less defensive, more exhausted. “I’m not trying to explain it away, I’m just trying to make it make sense.”
His voice softened again, almost pleading now.
“Because if it doesn’t make sense, then that means something really wrong happened in my house and I had no idea. And you went back there alone anyway.”
Nancy looked at him for a long moment, eyes glassy with frustration and fear.
“You still don’t get it,” she said quietly. “Barb is gone, and you’re standing here talking like it’s just… something to figure out.”
“That’s not what I’m doing.”
“It is.” She stepped back, shaking her head slightly like she couldn’t believe him anymore. “I can’t believe you,” she muttered.
“Nancy, wait—”
But she was already turning away, walking back toward the school without looking at him again.
Steve stayed frozen in the alley, the words echoing in his head because for the first time, he didn’t have a clear answer, and on top of everything else, he couldn’t stop thinking about how his parents would react if any of this came back to them.
----------
Steve slumped in his desk, dragging his hands down his face ignoring the odd stares he was getting from his classmates. He didn’t bother listening to the lesson, knowing he’d be pulled out of class in a few seconds based on the distant footsteps he could hear getting closer to the door. He couldn’t help but sulk in his chair, mind circling back to Nancy. The argument. The look on her face when she'd walked away. He replayed it over and over, finding new things he should've said every time.
The door opened and he heard his counselor calling out his name. Steve pushed himself out of his seat with a sigh. As he followed her out into the hallway, he could feel the eyes of half the class on his back. Nobody bothered pretending not to stare.
The walk was short. When the counselor stopped outside the cafeteria and opened the door, Steve immediately spotted the two police officers sitting on the opposite side of a lunch table.
He almost laughed.
One of them looked like he was trying very hard to be intimidating. The other looked exhausted already. Steve sat down before either of them could tell him to.
The tougher-looking officer cleared his throat. "Listen, kid, we just need your cooperation here. Answer a few questions and you'll be out of here."
Steve raised an eyebrow. "You haven't even told me why I'm here."
The officer exchanged a glance with his partner.
"We're trying to find out what happened to Barbara Holland."
Steve leaned back slightly, letting out a slow sigh, "Yeah, okay. What do you wanna know?"
“Tell us what happened the day you had this party?”
“It wasn’t much of a party but sure…” Steve went on recounting his steps of the day, recalling every hour, but leaving out the part about the beers. He knew Carol and Tommy would never rat themselves out but he wasn't nearly as confident Nancy would think to leave it out. The officers let him talk, only interrupting every now and then to clarify something.
“Right and did you see Ms Holland after you went upstairs for the night?”
“No.”
"Did Nancy?"
Steve shrugged. "She told me Barb had already left."
"You believed her?"
"Why wouldn't I?"
The two paused for a second, turning to talk to one another quietly as if Steve couldn’t hear them. Callahan then quickly continued questioning after clearing his throat a bit, "Anything unusual happen that night?"
Steve rolled his eyes, already tired of the duo’s questions before pausing for a moment. The lights that night had flickered in a way that it never did for someone who regularly paid their electricity bill and regularly changed the lights. But saying that out loud would just sound stupid, so he kept it to himself. “No”
"What about Nancy Wheeler?" Powell asked. "Has she said anything to you about Barb disappearing?"
“Yeah she talked to me about Barb. She was worried this morning, said she checked behind my house yesterday and saw something.”
Hearing that caught their attention, “Are you sure she said she saw something?”
He debated whether he should tell them about this faceless creature Nancy talked about. He rubbed the back of his neck, thinking maybe it was for the best, “Yeah…yeah she said something about some faceless creature or something.”
The room went quiet.
“Faceless you say?”
Steve gave a noncommittal hum."That's what she said."
"You believe her?"
Steve thought about Nancy's expression earlier. "I think she believes she saw something."
Then Powell asked, "You sure she wasn't describing an animal? Maybe a wolf or a bear?"
Steve blinked. “I don’t know officer-” Steve looks down at the name tag, just because he can” Callahan. I’m not the one who saw it. Am I done now?”
The two officers exchanged a look. “Alright, Harrington. That's all for now, you can head back to class."
Steve stood, already halfway to the door before Powell spoke again.
"Oh. One more thing." Steve glanced back. "We checked around your property."
His eyebrows pulled together.
"My property?"
"Your backyard."
“Yeah whatever, you sure you didn’t see a bear back there?” He said almost jokingly.
“No Mr Harrington. We didn’t hear so much as a growl, nothing to worry about.” Officer Powell responds with a small smile as if it would reassure him.
Steve returned the smile automatically before pushing through the cafeteria doors and stepping back into the hallway.
The noise hit him immediately. Lockers slammed shut somewhere down the corridor. Voices bounced off the cinderblock walls. A group of freshmen hurried past carrying stacks of books, laughing about something he couldn't bring himself to care about. A couple ducked around a corner holding hands, disappearing toward what was probably another skipped class.
Normally Steve would've noticed all of it. Normally he would've thrown out a grin, made some smart comment, played the part everyone expected him to play but today he barely looked up.
His hands stayed shoved deep in the pockets of his jacket as he moved through the crowd, letting people step around him instead of the other way around. The familiar confidence that usually sat so naturally on his shoulders felt distant, buried somewhere beneath the knot growing tighter in his chest.
His mind kept replaying the interrogation.
“We didn't hear so much as a growl.”
Steve’s footsteps began to slow, words echoing through his head, louder than the school hallway.
Without meaning to his mind drifted back to that first night. Back to the party. The flickering lights. The static. Will's voice, faint and terrified on the other end of the line.
And then—
The growl.
That loud, inhuman sound tearing through the static.
His stomach dropped.
Fuck.
----------
Steve didn’t bother going back to class, instead he signed himself out of school, heading straight to the parking lot.
The drive home felt longer than usual.
His fingers drummed anxiously against the steering wheel, mind turning over the idea that Barb too had somehow gotten involved in this unfortunate mess alongside Will.
As he turned into his development he couldn’t help but tense up for some odd reason, not understanding the chill until he saw the sleek shine of a black BMW sitting in the driveway.
Steve's grip tightened around the steering wheel. No one was supposed to be home, but this involved police matters. He should’ve known they’d come but that didn’t stop the cold feeling running down his spine.
Before he could even kill the engine, the front door opened. His mom stepped out dressed in one of her expensive sweaters, hands folded neatly in front of her. A smile sat on her face.
It unnerved him in a way her smiles never had before.
“Stephen.” His stomach dropped as he climbed out of his car, not daring to look her in the eyes.
His mother waited until he reached the bottom of the porch steps before speaking once more.
“Do you want to tell me what happened today Sweetie?”
Steve swallowed, “The police wanted to ask me a few questions.”
Her smile didn't move. "I know."
The pause stretched.
"They called us."
Steve looked down briefly. "It wasn't a big deal."
"No?" she asked softly.
"No."
She laughed once.
It wasn't a happy sound.
"Your father had to leave work because our son was being questioned by the police."
Steve opened his mouth but nothing had come out.
What was he supposed to say to that?
Her eyes moved over him with disappointment.
"You know," she said quietly, "we've spent years telling people how responsible you are."
Steve stared at the porch railing.
"How mature you are."
Every word landed like a weight.
"We never have to worry about our perfect son, because he always does what he's told." His chest tightened. "Then one phone call and suddenly we're hearing about a missing girl."
"I'm sorry."
"You should be."
The sound of heavy footsteps followed and Steve immediately straightened as his father appeared against the door frame.
The knot in Steve's stomach tightened.
Rule number five.
Never disgrace the Harrington name.
He'd spent years following it.
All of them, really.
Act normal.
Keep his grades perfect.
Never talk about the past.
Never go near the office.
Never disgrace the family.
Five simple rules. He'd followed them for so long they felt less like rules and more like breathing. Yet somehow he'd still ended up here.
His father stood in front of him unmoving, suit jacket slung over one arm. The look on his face was cold and made Steve feel as if he was 6 years old again, as if he had just disappointed Papa.
"Get inside."
Steve obeyed instantly.
The three of them moved into the living room but nobody sat down.
His father tossed a folder onto the coffee table.
Steve's stomach sank even further.
For a moment, nobody spoke.
Then his mother sighed, smile fading along with it.
"Do you know how hard we've worked for you, Stephen?"
Steve immediately looked down.
"Yes, ma'am."
"Do you?"
Her voice stayed gentle.
"We gave you a good home."
Steve nodded.
"We gave you opportunities most could never dream of."
"Yes, ma'am."
"We've spent years making sure you're happy." A pause. "Making sure you're safe."
Steve swallowed.
The room suddenly felt too small.
"You know there are bad people in this world."
"Yes, sir."
"And we've spent your entire life making sure they stayed away from you."
Something uncomfortable settled in Steve's stomach. His father rarely talked about things like this. Not like he talked to him anyways
His father stepped closer.
"Making sure you were safe."
Steve's stomach twisted.
"I know."
"Then why," his father asked frustrated, "would you involve yourself with a police investigation?"
Steve opened his mouth.
Nothing came out.
"You always listen."
"I do."
"Then why are we sitting here having this conversation?"
Steve looked down at the floor.
"I'm sorry."
His father let out a short laugh. Not because anything was funny.
"Sorry doesn't fix carelessness."
Steve's chest tightened.
"I wasn't trying to cause problems."
"We know that."
His mother moved closer.
"That's what makes this so disappointing."
She reached up and straightened the collar of his jacket.
The gesture looked affectionate, it felt anything but.
"You know the rules."
Steve nodded immediately.
His mother's hand lingered on his shoulder.
"We made those rules for a reason."
"I know."
"Do you?"
Her eyes searched his face.
"Because sometimes I wonder if you understand how much we've sacrificed to give you this life."
Steve felt guilt settle heavily in his stomach.
"I do understand."
"No," his father said. "You don't."
The words landed hard.
"You have no idea how much work goes into giving you opportunities like this. Into trusting you."
Steve swallowed.
His father rubbed a hand across his face.
"We have spent years trusting you."
Steve looked up.
"You've never needed rules the way other kids do. We let you stay home when we're away. We don't monitor every second of your day. We don't question every friend you make."
The knot in Steve's stomach tightened.
"Most parents wouldn't allow half the things we've allowed."
Steve stayed silent.
"The parties."
His father's voice remained calm.
"The drinking."
Steve looked away.
"I've even ignored the calls from the police about marijuana because I trusted you to make good decisions."
The room went still.
Steve's chest tightened.
"Stephen."
He forced himself to look up.
"Have you been around drugs?"
Tommy's grin flashed through his mind.
Carol rolling her eyes.
Conversations he had never thought much about.
Steve couldn't bring himself to lie. He never lied to them. Apparently the silence was answer enough.
His father closed his eyes for a moment.
"Jesus Christ."
"Dad, I—"
"How do you even know about that stuff?"
Steve froze.
Because there was only one answer.
Tommy.
Carol.
His father's expression hardened immediately.
"Those friends of yours."
Something twisted painfully in Steve's stomach.
"They're not bad people."
The words slipped out before he could stop them.
The room fell silent.
His mother looked surprised.
His father looked even more so.
Steve almost never disagreed.
"They're not," Steve repeated quietly. "They've always been there for me."
His father's jaw tightened.
"And look where they've led you."
Steve opened his mouth.
Nothing came out.
Because for the first time in years, he wanted to argue.
Tommy had been there when his parents were gone.
Carol too.
Empty weekends. Birthdays spent in a house that felt too big. Long stretches of silence broken only because they showed up.
They weren't bad people.
But the words stayed trapped in his throat.
Years of obedience sat heavier than the argument building in his chest.
His father sighed.
"I've allowed this friendship to continue because I believed you were mature enough to choose your company wisely." Steve felt dread settle in his stomach. "I was mistaken."
His mother folded her hands together.
"Stephen, sometimes people outgrow friendships."
His father didn't soften.
"You're going to start distancing yourself from them."
Steve froze. "What?"
"You heard me."
"They're my friends."
The words came out quieter than he intended.
His father stepped forward.
"And we're your parents."
The room fell silent.
"We are the people who have spent your entire life protecting you."
Steve looked down.
"Do I make myself clear?"
Everything inside him wanted to say no. Wanted to explain. Wanted to defend them.
But years of following the rules won.
"...Yes, sir."
His father nodded once.
"Good."
Steve didn’t wait for his parents to say another word. He just turned and headed for the stairs, moving like he wasn’t fully in control of his own body. Each step felt heavier than the last.
His hands wouldn’t stop shaking. He gripped the railing tight, knuckles going pale, like that alone could ground him. He blinked hard, trying to force it down, but his vision kept blurring anyway—warm tears building before he could stop them, unfamiliar and humiliating in a way he didn’t know how to name.
He kept his head down the whole way up, like if he didn’t look at anything, it might all stay inside him a little longer.
When he reached his room, he slipped inside and shut the door behind him with a soft, almost careless force quiet enough not to echo..
For a second he just stood there, like his body hadn’t caught up to the fact that he was alone yet. Then it all hit at once.
The bed was right there, familiar, but it didn’t do anything for him. He sat anyway, like muscle memory was making the choice for him, and immediately slumped forward. His hands dropped into his lap, useless, trembling harder now that he wasn’t trying to hide it.
And whatever he’d been holding back downstairs just broke.
The tears came without warning, not pretty or quiet or controlled, just sudden and relentless, spilling before he could even think to stop them. His breathing went uneven, caught somewhere between sharp inhales and shallow stutters, like his chest couldn’t decide how to work anymore. He stared down at the floor for a moment, but even that didn’t stay steady; everything blurred, shifting in and out like the room itself was losing focus with him.
He just wanted to stay there for the rest of the day, to sink into the mattress and let everything blur out until it didn’t exist anymore. The bed didn’t really help—didn’t provide any semblance of comfort—but it was familiar, and that was close enough to pretend.
But it didn’t stay quiet.
The illusion cracked hard and fast at the sudden sound from his bedside, sharp and urgent in a way that snapped him back into awareness instantly. A familiar voice, young and panicked, cutting through the haze.
“Mom? Mom?”
The voice kept repeating, sharper now, rising in panic. Alongside it came a frantic banging.
“Hello? Mom! Mom… it’s coming! It’s like home but so dark and empty—”
The words cracked mid-sentence as the sound suddenly warped. Static swallowed the rest, turning the voice jagged and broken. For a second, everything stuttered—half-words, distorted syllables, nothing fully forming.
Then the static cut out completely.
What replaced it wasn’t clarity, but breathing, heavy and uneven, poured through the line instead, close and raw, like whoever was speaking was running without stopping. Each inhale sounded panicked, followed by a rushed exhale. There was movement in it too, footsteps or stumbling, impossible to tell, like the person on the other end was trying to escape something they didn’t dare look back at.
He quickly shoved his tears aside, scrambling across the bed in a hurry to reach the receiver. His movements were clumsy, rushed, fingers fumbling as if the phone itself might disappear if he didn’t grab it fast enough. He didn’t bother trying to be quiet. His room had just enough soundproofing to swallow whatever broken sounds he made anyway.
“Will? Will! Are you okay?”
Steve’s voice cracked as the words rushed out of him, too fast and too desperate. He was trying to sound steady, trying to be the calm one, but panic kept bleeding through anyway. His grip tightened on the receiver hard enough that it hurt, his breathing shallow and uneven from the tears he’d barely managed to stop.
A burst of static crackled through the line before a breathless answer finally came.
“Se—huff—Seven, is that y-you?”
Will’s voice sounded shredded apart by fear. Every word was broken by gasps for air, like he’d been running for too long and still hadn’t stopped.
“Yeah.”
Steve scrubbed at his face with the heel of his hand, almost angry at the wetness there, like wiping hard enough could erase the fact he’d been crying at all.
“Yeah, it’s me, buddy. Are you okay?”
A sharp inhale came through the receiver, shaky and terrified.
“No! Chased—hng—being chased!”
Steve went completely still for half a second.
Then his eyes darted around his room instinctively, as if he could somehow see what Will was seeing, like whatever was after him might be hiding in the dark corners of his own house too. The room suddenly felt colder, smaller. His knuckles turned white around the phone, other hand tangled roughly in his hair.
“Okay—okay, listen to me.”
He forced the words out slowly, trying to build a calm he didn’t actually feel.
“Where are you? You said it was like home, right? Do you recognize where you are?”
“I’m hiding in my neighbor’s lawn. It’s so cold.”
Will’s teeth sounded like they were chattering between words.
Steve swallowed hard. The image hit him instantly, a terrified kid curled up in the dark, freezing and alone, probably hungry.
“I know, Will. I’ll help you somehow, I promise.”
The promise came out before he could think about how impossible it sounded.
“What about it is different? No one’s seen you, so you can’t be anywhere near your actual home.”
“It’s like home, but d-dark…”
The shiver in Will’s voice was unmistakable now, thin and trembling like he was trying not to cry too.
“Is there anything else you can tell me?”
There was a pause filled with ragged breathing.
“Vines everywhere.”
Steve’s heart skipped.
“Vines? Like along the walls and ground?”
“Yes.”
“Are they slimy?”
“Huff—Yes.”
A cold dread settled into Steve’s stomach. He didn’t know why the detail mattered, only that it did.
“Is there somewhere safe you can go? Somewhere far enough from the house but close enough that I’d be able to get to you?”
“S-secret hideout.”
For the first time since the call started, Steve felt a flicker of hope.
“Yeah? That’s good. Do you think you can make it there safely? Is it safe?”
Will hesitated, and the silence between them felt enormous.
“I don’t know. I don’t know where it is.”
The statement made Steve wonder, how could he not know where his own hideout was, “It?”
Will’s next word came out like a whisper dragged through fear.
“Demogorgan.”
Steve frowned, trying to place the word. It sounded weirdly familiar, and then it clicked faintly in the back of his mind, something from the nerdy fantasy game Nancy’s brother always talked about. He could even remember Carol mocking it once, calling it “the devil’s game” with a laugh when he’d mentioned it in passing.
“Are you talking about that game with the dice and dragons and whatever?”
The mood on the line shifted, just slightly. Will sounded a little less terrified for a split second, like hearing someone recognize the word made him feel less alone.
“Yes! You know it?”
Steve let out a shaky breath.
“Barely, kid, but—”
He was interrupted by a series of quiet coughs from the other end, weak and exhausted.
“We can talk about this later, alright? Once you’re safe.”
Another pause.
“Promise, Seven?”
The question landed harder than Steve expected. He looked down at his shaking hand wrapped around the receiver and felt something twist painfully in his chest.
“I’ll do my best.”
His voice softened, rough with emotion.
“So you go and try to survive as best as you can… for your family.”