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In this new perfect world he’s found himself in, there is no such person by the name of Finney Blake. Finney Blake is Steve Harrington now, son of Clair and Robert Harrington. He’s never lived in Denver and doesn’t have any other siblings or the trauma of having been kidnapped at the age of twelve.
Sometimes saying all of this helps. Helps when the quiet becomes suffocating, when the night starts to become never ending and all his mind wants to think about is the basement. Or the belt, or the goddam mask. It helps to push everything down, to tell himself that he is Steve Harrington who’s lived in Hawkins Indiana since he was born and the only traumatic thing that’s happened to him was Stacy Grace standing him up for Homecoming sophomore year.
And yet the memories continue to creep in. Certain smells will throw him back there. He’ll still tense when the phone rings during a thick coat of silence. Steve’s gotten used to always having white noise, it’s not hard, especially when his parents are never home to tell him to turn it down.
Steve also tries not to think about how disappointed Robin would be in him. Steve justifies it by saying he’s not that bad. He’s not skulking around before or after school trying to beat on someone smaller than him into the dirt. He just…doesn’t say anything. He lets things go. Because he’s with the top crowd now, his parents' money secured him the spot. He can’t do anything to jeopardize that, Robin isn’t here to protect him this time. So he’s learned to stay out of trouble.
And then he meets and falls in love with Nancy Wheeler. Carol’s completely confused on how and why. Nancy isn’t like any of the other girls Steve had been interested in. Tommy makes some joke about Steve getting every personality under his belt before graduating. Steve doesn’t say anything even though he wants to. Nancy is different. Nancy is good. And for a while everything is good. And then Barbara Holland goes missing in his pool and suddenly it’s all really fucked up.
The thing is, this isn’t his first stunt with the supernatural. Even before he started hearing ghosts in the Grabbers basement, Gwen had always been sensitive to visions in her dreams. But this? This is a whole new world. This was different. This isn’t ghosts who help him escape scary situations, it’s monsters and death and an alternate world they’re calling the Upside Down. Of course he’d find himself in the middle of it. Of course.
He manages to help Nancy and Johnathan kill a Demogorgon in Joyce Byers house the first year. And then in the span of another year Nancy breaks his heart and he becomes the babysitter to three kids in a junkyard. Dustin, Max, and Lucas. They’re in his care, he can’t let anything happen to them. And that’s exactly what he’s thinking when he uses himself as bait for Dustin’s pet Demodog. And then he hears it, so quiet but so clear, “Turn around”. And he swears up and down that it doesn’t sound like his own voice. It’s not his conscious. But before he can dwell on it the kids are yelling his name and he shelves it for another time.
He doesn’t hear another voice for a long time after that. Not when Billy Hargrove shows up and nearly beats him to death, not when he’s trying to rush the kids out of the Demodog tunnels. Not even at the graveyard during Bob’s funeral where he would have thought a connection to the dead would be the strongest. So he chalks things up to his inner voice, now that everything is said and done he actually doesn’t really remember what the voice sounded like. So in all honesty it has to have been his gut telling him he wasn't alone.
He meets Robin Buckley a year after that on his first day of Scoops Ahoy. She doesn’t take too kindly to him at first but even her standoffish attitude can’t hide the fact that she’s nothing like his Robin. Ignoring the obvious gender difference, Robin Buckley is a nerd. His Robin was a fighter, he was tough. And not for the first time Steve wonders who Robin would have become had he not been killed. Steve likes to think him and Bruce would have been able to convince him to join the baseball team.
Robin Buckley and him eventually start to get along and he finds that he genuinely enjoys her company. She’s funny, always teasing him in a way that he knows she’s doing it not to hurt him but wants to give it to him as good as he dishes it out. They make a truce, since they’re going to be working together all summer. And then Dustin Henderson comes back from camp and with him he brings a secret Russian code. And because she’s absolutely brilliant Robin Buckely manages to crack it in like a week. That starts a series of unfortunate events that Steve’s 83% sure will cause severe head trauma for life, on top of— you know— regular trauma.
Because Dustin, the little shit and bane of Steve’s existence, has to go ahead and tell him in the midst of panic, you die then I die. And Fuck with a capital F because Steve can’t remember a single time he’s felt that kind of love and devotion since starting his new life as Steve Harrington. It takes him back—way back—and suddenly he’s hit with a wave of emotion and an intense longing for his sister. His sister who braved their alcoholic father with him, his sister who hit a kid bigger than her in the back of the head with a rock because they were beating on him. His sister, who if she were here, would be looking at him saying the exact same thing.
But it’s not his sister, it’s his brother. It’s his brother who he kept safe during the whole pet demodog fiasco. It’s his brother who he helped get ready for the Hawkins middle school dance, walking him through how to properly style his hair and taking pictures with Claudia. It’s his brother who he would gladly give up his own life for in order to keep him safe.
So Steve nods, and they brave the Russians together. They walk through the base and find the command center, and when the time came, Steve manages to protect both Dustin and Erica before getting captured. But there’s still Robin Buckley to worry about, and he can’t let anything happen to her. He can’t. So he runs his mouth, he takes the attention away from her. He listens to her scream his name when he gets dragged into a separate room.
Who do you work for? Is constantly repeated before and after the pain. But he only has one answer. He tells them— He tells them— He works for Scoops Ahoy. He works for an ice cream place in the mall. But they don’t believe him. They don’t believe him and so they hit him. They start to throw him around once his vision starts to get blurry. Throwing him across the room with his arms and legs bound so he has no choice but to bruise his arms and legs as he falls. Next they try hitting him with thick batons and god those hurt. They hurt so bad and his entire body now aches and right at that moment he just wishes that they would kill him. He wishes they would just—
“Come on Finney, stay awake.”
Robin. That’s his Robin. Robin Arellano. He almost says the name aloud, unsure if he was just hallucinating or not. God at this point he doesn’t even care if it’s not real. Because it brings him a semblance of comfort. He misses Robin. He misses—
“Who do you work for?” The Russian guard yells, and this time it’s laced with frustration.
“Scoops Ahoy,” Steve responds, and he’s rewarded with a left hook that has him spitting out blood and dizzyingly realizing he’s now on the floor.
“Hey Finney,” That’s not Robin? That’s—he knows that voice. He knows it. That’s— ”Hang in there. Your friends are coming for you.” Bruce. There’s no mistaking it.
So he stays awake. He takes the punches and keeps his mind on Robin and Bruce. And then he thinks of Robin Buckley and Dustin and Erica. And he stays awake.
It feels like days when they finally drag him back to Robin Buckey. His body won’t move on its own and he’s going in and out of consciousness. And despite there being literally nothing he can do on his own, the Russians strap him into a chair behind Robin Buckley anyway and it isn’t until they're truly gone with the sharp hiss of the door locking that Robin Buckley finally breaks out of her silence. She’s saying—no. Crying—his name over and over again, like a prayer.
When he moves, groaning in pain, she lets out a relieved breath. “Oh thank God,” she says into the air. “Thank God. I thought you were dead. I thought they strapped me to a dead person! Oh thank god Steve.”
“Robin…” Steve says, voice hoarse.
“I’m right here. Right here Steve.”
Except, no. She’s not who he’s calling for. But her words offer him comfort nonetheless. He’s not alone.
And thank fuck for that too, because Robin is the one to get them out of their binds. And before Steve can dwell about how they’re gonna escape the room the door opens and standing right behind it aren’t some Russian guards but Dustin and Erica. The drugs pumping through their system are starting to take effect because all he can do is laugh. It’s like his body has decided to take a break from being in pain, and now everything is so funny.
They all manage to make it back to the mall, sneaking into a movie where the main character wants to fuck his mom. It’s a good comedy, probably, but now he’s thirsty so he and Robin sneak off to get some water. And then he and Robin are emptying their guts in the gross starcourt bathroom. And then Robin is telling him that she’s into women, like exclusively. And Steve tells her about this one kid he used to know, who was tough and now that he thinks about it, might have been his first crush. And Robin tells him that he’s not what she thought he’d be.
And Steve realizes that somewhere in between getting tortured by Russian guards and throwing up Russian truth serum, he no longer thinks of her as Robin Buckley.
Robin doesn’t always stay Robin, sometimes she becomes Rob and he kind of sort of loves her. She might not be his Robin Arellano, but she’s just as important. Tough in her own way. She gets him a job at Family Video and they spend nearly all their waking moments together. They watch movies together and take the kids to the lake together.
When school starts back up again Steve drives her and Dustin to school every morning before he heads to work. Family Video doesn’t actually open until ten, so sometimes he’ll head home for a few more hours of sleep. More often than not though he just heads to Family Video now that he has the key and hangs out in the breakroom until open.
He’s laying on the couch one afternoon, the soft sounds of Some Like it Hot playing in the room while he tries to get some extra rest. He’s just about to drift off when it happens. The shrill ringing of a phone within the room.
Steve sits up abruptly at how clear and loud it is because the only working phone is by the register up front. The one ringing was an old phone that gave out long before him and Robin started working.
And it’s ringing.
Steve stares at it for a solid thirty seconds before he moves towards it, body heavy and heart racing.
“Hello?”
“Hey Finney. What’s happening?”
Steve takes a moment, because he’s seconds away from crying and he hasn’t done that since he thought he was going to die in the Russian bunker. But the sound of Robin’s voice? The reminder of his friend and what he was robbed of? It’s almost too much.
“Robin?”
“Yeah it’s me. I’m here. We all are.”
Steve thinks of Bruce. Of pinball Vance and paperboy Billy. He thinks of soft spoken Griffin. How long have they been here? How long have they been watching?
“You know how fucking hard it is to talk to you without a fucking phone?” That’s the voice from the junkyard. The harsh underline of it is unmistakable. Vance. Billy Hargrove was so much like Vance it kind of scared him. Steve had never known Vance all that well aside from the rumors and the reputation, but Steve knows deep in his heart that Vance wouldn’t have turned out anything like Hargrove.
Steve lets out an amused laugh, “Sorry,”
“Shut the fuck up.”
“You made it Finney.” Griffin. Griffin Stagg. Steve almost forgot how quiet his voice could be.
“Can I only talk to you with a phone?”
“Something’s coming.” Billy—or Paperboy. Steve remembers how angry calling him Billy Showalter made him.
“What do you mean something’s coming? What?”
“Something’s coming. With the weird shit you’ve been doing. It’s coming.”
“Robin taught you how to fight, didn't he dick wad? You can’t let that pathetic shit that happened with Hargrove happen again. You hear me?”
“Will I be able to talk to you guys?”
There’s no answer. Just static.
“Hello? How can I get in contact with you again? Billy? Vance? Hello? What’s going to happen?”
“Be prepared, Finney.”
“Robin? Please, just tell me what’s going on.”
“We don’t know. It just… It feels different. Like it did before.”
“Don’t leave me.”
“We aren’t going anywhere. I’m sorry Finney. Talk soon.”
Two weeks later Eddie Munson is accused of killing Crissy Chuningham in his trailer.
It’s two days after that he’s pressed up against a wall, a broken bottle held to his throat. Eddie doesn’t take to him as quickly as Robin did. But he gets there. Surviving Demobats and stealing an RV to fight off an evil wizard will do that to you. And it turns out, Steve really likes Eddie. He likes how passionate he is, how sarcastic he can be in the face of the impossible. Eddie tells it like it is. Tells Steve about his Munson Doctrine and how Steve totally shattered it in the span of three days.
And Steve swears, he swears, there’s something there when Eddie is on his knees gently pressing a washcloth to Steve’s demobat bites. Because Steve looks down, ready to thank him and at the same time Eddie looks up and the words die in his throat. Neither of them say anything and the silence stretches on longer than socially appropriate. It’s nerve wracking.
And then Robin bumps into something just outside the bathroom and the moment is ruined. When Steve looks down again, Eddie is pointedly not looking up and instead focusing on Steve’s wound. Steve can see Eddie’s hands shaking and decides that he won't freak him out more than he already is with the upside down. So he says his thanks and he lets Eddie finish up in silence.
The thing is, Steve kind of assumed after that initial awkwardness that Eddie would stay as far away from him as he could but that doesn’t seem to be the case. He sticks to Steve’s side, constantly checking up on the wounds. Robin even starts to give him looks, but Steve can’t find it in himself to care, he feels looked after. And as the resident babysitter who’s always had to look after others, it feels like a nice change for once.
And then Steve gets vecna'd.
Everything had been going according to plan. Dustin and Eddie were in the upside down, putting on the show of their lives. Max, Lucas, and Erica were in the Creel house luring Vecna out and him, Nancy, and Robin were in the upside down Creel house, ready to end it all once and for all. Steve is ready to throw the last Molotov cocktail when time starts to slow. Nany’s shotgun is no longer loud and ringing in his ears and where Robin once stood is replaced with a bloodied version of Robin Arellano.
“Look at what you did Steve,” Vecna’s voice thumps in his head. “You couldn’t keep them safe, what makes you think you can keep anyone safe?”
“Steve!” Nancy screams, and suddenly an invisible force pushes her back, and the window gives out as her body breaks through it until she’s out of sight.
“Such a dark dark secret…Finney.”
“Look what you fucking did!” Vance walks into the room, hair matted and blood pouring out the side of his head at an alarming rate.
“Why did it have to be you?” Billy appears, just behind him, making Steve spin around. “Why was it you that lived?”
“I wanted to go pro,” Bruce says, from Steve's other side.
“I’m sorry.”
“Are you? You gave up baseball without a second thought. I didn’t have that luxury.”
“Fuck,” Steve says, pushing past the bloodied versions of people in the room. He shoves himself out the door, nearly tripping on the vines covering the hallway. He has to get out of there. He needs…fuck why is the hallway getting longer? This house wasn’t nearly that big.
Steve can’t stay in the hallway. He turns to his left, where he knows is another room from previous scouting and runs into it. Except, the second the door shuts Steve realizes this isn’t the Creel house.
“No. No no no no no,” Steve’s breath comes out in pants as turns around and tries to pull the metal door open. It won't budge. It’s been locked from the outside. “What do you want?!” Steve screams, trying desperately to ignore how the gray stained walls make him feel claustrophobic. How the dirty mattress on the floor makes his skin scrawl with phantom dirt and grime.
In front of him, the disconnected phone on the wall rings. And when Steve answers it it’s not Robin or Bruce. It’s Vecna. “You, Stevie. I want you.”
“Finney,” A voice sings his name, and when Steve turns around he drops the phone and falls to the ground, his back pressing harshly against the wall. Even after all these years, all his stints with the Upside Down. It’s nothing compared to the fear of that mask. “Oh how I’ve missed our time together.”
“Touch me and I’ll scratch your face.” Steve parrots himself from all those years ago. The Grabber had never actually gotten to the point of sexual assault but it had been pretty damn close.
“You were always a special one Finney,”
“Steve, pick up the phone.”
“You caused your own punishment Finney,”
“Your friends don’t even know you, Steve.”
“Finney,”
“Steve,”
“Stop!” Steve yelled, burying his head in his arms. His chest heaved uncontrollably, tears threatening to spill. He wasn’t going to cry, not for them. But he didn’t know what else to do. Their voices spun around him, taunting him. The Grabber moves slowly, like a cat, to Steve’s crouching form and grabs him by the neck. So much so like the nightmares he used to get except this time he couldn’t just wake up. This time he might actually die.
Except that’s not what happens. Cutting through Vecna and the Grabbers taunts is a distinct sound. It’s the opening to Everybody Wants to Rule the World and it’s not being played, it’s being sung . And Steve’s not sure, but it sounds like it’s being accompanied by a guitar? But that can’t—? That can’t be possible. It’s—
“Hey! Motherfucker!”
Steve looks up, just in time to see Vance pull the Grabber off of him. This Vance was different from the one he saw before. This one isn’t bloodied. He’s still angry, Vance had always been angry, but his anger isn’t directed towards Steve.
“Good to see you again Finney,” Bruce smiles, Steve can see him smile .
“Holy shit,”
Bruce laughs, and then in one swift motion he turns and rips the black phone off the wall, silencing Vecna if only for a little while.
“Finney,” Steve looks forward, watches as Robin smiles at him with kind eyes, holding a hand out for him to take. “Let’s get you out of here.”
Dazed, Steve reaches up and takes his hand, and the feel of skin pressing together is all it takes for him to let out the sob that had been begging to be let out.
“I’m sorry,”
“Nothing to be sorry about,” Griffin says next, and turns to Billy who’s standing right next to him. “He was wrong. We’ve always been glad it was you.”
“You have to go now Finney,” Billy says, and it’s only then that he remembers the song playing in the background.
“That friend of yours, Eddie right?” Robin starts, “Pretty skilled with a guitar.”
“You’re all a bunch of useless cunts,” Vance rolls his eyes and in one swift kick knocks down the metal door. Steve expects to see a hallway, instead the threshold opens into a portal like vision and Steve sees himself floating in the air. Nancy is screaming into her walkie, telling Dustin to tell Eddie to keep playing. Robin is crying, her voice a wreck and wobbly but she’s still going. She’s still singing.
“You’ve made some good friends,” Robin smiles, watching Nancy and Robin.
“I miss you,”
If possible, Robin’s grin gets wider. “Then kill that puto pendejo for me.”
“Give him fucking hell,” Vance agrees.
“Your arm is mint.”
“We’ll hold him off here,” Billy says. “He’ll go after the redhead again when you break out. Make sure you get him fast.”
“Now get the fuck out of here!” Griffin laughs, pushing Steve through the portal. Steve doesn't even have time to be in shock before he’s falling. Nancy and Robin try to catch him as much as they can, but he still hits the ground hard.
“Oh thank god! Steve! Fuck!” Robin is sobbing, clutching onto every inch of him she can.
“Rob—fuck,” Steve breaths, his chest hurts and the rest of his body aches. Robin and Nancy are both surrounding him, trying to stop him as he reaches forward for the Molotov cocktail laying on the ground. “No time—Max,” He says, fingers wrapping around the bottle.
Your arm is mint, Bruce had said. He uses every ounce of strength he has left to hurl the Molotov cocktail across the room.
When it hits, Vecna goes up in flames and distinctly Steve can hear the laughter of five boys.
It becomes easier to hear the boys after that, once Vecna is good and dead. Billy and Griffin don’t stick around all the time, Steve learns. They like to explore the world, and in Billy’s case he likes to freak people out. Vance, Bruce, and Robin are the ones who stick around most often. They’ve gotten better at communicating, and now can do it through the walkie and Steve’s home stereo.
Vance likes to give Steve fighting lessons, and often cites Steve’s pathetic tussle with Hargrove as the reason he’s even helping Steve in the first place. Bruce keeps insisting Steve find a baseball league, so he can live vicariously through Steve. Robin just likes to talk to him.
They all don’t communicate often. Even Steve understands the danger of getting emotionally attached to ghosts more so than he already is. So sometimes, months will go by without him hearing from them. Robin once told him that they’re not needed anymore, with Vecna being dead and the Upside down being a thing in the past. Steve tells them he’ll always need them, to remind him where he came from. To remind him that there was a world in which Finney Blake was a real person.
Robin doesn’t speak to him for a long time after that. And although it does hurt, Steve fills up a lot of his time with the others. His other Robin and Eddie mostly, and of course Dustin. The Byers move back to Hawkins, and with the whole gang back together he finds himself the main enabler for parties and junk foods galore. And when he’s not throwing parties, he’s smoking in Eddie’s trailer, or getting his nails painted by Robin, or having dinner with Dustin and Claudia. All in all, he’s finally in a good place.
Which is why it comes as big of a shock as it is when Steve turns around, arms laddend with bowls of candy, and comes face to face with the Grabbers mask. It’s instinctual, the way the bowls are pulled to the ground by gravity, making a loud thunderous noise as they clatter onto the tile. Steve has by now pushed himself back against the pantry, the door handle digging into his back.
Steve’s body floods in terror, his hands shaking and his eyes wide. The fear is quick to enter his system, but not as quick to leave. Even after Eddie rips off the mask, apologies falling from his lips. Robin, who had been standing behind Eddie, rushes forward and Steve has to remind himself not to flinch because it’s Robin. It’s Robin and Eddie.
“Hey Steve, it’s okay. You’re okay.” Robin says gently, placing a hand on his shoulder. Steve melts into it, letting the weight ground him. It takes far longer than he would like to stop his hands from shaking but eventually they do.
“Stevie, I’m sorry I didn’t know it would affect you like that,” Eddie is babbling, waving his hands around frantically. “Okay, true, I did want to scare you but I thought it would be a cheap jump scare. I didn’t know I would damage you psychologically. I’m so sorry. You can insult my music taste for a week—”
Steve goes to speak, but gets caught off but Eddie's eccentric ”—two weeks! I won't even say anything about your shitty music in your car. I’ll even—”
“Eddie, it’s alright,” Steve says, even though things are decidedly not alright.
Robin’s hand gives his shoulder a squeeze. “It’s not alright,”
“No, it is,” Steve hurries to say. “It just caught me off guard. I’ll—I can get over it. For tonight.” Because as much as he hates to look at that mask, it’s Eddie's costume. Without it he just looks like a goth kid and he nearly dresses like that on the regular. “Eddie doesn’t have time to go find something else.”
“Steve,” Eddie says seriously. He picks up the mask from where he had tossed it onto the island counter. “I don’t give a fuck about my costume if it’s going to keep you on your toes all night.” and Steve watches as Eddie tossed the mask into the trash can. “You’re more important.”
Steve’s stomach constricts, but not of fear. He gives Eddie a small smile, not trusting himself to speak.
“Come on, let’s get this cleaned up,” Robin says, dropping to the ground and scooping the candies together with her hands. “The brats will be here soon,”
Eddie gives Steve a secretive smile before following her lead. He’s thankful that they’re not making a big deal about it now that the moments past. They go back to poking fun at him for going all out for the Halloween party, claiming he’s in a competition with himself every year and that by this point, it was getting ridiculous. And while Eddie and Robin argue in the living room over what music to play for the night, Steve quietly makes his way back into the kitchen, picking the mask out of the trash can.
Now that he’s prepared for it, he can tell that the mask actually isn’t the same one the Grabber use to wear. This one had a blue hue to it, the smile was the same aside from the green painted lips. And the eyes were a blood red. Steve isn’t sure if the mask came like that or if Eddie painted it. All in all, Steve can recognize the difference, even now, after so many years since his life in Denver.
He feels himself shiver and curiously he looks over his shoulder. He doesn’t see anyone there, not that he thought he would, but he knows someone there.
“Yeah,” He says aloud, breathless. And instead of returning it to the trash can he walks the mask to his neighbors garbage bin and comes back just in time to see Nancy and Johnathan pull into the driveway with the hoard of children.
The rest of the afternoon goes on without a hitch, thankfully. The house is filled with shouts and laughter and stories. Robin's choice of music plays lowly in the background and Eddie only sulks a little about it. Steve’s happy to see El look so enthralled, she’s dressed as witch to match Will’s wizard costume and when Will pretends to lift objects with his wand she stands behind him and lifts it herself to complete the illusion.
Dustin, only twenty minutes into the night, begs Steve to let them drink. To nobody’s surprise Steve says no even after they all gripe about him being such a mom. “For once be the cool uncle!” Dustin had pleaded to which Eddie declared himself the cool uncle and went to hand Dustin his beer. He had retracted the offer just as quickly when he caught Steve’s glare. “Sorry Dusty bun, moms house moms rules.”
Steve catches him five minutes later letting Dustin take a sip of his beer behind his back. But pleasantly buzzed and happy, surrounded by his family, he lets it go.
Slowly the evening turns into night, and Steve finds himself relaxing into his posh couch. The one thing he had been glad his parents spent ridiculous amounts of money on. Eddie’s there beside him, thighs pressed together. Neither of them comment on it, but Steve feels the tension drain out of Eddie’s body the more Steve presses into him. In fact, Steve’s damn near falling asleep when the doorbell rings, interrupting the sci-fi movie they have playing. (A nice medium for “nothing scary, we’ve literally lived in horror” and “no comedy or romances it’s halloween!”) Steve moves to stand, but is halted when Eddie puts a hand on his thigh.
“None of that Stevie, relax. You’ve done enough.”
Steve nods, melting back into the couch while Eddie sees to the door. Without Eddie’s presence Steve is acutely aware how cold he is, and frowns when that’s not rectified with Eddie coming back to sit next to him. Steve waits, and 30 seconds turns into two minutes, and then he notices Robin round the corner towards the front door. When neither of them return he decides enough is enough and becomes the third one to leave the party.
He makes sure to reassure the kids, most of whom are watching him go, and gives Nancy a reassuring nod. She nods in return, and takes up the mantle of keeping the kids in the living room and out of whatever it is that’s keeping up Eddie and Robin.
“ Please,” A voice sounds from around the corner. “It’s important that I see him. It’s…I’m his—”
“Gwen?” Steve pauses, as he steps into the short hallway towards the front door. Steve can feel Robin and Eddie’s stares, but he can’t be bothered to look at them. Gwen is standing there, his sister is standing outside of his door. God she looks so much older. Her hair’s longer, still that rich brown color, still braided delicately into two braids that fall over her shoulders. He wonders if she normally wears her hair like that, or if she did it for him? As if he wouldn’t be able to recognize her without the pigtails.
“Finney?” She sounds breathless, her hands clutching desperately to a newspaper. And then, in a flurry of movements she pushes Eddie—Actually pushes him—and runs straight to him, throwing her arms around his neck. Robin looks alarmed, ready to intervene and Eddie’s looking at him in shock. But for once Eddie and Robin don’t matter.
“Fuck,” Steve can’t keep the tremor from his voice as he wraps his arms around Gwen, burring his head in the crook of her neck. He feels her shoulders shake.
“I thought I’d never see you again.”
“How did you find me?”
Gwen pulls away, wiping a few tears from her face. “I—”
“Steve?”
Steve looks up to where Dustin is looking at the scene with wide confused eyes. It’s only now he notices the silence in the living room.
“Shit, yeah okay uh,” He runs a hand through his hair. “Everyone in the living room. I guess I’ve got some explaining to do.”
Gwen grabs his wrist after Eddie and Robin pass him, urgently stepping to the side. “You aren’t going to tell them about the…are you?”
Steve nods, “I’m going to tell them everything. I can trust them Gwen. We’ve…Jesus there’s so much I need to catch you up on. And I promise I will.”
“Okay,” Gwen gives a curt nod, still apprehensive. He doesn’t blame her, she doesn’t know about anything he’s been through with them.
In the living room the movies been paused. The kids are squeezed together on the long couch while Nancy and Johnathan occupy the love seat and Eddie and Robin squeeze into the rocking chair. When Steve turns to look at Gwen, he finds her gawking at the house and not for the first time he wonders how her life had turned out.
“Right, guys, this is Gwen. She’s my sister.”
“Sister?” Dustin’s is the first voice he hears amongst the squawks of shock and questions from the others.
“Shut up!” Max yells, glaring at the boys. “Obviously he’s not done.”
Gwen snickers and it strikes Steve then and there how much Max had reminded him of Gwen. He’s never allowed himself to think that, not with Dustin already reminding him what he lost.
“I don’t remember the Harrington’s having a daughter.” Nancy said softly, tentatively.
Steve’s smile falls and he takes a deep breath as he takes a seat, Gwen following his lead. “They didn’t really have a son either. Before I was Steve Harrington I was Finney Blake.”
The silence in the room tells him everything he needs to know. And it feels suffocating.
“We used to live in Denver,” Gwen began, noting the shaking in Steve’s hands. He looks at her gratefully, he hadn’t been prepared to lay his life out like this tonight. “Fin—uh—Steve,” Gwen corrects herself. “Steve and I lived with our father. He was…he was a drunk and he was abusive.” She said, her voice strong.
“Gwen got it worse than I did.”
“Finney—”
“You did,” Steve sighed. “Our mother died when I was…I don’t know…seven I think? She was kind of like you El, only she didn’t get her powers from a lab.”
“I’m sorry what?” Gwen frowned as El’s eyes widened.
Steve gives Gwen a shrug. “My mother used to have premonitions. She could see and talk to ghosts. It became too much for her and she killed herself. Her death drove our father to drink and, well, he didn’t like it when he was reminded about why she was dead.”
“Reminded?” Nancy frowned. “Does this mean she can also…?”
Steve nods, “She could see them. Sometimes she even had visions in her dreams. I’m not sure if that’s still the case?” He asked, turning to face his sister.
“They’ve gotten easier to control through the years. I can see visions on command now, and can block them out too. I don’t normally see ghosts anymore either, but Robin had been very adamant that I see him.”
“Robin?”
Gwen smiled softly, knowingly. “He showed me this a few weeks ago.” She said, showing him the newspaper she had been clutching. It’s an article about his father closing a big deal. There’s a small picture of Robert, but of no one else. It only mentions his mother and him by name. “He kept pointing at that man and then he showed me the house. I put two and two together.”
“No wonder he hasn’t been around,”
The TV’s stereo crackled and only Steve and Gwen’s head turned to look at it when Robin’s voice filtered through. “You said you needed a reminder. A reminder that Finney Blake existed in this world.”
“Holy shit is there a ghost here right now?” Lucas asked wide eyed. Dustin squints his eyes at the stereo as if he could see Robin if he looked hard enough.
“Who’s Robin?” Robin asked hesitantly. Steve hated the look of insecurity on her face.
“I can see him.” El said suddenly, her head cocked to the side like a confused puppy. “He’s very young.”
“You can see him?” Gwen asked, eyes bouncing from El to Robin and then to Steve for an explanation.
“Can you see him too, Steve?” Eddie asked.
Steve shook his head. “I can only hear them.”
“Them?”
“Fuck,” Steve said in frustration, closing his eyes. “Okay. Okay I’m going to tell you guys something about my childhood. I can’t—I need to get through it all in one go okay? I…I don’t like thinking about it so…no questions. At least not until the end.”
Gwen gave him a sympathetic smile, grabbing his hand and giving it a tight squeeze.
“When I was twelve a bunch of boys went missing. The first one to go was Billy Showalter. It…it had been big news. We lived in a small town and nothing like that had ever happened before. His disappearance was everywhere. And then when news about it died down Griffin Stagg went missing but…Griffin was a small kid, real quiet.” Steve paused, “Actually kind of like you, Will.” Steve notes the sudden tension in Will and Johnathan’s shoulders and he feels a pang of guilt. Of course saying something like that would remind them of Will’s first year in the Upside down. When everyone thought he had gone missing. “Sorry,”
“It’s okay,” Will says, quick to reassure.
Steve gives him an uneasy smile. “Anyway,” He starts again. “Nobody really started panicking until Vance Hopper went missing. We called him pinball Vance. He was…ridiculously good at the game and he fucked up anyone who tried to mess with him while he was playing.”
“Hm,” Gwen hummed, agreeing.
“It was…just—the idea that somebody could take down Vance was unheard of. It left a lot of people scared. It used to take three cops to wrangle Vance into a police cruiser so it was hard to imagine somebody being able to kidnap him. People started calling the kidnapper The Grabber. And for a long time parents didn’t allow their kids outside alone anymore but that didn’t stop him. I knew the last two kids the Grabber took before…” Steve focuses his eyes on a vase behind the couch. “Before he took me.”
Steve can hear the sharp intake of breath, and he’s actually kind of surprised nobody speaks out to ask questions. This feels like the longest he’s ever seen everyone remain quiet.
“I used to play baseball with Bruce Yamada before he went missing. It’s why I can’t really play anymore. It reminded me too much of him. What he never got to achieve. And then—then— fuck .” Steve closed his eyes, letting his head fall into his hands when the shaking in his hands get worse.
“Finney used to get pushed around in school.” Gwen takes over. “Would come home with black eyes and a busted lip before Robin showed up. Him and Robin were best friends. At first it was purely transactional. Finney would tutor him in math and Robin would make sure nobody messed with him but somewhere along the lines…” Gwen paused, looking at Steve like she knew. “They became really good friends. Robin went missing a week or two after Bruce. I—I wanted to help but I couldn’t. I didn’t have a good enough grasp on my visions yet. I just…he wore a mask. The Grabber. It was…” Gwens eyes narrowed as she frowned, trying to picture it. “It was awful. And he had black balloons. But that’s all I could see.”
“That fucking mask.” Steve said, lifting his head back up. “And the fucking belt.”
“Belt?” Gwen asked, reminding Steve that he never told her what happened in the basement before they had been separated by police.
“There were three different masks. One that covered his entire face,” Steve glances at Eddie, who looks pained. Steve can’t tell if it’s from the story of his childhood or if he's realized why Steve had such a visceral reaction to his Halloween mask. “Another one that covered the bottom half of his face with a smile and one with a frown. And then there was the belt. He would…he would hit me with it. I think I might still have some of the scars. But I never got it to the same extent as the others. I wouldn't…I wouldn’t play the game.
“I knew not to. There wasn’t a lot in the basement but there was a phone hooked up to the wall. It was disconnected, the wire having been cut but it still rang. All the time it would just ring and ring and I thought I was going crazy at first. Gwen was the one who inherited moms abilities not me but—but it rang and when I answered it, it was them. Everyone who had been killed by The Grabber. I was there for…I don’t know? A week?” Steve turns to look at Gwen for confirmation.
“Yeah,” She nods.
“They called every day. Gave me advice on how they tried to escape and what I could do. They’re the reason I’m still here today.”
“What…” El started, hesitantly. “What happened to The Grabber?”
Steve’s hands tense, and he clenches and unclenches them. “I killed him.” Steve waits for someone to speak, for anyone to say something. But no one does. They just stare at him. Wide eyed in disbelief. “Robin was my last phone call. Taught me how to punch with the weight of my body. I cut the phone off the wall and packed it with dirt to give it more heft. I ended up strangling him with the cord.”
“That was the same night I led police to the house in my visions. When Finney came out of that house I was… God Finney I thought I was never going to see you again. I thought I might have been too late and I was going to find your…your body. I was so scared Finney.” Gwen's voice was shaky.
“How did…How did you two get separated? Why did you…” Eddie pauses, frowning as he starts to grapple with the knowledge that Steve wasn’t…Steve. “When did you become Steve?”
“They arrested my dad for the abuse. Gwen and I went into the foster system and…well siblings don’t often get to stay together. Mom wanted a new shining thing while her and dad were in Denver and, well, you guys know how much power my dad has.” Steve shrugs, trying to go for nonchalant. “They also didn’t like the name Finney Blake.”
“Do…” Jonathan starts, speaking for the first time since the explanation. “Do you want to go back to that name?”
Steve pauses to think. Does he want to go back to Finney? Finney feels like an entirely different person, a life long since dead. Steve doesn’t feel like Finney anymore. He wants to remember Finney, wants to remember his life before Steve Harrington. But he doesn’t need to go back.
“I think…I like being Steve Harrington. I like my life now, who I am now. Everything I’ve gone through with the Upside down, all the friends I’ve made here I’ve made as Steve. But I don’t want to erase who I was.”
“I don’t think that’s possible, Finney.” Robin says fondly.
Gwen looks off next to his stereo, a small smile forming on her face. “They’re all here.”
Steve raises an eyebrow. “All of them?”
Gwen nods and Steve smiles.
Steve spends the rest of the night playing telephone between ghosts and his friends. He answers more questions about his life in Denver and Gwen gets to tell them about her life growing up. She was adopted by Julie and Brad Cormer, both of whom showered her with love and affection. Gwen talks about them with such admiration, she explains how supportive they have been of her. To Steve’s surprise she admits to telling them about her premonitions and how they didn’t believe her until she stopped them from getting in a car wreck.
Steve tells them how he’s been hearing the boys since the whole Upside down mess began.
They all stay up way later than they should, just talking, getting to know each other. Steve feels a sense of peace he hadn’t even known he needed. But a huge weight has been taken off his shoulders and now he can just be.
Eddie and Robin help him set up the guest rooms for Nancy and Johnathan while he sets up the living room for the kids. Gwen hovers awkwardly, unsure of her place in this clearly already bonded dynamic and it isn't until Steve sees to Eddie and Robin into their own bed that he finally walks Gwen to the master bedroom.
“So you can sleep here tonight. My—uh…The Harrington’s aren't around a lot so you can stay here as long as you like. Until we figure out our next move.”
“I’d like that…Steve.”
Steve fixes her with a look. He doesn’t know how he feels about her referring to him as Steve. This was Gwen, she was…she knew him as Finney. It didn’t feel right to force her to erase her brother.
“You… You can keep calling me Finney. The others do. It’s okay.”
Gwen gives him a small grateful smile. “I’ve missed you.”
“I’ve missed you too. So much Gweny. Jesus.”
Gwen smiles at him, patting the bed beside her and gesturing for him to sit. Steve does so without saying anything, instead waiting for her to speak. “You’ve made a good life for yourself. You’ve got some really good friends here.”
“Thanks…It…it took me a while.”
“But you got there.”
Steve nods, grateful and happy.
“So,” Gwen says, apprehension in her voice. “Are you going to tell me what the hell is up with the kid who can see ghosts and what this upside down is?”
“It’s going to take a while,” Steve laughs, but he’s not worried, he has time.