Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Steve’s sitting on Nancy Wheeler’s bed when he realizes he has no idea what she’s been saying for the past ten minutes.

She’s at her desk, bent over a textbook with her highlighter poised, talking about something — history, maybe? Or English? The light from her lamp catches in her hair and makes it look almost copper. She’s wearing his jacket, a denim one, sleeves rolled up to her elbows because it’s too big on her. She looks good in it. She looks good in everything.

Steve knows he’s supposed to be listening.

”—and I just think if I focus on the symbolism rather than the plot summary, I’ll have a better shot at an A,” Nancy’s saying. She caps her highlighter and stretches, rolling her shoulders back. “I hate Lord of the Flies.”

“Yeah?” Steve says.

“It’s so depressing. All those boys just turning on each other.” She swivels in her chair to face him. “Have you read it?”

“Sophomore year.”

“Did you like it?”

Steve shrugs. He honestly can’t remember much about it except that there was a pig’s head and everyone died or went crazy or something. “It was alright.”

Nancy studies him for a second, then smiles in that way she does when she’s decided not to push. “You’re a terrible liar.”

“I’m a great liar.”

“You didn’t read it, did you?”

“I read some of it.”

“Steve.”

“I read the important parts.”

She laughs and turns back to her desk, shaking her head. “You’re impossible.”

Steve watches her highlight another passage, her handwriting cramped and neat in the margins. She’s so good at this stuff. School, essays, all of it. Steve’s never been good at caring about things like that.

Downstairs, something crashes, followed by Mike Wheeler yelling, “That doesn’t count! You can’t just—”

“Can!” another voice shouts back.

“Cannot!”

Nancy doesn’t even look up. “They’ve been like this for an hour.”

“What are they playing?”

“Dungeons and Dragons. Some stupid thing Mike’s been planning for weeks.” She flips a page in her textbook. “He made me promise not to interrupt them unless someone’s bleeding or something’s on fire.”

Steve makes a humming sound. He knows Mike and Will are friends, and if Mike is down there playing D&D, there’s a decent chance Will is too.

“Is Will Byers down there?” Steve asks.

Nancy glances back at him. “Uh-huh. Do you know Will?”

“I used to babysit him.”

“Really?” She sounds surprised, like this doesn’t fit with whatever version of Steve she’s constructed in her head. “I didn’t know that.”

“Well, it was a while ago. Freshman year.”

“Mike loves those guys. They’re here constantly.” Nancy goes back to her textbook, already losing interest. “I think Will might be sleeping over tonight, actually. Him and the others.”

Steve nods and picks at a loose thread on her comforter, listening to the muffled sounds from downstairs. Steve can hear the clatter of dice, the shuffle of papers, and more arguing. It sounds exactly like the kind of stuff he used to sit through with Will.

Nancy pops the cap back onto her highlighter. “You want something to drink? My mom made lemonade, I can probably sneak some up here for you.”

Steve shakes his head “I’m good.”

“Okay.” She’s looking over her textbook again, chewing on the end of her highlighter. Steve’s been here for two hours and they’ve barely spoken. Nancy has just been studying with Steve sitting on her bed.

This is what dating is, apparently.

Steve shifts against the headboard. His back’s starting to hurt. Nancy’s got about fifty decorative pillows on this bed and none of them are actually comfortable. There’s one shaped like a heart that’s been digging into his spine for the past twenty minutes.

Down in the basement, someone yells, “Natural twenty!” and the whole table erupts.

Steve rolls himself from the headboard to laying on the edge of the bed. The noise from downstairs is constant. It honestly would have made Steve smile two years ago, when he was sitting in the Byers’ living room and watching Will draw.

Now it just reminds him of everything he’s spent two years trying to forget.

“Are you okay?” Nancy asks without turning around.

“Yeah. Why?”

“You’re quiet.”

Steve scoffs. He’s been sitting here for two hours saying maybe ten words total and now he’s quiet. “Just thinking.”

“About?” Nancy sets the highlighter down, giving him her full attention now. It somehow makes it worse.

“Basketball. Coach has been on my ass about conditioning and wants me to do swimming in the spring.”

“Mmm.” Nancy picks up the highlighter again and turns back to her textbook. “You’re good at basketball though.”

“I know.”

It sounds slightly harsh. Nancy glances back at him, eyebrows raised slightly in warning, but doesn’t say anything and goes back to her reading.

Steve closes his eyes and tips his head onto the comforter. He’s being an asshole. He can feel it, he’s been this way for weeks. Months, maybe.

Nancy Wheeler is great. She’s way smarter than Steve could ever be and ridiculously pretty and his parents would definitely approve of her if they knew he was dating her. Tommy and Carol think she’s hot but boring, which Steve takes as a compliment on Nancy’s behalf.

Dating Nancy Wheeler is good. It feels good.

Steve swings his legs off the bed. “I should probably head out soon.”

Nancy glances at the clock on her nightstand. “Why? It’s only seven.”

“Yeah, I know. I just have stuff to do tomorrow.” Steve’s already reaching for his jacket on the back of her chair.

Nancy turns to face him fully. “What stuff?”

Steve shrugs the jacket on, checking his pockets for his keys. “I don’t know. Stuff,” he lies.

“Thanks for being so specific.” Nancy closes her textbook and stands, stretching her arms over her head. Steve’s denim jacket, the one he’d given her to wear, rides up when she does and he can see a strip of her stomach. She catches him looking and smiles slightly. “You have to leave through the window.”

Steve frowns. “What?”

“My mom is downstairs, Steve!” Nancy crosses to the window and unlocks it, pushing it open. The early November air rushes in. “If she sees you leaving my room…”

She trails off, and Steve nods. “Yeah, okay.” Steve joins her at the window, looking out at the sloped roof below with a small sense of fright.

Nancy caresses his arm. “Call me tomorrow?”

Steve looks down at her hand on his sleeve, then back at her face. “Of course.”

“Okay.” Nancy steps back to give him room, wrapping her arms around herself against the cold air coming through the window.

Steve climbs out onto the roof, his sneakers finding purchase on the shingles. It’s colder than he expected. He steadies himself before making his way to the edge where the trellis is.

He can hear the boys in the basement still arguing, their voices muffled but still loud enough to carry through the foundation.

Steve climbs down the trellis, the wood creaking slightly under his weight, and drops onto the grass. He can still hear them very faintly if he listens hard enough, the rise and fall of voices from the basement. He can picture Will down there with them, rolling dice and laughing.

Steve puts the car in drive and pulls away from the curb.

Steve is eating cereal at the kitchen counter when the phone rings.

The phone rings all the time in the Harrington house with his mom’s friends calling about charity events, his dad’s secretary calling about schedule changes, and wrong numbers. It’s just noise that fills the silence that would otherwise make it obvious how empty this house is even when everyone’s home.

His mom answers it in a bright tone that’s pitched slightly higher than her normal speaking voice, like she’s delighted to hear from whoever’s on the other end. “Hello? Oh, hi!”

Steve takes another bite of cereal. It’s gone soggy. He’s been sitting here for… what, twenty minutes? Longer? Time has been doing this thing lately where it either drags unbearably or disappears entirely. Right now it’s doing both. He’s been staring at this bowl of disintegrating cornflakes for what feels like hours and also no time at all.

His mom’s still going on. “No, no, you’re not bothering me at all. Is everything—”

She stops mid-sentence and her eyebrows furrow intensely. Steve hasn’t been paying attention to the phone call but his head perks up at the supposed interruption.

His mom’s face has changed. The smile’s gone, replaced by something Steve can’t quite read. Her free hand has come up to her mouth, fingers pressed against her lips. It’s a gesture he’s seen before but can’t place. Some TV show maybe, or a movie. Women do this when they’re shocked, don’t they?

“Oh my god,” his mom says quietly. “When?”

Steve sets down his spoon carefully, letting the metal clink against the ceramic bowl. The sound is too loud in the suddenly quiet kitchen.

His mom’s nodding now, even though whoever’s on the other end can’t see her. “Of course!” his mom exclaims. “Absolutely. Whatever you need.”

Steve watches her pace the length of the kitchen, the phone cord stretching and then coiling back as she moves. She’s wearing her weekend clothes — nice jeans, a cashmere sweater, and low heels even though she’s just at home. His mom doesn’t really do casual.

“I’ll ask him,” she tells the other line, and her eyes find Steve. “Hold on.”

She covers the receiver with her palm. Her nails are painted pale pink, perfectly manicured. There’s a chip on her thumb that she probably hasn’t noticed yet. “Steve, honey, that’s Joyce Byers on the phone.”

The name registers in his brain but doesn’t connect to anything immediately. Joyce Byers. Byers. Steve knows that name. He knows he knows it. His brain’s just moving slowly this morning, like it’s wading through mud.

“Her son is missing,” his mom says.

Steve stares at his mom. She’s looking at him expectantly, waiting for some kind of reaction. He doesn’t know what reaction she wants. He doesn’t know what reaction he’s supposed to have.

“What?” he asks finally.

“Her youngest. Will.” His mom’s still got her hand over the receiver, voice dropping to that conspiratorial tone people use when they’re sharing bad news, as if speaking quietly will somehow make it less awful. “He didn’t come home the night before last. She’s been looking all day and night yesterday for him, and the police are involved now, and she’s — well, she’s beside herself, as you can imagine.”

Will.

The name slams into him with an almost physical force.

Will Byers.

He can see his mom’s mouth moving but the sound’s delayed, arriving a half-second after her lips form the words.

Will Byers is missing.

Will Byers, who used to sit at his kitchen table with crayons and paper spread out in careful organization.

Will Byers, who explained Dungeons and Dragons campaigns with the kind of earnest enthusiasm that made Steve smile even when he didn’t understand a single word.

Will Byers, who asked Steve if he thought people stopped caring when you got older, if Jonathan would always be alone, if Will himself was doomed to the same fate.

Will Byers, who looked at Steve in a diner parking lot two years ago with tears running down his face.

Will Byers is missing.

Will Byers is supposed to be in Mike Wheeler’s basement right now, rolling dice and arguing about campaign strategies. Will Byers is supposed to be drawing elaborate maps and creating character backstories and doing all the nerdy shit he loves. Will Byers is supposed to be fine.

This just doesn’t make sense.

“She wants to know if you’ve seen him recently,” his mom questions him, and Steve realizes he’s missed part of the conversation. She’s still talking and he has no idea what she just said. “Or if you know anything that might help. She thought maybe—”

“I haven’t seen him,” Steve cuts in before she finishes.

His mom’s brow furrows slightly. “Are you sure? Maybe around town?”

Steve thinks about Friday night. Nancy’s bedroom. The sound filtering up through the floor. Laughter, argument, the rise and fall of voices engaged in something Steve couldn’t follow and didn’t try to. Will had been down there. Right below Steve’s feet. Close enough that if Steve had wanted to, he could’ve gone downstairs and hello.

He hadn’t wanted to.

“I’m sure,” he repeats.

“Okay.” She returns the phone to her ear, expression shifting back to practiced sympathy. “Joyce? He says he hasn’t seen Will recently. I’m so sorry.“​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Steve can hear Joyce’s voice on the other end now that he’s actually listening. He can hear the panic in it. The way her voice cracks and climbs higher. That’s what terror sounds like. That’s what a mother sounds like when her child is gone.

Steve’s never heard anything like it.

“Of course,” his mom reassures into the phone. “Yes, we’ll keep an eye out. If we hear anything at all, I’ll call you right away.”

More frantic words from Joyce.

“You too, honey,” his mom soothes. “Try to stay strong. I’m sure he’ll turn up soon. Boys that age, they wander off sometimes, you know? I’m sure there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation.”

Steve’s stomach turns. She says it as if Will’s a puppy that slipped its leash off. But Joyce knows her son. And if Joyce is this terrified, this certain something’s wrong, then something’s probably wrong.

Will Byers isn’t a kid who wanders off. Will’s careful and anxious. He wouldn’t disappear or stay out all night without calling. He wouldn’t put his mom through this on purpose.

His mom hangs up and stands there, staring at the phone.

“That poor woman,” she sighs, turning back to Steve. She shakes her head slowly. “Can you imagine? Your child just vanishing like that?”

Steve picks up his spoon and sets it back down. “No.”

He can’t. He’s an only child with parents only barely aware of his existence. He can’t imagine being responsible for another human being’s entire world and waking up to find them gone.

What Steve can imagine is Will. Will waking up wherever he is. Cold or hurt or scared. Calling for his mom and getting no answer, alone in the dark wondering why no one’s coming.

His throat tightens.

“She sounded awful!” his mom observes, already moving into problem-solving mode. “Just completely frantic. I should call the other ladies from the committee and see if we can organize a search party or something. Bring food to the family. That’s what people do in these situations, isn’t it? Casseroles.”

“Yeah,” Steve mutters.

She’s already flipping through her address book, finger running down lists. The Hawkins social network, all in perfect script.

“Such a sweet boy, too,” she muses absently. “I remember you used to babysit him. You were fifteen, weren’t you?”

“Yeah,” he forces out. “Fifteen and sixteen.”

“You were so good with him.” She dials a number. “I remember Joyce just raved about you. Said you were wonderful, so patient and kind.”

Patient. Kind.

God. What a joke!

He was none of those things. He was a fifteen-year-old who babysat because his mom told him to. There was nothing kind about him.

“This is just terrible,” his mom declares, phone to her ear. “That family’s been through so much already. First the husband leaving, and Joyce working herself to the bone, and now this. When it rains it pours, I suppose.”

Steve stands before he has to hear more. His cereal sits forgotten, a soggy mess. He grabs his keys from the hook by the door.

“Where are you going?” his mom asks, phone still pressed to her ear.

“Out,” Steve replies.

She raises an eyebrow. “Out where?”

“Just driving.”

“Well, be back for dinner! Your father is inviting his boss over.”

The morning air is sharp and cold. Steve gets in his car and sits there, engine off, hands on the steering wheel. His breath comes out in clouds.

Will Byers is missing.

He says it out loud once to test the words. They don’t sound real. It sounds like something that happens to other people in other places. Definitely not in Hawkins.

He drives without a clear sense of direction or idea of where he wants to go. He just moves because sitting still feels impossible in this moment. This moment itself feels impossible. His mind can’t settle down and give him space to breathe.

Will at the kitchen table, tongue poking out in concentration.

Will in the cereal aisle, clutching Lucky Charms.

Will in the parking lot, salty tears staining his cheeks. I thought you were different.

Steve’s huffs in frustration. He takes a right without signaling, then another. The houses blur past his peripheral vision. Same lawns, same driveways, same Saturday morning normalcy. Someone is washing their car. Someone is raking leaves. The world keeps going like nothing’s wrong.

He ends up on the road toward the Byers house. His car, whether it be instinct or muscle memory or coincidence, just takes him there.

When the house comes into view, he desperately wants to turn around.

There are cars everywhere. Police cruisers with lights off, parked at angles in the street, cars Steve doesn’t recognize filling the driveway and lining the curb, Joyce’s is parked crooked, like she’d pulled in fast and didn’t bother straightening out. The front door stands open with people moving in and out. Neighbors, he presumes, or volunteers. Someone’s setting up a search coordination station on the porch, folding table with papers and maps spread across it.

Steve parks down the street where his BMW won’t stand out among the beat-up sedans and trucks. He cuts the engine and sits there.

When he decides he’s sat in his car for an appropriate enough amount of time and gets out. the chilly air bites at his face. Gravel crunches under his sneakers as he crosses the street. A woman he recognizes from Melvald’s passes him on the porch steps, empty casserole dish balanced on her hip. She gives him a tight smile that doesn’t reach her eyes.

Up close, the house looks worse than Steve remembers it. The shutters hang crooked and paint peels in long strips that curl away from the wood. There’s a coffee can full of cigarette butts on the porch railing, dozens of them, all recent. Someone’s taped a photo of Will to the front door, a school picture. Will is in a collared shirt that’s a little too big, smiling uncertainly.

Steve stops in front of it.

“You here to search?”

Steve turns to the owner of the voice. A cop stands in the doorway, clipboard pressed to his chest. He’s an younger guy, maybe in his mid-thirties, sporting a mustache.

“Yeah,” Steve answers.

The cop clicks his pen. “Name?”

“Steve Harrington.”

He writes it down neatly. “How do you know the family?”

“I used to babysit Will.”

The cop’s pen pauses, then continues. “Joyce is inside if you want to check in. Search parties head out every hour. Next one’s at ten-thirty.”

Steve checks his watch. It reads nine forty-five.

“I’ll talk to Joyce,” he says. The cop steps aside without comment.

Inside, the house feels small. Maybe it’s more cramped than the last time Steve’s been in here, or maybe it’s just all these people filling it. The living room is packed with neighbors and volunteers and cops, all of them speaking in low murmurs reserved for tragedy.

Steve finds Joyce looking down at the kitchen table with a blank expression. Papers surround her. Her hands shake as she points to a spot on one of the maps, explaining something to a cop Steve doesn’t recognize.

Steve stands in the kitchen doorway trying to find a way to interrupt them without seeming like a dick, but he isn’t sure there is a way.

“Steve?”

Joyce looks up from the papers and turns completely away from the cop to face him. Everyone in the kitchen turns, even the people he doesn’t know, and Steve feels his face turn pink.

“Hi, Mrs. Byers,” Steve manages.

Joyce shoves back from the table, the chair screeching aganst her floor. She crosses to him in three strides, hands reaching out to grab his arm. Her fingers dig in hard enough to bruise.

“Have you seen him?” She asks. “Will, have you seen Will?”

Her face is inches from his. Her eyes are worn out, pupils blown wide. “No,” Steve says. “I haven’t. I’m sorry.”

Her expression crumbles in despair as she loosens her grip. “Okay.” She nods. “Okay. You came to help search?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s… that’s good.” She’s still nodding. “That’s really good. We need all the help we can get. The police, they’re not — they think he just ran away or wandered off, but Will wouldn’t do that. He wouldn’t. Something happened. Something took him.”

“Joyce.” The cop at the table stands, voice hushed as to not send the woman over the edge. “We’ve discussed this. There’s no evidence of foul play.”

“I know my son!” Joyce whirls on him. “I know my son and he didn’t run away. He didn’t—” she cuts herself off as her voice breaks and presses two hands to her face.

If Steve hadn’t thought the kitchen was small before, he sure does now.

Joyce drops her hands. “You were good to him,” she tells Steve, it sounds like an accusation and gratitude tangled together. “Those years ago. You were so good to Will. He talked about you all the time after—”

She stops and sighs.

“After you stopped coming around,” she finishes quietly. “He really looked up to you.”

Steve’s throat closes. There’s really not enough air in this kitchen.

“I know you’re busy now,” Joyce continues, and she’s trying to be understanding, trying to give him an out. “High school, you’ve got your own life. But if you could help us look, even just for a little while—”

“I’ll look.” He says almost immediately. “As long as you need.”

“Thank you.” Her voice breaks again. “Oh, Steve, thank you so much. He’s out there somewhere. I know he is! We just have to find him.”

“We will,” Steve lies. He doesn’t know if they’ll find Will. He doesn’t even know if Will’s alive to be found. But Joyce needs to hear it, even if the words mean virtually nothing.

“Okay.” Joyce releases his arm and spins back to the table, where a map lays across it. “The next search party is covering the area east of Cornwallis. That’s the path Will takes home from Mike’s house.” She traces the map with shaky fingers. “The police already searched it but I want to go again. We might have missed something. We could have walked right past him.”

Steve looks at the map, at all of the hand-drawn lines marking search zones. Some crossed out, some are circled in red. A growing catalog of places Will isn’t.

“Steve?”

Joyce watches him, waiting.

“Yeah,” Steve says. “I’m ready.”

The woods are cold and gray.

Steve follows a line of people through trees that all look the same. Someone ahead of him, a man in a hunting jacket with an orange vest, calls Will’s name every thirty seconds like clockwork. The sound echoes and is then swallowed completely by the dense woods. Other voices answer from different directions, all of them calling the same name and getting nothing back.

Steve’s shoves his hands in his jacket and winces when he steps in something wet. He didn’t dress right for this. His sneakers are already soaked through from the damp leaves and mud and he keeps slipping on exposed roots hidden under the undergrowth.

The group spreads out as they move deeper into the woods. Steve loses sight of most of them behind the trees. He can still hear them calling, but the voices are muffled now. He’s basically alone out here, walking in a straight line like someone told him to, looking at nothing in particular.

He doesn’t know what he’s looking for anyway. Will? Will’s body? Evidence?

He steps over a fallen log and his foot sinks into mud up to his ankle. “Fuck,” he mutters, pulling his shoe free with a sucking sound.

When he looks up, Jonathan Byers is standing fifteen feet away.

Jonathan’s standing there between two trees, staring at him. He’s wearing that same jacket he always wears, black and slightly too big in the shoulders. His jeans are covered in mud up to the knees. There’s a red and angry-looking scratch on his cheek, probably from a branch.

Steve opens his mouth to say something — what, he doesn’t know — but Jonathan moves first.

He crosses the distance between them, closing the gap before Steve can back up or prepare or do anything.

“What are you doing here?” Jonathan demands.

His voice is hoarse from yelling Will’s name. He sounds and looks like he hasn’t slept. Considering the circumstances, he probably hasn’t.

“Searching,” Steve answers. “Same as you.”

“Bullshit!” Jonathan’s stomps his foot. “You don’t give a shit about Will.”

Steve feels his face go hot. “That’s not—”

“You haven’t talked to him in two years,” Jonathan cuts him off. His hands ball into fists at his sides. “You stopped babysitting him and just pretended he didn’t exist! You walk past our family now like we’re invisible. And now you show up here acting like you care?”

Steve huffs. “I do care. You know that I care.”

“No you don’t.” Jonathan steps closer, invading Steve’s space even more. He’s shorter than Steve, maybe two or three inches off, but right now it doesn’t feel like it. “You cared when it made you feel good. When my mom was paying you. Then you got your friends and your car and Nancy Wheeler and suddenly Will wasn’t worth your time anymore.”

“That’s not what happened.”

“Then what happened?” Jonathan’s voice rises, echoing off the trees. Somewhere in the distance, another searcher calls Will’s name, oblivious to the argument. “Because from where I’m standing, you abandoned my brother the second it suited you. You made him think you actually gave a shit about him and then you just disappeared!”

Steve can’t look at him. His eyes drop to the mud between them, to his ruined sneakers, to anywhere that isn’t Jonathan’s anger-ridden face.

“Will talked about you so much,” Jonathan continues, and there’s a viciousness in his voice now that wants to hurt and make Steve feel even a fraction of what Jonathan’s feeling. “For months after you stopped coming around. Steve said this, Steve thinks that, Steve showed me how to do this. He kept asking Mom when you were coming back and kept making excuses for you. Steve’s probably just busy with school, Steve probably forgot, Maybe we should call him.”

Each word is a knife. Steve feels them slide in one by one, finding vital organs.

“And you know what the worst part was?” Jonathan asks. He’s not yelling anymore. His voice has dropped back down, gone quiet in a way that’s somehow worse than the anger. “He thought it was his fault.”

Steve frowns.

“He thought he’d done something wrong,” Jonathan starts. “That he’d been too weird or too annoying, or asked too many questions, or wasn’t cool enough for you anymore. It took him months to figure out the truth, that you just didn’t care enough to stick around.”

“I didn’t know,” Steve begins to say, but his voice cracks.

“You didn’t want to know,” Jonathan snaps. “That would’ve required actually thinking about someone other than yourself.“

“I’m here now,” Steve throws back, finally meeting Jonathan’s eyes. “I’m looking for him.”

“Why?” Jonathan asks. “Guilty conscience? Trying to make yourself feel better? Because I guarantee Will doesn’t need your help now. He needed it two years ago when he was ten years old and thought you were someone he could count on. But he sure as hell doesn’t need it now.”

Jonathan’s whole body is shaking now, all Steve can do is stand here and let the other boy rip into him.

“And you know who was there for him?” Jonathan continues. “Me. I was there. I’m always there.”

Steve forces himself to meet Jonathan’s eyes. “I fucked up,” Steve admits. His voice comes out barely audible over the trees and the yelling of Will’s name. “I know I fucked up.”

“Yeah. You did.” Jonathan’s hands are still shaking. He shoves them in his jacket pockets like he’s trying to hide it. “And now my brother is missing and you show up here like — like what? Like searching for him one time is going to fix what you did? Like it’s going to erase not giving a shit?”

“I’m not trying to fix anything,” Steve responds. “I’m just trying to help find him.”

“We don’t need your help.” Jonathan’s voice drops back to that low tone instead of the yelling Steve’s become accustomed to the past minute. “We don’t need you here pretending to care. We don’t need you assuaging your guilt by spending a few hours walking through the woods. Go back to your friends and your parties and your perfect fucking life and leave us alone.”

“Jonathan—”

“Stay away from my family,” Jonathan interrupts. His eyes are bright with anger and exhaustion. “Stay away from my mom. She’s got enough to deal with without you playing hero. And if we find Will… when we find Will, stay the fuck away from him too. He doesn’t need you coming back into his life just to leave again when you get bored.”

He turns and walks away before Steve can reply.

Steve stands there in the mud, watching Jonathan’s back disappear between the trees. The dark jacket blends into the woods until Steve can’t see anything other than the trees and the small trace of luminosity provided by his own flashlight.

Jonathan’s right. About all of it.

Steve abandoned Will. And now Will’s missing. Now Will might be dead or hurt or scared and alone somewhere calling for help that isn’t coming. And the last thing Steve ever said to him was a half-assed apology in the middle of the grocery store.

When Steve stops stupidly standing in the same spots and gets to looking again, he realizes just how much the woods stretch on. It’s endless. Steve tries call Will’s name but it almost doesn’t feel appropriate for him to. What right does he have to say that name? What right does he have to be here at all?

He keeps walking anyway because stopping feels a hell of a lot worse somehow. Maybe Jonathan’s right that Steve’s here for selfish reasons. Guilt, the need to feel like he’s doing something, the desperate hope that maybe if he finds Will it’ll matter and prove he’s not completely worthless.

But Steve knows the truth. Even if he’s the one who finds Will, and he won’t be, statistically speaking, with dozens of people searching, it won’t fix anything.

Steve’s not a hero. He’s not even a good person. His presence here doesn’t make any difference at all.

The search party regroups at three in the morning. They’ve covered the eastern section with nothing to show for it. Joyce is there when they emerge from the woods, standing by the folding table on her porch, arms wrapped around herself like she’s holding herself together through force of will. Her face falls when she sees them returning empty-handed.

Steve gets in his BMW and sits there with the engine off. Through the windshield he can see the Byers house, Joyce talking to a cop on the porch and all the people gathered around trying to find her son.

Steve doesn’t belong here. Jonathan made that pretty damn clear.

But Steve starts the engine anyway, drives around the block, and parks on a side street where his car won’t be so obvious. He sits there for two hours, watching the clock on his dashboard, waiting for the next search to start.

Leaving feels like abandoning Will a second time. The thought of going home and pretending everything’s normal makes him want to purge.

At five o’clock, Steve gets out of his car and walks back to the Byers house.

He doesn’t find anything that day.

Or the next.

None of them do.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Steve is at the kitchen table attempting to finish his homework when his father gets home.

It’s late, Steve assumes past ten. His dad’s been at the office, or golfing, or at some client dinner. Steve stopped asking years ago where his dad goes when he’s not home, which is most of the time.

“Steven.” His dad sets his briefcase by the door with a thunk and loosens his tie. The silk makes a whisper of sound as it slides through his collar. “You’re up late.”

Steve looks down at his textbook. He’s been staring at the same page of American history for forty minutes. Something about the Revolutionary War and Washington crossing the Delaware. The sentences are just blurring together into meaningless shapes.

“Homework,” Steve offers.

His dad nods and heads for the liquor cabinet. He pours three cubes precisely into a small glass before filling it with bourbon. The sounds are so familiar Steve believes he could conduct them from memory. This is what his dad does every night when he gets home. Tie off, jacket hung in the closet, and bourbon consumed. A ritual as predictable as the sunrise.

“How’s school?” his dad asks.

“Fine.”

“Basketball?”

“Good.”

“Grades?”

Steve hesitates. He has no clue what his grades are. He hasn’t turned in homework in a week and he’s missed at least two paper deadlines. “Fine,” he lies.

His dad takes a sip of bourbon and looks at Steve properly for the first time tonight. “You look tired,” his dad observes.

Steve rolls his eyes. “I’m fine.”

“You’re not sleeping, are you?”

Steve shrugs and turns his gaze back down to his textbook.

His dad sets down his glass with a clink against the marble counter. The sound echoes in the quiet kitchen. “Is something going on?”

“No.”

“Steven.”

Steve clenches his jaw. He can feel his molars grinding together. “I said no.”

His dad studies him for a moment. Steve can see him running through possible explanations like school issues, sports, or college anxiety. Standard teenage problems with standard solutions his dad can understand and fix with money or connections or a firm talking-to about responsibility.

“If this is about some girl,” his dad starts, “women are—”

“It’s not about a girl,” Steve cuts him off.

“Then what is it?”

Steve stares at into space. “Nothing. I’m just tired.”

His dad’s lips press into a thin line, disappointed but not surprised. Like Steve has confirmed some low expectation he’s been holding onto. “You can’t afford to be tired, Steven. Junior year is crucial. Everything you do now affects your future — college, career, all of it. You need to stay focused.”

“I know.”

“Do you?” His dad picks up his glass again and swirls the bourbon before taking a sip. “Because from where I’m standing, it looks like you’re letting something distract you. And whatever it is, it needs to stop. You have responsibilities.”

Responsibilities.

“I’m handling it,” Steve mutters.

His dad sighs, seemingly done trying, he’s fulfilled his parental obligation to notice something’s wrong and now he can go back to not caring. “Well, handle it faster. Don’t stay up too late. You need proper rest.“

His dad heads upstairs with his bourbon, footsteps heavy on the hardwood.

Steve goes back to what he was doing in the first place and stares at the soldiers in the snow, freezing and starving and dying. Honders if his history teacher would accept everything is shit and nothing matters as an essay topic.

Probably not, he thinks with a frown.

He closes the textbook without having gotten any work done and puts his head down on the table. The wood is cool against his forehead. He can hear his dad’s footsteps above him, moving through the upstairs hallway.

Steve stays there with his head on the table, breathing in the smell of some candle his mom loves until he hears her car in the driveway.

His mom comes home an hour later. She’s been at some committee meeting. Charity gala planning or garden club or the Junior League. One of the dozen organizations she’s involved with, all of them dedicated to making Hawkins a better place in ways that don’t actually require her to do anything.

She breezes into the kitchen in a cloud of perfume and wine. “Steve, honey, you’re still up.” She sets her purse on the counter and kicks off her heels with a sigh of relief. “I thought you’d be in bed by now. It’s a school night.”

“Homework,” Steve repeats, the same lie he told his dad. He’s gotten exceptionally good at this lie. It’s versatile and covers all manner of sins.

His mom pours herself a glass of wine from the bottle in the fridge. “How was your day?”

“It was okay.”

“That’s good, honey.” She takes a sip, eyes already distant, thinking about something else. “School was fine?”

“Yup.”

“Wonderful.” She leans against the counter, glass in hand, and launches into a story about the committee meeting. Something about table arrangements Karen Wheeler having ludicrous opinions about the color scheme. Steve stops listening after the first sentence. He’s pretty sure he’s heard versions of this story a hundred times. The details change but the structure is always the same. Minor social drama elevated to dire levels of importance with his mom positioned as the reasonable one trying to keep the peace.

“—and then I ran into Joyce Byers at the grocery store this afternoon,” his mom continues, and Steve’s attention snaps back. “Poor woman. She looks just awful.”

Steve’s grip on his pencil tightens. Yeah?”

“Completely beside herself. I asked if there was any news about her son and she just—” His mom shakes her head. “She started crying right there in the produce section. Just fell apart. It was so uncomfortable, I didn’t know what to do.”

Steve gulps. “Did she say anything? About the search?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Something about the police not doing enough and how she’s organizing more search parties.” His mom waves her hand dismissively. “I told her we’re all praying for her, of course. What else can you say?”

Steve doesn’t answer.

His mom takes another sip of wine. “Such a tragedy. That poor family’s had such bad luck. First Lonnie leaving, and now this. I told your father we should send something. Flowers maybe, or a casserole. What do you think?”

“I don’t think she wants a casserole,” Steve mutters.

His mom frowns slightly. “Well, what else are we supposed to do? We have to do something. That’s how community works, Steve.”

“You could actually help look for him.”

His mom blinks at him, confused by his tone. “Help look?” she repeats. “Honey, that’s what the police are for. And the search parties. I’m sure they have plenty of volunteers.”

“They could use more,” Steve argues. “Joyce said the police have basically stopped looking! She’s doing it herself with whoever will help.”

“Steve, I don’t think you understand how these things work.” His mom sets down her wine glass and leans forward slightly. “There are proper channels and organizations that handle these situations. The police, search and rescue, volunteers who are trained for this sort of thing. It’s not appropriate for us to just… insert ourselves into their tragedy. We’re not close with the Byers family. It would be intrusive.”

“It’s a missing kid,” Steve says. “It’s not that complicated. They need people to search. You could help search.”

“Steven, honey, I can’t just drop everything and spend my days wandering through the woods. I have commitments. People are counting on me for this fundraiser, and—”

“A kid is missing,” Steve repeats, voice rising despite himself. “Will Byers is twelve years old and he’s been missing for almost a week and you’re worried about a fucking fundraiser?”

“Language!” his mom snaps automatically, then takes a breath and resets her tone. “I understand you’re upset. It’s a terrible situation. But you need to understand that there are things I cannot drop. The fundraiser is raising money for the children’s hospital wing. That helps children too. I’m still doing good, Steve. Just in a different way.”

Steve laughs sarcastically. “Right. Planning a party is definitely the same as looking for a missing kid.”

His mother huffs. “Why are you being so confrontational? Over that Byers boy?”

Steve doesn’t dignify that with a response.

His mom’s face slips into a mask of practiced sympathy. “Steve, honey, I know it’s sad. It is. I can’t imagine what Joyce is going through. But you can’t let yourself get too wrapped up in it. These things happen, and there’s nothing we can do except hope for the best and let the professionals handle it. You need to maintain some emotional distance or you’ll just make yourself miserable.”

“These things just happen?” Steve raises his voice back at her.

“Well, yes. Terrible things happen sometimes. Children go missing, people get sick, accidents occur. It’s awful, but it’s not your responsibility to take on everyone else’s pain. You’ll drive yourself crazy if you try to fix everything that’s wrong in the world!”

“I’m not trying to fix everything. I’m trying to help look for one kid. One kid that I used to know.”

“Used to know,” his mom emphasizes. “Two years ago, for a few months. You barely knew him, Steve. You can’t fall apart every time something bad happens to someone you vaguely know. That isn’t sustainable.”

Vaguely know.

She has no idea. No idea that Steve thinks about Will every day, that he lies awake at night imagining Will cold and scared and alone. No idea that Steve’s had searched all night the other day, lying about where he is. No idea that Jonathan Byers gutted him in the woods with truths Steve can’t stop hearing.

His mom thinks he just vaguely knows Will.

“I took care of him almost every day,” Steve says. “Twice a week. I didn’t just barely know him, mom.”

His mom’s expression slides into one of pity. “I know you did, honey. And I’m sure that makes this harder for you. Joyce always spoke so highly of you. But that was years ago. You’ve moved on. You’re about to graduate now, you have your own life, your own friends. You can’t let something from your past consume you like this.”

“It’s not about the past,” Steve tells her. “It’s about right now. Will is missing right now.”

“And people are looking for him right now. People who are trained for this, who know what they’re doing. You’re seventeen years old, Steve. This isn’t your burden to carry.” She reaches across the table and pats his hand. “I understand you want to help. And that’s very noble. But sometimes the best way to help is to let the people who know what they’re doing do their jobs. You focus on school and on your own life. That’s what you can control.”

Steve pulls his hand away. “I’m going to bed.”

“Steve—”

“I’m tired.”

“Honey, I’m just trying to help you understand—”

“I understand.” Steve stands up, scooping his textbook off the table. “I understand perfectly.”

He leaves to his room before she can say anything else, he can even feel her watching him as he walks away, probably trying to figure out what she said wrong, how this conversation went off the rails. She doesn’t get it. She won’t get it.

Steve waits until he hears his parents’ bedroom door close.

It’s past twele now. His dad has been asleep for what Steve expects is an hour now, considering. His mom followed after her second glass of wine, heels clicking on the hardwood as she climbed the stairs. He gives it another twenty minutes to be safe. He on his bed fully dressed with his jeans, hoodie, and shoes that are already tied, and watches the clock on his nightstand tick forward.

Twelve-fifteen. Twelve-thirty. Twelve-forty-five.

At one o’clock, he gets up.

His window opens silently. He oiled the hinges last year after his dad complained about them squeaking, which is now a small blessing. The roof outside slopes down at an angle that’s manageable if he’s careful. Steve’s done this before, to sneak out to parties or to meet girls or to do all the normal stupid shit teenagers do that they don’t want their parents to know.

Never to search for a missing kid in the middle of the night though.

The trellis on the side of the house groans slightly under his weight but holds. Steve drops the last few feet to the grass and freezes, listening for any sign of trouble.

The roads are empty this time of night. Hawkins pretty much rolls up its sidewalks after ten. Steve drives through town with his headlights cutting through the dark, past the closed shops and the empty parking lots.

He’s halfway to the Byers house before he questions what he’s even doing. Steve hadn’t planned to go. Especially not after Jonathan told him to stay away. But then he’d lain in bed staring at his ceiling and thinking about Will out there somewhere in the dark.

So here he is.

The Byers house is dark when Steve pulls up save for the porch light. There are only three other cars parked on the street, nothing like the crowds he sees in the day. Steve recognizes Joyce’s Pinto and one of the cop cars that’s been stationed here. The third is a beat-up sedan he doesn’t know.

The night air is cold, colder than it’s been all year. Steve can even see his breath. Above him, the sky is clear and full of stars, which somehow makes tonight worse. It’s far too pretty for this.

The front door opens before Steve reaches the porch. Joyce stands in the doorway backlit by the living room light. She looks worse than she did last time Steve saw her with hollow eyes, wild hair, and clothes that might be the same ones from days ago. Steve doesn’t think she’s slept once since Will’s disappearance.

“Steve?” Her voice is hoarse. “What are you doing here?”

Steve sighs. “I thought I’d help look some more.”

Joyce frowns.  “You don’t have to. It’s late, and you have school—”

“I’m here,” Steve cuts her off. “Just tell me where to go.”

Joyce nods slowly. She steps aside to let him in and Steve follows her into the living room. The maps are still spread across the table, covered in a sea of red marks letting him know where Will isn’t.

A cop Steve believes he recognizes is pouring coffee from a thermos. He nods at Steve without much interest.

“This is Steve Harrington,” Joyce introduces, even though the cop clearly doesn’t care. “He’s been helping with the searches. Steve, this is Officer Powell.”

“We’ve met,” Steve responds, though he’s not totally sure they have. All the cops are starting to blur together.

“Next group heads out in ten minutes,” Powell informs them, checking his watch. “Covering the area west of the quarry. It should take about two hours if we’re thorough.”

Joyce wraps her arms around herself. “And you’ll radio if you find anything?”

“Of course, Joyce.”

Joyce nods and turns away, wiping at her eyes. Steve stands there uselessly, not knowing what to say. What do you say to a mother whose son has been missing for over a week? Sorry doesn’t cut it. But neither does anything else.

“I’m going to make more coffee,” Joyce mutters, disappearing into the kitchen.

Steve looks down at the maps on the table and all the marks indicating places they’ve searched.

The sound of the front door creaking open startles him a bit, but the view of Jonathan walking in with a duffel bag startles him more.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Jonathan mutters in exasperation.

“I’m here to help,” Steve says.

Jonathan drops the duffel bag on the couch with more force than necessary. “Of course you are.”

“Jonathan—”

“Save it.” Jonathan moves past Steve toward the kitchen. “I don’t have the energy for this right now.”

Steve, who apparently can never leave well enough alone, follows him. “I’m not trying to start anything. I just want to help search.”

Jonathan’s at the sink filling a water bottle. “Then search. I’m not stopping you.”

“You’re pissed I’m here.”

“I’m pissed about a lot of things, Steve. You being here is pretty far down the list.” Jonathan caps the water bottle and finally turns to face him. He looks even worse up close in the light than he did the other night when Steve only had darkened glimpses to go off of. “My brother’s been missing for over a week. You’re just some asshole showing up to feel better about himself.”

Steve huffs. “That’s not why I’m here.”

“Then why are you here?” Jonathan challenges. “At midnight. On a school night. When you could be home sleeping.”

“Because I can’t sleep,” Steve admits. “Not while he’s out there.”

Jonathan scoffs, almost in disgust. “Right. Because you care so much.”

“You care now,” Jonathan corrects, moving past Steve back toward the living room. “Too little too late, but sure. You care.”

Steve follows him again. He knows he should drop it and just let Jonathan be angry and focus on the search. “What do you want me to say? That I fucked up? Well, I fucked up. I know that. But I’m here now trying to help and you’re acting like that’s somehow worse than not being here at all.”

Jonathan stops in the doorway between the kitchen and living room and turns slowly. “You want to know what pisses me off?”

“Yeah,” Steve responds. “I do.”

“It’s not that you’re here,” Jonathan starts. “It’s that you think showing up fixes anything, like your presence is some kind of gift we should be grateful for. Let’s all praise Steve Harrington for helping search for the kid he couldn’t be bothered with just a month ago!”

“I’m not asking for thanks.”

“I know you aren’t. You’re asking us to forgive you, to tell you you’re a good person after all, to absolve you of your guilt. And I’m sorry, but we’re not a fucking confessional. Will’s not here to make you feel better about abandoning him.”

Steve grunts. Why can’t Jonathan see he cares? He cares so much it feels like his own body is closing in on him. “That’s not… I’m not asking for—”

“You are though.” Jonathan takes a step closer. “That’s exactly what you’re doing. Every time you show up here, every time you search, you’re asking us to witness your great redemption. To see how hard you’re trying. To acknowledge that you’re doing the right thing now, even if you didn’t before.”

“So what, I should just stay away?” Steve demands. “Is that what you want?”

“What I want,” Jonathan replies slowly, “is for you to admit why you’re really here. Stop pretending this is about Will. Be honest for once.”

“It is about Will.”

“Bullshit.”

“It’s about him being missing and me trying to help find him!” Steve argues.

“It’s about you trying to ease your conscience,” Jonathan counters. “About you trying to prove you’re not the asshole who abandoned him. It’s about your guilt and your need to feel like you’re doing something good. But it’s not about Will. If it was about Will, you would’ve been here when he needed you in the first place.”

Steve’s furrows his eyebrows. “I can’t go back and change that.”

“I know you can’t,” Jonathan agrees. “That’s my point here. You can’t undo what you did. So stop trying. You can’t make it right. You can only make it about you.”

“Then tell me what to do,” Steve says, voice cracking. “Tell me how to help without making it about me.”

“You can’t,” Jonathan responds simply. “That’s the problem. Everything you do is tainted by what you didn’t do.”

Steve doesn’t know what to say, or how to explain that he’s trying, that he wants to help, that he—

“Look,” Jonathan interrupts his racing thoughts, voice calming down slightly. “I get that you feel bad. But feeling bad doesn’t obligate us to make you feel better. And that’s what you’re asking for, whether you realize it or not. You’re asking us to witness your suffering, your guilt, your desperate attempts to be good. But we’re too busy actually trying to find Will to care about your feelings.”

“I know that. I’m not asking you to care about my feelings. I’m just trying to help.”

“But your help comes with this expectation that I’ll acknowledge you and tell you you’re not so bad after all. And I can’t do that,” Jonathan says.

Steve’s shakes his head. “So you want me to leave.”

“I want you to search without making it about yourself,” Jonathan clarifies. “But I don’t think you can do that.“

“That’s not fair.”

“None of this is fair, Steve,” Jonathan shoots back. “Don’t talk to me about what is fair.”

Powell sticks his head in from the porch. “We’re heading out. Anyone coming?”

Jonathan grabs the duffel bag and slings it over his shoulder. “Yeah. I’m coming.”

Steve follows Jonathan out to the porch.

The search group is small. It’s just Steve, Jonathan, Powell, and two other volunteers. They pile into Powell’s cruiser and one of the volunteers’ trucks, Steve ending up in the truck bed with Jonathan because that’s just what he needs to make this night go swimmingly.

They don’t speak during the drive, they hold onto the sides as the truck bounces over rough roads toward the quarry. The night air is freezing up here, wind cutting through Steve’s jacket.

When they arrive, Powell spreads out a map on the hood of his cruiser and goes over the search area with a flashlight. “We’re covering from here to here,” he points. “Standard grid pattern. Stay within sight of each other. We’re looking for anything—clothing, belongings, signs of struggle. You see something, you call out. Everyone understand?”

Everyone nods.

“Good. Let’s move out.”

The group splits up, each person taking a section. Steve ends up near Jonathan, again, swimmingly. They walk parallel paths about fifteen feet apart, flashlights shining bright through the dark.

The woods are a lot more threatening this late into the might. Every sound makes Steve jump. He keeps his flashlight trained on the ground, sweeping it back and forth, looking for anything that doesn’t belong.

There’s a whole bunch of nothing.

He keeps walking and searching. His feet are already cold and his fingers numb where they grip the flashlight. He should have worn gloves.

But when has he ever thought things through?

“Will!” Jonathan’s voice comes from Steve’s left.

It’s starting to get seriously frustrating now. There is nothing out here, how on earth could they possibly find Will? There’s no way he’s in Hawkins.

Steve’s about to call out Will’s name when he hears it: not quite a sob, but frighteningly close. He stops to turn to where the sound came drom

Jonathan’s standing about ten feet away, flashlight pointed at the ground with shaking shoulders.

Steve’s feet move before his brain catches up. He crosses the distance between them and finds Jonathan staring at something on the ground.

A candy wrapper.

To be completely honest, Steve expected a lot more than just a candy wrapper, partially buried in leaves. It’s a Reeses Pieces, Will’s favorite, Steve remembers with sudden clarity.

“It’s probably not his,” Steve says quietly.

“I know,” Jonathan responds. “I know it’s probably not his.“

But he’s still staring at it.

Steve doesn’t know what to say, so for once he makes a wise decision and stands there, saying nothing.

“He loves Reeses Pieces,” Jonathan continues, not looking at Steve. “He has since he was like six. I used to buy them for him with my allowance and hide them in my room so Mom wouldn’t know I was giving him candy before dinner.”

“Jonathan—”

“I should’ve been there,” Jonathan interrupts. “The night he disappeared. I was took on an extra shift and Mom was at work and he was alone. He biked home from Mike’s by himself in the dark and I should’ve been there but I wasn’t.”

“It’s not your fault,” Steve tries.

“Isn’t it?” Jonathan spits out. “I’m his brother. I’m supposed to protect him. That’s my job and I failed. I wasn’t there when he needed me and now he’s—” He whimpers. “Now he’s gone and I don’t know if I’ll ever—”

He stops and presses his hand to his mouth like he can’t physically hold back the words. Steve reaches out and touches Jonathan’s shoulder.

Jonathan flinches but doesn’t pull away. “Don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Just don’t, okay man?”

Steve drops his hand. “Okay.”

They stand there in the dark woods, two people who hate each other unified by an incomprehensible tragedy.

“I’m sorry,” Steve tells the other boy quietly. “For coming here and making it about me. You were right.”

Jonathan sniffles and pulls himself together before picking up the wrapper. “This is pretty old. It doesn’t belong to Will.”

Steve forces a smile. “Yeah. Probably not.”

Around two in the morning, Powell calls it.

The group reconvenes at the trucks. Everyone looks exhausted from another night of nothing.

Steve and Jonathan end up in the truck bed again for the ride back. The cold has somehow gotten worse. He can’t even feel his feet anymore.

Halfway back, Jonathan breaks the silence. “You don’t have to keep coming.”

Steve looks at him with his mouth slightly agape. Jonathan’s not looking back and only stares at the trees passing by, his face illuminated by moonlight.

“What?” Steve asks.

“To the searches,” Jonathan starts. “You don’t have to keep coming. We’ll manage.”

“I want to come,” Steve replies.

“Why?”

Steve thinks about it. His empty house and his parents who don’t see him. The way he can’t sleep knowing Will’s out there. The guilt that set Steve’s chest ablaze two years ago in a diner parking lot that’s only grown since.

“Because I can’t not come,” Steve admits. “I can’t just go to school and go gome and pretend this isn’t happening. I can’t do nothing.”

“Even though I don’t want you here,” Jonathan states.

“Even though,” Steve agrees.

Jonathan hums. “I was so jealous of you back then. Not even because of how popular you were but because Will loved you nearly to death and I was right there and you weren’t.”

Steve exhales and turns his gaze down to the road.

“I’m not trying to make you feel bad.” Jonathan finally looks at him. “I’m just… I don’t know. Trying to figure out if you actually give a shit or if this is just guilt.”

“Does it matter?” Steve asks.

Jonathan raises his eyebrows in thought. “Maybe not. I just need to know you’re not going to disappear again. When we find him, you’re not going to show up for a week and then vanish again.”

“I won’t,” Steve promises. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“We’ll see,” Jonathan says to him, but there’s less hostility in it than Steve expects.

Steve knows he’d be way out of his element to push. They ride the rest of the way in silence.

When they arrive back at the Byers house, everyone disperses to their cars. Steve’s about to head to his BMW when Jonathan calls out.

“Hey.”

Steve turns. Jonathan’s standing by his car, keys in hand.

“Thanks,” Jonathan says awkwardly. “For coming.”

Steve blinks, surprised. “I thought you didn’t want me here.”

“I definitely don’t,” Jonathan tells him. “But you came anyway. And you didn’t make it weird. So… thanks.”

It’s not anything close to forgiveness, but Steve isn’t sure that’s what he needs right now.

“I’ll be here tomorrow,” Steve offers. “For the next search. If that’s okay.”

Jonathan’s flares his nostrils. For a moment Steve thinks he’s going to tell Steve to stay the hell away. Then he nods once. “Fine. But you can’t expect me to talk to you.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Steve responds.

The corner of Jonathan’s mouth twitches.

When Steve gets home that night — or morning, technically — he finds that for the first time in what feels like forever, he can sleep.

The searches become somewhat of a routine.

Steve sneaks out his window the next night around midnight to drive to the Byers house. He joins whatever small group Joyce has managed to assemble for the night shift, searches until two or three in the morning, drives home, and sleeps for a few hours.

His parents don’t notice. Or if they do, they don’t care enough to say anything. His dad’s been traveling more for work anyway. His mom’s busy with her committees and her luncheons and her wine. Steve’s absence at night goes as unremarked upon as his presence during the day.

However, someone does notice, though.

“You sound tired,” Nancy observes one afternoon. They’re on the phone with each other. Steve is cooped up in his room on a chilly Saturday as is Nancy. “Are you sleeping okay?”

“Yeah,” Steve lies. “It’s just school, y’know? My dad’s pushing me to my limits.”

Steve doesn’t know why he doesn’t tell her. There’s no reason to keep the searches secret, he can just say he’s been looking for Will Byers every night. But telling her would make this disappearance real in a way it doesn’t feel when it’s just him and Jonathan and the dark woods.

By the fourth night Steve has gone to search for Will, they’ve fallen into a pattern. They don’t talk much during the searches, but there’s noticeably, thankfully, a lot less hostility.

Now they’re just two people looking for the same kid, not quite enemies anymore, if they ever really were, but not quite anything else.

On the fifth night, Jonathan’s alone when Steve arrives.

“Where is everyone?” Steve asks, looking around the empty living room. Usually there are at least three or four volunteers, a cop or two. Tonight it’s just Joyce in the kitchen and Jonathan packing flashlights into his bag.

“They didn’t come,” Jonathan explains without looking up. “A storm is supposed to hit around two. Everyone decided it wasn’t worth it.”

“What about you?”

“I’m going anyway.” Jonathan zips the bag and slings it over his shoulder. “Storm or no storm.”

“Jonathan—” Joyce appears in the kitchen doorway. “Honey, maybe you should wait until tomorrow. If the weather’s bad—”

“I’m going, Mom,” Jonathan says gently. “I’ll be fine. I’ll be back before the storm hits.”

Joyce looks like she wants to argue, but she instead crosses the room and hugs Jonathan tight. “Be careful.”

“I will.”

She releases him and turns to Steve. “Thank you for coming. I know the circumstances—“

“It’s okay, Mrs. Byers,” Steve cuts her off. He’s heard this speech nearly every time he’s come. “I’ll take care of him,” Steve adds, gesturing at Jonathan.

Jonathan raises an eyebrow. “I don’t think I need taking care of.”

“Humor me.”

Joyce gives them a slight smile. “You boys be safe. And if the storm comes in early, you come straight home.”

“We will,” Steve promises.

When they head out to Jonathan’s car, a strong whiff of rain invades Steve’s senses. Above them, clouds are rolling in, covering the stars Steve’s gotten used to navigating by.

“You don’t have to come,” Jonathan states as they get in the car. “If the storm’s gonna be that terrible, you should probably just go home.”

“I’m coming,” Steve tells him anyway. “Where are we searching?”

Jonathan starts the engine. “We’re searching near the cemetery. There’s a stretch of woods we haven’t covered yet.”

They drive in silence. The radio is broken, and according to Jonathan, it has been for weeks. There’s just the sound of the engine and the wind picking up outside. The cemetery is on the edge of town, bordered by woods on three sides. Jonathan parks on the access road and they get out. The wind is stronger here, whipping through the trees, making them creak and sway.

“Storm’s coming in fast,” Steve observes, looking at the sky. “Should we make this quick?”

Jonathan hands him a flashlight. “If we don’t find anything in an hour, we’ll head back.”

Steve usually finds cemeteries unsettling even in the daylight, but it’s much worse come nightfall. The headstones cast long shadows in their flashlight beams.

They reach the tree line and continue into the woods. It’s even darker here, the canopy blocking what little light the cloud-covered moon provides. Steve’s flashlight beam is weak, batteries probably dying.

Thunder rumbles in the distance. The storm’s close now.

They walk deeper into the woods. Steve’s fingers are going numb around the flashlight. He learned from last time to wear gloves but he guesses out of stupidity he forgot to wear warmer clothes. He should have thought that through.

But that’s the problem, isn’t it? He hasn’t been thinking anything through. He just shows up night after night because not showing up feels worse. His empty house and his oblivious parents and his normal life feels almost obscene when Will Byers is missing. On top of that, Jonathan’s here and someone should be here with Jonathan.

Steve confuses himself with his own thoughts. When did this become about Jonathan of all things?

“Will!” Jonathan shouts again, the last letters trailing off slightly as if he’s given up calling for him halfway through.

Steve’s flashlight beam finds Jonathan standing about twenty feet away, swaying slightly on his feet. Even from here, Steve can see his shoulders shaking.

“Jonathan?”

He doesn’t reply.

Steve closes the distance between them. Jonathan’s is standing there, flashlight pointed at the ground, breathing hard.

“Hey,” Steve tries. “You okay?”

Jonathan laughs an awful sound. “Am I okay? No, Steve. I’m not okay. My brother’s been missing for a week and we’re out here in the middle of the night looking for nothing. We’re not going to find him. We’re not going to find anything.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Yes I do.” Jonathan turns to face him with a face as pale as ever. “We’ve searched everywhere. The whole town has been looking. If he was out here, we would’ve found him by now.”

“Maybe we missed something—”

“We didn’t miss anything!” Jonathan’s yells. “There’s nothing to miss. He’s just — he’s just gone.”

The first drops of rain start falling. Cold and fat, hitting the leaves with soft thuds.

“We should go,” Steve says quietly. “Before it gets worse.”

Jonathan shakes his head. “I can’t. If I leave…”

“We’ll come back tomorrow,” Steve states. “We can always come back.”

“What’s the point?” Jonathan wipes his now wet eyes. “What’s the point of coming back when we never find anything? We’re just walking in circles. We think we’re doing something when really we’re just waiting for someone to find a body.”

Jonathan might as well have slapped Steve in the face. “Don’t say that.”

“Why not? It’s true. That’s what everyone’s thinking. That’s what the cops think. And until my mom admits it she’s just gonna drive herself more crazy. For fuck’s sake, she thinks he’s talking to her through Christmas lights.” Jonathan’s breathing is getting faster, more ragged. “He’s just dead. Will’s dead. And we’re out here pretending—”

“Stop!” Steve shouts at him, grabbing Jonathan’s arm. “Just stop.”

Jonathan stares at him. The rain’s falling harder now, soaking through their clothes. “Why? Why should I stop? It’s the truth.”

“You don’t know that. None of us know anything!”

“I do,” Jonathan insists. His voice breaks. “I know it. I’ve known it for days. I just didn’t want to…”

He trails off without finishing his sentence. He stands there shaking while the rain comes down disastrously.

Steve doesn’t know what to do. All the reassurances that come to mind all sound insincere. We’ll find him. He’s alive. Don’t give up hope. They’re just words that mean nothing when a kid’s been missing for over a week and every day the odds get worse.

“I should’ve been there,” Jonathan says suddenly. “The night he disappeared.“

“It’s not your fault,” Steve tries, but the words feel inadequate.

“Isn’t it?” Jonathan pulls away from Steve’s grip. “He’s my little brother and I’m supposed to protect him. That’s my job. And I failed. I wasn’t there and now he’s…”

He stops again.

The rain is coming down hard enough now that Steve can barely see. Lightning flashes, illuminating Jonathan’s face in harsh white light. He looks destroyed, like he’s been carrying something too heavy for too long and it’s finally crushing him.

“Come on,” Steve urges, reaching for Jonathan again. “Let’s get back to the car. We’re going to freeze to death out here.”

Jonathan doesn’t resist and lets Steve guide him back through the woods. They’re both soaked within minutes, rain so heavy Steve has to keep his flashlight pointed at the ground to see where he’s stepping. Thunder cracks overhead, close enough that Steve gets a bit scared they’ll be unlucky enough to get hit.

They reach the car and climb in. Jonathan’s shaking violently now, from cold or shock or exhaustion, Steve can’t particularly tell. Probably all three. He tries to get the key in the ignition but his hands won’t cooperate.

Steve reaches over and covers Jonathan’s hand with his own. “It’s okay man. Just breathe.”

Jonathan stares at their hands. Steve’s covering his on the key, steadying it. “I can’t do this anymore,” Jonathan whispers.

“Yes you can.”

“No.” Jonathan shakes his head. “I can’t keep searching and hoping. I can’t. I’m so tired of this, Steve.”

Steve’s grip tightens. “I know.”

“No you don’t.” Jonathan looks at him finally. His face is wet with both rain and tears. “You don’t know what this is like. He’s not your brother. You get to go home and sleep in your warm bed and forget about this for a few hours. But I can’t forget.”

The sound of rain on the roof of the car feels deafening.

“I dream about him,” Jonathan confesses to the rain-streaked windshield. “Every night. I dream I’m looking for him and I can hear him calling my name but I can’t find him. I follow his voice but it always stays the same distance away. And I run and I run and I run but I can never get any closer. And then I wake up and remember he’s really missing and the dream was better than reality because at least in the dream he was alive enough to call for me.”

Steve’s stays silent and lets Jonathan have his moment.

“I don’t know how to do this,” Jonathan continues. “I don’t know how to not find him and have to tell my mom we failed. I have to spend the rest of my life knowing I wasn’t there when he needed me.”

“That’s not—“

“It is though.” Jonathan slams his fists on the steering wheel, scaring Steve’s hands on. “It is my fault. If I’d been there he wouldn’t be gone.”

“Stop,” Steve says. “Stop blaming yourself.”

“Why?” Jonathan demands. “Someone has to be blamed. Someone has to be responsible. Why not me?”

“Because you didn’t make him disappear. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“I wasn’t there,” Jonathan repeats. “You don’t think that’s wrong?”

“You’re here now,” Steve acknowledges. “Every night you’re out here searching. That has to count for something, doesn’t it?”

Jonathan’s face falls even more than it already had. “Does it count if we never find him?”

Lightning flashes again. In the brief moment of illumination, Steve can see every detail of Jonathan’s face. The exhaustion etched into his eyes and the hollows beneath his cheekbones, the way his lips are chapped from days of calling his brother’s name into nothingness.

Unfortunately, the next decision Steve makes is not necessarily a conscious one.

His body is moving before his brain catches up, leaning across the console, closing the distance between them. He presses his lips to Jonathan’s. The second it happens, Steve realizes what he’s doing and a sense of panic floods him.

Despite his own protests, he doesn’t pull away.

Jonathan goes completely still, frozen at the feeling of lips on his. Steve can feel the shock in every fiber of his body.

For half a second, maybe less, their lips are pressed together. Steve can feel Jonathan’s breath catch and the surprise radiating off him in waves. He can feel his own heart hammering so hard it might break through his ribs.

This is wrong. This is so ridiculously wrong. Steve doesn’t kiss up on dudes. He doesn’t even have anything against it, he just likes girls and it’s simple as that.

But there’s a part of him, small and terrifyingly impossible to ignore, that doesn’t want to pull away.

Jonathan does it for him.

It’s not aggressive or anything, it’s honestly barely even a shove. He just leans away, breaking contact, and stares at Steve with wide and confused eyes.

Jesus, Steve’s face could melt right off his head with how much he’s burning up. What the gell did he just do? What the hell is wrong with him?

“What—” Jonathan starts then stops. “Did you just kiss me?”

Steve winces. He was hoping that this was an odd fever dream he could forget about.

“I… yeah. I did.” Steve’s voice comes out weak. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I—”

“You kissed me,” Jonathan repeats. It’d be a lot easier if he was angry and disgusted, but there’s only confusion running through his tone.

“I know. I’m sorry. I don’t know what I was trying to do.” Steve is starting to panic, he needs Jonathan to understand that it didn’t mean anything. Can’t mean anything. “I wasn’t… I’m not… I wasn’t thinking.”

“Clearly,” Jonathan responds quietly. “Why would you do that?”

The question is the big elephant in the room.. Steve scrambles for an answer that makes sense and doesn’t involve examining why his first instinct was to kiss Jonathan Byers. Or why some part of him wanted to.

“I don’t know. You looked so… sad. and I wanted to help somehow and make it. And I just—” He stops. This is coming out all so wrong. “It was stupid. I’m not — it didn’t mean—”

God. He can’t just finish and say what he needs to say. He is not gay. This was a mistake. Except saying all that would make it bigger and turn it into something when maybe it can just be nothing.

“Make it better by kissing me?” Jonathan questions, genuinely trying to understand.

“I know it sounds stupid.”

“It doesn’t sound stupid,” Jonathan says. “It is stupid.”

“I know,” Steve agrees miserably. “I know it was stupid. You were just talking about Will and you looked so sad and I wanted to… I don’t know what I wanted, dude.”

The only sound is the rain hammering the roof and the occasional rumble of thunder. “I don’t—” Jonathan thinks for a bit then continues. “I’m not… you know?”

“I know,” Steve says quickly. “I know you’re not interested or anything. It wasn’t supposed to be…” he trails off when he realizes he has no clue what he’s even trying to explain to Jonathan at this point.

“What was it supposed to be?” Jonathan asks.

Steve huffs in frustration at his own idiocy. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know. Of course you don’t know. Do you ever know anything?”

“Apparently not.”

“My brother is missing,” Jonathan states, like maybe Steve forgot. “Will is missing. That’s the only thing that matters right now. It’s the only thing I can think about. And you decided to kiss me?”

“I’m sorry,” Steve says again. There isn’t any other thing to say at this point. “I’m really sorry.”

Jonathan’s jaw works like he’s chewing on something. “I’m not mad,” he says finally.

Steve blinks. “You’re not?”

“No.” Jonathan looks away and at the rain. “I’m just surprised. And pretty confused. And tired.”

“Okay,” Steve replies. “That’s okay.”

“It doesn’t mean anything, right?” Jonathan continues, still not looking at him. “The kiss. It doesn’t mean anything?”

“I can assure you it doesn’t.”

“I don’t… I don’t have the energy to deal with this right now. With whatever you think this is. I need to focus on finding Will.”

“I understand. Me too,” Steve tells him with speed. “We don’t have to talk about it. We can pretend it didn’t happen.”

Jonathan finally looks at him again. “Can we?”

“Sure,” Steve lies. “Easily.”

Jonathan’s expression suggests he doesn’t believe that any more than Steve does but he nods anyway and turns the key. The engine turns over and the wipers start up, barely keeping up with the rain.

“We should tell my mom about tonight,” Jonathan states, pulling onto the road. “We searched the east side and crossed it off the list.”

“Yeah,” Steve mumbles. They’re doing this then. Pretending that the kiss didn’t happen.

Fine. Steve can do that.

They drive back in silence, and somehow it’s even more uncomfortable past few nights. It feels as if they’re both waiting for the other one to acknowledge what happened

Of course, neither of them do.

When they reach the Byers house, Jonathan doesn’t immediately get out. “For what it’s worth,” Jonathan says, “I don’t think you’re a bad person.”

Steve hums. “No?”

“No. I think you’re a person who’s done bad things. There’s a difference.” Jonathan’s fingers tap against the steering wheel. “And I think you’re trying to be better.”

Maybe going to a cemetery was a bad idea and something possessed Jonathan.

“Okay,” he settles on.

Jonathan nods. “You should go home and get some sleep. You look terrible.”

“Thanks,” Steve replies dryly.

The corner of Jonathan’s mouth quirks up. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”

The end of the sentence rises up as if Jonathan’s giving Steve an out — a chance to not come back after the awkwardness of the kiss and to save face.

“Yeah,” Steve confirms. “Tomorrow.”

Jonathan nods again and gets out of the car. Steve watches him walk to the house through the rain, shoulders hunched. Another night of finding absolutely nothing.

Steve gets back to his own car and drives home through the storm. The windshield wipers are working overtime and barely making a dent. Lightning flashes, illuminating the empty roads.

Despite his wishes, the kiss replays in his head on a loop. The feel of Jonathan’s lips for that brief second. The way Jonathan’s breath caught. The moment before he pulled away when there was just contact, just the press of skin against skin, Steve doing something incomprehensible and irreversible.

It was stupid. An impulse born of exhaustion and proximity and the strange intensity of spending every night looking for a missing kid with the same guy. It didn’t mean anything.

Except Steve can still feel it in every part of his body. The warmth of Jonathan’s mouth.

Steve climbs back through his window, strips off his soaking clothes, and gets into bed.

Outside, the storm rages on.

After all complicated feelings subside, Steve comes to a consensus. The major feeling right now is embarrassment.

It isn’t even that he kissed a dude. Well, it sort of is. But that’s not the main cause of the humiliation burning through him. It’s that the dude was Jonathan Byers. Jonathan Byers, of all people on this planet, rejected him.

Jonathan Byers. The loser. The guy who eats lunch alone and wears the same three shirts in rotation and drives a car that’s held together by duct tape. That Jonathan Byers pulled away from Steve’s kiss like Steve had a disease.

The irony isn’t lost on him. Steve Harrington, who could have his pick of girls at Hawkins High, rejected by Jonathan Byers in the front seat of a shitty Ford.

It’s a humbling experience, as if the past month hasn’t been full of those. Getting ripped apart by Jonathan in the woods, having his guilt thrown in his face, searching night after night and finding nothing. And now this. Kissing a guy and getting turned down.

So, Steve does what any sensible guy does when he’s feeling shame: throw a party.

Party is a generous word admittedly. His parents have this sixth sense for any sort of mischief that lines the walls of their big, bad house. As a cause of this, Steve keeps it small and invites only his closest friends.

This list includes Tommy, by extension Carol, Nancy, and also by extension, Barbara Holland.

Steve doesn’t know Barbara. Or Barb, as Nancy calls her with a soft affection. But Nancy says she’s cool and Steve doesn’t have a reason not to trust. Her friends are his friends, theoretically.

Except when Steve mentions the party to Tommy, Tommy makes a face.

“Barbara Holland?” he jeers, like Steve just suggested inviting a leper. “Nancy’s weird friend?”

“She’s not weird,” Steve says, though he doesn’t actually know if that’s true.

“She’s a total nerd,” Carol adds, filing her nails without looking up. “And she totally hates you.”

“What? No she doesn’t.”

“Yes she does,” Carol insists. “I’ve seen the way she looks at you when you’re with Nancy. To her, you’re a creature.”

Steve should have listen to them. He should have recognized that Tommy and Carol, for all their faults, have a pretty good radar for people who don’t fit. But he just had to be better than everyone else and not exclude someone.

So he invites Barbara Holland.

Looking back, this is where Steve screws up majorly.

Because Barbara Holland is not cool. She sits by the pool in her frumpy clothes looking miserable, like Steve’s holding her hostage. She doesn’t drink or swim and ends up splitting her hand open.

Barbara Holland vanishes that night, and suddenly, there are now three people in Steve’s life searching endlessly for people they may never find.

The phone rings at eleven-thirty on a Tuesday night.

Steve can hear it from his room, the shrill sound cutting through the quiet house. His parents are probably asleep already. His mom takes an Ambien at ten sharp almost every night and his dad’s been in his study since dinner, probably passed out in his chair.

The phone rings a second time.

Steve throws off his covers and pads down the stairs to the kitchen and picks up the phone on the counter.

“Hello?”

“Steve.” Jonathan’s voice comes through the other line and Steve furrows his eyebrows at the unexpected call. “They found him.”

Steve’s eyebrows furrow deeper into his face. “What? They found him? Where is he? Is he okay?”

Jonathan goes silent on the other end.

“Jonathan?” Steve presses. “Is Will okay?”

“No,” Jonathan says. “No, Steve. He’s not okay. They found him in the quarry. He’s dead. Will is dead.”

What?

All at once, everything around Steve completely shatters. He isn’t dead. Will can’t be dead. That’s ridiculous. They were supposed to find him alive and get him home to Joyce and put this whole nightmare behind them.

“Steve?” Jonathan’s voice wavers. “Are you there?”

“Yeah,” Steve says. He’s still trying to make sense of it, waiting for Jonathan to correct himself and say that Will’s hurt but alive and they need to get to the hospital. “Yeah, I’m here. But you said they found him. I thought—”

“I know what you thought,” Jonathan replies quietly. “I’m sorry. He’s dead, Steve.”

Steve suddenly feels like his legs aren’t enough to hold him up. He leans his weight on the kitchen counter to stabilize himself and lets out a deep breath.

“The police just let us know,” Jonathan continues. “It was some people from the state or whatever who discovered him. They want my mom to come to morgue tomorrow but she can’t. Well, she won’t. She keeps saying it’s not him.”

“What do you mean she won’t?”

“She won’t go. She won’t look at the body. She’s convinced it’s not Will. That he’s still out there somewhere,” Jonathan says. Steve can sense it’s getting harder and harder for Jonathan to push the words from out his mouth. “She’s losing it, Steve. Completely losing it. I don’t know what to do.”

If his heart hadn’t already broken for Will and for Jonathan, it certainly hurts a thousand times more for Joyce.

“Can you come over?” Jonathan asks suddenly. “I know it’s late and I know I have no right to ask but I just… I need—”

“I’m coming,” Steve says. “I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I’m coming,” Steve tells Jonathan firmly. “Just stay there.”

He hangs up before Jonathan can fight with him and stands there for a moment in the kitchen, the phone still held up to his ear. There’s a sort of peace Steve feels in this, knowing that the kid hadn’t been kidnapped or tortured and only drowned. But then again, he remembers the sleepless nights looking and looking and telling Joyce it’s fine and there isn’t any sort of peace Steve can muster.

Will Byers was an extraordinary kid. And now, Will byers is dead.

Steve finallt puts the phone down and heads back to his room. He puts on jeans and grabs a shirt from his floor. His hands are shaking badly enough that it takes him three tries to even get his sneakers tied.

He opens his bedroom door and nearly runs into his dad in the hallway.

“Where do you think you’re going?” his dad demands. He’s in pajamas, hair mussed from sleep. “It’s almost midnight.”

“I have to go out.”

“Like hell you do. Get back in your room.”

“I can’t.” Steve tries to move past him but his dad blocks the way. “A friend needs my help. I have to go.”

His dad frowns, the look on his face changing from irritation to suspicion. “What friend?”

“Just someone I know.”

“It’s midnight,” he repeats. “Whatever it is can wait until morning.”

Steve groans with exasperation. Of all the times his father could choose to give a crap about him, now is the absolute worst. “No it can’t.”

“Steven, I’m not asking you. I’m telling you. There is not a chance in hell you are leaving this house.”

Steve stares at the hard line of his dad’s mouth and the way he’s standing with his arms crossed. There’s no room for negotiation. He’s has made a decision and that’s final.

“I’m going,” Steve says.

“No, you’re not.”

“Yes, I am.” Steve takes a step closer to the older man. “You can stand there and try to stop me but I’m going.”

“If you walk out that door, you’re grounded for a month.”

“Fine.”

“Two months.”

“I don’t care!” Steve shouts. The words echo back at him in the hallway. “I don’t fucking care about being grounded. I don’t fucking care what you think!”

His dad’s face goes red. “Watch your language—“

“No.” Steve pushes past him, shoulder knocking against his dad’s. “I’m leaving. Ground me, yell at me, I don’t care. I’ll be back later.”

He races down the stairs two steps at a time. His mom has appeared at the bottom, drawn in by the shouting. She’s in her nightgown, face still thick with cream. “Steve?”

“I’ll be back,” Steve calls over his shoulder, already at the door.

The air has gotten significantly colder as November draws further away to make way for winter. Steve can immediately feel an eerie chill rush into the tips of his nose and ears.

The drive to the Byers house is a blur that Steve doesn’t remember. He finds himself pulling up to the house, same as he has every night for the past couple of weeks. Except tonight is different. Tonight they’re not searching anymore. Tonight there’s nothing left to find.

He parks and gets out on unsteady legs. The walk to the front door feels endless.

Inside, the house is the mother of all mayhem. People are scattered everywhere. Steve recognizes the Chief of Police standing in the living room. He sees some of the regular search volunteers and cops clustered by the couch.

And there, in the middle of all the disorder, is Joyce.

Steve doesn’t dare go to speak to her. Not to say he doesn’t want to, of course he does. But he’s pretty sure they’re both way too freaked out over all of this for that.

Steve scans the room for Jonathan and finds him in the kitchen doorway, staring at nothing in particular, face blank. When he spots Steve, relief briefly flashes along his face.

“Jonathan,” Steve says.

Jonathan blinks and allows his eyes to focus on him. “You came.”

“What? Of course I came.”

“The police want someone to identify the body at the coroner’s office tomorrow morning,” Jonathan says. “She really thinks he’s still out there, Steve.”

Steve glances back at Joyce, who’s staring at the wall with arms warpped around herself. “Maybe she just needs time.”

“Time?” Jonathan’s lips twist in cynicism. “She’s in denial, Steve. Denial. And I get it. I get why. But someone has to identify him. Someone has to look at…” He scoffs. “Someone has to confirm it’s Will so we can have the funeral. And she won’t do it. So it has to be me.”

The image Jonathan’s painting, walking into a morgue, looking at his dead brother’s face, saying yes, that’s him, is too awful to contemplate.

“I’m sorry,”

“Yeah.” Jonathan clasps his hands over his head. “Me too.”

They stand there in the chaos of the crowded house. Someone’s brought food—casseroles and dishes that sit untouched on the kitchen counter. Someone else is making more coffee. People keep arriving, offering condolences, asking if there’s anything they can do. The answer is always no. There’s nothing anyone can do. Will is dead.

But Joyce doesn’t believe that. And standing here surrounded by people who are already mourning, Steve can hear her voice refusing to accept what everyone’s accepted as fact.

“Whatever you found is not my boy. It’s not Will.”

“Come on,” Steve says. “Let’s get some air.”

Jonathan nods and follows Steve out the back door onto the small porch. The crisp breeze is a shock after the stuffiness of the crowded house.

Jonathan leans against the railing, gripping it with both hands. The wood is old with splinters threatening to break off. “She won’t even consider that the body might actually be him.”

“Maybe she knows something,” Steve tries.

“She doesn’t know anything,” Jonathan says. “I hate to say it but she’s out of her mind. Shes telling the cops that Will is talking to her from the lights and monsters are crawling from out the wall.”

Steve leans against the opposite railing. “What did the police say about Will?”

Jonathan pinches the bridge of his nose. “They found him pretty far out in the quarry. He’d been in the water for a while.”

“In the water,” Steve says. “He drowned, right?”

“I don’t know.” Jonathan’s knuckles are white where he’s gripping the railing. “Drowning is a lot better than other things that could’ve happened to him.”

Steve doesn’t want to think about what other things could’ve happened to Will. His imagination supplies options anyway. Violence, pain, fear. A twelve-year-old kid alone and dying in the most horrific of ways.

Jonathan’s distress switches back to raging frustration. “It doesn’t make sense. Why would he go there? It’s miles from Mike’s house. Miles from anywhere Will would go.”

“Maybe he got lost,” Steve says.

“Will knows these woods. He bikes through them all the time. He wouldn’t get lost.” Jonathan shakes his head. “Something happened.“

“The police will investigate,” Steve responds. “If something did happen, they’ll figure it out.”

“You’re right.” Jonathan finally looks at him. “I need to quit.”

Steve exhales a loud breath. He feels like all of his thoughts are occupied by Will, which just makes him want to stop thinking altogether, or by Joyce and Jonathan, clearly processing this in various unhealthy ways. He wishes that there was anything he could say.

“I called you first,” Jonathan says. “Before anyone else. You were the first person I thought of.”

Steve tilts his head in question.

“I wish I knew why,” Jonathan continues, still staring out at the dark yard. “We honestly barely know each other. Half the time I can’t stand you. Most of the time, actually. But when the police called and said they found him… you’re who I wanted.”

“You don’t have to figure it out tonight,” Steve says.

“When then? Tomorrow? Next week? When does it get easier?”

“I don’t know,” Steve admits. When does he ever? “Maybe never.”

Jonathan avoids eye contact with him. “Why are you here, Steve?”

“You called me.”

“But why did you come?”

It’s the same thing Jonathan had said before, just phrased as a question. Why did Steve drop everything and drive here at midnight? Why did he ignore his parents and leave his house? Why does he care so much?

“Because you needed me to,” Steve settles on.

Jonathan screws up his face. “That’s it?”

Steve’s gaze lingers on Jonathan, silent for a second in admiration. “That’s it.”

If Steve didn’t know any better, he’d say that Jonathan was on the verge of laughter. “I don’t understand you, Steve Harrington.”

“That makes the two of us.”

The edge of Jonathan’s lips curl up into a ghost of a grin.  “You should go home. Your dad’s probably planning your execution.”

“Probably,” Steve agrees. “But I’ve got time.”

“Still.” Jonathan straightens up and pulls his jacket on tighter. “You should go. My mom needs me.” He gestures vaguely toward the house.

Steve nods. “Go ahead.”

The back door closes behind Jonathan with a soft click. Steve stays on the porch, hands shoved in the pockets of his jeans. He suddenly realizes with a sourness that he’s grown since buying these jeans.

Jonathan was right in telling him to leave. His dad is probably pacing circles around the living room right now, working himself up into a lecture about responsibility and respect and all the other things Steve is supposedly lacking. But Steve doesn’t want to leave.

Through the kitchen window he can see Jonathan navigating the crowded house. There are people keep stopping him in his tracks though he’s obviously preoccupied, touching his arm, saying things Steve can’t hear. Jonathan gives the same blank reaction to each one that gives Steve the impression that it might be rehearsed.

A car engine starts up a few feet from the driveway, skirting away from the Byers house and down onto the street. The volunteers are trickling away now that there’s nothing left to search for.

Steve walks down the porch steps and around the side of the house to where his car is parked. His hand is on the door handle when he hears footsteps behind him. Jonathan’s standing at the corner of the house, silhouetted by the porch light. He’s got his arms wrapped around himself against the cold.

“Are you leaving?” Jonathan asks.

“Yeah.”

Jonathan nods and looks down at the gravel driveway. His shoulders are hunched, making him look smaller than he actually is.

Steve pulls on the door handle but doesn’t open it. The next series of words come out before he can stop them. “Tomorrow, when you have to identify the body…” He pauses, realizing how strange this sounds, before acknowledging it’d be stranger to just stop there. “I mean, if you need someone to go with you, or if you just want company, I could. If you want.”

A sense of confusion washes over Jonathan’s features.

“Not that you need me there or anything,” Steve says, feeling his face burn up despite the cold. “I just thought, you know, it might be easier if you weren’t alone. But if you’d rather go by yourself, that’s fine too. Or if your mom’s going, obviously you don’t need me there—“

“Steve.”

Steve snaps his stupid mouth shut.

“I’m sure I’ll be able to drag my mom there,” Jonathan mutters. “But if you’re offering, I’d like you to be there too.”

“Okay. Yeah. What time?”

“Nine-thirty? That’ll give us time to get there.”

Steve smiles at the other boy, though this certainly isn’t a smiling matter. “I’ll be here.”

Jonathan forces as much of a smile as he can. “Thank you.”

The porch light flickers on and off. In the brief darkness between flashes, Steve can barely see Jonathan’s face.

“I should go back in,” Jonathan says. “Face the music, y’know?”

“Yeah.”

Jonathan turns to leave, gets four steps back to the house, then stops walking. His shoulders rise and fall with a breath Steve can see in the cold air.

He turns back around and walks toward Steve with a sense of purpose he’s never really seen directed towards him before.

Steve barely has time to ask himself what’s happening before Jonathan’s there, right in front of him, close enough that Steve can feel the heat radiating off him despite the cold. Jonathan’s hand comes up to the side of Steve’s face, fingers frighteningly cold against his jaw.

Then Jonathan’s lips are right on his.

If Steve were to compare, and he is, it’s much different than the confused impulse Steve had given in to during the rainstorm. Jonathan making a choice, closing the distance, and pressing his mouth to Steve’s like he’s been thinking about it and has finally decided to stop thinking.

Steve loses all cognitive ability for a good four seconds. His hands come up instinctively to grip Jonathan’s jacket at the waist, fingers curling into the worn fabric.

The kiss isn’t as long as Steve wishes it was, but it’s long enough for Steve to register the warmth of Jonathan’s mouth and the pressure of his fingers. Jonathan pulls back but doesn’t step away. His hand stays on Steve’s face, thumb brushing across his cheekbone, a small gesture that feels more intimate than the kiss itself.

“I should actually go now,” Jonathan says.

Steve nods, not trusting his voice.

Jonathan takes a step back. He starts toward the house, and this time Steve thinks he’s actually leaving. Jonathan stops at the porch steps. He stands there for a moment, back to Steve, shoulders tense.

Once more, he turns around and walks back.

There isn’t any hesitation as Jonathan’s hands frame Steve’s face. There’s an urgency to it that wasn’t there the first time, like Jonathan’s trying to really send a message to Steve. Steve’s back hits the car door as Jonathan crowds closer. His hands find Jonathan’s hips, then slide around to his back, pulling him in. Jonathan’s fingers slide into Steve’s hair, gripping tight enough that it hurts.

The kiss definitely goes on much longer this time. Steve feels the way Jonathan’s breathing has gone shallow and uneven and the way Steve’s heart hammers so hard he thinks Jonathan must be able to feel it where their chests are pressed together.

When Jonathan finally withdraws, he doesn’t go far. His forehead rests against Steve’s for a moment, both of them breathing hard. His hands are still tangled in Steve’s hair. Steve’s hands are still on his back, one of them having somehow worked its way under Jonathan’s jacket to feel the warmth of him through his shirt.

Jonathan drops his hands reluctantly. He backs up and Steve’s hands fall away from him too, suddenly cold where they’d been oh, so warm against Jonathan’s back.

“Goodnight, Steve,” Jonathan says.

His voice is irregular in a way that Steve suspects has nothing to do with grief.

“Goodnight,” Steve manages.

Jonathan turns and walks to the house. This time, he really doesn’t look back. The door closes behind him and Steve is alone in the driveway with the taste of Jonathan’s mouth still on his lips.

Steve stands there for a full minute before he can make himself move. He touches his lips, they’re cold and becoming increasingly dry the longer he stands outside.

It doesn’t make sense. None of this makes sense. Steve’s never even thought about kissing a guy before, he’s never looked at another dude and felt anything like what he feels when he looks at girls. But then again, Jonathan isn’t just some guy. Jonathan’s become a sort of thing Steve can’t name.

He revvs his engine with a groan.