Chapter Text
It’s been an altogether shitty day.
Steve’s so exhausted and disheartened that he has a hard time categorizing all the catastrophes they’ve suffered. Even if he only counts from once they got into the Upside Down—because there was plenty of terrible stuff before that starting from watching Max getting lifted up in that cemetery while he watched helplessly below and ending with Robin looking so heartbroken watching Vickie with that guy—it’s been a complete shitshow so far. They got practically strangled on the stairs, they lit Vecna up only to not be able to find his body, then they watched the ground crack open beneath their feet. They all knew what that meant.
They were too late. Max was dead.
As soon as they got right side up, they found Erica running down the road away from the Creel house. “I’ll see what that’s about,” Robin said, then started chasing after her. Steve followed Nancy into the house where they rushed up the stairs, mercifully still traversable despite the gash bisecting the front of the house.
His knees nearly gave out when he saw Lucas clutching Max, her limbs sticking out at all the wrong angles. Lucas had his fingers pressed to her neck.
“I think I feel a pulse,” Lucas said when Steve got to the floor beside him. “I think she’s still alive.”
Steve didn’t have the heart to contradict him. The evidence of her death was there in the gate slicing through the floor, running all the way through Jason Carver’s body. But when he felt Max’s pulse point, he thought he felt it too. The faintest movement that meant her heart was still pumping blood.
“How–?”
He didn’t have time to formulate the question, because then Nancy’s walkie was bursting to life, Dustin’s frantic voice coming through. She pulled it off her belt.
“Slow down,” she said, “Where are you? Are you alright?”
“I’m alright,” came Dustin’s staticky voice. Steve could hear how broken he sounded, even if he didn’t know why yet. “It’s Eddie. He—the bats—” There was a distorted sob. Steve and Nancy looked at each other, dread pooling in Steve’s stomach.
“What about the bats?” Nancy said, and it was clear from her voice that she knew exactly what Dustin was going to say.
“They got him,” Dustin said, “Eddie’s gone.”
Steve may have keeled over then if he wasn’t already on the ground. As it was, he did his best to stay focused on Max, on feeling that slow ba-bump of blood in her veins.
“I need help with his body,” Dustin was saying, “I can’t get it out alone. Can Steve come help me?”
Nancy looked down at Steve and Lucas over Max’s broken body. Her face hardened. “One crisis at a time,” she muttered to herself. To Dustin, she said, “I’m sorry. We have our hands full here. It’s Max.” Her voice broke slightly on the name.
“But what about Eddie?” Dustin asked, pitch turning shrill. “I can’t leave him in there!”
“You’re going to have to!” Nancy said, “I’m sorry Dustin, but he’s gone. Maybe we can go back for him later.”
She shoved the walkie back into her belt, ignoring Dustin’s protests. She got down on the floor instead, feeling for Max’s pulse. Steve saw a tear glittering in Nancy’s eye and he put a hand on her shoulder. “You made the right call,” he said softly, “We have to focus on getting Max to a hospital.”
She nodded once, not answering. Together, Steve and Lucas lifted Max as gently as they could, being careful with her broken limbs. Nancy went in front of them, helping them navigate down the narrow stairs.
“Erica went to call an ambulance,” Lucas said as they descended. “Do you think they can still make it with the open gates?”
“I don’t see what choice we have,” Steve said, “The Winnebago’s back in the trailer park.”
Getting Max outside was tricky. The gate cut through the front door, so they had to lift her through a window. From the porch, everything was washed over with the sickly red glow emanating from the Upside Down. Steve tried not to look.
Eventually, Robin and Erica rejoined them, having called 911 from a payphone. Blessedly, the ambulance came not long after. The EMTs loaded Max in, Lucas following behind. With some convincing from Robin that he really needed to get his bites checked out by a professional and assurances from Nancy that she would make sure everyone got home okay, Steve got in too.
They didn’t keep him for long at the hospital, just long enough to make sure there was no infection and to bandage him up with something more sterile than Nancy’s sweater hem. They sent him home with some pills and the instructions to come back if they took a turn. As he left, more people kept pouring in. With four open gates, he guessed there wouldn’t be an empty bed at the hospital for a while.
Now Steve is home, watching all the remnants of the Upside Down swirl down his shower drain. He’s sobbing. He doesn’t even know which thing he’s crying about, Max’s comatose state or Lucas’ hollow expression or the pain in his sides and the way it reminds him that Eddie, the guy he was starting to feel like could be really important to him, is dead. Or maybe it’s the fact that after all of that, they didn’t even manage to kill Vecna. That son of a bitch is still out there, waiting for them.
Every awful thing mixes into one hellish cocktail that Steve chokes down.