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The ladder shouldn’t have been holding his weight. Steve knew that the moment his foot hit the third rung and the whole thing shuddered, ancient rust flaking off into the perpetual twilight of the Upside Down’s Hawkins Lab.
“Steve, wait-” Dustin’s voice cracked behind him, high and desperate in a way that made Steve pause.
He turned, one hand still gripping the ladder, and found Dustin staring up at him with eyes too bright, too wet. The kid- no, not a kid anymore, Steve had to remind himself, Dustin was seventeen now- looked terrified.
“Dude, I’m fine,” Steve said, forcing confidence into his voice. “I’ve done worse.”
“That’s the fucking problem!” Dustin’s voice broke completely. “You always try to get yourself killed, and I can’t let it happen again.”
Steve climbed down, boots hitting the spongy Upside Down ground with a squelch. “Dustin-”
“Stop being so selfish, please.” Dustin’s hands were shaking. “If you go up there, you’re gonna die, and I can’t deal with it again. You can’t die ‘cause I can’t deal with it again.”
The words hit Steve like a punch to the chest. All that anger over the past weeks- the fighting, Dustin pushing him away, the Eddie thing- it had never been about Eddie replacing him. It had been about Dustin being so goddamn terrified of losing someone else that he’d tried to push Steve away first.
“Hey,” Steve said softly, reaching out to grip Dustin’s shoulder. “Hey, I’m sorry. I didn’t- I got angry because I really missed you. I missed my best friend.”
Dustin’s face crumpled. “Yeah. I missed my best friend, too.”
They hugged them, Steve pulling Dustin close how he used to when Dustin was smaller, when the world’s problems could be fixed with ice cream and bad jokes. When Steve pulled back, he kept his hands on Dustin’s shoulders, making sure the kid was looking at him.
“You remember what you told me? Back at Starcourt?”
Dustin nodded, wiping his nose with his sleeve. “If you die, I die.”
“No ‘if’”, Steve said firmly. “You die, I die. That’s the deal. We’re both making it out of this, okay? Both of us.”
“You die, I die.” Dustin repeated, and it sounded less like a promise and more like a vow. Like something written in stone.
Steve clapped him on the back. “Then let’s make sure neither of us has to collect on that, yeah?”
Dustin managed a watery smile. “Yeah. Okay.”
They found another way up. They always did.
The radio tower loomed against the red-black sky three days later, lightning forking through dimensional rifts that tore reality apart like wet paper. Steve could hear Vecna’s voice echoing from everywhere and nowhere, could feel the vibration of the Abyss trying to claw its way into their world. The air tasted like copper and ozone, thick enough to choke on.
“Positions!” Hopper’s voice crackled through the walkie. “This is it!”
Steve was supposed to be with Robin and Nancy, providing cover fire while El did her thing. He was supposed to stay back, stay safe, stay alive. But then he saw Dustin, too far forward, heading toward a cluster of demo-bats with nothing but his nail-studded shield and that stupid Hellfire shirt he never took off anymore.
“Dustin, fall back!” Steve screamed into his walkie, but there was too much static, too much chaos, too much noise for the words to cut through.
A demo-bat dive-bombed from above. Dustin didn’t see it.
Steve ran. He didn’t think, didn’t calculate, just moved the way he always did when one of his kids was in danger. The bat’s tail whipped around, barbed and dripping, and Steve managed to shove Dustin aside, felt the sting across his ribs as the tail caught him instead.
“Steve!” Dustin stumbled, rolled, came up swinging. He got the bat across the head with his shield, sent it sprawling.
“I told you to fall back!” Steve wheezed, pressing a hand to his side. Blood, but not too much. He’d had worse.”
“I had it under control!” Dustin shot back, but his eyes were on Steve’s wound, wide and scared in that way that made Steve;s chest tight.
“Like hell you did-”
The ground shook. Both of them staggered, grabbing onto each other for balance. Through the dimensional rift above the tower, something massive moved, tentacles of pure darkness reaching through, and Steve realized with cold certainty that they were losing. El was screaming somewhere, Will was screaming, and the Abyss was coming through.
“We need to close it!” Dustin was shouting, pointing at the tower. “The frequency- if we can disrupt the frequency-”
He was already running. Of course he was running.
“Dustin, no!” Steve chased after him, ribs screaming in protest. “That’s a suicide run!”
“I’ts the only way!” Dustin was crying now, Steve could hear it in his voice, could see it in the way his shoulders shook. “Someone has to!”
They reached the base of the tower together. The air was thick with spores and ash and the smell of something burning that Steve couldn’t identify. Dustin was already pulling equipment from his pack, hands moving with desperate precision as he wired something together, the same way he’d done a thousand times before in his mom’s garage.
“Dustin, please-” Steve grabbed his arm, fingers digging in maybe too hard. “Please, let’s find another way.”
Dustin looked at him, and his face was so young and so old at the same time. Like he’d aged a decade in the past three days. “There isn’t one. You know there isn’t one”
And Steve did know. Had known from the moment they’d seen the tower, the moment they’d understood what needed to be done. But knowing didn’t make it easier.
“Then I’m coming with you-”
“No.” Dustin shoved the device into Steve’s hands, and Steve’s fingers closed around it automatically. “You’re going to set this off from down here, thirty seconds after I get to the top. That’s how long it’ll take me to rewire the transmitter.”
Steve’s hands were shaking so hard he almost dropped it. “Dustin-”
“You die, I die, remember?” Dustin smiled, and it was the saddest thing Steve had ever seen. The kind of smile that meant goodbye. “But not today. Today, you’re gonna live. You’re gonna be the guy who got the best ending, okay?” You’re gonna coach Little League and marry some nice girl and have six kids like you always wanted.”
“I don’t want that without you, you little shit-”
Dustin hugged him, quick and fierce, and Steve felt him trembling. “Thirty seconds. Promise me.” He was gone before Steve could stop him, climbing the tower with the kind of reckless speed that made Steve’s heart stop. Steve watched him go, the device heavy in his hands like an anchor, and knew he was supposed to press it. Knew that was the plan. Knew that was what would save everyone.
Twenty feet up. Thirty. Dustin reached the transmitter platform, nothing but a metal grating suspended in the air.
A screech split the air. Three demo-bats, coming in fast from the side, their wings blotting out the diseased sky.
Dustin saw them. Steve saw him see them. Watched Dustin make the calculation in real-time- try to fight them off, or finish the job.
Dustin chose the job. Of course he did. That’s who Dustin was. That’s who he’d always been.
His hands moved over the transmitter, rewiring, cutting, splicing, even as the demo-bats descended. One got him in the shoulder, dragged him back from the equipment. Dustin held on with one hand, kept working with the other. Blood splattered on the metal platform.
“No,” Steve breathed, and the word came out strangled. “No, no, no-”
The second bat got him in the back. Dustin’s scream echoed across the battlefield, and Steve felt it in his bones, felt something crack open in his chest.
Steve was already climbing. The device clattered to the ground, forgotten, useless. He climbed faster than he’d ever climbed anything, muscles burning, ribs splitting, didn’t matter, nothing mattered except getting to Dustin. His hands slipped on the rungs, slick with something he didn’t want to identify. He kept climbing.
“Hold on!” Steve screamed, voice breaking. “Dustin, hold on!”
He reached the platform just as Dustin connected the last wire with fingers that were barely working anymore. The tower hummed, frequency building, a sound that vibrated in Steve’s teeth. The dimensional rift above began to shrink, darkness recoiling like something burned.
The bats scattered, screeching. Dustin collapsed.
Steve caught him before he could hit the grating, dragged him back from the edge with his hands that wouldn’t stop shaking. There was so much blood. Too much blood. The bats had gotten him in the back, the shoulder, the neck- placed that no one should bleed from and still be conscious.
“No, no, hey, stay with me.” Steve pressed his hands over the worst wound, trying to stop the bleeding, but it kept coming, hot and slick between his fingers. “Dusty, come one, stay with me.”
Dustin’s eyes fluttered open, unforced. He smiled, blood on his teeth, and it was wrong, so wrong. “Did it work?”
Steve looked up through tears he hadn’t realized were falling. The rift was closing, the Abyss retreating, pulling back into whatever hell dimension it had come from. Vecna’s scream cut off mid-note, leaving only silence and smoke. In the distance, muffled by the ringing in his ears, he could hear cheering.
“Yeah,” Steve said, voice breaking into pieces. “Yeah, buddy, it worked. You did it. You saved everyone.”
“Good.” Dustin coughed, wet and rattling, and more blood came up. “Steve?”
“I’m here. I’m right here.” Steve cupped the back of Dustin’s head with one hand, fingers tangling in curls that were sticky with blood. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“You die, I die.” Dustin’s hand found Steve’s, squeezed weakly. His fingers were cold. Too cold. “But you’re not… you’re not gonna, okay? You’re gonna live.”
“We’re both gonna live,” Steve said desperately, even though he could feel Dustin slipping away, could feel the spaces between his breaths getting longer. “Just hold on, El can- someone can- we’ll get you down, we’ll fix this-”
But Dustin’s eyes were already glazing over, the light in them dimming like someone was turning off a switch. His grip loosened, fingers going slack in Steve’s hand.
“Dustin?” Steve’s voice cracked. “Dustin? No, come on, don’t- Dustin!”
He didn’t remember climbing down. Didn’t remember Robin and Hopper pulling him away from the body, his hands still covered in blood that was already starting to dry. Didn’t remember fighting them, screaming until his voice gave out, his throat raw and burning.
He remembered Dustin’s hand going cold in his.
He remembered the promise.
You die, I die.
The funeral was on a Tuesday, which felt wrong somehow. Tuesdays were for nothing important. Tuesdays were for homework and work shifts and picking up milk on the way home. Tuesdays weren’t for burying your best friend. Your little brother.
Steve stood at the grave in a suit that didn’t fit right anymore- he’d lost weight, though he couldn’t remember when or why- and listened to people talk about Dustin like they’d known him. Like they’d understood him. The priest used words like ‘hero’ and ‘sacrifice’ and ‘God’s plan’, and Steve wanted to tell him to shut up, that God’s plan was shit if it involved seventeen-year-olds dying on radio towers.
Mrs. Henderson sobbed into Hopper’s shoulder, her whole body shaking with it. The Party stood together, Mike and Lucas holding up Will and Max. El stared at the casket with empty eyes, guilt written across her face like she thought she should have done more. Robin held Steve’s hand so tight his fingers went numb, but he barely felt it.
Steve felt nothing. Or maybe he felt everything, all at once, so much that it flattened into a gray static that filled his head and made it hard to breathe. He wanted to scream. He wanted to dig into the earth with his bare hands and pull Dustin back out because this wasn’t right, this wasn’t how it was supposed to end, they’d made a deal-
“Steve.” Robin whispered. “They’re lowering him.”
Steve watched the casket descent into the ground, wood and metal and finality, and thought I should be in there too. The thought came clear and simple, like a solution to a math problem. You die, I die. Simple equation.
After, some people came to the Harrington house because it had become the unofficial gathering place, because Steve’s parents were never there and it was big enough for everyone to spread out their grief. Mrs. Henderson brought a casserole that sat untouched on the counter. Nancy brought flowers that Steve couldn’t look at. Jonathan brought beer that he and Steve sat on the couch and drank in silence, the television on but muted, casting flickering shadows across the room.
“It should’ve been me,” Steve said eventually, bottle dangling from his fingers. The words came out flat, matter-of-fact.
Jonathan looked at him with red-rimmed eyes. “Don’t”
“He had his whole life. College, and- and whatever genius shit he was gonna invent. He was gonna cure cancer or go to space or something. I’m nobody. I work at a stupid radio station. I barely graduated high school. I’m-”
“Steve-”
“It should’ve been me.” Steve stood abruptly, the room swaying. Or maybe he was swaying. Hard to tell. “I’m gonna- I need some air.”
He ended up in the backyard, staring at the pool. The water was still covered from winter, the tarp sagging with rainwater and dead leaves. His reflection stared back at him in the puddles, distorted and broken. Fitting.
Robin found him an hour later, or maybe it was three hours. Time was doing strange things, moving too fast and too slow at once.
“Hey,” she said softly, sitting beside him on the pool deck. Their feet dangled over the edge, not quite touching the covered water. “We’re worried about you.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine. Nobody’s fine. But Steve. You’re-” She paused, and when she spoke again her voice smaller. “You’re scaring us.”
He wanted to tell her that he was already gone. That the thing sitting here in his body was just going through the motions because it didn’t know what else to do. That he’d died on that tower with Dustin, and this was just the aftermath. The part where the body catches up to the brain.
Instead, he said “I’m fine, Rob. I just need time.”
She didn’t believe him. He could tell by the way she looked at him, the way she wouldn’t let go of his hand, squeezing tight enough to bruise.
“We all lost him,” Robin said carefully. “But Steve, we can’t lose you too.”
“You won’t,” Steve lied.
Three weeks passed, or maybe it was three years. Time had stopped making sense.
Steve stopped going to work after his boss called the second time, his voice tinny and irritated through the phone. “Harrington, if you’re not coming back, at least have the decency to tell me so I can hire someone else.” Steve had hung up without answering. The phone rang twice more that day. He unplugged it.
He started drinking the way his parents did- expensive scotch from the liquor cabinet, the bottles they wouldn’t miss because they were never here to miss them. It didn’t help him sleep, but it made the hours blur together, made it easier to forget that Dustin wasn’t going to call, wasn’t going to show up at his door at three in the morning demanding a ride or help with some project or just someone to talk to.
The house got messy in a way it never had before. Takeout containers piled up on the coffee table. Mail gathered by the door, unopened. Steve couldn’t remember the last time he’d showered, and when he looked in the mirror- which he tried not to do- he didn’t recognize the person staring back. Hollow-eyed and gaunt, hair hanging limp and unwashed. He looked like something already dead.
Robin came by every day. Sometimes she brought food that she’d leave on the counter, hoping he’d eat it. Sometimes she just sat with him in silence, the television playing infomercials neither of them watched. Steve knew he should appreciate it, should say something, should tell her he was grateful for her refusal to give up on him. But words felt impossible, like they belonged to a language he used to speak but had forgotten.
“You need to eat,” Robin said one afternoon, pushing a sandwich across the coffee table. Turkey and cheese. Dustin’s favorite.
Steve stared at it. The thought of food made his stomach turn.
“I’m not hungry.”
“You haven’t eaten in three days.” Robin’s voice was tight, controlled in a way that meant she was barely holding it together. “Steve, please. You’re wasting away.”
Three days. Had it been three days? Steve had lost track of time. Days bled into nights bled into days again, all of them gray and shapeless. It didn’t matter. None of it mattered.
“Steve, please.” Robin’s voice cracked. “Please, you’re scaring me.”
“I’m fine,” he said again, because it was easier than explaining that nothing would ever be fine again.
Robin grabbed his arm, pulled him toward the bathroom mirror with more force than he expected from her. “Look at yourself! Look!”
Steve looked. He looked like shit- cheeks hollow, dark circles so deep they looked like bruises, hair unwashed and hanging in his face. He looked like he was dying, which was funny because that’s exactly what he was doing. Just slowly. Quietly. Without anyone being able to stop it.
“I’ll do better,” he said, because that’s what Robin needed to hear. The lie came easily now, smooth as glass.
But he didn’t do better. He couldn’t.
Four weeks in, Mike showed up with Lucas and Will. Max came too, leaning on her cane, eyes still adjusting to the light after so long in darkness. They barged into the house like they owned it, Mike in the lead with his jaw set in that stubborn way that meant he wasn’t leaving without a fight.
“We’re having a party,” Mike announced, crossing his arms. “A Hellfire session. In Dustin’s honor.”
Steve blinked at them from the couch, bottle in hand. His hand. When had he picked it up? “That’s- that’s good. You guys should do that.”
“No, asshole, you’re coming too.” Lucas;s voice was firm but not unkind. “You’re part of this. Party of the Party.”
“I don’t play D&D-” Steve started, but the words felt hollow even as he said them.
“Dustin was teaching you,” Will said quietly, his voice barely above a whisper. “Remember? He was teaching you to play a bard.”
Steve did remember. Late nights at the kitchen table, Dustin explaining stats and character sheets with the kind of enthusiasm that made even boring things seem magical. Steve had been humoring him, mostly, but also genuinely interested in the way Dustin’s face lit up when he talked about the game. Dustin had been so excited, so patient, explaining things three and four times when Steve didn’t understand.
“Your character’s charisma score is through the roof,” Dustin had said, grinning. “You’re basically built to talk your way out of anything. Which, honestly, tracks.”
Steve;s eyes burned. He looked away, blinking hard.
“I can’t.”
“Steve-” Mike started, frustrated in that teenage way that meant he didn’t understand why adults made things so complicated.
“I said I can't!" Steve stood abruptly, the room spinning. He grabbed the arm of the couch to steady himself. “I can’t sit there and pretend like- like he’s just gonna walk through the door with pizza and start making fun of my dice rolls, okay? I can’t do it.”
The kids stared at him. Max’s expression shifted to something like understanding, which was worse than pity. She knew what this felt like, Steve realized. She’s lost Billy and even though it was complicated, even though Billy had been terrible in so many ways, he’d still been her brother. She knew what it was like to want to follow someone into the dark. “Okay,” she said softly, and it sounded like defeat. “Okay, Steve. But… we’re here, alright? Whenever you’re ready.”
They left. Steve went back to the couch. Back to the bottle. Back to the static in his head that was easier than thinking.
Six weeks in, Nancy came by with Jonathan.They brought groceries, cleaned the kitchen without asking, the sound of running water and clinking dishes almost normal. They made Steve eat half a bowl of soup while they watched him like he might disappear if they looked away.
“We could go somewhere,” Nancy suggested carefully, using that gentle voice she probably practiced for journalism interviews. “A drive, maybe. Get out of this house.”
Steve shook his head. Leaving the house meant facing the world. The world where Dustin didn’t exist anymore. Where people were moving on, getting over it, going back to their lives like nothing had changed when everything had changed.
“How are you sleeping?” Jonathan asked, and there was something in his voice that said he already knew the answer.
Steve laughed, hollow and bitter. “I’m not.”
That was true. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw it again. Dustin falling. The blood. The way his hand had gone cold, all the warmth draining out of it like someone unplugging a lamp. Steve had started drinking himself unconscious just to avoid the dreams, but even that didn’t always work. Sometimes he’d wake up gasping, reaching for someone who wasn’t there.
Nancy exchanged a look with Jonathan, the kind of silent communication that couples had. Steve remembered doing that once, remembered what it felt like to be that in sync with someone.
“Steve, maybe you should talk to someone,” Nancy said carefully. “A professional. Someone who can help-”
“I’m fine.”
“You keep saying that, but you’re not-”
“What do you want me to say?” Steve’s voice rose, cracking. “That I’m fucked up? That I wake up every morning and remember he’s dead and I wish I was too? Fine. There. I said it. Does that make you feel better?”
Nancy’s face went pale. Jonathan stood, hand up in a placating gesture like Steve was a wild animal that might bolt.
“Steve, we’re just trying to help-”
“I don’t want help! I want-” Steve’s voice broke completely. “I want him back. I want to go back to that tower and switch places. I want it to have been me.”
“It wasn’t you,” Nancy said firmly, but there were tears in her eyes now. “And Dustin wouldn’t want-”
“‘Don’t.” Steve’s hands were shaking so hard he had to clench them into fists. “Don’t tell me what Dustin would want. You don’t know. He- we had a deal.”
Nancy’s eyes filled with tears. “What deal?”
But Steve couldn’t say it out loud. Couldn’t explain that every breath felt like a betrayal, that he’s promised Dustin they’d both make it out, that the only reason he was still here was because he’d been too slow, too weak, too fucking useless to save the person who mattered most.
“I think you should go,” Steve said quietly.
They left. He drank.
Eight weeks in, Hopper showed up at ten at night, let himself in with the spare key he’d confiscated from Robin. Steve heard the door open but didn’t move from the couch. Didn’t care enough to be surprised or angry. Hopper could do whatever he wanted.
“Alright, kid, up.” Hopper pulled Steve off the couch with one hand, and Steve went without fighting because what was the point. Hopper steered him toward the kitchen, sat him down at the table. He made coffee- terrible, burnt coffee that tasted like it had been sitting on the burner for hours- and pushed a mug into Steve’s hands. Then he sat down across from him and waited.
Steve drank the coffee because it was easier than arguing. It tasted like ash and regret.
“Joyce and I are worried,” Hopped said finally. “Hell, everyone’s worried. You’re not answering calls. You’re not eating. Robin says you’re drinking yourself sick.”
“I’m handling it.”
“Like hell you are.” Hopper’s voice was rough but not unkind. “Kid, I know what grief looks like. I know what it looks like when someone’s drowning. And you’re drowning.”
Steve stared into his coffee mug. The surface was still, dark, reflective. “I don’t know how to do this.”
“Do what?”
“Be here. Without him.” Steve’s voice was barely a whisper, the words scraping out of his throat. “We had a deal, Hop. You die, I die. That was the deal.”
Hopper was quiet for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice was careful. “You think Dustin would want you to die for him?”
“I think Dustin died because I was supposed to press that button and I didn’t,” Steve said, and it was the first time he’d said it out loud. The confession sat heavy in the air between them. “I was supposed to trigger the frequency from the found and instead I dropped it and climbed up after him. By the time I got there, it was too late. He had to finish the job himself. If I’d just- if I’d stayed where I was supposed to be-”
“He’s be dead anyway,” Hopper cut in firmly. “Those bats would’ve gotten him either way. You didn’t kill him, Steve. Vecna did. The goddamn interdimensional hell dimension did. Not you.”
“Doesn’t feel that way.”
Hopper reached across the table, gripped Steve’s shoulder with one heavy hand. “Listen to me. You can’t think your way out of grief. Can’t drink your way out. Can’t die your way out. You just have to live through it. And I know that sounds like bullshit, because it is bullshit, but it’s the only option you’ve got.”
Steve wanted to believe him. Wanted to believe there was a way through this that didn’t end up with Steve in the ground next to Dustin. But the promise echoed in his head, over and over, a record skipping on the same line.
You die, I die.
“I’ll try,” Steve said, because Hopped needed to hear it.
Another lie to add to the collection.
Ten weeks after Dustin died, Joyce organized the intervention. Steve only found out about it when Robin showed up and refused to leave until he got in his car.
“Where are we going?”
“The Byers’ house. Don't argue.” Robin’s hands were tight on the steering wheel, knuckles white.
Steve was too tired to argue. He went.
Everyone was there. Joyce and Hopper. Robin and Nancy. Jonathan and Will. Mike, Lucas, Max and El. Even Mrs. Henderson, her eyes still red and swollen from crying that never seemed to stop. Even Erica, arms crossed, looking at Steve like she was disappointed in him. Like he’d failed some test he didn’t know he was taking.
They were all looking at him like that. Like he’d let them down.
“Sit down, honey,” Joyce said gently, guiding him to the couch with a hand on his elbow.
Steve sat. He felt like a specimen under glass, like something to be examined and diagnosed.
“We love you,” Joyce started, and Steve realized with dawning horror what this was. An intervention. Like he was an alcoholic. Like he was- “And we’re scared. We’re scared we’re going to lose you too.”
“We’re not gonna lose him,” Hopper said firmly, but he was looking at Steve with the same fear in his eyes. The kind of fear that meant he wasn’t sure.
“You’ve lost weight,” Mrs. Henderson said, voice thick with tears. Fresh tears, joining the ones that had already fallen. “You don’t answer your phone. Robin says you don’t sleep, you barely eat-”
“Steve, you’re killing yourself,” Robin interrupted, voice cracking like ice breaking. “Maybe not with a gun or pills, but you’re killing yourself, and we can’t- we can’t just watch it happen.”
“I’m fine,” Steve said automatically, the lie so practiced now it came without thought.
“Bullshit!” Mike’s voice was sharp enough to cut. “You’re not fine. None of us are fine. Dustin died and it fucking sucks and we’re all messed up about it, but you- you’re giving up.”
“Mike-” Nancy started, but Mike was already moving, his teenage anger spilling over.
“No! Someone has to say it!” Mike’s face was red, eyes bright with tears he wouldn’t let fall because he was too stubborn, too proud. “Dustin wouldn’t want this. He wouldn’t want you to- to waste away because of him.”
“You don’t know what he’d want,” Steve said, and his voice came out hollow and distant.
“I know he’d want his best frie- no- his big brother to fucking live!” Mike shouted, and his voice broke on the last word. “He looked up to you! He loved you! And you’re just- you’re throwing that away1”
“Mike, that’s enough,” Hopped said, standing up, but Mike wasn’t done.
“He died saving all of us, Steve. And if you kill yourself, you’re saying that didn’t matter. That his sacrifice didn’t matter.”
The words hit like a physical blow, like one of those demo-bats striking him in the chest. Steve stood abruptly, the room tilting, spinning, too small and too crowded.
“I need- I need air.”
He stumbled outside, and Robin was right behind him like she always was. She caught his arm before he could get to his car, before he could run away from this like he ran away from everything else.
“Steve, wait-”
“I can’t do this.” Steve pulled away, but she held on tighter. “I can’t sit in there and have everyone tell me how I’m supposed to feel. How I’m supposed to grieve. You don’t- none of you understand-”
“Then help us understand!” Robin grabbed his face with both hands, forced him to look at her. Her eyes were desperate, terrified. “Talk to me. Please. Tell me what’s going on in your head because I’m terrified, Steve. I’m terrified I’m going to get a phone call one day and you’ll be gone.”
Steve looked at his best friend- the person who knew him better than anyone, who’d been by his side through everything, who’d decoded Russian with him in a secret base and made fun of his taste in movies and held his hand through every nightmare- and thought about telling her. About the promise. About how every morning he woke up and remembered Dustin was dead and felt like a ghost, like he should be dead too. About how he’d been planning it. Had been thinking about it. The easiest way. The quietest way. The way that would hurt the least- not for him, but for everyone else.
“I’m just tired, Rob,” he said instead, and that at least was true. “I’m so fucking tired.”
Robin pulled him into a hug, and Steve let himself cry for the first time since the funeral. Huge, gasping sobs that made his whole body shake, that tore out of him like something living. Robin held him through it, her own tears soaking into his shirt.
“I know,” she whispered against his shoulder. “I know. But please don’t leave us. Please don’t leave me.”
“I’ll try,” Steve said into her hair.
The last lie.
Steve woke up on a Wednesday morning and felt calm for the first time in months.
The decision sat in his chest like a stone, heavy and solid and undeniable. It wasn’t dramatic. Wasn’t a sudden impulse. It was the logical conclusion to an equation he’d been solving since the day Dustin died. You die, I die. Simple math. Simple promise. The kind you don’t break.
He got up, took a shower, put on clean clothes. Jeans and his favorite t-shirt, the one Dustin had always said made him look like less of a douche. He went through the house room by room, cleaning up, throwing away the takeout containers and empty bottles. He washed the dishes, scrubbing them until they squeaked. Made the bed with hospital corners his mother had taught him. He vacuumed. He wanted to leave the house the way his parents would expect to find it. Wanted them to think he’d been getting better.
Then he sat down at the kitchen table with a pen and paper and wrote letters. His handwriting was shaky, unpracticed, but legible.
To Robin: I’m sorry. You’re the best friend I ever had. You made everything better just by existing. Please don’t blame yourself. There’s nothing you could have done. Live your life. Be happy. Find a nice girl and be brave enough to tell her how you feel. I love you. I’m sorry I wasn’t strong enough.
To Mrs. Henderson: Thank you for sharing Dustin with me. He was the best person I ever knew, and being his friend was the greatest honor of my life. I’m sorry I couldn’t protect him. I’m sorry I couldn’t stay. Please know that he died a hero, and that he saved all of us. I hope that brings you some peace. I’m sorry I couldn’t find any.
To the Party: Take care of each other. Keep playing D&D. Keep being the kind of brave that saved the world. Remember Dustin in the way he deserves- with laughter and stupid jokes and campaigns that go on too long. I’m proud of all of you. I’m sorry I couldn’t be stronger.
To Nancy: You were my first love, and that will always mean something. Thank you for seeing something worth saving in me, even back when I was an asshole. Be happy with Jonathan. You deserve it. You deserve everything good.
To Hopper and Joyce: Thank you for trying. Thank you for caring about me when you didn’t have to. I’m sorry I wasn’t strong enough. Take care of the kids. They need you more than they’ll admit.
He put the letters in envelopes, left them on the kitchen counter weighted down with his car keys. The keys caught the afternoon light, glinting. Someone would find them. Someone would understand.
Then he went upstairs to his room, pulled out the bottle of pills he’d been saving- prescription painkillers from after Starcourt, strong enough to do the job- and the bottle of his father’s best whiskey. The expensive stuff, aged and smooth. If he was going to do this, he might as well do it right.
He sat on his bed and stared at them for a long moment.
Thought about Dustin. About the promise. About how Dustin had smiled at him with blood on his teeth and told him to live. Had made him promise to live, to have the good ending, to be happy. But Steve had never been good at following orders. Had never been good at doing what he was supposed to do.
The thing was, Steve had been drowning since the moment Dustin died. Drowning in grief that sat like concrete in his lungs, making every breath hurt. And he was tired of fighting the current. Tired of everyone expecting him to be okay. Tired of the grief that sat like a stone in his chest and made it impossible to feel anything else.
Dustin had died a hero. Steve was just going to die.
That seemed fair.
He thought about calling Robin one last time. Thought about waiting to say goodbye properly. But that felt cruel. She’d try to stop him. They all would. And Steve didn’t want to be stopped. He’d made his decision. It was the only decision that made sense anymore.
He wanted to stop hurting.
He poured a glass of whiskey, the sound of liquid hitting glass too loud in the quiet room. Opened the pill bottle. Poured the pills into his hand- white and round and so mundane for something so final. They looked like candy. Like something harmless.
The sun was setting. Golden light slanted through his window, dust motes dancing in the beam like tiny stars. It was the kind of evening Dustin would have loved- perfect for stargazing, perfect for sitting on the roof and talking about anything and everything. About DnD campaigns and Star Wars and the new comic books coming out next month. About nothing and everything.
Steve wished Dustin was here. Wished he could see him one more time, tell him one more stupid joke, hear him laugh that bright, dorky laugh that made everything seem better.
But Dustin wasn’t here. Dustin would never be here again.
Steve raised the glass. The whiskey caught the light, amber and gold.
“You die, I die,” he whispered to the empty room. “I’m keeping my promise buddy.”
The pills were bitter on his tongue. The whiskey burned going down, familiar and warm. He took more pills. More whiskey. Methodical. Efficient. The way Dustin would have approached a problem- with logic and precision.
His vision started to blur at the edges. The room tilted gently, like a ship on calm water. Steve lay back on his bed, staring at the ceiling. The same ceiling he’d stared at a thousand times before, counting the cracks, tracing patterns in the paint.
He thought about Dustin climbing that tower. Thought about the promise they’d made. Thought about how Dustin had died saving the world, and how Steve was dying because he couldn’t live in it anymore.
The room was getting darker. Or maybe his eyes were closing. Hard to tell.
The last thing Steve thought, before everything went to black, was that maybe now he’d see Dustin again.
Maybe death wasn’t an ending. Maybe it was just another door.
Maybe Dustin would be waiting on the other side.
The funeral was on a Tuesday.
Robin stood at the grave in a black dress she’d borrowed from Nancy because she’d never owned one and never thought she’d need to, and listened to the priest talk about God’s plan and better places and all the hollow platitudes that meant nothing. Nothing meant anything anyway. The words washed over her like static, like noise without meaning.
She’d found him. Of course she had. She’d had a bad feeling all day, that sick certainty in her stomach that something was wrong. She’d driven over to check on him, had let herself in with her spare key, had called his name as she climbed the stairs.
She’d found him in his bed, too still, too pale, the bottles on the nightstand telling the whole story. The letters on the kitchen counter, her name on one of them in Steve’s messy handwriting.
She’d screamed. Had called 911. Had done CPR even though she knew, had known the moment she saw him, that it was too late. His skin had been cold. Not the warmth-leaving cold of something recent, but the deep cold of something that had been gone for hours.
The paramedics had said it was quick. Peaceful. Like that mattered. Like that made it better. Like there was any way to make this better.
Mrs. Henderson sobbed beside her, leaning on Hopper like he was the only thing keeping her upright. She’d lost her son and now she’d lost the boy who’d been like a second son. The boy who’d loved Dustin like a brother. The Party stood together again, all of them broken now, all of them understanding what Max had tried to tell them after Billy died- that sometimes people don’t want to be saved. That sometimes the pain is too big and the world is too heavy and there’s no amount of love that can fix it.
Mike’s face was streaked with tears he wasn’t trying to hide anymore. Lucas has his arm around Will, both of them shaking. Max stared at the grave with an expression Robin recognized- guilt and understanding and the terrible knowledge that she could have ended up here too, if things had gone differently.
El stood apart from the others, face blank in that way that meant she was feeling too much to show. Nancy cried quietly into Jonathan’s shoulder. Erica- tough, shark Erica- looked small and lost.
There were two graves now, side by side. Fresh earth on both, still dark and raw. The headstones were simply, matching white marble:
DUSTIN HENDERSON
1969 - 1987
Beloved son, friend, brother
STEVE HARRINGTON
1964 - 1987
Beloved friend, brother
Robin stared at those words until they blurred, until she couldn’t tell if it was tears or the sun in her eyes. She wanted to be angry. Wanted to scream at Steve for leaving them, for breaking his promise to keep fighting, for choosing death over staying with the people who loved him.
But mostly she just hurt. A deep, aching hurt that sat in her chest and made it hard to breathe. The kind of hurt that didn’t have an end date, that she’d carry with her for the rest of her life.
“He really loved him,” Nancy said softly, appearing beside her.
“Yeah,” Robin managed, her voice cracking. “He did.”
“Too much, maybe.”
Robin shook her head. “No. Not too much. Just-” She gestured helplessly at the graves. “Just this much.”
The priest finished talking. People began to drift away, back to their cars, back to their lives. But Robin stayed, rooted to the spot, staring at the graves of her two friends who’d loved each other so much that one couldn’t exist without the other.
“I’m so angry at you,” she whispered, not sure which grave she was talking to. Maybe both. “Both of you. For leaving us. For thinking this was the answer.”
The graves didn’t respond. The dead never did.
Robin wiped her eyes, squared her shoulders, and forced herself to walk away. She had to keep living. For both of them. Someone had to remember them, to tell their story, to make sure the world knew that Steve Harrington had loved a kid named Dustin Henderson so much that he couldn’t survive losing him.
It was a tragedy.
But it was also, in its own broken way, a kind of platonic love story. The kind that doesn’t have a happy ending. The kind that ends with two graves side by side and a promise kept.
Behind her, the sun set on the graves, casting long shadows across the fresh earth. Two names carved in marble. Two lives ended too soon. Two people who’d promised each other: You die, I die.
Together, even in death.
Just like they’d promised.