Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

The first thing Eddie does after his boyfriend pulls him out of Hell is tilt his chin and gape at the top of the quarry. 

That’s not true. 

The first thing Eddie does after his boyfriend pulls him out of Hell is turn back around, stick his hand through the rapidly closing portal, and drag Nancy Wheeler onto the non-hell side of the quarry’s lake bed. Beside him, Steve, Eddie’s aforementioned boyfriend, hauls out Nancy’s girlfriend and Steve’s platonic life partner, Robin.   

The portal, created by a homemade nuclear reactor, gamma rays, and an astronomical amount of nitroglycerin, fizzles closed like lighting - blinding, hair-raising, ozone-smelling. It snaps shut fast enough that Robin isn’t fully out, the edge of her shoe melting into Hell. This might be a metaphor, but Eddie’s never been one to listen to the Universe’s homophobia. 

Robin’s striped sock pokes through the gooey hole in her Converse. “Holy shit,” she screeches, windmilling her arms as Steve lets her go in shock. She lands on the rock, staring at empty air.  

Dustin, the first out and the farthest away, startles where he stands at the rim of the lake, turning toward them. His heel slips into the water. Eddie blindly searches for Steve’s hand. Steve’s hand searches back, their fingers intertwining. 

And Eddie squeezes. Tilts his chin. And gapes at the top of the quarry. 

Thinks, ‘Fuck me, I have to climb that,’ because he’s made it out of Orodruin but he hasn’t cleared Mordor. And Dustin, inventor of the most bastardized particle accelerator known to man, has not pod-grown giant, magical eagles. So Eddie, and Eddie’s toothpick arms, will be hauling ass up the side of the quarry. And into the forest. And back to Hawkins. 

So, really, he’s never making it out of Mordor. Indiana is all nine circles of hell smushed down and disguised as corn. And soybeans. And Reagan signs. 

Bright sun rays glare off the bedrock, stabbing Eddie in the retinas. The Upside Down was dark, impossibly always dusk. But Eddie can feel the sun on his skin, warm where everything else is cold. Really cold - Eddie has goosebumps. The Hell portal’s lighting strike energy vanished into the nether - or the crumbling infrastructure of the Upside Down, Eddie’s not a physicist, he just does math - and now Eddie’s fucking freezing. 

Which, weird. By Eddie’s potato calculator calculations, they should have returned exactly when they left. But that’s Midwest March, Eddie supposes. Warm one second, snowing the next. 

Steve’s hand is hot, his fingers soft. Actually, Eddie can’t feel any of Steve’s hard-earned calluses. Can’t feel his own calluses. But that’s fine. Eddie is exhausted, his mind is playing tricks. And all he wants is to climb the cliff, and take a shower, and eat food not from a can. To cuddle into a bed that doesn’t smell like Henry Creel’s dead, musty ass crack with his boyfriend, his best-lesbian-friends, and his adopted-tiny-genius-child. 

If their candle clock worked, they have been trapped in the Upside Down for five long months. Getting out was a team effort. Nights spent reading grimy library books, talking mind-blowing theory, and stealing million-dollar lab equipment. 

 Dustin focused on the physics and schematics for their universe-punching-giant-fuck-off-machine. Or, in layman’s terms, their particle accelerator. Eddie did the math, solved Dustin’s headache-inducing algorithms, and, like, made sure the pneumatics, like, pneumatized. Nancy kept their schedule, handwritten and hand highlighted. She did their chore charts, too, like a badass. And Steve and Robin built everything. Hefted all of Dustin’s fancy (stolen) materials and glued them together. Or screwed them together. Or stapled? Nancy handled the building oversight, too. 

Eddie just did the math. Math Dustin set up. That’s it. He’s not liable - at all. 

Not liable. And he wants that to be clear, because Steve’s missing his calluses, and Eddie’s hair only falls to his shoulders while Robin’s falls down her back. And Nancy has on Steve’s letterman jacket. And Steve is wearing a basketball uniform (which, he’s fucking rocking). And, oddly, Dustin is in a pink bathrobe. And Eddie’s got on an undershirt and hole-filled sweatpants, instead of a navy blue t-shirt he’s pretty sure Steve stole from Ted Wheeler’s Upside Down closet. 

So, they’ve all changed - physically. Metaphorically, too. Eddie’s made strides - really. Getting stuck in a man-made parallel universe for several months, living off dying land, befriending two terrifying women, adopting a brat, and getting a boyfriend does wonders for the self. But also, like, Eddie’s been through some shit, okay, hell has been a time and a half. But he is pretty sure they were all in fucking make-shift tactical gear when they nitro-atomic-blasted the Upside Down into submission. 

A cold wind whips through the trees, tunneling into the quarry. The four older teens move closer, standing shoulder to shoulder on the slick, mossy bedrock. 

Dustin tenses, turns around, and drops his backpack off his shoulders. “Shit, shit, shit,” he whispers, crouching down to unzip the main pocket and riffle through their folders full of notes. He has on spaceship slippers. “Shit, shit, shit.” Dustin pulls out their schematics notebooks. 

“Hey, Shithead?” Steve says though he sounds less accusing and more tired. “What did you do wrong?” 

Dustin waves his open, blue composition book in dramatic objection. “Don’t look at me!” he shouts. “Eddie did the math!” It is their quantum mechanic notebook. 

“Oh, absolutely not, Rabbit Boy.” Eddie takes a step forward in indignation, but Steve’s hand pulls him back. “I solved your equations. Whatever we messed up-” Eddie pauses. 

See, Dustin made the algorithms, and Eddie plugged in the numbers, and Nancy proofed everything ten times over. They made contingency plans, and double-checked their double-checks, and thought of every possible solution to problems like the Grandfather - oh. Oh, fuck. 

“Oh, fuck,” Eddie says. 

Dustin’s hand stills, page open to his and Eddie’s multiverse equations. “Oh, fuck,” Dustin echoes. “We’re back at the beginning.” 

—

Barbara Holland’s day has been weird.

Over breakfast, her mother informed her that, overnight, Hawkins’ Lab burned to the ground. The staff got out safely, minus a few leading figures such as the Lab Director, Dr. Brenner. “A true tragedy,” Marsha Holland said, halfway through her marmalade toast, “to lose all that science.” 

At the time, Barb agreed, but then she arrived at school and learned the lab was conducting child experimentation, and one of the older child experiments worked as staff, and he’d apparently gone on a murder spree across the child experiment ward. And killed Dr. Brenner. And now the Feds were here? In Hawkins?   

So, yes, Barb’s day has been weird. 

However, Barb’s day did not become truly batshit until Steve Harrington collapsed beside Nancy Wheeler (Barb’s best friend, Nancy Wheeler) at lunch, sliding his steel lunch box into Barb’s like this was normal. Like the basketball boys were not glaring daggers at her and Nancy. Like Steve Harrington usually sat with his conquests. 

“Ugh,” he groans, dropping his right arm on the table and resting his head on the crook of his elbow. He lists toward Nancy, curving into her side. And he sounds petulant. He sounds like he’s pouting. Which is uncanny really, because Steve “the Hair'' Harrington never pouts. “You were right.” 

Nancy bears Steve’s weight. Doesn’t blink. She adjusts her fork grip, spears into her potato salad, and grins, smug and proud. “I told you.”  

“I know, Nance,” the nickname rolls off Steve Harrington’s tongue, fond and familiar, “but Tommy Hagen? Come on. There’s no way he -.” 

Nancy’s grin turns sharper. She looks alive in a way Barb’s never seen. All barbed wire instead of rounded edges. “The way he used to look at you, Steve. You must have noticed?” 

“Stop,” Steve whines, head still buried into his arm. “I don’t want it. Take it back.” 

And then Nancy, Barb’s best friend, One-Track Toward Academia Nancy, pets King Steve’s hair. Ruffles it, even. And Steve Harrington lets her - leans into it. 

Barb has to pinch herself. 

Nancy and Steve have been dating for a little over a week. This closeness is odd, would be odd no matter what. But what makes it truly mind-boggling is that Steve Harrington has a reputation. He has rules - or other people have created rules out of his habits. Things like not sitting with the women he wants to fuck at lunch, and not having real, human feelings, and not letting people touch all up on him. 

Yet, here is Steve Harrington, sitting with Nancy (and Barb, not that he’s looking at her), whining like a child, and going all gooey under Nancy’s hair pets. 

“How was this morning?” Nancy says, like she and Steve talk. 

Steve turns his head, resting his cheek against his forearm to gaze at Nancy. “Dropped a confused little telekinetic at the house of a confused police chief.” 

A tiny frown graces Nancy’s lips, a fork full of potato salad hovering halfway to her mouth. “Did you explain anything? Because the Spooks can’t catch on.” 

“No.” Steve is looking at Nancy like she holds the stars. It’s unsettling. “Well, no, unless you count Ed putting a bow on her head. We wrote a note, too. It said, ‘Merry Early Christmas. From one and a half of Hawkins’ two Jewish kids.’ Which, now that I think about it, is a massive giveaway.” 

“No, actually, that’s decently inconspicuous.” At Steve’s questioning hum, Nancy continues, “Your father has pretty much erased being Jewish from his senatorial campaign.” 

Steve hums again, cheek squished against his bicep unflatteringly, and looks at Nancy through his hair. “He didn’t erase it, that’s his major selling point for Democratic constituents. Like, that and the one time he said unions were, and I quote, ‘okay.’ He just mentions being Irish so damn much everyone bumble beed themselves into thinking we’re Catholic.”  

“Bumble bee - oh. Okay. Well, one and a half out of two?” 

Steve seems to be able to read Nancy’s mind because he answers her question with a succinct, “Ed and Robs are half Jewish. A half plus a half equals a whole. That’s why I think our note was pretty obvious.”  

“Idiot,” Nancy says, pulling on King Steve’s hair. “I think it’s fine. Not your best work, but not life-threatening.” She sounds more fond than angry. Mostly, Barb is horrified that Nancy is pulling. On. Steve’s. Hair. 

Steve narrows his eyes, pouting, again, at Nancy, but he makes no attempt to shake her off. Simply says, “Stop. I only like it when Ed does that shit.” 

Nancy gives one more yank to his bangs and lets go. She starts back in on her potato salad. Steve continues staring at Nancy. Neither of them looks at Barb. 

The Steve Harrington charm does not extend to her, this Barb knows. And that’s fine, completely fine, because Barb does not want Steve Harrington to look at her. Does not want Steve Harrington to interact with her in any way. However, Nancy avoiding Barb? That stings. 

Nancy pulls at Steve’s lunch box, still not looking at Barb, while saying, in a complete turnaround, “How is Will?” 

Steve Harrington - notorious keg stand champ and man who can not take things seriously - sobers. 

Barb hates it. A lot. And she desperately wants Steve Harrington to leave. Leave all of them alone. 

Steve, however, does not leave. 

“Good. Ed, Dust, and I caught him on his way home, and he spent the night with Dustin. And Robs filled me in on the whole-.” He makes explosion noises, the hand not being crushed by his big head mimes blowing up. “And the-” the hand turns into a finger gun, which he shoots, “to the-” his fingers shift through several motions rapidly before Steve sighs, slapping his palm against the table in defeat. “I don’t know how to - the two balls and a stick, or whatever. Which, nice touch. Much deserved. Anyway, how’s Mike?” Steve says. Which, what the fuck? 

What the actual fuck? Barb has never sat through a more overwhelmingly odd conversation in her life. And they still won’t look at her. It’s like she’s not even here. 

Nancy sighs, blowing an errant curl out of her eye before rearranging her small lips into a grimace. “Twelve,” she says, and Steve Harrington groans. 

— 

The lab blowing up added an odd touch to Gareth’s Monday, but that was fine. The rest of his day turned out pretty uneventful. Geometry was boring, his AP Psychology independent study in the library was quiet, and his mom was out when he got home, a half-empty bottle of vodka left in her place. 

Gareth’s Tuesday, however, was weird. On Monday, Eddie hadn’t shown, not to lunch at least, which, normal. Eddie comes and goes like the wind. But he was here today, herded Gareth from his locker into the lunch room, even. And that, Gareth liked that. 

Eddie Munson is a whirlwind of a human being, even though Gareth knows he’s been going through something. Because Jeff tells Gareth that Eddie used to be more into other stuff, non-DnD stuff, like homework and not getting expelled for truancy. But Gareth only knows this Eddie. He likes this Eddie. 

They’d met on Gareth’s first day of high school, Eddie folding Gareth into his group of sheep with little hesitation. He introduced Gareth to Hellfire and let Gareth into Corroded Coffin, and told Gareth he was welcome at his trailer anytime. Which. No one has ever given Gareth blatant permission to crash into their life before. 

So, Gareth likes Eddie. Loves him like an older brother or something, which might be lame because Gareth’s only known Eddie for a good two months. But he feels a kinship with Eddie. Feels like Eddie lets Gareth see the deeper parts of himself - the parts behind his Freak persona. Which is why Gareth’s Tuesday is weird. 

On Tuesday, November 8th Eddie plops down by Gareth and across from Jeff and Grant - like normal. Starts eating his bagged lunch - like normal. Makes a face at the fruit cup he hates but always packs - like normal. And turns to smile at a girl - not normal. 

So, so, not normal. 

Here’s the thing, Gareth pays attention when Eddie talks. Gareth is observant by nature, it comes with having an alcoholic single mom and a heavy-handed father. Comes with looking like bully fodder. Gareth notices things. 

And not once has Eddie talked about women. 

Gareth sort of thought Eddie was like him - not interested. Or maybe Eddie liked men. Which, that’s a valid secret - Gareth wouldn’t tell anyone, either. Not in Indiana. He sees news stories about police raids at bars in Indianapolis. About missing boys and girls. There’s a reason Gareth pretends to be normal, pretended to be normal even when he lived in New York. 

Still, Gareth notices. And Gareth assumes. And Gareth was wrong, because here is Eddie, on this random ass Tuesday in November, smiling at a pretty girl right in front of Gareth’s soggy fucking salad. 

And the girl, Robin Buckley from Gareth’s gym class, is smiling back. Walking over to them. Sliding into the space Eddie booty bumps Gareth over to make. 

 “What’s up, Monster Fuckers?” She says with a grin. A suspicious grin - a fire starter grin. She’s holding a toasted peanut butter and jelly sandwich in one hand and a water bottle in the other. 

Eddie blinks rapidly in offense. “Toucan.” His voice is mockingly patient. “How many times? Dungeons and Dragons is not tabletop erotica. It is a game of adventure, and math, and -” 

“Monster fucking?” Robin says around a mouth full of peanut butter. 

So, Eddie has a girlfriend now. That was not on Gareth’s bingo card, but okay. He can deal with this. If Eddie likes Robin, Gareth can like Robin, too. 

And she’s pretty. He can see why Eddie would date her or something. Are they dating? Gareth’s never heard Eddie mention any form of woman - Dolly Parton excluded - but if Robin is sitting with them, they must be dating. That is high school relationship rule number four. 

But still, it’s weird. 

“Hi, Buckley,” Jeff says. He gives an awkward wiggle wave. 

Grant stares at Robin like she might be a mirage. Which, not super reassuring. Gareth’s pretty sure Grant hot-boxed the second-floor bathroom instead of going to his third-period World History, though, so, there’s a good chance Robin is real. Mostly because Gareth did go to his third-period World History. 

Or, maybe, Robin is a mass hallucination. Could be the general smell of cafeteria broccoli has finally induced madness. 

“Hi, Jeff! Good to see you outside of the old windowless orchestra classroom.” Robin is funny. Nice. Friendly, even. 

Good to know. 

Eddie likes friendly people. Women people. Friendly women people. 

“I, uh,” Jeff has joined Grant in his bewildered stare. Which, again, not super reassuring. “I, uh, like what you’ve done with your hair?” 

Gareth bends over his lunch tray to see. Robin looks the same as she did yesterday in seventh-period gym: gangly limbs, awkward posture, too big clothes. But her once long hair now stops at her chin. Her ends are messy instead of neatly bobbed. She looks very queercore. Very non-conformist. 

Eddie eats non-conformity for breakfast. Or possibly dinner? Either way, Eddie eats non-conformity…and pussy, evidently. 

Momentarily, Gareth thinks about complimenting Robin on her new look. Luckily, Eddie yanks on her fringe, cutting off Gareth’s momentum with a, “Looks good, Parakeet. Really fits your aesthetic.” 

“Stevie did it,” Robin says with another fire starter grin. “In the dark. At four in the morning over Claudia Henderson’s kitchen sink. With a pair of squiggly craft scissors. Claudia did not know we were in her house.” 

Eddie runs his fingers over the uneven edges. “Like I said, really fits your aesthetic.” 

Robin winks. Eddie laughs. And Gareth thinks, okay. Sure. Eddie Munson and Robin Buckley. Freaks and Geeks, or whatever it is the jocks call them. 

That works. It’s very progressively heterosexual of them. Gareth can get behind this, even if it is weird. 

Really, really weird. 

Because up until Tuesday, Gareth didn’t think those two knew each other. 

— 

 On Tuesday, Steve Harrington gets to lunch before Nancy. Barb and Nancy have different third periods on Tuesdays and Thursdays: Calculus One for Barb and Algebra Two for Nancy. This means Barb, whose Calculus class is exactly 700 steps from the cafeteria, arrives at lunch five minutes before Nancy. This means that Steve, who has, like, fucking third-period freshmen English or something embarrassing, sits with Barb in complete silence for three minutes. 

When Nancy arrives, Steve waves her over, as if Barb and Nancy have not sat at the same table for a year and a half. As if Nancy could get lost. 

“Christ,” Barb mutters to her cafeteria pizza. She forgot to pack lunch that morning, distracted with thoughts about Steve Harrington and Nancy Wheeler. About their canoodling. About how much Barb hates their canoodling. 

(About how much Barb wishes it was her Nancy was canoodling.) 

Steve beams at Nancy - it’s disgusting. “Did you see it?” His voice is filled with delight. 

“Did I see it?” Nancy says, sly and conspiratorial. Barb is lost. Nancy sounds beside herself. “Did I see it? Steve Harrington, I saw.” 

“It’s good, right?” Steve is grinning. The unaltruistic joy looks odd on his preppy little bitch boy face. 

Nancy places her lunch box neatly beside Steve’s, sitting next to him and ignoring Barb. She rests her chin on Steve’s shoulder, pops one of his grapes into her mouth, and says, “I didn’t even know you could do hair,” with a smack to Steve’s chest. “You should have done Jon’s, spared him the bowl. It looks great, honestly, Steve.” 

“I know.” Steve’s eyes gleam. “And I did it with craft scissors, Nance. In the dark.” 

And Barb doesn’t know what the hell Nancy and Steve are talking about, but anyone who gives Steve Harrington scissors and responsibility is a fool. 

On Wednesday, Steve and Nancy walk into the cafeteria hand in hand. They spend the whole period talking about Mike fucking Wheeler, the little shit. Good lord. 

And Barb didn’t even know Steve knew Mike. Nancy used to tell her everything, but in comes Steve Harrington and - what? Friendship down the drain? In two weeks, Nancy pogostuck from the quiet girl next door to Steve Harrington’s future wife. Like it was nothing. 

Not that Barb is mad. She’s happy for her friend. And her friend’s love life. With Steve ‘King of His Own Asshole’ Harrington. 

It’s just, Steve’s at lunch on Thursday, and Friday, and he magically appears during Barb and Nancy’s twice-monthly sleepover Saturday night. And stays. Even though he was not invited. 

In fact, Barb clearly remembers that, in eighth grade, she and Nancy wrote in their official Sleepover Rules that Steve Harrington was banned from twice-monthly sleepovers. Forever. Because he had cooties. 

But here is Steve Harrington, reading Nancy’s Cosmo and making Barb’s nose itch with his pine and vanilla cologne. Or deodorant. Or natural man order. Or fucking cooties. 

Nancy and Barb have been best friends for going on four years now. She knows Nancy, really knows her. And Nancy is sweet, and gentle, and kind. She has goals no one else knows. Goals to be something, to get out of this town and find intellectuals. And Barb is supposed to go with her. Nancy and Barb forever. Dream team. 

Except Nancy, for the last several days, has not been what Barb remembers. Because the Nancy at lunch with Steve, the Nancy watching Steve read an article about winter tones, that Nancy is spikes. She’s a raspberry bush - lovely berries and harsh thorns. She is not quiet about her goals, or her dreams, or her opinions. She tells Steve exactly what she wants. Exactly how she is going to get it. And Steve just, fucking, rolls over. Acts like he’s not Steve “My Dad is a Red State Senator” Harrington. 

It’s inconceivable. It’s weird. And Barb hates him. She really, fucking hates him. 

— 

Robin keeps coming back. And, look, Gareth is happy for his friend, he is. He promises. He just wishes every lunchtime conversation between Robin and Eddie didn’t give him physical and emotional whiplash. 

On Wednesday, right after the late bell rings, Robin plasters herself against Eddie’s side, somehow already halfway through her sandwich. “I can’t believe we don’t have the same lunch bell,” she says, even though they do have the same lunch bell. She’s literally sitting with them at their same lunch bell. 

Eddie is not deterred. “I know,” he groans with his entire body. It jostles Robin’s chin, which she’s laid on Eddie’s shoulder, chewing directly into his ear. 

Gross. 

“It’s probably for the best because of the -” Robin makes circles with her thumb and pointer finger, holding them to her eyes like sunglasses, “snooping around with their -” she makes a handgun and holds it to her temple. “And like, I think Nance could take a couple of Spooks, but Stevie -” 

“I know, I know. ‘Tis for the best, especially after the -,” Eddie mimes an explosion, using both arms and several vocal intonations, “at the-” he makes a sort of house-shaped triangle above his head that shifts into a square like the house is a cement building instead. The movement leaves Robin’s chin bereft of a home, so she lets Eddie finish before wrapping her arms around his shoulders. Eddie starts hand-feeding her his pretzels. It’s disgusting. “‘Tis for the best that we have different feasting periods. Like Rosaline and Dario, we must bite thumbs and be inconspicuous.” 

Robin nods sagely, even though that’s not how Gareth remembers Romeo and Juliet. “You and I are the most inconspicuous. Could not be more inconspicuous.” 

“Damn straight, Bush Warbler.” Eddie’s attempt to throw his hands up in agreement is thwarted by Robin’s prolonged hug. He does not seem bothered, even though last week, when Jeff shoulder-bumped him accidentally during a rant, Eddie monologued about stifling his self-expression for an hour. “Still think we should’ve bought the hats, though. Nothing says, ‘we’re blending in’ like a hat.” 

“The hats were a good idea. I voted for the hats.” 

“I voted for the hats, too. And so did Stevie.” 

“Wait, wait, if you voted for the hats, and Stevie voted for the hats, and I voted for the hats, and it was Dusty-bun-bun’s idea, does that mean -” 

Robin and Eddie look at each other, eyes wide with what Gareth thinks might be betrayal, and say, in sync, “Nance.”  

On Thursday, Eddie and Robin show up together, arms linked at the elbow. They walk like some sort of eight-legged horse - uncoordinated but thoroughly determined. Between bites of food, another sandwich for Robin and pretzels with a fruit cup for Eddie, they do some odd mating ritual where they slap each other’s hands. It looks painful. And confusing. 

Gareth feels like David Attenborough. 

“What are you doing?” Jeff says when the mating ritual gets out of hand. Eddie’s rings are caught in Robin’s hair, and Robin’s finger is, horrifyingly, up Eddie’s nose. 

Behold, Gareth thinks, the complexities of heterosexual courtship. He does not say this out loud. Not today. He is not opening that can of worms today. 

Once again, Robin and Eddie meet eyes, connecting at the metaphysical level to say, conjointly, “Secret handshake,” shrugging nonchalantly. 

Because, sure, that makes sense. Except for the fact that Gareth’s never seen a secret handshake that involves hair loss by spider ring or mutual fucking nose picking. 

On Friday, Robin comes to lunch first. She sits down, smiles pleasantly if not awkwardly at Hellfire, and proceeds to eat her peanut butter and jelly sandwich in seven large bites. When she finishes, she stares, practically unblinkingly, at Gareth and his friends, making no remarks. 

Eddie rushes into the cafeteria fifteen minutes later, carrying, for some reason, a diorama of the planets. The diorama meets a tragic end when Eddie tosses it carelessly next to Robin’s lunch box as he drops into his usual spot, draping himself over the lunch table and banging his head against the laminate. 

“This is the worst thing that’s ever happened to me,” he moans, high-pitched and full of emotion. 

Robin raises an eyebrow, patting Eddie’s frizzy hair like a child might pat a snake. “This?” she says with enough incredulity to fill a gas tank. “This is the worst thing to ever happen to you?” She gestures wildly at the slightly broken diorama. Uranus sits askew and Pluto has fallen off and rolled under Grant’s hot lunch tray. The planets are not to size, Jupiter smaller than Mars, and Gareth’s not positive, but he could have sworn the sun wasn’t neon pink. 

Despite being nose to table, his hair covering his side view, Eddie seems to feel Robin’s skepticism toward his diorama. “Not that!” He’s whining. Like actually whining. “School. Having to go back to school is the worst thing to ever happen to me.” 

“Not the whole stuck in Hell for months thing? Not the eaten-by-bats thing? Not the evil wizard overlord succumbing to a ball shot and trapping us in his piss-baby mind palace? Because, like, Edacity, repeating senior year is nothing.” Robin starts rearranging strands of Eddie’s hair on the table in the shape of a penis. 

Eddie groans loud enough to turn heads. “Easy for you to say, this is your second go around. I’ve done senior year four times now, Blue Jay.” 

“But this time, you’ll graduate.” Robin nods to herself, though Gareth’s not sure if it’s at her words or at the finished penis-hair-art. It’s surprisingly anatomical. 

Gareth’s not going to think about it. 

He’s also not thinking about how much none of what Robin says makes sense. Hell? Piss Baby? Eaten by bats? Gareth can’t fathom when the hell that would have happened, seeing as he’s spent the last several weekends at Eddie’s house, working on band shit and decidedly not getting trapped in a mind palace. And like, that’s another thing. When did Eddie even meet Robin? Because Gareth certainly hadn’t, and he spends a lot of his free time with Eddie. 

Gareth’s spiral toward unanswered questions is interrupted by Eddie making a fist against the table to prop his chin on. It’s a dramatic movement, mostly because Eddie does a big show of flipping his hair out of his face like a mermaid, only, he fails, and ends up taking a minute to spit curls out of his mouth. Robin watches him in the same way she’d watch a car crash. 

“While I see your point, Peafowl,” Eddie gets out around a mouthful of spit-wet curls, “the only benefit of senior year part four is that I can brag about graduating at sixteen.”  

Robin squints at Eddie. Jeff and Grant squint, too. Gareth looks at Eddie like a normal person, because he remembered his glasses today. The rest of Hellfire is not paying any attention to their under-budget, lunchtime soap opera. It’s probably for the best. 

“Sixteen?” Jeff says. 

Robin gives Eddie a patronizing thump on the back. “Buddy, hate to break it to you, but you are a senior. You’ve got to be what, seventeen? Eighteen? You were at least twenty in the, you know-” she claps her hands together and flips them upside down. 

For the last two months, Gareth’s been under the impression that Eddie is old for his year group. He carries himself like he is done with everyone and everything and just wants to, like, scream himself horse in a cornfield or something. Full Indiana breakdown type shit. But in a middle-aged, overworked, tax attorney kind of way. Adding on the long hair, ripped jeans, and leather jacket, plus his general knowledge of adult things, like taxes, Gareth assumed Eddie was at least eighteen. Nineteen, even. Could have passed for twenty-one. The lady at the drive-through near the edge of town never cards him when they buy beer after band practice. Neither does the bouncer at the Hideout. 

And, also, shouldn’t Robin know how old her boyfriend is? Fucking rude. 

“I skipped sixth and seventh grade,” Eddie says, morosely picking at some dried pasta sauce stuck to the table. At least, Gareth hopes it’s dried pasta sauce. “Did eighth grade at eleven, won a bunch of dumb child prodigy awards Wayne doesn’t know what to do with, started selling weed because we nearly got kicked from the trailer park, and fucking full-on gifted kid burned out senior year. But my birthday’s at the end of May, so, I’d graduate at sixteen.” 

This, Gareth thinks, is horrifying. Partly because this means Eddie is only a year older than him, but also because Eddie is fifteen. And Eddie drives Gareth around in his van. A lot. And Eddie apparently is not old enough to have a valid driver's license. 

Good god. Does he even have his temps? 

Robin, however, does not seem concerned about Eddie’s driving, though she should be, because even with a valid license, Eddie’s vehicular control is suspect. Instead, she points at Eddie with a gasp. “A Gemini!” 

Eddie groans, all high-pitched and entirely too loud. 

Robin starts showing up everywhere after that. 

She’s at lunch, of course, but she’s also waiting for Eddie after Hellfire, and walking with him between classes, and shout-whispering at him during the once-monthly school assembly. 

Even over the weekend, Robin appears out of the abyss, or Eddie's illegally driven van, for Saturday band practice in Gareth’s shit-hole garage. 

She emerges wearing cuffed, light-blue jeans, bright red high-tops, and a large, maroon long-sleeve that Gareth knows is part of Eddie’s ‘lounge around the trailer’ collection. In par, Eddie comes around the side of his (illegally driven) van, his usual black look offset by an oversized, dark-teal coaches jacket that Gareth saw Robin wearing after school Wednesday. It even smells like her. When Eddie walks past Gareth to grab his electric guitar, Gareth gets a strong whiff of pine and vanilla. 

“Let’s rock and roll, losers.” Robin makes the rock and roll sign with her pinky, pointer, and thumb. 

Eddie wraps himself around her back, kisses her cheek, and pulls her hand down. “No,” he exclaims cheerfully, a grin on his lips. Undeterred, Robin nearly elbows him in the sternum trying to stick her rock and roll sign back up. Eddie licks her in the ear, like full-on wet willy, and she stops. “You go sit on the yard chair, or something. No band participation for Chicken today.” 

“Screw you, Editorialist,” Robin says. “I’ll have you know that not only am I very metal, I also play a mean triangle and an even meaner kazoo. Gareth, do you have a kazoo inside? I’ll knock your socks off.” 

Gareth does not have a kazoo, thank Moradin, but he’s kind of terrified that Robin will bring her own the next time she joins band practice. 

(She does. Longest eight minutes and forty-two seconds of Gareth’s life. American Pie was not meant for kazoo.) 

— 

Ever since the lab burned down two weeks ago, Chrissy’s average life has been turned upside down. She might be cursed. Or, maybe someone put a sign on her back that reads, ‘When you see me, hug me and ask about my favorite song.’  

Other odd things have happened, like the lab burning down, and her mom being more of a nitpick than usual, and Jason, her boyfriend of two months, getting all up in her business. 

But that’s all fine. Normal weird. The lab arson is certainly not the worst thing to happen in Hawkins (that would be the birth of Mrs. MacDonald). Her mom is always a nitpick. And Jason loves being borderline obsessively involved in Chrissy’s life. 

(She thinks Jason might be part of a religious cult. She hasn’t confirmed anything, but there are signs. Signs like his twenty-five cousins, his extended family’s strict, biblical-oriented hierarchical system, and the massive picture of possibly Jesus or possibly Jason’s great, great grandfather wearing a dinner plate as a hat hanging on the wall of their dining room.) 

Usually, Chrissy overlooks things like this in an attempt to feel normal. But the hugging? And the song questions? 

Chrissy can’t pass those off.  

It begins on Wednesday the 9th, during the start of the basketball and cheerleading teams’ joint practice. Chrissy is tying her shoes extra tight when Steve Harrington comes barreling out of the dressing room and straight toward her. She barely gets standing before Steve wraps his arms around her, lifts her bodily off the ground, and spins her in a circle. He lets go right after, and smiles, soft and sweet. 

Chrissy does not know Steve Harrington, but she has heard about him. Sees him twice a week at joint training. King Steve: all the girls want him and all the boys want to be him. Big house, no parents. Steve Harrington is the red, white, and blue experience, a picket fence personified, and he knows how to give a good time. Chrissy read the erotica on the third stall in the lunchroom girl’s bathroom. She’s listened to her older cheerleading teammates speak epics. 

But the thing is, Steve Harrington does not know Chrissy, and he’s got a girlfriend, and he doesn’t mess around with freshmen. And Chrissy is a freshman. And has a boyfriend. So, the hug should be gross. Uncomfortable. It should make her skin crawl. Chrissy knows what it means to be hugged spontaneously by the most popular boy in school - it’s never good. But the way Steve hugs her, spins her around, there’s nothing behind it except happiness. It’s like being hugged by an exceptionally strong grandmother. 

Steve’s hug feels, oddly, safe. 

He steadies her on her feet after. Puts his hands on her cheeks, and tilts her head back and forth before looking her dead in the eyes. “Favorite song, go.” 

Blinking rapidly, Chrissy gives her brain a moment to process. “Uh, Tiny - Tiny Dancer?” She’s not sure why this comes out as a question. Over by the basketball cart, Jason glares daggers at Steve. 

The glare does nothing for Steve’s chipper attitude. He slides his hands off her cheek, pinching them softly as he goes, and says, “If you ever need anything, don’t hesitate to ask. I mean it.” And then he turns around, throws a, “Stay golden, Cunningham,” over his shoulder, and proceeds to play the nastiest practice scrimmage Chrissy’s ever seen. 

Like Jason takes a ball to the face. 

Steve is the first hug, but he’s not the last. The next morning, Steve Harrington’s girlfriend, Nancy, gives Chrissy a friendly little squeeze when they pass in the hallway before first-period. 

“I heard your favorite song is Tiny Dancer,” Nancy says, all calm and inquisitive. Belatedly, Chrissy remembers Nancy is part of the newspaper club. She’s going to be a good reporter. Has the ‘innocent eyes that pry out secrets’ look down. 

If Nancy asked every question like this, Chrissy would spill her life story without hesitation. 

Chrissy bobs her head. On her arm, Jason scoffs. He doesn’t like Elton John. Chrissy thinks this is a major red flag. 

Nancy accepts the nod with a tight-lipped smile. On anyone else, it would look condescending, but Nancy seems… proud? “There’s always a spot at our table if you ever need anything,” she says. Then she leaves, walking to her first class like Chrissy doesn’t feel validated for the first time in years. 

After cheer practice on Friday, Chrissy walks out of school only to have a band kid ruffle her hair. She’s a year older than Chrissy, with short hair cut in layers and a trumpet clasped in her right hand. Chrissy does not know her name. 

“You are just adorable, Lil’ Elton John Fan.” The girl wraps her arms around Chrissy, nearly smacking them both in the ribs with her trumpet, and squeezes. “Good job at practice.” She leaves, too, as suddenly as she came. 

By this point, Chrissy thinks she must be cursed. But a good curse. A curse where pretty, nice people give her words of affirmation and physical affection. So by that Monday, Chrissy is ready for whatever comes her way.   

Whatever comes her way happens when Chrissy walks into her seventh bell Arts elective, only to find the seat next to her empty. Again. And Eddie Munson has always been kind of flakey with attendance. Jason says that’s a good thing because Eddie Munson is a freak. A devil worshiper, even. He tells Chrissy Eddie’s dangerous, with his dark clothes, and long hair, and lack of conformity. Not that Chrissy listens to him - Eddie Munson has always been kind to her. She thinks his big personality might be a mirage. Might be like Chrissy’s big smiles and cheerleading uniform. But Jason never looks past the first glance, so. 

Eddie does not come to class much, but Chrissy foolishly thought that would change when their teacher assigned them as partners for a group project. It’s an in-class project, Jason can’t even be mad about it. Except Chrissy can be, because Eddie isn’t here. Hasn’t shown up to Art for the last week. 

Chrissy goes to ask Mr. Corden, because this project is 50% of her grade, and he says, “Oh, Mrs. Cunningham, Mr. Munson had to drop the class. I’m only telling you this because he was your project partner, but, apparently, he keeps having anxiety issues during this bell. The nurse made him drop the class this morning.” 

Which, that’s horrible. 

In the odd minutes after school but before cheer, Chrissy goes to find Eddie. To reassure  him that it’s fine he dropped the class. Except when she does find him, loitering in the quiet drama hallway, he bursts into tears on sight. No one has ever cried on Chrissy before, but Eddie octopuses himself to her, sobbing into her shoulder. 

Chrissy goes to pat his head like the moms on TV, and he sniffles loudly. “Sorry,” he says. “Uhm, what’s your favorite song?” 

When he leaves after a whirlwind of apologies Chrissy can’t parse through, she thinks, okay, that’s it. That’s got to be the end of the weirdness. Except, on, Friday morning, Chrissy goes to drop her brother at middle school. 

Normally, Chrissy’s mother walks Aiden to school, but today she has an appointment. It’s not that Chrissy minds walking Aiden. Aiden is a delight. It’s more that Chrissy doesn’t like being at the middle school. Mr. Kelly always works arrival, and he makes comments. Stuff about Chrissy’s short skirts, and tiny waist, and bright smile. It makes Chrissy want to disappear. 

And he goes to do it this time, starts taking several rapid steps in her direction as soon as Aiden runs off, except he’s intercepted. Cut off by a curly-haired boy football tackling her into the lawn. 

“Hi,” he says, popping up from where they’ve fallen into the grass, tangled together. He’s grinning with big cheeks, his two front teeth missing and his eyes bright. “Sorry, I just wanted to - uh, ask you something.” 

“Oh?” Chrissy pushes herself to sit, crossing her legs. 

The kid’s gummy smile grows bigger. “Yes. Yes!” Chrissy thinks he might be making shit up. She’s about to call him out on it, but he cuts her off with a very spontaneous, “I want you to teach me cheerleading. That’s it. That’s why I tackled you.” 

“Oh?” Chrissy repeats, slower this time. “Uhm, sure.” 

The kid nods rapidly. “Great. Saturday mornings at nine sharp. Meet at the high school.” Before Chrissy can dispute his planning, he stands. Starts making his way to school. Freezes. Turns to face her dead on and says, “Sorry, I forgot to ask. What’s your favorite song?” 

So, Chrissy thinks she’s going crazy. This is just so weird. And it keeps getting weirder. And Chrissy has to say something, has to tell someone. Because all she’s doing right now is buzzing in her seat, ruminating in a circle. 

Except, okay, so here’s the thing. Chrissy is a freshman, and she’s the only freshman on the varsity cheer squad. Most people wouldn’t think of this as an isolating factor, but all the other cheer girls are older. And meaner. And get jealous when Chrissy does well. And Jason doesn’t like it when Chrissy talks to other boys, nor does he like it when Chrissy hangs out with girls he hasn’t pre-approved. 

So, Chrissy needs to tell someone about her weird two weeks. She just doesn’t have anyone to tell. 

On the wall, the clock ticks away. It is a loud clock. Far too loud for the library. 

Chrissy’s in her first-period Monday, Wednesday, and Friday class. Or, sort of class. Not enough kids signed up for AP Psychology to make two classes this year, and Mrs. Rose’s only available AP block is right when the underclassmen have elective periods. Right when Chrissy has Art. So the three underclassmen who joined, who would have been in the morning class, now have a first-period self-study in the library using Mrs. Rose’s syllabus as a guide. It sucks. 

Chrissy is not a self-study kind of girl. And the librarian, who’s supposed to monitor them and answer their questions, always comes in late. Or doesn’t come in at all. Or does come in, but hides in the back room the whole time. 

Anyway, the clock in the library is loud. Chrissy sits at the end chair of a large, wooden desk, textbook propped open and highlighter between her teeth. On the opposite end, Barbara Holland takes quick-paced notes in a composition book. In between them, sitting with his feet on the edge of his chair, knees pulled to his chest, Gareth Emerson ignores his textbook in favor of trying to balance his pencil on his nose. 

Chrissy is vibrating. She’s read the same sentence four times. She needs to tell someone. 

“Has anyone else been having, like, the weirdest few weeks of their life?” She blurts out. 

Barb slowly raises her head, dragging her eyes from her notes like it hurts. Gareth’s pencil slips off his nose. It bounces on the table, ricochets off his textbook, and ends up wedged between the spirals of his notebook. 

Belatedly, Chrissy realizes that, even though it’s mid-November, this is the first time anyone has spoken. They didn’t even go over the syllabus together. Just sat in silence and suffered through the density of Essentials of The Mind, 3rd Edition. 

“Oh my god,” Barb hisses more to Essentials of The Mind than to Chrissy. “You, too?” 

So, Chrissy tells them. Gives all the details minus names, because she loves to gossip but she does not want anyone’s feelings to get hurt. The only name she uses, actually, is Jason’s which earns her a, “Jason Carver?” From Gareth. 

“I didn’t know you were dating Jason Carver.” Barb’s tone is mildly disappointed. 

“We’ve been dating for almost two months.” Chrissy thought everyone knew that. “I thought everyone knew that. Jason makes a big fuss about it at every basketball game.” 

“Never been to a sports event in my life,” Barb says. 

“The only reason I know Jason is because, on my second day of school, he shoved me into a locker so hard it broke my nose. My friend had to reset it in the drama room,” Gareth says. 

“Oh.” Chrissy blinks rapidly. “That’s unpleasant.” 

“You should go to the nurse next time.”

“The nurse calls the ambulance for broken bones,” Gareth shrugs his shoulders all nonchalant. “My friend knew what he was doing. Poor kid solidarity. Anyway, Jason?” 

She keeps going. Really gets into it, and when she’s done she looks at them. Says, “What were your guy’s weird things?” 

And thus, Chrissy Cunningham, fourteen and a half, starts the cycle of Self-Study AP Psych gossip time. 

— 

It becomes a thing. 

When there’s a lull where everyone’s brains hurt too much to keep self-studying, they gossip about their weird happenings. 

Chrissy tells them all about her cheer practices with the middle schooler. Dubs him: Smiles. During the first Saturday session, they learned rudimentary stretches on the empty football field. At the end, he’d smiled at her, asked if they could meet again next weekend, and gave her an address for his house. When she’d gone, the band girl with the trumpet was there, shouting at Smiles from the porch as they practiced on the frozen lawn. Chrissy assumes she is Smiles’ older sister.   

Gareth denotes all the peculiar mating habits of Eddie Munson and Robin Buckley. Their shared clothes, and shared jokes, and shared walrus claps. 

“And does anyone know a Stevie?” he says at the start of December. “Because they always talk about a Stevie.” 

Barb frowns. “No?” 

Chrissy, the most popular of the three, takes a second to think. “No. No one named Stevie. We’ve got a few Stephanies. And, of course, there’s Steve Harrington.” 

“Ha.” Barb’s voice is deadpan. “As if King Steve would be seen dead with Eddie the Freak and Band Geek Robin.” 

Most of Barb’s stories involve how much she dislikes Steve Harrington. This would be a gossip time downer, but the stories she brings are so chocked full of weirdness, it doesn’t matter. 

On the Friday before Winter break, Barb comes in with a whole tale about Steve and Nancy’s lunch table discussion the day before. 

Barb comes to lunch late because she needed to ask her Calc teacher something. When she sits down, Nancy and Steve are neck-deep in conversation. 

“I can go,” Nancy says. “It’s short timing, but you know I’ll go with you, Steve.” 

Steve breaths out full-bodied. “Fuck, I don’t even know why they want me at this thing.” 

“You didn’t go last time?” Nancy’s using her reporter's voice. Or, a soft version of her reporter's voice. She’s always soft edges around Steve, now. And not even the fake kind, Barb thinks Nancy talks to Steve like she talks to Mike. 

Which, gross, actually. The kids in AP Psych Self-Study, dubbed as Study Buddies by a delighted Chrissy, hear a lot about Nancy’s gentleness with King Steve. (“He doesn’t even deserve it, guys. He’s just, like, getting in the way.” “I don’t know, Barb, it seems sweet.” “Chrissy!” “No, no, Barb, she’s right.”) 

A pout forms on Steve’s lips, and he slumps his head onto Nancy’s shoulder. “Nope. I did not go last time.” He sounds bewildered. And he’s using his daddy issues voice. “Last time I stayed home as my punishment for having a Jon Concussion Special. And for the whole beer at the, uh - ” Steve’s eyes flick to Barb for a fraction of a second. 

“Oh.” A crestfallen look turns Nancy’s face down. 

Steve presses a quick peck to Nancy’s cheek before settling back, hair tickling Nancy’s neck. “That was like, the nicest part of the punishment. Trust me, Nance, I was glad they left.” Sometimes, Barb worries about Steve’s parents. But he’s Steve Harrington. He’s probably fine. “And then the next year I didn’t go because Billy Hargrove rocked my shit so hard I couldn’t see straight for months. Which, they didn’t care about, but I still had some bruises, and that, that mattered.” Barb does not know a Billy Hargrove. She does, however, feel like she would remember if someone beat Steve’s face in. “And then last holiday season, we weren’t talking. I did Hanukkah with Rob’s family.” 

“What do I even wear to a White House party?” 

Barb’s water goes down the wrong pipe. 

“I don’t know, just don’t bring your guns. I know he deserves it, but you can’t shoot Reagan in the nuts.” 

Barb starts choking. Sputtering, she slams her water bottle on the table, staring wide-eyed at Steve and Nancy. Her Nancy. And King Steve. 

“What did he mean by guns?” Gareth hisses when Barb regales this to the Study Buddies. 

“I know!” Barb says back, leaning against the table with her forearms. 

They’ve changed their seating arrangements, Gareth and Chrissy sitting on the left, and Barb, across from them, on the right. 

Chrissy hums. “Reagan does deserve it.” 

“Oh my god, Cunningham, are you -” Gareth squints at her, doing a little eyebrow wiggle. 

Chrissy darts her eyes around the room before whispering, “I Democrat? Yes, don’t tell Jason.” 

“On my life,” Gareth says like a soldier swearing a vow. 

Barb’s eyes flick to the clock. She groans. “Okay, we should start studying again. Study Buddies on three.” 

There’s not an actual chant, they just count to three and go back to their usual seats. 

— 

That’s how it goes. They study, they chat, they study. 

Chrissy finds herself wishing they could spend the whole bell chatting. It’s nice to have people who aren’t Jason to talk to. Not that Dustin, the kid she’s teaching to cheer, isn’t a gem, but he’s a seventh grader. Gareth and Barb are her age. 

This is why, on the Friday before winter break, Chrissy comes up with a plan. 

“I have a plan,” she says, dropping her textbook next to Gareth’s. Barb raises an eyebrow, halfway through taking her composition book out of her backpack. Gareth, who’s ignoring the ‘no eating in the library sign’ in favor of shoving a Pop-Tart into his mouth, scoots over, giving Chrissy space to slide into the seat beside him. It’s her gossip seat. She’s breaking barriers. Disregarding their self-imposed study rules. “You know how, after break, most of our self-study time should be devoted to our final project?” 

It’s a bitch of a project: 75% of their grade, 12 pages, made for the kids actually sitting in a classroom. They’re supposed to conduct either a field or lab experiment, write a report, and then compare their findings to the theorists they covered over the first two semesters. Chrissy has been dreading this project. At least, until now. 

Barb shrugs. “I was going to conduct a qualitative interview on my mom.” 

“I’m using Eddie.” Gareth takes another bite of his Pop-Tart. “Dunno what I’m gonna do, but I asked him before everything got weird.” 

“I’m glad you mentioned Eddie, Gareth,” Chrissy says. “Because I was thinking, what if we turned our, uh, gossip sessions into our field experiment.” 

“I don’t do group projects,” is Barb’s immediate response. 

“Not a group project.” Chrissy hates group projects. She always ends up doing all the work and getting zero credit. “Independent field studies. Then, we could use study time to discuss our findings. That’s what the actual class is doing, anyway.” 

“Hacking the system. Nice, Cunningham.” Gareth reaches out for a high five. 

Chrissy enthusiastically returns it. 

“Okay.” Barb sounds on the fence. She nods though, a tiny bob of her head. “Okay, let’s do this. Let’s use the scientific method on our weird friends.” 

— 

Wayne knows something is weird with his kid when Eddie brings back a preppy, bird-boned, waif of a thing under the guise of studying. Because Eddie has been and done a lot of things, but he ain’t never befriended a girl like Nancy Wheeler before.

Chapter Text

Gareth pulls a double-sided whiteboard from the library closet and puts it to the left of their self-study table, against the wall. At the top, he writes, ‘Field Study Buddies Individual Projects: Weird Friend Edition.’ Underneath, he makes three columns. He labels one for himself, one for Chrissy, and one for Barb, giving each of them a space to write important observation notes. When they leave, the whiteboard can be turned around. Like they were never there. 

For Gareth’s field research, he will be observing Eddie and Robin’s nickname habits. Eddie and Robin throw out pet names and random titles like candy. At first, Gareth has something new to write every day. He always comes to first-period AP Psych with a story. Stuff like, “Eddie called Robin a cassowary. That’s the least romantic bird ever,” and, “Robin came over at band practice and spent thirteen minutes listing every Ed word in the dictionary when Eddie pissed her off.” 

He hits a lull, though, after witnessing a failed lunchtime greeting and realizing that Eddie and Robin’s nicknames consistently follow the same pattern. 

(“Sup, Blesmol.” 

“That’s a fucking mole rat, Admonitory.” 

“That starts with an ‘Ad,’ Ostrich.”) 

So, Gareth mostly ends up with a collection of Ed words and bird breeds, listed on the whiteboard in his squiggly handwriting. Barb is trying to get him to change his topic, but he’s committed. Plus, every once in a while, he hits gold.  

It’s Saturday, the 14th of January. Band practice has been traded for a writing session at Eddie’s. Robin is not there. It’s for the best. 

Eddie wears a loose rugby shirt with stripes in different shades of green over ripped, black skinny jeans, his hair tied up by a viridian scrunchy. The rugby shirt is Robin’s, she wore it last week, and Gareth thinks the scrunchy might be Robin’s, too. Though, Gareth’s never seen her in a scrunchy. Weird. 

The pine and vanilla smell is back, too. When Eddie grabs water from the kitchen, it smacks Gareth straight in the face. Robin has other signature scents - patchouli and rosemary, usually - but the clothes she and Eddie swap always smell like pine and vanilla. Like some sort of shared couples scent. 

Gareth thinks maybe he should change his field study from nicknames to Eddie’s ever-growing mismatch of an aesthetic. Because Gareth read the Munson Doctrine. There’s a whole page dedicated to the jock sumptuary laws. And even if there wasn’t, rugby shirts and scrunchies are not listed as metal-acceptable garments. 

It’s while Gareth thinks this that the trailer door wrenches open and slams shut. A small child stomps his way through the living room and throws himself onto Wayne’s sacred armchair. Slumping, he groans, lifting his shoulder to hide his face with his arm. His elbow bumps his ball cap. The cap has NPC embroidered in blue. It does not contain his brown curls.  

“This is the worst thing that’s ever happened to me,” the kid says, in a surprising echo of Eddie’s diorama breakdown. 

Eddie hums. “Tell me about it, Dusty-bun.” 

“I’ve already learned everything at school, and Steve’s plan to skip me straight to high school might not work. And all our AV club shit is old. And my girlfriend doesn’t exist anymore.” 

“Yup.” Eddie makes a treble clef on his staff paper. 

The two don’t notice, but they’ve paused the room. Gareth, sitting on the floor, back to the kitchen, stops tapping out his drum parts with Eddie’s spatulas. Jeff and Grant, sitting next to Eddie on the couch, stare at the child with trepidation. Too much trepidation. Gareth starts wondering if they’ve seen a child before. Or if they’re high. Probably high. 

“And none of my references make any sense because half the stuff isn’t out yet. And I didn’t realize how juvenile our campaigns used to be. Plus, we had to nix the Demogorgon idea, which means Mike’s pissed at me. Do you know how annoying it is to have Mike pissed at you? He pouts all the time!” 

“I get it.” Eddie starts making noteheads. He’s composing a song Jeff wrote. When Gareth asked what the lyrics meant, Jeff said nihilism, but Eddie kept calling it ‘the Tit Song.’ “Everything sucks.” 

“At least your friends aren’t twelve!” 

During the entire conversation, Eddie has been focused on his music. He didn’t even startle when the door slammed. The kid’s tone, though, bitter and raw, has Eddie putting his pencil on the coffee table. “Bun?” he says, voice soft. Patient. Gareth has never known Eddie to be patient. The kid peeks out from beneath his elbow. “Bun, is this a serious conversation?” 

The kid shrugs and bites his cheeks. Shakes his head. Eddie nods and goes back to his music. Like nothing happened. 

Loudly, the kid drags himself off the sofa. He flashes Eddie a tired, gummy smile, and makes his way across the kitchen to Eddie’s bedroom door. “I’m stealing your copy of The Hobbit. Don’t interrupt me,” he says. 

“Wayne’s making pasta.” 

“I’ll be gone by then. It’s pot roast night at Stevie’s.” 

Eddie’s bedroom door shuts with a trailer rattling bang. Eddie doesn’t mention it. Doesn’t even seem to notice his band members’ looks of confusion. The kid’s still hiding out in Eddie’s bedroom when they leave. 

When Gareth gets to AP Psych, he tells the story with big hand gestures and facial expressions. It makes him feel a little too much like Eddie. 

Then, he adds several new nicknames to his list. 

— 

Chrissy’s focus is on platonic relationships. She’s using Dustin, at first, because he’s a sweetheart. It quickly turns into a dictation of how weirdly nice people have been to Chrissy. 

For instance, Steve Harrington has always brought after-basketball snacks for his teammates, but in the last couple of weeks, he’s also been bringing snacks for the cheerleaders. Often, the snacks are simple, oranges and carrots. Sometimes, he shows up with homemade baked goods. At first, Chrissy thinks Mrs. Harrington makes them. But Barb says Steve’s parents don’t cook. Are never around to cook, much less bake apple muffins. 

“What does King Steve want from us?” Kali, one of the sophomore cheer girls, asks when Steve hands them protein-packed nut cookies. 

If Chrissy’s mom saw her eating a cookie after cheer, she’d have Chrissy’s head. But it’s good. Moist in the center and crunchy on the outside. Steve told them the recipe is his grandmother’s. Amelia, their senior flier, nearly swooned. 

Jaden, head cheerleader and senior, points a cookie at Kali. “If it was anyone else, I’d say everything. But Steve Harrington, oh boy. That man can be a real giver. We had a thing last year, and let me tell you, that man gives the best damn aftercare.” 

This is how Chrissy learns more about Steve Harrington’s sex life than she ever wanted to. She does not tell this to the Study Buddies, but she does make another point under the Con’s section of her ‘Why I’m Dating Jason Carver’ list. 

In Algebra I, Nancy Wheeler, who sits two seats in front of Chrissy, continuously picks Chrissy for partner activities. 

Dustin’s older sister, the band kid, goes out of her way to whoop loudly anytime Chrissy does a tricky cheer stunt. 

Eddie Munson, much to Jason’s horror, carries her bags between classes sometimes. Even if he does always look three seconds away from tears. 

Chrissy’s not sure why all these unrelated people are going out of their way to be kind to her, but she’s become obsessed. 

“No one’s ever been this nice to me,” she says, standing before their library whiteboard. 

It’s the 18th, and Chrissy just presented her recent observations. The library is empty most times of the day, but during first-period, there’s no one else but them. 

The big windows behind Barb let in the cloudy gray light of a January morning. It’s supposed to snow tonight. Under the fluorescents, Barb’s hair looks like fire. 

Not that Chrissy is looking at Barb’s hair. 

She’s dating Jason. Jason, who is a boy. 

“That’s kind of fucked up, Cheerleader,” Barb says. 

“It’s whatever.” Chrissy thought it was normal to feel alone most of the time. “I could use some help relating my observations back to Plato, though.” 

“I’ll help if you give me a nickname to add to my list,” Gareth says. Chrissy thinks Gareth should probably change his project topic. 

He seems to be running dry. 

“Gareth, what theorist are you even using?” Chrissy knows using Plato for her own research is a cop-out, but Gareth? She can’t come up with anything he could use. 

“Well, I’m not really using a specific nickname-related theory. I’m more fitting my field research into the paradigm shift between the Sapir-Whorf theory and Gumperz and Levinson’s work in interactional sociolinguistics.” 

Barb’s brows furrow as she wrinkles her nose. “That’s a stretch.” 

“Who?” Chrissy says. “Is this in our book?” 

“There’s one paragraph about linguistic theory on page forty-nine.” 

This derails their gossip session completely. The rest of class is spent arguing over whether Gareth’s topic strays too far into Anthropology for a Psychology project. He claims he doesn’t care. Chrissy thinks if he writes his essay well enough, he’ll be fine. Barb tells him to ask Mrs. Rose. Gareth does not ask Mrs. Rose. 

— 

Barb’s project is based on Mary Whiten Calkin’s idea of the conscious self. This turns out to be a bad idea. Because she’s starting to not hate Steve Harrington. 

— 

The sun has set and the candles flicker. Eddie, Steve, Robin, Nancy, and Dustin sit around Steve’s dining table on Friday, January 27th. Vegetable soup and roasted chicken, kept hot by the pre-warmed oven, steam in strawberry-printed bowls and on blue ceramic plates. Challah rests on its board to the right of the salt shaker and discarded cover. 

Eddie sips point noir from a massive snow-man-shaped mug. Beneath the table, hidden by the white, floral printed tablecloth, Steve knocks his toes against Eddie’s. Eddie knocks his back. 

“Do you think we’re being too obvious? Like around school and with our parents. Do you think they’ve noticed?” Nancy says overtop a mushroom mug.  

Steve’s foot kicks at Eddie’s hard as if to say, ‘What parents?’ Eddie reaches his hand across the inch gap between his carved, wooden chair and Steve’s. Links their pinkies together. Squeezes once, twice, three times. Does not let go. 

“No one will catch on,” Dustin says around a mouthful of chicken. “If anything,” he swallows, “they’ll think we’re playing, like, the most extreme game of DnD.” 

“I don’t know. Jon keeps giving me these really suspicious looks.” Steve spears a piece of asparagus with his fork, waving it at Nancy and Robin on the other side of the table. Dustin, the brat, sits at the head. “Every US history he stares at me like I’m going to jump him.” 

Eddie snorts wine up his nose and has to put his mug down. “Love of my life, that’s not why,” he says. 

“He’s right, Lover Boy.” Robin sloshes her pumpkin mug precariously toward Steve. “I’m in that class, too, and Jonathan’s not on to us. He’s freaked out because, on Monday, you clapped him over the shoulder and said, ‘Hey, Jon, if you ever need help with your photography thing, I’m always down to help. Whatever you need. I’m, like, stellar with craft scissors.’ And then you smiled and made a cute little snip, snip motion, which he did not think was cute. He does not think you are cute. And he’s not suspicious. He thinks you’ve lost it. Like, totally and completely -” 

“Snip, snip,” Eddie says, making scissor motions with his pointer and middle fingers and catching Steve’s nose between them. “Snip, snip, snip.” 

“Babe.” Steve’s voice would sound exasperatedly deadpanned, but Eddie’s plugging Steve’s nose, so Steve just sounds funny. 

Out of the five of them, Steve and Dustin are having the hardest time fitting into the past. For completely different reasons, though. Dustin is stuck at middle school, can’t drive, and most of his support group has turned into toddlers. Or middle schoolers. Same part terrifying. Steve, however, never had much social awareness when it came to others' perceptions of him, and he’s completely given up, now. Like offering Jonathan Byers help spontaneously levels of given up. Eddie’s all for it. Honestly. 

“What are we going to do about Jonathan?” Nancy’s voice is tangled, layered in different shades of emotion. 

Gently, Robin nudges Nancy’s shoulder, and Nancy smiles, soft and sad. In the candlelight, she looks fuzzy, looks nothing like the woman Eddie’s seen light Hell ablaze. He likes that they can be other now, can be relaxed. Can sit at a table with two candles flickering and good food on the table and not have to worry about their rotting ecosystem, and the fate of the multiverse, and whether they’ll ever get out. Because they’ve gotten out. And defeated the Upside Down. And, sure, they’re stuck three years in the past, but at least they have each other. Eddie couldn’t do this without them, that’s for sure. 

And they still have panic attacks, and nightmares, and flashbacks. Shit parents, and money issues, and, honestly, some things are worse. Some things can’t ever be fixed by time travel. But, fuck, okay, Eddie’s fucking trying. 

“Steve and I have Jonathan covered,” Dustin says, taking a sip from the lightsaber mug he brought from home. There is a lot less wine poured into his mug than poured into Eddie’s. “While you’ve been studying at Eddie’s, Steve and I have constructed plans.” 

“Thought you two were working on convincing Claudia to let you skip a couple of grades, Mr. Physics Genius?” Robin pokes Dustin with her fork. 

“Right, and we’ve done that.” Ah, the Dustin ‘fucking idiot’ tone. “But then we finished, and moved on to bigger things.” 

And with that, Dustin starts explaining his and Steve’s twenty-five-step plan to convince Jonathan Byers to move to California for his social health. Nancy does not understand, but Steve insists California Jonathan was Jonathan’s best self. Eddie and Robin watch the drama unfold, drinking Steve’s mom’s thousand-dollar wine out of thrift-store mugs and reenacting the argument with dramatic faces when their friends aren’t looking. 

— 

By the end of January, the Study Buddies have done enough field research to fill half a notebook. It’s all boring shit, lists and quotes that sound off. None of it fits together. Nothing makes a complete picture. Ergo, their conversations have started to drift elsewhere.  

Like, one morning Chrissy ruffles Gareth’s hair before she sits beside him. “Morning, Emmy.” 

“Emmy?” Gareth says. 

A stack of books is unceremoniously dropped from Barb’s arms. She gives a flat look at their raised eyebrows. 

Chrissy turns back to Gareth. “I wanted to give you a nickname, but Gary just wasn’t working, so I went with your last name.” 

“Emerson?” 

“We match.” Chrissy looks so pleased with herself, Gareth can’t even complain. “Emmy, Chrissy, Ba-” 

“If you call me Barbie, Cunningham, I will throat punch you.” 

Chrissy purses her lips, lifting her chin. She links her arm around Gareth’s. “If you don’t want to be part of our special club, then fine.” 

“Ya, Barb.” Gareth does an excellent impression of Steve Harrington’s preppy, rich boy scoff. “Not our fault you’re a buzzkill.” 

Or, how during a conversation about Nancy Wheeler, they get off track and start discussing grade point averages. Barb got the senior class rankings from the yearbook club advisor and dishes out a load of gossip that has Chrissy squealing. Gareth makes scathing judgments on seniors he’s never heard of. Unlike Chrissy and Barb, he did not go to middle and elementary with the entire student population of Hawkins High. He’s a Hawkins transplant - moved last August from New York.   

Boy was that a culture shift. 

“But you’re first in our class, right?” Chrissy says to Barb. 

Gareth knows he’s first in his class. First by a long shot. He used to think that was an isolating factor, because Jeff and Grant are pretty average students, and Eddie showed no interest in school. Then he found out Eddie skipped two grades and started hanging out with Barb and Chrissy. It’s. Well, it’s nice. It reminds him of his friends from New York - not that he had many. Being smart has never replaced the freak parts of him. 

Barb clicks her tongue. “Nancy’s first.” She sounds bitter about it. “But I got a higher PSAT score than her, so we’re even. 1320.” She smirks. “Take that, Wheeler.” 

 Gareth starts tapping the beat of Jeff’s tit song on the table with his pencil and highlighter. “I got a 1500.” 

“No way.” Barb snorts. “You’re a freshman.” 

“I took it with the guidance counselor in October.” 

“There’s no way you got a 1400, though. Hawkins High doesn’t score that well.” 

“I got a 1510.” 

Gareth and Barb turn to Chrissy so fast that Gareth’s neck cracks. 

“Holy shit,” Barb murmurs, cheeks turning red. Then, much to Gareth’s regret, Barb mumbled a barely audible, “That’s so hot,” which makes him want to shoot himself in the head. 

And on the last Monday of January, when they’ve well and truly run dry on field research, they don’t discuss their weird friends at all. They have an in-depth conversation about Jason Carver. 

“Last week, we were,” Chrissy goes scarlet, eyes darting around the completely empty library, “messing around. And he moaned Jesus’ name. But not Jesus as an interjection, like ‘Jesus, Chrissy, that was great.’ No, it was Jesus as a proper noun, like Jesus in replacement of Chrissy.” 

“No,” Gareth gasps. He’s in his ‘feet on the chair, knees to chest’ position, stuffing Doritos into his mouth like popcorn. 

“Bastard,” Barb says. 

And they’ve all kind of resigned themselves to being stuck in a field research rut forever. They’re not even sure if they’re doing field research correctly. It’s not like they have anything besides a textbook to go off. Mrs. Rose is never at her office hours, and she usually ends up shoving class notes into their hands on the rare chance she is. Chrissy has a tally going for every time Mrs. Rose has successfully answered their questions with another question. One time, she told Gareth to ask an upperclassman because she, “didn’t have time for this, Emerson. You’re the brightest kid in your grade despite your circumstances, I don’t know why a self-study class is stumping you.” 

“She doesn’t like poor people,” Gareth tells Chrissy over the phone that night. 

“Don’t listen to her, Emmy,” Chrissy tells him back. Her mom thinks she’s talking to Jason. “She thinks the sun shined out of Freud’s ass, anyway.” 

So, they’ve hit a wall. Barb even suggested giving up. They could change their project to lab work. She’s not sure what lab work, but they could figure it out. The project is not due until May. Maybe she could find rats for them to study - there’s plenty bustling around the police station. And she’s sure Gareth would love to set something on fire. 

— 

Wayne does not understand Eddie’s new collection of friends. There’s that Nancy girl, who comes over regularly to study, and Nancy’s friend Robin, who talks like a goddamn motor. And Wayne’s not mad that Eddie’s started caring about school again, he’s just confused. 

At first, he thinks Eddie’s dating one of the girls. Nancy, probably. Because Eddie’s been sneaking out at night. The trailer walls are thin - Wayne can hear him regularly climbing out his window. So, Wayne figures Eddie’s dating the Wheeler girl, because she’s got a nice little car. 

And Wayne’s fine with this. Not what he expected Eddie’s type to be, be who is Wayne to judge? Except, then, Eddie gets a job with Robin selling records at some music store in the next suburb over. He works after school when there’s no Hellfire, and Wayne sees him less and less because Wayne works the second shift. Is thinking about working the night shift when Eddie graduates, because it’s got better hours and lord knows they need the money. 

And with Eddie’s new job, brings more friends. 

He keeps talking about this Stevie girl. She works at the record store, too. Eddie spends most of their dinner time talking about how pretty Stevie is and whatnot. Starts going to Stevie’s house for Shabbat because Stevie’s also Jewish, Wayne, and she loves to cook, Wayne, and Robin and Nance are there, too, Wayne, “I’m not just fucking freeloading. We’re all pretty secular, especially after -well. But the routine and traditions are nice. Plus, it reminds me of my mom, Wayne.” And what the hell is Wayne supposed to say to that? 

There’s some other kid, too, Dustin, who Wayne thinks is Stevie’s younger brother. Honestly, it’s not that Wayne’s trying to keep track of Eddie’s social life, but Eddie’s young. And he’s Wayne’s kid. And Wayne thought he had Eddie’s patterns figured out. Thought Eddie sank into the leadership role of his Hellfire crew and the big brother role of Corroded Coffin, and decided that was enough. Decided that was all he needed. 

Not to mention, Nancy Wheeler and Robin Buckley don’t fit into the Munson Doctrine or whatever it is his boy wrote. That thing he used to regularly quote. The one that reminded Wayne a little too much of Walden - not that he’d ever tell Eddie. Wayne thinks Eddie might disown him if he found out Wayne laughed himself to sleep comparing Eddie to Henry David Thoreau. 

Because Nancy and Robin, particularly Nancy Wheeler, are picket fence girls. Are college dreams and nice parents. But Wayne’s not one to judge Eddie, figures Eddie knows what he’s doing, bringing them to their shit trailer to study, even if Robin and Nancy seem to pay more attention to each other than their textbooks. 

It just bugs Wayne that he’s never met this Stevie girl. Because Stevie is all Eddie talks about - even when he’s studying with Nancy and Robin. It makes Wayne wonder why Eddie hasn’t brought her over. Hell, this girl’s little brother even shows up. 

Wayne meets Dustin when he comes back from work early on the last Sunday of January. The kid is sitting in Wayne’s armchair, reading Wayne’s newspaper, and drinking tea out of Wayne’s favorite fish mug. 

“Hey, Uncle Wayne,” Eddie says, not looking up from his history textbook. 

“Hey, Uncle Wayne,” the kid says, not looking up from Wayne’s newspaper. 

Wayne clears his throat, pausing before the door. “Ed.” He looks pointedly at Eddie until Eddie gets a clue. 

“Sorry.” Eddie blindly waves at the kid, going back to his textbook. “That’s my son,” he tilts his head, “co-son, technically. We’ve got joint custody.” 

The kid lays Wayne’s newspaper across the arm of Wayne’s armchair. Holds out his hand like he’s the damn president. And Wayne does not like the president. “Dustin Munson-Henderson,” he says, and grins, which, okay, is pretty damn adorable. “Eddie picked me up from the side of the road.” 

Wayne’s never been good with kids - wasn’t particularly good with Eddie. After Wayne’s bastard brother got locked away, it took CPS months to track Wayne down in Indiana. Eddie showed up with bruises, shaved hair, and a garbage bag full of clothes, angry, and scrappy, and smarter than sin. And Wayne hadn’t known what to do with him. Had let him skip two grades, and shout, and scream. Had let him be himself, because Wayne didn’t know how to let him not be. 

It must have done something because Eddie turned out pretty damn good. He’s a nice boy. Has got a real heart of gold. But he’s also got armor a mile thick, and authority issues out of the wazoo. And he’s been drowning in school since the end of sophomore year - letting himself drown. And Wayne doesn’t know what to do about that. 

Doesn’t know what to do about these new friends and this new job. About the sneaking out at night. About the girlfriend he won’t bring home. 

Wayne just wants Eddie to feel like he’s got a place to feel safe. A person to rely on. And Wayne thinks maybe he’s fucking that up. 

Undeterred by Wayne’s emotional turmoil, Eddie snorts as he highlights a line in his textbook. “Rabit, he’s gonna think you’re telling the truth.” The slight southern twang Eddie usually only uses when he’s comfortable at home slips through. 

“Mr. Uncle Wayne, Eddie did not find me on the side of the road,” Dustin says with a shit-eating grin. Eddie pinches his nose, looking oddly like Wayne. “I was actually -” Eddie’s highlighter thwacks Dustin in the forehead. 

“I picked him up from his house. We got ice cream. I’ll drive him back in a bit, I know you wanted to have dinner together.” And, oh hell, Eddie’s giving Wayne those big doe eyes. 

And Wayne loves his boy, loves him a whole lot. Except, “Ed, driving him home with what?” 

Eddie’s gone back to his textbook. “My van,” he says, without hesitation. 

“What van?” Wayne has a sinking suspicion. 

“The piece of shit one Mr. Lincoln three trailers down passed on to us when his license got suspended.” 

“Ed.” Wayne purses his lips. “Ed, you ain’t got a driver's license yet.” 

Eddie finally drops the damn textbook to level Wayne with the most bewildered look. “Wayne,” he says. “Wayne, did you think I, Edward of the Munson family, rode the Hawkins High school bus? Wayne, even if it did make the trek out to poor people's land, I would honestly rather die than sit on a metal Petri dish with Jason fucking Carver.” 

So, Wayne meets Dustin. And Nancy and Robin come over weekly. But he still hasn’t met Stevie. 

And, fucks sake, but Eddie’s bringing in new people left and right. Wayne comes home from work once to find goddamn Steve Harrington, son of the worst senator to ever grace Indiana, chatting by their front door. Like the Harringtons have any right encroaching on Wayne’s space and talking with Wayne’s kid. 

Naturally, Wayne shoos that good for nothing out of the whole damn trailer park. Eddie’s pissed about it, but he stops sneaking out in the middle of the night. And Wayne guesses that’s for the best. If Eddie wasn’t sneaking out to meet girls like Nancy, Robin, and the ever-mysterious Stevie - girls who sneak out so their mamas don’t skin them for dating boys like Eddie - then that means he was shooting the shit with the likes of Harrington. Harrington probably had Eddie out mudding or throwing corn at the façade sidings of one-story houses, making the working people of Hawkins think all their windows broke. Real dirty, hillbilly rich-kid shit. 

And Wayne’s having none of that. He knows Eddie’s going through some sort of phase, can see it in the way he avoids Wayne sometimes, in the new friends - in the attitude change from moping to deflective. But Wayne is not having his kid hanging out with scum like Steve     Harrington. Not when Steve Harrington’s daddy is off in Washington, making decisions that impact Wayne and Eddie directly. 

And, at the end of it all, Wayne still hasn’t met Stevie. 

— 

The Study Buddies’ lull comes to an abrupt end during their last Monday class of January. In rapid succession, Gareth and Chrissy witness two different conversations with startling parallels. It’s revolutionary. It sends them into a whole new orbit. 

Gareth’s conversation comes first, at lunch the Friday before. As usual, Robin is sitting with them. Jeff and Grant have stopped staring at her like she’s a headless ghost of their past sins. Whatever those sins may be. Gareth has a sinking suspicion it involves weird porn. 

(Those two had a whole conversation about creating artificial life by jizzing in an egg during band practice once when Eddie was late. Gareth has never been the same.) 

Robin has on what might be Eddie’s leather jacket. Eddie is wearing his black ensemble because he only wears his colorful attire outside of school. Like it’s some sort of secret that he owns a yellow sweater. They’ve rearranged their lunchboxes to make a thrust stage, their left hands crossed over each other as they play the most complex version of the knife game Gareth’s ever seen using cafeteria sporks. Personally, Gareth thinks it’s suspect that Eddie’s drug lunch box is just, like, sitting there. On the table. In the middle of the cafeteria. 

But who is he to judge? 

Plus, Eddie hasn’t been selling drugs much anymore. 

Eddie and Robin are arguing about this Stevie person again, stabbing at each other’s fingers while saying shit like: 

“It wasn’t my idea to dye Emperor Dustinian’s hair blue. That was all Stevie.” 

“Chickadee, I was standing right next to you when you told Dusty-Bun he should, ‘try the punk look if he was going to be a punk ass.’” 

“That’s lies and slander, Edilma!” 

 When Grant right up and says: “Where the hell did you even meet each other?” 

The arguing stops and the sporks go flying out of their hands, ricocheting off Eddie's drug lunch box. Halfway through biting into a bruised apple, Gareth freezes. He’s been trying to figure this out for weeks. Jeff, who’s stuffed three beef jerky sticks into his mouth and now looks like a babirusa, smacks Grant on the shoulder, clearly agreeing with Gareth. That question was, like, number four on their unspoken ‘things not to ask Eddie and Robin’ list. 

Neither Robin nor Eddie seems offended. They do, however, seem panicked. They share this, ‘shit,’ look before doing a whole ‘who should talk?’ comedy routine. 

In the end, they both say, “Work,” with matching customer service smiles. 

“What work?” Jeff, who evidently took Grant’s question as a free for all, asks around his beef jerky teeth. 

“Buckley sells weed,” Grant shout-whispers to Jeff because he jumps to conclusions. Once, Gareth tried to tell him that his parents didn’t live together, and Grant went on a ten-minute-long memorial speech for Gareth’s dead father. Gareth’s father isn’t dead. He’s a forty-year-old gym coach with a pill addiction who left Gareth’s mom for a twenty-year-old groupie he knocked up. 

Needless to say, Grant still thinks Gareth’s father died. 

“I don’t sell weed,” Robin says. “We work at the record store a town over. We get to wear these ugly button-ups.” 

Eddie grabs the sporks, twirling them between his fingers. “Not quite as good as the Scoops Ahoy get up.” 

“You didn’t even work at Scoops.” 

“I still went to the mall!” 

“And you work with this Stevie?” Grant sounds suspicious like he’s still set on Robin selling weed. On his life, Gareth’s pretty sure Buckley’s never smoked. She’s referred to Grant hot boxing the boy’s bathroom as ‘mowing the proverbial toilet paper lawn’ on more than one occasion. 

At the mention of Stevie, Eddie’s lips break into a brilliant smile. “Yep. And boy does Steve know nothing about music.” The smile is soft, and happy, and lovely. It’s not a look Gareth’s ever seen on Eddie, not fully, and Gareth would look into it more. He really would. It’s just: 

“Steve?” Gareth’s mouth says without his consent. 

Robin nods, blinking at Gareth like he should know this. “Steve. Steve Harrington.” 

“What the fuck?” Jeff screeches. 

Gareth can’t help but agree. 

— 

Chrissy’s conversation comes the next day, Saturday morning, bright and early. She and Dustin, whose hair is blue for some reason, are working on basic cheer leg motions: the passé, the soft bend, the step point. Dustin sickles his feet, but he doesn’t have collarbones, so his arm movements outweigh his sloppy footwork. 

(“You don’t have collar bones?” Chrissy had said when they first started. “I’m double-jointed. Look!”) 

On the back porch, Dustin’s sister drinks an iced coffee and hollers random ballet terminology at Dustin. Chrissy still hasn’t learned Dustin’s trumpet-playing sibling’s name. They don’t share lunch, and she’s a year older than Chrissy. Chrissy is pretty sure she’s in one of the lesser-known geek squads that collide to form the marching band. And the marching band kids never talk to the cheerleaders. Something about school hierarchy. Jason says it’s for the best, but Chrissy is starting to think Jason Carver is full of shit. 

At the end of their hour-long cheer session, Chrissy packs her water bottle into her duffle bag and gives Dustin his notes. Usually, Dustin waves Chrissy off, a gummy smile and loud goodbyes following her out of the Hendersons’ backyard. Chrissy’s house is only a few blocks away, so she can walk home in the cold and go over her schedule for the next week. Plan out her homework and coordinate her outfits. 

This time, however, in the middle of Chrissy’s speech about ankle flexibility, a boy bangs his way onto the porch. 

“Dustin Clarence Munson-Henderson!” the boy shouts, sounding like Chrissy’s mother would sound if Chrissy’s mother ever got excited. It distracts Chrissy from the oddly hyphenated last name. 

“Steven Marie Buckley,” Dustin shouts back, not sounding like Chrissy’s mother. He’s pulling out all the whiny little brother traits, actually. Pouty glare, condescending tone, an edge that screams ‘I’ll fake cry to mom.’ 

The ‘Marie Buckley’ is lost on Chrissy because she’s heard the Steven part and realized that, yes, that boy on the porch is Steve Harrington. That is King Steve’s hair. Chrissy had been understandably distracted by his thick belted, high-waisted mom jeans and the black, long-sleeve shirt for a band named W.A.S.P. Chrissy has never seen Steve Harrington wear black, or women’s jeans. And Chrissy only knows W.A.S.P. because of Gareth. And, on closer inspection, his hair is less poofy and more wavy. And he’s got on half-framed, horned-rimmed glasses. 

Chrissy’s spiral is cut off by Steve Harrington leaning over the back porch’s gate, shouting, “She said yes,” at the top of his lungs. 

“She said yes?” Dustin is equally as loud, his excitement palpable. 

“She said yes!” 

Steve and Dustin’s sister start jumping, holding hands as Dustin runs toward them. Chrissy follows, slowly, confused and feeling out of place. 

“Oh my god, Robin, Robin,” Dustin says, racing up the stairs and joining in on the jumping. Dustin’s sister, Robin, nods frantically. Wait. Robin? “Skipping a grade! Skipping a grade! Skipping a grade!” 

To the sound of Dustin’s chanting, Chrissy has a quiet breakdown. Because here is Dustin Henderson on possibly Robin Buckley’s back porch, slapping hands with Steve ‘the Hair’ Harrington. 

— 

On Monday, Gareth and Chrissy practically sprint to first-period. Neither stop at their lockers, both arriving within seconds of each other, mittens on their hands and puffer coats restricting their movements. 

Barb always arrives three minutes before the late bell rings, however, so Gareth and Chrissy break to put their stuff away before coming back, less bogged down. 

“I have news, Emmy,” Chrissy says, pulling Gareth toward their seats. 

Gareth trips over his feet, stumbling into her and sending them into giggles. “I do, too. But we have to wait for Barb.” 

It is the longest ten minutes of their lives. 

— 

When Barb arrives at self-study AP Psychology on January 30th, she’s met with two pairs of eyes staring directly at her. She lets them wait, taking her sweet time setting up her textbooks and getting comfortable. Gareth starts fidgeting, and Chrissy has on her ‘stop wasting my time’ smile. Barb takes longer. 

“Okay-” 

Barb does not get through her opening remarks because Gareth spouts out, “Robin, Eddie, and Steve Harrington work together.” 

“And Steve Harrington and Robin Buckley know my kid, my cheer kid, Smiles. Robin is his sister.” 

“Whoa, whoa.” Barb holds up her hand. “I know that’s not true. Robin doesn’t have siblings.” 

“Well, I’ve been at her house every Saturday for the last two months teaching her brother how to cheer.” 

“Unless they adopted a kid-” 

“- his name is different from hers, but that doesn’t mean-” 

“Guys, let’s look at the facts,” Gareth says, pointing toward their whiteboard of information. 

They turn in sync. There’s a lot written in various colors across the whiteboard: Gareth’s collection of nicknames, a list of every snack Steve Harrington’s brought to cheer practice, Nancy Wheeler’s greatest quotes of the last two months. 

Which, actually. Gareth stands up. Circles nickname number seventeen: ’Nance-Pants.’ Gareth only circles the Nance part, for the sake of Nancy Wheeler’s dignity. 

“As if Eddie Munson talks to Nancy Wheeler.” Barb declares on reflex. Then she looks harder at Gareth’s list. A little thought wiggles in her brain, and she takes her own expo marker to the board. She circles Dust, Dusty-Bun, Dusty-Bun-Bun, Emperor Dustintine, Bun, and Rabit. When she’s done, she points at Chrissy. “Chrissy,” she says. “What is your small cheer child’s name?” 

“Dustin Henderson,” Chrissy says, tilting her head. 

Barb starts making several lines across the board, matching nicknames with Nancy quotes that correlate with Chrissy’s chronological order of people who have hugged her. As she draws, she explains, “Dustin Henderson isn’t Robin’s younger brother, he’s Nancy’s little brother,” she circles the name Mike, “Mike’s, best friend. Which means, in theory,” she creates a wide circle around all their work, making Chrissy and Gareth gasp, “they’re all connected. All five of them are connected.”

Chapter Text

Upon Barb’s grand revelation, they put more things together. Nothing explains the weirdness, however. If anything, everything gets weirder. Because sure, Robin’s haircut has a face behind the name, and Nancy’s quotes involving brass instruments have an explanation. But other things, things like how they got close so quickly, the inside jokes, the shared history - there’s no explanation for those. Those get weirder lumped together. 

“It’s agreed then?” Gareth says to Chrissy because he knows she’s looking at the whiteboard, thinking the same thing. 

Chrissy glances surreptitiously at Barb before nodding. “Group project?” 

“Group project.” 

“Oh, hell no.” Barb crosses her arms. “We are not making this a group project. I said at the very beginning, I don’t do group projects.” 

They make it a group project. 

Mrs. Rose never approved their topics, and she has yet to ask for a project proposal, so there’s nothing stopping them from combining their previous observation notes into one field research clusterfuck. 

Gareth even erases the board of information (after Chrissy painstakingly copies the whole thing into her notebook). At the top, he writes ‘It’s All Connected: A Hawkins High Field Study.’ Underneath, he writes, ‘By Gareth A. Emerson, Christina C. Cunningham, and Barbara J. Holland.’ 

(“If you tell anyone my middle name is Jaennie, I will gut you, Emerson.” 

“My middle name is Archibald. This is a Cold War, Holland.”) 

To curb Barb’s group project panic, they dedicate specific roles to specific people. Chrissy has the best handwriting, so she will write the final copy of their field notes to be submitted to Mrs. Rose. She’s also typing their twelve-page essay and doing the citations. Barb is on theorist duty. 50% of their final project grade is based on tying their research back to the textbook. Barb is not willing to fail because Gareth Emerson wants to be a linguistic anthropologist. 

Gareth is creating the essay itself, stringing Chrissy’s final field notes and Barb’s theories together into twelve lovely pages of academic slog. 

This causes some complaints at first because: “No offense, Emerson, but I’m not letting a freshman write my essay. The three-step, eight-paragraph middle school bullshit won’t fly for an AP class.” 

“Well, Barbara,” Gareth likes Barb, but she can really bring out his bitchy side, “I might be a freshman, but I’m in eleventh grade AP Comp, and I’ve won eight academic writing awards, one of which was a Scholastic.” For Flash Fiction, but what Barb doesn’t know won’t hurt her. 

Chrissy offers a high five, which Gareth gives blindly, too busy smirking at Barb’s look of defeat to concentrate on aim. 

Before Gareth’s parents divorced and his mom moved them to buttfuck Indiana, Gareth attended a college prep private school in New York. It had middle to high school crammed into one building, and enrollment was given only to kids who could pass their entrance exam. Gareth aced the exam and got a full scholarship. Because the middle and high school combined, Gareth did fancy things like taking freshmen English in sixth grade and chemistry in seventh. He’s in Calculus AB right now, as a freshman, because he took pre-calc in eighth grade with a bunch of juniors. When he explains this to Barb, she loses her patented, ‘I want to be the smartest person in the room,’ look, because Gareth is less a condescending prodigy and more an overworked gifted kid. 

And he gets it. Barb has had to shove her way through Hawkins in order to prove her intelligence. Lord knows Chrissy has too. Barb is labeled as the frumpy know-it-all, and Chrissy is overlooked for a cheerleading uniform with boobs, and Gareth gets it because he’s always been the poor kid that happens to be good at math and writing. A show pony for educating the underprivileged. 

What a trio they make. 

Along with writing the essay (which poor Chrissy will then have to interpret, because Gareth may be a brilliant writer, but he does not have brilliant handwriting), Gareth will be doing the, “Public speaking? You want me to give the presentation?” 

The week before their AP exam, Mrs. Rose’s seventh bell will present their research during class. Gareth, Chrissy, and Barb have been invited to watch and give their own ten-minute research spiel. 

“Well, I don’t want to do it,” Barb says. 

“I don’t want to do it, either,” Chrissy says. 

“But why does that mean I have to?” Gareth throws his hands up, the expo-marker he was twirling flying out of his fingers. It lands in the reference section to his right, wedging between the dictionaries. Gareth, who is standing before their whiteboard, does not go to get it. “I hate public speaking.” 

“Boo!” Chrissy gives him a thumbs down. 

“Come on, Emerson.” Barb leans back in her chair like someone who does not have to give a presentation in front of a group of judgmental upperclassmen. “Use your male privilege to get us an A.” 

Gareth can’t come up with a good response to that, so he goes with, “Fine. I’ll use my male privilege. But just so you know, my male privilege has an anxiety disorder and is poor. Mrs. Rose may be sexist, but she is also classiest.” 

With their roles delineated and Chrissy’s promise to make a schedule, they begin phase two of the scientific method. Creating a hypothesis. 

— 

Creating a hypothesis is hard. 

Steve Harrington, Nancy Wheeler, Eddie Munson, Robin Buckley, and Dustin Henderson, dubbed for scientific purposes as the Total Subject Group, have nothing in common. A jock, a priss, a freak, a geek, and a toddler. Their only connecting force is Steve, Eddie, and Robin’s job at the record store (dubbed subcategory: Record Group). And while Nancy has Steve, Dustin is an outlier. The experimental group. 

Or, no, experimental groups aren’t in field research. 

Gareth is going to fail the AP Psych exam. 

Anyway, creating a hypothesis is hard. Throughout the month of February, the Study Buddies search high and low. There are lines on the whiteboard, and debates about word interpretation, and, once, Barb shredded her research notes to make a point. 

Chrissy uses her womanly ways on Mr. Gordon, the Biology teacher, and gets a pass granting unlimited photocopier access. At the beginning of their self-study periods, Barb and Gareth hand messy observation notes to Chrissy to take home, make pretty, and photocopy. They use the copies to highlight and draw comparisons. 

( “Mr. Gordon gives me the creeps.” 

“He’s a pig, Barb. He’s my neighbor, and whenever I walk home without Jason after cheer, he stands on his porch and wolf-whistles.” 

“I’m pretty sure we live in the same direction, Chrissy. When does Jason not walk you?” 

“Tuesdays. Why?” 

“Oh, I have Hellfire, then. I’ll meet you at your locker after cheer. We can walk home together.”) 

However, three witnessed conversations and one argument led to Gareth’s eventual hypothesis development. In chronological order, they go like this: 

1. Barb: A Quartet of Idiots 

Barb is the first of her kind to experience Steve Harrington, Nancy Wheeler, Eddie Munson, and Robin Buckley (dubbed subcategory: High School Subject Group) in full. Tuesday, February 7th, 1984, Barb arrives at lunch promptly. She sits, takes out her ham and cheese ciabatta sandwich and her peach slices, and enjoys the blissful two minutes of silence before Nancy and Harrington arrive. 

Steve sports his usual aura of arrogance as he and Nancy take their spots across from Barb. Both nod at Barb, which is an improvement from the days when neither looked her way. Now they make eye contact. Sometimes, Nancy will include her in a joke. 

Barb is not bitter. That would be stupid. 

As they start on their usual lunchtime routine of Steve and Nancy leaning on each other, and Barb taking observation notes she pretends are AP Gov homework, Barb is struck by a sense of calm. And then Eddie Munson and Robin Buckley appear like the twins from The Shining. For their part, Harrington and Nancy seem as confused as Barb. 

“You have Woodshop this period,” Nancy says, scooting closer to Steve so Robin can cram in beside her. There is no one else sitting at their table, nor the two tables attached to their table. Nancy and Barb found the spot furthest from the noise and closest to the window at the beginning of freshman year and claimed it in its entirety. But even with the empty space, Robin curls into Nancy like the table is packed. 

Robin has her sandwich in hand, came into the cafeteria with her sandwich in hand, like she couldn’t wait to sit down before eating. “It got canceled.” 

“Mr. Wellington’s cats gave birth,” Eddie says before stuffing three of Steve’s apple slices into his mouth. 

Blindly, Steve smacks Eddie in the torso, but Eddie is not deterred. He pilfers a mini potato knish and sits, practically on top of Steve, plastering himself against Steve’s shoulder. 

Steve lets him, which, weird, and says, “You don’t have Woodshop with Robs.” 

“So?” Eddie snags another knish. 

The rest of the cafeteria briefly looks their way but gives up when nothing, like, explodes. Steve Harrington’s life as a kept man has cooled the gossip. Everyone stops caring after a few months of nothing, apparently. Now the hot gossip is whether or not Heather Holloway is secretly pregnant. 

Robin reaches over Nancy to take Steve’s last knish. “These are the best, Bubbe Stevie.” 

Steve sighs, undisturbed by his friends stealing all his food. He seems completely calm, actually, like this is normal. Eddie bonks his nose against Steve’s cheek, and Steve doesn’t even react. 

“Are we still on for studying at your place after school, Eddie?” Nancy says. She’s letting Robin, who has finished her sandwich, play with her fingers. 

Eddie wrinkles his nose. “No go, Sugar Tits, Stevie’s coming.” 

“And he can’t come to the trailer? This is getting ridiculous.” 

Together, Eddie, Robin, and Steve say, “You're ridiculous,” like children. 

With a sigh, Eddie burrows his face in Steve’s neck. “Listen, I know-,” he starts, but has to reposition when his words are muffled by Steve’s skin. He pushes off Steve and rests his forearms on the table, leaning over Steve to see Nancy. “I know this is stupid. But Uncle Wayne and Steve can’t meet.” 

“Oh.” Nancy blinks rapidly. “Is he-?” She looks between Steve and Eddie. 

“No, no!” Eddie waves his hands in rapid denial of…something? Then, his face falls. He bites his lip. “No, honestly, it’s the opposite. He’s - we - you know he’s really big on union shit, and anti-war campaigns, and supports everything Regan actively doesn’t.” 

Nancy gives a little, pinched-smile nod. “What does that have to do with Steve?” 

“Because, Queen Anne Gun, Princess Stevie over here is, well, he’s a Harrington. The few times Wayne’s seen Steve, he’s all but run him out of Forest Hills. And we could work with that if it was just about Steve’s air of aristocracy - Wayne’s amicable. But it’s not about the rich thing, it’s about the Harrington thing. I’m pretty sure Wayne’s picketed all four of Richard Harrington’s senatorial races. And I can’t - look, Nance, I’m not letting anyone make him feel - fuck.” 

For a second, Barb thinks Eddie’s still talking about his uncle, but Nancy’s eyes dart across Steve’s face before she nods at Eddie, sure and protective. Steve is fiddling with Eddie’s curls, separating them in an attempt to remove himself from the conversation. Rumor around school is that Eddie the Freak Munson is incapable of seriousness. He’s dangerous, a joker but of the DC variety. Deranged, and wild, and unstable. Eddie Munson is the kind of person who hisses at cheerleaders and bites jocks who shove too hard. Yet, here he is, kind, and soft, and trading loaded, caring looks with Nancy Wheeler about Steve Harrington. 

“My parents picketed Steve’s dad, too,” Robin says around Steve’s last two apple slices, nonplussed about Eddie’s uncle. Barb, honestly, thinks Eddie’s uncle has a point. “They love Stevie, though. Or, at least, the first time they did. This time they think he’s trying to corrupt my womanhood.” 

Nancy stifles a giggle into her sweater sleeve as Robin winks at her. Barb resigns herself to a lunchtime of fast-paced writing and the distinct feeling of being left out. 

When Chrissy hands them their copies of Barb’s field notes two days later, Barb’s shorthand replaced with complete sentences, they search for clues. Chrissy underlines every reference to the High School Subject Group’s previous hangouts. Barb circles Uncle Wayne’s name, for reasons she refuses to explain. And Gareth highlights two phrases, Robin’s ‘last time,’ and ‘this time.’ 

2. Chrissy’s Quantum Entanglement 

Chrissy strikes gold when, on Saturday the 11th, she arrives to teach Dustin cheer only to find Eddie Munson perched in place of Robin Buckley on Robin’s back porch. As Chrissy leads Dustin through warm-up stretches and into the rudimentary routine they’ve been learning, Eddie and Dustin shout-talk across the lawn. 

At first, they discuss Eddie’s recent DnD campaign. Chrissy does not know much about DnD, but she listens when Gareth talks, so she knows that Eddie’s planning something Gareth has not seen coming. However, at some point, the conversation switches to DnD theory or something, oddly enough involving quantum physics. 

“I’m telling you, Bun, you solved the Grandfather Paradox wrong,” Eddie yells while Dustin attempts to lift his foot above his head. He’s not as flexible as Chrissy, and she’s having trouble adjusting. “The parallel universe already existed, there wasn’t another one. And anyone with a brain knows the quantum state isn’t a quantum superposition.”  

Dustin huffs. “I solved the Grandfather Paradox just fine - the parallel universe was us in superposition. You calculated the CTC wrong. There’s no other explanation for how we got the wrong unitary operator.” 

“My calculations were perfect, okay Henderson, perfect. And if they weren’t it’s because I was doing them on a TI-30 powered by a rotting potato battery.” 

“So you admit you messed up the calculations!” Dustin drops his foot and hits a high-v. He’s in perfect form. Next time, Chrissy will bring the pompoms. “My schematics were perfect. Never doubt my physics, Munson.” 

“You didn’t even consider the path integrals!” 

“As long as you calculate the maximum entropy, it doesn’t matter!” 

“Well, clearly it matters because that just creates a paradox.” 

Chrissy is pretty sure they think she can’t understand them. Or they don’t care. And this seems like an old argument, one without a clear answer. 

It reminds her of how narrowed into his DnD characters Gareth can get. He spent an hour over the phone asking Chrissy about the thermodynamics of firepower so he could make a semi-realistic half-dragon character. He even proposed an equation for the production of fire breath. Chrissy had to flip through all her AP Chem notes to help. 

Chrissy moves her and Dustin into a pike jump. 

“It does not create a paradox. You just don’t understand my genius.” 

After Dustin gets his balance, Chrissy leads with a scorpion. 

“Jesus H. Christ, Bun-Bun, it literally assumed the external subsystem was irrelevant.” 

Dustin can’t quite get his foot to his head, but that’s okay. They’re working on it. 

“Because it is irrelevant, Dipshit!”  

“I’ve never played Castles and Sea-monsters, but have you considered putting the path integral over a single-valued field?” Dustin’s foot drops out of his scorpion. Eddie chokes on his spit. They turn to Chrissy in tandem. “What?” Chrissy says, tilting her head and batting her eyes. “It would create self-consistent histories.” 

When she hands her copied field notes over to Barb and Gareth, Barb high-fives her. Barb’s touch makes Chrissy feel warm and squishy. 

With a pink, glitter gel pen, Chrissy makes margin notes about Eddie and Dustin’s seemingly familial relation. This, Barb claims, they can bullshit into family relation theory. Barb starts a list of every time Eddie mentions Robin, Steve, and Nancy, trying to create a bigger picture. Gareth’s copy of the field notes has spoilers for Eddie’s next campaign whited out. It doesn’t matter, though, because Gareth does not need the spoilers, he’s too busy highlighting the entire conversation about quantum physics. 

3. Gareth and the Panic Attacks 

Gareth’s important witnessed conversation is not long, but it solves one of their biggest questions. 

On Tuesday, February 14, Valentine's Day, Gareth sits between a distressed Grant and a thrilled Jeff. Jeff has a stack of chocolate boxes curtsy of his charm and impressive viola skills or something. Gareth thinks it’s because he’s not creepy to the girls in Orchestra. Grant does not have chocolate, he has an orange with a bow on it and a post-it note that reads, ‘Love you, Snookums,’ both of which are from his mom. 

Gareth is allergic to chocolate, so he’d been thrilled to find a massive bag of jolly ranchers from Chrissy in his locker. Barb did not give him candy, but she did give him double middle fingers in the hallway that morning, which is basically a ‘love you.’ Gareth has never gotten platonic Valentine's gifts before. It’s fantastic. 

Beside Gareth, Robin eats chocolate strawberries out of a heart-shaped box. She and Eddie each have strawberry boxes, Eddie’s with semi-sweet dark chocolate, and Robin’s with white chocolate covered in decorative pink designs. Gareth thinks it’s cute they’ve decided to break gender norms and both exchange treats. 

Even though lunch is fifteen minutes in, Eddie is not here. Robin keeps looking over her shoulder, and Grant’s asked her multiple times if she’s seen him. Gareth knows he’s here. He saw him and his heart box between second and third period, munching on a chocolate-covered strawberry and beaming at Steve Harrington. 

At the twenty-minute mark, Eddie darts into the cafeteria, b-lining straight to Robin. He flashes a smile at Hellfire before crouching to Robin’s face level. His usual bravado is missing, and he ignores Grant’s attempt at Valentine's commiseration. 

“Hey, I’m taking Lover Boy home. Nothing’s wrong, just, some dumbass messed with the lights in our Spanish class.” 

“Oh, shit,” Robin says. “Is he okay?” 

Eddie grimaces, tilting his hand back and forth. “It wasn’t the worst panic attack in the world, but it was big enough that the nurse actually gave me a note saying I could miss school to drive him home. The Harrington’s, of course, did not answer her phone call.” 

“They’re in Washington. They’ve been in Washington.” Robin is searching Eddie’s face for something. “Your place or his?” 

“Mine,” Eddie says without hesitation. 

Robin squints. “Isn’t it Wayne’s day off?” 

“He’s taking his lady love or whatever the fuck out for a very long lunch I don’t need the details for. By the time he gets home, Princess Stevie should be all cried out and on his way to Nancy’s.” 

“You’re still coming?” Robin’s worry is present, but her rising grin screams excitement. 

Eddie smacks a big kiss on her forehead. “Wouldn’t miss it. It was a panic attack, not a flashback. He’ll be fine. You know how it is.” 

Eddie leaves the lunch room with a holler over his shoulder about Hellfire being canceled, which Gareth is fine with. He has a mound of Calc homework to finish, and he’s fine waiting in the library for Chrissy’s cheer practice to end. 

In fact, Barb winds up stuck at a student council meeting, and the three of them leave school together, walking out of the double front doors into the freezing February air. The football lights block the stars, and the snow is slushy, but Chrissy wraps her arm around Gareth’s shoulder as Gareth leads Barb, whose eyes are glued to her student council minutes, through the parking lot. It’s Tuesday, Gareth’s day to escort Chrissy home in place of Jason. 

When they get to the end of the parking lot, Barb heading north and Chrissy and Gareth heading east, Gareth says, “And I think the reason our Total Subject Group are friends is because of trauma bonding.” 

“What?” Barb says, looking away from her minutes. 

“What?” Chrissy says, strangling Gareth with her elbow pit due to height differences. 

“I’ll show you the observation notes tomorrow morning,” Gareth says, and he does. 

Because he’s absolutely right, turns out. Fucking trauma bonding. 

4. The One (1) Argument 

The argument starts with Chrissy, who arrives at school early on Wednesday, February 22, and sees Steve Harrington and Robin Buckley idling in Steve’s Beemer. Chrissy has seen Steve and Robin interact before, but this feels different. Or, perhaps, more isolated. Robin leans her head on Steve’s shoulder as Steve carts his fingers through Robin’s hair. They whisper to each other, giggling periodically like they’re the only ones in the parking lot. And they are. The only ones and Chrissy. 

When the first-period bell rings and Chrissy collects Gareth and Barb’s observation notes for copying, Chrissy, who has never seen Steve and Nancy interact, says, “Are you sure Steve and Nancy are dating? I think Steve might be with Robin?” 

“Eddie’s with Robin. They’re gross,” Gareth says. A highlighter sticks out the side of his mouth as he looks over field notes from previous weeks. 

So far, their only hypothesis is trauma bonding. It’s been a process. 

“And Nancy is with Steve.” Barb has her thinking face on, lips pouty and eyebrows furrowed in a way that makes Chrissy want to eat her. But she and Barb are friends. That’s friend stuff. After all, Chrissy has never wanted to eat Jason. She barely wants to kiss Jason. “Why?” 

Chrissy shrugs, snatching Gareth’s pink highlighters out of his pencil case. “I don’t know. I saw them cuddling and laughing in the car this morning.” 

“That could be friend stuff,” Gareth says. 

At the same time, Barb shouts, “That cheater,” louder than is library permissible. 

The librarian, who has chosen today of all days to grace them with her presence, shushes them with a stern look. 

“I don’t think Harrington is cheating on Nancy. I mean, cuddling and laughing is not indicative of a romantic relationship.” Gareth nudges Chrissy until she hands over a sparkly gel pen, his words slurred by the highlighter in his mouth. “I mean, Chrissy and I lean on each other and giggle through this class three times a week and we’re not dating.” 

This, for some reason, does not deter Barb’s rage. In fact, it seems to make her angrier. “Steve Harrington is a notorious playboy. I knew he wasn’t good enough for my Nancy,” she says, but she’s glaring at Gareth like she’s talking about something else. 

Gareth looks up from his notes, sees Barb’s face, and rolls his eyes so hard it must hurt. “Okay, Barbara. Your Nancy.” Barb’s scowl grows deeper. “I’m just saying, I don’t think Steve’s cheating on anyone.” 

“Steve Harrington doesn’t seem like the cheating type. If my list of character traits means anything, he’s a loyal friend who goes out of his way to make others comfortable.” Chrissy gestures to the whiteboard, which has her detailed analyses of the Total Subject Group written in column three. “I was trying to point out that we could be wrong, it could be Nancy and Eddie and Steve and Robin as the couples. Our research is biased because our main reference point is lunch.” 

Thus, the great couples debate begins. Gareth sticks with the original pairings, Chrissy goes with Nancy and Eddie and Steve and Robin, and Barb starts a campaign about Steve two timing while Eddie pines after Robin like a Victorian romance heroin. 

— 

When Wayne gets home from his date, the light in Eddie’s room is off. Eddie’s home, though, Wayne can hear him strumming something on his acoustic. His door is open, too, cracked slightly. Wayne closes the front door quietly behind him, takes his boots off, and heads over to greet his kid. 

With a knock on Eddie’s door, Wayne widens the crack. Eddie sits criss-cross applesauce on his floor, back resting against the foot of his bed and guitar on his lap. His hair is kept half up by a massive beret. Eddie’s lava lamp is the only light on, bathing the room in a soft purple. The reflections of the bubbles glint off Eddie’s rings and the shiny Sharpied ‘this machine slays dragons’ stretching across the bottom of his guitar. 

Ever since the girls started showing up, Eddie’s room has been cleaner - his clothes in his closet, and his posters straight. It still smells like skunk, but Wayne thinks that smell has long sunk into the floors. And it’s muted now, covered up by pine and vanilla, patchouli, and Nancy Wheeler’s Avon perfume. 

The cleanliness gives Wayne a straight-shot view of the person on Eddie’s bed. The hood of Eddie’s sweatshirt is pulled over their head, and they curl into Eddie’s duvet, clutching at the fabric.

Eddie meets Wayne’s gaze with a startled expression. He glances at his bed before gently setting his guitar on the floor, quietly getting up. Pushing Wayne out of his bedroom, Eddie closes the door, leaving a sliver of space open. “You’re home early,” he whispers. Wayne gives him an unimpressed eyebrow raise that has Eddie waving his arms franticly, still whispering. “We didn’t do anything nefarious!” 

“I sure hope not.” Wayne knows what having a girl asleep in your bed while your guardians are out means. And it’s Valentine's Day to boot. Still, Wayne has hope. “You’re hardly a teenager yourself. We don’t need more little Munsons running about the place because you wanted to get frisky.” 

“Ha,” Eddie says, completely deadpan. Then he sighs, pinches his nose, and levels Wayne with a look serious enough that Wayne takes a breath. “To start, not that young, Wayne. And you don’t gotta worry about little baby me’s popping up. Because that’s - ya, that’s never happening. Not from however you’re thinking, at least. But, also…” Eddie glances at his door, bends a little to look through the crack, and breathes deeply. Looks Wayne dead in the eyes. “We didn’t do anything because he’s not over for that. Okay. There was this thing at school, and I’m not telling you all of his business, Wayne, but he’s just crashing for a little -” 

“He?” Wayne cuts Eddie off, eyebrows raising to his hairline. 

“Yes, he,” Eddie says and goes to continue but gets cut off again when the sound of his name is muttered behind the door. “Fuck.” Eddie closes his eyes. The voice calls again. “Be in, in a second,” he shouts and turns back to Wayne. 

And Wayne sure as hell was not born yesterday. “Is that a Harrington in our good Christian home?” 

“Your good Christian home,” Eddie says, like a fucking smartass. “I’m Jewish.” 

“For fucks sake, Ed-” 

“No.” Eddie’s voice is hard. “No, you don’t get to have an opinion on this right now. I thought you’d gone until fuck knows o’clock, okay. I make damn sure he’s not around when you are.” Which, fuck, that means the Harrington boy’s been over when Wayne’s at work. Great. Eddie glances at the clock hanging above their stove and clicks his tongue. Runs a hand over his hair, wincing as he smacks his fingers into his hair beret. “We’re leaving, anyway. Be out of your non-existent hair in ten minutes. Good enough for you, Old Man?” 

And Wayne feels a little like he’s stepped onto a stair that doesn’t exist. Nods, because he’s not sure what else to do. Because Eddie doesn’t usually go serious on him. Dawdles the line between a goofball and an angst machine. But he’s real serious now. And Wayne’s got no clue why. 

So, Wayne makes himself some tea, sits in his armchair, and answers Eddie’s mocking salute out the front door with a tiny grin. Eddie pushes Steve Harrington in front of him, the boy still dressed in Eddie’s hoodie. Hood up and face hidden. Too good to grace their shit-hole with his full, rich boy presence.  

“We’re going to Stevie’s,” Eddie shouts over his shoulder as the front door starts closing. “Love you, you Stick In The Mud.” 

And Wayne doesn’t think he’s a stick in the mud, but he shouts back, “Love you, too, brat.” And wonders why the hell Steve Harrington gets to meet Eddie’s Stevie before Wayne does. 

— 

The Study Buddies fall into a pattern in February, gathering information and scouring notes. Outside of Hellfire Tuesdays, Gareth meets Barb in the empty library after school. They study for their other AP classes. Gareth is slogging his way through Calc AB and Comp with the eleventh graders, and Barb has APush with Nancy and Gov with Chrissy, who’s weaseled her way into AP Chemistry as a freshman. Gareth and Chrissy agree the Hawkins High cut-off of three advanced placement courses per year is a blessing, otherwise, they’d never sleep. Chrissy’s mom has expectations higher than Gareth’s IQ, and, on their court-mandated bi-monthly phone calls, Gareth’s dad rants about Gareth’s inability to impress him. Because Gareth is supposed to be a doctor or something - end the family cycle of poverty with his brains and hoisted bootstraps. 

 Naturally, Barb, whose parents are great, thinks the three-class cut-off is bullshit. 

Gareth can’t walk Chrissy home on any none-Hellfire days because of Jason, but he and Barb time their library exit to pass the locker rooms, so they can make faces at Jason’s back while Chrissy pretends not to see them. 

On Hellfire Tuesdays, the three meet at Barb’s locker after their respective extracurriculars. Gareth and Chrissy leave Barb at the end of the parking lot with a wave from Gareth and a too-long hug from Chrissy. At the start, Gareth, who lives two neighborhoods down from Chrissy on the opposite side of the train tracks, walked his bike the four blocks from school to Chrissy’s newly built McMansion. But, after a week, and several tire runs over ankles, that stopped. Now, Chrissy stands on his pegs and laughs into the night, clinging to Gareth’s shoulders as he pedals. 

Sometimes, Gareth swears Chrissy has clocked him. Or, at least, half-clocked him. Probably because Gareth only ever looked at Chrissy’s boobs that time she asked him if they seemed uneven. He’d given them a scientific once over and said, “The right one is bigger.” 

On the other hand, Barb has not clocked Gareth. She gets irritated when Chrissy smacks wet kisses on Gareth’s cheek, and then can’t explain why. 

On weekends, Chrissy calls Gareth after dinner and they bitch about their parents until Chrissy’s mom gets curious and picks up the Cunningham’s living room extension. Chrissy tells her mom she is talking to Jason. Sometimes, they three-way-call with Barb, and Gareth has the unwanted pleasure of listening to Chrissy and Barb flirt with each other unintentionally. 

And during AP Psych, especially during the last two weeks of February, they come up with hypotheses. 

It is obvious who suggests what hypotheses because they coordinate with their academic interests. Gareth is a man(ish) of social science. Not necessarily psychology, (Sorry Mrs. Rose!) but Anthropology and Sociology are his shit. Linguistics in particular. Outside of Gareth’s choice of music, the reason Eddie welcomed Gareth into his sheep herd was because Gareth could read Eddie’s history notes. Eddie’s history notes written in Elvish. And the only solo conversation Gareth ever had with Robin was about the communal vibes of Esperanto. 

Chrissy is a math and science baby. She wants to get her Ph.D. in, like, astrophysics. Gareth believes in her. Tells her several times that Jason isn’t worth shit if he thinks he can keep her barefoot in the kitchen, because Chrissy Cunningham is built to fly space shuttles and build Mars rovers. Plus, she could kick Jason Carver’s ass in three seconds flat. The whiny fucking crusader. 

Barb rounds out their group with her Dark Academia aesthetic. Humanities are her lifeblood or something. She’s all history and classic literature. She and Gareth get into a twenty-minute debate about Shakespeare because Barb thinks he made essential strides for modern theater - anoints him as the greatest. Goes on forever about his poetry and art, and Gareth doesn’t care because, “It’s all dick jokes, Holland. The most dick jokes I’ve heard in a row was when we read Romeo and Juliet in Comp. And I’m best friends with Grant fucking Keller.” 

It’s only natural that their hypotheses match their areas of expertise. Barb thinks the Total Subject Group had one shared, highly traumatizing experience, which pushed them together. Like being stuck in an elevator, or running away from a hypothetical serial killer. Chrissy is using a systematic approach. The Total Subject Group shares similar, but not the same traumas. Possibly, they met at a support group. Either way, there were steps. A process. In the beginning, Gareth analyzed their speech patterns for clues, but, as the only major sci-fi nerd in the Study Buddies, he quickly turned to the bizarre. 

(“They’re not fucking aliens, Gareth Archibald!” 

“They could be, Barbara Jaennie!” 

“I don’t think they’re aliens, Emmy, but I see where you’re coming from.” 

“Thank you, Chrissy.” 

“Stop flirting with her, Emerson. God, men!” 

“I wasn’t-”) 

Either way, it’s a process, sorting through notes and compiling answers. A process that Gareth thinks he would hate, should hate, but he’s not. Because he’s somehow made actual friends with these clueless, nerdy bastards. 

— 

Barb does not realize she’s become friends with her self-study group until Chrissy Cunningham breaks up with Jason Carver. 

“I’ve broken up with Jason,” Chrissy says upon arrival at their wooden library table. The dull, yellow beams of sun shine in from the windows behind Barb, turning Chrissy’s hair strawberry. And she looks positively thrilled. “If anyone asks, it was me. This morning. At his locker. Ten minutes ago. Jason and I are no longer together.” 

Gareth, who had been in the middle of unloading his backpack, whips around to wrap Chrissy in a hug, spinning her around as she giggles. And Barb feels, well, Barb feels thrilled. Like, she’s a little jealous that Gareth can freely hug Chrissy, and she’s definitely elated that Chrissy is no longer shackled to a boyfriend, but mostly she’s thrilled because Chrissy is thrilled. 

And. Okay. Barb has only had two friends in her life - two actual, real friends. Robin Buckley and Nancy Wheeler. Robin and Barb were inseparable in elementary school, but then Barb met Nancy and never turned back. And that’s dumb - Barb is in high school now, she’s mature enough to know she left Robin alone. And now Robin is part of some weird group of traumatized teenagers with Nancy, so Barb thinks it’s cyclical. 

The thing is, Barb didn’t think she was meant for friends. She ditched Robin for the pretty popular girl in sixth grade and wound up mad at that pretty popular girl for ditching her for Steve Harrington. And Barb wasn’t made to fit in. She’s a brainiac, she doesn’t want to dress pretty and show off for boys, she wants to get out of Hawkins, and study history. Get a job writing anthologies, or bibliographies, or research papers. She wants to show off for pretty girls. 

That’s not Hawkins friend material. Barb knows this. She has to know this because the kids at school aren’t exactly quiet. Barb is a shutdown, a conversation-ender, a forever virgin because she’s too busy reading to put out. 

God knows, but she’s heard Steve’s supposed best friends say worse. Carol and Tommy called her every name under the sun when he and Nancy got together. 

So, Barb takes to acquaintances with hesitation. Group projects are banned, and she only studies with Nancy, and she’s never called classmates for anything. Ever. 

But here is Chrissy Cunningham, freshmen varsity cheerleader and the future Queen of Hawkins High, telling Barb that she broke up with her boyfriend. Telling Barb (and Gareth) first. Because it’s only been ten minutes - Chrissy clearly came here directly after. And Nancy and Barb haven’t studied together in weeks. Gareth’s the one who came up with an acronym to help Barb ace her last exam. And she calls them sometimes, Gareth and Chrissy. Sits on her living room sofa and laughs, twirling her phone cord around her pointer finger as Chrissy dishes out cheer gossip and Gareth eggs her on. 

Because they are Barb’s friends. Barb’s actual friends. 

— 

The candles flicker and Steve’s parve chocolate mousse melts on Eddie’s tongue. The table is quiet, tense, and tired. 

It’s been a week. 

Steve’s panic attack sent them all into private spirals. Eddie woke up the next day with his voice stuck in his throat. He gets like that, sometimes - has gotten like that since the social worker dragged him out of the police station - thoughts whizzing and mouth glued shut. It got worse in the Upside Down, but that was fine, because Eddie could look at Steve, and Robin, and Nancy, and Dustin, and they would know. But now he’s got school. Got people who ask questions. Who don’t already know. 

He used to miss school on those days - and on many, many other days. But Eddie promised himself he was graduating this year, and he can’t do that if he skips. That’s how he failed the first time. It was repeat a year or go to juvie for truancy, so Eddie repeated, tanked, and tried again. But he’s done trying. Tired of trying. Fuck, but Eddie just wants to sleep. And cry into Steve’s shoulder. Because pretending at school - being this big, wild thing - was never particularly enjoyable. But doing that when Eddie’s three seconds from falling apart. That hurts. Physically. 

And Eddie knows the others are going through shit. Steve’s eyes have been unfocused, and Nancy routinely checks the exits. Robin’s jokes are cover-up fast. And Eddie picked Dustin up from school that afternoon only to pull off on the side of the road because Dustin started sobbing. 

So. The mousse is a good distraction. The whole fucking act of tradition is a good distraction. 

“Hey, Ed?” Robin’s voice is quiet, and she talks around a massive mouthful of chocolate. “Why’s Gareth writing down everything you say at lunch?” 

This is supposed to be a mood lightener. But Eddie can’t muster his usual flare for dramatics. So, Robin gets a quick, “Psych project.” 

“Oh.” Nancy lowers her dainty spoonful of mousse. “I think Barb’s in that class.” 

Steve, who’s leaning his head on Eddie’s shoulder, hums. “Is that why she writes all through lunch?” His words are slurred, on the edge of sleep. 

Eddie kisses the top of Steve’s head. 

“Chrissy’s in that class, too.” Dustin is poking his mousse with his spoon, not eating. “She’s using our cheerleading sessions.” 

“Nice,” Eddie says. 

The table lapses back into silence. Steve’s full weight drops against Eddie’s side, and he’s not asleep, but he looks exhausted. Looks like he’s not really here. Eddie wonders if Steve will even remember this conversation tomorrow because sometimes Steve goes places Eddie can’t. Robin and Nancy’s chairs are pushed together, their legs intertwined. Dustin keeps poking his mousse. 

Nancy grips her spoon - white knuckles it without realizing. “I don’t remember there being an underclassmen psychology class last time.”  

“There was. Self-study. It got canceled after Barb -” Eddie looks at Nancy - at her knuckles. His sigh ruffles Steve’s hair. He can’t meet anyone's eyes. Focuses on the flickering flames. Says, “Gareth was upset about it last time until Grant made some comment about Gareth putting too much stock in school. Kinda shut Gareth down forever, actually. And I was too up my own ass about education and the public school industrial complex, I let it happen. Which is shit, because Gareth spent a good amount of his nights sleeping on my floor, and I just, fucking….” Eddie stops. Takes a breath. Eats another bite of mousse, and pretends like chocolate can fix everything. 

The other’s give him looks about the ‘Gareth sleeping over’ comment, but Steve presses closer. Because he gets it. 

 Eddie’s mom was good, but she split custody with Eddie’s dad before she died, and Eddie’s dad was A Man. A loud, and proud, and Wrong Man, with big words, and grand ideas, and no rules. He let Eddie drink with college kids on the docks, and used Eddie for his cons, and put his cigarette out on the pit of Eddie’s elbow. And Steve’s parents are long trips to Washington, and money left on the table. Steve used to get school off when they visited home. He would come back with bruises and casts, and tell everyone his parents took him to expensive, snowy resorts. Eddie used to think Steve should stay home if he was so bad at skiing. He knows better now. 

“Chrissy said she’ll pay me in cookies when she’s done,” Dustin says in a clear attempt to cut through the tension. 

And Eddie is tired, they’re all so fucking tired, so he takes the bait. Says, “Not fair, Bunny. How come you’re getting paid?” And lets them break into a half-hearted argument about school, and cookies, and life. 

— 

In the end, Gareth finds their hypothesis. 

On Saturday, March 3rd, Gareth’s mother drinks herself into a stupor and Gareth pedals through Hawkins, a cut on his forehead from a beer bottle to the wall. He thinks about going to Eddie’s, but Eddie mentioned hanging out with Steve that weekend. Chrissy’s mom does not like Gareth’s general aesthetic. And Barb seems like the kind of person to call CPS. 

So, Gareth loiters around Hawkins’ second-hand bookstore, petting the store cat and letting the nice old lady behind the register place butterfly bandages on his forehead. The bookstore is comfortable, all exposed wood and tall books stacks. Classical music plays from a massive gramophone, and leather sofas are tucked into every corner. Gareth is wet from the March rain. He’s tired, and his ears are ringing, and his hands won’t stop shaking even though it’s been hours. 

The bookstore feels like an oasis. And two days ago, he received a birthday letter from his dad with twenty bucks shoved into a store-bought card, so Gareth has money. And one day, he’ll forgive his dad for sending him a birthday card in March. Because Gareth’s birthday is in July.  

Gareth ruminates on his phycology project hypotheses as he walks through the stacks. He is stuck on the phrases. On things like Robin’s ‘last time,’ and ‘this time.’ Like that conversation before winter break Barb told them about, where Steve and Nancy discussed the White House Christmas Party. Steve talked about past events like they were in the future. Or repeating. Or something. And Gareth keeps going back to Chrissy’s quantum physics discussion. 

And, look, Gareth is a logic-based person. He is. He likes science, and math, and definites. He likes to explain things. And he knows, okay, he knows that science fiction isn’t real. That’s the whole fucking point. He played DnD long before he came to Hawkins, he’s fully aware that fantasy, and monsters, and superpowers hold no basis in fact. But the phrases bother him. The ‘last times,’ in relation to physical time, not lineal past events. The ‘at least all your friends aren’t twelve,’ said like Dustin Henderson, seventh-grade boy wonder, wasn’t also twelve. Eddie’s ‘senior year part four.’  

The fucking months' worth of friendships seemingly built overnight. 

Gareth peruses the comic section at the back of the bookstore. He’s getting a headache from thinking. And then he pulls out a comic he’s read about three billion times and thinks, oh shit, because improbably and against all odds, the only answer is -

Chapter Text

 “- Time travel.” Gareth slaps a copy of The Uncanny X-Men 141: Days of Future Past on their library table, startling Barb and Chrissy as they take off their backpacks. “It has to be time travel.” 

“Emerson, how many times -” 

“The Grandfather Paradox,” Chrissy cuts Barb off. “They were talking about the Grandfather Paradox.” 

“And Eddie has done senior year more than once. Steve didn’t go to the White House Christmas party with Nancy last time. Dustin’s friends are twelve.” Gareth hopes to god this makes sense because he feels like he’s cracked the code. 

“Hold up.” Barb finishes putting her backpack on the carpet by her seat and walks toward the whiteboard. She opens her mouth, likely to dispute Gareth’s highly improbable theory, but shuts it. Picks up an expo marker. Makes several lines. It’s a mirror of their last big revelation, only crazier. Gareth didn’t think things could get crazier than Eddie Munson and Steve Harrington being friends, but here it is. Time Travel. “Hold up,” Barb says to the whiteboard. “Hold up. What the fuck?” 

She’s made several conjoining lines, all referencing mentions of past events that never happened. Chrissy pulls her field notes from her psychology folder, spreading them across her section of the table. Moving his comic to his seat, Gareth grabs his own notes, adding them to Chrissy’s pile. Last night, as his mom watched soap operas and cried, Gareth blasted Metallic and highlighted every reference to time travel the Total Subject Group has made. He even color-coordinated it. And wrote a tentative timeline in his notebook next to last week’s chapter questions. 

“Time travel,” Chrissy whispers, frantically rearranging her papers, eyes wide as saucers. 

Gareth snorts, chokes, and starts laughing hysterically. “Fucking time travel.” 

Gareth changes the whiteboard to read, ‘The Social Implications of Teenage Time Travel: A Hawkins High Field Study, by Gareth A. Emerson, Christina E. Cunningham, and Barbara J. Holland.’ 

“We’re really doing this,” Barb groans. 

Gareth steps back, grinning. “We’re really doing this.”  

Chrissy twirls her highlighter like a baton. Points at Gareth’s project title. “Dustin isn’t in high school.” 

“He was when they time traveled, though. At least, I think.” Gareth practically skips over to Chrissy, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with her as he sorts through his notes. Barb is only a little jealous. Only a little. It doesn’t matter, really, because Chrissy is straight, anyway. No self-respecting homosexual would date Jason Carver. “When Eddie talked about repeating senior year, he said this was his fourth time. Then, Robin said, and I quote,” Gareth puts his oldest dated field notes before his face, looking down his nose and pretending to hold bifocals, “‘You were at least twenty in the,’ and then she flipped her hands upside down. And Eddie was not twenty, because she based his age on the standard graduation age, and Eddie skipped two grades-” 

“Eddie Munson is fifteen?” 

Gareth drops his act, shooting an incredulous look at Barb. “Yes! Do you even read my field notes, Holland? God. He’s fifteen, but when he time traveled, he was eighteen. Because they come from at least three years in the future.” 

“Eddie Munson failed senior year three times?” 

“Not the point, Barbara.” 

— 

For the next week and a half, the Study Buddies piece together a theory. On Monday, after accepting the time travel hypothesis, they determine from Chrissy’s February 11 th quantum physics notes that, at one point, The Total Subject Group was in an alternative dimension. 

They make bullet points: 

1. The parallel universe already existed, therefore, to have messed up the grandfather paradox, they must have been in it;  
2. Dustin made the schematics for whatever time travel machine they used; 
3. Eddie did the math - possibly badly. 

This leads to several more questions, like: 

1. Why was there a parallel universe? 
2. How did Steve, Robin, and Nancy get involved?  
3. Why was a teeny bopper making time travel devices? 
4. Did they even mean to time travel, or were they just trying to get out of the parallel universe? 
5. What kind of parallel universe? 

Barb and Chrissy answer most of these questions during their Wednesday class. With her knowledge of, like, hard science, Chrissy, the brilliant woman that she is, notices a pattern that escaped Barb. 

“There are four types of stacked multiverses,” Chrissy tells them. She’s wearing a pretty green sweater that brings out her eyes. It’s distracting Barb. “Level one is an extension of our universe, level two changes physical constants, level three involves the many-world interpretations, and level four is the ultimate ensemble, which considers all multiverses to be equally real. Basically, everything everywhere all at once.” Gareth’s mouth is parted and there’s a sheen over his eyes. Barb couldn’t agree more. “I propose we look specifically at levels two and three. The physical constants are things like Planck’s constant and the gravitational constant, and if my data collection is-” 

“Chrissy. Chrissy Christina Crustacean,” that’s a new one, Barb thinks, balking at Gareth, “I have no clue what you’re talking about.” 

Chrissy looks about three seconds away from challenging Gareth’s claims before she notices Barb’s equally confused demeanor. “Upside down. I think their parallel universe was upside down.” 

With that, Chrissy shows them how she’d spent the previous night not doing her Chem homework in favor of underlining every time the Total Subject Group has referenced or made hand gestures representing a flip. Chrissy determines that Dustin’s Grandfather Paradox parallel universe must have been identical to their current universe, but with slightly different consents, flipping the universe upside down. And also, like, possibly having a different atmosphere or something. Barb does not do physics. Chrissy also claims, while trying to escape this upside-down place, the Total Subject Group created another parallel universe where time ran almost linearly, leading them to arrive here - assumed time travel. 

Most of Barb does not follow. Actually, all of Barb does not follow, but she’ll take the whole upside down thing. Sure. She’s already trying to wrap her head around time travel. Whatever. 

What she can follow, however, is what she’d realized the night before. 

“I think at least Steve and Robin met at work. In Gareth’s field notes from January 27 th , he observes that, currently, Robin, Steve, and Eddie work at a record store. But when Robin mentions their uniforms, Eddie says, ‘Not quite as good as the Scoops Ahoy get up.’ And Robin replies, ‘You didn’t even work at Scoops.’ Then, they imply that Scoops Ahoy was at a mall.” 

“Hawkins doesn’t have a mall,” Chrissy says, stepping into Barb’s bubble of research. It is both a wanted and unwanted closeness. 

Gareth slaps his hands on their table, a giddy grin slipping across his lips. “Oh my god, Steve Harrington wore the slutty Scoops Ahoy uniform.” 

Naturally, this devolves into an entirely different conversation. 

On Friday, they ask more questions. Their library table is covered in papers, and their whiteboard has more underlines than words. Gareth filched tape from the librarian’s cart and makes a murder board of sorts on the wall, hanging up cutouts of copied field notes. He connects them with embroidery floss Barb permanently borrows from her seventh bell Home Economics. 

They take the testing room dividers stored in the library’s closet and make a protective square around their table. The library is not the most used room in Hawkins High, but Barb does not want someone messing up their research. Chrissy even borrows the librarian’s computer to print ‘Do not disturb, testing in process’ signs to put on the outside of their section dividers. 

It’s all illicit academia. Barb feels very cool. 

— 

Over the weekend, on March 11 th , Gareth gains a critical piece of information. 

Corroded Coffin is doing another writing session at Eddie’s trailer. Their music has gotten better. They might play actual gigs. Outside of Hawkins. To more than three people. With their own songs. 

Mind-boggling. 

Part of Gareth is disheartened to know their jump in experience and talent is because Eddie, their frontman, time traveled, but most of him is thrilled to have opportunities. 

Jeff fiddles with his acoustic on Wayne’s sacred sofa. Grant and Eddie sit on the couch, arguing about chord progressions. Sitting on the carpet between Grant and Eddie’s knees, Gareth uses the floor, the coffee table, and his thighs as practice drums. 

Next to Eddie, Gareth is the best musician in the band. Eddie is a musical genius, but Gareth’s piece of shit dad used to be in a rock band that did alright in the 60’s New York club scene. Gareth grew up around musicians. He’s been playing the drums since before he could walk. 

During a particularly tricky drum section that involves Gareth smacking the shit out of his thigh and pretending it’s his snare, the trailer door opens. Robin’s not here - banned from practice by Eddie for being a distraction - and Wayne left for work. 

But that doesn’t matter, because it’s Dustin slamming the door shut behind him. His baby face is red, tears streaming down his cheeks, and he doesn’t even look at them as he darts past the living room, through the kitchen, and into Eddie’s room. 

Outside of Dustin’s last band session interruption, Gareth hasn’t actually seen the kid. He’s heard all about him from Chrissy’s cheerleading field notes and Barb’s tales of Mike Wheeler escapades. (Apparently, Dustin used to have this massive crush on Nancy. Which. Embarrassing. Especially because Dustin seems close to Steve.) So, Grant and Jeff’s absolutely floored looks are understandable. 

Eddie, though, looks wrecked. He bites his lip, ignores Grant’s questions, and gently moves Gareth’s back off his shin to stand. “You all can stay, obviously, but I’m going to go older brother this, okay?” 

“Of course, man,” Gareth says, because he has an inkling this is time travel related. 

“Dude, who the hell is the bitty bopper?” Grant, who, now that Gareth thinks about it, was probably high the last time Dustin appeared, is less understanding. 

Eddie doesn’t answer, too busy making his way toward the shut door of his bedroom. And, look, Gareth tries to bang his drumsticks really hard to cover the noise of Dustin crying and Eddie being horribly sweet about it, but the trailer has thin walls. Really thin walls. Like, if Robin and Eddie ever get up to anything, they shouldn’t, because Wayne does not deserve that level of thinness. 

So, over Gareth’s drumming and Jeff, bless him, loudly jamming on his acoustic to drown out Grant’s bewildered complaints, Gareth can still hear some of the conversation. 

Especially when Dustin pretty much shouts, “You don’t get it, they’re fucking twelve, Eddie. I had a support system. Now I just have you.” 

To which Eddie patiently responds, “I know, Dust. I know.” 

And, is it a bit shit to use this clearly vulnerable moment for his AP Psych project? Yes. But he can’t stop thinking: 

“Dustin’s friends were involved.” 

“Of course.” Chrissy tilts her head, munching on one of Gareth’s Pop-Tarts as they watch Barb unpack. “They make up our Total Subject Group.” 

“No.” Gareth bites into his own Pop-Tart. Strawberry jam coats his teeth. “No, like his itty bitty friends. His Mike Wheeler friends.” 

“That actually makes sense,” Barb says. “They used to do everything together before this time travel conundrum.” She moves her backpack off her chair to the floor. “They would have been young when this whole thing started, though.” 

“I’ve been thinking, when did this start? Like, what was the inciting incident?” Gareth can’t figure out why they traveled to this time specifically. 

Barb, who’d sat down in a slouch, straightens. “The lab,” she says. “This whole thing started the week the lab burned.” 

Taking her last bit of Pop-Tart, Chrissy hums. “But what does the lab have to do with Dustin?” 

Gareth tries to remember what he’d heard on the news about Hawkins Lab. He’d only been in Hawkins for three-ish months at that point, he hadn’t paid much attention. But the one thing he does remember is: “The lab was experimenting on children. Holy shit, guys!” 

“Dustin!” Chrissy turns to shake Gareth’s shoulders. “Dustin escaped from the lab!” 

“And the experiments,” Gareth continues for her, “must have made, like mutations or something. Right? What else would a creepy science lab in the middle of corn fuck Indiana be doing? Dustin opened the parallel universe and dragged his baby friends into it, which dragged in Nancy. And Nancy dragged in Steve, who dragged in Robin. Which means when Robin started dating Eddie, he found out about Dustin.” Gareth smacks a big kiss on Chrissy’s forehead. Barb twitches, but Gareth doesn’t care. They’ve fucking cracked the code. “Boom bada boom. Solved.” 

Barb cuts off their excitement with the most exasperated look Gareth’s ever seen. “Not solved. Dustin’s been friends with Mike Wheeler for years. As long as I’ve been friends with Nance.” 

“Okay, but our timeline isn’t fixed. The lab burning down is the big whopper, but Dustin could have escaped before that.” Barb is not taking this from Gareth. Nope. “How long have you been friends with Nancy?” 

This makes Barb think. 

“Sixth grade,” is Barb’s response. “But, I didn’t meet her family until, like seventh grade. And I don’t think Dustin showed up until around our eighth because Nancy used to specifically not invite me over when her brother played DnD. I think it’s because she played with them, but that’s inconclusive.” 

“Mike is, what, three years younger than Nancy?” Gareth does the math in his head. “That would make Dustin ten-ish when you met him.” 

“A ten-year-old with magical, interdimensional powers would be pretty unstable,” Chrissy says. 

“He has, like, a mom, though?” Barb flips through her field notes like they might give her an answer. “Right? I feel like I’d know if he didn’t have parents.” 

“I mean, I’ve only seen him at Robin’s house,” Chrissy says. 

“Maybe he found a parent after he escaped.” Gareth shoves the last bite of his Pop-Tart into his mouth, standing to grab an expo-marker. He has nothing to write, but it makes him feel special. “What if the reason he’s friends with Mike and the other small fries is because they, like, found him after he escaped? Got him a fake family. I think there’s some quote in there from the beginning where Harrington mentions the Chief of Police. I don’t know how this shit works in Hawkins, but the pigs could have done a covered-up.” 

Barb taps her pencil against the desk, jiggling her leg in thought. After a second, she says, “Mike’s friend, Will Byers, he lives out in the middle of the woods close to the lab. They could have found Dustin there. And they could definitely have hidden him in the basement at Nancy’s house, no one goes down there but the boys - it’s a gym sock personified.” 

“Ew.” Chrissy wrinkles her nose. 

“Could they really hide a whole kid down there, though?” Gareth thinks even his mom would notice if he played house in their garage. And his mom never notices anything. 

Barb, however, nods. Quick and sure. “Absolutely. Mrs. Wheeler doesn’t touch that place and Mr. Wheeler could read a newspaper through a tornado. The only person who would notice something would be-” 

“-Nancy,” Chrissy finishes. 

— 

And, look, here’s the thing, they should probably keep working after the great ‘Dustin Henderson has superpowers’ revelation. But it’s March, and they’re in high school, and they have other classes. The theory is sound-ish. They shove it into a corner and fill their self-study time with other important things, like procrastinating their reading and not doing their homework. 

Barb dishes out student council drama, and Chrissy gives them cheer gossip, and Gareth regales tales of Grant and Jeff. 

The after-school routine shifts, too, now that Chrissy broke up with Jason. Instead of only biking Chrissy home on Tuesdays, Gareth bikes her home every day. Sometimes, they go to the dinner when Chrissy’s done with cheer, Gareth, Barb, and Chrissy loitering in back booths, away from nosy townies, drinking milkshakes. 

And Gareth has the ultimate pleasure of listening to his friends' pine. 

Gareth is pretty sure Chrissy knows that Gareth knows she’s not entirely straight, because their phone conversations turn from after dinner to after Chrissy’s mom goes to bed. And they’re all, “Did you see Barb’s hair today?” and, “Barb’s so smart, isn’t that lovely?” and, “Do you think Barb is interested in anyone, Emmy? She’s never mentioned a crush, but that doesn’t mean anything.” 

They’ve never had an explicit discussion about being two out of, like, three (Barb) queer kids in Hawkins. Gareth knows shit is different out here in the Boondocks. It wasn’t great being different in Queens, but Hawkins has rednecks with guns and pitchforks. Gareth knows better than to fuck with that. And Gareth might be used to kids shoving him into lockers and sneering slurs, but Chrissy is a cheerleader. She’s rich, and smart, and pretty. She does not deserve those kinds of rumors fucking up her high school life. 

Barb, on the other hand, does not know Gareth knows. She tries to hide her mooning between flowery paragraphs about research. If Gareth didn’t have two semi-functioning eyes, he’d have lost the subplot. Except he does have two semi-functioning eyes (the glasses are for reading, okay!), so he can see the way Barb practically drools whenever Chrissy says something intelligent. Or unintelligent. Or breaths. 

It’s driving him up the wall. 

— 

Whitman Old Maid cards stack next to the Harringtons’ four most expensive silver spoons. Steve sits between Eddie’s legs on the plush carpet in the den. Robin claims they’re cheating, but her head is in Nancy’s lap, legs kicking Dustin’s knee, where he sits crisscross applesauce, the dealer’s card pile to his left. Together, they make an odd circle. 

The game moves fast, Dustin picking up a card and passing another onto Robin, who passes to Nancy, who passes to Steve, who passes to Eddie. They talk as they pass, talking shit about school, and their other friends, and the social implications of time travel. 

“I think Barb has a crush on Chrissy,” Nancy says, handing Steve a Husky Hank. 

Steve takes the Husky Hank and gives Eddie his John Law. “Should we do anything? Because I think Gareth is a little queer, too. And we’re, like, older queer teens. Should we be role models or something?” 

Eddie gives Dustin the John Law, and Dustin uses it to emphasize Steve’s point, throwing off the rhythm. “You should,” he says. “Being gay in Indiana is hard.” Robin kicks him in the knee. He passes along his card, but she kicks him again, raising her eyebrows while giving one of her cards to Nancy. “What?” Dustin has his ‘you’re stupid’ voice on. “As the only member of the Party Will ever came out to, I’ve had lots of experience observing the shit-ton of homophobia impeded in modern culture.” 

“Sweet summer sun,” Robin curses toward Nancy’s chin. 

Eddie opens his mouth to say something but is halted when Nancy hands Steve another Husky Hank - his fourth Husky Hank. Eddie lounges for two spoons, handing one to Steve as Robin grabs hers, leaving Dustin and Nancy in a slap war for the last spoon. Nancy wins. 

Steve re-shuffles the cards. The room is bathed in lamp light, switched on by Steve after school. Under the dark night of April, their light turns the white walls and leather furniture shades of gold. Eddie’s wearing Steve’s sweatshirt, and Steve has on Eddie’s long-sleeve, and Robin and Nancy’s fuzzy socks match. Dustin is grinning. 

Eddie feels safe. 

“You know,” Steve says when everyone has a new set of four. Eddie’s already got three Lotta Noises but Steve has an Old Maid. Steve hands the Old Maid to Eddie. “You know I used to have this theory, after Star Court, that you were like a gay magnet or something, Dustin.” 

Eddie passes the Old Maid to Dustin who scoffs, handing it to Robin. Robin hands it to Nancy without hesitation. Nancy keeps the Old Maid and gives Steve the Hedda Howell - which is suspicious. 

“But I’ve realized that it’s not you, Dust.” Steve squints at his cards, giving Eddie his Tillie Tumble. “It’s the Upside Down. The Upside Down is, like, the electromagnetic field to Hawkins queer kids’ true north.” 

“Baby.” Eddie kisses Steve in the ear, making Steve grimace. “That makes no sense.” 

“Like at Skull Rock. With the compass and Watergate.” 

The four of them pause, Dustin’s hand frozen mid-pass to Robin, and look at Steve. Steve does not notice, too busy glaring at his mismatched cards. 

“A gaydar? You think the Upside Down has a gaydar?” Robin says, snatching the card from Dustin’s hand. 

Steve moves his Dippy Dappy next to his Hedda Howell. “Sure, but, like, a negative gaydar. A homophobic gaydar.” 

Robin and Nancy go to speak, but Dustin talks over them. “That actually makes sense,” he says, scratching his chin with his cards. 

“No, it doesn’t,” Nancy hands Steve another Hedda Howell. “To start, besides us, no one else who’s been affected by the Upside Down is gay. Well, us and Barb. And Will, obvously.” This time, they stop to stare at Nancy. She notices. “What? I’m right.” Eddie raises an eyebrow and Steve snorts. Robin and Dustin share a look. “Fine,” Nancy says, “I’ll prove it. Lucas and Max and Hopper and Mrs. Byers. They’re perfect for each other.” 

“Two bisexuals in a heterosexual relationship, Nance, babe, try harder.” Robin pats Nancy on the cheek, before handing her a card. 

The Dippy Dan goes to Steve, as Nancy says, “Mike.” 

“Also bisexual,” Dustin emphasizes with his cards but groans when Eddie gives him Steve’s Hedda Howell. 

“There’s no - how do you even -?” Nancy’s face pinches, her voice exasperated. “Okay, okay, Billy Hargrove?” 

“No go, Katharine Graham. We had a thing. An unfortunate thing, but a thing,” Eddie says. 

“We also had a thing,” Steve says, taking Nancy’s card. “Well, I didn’t have a thing for Billy, but Billy definitely had a thing for me.” 

“Fine, I’ve got it: Jonathan.” 

Nancy’s smug little smile falls as Steve scuffs. “No way, every time he called me from Cali, all he talked about was this boy.” 

“Argyle?” Dustin says, blindly passing his card to Robin. “Will bitched about those two every time we talked. He definitely didn’t know but -” 

“- Jonathan had a fat crush on Argyle,” Steve finishes. 

Amongst the chaos, no one notices Robin sliding a spoon under her leg. Eddie meets her eyes, but she shakes her head. Eddie waits. 

“There’s no way!” Nancy says, passing Steve a card. “And when did you even talk to Jonathan on the phone, Steve? He never called me.” 

“Probably because you never listened when he talked.” Steve gives Eddie the card without looking. 

Taking his chance, Eddie kicks a spoon closer with his toes, handing Steve’s card to Dustin. 

“Don’t mind him.“ Dustin blindly takes the card. “Steve’s just bitter because he used to have this massive crush on -” 

It does not matter that Eddie gets a spoon, because Steve launches himself out of Eddie’s arms, across the circle, and straight at Dustin. 

— 

In the last week of March, the weirdness of the Total Subject Group shifts. It feels like they secretly agreed to fuck with the Study Buddies. At first, the Study Buddies panic at obsolete field notes, but they soon realize the weirdness has nothing to do with time travel. 

It happens to Gareth first, and he heavily edits his observation notes because Eddie honestly makes him cry, but. Anyway. 

Gareth leaves Eddie’s house last after band practice on Saturday. His mom has this new boyfriend. He leaves his cigarette butts across their kitchen counter and talks shit about Gareth whenever Gareth breathes. So, Gareth is loitering at the Munson trailer. And he’s loitering pretty obviously. 

When Gareth finally packs up, Eddie puts a hand on his shoulder. The hand turns into two hands, and Gareth straightens to find Eddie bracketing him, gazing at Gareth’s confused face like a proud mom. 

“Look, Gar, you know I love you, and I’m always here for you,” Eddie says and does that adult thing where he pushes Gareth’s curls off his forehead. “You can tell me anything, okay? But I think, and don’t go up in arms at this, I think that if you ever need someone to relate to, Steve might understand. Not everything, but you two are more alike than you think. In a couple of ways, actually, but with the whole - uh - well I’m not sure if you know yet, but the -” He makes this wavey hand motion, letting go of Gareth. Gareth’s curls fall into his eyes. “Uh, boy-girl thing?” 

Gareth truly has no clue what Eddie’s talking about. At least, not in relation to Steve Harrington. Because there’s something that stirs within him at Eddie’s jumbled explanation, but it can’t be right. Not in comparison to Steve Harrington, man of all men. And, really, if Gareth wanted someone to relate to, he’d go to Eddie. 

“I always kind of thought you and I were the most similar?” Gareth shifts awkwardly as Eddie furrows his brow, opening his mouth to correct Gareth, probably, but Gareth cuts him off. “Like, there’s the obvious parts, the music taste, and music abilities, and big, music hair.” Eddie’s frown turns into a little smile, so Gareth keeps going. “But you’re also - I mean, we’re both poor as dirt. And I know you get the same flack from teachers about it. And the kids in the hall throw out the same slurs. And you know what it feels like to - I just. You skipped most of middle school, right? And I’ve never formally skipped a grade, but I’m taking all these classes none of the other freshmen are. And I figured, you get it. You know what it feels like to be the smart kid from a house that can’t afford food half the time. And everyone knows it, the teachers fucking know it. They make comments on it, like me being poor and me being smart are intertwined. Like I’m some miracle - proof that the disadvantaged can - I don’t know. I just. Does this make any sense?” 

Eddie has gone still while Gareth talked, his usual twitchiness replaced by something Gareth can’t quite read. Gareth’s breaths come out heavy, and he feels scraped raw. Feels like maybe he shouldn’t have said all that. Because Eddie knows him, knows four years worth of him that Gareth will never get. And here Gareth is, with his theories, and his love, and his fucking issues. His trivial fucking issues, because Eddie has time traveled. Has seen hell and gotten out. 

And Gareth is just. He’s just Gareth. 

Gently, Eddie cups Gareth’s face, rings cool against Gareth’s cheeks. “Bud,” he says softly. “Yes. Yes, it makes sense. That was not what I was getting at, but you are right. We are the same. But, look, I need you to listen to me on this. Okay?” He swipes his tongue across his teeth. “Those things your teachers say, the other kids say, I need you to - if I say not to listen to them, that sounds lame. Because of course you’re going to listen to them. Ignoring that shit is hard.” 

Gareth has spent a lot of time around Eddie. Has learned the difference between Eddie’s big personality at school and Eddie’s subdued personality at home. He’s a whirlwind of a person, all big gestures and smiles hidden behind hair. A contradiction - but a self-made one. Right now, though, he’s something else. Something soft, and knowing, and full of years worth of experience. And it’s weird, almost, to look at him. Because Gareth sees Eddie’s face, smooth, and young, and almost sixteen. But he sounds older. Feels older. It’s like looking at thousands of rings on the base of a sapling tree. 

“Here’s the thing, Gar.” Eddie rubs his thumb under Gareth’s eyes. It’s so fucking parental it hurts. “I moved here, fresh out of a group home in Georgia because it took CPS a whole half a year to track down Wayne. And I was smart, and angry, and they skipped me through middle school. And I kept that anger, moved through freshmen and sophomore year with that anger. And it burned me out. I made it to eleventh grade, top of my class with every AP class at Hawkins under my belt. All fives. And I didn’t have any friends yet, not any that were in my class. And my support system was Wayne, just Wayne. And all those teachers talked so much shit, and the kids talked more shit. Said some things people should never say. And I self-destructed. I supernovaed.” 

Eddie looks right at Gareth, searching his face for something. Gareth doesn’t know what, but he says, “Ya,” in case Eddie didn’t think he was listening. 

A tiny smile quirks Eddie’s lips. “Ya. But I don’t want that to happen to you. I didn’t have people to go to, so I built this armor. I hissed, and bit, and turned myself into exactly what everyone said I would. Because I didn’t want to be their little social experiment, I wanted them to leave me the fuck alone. There were so many damn expectations, and they kept getting higher the better I did. But if I messed up, if I couldn’t come to school because the bus never showed and Wayne was at work, or we didn’t have gas money, or, fuck, one month I didn’t have shoes, Gareth. Because mine fell apart and we just couldn’t afford it. And everyone was so disappointed, like the principal had a whole staff meeting about me. And I thought, fuck them, I can’t disappoint them if I’m always a disappointment.” 

Eddie stops for a second. Bites his lip. Tries to gather his thoughts. His hands slip off Gareth’s face. Hang by his sides. “I guess, what I’m trying to say is that you have a support system. A big support system. Okay? You don’t need to make yourself the biggest freak in Hawkins because - I mean fuck the teachers, really. And fuck the jocks. But you’ve got people who want you to be whatever you want to be. Like, be smart, and take all those hard classes, and graduate fucking valedictorian. Or don’t. Come in fourth, or tenth. You can get a two on an AP exam, we won’t care. Just, don’t sink yourself unless you actually want to. Because you’ve got a horde of people in your corner, kiddo. Chrissy and Barb -” Gareth makes a face that has Eddie laughing. “Yes, I know you’re friends with them, dumbass. You guys aren’t as subtle as you think. But, you’ve got them. And they’re just as smart as you, okay, they’ll help. And I know you don’t know them very well, but you have Steve, and Nance, and Rob, too. Even Dustin. And you always, always have me.” 

“But you’re leaving.” The words are out of Gareth’s mouth before he can stop them. “You’re a senior. You’re leaving.” 

Eddie snorts. Reaches up to bop Gareth on the nose, even if it does nothing to dissipate the heaviness. “I might be actually graduating this year, but I’m not leaving. You can’t get rid of me that fast. I’ve got a whole year to wait before Stevie goes, and then there’s Nance and Rob, and who knows when Dustin will graduate. We’re working on getting him - it doesn’t matter. What matters is that I’ll still be here. And, fuck you, Emerson, we’re getting out of Hawkins together. Corroded Coffin forever. You’re never getting rid of me.” 

And after Gareth cries a little, and spends the night at Eddie’s, and rides to school in the passenger seat of Eddie’s illegally driven van, Gareth regales the general basis of Eddie’s talk with Chrissy and Barb. Who agree with Eddie. Which almost has Gareth crying in first period. 

Somehow, they all miss the fine print. 

— 

Barb has her own array of chats. Two of them. None of them as emotionally charged as Gareth’s. 

Robin’s comes first. She corners Barb at her locker before school. “Remember when we were best friends?” she says. 

“What?” Barb sputters, dropping her arm full of notebooks on her oxfords in surprise. 

“You know what, never mind. That’s too much for a Monday morning.” Robin spins around. Claps her hands. Hollers, “Good talk. Let’s not do it again,” over her shoulder loud enough that half the hallways glares at her. 

Then, at lunch, before Steve arrives, Nancy randomly says, “Have you ever thought about the peculiarity of human sexuality?” 

Barb inhales her bite of tuna down the wrong pipe, and the discussion is deterred by Nancy trying to give her water. 

— 

Chrissy has a lovely, horribly random conversation after the last basketball game of the season. She’s waiting for Gareth, who watched the game at the back of the bleachers with Eddie, to come back from the bathroom. They’re biking home together. 

She’s standing in the quietest corner of the hallway, avoiding Jason. Because Jason, as she’s recently remembered, once broke Gareth’s nose by shoving him into a locker. Chrissy hadn’t known Jason was so cruel until she’d met Gareth, and then she’d been stuck in an awkward place, where she didn’t approve of Jason’s bullying, but she also didn’t want to break up with him. Because Jason was who her mom picked, and who her teammates picked, and who Hawkins picked. A nice (horrible) boy, from a nice (slightly deranged) family, who will be the basketball captain in a few years (a nightmare). The American Dream. 

But now she has other friends, better friends, and she thinks it’s okay that she’s not dating Jason. And not just because she definitely has a crush on Barb, but because she has people to fall back on. People without expectations. 

Steve Harrington finds her in her secluded corner, slides right up beside her. He leans against the cinderblock like a 1950’s movie star, all big hair and lady killer smirk, and says, “Chrissy Cunningham.”  

Chrissy smiles bright and happy. Says, “Steve Harrington.” 

His eyes crinkle, and his smile turns genuine. “I just wanted to tell you that, whoever you love, that’s okay.” For a second, Chrissy is floored, because how the hell does Steve know? Why would Steve know? She’s about to ask when he derails her panic completely by saying, “And if you ever start hallucinating a massive clock, you come to me? Okay? No trying to beat a dark wizard by yourself.” 

Chrissy blinks in rapid succession. “What?” 

“Stay golden, Cunningham,” Steve says, pushing off the wall, echoing the first conversation they ever had. 

When Gareth comes back, Chrissy tells him about Steve’s warning, forgetting the possible outing completely.  

— 

Wayne Munson gets home early on Wednesday afternoon to see Steve Harrington chatting up Eddie on their trailer steps. Wayne slams his truck door loud enough to startle the birds. 

Like a good dog, Steve whips around, startles at Wayne, and moves to leave. Eddie grabs Steve by the shoulder. Looks Wayne dead in the eyes. And says, “No.” 

“Son.” Wayne’s voice is a warning. He tries his best not to get into Eddie’s life, but Steve Harrington - Wayne has a problem with Steve Harrington. With Steve Harrington’s father, who passes bills specifically meant to make people like Wayne suffer. 

There’s a fine line of shit Wayne will deal with. But he’s not letting his boy hang around kids who think like Senator Richard Harrington. 

“No,” Eddie repeats. “Not happening, Wayne.” He punctuates his words with a glare before turning to Steve. Says, “Go inside. I’ll be in in a minute,” all sweet. 

Harrington wilts at Eddie’s tone, reaching out. “Ed -” 

“I’ll be fine, Lover Boy, don’t worry.” And Steve reluctantly nods. Walks the stairs into Wayne’s home. Lets the door slam shut. Eddie glares at Wayne. “I’m gonna be real with you, old man,” he says. “I love you, and I don’t want this to be a thing, but you have got to get over whatever first impression bias you let crawl up your ass and die.” 

“That boy’s daddy-” 

“Steve is nothing like his father.” Eddie’s voice is vicious. Hard and protective. Has Eddie standing straight, puffing up like he’s not all of fifteen. 

Because that’s the thing, Eddie is a child. He’s moldable, sits all day and listens to his classmates pretend to be their parents. And he doesn’t get it, hasn’t been around long enough. Wayne has been, has lived in this ass-backward town for years. Understands men like Richard Harrington. Knows the patterns men like Richard Harrington pass down to their sons. 

Wayne levels his face with Eddie’s, and looks straight into his eyes. Says, “Boys like him, they’re always like their daddys.” 

“I’m not!” Eddie's response is instant. Sharp as thorns. “I’m not, and he’s not. And, fuck, I thought you weren’t, either, but I guess we’re all being proven wrong today.” 

And that hurts. That hurts, deep. The kind of hurt apologies can’t fix, because Wayne doesn’t need an apology, not if he’s the one fucking Eddie up enough to swing low. Because Wayne’s the one who messed up. 

Wayne knows all about shit fathers. Knew all about his own. Knew all about his little brother, who fucked off to nowhere Georgia at fifteen, knocked up some well-ado, orthodox beauty queen, who then died on his ass and left him with a kid he treated like an accomplice. Wayne knows. And he’s starting to think maybe Eddie knows too. Might know more than Wayne does, if he’s got Steve Harrington sneaking over while Wayne is out. 

Jesus H. Christ. 

So, Wayne lets Eddie walk into their home. Lets him disappear into his room with Steve Harrington. Lets him be as mad as he wants, because Wayne fucked up. Wayne fucked up, and he can’t apologize for it. Because this is the kind of hurt that deserves actions, not words. 

And Wayne intends to give actions. To let Eddie know he’s safe, and listened to, and good. But Steve Harrington stops coming around, and Eddie avoids Wayne. So Wayne waits, and thinks, and digs the first impression bias out of his ass. 

— 

On March 30 th , Chrissy puts her foot in her mouth. The ending bell for first period rang a minute ago, Gareth racing out of the library to catch his Calc teacher and leaving Barb and Chrissy alone. 

Gareth, as it turns out, makes a fantastic buffer, because, faced with Barbara Holland alone, Chrissy has no clue what to do. And she doesn’t want the moment to end. Doesn’t want Barb to walk away, because Chrissy wants to spend all her time with Barb. And Gareth. But differently, because she wants to kiss Barb and she does not want to kiss Gareth. She wants to hug Gareth, and rant about Barb with Gareth, and hold his hand while they balance on the train tracks instead of going home, but she does not want to kiss him. 

She really, really wants to kiss Barb. 

And Chrissy has always known she liked girls, new before she knew she liked boys. Because her first grown-up crush was in seventh grade on a girl a whole year older than her. But she’s a cheerleader. Okay. She’s a cheerleader. She knows what others expect of her. 

Except here she is, with Barb Holland, and she doesn’t want the moment to end. 

Thus, she blurts out, “We should have a sleepover,” in a jumble of words not befitting of a cheerleader. Barb pauses, backpack half-slung over her shoulder. Chrissy does not know what the pause means, and she hadn’t even meant to say that, and she should fix this. “I mean, for research purposes. A research sleepover, with Gareth. At your house, tonight. Because Gareth isn’t allowed inside my house and his house is off limits because of his mom’s new boyfriend, not that it wouldn’t be off limits anyway. And I don’t know why I’m volunteering your house, because I don’t know your parents, but -” 

“Okay,” Barb says, and a grin stretches across her lips. She’s beautiful. “Sleepover at my house tonight. For research. With Gareth. I’ll call my mom at lunch and ask her to pick us up.” 

And, for a moment, Chrissy feels on top of the world. Then the late bell rings and she and Barb race out of the library, both late for class for the first time ever. 

— 

Gareth is at lunch when Chrissy tells him the news. He’s sitting at his normal spot, watching Eddie and Robin be a cute comedy couple, when Chrissy runs up behind him, wraps her arms around his shoulders, and giddily tells him, “Sleepover tonight. Barb’s house. All three of us. Her mom is driving us after school. I asked her first.” 

“Oh my god! Chrissy, you didn’t!” Gareth turns in her grip and grins because Chrissy has clearly taken a huge leap in her ‘date Barb’ agenda. 

“I did.” Chrissy giggles proudly in his ear. “Meet by my locker after last period. Love you.” And with a big, wet kiss smacked into the center of Gareth’s forehead, Chrissy practically skips to her cheer table on the opposite end of the cafeteria. 

The Study Buddies have been doing this thing where they’re casual about their friendship. Like, they’re not hiding it. But Chrissy has never talked to him before the whole school, and Gareth has never sought her out in front of, like, Odin and the Basketball team. But he doesn’t even care that Jason Carver is glaring daggers at him because he’s just, fucking, happy. 

Like really, really happy. 

“Sleepover with Queen Cunningham,” Grant says lewdly, wiggling his eyebrows. 

Jeff ping-pongs his gaze between Gareth at the Hellfire table and Chrissy at the cheer table. And Gareth couldn’t give less of a fuck because Eddie and Robin give him thumbs up like proud parents, and Gareth is… 

Like, Gareth has had sleepovers before. That sounds lame, but he’s spent the night with his friends in Queens, and he’s had his fair share of Corroded Coffin meetings that turn into all four of them sleeping in various positions on Eddie’s bed. But this is - Gareth loves Eddie. Okay, Eddie is brilliant. But even before the time travel thing, Eddie was more of an older brother. And Gareth knows Eddie would accept anything from Gareth. Would probably drive Gareth to Indianapolis if Gareth asked, let him try on blue eyeshadow, and paint his nails pink, and go to clubs where everyone is like him. 

But Eddie isn’t - he’ll never be blue eyeshadow and pink painted nails. And that metaphor doesn’t even make sense, but Eddie, even in his borrowed Robin clothes, is his own person. Is dark leather, and ripped jeans, and total understanding, but not - Gareth can’t explain it. 

And Grant and Jeff are great. They get Gareth in so many ways - shared music taste, and shared bullying experience, and shared love for DnD. And they might not do the same things Eddie would do, they aren’t as completely balls to the wall, heart-wrenchingly, unequivocally excepting as Eddie. Probably because Eddie is a once-in-a-lifetime level of pure heart. But, Jeff and Grant would never shun Gareth for being himself.  

Gareth loves them. Wholeheartedly. 

It’s just. Chrissy and Barb are blue eyeshadow and pink nails. And they can bitch with Gareth about failing a test because an 85% isn’t good enough. They listen to Gareth’s complaints about the snooty eleventh graders in his comp class, and use sparkly gel pens, and read coming-of-age books. They don’t care if Gareth does something girly, they don’t even mention it like Grant sometimes does, and Chrissy lets Gareth do her hair, and Barb lets him borrow her sweaters when he doesn’t dress warm enough. And, fuck, sometimes Gareth just wants to listen to Madonna without someone questioning his love for metal. 

So, ya, Gareth is excited. He’s excited the whole rest of the day, bouncing up to Chrissy’s locker like that’s something Freaks normally do. He’s got his to-go bag slung around his shoulders, the one he keeps in his locker in case his mom’s in a mood. It has extra clothes and travel toiletries he nicked from the CVS months ago. 

Chrissy closes her locker with a brilliant smile, her gym bag of extra clothes dangling off her forearm. Cheer has officially ended for the season, but Chrissy hasn’t cleared her gym locker yet. “Officially, we’re sleeping over to study our research,” she says cheerfully. 

“You did not tell her that.” Gareth matches her tone, hiding a grin behind the sleeve of his worn puffer coat. 

Chrissy shoves her knit hat on Gareth’s head. “I panicked, okay.” She pulls it over his ears with one hand. It’s a preppy, bright blue monstrosity with a pompom on the top. It clashes horribly with Gareth’s battle vest and combat boots. He loves it. 

Barb finds them a minute later, leaning against Chrissy’s locker and giggling as the rest of the student body moves around them, gawking and whispering. If Gareth was a little bit less happy, he’d be panicking, because he’s for sure getting his face busted on Monday. But whatever. 

Fuck them. 

Maybe Eddie will fight off the bullies while Gareth hides in the bathroom. Eddie’s, like, defeated dark wizards or whatever, he can beat off Christian Fundamentalist Jason Carver. 

  Barb’s mom drives them to Barb’s house, which is a nice, suburban, cookie-cutter place. Gareth briefly feels out of place, but Chrissy ruffles his hair, and Barb pulls him into her living room, and it doesn’t matter. 

For the first hour, they diligently work on research. The project is due in roughly a month, and they have to work around their time travel hypothesis for the sake of their grade. 

“I’m not failing this class,” Barb hisses when Gareth makes a joke about it. 

“I’m not failing this class, but I am failing this exam,” Chrissy says, which leads them into a conversation about how much the AP exams are going to suck. 

Gareth tells them he got a waiver for the test fees, but their guidance counselor, Mrs. Brown, made a stink. Which prompts Barb to spill that she heard from the senior class president that Mrs. Brown forgot to send out a bunch of the senior’s college recommendations. 

Barb’s mom gives Gareth suspicious looks until she comes out to announce dinner and finds him sandwiched between the girls on the couch in the least sexy way possible. Then it’s all, “Oh, Gareth, have more pizza,” and, “Barb, where did you find such a nice young man.” Gareth has to kick Chrissy under the table to get her to stop laughing, and Barb’s face is tomato red. 

After dinner, they hide in Barb’s room from her little siblings, talking shit and decidedly not working on their project. Barb’s notes lay forgotten on her desk as they sit in a circle on her rug. Gareth leans his back against her bed, and Chrissy wraps herself in a quilt Barb’s mom made. Barb cuddles a giant stuffed walrus, sitting knees to chest. 

They cycle through the classic sleepover games. A round of Never Have I Ever turns surprisingly cutthroat when they start targeting each other’s academic failures. Barb runs to the kitchen to pour a bowl of peanut M&M’s for her and Chrissy and grab a box of DOTS for Gareth, and when she comes back they play Fuck, Marry, Kill. 

“Steve Harrington, Mrs. MacDonald, Heather Holloway,” Barb says. 

“Fuck Heather, marry Steve, kill Mrs. MacDonald,” Chrissy replies without hesitation. Barb’s jaw drops and Gareth bites his lips to hold back a laugh. “What? Mrs. MacDonald is a blithe on the entire state of Indiana.” 

By the time the sun has long set, the rest of the Holland house asleep, and the clock ticking toward the early morning hours, they’ve ended up lying on their stomachs, making an obscured triangle. They’re playing Truth Or Truth, entirely too tired to get up for dares. Besides, there’s something about the middle of the night that makes secrets feel small. 

“First crush, Emmy, go,” Chrissy says when it’s her turn in Truth Or Truth. 

They’re holding hands, Chrissy’s fingers linked with Gareth’s. Barb looked angry about it for all of three seconds before Chrissy smiled at her. Then it was all horribly hidden glances and bitten lips that made Gareth want to jump off a cliff. 

Gareth thinks about not saying it, but Chrissy squeezes his fingers, and he figures, fuck it, they won’t hate him. Chrissy already probably knows and Barb despises hypocrites. 

“I’ve never had a crush.” He might be able to say it, but he can’t meet their eyes. Starts picking at the piles of Barb’s blue carpet with his free hand. “On anyone. Ever. People don’t… I don’t like anyone like that. Probably never will.” 

So, there. He’s said it. And he knows that’s not something other people get. He’s only found, like, one brief reference to people like him in a book all the way back in New York. And that’s fine. Gareth learned to accept himself long before he moved to Hawkins, and that’s what matters most, really. 

Chrissy squeezes his fingers again, beating out a Morris code rendition of ‘I love you,’ because they’re both those kinds of nerds, apparently. And they look at Barb, Gareth dragging his eyes away from the carpet and Chrissy holding her breath. Because Barb is the outlier, the one who didn’t know. And fuck, now Gareth’s kind of terrified, and Chrissy is shaking, Gareth can feel her hand quiver in his. 

“Up until three months ago, I was in love with Nancy Wheeler.” Barb’s words cut through the tension in a jumble of syllables, stacking together like train cars crashing in the night. She looks terrified, and relieved, and happy. 

Gareth can’t help the giddy laugh that spills past his lips. Chrissy beams, bumping her shoulder with Gareth’s, before braving up to say, “My first crush was Tammy Thompson. Seventh grade. She sang the National Anthem for the football game and I was enamored.” 

“No!” Barb gasps, smiling the size of the moon. “Tammy Thompson?” 

“Chrissy, Chrissy,” Gareth shakes Chrissy’s hand around to punctuate his words, “Chrissy, she sounds like a muppet.” 

And in the quiet, dark of Barbara Holland’s home, Chrissy Cunningham throws her head back and cackles. 

— 

Before breakfast the next morning, Chrissy and Barb have their first kiss under the soft, spring light coming from Barb’s bedroom windows. Her fairy lights are on, making everything romantic. Gareth is there, too, facing the door and holding his hand over his eyes, because: 

“You can’t just watch us kiss, Emmy, that’s weird.” 

“I can leave. Actually, I would love to leave.” 

“Don’t be a spoilsport, Emerson.” 

“This was a team effort, Emmy. I want you to share in the moment.”

Chapter Text

As April brings midwestern flood season, it also brings the countdown toward AP Exams. Most of Gareth, Barb, and Chrissy’s time is spent making flashcards, writing essays, and crying over textbooks. Or in-office hours. Or at dinner tables because what the fuck is optimization? 

The Study Buddies start fleshing out their final AP Psych project, finding theories, and bitching about APA format, and waiting outside of Mrs. Roses’ class during free periods because Gareth desperately wants to use organized headers even if they’re not in the sample essay. Naturally, amongst the chaos, field notes are forgotten in lieu of concocting a singular theory. And then hiding that theory behind a bunch of flowery bullshit because Mrs. Rose will not accept ‘time travel’ as a social dilemma faced by Hawkins High students. 

In fact, Gareth, Barb, and Chrissy have created an entirely different story from their field notes for Mrs. Rose. One that involves the leaders of different high school cliques meeting in detention. It’s very romcom. Really explores the pressure teens are under to fit into social constructs, and how, if pushed together, they can see past those constructs to become friends. 

(“Is this ethical?” Chrissy says as she rewrites field notes to fit into Mrs. Rose’s narrative. 

“Was any of this ethical?” Gareth looks up from his Comp flashcards. “Like, we basically spied on our friends.” 

“We told them beforehand, though. Not what we were doing, but that we were using them for a psych project. I promised Dustin cookies and everything.” 

“That’s tru-” Gareth cuts himself off as he spots Barb’s guilty face. “Barbara Jeannie Holland.” 

“Uhm.”) 

And they still add things to their theory. Like, Gareth winds up at Eddie’s trailer after he drops Chrissy off on Tuesday, April 10 th , and eats dinner with Robin while they wait for Eddie to finish his homework. He’s apparently on track to graduate top 5 of his grade, which Robin seems unbelievably proud of. Robin and Gareth end up in an intense debate about Star Trek, of all things, and Eddie finds them eating his cereal out of Wayne’s worst mugs, going in-depth about Klingon. Which, naturally, he has his own opinions on. 

Gareth laughs and doesn’t think about his mom’s boyfriend, who Gareth found doing blow off their kitchen table, and forgets about his stack of Calc homework. And he listens to Robin and Eddie be close. 

And Robin makes a horrible joke about Scoops Ahoy involving Russians and truth serum. 

Which leads to Gareth greeting his friends Wednesday morning with, “There were Russians at Scoops Ahoy.” 

“I don’t know, Emmy, that seems pretty stereotypical,” Chrissy says, kissing Gareth’s cheek before looking both ways and smacking a big one straight on Barb’s lips. 

Barb flushes bright red, but gets out, “Why would Russians even be in Hawkins?” 

“I don’t know, guys.” Gareth drops his backpack into his seat. “I’m but a humble messenger.” 

  And Barb has a horrifying revelation the day she decides to be nice to Steve Harrington. 

Chrissy, her girlfriend (holy shit!), thinks Steve is a sweetheart. She gets pouty when Barb nags on him, and while that’s cute, Barb does not want to disappoint Chrissy. 

Besides, Chrissy has, like, a fucking point or whatever. Steve Harrington of the before, of the not yet time traveled, was a dick. But Steve Harrington of the after, he’s pretty alright. Barb has no complaints outside of him taking up her Nancy time. He’s nice to Barb. Gives her smiles at her in the hallway and keeps his insults to himself. Barb figures she can be nice back. 

Passover begins on the 16 th , so Barb acknowledges Steve’s presence at lunch on the 17 th with a, “Happy Passover, asshole.” 

Steve’s face lights up, which makes Barb feel horribly warm. Like she’s done a good thing. “Thanks, Barb!” He smiles real bright at her. Nancy isn’t there yet, and Barb needs her. Needs a buffer between happy Steve Harrington and her climbing guilt. “I actually made some - hold up.” Steve turns around, unzips his backpack, and pulls out two red-lidded Rubbermaids. “It’s chocolate toffee matzo brittle. I made, like, six trays, and I thought you and your Psych friends would like some. I know Gareth is allergic to chocolate, so the second is only toffee. There’s labels on the sides.” 

Barb tilts the Rubbermaids to find neatly printed on painter's tape. “Uhm.” She does not know what to do with this. “Thank you. This looks fantastic.” She’s honestly touched. Like, she’s three seconds away from ruffling Steve’s hair. And that’s practically akin to blasphemy. 

The smile on Steve’s face grows and then dims in rapid succession. He looks over his shoulder, probably for Nancy, before turning back to Barb. “Look, Barb, I wanted to say sorry.” 

“For what?” Barb says. Most of what annoyed Barb about Steve, Steve has either made up for or wasn’t his fault. Was based on Barb’s own problems. 

Steve looks her dead in the eyes, like he’s memorizing their color, and sighs. His gaze shift to somewhere around her nose. “A lot of things.” He sounds old. Old like a stone. Old like the very core of the earth. “So many things, some that I can’t even explain. And some that don’t make sense, will never make sense. But mostly,” he bites his lip, sinks his canines in hard enough to leave an imprint, “mostly I want to apologize for ever making you feel like you couldn’t be yourself. Because you are a spitfire, Barbara Holland. And I know my friends and I used to say shit about it, but we were stupid. Fucking absolutely stupid. Because you are going places, okay? You are worth so much more than the opinions of rich kids who peaked in high school. And I need you to know that.” 

“Oh.” Barb grips the Rubbermaid until her knuckles turn white. 

She doesn’t know what to say. She doesn’t know if there is anything to say. But she feels… seen? Validated, even. Thinks she might tell Steve he’s a good person right to his face. And that’s crazy. That’s - god, the Barb of six months ago would lose her mind. 

Before Barb can respond, or possibly burst into tears, Nancy wanders into the cafeteria. Nancy lets Steve kiss her on the cheeks, and makes a comment about Steve’s brittle, and tells Barb stories about how, the night before, when holding Seder, Robin got drunk off Passover wine. 

It gives Barb time to think over what Steve said. More than enough time, really, because then she keeps thinking about it, and keeps thinking about it, and keeps thinking about it. She thinks about it so much that, when she meets Gareth and Chrissy in the library after school to study, she hands over the brittle with a, “I think I died. In the other timeline, I think I died. And I think Steve blames himself.” 

“Oof,” Gareth says, already halfway through peeling the lid of his non-chocolate Rubbermaid. 

Chrissy shrugs. “Same. Done in by an interdimensional wizard terrorist.” She snatches one of Gareth’s brittle pieces before he can, earning a smack to the hand. “Pretty sure I, like, died on Eddie, too. Recently.” 

“That would explain why he looks halfway to tears every time he sees you,” Gareth speaks around a mouthful of toffee and matzo. 

“I’m sorry?” Barb says, pausing in her attempt to get comfortable on a library chair. The glide at the bottom of the chair’s foot is gone, making the whole thing rock like a sailboat. “I’m sorry, you’ve just been - what? Sitting on this information? How are you okay with this?” 

“I mean, I’m still alive in this timeline. And if I see a giant, evil clock, I’ll go find Steve.” Chrissy shrugs, stuffing another piece of brittle in her mouth and moaning. “God, these are like crack.” 

“Plus,” Gareth waves a brittle at Barb, “if Chrissy gets evil-wizard-possessed, we’ll listen to Tiny Dancer by Elton John and everything will be okay. Elton John kills monsters, you know? Like Woody Guthrie and fascists. If we combined them, we’d essentially defeat the Universe.” 

“What?” Barb shouts. It attracts the ire of everyone else in the library, but she doesn’t care. 

She doesn’t care because she died, and she’s got more to add to their theory, because apparently her best friends have been holding out on her. Fucking traitors. She can’t believe she’s dating one of them. (Yes, she can. Chrissy is amazing. And Gareth’s fine, too, or whatever.) 

— 

The curtains in the plaid travesty Steve calls a bedroom are closed. Steve curls into Eddie’s side, half awake, his nose buried in Eddie’s neck. 

“You are the prettiest person in the world,” Eddie whispers, sleep-drunk and overwhelmed by his boyfriend’s presence. “I love you very much. And you are very pretty. And beautiful. And handsome. And lovely.” Eddie punctuates every sentence with a kiss to Steve’s temple. Dustin, who’s asleep at the foot of Steve’s massive bed, drowns out the noise with his motorboat snores. 

Steve gives the cutest, softest giggle, burring further into Eddie. “Not the prettiest. You’re the prettiest.” 

“Lies and slanders,” Eddie says softly. “Because you’re the -” 

“Will you two shut the fuck up.” Robin’s voice ruins the moment. Eddie takes his nose out of Steve’s hair to glare at her. She’s lying beside them, eyes sliced mincingly, Nancy fast asleep on top of her. “The princess is resting, and I would like it to stay that way.” 

“The princess seems pretty awake to me, Booby,” Eddie says. They’re hissing at each other because if Dustin wakes up, everyone’s fucked. 

Robin looks at Nancy in panic but finds her asleep, and darts her eyes to Eddie, then to Steve, who’s watching them with half-lidded eyes. Her lips purse, and she starts slapping Eddie hard on the Steve-free section of his chest. 

“Ow! Jesus H. Christ, stop, Woodpecker.” 

Steve nuzzles sleepily at Eddie’s collarbone. “Not on Shabbat,” he slurs. At Eddie’s questioning head bump, Robin still smacking the shit out of him, Steve clarifies with,“Taking inter-faith pleas is melacha.” 

The smacking stops. Steve’s eyes flutter closed. Robin and Eddie meet eyes, give it one second, two, and burst into quiet peels of laughter. 

On the foot of the bed, Dustin snores away, oblivious. 

— 

April keeps going, encroaching toward May at a rate that makes Gareth want to die. He’s not sure why he took so many high level classes. Gareth might actually hate himself. It’s up in the air. 

During self-study, the Study Buddies take turns working on their essay. Gareth has decided to say fuck it to Mrs. Rose’s sample essay and use headers, so they work section by section. Barb finds theorists and vocabulary words from the textbook, Gareth writes stuffy, academic paragraphs, and Chrissy creates the citations. When the essay is written, she’ll type it while Barb and Gareth make flashcards for Gareth’s oral presentation. 

After school, they trade off taking different practice exams and panicking. 

(“I’m going to fail, Emmy. I’m going to fail Chem, and then my mom will disown me, and I’ll never make it into college.” 

“If you fail, I fail.” 

“You’re not even in Chem.” 

“Solidarity.” 

“Christ, guys, it’s fine. This is Hawkins High. No one gets above a three, anyway.” 

“Barb!”) 

And things start to collide, even if they’ve pretty much stopped constructing their time travel theory. 

Like, on the Tuesday after Easter, Barb is putting her books in her locker after school when Nancy Wheeler marches over and wraps her in a hug. 

“Hi, Nance?” Barb says, confused. Because she still loves Nancy, but they’ve stopped doing this. Stopped hugging, and telling secrets, and getting together outside of school. 

Nancy squeezes her, one, twice, and lets go. “You are an amazing person, Barb.” Nancy’s face is set for battle. “And I am very lucky to call you my friend.” 

“I am very lucky to call you my friend, too?” Barb says, even though she’d really like it if her friends stopped sidelining her with emotional conversations. 

Nancy gives her time travel pinched smile. And Barb figures whatever guilt Nancy still has, she’s getting over it. She’s moving on. 

That Wednesday, Chrissy has her own moment with Eddie. This time, it’s before school. Chrissy shows up early to have a talk about being a co-captain for cheer next year with her coach (as a sophomore!), and winds up loitering around the empty halls in a state of disbelief. Eddie comes out of the guidance counselor’s office in a similar state of disbelief, and they clock each other across the hallway. 

“Hi, Eddie,” Chrissy about shouts, waving in massive, cheerleader circles. Like Eddie can’t see her. Or even wants to see her. 

She’s going to be co-captain! 

Eddie, for once, does not look close to tears as he sees her. In fact, he dazedly walks her way, stops two feet away, and says, “Chrissy. Chrissy, I’m fucking salutatorian.” He sounds absolutely perplexed, voice low like their guidance counselor might hear and take it away. 

“I’m cheer captain!” Chrissy says back, not quite at all. “As a sophomore.” And then she snorts. “You have to give a speech.” 

“I know.” Eddie groans, glaring toward the fluorescent lights as if they might help. They do not. So, he sighs, levels Chrissy with a look that could melt nickel, and says, “I am so happy you’re here, Chrissy Cunningham.” 

“I’m happy I’m here too, Eddie Munson.” Chrissy beams. Tries to convey that she doesn’t blame him for whatever the hell happened in a mirror universe. Could never blame him. 

She’s not sure it works, but Eddie’s shoulders un-tense by a fraction. “I’m going to hug you now,” he says. 

But he doesn’t get the chance, because Chrissy hugs him first. And if he cries just a little into her shoulder, well, that’s fine. Being salutatorian is an accomplishment worth crying over. 

(At least, that’s what she’ll tell Barb when she asks why her shoulder is wet during first-period.) 

And on Friday, Grant shoves both feet and his asshole into his mouth and accidentally invites everyone to a pre-AP exam celebration at Benny’s Burgers Saturday evening. Except, he means it as a joke at Gareth’s expense, because Grant’s not taking AP classes. And by ‘invites everyone,’ Gareth means everyone. 

Of course, Eddie and Robin jump on it, and Gareth finds himself walking into Benny’s Burgers that Saturday night with Chrissy on his back. She’d met him at his house, so they could walk together, and in exchange for her hat, he’d piggy-backed her the four blocks from his rented one-story to the diner. A perfect example of a non-equivalent set. 

(Or something. Gareth has low hopes for passing AP Calc with a five. Math prodigy his entire ass.) 

They group themselves around two diner tables shoved together at the back. The Total Subject Group sits in the center, Eddie and Steve facing the bar and Nancy and Robin facing away. Chrissy and Barb pull their chairs close beside Nancy, Gareth across from them, bumping knees with Eddie. On the other end, Gareth and Jeff face each other beside Robin and Steve. At the head of the table, Dustin shoves French fries into his mouth like a know-it-all king. 

 And they eat good, greasy food, and complain about school, and discuss Eddie’s salutatorian speech. 

Gareth eats most of Chrissy’s burger because she’s a vegetarian and Gareth has, like, three quarters to his name. Nancy orders a salad that Robin steals the croutons and craisin off of when Nancy’s not looking. And Steve and Eddie share a milkshake with one straw because, “Robin doesn’t like butterscotch, Ulysses S. Grant. Jeez, stop being so heteronormative.” 

Grant tries to shove French fries up his nose, but ends up snorting salt and sneezing all over his burger. Jeff engages in a mind numbingly technical conversation with Robin about Beethoven’s worst symphonies. Nancy, Chrissy, and Barb discuss hard hitting politics, while Gareth, Eddie, and Steve discuss music, because Steve listens to a surprising amount of New Wave now that he works at a Record store and Gareth has a diverse palette. 

(That doesn’t make him less metal, okay, Grant! For fucks sake.) 

And it’s fun. It’s really, really fun. 

And Eddie leans his head against Steve’s shoulder, and Gareth plays footsie with Chrissy while she holds Barb’s hand under the table, and Robin goes out of her way to bop Nancy on the nose, and Dustin giggles, bright and childlike as Grant and Jeff play an uncoordinated game of concentration over the table. 

And it doesn’t matter that Steve has a slow-fading bruise on his temple he won’t explain (Gareth has suspicions), or that Dustin’s stuck at twelve, or that time travel is real. It doesn’t matter that Gareth’s mom was already passed out drunk when he left, her boyfriend calling slurs over his shoulder as Gareth rushed Chrissy off the front porch. It doesn’t matter that Gareth’s been spending more nights climbing through Chrissy’s bedroom window, sleeping hidden under her covers in case her mom comes in. Because Chrissy’s mom calls Chrissy a whore every time she sees Gareth, even though Jason fucking Carver was fine. And it doesn’t matter that exams are coming up, and summer is looming, and Gareth can’t actually fail his AP exams, not with the expectations of his dad and his teachers hanging over him like a cement block. 

It doesn’t matter because, in the dinner, Gareth feels bright, and young, and happy. And it doesn’t matter because, even though this will end, and he’ll go back to his house, and his mom, and his exams, Gareth will still have these people. These friends. And that’s not a fix, or even a suture. But it is the biggest, X-Men themed bandaid in the pack. 

— 

Wayne is dead asleep when someone crashes through the front door. He heard Eddie leave out of his bedroom window earlier, drive off in his van and everything. Figured the boy would be out for a while, but it’s only been thirty minutes. Wayne cracks his eyes open. 

It’s dark, but the silhouette of Eddie is distinguishable. 

“Shh, hey, you’re okay, Stevie,” Eddie whispers, pulling someone behind him. “I got you. It’s okay.” 

It is the last week of April, a Wednesday, even, but Wayne thinks he might finally be meeting this Stevie girl. Except Eddie pulls Steve Harrington through the door. Puts his hands on Steve’s shoulders to steady him as Steve trips over his feet. There’s a big gash on Steve’s forehead, blood dripping into his eyes, and it doesn’t look deep, but it looks sharp, like made by the side of a counter kind of sharp. 

“Baby, Sweetheart.” Eddie grabs Steve’s bicep with one hand and runs his other through his sleep mused curls. “Hey, we’re safe. It’s okay. You’re okay.” He looks worried, worried and panicked. And he’s speaking more to himself than Steve, because Steve seems out of it. Eyes glazed. 

And Wayne thinks, oh. Because Eddie mentions Stevie all the damn time, but, now that Wayne’s recollecting, Eddie never mentioned Stevie’s pronouns. Not that Wayne cares about this, because he doesn’t. He’s read the literature - used to go to rallies when he was younger. In his time before Eddie. Used to go to a lot of rallies, actually, shit Eddie probably wouldn’t believe. Wayne’s always been as much a rebel rouser as his kid, only difference is Wayne’s got, well, a kid. 

Steve stumbles again, and Wayne thinks. Oh. Oh, Jesus, oh. Because Wayne’s out here having a revolution on his heteronormative thinking process and Steve Harrington is bleeding out in his living room. 

“Put him on the armchair,” Wayne says, voice gruff from sleep. 

Eddie jumps, tugging Steve instinctively behind him until he catches sight of Wayne, sitting up on his fold out bed. 

For a second, Wayne thinks Eddie might leave, might pull Steve back out the door and drive off into the dark, because he’s still mad at Wayne. Still avoiding Wayne. And Wayne hasn’t made up for himself yet. But, Eddie doesn’t leave. He takes a shaky breath and nods. Gently drags Steve to sit in Wayne’s plush armchair. 

A loaded look gets passed between Eddie and Wayne as Eddie pushes Steve’s sweaty, bloody hair off his forehead. Wayne looks away first. Reaches over to switch on the lamp. Eddie must take it as the white flag it is, because he kisses Steve on the top of the head and gets up. Disappears into the bathroom. 

Wayne stares at Steve Harrington, cataloging his polo shirt and jeans even though it’s the middle of the damn night. His dirty, socked feet. Steve Harrington does not stare back. He’s focusing on the light. 

Eddie comes back with a wet towel and their meager first-aid kit. He sits on the arm of the armchair, turning his body to dab the towel against Steve’s dried blood. “Baby, hey, can you focus for a second?” His voice is so soft. So stupid fucking soft. Wayne’s never heard his kid sound so soft. 

Hazy, brown eyes drag slowly from the lamp to Eddie. Steve blinks for several long seconds, and says, “Concussion.” Like he’s sure. Like he knows. 

“Might not be.” Eddie puts his tongue between his lips, dabbing at more blood. “Could be a headache.” 

“It’s not a headache, Ed.” Steve’s words slur and Wayne thinks Steve’s right. Thinks it’s probably a concussion. 

Wonders what the hell the Harrington kid was doing to get knocked that hard. To have Eddie wiping up his blood at midnight on a school night. 

Eddie sucks his tongue over his teeth, squeezing his eyes shut for a breath. When he opens them, he stops his wiping to duck down and catalogs his boyfriend’s face. “Baby?” He tilts Steve’s chin with his pointer finger. “Do you want me to call Robs and Nance?” 

Whatever Eddie thought this would do, does the opposite, because Steve shakes his head. Shakes it hard enough that he has to stop to pant because it probably hurt like hell. “Don’t call them. Robs needs her sleep,” he says, and isn’t that heartbreaking. “And Nancy will be… will be Nancy about it, and I don’t want her…. I didn’t even want to tell you, but I didn’t know what to…. I don’t want to drag them into this. I don’t want you to get dragged -” 

“Hey, hey.” Eddie sits the bloody washcloth on the ground and cups Steve’s face in his hands. He’s not wearing his rings. Steve melts into the touch. “Hey, Princess, I won’t tell them. But you did a good job telling me. I don’t care what that big, rattled brain of yours is telling you, I’m glad you radioed. Okay?” Steve tries to shake his head again, but Eddie kisses him on the nose, halting his attempts. When he pulls back, he tilts his head. Says, “What did Nance do the last time? When this happened the last time.” 

Steve takes a second to process Eddie’s words. “They didn’t. They didn’t come home last time. This is a - we’ve changed stuff - and they, they didn’t come home.” 

And Wayne thinks, oh. Big fucking oh. Because he knows shit fathers, has established this. Multiple times. And he knows what Steve’s saying, can read between the very blatant lines. And this is Eddie's boy, sitting on Wayne’s armchair, bleeding out of his forehead, and Wayne isn’t about to let Eddie do this alone. Wayne was a field medic, an unwilling one, but a field medic. He can do a hell of a lot more with their shit collection of bandages than Eddie can. 

So, he gets up. Picks the first aid kit off the floor. Levels Eddie with a look. And tries to fix his mistakes with soft touches and slow movements. And he doesn’t say shit about the boyfriend thing, knows this is not the time. But he will. He’ll tell Eddie when this is done. When Steve is patched up, and Eddie knows Wayne loves him to pieces, and it’s not the middle of the damn night. Wayne will tell him. Tell them both. 

— 

The week before their project is due, Gareth, Barb, and Chrissy spend every night on the phone going over Gareth’s presentation while Chrissy types their essay. Gareth would like to say this is an easy process, but that would be a lie because two days in, Barb realizes that they probably shouldn’t name-drop a bunch of well known students in their class presentation to eleventh and twelfth graders. Or in their essay to Mrs. Rose. Or in general, actually, because the entirety of Hawkins does not need to know the Total Subject Group’s (edited for consumption) business. 

This leads to nicknames and Barb re-writing parts of their final field notes because, “It’s due in a week, Chrissy, babe, we don’t have time for good handwriting. Type faster.” 

The nicknames are a source of large debate. 

(“We can’t call her Penguin, Emmy.” 

“Fine, we’ll stick with Sparrow. Because that’s super normal, Cunningham.”) 

(“Don’t you think naming him Stevie Locks is a bit on the nose, Emerson?” 

“But Fredward Junson is completely fine? Double standards, huh, Barbara?”) 

 (“Guys, what if we name them really basic names, like Brian, Allison, and Claire, or something?”  

“We could work with that. I think we could work with that.” 

“Thanks, Emmy!”) 

But they finish the essay, and they finish Gareth’s presentation flashcards, and all that’s left is to turn in the essay, and give the presentation, and tell the Total Subject Group that they know about the time travel, and the parallel universe, and the evil wizard. 

Which. Okay. That last bit is a little hard. But, as Chrissy puts it, “We can’t not tell them. The fourth step in the scientific method is to accept the hypothesis.” 

(“What does the hypothesis have to do with telling our friends, though?” Barb says back over the phone. 

“Well, the unofficial fifth step in the scientific method is to publish findings in a journal, but we don’t have publishing credibility, so we’ll have to make do.” 

“Our friends are ‘making do?’”) 

On Sunday, May 6 th , Gareth, Barb, and Chrissy meet at Gareth’s house and bike to Forest Hills Trailer Park. Gareth’s mom is out with her boyfriend, and Chrissy’s bike has a basket to store their notes and Dustin’s promised payment cookies. They are minutly overbaked snickerdoodles. The Total Subject Group will meet at Eddie’s trailer under the guise of getting a sneak peek presentation. 

Gareth is on the verge of hyperventilation. 

It’s fine. 

When they arrive at the trailer, Eddie welcomes them in. The living room is entirely too small for eight teenagers, but they make do. Eddie, Steve, Nancy, and Robin cram onto the couch, Dustin sitting on the floor by their feet. Gareth and Barb squeeze together on the sofa, with Chrissy getting overly comfortable on Gareth’s lap. Wayne’s sacred armchair is left untouched. 

Gareth looks over Chrissy’s shoulder, half-hugging her to get a visual on his flashcards. They are a jumble of his class presentation cards, full of theorists, and cards on their time travel hypothesis. The box of Chrissy’s cookies lays open on the coffee table, Dustin and Robin happily munching away. 

“Okay, uhm, so, like…” Gareth stumbles over his words. 

The thing is - their hypothesis is crazy. It’s time travel. That’s impossible. Wild. 

It’s literally the only feasible explanation from the data collected by their field research. 

But how does one go about broaching the topic of time travel? With time travelers? Who do not know that other people know that they’ve time traveled? 

Chrissy shoves her pointy elbow into Gareth’s spleen. 

Just as Gareth opens his mouth to say something, anything, the crunch of tires against gravel sounds outside. An engine stops, a car door slams, and the trailer sways as someone climbs the steps. Wayne Munson opens the door. 

He’s in his nice clothes, a fish printed Hawaiian shirt unbuttoned over an undershirt with a worn flannel overtop. Truly the stuff of fashion. As he steps into the trailer and kicks off his old bowler shoes, Gareth realizes Wayne has no idea they’re here. This is punctuated by Wayne, while closing the door and looking at Eddie, saying, “I know you think I’m full of shit, but I want to say something to you and Harrington, and I need you to list-” he turns to hang up his flannel and cuts off. Assessing eyes dart between Chrissy and Barb before landing on Gareth, squashed under Chrissy, and nodding. “Emerson.”  

Gareth gives an awkward wave, flashcards in hand. “Hi, Uncle Wayne.” 

“What are you doing in my home this Sunday afternoon?” Wayne has this way of talking real slow. Usually, it makes Gareth feel calm, like he’s got time to think. Lets him know where the conversation is going instead of trying to guess. Right now, though, Wayne’s drawl feels nothing but real fucking judgmental. 

The feeling is further punctuated by Wayne’s unimpressed gaze toward Gareth, dressed in his usual metal chic with his big drummer muscles, squished between two primly dressed girls. Gareth shrugs. 

“Hi, Mr. Munson,” Barb says. She’s using her ‘give no shit take no shit’ voice. “We’ll only be here a minute. We’ve been using Eddie and his friends for our psychology project.” 

Wayne turns, raising an eyebrow at Eddie. “Did they pay you?” 

“We’ve baked cookies.” Chrissy smiles her big, cheerleader smile at Wayne. The big, cheerleader smile that has Gareth handing over half a Pop-Tart every morning. Or maybe that’s not the smile. Maybe that’s because Gareth knows Chrissy never eats breakfast at home. Not that Pop-Tarts count as a proper, nutritional meal. 

Fuck. 

Gareth’s nerves have skyrocketed through the roof. Wayne is intimidating, okay? 

“Well, I ain’t stopping you,” Wayne says, because of course he’s staying and sits down in his sacred armchair. 

The room turns their attention to Gareth. Gareth turns his attention to Eddie. The contents of his flashcards are not for outsider ears. Eddie, however, nods with a tiny, reassuring smile. 

Which. Fuck. 

“Uhm.” Chrissy elbows Gareth again, and he clears his throat. Lifts his flashcards. Curses out the Universe for making him the group’s public speaker. “Social stratification delineates categorical tiers based on socioeconomic factors,” he reads. “In high school, peer group dynamics model social stratification and create isolation through group think, prejudice, and outside expectations. However, when stripped of these delineations, students may create differentiating group dynamics. In this essay, we will compare social stratification within peer group dynamics of Hawkins High students and examine this social stratification under three sociological perspectives: functionalism, conflict theory, and symbolic interaction. Through our field study of five Hawkins High students, further referred to as the Total Subject Group, who created a differentiating group dynamic while individually participating in socially stratified peer groups, we discovered-” 

Gareth flicks his eyes across his un-captivated audience. Nancy, bless her heart, nods along, ankles crossed and hands folded in her lap. Beside her, however, Steve’s eyes glaze over. Eddie is doing his ‘I’m pretending to listen’ look. Robin, horrifyingly, yawns, as Dustin munches on his second cookie. 

And Gareth is already nervous. And his flashcards are boring. And he wants to get to the point already, so he blurts out, “Time travel. Through our field study we discovered time travel.” The Total Subject Group freezes. Dustin and Robin have their mouths open, mid chew and yawn respectively. Nancy holds her breath. Gareth quickly shuffles his note cards, but he’s disoriented enough that none of Chrissy’s neat handwriting is legible. “Through our field study we discovered time travel,” he repeats. “Or, well not discovered. That was you, actually. Because you time traveled.” 

Dustin forces his mouth closed, but Robin’s stays open. Chrissy giggles, high-pitched and nervous. 

Gareth keeps going. “We, like, gathered a whole bunch of - I mean, we went over our field notes, and made a theory because… You time traveled. There’s no other explanation.” This time, Barb’s the one who elbows him, hard and sharp against his bicep. “Right. Uhm. Our theory is that, in an alternating timeline, Hawkins Lab created superpowered children through human experimentation.” Gareth’s discombobulated shuffling lands him on the right flashcard, and he forges ahead. “Dustin was a child experiment and managed to escape. He was found in the woods by Mike Wheeler and company, who hid him in the Wheeler’s rank fucking basement until the police could create him an established identity. Dustin’s superpower ended up creating a parallel universe -” Gareth turns to Chrissy, because quantum physics is hard. 

“The parallel universe fits within level two of the multiverse theory. Essentially, mirroring Hawkins, but with changes to the physical constants. Like hot dog figures, but not. Because none of you had hot dog fingers. Because the constants where not involving hot dogs.” 

“Gravity was weird, or… whatever.” Gareth takes back over after that disaster. “Dustin created Hawkins, but upside down. And possibly spooky.” Gareth flips to his next flashcard, and squints. “Steve was pulled in by Nancy, who got involved through Mike. When Steve and Robin started working at the mall, something happened, possibly involving Russians, and Robin was pulled in as well. When Robin started dating Eddie, he found out. Barb died, and Chrissy died, and there were a couple references in our field notes to bats, but we couldn’t come up with a conclusive -” 

“You five got stuck in the parallel universe, tried to get out, and wound up here.” Barb cuts in, tone flat. “Then you blew up the lab. The end.” 

The Total Subject Group remains frozen. In fact, the only person actively reacting is Wayne, who’s staring at Gareth like he’s just turned into a fucking giant purple school bus. 

“Mr. Munson Uncle Wayne sir?” Chrissy blinks her big, blue eyes intently at Wayne’s incredulity. “What was it that you wanted to share?” 

Wayne gives her this look, like she’s out of her fucking mind, but turns to the popsicles on the sofa. He drags his gaze across them, past Robin’s open mouth stare and Eddie’s horrified one, darts back to Gareth, Chrissy, and Barb, and then pinches his nose. Looks toward the ceiling. Counts to ten. Looks back at his nephew. “I wanted to say that,” he takes a moment to gather his thoughts. Like this is something he needs to be careful with. As if there’s more at stake than time travel. “Look, kid, I know the shit your daddy used to say, and I need you to know I ain’t like that. So, you have my blessing - you both do, even though I know you don’t need it. But it’s here. If you want it. And I want - I need - you to know that I’m here for the two of you if you need me. Always.” 

Gareth watches the Total Subject Group as they melt and freeze again. Eddie’s cheeks flush, and while Wayne speaks, Eddie’s left-hand crawls over to Steve’s, their fingers tangling together. Steve’s flushed, too, like Wayne’s words hit him straight in the jugular. Or the heart. Actually, now that Gareth’s looking, Steve Harrington looks on the verge of overwhelmed tears. And the five of them hold their breaths, Eddie and Steve clutching hands, and Robin squeezing Nancy’s leg, white-knuckled, as Nancy bites her lip, hard. Dustin, on the floor, stares up at them, body poised to move. 

Eddie’s breath is a shuttering thing. “Wayne-” he cuts himself off, for once at a loss for words. 

“I mean it, son. I’m here for you two. I don’t give a damn about what everyone else in this good-for-nothing town believes. You get to love whoever the hell you want.” Wayne moseys his eyes from Eddie and Steve to Robin and Nancy, nodding. “You too, ladies. If you ever need a place to go or an adult to talk to, I’m here. Ain’t going nowhere.” 

Red rises to Robin’s cheeks, matching Eddie and Steve, as Nancy gives a small, pleased smile. 

A rapid slapping to his forearm drags Gareth’s attention to Chrissy, who turns toward him, nearly smacking him in the cheek with her nose. “Emmy!” Her eyes are wide and her voice hushed. “Emmy!” 

“We missed it!” Gareth’s tone is equally as frantic. “We missed the homosexual subtext!” 

“Holy shit, you’re all queer,” Barb says loudly, blinking rapidly between Eddie and Steve and Nancy and Robin. 

And now that Wayne’s mentioned it, Gareth can’t believe he missed it. Because Eddie’s been wearing Steve’s clothes, and smelling like Steve, and talking about Steve using cute little nicknames for months. And Robin’s got the haircut, and never kissed Eddie on the lips, and Gareth listened to her rant about how pretty Nancy is for an entire lunch bell once. So, fuck him, really. When did he become a heteronormative thinker? Gareth is disgusted by himself. 

He’s also relieved. Because Chrissy stops hitting him in favor of linking her and Barb’s pinkies with a grin, and Gareth feels safe. Safe in a way he’s usually not. 

Wayne catches the pinkie link quickly. Turns appraising eyes on Gareth, cataloging his relaxed posture and, no doubt, stupid face, before turning to raise an eyebrow at Eddie. “Damn, Ed, you some sort of homosexual homing beacon?” 

“That’s Dustin,” Eddie says reflexively. 

Dustin does not react, too busy scrutinizing Gareth, Chrissy, and Barb. He’s looking at them like they’re bugs under a microscope, chubby cheeks doing nothing to dull the intensity of his gaze. “How did you know,” he says, and it’s not a question. Doesn’t even sound like a question. He pins Gareth directly, brown eyes sharp. 

“Well, ya’ll weren’t too good at hiding it, really,” Wayne answers. 

Dustin waves his hand in Wayne’s direction, not looking away from Gareth. “Not you - and I’m not gay.” Steve snorts, but his face falls with the rest of the time travelers. The happy feeling in the room is replaced by stone-cold trepidation. “You,” Dustin points right at Gareth, “how did you know?” 

“Fuck me,” Gareth whispers into Chrissy’s hair. 

Barb’s lips part. “No goddamn way.” 

And here’s the thing, Gareth knows they’ve spent the last several months doing field research, and creating hypotheses, and making theories. He knows. But, honestly, most of Gareth was hoping Eddie would laugh right in his face. Would tell Gareth that, no, time travel does not exist. The multiverse theory is simply a theory. Evil, possibly homophobic, wizards who control clocks and can be defeated by the power of Elton John’s dolcet tones are a myth. They’re Bigfoot. Moth Man. The equivalent of Ronald Regan making good fucking political decisions. 

Because if Eddie doesn’t say that, then that means their theory is correct. Isn’t a theory. Is fact. And Gareth doesn’t know what to do with that. Because that’s fucking crazy - that’s comic book shit. Beyond comic book shit, really, because that means not only is Gareth sitting in a room with five time travelers, he’s sitting in a room with teenagers who’ve defeated stereotypical Russian spies, and possible bats, and definite interdimensional wizards. And they did it without Elton John. Did it with a tiny, superpowered child and really, really bad physics. 

And Gareth hadn’t paid too much attention to the news channel when Hawkins Lab burned down, but now that he’s reflecting on it, he’s pretty sure Nancy fucking Wheeler shot the lab director in the balls. With a gun. And killed him. 

Holy shit. 

“We were right?” Chrissy practically squeaks out. 

“Well, no,” Nancy says, and Gareth has all of three seconds of relief before Nancy keeps going with, “Mike didn’t bring me in, Jonathan did. And Steve was there the first time, too, though he kind of, just, showed up.” 

“Jonathan? Who’s -?” Barb leans forward, squinting at Nancy like she’s never seen her before. “Hold up, Jonathan Byers?” 

Robin finger-gun-snaps at the Study Buddies for emphasis. “There were way more funky-alive-things than just bats, too.” Robin starts counting on her fingers. “Demogorans, the vines -” 

“Demodogs,” Steve adds. 

Robin nods, slapping at Steve in thanks as she repeats, “Demodogs. Hey, Nance, do you think the mind flayer categorizes in funky-alive-things? Because that was more of a cohesive flesh blob. But could we think of it as an interdimensional slime mold?” 

Gareth inhales spit, chokes, and sputters out, “Mind flayer?” There’s no fucking way. “Like in DnD?” 

“And I arrived later.” Eddie does not answer Gareth’s very pressing question. “Like, way later. Like right at the end, later. When Chrissy died on the ceiling of the trailer.” 

Wayne looks at the ceiling like he’ll find something more than the rusted section in the corner that leaks when it rains. Gareth doesn’t blame him. He’s looking, too. 

“And I don’t have superpowers.” Dustin’s voice has Gareth snapping his eyes back down. “That’s Eleven. But we did find her in the woods and hide her in the Wheeler’s basement. So, it’s pretty suspicious that you figured that out.” 

“Have you seen that basement, Henderson?” Barb says, looking over her glasses at Dustin. “You could hide a serial killer down there for weeks. No one would notice.” 

Robin, Nancy, and Dustin turn to Eddie. Steve does not, because he’s sunk into Eddie’s side, gotten comfortable, and started playing with Eddie’s rings. 

“Hey, absolutely not! You two,” Eddie points v’d fingers at Robin and Nancy, “are the ones who shot Brenner in his dick artery. All I did was sell ketamine to a cheerleader.” 

This time, even Steve looks at Chrissy. 

Chrissy reals back straight into Gareth’s face. “You sold me horse tranquilizer?” 

“You asked!” 

Gareth spits out Chrissy’s hair with a disgruntled stare. 

“Hold on. Hold the fuck on.” Wayne’s voice does not raise, but his tone has them all quieting down. He sighs, puts his finger up in a point, puts his finger down, wrinkles his nose, and sighs, again. “Time travel?” 

The Total Subject Group does this thing where they communicate solely in slight eye movement and hums. Gareth wonders if that’s how they fucked up the Grandfather Clause. But, somehow, after a couple of grunts and Steve rapidly shaking his head, Nancy straightens. 

Raising her chin, Nancy gives a prim huff, like she’s reading for a keynote speech, and says, “It all started November sixth, nineteen-eighty-three, the night Will Byers disappeared….” 

— 

(Gareth, Chrissy, and Barb get a 97% on their research project, which is basically a perfect score because Mrs. Rose doesn’t give 100%) 

(Eddie’s salutatorian speech is ’The Rage,’ by Judas Priest, re-written to fit into academia. He delivers it with absolute deadpan. The audience is enraptured, and clap politely at the end. His friends absolutely lose their shit in the back row of the auditorium.) 

(In July, Gareth, Chrissy, and Barb open their AP results in Barb’s living room. They receive a 3 in AP Psych, but 5’s in everything else. It’s probably for the best.)