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“You enter the cave, surrounded by darkness and the stench of something rotten and dying, the only light coming from the glowing stone bestowed upon you.” Eddie held his hand in front of him, rising from his cross-legged position to loom over the coffee table and the people surrounding it, “It barely illuminates two feet around it, blue and weak. Behind you is the path across the bridge, swaying in the wind with snapped ropes holding it in the air, and ahead of you holds pitch black. What do you do, Will the Wise?”
Will’s posture immediately straightened, as if possessed by his character. Steve watched from the doorway, leant against the wooden arch with a beer loosely hanging from his fingertips. He took a generous sip as his eyes slipped back to Eddie unbidden. The man had both hands on the table. He leaned forwards with raised eyebrows.
“Do you venture further into the depths? Lead your party into the unknown? Or do you turn back?”
Even Steve found himself holding his breath with anticipation as Will contemplated. He watched as the kid’s eyes flitted around the other faces sitting with him. Lucas was nodding at him, whatever that meant, his back to Steve. Dustin’s eyes were wide. Mike wore a grin that hadn’t seemed to have faded since the other boy had sat down to start the game.
“God, we’re friends with a bunch of nerds.” Robin startled Steve out of the suspense, and he tried to suppress the physical jump, unsuccessfully if her smirk was anything to go by.
“Careful, they’re still convinced we’ll be swayed to their ways at some point.”
“I don’t know.” Robin shrugged, moving to lean against the other side of the doorjamb, “They seem into it, right? Don’t lie to me that you weren’t swept up in all of it just then. I saw the wide-eyed Bambi look in your eyes.”
“There was no look.” Steve denied. He washed the embarrassment away with a swig of beer.
“BOOM!” Eddie suddenly yelled, on his feet and grabbing the attention of everyone in the room. “Just as you take a step further into the inky black of the cave, a rockslide rains down behind you and seals the opening shut.” Eddie clapped his hands together and stomped one foot at the same time, tilting his head, “You’ve led your party into potential doom, Will the Wise.”
“Crap.” Will ducked his head. Mike clapped him on the shoulder with an encouraging nod.
“We’ve got this.” He said, “We need to find a way to see. If there’s anything on the walls or floor.”
“Ah,” Eddie clasped his hands behind his back. Steve raised an eyebrow as he rounded the table to stand over Mike’s back. The energy around him was electric, as if the man himself had a charge that sparked and popped, giving anyone who got close enough a jolt of his enthusiasm. He placed his hands on Mike’s shoulders and leant so he was just by his ear, “Mighty Paladin. What’s your roll?”
Steve watched them all, their excited faces and the relief that seemed palpable when they first showed up. Even with school over and months having passed since everything happened, there was still a weight on all of their shoulders. He saw it in Robin, in how she was so focused on work and gossip and barely let a moment of silence go by without her filling it. He saw it in Max, desperately seeking out anyone’s company that would take her, keen to have someone watching out for her, keeping her grounded.
Everyone seemed to gravitate towards each other. They were nearly never seen not in pairs, trios, even in a large hoard like they were now. Even Nancy rocked up to a few of their events, accompanying them to the movies and mainly talking to Robin, joining home movie nights with popcorn to share and a sheepish smile.
Steve enjoyed their company, all of them, but something about Hawkins still felt stifling. He wasn’t sure about living somewhere else when all he’s ever known was here but... maybe just for a little while. A week, even a weekend, just to be somewhere else and not feel the crushing weight of memories around every corner.
“You’re thinking hard.” Robin knocked her shoulder against his, then slid his beer out from under his nose and took a sip. He scrunched his nose when she handed it back, “Anything I should be worried about?”
“Just thinking it’d be nice to not be here for a while. Hawkins, I mean.” He hastily added at Robin’s alarmed look, “I was almost at the brainstorming stage when you started bothering me.”
“Excuse you.” Robin tutted, “A vacation? It’d made sense, considering it’s summer.”
“We could all use one.” Steve nodded towards the group in front of them. He leant his head against the frame and drank languidly, as Robin hummed thoughtfully.
She glanced around his living room like she had something she was looking for, then her eyes widened a fraction, “There.”
“Hm?” Steve followed her gaze to a multi-photo frame full of pictures of him and his family at the beach, the same beach, the one they used to go to every year before his parents’ lives outside of him were more important to them than he was. He frowned at them, “Pretty sure they still own it. The beach house. We just don’t go as a family anymore.”
“And they’re not there now, right?” Robin asked, “It hasn’t fallen apart or anything?”
Steve let his eyes fall over the gathering again, stuck on their smiles, the joy just a game brought them. He lingered on Eddie. The man was circling the table with a hand over his eye and a sharp gravelly voice coming from the base of his throat.
He suddenly smacked a hand down on Dustin’s shoulder who let out a squeak that sent the others into bouts of laughter. Eddie looked up, his uncovered eye landing on Steve as the mischievous smile he had been wearing melted into something smaller. It said ‘kids, right?’. Steve found himself smiling back and raising one eyebrow, ‘I know’.
He imagined them all sun kissed and free, sitting around an outdoor fire on the patio of his childhood holiday home, unhindered by the shadows of their past, even just for a moment.
Damn, Steve thought, I need to call my parents.
*
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