BILLIE JEAN ( eddie munson.. ) ✔

013. With You I See Forever..

Time had slowed again.

The night had passed like the usual chill through a cemetery, carrying whimpers -Maxine was saved- and wails -Billie reached safety-, and the sun was finally rising over Hawkins with a new day as a gift: a new start to attempt to solve everything through.

After a too close of a call in saving Maxine, they regrouped with Nancy and Robin, then decided it would be best to stay together, in the Wheeler's basement. Steve had to make one more stop before joining them and sleeping through this tension which stuck to the back of his neck and clawed its way to his still panicked heart. You see, one more kid was in the backseat of his car, someone who did not necessarily belong in this equation, but he couldn't just abandon on the side of the road.

"You're all so brave," Sam had noted, fidgeting with his camera all the way to his house, in front of which Steve parked.

"For saving Max?" Steve questioned, looking back at the blonde child. "When you have friends you care about, you do anything to save them, kid. It's not about bravery."

Further down the alley they parked on, the Carter's front door burst open and from it was not Mr. Carter who stepped out, but Barry. Steve had only once crossed paths with the eldest Carter, even if the town was seemingly small enough for everyone to personally get to know everyone. He worked at the cinema, last Harrington recalled, and they shared a meaningful, knowing look when Steve's date for that night struggled to pick a movie for the silliest of reasons.

Barry never directly talked with Steve but somehow, the latter found the face hard to forget. And apparently, hard to look away from as well, because it took him a moment to return his attention to Sam, ready to end the motivational speech and urge him to get out of the car. He wanted to go to sleep, but the deadpan-serious look Sam gave him irked the nerves as pragmatically as Dustin annoyed him lately.

"I know that," Sam answered bluntly. "I meant you are brave for not believing my sister."

"About the demon thing?" Steve immediately furrowed his eyebrows. The pang of a headache coming from the left side of his head made him turn around in a flinch and just then, Steve's eyes met Devin's, another one of Billie's brothers, the one he considered a notch too weird, even for his age, even for Hawkins. Devin glared at him and instinctively, Steve reached out to unlock the doors of the car for Sam.

He sat back in his chair with a sigh and a shake of his head, "Look, I never said I don't believe Billie. I read what happened to your mother."

"It's hard to fight demons on your own," Sam almost spoke over him. "That's all I am saying." Steve couldn't claim to understand what the Carter's went through where they came from, but it sure sounded like whatever happened had been too much.

Dropping Sam off haunted Steve all through the sleep on the floor of the Wheeler's basement. One hitched breath, he saw Devin's glare. Another toss, he felt the coldness of the house and the darkness lurking its halls, inside the skeleton of it, now beading his skin in sweat.

A light started flickering in phases of in and out above the place where Steve whimpered in his deep sleep. The flicker woke Nancy up, but she did not notice his struggle, rather just Max's absence and Dustin's disregarding of his duties.

A whole town away, Eddie felt Billie pressure a little harder on his chest and assumed she had finally fallen asleep after a tumultuous night, at last allowing the sun to braze through and take over in a sunrise of pure spring, a new beginning for her, as well as the whole town. They laid on the ground, close to the door where she collapsed under the weight of all she's been carrying; he had been holding her until his body grew in a blissful numbness and solidified the position in which he was but a frame of safety in the midst of which she let go of the shame of shedding tears, of hiccuping until her breath ran out.