Coping || STEDDIE

An Extreme Panic

The next day was very different, but for all the wrong reasons.

It started with a call from Joyce to the store, she asked about footloose, which was their code for "there's a fucking problem". So Steve and Robin left Keith in charge, much to his dismay, and ran over to the Byers/Hopper house.

Once they got there they saw Hopper pacing in the living room while Joyce sat with Will on the couch. Max, Lucas and El were sitting off to the side of the couch, and Mike was standing behind the couch watching Will and Joyce. The whole scene was slightly bizarre, but it only got worse when Nancy and Jonathan emerged from the kitchen.

"What the hell.." Steve murmured, and Hopper forced them to sit down in front of the couch.

"Explain to them, explain what you're feeling." Joyce murmured, Steve wasn't 100% sure what was going on, but the drop in his gut wasn't an immensely good sign.

"somethings here... Something we didn't know about, I haven't felt this since Vecna died. But something..." Will took a deep breath and reached for the back of his neck. "Something is here and it feels... angry."

"Angry? Angry how?" Robin asked, she was sitting criss cross and leaned slightly against Steve's knees, which were bent in front of him.

"Like... Angry betrayed. He feels betrayed, and he's found a way into our world somehow. It just doesn't make any sense." Will murmured the last part and let his hand drop, Joyce rubbed his back reassuringly as he looked down at Steve and Robin.

"I dont- i don't fully understand. I thought we killed Vecna, I thought we killed the hive mind." Steve felt himself getting slightly frantic, but he tried to reign it back in.

"We did, we did. But Will says it's something different, something completely detached from Vecna all together. It's different then the mind flayer or the demogorgons too." Nancy interjected, and Steve looked at Will to confirm or deny.

He nodded slightly and Steve stood up.

"So what do we do, are we hunting this thing? Waiting til it strikes and then tracking it? Are we using wills connection to it to see where it is? What's the deal." He was pacing now, almost mirroring what Hopper had been doing when they arrived only a few minutes ago.

And it was Hopper who placed a hand on Steve's shoulder and stopped him.

"I understand you are the one who protected the kids all those times I wasn't there, but you don't have to do that anymore." He started, staring Steve in the face. Steve wasn't quite sure how to react to a lecture from the chief of police. "We are going to plan something out, the kids are going to stay out of it, and we will find this thing. You can relax kid." Hopper patted his shoulder a few times, clearly uncomfortable with the pep talk.

"Yeah. Yeah sure." Steve nodded slightly and sat back down.

After about an hour of discussing, they came to the conclusion that this thing hadn't sought out anyone in particular, in fact it hadn't done anything since Will first felt it. At this point max was laying against Steve's shoulder, half asleep. And Lucas was laid with his head on her legs. Robin was on his other side listening intently and Dustin was a little in front of them closer to the couch. El was listening because she knew she would be needed, as the only kid with magical powers and stuff.

The other kids had been excluded from the real discussion because Hopper refused to let them intervene for fear of something happening to them. though he would never admit that. Which is why they were all asleep or almost there.

They even thought of possibilities for what this thing could be, but nothing came to mind.

"For right now just... Be careful. Call as soon as anything odd happens." Joyce said as a conclusion, then ushered the half asleep boys into wills room, where they all then collapsed onto pallets on the floor or Will's bed. Max and El were both carried by Hopper and Steve to El's room where they quickly fell back to sleep.