Beyond the Battle: Action & Consequence (Steddie, Stranger Things)

Chapter 5: Dreams

Mornings were not usually hard for Steve. He liked to be up early, go for a run, get the day going. However, his second day at home he had to force himself out of bed.

"You look half awake at best," Robin said when he picked her up. "Are you sure you're okay to drive?"

"Yep," he replied, hoping he was telling the truth, "just crashed yesterday. Full on fell asleep on the couch."

"Like after Starcourt?" Robin asked, belting herself in.

As he had expected, lots of the party were in need of supplies. Robin had her parents list, they were off to pick up Dustin next, and they were meeting some of the others at one of the big stores one town over. It had all been arranged via the walkie the previous evening before Steve had climbed into bed and slept for ten hours.

"Yeah," he said, pulling out of her driveway. "It always happens. Must be an adrenaline drop or something. Happened after everything in 83, happened after Billy and the demodogs, happened after Starcourt, and now it's happening after Vecna 2. Usually takes a couple of days to get back to normal."

"And I reiterate, are you sure you're okay to drive?" Robin said.

"I'm fine," he replied and did his best to look awake. "Things need doing, I'll just crash again once I get home. Could do without the weird ass dreams though."

"Nightmares?" was the much gentler enquiry from his platonic soulmate.

"Surprisingly no," he admitted, "but weird. I saw Eddie."

"Shit," Robin said. "And how is that not a nightmare?"

"It wasn't," he assured her. "I think my subconscious is just trying to deal with losing him. I've never lost one of the group I was with before. I mean people have died, Bob died, we thought Hop died, but it wasn't the same."

"You didn't see it," Robin concluded.

He nodded.

"Didn't have to coax Dustin away from their bodies either," he agreed. "Really wish we could have brought him home."

"Yeah," Robin said. "So, want to talk about your dream of Eddie?"

He gave it a few moments thought, but shook his head.

"No," he confirmed out loud, "I think I just want to leave my brain to process. Might need to talk about it later though."

"Just say the word," Robin told him. "So how about we decide on a plan of attack for operation re-stock. You know it's going to be chaos."

Steve grinned, putting thoughts of Eddie to the back of his mind.

"I can only imagine," he agreed.

~*~

After making sure everyone had everything they needed, Steve took Robin down to the school so they could volunteer for a while. The place had been abandoned during the evacuation, but it was up and running again now to help those who had come back. Robin was utterly delighted to find Vickie had returned as well.

Steve let her have a couple of hours before they headed out.

When he finally made it home, he finished putting away the groceries that weren't perishable, he'd already done the rest earlier, grabbed something simple to eat, then went through the same routine as the day before, before collapsing on the couch. He was out before he had a chance to even take as sip of his tea.

When he blinked his eyes open on his dream version of the Void, he realised his subconscious had not finished screwing with him yet.

"You came back," said a surprised, but very familiar voice.