MAX HAD SURVIVED.

        She had survived but she wasn't safe, for even if Running Up That Hill had unlocked a doorway in her mind back to the real world it was the only thing keeping her there. She was still marked, and there was a very real possibility that her Walkman could die or break, or listening to her favorite song on repeat would cause her to get sick of it. There were so many things that could go wrong while Vecna was still alive. Max had been inches from death, and there was a chance she wouldn't be so lucky the next time.

        Even though Max was safely tucked away in Nancy's room with the group taking turns watching over her for the night Shaelynn was frozen in time, surrendered to her knees as she levitated in midair as though bound to an invisible cross. She had sworn that Max's bones would contort themselves and her eyes would burst on their own accord, but she had freed herself from Vecna's hold and reunited her mind with her body. She was alive so long as the melody of Kate Bush echoed in her eardrums, but Chrissy wasn't. All because Shaelynn hadn't gotten to her fast enough.

        Lucas had volunteered to watch Max first but Shaelynn couldn't bring it in herself to sleep. She had migrated to the hallway and was pored over her notebook, sketching a lithe body suspended above ground. It was clothed in a cheerleading uniform with a face framed by bangs and a ponytail, her best guess of what Chrissy had looked like as Vecna snatched her life away, only she didn't have a song to guide her back to reality. Eddie had tried to wake her but his voice hadn't reached the parts of her brain her favorite song did. Hell, Shaelynn knew Chrissy's favorite song, if it hadn't changed in the months since she'd drifted away.

        She panicked upon catching sight of someone leaving Nancy's room but relaxed once she saw it was Robin, finding amusement in the fact that she'd immediately changed out of her borrowed clothes once she and the others had returned, unable to wear anything that wasn't her longer than necessary. Though she hadn't had a chance to relay it, she really appreciated Robin for taking the time to clue her in on everything when everyone else was rightfully occupied with defeating Vecna to bring her up to speed, because even though Robin had known the truth for years through Amara she had only recently been directly involved. She understood what it was like to be the outsider.

        "I'm sorry, am I bothering you?" Robin stammered, not expecting to encounter Shaelynn on her way to the bathroom. In hindsight, she'd rather face Vecna empty-handed than make a fool of herself in front of the girl she liked. "I can just slide by if you'd like. It'll be like it wasn't even here."

        "Who said I didn't want you here?" Shaelynn mused, gesturing for Robin to sit beside her. "It's like you said yesterday. If you say or do anything out of hand, which you definitely haven't, I'll be sure to let you know."

        "That's... good to know," Robin exhaled in relief, slumping against the wall beside Shaelynn. She left a body's worth of space in between them, though. "What are you drawing – oh... " she fell short once she saw what Shaelynn had portrayed in her workbook.

        "Yeah," Shaelynn nodded sadly, tossing her book to the ground and out of sight. "Chrissy's favorite song was Dancing Queen by ABBA. We used to dance to it all the time before my dad died and I pushed everyone away, including her. I can't stop thinking about what would've happened if I'd gotten to the trailer before it was too late, if I could've saved her."

        "You didn't know then. It's not your fault," Robin brought up with sound reasoning. "Plus if you'd gotten there earlier you would've had to watch her die... not that it's a helpful thought or anything."

        "No, you make a good point," Shaelynn sighed, letting her head fall slack against the wall. "She's gone and there's nothing I can do to bring her back. It just sucks knowing everything that I do now and not being able to tell anyone. Her funeral's tomorrow, and I'm gonna be surrounded by idiots who think Eddie Munson killed her as part of a Satanic ritual or some shit. It's only going to make Jason more determined to avenge her by killing him."

        "Do you wish you hadn't found out the truth?" Robin queried, cocking her head inquisitively. "Not that it's possible for you to forget, or anything."

        "It's... better this way," Shaelynn admitted, hugging her knees to her torso. "For so long everything was so confusing after my dad died, but knowing how he truly died made me realize there wasn't anything I could do about it. He was marked for death ever since he got possessed by that spider thingy. I just wish I could've stopped that from happening, though."

        "I get it," Robin mumbled, stifling a yawn. "Not that I've lost anyone to this, but it's easy to blame yourself for things you can't control. My whole life, I've always felt like everything I touch has died. There's just no point when nothing you do matters. And when you're in a situation like this, you suddenly realize that everything you do matters, and then you just want everything to go back to how it was before, when no one cared about anything you did. There's just no in-between."

        Shaelynn swore she couldn't relate to anything more. She could merit good grades and break her back to perfect her cheerleading stunts but it wouldn't make a difference because her teachers and peers had dismissed her the moment her skin caught sunlight. She could try her best to make Chadwick proud of her achievements and he wouldn't care so long as she remained tied to Patrick and didn't harm his brand because of who she loved. She could know how he and Chrissy had really perished when so many others were unwilling to face the music and couldn't tell them without jeopardizing everything. All she could do was aid these individuals it felt wrong not to call friends in exterminating Vecna before anyone else found out about him or the Upside Down. And yet they'd have no way to prove Eddie's innocence.

        In the last few days alone, Shaelynn had seen sides of these people she hadn't known existed. Like goody-two-shoes Nancy Wheeler, who had risked jail time if it meant they could save Max, and King Steve, who had shown so much worry for Max when she had become possessed and took his role as the babysitter seriously, something she never would've expected from him. And then there was Robin, the band geek just trying to find her place in the world, a girl Shaelynn never thought she'd have so much in common with.

        "I'm being a total mood killer again, aren't I?" Robin asked rhetorically. Before Shaelynn could dispute that she wasn't in the slightest she continued, "Nice drawing, by the way. Not that it's of something nice, of course, but it's very accurate. Sorry – " Robin wanted nothing more than to disappear, questioning why she always had to say the wrong thing. "What I'm trying to say here is... you're a great artist."

        "Oh really? Thanks," Shaelynn beamed, causing Robin's heartbeat to accelerate. No one other than her family or Chrissy had complimented her artwork, mostly because only they had seen it. Now that she thought about it, Robin had been the one to barge into the empty classroom she was in that day in late January and catch a glimpse of her latest rendition. "It's always been a hobby of mine. I've always dreamed of being a street artist, but my dad told me it wouldn't make me enough money."

        "You've been doing renditions of famous paintings, right?" Robin queried, cringing at the memory of Steve's teasing from only three days ago. She hoped it wouldn't show on her face. "I saw that one you were doing of The Birth of Venus back in January. It's really great."

        "Thanks. Yeah, it's been a little project of mine recently," Shaelynn revealed, reaching for her workbook and making sure not to open on the drawing of Chrissy. The final products of her interpretations were all in her room but she had plenty of sketches she'd brought along with her. "I always loved going to art museums as a kid, but barely any of them portrayed people that looked like me, so to speak. I figured I'd remake them in my view. But I've never really shown anyone other than my mom. I guess I'm worried that others would accuse me of ruining them."

        "Well, I'd love to be the first," Robin declared, smiling brightly. "Once the world's no longer ending, of course. I've never really liked old art, anyway. Too many white people."

        The two of them simultaneously burst out laughing, because not even the end of the world could deprive them of their joy. For the first time in months Shaelynn felt something other than numbness, and Robin had bonded with the first girl other than Amara (or Nancy) to not shirk away from her in revulsion, the first girl not to outright reject her even if her feelings were almost certainly unrequited. It was cathartic, connecting over shared interests with the unlikeliest of people amid times of uncertainty. Shaelynn's only regret was that she hadn't met Robin earlier on.

        But all too soon Shaelynn was reminded of tomorrow, when she would be burying her best friend. When her family and friends would stoke the flames of hatred that had enveloped Hawkins in the wake of her murder. When she'd need to give a eulogy about how much Chrissy meant to her, a eulogy she still hadn't written.

        "I don't even know what I'm going to say tomorrow," she muttered, closing her eyes. "How about a trial run: 'Chrissy meant so much to me and it breaks my heart that we lost her when she was this young – by the way it wasn't Eddie Munson who killed her, it was this psycho monster from an alternate dimension.' Like anyone would believe that."

        "Maybe not that exactly," Robin smirked, unable to stop herself from giggling. "But that first sentence was nice. Maybe lean more into that?"

        "Noted," Shaelynn replied. "Obviously I want to share how much she meant to me, but I don't want to be so heartbroken that Jason will be motivated to continue his hunt, which is what's inevitably going to happen. What I really want to do is go in the opposite direction, tell everyone that Chrissy wouldn't want us to become monsters out of our grief for her. Because I know she wouldn't."

        "Then say that," Robin suggested, propping her chin up with her palms. "Maybe you won't convince Jason, but you might with others. You were her best friend, after all."

        "Yeah, before I shut everyone out after my dad died," Shaelynn added bitterly, unable to forgive herself.

        "It's what anyone would've done," Robin countered fiercely, which came as a slight surprise to Shaelynn. "Do you know how many times I've pushed Amara away because of some shit that happened in my life? But it never worked, because she's so goddamn persistent and I always end up giving in. You didn't just push Chrissy away; she let you go. And it's wrong of me to assume anything, but I don't think she ever resented you for it. She probably understood that you needed time, just as she would've if it had happened to her."

        "But now she's gone," Shaelynn's voice wavered, and she ducked her head before Robin could witness her cry. "I didn't think she'd be gone before I was ready to go back to her. I knew what she was going through, why Vecna chose her first."

        Maybe Robin was right, that it wasn't her fault Chrissy had died. It all boiled down to Laura Cunningham. Vecna had merely exploited demons Chrissy already had, demons that wouldn't exist if it wasn't for her mother and her victim complex. Shaelynn couldn't bring Chrissy back. She could only change how those who loved her could go forward in her absence, and even then there was only so much she could do. And yet it was more than enough.

        "You're right. I have to do this. Even if people accuse me of not being there until now. Even if it doesn't do anything," she decided, straightening her back. She flipped through her workbook until she was on a blank page. "If I don't say anything, I don't know if anyone will. Just please... find out what you can about Vecna while I'm gone. Whoever he curses next, they won't know what to do."

        "Like we'd do anything else," Robin remarked wryly. "We'll try our best. Maybe we won't all end up dead if we're lucky."

        But Shaelynn had faith in them, because they'd done the impossible and broken someone out of Vecna's trance. Like all villains he had liabilities, and they could take advantage of him just as he did with their darkest memories. She just had to confront the antagonists in their realm while they were at it, the people with the right intentions but the wrong target.

        "I wish you the best of luck, then."

        Despite everything, Shaelynn was no longer alone. And it meant more to her than she could ever repay.

"IT WAS JUST SO... EMPTY."

        By now Max had fallen asleep but Amara, who had volunteered for the second shift, couldn't follow. She and Steve, who was third in line, sat on the edge of Nancy's bed with Max in their sights; she was curled up in the fetal position with her shoulder brushing Lucas's; Dustin had taken the foot of the bed, his head dangerously close to rolling off the edge; Nancy was fast asleep in the chair adjacent to her bed, which she'd ceded to Max without hesitation; Robin and Shaelynn had shared anecdotes of their lives until they'd collapsed in their sleeping bags, mismatched in theory but so beautiful. While not linked in flesh and blood, Amara considered them all family.

        "Empty how?" Steve queried. Until now, they'd been too concerned with ensuring Max was properly looked after for Amara to divulge her experience at Pennhurst, which had deeply affected her. Steve almost wished she'd stayed behind, but witnessing Max nearly perish was horrific enough.

        "Everything was just so... lifeless," Amara elaborated. She too had changed out of the dress Nancy had lent her, swapping it for denim jeans and a lavender cardigan. "The hallways, the gardens, even the people. Everyone there just was. Nothing more than that. Dr. Hatch said they were happy, but they weren't. They weren't anything."

        Steve thought back to everything Amara had told him about how people with autism were perceived as being unable to feel anything, which Amara proved fundamentally wrong. She felt so much all at once, perhaps more than people who didn't have autism, to the point that it was overwhelming. She felt things so intensely that it had been hard to convey her emotions growing up, leading her neighbors and classmates to dismiss her as unfeeling and apathetic. Perhaps the inmates at Pennhurst had been the same until it became too much for them, until they succumbed to the very notion society portrayed them to be.

        Steve wondered how different his life would be if Amara had never seen the outside of an asylum. He wondered if he'd even be alive right now.

        "I told Dr. Hatch I thought I had schizophrenia growing up. That I needed to talk to Victor to make sure I don't end up like him," Amara murmured, causing Steve's eyes to bulge. "Figured I couldn't run away from my autism any longer."

        "But that means... " Steve gestured to Nancy, who unlike himself and Robin hadn't known about Amara's diagnosis. He hoped she hadn't jeopardized their friendship if Nancy hadn't accepted her for who she was. "Did she believe you? Or did she think you were lying to get in?"

        "She probably thought I was lying," Amara responded, though she wasn't so sure. Maybe she was becoming better at reading people, but Nancy had been somewhat distant ever since they'd reconvened at her house. "Then again, I told her the other day I struggled with social cues. Thought it would help her understand Robin better. She doesn't seem completely repulsed by me, so that's a good sign."

        "And Dr. Hatch?"

        "He found us out. Said he didn't believe anything we'd told him," Amara cleared up, touched by his concern for her. In her mind, Dr. Hatch was more likely to track them down and have them arrested for forgery than to look deeper into Amara's claim of having schizophrenia and determine that it wasn't far off. "You would've hated him. He looked a lot like Strickland from Back to the Future."

        "You're probably right about that," Steve chuckled, drawing his girlfriend in to rest against his shoulder. "I'm just glad you made it back."

        "I threw my purse at one of the guards," Amara couldn't help but giggle, leaning into him. Once she was on the other side, she could look back on that with a smile. "Told another to get lost, to put it lightly. They deserved it after looking at us like we were trophies to be won."

        "Now I wish I'd gone with you. I would've punched the living daylights out of them," Steve muttered, brushing his lips against Amara's hairline. He had won a fight on the third try, after all. "You're so much better than a stupid trophy."

        "Thanks for that," Amara grinned into his sternum. "But I'm glad you stayed with Max. There's no one else I would've trusted more than to keep an eye on her."

        "I don't know what I would've done if she'd died," Steve expressed, his voice quivering. It was just them in a snow globe, with no one awake to witness Steve's vulnerability at coming so close to losing one of the kids he had put his life on the line for time and time again. Unlike before he couldn't take the fall for Max, not when Vecna didn't switch his targets out of convenience. It terrified him beyond belief. "You guys were the ones to save her, not me. You deserve all the credit."

        "We all did our part, Steve," Amara insisted, closing her hand over his. She, Nancy, and Robin might have been the ones to discover that music held the key to escaping Vecna, but Steve, Dustin, Lucas, and Shaelynn had been the ones to remember Max's favorite song. "We're a team, and that's the only way we'll stand a chance against Vecna. It's like Dungeons and Dragons – he'll decimate us if we don't work together, and we can't do that without knowing that each of us has something to give. But none of us can give too much. We can't."

        "I know," Steve sighed, squeezing her hand. He wished he was better at internalizing her words of affirmation. "It's just, sometimes I feel like being the babysitter is all I have. Other than that I'm a deadbeat nothing with a low-paying job doomed to watch everyone else succeed. A few days ago my dad questioned how I was able to land someone like you when I don't have much to offer in return."

        "Oh, so he finally realized I exist?" Amara rolled her eyes, unfazed by how David Harrington apparently thought highly of her now. He was the embodiment of toxic masculinity, and she admired Steve for breaking free from that even if it had taken time. "Next time you see him tell him I have no interest in meeting him if he thinks saying that will win me over."

        "Noted."

        "You mean so much to me. I hope you know that," Amara beseeched, pulling back to look him in the eye. "And maybe not everyone sees that, especially those who should, but we do. I do, just like you do with me. You shouldn't have to bend over backwards just to get your dad to care about you, it isn't worth it. He isn't worth it."

        "Thanks, 'Mara," Steve smiled gratefully. A small part of him wondered what he'd done to merit her in his life but he pushed it aside for once. "Maybe I really should move out after all this."

        "You know you're welcome at my place anytime."

        "I do," Steve nodded, kissing her forehead a second time. "I'm really glad you didn't end up in an asylum," he added with a breathy laugh.

        "You can't be more grateful than I am," Amara remarked, content for the first time in days. Steve just had that effect on her, and she meant it when she said she couldn't lose him in her life. "There was so much beige it was nauseating."

        Amara fell asleep shortly after that, and Steve remained awake until his shift was over and he woke Nancy up to take his place. Their limbs intertwined, they fell asleep against the side of Nancy's bed, exhausted from the day's events but no less hungry to eradicate Vecna the next. Steve dreamt of a body levitating on its own and being frozen in place as its bones splintered – one minute it was Max, then Dustin, then Robin, then Amara. Amara dreamt of what Steve said about being glad she wasn't institutionalized, and of all the people who never knew what they could've had because of how many potential friends and partners were...

published to quotev: 11/16/23
published to wattpad: 3/8/25