If I Should Stay
Part 1 | . . . | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9
After pizza—and after El wakes up and eats her own pizza—everyone gathers around again to listen to Steve and Robin. “So I think by now we’ve proven we’re from the future,” Steve says. “We’re here, four years in the past, because a lot of bad things happen, and if we can, we’d like to stop those things from happening. The big one, and really the recurring problem, is a guy named Henry Creel who essentially took control of an alternate plane of existence we call the Upside Down.” He motions El over beside him, and she goes gladly, tucking her feet up onto the couch as she leans into his side, trusting him to hold her up. He does, sliding a protective arm around her shoulders as he says, “He’s also One.”
He watches as one by one the lightbulbs come on. “Oh, shit,” Dustin whispers, and Steve doesn’t even call him on it, just nods.
“Beyond Henry, though, there are creatures in the Upside Down that can and will kill you.” He rolls his eyes fondly at the boys. “For some inexplicable reason, you came up the names, so they’re called demogorgons, demodogs, and demobats. Demogorgons are what took Barb and Will, but they both got away. That doesn’t mean they’re safe, though. Like El said earlier, Barb was safe in the moment, but it’s still a very dangerous place. There are vines everywhere that are connected to a hive mind. You step on one, and Henry knows you’re there.”
He continues telling the story, Robin interrupting when there’s a detail he misses. It’s silent when they finish. Finally, El speaks up. “So, it is… my fault?”
“No, El,” Steve says softly. “None of this is your fault. Things out of your control happened that made you who you are. Those same things created all of this.”
El frowns. “So I am bad? Like One? Like the Upside Down?”
“No,” Mike says sharply. “You’re good, El.”
“He’s right,” Steve murmurs. “You made yourself good.” He pokes her arm teasingly, and she smiles, leaning back into him.
Steve looks around, catches Nancy’s eye, and sighs. “Nance? A word?”
“Steve?” Robin asks.
He shakes his head. “I’ll yell if I need you,” he promises, rubbing her head as he passes. She squawks and bats his hand away.
“Asshole,” she mutters, and he laughs as he disappears down the hallway, Nancy in tow.
They end up in a room Steve thinks was meant to be a study. “You have questions.”
“Understatement of the century. There’s just one that’s really bugging me, though.”
“Us?”
“Yeah.”
Steve sighs and leans against the wall. “On Halloween, Tina throws a party. We didn’t know what we do now, about the Upside Down, and you were still looking for her. I was an asshole, self-centered and unhelpful.” He blows out a breath, crosses his arms, and looks away. “You got drunk, called me, and my love for you, bullshit. Left. I tried to talk to you the next day at school about it and you couldn’t say you loved me. I was still hopeful. I’m a romantic at heart, y’know? I thought maybe if I could be everything you needed, if I changed enough, if, if, if…” he shakes his head. “So we stayed together. I tried. You slept with Jonathan Byers, then broke up with me.”
Nancy looks horrified. “Steve-”
He shakes his head. “I made my peace with it. And maybe this makes me an asshole, I dunno, but Nance, I can’t go back. We’re okay, we’re friends, but I can’t pretend I still have feelings for you. I’m sorry, but we both know I was just convenient for you.”
Nancy takes a breath. “So that’s it?”
Steve shrugs helplessly. “I don’t know what you want me to do. I tried and got my heart broken for it. I moved on, found someone I think I can really be happy with, without changing who I am. And for the record? It gets rocky for a second, but I think you and Byers are it, too.” He smirks. “Plus Mike likes him better than me.”
Nancy rolls her eyes. “Oh, well, if Mike likes him better…” they both laugh, and she looks at him. “No more feelings?”
He shakes his head. “We make much better friends.”
Nancy grins lopsidedly. “And Robin?”
Steve snorts. “Purely platonic, I promise. Neither of us want anything else with each other.”
Nancy looks at him then. Studies him. “You’ve been through some shit,” she decides. “But you look happy.”
He smiles. “I am, for the most part. I know who I am.”
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i think we as a fandom need to talk about the fact that the targtower children’s resentment and disdain for rhaenyra is not just the work of viserys lack of parenting but due to everyone else too.
it’s from otto doing everything in his power to stop rhaenyra from getting the throne so his blood can get it, not because he thinks aegon is or would be a good king, not because he thinks his grandson deserves it, but because his blood would take the throne, not rhaenyra’s, not daemon’s. HIS.
it’s from alicent’s every conversation on screen with aegon revolving around rhaenyra. how, in ep.6, his mother stops his session to tell him he needs to be better to his brother in public so we can be a united family against her, how if rhaenyra takes the throne, she’ll have no choice but to kill them to keep her throne, how in ep.8, alicent is mad at his continuous behaviors but only this mad because rhaenyra is about to be in town.
the talk before his coronation is explicitly about how much his father wanted rhaenyra on the throne, how he had twenty years to change it and never did. it’s about alicent telling him not to not be swayed by judgements to kill rhaenyra, how above all the terrible she’s done, she still his sister. yet no one has ever acted like she is.
it’s from aemond’s eye being taken out and it ending with his mother yelling at rhaenyra about duty and sacrifices, how she can do all and never get in trouble, how she does as she pleases and is happy, yet she, the queen, is dutiful and isn’t. aemond’s eye is used to get back at rhaenyra, his mother is mad that his eye is gone but it’s more because RHAENYRA’S sons took it then it being taken at all. how he has to soothe his mother even if he’s the one bleeding.
it’s from criston cole bullying and tormenting rhaenyra’s sons because they are rhaenyra’s sons. It’s about them being lesser because they came from her indecency, them being worse because they came from her. her sons being lower than them because of them being a direct connection to rhaenyra and him feeling mad about not being the one she choose.
the targtower children entire world revolved around rhaenyra. it wasn’t just viserys who preferred her, everyone did! rhaenyra’s stepmother would rather fight her than love them! their mother’s sworn sword would rather mess with her children as an act of vengeance than genuinely be interested in them, their grandfather’s every political move was to stop her husband from being near power. love or hate, those children never had a chance to see rhaenyra on their own before or after Driftmark.
their father, her father, loved her more. their mother, her stepmother, hated her more than she cared for them. their grandfather, who has no connection to her, would rather deal with politics through them against her than for them. their mother’s sworn sword, who was rhaenyra’s sworn sword first, hates her more than he likes them.
these kids, again, never stood a damn chance!!
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