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strangersteddierthings · 1 year

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Porcelain Steve - Part 2

Part One🦇Part Two🦇Part Three🦇Part Four🦇Part Five🦇Part Six🦇Part Seven🦇Part Eight🦇Part Nine

There's commotion from the house, loud enough for Eddie and Robin to hear it outside. Both turn towards the house, Robin halfway to standing up already, and the door is pushed open, El falling through it to get outside.

Someone calls El's name from inside, but she doesn't even turn around. She marches across the lawn to Eddie and Robin. "They are too loud and angry in there. Take me somewhere else."

Joyce makes it out the door next and with a raise of her hand behind her, one finger up, she stops everyone in the doorway. She descends the steps of the porch and Eddie is in awe about how much power she wields because no one follows after. Not even Dustin, who is the absolute worst at following orders.

"Whatever you need," Eddie answers El. He doesn't think she's blinked since exiting the house.

"We can go to Steve's," Robin offers. She's standing now and roots in a pocket of her jeans before pulling out a keychain with three keys on it. "Maybe it'll help being around all his stuff?"

"We can take my van," Eddie offers.

"That would be great," Joyce says, reaching out and grabbing one of El's hands in her own, giving it a reassuring squeeze. "Come on, let's get some shoes on."

"Thank you," El says, shooting Eddie a smile before her eyes drop down to look at Steve. A frown returns to her face before she turns and heads back into the house with Joyce.

Robin turns to Eddie, offering a hand to him. She's probably offering to pull him up, but he holds Steve out to her instead. He doesn't understand why she looks surprised at that, but she takes Steve, cradles him close to herself like he had done earlier.

Eddie climbs into his van, starting it and reaching over to turn the dial on the radio down so it's not blasting at the loud volume he keeps it on. Robin hovers with the passenger door open. "You getting in, Buckley?"

"Yeah, eventually. Just thinking if I should crawl in the back. Let Joyce and El have the seats?"

"Oh. Yeah. Probably."

She's absently petting Steve's hair, eyes slightly misty. He watches as she blinks away the tears before letting out a big sigh. "I just want to pass Steve off to whoever will be wearing a seatbelt. I've seen how you drive, Munson."

Eddie catches the teasing tone in her voice and laughs. "Fair. I'll take corners about 3 miles per hour slower than I normally do."

Robin laughs. "That's probably still ten above the speed limit."

"You should not speed," El's voice makes both Robin and Eddie jump. She's standing just behind Robin, and a quick look around shows Joyce on the porch, a worried look on her face but she makes no move to step off the porch.

"Is your mom coming?" Eddie asks. A complicated set of expressions crosses El's face and he's worried he might have asked the wrong thing somehow but then El answers.

"No. Just me. I will sit in the center," She slides past Robin and crawls up onto the bench seat of Eddie's van, scoots across the seat until she butts up against Eddie, and searches for the seatbelt before securing it.

"Here," Robin holds Steve out to El, who takes him, before Robin pulls herself into the van, shutting the door and buckling herself in.

Eddie doesn't go immediately because he's a bit busy watching El look at Steve. She's holding him like she's not sure how. She wraps one hand around an arm and his waist and uses the other to poke a porcelain cheek, right over the two moles just below his cheek bone. He can see the creases of a frown on her face.

"Are you okay, El?" Robin asks, which is good because he was about to, and he thinks his voice will come out more watery.

"I...," El looks up to Robin, then back down to Steve, "I do not know."

It hits Eddie like a freight truck just how young El is. He has to put the van in gear and drive to give his mind something to focus on or he's going to do something stupid, like bear hug El and ugly cry into her grown out buzzcut.

"Hey, that's okay," Robin says, "it's okay to not know how you're doing. This is a complicated situation."

"I barely know Steve," El says, which surprises Eddie. They all seem close, so much so that Eddie still feels like an intruder at times. Still, there is a tone to her voice that seems off to Eddie. "We do not have a reason to hang out. Not like everyone else. Lucas plays basketball with him. Dustin and Max claim him as their brother. Even Erica-"

El stops talking abruptly. Eddie glances towards her but she's staring down at Steve, so Eddie flicks his eyes to Robin, who is already looking at him and making an 'I don't' know' gesture with her hands before Eddie returns his eyes to the road.

"Mike does not care for Steve much," El continues suddenly, the tone still there and Eddie feels like he knows it, "I spent so much time with Mike that I think I did not care for Steve, either. Not on purpose. But- but in a way that you do not care about a thing because it is not important in your life?"

No one says anything else, because what can they say? Shortly after, Eddie pulls into the driveway of the Harrington residence behind Steve's Bimmer. "Alright ladies. Once more unto the breach!"

They crawl from the van and Robin unlocks the door. El and Eddie step through first. El moves into the house, clutching at Steve like he's her favorite stuffed toy. Robin freezes in the doorway, looks like she's not even breathing.

"Buckley?" Eddie is whispering and he doesn't know why.

"Sorry, sorry," Robin exhales a shaking breath. "It's just- Nancy and I- sorry. Uh, El, do you need us to do anything?"

She glides past Eddie to catch up to El and he is left to close the door. He wonders if, maybe, Robin should have also stayed at the Byers-Hopper home. It had been her and Nancy that had come to check in on Steve just this morning. It wasn't unusual to not hear from Steve sometimes (everyone needed their time to just be alone) but today must have marked Too Many Days for Robin because she'd called Nancy for a ride, and they'd found this. A locked house, Steve's car still here, and resting against the pillows of Steve's bed had been the porcelain replica. Nothing out of place, no ransom notes, nothing to make it seem like nefarious going ons had been taking place. Just the Harrington house, devoid of a flesh and blood Steve Harrington.

Coming back must be surreal.

"Eddie, you okay?"

"Oh, uh, yeah," Eddie startles a little. He'd been lost in his own head for a moment there.

"Can El have your bandana? She needs something to use as a blindfold."

"Yeah," Eddie moves through the house, to the living room where El has sat herself on the floor in front of the TV. Steve is lain in her lap, a mirror of the image Eddie must have made on the front lawn. He pulls the bandana from his pocket, folding it diagonally before offering it out to El.

She takes it, eyes flicking up to Eddie's. She looks sad. "Can you make the TV staticky?"

"On it."

Robin closes all the blinds and curtains, making the house a bit darker and Eddie gets the TV on, white noise filling the room.

They sit in that white noise for what feels like an eternity but when Eddie checks his watch, is actually about 22 minutes, before El suddenly yanks the makeshift blind fold off with a frustrated huff.

"It is not working!" She shouts.

Eddie looks to Robin, but she looks just as lost about all this as Eddie feels. Well. Eddie's always been good with kids. He'll make the attempt. "El, you said earlier you didn't know if you were okay. Maybe figuring that out will help? It can't be easy to get into the right headspace with other thoughts floating around. "

She looks down at Steve, then back to Eddie. Her eyes are wet. "I am scared."

Eddie nods, "me too. This is scary."

"I am scared I will not find him," she says, then drops her voice to a whisper to continue, "but I am more scared that I will."

He really wishes Joyce would have come with. Or Hopper, Jonathan, Will, anyone who actually knows El. He thinks she need a kind of comfort he and Robin cannot provide. "Well, El, what's the part that's really scary?"

She's quiet for a long time. "Steve has never needed saving before. Not by me. What if I can't?"

"Oh El, it's not on you to save him," Robin says, sliding off the couch to be on the floor with them. She must have more information than Eddie about why El would say that, which makes since, because Robin was part of the conversation when they'd decided to have El try and reach out to Steve. "It's not fair that it's only you that can do this, but we didn't ask expecting you to fix it. That's not the pressure we meant to put on you. All we want is a confirmation. And if you can't, that's okay, too. That'll be okay."

El frowns, bottom lip quivering before she reaches down and picks up Steve, shoving him into Eddie's arms before she launches herself at Robin, arms around her neck and burying her face into Robin's neck. Robin looks startled, eyes wide going to Eddie. He pulls Steve to his neck, in an imitation of the position El is in, then hugs him with one arm and uses his other hand to pet at Steve's hair, trying to make meaningful eyes contact with Robin. She gets with the program, hugging El and petting the back of her head.

"Hey, hey, it's okay. You want us to call Joyce or Hopper over?" Robin soothes, her body now gently rocking with El in her lap.

There's a muffled, quiet 'no' from El but that's it. She doesn't say anything else, or move, for a couple minutes.

El pulls back finally, away from Robin to sit up straight. "Okay. I am ready again. Please hand me Steve."

He does, belatedly realizing he was still cuddling and petting Steve. Oh. He really hopes that if Steve is the doll, that he doesn't have any sort of touch receptors going on. That'll be embarrassing.

Steve settled in her lap again, blindfold back on, El tries again.

It takes about two minutes before Eddie watches a bit of blood trickle out of her nose. He shoots a worried look to Robin before lifting a hand, intent on reaching out to El, but before he fully extends his arm, Robin stops him with a shake of her head.

Another eternity passes before El gasps and pulls the blindfold off.

"What happened? Did you find him?" Robin asks.

El looks from Robin to Eddie, then down to Steve, then back up to Eddie, a small smile on her face. "Yeah. He wants me to tell you 'thank you, for taking the time to explain because Dustin never does.' He said you would know what he was talking about?"

"Holy shit." He and Robin say it at the same time. Robin scrabbles over the couch, rather than around it, and dashes out of sight. Eddie doesn't think he could make his legs work if he wanted to. Steve can hear them. (Ha Dustin!)

El deposits Steve into Eddie's arms. "It is him. He does not know what happened, either. He can hear and see. He appreciates that you did not let the sun blind him."

"El, you are the most amazing person I've ever met," Eddie says and watches the grin grow on El's face. "Alright. Well, the first step to a solution is knowing and now we know."

Robin pops back into view behind the couch, "everyone is on their way here now. I tried to tell Will we'd go back to them, 'cause y'know, less people and cars to worry about but I guess they want the base of operations to be here. How mad do you think Steve would be if I got copies of my key made for everyone?"

"I can ask him," El offers.

"Nah," Eddie grins, "it's always better to ask forgiveness than permission. And you'll forgive us, won't you, Stevie?"

Steve, of course, does not answer, but it does settle something inside Eddie knowing that he hears the question.

Steve's a doll. They know that for sure. Now, they can find a solution.

#steddie #platonic stobin #my fic #why am i like this guys??? ill get back to my other fics eventually #unfortunately this porcelain doll AU has consumed my little gremlin brain #anyway i LOVE the El&Steve sibling dynamic but i think El should get to have complicated feelings about steve first #porcelain steve

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