If I Should Stay
Ngl I’m kinda REALLY excited for y’all to read this one, though I’m also slightly worried I bit off more than I can chew.
Part 1 | . . . | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22
Steve gets Joyce situated in a guest room then heads back downstairs. Just as he opens his mouth to address the group, the front door opens.
“Steve? Who’s here?” A semi-familiar voice calls. “There’s bikes and cars all over.”
She rounds the corner and Steve is faced with a younger version of his mother, who blinks at everyone gathered in the living room, then smiles at them. “Hi! I’m Alli.”
Steve feels like he’s going to fall over. All the blood’s drained from his head and his heart gives a painful lurch. “Robin,” he manages, reaching out to grab her without taking his eyes off Alli. “Robin. Now.”
“‘Scuse us, just a minute!” Robin says as she drags Steve upstairs and into the bathroom. He slides down the wall and digs his fingers into his hair as she shuts and locks the door.
“Okay,” she murmurs, placing gentle fingers on Steve’s forearms. “We’re alone. What’s going on?”
He swallows a hysterical sob. “Alli,” he manages to whisper. “Allison. M-my sister.” He gulps, feels like he’s going to throw up. “The last time I saw her, I was seven. She was sixteen. She’d left for a… a girls’ trip in Indy. We’d t-talked on the phone the night before she left to come back home. She was so excited… gonna go out to dinner, one last time. They walked.” He can’t swallow the sob in time and throws himself into Robin’s waiting arms. “S-she got hit,” he whispers. “Drunk driver.” She gasps. “Dead before she hit the ground, according to the paramedics.” He begins to shake. “How’s she alive, Robs? How? She- we- I-”
“I know,” Robin murmurs, holding him close. “Oh, Steve. I’m so sorry. But she’s here, she’s okay. And you’ll be okay, I promise. It’ll be okay.” She hugs him tighter, lets him scrabble at her back until he finds purchase, digging his fingers into her shoulder blades.
A tentative knock on the door. “Me again,” Eddie says. It’s enough to make Steve huff half a laugh. “I think everyone’s kinda wondering what’s happening. And, uh. I’m wondering if you’re okay.”
Robin smoothes a hand down his hair. “Want me to let him in?” She whispers. He nods against her neck. “M’kay. Want me to stay? Or should I go do damage control?”
He sits back and sniffs. “Should probably go,” he admits. “Sorry, Robbie.”
“Hey,” she murmurs, leaning their foreheads together. “You and me against the fuckin’ world, okay?”
“Okay,” he whispers, managing a smile when she kisses his forehead.
She stands and opens the door, smiles wanly at Eddie. “I’ll let him explain.” She slips past him and down the stairs.
Eddie shakes his head as he watches her before turning to Steve, who clocks the exact moment Eddie realizes he’s crying. “Steve?”
Steve sniffs again, rubs at his face. “Yeah.”
“Um.” Eddie sits on the ground, back against the sink, mirroring Steve. “You alright?”
Steve laughs humorlessly. “Not in the least.” He shakes his head with a sigh. “With you… I knew. Right? I knew I was coming back, I knew I’d see you again. But her-”
Eddie blinks, frowns. “Your sister? Did you have a… a falling out, or something?”
Steve knocks his head back against the wall. “If only it were that easy,” he murmurs. “Last time I saw her, I was seven. She was sixteen, on a girls’ trip in Indy. Drunk driver hit her.” He swallows, tries to keep the tears in this time. “They were walking, it wasn’t that far from where they were staying. She was dead before she hit the ground.”
“Well, shit,” Eddie mutters.
Steve opens his eyes to regard Eddie. “Pretty much.”
Eddie opens his mouth, then shuts it with a frown. Finally he says, “I don’t know how to make it better, but I do have a joint.”
Steve laughs, only a little hysterically. “Maybe later. I want to, but…”
“You want to see your sister,” Eddie nods. “Do you have any idea how she’s here?”
Steve scoffs. “Not in the least. I’m sure Dustin’ll have at least one theory, though.”
Eddie chuckles. “He probably will.”
They sit in silence for a few minutes, until Steve feels like he can face the world—face Alli— without immediately crying again. He sighs. “How do I look?”
Eddie regards him. “Better than I thought you would,” he says, then peers closer. “Damn, Harrington, the hell kinda genes you got to not look like a mess after sobbing?”
Steve chuckles at that. “Thanks,” he says, which he knows isn’t really an answer. “Still kinda feel gross, though.”
“Well, yeah, dude, you’re still covered in Upside Down shit.”
Steve grimaces. “Don’t remind me,” he says, and they both chuckle. He manages a small, genuine smile at Eddie. “Thanks, though. You’re kinda really great at making me feel better.”
Eddie blushes a little, but his gaze is steady when it locks on Steve’s. “I’m glad.”
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random sudden thought; what if i had ganondorf not kill the queen for her enigma stone, but the king instead ...
considering how the zelda franchise is named after the important female character and yet they always get sidelined is kinda >_>
i feel like that would be a nice change of pace and further zeldas connection to the whole thing since her powers only get passed down to afab people in the bloodline
so the ancient king (rauru but might not be named as such) schemes to imprison ganondorf in a horryfying state between life and death in order to protect the world from the looming threat that he is bound to become according to the ancient texts he had found from ages long forgotten (the old titles), not knowing that acting on those misguided warnings of old would only lead to the exact thing he wanted to avoid-
gan finds out about it and through a carefully planned counterattack kills the king and takes his stone, perhaps he is planning to also seize some of the land for his people to be more independed of hyrules green lands (doing any kind of agriculture seems very hard to achieve in the gerudo desert and they have been kept on a 'short leash' by hyrule bc they knew the gerudo were dependend on their trade)
the queen however does not take the death of her husband well and wages a war, both to prevent any of her land falling into gans hands AND as revenge for the kings death; she takes it as proof that the warnings were true and gan needs to be defeated by all means necessary and rallies the rest of the sages around her, in the end trapping gan and sealing him away
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