Even Stranger Magic

Steve and Dustin were in the middle of a fierce round of Duck Hunt. Dustin was in the lead, but Steve was catching up quick.

"Dude." Dustin laughed when the round ended and Steve absolutely lost. Dustin shook his head at him, all disappointed. "You suck."

"Yeah, yeah." Steve pressed ‘play again' and shook the tension from his shoulders while he focused on the TV. "Be ready, I've got it this time."

"Sure ya do," Dustin said sarcastically. "Put your money where your mouth is."

Steve pulled a dollar from his pocket and slapped it on the floor in front of the console. Dustin took one of the six dollars he already won off Steve to add to the pot and then they started the new round.

Dustin was good company while Steve was stuck inside. He was thirteen so he was seriously annoying sometimes, but they kind of got along well. Steve was benched for the time being in both of his sports and all of his friends were always doing things… so, yeah, Steve was hanging out with an eighth grader who kept kicking his ass in Duck Hunt.

It was lame, Steve was lame, whatever.

"A few more rounds and I'll buy pizza," Dustin said gleefully after wiping the floor with Steve again. Steve patted his pocket for some more dollars and rolled his eyes in Dustin's direction.

"I told you I'd buy pizza," Steve reminded him.

"You also told my mom that you were going to help me with my homework."

Shit. Yeah, he did. Steve was technically babysitting Dustin, something that made him feel a little less lame. It didn't really count though because the money that Dustin's mom paid him - that Steve told her she really didn't need to give him - had all made its way back to Dustin.

"Yeah," Steve ran his hand through his hair and nodded when he checked the time. It was already seven, they had time for homework then dinner before someone with two working legs drove Dustin home.

"What homework do you have?" Steve asked him sheepishly. Some role model he was being, all they did so far was play video games and gamble.

"Steve." Dustin sometimes had a snotty look, like he was Einstein and Steve was the guy who cleaned Einstein's toilets - he made that face again. "Do you really think I need your help with my homework?"

Steve held back his automatic retort that he helped Harry with his homework. Harry didn't think Steve was too stupid to help with homework… but Harry never went to school and Dustin was some short-genius.

"Whatever," Steve said flippantly. It didn't matter if a kid thought he was stupid - he probably was. "One more round before we order food?"

"Got any more dollars?" Dustin asked.

Steve mimicked him childishly - God, Dustin was so annoying, why did Steve ever think he needed a little brother?

"If you win," Steve stressed the ‘if' since he finally had a good handle on the game, "I'll owe you a dollar."

"Alright." Dustin settled back on the floor beside Steve, laying on his stomach with his legs kicking in the air. "But I want it in writing so you can't back out later."

Steve nearly told him to shut the fuck up, but… but Steve was supposed to be a good role model or whatever.

They started a new game and Dustin was too good at it, like scarily and creepily good. Steve was getting kind of annoyed that he couldn't even challenge Dustin to something he would win at when the door was thrown open harshly and Billy shouted from the foyer —

"Hey! Pretty boy! Time to fix that fuckin' leg!"

Fix that…? No. Steve was ready to argue, to remind Billy that he wasn't going to use magic to fix every single problem he had, when Billy stormed in the living room with Sirianna behind him. Sirianna was pale, her eyes wide and flickering around frantically; she also had a wand in hand and for some reason that alone made Steve nervous.

"Harry's missing," Billy told Steve, giving him no chance to argue about his right to heal the broken leg as slowly as he wanted to. "Sirianna's fixing your leg, we're searching the town." Billy glanced past Steve to Dustin and the video game controller that Steve dropped in his surprise. "Unless you're too busy," Billy said sarcastically.

Too busy to help find Harry? No, no, Steve wasn't too busy. Steve couldn’t imagine that he would ever be too busy for that.

Billy gave Steve a brief rundown while Sirianna healed the break in his leg and they removed the cast.

Theo picked Harry up from his place around noon, nobody had seen either of them since then. Billy said that Theo was acting ‘weird as fuck' and gave Sirianna his car, left his wand with Sirius along with a ‘final goodbye'.

It sounded a lot like Theo went off to kill himself and took Harry with him.

Steve was feeling as panicky about the whole thing as Sirianna clearly was by the time he was free to join the search party. Dustin took off immediately to meet up with El and their friends to search the schools and town. Billy and Sirianna were taking the quarry, Sirius had the fields. Hopper and Eddie were taking the woods, Steve was going to as well.

"Grab your whistle," Billy said on his way out the door after Sirianna. "I stole a bunch from the pool, everyone has one."

Whistle, right.

Steve booked it upstairs to find his whistle tucked away with his CPR card from the pool and threw it around his neck. The baseball bat he drove a couple dozen nails through when he was twelve and scared to be home alone was snatched too. He paused in his closet, hesitated just for a second… it was getting cold out…

Steve snagged one of his hooded sweaters and then raced outside to hop in his car and head out to get his assignment at the woods. It felt good to run, Steve was being an idiot waiting for his leg to heal… Steve just wished he cared about that at all when Harry was missing.

Eddie was the one who gave Steve a map that was marked off in sections. With Hopper, Eddie, Chrissy, Jason, and Steve searching - the grids weren't as big as they could have been.

Steve wondered if anyone accounted for the fact that wizards could literally like disappear and reappear anywhere in the world. Then he answered his own question when that reminder started making him feel panicky and sick inside… Harry could be anywhere.

They had to focus on Hawkins first, hope for the best or whatever.

Steve started in his section of the woods and held his bat securely, searching every spot for Harry. There were freaky thoughts that kept popping up in his head though, shit he didn't want to be thinking like —

What if Harry was dead?

What if Theo killed him?

What if they had some sick suicide pact?

What if Steve never apologized for the shit he said?

What if Harry was gone and they'd never even be friends again?

The questions were making Steve feel sick, dizzy. He stopped at one point to lean against a tree and focus on breathing until the blurry landscape sharpened again and he could focus on the search.

It was dark in the woods, like pitch black, and Steve started to wish he brought his flashlight with him. When he first entered the woods he had occasionally heard someone else shouting Harry's name, but those sounds had long since faded and it was only Steve in the dark with nothing but a nail bat to protect himself.

The nail bat could smash up giant spiders, feral looking werewolves, and it had been a comfort to Steve when he was a kid who just didn't like how dark and creepy his house was when he was alone… but in the woods, Steve started remembering all the monsters from the Upside Down that couldn't be beaten with a bat.

The monsters that brought up all of Steve's worst memories… the monster that could make itself Steve's biggest fear… there were ghosts, poltergeists, too many things that weren't smashable. And they could be in the woods. Steve started getting the feeling that he wasn't alone…

By the time Steve saw a glowing light in the distance, he was so convinced that he was surrounded by dead bodies - by men with bullet holes in their heads or kids who were bloated and swollen with water from being drowned - that the shadow of a tree stump made him yelp.

"Jesus." Steve shook off his own stupidity and tried to tell himself that Sirianna would know if Harry was dead. They knew when the other one had a freaking headache, she would know if he was —

Wait.

A glowing light?

"Harry!" Steve yelled Harry's name while he shifted the bat in his grip and started running more quickly toward the light. Who else would have a light glowing that much in the deepest part of the woods? Who else except Harry?

"HARRY!" Steve yelled again when he didn't get an answer. It had to be Harry… it had to be.

Steve burst through a clearing at a sprint with his bat ready to swing and his lungs burning from the most physical exercise he had done since returning from California. Steve had ideas of monsters, of black-cloaked ghosts, of Theo himself attacking Harry…

And Harry looked up at Steve from the ground and Steve's jaw dropped.

No freaking way.

It was so - so… it was so Harry that Steve started to laugh. All of the fears and horrible thoughts and worries he had while he searched the woods twisted into absolute hilarity.

Because was Harry dead? No. Was Harry fighting off monsters? Nope. Was he acting suicidal or being held hostage by an unstable drug addict? Not at all.

Harry was sitting on the floor of the forest with his legs crossed and a little golden orb of light floating above him and he was reading. Harry didn't even close the book on his lap while he blinked up at Steve, his eyes wide and as startled as a deer in headlights.

"Oh." Harry blinked and if Steve thought his eyes seemed wet and his voice was rough, Harry hid the proof away quickly. "Hello," Harry said.

He was so polite, so polite while he sat in the woods, just reading, that Steve's chuckles became louder, more hysterical. Harry started to seem alarmed when Steve had to drop his bat and fall against a trunk with full body spasms of laughter that made his stomach hurt and his eyes to water up.

"You're reading!" Steve cried when he could. Harry never stood up, only, extremely reluctantly it seemed, put his book on his lap while he waited for Steve's laughing fit to end. Except with the end of laughter came the beginning of a lot of rambles and Steve really wished he had just kept laughing.

"Your sister set up a freaking search party of like half the people in this town. I thought you were dead, like - dead. I thought I was never going to get to tell you I didn't mean the stuff I said before or that I missed you and I hate that everything sucked so much lately. Because I thought you were dead. And you're not. You're reading in the woods, in the dark, like - like…" Steve laughed once more and couldn't even find the right words.

Harry wasn't reading in the woods like anything - just himself. It was the most Harry thing in the world and Steve couldn't believe none of them considered it as a possibility before they started their search.

"Oh," Harry said again. He slowly stood up, brushed the dead leaves from his pants and tucked his book under his arm. When the golden orb of light moved with him, Steve saw that his arms were covered in goosebumps, probably from the cold.

"Here." Steve was grinning when he tossed Harry his sweater he brought. "It's cold out here. Why would you pick the worst place to read at?"

"I - I didn't pick it." Harry pulled the sweater on and it made his glasses slip some, they were crooked and made Steve's heart pang once at how perfectly Harry he looked.

Crooked glasses, messy hair, a book tucked under his arm, Steve's sweater on him.

"Hold up." Steve wanted to hear about how Harry ended up in the woods if he didn't pick it, but he forgot to blow his whistle. Really though, if nobody heard him laughing then Steve doubted they'd hear his whistle.

Three blows - he had Harry, he was safe, they were heading back to town.

"Alright." Steve wasn't thinking when he offered Harry his hand, he only thought about how much Harry didn't like the woods, didn't like the dark. When Harry took it, Steve hoped it meant that the apology he didn't quite give - the apology Harry didn't give - could just… be in the past.

Steve had his bat over one shoulder, Harry on his other side. Harry had his book, he had Steve's hand.

As much of the walk in the woods had been terrifying, Steve wasn't worried about the walk back.

They had slayed monsters together before, Steve knew they could again if they had to.

"So how'd you end up here?" Steve asked Harry.

"It's… kind of a long story," Harry hedged. He didn't sound like he wasn't up for telling it, just that maybe Steve wouldn't want to hear it.

And Steve was sure it was going to include a hell of a lot about Theo, which he wasn't pumped about. But… but before Steve screwed everything up, Harry was his friend. Harry had been Steve's friend for nearly a year straight, through a lot of ups and downs.

"I'd like to hear it," Steve said, meaning it.

Beneath the hurt feelings that went both ways, beneath the shit that Steve let get between them, Harry had been his friend. So if Harry wanted to talk, Steve wanted to listen.

Harry didn't usually want to talk, but he did them.

And Steve listened.