InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "Can you hear drums?"

It had been a weird, weird month, and notj ust by Dunwich standards. Weird and hard. Difficult.

Painful.

The loss of Max had hit them all right where it hurt and even by Sunday evening, more than a week after their fiery redhead had vanished into the same goddamn mist they had all arrived in, Steve was still feeling that sting. He was still beating himself up over it, internally raking himself over the coals and going over and over and over all the things he could have done differently to change the outcome. Because he had told Max, as good as promised her, that she wasn't going to go back.

And what had she gone back to? A hospital bed, casts on all four limbs, a brace around her neck, and nothing but maddening uncertainty and ambiguity on whether or not she would ever regain consciousness.

It wasn't fair. None of it. And it made Steve want to scream.

Scream and yell and break things, everything in sight, until his throat was raw and his hands were bloody.

But he didn't do any of that. Couldn't. There were too many people still depending on him and needing him to hold it together. Will and Nancy and Robin, Hopper and the rest of the cops who had taken him under their wing. Eddie, even with all of his newfound abilities and whatever else it was he had going on, all the things that made it seem like he was more well-adjusted than the rest of them put together. They all needed him.

But did they?

Those were the thoughts that had been gnawing and burrowing at his brain ever since that stupid error message had popped up on the network, and they likely would have continued to tonight if it hadn't been for the proposition that one of them put forward (Steve couldn't remember who now): they should all get together, Hopper's cabin the natural choice for the where, and just be together. When the sun had still been high enough in the sky they had been around the big family-style table in what passed for Hopper's yard but was basically just the open ground before the trees really took over, but as it had started to set and night had begun to draw in they had all moved to the firepit to be closer to the flames, the light and the warmth. And someone had started the stories.

They were about Max, each and every one of them, but they were the lighter things, the brighter things, the moments when she was just being a kid and making them all smile or laugh. And laugh they did, Steve included, recalling their little spitfire's one-of-a-kind putdowns for the guys and her witty one-liners that would leave all of them speechless. Her snark, her sarcasm, her unique but unmatched sense of humour, and most of all her spirit. They took it in turns going around the fire telling their best Max Mayfield stories and it wasn't long before there was more laughter than sorrow, the sounds of it carrying into the night along with the embers from the flames. Someone almost fell right off their seat and that just made them all laugh even more, the infectiousness of it overwhelming each of them and their unique struggles and the shared loss they had all suffered so recently.

Steve's laughter stopped abruptly, cut off by a sudden, unexpected jolt of pain in his leg. "Son of a bitch." Had something from the firepit somehow fallen clear and struck him in the leg? No, that wasn't possible. The surround was too high, too well constructed. Head whipping around and down Steve saw the cause quickly and easily enough, the light from the fire catching over the carapace of the culprit and casting it in an almost ominous glow, making the red of its shell that much more vibrant.

"Shit." Quickly, a little too quickly actually, Steve jerked himself away from the thing, ending up tripping over his own feet (or those of the person sitting next to him, who could tell?) and landing hard on his ass on the ground dangerously close to the pit in which the fire was burning merrily away, but it was too late. That pain in his leg was just the beginning, and he could feel it now, really feel it. And it was spreading. Fast.