SOMETHING ABOUT A MIRACLE

Excerpts from incomplete fanfiction based on characters from Stranger Things. October 2022.

Steve was never a religious person.

He was raised Catholic, of course. He was baptized as a baby, had his first holy communion, and even got Confirmed as Steven John Mark Harrington, but never did he believe it all. Yeah, he clung to it, the idea of a higher power. He’d do the sign of the cross before jumping off the edge into the Quarry when out drinking with Tommy, too drunk to stand, or he’d beg and plead with whatever god was out there before he took the pop quiz that he definitely was going to flunk (again), but it was only because that’s what he knew. It’s what he was used to, what he was supposed to do.

He never felt a calling to god, never felt any sort of devotion in his body. Even when he was with Nancy, which felt like the closest he’d ever been to true salvation, he still never felt that pull that he’d always hear about in Sunday mass.

He could look the part, play the part, and survive. He was good at it. He had his Sunday best, knew how to pop the collar to hide hickeys from the girl of the week, knew how sweet the Lord’s name felt on his tongue, whispered in a bout of sin, and knew how to worship on his knees. He was fine, he was good, just the way the Lord wanted.

And then the tunnels happened and he knew that God, if He did exist, left them a long time ago, turned and ran and left them at the feet of an abomination so wretched that it made him want to pray for the first time in his life.

There was no god here; there never was.

There was Starcourt and the Mindflayer and so much blood and gore that he thought he’d never be clean again in his life. There were screams that never left his head, echoing through his skull late at night, dragging away any reprieve that sleep could bring. There was the stench of death and metal walls and the taste of that truth serum from the Russians that never seemed to leave his mouth. And Billy…

Well, Billy Hargrove was never supposed to live at all.

Hearing from Max that Billy was alive, that he managed to survive after all, was the closest to god that Steve had ever been.

He was alive and breathing, albeit not yet on his own, but the doctors thought he’d be able to recover fully. He’d never be the same—how the hell could he be—but he’d live. He’d survive.

A miracle.

It was the stuff he’d only ever heard about on Sunday mornings when he was fighting off nausea after being out all night with Tommy and Carol. He’d look at the stained glass and pray for a miracle, hoping that something would spare him, but nothing came.

Maybe God was just saving it for the right time.

Steve and Billy were never friends. They knew of each other and had an amicable rivalry going on, one that Steve could no longer muster up the energy and the care to stoke anymore.

Billy was always burning so bright, but not in the way Nancy was, where he felt so warm and content with her, always chasing after it. Instead, he was red-hot, a stand-too-close-and-he’d-burn-you, kind of way. It was exhausting and captivating. He was always so riled, always on the precipice of combustion, but Steve found himself gravitating towards him anyway, like he was the burning star at the center of his solar system, pulling him in until he consumed him.

He knew it wouldn’t end well, that broken noses and shattered cheekbones were the least of his worries, but god, he craved that warmth. Alone in his dark, empty home, where no amount of blankets or layers could touch the bone-deep chill he had, he had wanted something, anything.

Burning didn’t seem so bad.

When the Mindflayer pierced through Billy’s chest, Steve felt like a black hole had opened up in his little universe and suddenly it was all dark and nothingness again.

The first time Steve visited Billy, he almost vomited. It was his turn to drive Max, switching off with the other adults to make sure she was never alone. It was rainy, but they rode with the windows down anyway, hands sticking out to feel the mist. Maybe that was the reason for his clammy hands, the thickening of his spit. Maybe he caught a cold during the thirty-seven-minute drive in from Hawkins. Maybe he’s sick and the person in front of him was a feverish hallucination because that was not Billy Hargrove.

His Billy was warm skin and golden hair, a smile so bright and vicious that it would make you flinch. His Billy was loud and gritting, always riding the fine line of absolutely unbearable. His Billy had eyes that rivaled the blues of the California oceans and a physique that almost made Steve self-conscious of his own.

The person lying on the bed before him was not his Billy.

To be frank, it looked like a corpse. Muscles deteriorated, skin gaunt and yellowed, blue veins visible. Golden locks shaved short due to surgery. He was silent, absolutely silent, and it felt so wrong. Dread dripped down Steve’s spine and he felt like he was facing the Demogorgons head on again, unsure what the creature in front of him would do next.

Steve dry heaved into the toilet for almost seven whole minutes.

When he came back, Max didn’t acknowledge it. She was busy reading to Billy, halfway through the first Lord of the Rings book. She had told him about it on their drive over. She’s been reading to Billy to keep him company, working through the secret stash of books she found under his bed, next to the only three photos of his mother that he owned. She stole all of it before Neil could get his hands on it.

“Someone’s gotta keep him company,” she told Steve.

He didn’t comment on it.

On their way home, the rain was the only sound between them. When Steve pulled up to Max’s apartment, the one she and her mother moved into after Neil went berserk over Billy’s death and survival, she paused and turned to him.

“Do you think it’s stupid that I read to him?”

Steve didn’t answer her. Didn’t know how to answer her. Didn’t think she needed an answer.

“I know he wasn’t a good brother. Hell, look at what he did to you. I know he’s not a good person. But he saved me. He saved us all. And I don’t think he deserves to be alone. Not after all of that.”

“You’re a good sister,” Steve had said. He didn’t know what else to say. Max looked at him for a moment, calculating in a way that she would do, where it was like she could see your thoughts. Maybe she was spending too much time with El.

“Whatever,” she said and slammed the door behind her.

As most things involving the kids, it reluctantly became part of Steve’s routine. Three times a week, Steve would drive Max to the hospital to visit her brother. At first, he’d drop her off and leave, unable to stomach the slight of his former rival, but he adjusted.

“It’s funny how you have been through literal hell and back and this is what makes you squeamish,” Robin had said. But she never went with Max. She never knew what he looked like now. She could keep the pristine image of halo-gold curls and room-filling laughter. If anything, the last memories of him could be heroism, watching the man who Steve thought could take on God do so and lose.

Her head was in his lap as she flipped through flash cards. Unbelievably, life goes on despite the end of the world, and Robin still has to finish her senior year. The show Steve was watching was turned low; Robin liked the background noise, but Steve made sure to keep it quiet enough to not distract her.

Robin poked his chin when he didn’t reply.

“What, Buck.”

She looks at him for a moment, her brow pressed but her eyes relaxed.

“Why do you visit him so much if it makes you uncomfortable?”

Steve frowns at that.

”It doesn’t make me uncomfortable.”

Robin’s face is incredulous and she huffs, rolling her eyes with a fondness that has only recently begun infiltrating.

“You have no obligation to him. He’s not family nor a friend. Why do you go?”

Steve didn’t respond, wasn’t sure how to answer. It’s true; they weren’t friends. They were frenemies as Robin once said.

It takes Billy Hargrove ninety one days to wake up after Starcourt.

The doctors don’t know what caused it, whether it was the noise of Max packing up her things or that she fist bumped his lax hand like she always did, or if it was as simple as time running out.

There’s a soft beeping noise, the scratchy shift of the blanket against his chest, and then he feels the thing making its way down his throat and the machines go haywire. He thrashes against the doctors pinning him down, preventing him from yanking out the tube he’s been using to breathe. His eyes are bloodshot and wide and animalistic, in a way Max hasn’t seen since his possession. He looks around frantically until his eyes settle on his sister, then he seems to hesitate before his eyes go white, rolling back into his head before a nurse rushes Max out of the room.

She sits on a hard plastic chair until Steve arrives, shouts of medical jargon ringing in her ears long after it went quiet.

“I knew he’d wake up,” she told Steve.

Steve had the unsettling feeling that the person who woke up may be William Hargrove on paper, but that his Billy was long gone.

He’s in and out of sleep for the first couple of days and Max skips school to stay by his side.

Steve stays with her.

Robin gave him shit for leaving her alone at Family Video, but she knew that Steve needed to do this.

On day four, he wakes up enough to spare a couple sentence exchange with the doctors and Max is thrust into the startling reality that her brother does not know who she is.

To be frank, he doesn’t know who anyone is, not even himself.