Chapter Text
Steve Harrington was not having a good year. In fact, he was realizing he hadn't had a good year in a while now. He was coasting. Aimless. Lost. Whatever you wanted to call it, it wasn’t good. Nothing felt real. He felt like he’d been walking through his life suctioned into cling wrap that had just been torn off, exposing his sensitive skin to the raw elements for the first time. Maybe this was why Ava broke up with him. Maybe Steve was just too much to deal with.
He didn’t know why he was like this—why he couldn’t let himself be vulnerable and feel something for once. It probably had something to do with his parents. These kinds of things always did. They’d abandoned him years ago for their new families, eager to start over and leave the final remainder of their failed marriage behind. It didn’t matter. He didn’t mind. Even when they insisted that he come to the house for the summer to keep up appearances. But their inability to be in the same room with each other meant that he was stuck in bumbfuck Hawkins, Indiana, all by himself as they argued about who got to stay there and when.
It was fine. Steve was fine.
It wasn't like he had anything going for himself in Indianapolis, anyway. His friends had also been Ava’s friends, and now that they’d separated, everything was awkward. People were gossiping and taking sides, and he just didn’t want to deal with it. Apparently, Ava was mad that he didn’t want her back. Make that make sense. It probably had something to do with his emotional unavailability, one of her favorite phrases to end an argument.
Leave it to him to fuck up something as easy as telling a girl what she wanted to hear outside of a bed.
This was great, though, because it was good to be out of Indianapolis. Anything to shelve college aside and breathe for a bit. His grades hadn’t been the best. He didn’t even have a major yet, and he was barely passing as an “undecided.” Wasting everyone’s time and money, as his dad always said, never even satisfied that he was on fucking TV playing basketball with the best in his league. He had friends who were graduating, interning, or working on their resumes. Some were traveling, a few even out of the country. Meanwhile, he was bumming around his hometown in an empty house without even a summer job to keep him busy. It was a really impressive show he had going on. No hopes for the future and no dreams for the present. Just…drifting.
Everything was fine.
This was why he was taking a drive. It was what he always did to clear his head. And that numb sensation? That emptiness? That lack of feeling? It was most likely the alcohol. Because while he would usually never drive while drunk, he needed to clear his head. And earlier, he’d needed a way to make everything stop buzzing. So now, with his stomach no longer flipping and his body forced to relax, he could finally chill and think about absolutely nothing for once. In a way, he wasn’t actually driving drunk. He was driving after getting drunk and sobering up, if anything.
He was totally fine.
Outside his car, the world was pitch black. With trees on either side of the road, not even the moon was providing any light. He wasn’t sure where he was going. He didn’t really care. The forest around him was a blurry mess. Maybe he was going a bit too fast. This didn't make him take his foot off the accelerator. Maybe this is what he wanted. The image of his BMW wrapped around a tree flashed before his eyes, and he finally removed his foot, a little startled.
Then, he wondered if it would hurt.
Steve was suddenly struck by how easy it would be to just…speed up. To close his eyes and let go. What did he have going for himself, anyway? What was he looking forward to? Nobody would notice or care. He was out in the middle of nowhere at two in the morning, and nobody cared. Nobody to talk to, nobody to tell him what he already knew—that something wasn’t right. He imagined the awful, raw emptiness burdening his soul vanishing as fast as the airbags could deploy. The freedom when the constant desire to cry, emotions squeezing him from the inside out, tears unable to form, just burning against his eyelids, finally ceased to exist alongside the rest of him.
Steve knew this wasn’t normal. He knew this was kind of serious. If he called his coach, he’d probably insist that Steve needed help and that thinking this way was dangerous. And that’s what people did, right? They got help. But Steve couldn’t call him; they weren’t close like that. He didn’t want to bother anyone with his bullshit. He didn’t want anyone to know what was wrong with him.
He didn’t want help.
Before Steve could think about the implications of not wanting to stop those dangerous thoughts, the world slipped out from under him. One moment, he was lost in his head, Taylor Swift singing about a breakup in the background, and the next, his car was lurching forward straight into a glowing sea of red. Steve didn’t even have a chance to scream. His car slammed to a stop, throwing his head into the airbags, and everything went black.
And during that split moment, when everything flashed before his eyes and he realized this might be it, the end of it all, his last moment on this earth, Steve found that he couldn’t care less. He entered the darkness in complete, pathetic apathy.
~.~.~
He woke up ready to fight. Arms raised and fists closed, he looked around and winced. Everything was spinning. He was still in the woods, and there was a strange, bright red light that stung his eyes. It took a moment for his memory to catch up, and when it did, his body physically recoiled from the sheer rush of adrenaline. He unbuckled his seatbelt and collapsed out of the car onto his hands and knees on the road, stomach rolling, mouth watering like he was about to lose his dinner. Since he didn’t want to burn out his throat vomiting pure alcohol, he pursed his lips and tried to focus on breathing instead. His face was on fire. He tenderly poked at his nose. It was sensitive, but not broken. He’d never been hit by an airbag before. Obviously, it sucked.
His mind was in shambles. Like some awful cosmic joke, not only had he awakened—a major disappointment on its own, honestly—feeling more strung out than he had before, but he was also keeled over next to what he could only describe as a glowing hole in the ground. Was he hallucinating? Did he die after all? Was the afterlife just Hawkins, Indiana, with a sci-fi twist? Because what the fuck was he looking at?
To his simple eyes, it looked like something out of a Marvel movie. Just behind his car, nearly swallowing the back tires, was a gaping red chasm in the middle of the road. It bathed the surrounding forest in a pulsating, red glow. Every few seconds, it would dim and brighten, like a heartbeat. Surely something like this couldn’t exist on earth, but he knew he couldn’t be dead, because he was pretty confident that death didn’t feel like you got punched in the face by your car's safety features.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Steve said, leaning over the hole to peer through. There was nothing but light on the inside. No discernible bottom to fall into, just light, like one of those endless mirror illusions. Steve suddenly felt very sober. His adrenaline-induced shakiness only increased. He was shivering like it was cold outside. Which, oddly enough, it was. It was weirdly cold outside for summer. Yet another thing for him to avoid thinking about.
He closed his eyes, half hoping he’d hit his head hard enough to be having a weirdly realistic dream, but he could still see the pulsing light through his eyelids, so no, it was definitely real. Jesus Christ. He slapped a hand around the road until he found a loose rock and tossed it in. The light flashed even brighter, and then the rock was gone. Just vanished. Like a fucking magic trick. Steve scraped his knees falling backwards onto his ass. Had he found some kind of portal? A door to another world? Seriously? Breakup songs were still playing from the car speakers. It was all too bizarre for him to handle.
“Holy shit. Holy fucking shit,” he whispered to himself.
After allowing himself to panic for an amount of time he did not keep track of, watching the hole to see if it would somehow magically disappear, which it didn’t, Steve finally got up. His car was half-parked in the grass and pushed up against a tree. Shockingly, there was little visible damage aside from a small dent and scratches on the paint. He crawled back into the driver’s seat and pushed the start button, only to receive a dangerous rattling noise. It wouldn’t start. He grabbed his wallet and looked for his AAA card. Maybe they could tow it out over the portal thingy? And contact whoever it was that handled supernatural nonsense while they were at it? Steve sure as hell didn’t know who that call would go to. He dialed the number and waited.
“The number you have dialed is not answering calls at this second…”
He tried again.
“The number you have dialed is not answering calls at this second…”
He tried his mom, figuring that she would understand more than his dad.
“The number you have dialed is not answering calls at this second…”
Steve decided to text her instead.
Hey, crashed the car and can’t reach AAA. Pls call me
His phone immediately buzzed with a response.
Message not delivered!
This was becoming suspicious. Steve clocked the service bar. No Wi-Fi, duh. But no service either? He was playing music a second ago. He opened up Spotify and sure enough, it played just fine. He opened Instagram. He could view the app just fine. Maybe he could Google this? Apparently not, because Chrome wasn’t working either. He dropped his phone and looked around at the empty forest around him. He wasn’t really scared of the dark, but being alone in the woods next to a creepy portal-thing with no cell service wasn't exactly comforting. He needed to get home as fast as possible. He got back in his car and took a deep breath. With shaking hands, he pushed the start button again, activating the rattle.
“Come on, come on,” he whispered. The rattling worsened until it became more of a knocking noise. He turned the car off and dropped his head onto the steering wheel. He wasn’t sure what he could do other than walk home. But it was really dark out, and okay, sue him, he was more than a little freaked out about the situation. Walking home was the last thing he wanted to do. Then, he heard it. The roar of an engine. He jumped out of the car and began waving his arms. Lights appeared down the road.
“Hey!” he shouted, waving his arms to get their attention. "Hey, be careful! There’s a hole in the road!”
Whoever it was could definitely see it, as it was impossible to miss, and began slowing down. Steve squinted and blocked the other car’s high beams with his hands until they turned off. It was an old van, like the kind you saw in old road trip photos from your grandpa’s golden days. The driver's side door opened, and a black combat boot hit the ground with a light thud, followed by black skinny jeans with more holes than denim, chains hanging from the waist, a patchwork vest, and the most 80s rocker hair Steve had ever seen in person. The man was followed by three other men in equally outdated attire, who slowly slid out of the van and stopped to stare at the glowing hole in the ground. Which, fair. Steve had stared too at first.
“Uh, hi?” Steve said, leaning back against his car.
All eyes snapped to him.
There was a moment of silence, and then the guy with long 80s hair asked, “Are you real?”
The one next to him quickly elbowed him in the ribs. Steve found that he was too exhausted to entertain their shock over the supernatural shit blocking in his car.
“Uh, can you call for help? I think I hit this glowing, uh, hole? Thing? And then crashed into the trees. I can’t back out, but I also can’t drive out. I probably need a tow truck,” Steve said.
“What the fuck is it doing?” one of the guys asked.
And then, Steve noticed the red light fading. He turned just in time to watch the hole vanish, leaving behind the paved country road as if nothing had been there in the first place. As Steve’s eyes and brain adjusted to the sudden lack of light and impossibility that had just happened, he turned back to his rescuers, who were too stunned to speak.
“I’m too high for this,” one of them finally said.
“That didn’t just happen, did it?” another said.
“If we all saw it, it definitely did,” 80s Hair said.
“Do you guys know what that was about?” Steve asked, gesturing to the spot where the portal was with his thumb.
“You’re asking me?” 80s Hair replied. “You just watched me drive up here. I don’t know what’s happening. What was that thing?”
"Why would I know?" Steve asked. They stood in silence, illuminated by the flashing emergency lights of Steve’s car and their van’s headlights. Then Steve remembered his goal to go home and said, “Listen, my phone isn’t working, and my car isn’t starting, and I definitely don’t want to stay here in this spot anymore. Can you help me out?”
80s Hair was staring. Steve self-consviously lifted a hand to his face. Did the airbag fuck up his nose after all? One of the guy's friends elbowed him in the ribs, and he jumped into action.
“Shit! Of course, man. Sorry. We can help you push the car and maybe tow it somewhere for you?”
Steve looked at the beat-up van he was offering to tow his car with. He was about to decline the kind offer when the other two guys began pushing his BMW out of the grass. 80s Hair opened up the back of the van and returned with some big yellow strap things with hooks on each end.
“I used to moonlight as a mechanic,” he said, crawling under the front of Steve’s car and attaching the straps to…something. Steve wasn’t really a car guy. One of the other guys got in the driver’s seat of the van and pulled it forward so the straps could be attached to the back of it.
“Alright, that settles that. Where are we taking you?” 80s Hair asked, wiping his hands on his pants. The efficiency was both impressive and suspicious. Clearly these guys did this a lot. Feeling open to reckless decisions, Steve decided to trust his cosplaying saviors.
“Loch Nora.”
Hawkins was the kind of small town where everyone knew where everything was. 80s Hair whistled.
“Fancy! I guess that makes sense. Fancy car, fancy house. Jeff, get in the driver’s seat of this thing and make sure to tap the brakes at the right time.”
“What? Why?” Steve asked.
“So it doesn’t crash into my car every time we hit a red light,” he said while he climbed into the driver’s seat of the van.
Steve didn’t know that, but he didn’t want to admit it. So instead, he said, “No, I mean, why not me?”
“Uh, somebody’s got to talk to us about whatever alien shit we just saw!”
“What? I want to know too!” the other guy, Jeff, complained.
“We’ll fill you in. Come on, dude, get in!”
Against all better judgment, Steve climbed into the van and squeezed into the back seat. Instantly, he was struck by the overwhelming scent of weed. Sticking out of every shadowy corner of the van, he could see clothes, trash, musical equipment, and other bits of random junk, like a single boot and a pile of textbooks. There was something odd about the van, other than it being in decent shape for its age. He couldn’t quite name what it was. Heavy metal music was playing from shitty speakers just loud enough that Steve would have trouble hearing them talk without leaning in, so he did. Just enough to participate in the conversation, elbows resting on his knees, and no seatbelt. Not that he could untangle one from the mess anyway.
“Shit, what’s your name?” 80s Hair asked him as he hit the gas. Steve grasped the back of the driver’s seat to keep from falling over.
“Steve Harrington,” he said.
“That’s a surprisingly normal name. I’m Eddie Munson, and this is Gareth Lloyd and Chris Caddell,” he said, gesturing to the guy in the passenger seat, who gave a little wave, and the guy next to Steve, who was still staring at him. "And that was Jeff Bailey, who climbed into your car. Now, Steve. Be honest. Were we all mass hallucinating? Was there acid floating around in the air? Is this our introduction into the Hawkins-Is-Weird-Club?”
Steve caught Eddie’s eyes in the rearview mirror. He looked almost excited. Steve didn’t feel very excited, but hey, everyone reacted differently when shit went down, right?
“Nah, I for sure saw the glowing hole-thing. I threw a rock in, and it ate it,” Steve said.
“Dude, no fucking way,” Chris whispered with awe.
“It ate it?” Gareth repeated.
“I hit the hole while driving. I think I passed out because I woke up with my car like that,” Steve continued. “Do you know what that was about? Is this a new thing going on around town? I’ve never seen anything like that in my life, man. Freaked me the fuck out.”
“No, I was hoping you knew what it was about. You were just driving, and it, what, appeared on the road? Out of nothing?” Eddie asked.
“Yeah, one second I’m driving, the next second there’s this red light and my car is tipping forward and I smash my face into the airbags. Oh my God, my dad's gonna murder me.”
“Expensive car?” Eddie asked.
“Bro, it’s his new BMW hybrid, he’s going to lose it. He gave it to me for college, not forever.”
Eddie looked at him again in the rearview mirror with an eyebrow raised. “Well, what were you doing? Maybe you did something to trigger it?” he suggested, eyes back on the road.
“I was literally just driving. I left my house maybe thirty minutes ago, and I didn’t do anything special, I swear,” Steve insisted.
“Do you think it was aliens?" Chris asked with such a serious, quiet voice that Steve burst out laughing. “I’m just saying, it looked pretty alien to me!”
“Shut up, Chris, aliens aren’t real,” Gareth said. Chris smacked the back of his seat in retaliation.
“I’m with Chris, that shit was otherworldly. Totally adding it to our next campaign,” Eddie said enthusiastically. “You hear those stories about weird lights and people who go missing, and then BAM!" Eddie suddenly grabbed Gareth's shoulder as he said it, making everyone jump. "They're back!"
The car swerved as he laughed at Gareth’s reaction. Steve's eyes strayed to the window. Something about Hawkins was starting to look off.
“Not funny, man, I’m really freaked out!” Gareth said.
“Yeah, eyes on the road, asshole!” Chris snapped.
It didn’t help that it was so dark. When did it get so dark? Did all the street lamps start dying? And what was a Bradley’s Big Buy? When did that get there?
“Come on, that was some of the coolest shit we’ve ever seen! Oh my God, do you think the government is going to come knocking on our doors over this?” Eddie said, the car swerving again as he fumbled around with the center console.
“How would they even know we were there?” Chris asked.
“I don’t know, man, but if there’s weird glowing holes in the ground, then I bet they know about it and that they’ve got a way to know who stands around staring at them like a bunch of dumbasses. God, we’ve probably got radiation poisoning or something,” Eddie said.
“What, like Three Mile Island?” Gareth asked.
“Oh God, what if it’s connected!?” Chris asked.
“How the fuck could this be connected? The plant failed years ago,” Eddie said.
“What if the radiation leaked through the earth and, like, made the hole we just saw?” Chris asked. Steve was starting to wonder how much Chris had smoked.
“Uh, calm down, Commissioner Gordon. We’re in Hawkins, not Gotham. Things don’t just melt through the crust of the fucking earth. I don’t even think that’s possible without the whole planet blowing up,” Eddie said.
They passed another streetlight, which let Steve witness Eddie fiddling around with an honest-to-God cassette tape. He inserted it into his car with zero hesitation. Steve was so stunned by this that he couldn’t even make a joke. He wasn’t sure he’d ever even seen a cassette tape in person before.
“If the government knocks on my door over this, I am telling them everything,” Gareth said with a huff.
“If the government knocks on my door over this, my parents are kicking me out,” Chris said.
“Uh, was that a…cassette tape?” Steve asked.
“Yeah,” Eddie said, as if it was normal.
“You’re really taking the 80s thing to the next level, huh?” Steve said quietly, but Eddie must have heard him, because he gave him another funny look in the rearview mirror. The few other cars that were out looked old, too. Why did everything look so outdated? It was almost like—
Steve didn’t like where his mind was going with this. It just wasn’t possible. There was no way.
“Hey, Loch Nora’s that left right there,” Gareth said, and Eddie swerved the car to make the turn. RIP Jeff and his dad’s hybrid.
“Which way, Sir Steven?” Eddie asked in a pretty decent British accent. Steve smiled. The guy was pretty charming, in his own special way.
“The first right you see, then left, and it will…be…on the…right,” he said, turning to look out the window. Except, now? Something was definitely wrong. This was not Loch Nora. Some of the houses were similar, but most of them weren’t even the right color. What was all this brick? And why all the old cars? Where were the Anderson’s Teslas? His heart began to race as they turned left. This was his street, but it wasn’t. Where was he?
“Are you sure this is Loch Nora?” he asked.
“Uh, yeah? There’s only one in the whole town. Which house?” Eddie asked.
“This one?” Steve asked, pointing at what should be his house, but it was again the wrong color. No hydrangea bushes or manicured little trees. There were children’s bikes sitting on the grass, and the lights were on. He hadn’t left the lights on. People were inside. Who was inside his house? Steve felt his face go hot with panic. It was the first time he’d really felt something in months, and he wasn’t enjoying it one bit. He didn’t even feel the car stop.
“Are you asking me or telling me? Isn’t it supposed to be your house?” Eddie asked.
The door on Steve’s side swung open.
“Hey, what kind of car is that thing again, because—”
Steve was face to face with Jeff, who seemed to instantly notice that something was wrong.
“What’s going on?” Jeff asked.
“That’s not my house—but it is—but it...isn’t?” Steve gasped, still staring at it with wide eyes.
“Uh, what?” Gareth said.
“Steve,” Eddie said, leaning completely over his seat to place a hand on Steve’s shoulder. "Use your words. What’s wrong with your house?”
“That’s my house!” Steve exclaimed, pointing at his house, gasping for breath.
“Uh-huh,” Eddie said.
“But that’s not my house!”
“You’ve lost me,” Eddie said.
“Who is in my house!?” Steve said.
The four shared a look, like he was the weird one here and they were all just realizing it, and then turned back to him.
“Your family?” Jeff guessed slowly.
“Hey, come on. Breathe a bit. In and out, and then explain,” Eddie said. Steve followed his advice and sucked in some air before speaking again.
“This is where my house should be. But that isn’t my house. The flowers—th-the paint. It’s all different. And what the fuck is in the driveway? My dad’s not into classic cars. My dad’s not even home. Nobody was, but me!”
“Okay…somebody painted your house and…broke in while you were out for a drive? Is that what you’re saying right now?” Eddie asked, and Steve could tell that he had one chance to get this across right before they called the cops. Jeff and Gareth were looking pretty freaked out, too. He didn’t dare look back at Chris. God, he sounded so crazy, but he didn’t know how else to describe it. Everything looked off and nothing was right, and it was almost like—
“Why are you dressed like it’s the 80s!?” he blurted out. All of their eyebrows shot up to their hairlines.
“I mean, the cassette tape? The old cars? The old houses? Am I losing my mind? Because that is not what my house looks like! Oh my God, is this a TikTok prank? Are my parents in on it or something?” Steve rambled, latching onto the only reasonable explanation.
“A what prank?” Eddie asked.
“Dressed like it’s the 80s?” Chris repeated slowly behind Steve.
“What the fuck are you talking about, dude?” Gareth asked.
“Oh shit,” Jeff said. They all looked up at him. His hands were visibly shaking.
“This brings me back to my question. What kind of car is that? Because I’ve never seen anything like it before,” Jeff whispered.
Eddie jumped out of the driver’s seat, and everyone else followed. Steve slowly slid out of the van after them. Eddie leaned over the driver’s seat, maneuvering his head in every direction, even under the steering wheel.
“Where do you insert the keys?” he finally asked.
“It’s push-to-start,” Steve responded.
Eddie slowly turned back to look at him.
“I’m sorry, what? Is it a go-kart? An expensive lawn mower? Push to start? What the fuck are you talking about?”
Steve reached past Eddie and pushed the start button. The car lit up, the screen turned on, and the rattling returned.
“Oh…my God,” Eddie said quietly.
“Dude, what the fuck kind of car is this?” Gareth asked, looking a little dazed.
“Is that a TV in your car?” Chris asked, dazed for a different reason.
“It’s a 2021 BMW five-series hybrid sedan,” Steve said, and he was met with the three most comical expressions of shock he’d ever seen in his life.
~.~.~
“Ohmygodohmygodohmygod, I think I just shat myself a little,” Gareth said, visibly shaking. If he meant with excitement or fear, Steve didn’t know.
“Where are we going?” Chris asked, looking equally pale.
“My place, duh,” Eddie said.
“What? Why?” Chris demanded.
“Do you have any better ideas of where we can stash Steve? Because I think your parents would never let you keep a stranger at their place, and Jeff’s nosy parents would want to talk to Steve’s parents before letting him in their house. And we all know nothing can be kept secret in Gareth’s home with all his siblings running around!”
“Good point,” Gareth said, his voice weak.
“Uh, why are we stashing me anywhere? What is happening?” Steve asked. He felt much calmer now that he’d come to terms with having traveled into the past. He’d had his moment of panic, and now he was…coping. Like he always did. Rolling with the punches and keeping a lid on whatever thoughts and feelings could get in the way.
In fact, he felt more alive than he had in a very long time. It was like that burst of panic he’d experienced outside what technically wasn’t his home, yet had shocked his system. His heart hadn’t even raced like that when Ava dumped him. So, it seemed that he’d pulled a Terminator and jumped back in time. It wasn’t like he could do anything about it. At least he’d found some people he could trust. He could have ended up with a bunch of cavemen trying to learn how to hunt for food. He was focusing on the positives and enjoying the pure rush of adrenaline coursing through his veins.
“Steve, you are…” Eddie paused and took a deep breath. “I don’t know what you are. But you can’t go into the house you said was yours. People clearly live there.” He was shaking like he’d been dunked into an icy river and was also driving erratically. The BMW was so screwed.
“You don’t know what I am?” Steve asked, a little offended.
Gareth spun around in his seat to face Steve full on. “Dude, we found you and your crashed futuristic vehicle next to a glowing red hole in the ground. Are you an alien? Would you tell us if you were an alien?”
"Oh my God, he's an alien!" Chris said, eyes blown wide.
“I’m not an alien! I’m just a dude from 2023,” Steve said.
“WHAT!?” Eddie barked.
“Oh my God, what is happening?” Gareth moaned, rubbing his hands across his face. Steve grabbed onto the driver’s seat, his fingers tangling in Eddie’s wild hair as the car swerved into a left turn. Eddie was definitely driving too fast.
“Jesus Christ! Jesus Christ! Jesus fucking Christ!” Chris kept repeating. Steve wasn’t sure if it was over the driving or the time travel.
“Are you guys telling me that you agree it isn’t 2023? Because that’s what I was freaking about earlier, but I didn’t know how to say it,” Steve said.
“How are you so calm!?” Eddie shrieked.
“Why didn’t you just try to explain it?!” Gareth shouted.
“I don’t know!” Steve shouted back, “Maybe because it sounds fucking crazy!”
Eddie swerved into a trailer park that definitely didn't exist in the future and leapt out of the van the second he had it parked. Steve unbuckled his seatbelt and followed.
“We have to hide this thing,” Eddie said, gesturing toward Steve’s car, which Jeff was just climbing out of.
“Dude, we have to talk about this. Can the car fly? Is it a ship? Is he an alien!? Are you an alien!?” Jeff asked, grabbing Steve by the shoulders and shaking him a little.
"Nah man, I'm just from the future."
This information didn't seem to help Jeff at all.
“Shhhh! Stop yelling about aliens in public!” Eddie said, and Jeff let Steve go.
"Right. There's got to be a logical explanation," Jeff muttered.
Eddie dramatically rolled his eyes and marched around his van to pull open the doors. “Help me cover this thing with the tarp."
“What about the—” Gareth said, gesturing at the tow straps.
“Yeah, get them,” Eddie said. “Let’s draw as little attention to this thing as possible.”
“Why do you keep calling it a thing? It’s literally just a car. No flying or anything,” Steve said. He was promptly ignored.
“We gotta push it out of the way first,” Jeff said.
“Why?” Steve asked.
“So he can back his van out later,” Chris said.
“Oh, right,” Steve said.
He got behind his car with Jeff and pushed it beside Eddie’s in the grass. Eddie threw the tarp over his car and then shuffled everyone inside. Steve was shoved past a cozy but cluttered living room and kitchen combo before he could even look around, and straight into a messy bedroom full of band posters, figurines, fantasy books, and more music equipment. This room also smelled like weed and cigarettes, but only a little. There was a huge sheet with Corroded Coffin spray painted on it hanging up on the wall, and cassette tapes, wires, cans, and pieces of paper scattered everywhere.
Eddie, Jeff, Chris, and Gareth all collapsed onto the bed. They stared up at him like he was about to give some kind of speech.
“What?” he asked. They just continued to stare at him, like his jeans would tell them everything. Jeff was the first to crack.
“Well, I think he should prove it!” he said.
“Prove what?” Steve asked.
“Prove that you’re, you know. From the future or whatever,” Jeff said.
“How do I do that?”
“What’s something big that happens soon this year?” Gareth asked.
“How am I supposed to know that? I don’t even know what year it is,” Steve said, placing his hands on his hips.
“It’s 1985,” Eddie said.
“You’re literally from the future! You should know history!” Jeff said.
“What the fuck? That doesn’t mean I have all of history memorized. How would I know anything about 1985?” Steve asked.
“How are we supposed to know this is real if you don’t prove it?” Chris asked.
“Okay then, smartass, what’s something big that happened in…I don’t know, 1921?” Steve asked them.
“The Irish War of Independence ended,” Jeff said.
“The Soviet Union invaded Georgia,” Gareth said.
“Tolkien was definitely working on some of the languages he invented,” Eddie said.
Seriously? Who were these people? Steve floundered for a moment, stunned they even had answers, and then said, “Do I look like the kind of guy who would know shit about history?”
They instantly shook their heads. Eddie finally conceded. "Okay, fair point.”
Steve thought it was a little rude that they agreed so quickly.
“So what year was it again? For you?” Gareth asked, leaning forward to grab a notebook and pen off the floor.
“Dude, what are you doing?” Jeff asked.
“Taking notes,” Gareth said.
“Why are you-”
“Let me take my notes!” Gareth shrieked.
“Alright, children, chill out,” Eddie said with his hands raised. "What year, Steve?”
“2023,” Steve said, scooting some clothes out of the way with his foot so he could sit on the floor.
“He even says it weird,” Gareth muttered, writing it down.
“What do you mean?” Steve asked.
“Why not, two thousand and twenty-three?"
“I don’t know, it’s less words? We say that too, though,” Steve said with a shrug.
“So does that mean two thousand and three is just… twenty-three?”
“What? No. We say, two thousand and three," Steve said, wondering what his life had come to in these short few hours.
“Why is this important?” Jeff whined. Steve silently agreed.
“That’s when I was born,” he said to nobody in particular, and they all fell silent.
“Ok, I can’t even think about that right now,” Eddie said, shaking his head. “What about the glowing red hole in the ground? Is that normal in the future?”
“Did I look like unsurprised or something? It’s definitely not normal,” Steve said.
“But it’s probably related, right? What happened again?” Gareth asked.
“I was driving down the road, and the hole appeared. I hit it and then hit a tree.”
“You hit the hole and it sent you into a tree?” Jeff asked, his face scrunched up with confusion.
“Well, I think?”
“Be specific, Steve!” Gareth said, nudging Steve with his boot.
“Ok, Jesus! I was driving down the road when the hole appeared. My car tipped forward, and then I hit the tree. I also hit my head, so I didn’t really see the tree. I just woke up with my car like that.”
"Oh, that's why your forehead is red," Chris said, and Steve's hand jumped to his forehead like he would be able to feel the redness. He hoped it wouldn't bruise.
“Oh my God, do you know what this means?” Eddie gasped, leaping up from the bed.
“That Steve might have a concussion?” Jeff muttered under his breath.
“That the red hole was a portal through time and space!” They all stared at Eddie as if they wanted to dispute it but couldn’t. He was kind of making sense, even if he was being dramatic about it. Eddie continued. "Think about it. His car tipped forward into the hole. But because he hit his head, he doesn’t really remember it. Plus, even if he blinked, he’d just have seen the same street again anyway because he’s a few years in the past, not a different world or country. He was sent back in time! It’s like Back to the Future!”
“Oh, that’s out?” Steve asked.
“Came out a few months ago,” Chris said.
“Can cars in the future time travel?” Eddie asked.
“How many times do I have to tell you that my car is a normal car?”
“Yeah, a normal car that starts with a fucking button,” Eddie snarked back.
“This is huge,” Gareth said. “Steve, you’re a time traveler!”
"Okay, we don't know that for sure," Jeff said, but nobody was listening.
“Tell us what the future is like, Steve!” Eddie said, collapsing onto the floor and staring up at him like it was story time in kindergarten. The others crawled down from the bed and copied him. Steve felt a little awkward. What could he even say? The 80s couldn’t be that different from modern day. And he wasn’t a fan of history, so he didn’t exactly know where to begin.
“We have phones and the internet,” Steve said.
“We have phones too,” Eddie said.
“No,” Steve said, grabbing his phone from his pocket to show them. “I mean, we have phones. Smartphones that have access to everything. I even do homework on this thing sometimes.”
“No way," Gareth said, snatching the phone from Steve’s hand. Everyone leaned over to look. Gareth tapped the screen, and it lit up. He screamed and threw it in the air. Steve surged forward to grab it.
“Jesus, don’t just drop it!” He didn't know much about the 80s, but he knew they didn't have Apple repair stores. He unlocked the phone and pointed at all the apps. “You can call people, video call people, text people, and you’ve got music and YouTube and Netflix and all kinds of other apps.”
"I have to admit, this is pretty convincing," Jeff muttered.
“I don’t understand half of what you just said. Explain,” Eddie said, leaning in a little closer than necessary to watch as Steve listed these things off.
Steve sighed. After answering too many ridiculous questions about flying cars and space travel, they seemed a bit disappointed but still excited about the other things he’d described. Steve tried to talk about famous events that were going to happen, but kept getting caught up in his own explanations because he didn’t know the exact years. Which he felt was pretty normal, despite their teasing. Then Gareth said something about messing with time, to which Steve said, “Oh, you mean The Butterfly Effect,” which made Gareth even more irritated, because that was exactly the kind of thing he was trying to keep Steve from talking about. Steve decided not to mention that he was referring to the movie as the guys debated how much “four metalheads in a trailer park,” as Eddie put it, could change time forever just by hearing about the future. Steve didn’t really care about any of this. He just thought it was funny to watch them argue, so he stayed silent through it all until he made a comment when they brought up Star Wars, which completely flipped Gareth’s opinion on the subject.
“Oh my God, he knows what Star Wars is. Are there more movies or something? You have to tell me, man!”
“What happened to keeping the timeline intact?” Steve teased.
“Fuck the timeline, this is important information!” he yelled, and in response, Eddie pushed him over. Then, they all ended up sandwiched on the floor as Steve began showing them pictures and videos on his phone of his friends. He was in the middle, arms in the air, Eddie’s head practically on his shoulder, and the others almost as close, staring at his tiny screen. He showed them the parties he’d gone to, pictures of Indianapolis, which, according to Chris, who had family there, looked different but similar. “Freaky,” he’d called it. He showed them his trip to New York with his friends and silly videos they took at the beach in Florida. Jeff kept commenting on how nice the photos were, but Steve didn’t understand the technology enough to explain why they were nicer, just that cameras got better over time. The bickering and questions continued well into the night until sunlight was streaming from Eddie’s window and the four of them were sprawled across the floor of his bedroom, squished shoulder to shoulder and staring at the ceiling, discussing what would happen next.
“We have to go back,” Gareth declared.
“What?” “Where?” “Why?” Chris, Jeff, and Eddie all said at once.
“We have to go back to where we saw the hole. See if there’s anything left.”
“You want to go back to the portal thing?” Jeff asked again.
“I mean, we can’t just leave Steve hanging! We have to see if the portal's still there. He has all these friends and stuff he’s got to return to!”
Steve felt a little awkward as he listened to them hum in agreement, because the truth was that he didn’t. He had nothing to return to. He hadn’t seen the people in his photos since summer break had begun. It was like how people posted only cool stuff on Instagram and everyone else wished they had that person’s happy life, but in reality, those posts were just a curated story made up for views. In a way, he’d lied to them. He felt a little bad about it. Should he speak up? But he didn’t want them to know. He didn’t want them to know that he was just some depressed loser who couldn’t get his act together enough for people to talk to him until he was literally standing in front of their faces. He was…distracted, these past few hours. He hadn’t been distracted like this since doing molly with the basketball team at a rave last semester. He kept his mouth shut.
“Shit, we have to get to school,” Jeff said. Steve turned to look at him in confusion. School? How old were these guys?
“Can’t we just skip?” Eddie whined, “We stayed up all night with our new time-traveling friend! That’s a good reason to skip!”
“Dude, no. You told us to keep you on track this year, and we’re doing it. They probably won’t even let you in next year,” Gareth said. Eddie moaned and rose from the ground like a vampire rising from its coffin.
“Okay. You,” he said, pointing at Steve, “just take the bed and stay here. My uncle works the night shift, so he’ll come in, eat dinner, and sleep. Just don’t make any noise, and I’ll explain your presence to him later. We’ll go check out the portal spot after school and let you know what’s going on when we get back.”
And with that, the three began gathering random items around the room that Steve assumed had to do with school. He felt a little sad, watching them get ready to go. What was he supposed to do while they were gone? What if they forgot about him and he was stuck in this random trailer?
“Do you have anything I can sleep in, then?” Steve asked, ignoring the dumb thoughts running through his mind.
“Oh, right,” Eddie said, and he quickly shuffled through multiple drawers. Steve was thrown a Metallica T-shirt and some old grey sweatpants. He slipped his clothes off and tugged on the pants, hesitating with the shirt. He didn’t usually sleep with a shirt on, but he didn’t want to be rude. He barely knew these people. He pulled the shirt on, too. He looked up to see Gareth, Chris, and Jeff laughing at Eddie, who was stumbling for the door like he’d tripped over air.
“See you later, Steve!” Eddie shouted, closing it behind him. The guys stared at the door for a moment.
“Hey, you forgot us,” Jeff said.
The door opened, and Eddie didn’t look at them as they slipped out, too. And then, Steve was left alone in a trailer with a phone that didn’t actually work and with no idea what he would do for the rest of the day. He crawled into Eddie’s bed, ears ringing from the sudden silence. He could barely hear the doors to the van slamming shut and the engine rumbling and fading as it drove away. He stared off into space for a while, wondering how long it would take for them to come back. He grabbed his phone and then dropped it again, remembering it was next to useless. He didn’t want to waste the battery either.
He knew he should probably just sleep, but his body was too alive for it. And wasn’t that something? He was excited. He could feel it in the way he wanted to get up and go on a run. He felt like he was about to get on the court and play the best game he could, like he could even give a flawless post-game interview. He’d nearly died back in his time, and here he was, in the 80s, a buzz underneath his skin that he didn’t completely hate.
A buzz that was incredibly hard to ignore, now that the others were gone, and he was forced to pay attention to it. He wondered how they would react if he asked them not to search for the portal. The buzz began to fade. He was being ridiculous. There was a book on the floor next to the bed. Lord of the Rings. He’d seen the movies. He grabbed it and flipped to the first page, begging for a distraction. Anything to keep his thoughts away.