daylight | s. harrington

the piggyback

"Deal. Let's kick some ass." We shake hands. We re-approach the group and I place my hand on Dustin's shoulder. "Don't do something stupid. And don't die." The four of us leave the three teens and start our trek to Vecna's lair. After a while, Robin's voice sounds; her tone dripping with worry.

"Uh...I don't mean to freak anyone out, but I swear we've seen this tree before." She says, looking around us. A breathy laugh escapes my lips at her remark. "That would suck, right? If Vecna destroyed the world because...'cause we got lost in the woods?"

"That's impossible." Nance responds, as all of us glance around us. "We're not lost, Robin." Her attempts at soothing the Buckley girls' nerves.

"Robin, hey. Watch out for the vines! Hive mind. Remember?" Steve warns, the blonde giving a quick thumbs up while continuing to rush ahead. Nancy looks at us and decides to head after her. "Uh, Don't worry about her. She's just stressed. You know, scared." I agree with him, starting to mention how the blonde is a bit of a mess. She's tall and has limbs that she can't entirely control, but he reads my mind instead. "She's a super klutz."

"Well, there was this one time when she told me that it took her longer to walk than most babies, so..." My sentence veers off, as Steve laughs slightly.

"I really shouldn't laugh. When I was a baby, I actually crawled backwards."

"Crawled backwards?" I look up at him through furrowed brows.

"You know, I'd push with my hands like this. Beep. Beep." He explains, making motions with his hands. "Always in reverse, you know? Come on, it makes sense. You push to move, right?"

"That makes absolutely no sense, Harrington."

"Well, it did to my tiny little Harrington brain." I laugh at his response and shake my head at him. "That is, until I reversed my baby butt down a flight of stairs and thumped my head really good."

"You know...that explains quite a lot." I smile at him teasingly, yet he agrees with my statement. And it catches me off-guard a little.

"I think, like, right out of the gate, like, I'm super confident. But I'm also, like, an idiot. Which is just...I mean, it's a brutal combination." Steve starts and I listen intently, while looking ahead for any sign of the girls. "But, I mean, the good news is, I get a big enough thump on my head, I can change, you know? I can learn. I can crawl forward. Listen, I guess what I'm trying to say in a really stupid, roundabout way is, um...is thank you."

"Thank me? For what?"

"For giving my head the biggest thump of its life two years ago. Nance may have ended things with me in a hurtful way, but you were an olive branch. You gave me something worth changing for. I wanted to become the kind of guy who deserved even a fraction of your love..." The boy looks at me with a smile and scratches the back of his neck, clearly unsure of how his words will affect me. "I needed it. It's changed my life. You changed my life. And now I'm crawling forward. Slowly."

"Steve..." My voice is so low, that if the thunder sounded, the words I said wouldn't have been heard by the brunette in front of me.

"Sometimes I wonder if all of this never happened. You know, the monsters, the parallel dimension and shit. If this didn't exist, maybe...just maybe we would've made it. If you weren't unfairly thrown through the emotional ringer last summer, that we'd still be together today..." A look of understanding passes over my features. He's right. Had I not lost my shit, we would be so disgustingly happy right now. Although, I think that would make this fight so much harder. I wouldn't be able to do this. I can barely keep it together now and he's not even mine.