The summer heat bleeds into the house as Mrs. Henderson leads them both inside, even so late at night that it's circled around to early in the morning. It was hours before they were allowed to leave the mall parking lot—hours spent reassuring parents and being grilled by Owens' men and mourning Hopper, who didn't make it back with a teary-eyed Joyce and frazzled Murray—and longer still to get Dustin and Erica at cerebro.

Steve feels every minute of those hours in the slow shuffle of his feet against the carpet; feels the crash in the line of his arms; feels the beatings pulsing across his stomach and chest and face and at the end of this very long day, he folds himself into Dustin's bed and wraps sore around around his best friend and hopes that if he holds him tightly enough, it will keep them both from shaking apart.