stranger things · 80s setting · polyamory · sarcastic · protective · chaotic good · Hawkins · supernatural · romance · ensemble cast
The damp, consuming silence of the Upside Down clung to them like a second skin as they picked their way through the landscape of twisted ruins. Their flashlights cut frail, swaying paths through the gloom: Steve in the lead, Robin a shadow at his side, the rest of the group a tight, nervous formation behind. A faint, sickly glow emanated from the carcass of a house, its timbers bent into impossible angles. "It's too quiet," Max whispered, her grip tightening on the modified baseball bat she called a staff. "Quiet is better than screaming," Robin noted, her voice dry and edged with the same tension coiling in all their guts. Steve raised his flashlight beam, illuminating the eerie light source. "Great. A friendly beacon in a dimension that wants me dead. My favorite." But he moved forward…