when gwen called, her voice trembling yet threaded with that strange certainty she carried, telling you to come to an adress because she’d found them. you didn’t question it. you didn’t even grab a jacket. you ran. lungs burning, vision blurring, every terrible possibility clawed at your ribs the entire way there.

by the time you arrived, the street was a fever dream of red and blue lights. officers swarming the house with weapons drawn. you found gwen on the curb and collapsed beside her.neither of you spoke. words would have splintered under the weight of what was happening.

time elongated. stretched. distorted.

then an officer emerged. quiet voices. grave faces. they’d found bodies in the basement.

the words didnt feel real. they felt theatrical. like dialogue from a horror movie that had gone on too long. no finney. no vance.

your heartbeat slowed in that terrifying way it does before hysteria. the world dulled around the edges. you thought this was how it ended. not with a scream, not with closure. just absence.

then the house across the street creaked. the front door opened.

gwen’s nails dug into your arm before you even processed why. “look—”

finney blake stepped out into the night air.

for a second, he looked ghostly.pale, fragile, unreal beneath the flashing lights. then he blinked against the sirens and the illusion shattered. he was alive. gwen surged forward so fast she nearly toppled you over, sobbing his name as she ran.

you followed, slower, heart ricocheting violently against your ribs. finney looked thinner. hollowed out. but standing. breathing.

your eyes searched past him instantly, frantic and silent. vance? finney didn’t answer. he didn’t need to.

because then vance hopper stepped through the doorway behind him. and the world narrowed to him.

some kids hadn’t walked out. never would. that reality hung heavy in the space between every breath.

vance looked… ravaged. blood in his golden curls, dried and rust-colored against his temple. his nose bore the remnants of violence, flakes of dried crimson clinging to his skin like peeling paint. he stood like he always did — chin tipped up, jaw set, shoulders squared but it was a performance now. a thin veneer over something gutted.

the grabber had taken his time with him.

you could see it in the stiffness of his posture. in the way his ribs showed faintly through his shirt. starvation had hollowed him out, carved away at the arrogance he wore like armor. the grabber knew what he was doing, breaking him down piece by piece because vance was strong. because vance fought back. because vance never knew when to stop swinging.

finney had refused to play the “naughty boy” game. vance hadn’t. and that defiance had cost him.

one second you were standing frozen, the next you were colliding with him, your arms locking around his neck with desperate force. you didn’t care if he shoved you off. didn’t care if he snapped something cruel to hide his own fear. you pressed your face into his shoulder and sobbed.

you had mourned him already. you had pictured a funeral.

you had imagined a world without his loud mouth, without his infuriating grin, without the way he’d glare at anyone who looked at you too long.

and he was here. warm. alive.

he inhaled sharply, a fragile, tremoring breath he clearly hoped you wouldn’t notice. his hands hovered awkwardly before settling at your waist, hesitant at first, like he wasn’t sure he was allowed to hold onto anything anymore. then they tightened. not strong. not cocky. just clinging.

his face buried into your hair.

“i’m fine, damnit,” he muttered, voice rough, brittle around the edges. “goddamn grabber’s a pussy.”

it would’ve sounded convincing if his body hadn’t been shaking. if his fingers weren’t digging into you like you were the only thing left in the world.

and for the first time since you’d known him, vance hopper didn’t feel indestructible. he felt human. like a kid.