Chapter Text
Griffin Stagg loved exactly six people in the world.
Well—six people he’d admit to.
He had a ranking. A real one. Laminated. It sat in his nightstand drawer. There were reasons. Ones that Griffin was actually proud of.
6. Nancy Wheeler - the only non–Casper Crew member who didn’t flinch when he spoke. His twin flame when it came to murders. She was still an outsider though, so she stayed at 6 permanently.
5. Bruce - who was lower only on principle; dating Griffin’s brother meant losing points. But Bruce was an angel, so perfect that Griffin almost hated him. But he loved him more than he wanted to hurt him. That was the curse of Bruce Yamada.
4. Robin - angry, fast, capable of stabbing, would back him up in a bar fight no questions asked. That won points. Still, he lost points for snitching to Billy whenever Griffin was “too invested” in a project. Fuck Robin, he didn’t need sleep.
3. Finney — sunshine in human form, annoyingly perfect, but he also always woke up early with Griffin and made him extra strong coffee, and let Griffin use his spare rocket parts for explosives. He also saved Billy and Vance’s lives. That earned Finney Blake his high spot.
2. Vance — half-brother, full menace, the only person who’d ever taught Griff how to throw a proper punch. The only person who has ever seen Griffin cry in sadness, not pain or fear. No real notes.
1. Billy Showalter — boyfriend, chaos incarnate, soulmate, the only person Griffin let touch him without bracing for pain. The only person who let Griffin sink his teeth into him when he was pissed off. The only person who made Griffin not want to gnash his teeth in rage.
Everyone else?
Background noise.
Right now, the only person that existed in Griffin’s mind — besides Billy, who always was in Griffin’s periphery like a warm constant — was Nancy goddamn Wheeler. And the files spread between them.
They sat cross-legged in the grass just outside the circle of chaos, picnic tables behind them, the shouts of Robin and Finney arguing about raccoons drifting faintly through the air.
Nancy tapped her pen against a sheet of police documentation she absolutely should not have. “It’s too clean.”
Griffin hummed. He didn’t do unnecessary words. “Yep.”
“It mimics the Grabber,” Nancy said slowly, reading again. “Abductions in hidden alleys and streets. Boys, ages eleven to seventeen. No signs of struggle. But—” she squinted “—no mask. No good guy-bad guy. No basement. No theatrics.”
“So a copycat who sucks at copycatting.” Griffin flicked the corner of the page. “Or someone evolving the formula.”
Nancy gave him a sharp side-eye. “People don’t ‘evolve’ kidnapping MOs like magic, Griffin.”
“You sure?” He pointed to the next file. “This one’s six months later. Same neighborhood. Same victim profile. But this one?” He tapped the third file. “This one happened a hundred miles north. Two months ago.”
She frowned. “It’s like someone trying to replicate the Grabber without understanding the psychology behind it.”
Griffin’s eye twitched. “Or they do understand it. And that’s worse.”
He felt his jaw lock tight.
He’d spent thirteen months in that basement.
Thirteen months cataloging the exact kind of person the Grabber was.
If someone out there was trying to repeat that?
Not on his watch.
Not in his city.
He would destroy them before the police even learned their name.
Nancy pointed toward Mike Hanlon — the Derry one — still being gently terrorized by Dustin and Stan’s sudden friendship. She whispered, “And he was there for… whatever happened in Maine. Last summer. Summer of 1986. That’s a year after… he died. And we have six missing persons from Derry that match these conditions exactly. And then there’s one who matches it slightly but no evidence was found. That’s I think George D. But whatever happened in Maine last year was big.”
Griff stiffened.
“We’re missing something,” Nancy said. “Something he’d recognize.”
Griffin hated that she was right.
He also hated that the circle in front of them was incomplete, and incomplete patterns made his teeth itch.
“What are we missing?” Nancy muttered, flipping through the papers again.
Griffin glared at the pages like they had personally offended him. “A connection point. A trigger. The reason the locations don’t line up. Something stupid and obvious.”
“If it were obvious, we’d see it,” Nancy said.
“Don’t patronize me.”
Nancy smirked. “I’m not. You’d bite me if I did.”
“Correct.”
They read again.
And again.
And Griffin’s frustration rose like water filling a locked room.
He wasn’t losing to a wannabe Grabber.
He wasn’t being beaten by some knockoff basement freak.
Not after what he survived.
Not after he crawled out of hell and built a family.
His pulse went sharp and fast.
Nancy noticed instantly. “Hey. Slow down. It’s a cold case. It’s not happening right this second.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Griffin snapped. “We’re missing something.”
“Then we find it,” Nancy said simply.
Like it was easy.
Like the two of them together were unstoppable.
To Griffin’s annoyance, that last part was true.
Nancy inhaled sharply.
“Oh shit,” she whispered. “Griffin. We’re missing files.”
Griffin blinked. “What?”
“Denver PD’s internal logs. The older ones. They’d have the cross-state transfers, the archived case merges, the stuff we can’t get from the public record.”
Griffin’s eyes narrowed. “So we go get them.”
Nancy folded her arms. “It’s a well-guarded building.”
Griffin smirked darkly. “Fortunately, we’re us.”
Nancy’s grin sharpened. “We’ll need a distraction.”
“Robin,” Griffin said instantly.
“And Billy,” Nancy added.
Griff scowled. “Don’t volunteer my boyfriend for crimes.”
“You take him into crimes every other weekend. He literally owns a shirt that says ‘Be Gay, Do Crime’ in purple and blue glitter font”
“That’s different.”
“How?”
“Because I’m the one asking.”
Nancy stared at him.
Then laughed under her breath. “You’re insane.”
“Thank you.”
She bumped her shoulder against his.
He pretended not to like it.
“We’ll need Hanlon,” Nancy said quietly, nodding toward Mike, who was discussing burgers with Ben and Jonathan.
Griffin followed her gaze.
“Yeah.” He cracked his knuckles. “He knows the Derry part of this. We don’t. And something happened there. Something big.”
“But first,” Nancy said, gathering the files, “we go get the rest.”
Griff’s pulse thrummed, electric.
A new hunt.
A new threat.
A new chance to tear something apart before it hurt someone else.
He lived for this.
Nancy left to brief Jonathan. So Griffin sighed and bit the bullet.
He padded across the grass toward Billy — who sat perched on a picnic table like a neon bird of paradise, hair tied up with one of Gwen’s scrunchies, flirting shamelessly with his own shadow.
Billy spotted him instantly.
His smile went soft. Stupid-soft. Dangerous-soft.
“There’s my little doom-and-gloom daisy,” Billy cooed.
Griffin glared. “Stop calling me flora.”
“My haunted tulip.”
“No.”
“My spooky baby onion blossom.”
“I’m breaking up with you.”
Billy laughed, grabbed his wrist, and pulled him closer. “Have you eaten today?”
“No.”
“Drank water?”
“No.”
“Slept?”
“…Define sleep.”
Billy sighed with the weight of a martyr. “Sit, my murderous cherry-blossom.”
Griffin scowled but obeyed.
Billy unpacked a takeout container and physically put a fry in Griffin’s mouth.
Griff tried to bite his finger on principle.
Billy dodged easily.
“Eat,” Billy ordered.
Griffin chewed, glowering, then accepted the bottle of water Billy shoved at him.
Billy ruffled his hair.
Griff pretended to hate it and then crawled right into his lap like an exhausted feral kitten.
Billy stroked his back.
“Hey,” he murmured. “You’re gonna solve it. Whatever it is. Because you’re brilliant, and stubborn, and I swear to God you could outthink the devil if you wanted to.”
Griffin’s throat tightened for half a second — the vulnerable kind he refused to let anyone else see.
He buried his face in Billy’s chest to hide it.
Billy kissed the top of his head. “My spooky little genius.”
“I’m going to bite you,” Griffin mumbled.
“You always say that, but you never follow through.”
“Because you never make me mad enough to do it.”
Billy laughed loudly, delighted. “There he is.”
Griffin allowed himself one minute — just one — of stillness.
Billy’s arms around him.
The chaos of friends in the background.
The promise of a new hunt in his veins.
He felt alive.
And whoever the hell was mimicking the Grabber?
They had no idea what kind of monster was about to hunt them back.