Love me •|Billy Hargrove|•

•|9|•

El reaches forward and touches Dustin's front teeth. Dustin recoils. "Teeth. You have teeth."

Dustin laughs. "Oh. You like these pearls." He makes his purring noise, causing me to laugh.

"Eleven," Max says, stepping forward.

"Hey. Um, I'm Max," Max smiles at her, sticking her hand out. "I've heard a lot about you."

El pushes passed her. I step forward and touch Max's shoulder. "She'll get used to you. Just give her time." Max has a hurt look on her face but nods.

El hugs Joyce next. Eleven asks to see Will. They leave for a moment before going into the kitchen. I follow Joyce and El as they look at the paper on the kitchen table.

"Does gate mean like, the one at the lab?" I ask looking at El. I've been so overwhelmed I haven't even thought about it.

"You've opened this gate before right?" Joyce asks Eleven.

"Yes," El whispers.

"Do you think if we go back there, that you guys could close it?" Joyce asks. I nod slowly, looking over to El. El looks forward in silence but I know her answer. The answer is yes.

"We can do it," I tell Joyce, prepared to do whatever need done.

Everyone steps up to the table, circling it.

"It's not like it was before. It's grown a lot. I mean, that's considering we can get in there. The place is crawling with those dogs," Hopper says, talking about the gate.

"Demo-dogs," Dustin says, looking up at Hopper.

"What?" He asks like Dustin just spoke a new language. Technically it is new, produced from the dark depths of Dustin's weird teenage mind.

"I said Demo-dogs," he repeats. "Like demogorgan and dogs. You put them together. It sounds pretty badass," Dustin continues. I shake my head.

"How is this important right now?" Hopper asks angrily.

"It's not," Dustin says looking down. "I'm sorry."

"We can do it," I say looking up at my adopted father. El nods beside me. I can see Billy tense up on my other side.

"You're not hearing me," he tells me.

"I am hearing you. We can do it," I tell him more sternly.

"Cass," Billy starts with a worried look. I look at him with a "shut the hell up" look.

"Even if they can do it, there's still another problem," Mike starts. "If the brain dies the body dies."

"I thought that was the whole point," Max says.

"It is but if we're really right about this. I mean if El and Cassie close the gate and kill the Mind Flayer's army..." Mike is interrupted by Lucas. "Will is apart of that army."

"Closing the gate will kill him," Mike concludes.

A silence spreads over all of us. Joyce moves from the table towards Will's room. We all follow.