Forever Young ━━ Steve Harrington

twenty five! ⋆ DAMN GOOD BABYSITTER

Kate sighed and sat herself up, wincing as her head began to pound. Her sudden movement got Steve's attention, who was sat at the foot of the bed. He stood and went to her side. "What are you doing?"

The blonde didn't answer. She sat up a bit more and hesitantly swung her legs over the edge of the bed. "Just help me get to the kitchen."

He wanted to protest, but knew that wouldn't much good. He knew his best friend long enough to know she was too stubborn for her own good. The brunette wrapped his arm around the girl's waist, careful to avoid the injury, as they slowly made their way to the kitchen.

The house was almost eerily silent. It seemed that everyone was being plagued by thoughts of their own, stuck to figure out the situation for themselves.

Kate's eyes wandered over to the small table in the hallway, as she walked towards it. It was the abundance of brain teasers Bob had brought over for Will only forty-eight hours ago.

She stopped suddenly, making Steve stop too. He kept his arm around her waist as she picked up the Soma Cube in her hand. She admired it for a bit, knowing Bob could probably figure out the puzzle in a minute or less. She walked into the kitchen.

"Did you guys know that Bob's the reason we have Hawkins AV?" she asked the kids at the table; their hands whipped to the direction of the sudden voice. "He heard we got rid of it after he graduated; so when I was in middle school, he had a petition to bring it back. We had a fundraiser and everything."

"Really?" Mike asked.

Kate nodded, somehow finding it in her to smile. "Pretty cool, huh?"

"Yeah," the kids muttered quietly.

"We can't let him die in vain," Mike shook his head.

"Well, what do you want us to do?" Dustin snapped. "Jim's right on this. We can't stop those demo-dogs on our own?"

"Demo-dogs?" Max questioned.

"Demogorgon. Dogs. Demodogs," the curly-headed boy gesticulated. "It's like a compound. Like a play on words, you know–"

"If it was just Dart, maybe," Kate shrugged, leaning into Steve's side. "But there's an army of them now."

Dustin nodded. "Precisely."

"His army," Mike whispered.

"What do you mean?" Steve asked.

"Maybe if we stop him, we can stop his army, too."

The six of them migrated to Will's bedroom, where Mike showed them the picture Will and drawn of the shadow monster. "This is was got Will that day on the field. The doctor said it was like a virus; it infected him.

"And so this virus, it's connecting him to the tunnels?" Max asked.

"To the tunnels, the monsters, the Upside Down–"

"Whoa, slow down. Slow down," Steve said.

Kate began to explain: "Okay, so, the shadow monster's inside everything. And if the vines feel something like pain, then so does Will."

"And so does Dart," Lucas nodded.

"Like Mr. Clarke taught us," Mike agreed. "The hive mind."

"Hive mind?" Steve furrowed his brows.

Again, Kate elaborated for him. "It's a collective consciousness. It's a super-organism. And the shadow monster is what controls everything. It's the brain."

"Like the mind flayer," Dustin muttered.

Steve still found himself terribly confused. "The what?"