LUCAS RAN HIS THUMB OVER CAROLINE'S hand, so deep in thought that it was like he was on another planet.
His vision had tunneled to the one place where his skin touched hers, his lips slightly parted. It was as though he were in a trace. One foot was curled beneath him as he sat on Will's bed, leaving him with the painful pins and needles sensation, but he couldn't bring himself to snap out of it.
Because when he did, he saw... things.
Blood. Open eyes staring into nothing. Limbs hanging loosely over stairwells. His girlfriend and best friend thrashing in their beds. Caroline's beautiful blue eyes turning a deep, dark brown, leaving him knowing that the girl he loved wasn't there anymore.
And right now... his mind simply couldn't handle it.
So instead, he focused instead on the familiar sensation of his hand on hers.
Because Caroline and him were very different, Lucas had decided.
It was like an analogy, watching his thumb rubbing over the dorsal side of her hand. A repetitive motion of black against white, a stark contrast that perfectly displayed their entire relationship.
Caroline's skin was the lightest shade of milky white, soft and perfectly untainted, aside from the few freckles that dotted her nose. Pale, cool skin that felt like cold water on a hot summer day. The smallest blemish made the biggest difference; once something tainted it, she could try as hard as she wanted, but it would never go away. It always stayed on the surface, easy to find if you knew her well enough.
Lucas' skin, on the other hand, was the darkest brown. It was warm and rough, calloused palms and fingernails with jagged edges that turned people away at first glance. It took a lot more to get under the surface with him; scrapes and bruises didn't show nearly as easily. Even though it hurt, it was easier to hide. People didn't notice his pain like they did with Caroline's, though she would easily argue that that was worse.
Because if you can't see it, it's not there.
...Right?
Something slammed against the wall right outside the twin's room, making Lucas snap out of his stupor. Images flashed in his mind of monsters running straight at him, at his friends, his family-
But when he heard Hopper's angry, strained voice from outside the door, he felt his shoulders relax slightly.
Jonathan suddenly appeared in the doorway. He saw Lucas and fumbled a little bit. "Oh. Sorry."
"No," Lucas said quickly. He stood and let go of Caroline's hand reluctantly before turning to her big brother. "You... probably want some time with them. Sorry."
"Don't be," Jonathan said easily. He messed with the sleeves of his flannel for a moment before looking Lucas directly in the eye. "Are you okay?"
Lucas was taken aback for a moment. He was the last priority right now; the twins were completely catatonic, Joyce had just watched Bob die, Olivia was locked in the bathroom was Olivia and Steve, her muffled sobs occasionally ringing through the house-
Yet here was Jonathan Byers, asking Lucas was alright.
"Not really," Lucas admitted. He stared at Caroline, who lay in her hospital gown side by side with Will, completely out of it. At least he knew she was safe. For now.
God, he missed her.
"I do too," Jonathan said quietly. Lucas felt a pang of embarrassment when he realized he had spoken the thought out loud, but thankfully, Jonathan didn't dream of teasing him.
"I'll leave you guys alone," Lucas rasped. He needed to get out of that room before he started crying- there was no room for him to be a whiny baby right now.
So he brushed past Jonathan, his eyes burning, before joining his conscious friends at the Byers dinner table.
Dustin and Mike didn't even look up as he sat down, everyone caught up in their own thoughts. Max just gave him a weak, sympathetic smile, which he couldn't force himself to return. For whatever reason, Mike hated the girl, and Lucas's loyalty lied with the boy who had been his best friend since first grade.
Suddenly Mike spoke. "Did you guys know that Bob was the original founder of Hawkins AV?"
The question was quiet and sad, carrying so much weight for such a simple sentence.
"Really?" Lucas asked, finally looking up at his friend.
Mike was staring at a coffee stain on the table like it was a lifeline. "He petitioned the school to start it and everything. Then he had a fundraiser for equipment. Mr. Clarke learned everything from him." Finally he looked up. "Pretty awesome, right?"
"Yeah," Dustin said solemnly. It was odd to realize that the man they had known for barely a year was the same man who had funded their love for science and technology.
Turned out Bob Newby had given them a lot more than they realized.
"We can't let him die in vain," Mike said, the familiar determination back in his voice.
"What do you want to do, Mike?" Dustin asked miserably. "The Chief's right on this. We can't stop those Demo-dogs on our own."
"Demo-dogs?" Max spoke for the first time, her bright red hair a drastic contrast to the gloomy situation they were in.
Dustin perked up at his crush addressing him, a tiny spark of light flickering back into his eyes. "Demogorgon dogs. Demo-dogs. It's like a compound. It's like a play on words-"
Max held up a hand, looking exhausted. "Okay."
Dustin slumped back down in his chair. "I mean, when it was just Dart, maybe..."
"But there's an army now," Lucas finished, thinking of the twins in their room down the hall.
"His army." Mike suddenly sat forward, dawning comprehending on his face.
"What do you mean?" Hopper leaned forward.
"His army," Mike repeated. His eyes flickered all over the room. "Maybe if we stop him, we can stop his army, too."
He quickly stood up and darted away, returning a moment later holding a paper drawing. He slammed it on the table and the group leaned in closer, getting a good look at it. Lucas frowned when he recognized the picture.
"The shadow monster," Dustin realized.
Lucas nodded. "It got Will and Callie that day on the field. And the doctor... he said it was like a virus, it infected them."
"And so this virus, it's connecting them to the tunnels?" Max was catching on pretty well for a newcomer.
"To the tunnels," Mike said, getting excited. "To the monsters, the Upside Down, everything."
"Okay, so, the shadow monsters inside everything. And if the vines feel something like pain, then so do the twins."
"And so does Dart," Dustin said sadly.
"Yeah. Like what Mr. Clarke taught us," Mike explained. "The hive mind. A collective consciousness. It's a super-organism." He jabbed his finger at the drawing of the black shadow. "And this is the thing that controls everything. It's the brain."
"Like the mind flayer," Dustin whispered. Ignoring Max's confused look, he turned around and dug into a cupboard behind them before pulling out the D&D monster manual. "The mind flayer."
"What the hell is that?" Hopper muttered.
Dustin looked terrified that Hopper was addressing him. "It's a monster from an unknown dimension. It's so ancient that it doesn't even know its true home. Okay, it enslaves races of other dimensions by taking over their brains using its highly-developed psionic powers."
"Oh, my God," Hopper groaned, running a hand over his face. "None of this is real. This is a kids' game."
"No, it's a manual!" Dustin yelled. "And it's not for kids! And unless you know something that we don't, this is the best metaphor-"
"Analogy," Lucas corrected without thinking.
Dustin stared at him in exasperated disbelief. "Analogy? That's what you're worried about? Fine- An analogy for understanding whatever the hell this is!"
Suddenly a tortured scream came from the bathroom, making the group turn in bewilderment. Hopper's eyes blazed and he turned to go to towards it, but Mike grabbed his arm.
"It's Ollie," Mike said, looking slightly pale. "She- Nancy and Steve and Jonathan are helping her."
"What the hell is wrong with her?" Hopper looked so protective that it made Lucas's eyes narrow. He knew Hopper cared about them, but he seemed to have a different connection to Olivia.
"Something was wrong with her shoulder, I saw it earlier," Lucas offered. Hopper turned to him sharply. "She must have hurt it."
"One of those demodogs bit her," Mike confirmed bitterly. "She doesn't want us worrying about her, though. She said she's got it."
"Those girls," Hopper muttered under his breath.
Max's eyebrows dropped. "What do you mean, 'girls'?"
"Doesn't matter," Hopper said hurriedly. He was definitely acting weird, Lucas decided. Like there was something else on his mind. Something he was waiting for.
"Okay," Max sighed, turning their attention back to the problem at hand. "So this mind flamer thing-
"Flayer," Dustin said quickly. "Mind flayer."
"What does it want?"
Dustin waved his hands around as though it would help explain his point for him. "To conquer us, basically. It believes it's the master race."
"Like the Nazis?" Max asked. Lucas could see why Dustin liked her.
Dustin blinked, his eyes practically in hearts. He cleared his throat, straightening his shoulders again. "Uh... If the Nazis were from another dimension, totally. Uh, it views other races, like us, as inferior to itself. It wants to spread, take over other dimensions."
"We are talking about the destruction of our world as we know it," Lucas said.
"That's great," Max said sarcastically. "That's great. That's really great. Jesus!"
"Okay," Hopper waved his hands, drawing everyone's attention to him. "So if this thing is like a brain that's controlling everything, then if we kill it..."
"We kill everything it controls." Mike nodded.
"We win." Dustin said, hope lacing his tone. If they could pull this off- really pull this off- it would be a miracle.
"Theoretically," Lucas said bitterly.
"Great," Hopper said dryly. "So how do you kill this thing? Shoot it with...Fireballs or something?"
Dustin chuckled. "No. No, no Fire- No Fireballs. Uh, you summon an undead army, uh, because..."
Hopper was staring at him in disbelief.
"...because zombies, you know, they don't have brains, and the mind flayer, it... it... It likes brains." Dustin's entire statement had deteriorated into chaos. He ran his hand through his hair, clearly frustrated. "It's just a game. It's a game."
"What the hell are we DOING HERE?!" Hopper yelled.
"I thought we were waiting for your military backup!" Dustin shouted.
"WE ARE!" Hopper roared.
Mike glared at the both of them. "Even if they come, how are they gonna stop this? You can't just shoot this with guns!"
Hopper wheeled on him. "You don't know that! We don't know anything!"
"We know it's already killed everybody in that lab," Lucas said thickly.
Mike gave him a sympathetic look. "And we know the monsters are gonna molt again."
"And we know that it's only a matter of time before those tunnels reach this town," Dustin continued.
"They're right," said a quiet voice from the doorway. The group turned to see a tiny, tear-stained, grieving Joyce. "We have to kill it. I want to kill it."
Hopper's entire demeanor softened and he looked at her, his eyes so gentle that it was like looking at an entirely different man. "Me, too."
"I-" Joyce started, frustrated.
"Me, too, Joyce, okay?" Hopper put his hands on her shoulders. "But how do we do that? We don't exactly know what we're dealing with here."
"No," Mike said slowly. "But... the twins do. If anyone knows how to destroy this thing, it's them. Will and Callie are connected to it. They'll know its weakness."
"I thought we couldn't trust them anymore," Max pointed out. "That they're spies for the mind flayer now."
Mike looked out the window, his jaw tight. "Yeah, but... the can't spy if they doesn't know where they are."
L.S + C.B
"All right," Hopper said gruffly. He sat in front of the twins, who were tied side by side, still knocked unconscious. "You ready?"
Joyce bit her nails. "Yeah."
No, Lucas thought.
His silent plea for them to just leave Callie alone disappeared into the void. Hopper shook the bottle of bleach and poured a drop onto a cotton pad, before sliding it under Will's nose.
Both Caroline and Will's eyes opened at the exact same time, each letting out a gasp as they awoke.
"What? What? What is this?" Will stammered. His pale skin was sweaty and tight.
Caroline's approach was different. Her eyes were dark and narrowed.She was eerily silent, taking a silent survey of the room before she spoke in a low voice. "Why am I tied up?"
The single sentence sent chills down the spines of everyone in the room. Joyce broke eyes contact from her daughter, instead looking at Will, who just looked scared.
"We just wanna talk to you, baby. We're not gonna hurt you."
"Where am I?" Will's eyes were wide a defensive.
Hopper ignored his question. He took the crayon drawing of the mind flayer from Joyce and held it up for the twins to see, his hands surprisingly steady.
"You recognize this?" He asked.
Will started to squirm before Joyce spoke softly.
"Hey. We wanna help you," she pleaded. "But to do that, we have to understand how to kill it."
"Why am I tied up?" Caroline repeated, ignoring the entire exchange. "Why am I tied up? "
Her anger must have been fueling Will's, because he joined in. "Why am I tied up? Why am I tied up?!"
"Hey," Hopper tried.
"Why am I tied up? Why am I tied up?" Caroline's voice had raised to a shout. "Let me go!"
"Let me go!" Will screamed. "Let me go! Let me go!"
Behind them, in the Byers' house, the lights began flickering with sickening familiarity.
"Let me go! Let me go!" It had become a chant, the twins screaming at the top of their lungs. Lucas fought back tears as he watched his girlfriend fight against the ropes that held her in place.
"Let me go! Let me go! Let me go!" Hopper moved and grabbed Caroline, holding her tight so she wouldn't be able to hurt herself with the thrashing. "Let me go! Let me go! Let me go! Let me go! Let me go! Let me go... Go... Go..."
They waited ten minutes.
Then they tried again.
This time, Joyce took the floor. She sat right in front of her youngest children. "Do you know what March 22nd is?"
Caroline's eyes narrowed. Will just stared at her, trying to remember.
"It's your birthday," Joyce smiled sadly. "Your birthday. Will, when you turned eight, I gave you that huge box of crayons. Do you remember that? It was 120 colors. And all your friends, they got you Star Wars toys, but all you wanted to do was draw with all your new colors. And you drew this big spaceship, but it wasn't from a movie."
Lucs remembered that birthday. Will had spent so long drawing that picture.
"It was your spaceship. A rainbow ship is what you called it. And you must have used every color in the box. I took that with me to Melvald's and I put it up and I told everyone who came in, 'My son drew this.' And you were so embarrassed. But I was so proud. I was so, so proud."
"Do you remember the first day that we met?" Mike asked quietly. The room turned to him. "It was... It was the first day of kindergarten. I knew nobody. I had no friends and...I just felt so alone and so scared, but... I saw you two on the swings together. Callie, you smiled at me. All the kids on the playground and you smiled at me. And I just walked up to you and... I asked. I asked if you wanted to be my friend. And you said yes. You said yes. It was the best thing I've ever done."
Will stared at Mike with something like longing, while Caroline stared at the floor.
Lucas silently willed for her to look at him. To just give him a glance. To let him know she was still in there, even a tiny bit.
Then just for a moment, she did.
Staring into her eyes gave him the courage he needed to finally speak to her.
"Do you know what this is?"
Lucas held up a stick of beef jerky.
A slow, sad smile spread across Mike's face when he recognized it. He hastily wiped away a tear that had escaped.
When Caroline didn't answer, Lucas came and knelt down in front of her. "This is the good stuff. The smallest size Slim Jim beef jerky. Peppercorn flavor. This is your favorite food in the world. In fact, this bad boy is actually the reason we met. Do you remember that?"
Caroline stared at Lucas, so very still that he would have thought she was sleeping if her eyes weren't wide open.
"It was a few months after I had moved here," Lucas began. He fiddled with the jerky stick in his hands, feeling the wrapper between his fingers. "I felt weird and... different. I was the only Black kid in our entire school, and nobody really wanted to talk to me. Nobody tried to be my friend. Until... you.
I had a stick of beef jerky in my lunch that my mom had packed. I'd never tried it before. You were walking past my spot on the playground when you saw it, and you told me how that was your favorite snack. So we decided to split it, so we'd each get half."
Lucas smiled a little bit at the fond memory. "You ended up just eating my half, of course. I thought it was nasty. But from then on, I just kept letting my mom put beef jerky in my lunch, 'cause it meant you would come and share it with me."
Joyce sniffled behind him and Lucas felt Mike's hand pat his shoulder.
"Callie, Will, babies... if you're in there, just please... please talk to us. Please, honey, please, can you do that for me? Please. I love you so much," Joyce said shakily.
For just a moment, Caroline's eyes flashed. It was only for a second. Just a single half a moment where they went back to their usual beautiful blue. Lucas took a sharp breath.
There's his girl.
That tiny glimmer of hope meant that Callie was still fighting.
Which meant that Lucas had to too.
Just as quickly as it came, however, the moment disappeared, and Caroline's eyes sunk back into that god-awful dark void.
"Let me go," Caroline growled suddenly. Lucas felt his shoulders tense and he stepped back, away from the twins, and closer to Mike.
He watched Hopper for a moment. The chief's eyes were narrowed at the twin's fingers. They were tapping the sides of their chairs in the exact same rhythm, eerily in sync. Lucas realized at the same time Hopper did. The man stood quickly and ran back into the house.
The remaining Byers and party members followed him back to the kitchen without another word, watching as Hopper grabbed a piece of paper and a pen, scribbling letters on it.
"What happened?" Dustin demanded.
"I think they're talking," Hopper said gruffly as he tapped his pen. "Just not with words."
"Morse code," Lucas confirmed. "I saw it too."
Hopper finished writing. "H-E-R-E."
"Here," the boys read together.
Hopper set the pen down, staring out the window at the shed. A million thoughts were racing through his mind. Lucas could practically see the gears turning. "Will and Caroline are still in there. They're talking to us."
The next few minutes were a blur. They came up with a system; Hopper headed back to the shed and sat with the twins and Joyce and Jonathan continued to talk to them. He copied the Morse code with taps on the walkie talkie, where the kids on the other end sat, translating.
"Dash, dot, dash, dot," Dustin repeated, listening closely to the tiny beeps of the machine.
Lucas stood side by side with Max, following the chart of Morse code.
"Yeah, got it."
One by one, the letters flooded in.
C.
L.
O.
S.
E.
G.
A.
T.
E.
And then they had a sentence.
"Close gate," Olivia read quietly. The group turned to her. Steve had her sitting in a chair, rubbing her back in gentle circles, a blanket over her shoulders. She was clammy and pale, but her dark eyes were as alert as ever.
Lucas remembered what she had said a while ago.
It wasn't Eleven who opened the gate. It was me.
Suddenly, the phone on the wall broke through the silence, ringing loudly. The entire group looked up in horror.
"Shit," Dustin scrambled to stand up, the only one not frozen in fear. "Shit!"
He picked up the phone and slammed it back down, but it kept ringing. Lucas felt the blood drain from his face as he glanced out the window and towards the shed, where the shell of his girlfriend sat tied up.
Nancy picked up the entire machine as it continued to blare, ripping it off the wall and throwing it towards the floor, watching it shatter in half.
"Do you think he heard that?" Max asked in a hushed whisper.
"It's just a phone," Steve said desperately. He had a hand in front of Olivia, like he was scared the phone was going to attack her. "It could be anywhere. Right?"
There was a few seconds of tense silence. Then a faint screeching filled the air from far in the distance, and Lucas suddenly felt nauseous.
"That's not good," Dustin whispered. Max reached over and grabbed his hand, looking terrified.
Jonathan burst through the front door, followed closely by Joyce and Hopper, who carried both the twins over his shoulder. "They're coming!"
"Hey. HEY," Hopper set the twins down on the couch, gesturing wildly towards the party. "Get away from the windows!"
The kids scrambled backwards. Lucas reached into his backpack and grabbed his wrist rocket, loading it with a rock. His leg brushed against Caroline's hand, hanging off the couch, and he stopped for a moment.
He bent down just slightly and took a moment to kiss her forehead. It was long and sweet, the first time he had ever initiated something like that with his girlfriend.
He just wished it wouldn't be the last time.
Because Lucas Sinclair wasn't stupid. He knew what was about to happen. The small house didn't stand a chance against the entire Upside Down. There was an army of demodogs that were going to tear them apart.
This was the end.
Might as well go out fighting.
He stood in front of Mike and Max, his wrist rocket aimed at the door. Olivia Byers stood next to him, her arms raised and her hair cascading over her shoulders. He could see the bandages, stained with red, from underneath Jonathan's borrowed T-shirt. But no matter how much pain she was in, he could see the determination in her eyes.
Next to Olivia, he felt stronger.
With Caroline behind him, he felt braver.
That was all he needed.
The growling and screeching was right outside the door now. Mike was trembling and Max had her hand clamped over her mouth. They were terrified. So was Lucas.
There was a thud against the front porch and everyone's weapons quickly changed course, aiming towards the window.
"What are they doing?" Nancy whispered.
The screeching stopped abruptly.
Then the window shattered open and a demodog came flying into the living room.
The entire group screamed, and Lucas felt a sudden sense of thankfulness that Caroline hadn't been there to hear the childlike noise that had escaped his throat.
"Holy shit," Dustin whispered.
"Is it dead?" Max demanded.
Hopper crept forward, dangerously slow, his gun still aimed between the monster's eyes. He nudged the thing's head with his foot.
Nothing.
Then there was a creak form the door, causing everyone to aim their weapons towards the entrance of the house.
Something was trying to get in.
One by one, the locks became undone. The handle turned, painstakingly slow, and the door swung open.
Then the impossible happened.
It started with a white shoe. Mismatched socks. Cuffed, white washed jeans. A black leather jacket. Slicked back hair.
And then the face of the one person that the entire party had been grieving for nearly a year.
Mike slowly walked out in front of Lucas, his mouth open and his eyes filled to the brim with tears of hope.
Hopper's gun lowered.
Olivia let out a sob and sank to her knees, Steve reaching to grab her.
El had returned.
AHHH IT HAPPENED SHE'S BACK
I really love doing Lucas's POV. we'll be seeing more of it and also a lot more Lucaline in the next couple chapters
I also thought the little thing with the beef jerky was so cute, I just had to throw it in there.
Stay tuned, it's about to get wild in Hawkins!