☆✫❣︎𖤐♥︎𖦹𖣴
// forty six
• 𝗋𝗎𝗍𝗁
Julia sat in Mike's Wheeler's basement, she didn't realize how many memories she had in the Wheeler household until she arrived getting a sudden rush of deja vu of every memory she had with the Party when they were younger kids.
"Okay, be honest. Uh... you guys understand any of this?" Steve says pacing back and forth across the three seated on the small couch.
"No." Lucas says not removing his eyes off the paper when.
"Pretty straightforward." Dustin comments.
"Oh, straightforward, really?" Steve scoffed, hands on his hip peering down at the curly haired boy. "Well, what's confusing to you?" Dustin asked him, actually curious. "So far, everyone Vecna has cursed has died, except for this old Victor Creel dude Nancy found. He's the only known survivor. If anyone knows how to beat this curse, it's him."
"That's assuming he was cursed, which we don't even know." Steve says, Julia looked past him over at Max, she's been dying to look inside her head but for some reason wasn't able to.
"How can Vecna have existed in the '50s? It doesn't make sense." Steve mumbles rubbing his forehead.
"Far as we know, Eleven didn't creat the upside down. She opened a gate to it." Julia turned her attention back to Dustin. "The upside down had probably been around for thousands of years. Millions. I wouldn't be surprised if it predates dinosaurs."
"Dinosaurs? What are we-" Steve waved his arms, feeling like their conversation went completely south.
"Okay, okay." Lucas interrupted. "But if a gate didn't exist in the '50s how did Vecna get through?"
"How's he getting through now?" Steve points back at him. "And why now?" Lucas adds.
"And why then? Just pops in the '50s, kills one family and he's like, I'm good and poof, he just disappears. Just... gone?" Steve exclaimed smacking the paper. "Only to return 30 years later and start killing random teens? No, I don't buy it."
"Straightforward, my ass." Steve muttered, looking up from the sheet. "Honestly, Henderson, a little humility now and then, it wouldn't hurt you."
"Sorry." Dustin mumbles tearing his gaze away from Steve over to Julia, as Steve sat on the chair across from them. "Holy shit, I just remembered." Dustin says interrupting the silence. "The Mind Flayer was afraid of Julia, so- maybe Vecna will also be afraid of her and it will be easier to kill."
Steve groans looking up from the paper. "Really, Dustin? What is up with you trying to sacrifice my girlfriend, huh?"
"No, he's right." Julia says standing up from her spot, taking the paper from Steve's hands. "When Will's body was taken over by the Mind Flayer it acted completely different around me, even when I touch Will, he shivered by my touch."
"Why didn't I know about this?" Steve asked, pinching his eyebrows together. "Never mind that, the Mind Flayer and Vecna aren't connected, they can't be."
"Yeah, how would you know," Dustin said with a shrug. "Vecna puts people in trance while the Mind Flayer possesses one's body, it doesn't seem to different to me."
"He's not wrong." Julia muttered, turning back to Max, staring directly at the back of her head. "What do you think she's writing?" The three boys followed her glaze seeing what she was talking about.
"Did she sleep?" Dustin questioned.
"I mean," Lucas took a pause. "Would you?" Just then the basement door open, the sound of heels clicking against the wooden stairs echoed through the room, Nancy and Robin came down.
"Okay, so..." Nancy panted out of breath. "We have a plan." Robin nods with a sigh.
-
"Thanks to Nancy's newspapers minions, we are now rock-star psychology students at the university of Norte Dame." Robin explained, Julia hummed quite impressed at the fake resumes.
"I am Ruth." Nancy said catching Julia's eye, the red head looked up at her, remembering when they picked each other's fake names just for fun especially when they would sneak away out of their homes to go to lovers lake, where most of the people would host parties.
"And I'm Rose." Robins smiles proudly.
"Ruth?" Julia raised a brow at the girl, Nancy shrugs grinning. "Nice GPA." Dustin pursed his lips.
"Thanks." Nancy smiles. "So we called Pennhurst Asylum, told them we'd like to speak with Victor Creel for a thesis we're co-writing on paranoid schizophrenics-"
"To which they said no." Robin finished.
"But we leaned a three o'clock with the director." Nancy said as Julia and Steve switched files.
"Now all we have to do is charm him and convince him to let us talk to Victor." Robin says, Steve frowned not seeing file for himself.
"Then maybe we can rid Max of this curse." Nancy whispered looking over at the girl.
"About that." Steve spoke lowly. "We've been doing our Victor Creek homework, and, uh... " Steve reached over taking the notepad from Lucas. "We got some questions."
"Lots of questions." Lucas emphasized.
"So do we." Nancy says. "Hopefully, Victor Creel has the answers."
"Wait... wait, wait a second, Uh..." Steve closed the file with a chuckle. "Where's mine."
-
"Nancy, you're outta your mind if you think I'm babysitting again."
Steve clearly didn't like the idea of being left out of the fun adulting stuff, Julia followed like a lost puppy behind Steve entering Nancy bedroom jumping down on her twin bed while stretching out her arms.
"Okay, first of all, they're not babies anymore, and Max is in real danger." Nancy declared as Steve let out a scoff. "She needs people around her."
"I know. But why me?" Steve points to himself.
"Oh my god, you have a Tom Cruise poster." Robin lips parted at the poster taped to the wall beside Nancy's bed. "You have a Tom Cruise poster." she smirked, Julia laughed leaning back on her elbows.
"That's... old." Nancy says searching through her closet, trying to find a dress suitable for Robin to wear, they were basically the same size.
Robin laughed kneeling down beside the small bedside table. "Can you please not touch anything?" Nancy says sternly.
"I can't do anything here, nance." Steve began. "Maybe I can be helpful with this asylum director dude. I don't know, I could turn on my... my charm." Steve snapped his fingers.
Nancy turned her head to him. "Not the charm we need." She shook her head grinning ear to war.
"Ouch." Steve muttered, her words hurting his ego just a bit, Julia rose from the bed looking over at the desk beside the bedroom door, Nancy had many random photos on the broad, some of her and Julia when they were children.
"No, I just..." Nancy sighs moving away from the closet. "I did a little digging last night, and it turns out this Dr. Hatch is a distinguished fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and a Harvard visiting scholar, okay?"
Julia exhaled listening to Nancy rant on about Dr. Hatch, she leaned back against the desk beside Steve, laying her head in his shoulder.
"This is a lifelong student of the world. If we're gonna win him over, we're gonna have to convince him we are too. That, like him... we are true academic scholars."
"Holy shit. There's a little ballerina in here." Robin whispered nibbling on her bottom lip with a smile, holding a small pink box with a spinning ballerina.
Steve hummed pointing at Robin. "Academic scholar? She's giving you an academic scholar vide?" Shaking his head. "Yeah."
"No, but- she will." Nancy smiled holding a pink dress on a hanger with big ruffles going down the chest area, holding the dress against her chest, along with some tan heels.
"Oh, please tell me that your joking." Robin plead, eyeing the color she chose.
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