♛
We had arrived at the foot of the Lab building, where not a single light was on... it was completely dark. It looked so abandoned. All the windows not allowing a single light through, which is so weird because the Lab is always lit up.
As I take a look around the place, I notice an old, almost broke down car pull up by a closed gate. I spot Jonathan and Nancy together in the car. What the hell are they doing here? The two jump out of their parked car and rush over to us, bombarding us with questions.
They stare at Steve and I with the kids, who also stare back at them. Nancy's eyes briefly look down at Steve and I's intertwined hands. I squint my eyes at her, she broke up with him. She doesn't deserve to look or judge.
"What're you doing here?" Steve asks the two.
"We're looking for Mike and Will." Nancy answers.
"They're not in there, are they?" Dustin asks, eyeing out the Lab, horror laced in his tone.
"We're not sure..." Nancy answers, weirded out from Dustin's tone.
"Why?" Jonathan demands as he stares down to Dustin.
A Demogorgon unexpectedly shrieks from inside the Lab, causing all 8 of us to freeze and stare at the place in fear.
"What happened to you?" Nancy's mouth dropped as she points to my arm to the blood stained around my wound, as well as my top.
"There's like, no time for us to go in depth. But, I got hurt." I respond to the girl. Nancy eyes me out and I roll my eyes at her. Jonathan notices my response and takes a weird stance, like leaning towards her but at the same time he doesn't want to look like he's trying so hard to touch her.
Weird...
Nancy clears her throat and Jonathan moves slightly back away from her. I squint my eyes at the two, immediately realising the two have definitely fucked.
Welp, she doesn't waste time. How has she even had the time? I've been trying to get with Steve this whole moment. Does she... have more game than me? Ew, no.
"Hey, isn't Andy with Mike and Will?" Jenny asks, mainly to me and I nod my head, remembering Andy wanted to hang out with Will, so my guess is that he did.
"Yeah, so does that mean he is also potentially in the lab?" I mumble to Jenny and she gives a small shrug, holding onto my spare hand and giving me a light squeeze. I squeeze her small hand back.
"The power's back." Nancy's annoying little voice announces away from the group, pointing out to the building. The windows displaying it's bright lights.
"The gate! We can get it to open!" Dustin nods his head to the empty security box that controls the gate closing off the Lab. We all rush over to the security box, with Jonathan being the first inside. He presses a button to get the gate open and we all look at it but the gate doesn't move from its shut position.
He continues to press the button but still nothing.
"Let me try." Dustin barges into the box, shoving Jonathan aside and he consistently clicks on the button.
"Okay, can't we just fucking ram it with this junk of a car?" I huff annoyed by just standing here and waiting.
"Uh, no." Jonathan says and I groan inwardly as I roll my eyes at him. Uh, how about I fucking ram him with his junk of a car.
"Ouch." Steve mutters from beside me. I look at him and he motions to our intertwined hands. I look down to notice my fingers pinching Steve's fingers. Oops.
"I'm sorry. I hate him." I whisper to Steve and take my hand away from his. I fold my arms, feeling the instant cool of our distant hands.
"I got it!" Dustin shouts. I look away from Steve, my eyes looking towards the once closed gate that now moves to open.
"Good job, Dust. The manliest man there is... after Steve, of course." I joke, mocking Dustin's happiness, ignoring Jonathan and Nancy's stares.
"Uh. Okay. Um, we'll go grab Will and Mike, and come back for you guys." Jonathan says. He and Nancy rush inside his car, speeding off towards the lab, the rest of us just waiting.
♛
After chatting with my sister, I give her a small smile before walking over to Steve who leans on the side of the open gate.
"So, how are you feeling?" I ask Steve, staring up at him as he looks down towards me.
"Good, why do you ask?" He questions, kicking his leg back to lean on the gate.
"I don't know, isn't it weird seeing Nancy and Jonathan together?"
"I always wondered if she'd leave me for Jonathan and maybe she did but for some reason... I don't care," he admits and I smile at him. "I feel fine."
"Good. You're maturing. Maturing is hot." I grab a piece of my hair and twirl it with my fingers.
"Everything is hot to you." He says as he takes my fingers away and replaces it with his own finger. I try keep my composure but I can feel the goosebumps forming on my own body. He can probably see them too.
"Well," I shrug, clearing my throat. "I'm a single hormonal teenage girl. I'm shooting my shot when I can."
Steve laughs and throws his arms around my shoulders, his hands also leaving my hair, "you can always shoot your shot with me." I feel myself growing hot by the action and his words, and I'm careful to not move from my spot to not ruin this.
"Y'know, it's fun hanging with you, when you're single." I tell Steve, and move my head so that my chin lies on his chest, my eyes looking up at him.
"I've always been fun!" He says, looking down at me.
"Not when you were with Nancy." I shrug and Steve shakes his head, a fake hurt look plastered on his face.
"That's not true."
"It literally is."
"Whatever."
The sound of a woman wailing causes Steve and I to split apart. We look at each other and the other kids, all of us confused. With moments later, two cars drive toward the gate both beeping at us. Jonathan's car zooms past us, the second car being the Chiefs truck stops.
"Get in!" He calls out from the open window. Steve opens the door, letting me in first. "You're gonna have to squish!" The kids pile in after, Jenny sits on my lap and Steve is the last to jump in.
"What the hell is going on?" Jenny cries out as she looks back towards the lab then the chief.
Chief doesn't say a word as he speeds away from the dangerous Lab.
"What happened in there?" I ask the Chief, popping my head out from behind Jenny. Chief shakes his head like he was in disbelief.
"We heard screaming or crying... maybe both." Max whispers.
"Bob Newby, he's dead..."
♛
When we had entered the Byers' residence, I was shocked to see the place in an absolute pigsty, there were a papers covered in horrible lined drawing quite literally all over the tiny home. It went from one end of the wall to another, to the floor to another.
A sedated Will lies on the couch, with his brother and Nancy standing by him, keeping him company. The rest of the kids sit at the dining table in the kitchen, with Steve and I leaning our backs on the kitchen counters. Joyce sits alone in her bedroom.
Jim Hopper checks out my arm and helps clean it, with Jenny watching on and begging to aid Hopper when she can. Blushing the entire time, might I add.
"Stop blushing!" I whisper and hit Jenny on her knee once Hopper was finished with cleaning my arm, he now stands by the phone as he attempts to call for backup, informing to the people on the other side of the phone, what had occurred in the Lab.
Several Demogorgons had escaped from the Upside Down, and wandered around the Lab, killing every single person they came into contact with, including Bob Newby, who was Joyce's new boyfriend. I've never met the dude, but from the stories Jenny and Andy told me, he seemed fun... a loser but he made them happy and laugh a lot.
"They didn't believe you, did they?" Dustin questions the Chief who aggressively ends the call, placing the phone back to its spot on the wall.
"We'll see." Chief says with a sigh, turning his front to us.
"We'll see? We can't just sit here while those things are loose!" Mike expresses his concerns.
"We stay here, and we wait for help." Chief walks off to the end of the hallway. I run my hands through my hair, looking away from the kids and look at Steve who stares outside the window by the kitchen.
"Did you guys know that Bob was the original founder of Hawkins AV? He petitioned the school to start it and everything. Then he had a fundraiser for equipment," I look over to Mike as he speaks, holding a finished rubiks cube. "Mr Clarke learned everything from him. Pretty awesome, right?"
"Yeah." The kids respond, as they nod in agreement.
"We can't let him die in vain." Mike exasperates.
"What do you want to do, Mike?" Dustin huffs. "The Chief's right on this. We can't stop those Demo-dogs on our own."
"What'd you say?" I interrupt. What the hell is a demo-dog?
"Demo-dogs?" Max questions.
"Demogorgon, dogs," Dustin clashes his hands together. "Demo-dogs. It's like a compound. It's like a play on words—"
"Okay." Max nods, stopping Dustin from continuing. Demodogs. It's fun, but the fuck? He's such a weird kid.
"I mean, when it was just Dart, maybe..."
"But there's an army now." Andy huffs, abruptly standing from his seat, the chair almost falling to the ground. I frown, furrowing my brows as I watch Andy walk away from the group and sitting down on the floor beside the unconscious Will.
I move to go to my brother, but Jenny places a hand on my wrist, shaking her head no. I sigh before remaining at my spot.
"His army." Mike blurts out.
"What do you mean?" Steve asks.
"His army," Mike repeats. "Maybe if we stop him, we can stop his army, too. Will... he drew something."
Mike runs off, and the kids stand to follow him, Steve and I right behind them. Mike shows a paper that Will drew of a large spider-like figure, it was tall and dark, extremely horror film stuff.
"The shadow monster." Dustin says as he looks at the paper.
"It got Will that day on the field. The doctor said it was like a virus, it infected him." Andy's voice calls from behind us, he stands by the door, resting on it.
"And so this virus, it's connecting him to the tunnels?" Max guesses and Mike nods.
"To the tunnels, monsters, the Upside Down, everything." Mike adds, his tone hightenned, and quick.
I scratch my head, confused.
"Woah. Okay, slow down. Slow down." Steve stops Mike from going overboard with this, and I'm glad he does because it was getting confusing.
"So, the shadow monster's inside everything. And if the vines feel something like pain, then so does Will." Mike informs.
"And so does Dart." Lucas adds.
"Yeah. Like what Mr Clarke taught us. The hive mind." Jenny nods.
"The hive mind?" Steve and I ask simultaneously.
"A collective consciousness. It's a super-organism." Dustin answers, looking between Steve and I.
"And this is the thing that controls everything. It's the brain." Mike points to the drawing.
"Like the Mind Flayer." Dustin gasps, like he just understood something but I have no idea what, I'm still confused.
"What?"
"The what?"
"Huh?"
Steve, Max and I all simultaneously say, now officially stumped as to what they area even saying. Dustin sighs before moving to look through Will's cupboard of games.
"Uh... maybe not the best time." I say to Dustin, who immediately just shushes me.
♛
We regroup in the kitchen, this time with the Chief, Nancy and Jonathan joining us. Dustin places a Dungeons and Dragons book guide on the dining table
"The mind flayer." He points flicking through the guide book opening to a specific page.
"What is that?" Chief Jim Hopper asks pointing to the book that shows the mind flayer.
"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 their brains using its highly-developed psionic powers." Dustin explains and I roll my eyes. There's no way they're talking about this like it's real.
"Oh, my God, none of this is real. This is a kids' game." Jim Hopper scoffs at Dustin and honestly I agree. It seems a bit ridiculous.
"No, it's a manual. And it's not for kids. And unless you know something that we don't, this is the best metaphor—" Dustin argues.
"Analogy." Lucas corrects.
"Analogy? That's what you're worried about?" Dustin shouts. "Fine. An analogy for understanding whatever the hell this is."
"Okay, so this mind flamer thing—" Hopper starts but Dustin cuts him off.
"Flayer." He corrects.
"What does it want?"
"To conquer us, basically. It believes it's the master race." Dustin informs.
"L...like the Germans?" Steve wanders and I nod, sounds about right. Dustin pauses and looks at Steve. Andy rolls his lips into his mouth and pats Steve's back.
"Uh, the Nazis?" Dustin corrects Steve, and Steve nods.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, the Nazis." Steve nods.
"If the Nazis were from another dimension, totally. Uh, it views other races, like us, as inferior to itself." Dustin continues.
"It wants to spread, take over other dimensions." Mike adds.
"We are talking about the destruction of our world as we know it." Lucas magnifies the intensity of The Mind Flayer's destruction.
"That's great," Steve repeats. "That's really great. Jesus!" Steve shakes his head, walking away from the table but remains close enough to listen into the conversation.
"Okay, so if this thing is like a brain that's controlling everything, then if we kill it..." Nancy starts throwing out a suggestion.
"We kill everything it controls." Mike finishes.
"We win." Jenny cheers.
"Theoretically." Lucas and Andy say simultaneously. The two immediately reach over the table to high-five.
"Great. So how do you kill this thing? Shoot it with fireballs or something?" Jim Hopper grabs the Dungeons and Dragons manual off the table, flicking through the book.
"No. No, Fire... no fireballs," Dustin laughs for half a second, then stops when he sees Hopper's serious face. "Uh, you summon an undead army, uh, because... because zombies, you know, they don't have brains, and the mind flayer, it... it... it likes brains."
I scoff, "this is ridiculous." Unless there's something we should know about that the Lab is hiding from us, because honestly I wouldn't be surprised.
"What the hell are we doing here?" Hopper huffs, throwing the manual on the table, making a loud bang when it makes contact.
"I thought we were waiting for your military backup!" Dustin groans at Jim, who walks away from the table.
"We are!" Hopper shouts, growing annoyed.
"If they come, how are they gonna stop this?" Mike questions in a teasing manner. "You can't just shoot this with guns."
"Didn't you hear what Dustin said, we'll summon an undead army!" I snap, causing Dustin to give me an annoyed stare.
"We don't know anything! We don't know if shooting them with guns won't stop this." Hopper retorts to Mike.
"We know it's already killed everybody in that lab." Mike counters and Hopper shakes his head.
"We know the monsters are gonna molt again." Lucas adds.
"We know that it's only a matter of time before those tunnels reach this town."
"And everyone dies." Jenny mumbles. Andy groans and hits Jenny's head with his hand.
"Idiot." He mutters.
"They're right," Joyce's voice calls out from the hallway. We all turn and peek our heads out from the kitchen to find Joyce standing there. Her voice hoarse from the constant crying. "We have to kill it. I want to kill it."
Hopper turns to face the shorter woman and he takes a couple steps to her, "me too, Joyce. But how do we do that? We don't exactly know what we're dealing with here."
"No, but he does," Mike starts and all of our attention swaps over from Hopper to Mike, who walks over to Will's still sedated body on the couch. "If anyone knows how to destroy this thing, it's Will. He's connected to it. He'll know it's weakness."
"I thought we couldn't trust him anymore," Max shares, her tone confused. "That he's a spy for the mind flayer now."
"Yeah, but he can't spy if he doesn't know where he is." Mike suggest.
"So, we just need a place he doesn't know about?" Jenny questions and Mike nods.
"It's literally his house, he knows every wall and probably every crevice," I shiver as I look around the decaying walls that were covered with paper sheets. "Wait... unless it's covered?"
"Wait, you're onto something." Dustin says as he looks around the house. Every wall was covered, taking them down would just take too long, and putting things ontop probably won't stick...
"What about the shed?" Instantly, all heads turn to me. Hopper rushes outside with Mike and Dustin.
Mike, Dustin and Hopper enter the house, "it's perfect."
♛
AN,
I love Steve and Danielle and their little touches, their moments together are so cute, hopefully it is to you too and hopefully it was an enjoyable read!
5 CHAPTERS LEFT FOR SEASON 2/PART 2!!! AH!
Anyways, see you soon, next chapter will be out sooner :) THANKS FOR READING!
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