Chapter Text
It'd taken a good few minutes to calm you down entirely, your breathing wasn't unsteady, harsh or loud.
It was the opposite actually, steady, calm and quiet.
Eddie had stayed close to you the entire time, Nancy and Steve moved away only slightly to take care of his still bleeding and still open wounds, while Robin had just been pacing back and forth, her gaze flicking between you, a poor soul who'd just escaped near death by Vecna, and Steve, who'd almost been gnawed to death by some leathery bats.
"Okay, so, they good news is I'm pretty sure wooziness is not a common symptom of rabies. But, um, if you start having hallucinations or muscle spasms or you start feeling aggressive, like you wanna punch me or something, then you should totally let me know." Robin spoke up over the heavy breathing of everyone, turning her head to Steve and imminently walking over.
She went back into her nervous state of ranting, Steve did agree that he wanted to punch her and she gave out a nervous chuckle to his words.
You pulled back from Eddie, giving him a nod to say you were okay enough now to wonder over to the other three so he could look around a bit. He was unsure at first but let you go off when you'd shown you could stand on your own and not fall over right away.
So you ventured over to Robin, Steve and Nancy, just as Robin wondered off. You watched as Nancy ripped a part of her baggy and loose pants and used it as a make shift bandage around Steve's torso.
You were quick to turn away, almost throwing up at the sight of the blood rush to the surface of the fabric, so you moved back over to Eddie as he stared off into the distance of the woods before climbing up on top of a hill just a few feet away from you, carefully moving over the vines and making sure not to touch them as you watched him from exactly where he was standing before.
The dark thunder rumbled and growled over head, making you flinch a little and stuff your hands into the pockets of the leather jacket you'd managed to still be wearing, almost matching with Eddie as he still had his on under the patch-covered denim jacket.
"So, Uh." Eddie steered off a little, looking out across the forest as the lightning in the distance cracked a few time. "This place is like Hawkins, but with monsters and nasty shit?" He turned slowly, looking back towards the rest of you.
"Pretty much." Nancy shrugged, panting as she helped Steve stay standing on his own feet.
"It was more sticky last time we came here." You added, you hadn't gone in with anyone else besides Nancy, and even if she went in again, you refused to after that, until now.
"Wait, watch out for the vines, its all a hive mind." Nancy said, looking up to see Eddie was trying to make his way down the hill he put himself on.
"It's all a what?"
"All the creepy crawlies around here dude, they're, like, one or something." Steve pipped up, still panting against the fabric around his abdomen. "You step on a vine, you're stepping on a bat, you're stepping on Vecna."
Eddie nodded, suddenly seeming a lot more cautious as he made his way down. "Shit."
"But everything from out world is still here, right? Expect people? Obviously?" Robin asked, looking to Nancy and Steve since they had all the answers right now.
"As far as I understand it, yeah." Nancy nodded.
"So, theoretically, we could go to the police station and steal guns and grenades and whatever we need to blow up those bat things that are guarding the gate."
"Yeah, I highly doubt the Hawkins PD has grenades, Robin, but, I mean, guns? Yeah, sure." Steve said.
"But, we don't have to go all the way downtown for guns." Nancy said, your head turning to her as Eddie joined you back on the safety of the clear, vine-less ground.
You gave him a soft nudge to his side when he came up next to you, immediately he gave you a warm smile and slipped his hand into one of your own between the two of you.
"I have guns. In my bedroom."
"You, Nancy Wheeler, have guns, plural, in your bedroom?" Eddie questioned, seeming a bit more concerned that Mrs. Goody-Two-Shoes even knew what a gun was.
"Full of surprises, isn't she?" Robin moved side to side on the spot she was standing, your eyes dragging towards her. "A Russian Makarov and a revolver." She explained, apparently knowing exactly what time of guns Nancy had.
"Yeah, you almost shot me with that one." Steve said, moving to Nancy's side as she spun her head around towards him.
"You almost deserved it." They gave each other a weird, almost-but-not-quite-awkward smile, beside you, Eddie slipped his hand away from yours as he pulled off his sleeveless denim jacket and threw it at Steve's face, causing him to flinch backwards before catching it.
"For your modesty, dude." He said, then slipped his hand back into yours again. You smiled, taking in both your leather jackets, they look a lot shinier then usual thanks to the water that still weighed on them.
Suddenly, the ground and everything around you started to shake, causing you, and everyone else, to fall backwards. Eddie had pulled you close out of instinct and let you fall back onto him just like you had when you'd run from Vecna, Nancy fell back onto Steve and Robin just fell, all on her own like she was a fifth wheel on this double date.
Then, after a second when the ground below stopped, you could hear the roars, cries and howls of distant creatures.
Eddie was the first to speak of course, his arms wrapped around you tightly as one of his hands still held yours. "Yeah, so, guns seem like a pretty good idea to me."
All you could do was nod, Robin giving her agrees with a "yeah, me too." before she picked herself up from the ground, leaving you and Eddie as the only ones not on their feet.
"So what are we waiting for?" Steve said, only now just pulling on Eddie's jacket over his bare back and chest. It didn't cover his arms or zip up at all so his chest was still visible, but at least he wasn't a walking, wounded pound of flesh for any creature to welcome themselves to.
So He flicked on the flashlight he still had and started walking, Nancy and Robin following as you and Eddie watched for a split second.
You were still panting from the shaking not even a minute ago, and the memories of Vecna not even an hour ago. Eddie on the other hand seemed fine, untangling himself from you before hopping to his feet, passing out his hand to you as you willing took it, hurling yourself up and not letting him pull away as you kept a firm grip on it.
He only smiled sheepishly and intertwined your fingers together, letting the connection keep you together as your breathing settled before the two of you followed behind the other three.
~~~~~
It had been god knows how long with the five of you venturing through the dead, deserted and foggy surroundings of what The Upside Down saw as the Hawkins woods.
You'd tailed along behind Nancy with Robin, being the two oddest members of this group at the moment.
Eddie and Steve trailed behind you two while Nancy seemed to getting used to the weird direction system of this dimension, like she'd crossed down a street while being lost, but finally knew where she actually was after awhile of driving.
"Couldn't we have tried a road, or something slightly less creepy?" Robin questioned, causing Nancy to glance back at the two of you with a weird look.
"I think we're getting close. We're almost out of here. Don't worry." Nancy reassured, making sure to give the already nervous Robin a smile like she was positive of getting out, but none of you actually knew another way to get out other then the guarded gate in Lover's Lake.
You could hear Steve call for Eddie behind you, and Robin turned to you, giving you a look like she'd seen something and must think you knew exactly what she was on about.
"What?" You looked at her, she was quick to shrug and turn her gaze away though.
"Nothing, just, surprised, I guess."
"About what exactly?" your eyes kept flickering from the ground up to Nancy, to make sure she was still ahead of you, and then to make sure you wouldn't step on any of the vines her and Steve had warned Eddie about at Skull rock.
"The song, earlier. You like Fleetwood Mac?" she leaned forward slightly, trying to catch anything on your face that said otherwise, like you'd grimace at the band's name.
"Top five, I'd say? In the band-slash-singer category."
"And what's the other four?"
"I'd have to say: Metallica, Billy Joel, AC/DC, and probably Cyndi Lauper." You admitted, a chase smile crossing over your face as Robin nodded along.
"You have a wide range of taste."
"That's why I wasn't sure I could be saved, my likes and dislikes are always changing." You glanced back up to Nancy, she was still a few feet ahead of you, turning her head to look at the four losers trudging along behind her.
"Honestly, I didn't think we would of without Eddie or Steve. They had about a ten second argument on whether to play The Chain or Dreams."
"Dreams is still pretty nice, I think it would of saved me either way. I'm a big fan of Fleetwood." You shrugged, unsure if you'd answered that right or not, but right now, you hummed out the lyrics of The Chain as it played over in your head.
Max had played Running Up That Hill for a solid twenty-four hours after she was hunted by Vecna, you wouldn't know if it would be the same as actual music through a Walkman, but you still played the song over in your head.
The two of you were silent for a minute before Robin turned to you again, spitting out the next first thing to come to mind.
"Do you and Eddie have the same pact that you and Steve have? You know, the whole go-straight-after-them-if-they-go-somewhere thing?"
"Why do you ask?" You looked to her, shoving your hands in the pockets of your leather jacket.
"Well, just because Eddie was as quick to jump into the lake when you did, but I felt like he was going after you more then you were going after Steve." Her words were a bit raw, but you took it in anyway, imagining Eddie right after you'd jumped into Lover's Lake, getting to his feet and sprinting after you like you'd stolen his bag at school.
"Really?" was the only thing you could muster up, nothing else really making itself known in your head.
"Yeah. I mean, if you hadn't jumped in, then I don't think he would of. But, he was quicker to dive in after you then I was." Robin explained, eyes gazing over you again to look for anything. She did find something this time though, a hint of blush covering your cold and pale cheeks. "I thought it was super sweet." She added, seeing you look at her again out the corner of her eye.
"He is when he wants to be." You chuckled, stepping over a stray vines as it pulsed and throbbed on the ground below.
It was silent for another moment, you could hear Robin shuffling around beside you like the bag of nerves she was.
And then, suddenly, she clasped her hands together, sending a rough clap through the air before she looked at you. "I'm going to catch up to Nancy." She announced, like there was nothing better to say, even though there technically wasn't anything better to say.
You nodded to her and watched as he sped up and wondered over to Nancy, leaving you alone in between the two pairs.
Eddie and Steve were still rambling on behind you, yet they had drifted back a bit so you couldn't hear them well, just distant conversation let you know they were even still there and talking to each other.
Then, just as it happened earlier, the ground rumbled and shook below you, causing you to loose your balance as you stumbled back and hit your ass on the ground with a grunt.
"Here we go again-" You heard Eddie growl through his teeth.
You heard Robin ahead of you start to ramble again, saying how earthquakes had just made it to her list of fears.
"Nancy!" Your head shot up to hear Robin cry her name, just barely able to see her run off. "Where are you going? Nancy!"
You sprung to your feet, you could handle a bit more running, so when you saw Robin just stand there, unable to run after her with the still shaking group, you decided to instead, sprinting past her and being able to just barely catch up to her while still making sure to hop over any vines.
"Why do they always go running off like that?!" You heard Eddie shout from where'd he'd fallen behind you.
She'd stopped at a clearing just ahead of you by the time the ground settled and you grabbed her shoulder, not allowing yourself to go toppling over again.
She flinched when you did, not realizing you'd even run after her.
A moment after, everyone came running up beside you as you panted, looking out to the red lightning and heavy thunder across the gloomy and forever dark sky.
Eddie was quick to make his way straight to your free side that wasn't occupied by Nancy, taking your arm in his hand as you looked back to him for a split second before looking at the clearing again.
"Come on." Nancy said, determination in her voice as she trudged forward, You following as closely as possible but before Eddie slipped his hand into yours unknowingly, like instinct, or like he didn't want you to run off into danger with Nancy again, like you'd done way too many times already.
In the distance you could see the Upside Down's version of the Wheeler's house, all covered in vines, dark and gloomy like the air around it as well as surprisingly still standing on it's feet. You half-expected it to be in crumbles of dust on the ground.
As you'd made your way over to the house, Nancy walked right in, like it wouldn't have monsters lounging around in it, which, to your surprise again, it didn't.
The rest of you trailed behind her, you between Nancy and Steve- which was surprising, because you had to bribe Eddie into legging go of your hand when you all needed to jump over a massive vine -followed by Robin and Eddie at the back.
Everything was covered in smaller, thinner versions of the vines outside, like it was almost supposed to look this way.
"Might be time to get a maid, Wheeler." Robin said from behind you as Nancy took in her home.
"Come on. I don't want to stay here longer than we need to," Nancy said then, turning on her heels and going upstairs.
Robin and Eddie followed her almost immediately, you and Steve trailing behind before you stopped dead in your tracks at the end of the stairs, Steve ahead of you, almost stopping in his own track.
Both of you turned your head to the living room, hearing a vague, but familiar voice coming from what you could presume was the open dining room.
Steve looked to you, and you looked back to him, having one of your moments where you talked to each other without actually saying anything.
"Did you hear that?" Steve gestured to the long wooden table, his eyes squinting to you.
"Yeah- You?" You nodded, tilting your head to him after a second of looking at the table.
"Obviously." He rolled his eyes, shaking his head.
"It sounds like Dustin." You shrugged, pretending to pull on a cap, one that Dustin always wore.
"But he's back on real earth, isn't he?" Steve tilted his head, pointing up, and then realizing he should probably be pointing down if he was gesturing to the world you came from.
"Yeah, he is." You nodded, slowly turning your head back to the table before walking over to it, Steve being quick to follow behind you.
As you both stood around a little longer, you could definitely tell if was Dustin Henderson himself.
"DUSTIN!" Steve cried, spinning around while shouting out Dustin's name a few more times.
"Steve- Chill out, man." You said, wondering around the opposite side of the table Steve was at and looking at all the vined covering the walls.
"Dustin!? Dustin! Can you hear me?!" Steve cried again, flashlight punching you in the eyes every time he spung around to have it in your direction.
You sighed, turning your back towards him as Steve went silent again, listening to Dustin, who did speak not a moment after Steve stopped, but it was faded, distant and almost silent.
If the guys upstairs had been any louder, you wouldn't of heard it.
"This is trash, he can't hear you-" You walked over to Steve, his light flicking into your hands just before you put up a hand to cover it so it didn't blind you.
"Yes. Yes, yes, he'll be able to hear me, I just need to be louder." He pointed at one of his ears with his free hand, you gave him a raised eyebrow and just stood there, watching him spin around on the spot while crying out the something-teen year old's name into the walls and ceiling.
"Dustin?! Dustin!" Steve yelled, voice somehow louder then before.
You heard the stomp of shoes against carpeted stairs behind you as Steve continued to spin around.
"Dustin?! Can you hear me? Dustin!"
You crossed your arms and turned your head to the other three as they joined you, Eddie giving you a strange look.
"What's wrong with your wacky brother?" He asked, eyeing you up and down like you'd suddenly start doing the same thing.
"I have absolutely no clue." You smiled, looking back to Steve as he gave the four of you a look that you'd usually see from a deer in headlights on a dark road.
"Maybe he really does have rabies." Robin leaned into you, having her line sound a bit more of a question then she probably wanted it to.
"Steve, What are you doing?" Nancy asked, tilting her head to the side as she took a single step forward.
Steve spun around on his heels towards the four of you, shining the light right in your eyes. Robin flinched slightly, Nancy just shut her eyes, Eddie lifted a hand up to cover the light while squinting, and you just grabbed the light from his hand, shining it back in his face.
"He's here. Henderson. That little shit, he's here. He's like.." Steve trailed off, looking around him as he snatched the light back from you. "He's, like, in the walls or something."
Eddie, Nancy and Robin all turned to you, asking a silent question of if he was telling the truth.
"Hey, listen, I heard that ass-face's voice too." You shrugged, being rewarded with a laugh from Eddie about how you called Dustin an Ass-Face.
"Just listen." Steve said, gesturing with his hand to his ear again like he'd done before by pointing at the roof. "Dustin."
You all stayed silent for a second, the faint and distant sound of Dustin's voice echoing through the roof oh-so quietly.
"Dustin!" Steve jumped, spinning around again. "Dustin! Dustin?! Can you hear me?"
You all listened again, hearing it come through a little clearer as it sounded like he said something along the lines of That brings us to the question you first raised.
You quickly spread out, the other three being aquatinted as you were trying to get Dustin to hear you, wherever he was.
You had made yourself comfortable by setting yourself on the table, legs dangling over the edge as they just barely grazed the floor below.
You watched as Eddie pulled back a curtain, half-expecting Dustin to just be standing behind it. "Dustin?" He called, turning on his feet to catch your gaze from the table.
"Oh, wow, Dustin really isn't there Ed?" You chirped, eyeing him as you pulled your legs onto the table and sat crisscrossed.
"Worth a shot." He shrugged his shoulder, stuffing his hands into his leather jacket like you'd done with yours before moving over to stand beside you as you sat on the table comfortably.
"All right, either this kid can't hear us or he's being a total douchebag." Steve admitted, letting out a sigh into the burnt air inside the house.
"I'd lean towards Douchebag." You answered as you jumped up from the table to stand on your own two feet beside Eddie, obviously being sarcastic, but it still rewarded you with a glare from Steve, Nancy and Robin, Eddie just laughed and slung one of his arms over your shoulder and pulled you in close.
"Will found a way." Nancy said, looking at something in the corner like it was a shiny piece of metal and she was a bird, ready to make he nest.
"What?" Steve snapped his head towards her, still holding his flashlight out.
"Will." She turned her head to him, just to receive more confusion, so she continued explaining it. "He found a way to speak to Joyce through the lights." She stormed off, over to a lamp and pulling on the switch, only for it to do nothing at all.
"Lights?" Steve repeated, looking to you, Robin and Eddie, like you'd explain it more to him.
"You know? When everyone thought Joyce went crazy with the Christmas lights she hung on her living room wall?" You said it like it was the most obvious thing, but Eddie and Robin gave you a confused look just as Steve was doing.
You grumbled, patting Eddie's hand with your own just before walking over to Nancy as she continued to try the lamp. "The switch, try the switch." You said, walking up beside her as she quickly flicked the switch on the wall.
"It's not working." She huffed, Steve had walked over with you, turning his flashlight to the lights hanging from the ceiling above the smaller, round table.
"Guys?" He breathed, eyeing the light still. "You seeing this?"
Everyone turned then, looking to where he was shining his flashlight.
From the fake candles hanging down, a warm and sparkly glow seemed to admit from it, not exactly being the light Nancy was trying to switch on and off to no avail.
Nancy and Steve moved closer, followed by you in the middle as Eddie and Robin joined on your right side.
Nancy lifted her hand up, hesitantly touching the glowing sparks as they seemed to shine brighter at the tips of her fingers where she moved them around gently.
"Whoa." Eddie said, you felt one of his hands slink around your waist as you joined your own hand with Nancy's at the glow of the light.
Smiling at the warm touch you felt at your fingertips, it was like taking a gulp of cold water in the middle of the night, or holding your hands out and over a crackling firepit.
After a second, the others joined you, Eddie's hand brushing against yours as you glanced over to him beside you. He returned your gaze with a warm smile that instantly made your cheeks flush, luckily you were using your right hand to fiddle with the dust in the air, so your arm covered them as they shined bright red.
"It....tickles." Steve said, eyes squinting to the feel of it.
"It kind of feels good." Robin added.
"Like the warmth of a fire." You added back, hand brushing against Eddie's again as you felt the cool steel of a ring he had on his finger against yours.
Nancy pulled her hand back, obviously thinking of something as you did what she did, pulling your hand back and accidently grazing the side of your hand over Eddie's bracelet that dawned his right hand.
"Does anyone know Morse code?" Nancy turned to you, receiving a shake of your head, which she also got from Robin and Steve as she turned to them.
"Wait, does SOS count?" Eddie questioned, looking to Nancy on the other side of you by pressing his chest against your shoulder.
You and Nancy both turned to him at the same time, Nancy giving him a dead look and you tilting your head and the roll of your eyes.
"Is that...." He looked to Robin, who gave him the same look you did, and then turned back to glance at you and Nancy. "Is that good?"
"No, it's not." You said, Eddie turning his head with an oh, which you quickly turned and punched him in the shoulder. "Obviously!"
Eddie flinched slightly, but just gave you a grin when he realized you were joking, then he put his hand back up into the gold mist, touching and almost poking at it as he used the signal for SOS.
After a minute or two of Eddie tapping away at the lights, you'd already become board, subjecting yourself to cross your arms over your chest and just lean against Eddie. Your head against his shoulder as you thought for a little bit.
Robin spoke with an "It's working." as she watched Eddie tap in the signal, pulling you out of your thoughts.
You don't know how it happened, but you'd all made your way up to Nancy's room, each one of you crouching down by the side, waiting for something, anything, to happen.
After a minute you could hear Dustin's distant voice echo around with a "Are you seeing this?"
Nancy instinctively put her hand out just above the bed, the glowing warm light appearing around her hand as she moved it.
You could hear Dustin and Erica's voices break out into laughs and cheers as Nancy continued to move her hand around in the light.
"We're not moving it, but we're gonna unplug it. Stand by." Dustin called out.
The light faded, indicated that they'd pulled the plug, but you could still see the hint of gold mist flow around.
"Okay, try it now." Dustin called yet again.
You, without thinking, placed your hand on Nancy's shoulder and shook it. "Come on, Nance."
"Okay, okay, uh-" She hesitated before poking her finger into the faded light, the mist instantly lighting up around her as she wrote two letters.
H I
"That worked!"
The five of you broke out into cheers, Steve shaking Nancy's shoulder before shaking yours, which you returned him with a wide smile.
"Hi!" Eddie repeated, hair bouncing against his shoulders as he quickly moved his face closer to the light before pulling back.
"Okay, Um-" Nancy hesitated yet again, trying to think of something to write, then she moved her finger through the mist, writing the stuck, which you all obviously were.
"Yes." "We are." Steve and Robin spoke, Eddie just nodded his head up and downed several times while humming.
"Uh, you can't get back through Watergate?" Dustin questioned, his voice a little clearer as he spoke.
"What hell's Watergate?" Steve shook his head.
"Cause it's in water and it's a gate." You and Robin spoke at the same time, heads snapping towards each other with wide grins before you both high-fived, clearing thinking you were both the superior two.
"Oh." Steve dipped his head.
"That's cute." Eddie agreed, head nodding again.
"Right?" You looked to him, warm smile still plastered across your face.
"Um, no." Nancy started, thinking of a way to explain it to the kids. "It's..." She shook her hand before beginning to write just like she did before, only this time she wrote guarded.
"Watergate's guarded." Dustin repeated, you could almost hear him try to think over what to do.
"Perfect. Yes. Yes. Yes." Steve nodded his head up and down slowly, Eddie began to clap, even if the kids couldn't hear him.
"By some spider-bat assholes." You grumbled, the pain in your knees from being crouched down so long started to take toll and you rushed to grab both Nancy and Eddie's shoulders to keep you up.
Nancy jumped to the touch and Eddie just quickly pulled you forward again so you didn't land on your back and end up hitting your head.
"You should really just sit down-" He advised, shrugging his shoulders just as you moved to do so, crossing your legs over each other.
"Yeah, no shit-" You snapped playfully, giving him an ear to ear grin which he happily returned.
"We think we have a theory that can help with that."
"Genius child." You heard robin speak, and it made you chuckle.
"We think Watergate isn't the only gate. That there's a gate at every murder site."
Unlike thee other times Dustin spoke, his words were more distant and split up, makin it difficult for you to figure out what he was saying.
"Does anybody understand what he's talking about?" Nancy questioned, turning her eyes over everything to try and find an answer, but you all just shook your heads and said your no's.
She huffed and wrote a single ? into the mist, hoping to get something more out of them.
"Seriously? How many times do I have to be right on the money before you guys just trust me?" Dustin whined, you could hear his voice crack more than voice and it made you laugh.
"Jesus Christ. This kid's gotta get his ego in check." Steve shook his head, looking like the disappointed mother he was.
"It's his tone. Right?" Eddie leaned forward to look past you and Nancy, his eyes squinting when he spoke.
"He's always on the verge of a tantrum." You added, looking to you brother and then to Eddie.
"I know, right?" Steve nodded to your words, agreeing with you instantly.
"Okay." Nancy cut in, snapping her head towards Eddie. "So how far is your trailer?"
"Uh, Seven Miles." You both replied for the last part, Eddie sounded unsure but you sounded positive, which made Steve snap his head towards you.
"Do you always know how far Eddie's trailer is? No matter where you are?" He questioned, mouth agape as he looked at you.
"What can I say? I dropped the kids off here after one of their DnD game's - which you were supposed to do - and then I went to Eddie's." You shrugged, acting like it was no big deal, but you could see the cogs in Steve's head turn and groan.
"Nancy?" Robin cut in, making you all turn to her. "Uh, I know your house here is, like, weirdly, creepily frozen in time and shit, but, haven't you always had bikes?"
You and Eddie both slowly turned your head to Nancy, you could also see the cogs turning in her head.
"Yes! We can take those to Eddie's." She quickly jumped to her feet and sprinted out the door, the other three doing the same and following behind her just as you got up with a groan.
"When will I be able to sit down for five minutes?" You growled, dusting off your jeans before turning your gaze to see Eddie jog back into the door way and offer you his hand.
"No need to get left behind right now, Sweetheart." He grinned, you could hear the sarcasm in his voice but you just laughed with the roll of his eyes before taking his hand and letting him lead you downstairs and to the Wheelers' garage.
You'd both just caught up to Nancy, Steve and Robin as they grabbed for a bike each, Eddie letting his hand slip from yours to take another. But when you looked around, there wasn't another bike, and you snapped your head towards Nancy.
"Nance, There are five people in your house. Why isn't there five bikes?" You growled, feeling the scowl grow on your features as Nancy's head looked back to you and then scanned the garage.
"Oh, Shit." Her eyes fell on you again, they were full of sorry's and fear of how you might bite her head off.
"Well," Robin turned her eyes to you, scanning your face before looking to Steve and Nancy beside her. "It wouldn't be so bad if they stayed here...right?"
Everyone's heads snapped towards her, making her flinch and put up her hands in surrender.
"We're not leaving them here." Eddie piped up, letting himself drop the bike he had and step over to you, arms crossed against his chest. "It's either all of us or none of us."
The three of them turned to each other right in front of you, thinking between themselves for a moment.
"They are our guide." Nancy shrugged, looking to you just before Steve turned his eyes back to you as well.
"Do you remember the time I taught you to skateboard?" He asked, you could see his hands grip the handlebars of the bike he had.
"Even when you didn't know how to ride one yourself? Absolutely." You nodded, thinking back to when you were younger, just watching Steve fail at the skill and fall off every single time.
He nodded, then gestured his head towards Nancy, who pulled out a Skateboard from behind a vine covered table and held it out.
You look at it for a minute, it was basic, dark grip across the top and a fake wood print against the bottom. You shrugged, taking the board and pushing past the three of them to the empty driveway, where you threw down the board before you and hopped on, imminently pushing yourself onto the road to give yourself a boost into the middle of the rounded, dead end road.
You turned back to the others, each of them watching you with intent curiosity just to how you did that. "Well? Are you losers coming or not?" You called back, pushing yourself further down the road as you saw them scramble onto their bikes and follow you.
You were only about three or four miles from the trailer park now, and you were still way ahead of the others. They kept calling for you to slow down, but you just shook your head, laughed and called them slowpokes each time.
You heard the intense peddling of something coming up behind you, so you turned your head to spot none other then Eddie trying his best to keep up with the exhausted state he was in.
"How..." He panted, his voice weak and hoarse when he spoke. "much longer?"
"Just a little longer, Honey. Then we'll be out of this shithole." You gave him a warm smile and pushed your board faster, kicking up gravel under your shoe.
"Okay..." He nodded, letting himself fall back with the other three.
You pushed yourself again, letting your hair fly back as your arms stuck to your sides. The screeching and crying of hundreds of bats in the distance is what made your head snap around.
You looked back to the others as you caught side of a hoard of them, all gathered around and crying to to each other. The others saw it too, all their heads turned to the side to see what was the Upside Down's version of Victor Creel's house.
You grunted, turning your head back to the road and pushing yourself more, you just really wanted to get out of this hell of a world.
Passing the vine covered trailer park sign made you let out a relieved breath, one you didn't know you were holding as you leaned back, letting the board turned to the left down a road.
Still being ahead of everyone since they were so tired, you could see Eddie's trailer up ahead, which made you feel warm, even if it was grosser in this world then the other.
"It's that one there!" You heard Eddie call out, probably to the other three since you'd been there numerous times.
You didn't care to stop your board upon coming up to it, you just jumped off and let it roll into the side of the trailer with a thud.
You heard the others bikes squeak and tumble to the ground as they climbed off, each one of them panting heavily.
"That's gotta be a Guinness World Record. Most miles traveled interdimensionally." Robin huffed out, you on the other hand didn't say a word, and just sprinting to the front door and slammed it open as soon as you jumped up the metal stairs.
"Just inhaled a bunch of that crap." Steve coughed, "It's stuck in my throat."
You'd already made it inside and fallen onto the surprisingly vine-less couch by the time the other four wondered in. Your breath was heavy and you couldn't care less for what you looked, neither did you care for the gaping hole on the roof, covered and made out of vines just like the one in Lover's Lake.
"This is where Chrissy died." Eddie spoke, voice turning more and more shaky each word he said. "Like, right where she died." You huffed, pulling yourself to sit up on the couch across from where the others stood.
"I think there's something in there." Robin said, making your eyes flick up to the roof where the thing was.
Suddenly, you watched as the fleshy material seemed to stretch and poke.
"Gross." You said, standing to your feet to take a little bit of a closer look.
"What the hell is that?" Steve questioned, his head tilting to the side as the flesh continued to stretch.
Within a blink the stretching seemed to stop, but then it all broke, causing pieces of it to fall to the ground with some kind of liquid splattering to the ground.
Each one of you yelped and hopped back, the four jumping back against each other while you fell back against the couch again, unfortunately having a little bit of the liquid fall onto your jeans.
You picked yourself up slowly just as Steve moved closer to it, each of your heads leaning forward as your eyes stuck to the now open hole in Eddie's ceiling.
"No way." Steve breathed, the two of you now standing across from each other as you looked up, or down, into the real version of Eddie's trailer.
There you saw Dustin laughing, his head raising and waving to you both as he yelled out "Harrington's!"
He was accompanied by Lucas, Erica and Max, all smiling and waving to you. The rest of you all just said your Hi's and laughed, not actually believing any of this was real.
"Holy shit this is trippy." Robin said, exactly what you were all probably thinking.
"Weird, trippy. But, kind of fun?" You questioned, crossing your arms as Eddie stepped over the mess of fleshy material to stand beside you.
"BADA-BADA-BOOM!" Dustin cried, that signature smile sticking to his face as you all just laughed.
"Okay, so there's a gate here." You started, turning your eyes from the four kids above you and looking to Steve and Nancy across from you. "How do we get through it?"
They all seemed to have the same realization that you wouldn't be able to just jump up into the gate and then be out of here.
"Uh, Dustin? Is there anything you think you can do to help us out of here? We can't really just jump that." Nancy spoke, looking back up to the kids across the gate.
"Uh- Right-" Dustin looked around himself, thinking of something to help.
"We could get a rope and Eddie's mattress? That'll do something, right?" Max questioned, shrugging her shoulders.
"How's the rope gonna stick?" Erica snapped, her usual bossy tone taking place.
"They still have normal gravity." Dustin added, head turning back up to the gate to look down on the rest of you. "Eddie? Do you happen to have any rope?"
Eddie thought about it, but shook his head with a frown. "No-"
"How about sheets? Can they use those?" Robin asked.
"Sheets! Brilliant Robin!" Dustin shouted, then he turned to the three around him and ordered them off.
After a few minutes of just standing around and chatting about how badly you all wanted to have a shower, you all heard a thud from above you and looked to the gate.
Max and Lucas had thrown down Eddie's mattress from his room, you'd all use that as kind of a padded landing point, but what stuck out most to you was just how many different stains there were.
"Those stains are, uh..." Eddie said, Robin eyeing him from the other side of you as you stood between them.
"I don't remember it having that many stains..." You said, keeping your eyes glued to it above you, thinking about all the times you'd slept, eaten, sat and made out on that mattress.
"I dunno what those stains are." Eddie shrugged, and you swore you could feel Steve's eyes on you after a minute, as well as Robin and Nancy's.
Dustin came into view from the portal, thankfully, holding a long, makeshift rope of stained white sheets he must of pulled from both Eddie and Wayne's bedrooms.
"Not quite sure how these physics are gonna work, but uh..." Dustin shook his head, "Here goes nothin'" He threw up the sheets into the portal, which they then fell down and hit the ground on your side.
surprisingly, they stuck in place, the weird gravity between the two worlds must of been both pulling and pushing the sheets. Even when Dustin let go of them, they stuck.
"Abracadabra." He laughed, turning his head up to the five of you. "All right, pull on it! See if it holds!"
You all looked down at each other, deciding who should do it. Robin seemed to want to the most, so you allowed her to, to which she quickly grabbed the sheets and tugged on it, to which it didn't move an inch.
"Guess I'm the guinea pig." She said, moving up to the sheets fully and taking them in both her hands before hoisting herself up.
Just as gravity in the other world took hold by the time she was in through her shoulders, she fell, landing directly on Eddie's mattress with a loud thump before Dustin pulled her up.
Each of you looked to each other again, finding out who would go next. Then the three sets of eyes were on you, almost staring into your soul.
"Whatever." You shrugged, stepping to the sheet-rope and taking it in your hands before pulling yourself up and through the portal, you could feel your hair start to stand up as gravity switched over on you, your jacket then falling up your back just before you let yourself drop to the mattress with a grunt.
"Holy shit." You sat up, Max lending you her hand to get up, which you happily took and moved from the mattress.
"So, you're alive." She said, eyes glossing over you as she let go of your hand.
"Yeah, these guys helped me out with the whole Vecna thing." You gestured with your head towards Robin and Eddie, who just fell from the mattress.
He shot up right away, hair as wild as a lions mane around his head. "That...was fun."
"Especially this one." You said, turning out your hand to Eddie when he turned his head, a wide smile pouring over you as he took it and pulled himself onto his feet with your help, his arms immediately wrapping around you like he hadn't seen you in months.
"Nancy? Nancy! Wake up!" The cry of Steve's voice pulled everyone to peer into the portal, seeing a stressed Steve shaking a pale, white eyed and frozen Nancy.
"Shit." You huffed, gripping Eddie's hand as you still held it in your own still.
"Vecna." Max said, both you and her immediately turning your eyes to each other, since you both had gone through the whole thing already.
You both knew what to do, you just didn't know what. But, without thinking, you raced to Eddie's room, Max following like she knew exactly what you were doing, she kind of did, she just didn't know what she was getting herself into.
You quickly broke into the several boxes full of cassette tapes, rummaging through them without even knowing what you were looking for.
You just knew you needed a song, a song Nancy favorited or just liked in general.
You just didn't know what the actual fuck Nancy Wheeler liked.