"No matter what happens," Jim says gruffly over the sound of Henderson's singing, looking Joyce in the eye, "we turn the keys. No matter what, you get me?"
"Hop," Joyce protests, her voice cracking with it, and her dark eyes dart all over his face, taking in his expression. She falters, and it makes Jim wonder what his face is saying that his words didn't.
"No matter what," he repeats harshly. "We've gotta get that gate closed, Byers, and we gotta do it as fast as possible." His mouth sets itself in a grim line, and Joyce's shoulders slump.
"No matter what," she repeats reluctantly.
Satisfied, Jim continues his impatient pacing. He wants to snap at Henderson, who is still singing a surprisingly lovely duet with the girl who could tell them Planck's Constant if she would just stop singing. They don't have time for this, but even so Jim knows that this is the fastest way to get the code. Damn Murray, really.
They don't have time for this. El and the rest of the kids are still up there, out in the open, and Jim is in a secret Soviet base, far below them. If they're in trouble, he can't help them.
He wants a cigarette; it'd help calm him down a bit. He almost turns to ask Joyce if she's got one, but then the duet starts winding down, and Henderson's girlfriend – it's odd to think that the Henderson kid's got himself a girl when Jim… doesn't – says, "Planck's Constant is six point six two six zero seven six times ten to the negative thirty-fourth Joules per second," and Jim lunges towards the keypad to punch the digits in before he forgets – he can already feel the numbers slipping his mind, but then he's never really been one for numbers – and the door clicks open, thank god.
Jim grabs the case out of the safe, spins on his heel, and runs towards the control room with Joyce hot on his heels.
Somehow, it is easier than he would have expected to get everyone out of the room. Jim supposes that a fear of guns and gunfire and lunatics firing said guns must be universal, but it doesn't really matter, does it? He's managed to get the Soviets out of the way; the room is empty, save for Jim and Joyce and a whole bunch of buttons.
He flips the case open and stares down at the two keys lying innocently inside. It's bizarre to think that these tiny little things are what will cause the drill to self-destruct.
It's strange that this is what will end it all.
He and Joyce each walk over to a consol. The key slips inside so easily that he can't help but think that maybe everything will go right for once. Everything is set to go when Grigori appears from fucking nowhere and ruins everything, because of course he does.
Jim watches from his place on the ground as Grigori tosses Joyce across the room; he staggers to his feet and launches himself at Grigori's back while he's momentarily distracted, throwing him off balance. Unfortunately, Grigori rights himself quickly, and Jim quickly finds out that shoving him up against a wall isn't enough to beat him in a fight; it just makes Grigori angrier than he already was, and Jim ends up with a fist in his face and pain blossoming beneath the force of Grigori's knuckles.
Somehow, between Grigori's fist knocking him to the floor and Jim's elbow jumping backwards into Grigori's face, they end up staggering out of the control room and down the steps of the catwalk that wraps around the drill, still trading aggressive punches, still grappling furiously for the upper hand.
Grigori shoves him, and Jim almost topples over the railing. A few punches later, and Jim is spitting blood out of his mouth as he glares daggers at Grigori. He wipes his mouth, beckons his enemy forward, and puts his fists back up in front of his face.
Jim worries about their proximity to the drill as he and Grigori stagger around it, lurching terrifyingly close to the thing, almost rolling over the railing when, for a heart-stopping moment, it becomes difficult to keep his balance, when it becomes difficult to plant his feet because they're both lunging for each other so hard, offering little thought to the dangers of their surroundings because the primary danger is their opponent.
It is Jim against Grigori, it is red and white and blue against red and gold, it is a race to see who can hit hardest and fastest. It's a fight to see who can win.
Finally, Jim gets Grigori on his back beneath him, and he sends stabbing punch after stabbing punch into his chest, the force of them enough to cause Grigori to jerk involuntarily against his fists before his leg comes up to sweep Jim off of his feet and onto his back.
He is half off the catwalk, his head far too close to the rapid spinning of the drill. Jim cannot take his eyes off of it, the fear strikes him so deep in his heart.
No matter what happens, he remembers telling Joyce, we turn the keys. He kind of regrets it, now, when he is so close to the drill that will explode when she turns the keys. He never really considered that he might not make it out of this alive, and when Grigori leaps forward and plants his foot on Jim's throat, he thinks that if he dies, he'll at least be taking this Soviet bastard with him.
Grigori looks down at him dispassionately as Jim struggles to draw breath against the pressure on his trachea. His eyes are emotionless.
Through the thundering sound of blood rushing to his head, through the overwhelming, fearsome whirring of the drill, Jim thinks he can hear the sound of the walkie talkie crackling from the control booth.
He thinks maybe it's time to close the gate, and he hopes Joyce is ready, hopes she'll take his no matter what to heart, because he won't make it out of here whether or not she turns the keys. She may as well close the Upside Down so that Jim can feel like he's accomplished something.
But… it feels like it's taking too long, and so Jim reaches up, and he fights against the pressure on his throat. He gets Grigori off of him, bashes his face against the drill before he jerks back. Jim pushes him against the railing, refusing to let him get the upper hand again; he digs his thumb into Grigori's shoulder, snarls, "I'll see you in hell," at him, and swings the man while he's off balance, throwing him into the drill.
The machine spits electricity from it, blocking him from the control booth, and Jim chances a glance at the sinister red glow of the Gate before he turns to look back at Joyce, already nodding, already mouthing the words, "Do it." She meets his eyes, nods, and turns the keys.
No matter what happens, Jim thinks with some regret as he stumbles backwards. The drill glows white hot, electricity surging out of it as it spins faster. For a split second, the red of the gate expands, as though the energy from the drill is splitting it open wider. Jim lunges toward it, leaps through the air, feels the heat from the machine's explosion against his back, burning away at the fabric there, burning away at the skin as the pent-up pressure propelled him toward the Gate.
All of a sudden, the world in front of him is dark and sinister – it is something out of his memories-turned-nightmares. Jim hits the ground hard, his arms and legs screaming in protest as he lands and just barely manages to turn it into a roll.
When he finally stops moving, Jim thinks that he can still see a red glow seeping along the vines that spread along before him. He turns toward it just in time to see the edges of the Gate knitting themselves back together, shutting the light out of the Upside Down; it's almost like a solar eclipse, except with those, the sun tends to come back. Down here, it's like the mouth of the Gate is eating the light, consuming it, dragging it down into the darkness that will never let it go free.
It closes faster than it did back when El first closed it in November, and Jim wonders if it's because a machine opened it this time around, or if it's because it wasn't open for over a year before it was closed.
Either way, the Gate is closed. The Gate is closed, and Jim is locked on the wrong side of the Upside Down with a blistered back, a bloody face, a sore throat, and possibly some broken bones.
This is fucking fantastic; Jim is stuck in a place that despises heat and water without either of those things on hand; he's injured; and at the moment, his chances of survival aren't looking good.
Jim reminds himself that he's been in the Upside Down before. He can do this. He can survive here without any basic human necessities. It's not like the Mind Flayer made it back through the Gate, so at least he doesn't have to worry about that.
He just has to worry about Demogorgons and Demodogs and Demo-whatever-elses. It'll be fine. If Will Byers – a kid without any formal training of any kind – could survive down here without any prior knowledge of the place, Jim will be perfectly, totally fine.
He's just gotta let everyone know that he's alive. That's all. Just let them know he's alive, and then they'll figure out a way to get him out of here, and then he can be back where he belongs, with Joyce – who probably thinks he's dead – and El and the kids.
Jesus. If – when – he makes it out of here alive, El is going to kill him.
Or, no. El will give him the silent treatment, and given how quiet it is down here, that'll be worse.