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Chapter Twelve

World Shut Your Mouth

The sun filtered through the tiny window of the Wheeler basement and onto Will's sleeping face. When he turned in his sleep, his eyelids burned red at the sight.

"Ugh," he groaned tiredly.

His body stretched as he pivoted around in his sleeping bag, rubbing at his eyes and giving a big yawn before he had a look around the basement.

Mike's alarm hadn't gone off yet, but Will had slept surprisingly well all conditions considered and so didn't immediately try and force himself into a short snooze period before it would. Lucas and Dustin were still in a deep sleep, and when he saw Mike's sleeping bag empty, he sat up a little to check the time on his watch.

It blared in green numbers: 6:48 am.

Will took another look around to see the couch looked a lot bunchier than its usual slumpy state. His eyes travelled to the sock covered foot poking out the end.

Will would have found this moment worthy of remembering for later on to tease his friend - but his heart stopped in his chest when he saw a little messy blonde head curiously staring down at the couch on the other. Holly's head was tilted and she made a little hemming and hawing noise like it was better to express how she was thinking.

"Fuck!" Will whispered.

He stood up, nearly tripping on Dustin as he made his way over, his desperation clouding any chance of coming up with a viable solution to this potential disaster in the making, and crashed beside Holly, his knees screaming at him in the process.

"Who's she?" Holly asked, her little high pitched voice attempting to whisper.

"Um," Will said as his eyes landed on the two - who's foreheads were together, having fallen asleep talking, with their hands just barely out of each other's grasp. The first word that came to mind was 'adorable' but shortly after it was 'panic'. "I think we should ask Mike."

Will carefully lifted his arm over Eleven's sleeping form and nudged Mike roughly until he woke.

"Go away," came his sleepy monotone voice.

"Mike, wake up," Will said surprisingly stern.

Mike's eyes bolted open and he looked at Will as he said blearily, "This isn't what it looks like."

"Sure, we've got bigger problems," Will said with a sense of pure urgency behind.

"Shit, shit, did I miss my alarm?" Mike tried carefully moving so as to not wake Eleven.

"No. It's worse," said Will painfully, as his mop of hair and his head gestured sharply to where Mike couldn't see above him.

Mike looked to see his little sister, wearing a long sleeve lavender nightgown, staring down at him with an innocent curiosity in her demeanour. His mouth fell open at the sight of her as she now looked between him and his couch buddy.

"Hello Holly," Mike's voice croaked.

"Morning Mike. Who's she?" her little index finger pointed at Eleven.

Mike swallowed thoroughly. "A very special friend...so special that she's a secret."

Will decided to gently wake Eleven for her sake and she mumbled and moaned, but eventually came to, and turned to Will.

"We've got ourselves in a pickle, Eggo," Will informed her.

"Is her name Eggo?" the little high pitched voice started up again. "Not a good name. But she has really nice hair."

El's eyes widened with some horror as she knew that wasn't a familiar trusted voice to be in her presence. She turned around to see Mike's younger sister staring at her inquisitively. She didn't think it very appropriate being in such close vicinity to her brother, having slept next to him on his basement couch, but she supposed it would be wrong to scream at her or yell at her to mind her own business.

"No, her name isn't Eggo," Mike corrected her, "Her name is El."

"El. That's better," Holly spoke her truth.

"Yeah, people don't tend to name their kids after artificial waffles," Mike responded.

"They don't usually name them after numbers either," Will quipped, only to get some side eye from Mike.

"What's your name?" El asked, ignoring both boys. She could tell that they were panicking. She needed to distract this little girl somehow, knowing they could come up with a plan.

Holly straightened up immediately, not used to being on display often, but happy to put on the show since she wasn't so shy anymore."My name is Holly Madison Wheeler."

"How old are you?" Eleven quickly shot off.

"I'm six years old."

"You're nine years younger than me," El said as a matter of fact.

"The same as Mike," Holly pointed out.

"Yes. You have a very pretty name, Holly," El complimented.

"Thanks...why are you special?"

This stumped El for a moment, and the two boys were trying to figure out what to do when she remembered part of Operation Sneak Eggos Past Concessions.

"Dustin," she called quietly.

When that didn't work, she urged Will to wake him, who despite the confusion and uncertainty to her plan, followed along anyway. He and Mike had failed to come up with anything on the spot so soon after being woken.

Dustin fought at thin air when Will woke him up and sat up in some fear.

"What the hell Will?" Dustin's morning voice groaned.

"We have a problem and El thinks you should be involved...somehow. Just get up," Will ordered hurriedly.

Dustin saw around Will and let out an almost wookie style moan at the scene before.

"Please tell me I'm imagining Holly in front of El, Will."

"You're not. El, what's the plan here?" Will asked her desperately.

"Dustin the Magnificent. He does magic tricks. So can I," El explained slowly to the group, including Holly.

"Right," Mike picks up, "El is so special...she can do magic."

"But people want my magic," El said quietly, leaning her head on the arm of the couch to look at her more, "And a lot of those people are bad."

"Villains," Holly softly suggested.

"Exactly Holly. They're villains, they're very bad people. El doesn't want to be bad. So you have to keep it a secret. Otherwise...otherwise she might disappear," Mike finishes very quietly. "We don't want her to disappear, you understand?"

There's a breath of a moment that the four who are awake hitch in all the oxygen into their bodies, anticipating for the worst case scenario. Mike is waiting on her howl her lungs out, Will is waiting for her to cry, merely at the word 'villain', Dustin decides it's not worth watching their downfall before their eyes and El is almost waiting for her to keel over from the current indecision she's dealing with.

One thing seems to keep her occupied.

"What magic can you do?"

"Holly," Mike warned his little sister.

"It's okay Mike," Eleven insisted. She smiles kindly at Holly and sits up. "I'll show you what I can do. But you have to swear you won't ever tell anyone else about me."

There's a hesitation in her eyes, but the prospect of magic, real magic in front of her very eyes is too tempting to pass up. Holly nodded at the deal, but Eleven didn't think that was secure enough.

She spat on her hand and held it out to the little girl who looked entirely too grossed out to reciprocate. Will looked marvelled that Eleven knew about spit swears and Mike covered his amused smile, before suggesting an alternative.

"When girls shake on something, they tend to avoid the spit swear," Mike disclosed, offering a demonstration of the more common oath between children that didn't deride from bodily fluids.

"Do you, Holly Madison Wheeler, promise to never reveal El's secret or her existence in the world?" Mike proposed with a very serious tone. His sister appreciated not being spoken down to, so she held firm in her posture before holding out a pinky finger.

"I promise," the six-year-old declared with full sincerity.

Eleven wrapped her pinky with the much smaller one and the two linked briefly, while El wiped her other hand on her leg.

When they relinquished the oath, Holly instantly wanted to see the magic Eleven claimed to have.

Eleven didn't move a muscle, but she looked a little more analytically at Holly's shape and form. Mere moments passed before Holly felt her feet leaving the ground and gravity no longer being an element that she was stuck with. She rose nearly to the ceiling until she gently floated back down in the same spot, landing on her feet.

Her eyes were saucers as she stared at Eleven, a delightful smile reaching the corners of her mouth and a very awake sparkle in her eye.

"Can you do that again?" she asked immediately.

"Holly!" Mike admonished his little sister. "You can't ask that of her. She'll become and weak and tired."

El barely flinched at the suggestion however and had her up in the air once more and even threw in a couple of turns and flips, which threw Holly into a fit of pure glee.

She was plopped down carefully on Mike's empty sleeping bag. El had a feeling that the ferociousness of the experience could make the little girl ill and she wasn't keen on being a potential victim of where she could aim her sick.

Her eyes were manic with pure joy now and it was obvious that her mind and imagination were both fulfilled with Eleven's display of 'magic'.

"Holly - you need to keep this a secret," Mike reiterated sternly.

She simply nodded, her face bright and full of energy but in too much shock to speak.

"Go upstairs for breakfast. I'll meet you in a minute, okay?" Mike urged her.

She nodded again and then ran up the stairs and into the kitchen.

Dustin, from his lying position, groaned again. "I hope your six-year-old sister is good for a pinky swear Mike!"

"She won't say anything now that she's literally had her pixie dust moment," Mike grumbled, but in truth, even he couldn't be sure that that would be enough, "Besides, you didn't have a problem with Cassidy getting close and personal with El."

"Well Cassidy doesn't actually know about El's abilities and that she's technically a fugitive," Dustin responded testily.

Will pulled out his notebook from his backpack and started writing, ignoring the bickering between his two friends, "We're going to have to start thinking of back-up plans now that Holly is most certainly in on the secret."

"This is getting too big. We have to cut it down to absolutely nobody else from now on," said Dustin seriously.

"It doesn't seem too dangerous yet," Mike said honestly.

"Yeah and we thought Will going missing after one day was fine too," Dustin argued, "Then we find a psychokinetic girl, and that seems odd, but it's nothing we can't handle. Then it turns out Will is dead - but really it's a stuffed body and he's stuck in another dimension that's evil - are you getting the picture, Mike?"

"I got it," Mike said impatiently, "Don't assume everything is okay, even for a minute."

"Sounds like something Hopper would say," Will said, mostly to himself than anyone else.

"That's because it probably is something he said," Mike proclaimed, as he started getting up from the couch, moving around El.

He stretched his limbs and cracked his neck, noticing the looks he was getting from Dustin and Will. They were both worried, but they were both still present enough in the moment to notice that Mike had slept on the couch with Eleven.

His cheeks flared up like a bad reaction and he turned away from them. Eleven was yawning wide and stretching her arms before she noticed him looking at her.

She wasn't as peaky as she looked the day before, and he supposed that had something to do with the warm temperature she was surrounded by, her clean environment, and the hair cut.

Her cheeks were still worryingly hollow but he hoped that from her new eating habits that it would make up for the weight she lost. Lucas suggested supplements as an option too - something Mike thought would be worth looking into when the bigger picture could mean something more detrimental to her mortality.

But Mike believed that for the present moment, Eleven was actually on a good track.

He kneeled before her, in some effort to make their conversation a little more personal.

"I'm going upstairs, and I might not come back down if it means exposing you. I'm going to be out of school at 12:00 pm. That's when there's a 1, a 2 and then there are two number-"

"I know how to tell the time Mike," she interrupted him, with an amused smile.

"Oh really? Uh, okay, so yeah, I'll be finished at noon. The guys will be with you the whole time. I'll see you later, I promise."

Eleven's poise suggested that she knew he would, even if there were obstacles in the way.

"Thank you, Mike."

Mike had shovelled down breakfast like a starving animal, before getting showered and dressed. When he came back down, his hair still a little damp, three of his friends sat at the table.

"We can do the dishes, Mrs Wheeler. You always cook for us and we'd like to clean up after you made us another delicious meal," Lucas spoke, an extra heaping of politeness to his tone.

His mom's hand hit her heart and she smiled, "If you insist Lucas."

To Mike's surprise, his dad was assigned drop off detail, which was probably for the best since the man could hardly communicate with his friends as his mom did.

And boy was that drive awkward.

Mostly because he wasn't expecting his dad to give him some sort of a pep talk in the way in.

Then again, it was probably his mom who put him up to it.

Just as the school was coming into view, his dad coughed, clearing his throat before patting Mike on the shoulder. "I know you're not a bad kid Mike. But I hope this is the last time I drop you off here for this reason."

Mike wondered if it was because he was cutting into his dad's early morning Saturday snooze in the Laz-E-Boy, but decided not to vocalise that thought.

Instead, Mike nodded.

His exit from the car was swift.

As his dad drives away, Mike hikes his backpack up on his shoulder and brushes his hand through his hair. He releases a fresh yawn, his energy taken from the emotional toll that was being away from his friends in this very unstable time and walks toward the school doors.

He nearly trips on his shoelace and throws his head back with an annoyed groan. Bending down on one knee, he ties it up. When he gets back up, he feels the back of his neck twinge with fear, as his eye takes in a car parked further down in the parking lot, looking empty. His instincts are screaming at him but his logic and memories are stomping them down.

The car looks like trash, and the cars that Brenner's men used were predominantly Hawkins Power & Light vans and pretty sharp and clean looking vehicles, nothing of this car's condition, which had discolouration and a little bit of rust around the edges.

Mike just had to assume that it was his teacher's car...even though they had a separate parking lot behind the gym.

"You're just paranoid," he said to himself in a whisper.

He pushed the doors to the school open and quickly makes his way to the library where the Saturday detention is served.

When he goes through the swinging door to his library and finds the tables, he discovers to some of his concern, that he is the only one there.

With the exception of the teacher, of course, who is Mr Howard, a Geography teacher who rarely incited any inspiration in his classes, but Mike didn't necessarily care much for Geography so it worked out for him. Mr Howard was not pleased to see him at all.

"Michael Wheeler," he announces slowly. "You're early."

Mike doesn't respond, knowing that there's a chance any response he gives will be taken as being a smartass and he wasn't trying to land himself back in detention next week during this crucial time. He takes a seat at the first table, and fishes out the necessities for the day, his lunch and pencil case.

The lined loose leaf papers are slapped on the table before him. Mike can tell his supervising teacher is undergoing some obvious tension but for the life of him, he can't figure out what his damage is.

"Let's get a couple of things out of the way Mr Wheeler. You aren't to talk to...well I guess that rule doesn't matter…" he went off track, unused to the single student detention, "Okay. Here's the deal. You write a 750-word essay on why violence isn't the answer before noon, you're out and in the clear and so am I for that fact."

Mike's brow furrowed at hearing this very resigned ending to be given some actual answers to his confusion for once.

Mr Howard rolled his eyes and said, "I was the teacher supervising the cafeteria on Thursday."

"Oh," Mike gave a long drawn out understanding. Mr Howard was probably guilted into this because he failed to actually supervise. From the itchy energy he gave off, Mike suspected it was a cigarette break. "So you're doing your time to, huh?"

"Just about right Mr Wheeler," but his confirmation wasn't pleasant. "So, you do what you have to do, and I'll make sure you don't have to come back here unless what happened on Thursday is repeated of course."

"I don't think they'd let me back in the school if I did that again sir," Mike said uneasily.

"Good, so you know what's on the line," Mr Howard said smoothly, before checking his watch and wiggling his brows for a moment.

"I'd get started if I were you, Wheeler. Most kids in these detentions need the full four hours."

Mike held back the glare that he felt brewing, and just looked straight at the paper, knowing that his presence here didn't equate to his level of intelligence.

Eleven was sitting in the back of Lucas' car with Will. They had just successfully smuggled her past the Wheeler family members and they were waiting for Lucas and Dustin to come along sometime soon. Will had started Lucas' car to get the engine running. Hawkins was a bit bitter in cold weather this November morning and he figured he could get the recent mixtape playing, and give Eleven some of his knowledge in music.

She really gelled with the punk rock genre, which made a lot of sense to Will as she carried quite the tone and background for it, a lot of emotion that was probably anger too. Eleven could probably pull off a very Joan Jett vibe given the right materials, but she looked pretty happy in her more feminine clothing.

"I can get Jonathan to make you a special mixtape, more to your tastes. He's a bit of a music snob, but he often gets it right when he knows someone well enough," Will offered her. She smiled at the idea, although she hadn't understood the whole concept yet. Will knew Jonathan was better when it came to explaining music anyway.

It was then that a busted up white van started pulling up to the end of the cul de sac, opposite the Wheeler home. It was almost the same model as Hawkins Power & Light, which immediately spiked Eleven's interest.

Will too was worried but for different reasons. "What's wrong Eleven?"

"That van - Papa's van," Eleven said, the shaking of her voice enough to spin the tension in the car.

Will took one glance at it, and as his heartbeat picked up, and so did his unfortunate bodily reactions.

The feeling of the crawling menaces inside his body was tenfold as he gave great hacking coughs, covering his mouth in fear of any leftover breakfast coming up with it, but was almost grateful that is was just a slug. It was not as long as the one he'd coughed up before he brought back El from the Upside Down, however, it was thick and most definitely a choking hazard if he'd ever felt one before, sucking in as much breath that he practically gasped and wheezed.

Will could deal with it the same way as he dealt with the others - but he would likely make this one feel the torture he had just endured.

He sat in the car still but as he looked up, he was no longer surrounded by light and people, just the darkness, mustiness and overall toxicity of the Upside Down. It was even colder than the Indiana winter, and the particles covered the outside world and stuck to the windows. But he could hear them…

So many of them.

One by one, shadows appeared through the windows closer to the car, the roaring noises, the animalistic sniffing out of prey.

Will held his arms across his body and started to shake, as the car was slowly being surrounded by the creatures that had raided his nightmares since he was twelve years old.

Something jumped up onto the bonnet and the car creaked under its weight, the shadow cascading over the windscreen.

He felt the shaking here and a bang there as the car was being rattled about, bashed by the creatures trying to devour fresh prey. They'd never been this close to him before, they were always far off somewhere.

Will.

Will held himself tighter. The glass was beginning to crack under a couple of smashes from the creature's vast size and power.

Will!

Too afraid to look, Will shook his head in reply and screamed, "Go away!"

"Will?" Eleven asked frighteningly quiet.

Will felt as though all the oxygen from his lungs had been sucked out and he struggled for breath. He looked toward the voice, remembering Eleven's presence and breathed heavily and quickly. He felt the squirming in his lap, and as Eleven's eyes were stuck on it, he started shoving the small invasive creature into his jacket pocket, though it was a tight fit.

To her amazement, he grabbed her roughly and hugged her close. He was still shaking, almost to the point of sending him through another nauseating vomit, but he was holding on to the fact that he was present and she was there.

"You got me out...I've always been stuck for longer than that. You got me out."

He felt her hand stroking him gently, soothing his fears away and his breathing slowed down after some come down from his frightening trip back, so soon after the last time.

"You're sick," Eleven told him quietly.

"You - you can't tell anyone Eleven."

Eleven was audibly confused, and seemed to pull away to better describe this, "Why...why don't you?"

Will fell back into his seat and rubbed his head over his temples, feeling the raw sensation of travelling through dimensions briefly impact his head.

"I've been treated like a fragile object for a long time now. And when you're handled that way, you try to make things easier for the people around you, because you don't want to make their life any harder than it's been...do you know what I mean?"

El watched him sceptically but soon after nodded. "I stayed in the Upside Down."

Will sighed as he was about to tell her that was different because she needed to come back and be with the people who cared about her in a healthier environment where she was safe.

But in truth, it wasn't. He swallowed, having stopped himself from giving that explanation. Because he would be a hypocrite if he had.

Eleven took his hand in hers and held it tightly. "They need you too, Will."

Will looked at her and remembered what he'd said to her not so long ago when it was just the two of them. And here she was throwing it back in his face, rightfully so.

Eleven took her hand away and poked at his jacket pocket.

"What will happen to it?"

Will explained that he had a strong method that got rid of them. "They don't do well with fire and at this stage, they're too weak to get out of a can, so I seal them up and light them up."

"When will you do that?" Eleven asked as she referenced the two boys still in the house with her finger.

Will groaned in despair. "Shit, shit!"

There wasn't going to be a way to do this without someone figuring it out. Will knew that with the current situation, the boys would barely be separated if they were sticking to the rules of always staying together, with strength in numbers. Will was almost wishing he'd had the Saturday detention now.

Eleven poked his pocket again and said earnestly, "Let me."

His eyes looked into hers for a moment, a recollection of what she knew and what she could do. He fished into his pocket and pulled out the massive slug, the slick wetness of it making Eleven shudder somewhat. Will was too used to it by now for it to have any effect on him, but he could still see how she could be disgusted.

She plucked it from his hold and barely flicked her head to one side a second later, her hatred fueling this quick kill, as it fell limp in her hand, totally lifeless. Will's mouth hung open slightly. He'd seen Eleven do amazing things, lift Holly through the air and fell hundred-year-old trees. But the instant kill of a creature with barely a touch of her hand had him stumped beyond belief.

Eleven barely shrugged it off when she handed it back to him. "It won't get bigger now. We'll burn it later."

Will nodded, his face still in some awe when she tilted her head and one of her brows lifted.

She then showed him where she stood with her hand on top and pointed at the dead slug and moved her hand at the lowest point, Will picturing a hierarchy pyramid that she had developed in her mind when dealing with the creatures of the Upside Down. This thing in his hand was just an average Tuesday for her.

"Thanks, El," Will said genuinely grateful.

He checked out the window to see that their fears were unfounded when the familiar face of Jarrod, one of the local plumbers pulled out his toolbox and went down to the house across from the Wheeler's.

She patted his arm gently and said, "Please tell them soon. Please."

Will flinched at the thought but didn't disagree.

Mike had sat in the same spot for around an hour and a half, setting the time at 9:45 am. He'd written and rewritten the opening statement and attempted to add more flourish to up the word count to save him some time. He'd stop along the way occasionally to check his word count before moving on. Just as he was about to move through his second argument rewrite, Mr Howard stood up straight from his chair.

"I'm going out for a minute. You don't move from that space, you hear me?" Mr Howard warned clearly.

"Yes, Mr Howard," Michael answered simply.

The teacher swiftly left like a kid needing to go to the bathroom but knew his itch came from the lack of the pay off of a cigarette.

He shook his head, knowing the proposed one minute would turn into ten or fifteen, just taking a guess at Mr Howard's habit.

Diligently, Mike pressed on and tried to fix his essay in places it sounded contrived rather than the contrition he had been aiming for. He knew he was going to have to throw in the Donovan fight for an example as to how taking the high road was always an option but a level of immaturity won out that day.

But boy did it make Mike feel something for a minute other than lost and despair.

Mike closed his eyes, digging the heels of his palms into his forehead as though to assuage the violent side of him.

She didn't have a problem with it. Eleven certainly never expressed great displeasure at his confession of his sudden spur of the moment violent streak. She barely reflected on it before showing him that dress, like she was trying to cheer him up. It worked and he understood her intention, the way only El could defer a difficult situation.

It made Mike realise that what he did that day to Donovan was an outlet for his emotions and a total fluke. But maybe the physical expression had done something to shake up the universe in his favour, to show just how angry and how heartbroken he truly was.

Maybe feeling his pain to its very limit had shown the higher powers that it was time to give him and his friends a break. Will was certainly more appreciative of life once he had his hands on Eleven. Lucas and Dustin too very grateful for her return after three years of pure confusion and disappointment in themselves and the adults and the authorities they were meant to believe, meant to trust to do the right thing in the name of protecting their youth.

Mike had a sudden cloud of inspiration float into his brain as he decided to write this piece down that might make his essay a little more controversial, but he didn't expect it would throw his ass back in another detention if he argued it coherently and with some logic on hand.

After detailing this argument a little better, Mike stretched his body and cracked his back, flexing his hand in hopes it wouldn't cramp up or give him hell later on.

Just as he stretched his hand and ferociously shook it, his eyes landed on the window on the opposite side of the library, where a case of books just covered him, and something made him swallow pure fear down his throat, to be consumed by his now pummelling heart.

A smooth black van had pulled up to the school. A man wearing a trench coat and a suit with a pair of sturdy leather shoes got out the driver's side pulled open the van door. It revealed a few men, in similar coats and suits, some with sunglasses and overly neatened facial hair. But while all of that could have been explained, Mike knew the guns being locked and loaded couldn't.

He barely uttered a word before scrambled with the stuff he had on the table and throwing it into his backpack.

No Saturday detention was worth certain kidnapping or death.

"Why are we sitting like idiots here again?" Wilkins said roughly, as he sat in the rusted AMC Gremlin with his partner.

Sayer was too busy cleaning his gun out to answer him the way he would've wanted, and so shrugged. Wilkins took another bite out of his burger, courtesy of that joint that the CIA shot up three years ago, killing the namesake of the place. Pure shame too since the man clearly knew what he was doing with a greasy diner meal. He wiped his hands on his jeans and picked up his binoculars.

"I mean it's just a kid, it's not like he'll have what the experiment has," Wilkins says, before properly swallowing his burger down.

Sayer rolled his eyes. "MKUltra serum from the womb," he corrected his partner. "Did you listen to anything that Zemora said?"

"Surely there's a way to shorten that to a name?" Wilkins said, still looking through the binoculars in his surroundings.

Sayer had stopped cleaning and was reassembling his gun when he answered his query. "They called her Eleven, but Zemora hates when you use that term around her. Now could you finish up with that?"

Wilkins put his binoculars on his lap and looked at the burger and fries, nearly finished, but he was working on it, and he wouldn't be told when to damn well finish his food. "Why, don't want to stink out this shit box of a car with a decent smell?"

"We don't have a choice in vehicle, you know that," Sayer said sharply, clicking the now loaded gun into position. Wisely, he put the safety on before continuing on with Wilkins bullshit charade he did with everyone in the underground operation.

Wilkins took the hint, but it didn't sway him from talking. "It's not like anything big is going to happen. She's nowhere near this place if she is in fact out."

"She is," Sayer simply replied, "Otherwise Zemora wouldn't have us tailing the Wheeler boy."

"It's a hunch Sayer," Wilkins loudly moaned.

"A hunch from the Bureau of Meteorology and the CIA of strange activity happening in Hawkins - you think that shit's coincidental?" Sayer asked in true disbelief

"Whatever man," Wilkins retorted with ease, "I just think we should be prepared for the things that could come out of that strange activity, not a very likely dead girl," he finished in an all-knowing drawl.

Sayer scrunched up his face in bewilderment before shaking his head at his partner's attitude.

"You're such an asshole sometimes Wilkins."

"What, Zemora isn't here, there is no one else to be offended here but you," Wilkins pointed directly at him.

Wilkins proceeded to hitch his legs up in the car and put his hands behind his head. Sayer gave a long drawn out sigh, wishing he'd been assigned with absolutely anyone else in the operation. Wilkins finished his fries but was only over halfway through his burger. He eventually complained that it got cold. Sayer held back from calling him a stubborn idiot.

Sayer picked up the binoculars as Wilkins was too busy washing down his temperature ruined burger down his throat with the soda in the sole cup holder.

He had a fresh glance at the nearby surroundings and latched onto a new vehicle they had yet to witness near the school in their last week of scoping out the area.

A black van, shiny and new, and haphazardly pulling around the back of the school gets his attention and Sayer is practically punching Wilkins in the arm when he points out the van as it turns the corner of the school.

"Looks like we're no longer sitting pretty Wilkins. That kid is totally fucked if we don't get in there."

"Finally!" Wilkins throws the fast food bag to the floor and takes his ready gun from the compartment box.

They lock and load before getting out of the car, hoping this wouldn't completely fuck up.

Author's Note:

Hi folks.

This was chapter was double the original length when planned but I figured it would kind of defeat the purpose of build up and pay off to have all of it in the same chapter so I decided to cut it and will edit certain stuff in future chapters to stick with a nice and neat 30 chapters.

If you want something to listen to while reading this, highly advise some David Bowie or Billy Idol, as well as Joy Division and definitely Peter Gabriel. Obviously anything 80's suits the theme.

I'm planning on using this next month that I have off from school to at least make it to Chapter 20 (hopefully Chapter 23) but I also need to socialise so I don't go insane lol.

Otherwise, this fic as a whole should hopefully be finished by the first of July (as I feel many people will be picking up their Stranger Things obsession and so it would be nice to have a complete work in the fandom because sometimes incomplete work gets overlooked - am I right tho?)

I'm not going to pin myself to that date because anything could happen in the next seven months, but I think if I do reach Chapter 20 before the 4th of Feb, then there's a good chance that I can edit and also finish the last ten chapters (the meatiest and most intense in some cases) by the time the third season comes out!

And possibly some one-shots to follow along.

I hope you enjoyed this chapter and what will come up soon! (Please review if you can, makes my heart swell and gives me a reason to live).

Fadinggx