Told you I have been writing like crazy.
This chapter is a tiny bit shorter, but the next one is much longer.
Like I said last chapter, this one had a lot of reiterating episode scenes as they happened. I also want to say, as I write my fiction out I love Eddie more and more.
I own my errors :)
STEVE POV
"I think we're getting close!" Nancy called back and I looked up. Roni was with Nancy several yards away with Robin trailing behind them. I hung at the back slowly walking along the uneven ground. My side was a dull ache and I tried to ignore the pain in my bare feet when I stepped on a sharp rock.
"Eddie." I called quietly to the guy in front of me, moving quickly to catch up to him. "Eddie, hey man, uh... listen I just uh... I just want to say thanks for saving my ass back there."
"Shit," Eddie chuckled. "You saved your own ass man. I mean that was a real Ozzy move you pulled back there."
"Ozzy?" I asked unsure.
"When you took a bite out of that bat." Eddie explained, looking at me with a scowl. "Ozzy Osbourne... Black Sabith... he bit a bats head off onstage..."
"I don't..." I shook my head.
"You know... doesn't matter." Eddie started to explain more but shook his head and shrugged. "It was very metal, what you did, that's all I'm saying."
"Thanks."
"Henderson told me you were a badass... insisted on the matter in fact." Eddie continued and I looked up at him surprised.
"Wait, Henderson said that?" I asked.
"Oh yeah, shit." Eddie nodded. "Kid worships you, like you have no idea. It's kinda annoying to be honest. I don't even know why I care what that little shrimp things, but, uh, I guess I got a little jealous Steve. I guess I couldn't accept the fact that Steve Harrington was actually a good dude. Rich parents, popular, chicks love him. Not a douche? No way man, no way. That, like flies in the face of all the laws in the universe and my own personal Munson doctrine."
"Still super jealous as hell by the way." He went on before turning and giving me a smirk. When he turned around, he sighed and shook his head. "Which is why I would never have jumped in that lake to save your ass. Not under any, uh... normal circumstances." A branch snapped around us and Eddie jumped looking over his shoulder. I stopped when there was a screeching or cry from somewhere around us. "Nope..." Eddie continued after a few seconds still cautiously looking around as we started walking again. "Outside of D&D I am no hero. I see danger and I just turn heel and run... or at least that's what I've learned about myself this week."
"Give yourself a break man." I tried to comfort. This type of thing would be hard for anyone to handle, it's hard for me to wrap my head around and I've been through it for three years.
"See?" Eddie shook his head and pointed at the girls in front of us, "The only reason I came in here was 'cause those ladies came in straight after you. Now I was too ashamed to be the only one who stayed behind. But Andrews..." My eyes found Roni a few yards ahead. "She didn't waste a second... not one." I processed his words thinking back to being dragged under the water, to seeing her standing at the gate stopping the bat from attacking me. "She didn't wait for the rest of us, didn't say anything... you were gone, and she was in the water. She just dove right in. That girl, man I'm not sure what is going on between you two, but she's got it bad for you. Girl is willing to fight for what she loves, that's for sure."
"She doesn't..." I started to say swallowing hard as I stared at the back of her head, Eddie smacked my arm, and I winced as my injured side protested the sudden move. "Dude..."
"Dude." He repeated giving me a disbelieving look, gesturing again towards Roni, "She may not have said it, but what I saw, there is no question how she feels. I wouldn't try and over think that. 'Cause that... that was as unambiguous a sign of true love as these cynical eyes have ever seen."
I didn't respond, just looked back up as Roni caught up to Robin. The earth started to shake again, rumbling and causing us to stumble. Ahead of me Roni tried her best to catch Robin, but the moment Robin leaned against her injured arm she almost dropped.
"Goddamn it!" Eddie called as he fell to the ground. "Here we go again."
RONI POV
I did my best to keep Robin up, but I had basically dropped her the moment I grabbed her with my injured arm. Trying to recover, I fell to my knees with Robin as the earth shook more and I was unable stabilize my footing.
"Okay, second on my list of least favorite things, earthquakes." Robin said as we helped each other up. "Seriously, I'm unsteady enough as it is." I looked over my shoulder and saw Steve trying to help Eddie up and then looked to Nancy who was leaning on a tree nearby. She seemed to be looking at the opening of the trees in front of us, before pushing herself forward without a word to any of us.
"Nancy!" Robin called. I was already picking up my pace to follow after Nancy with Robin calling out behind me. "Where are you going!" She had stopped just outside of the tree line. Red lighting flashed against the sky and just within the view I could see The Wheeler home. Everything around was dark and grey. A swing set sat broken and covered in vines, and there were cars on the road abandoned. I hadn't paid much attention the first time I was here. I had been so focused on not getting killed by the Demogorgon, but trying to follow it, while also looking for Barb and Will, the scenery wasn't on my mind.
"Come on." Nancy instructed, starting to move towards her house. The trees had provided some cover, and the exposure we had once we left them was ominous. I found myself looking over my shoulder more than I was looking forward, the feeling of being watched making the hair on the back of my neck sit up. Nancy opened the door of her house, and we followed her in. The house was dark, and the walls were covered with vines.
"Might be time to get a maid Wheeler." Robin commented and I smiled.
"Come on, I don't want to stay here longer than we have to." Nancy said moving towards the stairs. Her room looked just as dark and drained of color. Her bed covered in a layer of dust and vines. We filed into her room and watched as she went to her closet reaching for a shoe box that was at the top of her closet. Placing the box on her desk she lifted the lid. Inside there was tissue paper pulling out a shoe.
"Those aren't guns." Eddie commented and I rolled my eyes at him shaking my head.
"These heels are a bit pointy, but I was hoping for a deadly projectile." Robin said nervously.
"I... I don't understand." Nancy scowled.
"Maybe you left them somewhere else?" Eddie suggested.
"There's a six-year-old in the house." Nancy snapped at him. "I know where I keep my guns, and also... I threw these away years ago." Nancy looked around her room picking up cards from her desk, her scowl deepening as she flipped through them.
"I get grades are important to you but perhaps studying can wait till we get out?" Robin said looking over Nancy's shoulder.
"These are from sophomore chemistry," Nancy said looking up and around her room. "And this..." she pointed to the wallpaper. "This is old wallpaper, and this mirror, this went to a yard sale..." As she spoke, I walked around her room to her bedside table picking up a journal. Flipping through the pages I quickly realized it was Nancy's diary and started to feel guilty for reading it. 'So, Steve and I made up today...' Nope, i thought shaking my head, definitely shouldn't be reading it, but as i went to shut the diary I noticed the date at the top in big letters. NOV 6, 1983.
"Hey, Nance?" I called flipping to the next page, only to find it empty. Nancy walked up beside me.
"My diary?" She questioned, as I handed it to her.
"I didn't read it." I defended putting my hand up, before pointing to the top of the page. "But look at the date."
"What is it?" Eddie asked coming up behind us, but Nancy didn't respond, just scowled at the page in front of her.
"Nancy, you're freaking me out." Robin commented.
"I'm not sure how often you wrote in this thing, but something tells me there was more you wrote down in the last few years." I commented still watching Nancy as she flipped through the pages of her diary. "Nancy, I think there's a reason your guns aren't where you thought they were."
"Because they don't exist." Nancy said quietly, looking up and meeting my gaze and I nodded.
"They don't... exist?" Eddie asked confused.
"This diary should be full of entries. Roni's right." Nancy stated, holding out her diary. "It's not, the last entry is November 6, 1983."
"It's the day Will went missing," I nodded. "Same day the gate was opened, and the Demogorgon was released... it's the day all this started."
"What does that mean?" Robin asked.
"We're in the past." Nancy looked at the girl with wide eyes, but I shook my head.
"We thought this world was a mirror of ours, in our time, but it's like the day that gate opened, that someone from our world crossed over, everything stopped. The Upside Down is frozen in the time that it was made." I explained further.
"So..." Eddie started but was immediately cut off by commotion outside of the room.
"Dustin!" Steve yelled from the first floor, and I quickly left the room and headed down the stairs, stopping in the middle of them as I watched Steve walk from one room to the other. "Dustin!"
"Maybe he really does have rabies?" Robin thought standing behind me as Steve yelled out a 'hello'.
"Steve, what are you doing?" Nancy asked slowly descending the stairs. He spun around and his flashlight shone directly into our eyes, and I squinted, putting my hand up trying to block the light.
"He's here. Henderson." Steve said quickly and Nancy scowled before turning to me. "That little shit is here. He's like... here, he's in the walls or something just listen...Dustin!"
"I don't think..." I shook my head but there was a faraway voice that echoed through the walls of the house that cut me off.
'That brings us to the question you first raised." It was Dustin's voice, 'How and why is there a gate at Lovers Lake. Let's analyze. What do Eleven and Vecna have in common?"
"Holy shit," I breathed out realizing that Steve really was hearing him. Eddie, Nancy and Robin all started copying Steve yelling for Dustin and searching for him throughout the house.
"All right, either this kid can't hear us, or he's being a total douchebag." Steve groaned after a few more seconds of yelling.
"I don't think he's hiding." I said walking around to the room where Dustin's voice seemed to be the loudest.
"Then how can we hear him?" Nancy asked.
"This place is frozen in time but it's still a mirror of our world." I started to explain. "Things there when concentrated on can be heard here." The group stared at me confused and I sighed running my hand through my hair before continuing. "When I was here last, I could hear certain conversations when I was in the same place as someone else. Like at the gym when Jim was telling me to sit tight, I heard him before I heard El. I was in the junk yard before the lab came for the kids. It's how I knew the Lab was coming to get El that night."
"It's also how I knew of your dumb plan to lure the Demogorgon to the Byers and try and kill it there." I shot a look at Nancy. "No matter how much I yelled to not do it and let me find Will... you couldn't hear me, which... is what led me to jumping through the gate it made in their ceiling."
"So, he's on the other side?" Robin questioned.
"Basically, he is in the real Hawkins, and we are in its counterpart." I nodded.
"We just get to listen to him ramble on and he can't hear us?" Eddie asked looking up at the ceiling. "Hardly seems fair."
"Will found a way." Nancy commented.
"What?" Steve turned to her with a scowl.
"Will, he found a way to speak to Joyce through the lights." Nancy explained, walking towards a lamp and trying to turn it on.
"The switch." Steve suggested, looking at me. "Try the switch." Walking to the switch on the wall I flicked it up and down multiple times with no result.
"It's not working." I turned back to him, but he was staring at the light fixture over the dining room table as it lit up dimly, and Dustin's voice echoed again through the room.
"Guys, you seeing this?" Steve asked without taking his eyes off the light. Standing around the light, Nancy lifted her hand up towards the glow around the fixture and as her hand touched the light, the dust around the fixture seemed to glow brighter.
"Whoa." Eddie whispered as we all lifted our hands to the light. "It tickles." The light seemed to float around our hands, twisting around our fingers, making them tingle.
"It kinda feels good." Robin said with a smile.
"Does anyone know morse code?" Nancy asked, pulling her hand back and looking around the group.
"No," Robin and Eddie answered just as I answered 'Yes'. They turned to me, and I just shrugged.
"Jim was my guardian for over a year. After the whole thing with Will in the shed he sort of made it a... a requirement." I explained, stepping forward and started to put my hand into the light in a pattern. Dot, dot, dot, dash, dash, dash, dot, dot, dot. After I finished the first set for SOS I repeated, watching the light match my movements.
"It's working." Robin stated excitedly. There was an echo in the room as Dustin seemed to catch on. 'SOS.' I smiled when I heard Dustin catch on and there was a collective sigh of relief from Eddie and Robin as Steve stepped up behind me placing a kiss on my cheek with a big smile. As we waited, we heard Dustin tell someone to get more lights and go upstairs. We all quickly made our way to Nancy's room and sat by the bed waiting, until we saw the top of her mattress begin to glow.
'...seeing this...' Dustin called through the room and Nancy looked over her shoulder at us before putting her hand up and running it through the light. On the other side Dustin laughed happily. '...We're not moving it, we're gonna unplug it. Stand by...' Dustin called out and then the light disappeared.
'... try it now...' Dustin's voice echoed, and Nancy seemed to scowl lifting her hand to the space the light had been in earlier.
"Um... okay, uh..." She said lifting her hand again, hesitating before writing H I.
'...that worked...' We heard Dustin call out.
"Yes!" Steve and Eddie exclaimed happily, and I found myself smiling too, putting a hand on Robin's shoulder squeezing it. She turned and smiled at me nodding, looking a little more relieved.
"Hi!" Eddie yelled at the empty space on Nancy's bed, as if Dustin could hear him, but he didn't care.
"Okay... uh..." Nancy nodded lifting her hand up again and started writing again. K. In the air we could hear Dustin, Lucas, and what sounded like Erica sound out the word as Nancy wrote, finally getting to the end and repeating the word in understanding.
'...You can't get back through Watergate?' Dustin asked.
"What the hell is Watergate?" Steve asked scowling at me before looking at Nancy and Eddie.
"'Cause it's in Water and it's a gate." Robin said matter-of-factly.
"Oh... that's cute." Steve said.
"Right." Nancy said before moving her finger along the light to writ D. The amount of effort the kids on the other side were giving to getting the word before Nancy was finished was comical.
'...Watergate is guarded.' Dustin acknowledged.
"Yes, yes." Steve said while Eddie clapped his hands in approval.
'...Okay we think we have a theory that can help with that...'
"Genius child." Robin said.
'...We think Watergate isn't the only gate...' Dustin explained. '...Ther is a gate at every murder site...'
"Does anyone understand what he's talking about?" Nancy asked looking around. Shaking our heads Nancy replied with a question mark.
'...Okay seriously, how many times do I have to be right on the money before you just trust me?' Dustin called out in frustration.
"Jesus Christ," Steve groaned. "This kid's gotta get his ego in check."
"It's his tone, right?" Eddie looked at Steve.
"Right." Steve agreed and I rolled my eyes ignoring the two as I thought about what Dustin said.
"Okay, so we're saying that the gates that were opened when Vecna killed are still open." I thought out loud. "So that's the road on the other side of the trailer park where Fred died and Chrissy..." I looked over my shoulder at Eddie who looked down still carrying the guilt of Chrissy's death.
"Right, okay, so... how far is your trailer?" Nancy asked, looking at Eddie.
"Seven miles." He answered quickly.
"Nancy," Robin said getting her attention, "I uh, I know your house here is like weirdly, creepily frozen in time and shit, but haven't you always had bikes?" Nancy sent a quick and final message to Dustin, ' S, before we all stood up and followed her to the garage. There were four bikes sitting against the wall and as they wheeled them out there was a sharp pain that shot behind my eyes making me close them quickly. There was no image, no voice, just the jolt of pain and then it was gone. I turned in place looking over my shoulder, the trees and baren land lay with no one in them.
"Hey." Steve placed his hand on my arm and turned towards him quickly before glancing back at the empty area behind me. "What?"
"Nothing?" I shook my head, blinking a few times and turning back to him. "Just, a feeling. This place is just... creepy."
"Yeah, the sooner we get out of here..." Steve nodded looking in the direction I had been looking before leading me towards the bikes.
"You're not going to ride this think like a maniac, are you?" I asked as he straddled the bike and balanced it while I moved to step on the back pegs.
"No promises." He smirked at me, and I just shook my head and rolled my eyes. Slowly I pulled my arm from the sling made by Robin's shirt and placed my hands on his shoulder as he propped the bike up and I got on the back. We pulled away from the Wheeler's as lightning lit up the sky around us. Riding by abandoned cars and houses gave off an eerie vibe that seemed to only get worse when we passed the Creel house. Lighting seemed to be centered just behind it, lighting up the dark house with red light.
"Shit." I whispered staring at it as Steve rode by. A chill ran up my back as I continued to watch it, turning my head as we passed to keep it in my sight. Something about it kept my gaze, kept me locked on it until we turned, and I could no longer see it. Scowling I blinked trying to shake the feeling and focus on the road ahead. Steve hit his brakes as soon as we got in front of the trailer, and I jumped off walking towards it.
"That's gotta be a Gunness World Record, 'most miles traveled inter-dimensionally." Robin said as we slowly approached the trailer door.
Steve coughed behind me, and I turned to see him covering his mouth. "I just inhaled a bunch of that crap... it's stuck in my throat." Shaking my head, I reached for the handle of the trailer door and turned it. The door opened with a groan and as we entered the main area there was a large gap in the ceiling that pulsed.
"Goddamn." Steve whispered staring at it.
"This is where Chrissy died." Eddie said mournfully.
"This is exactly where she died." I added still staring at the spot. My mind took me back to the first dream I had had. Chrissy was in the air and her bones broke; I could hear them snap. I blinked a few times and then focused again on the gate, the center started pulsing up and down and a shadow was on the other side moving.
"I think there's something in there." Robin said just as the shadow moved again. Steve found his way in front of me and the others blocking us as the center of the gate began to push out towards us.
"What the hell is that?" Eddie questioned, and even with Steve in front of us, we found ourselves cautiously moving forward. The protective seal of the gate broke, and shreds of the lining fell to the ground startling us. In its place we could see light shining through from the other side and I followed Steve forward until we were standing underneath looking up at a mirror image of the trailer. The only difference was instead of seeing ourselves we could see Dustin, Lucas, Erica and Max all smiling at us.
"No way." Steve breathed out. Dustin was grinning from ear to ear and waving at us and I couldn't help but waive back in disbelief.
"Holy shit, this is trippy." Robin said, joining me in waiving. We sat and watched as the group on the other side started working on a plan to get us through the gate. Dustin moved out of view talking about getting a rope of some sort together and Lucas and Erica moved a mattress directly under the gate. Looking at the mattress I gave Eddie a curious look and he seemed to look at us uncomfortably.
"Uh, those stains are... uh." He fumbled over the words until he looked away defeated. "I dunno what those stains are." I smiled at him shaking my head as Dustin walked into view again and looked at what he had in his hands before throwing it up at the gate. On our end the tied sheets fell in front of us but remained suspended between our two worlds.
"This, defies all laws of physics." I stated, stepping forward looking up at the rope on their side hanging just as ours was.
"Alright, pull on it, see if it holds." Dustin called up and I turned to Robin, who shrugged and stepped up beside me. With one hand and her with two we pulled. The sheets stayed put and I could see Dustin smile in response. Impressed, I stepped back to stand beside Steve as I watched Robin pull again before looking over her shoulder at us.
"Guess I'm the Guinee Pig," she sighed before looking up and reaching up on the sheets slowly climbing up and through the gate. As she passed through her body flipped in midair and she fell to the mattress on the other side looking surprised, staring up at us. Dustin helped her up as Eddie stepped forward.
"All right, I guess I'll go." Eddie said nervously and just as Robin had, started climbing until he was through the gate and falling onto his back on the mattress. Nancy went next before it was just Steve and I left staring at the rope.
"See you on the other side?" Steve said looking over his shoulder at me. I turned to see him giving me a smile, his eyes warm as we were seconds away from leaving the Upside Down.
"On the other side." I breathed out stepping forward and reached for the sheets. My shoulder ached as I used it to pull myself up to the gate. Approaching the gate, I pushed my head through, but something felt off. The light changed, and it was Eddie's trailer anymore, instead it was dark, and then the sheet disappeared, and I was falling. I fell until I landed with a groan on a solid surface. Opening my eyes, I wasn't in the Upside Down anymore, but I wasn't in Eddie's trailer, instead I was standing in the Hawkins Lab, in the main entrance as lights flashed and alarms blared.
STEVE POV
"Roni... Hey..." She hadn't moved from her spot. She was staring in front of her, but golden eyes were gone, instead there was a film over them making them dull, haunting... he had her, he had gotten to her without anyone knowing, without her knowing, without me knowing. "Stay with me Veronica. Hey! Wake up! Wake Up!" I yelled, trying to shake her out of it, but she didn't respond, just stared in front of her, lost.
Tell me what you think, that should happen next, suggestions, options for future stories... all the above :)