Chapter Text
Murray probably should have bought a different brand of cheese. It was the same color orange as the little conga line of pill bottles to his right, and there was no way it was natural. Even by dyed cheddar cheese standards it was unsightly, but you couldn't find the natural looking stuff anymore even if you wanted to. Murray wanted to.
He poked at the sad grilled cheese sandwich. It still wasn't melting.
Murray grabbed up one of the orange pill bottles and wandered away. It would probably burn in the next minute just to spite him. He tossed a cherry Hi-C and the bottle of antibiotics at the couch, the first hitting Alexei in the thigh with a sad plastic straw crinkle and the second landing in his lap with a rattle. Alexei gave him the bird and kept frowning at the papers laid out in front of him. Between the juice boxes and the orange cheese the woman who rang him out had made a face like he had many children or no regard for his own health. It was a pitying look whichever way you took it.
He returned to the kitchen to continue poking at the sad cheese. The corners had curled over the crust of the bread, which was probably good enough.
They sat on the couch eating their sandwiches in silence, Alexei periodically setting his aside to flip through the Russian-English dictionary Murray had bought when everything went to shit. Occasionally he filled in a space on the paperwork.
"How do I say, 'I helped save your entire country, let me stay, you bastards?'."
Murray snorted. "I'll write it down for you later." Alexei nodded and flipped to the next page. He paused to read over the first line, then shoved it away in frustration. The thick packet slid off the table and landed on the far side with a sad plop. "I don't think anyone would recommend translating legal bullshit as an introduction to English." Murray said. "Maybe start with sesame street."
"I have a doctorate in engineering I will not watch the sesame street."
The afternoon soaps played on the TV and honestly sesame street would be preferable if you asked Murray. They'd turned the volume down. There was only so much dramatics a person could take in one sitting, and even without understanding what was being said Alexei'd been able to tell the acting was horrendous and the plot was pointless. Making fun of it for half an hour had been a good distraction from the pile of paperwork they'd gotten from the state department, but eventually they'd returned to the task just to feel a bit more competent than the disaster unfolding on screen.
Murray stood, grabbed the paperwork and placed it back on the table, then grabbed up their plates and tidied up the kitchen. When he returned with a fresh cup of coffee he found Alexei smoking and tapping a pen relentlessly against the table top. Murray grabbed the cigarette and brought it to his own lips.
"No smoking."
Alexei rolled his eyes. "That doctor is an idiot."
Murray sighed, smoke billowing out with it, "How did I get stuck babysitting you?"
"You learned Russian." It was a familiar accusation.
"My mistake, Next time I have the urge to learn and better myself I'll make sure to ignore it."
Alexei snorted and slumped back into the couch. He always held his shoulders stiffly now. Constantly watching the way he held his body to avoid unnecessary pain from his chest. His survival had been nothing short of miraculous, but it had still taken a month of surgeries and recovery in the hospital to get him on the road to recovery. Then a week of intense on site therapy and now he was here; haunting Murray's guest room and couch while bitching about the stretches and the antibiotics and the paperwork.
He looked tired.
Murray finished the cigarette with a long drag and stubbed it out. "You want the rest of this coffee?"
It seemed only fair. He'd taken the man's smoke.
Alexei nodded. "I want to finish this section." the 'before I take my painkillers and a nap' went unsaid, but that had been a part of his daily routine since he'd left the hospital.
Murray handed him the mug and leaned over to grab the remote from Alexei's other side. Murray always took his coffee black, and despite his love of sugar Alexei seemed happy enough steeling sips of Murray's instead of making a cup of his own.
Murray had decided not to question it.
He flipped through the few channels he could pick up out in his warehouse; Soap opera. Soap opera. Game show. News. He stopped on the news channel, a 24 hour national set up. The news anchor droned on about the rising conflicts between local businesses and shopping malls that had followed their spread across the country. Murray knew not every mall in the United States was a cover for Russian infiltration, but he still felt a jolt of panic at the thought. His thumb rubbed over the power button nervously, but willful ignorance had never been his style, and he left the TV on.
The pictures of colorfully dressed teens and bright neon signs advertising the very best deals dropped from the screen to be replaced by the aerial view of a several homes collapsed into the ground. "A massive sink hole opened in the suburbs of Three Rivers, Michigan, last night while residents were asleep. No casualties have been reported, but several people remain unaccounted for-"
"What did he say?" Alexei asked.
"Sink hole. Swallowed a couple houses."
"No, no, the town."
Murray looked over and frowned. Alexei's eyes were locked on the TV screen. "Three Rivers. Michigan." Murray said.
Alexei licked his lips and shot Murray a glance. He replaced his tongue with his teeth and chewed faintly. "We might have a problem." he finally admitted.
After all was said and done the map boasted a spread of 6 red Xs, including Hawkins Indiana, and Alexei was chewing furiously at the end of the red Sharpy like it might provide him the nicotine he'd have gotten from his forbidden cigarettes.
Murray tapped at the X in West Virginia. "Point Pleasant? Really?"
Alexei shrugged.
"All these towns have gates?"
Alexei shook his head. "I don't think so. But they were all points of interest. Unusual phenomena, potential weak points between..." he waved a hand, "Dimensions. Worlds." He circled both Hawkins and Three Rivers on the map. "Hawkins was chosen for our project because we received confirmed accounts of a crossover event, but if the sink hole is related to the unusual activity we were looking into then the other locations may also show worsening symptoms of-" he said something Murray didn't recognize, but he got the idea. The wall between worlds was decaying. And the others might too.
"Is it possible that while you were working on the Hawkin's project, other branches of the experiment were in progress in other locations?"
He sighed and sat back into the couch. "I didn't know about it, but yes. It is possible."
Murray leaned his elbows on his knees and rubbed both hands over his face. He took a deep breath and slid them down over his face and turned to look at Alexei. His face was troubled and his lips were red and chapped from the way he had chewed on them nervously. "Why?" Murray asked.
He shrugged, "We beat the United States to space, you beat us to the moon, and since no one will reach Mars any time soon, such as it is, why not try and reach for an entirely different dimension?" he smiled, and then in a tone that sounded like he was reciting from memory he said, "Imagine the glory we would gain for our country if we could open the door. It would have launched the soviet state into a new era of scientific discovery."
"Not them. You. Why did you do it?" It was something he’d wanted to ask since they’d sat down and spelled it out for Joyce. He just hadn’t wanted the answer bad enough. That still bothered him.
Alexei winced. "I didn't know." he looked resigned, "I thought I was applying for a position with the space program. During the interview they posed a question regarding how I might engineer a device to reach an alternate dimension. It seemed entirely theoretical, and it was a fun puzzle to solve. Apparently my answer impressed them, they hired me as a research assistant, and by the time we had completed the project I was second in command. It failed, they killed my superior, and by that point it was clear that I had no choice in the matter."
"Shit."
Alexei smiled. "Yes. Shit. In our defense, we didn't know what would be on the other side."
"We need to tell Joyce." Alexei rolled his head over the back of the couch to shoot him a confused look. "I know the chances she's planning to move to another town that’s mired in this shit are slim, but I think she's proven that luck's not really on her side."
She wasn't picking up the phone. After the third attempt Jonathon picked up with a curt "What?"
It was comforting to know teenagers still slept till noon on weekends. He'd grunted a vague agreement to tell his mother they'd called and then hung up. With force, Murray assumed. After that it was an intolerable waiting game. Murray hadn't realized how often he ignored the ringing of his phone until he actually was answering it.
Phone call number one had been a telemarketer, which should not have been possible.
"Hello, I'm trying to get in contact with uh…resident."
Murray hung up.
Phone call number two was the hospital.
An unnecessarily cheerful woman greeted Murray and jumped right in, "We're just calling to check in with...” she hesitated over the pronunciation, “Mr. Kuznetsov. Is he adjusting to daily life alright?"
Murray glanced to the couch where Alexei was laid out, mouth open, and snoring gently. "He's fine."
"Getting plenty of rest?"
"Oh, definitely."
"Wonderful, and he's still taking the antibiotics? Those are very important."
"Yes."
"And he's keeping strenuous activity to a minimum?" her bubbly voice was starting to sound strained. Murray rolled his eyes and waited, "We can't have him doing anything too physical. Light stretches only." she tutted.
"Yes. He knows."
"Wonderful." she purred, "Keep it up and he'll be better in no time. If you have any questions we're available to call every day from 8am to 9pm."
Murray already knew this. They'd told him the day they discharged Alexei. And then the first time they'd called to check in. Now that he'd finally started picking up again they seemed determined to drive it into him again. He could call any day from 8am to 9pm.
He wouldn't.
"Have a nice day." he said and hung up.
Phone call number three was his mother.
"Joyce?" He snapped.
"Who's Joyce?" His mother asked.
"Mom. I've told you not to call me during business hours."
"You work from home your business hours are whenever you want. Who's Joyce?" She sounded suspicious. Say what you want about his mother, she wasn't stupid.
"She's a client. I helped her and a friend look into a…" how did he even begin to explain what they'd done this summer. "…smuggling ring that was running through a local mall. I have information about her case and I need this line open."
"Don't lie to me. When are you coming to visit the new house? I've finished the guest room. The weather's lovely this time of year and-"
"I can't, even setting the case aside, I've got someone staying with me while he recovers from an injury."
"An injury?" She sounded alarmed. "What kind of injury? Why can't your friend stay at his own place?"
"He's not a friend, mom," She had placed a funny emphasis on the word friend. Murray did the same, "he's an informant who helped me with Joyce's case, I told you-"
She clicked her tongue, it sounded incredibly loud over the phone. "Always you hang around the wrong people, Murray."
He sighed. "The chess club of my high school wasn't the wrong people, mom, you just didn't like Mrs. Peterson."
"Now that's not fa-"
"Goodbye mother."
He hung up, ignored the niggling guilt, and paced the living room. It'd been three hours. She was probably at work. Finally he just dropped into the chair beside the phone and let his head drop back to stare at the ceiling.
"We're out of juice."
Alexei was pouting in the doorway. Murray sighed, nodded, then recorded a new message for his answering machine while Alexei smirked and played with the van's keys. Asshole had him wrapped around his finger and they'd only known each other for a month and a half. At least it looked like Murray would have company for this grocery trip. Maybe they'd have real cheese this time.
When they got back there was, of course, a message from Joyce.
"Jesus, Murray, you terrorize my son all morning and then you're not even home when I call you? What do you want? What do you mean there's SOMETHING? Why do you have to be so vague? You better call me back quick I'm not gonna sit up all night waiting for you to ca-" and then the machine beeped and cut her off. He really needed to invest in an ansafone with a longer message recording.
The return call was short. Short and Loud just like Joyce.
And, short phone call story short; They were driving to Hawkins.
Alexei twisted in his seat for the third time, glancing into the back of the van. "Is that comfortable?" He asked.
"No." The mattress he'd stuffed into the back was anything but. It was twenty years old, and the springs in the center had collapsed into a small pit that sucked you in no matter where you laid down to sleep. It was okay if you put your head toward the back, but if you reversed the position it would pull you away from the head of the bed and your feet would knock over the edge.
"Hmm." Alexei twisted back, fiddled with the radio dial.
Didn't matter, Joyce made it clear she had expectations for the next week or two, and that bed was going to get used one way or another. They'd packed a bag full of extra clothes; Half of Murray's closet had been rolled into the bag alongside the few things Alexei had bought or claimed firmly as his. The second, smaller bag was full of Alexei's drugs and Murray's vodka. They'd had to prioritize.
"American radio all sounds the same."
As if to disprove him, the tuner landed on a country station. Alexei’s face twisted into an expression of deep disgust.
"There's a box of cassettes in the glove compartment if you want to find something in there."
"It's all old shit, like your records, yes?" He'd insulted Murray's music before, but he couldn't help but notice that Alexei began digging for the cassettes anyway. Not so shit, then. Just old. Better than the radio, at any rate. Murray rolled his eyes, waited for Alexei to pop something in and bumped up the volume to drown out his thoughts and fill the long drive to Hawkins.
Joyce was standing on the front patio, arms crossed and her face held in an expression she must have thought looked stern. She sort of looked like a toddler pouting. She brought her right hand up to take the last drag of her cigarette, then tossed it down, stomped it out and nodded toward the house. "Get in here."
The house was cleaner than the last time Murray had been there. He tried not to think about the aftermath of their incursion into the mall and the small drinking binge they'd undertaken together in the wake of the death they'd seen. Murray still felt guilty about it. They'd both been grieving Hopper, sure, but more than that Murray had been thinking of Alexei, too. He'd still been sleeping on her couch when the hospital called.
His friend had miraculously come back from the dead.
Joyce's hadn't.
It was also clear she'd gathered the troops. Or most of them. Will and his friends, and her older son Jonathon were all there, waiting for them.
Dustin grinned, "Hey bald eagle."
"What was that?" Alexei asked.
"Nothing." Murray cleared his throat, "What do you want, Atreyu?"
"Uh. Was that supposed to be an insult? Cause Atreyu's pretty cool, dude, I didn't know you thought so highly of me."
Murray scowled and ignored the soft laughter from behind him. Then they were surrounded by a flock of children and Alexei was blinking in confusion at them all. It was one thing to know that Joyce was constantly herding an entire pack, and another thing entirely to see them all crowding closer.
Joyce sat down in the center of her couch and made a "gimme gimme" motion with her hands. Alexei tossed the map onto the coffee table, letting it unroll to reveal the glaring red Xs. A hush fell over the room. Then Max said, "Point Pleasant?"
"Are you guys going to hunt the Mothman?" Will asked.
"We're not hunting anything."
"Oh yes you are." Joyce said. "Look. Everything is contained within the north east and mid west, but what if it's spreading? We can't just let that continue, what if it spreads to the entire country?"
"They're just points of interest, Joyce, not confirmed gates."
"I mean, people report weird stuff like the Mothman all over the country." Lucas said.
"Bigfoot." Dustin suggested.
"The Ohio frog man." Jonathon said. The children all shot him a confused look.
"Why are all the marks in this area?" Murray asked.
Alexei shrugged. "We're Russian. We didn't look into anything too far south. We didn't want to deal with the weather."
Murray nodded and considered the map for another moment, "So you don't have anything to do with the UFO sightings out west?"
Alexei was trying not to smile, but it was obvious in the way his cheeks pressed up into the bottom rim of his glasses. "I'll tell you later."
He sighed and turned back to the others, "He says they didn't bother looking anywhere else."
The kids had fallen fully silent again, all eyes watching Alexei like some kind of fascinating new pet. "So you're like, really Russian." Dustin said.
"You spent a week chasing after Russians just a month ago." Jonathon said with a frown.
"Yeah but we didn't know any of them."
"Yes. He's really Russian."
"You could reach Three Rivers by midnight." Joyce said.
It wasn't a suggestion, but before Murray could argue Alexei said, "I want to talk to the girl."
They set up in the kitchen, Eleven on one side flanked by Mike and Max, each one glaring like they'd been brought in for questioning by the cops. Murray and Alexei sat opposite, Murray translating and Alexei taking notes. They'd already gotten a detailed account of each move the upside down had made against them before, and how they'd "defeated" it. Alexei had underlined the word "fire" several times; another line for every time it was brought up in conversation.
"When you shut the gate, what did it feel like? How did you do it?"
"What does he need to know that for?" Mike asked.
God he was an overprotective brat, wasn't he? "Call it professional curiosity." Murray snapped.
Alexei frowned between the two, the motion almost perfectly mirroring Eleven's own confused glance. "It hurt." she said, "It felt like pulling a muscle but." she tapped at her temples.
"Like a migraine." Murray suggested.
She frowned but nodded. "Like shutting a door but there are so many ways that it opens? You have to stick each bit together, and you have to work on it all at once." She held her hands in front of herself and clenched her fingers in the air. If Murray really had to describe it to someone he would have said it looked like she was grabbing for invisible breasts. "Had to wrap it in energy. With my mind, I wrapped it in energy and then smashed it together." She moved her hands closer to show what she was trying to say.
Murray bit down his own commentary and translated for Alexei who was also looking at the girl's hands with a frown. He tilted his head slightly, as if viewing it from another angle might make more sense. Maybe it did because he asked, "Like a pottery wheel?"
"A pottery wheel?"
She shook her head, "I don't understand."
"It's a round slab that you put clay on and then it spins really fast," Mike said. He held his hands out just like Eleven, "You can press in on the clay and change the entire shape without moving your hands as much."
"Maybe. But it doesn't move."
"Ask her where it felt like she was flexing a muscle."
Murray did, and she pointed to a different part of her head than before. She traced a line on either side from the back of the crown of her head and around to her temples, then back up.
Alexei scribbled another note down then drew a little sketch of the brain and circled the path she'd traced on herself. "Where does the energy come from?" Murray shot him a look and he shrugged, "I'm almost done."
"Okay, last question. Where does the energy come from, when you use it?"
Elevens eyes widened at that. She blinked down at the table then glanced around the room. "Everywhere."
Apparently Alexei didn't need that one translated. He wrote it down and then muttered a soft little, "fuck."
He chose to ignore the children for a moment and focus fully on Alexei, "What are you thinking?"
"Well it could be the electromagnetic field-"
"No, what's the point of asking all of this?"
He bit his lip and gave a weak smile. "Maybe we could reverse engineer it?"
Murray shook his head and knocked a hand on the table, "Thank you children, you've been very helpful."
"Did he say that?" Max asked.
"I'm saying it. Please go away now."
She rolled her eyes and raised her hands in that way kids do, and the three of them pushed away from the table, chairs scraping over the linoleum as they went and muttered complaints bouncing around between the three as they filed out of the kitchen. Murray removed his glasses to rub at the little nodes near the corner of his eyes where his head aches always began. It was maybe a little overly dramatic, but it felt good. He put his glasses back on and leaned close, "You can not seriously want to try and go visit all of these towns and fix their problems."
"Why not? We're not doing anything else."
"You are healing. From a gunshot wound." He pressed a firm finger to his shoulder and pushed Alexei back into his chair. "You nap four times a day."
"Three tops." Alexei pouted, "And only when I'm bored. I can nap in the car." He smiled, "and working on this will give me something to do."
"Those brats will be back in school within the week."
Alexei frowned, "What? No, not them. Just us."
Murray didn't know what to say to that. He felt entirely unqualified for the task. But a road trip. A road trip with Alexei who approached everything new with an excitement Murray was almost entirely unfamiliar with. He hadn't traveled outside of the Indiana/Illinois area since the late 60s, and despite the shitty situation Murray wanted to say 'fuck it, why not?'
Instead he flailed a hand and groaned.
"Do you need a beer?" Joyce asked from the door. He glanced up and there she was, the room behind her hidden from view by the stack of heads leaning around the door frame to watch them. He heard Mike whisper "shit" as they all scrambled back out of view.
"Yes, please."
She gave them each a bottle and joined them at the table. Murray considered the label, the alcohol percentage (less than 4) and decided not to fight Alexei on it as the man quickly grabbed his and took a long drink. "You two…seem like you might have a plan?" She asked with a crooked smile.
Murray said, "No" and Alexei said, "Da, plan."
Joyce smiled into her own beer and looked toward his notes.
"He wants to design a device that might do what Eleven can do. Close gates with telekinesis." He saw the way her eyes widened and added, "Don't get your hopes up. Her explanations were vague at best. I assume the science of it is too. If it were doable I think we'd have heard of someone figuring it out before human LSD experiments had to come into play." He rolled the bottom rim of his bear around on the table. The gentle hum of glass on wood settling his nerves. "If we went to investigate. IF," he emphasized, "The best we'd be doing is finding a way to report on it in a way that would get the issue solved and not make us look like idiots. The only people who would buy the truth is the Weekly World News and everyone knows they're horse shit."
"Like what you did last year." She said.
"Oh," he took a sip of beer to stall, "did Jonathon tell you about that?"
She gave him a pointed look and a nod.
"Ha." He gave a weak grin and drank the rest of his beer.
"Her son keeps staring." Alexei muttered. Murray followed his gaze and caught Will looking away.
Not very subtle, these kids.
"You're a good Russian. You're like a unicorn." Alexei shot him a glare. Murray sat back in his chair, tried to take another sip of beer and remembering that his own was empty, grabbed Alexei's. "He has more reason than the rest to worry about this thing spreading."
"Maybe." Whatever he was thinking, he gave the kid a wave the next time he looked over.
Joyce grabbed another round of beers, then offered, "Well, anything I can do to help..."
In the end she gave them three extra pillows to fill the mattress pit with, a couple of Bob's old shirts he'd left behind to help bulk up Alexei's limited wardrobe, and then handed them each a twenty like she was giving her kids their allowance and sending them out to play.
"You have my number if you need me." She said at the door.
They both nodded, then stood stiffly as she gave them each a hug. It was sweet, but neither of them knew what to do with the affection.
She'd offered to let them camp out in her drive way, but with Eleven staying with her, and the kids all hanging around she had no couch or spare room to offer. They decided instead to just drive on to Three Rivers. They could make it by 1am or, more likely, they could stop at a hotel along the way. Anything to avoid the van pit for another night.
Alexei clicked at something plastic in the passenger seat. Murray glanced over, glanced back to the road then did a double take.
"Where did you get that?"
Alexei pulled the hand held radio closer to his face and squinted through the dark to read the labeled dials. "The curly one gave it to me."
"No."
"No?"
"No." Murray grabbed the radio. At the next light he shoved the antenna down, turned it off, and tossed it into the back. "You'll thank me later."
Alexei snorted, shook his head and then turned to look out the window to watch the, 'Now leaving Hawkins, Come back soon!' sign fly by.