Chapter Text
The light, jangling sound of coins in his pocket echoed off the brick alleyways as Steve sauntered his way home. He loved this feeling; the chill evening air wafting over his bruised and battered skin, pockets heavy with well-earned silver, the knowledge that he was alive to see another day. Rounding the familiar cobbled streets, through low hanging mist, he eventually made it to his old wooden door.
“Steve? Is that you?” Jonathan called down from where he was presumably making dinner, the smell of vegetable stew hitting Steve in a warm, welcoming wave and only adding to his current sense of euphoria.
“Sure is love, I’ll be up in just a minute.” Their little home was situated above the local healer, a complete coincidence that had come in immensely handy over the years. Steve wound his way through the makeshift infirmary until he found it’s small, dark-haired owner.
“Joyce! How’s my favourite healer?” Steve mused, as the woman, Joyce, tutted with amusement and reached up to give him a hug.
“Quite alright thank you. Business is, unfortunately, booming.” She replied forlornly, casting her gaze across the many occupied beds. “At least I’ve got plenty company whilst you’re all off trying to get yourselves killed.”
Steve rolled his eyes; Joyce had always worried like a mother. “Ah but if anyone could bring us back from the brink of death it’s you. Speaking of, here’s what we owe you from last week, sorry it’s taken so lo-“ Joyce shook her head with a fond smile and pushed his hand away.
“Now there’ll be none of that Steve, you know I’m happy to patch you kids up whenever you need it”
Steve sighed, “Come on Joycey, you do so much for us, let me pay you!”
“Nope!” she grinned and started pushing the boy towards the set of stairs that would lead him up to his home. “Now off you go and get some rest, doctors’ orders.”
Steve rolled his eyes but obeyed the older woman’s orders. She had the same reaction every time but that never stopped them from trying. He trudged up the steps and followed his nose to the kitchen, finding his boyfriend hunched intently over the stove, just as he’d predicted. Jonathan had showered and changed since they returned from their latest expedition, and now sported brown cargo trousers and a plain white shirt, obscured by an apron with a messily painted ‘Cutest Cook’ above a pink love-heart on the front. The apron had been courtesy of Nancy, who was currently missing from the picture. As though reading his mind, Jonathan spoke up.
“Nancy’s still showering” Steve huffed a laugh.
“Figures, poor thing got the worst of the gunge-plosion” Steve nodded grimly, remembering the incident.
“…gunge-plosion?”
“Yeah! You know like… gunge. Explosion. Gunge-plosion! I exploded the Slegreth and then gunge went everywhere and-“
“Ok, ok, I get it. Very cute” Jonathan looked at him with fond eyes and dipped up to give him a quick peck before turning back to his stew.
“Oh yeah very cute” Came a sarcastic drawl from the hallway, “what’s less cute is how you fail to mention that you set the detonator off while I was Still. In. Range!” Nancy stood with a hip cocked, arms folded over a faded blue shirt-dress, a single curly strand of black hair peaking out from underneath the towel that adorned her head. She directed a stern expression at Steve, though anybody could see she was struggling to stay serious. Jonathan chuckled softly as he watched Steve put his best angel-face on, gently unfold Nancy’s arms and place them around his neck, his own falling into place around her waist and swaying them softly. The corner of Nancy’s mouth twitched just slightly.
“I’m sorry Nance, I swear it was an accident… will you forgive me?” Cranking out the puppy-dog eyes, Steve batted his eyelashes at his girlfriend, silently pleading to be let off the hook. She tutted but broke out into a grin nonetheless.
“ugh fine, I suppose you are forgiven.” She mused, “but you have to go get the kids for dinner.”
Steve nodded dutifully and plopped Nancy next to Jonathan, turning to go find their mischievous children. He could hear them before he even opened the door to their little room, swinging the door open to a scene out of an epic battle. Mike, who shared his sister’s jet-black hair and angular features, stood poised and low to the ground – a little like a cat in all honesty – shielding himself with an old saucepan lid and pointing a wooden stick upwards towards his attacker.
“Give it up Mike, I HAVE THE HIGH GROUND!” The smaller of the two boys declared, his sandy brown bowl-cut flying upwards as he dived down from his bunk bed, his own wooden stick flailing in all directions.
“NEVAHHHH” Mike retorted, deflecting Will’s attack and countering with his own until they were enacting what looked like a fully choreographed swordfight (and really, Steve wouldn’t be surprised if that’s exactly what it was).
He cleared his throat to get their attention, “Oi, assholes, dinner’s ready. Pack up your deadly weapons and come set the table”. He was met two groans but they did as they were told, hunger evidently winning this round.
As the five of them sat round the table, the comfortable quiet broken only by the sound of satisfied eating, Mike began to look between Will and the three adults. Will, catching on quickly, shook his head as if to say “not now!” but the taller had already seemingly made up his mind as he began to speak, “Soooo we were thinking…”
Nancy’s eyes immediately narrowed, “Were you now?”
“Yeah,” Mike continued, “we were thinking that maybe next time you guys go out on an expedition… that… you know… we could come too?”
“Yeah that’s a no” Steve immediately retorted, not even looking up from his spoon as he shovelled vegetables into his mouth, Nancy and Jonathan also shaking their heads.
“Oh come on! It’s so unfair, we could help you guys!” Mike whined, throwing his own cutlery down in frustration.
“Mike. No. You are both completely untrained, you’d end up putting yourselves in a ridiculous amount of danger and getting hurt because of it, and then we’d have to waist time and energy saving you.” Jonathan piped up, looking pointedly at the black-haired boy.
“You were untrained when you first started hunting…” Will spoke, quietly enough that the others might’ve almost missed it.
“You too?” his older brother sighed, exasperated.
Will shrugged, “I’m just saying… me and Mike want to help. You need to stop treating us like little kids, we’re older than when you guys first started hunting monsters.”
“That’s not the point Will,” Nancy spoke softly, “we should never have had to join the hunting trade, it was something we were forced into. We’ve all come way too close to dying multiple times and we don’t want you suffering the same fate.”
“But-“ Mike started, but Steve shut him down.
“That’s enough, both of you. The answer is no.” And that was that. They ate the rest of their meal in relative silence.
❶
“It’s such bull!” Mike groaned, pacing the short distance of their room back and forth. Will looked down at him from his bunk sadly.
“I know but they’re just not going to budge on it.” He sighed, watching as his best friend finally plopped down on the lower bunk. Something told him this wasn’t about to get dropped.
“They don’t think we’re capable. That’s the problem, they don’t believe we can handle it.” Mike’s voice floated up from where he sat, still fidgeting.
“Yeah…” Will sighed, “if only we could show them…” the sounds of fidgeting stopped abruptly.
“Exactly!” Mike stood up again and looked Will dead in the eye. “We have to show them.” He had a maniacal grin adorning his face now, which never boded well.
“What do you mean? We’ve already tried showing them how we’ve been training with the weapons and stuff but they never listen.”
“No, no Will we need to properly show them, the real deal. We gotta go kill a monster ourselves.” Mike’s face was set with a level of determination Will had never seen before. He wasn’t joking, even in the slightest.
“Kill a monster? What, you think we can just waltz out of Hawkins, into a deadzone, kill a monster and bring it back without anything going wrong?!” Will was almost shaking. Of course he wanted to prove himself as much as his friend, but the reality of facing the terrifying creatures was another matter entirely.
“You sound like Jonathan” Mike deadpanned. “Seriously though, think about it. We don’t need to go beyond the Midzone, we find a class 1 monster, a Writhess or a Loyper, we kill that, and then leg it back to Hawkins. It’s feasible, we could totally do it!”
Will sat and thought about it. He hated to admit it, but Mike actually made a lot of sense. The few miles of land surrounding settlements, known as Midzones, had a far lower density of monsters than the lands beyond – aptly named the Deadzones – and those monsters that did wander into the Midzones were often lower classes, thus posing less of a threat. They were taught in school that Midzones were naturally occurring safer areas when the monsters first started appearing and attacking civilisation, and this was why settlements were built where they were. Theories circulated about it being due to minerals in the local water supply, or specific altitudes in relation to sea level, but nobody really understood the phenomenon. Will looked back to Mike and nodded; they were ready. They’d spent their whole childhood learning about the different monster types and classes at school, helping Jonathan survey maps and analyse data to predict where and when they would strike, practicing combat drills with Steve, and joining Nancy for target practice.
“Yeah… yeah alright then. Let’s do it.” Will spoke, trying his best to keep his voice level with confidence. “but when?”
“Right now.” Mike answered without a seconds’ hesitation. Will’s eyes widened but, before he could retort, Mike continued, “It makes sense. They always sleep right the way through the night and well into the day after they’ve been in the Deadzones. If we go right now, we could make it back before they’ve even woken up.”
“… you’re mad.” Will mused, knowing the boy before him was not one to back down. “But ok, let’s do this.”
With that, they set about gathering their supplies. Stealing tough Dragna-hide jackets from each of their siblings, a couple of swords, a gun, and a net from the armoury, and taking a quick survey of the areas Jonathan had marked on the map as having recent Class 1 sightings, they were on their way. They continued the short distance to the wall on foot, and then encountered the first obstacle of their intrepid adventure.
“Shit, how are we going to get past the guards? Or get the gate open?!” Mike whispered from his spot hidden behind a pillar. The pillar adjacent to him obscured Will, who looked at him with a conniving smirk. He unravelled what Mike had presumed to be a belt, but now saw was actually a long piece of rope with a grappling hook attached to the end. He looked back at his friend with glee, “Genius!”
Will gestured towards a spot of wall further along from the guards, and with a nod, Mike followed as they snuck away from the large, metal gate. Once they were happy that they’d put enough distance between themselves and the guards, Will swung the hook up and, surprisingly, it landed perfectly just over the wall, lodging itself in place with the remainder of the rope dangling downwards. With a resolute huff of air, Will began to climb. He arms ached and he was shaking profoundly by the time he reached the top, making a point of looking anywhere but down. He saw the rope tense again as Mike began to climb, and felt much better when he was joined by his friend atop the wall. They looked out across the expanse of woodlands before them, giving way to sparse fields and eventually the vast desert the lead to Odayn, the largest settlement for miles. It had been years since either of the two could remember seeing land beyond the wall. The only safe way to travel between settlements was via airship, a rarity in smaller places like Hawkins, but, for their tenth birthday, Steve, Nancy, and Jonathan had saved up enough to get them a return trip to Lenora – the closest neighbouring settlement. Will would never forget staring out of the windows, down into the trees below where large shadows and scaly limbs moved amid the greenery.
Mike dropped the length of rope he had gathered down the other side of the wall and repositioned the hook so that it would hold them as they climbed down. “After you, Will the Wise” He joked.
Will swallowed his nerves as best he could, gave the rope a sharp tug to ensure it was sturdy, and then began the slow descent into the darkness below…