Chapter Text
A shadow streaking across the road and cracking against the windshield.
A screech of rubber. A crash.
Billy Hargrove worked his leg out of the disfigured foot well and toppled out onto the tarmac, head throbbing from the impact on the wheel. He turned and glared down at the damages. The front was caved inward, twisted metal bending in waves down the front and glass littering the road. It looked like the frame was bent. Totaled. He smacked his hand into the crumpled bonnet and cursed as it sliced his palm. Whatever. Neil could bitch about it later. Instead he turned about, trying to see the body of the thing he'd rammed into.
The road was clear beyond the debris from his car and a trail of black liquid leading away into the darkened building he'd crashed next to. A single light illuminated the door, almost obnoxious in the way it tried to draw his eye. Something slithered off from under it and left the gaping darkness to stare back at him. If he were smarter, if he were any less upset, if there wasn't blood pooling over his brow from where it had split against the steering wheel, Billy would go straight to the phone booth and not bother.
Billy was none of these things. The light flickered over the entrance, tantalizing and knowing. Something was wrong with this damn town, and it had been for a while. For once, he wasn't on the verge of passing out or being rebuffed by dumbass children and shifty teenagers. Whatever it was, it had just tried to kill him, and Billy would delight in ripping it out by the throat.
Even if he was anxious in that hard to define way. A way that had been cropping up more and more recently. He wasn’t sure when he noticed, exactly. It was after Halloween. Fields made him squirm, that strange group of kids turned his stomach in a way he couldn't understand, the mall or any mention had his entire body aching. It was weird. It didn't make sense, it didn't stem from anything tangible he could point at.
Then Max had to go and make friends with those idiots. Honestly, it was all her fault. If she didn’t have those friends, she would have been home at a reasonable time, and he wouldn’t have had to go looking for her. If she'd been home, pretty boy Steve Harrington wouldn’t have beat his ass. And if Harrington hadn't beat him, the fridge wouldn't have opened and spilled out that thing. It was humiliating, sure, but that single mysterious corpse had him re-examining his entire time in Hawkins, picking up on every detail and conversation where things didn't fit quite right. It wasn't a fish, no matter what Max said. She was an idiot if she thought that lie got one over on him.
So really, when it really came down to it, Billy wouldn't be thinking about all this if Max hadn't gotten friends. He wouldn't have noticed anything wrong to begin with.
And all that weirdness, all that strange not-rightness filtered down into one single person who'd been slippery and illusive in a way no one else could muster. Steve Harrington, the epicenter of the strangeness, who somehow always had the upper hand, could always slip away right under his nose, who’d only be pinned down long enough for a few words unless he initiated.
Maybe he'd been thinking about Steve too much. Here he was, on the side of some road people only came down once every three years, and he was thinking about him, of all things. Billy figured that came with the territory; once you started hallucinating about a guy, you'd officially thought about him too much. Though some bone deep intuition refused to chalk it up to his head injury. He’d had a few before, getting into fights back in Cali, and he'd never seen something so full bodied. Always shadows or feelings. Steve's apparition had been fully realized, if only for a second. It was different. Just like everything about that weirdo.
Billy existed somewhere between ignoring it and pretending to ignore it while focusing all his attention on it. It was to the point where he wasn't putting as much heat into his arguments and Neil kicked him out since he couldn't get what he wanted from him. Billy took to driving instead, like he had been moments ago. So, really, really Max had never gotten friends, he wouldn't be out here right now, car broken and stranded and staring down a run down building.
“...better have some fucking answers for me, Hawkins.” He crossed the street and stood under the flickering light, trying to see past into the yawning void that made up the inside of the building. A clang resounded under his feet, the metal walls groaning with the sound as it bounced around. Billy tried to pry further and make out any shapes within the black when something equally as inky rolled forward with just as much speed as it had when it crashed his car. It wrapped tightly around his wrist. “Shit!-” He stepped back, yanking at his arm. He only got a split second to see that the restraint on his arm was a slick sticky black vine before more swarmed out of the opening, swallowing up his limbs and yanking him to the ground, grasping tight as they descended into the mill.
“Fu- HELP!” The cry was as desperate as it was futile. Inch large piles of dust kicked up in its wake; no one had been in or around this place in years. Billy tried to brace his feet on the ground, but the vines tugging him back were far stronger than the pulpy flesh should be. He managed to jam his leg against the frame and spun the roulette wheel of gods to pray to. “SHIT- NO, HELP!'' The vines crept higher around his body, finally getting a stranglehold around his throat, and attempted to pry open his mouth. It tasted like burnt hair smelled, the inside of a chimney suddenly coating his taste buds. His eyes watered, but with his arms pinned all he had left was his teeth to crush it.
Something shrieked, but the protrusion retracted, and he sputtered that same black liquid onto the ground. A sludgy film coated his thoughts, made worse by the pounding of his heart and liquid static in his veins. The door frame cracked under his foot, and the floor scraped across his back as he lost purchase. Billy felt the vines tighten even further, almost angry at his defiance. He wriggled his hands and thrashed, but only ended up cracked against a wall he couldn't see in the ever present dark his eyes hadn't adjusted to.
Billy was losing this fight, whether he wanted to believe it or not. His head fell back against the concrete and he caught the thin light of the entrance staring back at him. Never should have been fucking curious in this town. All it got him was dead. Billy felt each bump of the steps as he was pulled further and further, down to whatever snapping jaws awaited him below.
Cold air billowed up his skin as he reached the lower floor. He could do little more than bitterly watch the stairs as they got further and further away and...
He wasn’t there before. Billy knew for a god damn fact he wasn’t. He was looking right where he wasn’t, at a space that was just open air and escaping life. But there he was, Steven fucking Harrington as if summoned by his thoughts. His face was stained with blood, more leaking his nose and ears, and he was gripping a bat hammered through with nails like some Midwest avenging angel. “God damn it!” The bat came down with righteous fury, a wet thunk echoing through the basement. The Something lurking in the shadows hissed and writhed, and the restraints relaxed enough for him to free a leg.
A firm hand grabbed his shoulder, and he looked up to see The Freak tearing the rest of the vines off. Other forms tore down the staircase, also one’s he recognized from school. Nancy Wheeler wielded a shotgun with the same frightening certainty, getting a round off into the squirming darkness and causing whatever it was to caterwaul. Her friend - he couldn't for the life of him remember her name - was awkwardly brandishing a machete as if the chunks she was taking out were doing much difference. Camera boy, and that girl that always hung around Steve were also there, holding things made of bright garish plastic. He didn’t have much time to catalogue everything as The Freak once again shoved him towards the stairs. “Get the hell out of here!”
One of the vines whipped around towards them, but it froze midair as he stumbled back. “What the fuck is that?!” He hit the far wall, the secretion from the plants oozing from his mouth to his chin. Something rippled through the shadows, and a fleshy form stretched out towards them.
“Not right now!” Steve flung his arm out and the appendage stopped abruptly. He was out of breath and shaking, another spout of blood gushing from his nose. The vines still coiled through the air wildly, while Nancy and Barb did their best to fend them off. Girl and Camera boy moved forward and sprayed whatever was in those water guns. Based on the smell, it was gasoline. When the fuck did they have time to prepare all this? Steve’s arm dropped and the creature tried to scramble out of the darkness, sopping wet and still shrieking as its frozen appendages gained new life.
Billy’s eyes widened. It was a strange mash of muscle and cartilage trying to squish together and move in an ambiguous form rather than a blob of muck. Arms would half form before collapsing and making a moist slapping noise on the concrete floor. It writhed about on the ground, trying to make a get away, and he could have sworn it was looking at him. Billy didn’t know how he figured that one, but he knew when eyes were on him. And that thing was looking in his direction.
The Freak whipped out a lighter. “Get back everyone!!” The others scampered away, and he flung it at full force, causing a fireball to engulf the blob. It began screeching louder, a high pitched, multi-layered ringing that hurt as much as the burning feeling at the back of his skull. Billy gripped at his head as the screaming died into a whimper, and then silence.
There was quiet. For too long. He lifted his head to see them all staring down at the thing. It was little more than charred flesh on the ground. “...did we get it?” Barb whispered, her voice echoing against the open chamber.
“...I think so.” Steve replied then stumbled and collapsed to his knees, vomiting blood and bile.
Billy’s head was still spinning. He could feel the adrenaline seeping from his limbs, and his senses were fritzed. “What, the fuck, was that?” He managed to peel himself away from the wall
Everyone seemed to realize he was still there, and all eyes turned to him. Everyone looked annoyed. The Freak sighed.
– – –
– – –
Steve folded his arms as he looked around the table. “So, that’s about all I know about Vecna. We’ve never killed him, so I don’t know how to kill him. I don’t know how many attempts we have at this either.”
“That’s not encouraging.” Nancy frowned. “We shouldn’t have to rely on you for second chances, either.”
“But we have to.” Steve countered, leaning against his hand. “If things go well this year, then we won’t be stretched as thin, so we can focus on Vecna. The Byers will be here, and so will Hopper. And I guess Murray.” He furrowed his brow against the inclusion.
“You really waited until almost the last minute to start preparing, huh? ” Eddie leaned back, shoving his hands in his pockets. “Guess I can’t fault you though. So fire only did so much.”
Steve sighed. “I think it’s because we didn’t make sure . We just assumed he was dead like a shitty horror movie and then when we looked back his body was gone.” He drummed his fingers against the welling anxiety that had been building up over the past few days. “So, I’m thinking it would be best to take care of both this year. Like I said, once he starts his plan, he could go for anyone in town. It doesn’t have to be those four specific people either; I’m sure plenty of people in Hawkins are depressed and traumatized.”
Barb pushed her glasses up. “Hopefully with Billy alive, he won’t go for Max…” She glanced nervously around the table. That piece of information hadn’t gone over well, with a collective upset at the knowledge that she had almost died the first time around.
“But then we have to deal with Billy.” Robin grumbled.
“I’d prefer him alive to dead.” Jonathan piped up from where he’d been sitting silently almost the whole time. “For Max’s sake.”
Everyone fell silent at this sentiment. It was a given, of course, but that didn’t make the situation in front of them any easier. Steve tilted his head to the side slightly, watching Eddie. “Hey, in your little game, is it possible to take down two final bosses at the same time?”
Eddie snorted. “I guess. You can’t compare the entire thing to a DND game, babe. For one thing, those games are fun, not life threatening.”
Steve rubbed his eyes a little. “I know. But it makes me feel better.”
A weak smile spread over Eddie’s face and he slipped his hand in his. He turned back to the wider audience. “Well, we can put off planning for that for at least a few more minutes. Onto the main event.” He pulled over the notebook splayed out on the table. “What the fuck are we doing this year?”
Steve turned to the paper. When he’d written it down in that feverish flourish, everything had been fresh in his mind. Some of it still was. The Russian holding cell, the fight for Starcourt, those things were seared into his brain, plaguing his nightmares and never letting him go. But the explanations were fuzzy. Steve remembered a teary eyed Joyce explaining what happened when they’d gone to shut off the Russian machine. Nancy had talked briefly about the story she’d been chasing the entire time with Jonathan, but the details were lost over the four- was it four now? five?- years he’d had to fight through to get back here. “Mind Flayer. Again.” He sighed. “Russians.”
The five crowded around him now so they could see, Eddie’s arm moved up around his shoulder and his head resting against his. Robin leaned down from his left, while Barb and Nancy were on his right. Jonathan stood somewhere on the left. Eddie lulled his head down. “Can’t we just… I dunno, put it on a spit and have a good roast?” He lazily pointed to the sentence that said ‘Flayer flesh monster’. “If it’s a real flesh thing, could we just burn it alive like everything else in that place?”
“Yeah, I mean that’s half of what we ended up doing. But that,” he nudged his finger then traced down to ‘Russians’, “ties into that. They’re opening their own gate, and it’s like… I think broken off into pieces? So whatever is here is a part of it, and the other part is in the Upside Down. So yeah, we could burn it, but it’s still trying to come through.”
Jonathan furrowed his brow. “Did we kill it?”
“Yeah. I think so. When the Gate closed, if I had to guess. It didn't bother us when Vecna showed up.”
“So, wait, if it gets completely cut off from the Upside Down it just… dies?” Barb squinted. “Weird, I thought it would have just died already then, alright.” She looked over. “Anything else?”
Steve tapped his finger on the book. “Uh, way too many people get Flayed, and they all die.” He frowned. “And it starts with Billy.”
“God, why would you start with that?” Eddie tsked as he rolled his head back. “He’s a social pariah. Should go with someone much more personable.”
“You suggesting yourself, Edison?” Steve sniped, if only to see him laugh and ease the tension building in the room.
Nancy shot him a look, then turned to the pages. “So, how do we close the gate? Unless Jane can also close machine made portals.”
“Hopper and Joyce figure that out. I really don’t know how. They explained it but I was still a little out of it. I think they found some Russian guy to help them, that’s why they got Murray.” Steve murmured. “They just… showed up, with blueprints and some knowledge. Joyce tried to explain it; they went to the lab because things were getting weird around town with the thing trying to turn on. Said something about Russians there. A hitman, the farms, I think? I really don't remember.” He tapped his finger against the page for a second, thinking. “Kids have some… kid drama. Although, I dunno if it’ll be the same since Jane and Mike aren’t a thing.” He heard Eddie gag and Nancy huff.
Steve wracked his brain for preventative measures. That was their best bet this time around, instead of chasing in its stead. “We just need to make sure the piece of the Mind Flayer that’s here doesn’t find a host. Whether it’s Billy or someone else. It’s already a little formed now, I think, you-” He turned to Nancy and paused. She stared back, then her brow furrowed.
“What? What do I do?” She already had the job at the paper… Steve took a deep breath.
“Uh… well, someone calls about diseased rats, and they’re just Flayed, that’s how this… kinda all started.” He cleared his throat. “I don’t… think you’re gonna like your job though. Boss is a bit of a dick.” He also died. Really badly. Steve saw how haunted she'd looked.
She rolled her eyes. “I know that already. Alright, possessed rats, it’s probably already forming. Where is it? We might be able to burn it out, like Eddie suggested.”
Eddie fake gasped. “What’s this? Nancy Wheeler likes my idea?” He pressed a hand to his chest. “Be still my beating heart.”
Steve squinted as he once again turned over every rock on this conundrum. They’d said it, he knew they had. But the name was escaping him now. Was it the power plant? Some warehouse? It had to be a warehouse to fit something like that. There weren't that many large buildings around, it had to be...
Steelworks.
Steve’s eyes opened a little, and he cleared his throat. “The Steelworks.” He looked up. “It’s in the basement of the Steelworks.”
“Mmmm, to Moria, then.” Eddie nudged him. Over the past month or so, since Dustin was away at camp, he’d been trying to get him into Lord of the Rings. It was… a process. Lengthy. Took a lot of explaining. And it took Steve a moment to remember what the fuck he was talking about.
“That analogy isn't as good as the Mordor one.” He hummed, grabbing his pencil. “Probably would have made more sense to say that in the tunnels.”
Eddie simmered quietly at this. “You make one, since you’re so smart.”
“Guys, focus.” Jonathan murmured. “It’s at the Steelworks, what do we do?”
Steve felt the eyes on him, and that bead of sweat was dewing on his brow. He suppressed an embarrassing whine. “Can I stop being the plan guy? Please? I gave you the pieces.”
“Aw, shit, sorry. Yeah, we can figure it out, Stevie.” Eddie jostled his shoulder.
Barb hummed. “We could try doing what we did with the demogorgon? When it was all of us. Trap it, dump in gasoline and light it on fire. That is if we’re set on burning it out.” She tapped her finger. “We’d need a lure though…”
Silence, again. They were all thinking it with whatever natural sync came with going through hell for three years. But Steve didn’t even know when or how he got Flayed, plus that was on top of the trauma that caused. Billy probably had enough of that for three or four therapy sessions, and it might make him a bigger asshole. He cleared his throat. “I can learn when and how that happens, but we’d need to be ready. What’s today?”
Jonathan peered back to the calendar hanging in the kitchen. “Uhh, June 26th.”
Robin spoke up again. “Hey, what if that doesn’t kill it though?” They looked at her. “What if there was a reason it died after getting everyone’s goop into its body? Maybe it was physical, that’s why it died. None of it was left in the Upside Down. It’s like…” She waved her hands. “Like a ghost suddenly getting a body. You could kill it because it’s real and could bleed. The demo things have bodies that can bleed and die, but every time we talk about this Mind Flayer thing it’s described as like, dust or smoke. Not real. Or touchable.” She nervously tapped her fingers against the table, the idea now having taken root as she spun out theories and possibilities.
“But everything over there hates fire. The portals, the creatures, even the foliage.” Nancy countered. “Maybe it doesn’t matter if it’s ‘real’ or not, as long as we hit it with enough.”
Steve shifted in his seat. He didn’t have the answer to either of these lines of reasoning. He knew if part of it was in somebody, it would fly out if heated up too much. And Steve knew when they’d gotten stuck in the Upside Down in ‘86, the Mind Flayer was nowhere to be seen. So they certainly had killed it, but if what Robin theorized was true then they would have to let people get Flayed. Steve shivered at the thought. “God. Dozens of people got killed though.” He murmured.
“Dozens…?” Barb worried with her bottom lip. “Why Hawkins?” She shook her head. “There’s got to be a way to kill it without losing people. Why did it gather everyone it took in the first place?”
Steve shut his eyes. It was getting hard to think, trying to keep up with everything and consider new possibilities. He scrubbed his eyes as if doing so would force the tangled rowdy thoughts to straighten out and let him understand. “The gate. Something about the gate. I think it knew it was under attack or about to open. One of those two.” There had been lights, but as much as he dug, he couldn’t recall if they’d had a stable portal or not. It had been at least a little open, it had to be.
Eddie nodded thoughtfully and then splayed his hands out like he was presenting a feast. “So we put it on the defensive.” He folded his hands together. “That’s what it did last year, yeah? It’s always trying to defend the portals. So we just force it to need to defend it faster. And if we stop it from taking Hargross and smoke it out, it’ll be weaker anyway.” His leg bounced as he thought. “But I don’t think we can get the portal open any quicker, none of us know anything about that… but we could try and prevent it from opening.” He sat up. “Say we set Chief and the Matron on their way beforehand. If we clear out the base, we could get it to need to call all its little wiggly bits and pieces together. Buckley, Harrington and I can handle that. Wheeler and Byers, you can keep an eye out on the rest of the town, anything get freaky, you report it to us.”
Steve blinked. “You want us to clear out a Russian base?” He looked over to Robin who also looked bewildered at this. His body prickled with the memory of being tied up, of drugs being forced through his system. He had no idea how in the world they’d do that, besides maybe planting a bomb and forcing them to evacuate. And Steve couldn’t be in several places at once. He needed to make sure the kids were safe during all this too. Going down to the base would block him off from a lot. Steve took a deep breath. “I don’t… Fuck, alright.” He could come back. He’d be doing that anyway when Billy started acting weird.
“Okay, maybe not clear it out, but like… help it along, you know?”
He made a noise. “Alright, if you’re sure we can do that.” Steve drew in on himself, brushing his hair back.
Barb squeezed his shoulder. “We’re almost there.” She tried to smile, but he could see her confidence wane. “Almost done. And we’re backing you the whole time.”
“Thank you.”
Four days later, Steve got confirmation that Billy was indeed acting weird. He’d told Max to keep an eye on him when he was driving the kids around to hang out, and tell him the moment anything happened. She’d looked concerned with the whole prospect, but he assured her he’d go back and fix it. Steve just needed to know when .
She showed up near the middle of his shift, Jane in tow with a smile on her face. “He’s being weird.” Were the first words out of her mouth. “Got into a fight with my dad and went on a drive at 9. Came home last night at midnight without his car, kept looking all shifty, didn’t even yell at anyone.” Max pointed. “Do your thing, time boy.”
Steve stared down at her for a moment, then glanced to Robin who was busy scooping something for a customer. “Taking my break.” He called it haphazardly before sidling behind the door and closing his eyes. Some muffled response came through the walls.
He sighed out gently, situating himself and starting to feel the drag of time against his skin. It was more open now, less tight and constricting, limiting him to a few seconds or hours. Steve couldn’t explain it, and he doubted anyone else could, but it was almost like trying to work frozen pizza dough. The more you warm it with your hands, the stretchier it gets. Time was a structure he could press and fold, loop back on and grind to a halt. It was far more malleable and resilient than anyone would think.
Steve began to pull back now, the shift of a day shivering up his spine as he was ripped from place to place until he found himself back on his couch. He really hadn’t done much yesterday; it was a Saturday, a natural lazy day.
The clock read 8:30 when he let go, swiping away the blood on his face and stared at his ceiling to reorient before hurrying out to his car. He drove out to the Steelworks as fast as he could, parking in the foliage so he could see what exactly he was dealing with before he gave himself time to prepare.
The clock in his car turned to 9:32 when he spotted headlights down the road. The blue camero came roaring down the pavement, clearly driven by a very pissed off man. As Steve watched, something shot out of the door to the Steelworks and slammed against the hood, causing Billy to spin out and crash into the side of the road. He pushed himself out of the car shakily, and as he was inspecting the damage, a fleshy tendril whipped out and snagged him around the leg. Steve gripped tight to his seat as a scream echoed across the lot. But he couldn’t try to do anything yet. He was going to do this methodically, like they’d agreed.
He crept out of the car and pulled to a stop. If Steve had thought about it, he would have noticed it took a little more effort than usual, and not from anything on his end. He didn’t, though, and hurried through the open door then down to the basement.
Billy was still hanging by that tendril, although one was pushed down his throat, eyes rolled back and cloudy as he dangled there. Okay. That was a problem. A big, fleshy, black goopy problem. Steve hurried back outside before letting things drop. He couldn’t risk letting it see him right now. A couple minutes later, Billy just… stumbled on out. He was panicked, and sweaty. It reminded him of how they described Will when he first got out of the Upside Down.
That was probably enough, at least for a plan to form. Steve slumped back into his car, spreading out the thread again and pulling back even further until he was pressed back into bed. Back to the morning of June 29th, and he had maybe 14 hours to work with. Steve wiped the blood pouring down from his nose and coughed, then snagged his supercom from the table.
Robin picked up her radio immediately. “ I’m here. ”
“We have a day and a time.” Steve yanked over a box of tissues and cleaned himself up. “Today, nine thirty at night.”
“ Want me to call the others? ”
“Yeah.” He rubbed his eyes. “We need gasoline and weapons.”
“ The usual? ”
Steve grabbed some clothes from his closet. “The usual.” He stared at himself in the mirror for a long moment. Steve didn’t look this tired last time, he was sure of it. He splashed some water on his face. 14 hours.
14 hours to save the town’s biggest dickhead.
The supercom crackled. “ I’m on the way, Hair .” Eddie’s voice also came through, and he looked down. Steve picked up the radio again.
“Can we all fit in your van? Reasonably?”
“ Totally, dunno if she’ll be fit to tear down the street at knight rider speeds, but we’d fit. ”
Steve closed his eyes. He leaned back on his heels. “How soon can everyone be here?”
“ Couple minutes. ”
“ Barb is gonna come pick me up. ” He could hear Robin shuffling around, and did some calculations. They’d need to restock some stuff. As long as he had a few hours to cushion this shit.
Turned out, Steve had no idea just how badly this chunk of 14 hours would really be.