Chapter Text
"Madonna, Blondie, Bowie, Beatles? MUSIC, WE NEED MUSIC!"
"THIS IS MUSIC!"
Robin and Eddie were yelling, frantically trying to find something that might help Nancy, but there was no Nancy Wheeler music in Eddie's trailer.
Dustin, Lucas, Erica and Max were scouring through things as well.
Time was running out.
Steve was searching his brain for some ideas of Nancy’s favorite songs. Cindy Lauper, Abba, that one Billy Joel song? Ah, maybe Bananarama? No that one was Robin's constant playback.
He was so desperate, he was about to start singing the first thing that popped into his mind, when Nancy's eyes flew open and she gasped for air.
"Woah woah woah, hey, It’s okay, it’s okay. It’s okay, I’m right here. I’m right here", he said softly, cramming the terrified pitch of his voice down his throat.
He caught her just in time, before she hit the floor.
"Guys! She's back!"
Maybe twenty minutes later they were all back in Normal Hawking and (mostly) in one piece, sitting in Max’s trailer on worn down furniture.
“He… showed me things that haven’t happened yet. The most awful things".
Nancy was speaking in a low voice. Everyone's eyes were on her.
"I saw… a dark cloud spreading over Hawkins. Downtown on fire. Dead soldiers. And this… this giant creature with… a gaping mouth. And this creature wasn’t alone".
Her voice was trembling with fear. Steve felt his muscles tensing up with every bone-chilling word. Her face was so vulnerable: big eyes, brows high and lips trembling. He couldn’t look at her for too long or panic would start creeping up in his chest.
He rubbed a thumb over his hand and looked down. With the corner of his eye he noticed Eddie's hands clenched together into a fist. Skin tight, knuckles whitening with every second.
He looked away, trying to find something else to focus on.
Erica's nervous scratching at her dress, Dustin's heavy breaths.
God, they were all so scared.
“There were so many monsters. An army. And they were coming into Hawkins. Into our neighborhoods. Out homes”.
It was really hard to listen. Max's wide-eyed look made the knot building in Steve's stomach even tighter. He glanced down again and swallowed the uncomfortable feelings.
This was worse than last year. So much worse.
“And… he showed me my mom. And Holly. Mike. And they… They were all...”, she couldn’t finish that sentence.
Steve gathered his nerves. There had to be something he could latch onto, something that made this less fucking tragic.
He tried to think about Nancy's words logically.
“Okay, but… he’s just trying to scare you, Nance. Right?”.
He looked back up with more confidence.
“I mean… I mean it’s not real?”.
“Not yet”, she breathed out quickly. “But there… there was something else”.
Like that's not bad enough , Steve thought.
“He showed me gates. Four gates. Spreading across Hawkins. And these gates, they looked like the one in Eddie’s trailer, but they didn’t stop growing. And this wasn’t the Upside Down Hawkins. This was our Hawkins”.
Max quickly cut in, hearing this:
“Four chimes".
Steve darted his eyes to Robin, who looked up abruptly, a spark of sudden understanding in her eyes.
"Vecna’s clock. It always chimes four times. Four exactly”, Max finished.
“I heard them too”, Nancy added.
“He’s been telling us his plan this whole time”.
All of them slowly absorbed this, somber expressions all around.
Steve heard Eddie laughing to himself nervously next to him. He felt like laughing like that too.
Jesus, this is a hundred times worse than last year.
Robin was now staring at Max with some sort of worry and question. He could almost hear the cogs turning in her head.
He didn’t know what he felt at that moment. Dread? Probably.
"Four kills. Four gates. End of the world".
It was Lucas who broke the silence.
"If that’s true… He’s only one kill away", Dustin pointed out.
"Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ ".
Eddie's cracking voice set Steve into motion.
"Try ‘em again, try ‘em again", he ordered Max, gesturing hastily at the phone.
She walked up to it with a sigh and dialed.
The minute of waiting stretched into infinity and Steve couldn’t help but check up on everyone with a glance. They were all tense. All unnerved.
Nancy was still numb with fear and whatever else was beating within her heart.
Robin was rocking back and forth a little, nibbling on her thumb's cuticle. It was a nasty habit he was trying to make her quit just a couple of days ago, but now he only wished she had more skin to bite on as a coping mechanism.
Lucas was checking on Max and Erica every so often with a protective expression tinged with anxiety.
Erica was stiff with worry.
Max held strong, but her hand betrayed her, playing nervously with the phone's cord.
Dustin was just standing there with his arms crossed and lips in a thin line. Steve didn’t know how with news like that this little shrimp of a boy still managed to be the most hopeful-looking person in the room.
Eddie was doing the worst.
The rings were leaving marks in his other hand as he squeezed them together into a tight fist, mouth propped on it and eyes cast down. He looked like he was about to explode if someone as much as poked him with a finger.
"Anything?", Dustin asked when Max hung up the phone.
"No. Rung a few times and went to a busy signal".
"Maybe you punched it wrong. Try again", Steve said.
Max glared at him like he was the stupidest person on earth.
"I didn’t punch it in wrong".
"Well, I don’t know".
"Dude, I think she knows how to use a phone", Dustin cut in.
"I’m just saying, she could’ve typed it in wrong"
Steve knew it was bullshit, but his nerves were getting to him. Everyone was unravelling and he didn’t know what to do, how to help. Why were the Byers not answering?
Max rang them again, but nothing changed.
"Same shit", she stated.
"How is that possible?", Lucas questioned.
"I told you, Joyce has this telemarketer job."
Dustin spoke again, explaining.
"She’s always on the phone. Mike won’t stop whining about it".
"Yeah, but this phone’s been busy for, what, three days now? That’s not Joyce. No way. Something’s wrong".
Max was right and Steve knew it. Something wasn't right and a chill in his bones was telling him it wasn't something mundane.
"She’s right".
Nancy suddenly spoke, coming up to a window.
"It can’t be just a coincidence. Whatever is happening in Lenora is connected to all of this. I’m sure of it".
Steve saw a change in her demeanor and tensed up. He agreed with what she said, but didn’t like that look on her face. And, as predicted, he didn’t like what she said next:
"But Vecna can’t hurt them. Not if he’s dead. We have to go back in there. Back to the Upside Down".
Now Steve couldn’t deny dread was spreading all across his body. He abruptly got up from the couch.
"Woah, no no no. What?".
"Nope. Nope", Eddie mumbled out, shaking his head nervously.
"Hold on, let's think this through", Steve proposed, trying to convince the fierce girl in front of him.
"What is there to think through?".
"We barely made it out of there in one piece!".
"Yeah, because we weren’t prepared. But this time we will be. We’ll get weapons and protection. We’ll go through the gate, we’ll find his lair, and we’ll kill him".
She was so stubborn and angry. He understood why, but he couldn’t understand how she didn't see the insanity she was proposing.
He glared at her with conviction, trying to get through this wall she was putting up.
"Or he’ll kill us. The only reason that you survived is because he wanted you to. He’s not scared of us".
Suddenly it was Robin, who cut short the tension between them:
"And for good reason. We were wrong about Vecna", she paused for a split second. "Henry. One. Sorry, what are we calling him now?".
"One", said Dustin.
"Vecna", stated Erica.
"One", Lucas supplied.
"Henry", Nancy disagreed.
Robin was visibly confused, (and so was Steve, honestly) but she continued her, clearly very urgent, thought:
"Right. We’ve learned something new about Vecna/Henry/One. He’s a number, like Eleven. Only a sick, evil, male, child-murdering version of her with really bad skin".
She took a short breath in.
"But my-my point is, he’s super powerful. He could turn us inside out with a snap of his fingers. It’s not a fair fight".
Steve didn’t like that visual, not one bit. He loved Robins just plain goofy way of talking even in such a serious situation, so at least that got him to breathe a little lighter.
"So then why fight fair?", Dustin spoke up.
"You’re right, he’s like Eleven. But that gives us the upper hand. We know Eleven’s strengths".
He looked pointedly between Lucas, Max and Steve, as if they knew what he was talking about.
"And weaknesses".
"Weaknesses?", Erica questioned.
Steve furrowed his brows. He wasn’t sure where Dustin was going with this.
"When El remote-travels, she goes into this sort-of trance-like state. I bet the same is true of Vecna".
The salt baths. Right. Something about sensory deprivation?
"That would explain what he was doing in that attic", said Lucas.
"Exactly!", Dustin exclaimed, excitement filling his voice once more.
"When he attacks his next victim I bet his back in that attic, physical body defenseless".
Steve gave him an annoyed glare.
"Defenseless? Yeah? What about the army of bats?", he pointed out.
His wounds ached at just the thought of the flying monsters.
Dustin toned down his enthusiasm while still staying confident:
"Right, true. We’ll have to find a way past them. Distract them somehow".
"And, uh, how do we do that, exactly?"
Eddie piped up on this, hesitantly getting up from his seat. He glanced at Steve and Steve could swear he saw worry in his eyes specifically directed at him.
"No idea", Dustin said.
That made Eddie sit back down with his lips tightened in an awkward smile.
"But once they’re gone, he doesn’t stand a chance. It’ll be like slaying sleeping Dracula in his coffin".
As Dustin continued, Steve kept watching Eddie, who seemed to doze off from the conversation, tense and deep in thought.
It was strange to have someone new to the topic of monsters and other dimensions listen to their discussion on how to slay an evil psycho with superpowers. In the room full of people who dealt with this shit before, Eddie looked like the crazy one, when in fact it should have been their relative stoicism that was insane.
Steve hoped Eddie knew that.
"That all sounds good in theory, but there is no pattern to Vecna’s killings. I mean, at least not one that I can decipher", Robin summarized.
"We don’t know when he’s going to attack next, we don’t even know who he’s going to attack".
"Yeah, we do", said Max and the whole room fell silent.
Steve closed his eyes with a deep sigh. No , he thought to himself.
"I can still feel him. I’m still marked".
She took a deep breath, most likely to steady her voice.
Steve couldn’t stand to hear it, but it was piercing through his brain like a lobotomy needle.
"Cursed".
Max was scared, no matter the brave face she put on. He wanted to grab her and hide her away somewhere she wouldn't have to deal with this whole mess. Tell her she can drop the tough girl act, that everything was going to be okay.
"I ditch Kate Bush, I draw his focus back to me".
"Max. You can’t. He’ll kill you", Lucas said, pleading.
His tone was full of sadness and worry. Steve's heart dropped to his stomach.
These kids don't deserve to be going through this.
"I survived before. I can survive again. I just… need to keep him busy long enough so that you guys can get into that attic", she slowly said.
All eyes were on her. Even Eddie's.
"And then you can chop his head off, stab him in the heart, blow him up with some explosive Dustin cooks up, I honestly- I really don’t care how you put this asshole in his grave. Just-".
She paused and the tension in the room rose even more.
"-whatever it is… Whatever you do… Try not to miss".
No words.
Nothing.
Just unbearable silence.
It was like none of them could speak and Steve couldn’t stomach that.
He took a jerky step toward her.
"This is insane. No. We're not doing this- you're not doing this".
"Steve…", Robin tried to calm him, but that only added fuel to the fire.
He turned to her.
"Don't 'Steve' me, okay? We barely saved her last time, and what? Now we're just gonna volunteer her for possible death? No. No way".
"Well, it's not your call", he heard Max say.
He swiveled around sharply, looking back at her. She stood with her arms crossed.
She made up her mind. She was going to do it.
But he couldn’t let her.
He just couldn't-
I'm responsible for you, he thought.
"Please", he said, coming up to her and making sure she looked at him, she saw his desperation like he never let her see it before.
"Let us think of another way. Maybe we can- maybe all we need is to just wait him out-"
"Steve, she won't get rid of him any other way".
It was Nancy this time. Her firm voice finally got to him. He froze, still looking into Max's eyes. He saw fear in them but buried deep down. She wasn’t letting it rule her, she was standing firmly on her own two feet and facing what was coming with exceptional bravery. Unyielding.
"Steve, come on, we all hate this, but Nancy's right", he heard Robin say and felt her hand on his shoulder. It made him relax a bit.
"Listening to Kate Bush can be nice, but doing it her whole life might be a bit of a stretch, don't you think? Like, how are we to know he won’t eventually just… get another person to kill for this gate? We'd waste too much time trying to find them".
She gave a sympathetic sigh when he finally turned to face her.
"I'm sorry but this is our best bet and you know it".
There was another beat of silence.
The metal tin of a house they were standing in creaked ominously creating unsettling ambience.
Steve decided to sit down next to Eddie again. He sunk into the sofa with a hard sigh and glanced briefly at him. Dark brown eyes were glued to the ragged carpet, still full of anxiety.
He patted his back in reassurance, the gesture being a way for himself to feel a little less miserable too. He let his hand linger on the back of the couch.
Eddie gazed up at him and gave an empathetic little smile. Steve nodded shortly. The line of communication stood open but he wasn't sure what to say.
"One thing still doesn't make sense", Dustin thought out loud, breaking the peace again.
Steve looked away from Eddie, focusing back on the others, though his thoughts were still with the man next to him. He didn’t deserve to be mixed up in all of this. None of them did.
"Why didn’t Vecna open the fourth gate yet? You guys-",
Dustin pointed with his chin in the direction of Steve, Eddie, Robin and Nancy, who were sitting or standing in close proximity to each other now.
"-were running around the Upside Down for a while. He had the time to gain his strength back, he could have killed again without us even knowing".
"Wait, did he?", Robin asked.
"No, not that we know of", Lucas answered.
"He didn't".
Nancy was sitting across from Steve, Eddie and Erica again. Her fists were tightening on the edge of the chair.
"He was too busy getting into my mind".
"Oh. Right", Robin uttered with a bit of guilt and apology in her voice.
But then she piped up again, some sort of realization blooming on her face:
"Okay, but why not use you then?".
Nancy gave a confused (and frankly a little hurt) look. So did Steve, because what the fuck was she saying?
Robin stepped in place.
"He grabbed a hold of Nancy, right? Without her even noticing, so why not let us go? Why not let her believe she's safe, let her cross back to our Hawkins and use her as his victim to open the last gate?".
She glanced between Nancy and the others.
"That does sound like a better option, right? Why give you the visions, why reveal his plan, when he could have just…".
Steve face-palmed when she simulated with gestures the horrible way Vecna's victims died.
Robin spotted that and questioned him with a look. He shook his head and stared at her, communicating that he didn't know what she was thinking, doing that, but she should definitely stop.
Robin winced in a silent apology, giving a glance at Eddie. He was rubbing his forehead, tired.
"Yeah", Dustin agreed. "The fact he hasn't definitely is suspicious".
"What's so suspicious?", Nancy grunted, a sour expression on her face.
"The fact that he's playing a game? The fact he wanted me to tell Eleven what I saw, to torture her with- to tell her so he could gloat with it how powerful he is now, how he'll win and there's nothing she can do about it?! Because he has some sort of grudge against her?!".
Her outburst silenced the room once more. Half of them looked like they wanted to leave. Steve sure was itching to do so, just to cool down a little.
But there were still things puzzling them all.
"He wants her to suffer so he wants us to suffer. He's toying with us. Like a goddamn cat with its dinner", concluded Nancy.
Max moved closer to everyone else and fixed her eyes on her.
"That's why it's me", she said.
Nancy gazed up at her, confused.
"He wants it to be me. Because he knows El is my friend. And he's a sadistic bastard".
Steve felt his heart sink.
"Christ", he mumbled out into his palms, rubbing at his face.
He felt so tired with every new, horrible realization weighing him down. It was easier to stand getting mauled by monster bats than to listen to how all the people he cared about were in danger.
He'd choose that any time of the week over this.
His eyes wandered through his surroundings and landed on Eddie again, stopping abruptly when he saw his expression. He furrowed his brows. The fear was inexplicably gone from Eddie's face, replaced with sharp focus and something else.
"Um, okay, the villain hates the superhero. Classic, but...", he said, glancing back up at everyone.
"I might not be the smartest person in this room, but, um… I've played enough D&D to know-", he stopped, looking at Dustin, then Lucas.
"Seriously, I'm the only one seeing this?"
The rest of them turned to him now, eyebrows raised in confusion.
He looked to Max with a nervous chuckle and said:
"Uh, if you're letting an evil wizard into your mind, you probably shouldn't know the plan to defeat him?".
Fuck , Steve thought.
Eddie was absolutely right.
"Damn it!", angrily yelled out Dustin.
Eddie must have seen Steve's face lose color or something, because he gave him an apologetic smile.
He shook his head at him. It's not your fault we're stupid .
Robin gazed at Max, horrified. Everyone was looking at her.
"You can't do it now, Max", said Lucas, stepping next to her.
"No, that doesn't change the plan completely. You guys just have to come up with something new for the rest of it. Something I won't know".
Steve could only shake his head. Nancy was too hot headed about this right off the bat, they really needed more time to think all this through.
"Yes, we need to change it. So he doesn't know we're trying to distract him", she immediately insisted.
"He's gonna know either way, you dinguses", Erica suddenly spoke.
They all turned to her and stared at her like she had three heads.
"What? Like the BBEG won't figure you're distracting him? Bait him with Max, lead away the bats… he'll know".
"BBE- What?", asked Steve, completely lost.
"Big Bad Evil Guy", supplied Eddie.
"Okay, uhh, this- this isn't some game Erica".
"Strategically speaking, doesn't seem too different to me", she fired back, crossing her arms in front of her.
He was about to say something more to her, but he closed his mouth when he felt the seat beside him suddenly empty.
He raised his hands in defeat, dropping the little stare-down he shared with Erica and witnessed Eddie start to pace around.
Robin took his place exchanging a concerned look with Steve.
"She's right though. He's gonna figure us out", she said.
“Okay, but what’s he gonna do? If, like Henderson said, he’s going to be sleeping Dracula or whatever, he won’t be able to do anything, right?”
“Wrong”, said Erica again. "He’s not gonna be like Dracula, because Dracula wasn't part of a hive mind. One thing sees you, he sees you. You’re a total dumbass if you think he won’t use that and kick our asses".
Steve had no will to even give her a frustrated glance. He knew she was right.
Blam!
Eddie stopped his walk abruptly and loudly clasped his hands together.
The sharp sound made Steve jump a bit.
Then he witnessed a weird look of determination spread across Eddie's face.
"Well, then. We need something he won't see coming. A better plan. Maybe three".
He turned to Max and added:
"And, sorry Red, but you need to leave for this part".