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Of all the ways to spend her days, Nancy never thought watching Wizard of Oz with the kids and then marching into the Upside Down would be one of them.
Eddie gave them a thumbs up, when they left, but she knows he’s already got them on a timer. If they had a yellow brick road to follow, this whole thing would be easier. They’ve got an evil ‘wizard’ already. She stops herself before she starts comparing Jonathan and Steve to the Tin Man, Cowardly Lion, and the Scarecrow–she needs to focus to make it through their unauthorized patrol.
“Can we really say we were lured into a trap when we kind of knew it was a trap and came anyway?” Steve mutters to Robin on Nancy’s left. Jonathan, bound by vines on her right, laughs.
“He’s right, Nance.” He says, when she looks at him.
“We didn’t know it was a trap, we had our suspicions that it might be a trap.” Nancy says, a little crossly.
“Same thing with you, Nancy Wheeler.”
“You’re an idiot, Steve Harrington.” She responds, automatically, fondly.
“You’d know better than anyone.” He says. “Well, no, Robin would, actually.”
“So what’s the plan for getting out of here?” Robin asks. “Cause I don’t want to get, like, contact dermatitis from these vines or anything.”
“Robs, they’re not touching your skin.”
“Not yet they aren’t!”
“And they won’t, I’ve got it. It’s gonna get a little warm, though.” Something clicks and the vines around them shift.
It’s not until there’s a small flame racing up her vine toward her face that Nancy realizes that Steve kept a lighter in his hand.
The vine loosens, and Robin’s there with her knife to cut it away. Once they’re all down, they stay as far away from the wall as they possibly can.
“How long do we have until Eddie sounds the alarm and sends someone after us?” Steve asks, one hand on Jonathan’s back and the other on Robin’s shoulder. Nancy resists the urge to move Robin, because she knows they’re not like that–just because she, Jonathan, and Steve have decided that mid-apocalypse is the ideal time to try dating each other doesn’t mean she gets to be mean to Robin when Steve touches her.
A part of her wants to, but she ignores it.
“Probably another half hour. There’s no way he’s giving us a full hour.” Nancy says.
“Well, Nance, you or Jonathan take the lead. I’ll stay at the back.”
“Dingus, you’re not allowed to get yourself trapped down here.” Robin says.
Nancy leads them away from the house, and lets Jonathan lead once they hit the woods. She doesn’t know them as well as he or even Steve does.
It’s been long enough that Eddie has for sure told someone they snuck down here when Jonathan turns to her and whispers “I think we’re lost.”
“Don’t say that!” She hisses, glancing back to make sure Steve and Robin didn’t hear.
“Steve might know this area of the woods better, he can get us out.”
“I know that.”
She doesn’t recognize anything either, not that that’s saying much.
“Finally admitting we’re lost, Byers?” Steve wraps an arm around Jonathan’s shoulders, hand dangling over his chest. Now that he’s allowed to touch, he’s been doing a lot–Nancy flushes when Robin wriggles her eyebrows at her. They’re her boyfriends, she’s allowed to stare!
“How long have you known?”
“Missed a turn a while back, but I figured maybe you had a different way.”
“Say something next time.” Nancy chides lightly. She can’t kiss him with their bandanas on, but she wants to.
“Yes, ma’am.”
Nancy rolls her eyes, but she knows Steve knows she’s smiling.
Steve leads them back to the missed turn, navigating so well she’s a little peeved that just didn’t take the lead from the start.
“Is it weird that we haven’t seen anything while we’ve been in here?” Robin asks. “Like, normally there would have been some demobats by now. At least.”
“Maybe a little.”
“Maybe they’re scared of Steve.” Jonathan says. “He’s got the nailbat and a lighter now, not just an oar.”
“I’m still not convinced the demobats don’t have rabies.” Robin pokes at Steve’s side, the slow-healing wounds covered by layers of bandages and his shirts.
“If they had rabies, I’d be dead already.”
“Yeah, but it’s like, not regular rabies, it’s Upside Down rabies, which means we don’t know how it works.”
“I’ll make sure to spit in your mouth when mine starts foaming.” Steve deadpans. Robin spirals away from him, bumping into Nancy.
“You sure you want him? Both of you? He’s gross.”
“We’re sure.” Jonathan says. “You’re the one who sleeps in his bed most nights.”
“That! Is very different.” Robin declares. “Steve, why didn’t we bring Dustin? He would entertain us.”
“He’d just be mean to all of us.”
“Eddie, then.”
“He’s not allowed to leave my house, Robs, you know that. And we’ve got you for entertainment.”
“Excuse you!” They bicker for a while, and Nancy can’t figure out how she ever thought they were dating. This is exactly how she and Mike talk to each other, most of the time.
Once they get out of the woods, they’re met with a flurry of demobats. Steve takes the first few hits, getting dragged away almost immediately.
Nancy can’t even keep an eye on where they’re taking him because she can’t see him through the wings flapping in her face.
She shoots as many as she can, Jonathan fumbling with the flamethrower for a minute before he gets it going.
They clear the demobats away, at least enough to see Robin.
She’s picked up the nailbat, wielding it fiercely and without finesse. It’s working, though, so Nancy tries to find Steve in the distance.
The tracks on the ground lighten and fade off–they literally picked him up and flew him away.
Nancy wants to sit on the ground and cry, or maybe melt into a puddle.
Whoever Eddie sent after them should be down here soon–maybe they’ll find Steve.
Nancy doesn’t want to be the one to find his body. If they don’t see it, she can still let herself hope–at least for a while.
It won’t work for very long, she knows that about herself.
“We need to follow the trail–” Robin says. “Steve dropped the nailbat. He never lets go of the thing.”
Nancy can’t look her in the eye.
“Robin, the tracks trail off. We don’t have much to follow.”
“The rest of the demobats, then! They all flew in that direction!”
“We can try.” Jonathan’s face is grim. “Come on, Nance. At least we don’t have to go into the woods again.”
Nancy forces herself to take a deep breath. She’s always been good at prioritizing, but just once, she wishes she didn’t have to be.
Robin’s right about the demobats, though. Even at a distance, it’s easy enough to spot the black cloud they form.
She doesn’t think about Steve, hanging limp from their vicious mouths.
They run into Hopper and Joyce before they catch up with the demobats.
“We don’t usually have this much trouble.” Jonathan says, trying to explain.
“How often are you four doing this?” Joyce asks, cutting Hopper off before he can growl or yell at them, whichever it is he’s up for today.
“At least once a week.” Robin says, quietly.
“Steve’s still healing.”
“We left him out, the first time, and the second time we went he was blocking the way and wouldn’t let us go without tagging along. I don’t even know how he found out about it.” Nancy tells them. “The demobats just picked him and carried him off.”
“I didn’t think they were big enough for that.”
“It took several of them to get him off the ground. If they dropped him, it was further along.” Jonathan says.
If they dropped him, he’s dead. No one could survive a fall from that height.
Nancy can’t think like that.
So she turns it off. Hopper takes the lead, this time, and Joyce the rear.
There’s a scream, in the distance. It could be Steve. It could be the demobats.
They catch up to the swarm, eventually, despite their headstart. She can’t see Steve from underneath, but they might have him up higher.
Given how many bites they’ve taken out of him and Eddie, the demobats may have also eaten him.
“Do you think they eat humans?” Robin whispers, and Nancy has to stop herself from crying. If she and Robin are thinking the same thing…
She doesn’t want it to be true.
“He’ll be around here somewhere. Don’t you two have like, some sort of Russian mind link?” Hopper points at Robin.
“No? I don’t think so, I mean we switch clothes all the time and the kids always joke that we can read each other’s minds and we flipped our middle names and we’re a set now, twins separated at birth style, even though Steve’s older than me so we can’t be twins really–”
“Robin,” Joyce says, softly. “No mind link, got it.”
“I don’t think he’s dead. He’s too lame to die getting eaten by demobats.” Robin blinks very quickly. “And he totally would have started haunting me already. We promised that whoever died first would hang around until the other died.”
“That’s… nice.” Joyce says. “If you don’t think he’s dead, we’ll keep looking.”
“Not for long.” Hopper warns. “We can’t be in here all night.”
The demobats finally seem to notice them, dropping down to attack. Nancy’s firing before anyone else gets a chance to.
“He’s there!” Jonathan shouts, once he’s cleared a layer of them with the flamethrower.
Nancy risks glancing up–Steve’s hanging by his ankles, now, and she winces.
He’s going to complain about that so much.
She looks at Jonathan in between shots; there’s blood on his face, but she can’t tell if it’s his or the demobats’.
The demobats holding Steve keep coming closer, too, as their brethren die off.
He’s not quite low enough for her to make out his face.
One of his arms twitches. There’s a flash of silver in his hand.
Jonathan drops the flamethrower and runs.
A remembered click echoes through Nancy’s mind as the demobats holding Steve up burn.
She slings the shotgun to her back, chasing after Jonathan as Steve falls to the ground.
“The demobats are terrible hosts.” He coughs. “And way worse at carrying people than flying monkeys.”
“Not the time, Steve.” Jonathan takes most of his weight, pressing his forehead to Steve’s. “Not when I’ve got your blood on my face.”
“It’s on my face, too, you know.”
“Steve, your eye.” Nancy doesn’t want to separate them, but she can’t help herself, cupping Steve’s face in her hands.
“Demobat’s tail got it.”
“Is that when you screamed?”
“You heard that?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll take him. Jonathan, grab your flamethrower again and make sure the way is clear.” Hopper shoulders between them. “Jesus Christ, kid.”
“I think they liked the taste of me.” Steve jokes.
“Too soon!” They all tell him.
When they get back to Hawkins, Robin goes with Hopper to the hospital.
“We’ll get you two cleaned up before we head over.” Joyce takes them to the Byers’ house, so none of the kids see them.
Nancy doesn’t remember cleaning up, or the trip to Steve’s house to grab Robin new clothes.
“By some miracle, he doesn’t need major surgery.” Hopper rubs his hand down his face. “At least, not right now. Popped some of his stitches, got a few new bites on his shoulders, and he’s gonna be off his feet for a while. The eye, of course.”
“What do you mean, not right now?” Nancy asks.
“If infection sets into his legs, they may have to amputate.” Robin says. “But that’s an ‘if’. He’s gonna keep the other eye.”
She slumps down in her seat. “He’s going to be insufferable. He’ll want an eye patch. Do you know how many pirate jokes we’re gonna have to sit through?”
Nancy smiles, a little. “We should make a list and see how many of them he hits.”
It’s a good way to pass the time. Hopper, Joyce, and Robin let her and Jonathan go first, when they’re able to see him, and it’s all Nancy can do not to kiss him as soon as the door closes behind them.
There’s a bandage and a patch over his empty eye socket, but the remaining eye lights up when he sees them.
“Say, Nance, Jonathan, when this is all over, what do you say to getting a big ship and sailing around the world? Think you could handle being pirates with me? I won’t even make you cut your eyes out.”
Nancy collapses across the bed with how hard she laughs, and Jonathan moves her so she’s tucked up against Steve’s side before the laughter turns to tears. Jonathan takes the other side, and he’s crying, too, but quietly.
“What, are my jokes that terrible?”
“You’re alive to tell them, Steve.” Nancy says.
“And you’re both alive to hear them.”
“We’ll stay that way.” Jonathan promises. “No more Upside Down visits for now. I think Mom and Hopper are going to put a stop to it, anyway.”
It’s a heavy promise to make, especially since they’ll never have an easy way out of the Upside Down. No three clicks of the heels and you’re home.
Nancy hasn’t been sure she’d live through all of this–that they’d live through all of this–ever since the first time they fought a demogorgon.
She shouldn’t be sure of it now, with Steve in a hospital bed again, but somehow, she is.