507. BOY HE MAD AS HELLLL BOY!!!

507 / BOY HE MAD AS HELLLL BOY!!!

"Well, this looks promising."

"We're in the lobby."

Steve scoffed and rolled his eyes at Dustin; Lucy rolled her eyes at him and brushed past the both of them, shining her flashlight around the Hawkins Lab entryway. It looked the same to her as any of the other buildings in the Upside Down did: Overridden with the black, fleshy vines and eerily abandoned. She had not been here in two years, and even then had only been here for maybe ten minutes before—even now she was already itching to get out.

"What are we looking for here, Dustin?" she asked uncertainly, gazing around.

"Yeah, where exactly are we going?" Nancy added, coming up next to her.

Dustin's familiar ego grounded them all as he glanced to each of them. "You've all seen Return of the Jedi, I hope?"

"Of course," Jonathan said immediately.

"That's the one with the—the teddy bears?" Steve asked.

"Ewoks," Dustin said.

"Gesundheit," muttered Lucy.

"Obviously, I've seen it," scoffed Steve, who had only a few hours earlier asked who Han and Leia were. "It's the best one."

Nancy scrunched up her face. "Um, is it?"

"No," Dustin agreed. "But every child loves it, so that tracks. Well, in the film, if you recall, the rebels need to destroy a second Death Star, but it's surrounded by a protective energy shield, which is created by a shield generator."

They moved through the entryway and into the first few hallways, shining their lights around as though expecting something to jump out at them.

"Cool," said Steve, wandering off. "Thanks for the summary of a movie we've all seen."

"It's an oddly relevant movie, Steve," Dustin shot back. "Look, I think this circular, flesh wall is Vecna's version of an energy shield, except it's not sci-fi. It's supernatural, created by Vecna's dark magic. And this dark magic shield is what's preventing us from reaching him and saving Holly."

"So..." Lucy furrowed her brow, letting her gaze fall onto Dustin curiously. "So it's... it's kind of like The Odyssey. Structurally, I mean."

The others slowed to a stop, and Lucy felt four flashlight beams fall onto her. She looked up, shielding her eyes from the light, waiting for someone to understand where she was coming from.

"Really?" she pressed on after a moment of nobody speaking up. "None of you have read it? I swear, it was required reading junior year."

"Well, yeah, we've read it," said Jonathan, shrugging and sharing a glance with Nancy, "but... yeah, we have no idea what you mean."

"Okay, then what about Beowulf?"

This time, truly nobody knew what she was talking about. She screwed up her face, offended, and crossed her arms.

"Fine, back to The Odyssey then. Vecna's using pretty much the same narrative device Homer used for Odysseus's journey. Every time he's close to getting home, something blocks him, like.. a storm, or a monster, or a god with a bone to pick, or something. It's basically Homer telling him that he isn't allowed to go home until the story's over."

She paused again, waiting for the others to catch up, but still nobody spoke.

"So," she continued, gesturing vaguely, "like Homer, Vecna isn't just keeping things out. He's controlling where the story can go. We aren't going to break that by walking straight through it, so we have to find the hinge, the place the author didn't bother to fortify because it wasn't supposed to be noticed."

She lowered her hands and put them on her hips, staring one by one at each of the others, her eyes wide and impatient. Finally her gaze fell on Dustin, and she was surprised to see him sporting a wide grin.

"Well, isn't that interesting," he said, looking deeply astonished.

Lucy raised her eyebrows. "What?"

"You are a nerd."

"I'm sorry," she said, offended, "what?"

"No, no, it's true, Luce," said Steve, his brow furrowed in thought. "Yeah. She's a major nerd—always has been—but, unfortunately, she's the wrong kind of nerd. We need a physicist, not a classicist, Luce."

"But... it makes sense," Nancy admitted, glancing from Steve back to Lucy, looking impressed. "It makes total sense."

Dustin nodded, pointing to Lucy. "A weak point. A symbolic blind spot."

"Exactly," said Lucy, nodding, feeling entirely too relieved that they were finally catching on. "Yeah. A literary pitfall, which, like Dustin said, we're more than likely to find here."

"Correct," nodded Dustin. "Because if my math is correct, the generator for the shield—or Homer's structural literary device, whichever analogy you wanna use—has to be in this lab."

Jonathan narrowed his eyes as he slowly began to catch on. "So... if we find this dark magic shield generator—"

"We destroy the wall," Dustin said simply.

"Find Vecna," added Nancy. "Save Holly."

"Medals for all," said Dustin in a feigned glee.

"And it looks like what?" said Steve, glancing between everyone with his hands on his hips.

"How would you expect me to know that?" Dustin demanded, before stalking off down the next corridor. Clearly offended, Steve looked to the others for defense, but nobody met his eye and instead they all followed after Dustin with their eyes rolling.

A few minutes of investigation (which had amounted to nothing so far) later, Dustin shouldered open a door that led them into a stairwell. They stood on a landing that, to the right, continued up a few floors, and the left, continued down. Dustin waved his flashlight over both options, the black vines glinting in the beam.

"Up or down?" he offered.

Nancy drew in a deep breath. "I say both. Split up, cover more ground."

"Yeah, that's cool with me," muttered Steve, "but can we just switch the teams up?"

"Like.. who?" said Lucy, putting her hands on her hips.

Steve considered for a moment, then nodded at Nancy. "I mean, probably'd be me and Nance, and then you three."

The only person more offended than Lucy at this suggestion was Jonathan. He scoffed, his gaze narrowing on Steve. "Are you serious?"

"Uh, me and Henderson need some space," Steve said, like it was obvious. "Same with Luce. Please."

"Please," Dustin said with him.

"Fine," said Jonathan, raising his eyebrows. "How about me and you, Steve?"

"I think we need some space, too," Steve grit out.

"Oh, so everyone but Nancy," scoffed Lucy. "Funny how that works out."

"We don't have time for this," Nancy interjected angrily, glaring at the others. "Let's just keep it simple, stick to the usual teams."

At once, Steve, Dustin, and Lucy began to voice their objections, but Nancy was not willing to hear anymore.

"End of discussion," she said, staring off up the stairs to the right. Jonathan followed her without another word.

Dustin and Steve shared a glance, and Steve exhaled bitterly, looking to be in complete shock at how unlucky he had become.

"Awesome," he muttered as Dustin and Lucy started off down the stairs. "Just... awesome."

"Okay," said Steve as they reached the bottom of the stairwell, "that was... too many stairs."

"Treasures are always hidden in the deepest depths of the dungeon," murmured Dustin, gazing around at the basement corridor.

"What is it," Steve muttered, "a treasure or a magic shield generator? Keep your metaphors straight, dude."

"Analogy," Lucy and Dustin corrected together, walking on and leaving Steve behind them.

They continued through the basement corridor slowly, the glow of their flashlights guiding them through the filthy air of the Upside Down. Each tiny particle was illuminated in the light and made Lucy's stomach curl at the thought of how much she was inhaling, though she knew they likely had bigger problems.

They reached the end of the hall, which amounted to two double doors, cracked and worn nearly off their hinges. Dustin glanced back at Lucy as though making certain she was ready; she nodded slightly, and he pushed. The doors opened with a protesting squeal and Dustin shone his flashlight inside the room behind them.

"Oh," whispered Lucy, peering inside with a look of utmost confusion on her face. "It's... a daycare."

Dustin frowned at it and ventured in, just as baffled as Lucy. The walls were decorated with murals of blue skies, smiling suns, and rainbows, and abandoned toys littered the floor, along with upturned tables and mini chairs. Lucy recognized the size of the furniture—it was the same that she had in her classroom at the elementary school. This was a room for children, that was for certain, but Lucy could not for the life of her grasp a reason there would be children in Hawkins Lab.

"Okay," said Steve, gazing around the place. "Was not expecting to find a daycare. I guess that's a perk."

Lucy rolled her eyes and stalked deeper into the daycare room, frowning down at the many toys lying around, curious. She knelt down beside a large, impressive dollhouse, though realized it bore no dolls nor furniture—it was the shell of a house with nothing inside.

"Hey, Henderson," laughed Steve bitterly, "it looks like you were right. Treasure."

Lucy looked over her shoulder to find Steve messing with a marble that he had picked up from a wooden maze. He spun it between his fingers, then turned without warning and tossed it to Dustin, who caught it.

"Okay, you know what?" said Dustin, with the air of someone who had snapped their last string of patience.

"What?" said Steve, bored.

"I think this is the perfect spot for you, considering your arrested development. So while Lucy and I search the rest of the basement, why don't you stay here and play with your balls?"

"Perfect," snapped Steve, catching the marble as Dustin threw it back. "Yeah. Finally, a plan I can get behind."

"I can imagine," said Dustin dryly. He turned his flashlight on Lucy. "Shall we?"

She nodded and stood from beside the dollhouse, trailing after Dustin without further word; they pushed out the double doors and headed back down the hallway they had originally come.

"Good luck looking for your treasure," Steve called after them, sounding as though he were loathing them both more than he ever had before. "I mean, your shield generator. I mean—made-up bullshit!"

"Just shut up, would you?" Lucy said over her shoulder, stopping only briefly enough to stare at him incredulously. "Jesus, Steve. Just shut up!"

He met her eyes from down the hall, himself framed in the open doorway to the daycare. In the glint of Lucy's flashlight, she saw something ferocious brewing in Steve's glare, as though he genuinely were furious with her; it was a look which she had never seen on his face before, and certainly never seen him save for her. It felt as though he were watching her with nothing but pure, unadulterated hatred in his heart.

She could not meet his eyes, not with that cruel detestation behind them, so she scoffed just so that she wouldn't start to cry, and turned on her heel to follow after Dustin.

They carried on searching through the basement, though they did it in silence now, and Lucy could tell with certainty that neither of them had anything that they wanted to say to each other. Once upon a time they had been Steve's closest friends—his best friend, his girlfriend. They had fought their way out of a secret Russian spy base together; had fought inter-dimensional beasts, all of them. They had faced so many life or death situations, relying on each other, working together to find their way out of them. Now, though—and Lucy got the feeling that Steve or Dustin would agree (though they wouldn't say it out loud)—this felt much worse than any Demogorgan attack or bloodthirsty bat bite. This was a hurt which made Lucy wish she were dead, in honesty. This was something she was uncertain she could come back from.

This was Steve hating her guts, and God, it felt terrible. In fact it felt worse than terrible, because Lucy had felt terrible things before. This—being hated by someone you loved—was a feeling that Lucy had never truly known before.

But she was beginning to feel her eyes well with tears so she quickly brushed the thought from her mind and wiped her face, sniffing, pretending she was just having allergies; she coughed to sell it.

Dustin glanced back at her, and there was so much pity in his beaten-up face that it almost made Lucy laugh, but he didn't say anything. He looked as though he wanted to. Still he carried on in silence.

Soon enough they had searched what felt like the entire ground floor of Hawkins Lab and found nothing. Whatever shield generator Dustin insisted they would find was clearly not something that the scientists had kept in plain sight, and Lucy was growing tired of searching. Worst of all, she was beginning to grow sick of the unsettling feeling of being in the Upside Down version of Hawkins Lab.

"All clear in there, too," she muttered, the door of a men's restroom slamming shut at her heels. She threw up her hands. "I sure hope Jonathan and Nancy are having more luck than we are."

"Yeah, it's not down here," Dustin agreed, his brow furrowed in thought. He scoffed at the idea forming in his brain and shook it off, then nodded toward the daycare, looking as though he were preparing to leave. "Shall we collect the baby?"

"I'd rather not," she sighed, but reluctantly followed him back to their first pit stop in the basement.

As they rounded the corner toward the daycare, a light clattering and muttered curse caught their attention. Dustin paused, as did Lucy, and fixed his flashlight on whatever had come skittering across the floor: An unsolved Rubik's Cube.

Dustin lifted the beam of his flashlight to illuminate Steve, sitting dejectedly on the edge of a toy shelf, his legs hanging down listlessly.

"Seriously?" Dustin said. "You're actually playing in here?"

"I'm just following orders, dude," he replied immediately. He glanced between both of them, looking unimpressed. "Judging by the pissiness in both of your expressions, I assume you didn't find the shield generator."

Dustin bent over to pick up the Rubik's Cube, sighing. "It's here. Somewhere."

"But you didn't find it."

"Yeah, not on this floor," Dustin shot back, irritated.

"So, you were wrong," said Steve, as he hopped off the toy shelf and landed on his feet.

Dustin stood and stared for a moment, resentment glowing in his eyes. "You would just love that, wouldn't you?"

"Guys, not now," Lucy muttered, letting her head hang and raising her hands to wipe her face.

Steve pretended not to hear her. "No, nah, man. I'm just stating a fact."

"No, you're gloating!" exclaimed Dustin, pointing at him accusingly. "Despite the fact that if I am wrong, we don't reach past the wall, and we don't find Holly and the other kids. Do you understand how selfish you're being?"

"Me? Selfish?" Steve scoffed like the idea was foreign to him. "You wanna talk about selfish? How about the fact when we finally reach Hop and El, we promptly ditch them to pursue this bullshit theory of yours? Not to mention, you're the reason that we lost contact with them in the first place because of your no-show at the crawl, so this whole mess is actually your fault. And I haven't heard so much as a sorry."

"Do you know how ridiculous you sound right now?" Lucy spat, staring at Steve in complete disbelief, sure that everything he was saying now was a complete joke—there was no way he was being serious, she thought. "You're acting like this is some kind of competition instead of—"

"Ridiculous?" Steve laughed mirthlessly. "What's ridiculous is you two acting like you know better than everyone else. But the truth is, Lucy, you haven't been here for two years—and Henderson, you can't admit when you're wrong! You missed the crawl and sent us all into this goddamn mess, dude! Admit it!"

Lucy stiffened, offended at his words. Two years. It was true, but it pained her to remember how easily she had walked away from all of this.

"Shit," exhaled Dustin, "it's not like I just didn't show up, Steve. I was attacked!"

"No," challenged Steve, moving forward. "You wanted a fight, and that was exactly what you got. Just look at your face, man. You've done some stupid shit in the past, but this? Man, this takes the cake."

Lucy moved in front of Dustin, fixing her glare on Steve. "Stop it, Steve. This is getting out of hand."

He pretended as though she weren't even there.

"You wanna talk to me about dumb shit?" demanded Dustin, craning around Lucy and jabbing his finger at Steve. "How about playing shitty songs every morning in the hopes that your ex-girlfriend will call your radio station just so you have the chance to talk to her again? You know you can just call someone up nowadays, Steve, you don't have to be a goddamn coward and wait for them to talk to you—"

"That's not at all what was happening," Steve shot back furiously, looking entirely too hurt at the allegedly false accusation. He glanced at Lucy in disbelief and scoffed, shaking his head. "I missed my friend, Henderson. My friend. You remember what that's like? Having friends?"

"Yeah," said Dustin, his voice nearly breaking now. "I do. I remember what it was like to have a good friend, a real friend, who actually believed in me, and who was actually kind to me."

"Ahah!" exclaimed Steve, pointing at Dustin as though he had finally caught him. "Aha!"

"What?" spat Dustin. "What?"

"There we go. That's what this has all been about, really, is Eddie. All your bullshit, pushing everyone away? It's because no one could ever be as perfect as he w—"

"He wasn't perfect!" yelled Dustin. "But at least he knew that, unlike you. He was never fake. He didn't care what other people thought about him. He was just himself. And you know what? He was the smartest, kindest person I've ever met. And he would've solved this"—he held up the Rubik's Cube—"in thirty seconds flat."

"Well, if I'm such a goddamn idiot, how come I'm the one still standing here?"

The words echoed through the basement of the lab, and Lucy felt her heart drop to her toes.

Dustin paused, his face cracking with fury. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"It means—" Steve spat the words out so harshly that Lucy felt them hit her in the chest—"that you put him on a pedestal so high nobody else gets a chance to breathe. Nobody gets to be human anymore. They gotta be perfect, or they don't mean anything. Not to you, Henderson."

"Steve," said Lucy, clenching her jaw. "You don't know what you're talking about."

"I know exactly what I'm talking about." He fixed his eyes on her now, as though he had been itching for her to speak up the entire time just so he would have had a reason to turn his anger on her. "I've watched it happen twice now."

She did not say anything in reply. In fact she did not have anything to say. The truth was she could not think of anything—any words, any response—except for how ugly the glint in Steve's eyes had become, growing in hatred and fury.

"You left," he said to her. "You disappeared. You didn't come back until everything was already on fire again, and now suddenly you're the voice of reason? Now you're standing next to Henderson like this is your mess to clean up?"

"That's not fair," she choked out, blinking quickly.

"Isn't it?" Steve challenged. "Because from where I'm standing, it looks like you grabbed onto the first kid who reminded you of what you lost, and you decided that was enough."

The words hit her harder than any physical blow ever could. She actually stumbled back. On her chest she could have sworn she felt a dark bloom of blood spreading, as though she had been shot.

"That's not what this is," she said lowly, her voice thin, shaky. Steve did not look at her, but she went on anyway. "I didn't grab onto anyone. I showed up. I stayed, Steve. That's the difference. And if you think caring about someone makes them a replacement, then you never understood why I left in the first place."

Steve's eyes darted from Lucy to Dustin, his chest rising and falling rapidly with barely-suppressed rage, looking downright furious now. He appeared to have given up on fighting Lucy, his eyes glued to Dustin now, glowing with fury.

"Yeah, that's right," he scoffed, sharp and humorless. He hung his head. "You all do the same thing."

He picked up his head with sudden determination, fixing his glare on Dustin. "That night, Henderson—I told you and Eddie not to be heroes. I told... both of you. And what did Eddie do? He charged into a swarm of killer bats."

"To save my life!" cried Dustin.

Steve shook his head. "He saved no one."

"He saved everyone!"

"You can keep telling yourself that, Henderson, but deep down, the reason you're so goddamn pissed is because you know the truth! Eddie wanted to play hero, and he made a dumb call, and he got himself killed!"

"Steve, stop," Lucy said sharply, stepping forward—

"SHUT UP!" roared Dustin.

The Rubik's Cube flew past Lucy's shoulder and smashed into Steve's face without warning. Before she could even react, Dustin lunged, bellowing in rage, slamming Steve into the wall with a force that rattled the shelves.

"Dustin!" Lucy cried, grabbing blindly for his jacket, her fingers skidding uselessly off his arm as he threw punch after punch into Steve's side. The sound of it—knuckles connecting with Steve's gut, his sharp gasps of surprised pain—made her stomach turn.

"No!" Steve tried to fend him off, but Dustin was all rage and momentum. "What the hell, man? What are you doing? Stop it!"

Lucy shoved at Dustin's shoulder, panic clawing up her throat the longer he ignored her. "Dustin—Dustin, stop, this isn't how to fix things—"

If he did hear her, he made a good show of pretending he hadn't.

Dustin wrenched himself free and snatched toys from the daycare floor, hurling them at Steve with a hoarse, wordless scream. Lucy ducked instinctively as a plastic truck flew past her head and shattered against the wall.

"Hey! Henderson!" Steve shouted, shielding his face. "What are you doing? Calm down! Henderson, Henderson—"

Dustin charged again.

They collided hard, both of them grunting as they crashed through the daycare window and tumbled into the small room beyond. Lucy stumbled in after them, heart pounding so violently she thought she might be sick.

"Jesus!" Steve groaned, trying to pry Dustin off him. "You're gonna hurt yourself, man!"

Dustin roared, raw and animal, and they hit the floor in a tangle of limbs. Lucy dropped to her knees beside them, hands shaking as she grabbed for Dustin's arm again, her voice breaking.

"Dustin, you need to stop."

For half a second, it almost worked, and the two boys sat there facing each other, panting.

"Alright, Dustin," Steve said lowly, breathless, barely holding himself back. Clearly, he, like Lucy, thought the worst was over.

Then Dustin's fist collided with the side of Steve's face. They both shouted and wrapped their arms around each other; Steve threw no punches but instead took the hits, grunting with each. He snaked his arms around Dustin's throat, and Dustin, even more enraged by this, slammed himself backward into the wall. Steve groaned as he was pancaked between Dustin and the wall.

"Enough, Dustin!" Lucy tried again. She threw her flashlight at him but it bounced off his back easily. "Dustin!"

Finally the two of them stumbled over each other and fell to the floor together. Dustin's roars of fury slowed to a stop, and Steve quit yelling at him to calm down. They collapsed in a heap on the ground, panting, exhausted. Lucy stood frozen in the corner of the room, watching them closely, afraid they would start up again.

"You know what, man?" Steve pushed himself off the floor painfully, wiping his face. His voice spoke, which shocked Lucy. He struggled to his feet and shook his head, looking as though he tasted something foul. "I'm done. I'm done."

Dustin propped himself up against the wall, teary-eyed and breathless. He shook his head, his chin quivering. "Alright, yeah, just go ahead, go be the hero somewhere else, Steve!"

"Steve, stop," insisted Lucy, and she followed him back out into the daycare room. What she intended to tell him, she did not know; she just knew she was not finished with him yet, and he could not run away from this so easily.

Behind her, she heard Dustin's shaking voice. "You dumb, fake asshole!"

"Steve!" Lucy shouted as they made it back into the hallway, her at his heels and him pretending he did not notice her presence. "God, would you just stop and listen to me—?"

"Nope," he said over his shoulder, pursing his lips and shaking his head in a way that showed so much fury that it made Lucy's skin crawl. "Not happening. And you wanna know why, Andrews?"

"Why, Harrington?"

"Because I never knew how much I hated being pushed around by you until I had two years of freedom." He started up the stairwell without so much as looking back at her. "Two years of not being told what to do. It was great."

"Isn't that sweet," scowled Lucy, stopping at the bottom of the stairs and glaring up at him. "You couldn't stop thinking about me the whole time. I'm flattered, I really am."

"No, you don't get to be flattered," he said, turning around and retracing his steps so quickly that Lucy stumbled back. He jabbed a finger at her. "You don't get to be anything! You aren't the good guy here, you aren't flattered, you aren't an angel. You are—"

"What am I?" she interjected, lifting her chin and meeting his eye defiantly. "Tell me, Steve."

He paused, his chest heaving, glare burning a hole through her eyes. She met his furious gaze and kept her chin high, jaw clenched, heart pumping so quickly and so loud she was certain he could hear it himself.

"You're bossy."

He said it evenly, though it came out of his mouth in the same tone that "fuck you" would. His brown eyes searched her face for a reaction, his chin tilted down as he looked upon her from a step up, but she did not give him the satisfaction of being offended. She kept her face void of emotion.

"That's original," she said, nodding, a bitter taste in her mouth. "Yeah, I haven't heard that one before. Nice one, Harrington."

He curled his lip at her and turned to head back up the stairs again. "You know what? I'm done with you, too. You and Henderson. Both of you."

"Good," Lucy called up the stairwell as he ascended it, throwing up her hands in exasperation. "Good, that's great, Steve. Storm off again. Maybe that thick skull of yours needs a break so you can finally understand how much of a dick you're being!"

Steve did not reply, which likely satisfied him. Lucy did not mind. She was merely satisfied that she had gotten the last word.

Via Chatter

Mom Steve just accused Lucy of latching onto Dustin cause he reminds her of Leo come pick me up I'm so scared rn