509. rip leo andrews u would've loved this chapter

509 / rip leo andrews u would've loved this chapter

Lucy had never been more pleased to hear Mike Wheeler's voice in her entire life.

After a few minutes of Dustin attempting to contact the others on their broken radio, occasionally having to swat the taped-up antenna out of his face, Lucy was beginning to think two things: That they might have been stuck in the Upside Down forever, and that she was sick of hearing Dustin ask if anyone copied.

She and Nancy sat on the front steps of Hawkins Lab side by side, silent and staring at nothing. Lucy could not read Nancy's mind but would guess they were thinking similar things by then, and the chief thought of them all was where was Holly. They had had her for a heartbeat, for one breath—then they exhaled and she was gone once again, taken right from under their noses as easily as before.

The boys paced back and forth in opposite paths, kicking rocks in front of the lab. Steve had his hands on his hips, his eyes downcast and cloudy with thoughts. Jonathan would pace for a few steps, pause, get lost in thought, then continue pacing. Dustin was only a couple yards away, screaming into the radio.

"Is anyone THERE?" He was growing impatient now, Lucy could tell, but she was too. "This is DUSTIN! Over!"

"Dustin, it's Mike."

The five of them perked to alert at once. Nancy and Lucy stood from the steps and were at Dustin's side in no time, and Jonathan and Steve hurried over too. They all crowded around the radio.

"Holly's escaped from Vecna, and she's on her way to my house in the Upside Down. I need you to get there as fast as you can and rendezvous with Holly. Do you copy?"

"Holly's not at the house," Dustin answered, after sharing a grim look with the others. "We found her. We found Holly. Repeat—"

"Dustin, I'm losing you!"

"Shit," said Dustin, slapping his palm against the butt of the radio as its speaker descended into crackling chaos. "Shit! We lost him!"

They fell silent and exhaled slow breaths of acceptance at the fact that they had lost their only communication with the real world. Lucy pinched the bridge of her nose, squeezing her eyes shut, running over everything Mike had told them—

Then she paused, brow furrowing. "Am I missing something? How did Mike know Holly escaped?"

Jonathan and Nancy exchanged a glance, clearly confused of the same thing; they all turned to Dustin, but he spread his hands and gave them an innocent shrug.

Soon enough they returned to their places in silence: Nancy and Lucy on the steps of the lab, Jonathan and Steve wandering, Dustin standing by the door, still trying to get in contact with Mike. It was not long, though, before they heard another voice—and not through the speaker of Dustin's radio.

"Dustin?" The call echoed across the vastness of the Upside Down and carried through the fog with ease. "Dustin? Nancy?"

Many voices rose up, calling out for each of the people Lucy was surrounded with. One by one, they all perked up again, their eyes widening with the realization that help had come.

"Mike!" Dustin cried, taking off running in the direction the voices had come from. "MIKE!"

"Dustin!" he called in response, and slowly a horde of flashlights began to glow through the thickness of the Upside Down, approaching quickly. Dustin and Mike were at the heads of either group; they collided in a relieved hug.

"Jesus, it's good to see you guys," Mike said as the others came up behind Dustin. Then he lifted his eyes and realized the other four were coming up with much less joy to them than Dustin had carried himself with; that, and they were missing a sixth figure.

"Nancy?" he said, coming forward, his face falling. "Where is she?"

Nancy took a moment to pull her thoughts together, her eyes glassy and unfocused, her face grim. She shook her head and let her face fall to the ground, then recounted what they had seen on the rooftop of the lab—how they had heard Holly's scream and ran out to save her, but she was sucked out of their reach just as they arrived. As she spoke, Mike's face fell, his eyes searching Nancy's face.

"It was him," she said, spitting the word out with nothing but venom in her voice. "Vecna. It had to be."

The others were too defeated to even attempt to argue, and they all knew the truth: It was Vecna. Somehow he had found out that Holly had escaped, and he'd caught her in just the nick of time—right when she was about to be free, right when she laid eyes on her big sister.

The thought made Lucy's throat tighten, so she followed everyone else back toward the gate in silence, staring at her feet.

The group began moving as one, turning back toward the gate they'd carved into the lab's outer wall. Mike, El, and Dustin walked ahead, already talking too fast, tripping over each other's words as relief fought with fear. Robin and Vickie walked side by side; Robin muttered a little joke and Robin snorted a laugh. Nancy fell into step beside Jonathan, their heads bowed together and no words exchanged between them. Oddly enough Mr. Clarke was there, too, and he, Hop, and Erica walked silently in a clump toward the middle of the group.

Lucy drifted to the back.

She did not mean to; it just happened as such—her feet slowed and her focus narrowed to the cracked concrete beneath them, to the sound of boots and sneakers scuffing through flesh vines and cement. The Upside Down hummed around them, alive with energy, like it knew they would be back at one point or another.

She barely noticed when Steve slowed to join her.

At first, he lingered a few steps ahead of her, hands shoved into his jacket pockets, shoulders tight. Then he fell back fully, matching her pace without looking at her. They walked like that for several seconds; close enough to feel each other's presence, but far enough away that neither of them to acknowledge it.

Steve broke the silence first, his voice coming out low and gentle and not at all like he sounded the last time he had spoken to her.

"I shouldn't have said it."

Lucy didn't look up, and she let herself and Steve walk in silence for a few more steps before she said anything at all. "Which part?"

"All of it," he said immediately, the words tumbling from his lips as though he had rehearsed many times in his mind. "The—pushing me around. The two years thing. Acting like my life was better without you in it. That was... bullshit."

She swallowed, still watching the ground. "Sounded pretty convincing to me."

"I was mad," he said. Then, quieter, he added: "And... scared."

That made her stop, the soles of her Converse crunching against the cement; she stared with unfocused eyes at the ground before her, letting his words wash over her mind, mulling them over by herself.

Steve took another step before realizing she wasn't beside him anymore. He turned back, frowning, and found her standing there, arms wrapped around herself like she was holding herself together.

"Scared of what?" she said, in a voice so quiet it was a miracle he heard her.

He huffed out a breath, humorless, his eyes shooting toward the sky like it might have given him mercy. "I think you know."

She did, and she resented how it made her throat constrict with tears.

"I said all that... bullshit because you left," Steve continued, voice low, urgent now, like if he didn't get the words out they would rot inside him. "And—and when you came back, everything felt... wrong—like I missed eighteen months of something so goddamn important and everyone else figured out how to live without me."

Lucy raised her eyes to look at him; red-rimmed and bare, she watched Steve stare at the sky, speaking with a shaky voice like he was trying not to cry.

"And instead of dealing with that," he went on, gesturing sharply, "I... decided it was easier to make it your fault."

"That's generous of you," she said with a scornful scoff.

"I guess I figured you'd leave and realize that I wasn't enough for you. I just—" He stopped, rubbing a hand over his face in frustration, hating how the words in his mouth were not cooperating with the words in his mind. "I didn't mean what I said. Any of it. Those two years weren't freedom; they weren't anything close to it. They were hell. You never push me around. You push me to be better. To do better. You changed who I am, Luce.

Lucy's breath caught in her throat and she lifted her eyes now, willing the wetness in them to go away and hoping that he did not see it.

Steve watched her closely for another moment, his jaw clenched then said, "And I know... I know the other thing I said, it's not true. Not at all."

She stiffened, afraid of him now—afraid of the way her heart was now pounding in her ears.

"He's not replaceable," Steve said, firmly now, like he needed her to believe it. "And I knew that when I said it. I just wanted you to hurt the way I was hurting." His voice cracked. "I'm so sorry, Luce."

She wiped at her face and lifted her shoulders, hoping her expression was as carefree as she was trying to make it. "It's in the past, Steve. We have more important things to—"

"No, we don't," he said, storming toward her now and waving a hand as if to dismiss the thought entirely. He met her eyes with such ferocity and determination that she nearly felt her knees buckle; he shook his head as though in disbelief she would even think such a thing. "No, I promise you, Luce, there is nothing more important to me than this. Than you."

She stilled, her breath catching solidly in her throat and turning into a ball of tears that squeezed—she swallowed thickly, her eyes glued to Steve's, unable to tear away from his wide, brown gaze. He looked to her as though he meant every word, and she wanted desperately to believe him, but the thought of what he had said to her in the lab still burned like fire inside her chest.

She drew in a deep breath to steady herself, finally letting her gaze break from Steve's, though his eyes did not move from her face.

"And about the other thing?" she said quietly, crossing her arms in defense.

He furrowed his brow in genuine concern, racking his brain, and began to stammer out blanket apologies for everything he had said and anything he had left out—it was only as he glanced back to Lucy and caught sight of the glimmer in her sad eyes that he knew to what she was referring.

"Oh," he said, running a hand through his hair and avoiding her eyes now; he seemed more embarrassed than apologetic now. "Well, to tell you the truth.. yeah, Dustin was right."

She exhaled an unwitting, quiet laugh, letting her head fall forward. "You hijacked a radio station and tortured me with every song I hate just so I'd call you. Jesus, Steve, you played Journey and REO Speedwagon. Who on earth would want to listen to their bullshit?"

"Well, for the record, those are classics," he fired back, pointing at her as though she had crossed the line; but she recognized the glint of amusement in his eye and how his lips curled at the corner.

"Classics is pushing it," she said, rolling her eyes, though she was trying not to smile now. They fell into step together and followed the rest of the group side by side. "I'd say they qualify more as noise pollution."

He scoffed, affronted, and glanced down at her with a look that said you're ridiculous. "You gotta be out of your goddamn mind if you think the Beastie Boys are anything but perfect, Luce."

"Perfect? Please."

"And while we're on the subject," he said airily, raising his hand to interrupt her and furrowing his brow, "I never understood how you could possibly hate Springsteen. That guy's a flat-out legend—"

"He sings like has a frog stuck in his throat!"

"No, he does not."

"Yes, he does!"

"No, he sings like this," Steve said immediately, and without missing a beat, he was already doing it: He sang Springsteen in The Promised Land, dolefully adjusting his voice until it sat deep enough in his throat to truly sound as though there were a frog inside. "Mister, I ain't no boy, I'm a man, and I believe in a promised land—"

"You sound just like him," admitted Lucy, her words coming out between laughter as she watched Steve toss his head back, his hair flying with it; she could not help but grin as he pretended his flashlight was a microphone and clutched it like Springsteen on tour.

"Right?" Steve spread his hands, prideful at his impersonation and how well it had come out. "The dogs on Main Street howl 'cause they understand—I mean, come on. Is that Springsteen, or what?"

"Oh, I think it is," she said, laughing harder now, and she lifted a hand to cover her mouth as she let out an exceptionally loud laugh at Steve's new facial impersonation of Springsteen—as soon as the giggle had slipped from her lips, his face melted into a real smile momentarily. Then he picked the impression back up again and continued it all the way back to the gate, not once letting it slip, solely for the reason that he wanted to keep her laughing.

Returning to the Squawk brought news of all kinds: Hop and El had made it safely out of the Upside Down, but not without company, and El introduced the others to a woman she called her "sister," Kali, who watched everyone reproachfully and did not utter a word unless it was to El; and (this was something that brought a rare smile to Lucy's face), being wheeled around in a chair, still adorned in her hospital gown and red braided pigtails—Max was back. She had escaped Vecna's mind palace like Holly and had woken back up in the hospital with Lucas, but not before Lucas, Robin, Vickie, and Mrs. Wheeler narrowly escaped another Demo attack. Oh—and Will Byers had supernatural powers.

Shit. You miss one goddamn day in this town.

Mike and the oddball group including Mr. Clarke led Lucy, Steve, Jonathan, Nancy, and Dustin back to the Squawk for a whole-group meeting, to recollect themselves and share findings. Lucy knew Dustin's would be the most important of them all, certain that Brenner's journal would interest the entire group.

What she found awaiting her at the radio station—or rather, who she found—completely wiped her mind from the topic until all she could focus on was the girl in front of her.

"Max."

The word tore past her lips in complete relief and delight, and she stumbled over her own two feet to get to Max's side and hug her. She felt her laugh over her shoulder, her body shaking with the joyful, shaky sound. When she pulled away, Lucy could not exactly say she was surprised to see tears in Max's eyes—it was not every day that you were reunited with your closest friends after spending eighteen months in a comatose mind prison.

"Hey," she said, her blue eyes twinkling up at Lucy. "Long time, no see."

"You could say that," laughed Lucy, holding her shoulder.

"You up for a tour?" Lucas asked Max, pointing toward the station. Max broke into a smile and nodded, and Lucas wasted no time in wheeling her inside the Squawk. The two of them wandered through the station, Lucas narrating for Max what each moving piece was; he kept her up-to-date on everyone's roles in the crawls, how Rockin' Robin shared secret codes over the radio station that were so good the military didn't even pick up on them. Lucy watched them through the glass of the sound box, her lips curling up in a smile. She struggled to take her eyes off them at all, but when Dustin settled everyone down in the main room, she focused in on him immediately.

He went over the initial findings from Brenner's journal, about the Upside Down being a bridge to another dimension, not a world itself—how Hawkins was connected to this other dimension, and how the exotic matter fused it all together. At the look on some people's faces (likely Lucy, though she had heard this explanation thrice before), he sighed and picked up a white board marker to demonstrate.

"So this is Hawkins," he said, drawing a circle with a line through it on the sound box window—he labeled one side of it with an H and the other with a UD. "And this is the Upside Down. Now, we've always assumed the Upside Down was another dimension opened by Brenner, but it turns out—it's actually a bridge. More specifically, an inter-dimensional bridge that rips through space-time. It is wildly unstable, but held together by exotic matter, which we found dead center right above the lab."

He drew a circle in the center of the bridge between the two circles on the window.

"In theoretical physics, they call this type of bridge a—"

"—wormhole," Erica and Mr. Clarke said together.

Dustin pointed to the two of them like they were right on the money. "And this wormhole connects Hawkins to here, another world—that I've coined the Abyss."

"Any particular reason?" Robin asked, leaning forward on her knees.

"A realm of pure chaos and evil," Mr. Clarke replied, mystified.

Robin raised her eyebrows. "I'm sorry?"

"D&D," the nerds of the room replied.

"Jesus Christ," muttered shopper.

"I believe this abyss is the true home of the Demogorgans,"  Dustin continued, pointing to the top circle he'd labeled with an A. "The vines, the Mind Flayer, all the nasty shit we found in the Upside Down, and it's where, all those years ago, you banished Henry."

He looked to El, who nodded along, following intently.

"He was lost for years, and he would've stayed lost if it wasn't for Brenner."

"He had me find Henry," El confirmed.

"And when you made remote contact with the Abyss, the bridge formed. And ever since, Henry and his army of monsters have been using it to cross right back into Hawkins. We kicked Vecna's ass last year, but I think he just fled across this bridge back to the Abyss to lick his wounds."

"What a pussy," scoffed Erica.

"So all this time," said Joyce uncertainly, "Vecna's been hiding in the sky?"

"Explains why every crawl led to a dead end," Nancy said, frowning.

"And why I can't find him in the bath," El added.

"And why Holly fell from the sky," said Lucy with wide eyes.

"Yeah," said Hop impatiently, "but why is he taking kids up there?"

"For the same reason he took me," Will said evenly. "The minds of children are weaker, right? More easily molded and controlled. So he channeled his thoughts and powers through me to amplify his abilities, and he's gonna do the same with those kids."

"Amplify his abilities?" Hop repeated, laughing dryly. "To do what?"

"Move worlds," Max said softly. Everyone turned to her and she swallowed, glancing around. "Holly... She said Henry told the kids that they would help him draw the worlds together. I didn't understand what that meant at the time, but I—"

"He wants to move the Abyss," Mike said, nodding. "Crash it into Hawkins."

"No, not crash," said Will, spreading his hands as an idea hit him; he joined Dustin in front of the glass and took the white board marker, drawing lines between the bridge, the Abyss, and Hawkins. "Henry wasn't licking his wounds in the Abyss. He was making rifts, weakening the Abyss, just like he weakened Hawkins. So when the Abyss and Hawkins collide—"

"—they become one," finished Dustin grimly.

"He's remaking the world," El said.

"How... long do we think this takes?" Steve said, looking around. "To move worlds? Like, are we talking like"—he slapped his hands together—"or is this gonna take some time?"

"We better hope we have some time," Mike said, raising his eyebrows. "Because if this is all correct, we have to get two thousand feet in the air, find our way into the Abyss, free Holly and the kids, and kill Vecna, all before our worlds merge."

"And if my theory's right," Lucas said, "he's gonna move worlds tonight. November 6."

"Have I mentioned how much I hate your theory?" Robin said.

"Me too," Erica added.

"Me three," said Steve, throwing up his hands.

"I hate... all of this," Hop said, moving toward the window demonstration. "But at least now we know what we're up against and what we need to do. We just need a plan."

He reached out toward Dustin, who tossed him the white board marker, and immediately got to work: He drew a little cartoon helicopter and underlined it three times.

"At the base in the Upside Down, there's a chopper ready for the taking. We fly up to the Abyss, kill the freak, rescue the kids... fly back down."

"Who exactly do you expect to fly this thing?" Dustin said, raising a hand.

"It's a helicopter," scoffed Hop. "They've got pilots. We force one to fly."

"Another kidnapping plot," said Robin brightly. "Love it."

Mike scrunched his face. "How is this pilot gonna fly a chopper right into the rift?"

"What do you mean?" said Hop, spreading his hands. "We just fly through it."

"What?" murmured Mike.

"Idiot," whispered Murray.

"Just fly through it," Lucas repeated scornfully.

"These rotors are, like, forty feet wide," Dustin pointed out. "It's too big. It's not gonna fit."

"Steve hears that all the time," grinned Robin, "and he goes in anyway. Isn't that right, Luce?"

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Steve said immediately.

"Jesus Christ, Robin," Lucy muttered, putting her red face in her hands.

"It's funny," Murray supplied. Steve hit him on the shoulder.

"Everybody, shut up," Hop said, raising his voice now. "Look, if somebody else has some magic bean that I don't know about, I'm all ears. If not, it's a risk that we gotta take. We fly, or we die."

"Fly or die," Murray repeated forcefully.

"Well, then I guess we die," Dustin said, shrugging.

Hop rolled his eyes. "We're not gonna die if we commit to a plan."

"Can we weight out a few more options before we commit to this one in particular?" Dustin stood from his seat which was how Hop knew he was losing control of the room. He groaned and threw the white board marker in the air. Everyone slowly began to pick up slack and add their two cents, until voices spoke over each other and the volume in the radio shack was too high—Lucy kept her mouth shut and head down, covering her face. The room now sounded like her classroom of fourth graders.

Robin scoffed. "You're not even listening to each other—"

"You guys!" Mike yelled.

Hop and Dustin continued arguing and the entire room was now abuzz with noise. Lucy phased it out until she felt shifting on the table next to her; she picked up her head and saw Steve hopping off, his eyes glowing with an actual thought. He walked two steps over and looked out the front window of the radio shack, then came back as though his idea had been confirmed.

"We don't need a magic bean to climb," he said, not loud enough; everyone continued their arguing. When he caught Lucy's eye, he nodded his head toward the group, frustrated, and made a gesture asking if she could get them to calm down.

"Oh," she said, sitting up straight now. She cleared her throat and raised her voice, looking around the room. "Um... If you can hear my voice, clap once."

She got some sideways glances and an only a few claps: Lucas, Mike, Will, Mr. Clarke, El, and Joyce—everyone else continued their arguing. Lucy exhaled sharply and tried again.

"If you can hear my voice, clap twice!"

The claps grew louder and sharper, and slowly the eyes of the room finally fell on Lucy; it was only Dustin and Hop left to their own devices but they soon realized that the room had gone still, and turned their eyes to Lucy now.

She nearly froze under everyone's gaze, and sat there with wide eyes, taking a moment before she went on.

"Um... thank you." She looked at Steve, nodding. "Since we're already talking about things that don't fit—Steve has an idea."

Robin snorted and hung her head; Steve shot both of them a glare, then accepted control of the room. "Sorry. We don't need a magic bean. We got a beanstalk... right here."

He glanced at the sound box as his mind worked, and he quickly rushed inside to grab a Slinky and a flashlight. When he returned to the others, he set the flashlight on the table where he had been sitting.

"This is the Squawk radio tower," he explained to everyone. He picked up the Slinky and slid it over the flashlight. "And this is the bridge. We'll never reach the Abyss from the tower, right? But Max said Vecna is drawing our worlds together. So we let him. And we wait, and wait—as he draws it closer and closer. When it's close enough, and the radio tower is poking through one of the rifts, bam! El makes her move, she does her meditation thingy, enters Vecna's sick mind, and ambushes him. In your face, dickhead. And then, stopping the spell, halting the worlds from moving. Wham. Voila! We've got a beanstalk. It's perfect. All we gotta do is climb up it into the Abyss."

"I like it," Erica said as soon as he finished talking.

"It's not... totally insane," Mike agreed.

"Thank you," Steve said, tipping his head.

"But there's a problem—a big one."

"I can't reach inside Vecna's mind," El said quietly. "He's too far away."

"Can't you just try?" Steve asked, shaking his head. "I don't know, load up on some of your junk food or something?"

"Or better," Nancy added, her eyes darting from Steve to El as the idea hit her, "we get you close. The Upside Down lab is right under his lair, and it's still frozen in time, which means that everything should still be there from Brenner's experiments, including..."

"The bath," El finished, looking deep in thought.

"If you do make it into his mind," said Max, "I can walk you through it. Guide you. I know his sick mind inside and out."

"I should be there too," El's sister, Kali, said. "This plan hinges on stopping Henry, and right now, Jane is fighting him alone. It doesn't need to be that way. I can follow her into his mind. We can end our brother, together."

"Okay, yeah," said Steve, glancing uncertainly between the two of them. "I dig it. Sisters kill their brother. We rescue the kiddos, come home heroes. And if Lucas is right, we don't have a lot of time, so we have to move fast."

"One final thing," Dustin said, joining Steve behind the table with a handheld kitchen timer. "Cherry on top. On the way out, we drop a bomb near the exotic matter. Set a timer, escape the Upside Down.... The bridge collapses, and with it, the Abyss, the Demos, the Mind Flayer, all of it. Gone. Game, set, match."

For once, nobody could find a hole in the plan, so they began preparation and execution. After all, they only had until that night before Henry would start merging worlds. Operation Beanstalk had begun.

Lucy sat with Mike in the basement as he worked on putting together the bomb. It was not her ideal location, sitting a foot away from what would soon be an active bomb, but Mike had called her over for help after realizing she was the only adult in the basement—Joyce and Hop had left, and the only other person downstairs with them was Robin. Nancy, Steve, and Dustin were in the basement but working hard on prepping weapons and ammo. So Lucy was drafted into helping make a bomb.

"You know you don't have to do that," Mike told her, his voice coming out slowly as he spoke and worked at the same time. He didn't take his eyes off the bomb but she knew he was talking to her.

"Do what?"

He took a glimpse over his shoulder at her and scoffed a laugh. "Sit like that. It's not gonna just explode out of nowhere, I swear."

She took a glance at the way she was sitting: As far back in the office chair as she physically could from Mike and the bomb, her legs and arms curling in toward herself and hands acting as a facial shield in case of emergency.

Cautiously, she unfurled herself from within the chair and put her feet on the ground, wheeling herself closer to Mike and the bomb—not quite comforted by his words, but realizing that she would be toast anyway if the bomb decided to go off, whether she was a foot away from the bomb or right beside it.

She bit her lip, staring down at the contraption, twisting her head a few different directions—then she frowned. "I don't get it. Is that supposed to be the bomb?"

She was pointing to the bike bell sitting beside his arm. He rolled his eyes and took hold of her hand, moving her pointing finger from the bike bell to the actual explosive sitting right in front of him.

"That's the bomb," he said. "That bell is the bomb's remote trigger. So when this wire touches this warrior here, kaboom."

Lucy nodded as she watched the D&D action figure spin around on the record player, hovering dangerously close to the remote trigger and 'kaboom'.

"Okay," she said slowly. "Great. And will that be the exact record playing when we explode the Upside Down?"

"Oh, valid question," said Robin, appearing suddenly as she stopped before the desk, arms full of gun ammo. "I'm no music snob—really, I listen to a bit of everything—but I veto the dulcet tones of the Butthole Surfers."

Mike glanced between them, offended. "I built the bomb, I should be able to pick the record."

"Yeah, you can pick the record," said Robin, shrugging, "you just have to follow one simple rule, which is pick a good record."

"This is a great record!"

"This is not a saving-the-world album," Lucy added, nodding with Robin.

Mike rolled his eyes at her. "Yeah, well, you're picky about music. Sorry I didn't choose Pat Benatar or ABBA—"

"I'm not picky about music!" Lucy argued.

"You kinda are," Robin added, looking regretful to be agreeing with Mike now. "I mean, who doesn't like Journey?"

Lucy threw up her hands and stood from the office chair, letting it roll back behind her. "I didn't realize everyone in this goddamn town was so ride-or-die for Journey. Jesus Christ."

She left the basement and made herself useful elsewhere, helping El load supplies into the back of Murray's truck. The sun was beginning to go down and final preparations had begun; most of their supplies were loaded by now and they were close to being ready. By the sounds of it, Hop was about fifteen minutes out, so they needed to leave in five. Lucy's stomach churned, and though she had accepted one of the machine guns Nancy had offered her, she did not feel comforted by the weight of it in her hands.

They were shutting the back door of the truck when Mike came out of the radio station and said Will needed to see everyone inside for one last thing. They all glanced between each other, uncertain if they had time for one last thing, but Mike did not wait around to hear complaints. He led them back into the main room of the station, where Will and Joyce sat. The others filed in until they were all sitting in one big circle, eyes on Will exclusively.

He played with the ends of his sleeves, not meeting anyone's eyes. It took him a moment before he said anything at all.

"I haven't told any of you this," he began quietly, glancing around briefly, "because I... I don't want you to see me differently. But the truth is... the truth is I am different. I just—I just pretended like I wasn't because I didn't want to be. I wanted to be like everyone else. I wanted to be like my friends—and I am like you, in almost every way. We like playing D&D late into the night. And we like that old-person smell in Mike's basement. And... we like biking to Melvald's for malted milkshakes. And we like getting lost in Family Video and arguing about what to rent and settling on Holy Grail for the millionth time, and we like Milk Duds in our popcorn with extra butter, and we like drinking Coke with Pop Rocks. And we like bike races, and trading comics, and NASA, and—and literally all the same things! I just... I just—I don't like girls."

Lucy glanced to the party, whom Will was mostly speaking to by now; they all tipped their heads down and shifted in their seats, watching Will closer and with more depth in their eyes.

"I mean—I do," he continued, exhaling a heavy sigh at just having gotten the words out. "Just not like you guys do. And I, uh, I... had this crush on someone. It wasn't—it wasn't someone I was supposed to have a crush on. And I knew that. I always knew that."

The room stayed utterly still. Every time Will paused, Lucy could have heard a pin drop with the silence, everyone zeroed in on him and what he was saying.

"He was just... nice to me," Will continued softly, his eyes falling to the floor. "And he listened. And he made me feel like I wasn't weird for being the way I am. Like maybe I didn't have to change anything to be worth... liking."

Lucy's breath caught as he spoke. She felt something sharp in her chest suddenly and a stinging sensation behind her eyes, uncertain how she knew but positive that she understood what he was saying now.

"I never told him," Will said quickly, almost defensively, like he needed them to understand that part most of all. "I never said anything. I just—kept it to myself. Because I didn't want to ruin it. I didn't want to ruin him."

Lucy stared at Will, feeling like she was seeing him in so many different lights at once—sixteen years old, and twelve, and something shattered in between. She thought of a boy who had once sat on the floor of her bedroom, legs crossed, arguing about comic book canon and grinning like the world hadn't learned yet how to take things from him. She thought of the boy's best friend, who would sit with him for hours, and how they would ignore all of Lucy's pleas for them to get out of her room until she threw pillows at them and they would scamper out, giggling, innocent.

Will let out a small, humorless huff of a laugh. "And maybe that's stupid. But it felt safer that way."

His shoulders slumped, the fight bleeding out of him now that the truth was finally in the open. "Today, Vecna showed me what would happen if I did this, if I told you guys the truth. He showed me a future, and in this future, some of you are just—just worried for me. Worried that things will be harder for me. And it just makes me feel like something's wrong with me. So I push you away, and for the rest of us, we just drift apart more and more and more until I'm alone. And I know none of that has happened and Vecna can't see into the future but he can see into our minds and he knows things. And it just felt so real. It felt so real."

"Will," said Joyce now, leaning toward him and trying to catch his eye. "Will, listen to me. That will never, ever happen. You'll never lose me. Ever."

"Okay," he sobbed, clutching onto her hand. "Okay."

"And you'll never lose me," Jonathan said, his face wet with tears as he stood to embrace his little brother.

After a moment Lucas stepped in without a word. Then Dustin, wiping his nose, then Mike, who buried his face in the hug as though hoping nobody would see his tears. El came forward too and joined the boys, resting her head on Will's shoulder.

Lucy looked over to Robin, who was crying watching Will and his friends; Steve held a hand on her shoulder and she placed her fingers over it. Lucy smiled to herself and reached to pull the two of them into a hug of their own, and like Mike she turned her face so that she was hidden in Steve's torso, her sniffling muffled.

"El," said Will, wiping his face as the room became still again. "I know you're strong enough to defeat Vecna, but he can retreat to the physical world, and we need to be ready to fight him there too. We have bullets and fire, but none of that helped those soldiers. I need to be there. And I'm ready to show him I'm not afraid anymore."

There was an odd vigor in the air, everyone's eyes twinkling with love and eagerness to end this now; they filed out of the radio station and into the back of Murray's truck, ready now to do what they had been planning all day. They were cramped in the back of the truck but, by the sound of the engine, Murray was hauling it, and they'd be out of it soon enough; after a few minutes Erica's voice came over the radio.

"First gate, cleared!" she announced from the clock tower. "Two hostiles, towers, ten and eleven o'clock."

Lucy heard gunfire from outside the truck, but according to plan, Hop was bursting out from the convenience store in the center of the MAC-Z to fire back. As Murray caravanned them inside the square, the lot of them barreled around in the back, losing their footing.

"Jesus," said Steve, hauling himself up on one of the supply shelves. "This guy think he's in F1?"

"Second gate cleared!" Erica announced.

The car jerked to a stop finally, and Nancy, already prepared in her spot, rose up from the roof of the truck. She wasted no time in firing at the military men below, and they were so surprised at her arrival that she was able to get a good lot of them. As she shot, Hop yelled from outside the truck, and Jonathan lifted the door.

"Come on, come on!" Steve said, as he and Jonathan helped lift him into the trunk.

"DRIVE!" Jonathan yelled to Murray as soon as he was in.

The truck careened to the right as it headed for the gate, sending everyone in the back flying. They had one last glimpse of the military before Jonathan and Steve pulled down the door and the truck flew through the gate.

"Like, Jesus," muttered Lucy, as she got back to her feet after tumbling to the side.

"Everybody all right?" Hop asked, looking around intently. "Everybody okay?"

There were murmurs of assent from everyone; though they were shaken from Murray's driving, nobody was harmed. Hop nodded, pleased by this, and turned to Nancy, breathless.

"Hey," he said, clapping her arm. "Nice shooting back there."

She smiled, clearly tickled by the compliment. "You too."

"You know," panted Robin, clutching onto the bars of the supply shelf, "I kind of thought that was supposed to be the easy part."

"It was," Lucas replied.

They settled in with Murray's calmer driving and were carted off into the Upside Down, strapped with weapons and bombs and sheer determination. Lucy was scared out of her wit's end, but, more than ever, she was ready to get this goddamn show on the road.

Via Chatter

Will coming out... Mike realizing he's talking about Leo.... Mike realizing he was second choice to Leo......... Will realizing he lost what he thinks is the only person who would have understand not liking girls...... Lucy realizing her suspicions about Leo are very likely true..... and that he was in love with Will...........

Someday I'll cover the gayness in Via canon but for now just understand Mike ❤️ Will but Will ❤️ Leo but Leo 🪦💀💔