Chapter Fifty-Seven: I Liked Being Your Schmuck

"I don't understand. You've seen this before?" Robin asked as we rushed back down the stairs.

"Not exactly." Steve answered.

"Then what, exactly?"

"All you need to know is its bad." Dustin told her.

"Its really bad."

"Like end-of-the-human-race-as-we-know-it kind of bad."

"And you three know about this how?"

"Um, Steve?" Erica asked. "Where's your Russian friend?" We all looked down to see blood on the floor, but no body. Just as we spotted it a red light started flashing and an alarm started blaring.

"Crap." Steve ran over, opening the door to see the injured soldier crouched over as the others jumped into action, yelling in Russian at each other. They looked up and saw us just as Steve slammed the door shut again. "Crap. Go, go, go, go, go! Go!" We took off running back upstairs again, running into the observation deck and down the stairs of it as the soldiers trickled in behind us. Dustin screamed, pushing past a man in a hazmat suit and we ran until we came to the end of the platform directly beside the laser. It was a dead end. I turned around, spotting another set of stairs leading under the platform.

"This way!" I screamed. We ran down more stairs, pushing past scientists as we did so. More soldiers came in front the side, only to have Steve pushed a pile of oil drums into them. The soldiers caught up just as we reached another door, running inside and holding the door shut behind us. Steve and I leaned against it as Robin, Dustin, and Erica began looking for a way out. The soldiers began beating against it, shouting in Russian, and Steve and I were struggling to keep the door closed.

"Here, come on, let's go!' Erica opened a hatch in the floor that she found, climbing down into it.

"Come on!" Dustin shotued.

"Go, all three of you just get out of here!" Steve yelled.

"Go, come on, now!'

"No! Just go get some help, ok?" Robin and Dustin just looked at us.

"Go! We'll be fine, just go! Find my Dad, find someone!" I screamed.

"I won't forget you!" Dustin shouted.

"GO!" We screamed in unison as Robin and Dustin disappeared through the hatch.

The door flew open, knocking us both to the floor, and within seconds there were about ten Russian soldiers in front of us pointing guns in our faces.

~~~

An open hand flew across my face, prompting me to spit blood out on the floor.

Apparently the Russians aren't fans of sarcasm.

At this point in time I had a split lip, a cut on my eyebrows that was leaking blood into my eyes every five seconds, and I was fairly certain that he entire left side of my face was more bruises than skin.

"Oh that's great. Just fantastic, I admire that you only use the open hand. I guess you guys do have some moral standards about punching women." I said dryly, earning another slap across the face.

"Who do you work for?"

"Oh, I'm sorry, can you not understand what I'm saying?" I shot back. "I've told you, I don't work for anybody. I'm not a spy, or a soldier, or an agent of any kind, I'm an eighteen-year-old ice cream shop employee that ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time." The soldier brought the back of his hand full force across my face, whipping my head to the side at full force. "THERE'S NOTHING TO SAY! I HAVE NO INFORMATION!"

He crouched down, grabbing a fistful of my hair, yanking it back. 

"We will either get it from you...or we will get it from your little friend." I jerked against him.

"Don't you touch him or I swear-"

"Ah, there we go." He stood up. "This little girl has no problem with her own pain. Its her friend that will get us what we need. Let's go and pay him a visit, shall we?"

"No, NO! NO IF YOU LAY A FINGER ON HIM I SWEAR I WILL KILL YOU!" I screamed. Two of the soldiers grabbed me, dragging me out of the room and down the hallway. "DON'T TOUCH HIM! STAY AWAY FROM HIM!"

They shoved open a door, tossing me to the ground. I groaned in pain, turning over to see Steve, curled up in a ball, not moving.

"Steve? Steve..." I got up on my knees, turning him over onto his back to see that his face had been beaten in ten times worse than mine. He had blood coating his face. Tears welled up in my eyes. "Steve...Steve, can you hear me? WHAT DID YOU DO TO HIM!"

The man in charge backhanded me across the face again, sending me to the floor and ordering the men around in Russian. They picked us both up, putting us in chairs that were back to back and wrapping the same black material that was around our wrists around the two of us, tying us together.

"Steve, please, say something. Steve, can you hear me?" He grabbed Steve's hair, picking his head up. "TOUCH HIM AGAIN, AND I SWEAR-"

"I think your friend need a doctor." The man said. "Good thing," He crouched down in front of me, "We have the very best." He turned the the others, laughing.

I replied by spitting a mouthful of blood into his face.

"You are going to regret that." He ended his sentence with a Russian word that I couldn't identify, before they all left the room, leaving Steve and I alone. I leaned my head back on his shoulder.

"Steve, please...please wake up, please...Steve..." Tears began spilling from my eyes. "Steve, wake up! STEVE! STEVE!"

"Hey, would you stop yelling?" He mumbled.

"Steve, oh my gosh...Steve what did they do to you?"

"My ears are ringing, I can't really breathe, my eye feels like its about to pop out of my skull, but you know, apart from that, I'm doing pretty good."

"Oh my gosh..." My voice wavered, "I can't be sure, but I think they're calling you a Doctor."

"Is this his place of work? I love the vibe. Charming." I laughed tearfully.

"I thought you were dead." I whispered.

"Nope...I'm alive."

"I'm glad," I laughed again, "Ok, we have to get out of here, um..." I began looking around the room, spotting a metal tray table full of sharp instruments. "Ok, you see that table to your right?" He looked at the door. "Other right.

"Oh." He turned to look at it. 

"Yeah, ok. You see the scissors?"

"uh-huh."

"I think if we move at the same time, we could get over there and maybe I could use my feet and knock them into your lap."

"And I could cut the binds." He mumbled.

"Yeah, and then we could figure out how to get out of this place."

"Gotcha, ok, yeah, we can do that. Those morons, they left scissors in here?" He asked.

"Yeah, they're idiots."

"Total morons."

"Ok, so on the count of three, we're gonna hop." I instructed.

"Ok good, hop on three, I gotcha."

"One, two, three." We hopped, moving just an inch closer to the table. "Ok, that worked!" 

"Ok."

"Alright, one more time. One, two, three." We moved one more time. "Yes! Oh my gosh, this is actually going to work!"

"We're close, ready? One, two three!" We jumped again, but the chain legs tilted, sending both of us sideways onto the floor. We both groaned in pain, and by that point, I couldn't stop myself from breaking down.

"Hey, hey, Riley...Riley, don't cry." I shook my head, leaning my forehead against the floor as the laughter continued to bubble out of my chest. "Are you laughing?"

"Yeah."

"Jeez."

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, its just...out of everything that's happened to me in my life so far...and its gonna be Russians that kill me. Not an alternate dimension not some monster coming from said dimension, regular, Russian soldiers, its just...its so unexpected." I laughed.

"We're not gonna die," He said, "We're gonna get out of here, ok? Just, we gotta just think for a second. We always are able to come up with a plan, ok? We've got this." I shook my head, my laughter dying down.

"Do you remember...Mrs. Click's Freshman History class?" I asked.

"What?"

"Mrs. Click." I reminded him. "It was first period, Tuesdays and Thursdays, so you were always late. And you always had the same breakfast, Bacon, Egg, and Cheese on a sesame bagel. I sat behind you two days a week for a year. Do you even remember me from that class?" I felt him shake his head. "Of course you don't. You were a real jerk back then."

"Yeah, I know."

"But that didn't matter. It wasn't important to me that you were a jerk because I was still...obsessed with you. I had just moved to Hawkins with my Dad, and all I wanted was to fit in and you just...did. You were funny and charming and popular even back then and all I wanted, just once was for you to notice me. Then I went to the Upside Down and my priorities were put into check, but it never really went away. I was drawn to you, I noticed you, but I had long since realized that you were never gonna go for a girl like me...only to find that you had started taking an interest in Nancy."

"Riley..."

"I realized it wasn't that you would never go for a girl like me...it was that you would never go for me."  I continued. "And then we became friends, and you became less of a jerk, and I found myself falling in love with you, and even then I knew that us being together wasn't realistic, because you were you, and I was me...and then you started showing an interest in me it just all seemed to good to be true. Its why I wanted to make sure you talked to Nancy before we did anything, and its why I got so crazy when I thought you were going to break up with me, because if I'm being honest...since day one I've just been waiting for you to remember that you're Steve Harrington, the King of Hawkins High and I'm...me."

"Seriously?" He asked. "You're worried about me walking away?" I nodded. "All of that stuff, the whole 'King of Hawkins High' schtick...it means nothing now. It just baffles me everything that people tell you is important, everything that people say you should care about, its all just...so what if you weren't popular in high school? You are so much more than that, you have the capacity to be more than that. If anything, I'm the one who should be worried about you walking away. In fact I have been. This whole time when I was acting like an idiot, I just kept thinking: 'This is it. This is gonna do it, this is gonna be the thing that makes Riley realize just how far out of my league she is'."

"I'm not out of your league." I said quietly.

"But you are though, you are. Because me, I'm designed for just pretty girls that have no substance...women like my Mom. I was just like my Dad in High School, and I was headed down this path to be just like him afterwards, married to the most popular girl in school, working a nine to five, and going on business trips to hook up with women that are way to young for me all because I settled for the pretty girl instead of searching for a girl that I actually enjoy being around. I know working at an Ice Cream shop is no cushy sales job, but at least I'm not trapped in a life that I'm bored with, you know? At least I'm with someone who I genuinely enjoy, who makes me want to be a better person." I smiled.

"You're nothing like you're Dad," I said, "That's what my dad said."

"Really?" I nodded.

"He said you used to be. He said when we were in High School, all he saw when he looked at you was your father, but now..."

"So...I grew on your dad after all?" I chuckled.

"He just wants someone in my life that genuinely cares about me, and wants to make me happy. If you do that, and you respect him and me the way that you should then you're practically like a son to him." 

"Yeah well...I'm sorry I haven't been doing that much lately." I shook my head.

"What this really came down to was poor communication. That one's on me."

"You're the most important thing in the world to me, you know that, right?" He questioned. I smiled.

"Yeah...you're the most important thing to me too...as long as you don't mind sharing that title with El and my Dad." I bit my lip. "I wonder what they're up to now.  If our track record is to be believed I'm sure they've gotten themselves into trouble too. They're gonna be so mad when they find out I went and got myself killed.

"You're not gonna die," He said, "I'm not gonna let that happen."

"Somebody's gonna die, Steve. I can feel it," I whispered, "It doesn't make sense. We can't all get out alive every time, something is bound to go wrong."

"I thought you were the optimistic one."

"Yeah, well I'm also realistic, and I can't possibly see how everyone can make it out alive this time." I said. He sighed.

"I really wish I'd known you in Click's class. Maybe you could've helped me pass the class. Maybe instead of being here, I'd be on my way to college right now." He said.

"And maybe I would've gone with you to that party sophomore year and never would've found the Upside Down." I said. "I would have no idea about the existence of monsters, alternate dimensions, super powered children...and I would have absolutely no idea that there were evil Russians beneath our feet, and I would be happily slinging ice cream with some other schmuck." I whispered. We both laughed.

"Gotta say though...I liked being your Schmuck. It was fun while it lasted."

"It was...It was the best."

The door opened again at that moment, and the man in charge came back in followed by more soldiers and a man in a lab coat and rubber gloves wielding a tool box. He laughed, looking down at us.

"Where were you two going?"

"Oh, you know. Just thought we'd pop out for a cigarette real quick." I said sarcastically, glaring at him. He clicked his tongue, shaking his head as the other soldiers picked us up. He crouched down in front of Steve. 

"Try telling the truth this time, yes?"

"We've been telling you the truth this whole time!" I shouted.

"It will make your visit with Dr. Zharkov less painful." He pressed a thumb to a cut on Steve's chin, causing him to wince.

"Touch him again, see what happens to you." I spat. I glanced over at the Doctor to see him coming over to Steve with some kind of syringe.

"Wait a second, wait, hold on, Ok, wait, wait, wait, what is that thing?!" He exclaimed.

"It will help you talk." Dr. Zharkov said. He grabbed Steve's hair, pushing his head to the side.

"DID YOU EVEN CLEAN THAT THING?!" He screamed as the needle pierced the side of his neck, and I squeezed my eyes shut as the tears started again.