37. Weightless

A.N. Hello my lovely readers,

I hope you all have had the opportunity to complete the final season of Stranger Things. I know a lot of us may share different feelings about the finale. I know for myself, I was greatly underwhelmed and disappointed. I was very shocked at the turn out and certain decisions that was made for certain scenes and characters, but alas the season is over and there's no going back now. 

Now, if you are like me still mourning the loss of what we could have had in the finale, I come to share that in the real world I am working on my own sci-fi mystery/ psychological thriller tv show. I have grown heavily upset with the turn out of Stranger Things that I have decided to pursue to make my own show. I am still early on with this project of mine, but if you would like to learn more about is I've been sharing details and sneak peeks of what it'll be about on my TikTok. You can learn more @itsqueennik on TikTok, that's me. 

Now before we continue diving into my story, I wanted to touch on some points. I know I previously mentioned that you would be able to follow along the show while reading, but now that I've seen the season in full, I do not feel content nor share any interest to keep the story aligned to the show anymore. And with that you will begin to see my story shift to the version of Season 5 that would have been a better season than what they gave us. With this also means a lot of character archetypes may shift, and this story will be including major deaths that I believe would have strengthened the story to create a more impactful finale.

So, with that being said. You will no longer know what to expect in this story and I'm excited to have you guys embark in the unexpected. 

Let's dive in, shall we? 

Xoxo,Nik <3

☾.˚˖⁺✦ Weightless ✦˙⊹˚☽

Song Guide: I Think We're Alone Now by Tiffany

The van pulls up to the WSQK. Daylight break through the trees. 

Steve parks the van, "Alright, I guess time to game plan?" 

The van feels heavy with exhaustion. Jonathan says no words as he's the first to leave. Steve glances over at Victoria, but she tries to shoo him away wanting to talk to Dustin. Dustin tries to leave, but she pulls him by the collar. 

"Where do you think you're going?" 

Steve nods his head and leaves the siblings to themselves. 

Dustin rolls his eyes, "In case you forgotten, Hopper and El are now in the Upside Down along with Holly. There's far more important things going on right now than this." 

He tries to leave again, but she reaches past him and shuts the door. She crawls through to the driver seat. 

They both sit in silence for a few seconds. Dustin, frustrated, crosses his arms over his chest, "Are you going to spit it out or are we going to sit here until Vecna decides to attack again?"

Victoria also crosses her arms, not realizing she's mimicking her brother's body language. 

"I don't know, depends." 

Dustin groans, "Depends on what?"

Victoria finally looks over him trying to find some answer, "If you're going to tell the truth or not?"

"I am."

"No,  you are not. You expect me to believe you got into a bike accident?" 

Dustin looks out the window, avoiding his sister's gaze, "Not like it matters when you're too busy all over your new boyfriend."

Victoria laughs, "Is this what this is about? Me dating Steve, really?"

Dustin shrugs still facing away from her. 

Victoria deeply sighs, "Fine, then I'll break up with him."

Dustin immediately replies, "No."

Victoria sits up, "So, what is it then?" 

Dustin shakes his head, "Leave me alone."

Victoria shakes her head, "Afraid I can't do that." 

Dustin more sternly repeats, "Leave me alone." 

Victoria grows more frustrated, "God, can you just talk to-"

Dustin cuts her off raising his voice now, "Leave me the fuck alone, Victoria!" 

Victoria is caught aback by his raise of voice. Never in the longest of years that they had been siblings had he raised his voice like that towards her. Sure, they got into sibling fights, but all siblings do. 

But this. 

This was different. He was shutting her out. He didn't want anything to do with his sister. He no longer wanted her help. 

Her eyes begin to fill with tears. She says almost as low as whisper, "Fine." 

Victoria gets out of the van, leaving her brother to herself. 

Steve, casually waiting by the entrance of the WSQK, notices her storming away from the van. He tries to catch up to her, but she pushes him away. 

"Steve, please,  just give me some space.", she tells him. 

Steve tries to grab her arm, "Hey. Hey. Look at me." 

She shakes her head just wanting to go as far away from everyone as possible. He gently pulls her face to look at him, "What happened? Talk to me... please." 

She shrugs, "I don't know what to do anymore. He's shut me out. I can't help him. I can't do anything." 

Steve sighs, "It's not your fault. He's just going through a hard time, we've known this." 

Victoria shakes her head, "Yeah, and it's my fault. I couldn't save him. And now it feels like he's blaming me for that. Like it's my fault I was the one who lived. As if I haven't spent this whole entire time wishing it wasn't me because maybe he would've been better of having one of his best friend than his sister."

Steve grabs Victoria by the shoulder, "No, don't say that. You know your brother loves you. Stop." 

Victoria begins to cry more heavily now. 

Steve pulls her into his chest and embraces her, "Come here." 

Victoria cries into his chest. 

Things hadn't been the same. They never will be. 

She knew this. 

They knew this. 

Everyone knows this. 

Dustin wasn't the only one grieving. She was too. 

Victoria had lost her best friend, her platonic soulmate. No one would ever be able to begin to grasp what that feeling feels like, but for some reason she felt like she had to burry all that away to be strong. 

To be the strong sibling that holds their brother up, so he doesn't drown. 

But what happens when she finally lets go and drowns?

They both turn to the sound of the van door opening. She quickly wipes her tears away and tries to collect herself. She looks up at Steve, "I-I'm gonna be inside, okay?"

He nods at her. She takes a glance over to her brother, he won't even look at her. She sighs and walks inside the building. 

☾.˚˖⁺✦˙⊹˚☽

Steve's Pov

Steve felt useless. 

He didn't know how to make things better for Victoria or Dustin. The two people he cared most for in the world. How could he help them? 

They are both equally stubborn and won't accept from others. 

He hated seeing Victoria hurt over her brother. Dustin has become an absolute asshole these past few months. He had to talk to him. Help him. At least do something about it. 

He walks over to Dustin, mentally preparing his speech. 

Dustin is looking past him, but not in an annoyance way, he's looking at something. 

Dustin speaks, "It looks like Robin send up the Bat-Signal."

Steve turns to look as Nancy is pulling up with Mike and Lucas. 

The talk was going to have to wait. 

Mike and Lucas get out the car and walk towards Dustin. The two boys looking worried over there friend. 

Mike is shocked, "Holy shit."

Dustin tries to casually brush it off, "Yep. Bike crash. Flew headfirst into a light post."

Steve cocks his head to the side. It was one thing not wanting him or Victoria to know the truth, but his best friends? He was also going to lie to them. 

Dustin continues, "Look, I'm sorry about missing the crawl, about everything."

Mike shakes his head, "It's not your fault. Don't beat yourself up."

Lucas looks at Dustin unsure to believe what he's saying, "Yeah, looks like he already did."

Lucas reaches towards Dustin to further investigate, "Is that broken?"

Dustin shrugs, "I dunno."

Lucas is reaching for his nose, "Let me-"

Dustin moves away, "Don't touch it. Why-"

"I wasn't... I wanted to see if you had..."

"You were going to." 

Well, at least Dustin still had parts of him still there. 

The front door to the WSQK opens, Robin calls out to them, "Hey, this isn't a social call, kiddos. Let's go." 

They all look at one another and head inside. 

☾.˚˖⁺✦˙⊹˚☽

Victoria's Pov

Will has been explaining his theory as Victoria has been completed tuned out, sitting beside Steve. She finally tunes back in as he begins to talk. 

"Derek? Derek Turnbow? As in the Turnbow family? Like Turnbow Realty?"

Robin nods her head and responds, "The one and only." 

Lucas shakes his head, "The whole family's a menace." 

Nancy asks, "How can you be sure? Sure that Derek's the next target?" 

Will at the head of the room replies, "Because I saw. I've learned that when I'm close enough to the hive mind, I can tap into it, into Vecna's mind. I can see who he's targeting. The first time it happened, I saw through Holly's eyes-" 

Victoria starts to fall into deep thought. Her dream. Eddie. 

He was warning her. To save the kids. This is what he was talking about. 

Holly. 

And now Derek. 

How many more was Vecna planning to take? 

Will continues, "And this morning, it happened again. Only this time, I wasn't Holly. I was someone else. I was Derek Turnbow. I'm positive."

Steve now comments, "Hold on, I'm a little lost."

Dustin makes a comment, "Shocking."

Victoria smacks her brother on the arm, he flinches out of pain. He was more hurt than she had realized. 

Steve continues, "Were you seeing through the eyes of... of Vecna or of Derek?"

Victoria says under her breath, "Both?"

Will replied the same, "Both. I... I was Vecna, but inside Derek's mind."

Victoria perks up, "Could you see what Vecna wanted with him."

Will shrugs, "I just know he's important somehow, I don't know." 

Robin chimes in, "Vecna's like a psychic serial killer. He stalks his victims, but he does it by invading their minds. That's what he did with-"

Victoria continues for her putting the pieces together, "Chrissy and Max."

Robin nods her head at her. 

Nancy follows next, "Yeah, but the way he's doing it this time is different."

Victoria looks up at Nancy, "Different how?"

Nancy replies, "We did some digging at the hospital. It turns out that before he took Holly, Vecna stalked her. But... he didn't appear as Vecna. He appeared as Henry. As a friend." 

Mike adds on, "We think he was trying to earn her trust. Now, why he went to all that trouble, we don't know. But I highly doubt his long-term goal is friendship."

This had to be really bad. Vecna appearing to kids as a friend, a predator of sorts. 

This couldn't mean well, Victoria was beginning to get that sunken stomach feeling when something bad is approaching. 

She instinctively grabs Steve's hand. He looks at her trying to see if she's okay and rubs her hand with his thumb. 

Will begins to speak, "Whatever it is, whatever he's planning, we have to stop him. And we have to save Derek."

Victoria nods her head as she stands, "Well, time to get to work." 

☾.˚˖⁺✦˙⊹˚☽

The group have spent the past few hours putting together a plan on how to save Derek. 

Will motions towards the map of Hawkins, "The Turnbows live here. We wait in a van across the street. As soon as they're asleep, we move in, we grab Derek, and we him to.... here, the McCorkle farm. It's completely isolated. It's abandoned. The only thing is, we need to make sure he doesn't see us or know where he is. So, we'll need to blindfold him."

"Oh...", Victoria let's out under her breath as her and Steve exchange a worried look. 

Steve replies, "Wait. Hold on. What?"

Robin looks over at the two of them, "So that Vecna can't find him." 

Victoria is still trying to grasp the idea, "Right... we're kidnapping."

Jonathan looks equally as shocked, "Yeah. What, and Mom, you're okay with just kidnapping a child?" 

They all turn to look at Joyce. 

She replies, "No, no, we're saving a child via kidnapping. And yeah, it's fine, I think. Yes. Now's not the time to play it safe, Jonathan."

Victoria whisper to Steve, "Isn't this illegal?"

Steve whispers back to her, "Yup."

Dustin now pitches into the conversation, "If I may, though I'm not morally opposed to any of this, there a few holes."

Lucas nods his head, "Yeah. Like what if Derek falls asleep before the Demogorgon attacks him?"

Dustin nods, "That's one." 

Nancy now talks, "Or what if Derek wakes up before we grab him, alerts his family? I mean we'll go to jail." 

Victoria agrees, "Not even just that, how are we transporting a child, assuming he's not going to kick and scream on the way over to the farm?"

Steve rubs his face, he's beginning to stress about this plan. 

Dustin nods, "That's another one. But the third and most gaping hole is even if by some miracle this plan even works, Holly's still missing. Hop and El, still MIA. This doesn't bring us any closer to finding Vecna. This plan just buys us and Derek some time. That's it."

Dustin had a point. We need a bigger plan. 

Mike now talks, "Not necessarily... There might a be a way. A way to save Derek and find Holly."

Mike gets up and tries to find something in the basement. He pulls out a blue velvet bag and empties it out on the table. He grabs a piece showing the group, "This is Derek." 

He grabs other pieces, "And this is the rest of the Turnbow family. We're gonna need to recruit someone that the family trusts, someone that can gain access to the house."

Mike moves another piece to the table, "This person will knock the family out. Then we'll extract the family from the house." 

Joyce looks over at Mike, "Knock them out?"

Victoria walks away from the group now beginning to pace in stress, "God, we're so going to jail for this." 

Mike replies, "Well, safely. With sleeping pills or something."

Victoria pauses and looks over at them, "So, let me get this straight. We are not only kidnapping a child, but also drugging a whole entire family?"

This did not feel like a good plan. This felt like a horrible plan. There was no way this was going to work. 

Robin shrugs adding onto the plan, "I might know where we could get some benzos. Those things could knock an elephant out its ass."

Mike nods, "Perfect, that way if Vecna spies, he'll just assume Derek is fast asleep in bed. He'll send his Demos to grab him. Only he won't find Derek. He'll find us. And we'll be ready. We'll get Murray to supply us with the traps. We'll burn the sucker. Send him scampering home to its master, but not before we stick him with one of these."

Mike pulls out a tracking device and lays it on the table, "We'll track the Demo across the Upside Down in the Squawk van just like we did with Hopper. And if we're lucky, the Demo will lead us back to its lair, to Vecna, to Holly."

Mike looks to the group, "Holes?"

Everyone looks across one another nodding their head of approval. They then all turn to look over at Victoria who is still pacing. 

Victoria pauses to look over at them, "You know I don't know why I am freaking out about this when we've done way worse. Yeah, whatever, I'm in." 

☾.˚˖⁺✦˙⊹˚☽

The sounds of a truck quickly approaching catches Victoria's attention. Murray has arrived. 

They all gather around as Murray parks the truck. He hops out grinning, "Missed me so soon?"

Nancy rolls her eyes, "Alright, let's get on with it." 

Murray frowns, "Tough crowd."

He walks to the back of the truck as he opens and hops in. He rummages through the things and starts to pull out items, "Okay, so, I couldn't get any ethanol, but I was able to scrounge up a gallon of acetone."

He hands the gallon over to Steve, "Now be very careful, you smoke a Virginia Slim too close to this stuff, it'll catch fire, okay?"

Everyone glances around at each other not amused. Murray continues on, "Snare wire, various gauges. A creepy, child-sized CPR dummy. Its purpose a mystery to me."

He passes the CPR dummy over to Jonathan and then turns to Nancy, "Shotgun shells, per our lovely lady's request."

He then pulls a pack of water balloons, "Three 20-packs of water balloons. Purpose also a mystery, but I did take the liberty of selecting the grenade style as it felt thematically appropriate." 

He hands those over to Joyce and now opens a box, "Do keep those far away from... these 3,000 feet of barbed wire. Oh, I almost forgot."

He digs into the truck some ore pulls out a box to hand to Dustin, "Some sparkling new spark plugs for Bilbo Baggins."

Dustin looks at him unamused, "Spark plugs, that's it?"

Victoria glances over to Steve already knowing where this is headed. The two walk off back towards the van to start getting to work. 

Victoria eyes the van in thought. A thought sparks into her head, "We need to empty it." 

Steve turns to her as they continue walking, "What?"

She points to the van, "It's too heavy, there's too much stuff in there. We need to empty it in order to gain more speed on the roads. There's too much shit in there." 

Steve nods, "Okay, we empty it." 

He pops the van door open and holds his hand out for Victoria to take, but she was on a mission. She hops inside and kicks the back double doors open and starts throwing stuff out. Steve climbs in behind her, "Are you sure we should be dumping everything out?"

"I'm sure." 

If there's one thing she was it was she was a Henderson, and they are quite determined when they have a task at hand. 

Steve nods his head as he helps her dump things out of the van. 

☾.˚˖⁺✦˙⊹˚☽

Steve's Pov

Steve has come to learn that when Victoria gets into a determined mood, the best thing to do is follow suit and support whatever crazy idea she has. 

In this case, emptying out the van, which logically will not improve the speed of the van, but its better than to get into an argument with your girlfriend. 

Steve tries to handle the heavier things before Victoria can attempt to left them, knowing her she'll try to do the heavy lifting and won't admit she needs help lifting it when it's too heavy. 

Dustin walks up to the van and stares at two of them, "What are you guys doing?" 

Steve glances over at Victoria, who is now presumably ignoring her brother, and then back at Dustin, "Well, you gonna help us or just stand there?" 

Dustin replies, "I'd rather not herniate a disc over a lost cause." 

Steve scoffs, "Yeah, that's the attitude." 

Victoria also says, "Not like I see you coming up with any grand ideas."

Dustin laughs, "This van once stalled out chugging up Pickett Road like it was the Little Engine That Couldn't. It's not fast enough to keep up with a Demo without serious modifications."

Steve begins to grow frustrated, "Yeah, Henderson, what the hell do you think we're doing? Modifying." 

Victoria grumbles, "A lighter van leads to a faster van which means we won't be chugging up Pickett Road." 

Steve adds on, "If we're just tracking, we don't need half of the crap that's in here. Speaking of, make yourself useful... Can you go empty the window washer fluid?" 

Dustin sarcastically replies, "Oh, the window washer fluid. That'll do it. Good job, Steven."

Steven. 

There was only one person who irritatingly enough always called Steve that, and that was Eddie. 

As much as he hated to admit, part of him also did miss Eddie. Even though he wasn't as close to him as Victoria and Dustin were, he was starting to develop a warm spot for their friend. He wasn't that half bad as people made him out to seem. 

Steve brushes out of his thought still annoyed at the young boy, "You know what, we should go back to the agreement from yesterday." 

Dustin looks at Steve confused, "What agreement?"

"The no-talking agreement. Shh." 

Dustin glances over at his sister, who's too busy to even realize what they're up to. He sighs and starts to look around. 

Steve shakes his head and goes over to Victoria, "The attitude on this kid, I swear." 

She shrugs, "Why'd you think I stopped talking." 

Steve continues, "I mean, come on, like he just become a little dipshit." 

She shakes her head at him, "Or trying really hard to be someone he's not." 

Steve stops and slowly nods his head, "Yeah." 

Dustin suddenly grabs one of the tools besides Steve's foot, they both turn to look at the boy. 

Steve watches him confused, "What are you doing? Henderson, I'm using that." 

Dustin begins to walk away from the van with it. Steve calls out to him, "Hey. You little shit!"

Steve climbs out of the van chasing after him, "I said I'm using that, man." 

Victoria also follows, "Dustin, come on, stop being a little dipshit!"

Dustin begins to climb on top of Steve's car. 

Victoria mutters under her breath, "Oh, no, no, no." 

Steve begins to panic, "What are you- Yo, hey! Get off the Beamer, man. Get off!"

Dustin stands on top Steve's precious car and points at him and Victoria, "You guys were right. For once. We don't need half the crap in there for our mission." 

Steve shrugs, "I mean that was all your sister." 

Dustin continues, "In fact, the only thing we really need is a telemetry tracker-"

Victoria's face drops, "Dustin..."

Dustin smirks, "which I can affix to any vehicle."

Steve leans towards the boy, "Henderson... Don't you touch her." 

Steve's heart begins to race. This was it. Dustin was absolutely out of his mind. There's no way he was about to commit to destroying the years of hard work to pay for his own car because his father disowned him and stop giving him funds for things after not getting into college after he graduated. 

This was his prized position. His first baby. 

Steve was now freaking out, "Henderson, I'm dead serious."

The boy proceeds to shush him. Steve tries to launch forward, but Victoria holds him back as she's also yelling at Dustin to stop. 

This was it. 

His worst nightmare coming to life. 

Steve yells, "Wait, wait, wait! Hey, hey! What are you..."

It was too late. Dustin had made impact and there he goes drilling a hold into the roof of his car.

Victoria let go of Steve in complete shock, "Oh. My. God." 

Steve continues to scream, "No! What the..."

Now there was a pause. A silence. 

Steve was fuming. 

He eyes down the younger boy, furious, "Henderson, you are so dead!"