Chapter 18

014

• 𝐈’𝐥𝐥 𝐛𝐞 𝐅𝐢𝐧𝐞 •

─────✧･ﾟ: *✧･

☄. *. ⋆ “Eleven,” Mike sounded, moving forward and wrapping his arms around the girl, holding on as if she’d disappear the moment he let go. The others watched as they reunited, Stella anxiously awaiting her turn to greet the girl. Her gaze didn’t waver, even when she heard certain redhead’s voices from beside her. “Is that…?” She trailed off, looking to Stella, but to Lucas when the girl didn’t return the glance. Lucas nodded, and Max looked forward again.

Mike pulled away, keeping his hands on the girl’s shoulders. “I never gave up on you,” he told her. “I called you every night. Every night for–“

“353 days,” Eleven interrupted, finishing the sentence for him in order to let him know she was, in fact, aware. “I heard,” she revealed, making Stella slightly furrow her brows. Mike made the same expression as he replied. “Why didn’t you tell me you were there? That you were okay?”

“Because I wouldn’t let her.”

Stella turned to Hopper when he spoke, her confusion fading as the puzzle pieces clicked together in her mind. Hopper had been hiding Eleven.

Hopper approached the superpowered girl. “The hell is this? Where have you been?”

“Where have you been?” El shot back as Hopper pulled her into a hug.

Stella wasn’t sure how to feel. Part of her wanted to be mad at Hopper, part of her somewhat understood, and part of her was just a little girl who wanted to hug her friend again for the first time in a year.

“You’ve been hiding her,” Mike realized. “You’ve been hiding her this whole time,” he angrily shoved the man. Hopper turned to look at the raven haired boy. “Hey,” he grabbed his collar, pulling the boy towards towards him. “Let’s talk. Alone.”

The two made their way to another room. After watching them head off, Stella held back a sob as she tossed her bow and arrow to the couch and sprinted towards Eleven, tackling the girl in a hug. It made El stumble backward a bit as she chuckled, hugging back.

“I missed you,” Stella said into El’s shoulder, unaware of Max’s slightly envious eyes on the pair. The shorter girl nodded in response, clutching to her best friend. “I missed you too.”

Stella pulled away as she sniffled, quickly wiping the tear that had fallen, refusing to let herself cry. “You look amazing,” she complimented, the words a mixture of a laugh and a sob. El nodded. “Thanks,” she smiled before sniffling. Eleven caught sight of Stella’s injuries, her eyes scanning the girl. “You’re hurt.”

Stella shook her head. “I’m okay,” she lied, then moved away so El could greet the others.

“We missed you,” Lucas said as they hugged.

“I missed you, too.”

“We talked about you pretty much every day,” Dustin informed her, making sure she knew they never forgot her, not for a moment. The three broke the hug, and Eleven stood back, looking at Dustin for a moment as she observed him. She suddenly reached forward and stuck her thumb in Dustin’s mouth, poking his teeth. “Teeth,” she simply said, and Stella smiled a bit.

Dustin, however, was purely confused. “What?”

“You have teeth.”

The boy immediately grinned, looking to Lucas, who smiled back. Dustin looked back to El. “Oh. You like these pearls?” Then he did that purr that he kept doing, making Stella playfully roll her eyes.

“Eleven?”

Stella shifted her gaze at the sound of the redhead’s voice.

“Hey, um, I’m Max,” she put her hand out. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

Stella smiled at the interaction, but her expression faltered when Eleven ignored Max’s hand, simply walking past, brushing against her shoulder. In that moment, Max looked like Stella when the redhead got mad at the Harrington a couple of days prior. She was reminded of herself then, standing there, staring at the ground, expression hurt. Rejected.

Stella shook the feeling and made her way over to Max, putting a comforting hand on the girl’s shoulder. “She threw Lucas against a car door when we first met her. If anything, that went well,” she said in an attempt to console her friend. Max pursed her lips, nodding as El greeted Joyce. They headed into a different room, and Stella moved to the couch, sitting down and hugging her knees to her chest. She rested her chin on her knees, thinking about her recently acquired knowledge on herself.

Superpowers. You have superpowers. Not that crazy, you’ve dealt with… superpower… stuff before. Yeah. Okay. Cool, cool, cool. Superpowers. Right.

She was pulled from her thoughts when Max sat beside her. “Whatcha thinking about?” The redhead asked, and Stella looked over. “The fact that I have powers now,” she told truthfully. “God, that sounds so stupid.”

Max shrugged. “It’s cool. You’re, like, actually a superhero now.”

“Well, I haven’t done anything good with them. Pretty sure that’s one of the things that makes someone a superhero. Wait ’til I save the world or something, then tell me that,” she said, and Max chuckled.

After staying silent for a moment, Max leaned over and rested against Stella, making the brunette’s face flush a deep red. The Harrington buried her face in her knees, hiding her blush until she heard someone clear their throat. She looked up, seeing Steve watching the two. The girl gave a warning look, telling him to shut up, despite the fact that he hadn’t said anything. In response, the older teenager raised his eyebrows at his sister, giving her a knowing expression, which she rolled her eyes at and hid her face again.

“Okay, we need everyone in here,” Hopper called sternly from the other room, making Max and Stella sit up while Steve just looked towards the man. They all looked at each other before the girls on the couch stood and the three headed towards the table, seeing everyone else flooding in as well.

“We need to close the gate, but…” Hopper started. “It’s not like it was before, it’s grown. A lot. And, I mean, that’s considering we can get in there. The place is crawling with those dogs.”

Dustin turned to the man. “Demo-dogs,” he corrected, making Stella sigh and drop her head. Hopper turned his head to the boy. “I’m sorry, what?”

Dustin didn’t register that Hopper was not at all in the mood for this type of thing. “I said, uh, Demo-dogs,” he repositioned his feet in order to completely face the chief of police. “Like Demogorgon and dogs, like, you put them together, it sounds pretty badass–“

“How is this important right now?” Hopper cut the boy off, obviously agitated. Dustin turned back to face the table. “It’s not. I’m sorry.”

“I can do it.”

Everyone looked to Eleven when she spoke. Hopper shook his head. “You’re not hearing me.”

“I’m hearing you. I can do it,” the girl insisted, but Mike spoke up. “Even if El can, there’s still another problem. If the brain dies, the body dies,” he pointed out, and Max furrowed her brows. “I thought that was the whole point.”

Stella stayed silent, knowing where Mike was going as the boy spoke again. “It is, but I’d were really right about this… I mean, if El closes the gate and kills the Mind Flayer army…”

“Will’s a part of that army,” Lucas finished. Mike finalized his point. “Closing the gate will kill him.”

“And what about Essie?” Steve spoke up, the girl looking to him at the sound of her name. Mike pursed his lips, staying silent for a moment. “I don’t know,” he admitted, and they all looked at the girl. She glanced around at everyone before shrugging. “I’ll be fine,” she lied, hiding her nervousness.

They all exchanged unsure looks in silence until Joyce started walking down the hall, into Will’s room. “He likes it cold,” she eventually spoke, prompting Hopper to speak. “What?”

“It’s what Will kept saying to me,” she revealed. “He likes it cold,” the woman repeated. Everyone watched as she made her way over to Will’s open window, shutting it. “We keep giving it what it wants.”

“If this is a virus, and Will’s the host, then…” Nancy trailed off, Jonathan finishing for her. “We need to make the host uninhabitable.”

“So if he likes it cold…” Nancy spoke again, Joyce completing the sentence this time. “We need to burn it out of him.”

Mike piped up. “We need to do it somewhere he doesn’t know this time,” he sounded, Dustin adding on. “Yeah, somewhere far away.”

“I think I know a place,” Hopper informed them all.

“But what about Ess?”

Everyone looked to the brunette in question when they heard Max’s words, Stella’s head perking up. The redhead spoke again. “She said she feels pain when the Mind Flayer does.”

Again, all eyes were on her. She was starting to want to just cover her face with her jacket. She didn’t, though. “I’ll be okay.”

Bullshit, Stella.

“We don’t know that, Essie,” Steve sighed, and his little sister looked up at him. She inhaled with pursed lips before she spoke, looking to everyone. “Listen. I got the hive mind from the bite, just like my… ability… thingies.”

“Powers,” Dustin cut in, making Stella narrow her eyes at the boy and Eleven furrow her eyebrows. “Powers?” El repeated. Stella looked to the girl, forgetting she didn’t know yet. “Oh. Yeah. Sorry. Uh, I have powers now, apparently,” she revealed, sighing. “Anyways,” the brunette looked back to the group.

“There’s not really anything to get out of me, I mean, the shadow monster isn’t inside of me. The powers are like… a side effect of the bite, not because the mind flayer’s in me. So, most likely, I’ll be fine. I might feel some of it, but the pain isn’t bad.”

That was a bald-faced lie. She wouldn’t be fine, and she knew it, but her only worry was getting her friend back and stopping all of this.

Everyone nodded, Steve and Max more hesitantly.

“You said you knew a place,” Jonathan started. “Where?”

Hopper took a moment to reply. “I’ll give you the directions in a second. First, we need a plan. El and I will go to the lab while Joyce and Jonathan take Will to this place to burn this thing out of him. Once it’s out, you radio us on channel ten and El will close the gate. Everyone else stays here,” he instructed, but Stella had an issue with this plan of his.

“Hold on, hey, why am I not going with you and El?”

“Because El’s the only one who can close the gate.”

“We don’t know that! I have powers, too, now. I can help,” she tried, but Hopper shook his head. “They’re brand new to you, you haven’t gotten a hold of them yet. It’s not safe.”

Stella wanted to argue, her face remaining as if she would. But he had a point. Part of her wanted to be with Max, anyways.

–

☄. *. ⋆ “Be careful, okay?” Stella told Eleven as the two hugged. “I don’t want to lose you again.”

El nodded. “I’ll be okay.”

“You better,” she said before the two chuckled. Stella left Eleven to say goodbye to Mike, and soon they were all watching as two cars drove off, Nancy going with the Byers.

–

☄. *. ⋆ “Listen, dude, if a coach calls a play in a game, bottom line, you execute it. All right?”

“Okay, first of all, this isn’t some stupid sports game,” Mike deadpanned at Steve, Stella’s eyes narrowing when he called sports stupid. “And second,” the raven-haired boy continued. “We’re not even in the game. We’re on the bench.”

“We- ri- so my point is…” he tried to shoot back, but he couldn’t think of an argument. “Right, yeah, we’re on the bench, so, uh, there’s nothing we can do.”

“Nothing we can do?” Mike echoed. “Stella has superpowers now! She just lifted the entire sofa!” The boy pointed out, holding an arm towards the girl in question.

“And even if she didn’t have powers, that wouldn’t be entirely true,” Dustin spoke up. “I mean, these Demo-dogs, they have a hive mind. When they ran away from the bus, they were called away.”

“Yeah, or they could have been scared of Stella. She was kicking their asses,” Steve muttered, making a smile tug at Stella’s lips as she looked to Lucas when he spoke next. “So if we draw their attention…”

“Maybe we can draw them away from the lab,” Max caught on. Mike spoke up again, adding to the train of thought. “And clear a path to the gate.”

“There won’t be anything there to hurt Hopper or El,” Stella added, but Steve was pretty opposed to the idea. “Yeah, and then we all die!” He put his arms out to emphasize his words.

“Well, that’s one point of view,” Dusrin said in response, making the older boy look down at him. “No, that’s not a point of view man, that’s a fact.”

Suddenly, Mike started walking to another room as he spoke. “I got it!”

He made his way over to one of the drawing scattering the walls, pointing to a spot where three pathways joined together. “This is where the chief dug his hole. This is our way into the tunnel. So…” he stood up, moving to another spot where even more of the paths joined together.

“Here, right here. This is like a hub. So you got all the tunnels feeding in here. Maybe if we set this on fire…” he tried, making Stella’s face light up. She had quite the liking for fire. Being the daring kid she was, she ignored the possibility of getting hurt. But her joy diminished when Steve was quick to shut down the idea. “Oh, yeah. That’s a no.”

“The Mind Flayer would call away his army,” Dustin said, completely ignoring Steve, and making Stella excited again. She could see things clicking together in Lucas’s mind as he spoke. “They’d all come to stop us.”

Steve kept trying to get their attention, but no one paid any mind as Mike continued to explain the plan. “We circle back to the exit. By the time they realize we’re gone–“

“El would be at the gate,” Max finished for the boy, Stella adding on. “They’d be too busy with us to hurt El.”

“Hey. Hey! Hey!” Steve finally got everyone’s attention, clapping his hands. “This is not happening,” he said, pointing to the drawings on the floor with his other hand on his hip. Mike spoke up, trying to reason. “But–“

“No, no, no, no, no! No buts. I promised I’d keep you shitheads safe and that’s exactly what I plan on doing. We’re staying here. On the bench. And we’re waiting for the starting team to do their job. Does everybody understand that?”

“This isn’t a stupid sports game!” Mike repeated.

“I said doesn’t everybody understand that? I need a yes,” he told them.

“If a player’s injured, it’s better if they get switched out for someone on the bench,” Stella shrugged, using Steve’s sports metaphor against him, making everyone turn to her. She didn’t look back at any of them, keeping her gaze trained on the floor until an engine revved from outside. They all snapped their heads in the direction of the sound, Max rushing to the window and hurrying to look through it. Stella joined her, then everyone followed, seeing headlights coming closer.

“It’s my brother,” Max revealed. “He can’t know I’m here, he’ll kill me.” She looked to Stella beside her.

“He’ll kill us.”

─────✧･ﾟ: *✧･

this chapter was almost way too long, so the next one might be a little short, sorry guys.

also i started yellowjackets and omg?? its so good

anyway thanks for reading 🙂