012 - stranger things x reader

twenty // the fallen solider

Frozen in place, you watch in horror as Brenner takes a slow step and crouches down in front of your injured body. You try hard to exploit your power, to feel that heat rise and burn through you to kill him and the men behind him, but all you can feel is cold cold cold as he grabs your wrist. You hear Elles sad attempts at screams besides you, and you know she's much to weak to function as well. Where the hell is the military? Everyone might have made it out alive, but if this cycle keeps repeating what if—."

"Y/N!"
Brenners eyes grow wide and he tries to move his gun but the person calling your name is too fast.

It's— your.. mother?
You watch with wide eyes as she slams the back of his head down with a fire extinguisher, and he fires a bullet, barley grazing her hair. Your eyes flood with tears, so she finally realized then. Taking the opportunity, you lift Elle by the wrist and attempt to pull her around your shoulders, straining your muscles to do so. Another scream, followed by a gun shot, registers in your senses. Nancy and Steve have broken into the facility, trailed by Jonathan and Robin. "Your mom came running in here," You hear Robin yell as she helps the two of you up, "The military said it was too dangerous to go save her and I was fed up with you guys taking forever to come out!" Latching onto her arm, you let her drag you to an opposite corridor. "The military? Why aren't they sending more troops in? Brenner is still alive and his men are—." Nancy shoots a bullet through a mans chest. Your eyes are still locked on your mother, hiding underneath an office desk. How desperately you want to reach out to her. What a terribly hard life she's had. "The military fucking sucks, they wanted to let you all die in here! Clearly the government doesn't know how to treat kids with powers!" She responds, ducking her head to reload her gun. "Guess Steve here will have to be your mom when this is all over, huh?" Robin says, cracking a smile as she wraps a bandage around Elles wrist. "DAMN STRAIGHT! I'll be the best kind of mom you'll ever have!" You crack a smile. There's something about these 4 older teens that make it so special. Maybe it's Jonathan's silent smile, or the endless banter between Steve and Robin, but it's a perfect capture of being on the cusp of adulthood that never seems to end. "Let's get out of here. We all have a family to go home to." Jonathan says, nodding and picking up Elle in his arms. "Fuck that cunt Brenner, we'll let the army deal with him." Elle says weakly, and for a moment you wonder where the hell Elle learned such language. Maybe the girl who creates illusions? She seemed the type back then. 008, maybe? "Cmon!" You yell, grabbing for your mother, and she follows, keeping a steady hand locked on your wrist. It feels good, to know your mother again. She's scared and bruised and so fucking hurt, but at least she's sane enough to remember your name.

"Y/N! WATCH OUT!"
You barely turn your head, and your eyes widen.

Brenner would never kill you, not after years of creating you? Wrong.
The bullet is coming fast, in your position, no matter how fast you dodge, no matter how quick you duck; there's no way you can move. Straight towards your head, right down the middle of your forehead.

This is it, you think.
No more Max, no Will, no Mike and Elle, It'll all be gone; right here and now.

You lose your eyes slowly.
But then you hear it hit something else.

A blood curling scream from Robin,

and Steve Harrington's body falling to the floor.

Time seems to stop, the boy who seemed so lively just those minutes ago now lays with a blood crown around his head.

Anger.
Pain.
That's what you feel.
Why is it? Why is it that Brenner continues to take from you? Steve was good, nothing but good? Why, God why?
Your hand slips from Nancy's hold, bullets still flying but eyes filling with tears.

Not Steve.
No.
Anger.
Rage.
Hate.
The thirst for revenge.

"Robin."
She's crying over Steve's body, but you can still feel it. She's trying so desperately to stop the bleeding, to revive her best friend in any way possible. But everyone knows Brenner never misses when it comes to his head shots.
"Robin. Go."

Maybe the look in your eyes says enough, because next she is dragging his body up, pushing it to the side of safety.

This.
This ends now.
Brenner.
The heat channels too quickly, too hot, and burns your skin, but you don't care.

Brenners eyes widen, he too, knows it is over.
Your close your eyes, images filled with Steve Harrington's smile and his stupid dumb hair, images full of the home you will go to after this, images of sleepovers with Max and dances with Will, dinners with Elle, and movies with Dustin and Lucas. All of this to kill the man in front of you.

You don't even register the entire room bursting into flames, an explosion like no other, a creation of an entire universe, a new supernova, one never seen by any scientist before. The flames ingulf him too quickly, turning his skin black and his screams getting lost in the crackles of the fires. And fuck . You let him burn, let him suffer for everything he's ever done, let him cry in pain for every regret.

In the backs of your eyes are visions of revenge. The mission to kill, oh how's it's gone such a different direction.

Standing over his barely breathing body, you whisper, "Burn in hell, you dick." And man, whether you believe in an afterlife or not, the flames of hell cannot get any hotter than the pure anger and heat coursing through this room. The rest of your friends are out by now, probably trying their best to revive their fallen, trying to cry into shoulders in a bittersweet reunion. But now you press a glass shard to Brenners neck.

And you slice.
Slice until the last drop of the blood spills, slice until his burned body is black and red, and then.

You breathe.
Finally, the free air.
Yeah, maybe it's filled with soot and charcoal as of now, but the man who's always made you feel like a prisoner is finally gone.
He cant hurt you, or any of your friends, ever again. He cant take any more lives.

He cant take your life.
Your knees buckle to the ground.
You hear someone's scream; maybe Joyce's, maybe your mothers, the sound of flames is too overwhelming.

Everything goes black