Stare. [Steve Harrington x Reader]

Chapter Eight: The Battle of Starcourt

Thursday, July 4, 1985

El continued screaming. "What is that?" Erica asked as something in El's wound started moving around her leg.

I swallowed, shaking my head. "I think I'm gonna be sick again..." I muttered. Steve placed his hand on the small of my back, rubbing up and down.

"There's something in there." Mike said.

"Jesus Christ." Dustin exclaimed.

"Keep her talking. Keep her awake, okay?" Jonathan asked before getting up and running back to the food court.

"Hey, hey, hey. Stay awake, stay awake. Let's get her on this side, on this side." Mike told us.

"Easy, easy, easy." Steve said as we all tried to help her. Jonathan ran back with a knife in his hand, gloves and a wooden spoon.

"Okay. All right, El? This is going to hurt like hell, okay?" She sobbed an okay. "Need you to stay real still." Jonathan told her. "Here, you're gonna want to bite down on this, okay?" He told her giving her the spoon.

"Jesus Christ." Dustin said again.

El whimpered in pain again. "Holy shit. Holy shit." Dustin said.

Jonathan hovered the knife above El's leg hesitantly. He looked around at everyone. "Do it." Mike announced.

"Ugh, I can't watch." I ducked my head down, feeling nauseous again.

Jonathan pushed the knife down into her wound which caused Eleven to start screaming in agony. He placed the knife down and reached into her wound. "Jonathan!" Nancy called out.

"Goddamn it!"

"No! Stop it!" El said, taking the spoon out of her mouth. "Stop! I can do it." She said, sitting up. I looked back up, watching her.

She started using her powers to get whatever was under her skin out of the wound. She started screaming and the shop glass window behind us shattered suddenly. Steve quickly pulled me away from the glass and I stumbled back against him. El had finally gotten the parasite out of her skin. She had thrown it across the floor, landing right in front of Joyce, Hopper and another older man. Thank god they were here.

We all stood around in a circle near the fountain in the middle of the food court. "The Mind Flayer, it built this monster in Hawkins, to stop El, to kill her and pave a way into our world." Mike explained.

"And it almost did. That was just one tiny piece of it." Max said, talking about the parasite that came out of El's leg.

"How big is this thing?" Hopper asked.

"It's big." Jonathan answered.

"Thirty feet, at least."

"Yeah." Lucas agreed. "It sorta destroyed your cabin. Sorry." He continued. Maybe I'm kinda glad we got stuck with a bunch of evil Russians instead of whatever The Mind Flayer was.

"Okay, so, just to be clear, this...this big fleshy spider thing that hurt El,.." Steve stated. "it's some kind of gigantic...weapon?" He asked.

"Yes." Nancy answered.

"But instead of, like, screws and metal, the Mind Flayer made its weapon...with melted people." Steve said, looking around at everyone.

"Yes, exactly." She agreed.

"Yeah, okay. I- Yeah, I'm just making sure." Steve stuttered. I leaned against as I stared down at the floor. This was fucking crazy.

"Are we sure this thing is still out there, still alive?" Joyce asked, looking over at Jonathan and Nancy.