Something Stranger ~ [ Steddie ]

Chapter 6; Upside down emotions

Eddie POV
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I could hear Dustin through the walkie. "Why is Steve taking off his shirt??" He asked, confused, he was using a pair of binoculars so he could see us. I grabbed the walkie. "He's uh.. he's .. going in the water." I replied, still a little fixated on Harrington. Dustin could tell, he laughed a bit, hearing my voice. Steve tossed his shirt to the side of the boat, I caught it and put it to the side of me. Steve looked over at me, and smiled, I felt my face going red of embarrassment. He braced himself and jumped in.

Nancy was counting the seconds, you could only go so long underwater without air. "We've reached a minute." She said, a bit of worry rushed over all of us in the boat. A couple seconds later I got startled from Steve popping out of the water. "Found it." He panted, out of breath. He felt something touch his leg, and looked back up at us worriedly. To my horror, he suddenly got pulled underwater. "Holy shit." Robin yelled, terrified. I frantically looked around, before deciding on going after him. I held my breath, and took a dive in the water, despite the yells of Nancy and Robin behind me. I could see Steve's dropped flashlight at the bottom of the lake, and the red lit opening in the ground. I could hear Nancy and Robin eventually jumping into the water. I reached out my hand and touched the hole in the ground, eventually getting the courage to swim through.

I gasped for air, now being in a place I recognized, but it wasn't the Hawkins I had been living in. "What the hell.." I mumbled, looking around for Harrington. I heard sounds of struggling, and gagging from behind me, I turned around, grabbing a weapon that I assume was Steve's when he went down. I ran over and saw him being strangled and mauled by these.. bat like birds. Worry rose up in me as I braced myself and swung at the bat that was strangling Harrington. The bat yelped and went flying, Steve looked over at me, and I could see the joy in his eyes, probably since I just saved his sorry ass. Steve, now that he could breathe, grabbed a bat that was eating at his flesh and threw it. He took that chance to get up and he was able to fend the three off with me. Nancy came out from the gate not long after, and had both paddles with her, we used those to be able to kill the three that was there. Robin came through the gate just then. But we could see bats coming, ready to stop us from leaving back through that gate. "Shit.." I sighed, looking over at everyone. Nancy pointed over to an opening in the forest we could run towards.

We ran for our lives, thankfully we safely got to where we needed to be. We hid behind what used to be skull rock, in OUR hawkins, and calmed down. That's when I tried to assess the injuries of Steve. "Dude, are you ok?" I was overfilled with worry, I ripped the bottom of my hellfire shirt, and wrapped it around Steve's wound. He put his arms up, so I could easily access his chest, I was trying not to make eye contact, I was already weak in the knees, being able to .. see Steve shirtless was making me go red. I could see Steve staring at me in mg peripheral vision, and I looked up once, the eye contact made us both quickly look away. 

I finished tightening up the wounds he had, the bleeding had stopped, which had calmed me, he was gushing out and I'm sure he had lost at least a pound of flesh. I stood up and patted his shoulder. He panted, still wincing from the pain. "Thanks." He smiled, he went close to me, putting a hand around my shoulder. He stared into my eyes, I felt my heart rate massively increasing, I had no idea what he was doing but-

Suddenly my feet started to wobble off the floor, the ground was majorly shaking, almost like an earthquake and I couldn't keep my balance. I fell face forward onto Steve, since he was right in-front of me, I can't even describe how my stomach knotted itself into a huge mess, Steve put his arm around my back and leaned against skull rock to keep his own balance. Holy shit, what have I gotten myself into. Although, I wasn't complaining. The ground eventually stopped shaking, but I had no intention of moving myself off of Harrington. We went w couple seconds before he asked me. "Are you ok?" And I snapped back into reality. I quickly got myself off of him. "Oh- yea! Just a little stunned is all." I laughed nervously. Nancy snapped her fingers to catch our attention. "We need some way to get past those bats, I have guns at my house that we can use to fend them off." She said, I looked at her with a blank expression. "You, Nancy Wheeler, have guns, plural, in your room?" I asked, no way believing what was coming out of her mouth. "Just follow me, we're reading to my home, and be careful not to step on anything, this place is a hive mind." She started walking through the woods, and we followed after her.
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Time-skip
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Dustin POV:
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We got chased out of the woods and to our luck now max is being interrogated by police. Here I am explaining the entire mess to Erica, she's practically ignoring me, and looking at something behind me. "Are you even listening?"
"Yea I'm listening, it's just that  you said something with the boogy man and lights right? Cause I think he might be here right now." She said, pointing over to the flickering lamp on the ceiling behind me. I turned around, going over to the lights, I noticed a familiar pattern in each flicker. "Jesus Christ.." I sighed, realizing what was gong on. "Remember how I said that they wouldn't be stupid enough to go into the upside down? I think I overestimated them.." I shouted out, knowing that if they were really in the upside down, they would be able to hear me. "GO UPSTAIRS TO NANCY'S ROOM!" Lucas ran over to Holly, who was playing with a light bright, he gave her a lolipop then snatched it, and all the pieces she was using. We ran upstairs, plugged it in, so that out upside down friends can communicate to us.

Steve POV
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My stomach hurts like hell, I've been able to walk fine, but not without pain. We were able to figure out communication to Dustin, and he told us to go up to Nancy's room, he told us his plan with the light bright, and suddenly, on the bed, we saw a light appear, Dustin told us the light bright would be right there, just turned off. Nancy waited for it to go off, and then put her finger to where it used to be. Great, communication from both sides is possible. I leave the room, and go sit down in the hallway, I've been so overstimulated for the past hour, it's lessening the pain, but it's so much to handle. I was able to calm down a little bit, my mind started trailing off. Robin's been chatting with me occasionally about.. Eddie. I felt my stomach knot, even the thought of him made me churn. I still didn't know or understand what was going on with me, or why I was feeling this way. Ever since Robin came out to me, I've been thinking about how I feel myself towards people that aren't strictly female. But no- I'm straight, right? I mean, I have been seeing the way Eddie looks at me, and it makes me smile, but that's just him being friendly, and him falling onto me at skull rock was just chance. I wish I had water to pour on myself, to shake myself out of this. I felt a hand on my shoulder, I looked over and saw Eddie going to sit down next to me. "They figured out how we can get back, if we go back to my trailer, there would be a gate where Chrissy was taken by Vecna." I nodded and leaned my head against the wall. Eddie did the same, in a past conversation he told me that he could fall asleep in a matter of seconds, so he's probably trying to get in some extra minutes of sleep, since I assume he hasn't slept since Chrissy's passing. How could you? I closed my eyes, and eventually felt a head fall onto my shoulder, guess he fell asleep. I laughed a bit, silently so I wouldn't wake him, it was cute. I leaned my head against his.

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