In the Name of Love | lumax AU-stranger things

~Mystery after Mystery~

After spending the night in tents and sleeping bags, Dustin woke up when he heard a twig snap.

"WHOSE THERE?" He shots loudly.

"It's just me—and Steve," Robin says, lightly punching Steve in the chest.

"Ow!  Robin!" Steve exclaims.

"Hey, are you ok?" Max says sleepily as she rubs her eyes.  Lucas rolls over in the sleeping bag next to her, putting his hands over his ears.    Dustin and Max both look contently at Steve, specifically his neck.  "Steve, you know you have red marks all over your neck, right?"

Max starts to reach out for them as Steve pushes the girl away.  "I'm fine, let's just sit down and when Nancy gets back she'll explain everything that happened last night..."

***

To Steve's anger, Dustin was right about there being a gate at the bottom of Lovers Lake.  Nancy, Robin, and Steve got on a small rowboat and went out to the middle of the lake.   While they were out there, Eddie appeared at the boat after swimming from Reefer Rick's cabin, shortly after Patrick had been killed.

Nancy realised that it was too late to send Eddie back to Reefer Rick's cabin, and that if the rest of the group went home they would definitely be in trouble with their parents for being out so late.  Hence Steve going to his car and taking out the camping equipment he had in the trunk.

"Oh good, everyone's awake," Nancy says sharply.  Everyone turns to her after adjusting to where they want to be.  Dustin stands between Eddie and Steve, Robin goes to the right of left a few feet away, and Max wraps her arms around Lucas's right arm and leans slightly on his shoulder.  "So, Max, good news, we have more information about Vecna, and how to kill him, but we also have something really weird to talk about."

Everyone looks around at each other before returning their eyes to Nancy.

"When we were in the upside down yesterday, Steve got attacked by a bunch of these weird looking bats, thus his scars, so he swam back up to the surface and sat on the boat, but while he was waiting, Robin and Eddie came with me to explore the upside down a little.  And when we got to my house, the guns in my room were missing.  I then noticed a diary on my bed, and half the pages  were empty.  That made me realise something a little freaky," Nancy continues.  "Not only were we in the past, but we were stuck on a really specific day.  The last entry in that diary was—November 6th, 1983."

"The day Will went missing," Lucas says quietly.

"Yep, we also figured out that whenever Vecna attacks people, he's in the upside down version of the creel house, to be exact, the attic," Nancy adds.

"And we can even confirm it thanks to Eddie," Robin states.  "He was looking out of his Reefer Rick's cabin when Patrick was killed, around the same time we were at the creel house and the lights starting flickering."

Eddie lifts up his wrist and shows it to the group.  Dustin peers over his watch and his eyes widen slowly.

"9:17, that's the exact time the lights started flashing," Dustin says.  Everyone nods in unison at his statement.

"The point is, we don't have any time to figure out why the upside down is stuck in the past, or  how Max is still alive while Patrick, Fred, and Chrissy are gone, it is crucial, that we kill Vecna as soon as possible, and hopefully put an end to all of this," Nancy finishes.  "Let's get out of these woods, pick up the others from the creel house, and go back to my place, and come up with a plan."

***

Back in the creel house, Mike, Will, and Jonathan play card games on the staircase while Eleven is wiping the blood from her nose.