fireworks - steve harrington

3.06

SEPARATION

Ren didn't remember much from the moment he hit his head to when they saw the gate to the Upside Down. In hindsight, that probably wasn't good. It was about nine hours total of him sleeping and then walking along an empty corridor, falling in and out of consciousness before he finally got back to normal. Apparently the cut on the back of his head was about the length of a french fry, and the fact that he passed out for almost a minute was not a good sign. Things felt just a little off, but he was pushing through it. He just needed to stick with Steve and he'd be fine.

"I don't understand. You've seen this before?" Robin asked as they ran down the stairs of the comm room.

Dustin paused before saying, "Not exactly."

"Then what exactly?"

"All you need to know is it's bad."

"Really bad," Steve said.

Ren nodded in agreement.

"Like end-of-the-human-race-as-we-know-it kind of bad."

"And you know about this how?"

"Um, Steve?" He looked to Erica. "Where's your Russian friend?"

He turned back around to see that the guy he had knocked out was no longer lying unconscious on the floor of the comm room. An alarm in the other room went off, and red light flashed. Steve ran to the door, opened it, and saw everyone freaking out over the guy Steve hit with a corded phone. As soon as they saw him, he slammed the door closed, and the five of them ran out and into another room full of people. They rushed down another set of stairs toward the gate, where they appeared to be trapped. After doing a quick scan of the situation, Steve shoved past a few guards and led them down even more stairs.

"This way!"

They went through a door that Steve hurriedly closed after them, but it wouldn't be long before the Russians broke in. Steve and Robin held the door closed while Dustin, Erica, and Ren got an air duct door open.

Dustin stood up while Erica climbed in. "Come on!"

"No! Just go get some help, okay?" Steve yelled.

Ren's heart dropped. "Steve."

"Ren, go!"

He sighed. Dustin climbed down in the air duct as well. "Don't die!"

Right as he joined Dustin and Erica, they heard the door slam open, and Ren started to hyperventilate. "No, no, no, I have to go back out there! You guys go, I'll help them."

"Ren!" Dustin whispered. "We have to go now. Do you want to stay alive?"

He nodded.

"And you want Steve alive too, right?"

Another nod.

"Well, our best chance at achieving that is through this air duct. So get your ass over here, and let's go!"

Throughout their entire 'trip' through the ducts, Dustin and Ren explained the situation to Erica, since she wouldn't stop nagging them about it.

"But now, for some reason, the Russians are trying to reopen it, which basically destroys everything we risked our lives for."

"By 'we', you're including Lucas?"

"Yes, of course."

"So, all that shit you told me, Lucas was there?"

"Language," Ren butted in. They both ignored him.

"Yeah."

"My brother, Lucas Charles Sinclair?"

"Yes!"

"I don't believe you."

Ren and Dustin both looked at her incredulously. "Wait, so you believe everything about El and the gate and the Demo-Dogs and the Mind Flayer, but you question your brother's involvement?"

"That's correct."

A smile spread across Ren's face. He turned to Dustin. "I like her."

Dustin just rolled his eyes and went back to attempting to turn the fan off.

"You know, if we don't find a more efficient method to stop the fans, we're never gonna find help, and your ice cream buddies are screwed."

Ren tensed up.

"With that attitude they are, jesus."

"I'm just being realistic. I mean, we've made it about 0.3 miles in the past nine hours." Ren furrowed his eyebrows in shock and confusion. "Then we had to walk three hours down that tunnel, so I'd estimate ten miles back to the elevator, which should take us approximately twelve-and-a-half days."

"Did you just do all of that in your head?"

"I'm good with numbers."

"Oh my god, you're a nerd."

Ren let out a heavy sigh and took over with the fan. There was no way they'd be able to help Steve and Robin if he didn't. So while Dustin and Erica argued over whether or not Erica was in fact a nerd, Ren actually got the fan to stop moving. "Hey, idiots. Let's go!"

They followed him through the entrance the fan blades' gaps provided and crawled to another part of the ducts. Eventually they came across a room that seemed to be empty, so they popped the tile and climbed out onto the floor of the room.

The room was filled with tall glass containers of those green poison tubes. Ren grabbed as many as he could while the kids found something similar to a car, and then Erica found a weapon. They quickly loaded all the tubes into the car, Ren having to push Dustin out of the driver's seat as he was trying to start the car.

"Nuh uh, kid. You're sitting in the back. We may be in kind of a crisis right now, but I'm not letting a fourteen-year-old drive in any situation."

Ren started the vehicle and drove through the underground facility, trying not to draw any attention to himself or the kids. Dustin was hiding underneath a few vials of the 'poison', and Erica sat curled up in the passenger seat. She gave Ren directions as he drove until they reached a door guarded by three men. Dustin threw a vial in the opposite direction of the door, grabbed four more, and exited the vehicle with the two others.

They ran far enough away to successfully cause another diversion. Then they smashed all four of the tubes on the floor to make a large hole in it. They immediately ran away, with Dustin wielding the taser-like weapon. Ren busted the door down and they ran into the room where they saw Steve and Robin tied up in chairs. Ren sucker punched the guard in the room while Dustin tasered the 'doctor'.

Finally, they all got an actual look at the two restrained teens. Ren froze when he saw how beat up Steve looked. Dustin had to shake him out of his trance so they could get them out of there.