sewers and bones

. ✧ ・゜. +・o ✧

With bleary eyes, Alina looked up at the faces of the party, who seemed to have sensed the danger and made a speedy arrival. Lucas immediately crouched down beside Alina, murmuring things she couldn't hear, but she knew she had to help, so she stood up quickly. Everything was wobbling and maybe she was dying, but she made her way inside the room, anyway, where the rest of the party was clustered.

The monster was hovering over Nancy, its spittle dripping down on her face, but at the sound of the door opening, it roared, whirling around to meet El, blood dripping from her nose, a feral look on her face.

"What the f—" Max started, but she didn't get to finish before the monster was scuttling towards them. El screamed, thrusting out an arm, and slammed the monster into the wall, where it wailed desperately. Her face tomato red now, El sent it flying to the other side, a safe distance away from Nancy, who was crouched in the corner, shielding her head. It hit the ceiling, sending all of the tiles cascading onto the ground, and then the floor, where it let out a roar, but just before it could get to its feet El thrust out both arms and pushed it right through the window.

There was a shattering of glass as the monster fell, all the way to the ground, and Alina found that she couldn't stand anymore. She collapsed, and she would've hit the ground if not for Lucas, Gabe and Will, who all made a tremendous effort to catch her. Her surroundings went bleary and she could hear Jonathan calling for Nancy, but all she could focus on was the damaged ceiling and the fact that she was crying, sobbing, covered in blood and muck.

"Go!" someone shouted, and then Alina was being carried by Will and Lucas as they sprinted through the halls of the hospital. It hurt, no, more than hurt, it was agony, it was like burning in the pits of hell, it was worse than dying, it was worse than anything she'd ever felt before, and, as the party hurtled through the halls of the hospital, Alina closed her eyes and, for the first time in her life, wished for death. For death surely would be more merciful than this.

If she was dead, then she'd be free. She'd never have to do any of this shit again, never have to worry about her friends being killed or beaten until they were nearly there, wouldn't have to find Demogorgons and Demodogs and monsters made of slime. She wouldn't have to hurt anyone else, either, because the worst bit of it—her death—would already be over. Because she hadn't gotten the luxury of a peaceful, happy life. Her life had been blood and pain and broken bones, and she wanted out of it.

Somewhere in her delirium, her father arrived. He was alive in the oppressive darkness, a beam of light that shone down. He was wearing his cherry flower apron and had not a scratch on him. He was okay. He wasn't dying. There was not a speck of blood on him.

He was stagnant, even though Alina was dimly aware that they were moving, that the lights ahead were flickering, and he crouched down in front of her, a tender look on his face. As Alina watched, unable to do anything else, Brandon Fairgrieves reached out a hand and cupped her cheek. And then he said, "Ally."

Ally. Nobody had ever called her that other than him. He was smiling, really smiling, and he caressed her cheek, his thumb sliding over her bloody skin. "I love you," he said. "I love you so much, Alina Fairgrieves-Byers. You have to stay alive right now, okay? You have to keep living. Please, Ally. Your friends depend on you. Your friends need you."

"I love you," he said again, and then he was gone, and Alina was aware that Will and Lucas had come to a halt. They were outside the hospital now—she could feel the cool air on her cheek—and Alina squinted, her surroundings coming into focus. And that was when she saw the monster, reduced to a pile of goop again, bubbling in the middle of the parking lot. It made no move towards them, however. Instead it just oozed through the grate it was on, making its way into the sewers, seeming half-liquid, half-solid.

When it finally got through, it left only bones behind. The bones of the flayed.

None of the party members could see it ooze its way back to its home, back to the source, where it combined with more of itself. It slurped itself into a fleshy appendage, and Billy and Heather watched it, their faces neutral. This was what they were building. This was what they were preparing.

This was what they were going to use against all that dared to oppose them.

"It's time," said Billy Hargrove. And the monster let out a shriek of assent.

Aboveground was the party and their... babysitters? Caretakers? Surrogate older siblings? Whatever Nancy and Jonathan were, it didn't matter. What mattered is that they were all staring at the sewer, which, by now, retained no sign of the fleshy monster except for the bones that sat atop it. It had been around ten minutes before Mike finally spoke up that they should get out of here.

Everyone agreed, because, well, they all looked like shit. Most of the party was uninjured, but they were wearing the same clothes they had been yesterday and their hearts were making rounds on a race track. There was a red mark on Jonathan's forehead from where he'd been headbutted by the flayed and he still had trouble walking, stumbling over every step. Nancy had an aching back from where she'd been flung into the wall and a knot on the back of her head. And, of course, Alina was extraordinarily injured, and it looked like she needed some sort of medical attention.

After a couple of minutes of argument, trying to choose where they should go (Mike wanted them to head back to his house, Jonathan argued that they should all go home, and Nancy thought they should stay at the hospital and find supplies there) El finally suggested her cabin. Everyone could sleep there—she had space—and perhaps one or two people could make their way back to their homes to pick up clothes. And then come right back, because, obviously, none of them wanted to split up with each other, even for a single night.

People quickly agreed to the plan, though probably not for its genius, Gabe reckoned, but because Alina seemed to be in a lot of pain and they were all too scared to continue standing here. There was not a single face that wasn't pale, not a single heart pulsing at a normal speed, and even the ones who hadn't seen all of the horrors within the hospital hallways had seen enough. Gabe remembered a set of doctor corpses propped against the walls in a puddle of their own blood and had to resist the gag that forced its way up his throat.

So they all piled into the car, Nancy, who, although unsteady, was well enough to drive, in the front, Jonathan, who was a little loopy riding shotgun, and Alina, Lucas, Will and Gabe in the backseat. El, Mike and Max volunteered to ride in the trunk. Gabe figured Mike had only volunteered to be close to El.

As the car took off, nobody spoke. Every single one of them were thinking about what had happened, about the monster, the flayed. According to Nancy, the monster had been made out of the flayed. When they'd died, goop had oozed out of them, deflating their bodies, and then joined together to create something worse than any horror movie monster Gabe had ever seen. It had almost killed Nancy.

He leaned his head against the window, rising a hand to the shrinking lump on his head. If that was what happened from one of the flayed, he was screwed. When the actual monster came back—and it would—he was pretty much dead meat. More than dead meat.

They all were.

If we're going to die, he realized, I might as well tell somebody. I might as well get it off my chest.

The prospect of actually opening his mouth and telling somebody about what he'd been keeping inside of him scared him almost as much as the prospect of his very early death did. But he had to do it. He had to or it would stay bottled up in him forever, and he'd be lying in a grave without ever letting it go.

But who should he tell first? Max, maybe, because she'd been his first friend here in Hawkins. Had stuck with him through it all. Or Lucas, because he'd always been nice to him, and he didn't seem like the type to get pressed over this stuff. Or... okay, he wasn't fooling himself. He wanted to tell Alina. Because they shared a half-sister, Nicole, who was, to his knowledge, still in the care of his dad. Because of Linda. Because they had gone through things that linked them together.

Linda had always fed Gabe her views. About homosexuals, and where a woman's place should be, about people of other races. It was weird, because, being a black woman, she'd definitely been discriminated against, but she seemed to have used that discrimination to turn around and discriminate against others instead of just... being a better person. But Gabe had internalized a lot of that shit, even though he knew it wasn't true. Especially the part about being homosexual. That stuck with him.

But Gabe remembered one day, when he'd been playing D&D with Will and Alina, and the former had gone to use the bathroom. While petting Skywalker, who'd nuzzled his way onto her lap, Alina had randomly told him that she sometimes had doubts about who she wanted to be because of Linda. Because of what the woman had made her do. "I mean, she's a real dishrag, and I know all of what she said was a load of shit," she'd remarked, shifting slightly in her seat, "but... I don't know. Sometimes I think I'm a failure for not wanting to be a cozy little housewife."

"You're not," Gabe had said. "You're far from a failure, Alina Fairgrieves-Byers. That woman... I don't know what was wrong with her. I don't know what make her so sick and twisted. But she's a liar, a manipulator, and an abuser. And that's going to stick with us, but she was wrong. About a lot of things. Because guess what? You've literally helped save the world. And here she is, rotting in prison."

Alina smiled. "I guess you're right," she said. And then she'd flipped the ceiling off, and began to yell as if Linda could hear her. "You're wrong, you crazy bitch! You were wrong about everything!"

Gabe had joined her and raised his own middle finger. "You were wrong, asswipe! You know why, because me and Alina are thriving!"

Alina had laughed, and they'd high-fived, and then Will had come back downstairs and they'd resumed their game.

Remembering that conversation, about everything Alina had said about Linda being wrong, not just of her expectations of women but, according to her, all of what she said, Gabe wondered if that was true. If Linda had been wrong about what she'd said about gay people, too. If that the world said about gay people was wrong. That they weren't freaks. That they weren't going to hell. And maybe, just maybe...

It was almost hard for him to think this. But what if there was no problem with it at all?

If Gabriel Burton was going to die, it kind of sucked that he was just learning this now.

. ✧ ・゜. +・o ✧

a/n: me, writing paroxysm:

DHSHAHD I'M SORRY i just think it's important that alina doesn't completely get over her father's death, because i see a lot of fics where the oc loses someone close to them and they get over it in a couple of weeks. but alina's father was literally her whole life, so it's obvious his loss has a profound effect on her.

anyway, this chapter was sort of a filler, but the next two chapters are going to be scenes not in the show!! you guys are gonna get a sweet little sinclairgrieves moment in the next one :)

'till next time!