chapter twelve
darkness falls
across the land...

🖤

RUBY THROWS HER HAIR INTO A ponytail as she scans the area, as she watches Steve pick up another metal sheet, walking towards the bus. Anxiety has been swimming in her system all day long, but now that she's out here, preparing to catch this monster, she feels even worse. Her sixth sense is whirring in the back of her head, aware of what's soon to happen. She feels warmer than she should, outside in early November, and she knows it's her body, ready to conjure up flames at a second's notice.

Sometimes, she's amazed by her body's abilities, and she feels grateful for it. She isn't too keen on the trauma, or the fact that monsters do, in fact, chase after her, but she's glad that her body does everything under the sun to protect her. She's never had to doubt herself in these situations, because at the end of the day, her body will always jump in and save her. The monster can't reach her.

"Who the hell are they?" Ruby looks to her side, where Steve's appeared, his hands on his hips. He's looking towards the boy and girl that have since joined them; Ruby recognises the boy from last year, and as she takes a good look at the girl, her eyes widen.

"Oh, shit," Ruby says.

The girl spots Ruby, too, and frowns.

"What are you doing here?" she asks Ruby.

Dustin frowns. "Wait — how do you both—?"

"She's my step-brother's girlfriend!"

"You're Hargrove's sister?" Steve exclaims.

"Step," Max clarifies.

"Me and Billy broke up," says Ruby, but on the inside, she's panicking. Ruby's got to use her powers later, so Max is going to see — what if she goes home, and she tells Billy? What if people find out that she's a freak? "What are you doing here?"

OK, OK. Context: Ruby, on the occasions she stepped foot in Billy's car, often went along when Billy had to drive Max places. Normally, they'd take Max to the arcade, drive off... make out somewhere, then pick her up a little while later. Sometimes, when Ruby first started dating Billy, Ruby would get him to drive her to school, too — she has a car, yeah, but she wanted people to see her and Billy arriving together. It was all for the cool points. (And it worked.) Ruby barely spoke to Max, and felt a little awkward, but they sort-of know each other. Know of each other.

"What are you doing here?" says Max, just as rudely.

"Look, this is not safe—"

"So why are they here?" says Max, and she gestures to Dustin and Lucas.

Ruby shrugs. "I don't really care about them," she says, quite truthfully. "But if you get hurt—"

"Billy doesn't care about me," says Max. "Is all of this real? The stuff Lucas said? About the monsters, and Eleven—?"

Ruby's head whips around to look at Lucas. "You're telling people about El?"

Lucas puts his hands up, as if asking for forgiveness. Steve's still stood next to Ruby, looking at Max rather suspiciously. Max notices, of course, and scowls.

"Who are you?" she asks.

"Uh, Steve Harrington?" he says back, a little offended.

Max is unbothered. "... Right." She turns back to Ruby, who smirks a little at that. Steve, annoyed, walks off and goes back to setting up the bus. "So this stuff...?"

"OK, yeah," says Ruby. "But if you tell anyone, I will kill you."

"Sure," says Max, unconvinced.

Ruby, who has in fact killed a monster before, grimaces. Sometimes, Ruby hates children. Call her witch, there is no birth control better than an annoying little kid.

She knows she's this close to arguing with a child, so instead, Ruby walks towards Steve, as he's sorting out a pile of metal scraps. He looks up at her, and glances back at Max.

"Of course it's Hargrove's sister," Steve mutters.

"Step," Ruby corrects. "What's that supposed to mean, anyway?"

"You know, Henderson's got a crush on her," he says, ignoring her question.

Ruby considers pretending she didn't hear him earlier, but her guilty conscience looms over her. Maybe she shouldn't lie...? But, then, would it make it worse, if she said she heard what he said, when he didn't think she would...?

"Oh, wow," says Ruby, deciding to be a coward and lying. She looks over, though, as Dustin walks past Max, ignoring her. "Well, he doesn't look like it."

Steve checks, and nods. "That's the whole point."

Ruby looks at Steve. "That's so stupid."

She picks up one of the metal scraps, and lifts it over to the bus. She climbs inside the bus, slotting the scrap against the back exit. Steve's followed her, handing her another scrap for the rest of the door.

"What does that mean?" he says.

"I just think it's stupid when people pretend to hate whoever they like," says Ruby with a shrug. "The person just thinks they hate them, which is the complete opposite of the plan..."

"OK, no, I told him to be nonchalant, not a dick," says Steve.

"Billy wasn't nonchalant," says Ruby. "He was quite... chalant."

Steve gives her a look. "That's not even a word."

"But my point still stands," says Ruby. "It's nice when the guy shows interest."

They exchange a look for a second, and Ruby freezes, thinking back to last Christmas. Steve did show interest in her. He said he was in love with her! He must be thinking about that, too, because for a brief moment, he looks a little hurt again, the way he did last year.

"Um... anyway." Ruby moves past him, to walk back outside. But, in the corner of her eye she sees Steve crouch down, picking up something.

"Aren't these yours?" he says.

She turns around, and sees the bloody clothes she left here the other night. Shit. She forgot all about those.

"Uh... yes..."

"Is that blood?"

"Yes..."

"Why—?"

Ruby sighs. "I came here the other night, and that's when I saw the other monster. It's bloody because I killed the monster... Duh."

He looks confused, still. "But why were you—?"

Ruby doesn't say anything; she looks at him, feeling embarrassed and overexposed. It takes him a moment, but eventually he seems to realise.

"Was that when... I said I wanted to talk...?"

"Well, yeah — but you spoke about it afterwards so it's fine now—"

"But you came here — you waited around here, for me to show up?"

Ruby crosses her arms. "You're making me sound like a loser."

"I just didn't think you'd bother," says Steve.

"I did," says Ruby, softly, before she leaves the bus, her ego bruised.

She tries to move past their conversation, trying to think of anything else. She wishes she could use her powers to lift some of these scraps, to make life easier for herself, but she's hyper-aware of Max. Sure, Max is going to see Ruby's powers at some point, but Ruby would rather postpone that actuality for as long as possible. Because then come the questions. How do you have powers? What can you do? What happened to you? She remembers last year, how the kids thought she was a superhero. It was pretty annoying.

She remembers Steve, too, when he saw her first use them. That was the day when everyone was calling Nancy a whore — Ruby stood up for her, but Steve wasn't having it. She and Steve had a fight, arguing like a couple on the brink of divorce, when Jonathan punched him. To this day, Ruby thinks Steve deserved that. But, after the matter, Steve turned up at Jonathan's house, wanting to apologise: that was the night Ruby, Nancy, and Jonathan were going to kill the monster. Ruby had answered the door, panicking.

"What are you doing here?" she asked. "You need to leave!"

"I wanted to apologise, I..." he started, but his gaze drifted down to the bloody bandage wrapped around Ruby's hand. His brows furrowed, and she tried to move her hand away, as if that would erase the minute before. All three of them had sliced into their palms, planning to lure the monster with the smell of their blood. But to Steve, it looked suspicious. "What happened to your hand?"

"It's nothing, you should just go—"

Steve had looked up at her. His face was wrecked from earlier. Jonathan only punched him, but Steve's face must've hit the gravel when he fell. And yet, in spite of his own misery, he looked deeply upset, at the thought of Ruby being hurt. "Did he do that to you?"

"No! Please, Steve, you need to go!"

She remembered her sixth sense whirring at that point, telling her the monster was almost there. She was panicking; not about her own safety, but about Steve's. But, he had gotten past her, into the Byers' house — just as the monster burst through the ceiling. Ruby remembered Steve screaming, and Ruby jumping in front of him, extending her hand and sending the monster flying into the wall. Nancy and Jonathan were already running to Will's room, and Ruby had instructed Steve to keep behind her. The monster moved towards her again, and as blood trailed down her nose, over her mouth, as she used all her might to telepathically throw the monster backwards, she heard Steve go, "WHAT THE FUCK?"

"What was that? Ruby? RUBY! How the fuck—?"

"NOW IS NOT THE TIME!" she had screamed back at him, and that excuse became the same excuse for the past year — all until yesterday.

It feels strange, how that was a year ago now. Ruby glances down at her right hand, at the scar cutting her palm into two. She feels like a different person now... Not exactly a better person. Because last year, she didn't even think about losing her popularity, until everything was over and her friends almost ostracised her. Now, though, every movement of hers has a level of calculation to it. It has to. One wrong move and she's fucked.

"Hey! Dickheads!" She hears Steve shout, and she looks over, where Dustin and Lucas are talking behind one of the cars. "How come the only one helping us out is this random girl?"

Ruby rolls her eyes, as she sees Max carrying a ladder to the bus. She quickly walks over to her to help her out, figuring it might be difficult for a single person to manoeuvre it.

"Are you sure there's really a monster?" says Max, to Ruby.

"Listen," says Ruby, feeling fed up. "Wait an hour and you'll see. But you're gonna believe what you believe until you see proof. And I don't care enough to show you."

Look. Ruby is a bitch. Sometimes she says bitchy things. It's not her fault people keep on walking into her corner of the world, arguing about the existence of the very thing that's been haunting her for years. She doesn't care. This is her fight, she's going to kill every monster she sees, but she does not care about other people's involvement. She wishes everyone would keep their nosey butts out of it. This is between Ruby and the monster, and that's it.

"We lose light in forty minutes!" Steve calls out to Dustin and Lucas, reminding them of the situation's severity. Ruby is getting a little pissed off now, she can't lie. Her anxiety towards seeing the monster is turning into anticipation. It's a nice outlet sometimes, destroying a monster.

Those forty minutes race past, and as the sun begins to set, the five make their way into the bus. Ruby makes the final adjustments outside, as Steve covers the cars in petrol. He looks over at her, as she finally gives in, figuring Max can't see her, and moving the cars around, creating clear tunnels towards the opening the bus is in. This way, they can (hopefully) see every entrance a monster could take, making it easier for them to kill.

"You nervous?" says Steve, throwing the empty petrol canister to the side.

Ruby thinks for a minute. "I guess I'm always a little anxious..." she says, trailing off. She wonders if this is his olive branch, so she figures she should ask him the same. "You?"

"Oh, I'm shitting it," says Steve.

Ruby smiles softly at him, and nudges him arm lightly with her own. "We've got this.," she says. "If in doubt, I'll save you."

He looks down at her, and smiles back at her, as they start to walk back to the bus. She's trying not to smile, the nice kind of butterflies returning. She missed this; they used to be so close. Ruby used to be so affectionate with him, too, a quality she's lacked in all friendships and relationships since. She made out with Billy, sure, but there was no tenderness.

"OK. Ground rules." Ruby closes the bus behind herself, as Steve addresses the kids. "Don't get in the way. And whatever Ruby says, do it."

"Why?" says Max.

"Because she knows shit about this," says Steve.

"Yeah," says Dustin. "She's like, a superhero."

Max raises an eyebrow. "I doubt it."

"OK, then die," says Ruby, grimacing back at her.

Steve pauses, as if wondering if he should even bother responding to that. "You have such a way with words," he says, sitting down. Ruby sits opposite him, thinking about all of the summer days they spent here. How dazed they'd be, how Ruby would lie on the bus' roof, trying to sunbathe, and Steve would be talking about the newest girl in his life. None of them really lasted, which Ruby never got because Steve was Steve. Carol used to say it was because of Ruby, that girls were scared of her, thinking Ruby could and would swoop in at any minute to take him for herself. Ruby never would've done. It was only all the stuff last year, with the monster, that Steve started thinking that way. Or maybe he always did? Ruby doesn't know.

She has no idea how much time passes, but it's safe to say that Ruby is bored. Lucas has climbed up to the roof, to keep lookout. Max is pacing, and Dustin is trying to avoid her.

"And you're, like, totally, one-hundred-percent sure it wasn't a bear?" asks Max.

"It wasn't a bear," says Dustin. "Why are you even here if you don't believe us?" Ruby raises an eyebrow, almost feeling the need to step in. (She says, an hour after saying Max can die.) "Just go home."

"Past your bedtime?" Max retorts, but Ruby can tell she's a little hurt by that. Ruby, for a brief moment, sees a little part of herself in Max, but she wonders if her brain's forming that attachment over the lack of El.

Ruby watches Max climb up the ladder, and Steve glances at Dustin. "That's good," says Steve. "Just show her you don't care."

"I don't?" says Dustin.

Steve winks at him.

Dustin groans. "Oh my god, stop."

"You know if you actually like her, you shouldn't be a dick to her," says Ruby.

"Don't listen to her," says Steve. "She's brainwashed."

"No, I am not," says Ruby with a frown.

"You know, that's exactly what someone that's been brainwashed would say—"

"You're so annoying—" But Ruby stops herself, as her gaze lands on an old shoebox. "Oh my God, Steve! The mixtapes!"

"Mixtapes?" says Dustin, confused, just as Ruby finds the old shoe box they used to store them in, and she starts to rifle through them.

"We used to hang out here, so left some music here," Steve tells him with a shrug. He starts to grin. "Hey, Rubes, do you see the Boney M—?"

"Boney M?"

"Yeah, Daddy Cool is Ruby's favourite song—"

"Oh my God, shut up!" she exclaims.

"—She tells everyone her favourite song's this one by The Beatles but it's actually Daddy Cool," says Steve. Ruby can feel her face burning. "I mean, unless it's changed to, I don't know, Rasputin, or—"

An awful nervousness hits Ruby, right in the stomach. She can feel her heart beating faster, the sixth sense taking a grip over her mind, warning her of something incoming...

"Uh, Ruby, I was joking..."

"Oh my God I know," she says, just as she gets to her feet. Steve's next to the window overlooking the opening they made, so she crosses the bus, looking outside of the window.

She hears Lucas shouts, "I'VE GOT EYES!"

It looks similar to her monster. Like a hound version of hers, walking on all fours but possessing the same flower-like head. Steve springs to his feet to look out of the window, too, and Dustin squeezes next to them to do the same.

"He's not taking the bait," says Dustin. "Why is he not taking the bait?"

"Because I'm here," says Ruby, softly.

This is it. The fight has always been the monster and Ruby. And if this is just like her old monster, then this must be the same. Ruby was not put on this planet to kill those things, but it became her duty the second she got these powers, the second she came face-to-face with that thing's predecessor and the lengthy injections inside her catapulted her into supernatural abilities. This is Ruby's fight.

But it doesn't mean that she isn't terrified.

Steve gets to his feet, and picks up his bat.

"What are you doing?" says Ruby.

"Just get ready," says Steve, and he starts to walk towards the front of the bus.

"Steve! No! Get back here—!"

He opens the bus' door without replying. Ruby almost runs out after him, but he closes the door before she can. She feels like she's about to have a heart attack.

"He is a psycho, what is wrong with him, why—?"

She feels nauseous. He knows she can fight these things, why won't he let her? Is this to prove himself, to look strong for these kids they're stuck with? She can fight these things, why on earth—

"Three o'clock!" Lucas cries out.

"What's going on?" Ruby asks Dustin, too nervous to look outside herself.

"There's loads more — Ruby!"

But Ruby isn't listening. She runs to the front of the bus, her mind sliding the bus door open to let her through. It closes behind her, just as one monster runs towards Steve.

Ruby pushes her hand out in front of her, and sends the monster flying in the other direction to Steve. She moves her head with a quick jolt, and the monster's neck snaps.

Steve looks up at Ruby.

"Get behind me!" she shouts. Another monster runs towards them, and just as Steve gets to her, two monsters erupting into flames. Ruby's head is already throbbing, and she ignores the blood pooling from her nose, down her face. She's never had to fight this many before.

But she has to, she knows that. She tries to power through, seeing the trail of gasoline they made earlier, and directing her energy to that. The cars around them burst into flames, but some of the monsters manage to get through, screaming through the pain, yet strong enough still to attack them.

"Shit!" she shouts.

Steve grabs Ruby's hand, and pulls her back towards the bus. Her eyes are still fixed on the monsters, powering through the blinding headache as she tries to kill the last few. But there's too many, and just as one runs towards them, Steve picks her up at the waist, the two falling back onto the front of the bus. Ruby's mind shuts the bus doors just as the monster gets to them.

Steve's arms are still around her, and she holds onto his forearms, trying to catch her breath. The monsters are throwing themselves at the doors, and Ruby's body is still fighting against them, her mind slicing off each and every limb the monsters try to push through the doors with.

"You're burning!" Steve shouts.

"Let go! Let go!" Ruby shouts back at him, scrambling off of him. Her mind's eye is warning her of a monster on the roof, and just as there's a bang on the rooftop, Ruby's head pounds, and she stumbles. But she forces herself to keep going. Either she preserves, or this thing kills these kids, kills her, kills Steve.

She throws herself at the ladder, clambering up the stairs as she hears Steve shout for her not to. But she has to. This is what she's made for. Even if she feels like she's dying, she can't stop! Who else in here can fight them off? If she's struggling, none of them stand a chance!

Ruby stands on the bus' roof, face to face with the monster. She watches him, carefully, and in a moment of weakness, as her head pounds, the monster jumps on top of her. She falls backwards, and the thing's claws scratch into her arms. She lets out a scream. She feels like she's four again, in that lab and stumbling upon her monster. She remembers being four, desperately screaming for her grandpa, but him not hearing. She remembers being four, waiting for someone to help her, thinking she was going to die, and her body kicking in, protecting her.

She squeezes her eyes shut, her body exhausted. The lights in the abandoned cars, despite having no working battery, flicker to life with her energy. She hears Steve's voice, she feels the hot breath of the monster lingering over her, and her mind breaks through. The monster above her explodes, covering Ruby with its blood.

She scrambles to sit upright, and Steve appears, holding onto her. She waits for more of the monsters to appear, but none of them try. She watches the monsters leftover run past the bus, away from them.

"They're going somewhere," says Steve, as Ruby's sixth sense continues to whir.

this was meant to be two chapters but like... it wouldve been two tiny ones and i cba for that. so!! i hope you enjoyed!!! ruby almost died!!! but ruby got scratched!! oh no!!! hope that doesn't turn into something later on!!!!

i am so excited u guys to write season 3. like. this was always lowkey inspired by jen's body (which i wrote my uni dissertation/final year thesis on!!) but season 3 is gonna be jen's body to the max. i cannot WAIT

thank u guys sm for reading!! i love writing this<3 let me know what you thought!! xxx