chapter seventeen
ruby in wonderland

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THIS IS THE WORST DAY OF RUBY'S LIFE, she decides as she speeds down the roads, behind the wheel of her ex-boyfriend's car. Her current boyfriend (... apparently?) is in the backseat, a bag of frozen peas attached to his... well, being draped across his entire face, because the whole fucking thing is swollen. Ruby's got Max sitting shotgun, and the others crammed in the back. This is going terribly, but at least they managed to find a car. Twenty minutes ago, they would've been walking.

"Ruby?" Steve's voice croaks out. "Rubes...?"

"Hey, Steve, I'm a little busy right now," she says, trying to concentrate on the road.

Here's the thing: Ruby is a terrible driver. She's got her own car, sure, but if it wasn't for her powers she'd be in a ditch by now. She just can't do it. One time, she just didn't see a truck when she was pulling out, and Steve threw up the handbrake before she could drive them into their deaths. That was the last time they took it in turns to carpool, and instead, Steve drove her to school everyday. Steve knows she's the worst driver — Max would drive better than her.

So it's only understandable that Steve lets out a cry of absolute terror.

"Ruby, stop! You can't drive, you can't—!"

"I need to concentrate!" she says, just as she swerves to miss a roar sign.

"I'm going to die!"

"You are not going to die," she says, matter-of-factly.

But, of course, Steve announcing that she 'can't drive' throws the kids into a panicked frenzy.

"What does he mean, you can't drive?"

"You look like you can drive?"

"I can!" she shouts.

"She drives like shit!" is what Steve says as a response.

"Well who else is gonna drive?" she asks. "You?"

"I could be dead and I'd still drive better than you!"

And he said he loved her, like, forty-five minutes ago? Where's that energy now?

"Shut up!" she shouts back at him. She is struggling to concentrate, and the streetlights are nonexistent since they're out of town. She's anxiously waiting for the headlights to catch the sign for the farm she found her dad on, and pray she can figure the rest out from there. But none of this is possible if Steve doesn't let her think!

This is going to be fine. She can already feel her body jittering to life, sensing where she's about to go. The thought of being in the Upside Down again makes her feel ill, but she has to. One day, she'll move away from Hawkins and never come back. She'll never have to see the lab, or the reminders of the creature over the years. Because to her, every street has a memory. Maple Street is nice and all, but it's where she saw her monster, the demogorgon, on Halloween when she was five. She cannot count the amount of times she's been nervous about school and flickered between dimensions. Or, better yet, when she was younger and her grandpa would take her out for food after she went to the lab for testing. Everything makes her feel ill, everything has a bad memory attached to it — and she can try all she'd like to erase those, to cover them up with nicer, happier memories, but deep down, she'll always have the lingering feeling of fear, of sadness, when she's in those spaces... But, this is her responsibility, and the idea of leaving it for someone else to deal with — for El to deal with — isn't right.

So, as she spots the wooden pumpkin sign, advertising the low costs of the now-decrepit pumpkin patch, Ruby swerves straight off the road, onto the field. Everyone in the car screams, and she thinks, I'm not that bad of a driver, but maybe Steve's lack of confidence has freaked them all out. She's not that bad, she promises.

She drives over a rotten pumpkin, making the whole car jump.

... Anyway. Great driver, Ruby.

Ruby doesn't remember exactly where the hole is, and it's a nightmare to see because of the dark, so when her sixth sense whirs that its close, Ruby skids to a halt. Knowing her, she could plough straight into the hole, which would make things a little more difficult when Billy comes to.

"OK." Ruby looks at the kids. "You guys ready?"

There's a hesitant yes. It's the kids' friends in danger, Ruby knows that, so as determined as they may feel, she understands the panic they must be experiencing.

Ruby gets out of the car, and the kids follow suit, all of them making their way to the car trunk. They grabbed a load of supplies before they left the Byers'; rubber gloves; flashlights; mouth and eye coverings; and enough gasoline to burn down a mall. Ruby places a handkerchief around Max's mouth, tying it just below her ponytail, before doing the same with her own.

Ruby glances down at the hole in the ground, and thinks about the thousands of times she's found herself in the Upside Down. How she was four when she first transported herself there, feeling like Alice in Wonderland. It makes her sad, how connected she is to that awful place.

She looks at the rest of the kids, and a thought strikes her.

"Have you guys, like, ever been in the Upside Down before?" she asks them, and they all shake their heads no. Ruby feels a sense of dependency on her. "Stay with me..." She trails off, remembering how scared she felt the first few times, before she understood it. She imagines those feelings, growing inside of all of them, and knows she can help. "It's not so bad, if we're careful. Nothing will hurt you unless you touch it — be careful where you walk, there's tentacles everywhere, and they're all alive, so they'll get you. But if they do, I'll be there. You'll be fine, OK? We've got this."

Ruby, ever the cheerleader, gives them all a thumbs up. But, just before they can get started, Steve falls out of the car, stumbling to his feet. Ruby groans. She loves him, but it would've been so much easier if he stayed unconscious.

"Where do you think you're going?" he asks.

Ruby chooses to ignore him, passing the last of the goggles to Mike and Lucas.

"You are not going down there right now," Steve continues, regaining his balance as he steps towards Ruby. She can feel the gaze of the kids, all waiting for her sign to go. "I made myself clear, it's not safe down there. There's no chance we're going into that hole, alright? This ends right now!"

"This isn't something we can choose," says Ruby. "We need to help!"

"Ruby, you're going to get yourself killed!" he says.

"OK, and?" Ruby's response takes herself by surprise. She's always known, deep down, that maybe, one day, the Upside Down will take her. Before Eleven escaped, and it was just Ruby anxiously batting away the demogorgon — not enough to kill it, but enough to keep it away. She always worried that, maybe, they'll be a day where she can't quite do it, or that she's distracted, and that'll be it. The demogorgon will finally take her. Maybe that's what she was hearing earlier, the voice in her head. Maybe that's the Upside Down, waiting to get its claws on her for good.

But, she has to admit it. She might have to die for this place. She might live (she tries to convince herself that she will eventually win and destroy the Upside Down) but she also might not. What if it's between her and Eleven?

"I've got to help," says Ruby. "And it's their friends in danger. I can't stop them."

Steve shakes his head. "No, no, you're not—"

"Steve, you're upset, I get it," says Dustin, stepping in between the two older teenagers. Ruby looks down at him, confused that he's helping her out. Are they friends now? "But the bottom line is, a party member requires assistance, and it is our duty to provide that assistance. Now, I know you promised Nance that you would keep us safe. So, keep us safe."

Steve looks at Ruby, and then back to Dustin. He's silent for a moment, thinking things through, before he sighs.

"Where's the mask?"

Ruby smiles.

They've tied a thick rope to the car, and left bricks in front of the wheels so it can't move anywhere. Ruby drops the end of the rope into the hole, planning to use this to pull them all out afterwards. She looks down, feeling the same anxiousness she always does entering the Upside Down.

"OK," she says, taking a deep breath. "Follow me."

Ruby can transport into the Upside Down with her mind, but figures it relieves the kids' stresses if they see her go through the hole first. It's not so bad. The transporting, she means, not the Upside Down. The Upside Down is, like, the worst place ever. It's moments like these where she's jealous of normal girls, like her friend Carol, because they'll never have to deal with this. Ruby wishes this was someone else's problem.

She lands in the Upside Down with a thud, and looks up, tugging on the rope to give the sign that the next person can come down. She steps to the side, grateful the tentacles clear a little in this area. She moves to the side carefully, as to not touch the tentacles. Max drops down next to her, but before she lands, Ruby holds her waist, ensuring she lands away from the tentacles.

"Next one, come on!"

Ruby helps them all down, carefully moving them away from any danger. She keeps on looking over her shoulder, checking on the others already down there. Finally, it's Steve's turn, and she calls up, "Don't drop straight down! Let me—"

He does, in fact, drop straight down. Ruby quickly reaches out, pulling him towards him, knowing there's a tentacle just behind his left foot. Steve looks down at her, and the two exchange a glance for a moment.

Dustin clears his throat. "C'mon! We know you're in love but we've got shit to do!"

Ruby moves backwards, feeling embarrassed. She didn't mean it in that way, but whatever. She could have done it in that way, and maybe she will sometime soon, but there was a tentacle behind him. This is humiliating.

"I'm pretty sure it's this way," Mike tells the rest of them, pointing towards Ruby.

Ruby raises an eyebrow, as Dustin asks, "You're pretty sure, or you're certain?"

"Oh my God!" Ruby grumbles, and hears her sixth sense speaking. "It's this way."

She points towards the direction behind Mike.

What they're looking for is an opening in the tunnels. Ruby can't remember if that's what she saw the other night; she was so overcome with panic she barely thought that night. But, she has a strong visioning of an opening, with tentacles rising from the ground.

Mike and the kids start to move in that direction, but Steve raises his hands. "Whoa, whoa, whoa," Steve says, the kids stopping in their tracks. "I don't think so."

Mike's unimpressed. Ruby wonders how he can be so annoying when Nancy's, like, normal. "What?" he says.

"Any of you little shits die down here, we're getting the blame," says Steve, motioning towards Ruby. He looks back at Mike, using the torch to prod his chest. "Got it, dipshit? From here on out, we're leading the way. Come on, let's go."

Ruby and Steve weave between the kids, struggling to find spaces to step. She looks across at him, as she reaches the front. "You're not that bad of a babysitter, you know," she tells him with a smirk.

Steve rolls his eyes. "You're hilarious."

They start walking in the direction Ruby senses is correct. She's a little in front of Steve because of this, and as she steps over a particularly large tentacle, she hears him tell the others, "Hey, a little hustle!" Ruby snorts. He's so overdramatic sometimes.

Her mind can't help but wander back to that very first encounter. She doesn't know the exact date, but she wishes she did. That way, on every anniversary, she could mourn the death of her normalcy. Her innocence. Her ability to be naive, vulnerable, gullible. She wouldn't grow to feel the weight of her powers on her shoulders, her grandfather — arguably her only father figure, following her mom's death — expressing how her abilities could save the world, how she was so powerful, yet she mustn't tell anyone, because they wouldn't understand. How did he think that would make her feel? She has all of this power, this untapped yet unstoppable force, but she must pretend to be weak. She must pretend to be normal. Quickly, Ruby began to feel as though these powers were not that magnificent, because why were they a secret? Why would it be bad if people new? She remembers when she first met Steve, sandbox best friends, and she asked her grandpa why Steve couldn't know. "Because he'll know you're not normal," her grandpa told her.

"Is that... bad?" she had asked.

When she was little, she was obsessed with two characters: Alice, of Alice in Wonderland, and Dorothy, of Wizard of Oz. As such, she spent her elementary years with her hair in two braids, wearing various light-blue dresses. She felt like those girls understood her. Because Ruby would visit her magical land sometimes... Hers was just a little less technicolour.

"No, but, you could get into a lot of trouble if people found out," her grandpa explained, and that was enough to rewire her whole self-perception.

Ruby realised that she wasn't normal, and she'd never be. She'd finish school and she'd watch the high school girls from the elementary school bus, with their short pleated skirts and matching pom-poms. She'd watch the girls with pretty faces in pretty outfits flirting with boys. She'd see in the town newspaper the announcement of the high school's Snowflake Queen, and subsequent Spring Fling Queen. That's the thing about kids: teenagers seem like almighty gods when you're that age. They're so effortlessly cool, they're something to dream and aspire over. Ruby would hear stories about her mom winning all of these accolades, and she'd desperately wish she could've been the same, not some girl with powers.

So Ruby tried to be normal. She forced herself to be friends with everyone, and would be nice to everyone, no matter what. In elementary, Ruby Brenner was friends with everyone. Granted, some people were mean to her — but that's where Steve stepped in, defending her without a second's thought. Quickly he got a reputation for being unbeatable in fights, and little did Ruby know that it was her powers helping him every time.

But it was middle school that solidified Ruby as Ruby Brenner. Sometimes she feels like her name is otherworldly, that there's so much stardom within Hawkins around her that Ruby Brenner is a whole other entity. But, middle school came puberty, and Ruby recognised how different social status was as a teenager. You had a to be a bitch to be popular, and that's what Ruby wanted. Not to mention, Ruby was being pushed around, everyone thinking she was too nice. And as she started making the conscious effort to stand up for herself, to not get walked over by others, puberty hit her, slowly but surely transforming her into the image of her late mother. No longer was the little girl with braids, but instead, a younger interpretation of Rosemary Brenner. Ruby quickly realised that people treated you differently when you were pretty, and she was grateful for it. She would look at herself in the mirror, and present herself in the same way she saw those high school girls when she was younger. If she couldn't be normal, she could pretend she was. She could construct herself in such a way that she was viciously normal to everyone around her. And it worked...

... Until the cracks started showing last year, when her two worlds began to collide. And now, Ruby's beginning to accept that her old normalcy has gone. Too many people know now; it isn't just a secret kept between herself and her grandpa. Her dad knows, these random kids know, Steve knows... It's all over. But is that a bad thing?

"Girlfriend, huh?" says Ruby after a while, glancing across at Steve.

"Oh," and he pauses, sounding embarrassed. "I'm sorry I said that — I know you're not, I just wanted to piss Billy off."

"I mean, it worked," she says.

"It also wrecked my face," he says with a grumble. "I might've lost my looks for good."

"I don't mind," she tells him, and weirdly, she means it.

That takes Steve by surprise. Ruby Brenner, lovable yet superficial, saying she wouldn't care if he was ugly? That's never happened before. She's lost crushes over ugly outfits.

He's about to reply, and Ruby wishes she heard his response, but at the same time, Dustin lets out a scream from behind them. Ruby spins around; before she can move, Steve rushes towards the back of the group, to see what's wrong.

She hears Steve ask, "What happened?"

"It's in my mouth! Some got on my mouth! Shit!"

Ruby, frowning, weaves around the kids to see what's wrong. She finds Dustin kneeling on the floor, his handkerchief off his mouth, as he violently coughs. She shares a glance with Steve, both unimpressed.

Eventually, Dustin stops coughing, and looks up at them. "I'm okay."

There's a collective groan, before they start walking again. Ruby and Steve quickly make their way back to the front, and Ruby can feel herself becoming uneasy, knowing that whatever opening they want to torch, it's coming up. Ruby already feels warm — she always does when she's here, as if her body is preparing itself to create fire — but her palms are feeling sweaty now.

As they turn the next corner, the place comes into view. A large opening, with tentacles reaching up from the ground. They stop for a moment, and Steve looks back at the others.

"Alright, Wheeler. I think we found your hub."

"Drench it," Mike says, and Ruby thinks, OK, big man.

Ruby takes one of the cans of gasoline from Lucas' backpack, and leads the way through the space, carefully avoiding stepping on the tentacles. She covers her section in gasoline, as Lucas uses the spray to get the walls, the ceiling. It doesn't take that long for the group to spray, throw, and douse every inch of the opening in gasoline. Despite her mask, Ruby can smell gasoline, there's so much everywhere. She looks back at Steve, knowing its time.

"OK, shitheads, lets go!" Steve motions for the kids to return to the tunnel, waiting for all of them to clear out before he checks on Ruby. She picks up the discarded gasoline bottles, making sure they're covering everything. Ruby tries to keep herself calm, knowing she's got the most dangerous power in a place dripping in gasoline. "Rubes, you ready?"

"Lets do it," she says, and she makes her way towards them.

She stands in front of Steve, who's standing in front of the kids, and her gaze focuses on the opening. On the tentacles moving, unaware of what's covering them, what's about to happen. She envisions the opening erupting into flames, fire licking over every tendril of the Upside Down. She imagines the pain everything in the Upside Down is going to feel, and she feels a longing to cause that. Burn the whole place down.

"Is everyone back?" she asks, and there's a murmured yes from Steve. "OK."

She takes off her gloves, throwing them onto the floor, and begins to raise her hand. Her mind fixates on its desire to burn the Upside Down out of existence, and she imagines the heat of the fire — until it becomes a reality, her hand warm from the flames radiating near it. She opens her eyes as the fire spreads across the gasoline, flames running from one tentacle to another, everything becoming engulfed. Ruby thinks there's a beauty to fire, a beauty to the raw power it holds... The power it grants her.

"C'mon, let's go!"

Steve grabs her hand and they start the run back to the tunnel. Soon, the fire will spread to the entire tunnel system, and Ruby worries that one of them accidentally has some gasoline on them, that will cause them all to burst into flames. Ruby can cause fire but she isn't immune to it.

They're halfway back when Mike screams. Ruby's stomach drops, spinning around. Mike's ankle has been caught by one of the tentacles, pulling him to the ground. Ruby extends her hand to slice the tentacle clean, but Steve's already one step ahead, slamming his bat into it. He gives it a couple hits before it lets Mike free.

Ruby looks at Mike. "Are you OK?"

"I'm fine, I'm fine," he says.

All at once, a deathly collection of screeches echo around them. Ruby's stomach drops.

"GO, GO, GO!"

They sprint back to the rope, and Steve starts picking the kids up, helping them climb out of the hole. The roses are getting louder, and Ruby panics. If all of the demodogs are coming this way, will she even be able to kill them all? Ruby watches Steve pick up Mike, two left to go, and Ruby reaches forwards, to help him up too.

Her heart is racing, as she lets go of Mike to get Lucas.

They can do this, they can do this.

The roars are getting louder.

"C'mon, c'mon, c'mon!"

Both help up Dustin, the last of them. Ruby turns, her flashlight revealing the incoming shadows of the siege of demodogs.

Ruby turns to Steve. Is this it?

"Ruby..." he goes.

She doesn't know to say. She wants to give in, but she can't. She can't. She can't give up without a fight, without even bothering to try.

"Stay behind me," she says, and she steps in front of him.

Ruby extends one hand, and moves the other behind her back, grabbing hold of Steve's. She imagines her grandpa, how he would smile and tell her how powerful she was, how amazing she was that she could do al of these things. She had so much power. She was Ruby fucking Brenner, the world revolves around her! Her powers allowed it.

The demodogs come into sight, and Ruby holds her breath—

—and they run past her.

Ruby freezes. She looks down as the demodogs run either side of them, unbothered. Ruby almost stumbles, one of them brushing past her, and Steve lets go of her hand, his arm snaking around her waist. He keeps holding onto her, as they run past.

"What the fuck?" she goes. "I'm me, they want to kill me! What would be more important than me?"

But she remembers her little sister in the lab.

Ruby looks at the tunnel, the orange of the fire slowly catching up to them. She's done her part. She wants to do more, but she can't leave these kids now. If Eleven's almost closed the gate, if Ruby comes back she'll just distract her, and stop her from finishing it off. Ruby's done. They've won.

"Oh my God," Steve breathes out.

"We're OK," she mumbles back. Her hands rest on his arm, where he's holding her. "We're OK."

She just prays that everyone else tonight can say the same.

ya this was kinda boring ngl, i forgot about dustin and dart but like ... who cares lmao. soz this wasn't the most exciting chapter but it had to happen. hopefully you enjoyed it?

two more then we're done!! onto season three!!❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥