chapter thirty-seven
ruby hopper

🖤

RUBY WAKES UP THE NEXT MORNING with a revived sense of purpose.

She wakes up, goes on a run, does a Pilates routine in the living room. Ruby has a quick shower, feeling comforted by the near-boiling water (a side-effect of being Flayed: an intense appreciation for a hot shower), then finds herself downstairs. She's dressed, her muscles warmed up for the day ahead. She finds herself flicking through her grandfather's brain-teaser books, doing a couple of puzzles. A fired-up body is only as ready as the brain, she thinks, the sort of thing her grandpa would tell her.

Here's the thing. Ruby needs to be ready for whatever is lurking in Hawkins' shadow. And she is ready this time — she's had six months of training, and whilst she expected to have more under her belt when she returned to this hellfire, the point still stands. Ruby's body is ready.

So. She eats her breakfast — a healthy one, porridge (slow-releasing energy) with fruit. She drinks her green tea, and almost likes it. (It's starting to taste less like grass, and not the fun kind you smoke.) She forces down the concoction of vitamins and medications her grandpa's lined up for her, all to keep her mind and body and powers in their prime. At the end, she eats a spoonful of sea moss, since some girl in her Pilates class told her it was good for the skin. It is, but Ruby retches as she swallows it. My body is a temple, she tells herself, before caving and drinking a coffee.

She wanders around her grandfather's house with her coffee in her hand. Last night, she found her mom's clothes from when she was in high school, a delicious collection of dresses from the sixties. Today, she's decided to test-drive a brown gingham mini dress, one that's certainly meant to be a pinafore dress, but Ruby thinks it's cute on it's own. She laces up her Converse, wishing she had a pair of Doc Martens with her. They'd be better suited for this supernatural climate... She can just stomp on Vecna if she had those.

Ruby finds her grandfather's study, and breaks in, getting an axe from the garage and slamming it into the lock. (She's reserving her powers for any Vecna-caused troubles, she needs to be creative.) Letting herself in, she flicks through old case files, old photographs. There's a whole folder dedicated to that Creel house, where the dad killed the entire family in the fifties. Ruby doesn't like true crime, so she puts that back.

She does, however, like to be nosey.

She switches on the radio in her grandpa's office, and after a minute of tweaking the station, realises it's tuned to pick up on police frequencies. Ruby sits and sips her morning coffee, trying to figure out what any of the jargon means. As she finishes her cup, and is about to leave to wash it in the sink, she hears a phrase she understands completely:

"It's a dead body. Paramedics are on their way."

Then, there's a knock at the door.

Ruby looks down, at the flurry of confidential government documents she's scattered around her grandfather's abandoned study. Worried, she turns off the radio, and she picks up the rug, placing it on top of all of the papers, closing the door behind her.

It's Nancy.

"Oh, hey," says Ruby, opening the door.

"Hey," says Nancy. She looks nervous about something; Ruby wonders if she should've checked with Jonathan about the Nancy situation. But, before she can make something up, Nancy continues, "Sorry, uh, Max said you were staying here..."

"Oh, it's nothing," says Ruby, and she steps to the side to let her in. "I've been meaning to see you, it's been a busy couple of days..."

"Don't worry, yeah, it's been busy..."

Ruby looks across at Nancy, realising why she's looking so flustered.

"Has... something happened?" she asks the younger girl.

And Nancy, worry washing over her face, nods.

🖤

FRED BENSON WORKS (... WORKED) as deputy editor for the school newspaper. Ruby's never heard of him in her life, truth be told, but apparently he's a nice kid, according to Nancy. Yesterday, the two of them ventured out to the trailer park to get some coverage on the Chrissy Cunningham murders. But, Fred disappeared without a trace.

Nancy was told to go home, but still felt uneasy. And, after Ruby mentioned the new dead body on the police radio, the girls put two-and-two together, and set off in Nancy's car back to the trailer park.

"I shouldn't have left..." says Nancy, frowning.

Ruby shakes her head. "How would you have known?"

"No, but still..." Nancy trails off for a minute. Ruby glances across at her, at the guilt spread across her features. She thinks back to when they first became friends, how guilty Nancy was for leaving Barb, how she blamed herself for it. She wonders if Nancy's thinking about Barb, too. "I should've been there."

Before Ruby can respond, making any comment about how they can't blame themselves — something about Nancy's situation, but also something directed towards Ruby's experience being Flayed — Nancy continues.

"I was talking to Eddie's uncle yesterday," says Nancy. "And he said something about Victor Creel... Do you know about that?"

She thinks about earlier, the whole folder her grandpa had on it. Weird. "Yeah, a little bit," says Ruby, her brows furrowing. "He killed his whole family, right? My dad said once that Victor Creel's in some psychiatric hospital now...?"

"Yeah," says Nancy, nodding. "Wayne — Eddie's uncle — found Chrissy's body, and he said that it looked exactly like the Victor Creel murders."

"That's... weird," says Ruby. "Me and the toddlers found Eddie last night, and they were on about some D&D monster called Vecna...?"

"Maybe they're connected?" Nancy suggests. "Maybe this... Vecna possessed Victor Creel, and he's doing the same, somehow?"

Ruby contains herself, the suggestion being too similar to Flaying for her liking. Besides, Dustin said Vecna doesn't do that, something Ruby is aggressively holding onto.

"Dustin said that Vecna doesn't need to possess anyone like the Mind Flayer," says Ruby. She goes quiet for a minute, trying to think about it rationally. She thinks about how the first death happened around the same time she used her powers. Maybe she did open a gate, and that's letting Vecna use his powers from the comfort of the Upside Down? "I can see the Upside Down when I'm here if I concentrate, maybe Vecna can do the same?"

"Maybe..."

They pull up outside of the trailer park, the entrance cut off by the cops. Ruby and Nancy exchange a look, as if giving each other one last boost of confidence, before getting out of the car.

"Excuse meee!"

Ruby waves her hand, ducking underneath the police tape and walking towards the cops, intent on finding the new police chief to ask questions. Eyes wide, Nancy dashes after Ruby, trying to catch up.

"Excuse me, Miss—"

She turns to the police officer, one young enough to not recognise her as the little girl that once visited her dad at work, but old enough to have been around when her dad was chief. So, Ruby smiles.

"Ruby Hopper. You knew my dad, right?"

The police officer — his badge says Johnson, which is a boring surname — goes quiet for a minute. Ruby puts her hands on her hips.

"Where's the new chief?"

"Ruby, what are you doing here?"

The new chief — Powell, the same guy that used to give Ruby cookies when she and her mom would visit the station — looks at Ruby, and sighs.

Ruby smiles awkwardly. "My friend's friend is the one that died."

Nancy looks like she's been shot in the foot. Maybe Ruby did? But Ruby's telling the truth, and maybe the police will be more inclined to tell them details if they think they've got valuable information...

"What is it, with you Hoppers and getting into trouble?"

Ruby shrugs. "Just be grateful I got my mom's face, not Dad's."

Nancy relays her story to the police. Ruby stands beside her, arms crossed. She tries to have a peek at what's going on around them, watching them take out the dead body onto a stretcher. Her brows furrow, and she tries to slowly slip to the side, so she can walk closer towards going on, try to overhear something. Maybe she should've made everyone not-see her, but then, she should be conserving power...

"Have you looked into Victor Creel?" says Nancy.

"What?" the younger police officer says.

Powell says, "Wayne got it into her head that the old nut did it." He turns back to Nancy. "Look, he's locked away. Don't need to worry about him, all right?"

Ruby frowns. "But Chrissy's body looked the same as the Creels," she says. Maybe she should be more polite to members of authority, but after years of defying everyone in that lab, she's lost all sense of respect. "What do you think happened instead, then? Some kind of copycat? Why would someone copy a random murder from that long ago?"

Powell gives her a dirty look, before looking back at Nancy. "Miss Wheeler... you said you spoke to Wayne by the picnic tables, right...?"

Ruby rolls her eyes, and she moves away, trying not to get annoyed at the ignorance. It's not their fault they don't understand, she guesses, but if her dad was here still... She sighs. It's times like these where she misses him.

A car pulls up, just outside the police tape. She watches her ex-boyfriend slowly get out of the car, confused. She knows the others are there, too, but Ruby's gaze is fixed on Steve, who stares ahead at her. How did he find her? Why did he find her? He doesn't want to get back together with her, and yet, he's found her? What does he want from her?

He raises his hand slightly, as if to say hi. Ruby smiles back, weakly, her heart melting.

🖤

"I'M GONNA HAVE TO GET A restraining order on you," says Ruby with a sigh.

They've all managed to get through into the trailer park, citing Max living there as grounds for them all to visit. They're now sitting at one of the picnic tables dotted around the site, the one in between Eddie's and Max's trailers. Ruby's sitting next to her ex-boyfriend; the sides of their legs are touching, something that sounds pathetic for her to be aware of. But, she's sitting still, feeling as if a spark of electricity is going to jump through her if she isn't careful.

"Well, I thought you'd come with us today," says Harrington.

Nancy looks at them oddly. "I did... ask Ruby to help me..."

Ruby feels smug. "Yeah!" she says. "It's not all about you... It is about me and the Upside Down, though. Dustin, you can explain this better than me — can you tell Nancy about Vecna?"

Dustin groans, and Ruby wonders if Steve's asked him to recap too, before he dives into his explanation of who Vecna is. Ruby lets herself zone out, looking around the trailer park.

Robin nudges Ruby under the table, knowing she's not paying attention. Ruby loves their friendship.

"Our working theory is that he attacks with a spell or a curse," Dustin explains to Nancy. Steve is bouncing his knee underneath the table, which is pissing Ruby off. "Now, whether or not he's doing the bidding of the Mind Flayer or just loves killing teens—"

"It isn't the Mind Flayer," Ruby says, willing it to be true.

Dustin pauses for a second. Ruby feels Steve shift on the bench, like he wants to say or do something, knowing the mention of the Mind Flayer upsets her, but that he can't. "We don't know," says Dustin, continuing. "All we know is this is something different."

"Something new," says Max.

Nancy shakes her head. "It doesn't make sense."

"It's only a theory—"

"No, Fred and Chrissy don't make sense," says Nancy. Ruby can't help but agree with her. "I mean, why them?"

"Maybe they were just in the wrong place," Dustin suggests, looking around for someone to agree. "They were both at the game — and near the trailer park."

Steve sits up. "We're at the trailer park," he says. He looks around, unsure. "Uh, should we maybe not be here?"

Five pairs of eyes fall onto Ruby, waiting for confirmation. She looks at them awkwardly, knowing what they want her to say — but the thing is, all of Hawkins is feeling weird to her, right now. She feels nauseous here, sure, but maybe she's just nervous, or tired, or needs to eat...?

"Nancy." Ruby sighs. "Did Fred start acting weird when you arrived?"

"Uh, yeah..."

Ruby waves her hand, bored. "OK, so there's a gate nearby. Next."

"Max said Chrissy was upset too," says Dustin.

Max frowns. "Yeah, but not here... She was crying in the bathroom at school."

Robin sits up. "Serial killers stalk their prey before they strike, right? So, maybe Fred and Chrissy saw this Vecman—"

"Vecna."

"That's what the Mind Flayer did," says Ruby, gritting her teeth. Beside her, her ex-boyfriend's bouncing knee falls still. Stop it, she thinks. "I'm not saying it's the Mind Flayer — I'm going to have a full-blown mental breakdown if it is — I'm just saying that the Upside Down is a lot smarter than we think. It's... it's a whole sentient world. It has to understand us to break through to us. So it makes sense that whatever creature this is, is finding vulnerable kids — a group least believed by society — and exploiting them, and then killing them."

"I don't know about you," says Harrington, agreeing with her. "But if I saw some freaky wizard monster, I would mention it to someone."

I didn't, Ruby thinks, remembering last year.

"Maybe they did," says Max. "I saw Chrissy leaving Ms. Kelley's office. If you saw a monster, you... you wouldn't go to the police. They'd never believe you. But you might go to your..."

"Your shrink," says Robin, hopeful.

The six of them clamber out of the picnic table's seats. Ruby looks over at Nancy, already decided that no matter what, she's staying with her today. They start to walk back to the cars, and Nancy pulls Ruby back from the others, telling her, "I've got an idea, but we can't all go. Just you and me."

"Roger that," says Ruby, nodding.

The two girls pick up the pace, walking to Nancy's car—

—And Harrington begins to protest.

"Uh, Ruby? Where do you think you're going?"

Ruby turns around, looking at him incredulously. "Uh..."

"We need to check on something," says Nancy, covering Ruby. "I don't want to waste everyone's time, it's a shot in the dark..."

Harrington looks at Ruby. "Are you out of your mind?"

Ruby raises her eyebrows. "Uh, are you?"

"Flying almost-solo with Vecna on the loose?" says Harrington. Ruby starts stepping backwards. If she ran, she could catapult herself into Nancy's car, the two speeding off before anyone could react. "No. No way. It's too dangerous."

"Well, I've got Nancy," says Ruby.

"And I've got Ruby," says Nancy.

"Nance can shoot, I can use my mind. I think we've got it."

She doesn't want to add that they don't have a gun on them, but whatever.

"No way. Ruby, surely you're the exact person Vecna might go for—?"

Ruby glares at him. "Maybe I don't want to spend my day with my ex-boyfriend! Nancy, we're going."

She's so desperate to stay away from Harrington that she doesn't even put up a fight when Robin follows them, taking the front passenger seat. Robin knows that she's found Ruby's weakness — Harrington, as it always has been — but smiles and takes advantage, moving the car stereo's handle to switch stations. Ruby watches Nancy tense up, annoyed.

"Where are we going?" says Ruby.

"The library."

Ruby's eyes widen. Suddenly she regrets fighting Harrington so much.

"For... why?" says Ruby.

"I have an idea," says Nancy, putting the car into first. Robin looks back at Ruby, who has for-fuck's-sake-what-have-I-done slapped across her face. Robin smirks, turning back to an equally annoyed Nancy Wheeler. "Stop moving the stereo! I'm going to crash the car."

"You're so informative, Nance," says Ruby, dryly. "You should be a journalist."

Robin lets out a bark of laughter. Nancy doesn't react, except for a nasty grimace, starting off one of the most tense days of Ruby's life.

... She really should've gone with Steve.

hello hello! i have the next couple of chapters of this written so i'll post them over the next week or so! <3 season 4 is shaping up to be longer than i expected - but a lot of the plot is important to ruby, so i hope this is enjoyable for u guys!! let me know what you thought! :)