chapter forty-three
lover's lake

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WHILST THE REST OF HAWKINS IS dreading sundown, Ruby and her friends (... and Eddie) welcome it, sitting on the opposite side of the lake to Reefer Rick's.

Eddie ditched Rick's boat here last night, and after a side-quest to move the Wheeler's car away from the crime scene, they wait for the police lights across the water to disappear.

The sun sunk into the darkness a couple of hours ago. Ruby checks her watch; underneath the moonlight, she can vaguely work out that it's around nine, so the cops should leave soon. Earlier, they realised that flashlights would give them away to the cops, so they've been sitting in awkward darkness, waiting for their moment to move.

Finally, around ten o'clock, the police cars drive away from Reefer Rick's, red-and-blue lights slowly moving away and disappearing into nothingness, returning back to Hawkins. Ruby gets to her feet, brushing the dirt off of her jeans. Her gaze turns to Lover's Lake for a second, already dreading the feeling of swimming in jeans. If they weren't so scared about the police noticing them, she would've gone home to change into something less sensorially unpleasant.

She knows she doesn't have to swim to get into the Upside Down, but if there's a gate at the bottom of the lake, she needs to be the one to check. And, with all of this possession nonsense, she'd rather be firmly in her body, forcing herself into the Upside Down as opposed to using any mind games.

Not that she's happy about this extra step — she remembers when Will went missing, and Nancy crawled through a gate into the Upside Down, and Ruby, not fully understanding her powers, climbed in after her. The gunk surrounding the gate took ten rounds of shampoo to get out, made even worse by the fact her hair was down. She's already braided her hair back, determined to make this experience kinder on her locks.

Steve pushes the boat further into the water, crouching down beside it to check the engine. Robin and Nancy climb onboard, and Eddie follows suit, offering his hand to Ruby.

"Brenner," he says, and she frowns, but takes his help, stepping onto the boat. Quickly Eddie's attention diverts from Ruby, and onto Dustin, who's about to follow them onboard. "Hey, hey, hey — are you trying to sink us? This thing holds four people, tops."

Dustin begins to protest.

"It's better this way, OK?" says Nancy, trying to reassure them. "You guys stay here with Max."

"It's my goddamned theory!" says Dustin.

"Tough shit," says Ruby, with a shrug. She looks down at Steve, her brows furrowing. "Uh, Steve?" She looks at him, as if to say, Are you coming?

Dustin protests again — this time, with an unintelligible sound, as Steve quickly pushes the boat off into the water, jumping on board.

"You said four!" Dustin lets out, on the verge of a tantrum.

Steve says back to him, "Sorry!"

Ruby sits opposite Steve, the boat slowly moving further into the lake. The plan, since they forgot Dustin's compass, is to wait for Ruby to sense something; so, now, she sits still, trying to sense anything Upside Down-y. So far, she hasn't felt anything...

... Until they're almost halfway into the lake.

Ruby puts her hand out, and goes, "Here! It's here..."

Steve shuts off the engine, the boat quickly floating to a stop, now gently rocking above the water.

The Walkie-Talkie in Robin's hand flickers into life.

"Guys, what's going on?" says Dustin.

"The vibes here are wack," says Ruby.

Dustin mustn't have heard her, because he pleads through the Walkie-Talkie, "Guys, c'mon, talk to me!"

Robin rolls her eyes. "Ruby says the vibes are wack."

"That is not a scientific way of—"

Ruby grumbles, and leans over onto Robin, to talk into the Walkie-Talkie.

"Get a life, Henderson," she says.

She's about to say something even worse, but she's distracted by Steve standing up. Her attention moves away from Dustin completely, instead, watching her ex-boyfriend pull his socks off.

"What are you doing?" she says.

"Somebody's gotta check this out," says Steve with a shrug. "Unless any of you can top being the Hawkins swim team co-captain, and a certified lifeguard for three years."

Ruby starts, "But what if—?"

Steve yanks his top and jumper over his head, throwing them to the side. Ruby blinks; she forgets what she was going to say, distracted by his chest. She gets what he meant earlier, how he had been working out. God, she thinks...

... Before she realises everyone can see her looking at her ex-boyfriend's naked chest like it has eyes. She peels her gaze away, her cheeks burning.

Ruby continues, "It... isn't safe! I was going to go down there—"

"Look, I'm the best swimmer, and we can't feed you directly to Vecna, alright?" says Steve. She looks up at him, using all of her will not to stare at his chest. "I'll be fine."

"Hey, I'm not complaining," says Eddie, who awkwardly laughs. "I do not wanna go down there."

Ruby shakes her head. "But—But what if Vecna knows you're close to the gate? Or what if something else from the Upside Down crawls out to get you? You can't protect yourself like I can, it's safer for me—"

Beside her, Eddie's wrapped one of the flashlights in a plastic bag, handing it over to Steve. "Good luck," says Eddie, as Steve holds onto the flashlight, clicking the light on through the plastic.

Steve looks down at Ruby. "I'll be back before you know it."

"I still don't think—"

Steve dives into the lake.

Ruby moves forwards, looking over at the water. She can make out the flashlight, getting smaller and smaller, until it disappears altogether.

She sits back again; as she turns to the others, the three are smirking at her.

"What?" she says.

She must've said it with bite, because Robin shakes her head and raises her hands in surrender. Ruby slouches in defeat, miserably watching the second hand on her watch.

Ten seconds. Fifteen seconds. Twenty...

Ruby can feel her stomach twisting into knots, nervousness taking over her body. The image of Vecna is burned into her brain, and she can't help but imagine him in that attic, laughing that Steve is handing himself over. She checks her watch again. Thirty seconds.

"He can hold his breath for fifty seconds," says Ruby. "After that, I'm going in."

Ruby ties her shirt at her waist, so it doesn't weigh her down when she dives in. She checks her hair, making sure her bun is still secure. Her hands feel warm, and she knows it's because she's close to a gate, that her body is sensing danger nearby, but still — the worry that her body is gearing up for trouble when her ex-boyfriend's down there, near the trouble... It's freaking her out.

Eddie says quietly, "You still love him, don't you?"

"Of course she does," says Robin, scoffing. "It's never-ending! Neither of them want to admit that breaking up was a really stupid decision that's left them both miserable whores—"

Nancy's head whips around. "Robin—!"

"I am not a whore," says Ruby.

"Yeah, but he is," says Robin, rolling her eyes. "The biggest whore in town! Just because the love of his life dumped him—"

"That's not my fault," says Ruby, bitterly.

"Well... yes it is, but what I'm saying is that you're both still clearly not over each other," says Robin. "Why can't you just... figure it out?"

"I am not still into him," says Ruby with a sneer. "God, why does everyone keep on saying that—?"

Like that, Steve returns to the surface, spluttering out for air. Ruby turns around at lightning speed, reaching out to help him back to the boat.

He holds onto her hand, letting go as he grips onto the edge of the boat. She can feel Robin's smirk behind her back, but Ruby doesn't care; all Ruby's focusing on is her ex-boyfriend, once her Steve, hanging onto the side of their boat, his wet hair clinging to the sides of his face.

"Is there anything down there?" says Ruby.

"I risk my young, hot body for you, and I don't even get a hi?" he says.

"Hi, whore," she says back.

"What—?"

"Robin said it first," says Ruby. "What's down there?"

"It's pretty wild. It's more a snack-sized gate than a mama gate, but still, it's pretty damn big," he tells her. "You know, you'd think they'd have a little more security around it. We could just waltz on in, I think, and they wouldn't have a clue—"

Something underneath the surface yanks Steve back under. He grabs back onto the side of the boat, and pulls himself back up. He looks around at them, not understanding what just happened — until the same thing snatches him again, pulling him to the depths of the lake.

"STEVE!"

It isn't Ruby that shouts this — it's Robin, as Nancy yelps. In front of them, Ruby dissociates, the others' panicked voices sounding muffled. She doesn't stop to rationalise anything, wonder if it's the Upside Down or just a strong tide.

Instead, without another word, Ruby dives into the water, following Steve.

She's never been the best swimmer; she's spent hours of her life in water, submerged in those salty tanks the lab used, or creating her own using random bodies of water, but her skill set has always been limited. And now, as she scrambles towards the bottom of the lake, the combination of heavy jeans and murky water slow her down. But as she spots the glowing red light, she frantically kicks through the water, determination stronger than talent.

Steve was right — it looks like a baby gate, similar to the tree-trunk gate in '83. Ruby grasps the vines on either side of the gate, and with a force, pulls herself in.

The Upside Down doesn't have Lover's Lake, instead, a large clearing where the water should be. Ruby's on her hands and knees; ahead, she spots Steve on the floor, a smaller monster at his throat. It looks like a bat, she thinks, running towards him. Ruby hates bats.

She can feel pins and needles all over her body, her entire being telling her she isn't welcome in this world. But she ignores it, instead focusing ahead at the love of her life, the monsters attacking him. Energy rushes to her fingertips.

And as her hand extends, Ruby lets go.

Six months of constant, gruelling practice throws itself at the monsters. Six months of her grandfather in her ear, telling her how to improve. Of her own thoughts, desperate to make her sacrifices worthwhile. Of having to give up Steve, after losing her dad...

The bat attached to Steve's neck squirms off of him, writhing in pain. It bursts into flames as Steve scrambles away from it, grabbing the oar to stab it, killing it for definite. Ruby looks above at the swarm of bats, and her eyes narrow. In an instant, the sky lights up with hundreds of bats on fire, all dropping to the ground. They screech out in pain, landing on the floor as ashes.

Ruby looks at the blood across Steve's chest. His blood.

"Steve," she breathes out, moving towards him.

He looks past her, at the bats. "Are you okay? I thought that kind of power hurt you—"

"It's not too bad anymore," she says. "I've been practising."

"Well, it was hot," he tells her.

Ruby smiles. "I try—"

Another bat flies towards them; it bursts into flames but crashes into her anyway, slamming her into the ground.

In Ruby's lapse of concentration, another bat attacks Steve, its tail wrapping itself around his neck again. Ruby scrambles back to her feet, another one of the demo-bats flying straight into her. She feels small teeth sink into her arm, seconds before it bursts into flames, countless bats sacrificing themselves to attack her. She feels another bat sink its teeth into her skin — she feels another, and another, and—

"Jesus fuck!"

Nancy's feet jump in front of Ruby's body, whacking the bats in the sky away from her. Ruby scrambles backwards, feeling Robin and Eddie's hands on her, pulling her up. But her eyes go straight to Steve; Ruby drops to her knees, her eyes squinting as the bat explodes, blood splattering across her face.

She holds onto Steve, helping him up, as Nancy and Robin use the boat's oars to hit the bats swarming them still. Ruby, her head pounding and blood pooling from her nose, looks up, the bats bursting into flames again, crashing to the floor.

Eddie wails, "How—How did you—?"

"This world revolves around me," says Ruby, wiping the mixture of bat and her own blood that had trickled down her face to her lips. Beside her, Steve spits blood out of his own mouth. "You all need to leave, c'mon—"

"Uh..." says Robin, nervously gesturing to the bats sitting around the gate.

They're trapped.

This is his doing, she knows that — he wants to keep her in this world, on his turf, to give himself the upper hand. She tries not to think about the amount of bite marks along her skin, remembering what happened with the demodog's scratch letting in the Mind Flayer last time. But... Her eyes move over to Steve, at the blood drying to his skin, bruises and scratches and bite marks covering him. You can take me, but not him, she thinks.

Ruby looks up, at the cloud of bats slowly flying towards them. "I fucking hate bats," she grumbles, the group rushing to take cover in the woods.

soz it's been so long

(i finished writing this last summer but i wasn't happy with it and then just didn't touch it for ages lol sorryyyyyyyyyy pls enjoy xxxxxxxxx)