(Ep. 3: The Monster and the Superhero)

To say Steve is concentrated in infiltrating Ms. Kelley's home would be a complete lie. He knows how crucial it is to figure out the connection the two victims shared, but all he finds himself thinking about is Gwen.

He knows she's more than capable of taking care of herself, and it's not like she's alone. Being with Nancy and Robin gives him some form of relief in knowing they have each other to protect themselves, but it still doesn't change the fact that he wishes to be the one to keep her safe.

"Okay, she's in," Steve informs the others once Max enters Ms. Kelley's home.

"I'm missing collarbones, not eyes," Dustin remarks, his tone drowning with sarcasm.

Daphne chuckles and leans forward in between their seats. She raises her hand for a high five, but lowers it when Steve piercingly glares at her. "Geesh, lighten up, Harrington."

Steve rolls his eyes and turns back to the house. Simply choosing to try and focus on this mission to prevent himself from continuing to think of Gwen. Her return has only made it as clear as day that he's definitely not over her like he claimed to be. With every date he went on, it wasn't the girls that were the problem. It was him and his constant desire to be with her. If only he could know how she feels for him, and maybe if luck is on his side, he could win her back.

"So," Dustin begins, fully ready to confront him on the earlier events. "Are we gonna talk about... it?"

"Huh? Sorry, talk about what?" he questions as he pulls his attention away from the house towards the boy.

Dustin raises his brows in disbelief that his friend is pretending to not know, or is probably just playing dumb to avoid the obvious. "Your temporary insanity earlier today when you practically threw yourself at Gwen?"

Steve scoffs, suddenly feeling an increase in tension and becoming annoyed at Dustin for confronting him at a time like this. "Okay, that's not what happened-"

"Dude, that's literally what happened," Daphne intervenes, now laying flatly on the backseat.

"It was pretty public," Dustin adds. "There were a lot of witnesses."

Steve is silent for what appears to be the longest seconds. He doesn't know what to say because quite frankly, how can he try to deny his very clear concern for the girl he still loves? But even if he's certain of his feelings, he can't just admit them to her brother when he's not sure how she feels for him.

"Are you implying that I still have feelings for Gwen?" he simply says, already regretting his choice of words.

"No, I'm not implying," Dustin shakes his head disapprovingly at him denying the obvious, "I'm very much stating it."

"You can practically see it miles away," Daphne continues. "Hell, even I know and I haven't spent time with you guys."

"And you're still wearing the ring," Dustin points to Steve's neck, catching his friend by surprise and causing him to adjust the collar of his jacket to try and cover it up. "What? Did you think I didn't notice?"

Steve rolls his eyes and prays that Max hurries just so he can avoid having this conversation. Of course an observer like Dustin would notice. He underestimated his skills that he simply stopped worrying that anyone who's not Robin would point it out, and it sure doesn't help that acting the way he did certainly made things worse. 

"Look, I was just looking out for a... for a friend, okay? And I still wear it because she's a-"

"Friend?" Daphne finishes his sentence, a sly smirk covering her features.

"Exactly! A friend!" he flails his hands up in frustration, his voice getting louder by the second for emphasis.

Dustin just sits back and stares ahead, nodding his head with a sarcastic smirk at the blatant lie. "Keep telling yourself that."

Steve scoffs, slamming his hands on the wheel in irritation, "Yeah, because it's the truth."

Daphne raises herself from the seat and leans forward, "If you're being honest, then how come you didn't beg your other friends as well? You only cared for Gwen and not for Robin and Nancy."

"Exactly!" Dustin exclaims and this time, he's the one that high fives her. "You were only worried for my sister, and it was not in a totally platonic, friend way."

Steve starts waving his hand all frustratedly, his eyes becoming filled with worry that they're going to tell her and would make their relationship even more strained. "I was just looking out for her, alright? I don't want to find her with her eyes sucked out of her skull by this Vecna creep!"

"You're bright red in the face right now," Dustin laughs, a wide smile covering his face.

"That's cause you love her," she sings teasingly, joining Dustin's laughter while Steve sends them the deadliest of glares.

"You," Steve points at her, "Shut up, okay? And as for you, kid who believes he knows all the shit in the world, I don't want to talk about this anymore!" He dramatically leans his head back against his seat, "I'll punch you so hard your teeth will fall back out."

The car turns silent, instant regret overwhelming Steve since he knows it's a sensitive topic considering Dustin was bullied for many years over a condition he has no control over.

"Whoa. Too far," Dustin says with a grim expression, his once teasing attitude long gone.

Steve is silent for a few seconds, internally panicking for what he said, "Not cool. Sorry."

"Not cool. It's okay," he assures him, offering the smallest bit of a smile to let him know he's forgiven.

Nodding at each other, both of them bump their fists in acceptance. They turn silent, simply waiting for Max to return when finally, she walks out in a brisk way and slams the door closed rather too harshly.

"What'd she say?"

"Nothing. Just drive," Max scoots herself to the middle, not giving further explanation on her rushed attitude.

"Nothing?" Steve and Daphne ask in unison, confused on how nothing appeared to come out of this.

"Steve, just drive!" Max yells, causing him to start the engine and drive erratically away from the neighborhood.

__________________

Gwen hovers over Nancy's shoulder as they read over articles surrounding Victor Creel and how he was found guilty for his crimes. They've been at this for a while, their eyes are burning from staring at the screen for long and there appears to be no sign of this Vecna creep being around back then.

"Anything... juicy over there?" Robin asks, her voice filled with a surprising level of excitement as well as curiosity.

"Same old boring news," Gwen tells her, noticing the annoyance Nancy has over Robin. "Nance, come on," she whispers, shoving her shoulder in frustration at her attitude.

Gwen doesn't understand why Nancy doesn't appear to like Robin. Ever since the car ride, she was able to tell how unwilling she was to include Robin in this. Nancy would roll her eyes at everything she said and even ignored her questions and changed the subject to something only her and Gwen would know of.

It's strange, if she's being honest, because it appears she's already made up her mind on her without giving her a chance.

"Nothing new," Nancy grumbles.

Unaware of the irritation in the Wheeler girl's voice, Robin simply proceeds to tell her on her finds. "Same here. Victor seemed like a normal guy. Dead family, missing eyes, took a plea deal, sent to Pennhurst. Blah, blah, blah, blah."

"Yeah, totally normal," Gwen sarcastically says as she takes a step back from the machine and stretches her arms out.

Nancy just simply rolls her eyes, wishing to have only come here with her friend and not be forced into dealing with another person. She sighs deeply, simply refusing to make any conversation in hopes Gwen would take charge.

Robin peers her head past the machine, noticing it's just Nancy since Gwen is by the end of the hall where the water fountain is. "What are we looking for exactly?" Nothing. Not a single sound from Nancy, bringing Robin to knock rhythmically against the machine that definitely grabs her attention when she looks over at her with narrowed eyes. "Any mention of dark wizards or alternate dimensions? Things in that vein?"

"I don't know, okay? It's starting to seem like this was just a waste of time!" Nancy exclaims, frustrated that they've been at this for a while and there's nothing that seems promising. "And where the hell is Gwen?"

From the corner of the library, Gwen walks around and looks through various books for some kind of rest from all the research. With all the murders that happened, having to read about more is grueling, and quite frankly draining and extremely disturbing. She reaches for a random book, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, appears to be the one she magically ends up choosing.

Flipping through the pages, she ends up reading a small snippet that helps her distract herself from all the darkness of what's unfolding. She leans back against the shelves, emerging into the wonders of this fantasy world that makes her return back to when she used to read these books before bed with her dad.

A smile starts forming on the crevices of her lips, filling her with a warmth inside that makes her forget the circumstances of coming here. She's not sure how much time has passed when she reaches the end of the first chapter that is making her reconsider if she should head back now. Only before she gets a chance to decide, the sound of a clock chiming in the background catches her attention.

Gently and quietly placing the book on the shelf, Gwen tries figuring out where the sound is coming from. She tries remembering if there's a clock somewhere around. Maybe the library set one up for readers to know when it's time to leave. The chiming sound continues, each time getting louder the more she tries ignoring it.

"What the hell?" Gwen walks past the shelves, soon reaching the station where she last left her friends. Only they're not there. There's no one here but her. "Nance? Robin?" No answer. Just the continuous sound of the damned clock.

Slowly, she maneuvers her way past the remaining shelves, nervously walking down the steps as her head whips back and forth continuously. The chimes get closer, louder, harder to bear that leaves her with no choice than to cover her ears with her hands.

Gwen ignores the tension in her chest, the pounding in her skull, and the way her hands are trembling uncontrollably. She walks up the small set of steps, getting further from chimes in hopes that leaving this place would rid her of the torturous sound. She scrambles past the labyrinth of the shelves, nearly reaching the exit that fills her with hope of escaping this.

Only that's when she sees it.

A grandfather clock is pressed against the wall, cracks surrounding the pale tone of the pillars around it while a small black widow trails around the antique artifact. The pendulum swings slowly, the sound echoing throughout the library that fills her with a terrible sense of dread and fear.

She stands frozen, her eyes widening in terror as her fingers dig into her palm as deep as they can. Maybe the pain from her hand would wake her up because this surely must be a nightmare. She must have fallen asleep and is now dreaming. This can't be real, she can't be seeing a grandfather clock in the middle of the library without no one around to witness it.

"Gwen..." A deep growling voice joins the turmoil of the chimes.

She turns around, feeling like a wave has submerged her when she sees nothing but complete darkness surrounding her. I'm going crazy, that's what's happening here, she repeats throughout her mind. Not wanting to believe this is anything relating to Vecna because damn it, she's not sure if she can even handle this when knowing what happens to his victims.

Taking a few steps back from the clock, the pendulum continues swinging with ease, slightly getting faster as if it were teasing her. She takes ragged breaths, refusing to take her eyes off the antique until-

"Gwen?"

She feels the harsh bump of Nancy's body against her. The chiming disappears and the clock is now gone. The library has returned to normality and there's people walking around as if nothing happened.

"Are you okay?" Robin walks forward, gently laying her hand on her shoulder in a comforting stroke.

Turning back to where she last saw the clock, she's shocked to find there's nothing. Not a single trace that what she saw had been real that would prove she's not going crazy. She takes deep breaths, staring into her friend's faces filled with immense worry that only makes her reluctant to mention seeing anything.

There are far more important things than telling them of this hallucination. They need to do more research, figure everything out instead of concerning themselves with her. She rubs her arms, emitting warmth to herself before nodding her head. "I'm fine. Did you guys find anything?"

Nancy and Robin look towards each other, both knowing something is definitely wrong from the way she keeps glancing back as if expecting anything to appear. They're tempted to pry, but before they get a chance to, Gwen is already walking past them to where they last were.

"Umm, we were about to look into The Weekly Watcher and see if we find anything," Nancy quickly says before meeting her halfway, "Gwen, are you sure you're okay?"

"Yes, why wouldn't I be?" she snaps while placing her hands into her jacket for comfort. "Let's look into it then."

The trio walk towards the machine and start looking through various articles. One of which mentioned the possibility of Elvis Presley having been cloned by aliens. This frustrated Nancy to a further extent since there appears to not be a credible source that could mention anything surrounding Vecna and his wizard powers.

Continuing to skim through various articles, Robin finally seems to have hit the jackpot. In a grim and deep voice, she says, "Victor Creel claims vengeful demon killed family. The murder that shocked a small community."

"Ha ha. That's very funny," Nancy sarcastically says, folding her arms across her chest as she paces behind them.

"That's actually what it says, Nance," Gwen motions her to come over, her eyes focusing on the first paragraph that provides a deeper insight to the story. "According to several insiders, Victor believed his house was haunted by an ancient demon.."

"Victor allegedly hired a priest to exorcise the demon from his home," Robin continues, a slight excitement becoming evident in her voice. "Pretty novel for the '50s. The Exorcist wasn't even out yet."

"Keep going," Nancy demands, hovering over the two girls with a beam in her expression.

Gwen moves to the second page, feeling relieved they found something and will be able to leave this awful place already. "So he claimed the exorcism failed, but it angered the demon, which then murdered his family."

"He believed he was spared as a punishment."

Nancy, still doubtful of Victor's innocence, mentions, "That's pretty convenient for him."

"More like super inconvenient," Gwen interjects, "I mean, just think about it. He was declared legally insane by the court probably because of this claim."

"Exactly!" Robin agrees, "This sounds insane and it didn't go public because of-"

"The plea bargain," Nancy starts catching on, relieved there's some information on this that could possibly give them more answers. "The records were sealed."

"What if a demon did invade Victor's home?" Robin's voice is low and unnerving. "But it wasn't just any old demon."

An eerie silence fills the room, all three exchange knowing looks when realizing the truth behind this case. "It was Vecna."