Ahoy, Dingus - Steve Harrington x Reader

Season 3 ~ The Mind Flayer

"The mind flayer," Mike explained to us as we stood near the water fountain. "it built this monster in Hawkins, to stop El, to kill her and pave a way into our world."

"And it almost did." Nancy says, crossing her arms. "That was just one tiny piece of it."

"How big is this thing." Hopper asks as El rests against his leg, drained from what had just happened.

"It big." Jonathan shrugs. "Thirty feet, at least."

"Yeah." Lucas pipes in. "It sorta destroyed your cabin...Sorry."

"Okay, so," Steve says, furrowing his eyebrows as he makes his way next to me. "just to be clear, this... this big fleshy spider thing that hurt El, it's some kind of gigantic... weapon?"

"Yes." Nancy affirms as she rubs her neck.

"But instead of, like, screws and metals," Steve continues. "the mind flayer made it's weapon... with melted people."

"Yes," Nancy says, slight irritation in her voice. "exactly."

"Yeah, okay." Steve shrugged. "I— Yeah, i'm just making sure."

"Are we sure this thing is still out there," Joyce asks, concerned. "still alive?"

"El beat the shit out of it," Max affirms with a small nod. "but, yeah, it's still alive."

"But if we close the gate again—" Will started.

"We cut the brain off from the body." I continue.

"And kill it." Lucas concludes. "Theoretically."

"Yoo-hoo!" An unknown voice calls, causing us to face the man from earlier who was waving some papers around. "Yoo-hoo!"

The man, Murray, led us to the nearest table in the food court, placing the papers down. Getting a better look at them, I notice they were some sort of blueprints.

"What are those for?" I ask, leaning over the table across from Murray and Hopper.

"They're blueprints." He shrugged.

"For what, exactly?" I asked, pursing my lips.

"The Russian base." Hopper shrugged, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Okay, children," Murray sighed as Dustin and Erica make their way over. "let's focus. Okay, this is what Alexei called 'The Hub'. Now, the hub takes us to the vault room."

"Okay," Hopper nods, looking over his shoulder. "where's the gate?"

"Right here." Murray says as he points to the center of the map. "I don't know the scale on this, but I think it's fairly close to the vault room, maybe fifty feet or so."

"More like five hundred." Erica says, making her way over to the table. "What, you're just gonna waltz in there like it's commie Disneyland or something?"

"I'm sorry," Murray quips, looking down at the girl. "who are you?"

"Erica Sinclair." Erica says, placing her hands on her hips. "Who are you."

"Murray... Bauman" He shrugged slightly as his eyes widened at Erica.

"Listen, Mr. Bunman," Erica sassed, continuing her rambling. "i'm not trying to tell you how to do things, but i've been down in that shithole for twenty four hours. And with all due respect, you do what this man tells you, you're all gonna die."

"I'm sorry," Murray says in disbelief. "why is this four-year-old speaking to me?"

"Um, i'm ten," Erica snapped. "you bald bastard!"