The age old story of two best friends falling in love...
... Only, one's a lab experiment with an entire Upside Down hunting her down, and the other won't leave her side, no matter how hard she tries.
steve harrington x fem oc / season 2 o...
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chapter thirty love will tear us apart
🖤
HER DAD DIED THAT NIGHT.
When Ruby was out cold, her body the Mind Flayer's again, her dad was killed. She found this out when she woke up — after the Mind Flayer was destroyed, and the mall was in flames, as she was sitting in the back of an ambulance, a blanket around her. She remembers going quiet as Joyce told her what happened; Ruby had looked past her, watching the paramedics cart another body out of the mall. The corpse's hand fell from the body bag, and Ruby knew it was Billy's.
It began to dawn on Ruby, the amount of people she killed that week. Her dad, her ex-boyfriend, all of those people she Flayed, even those Soviet guards...
And she didn't even stop the Mind Flayer.
That's the most infuriating part. She's caused so much death, but not the one she longs for. That thing has been destroyed — at least in this world it has — but she knows it isn't gone. She can feel it, a constant tension in her body. The Mind Flayer is lurking, watching, waiting for a gate to open. And that's when he'll be back, when he'll take her.
Because of all of this, she didn't speak for the rest of the day, lost in her own thoughts. And when she returned home that night, Joyce driving her back, the two found Aunt Carrie's body, mauled and bloody in the kitchen. Ruby stared at the body, but didn't need any more confirmation. That was her fault, too.
Ruby knows she was possessed, but it still weighs heavy on her heart. So much death and destruction was caused this summer, all because of her. She remembers what the Mind Flayer said to her, how the two of them were alike, and she can't help but agree.
Nancy told Ruby afterwards what happened, too. Apparently Flayed Ruby went straight for Steve, who had to return to the mall when he thought Ruby was in trouble. And apparently, instead of running from Flayed Ruby, he tried to talk to her. "If Billy hadn't sacrificed himself when he did..." Nancy told Ruby, but trailed off, uneasy about revealing the bloody truth.
But Ruby knows. She almost killed her boyfriend. Since Friday night, she's spent the entire weekend on her own, processing it all. Her entire life has crumbled to pieces. Her dad's dead, her auntie's dead, her sister's lost her powers — it's only Ruby, now, able to kill these monsters. At first, she felt shitty about it. All of these people know about the Upside Down, and yet, that made no difference. Ruby was out of action, so they lost.
It's always been her and the Upside Down, an awful entanglement that neither want. She's desperate to divorce herself from it, but she knows she's the first and last line of defense now.
And, because of this, her sadness is quickly manifesting into plotting. The Mind Flayer will be back, in one form or another — and, when it happens, Ruby will be ready. Subject X, back and angrier than ever.
