His Favorite Flavor//Steve x Fem!Reader//Stranger Things

Come On

GORE WARNING

{WORD COUNT: 1,901}

TW: GORE, BLOOD, STRANGL1NG, CUSSING

BOLDED WORDS ARE POSSIBLE TW'S

    Dustin began running everywhere and we all ran to catch up with him. By this point, it had to have been like 8:00 at night with how dark it was. We ran through the woods, barely able to find our way through the darkness. "Dustin? Can you slow it down? Dustin?" I heard Eddie call. "I think we're getting close." Dustin yelled. Then Eddie came to a sharp halt. "Watch your step, big guy." Eddie said making sure Dustin didn't fall into Lover's Lake as we all stopped. "Oh man. You gotta be sh1tt1ng me." Steve whined. "Yeah. I thought these woods looked familiar." Eddie told us. "Lover's Lake." Robin said. "This is confounding." Dustin enunciated in a whisper. "There's a gate in Lover's Lake?" Max puzzled. "Whenever the Demogorgon attacked, it always left an opening. Maybe Vecna's the same way." Nancy suggested. "It's possible." I agreed. "Yeah, only one way to find out." Steve deadpanned. We found Reefer Rick's boat covered by a tarp on the side of the lake and pulled the tarp off of it. Eddie and Steve lowered it down into the lake. "Easy. I...I said easy, man." Steve fumed. "Sorry, dude." Eddie apologized. "Here you go." Steve said and handed Robin something. "Yeah, I'm just gonna do that." she intoned and stepped over the two boys into the boat. "Thank you." she said. "Yeah, that works too." Steve facetiously. Eddie stepped in after her, then Nancy, "Wheeler?" Eddie said grabbing her hand to help her onto the boat. "Thanks." she smiled. I got on the boat and sat down with the help of Eddie. I was always weary of boats. Since the last time I was on one. Dustin tried to get on, but Eddie pushed him backward by the forehead, "Hey, hey, hey, you trying to sink us? This thing holds four people tops, okay?" Eddie questioned. "It's better this way, okay? You guys stay here with Max. Keep an eye out for trouble." Nancy told him. "You keep an eye out." Dustin back talked. This place is about to blow. "It's my g0ddamn theory." Dustin raged. "You heard Nance." Robin chimed in. "Who put her in charge?" Dustin questioned. "I did." Robin told him. "Compass." Nancy said and held her hand out towards Dustin. Dustin scoffed and hesitantly handed her the compass and Nance sat down in the boat. He backed up toward Max and Lucas. Steve threw Dustin the tarp that was covering the boat. "Hey, there you go." he said and pushed the boat off the shore before climbing in. "You said four." Dustin raged. "Sorry." Steve whispered. I held in a laugh as we started heading in the direction of the compass. "Bedtime at 9, kiddos." Robin called. Dustin flipped us off and Robin waved goodbye. "Miss you already!" she yelled.

    I was squished uncomfortably between Nance and Steve while Robin and Eddie paddled the small engine-powered boat. "And why didn't we just use the engine that is attached to the boat?" I questioned. "Because they decided to paddle." Nancy answered. "Idiots." I sighed. "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, slow down. Slow down, guys." Nancy gushed. Robin and Eddie stopped paddling and Nancy grunted in frustration. The compass arrows were going bonkers, spinning everywhere. "Whoa." Steve marveled. "Guys, what's going on?" Dustin asked over the walkie-talkie. "Come on guys, talk to me. What's going on?" he asked again. "Uh, Dustin, your compass has gone from wonky to wonky with a capital 'aah!'." Robin told him. Steve started taking his socks off. "Steve, what are you doing?" Nancy questioned. "Somebody's gotta go down there and check this thing out. Unless one of you three can top being a Hawkins High swim co-captain and a certified lifeguard for three years, then...it's gotta be me. No complaints, all right?" he questioned rhetorically. He stood up, shaking the boat, and began to take off his yellow sweater. "Hey, I'm not complaining. I do not wanna go down there." Eddie emphasized. I looked over at Nancy who was staring directly at a shirtless Steve. I hit her on the arm and she looked back at the rest of us. "Sorry." she whispered. Eddie wrapped the flashlight we had in a plastic bag he had been keeping in the pocket of his leather jacket. "Hey. Good luck." Eddie told him. "Thanks." Steve sighed and got ready to dive. "Steve?" Nancy said. He turned around to face her. "Be careful." she warned and he slightly nodded his head as to say thank you. He leaped off the boat and dived head-first into the water. My anxiety went through the roof the minute he hit the water. I started playing with my hair, one of my anxiety coping mechanisms. Nancy grabbed my hand and I looked over at her. "What?" I questioned. "He'll be okay. I promise." she reassured me. Nancy and I had known each other basically since we were like 8. She knew everything about me, I knew everything about her. Well, not as much anymore. Since she started high school we had started to get really distant. But I knew that right now she knew that all I needed was someone to help me through everything. "Where are we at, Wheeler?" Robin asked as we began to worry about Steve. She looked at Eddie and he surprisingly knew somehow he needed to cover my ears. I heard Nancy say something but it was all muffled. Eddie removed his hands from over my ears and sat back down next to Robin. Steve came crashing to the surface of the water, scaring us all. "Thank god you're okay." I sighed my anxiety wearing off. "Oh, Christ!" Eddie yelled at the same time as I. "I found it." Steve told us. "You found it?" Nancy questioned. "I found it. Yeah. I found it." he repeated. "Dustin, you are a godd*mn Einstein. Steve found the gate." Robin said over the walkie-talkie. "It's pretty wild. It's more a snack-size gate then than the mama gate, but still, it's pretty d*mn big." Steve told us. Suddenly Steve got pulled underwater by something and let back up. Then he was dragged down by it again. We all started yelling and screaming his name. "Sh1t!" I yelled and dove straight for the water. The adrenaline kicked in fast and I swam quickly toward the bottom of the lake. I finally caught sight of him, but I couldn't hold my breath much longer. I swam back up to the surface for air praying the boat hadn't moved. "Y/n! Is he okay? Where did he go?" Nancy asked in a panic. "I can't tell! He was being dragged by something!" I told her. "By what?" Robin asked. "I-I don't know! I couldn't tell! I think it was into the gate! I'm going back down!" I told them and took a breath in before diving as deep as I could back into the water. My hair flowed everywhere in front of my face. I saw a gleaming red light and dove down to it. I got close to it and it was the gate. I pushed my way through the gate and was thrown up into the air and harshly back onto the ground. I stood up quickly and turned to find Steve being strangl3d by some weird vine-looking things and was struggling to get out of them. Before I could blink I realized it was attached to a bat. I tried to help Steve get the bat vine off, but it only tightened itself around his throat more. There were bats everywhere. More swarming in quickly. Two bats attached themselves to Steve's abdomen and bit him harshly. All Steve was doing now was screaming at the top of his lungs.  He fought the bats off of him, but they only reattached themselves to his abdomen. I watched as his face slowly turned blue from lack of oxygen. Nancy, who was holding a paddle from the boat in her hand hit one with it and it went flying across the small open area. "Hey there." she said and hit the bat on the other side of Steve. Robin and Nancy began to get the bat strangl1ng him. Eddie and I began to hit the incoming bats away from us all. "Nancy, behind you! Watch out!" Eddie yelled and one attached itself to Nancy's back. Robin and Nancy tried to get the bat off of her while Eddie and I continued to hit the rest of them away. I picked up the paddle Nancy dropped and started hitting them like they were baseballs. Eddie went to hit one but his paddle broke. Nance and Robin finally got the bat off of her and beat it with the paddle I had picked up and handed back to her. Steve got the bat off of him and tossed it back and forth slamming it hard on the ground before stepping on it and ripping it in half. There was blood dripping from his mouth which told me one of two things. A: He took a bite out of the bat. Or B: It somehow bit him on the face and all the blood was dripping from his mouth after it made its way down the rest of his face. He tossed the bottom half of the bat and spit the blood from his mouth. "Steve!" Nancy called. "Oh, Jesus Christ." Eddie sighed. Nancy and I went running over to Steve who was panting his *ss off. "Jesus H. Christ!" Eddie yelled and threw the paddle to the ground. "Are you okay?" Nancy asked Steve. She turned him around and blood was pouring from his abdomen. "Well, they took about a pound of flesh. But other than that, yeah, never better." he joked. "Uh, uh, do you think these bats have, like, rabies?" Robin asked. "What?" Steve puzzled. "It's just that rabies are, like, my number one greatest fear. And I think we should probably get you a doctor, like, really soon because once symptoms set in, it's too late. You're already, like, dead." she panicked. My anxiety went through the roof and Steve pulled me closer to him noticing my face immediately telling him my anxiety was: through the roof. More bats came swarming towards us screeching their lungs out. Robin hid behind Steve, who pushed me behind him next to Robin. The bats landed at the gate opening instead of coming to attack us which was honestly surprising, but they were also all facing and screeching at us. "All right. There's not that many. We can take 'em. Right?" Steve questioned in a whisper. More screeching came from afar and we looked only to find more bats flying our way. "You were saying?" Robin jokingly asked. "The woods. Come on." Nancy suggested and I turned around as she started running toward a bunch of dead trees. We all followed close behind her and as Steve caught up to me I grabbed his hand. The pace he was going he was practically dragging me along, but I mean, whatever at this point. We are being chased by a bunch of murd3rous bats into a forest of dead trees in a scary alternate-dimension version of Hawkins that Dustin, Lucas, Will, and Mike somehow stumbled upon. Why did it have to be our friend group? Why couldn't it be someone else's friend group?