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

Max It Is

{WORD COUNT: 1,809}

TW: CUSSING, MENTIONS OF DEATH, MENTIONS OF STRANGLING, MENTIONS OF MURD3R

    The four in the Rightside Up got Eddie's mattress out of his room and placed it under the gate as a landing pad while Dustin tied the sheets together to make a long rope. "Those stains are, uh...I dunno what those stains are." Eddie said. "Mmm." Robin cringed. "Not quite sure how these physics are gonna work. But, uh...here goes nothing." Dustin said and tossed the rope down to us. Well, up. Down? Up? I don't know. It came through on our side nonetheless. "There we go." Dustin smiled tugging on the rope to make sure it wouldn't fall. "And if my theory is correct..." he began before letting the rope go. It stayed in place. Perfectly in place. "Huh. Abracadabra." Dustin smiled. "Holy sh1t." Max marveled. "All right, pull on it! See if it holds!" Dustin called. Robin was closest to the rope so she started tugging on it with all her strength. It barely moved at all. Dustin laughed in excitement and shock. I can't believe it worked. "This is the craziest sh1t I've ever seen in my life. And I've seen some crazy sh1t." Erica perplexed. Dustin and Erica high-fived as they looked toward us. "Guess I'm the guinea pig." Robin said and started climbing the rope. "Alright, let's clear the landing pad." Dustin said and everyone in the Rightside Up backed away from the mattress. Robin slowly made her way up the sheet rope and by the time she got to the Rightside Up she fell on her *ss onto the mattress. "Oh my god!" she yelled and fell hard on the mattress. She sat up and stayed there for a second, "Oh, thank god. That was fun." she sighed. Dustin helped her off the mattress and the next person went up the rope. We all looked at Nancy. "All right, I guess I'll go." Eddie said and climbed up the rope. "Easy, easy." Steve cautioned. "That...was fun. Sh1t." Eddie sighed and Dustin helped him up. "Nancy." I said and backed away from the rope to let her go. "No, that's fine. I'll go last." she told me. "You sure?" I questioned. "Yeah, go ahead." she smiled. I walked up to the rope and hopped on. I struggled my way to the gate and when I got there fell hard on my *ss onto the mattress. "That was h3lla fun." I beamed and Eddie helped me up. "Thank you, sir." I smiled as I stood up. "No problem, m'lady." he chirped. "Hey, she's not your lady, she's mine." Steve grumbled. "Don't be jealous, Steve. He was just being nice." I ribbed. Steve rolled his eyes and let Nancy climb up the rope. "See you on the other side." he chuckled. "On the other side." she laughed and was about to climb up the rope but she froze. She wasn't moving. Or talking anymore. She just froze. "Nancy?" I called. "Nancy?" Steve puzzled. I climbed back up the rope to the Upside Down. I walked over to her after Steve barely caught me and lifted me back up onto my feet. Her eyes were almost rolled back into her head. "Oh, sh1t." I fretted. "What's wrong?" Dustin asked. "Nancy! Nancy, wake up! Nancy. Hey! Hey! Stay with me. Nancy! Nancy! Hey! Nancy, wake up! Wake up, Nancy!" Steve yelled trying to shake her awake. "Nancy! Wake the h3ll up! Wake up!" I screamed. "Nancy, just stay with me! Stay with me, okay? Whatever you guys are doing, hurry up!" Steve yelled. "Nancy, wake up! Stay with us! Wake up, Nance!" I yelled. Erica ran out of the room and down the hallway. There was muffled yelling coming from the Rightside Up Eddie's room. Nancy finally woke up and fell backward onto the ground. Steve barely caught her, but I guess it wasn't that difficult since she fell pretty slowly. "Hey, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. It's okay. It's okay. It's okay." Steve crooned. Nancy was fighting for breath at this point, "It's okay. I'm right here. I'm right here." he told her as she gasped and panted, her eyes filling with tears. 

    We were sitting on the couch at Max's house and Nancy was talking about what she had seen. "He showed me things that haven't happened yet. The most awful things. I saw a dark cloud spreading over Hawkins. Downtown on fire. Dead soldiers. And this...this giant creature...with...a gaping mouth. And this creature wasn't alone. There were so many monsters. An army. And they were coming into Hawkins. Into our neighborhoods. Our homes. And then...he showed me, my mom. And Holly. Mike. And they...they were all..." Nance cried. "Okay, but...he's just trying to scare you, Nance." Steve piped up. "Right? I mean...I mean it's not real." he told her. "Not yet. But there...there was something else. He showed me the gates. Four gates. Spreading across Hawkins. And these gates, they looked like the one outside of Eddie's trailer, but...they didn't stop growing. And this wasn't the Upside Down Hawkins. This was our Hawkins. Our home." Nancy cried. "Four chimes. Vecna's clock. It always chimes four times. Four exactly." Max chimed in. "I heard them too." Nancy told her. "He's been telling us his plan this whole time." Max said. "Four kills. Four gates. End of the world." Lucas quavered. "If that's true...he's only one kill away." Dustin said. "Oh, Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ." Eddie worried. "Try 'em again. Try 'em again." Steve ordered. Max walked over to the phone and dialed Will, Mike, and El. "Guys." I trembled. Everyone looked over at me. "Four kills, four chimes, four gates, five people cursed." I said. "Oh, sh1t." Dustin worried. "It could be Max or..." I trailed off. "You." Robin finished. I nodded my head 'yes' and covered my face with my hands. "Anything?" Dustin asked as Max walked back out. "No. Rang a few times, then went to a busy signal." she told us. "Maybe you punched it in wrong. Try again." Steve told her. "I didn't punch it in wrong." Max sassed. "Well, I don't know." Steve perplexed. "I think she knows how to use a phone." Dustin chimed in. "I'm just saying, she could've typed it in wrong." Steve stated. Max hung up the phone again. "Same sh1t." she fumed. "How is that possible?" Lucas asked. "I told you Joyce has this telemarketer job. She's always on the phone. Mike won't stop whining about it." Dustin explained. "Okay, yeah, but, this phone's been busy, for what, three days now? That's not Joyce. No way. Something's wrong." Max told us. "She's right. It can't be just coincidence. It can't be. Whatever's happening in Lenora is connected to all of this. I'm sure of it. But Vecna can't hurt them. Not if he's dead. We have to go back in there. Back to the Upside Down." Nancy declared. "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. No, no, no. What?" Steve puzzled. "Nope." Eddie fumed. "Let's think this through, okay?" Steve questioned. "What is there to think through?" Nancy asked. "We barely made it out of there in one piece." Steve told her. "Yeah, because we weren't prepared. But this time, we will be. We'll get weapons and protection. We'll go through the gate, we'll find his lair, and we'll kill him." Nancy explained. "Or he'll kill us. The only reason you survived is because he wanted you to. He's not scared of us." Steve raged. "And for good reason. We were wrong about Vecna. Henry. One. Sorry, what are we calling him now?" Robin asked. "One." Dustin said. "Vecna." Erica disagreed. "One." Lucas said. "Henry." Nancy said. "Vecna." Steve and I chorused. "Right. We've learned something new about Vecna/Henry/One. He's a number like Eleven, only a sick, evil, male, child-murd3r!ng version of her with really bad skin. But my-my-my point is, he's super powerful. He could turn us inside out with a snap of his fingers. It's not a fair fight." Robin ranted. "So then why fight fair? You're right. He's like Eleven. But that gives us an upper hand. We know Eleven's strengths. And weaknesses." Dustin emphasized. "Weaknesses?" Erica questioned. "When El remote-travels, she goes into this sort of trance-like state. I bet the same is true of Vecna." Dustin explained. "That would explain what he was doing in the attic." Lucas added. "Exactly. When he attacks his next victim, I'll bet you he's back in that attic, physical body defenseless." Dustin told everyone. "Defenseless? Yeah, what about the army of bats?" Steve asked pointing to his neck from the strangling marks. "Right, yeah, true. We will have to find a way past them. Distract them somehow." Dustin answered. "And, uh, how do we do that, exactly?" Eddie asked. "No idea." Dustin told him. "But once they're gone, he doesn't stand a chance. It'll be like slaying sleeping Dracula in his coffin." Dustin finished. "That all sounds good in theory, but there is no pattern to Vecna's killings. I mean, at least not one that I can decipher. We don't know when he's going to attack next. We don't even know who he's going to attack." Robin blurted. "Yeah, we do. I can still feel him. I'm still marked. Cursed. I ditch Kate Bush, I draw him back to me." Max planned. "Max. You can't. He'll kill you." Lucas told her. "I survived before. I can survive again. I just need to keep him busy long enough so that you guys can get into that attic. Then you can chop his head off. St*b him in the heart. Or blow him up with some explosive Dustin cooks up. I honestly really don't care how you put this *sshole in his grave. Just...whatever it is...whatever you do...try not to miss." she said. "I'm still on his list, too. I could do it." I suggested. "No. You won't. No way. You aren't allowed." Steve caterwauled. "What but Max can?" Lucas questioned. "I'd rather her not, but Y/n is my wife, and Max suggested it first. Besides, Y/n escaped him twice and she might still feel him, but who's to say he'll even come after her? Maybe he'll go after Max anyways." Steve said. "Max would still be listening to Kate Bush." Lucas argued. "Lucas, Steve, back off for this one. Let the girls decide maybe. It is their lives at stake here in the first place." Dustin suggested. "I'll do it." I quavered. "No, Y/n. You have a husband. I don't have anyone anymore." Max denied. "That's not true. You have all of us." I told her. "Yeah, well so do you. And one of 'us' happens to be your husband. The rest you've pretty much grown up with, worked with, or played DnD with." she pointed out. "Are you sure?" I asked. She paused for a second before nodding her head yes. "Then Max it is." Nancy finished our conversation.