the unknown | steve harrington

chapter seventeen: heros... almost

The group found themselves outside of Hawkin's Lab, staring at the huge, gated building while crouched in front of a huge pipe that they prayed led into the damn place.

"We could really do with one of those plans of yours, Dusty." Daphne almost begged, a small chuckle falling from her lips to cover the fear pumping through her chest.

They tried to stay out of sight, the car parked way back on the road as they hiked through the woods. They could see guards outside of the building when they staked it out earlier, military stood around as though they had something to hide.

"You're not gonna like it," Dustin chewed on the inside of his cheek, glancing between the piercing eyes of the group. "The way I see it, we have two operations," he started, "We have Team Save Robin, peaceful civilian caught in the crossfire, and we have Team Save El and Will, the people they really wanna experiment on—"

"Experiment, really?" Billy tutted, rolling his eyes as he stands up with his hands on his hips. Daphne hushed him immediately and dragged him back to his crouching position. "Listen, tuts, you can ruffle me around in the bedroom but—" he was cut off by the groans and objections of the group.

"Woah, hey, that's my girlfriend— my— you know, we're dating man," Steve whined, the anger bubbling in his chest at the thought.

"Okay, so we hope that Hopper is in there making as much noise as he can, distracting them, and we go find them, right?" Daphne asked, but only Dustin nodded. "Okay, I— I guess we have no idea where to start, so I'll go one way, and—" Daphne glanced around the group, she desperately wanted Dustin, Max and Lucas to have no part in this. She knew the odds of making it against Russian soldiers was definitely against her, and it made her worry at the thought of even asking Steve and Billy. But she had no choice. "Me, Steve and Billy will split up, you guys take watch—"

The group all objected, a chorus of woahs and no ways filling the air as she hushed them all again.

"What do you expect, you guys are not going in there, do you know how bad this can go?" She seethed at the three teenagers in front of her.

"Yeah, Daph, so how come it's always you that gets to sacrifice yourself yet we're told to stay put?" Dustin tilted his head, "You said it yourself, it can go bad, you're not going in there alone."

"And you're not splitting up from me, alright?" Steve warned her, his eyes stern as she looked up to him and her heart filled. "I lost you once, and I'm not gonna do it again."

"Jesus Christ," Billy grumbled as he pushed himself forward, "We doing this thing or not?" He offered a small smirk before crawling into the pipe.

"Alright, shit," Daphne gave in, reminding herself that everyone had someone to lose in there. She had no right telling anyone not to go, not even her brother. "We have a buddy, and we use the walkies, kapeesh?"

The six buddied up, Steve and Daphne, Max and Lucas, and to both Dustin and Billy's distain, Dustin and Billy. Daphne felt slightly more at ease at the thought, she knew that Billy would look after him. And Billy knew he would too. It surprised Billy how well he let Max go with Lucas, considering the amount of times he tried to beat him to a pulp when he was alive before.

"This is so gross," Lucas groaned, with Max shushing him from behind him.

He was right, though. The small amount of drainage on the pipe was seeping onto all of their knees through their pants, Daphne had to try and stop herself from gagging from the rotten, sewage smell surrounding them. She tried to stop the rising panic in her lungs as she the pipe became small enough that she couldn't turn around anymore, if she wanted to retreat or if something went wrong, all of them were sitting ducks as they would have to crawl out backwards. The light barely visible anymore as they moved into complete darkness, just the sounds of their limbs continuing to move. That was until Daphne crawled directly into Max, a sorry escaping her lips as Steve did the same behind her.