Fued// Steve Harrington x Reader x Billy Hargrove

Chapter 25

A/n: Hello everybody! Today is September 16, 2020. Two updates in one day?! WOW! I'm sorry for hurting you all last chapter. It was going to happen. I know that it hurt. But this should be concluding soon, within 5 chapters or so hopefully. I love you with all my person. Enjoy!

Jonathan pulls up to Steve, Dustin, Lucas, Max. Y/n is still choking on her sobs.

She spots Steve and cries out, climbing out of the car and running to him. His eyes widen and he opens his arms. She runs into him and they both fall to the ground. Steve doesn't mind at all, just holds her as she cries. 

"I just watched Bob die!" She sobs.

He strokes her hair delicately.

\--/

Y/n sits beside Steve on her couch, swaddled in a blanket, completely numb. He has his arms wrapped around her. 

"It's ok. I promise, it's going to be okay," he whispers. 

Her mother is sitting in her own room alone. Hopper is on the phone with the authorities, and everyone else is in the kitchen, with Will still asleep in his room.

Hopper slams the phone back on the stand. "They didn't believe you, did they?" Y/n asks. 

"We'll see," he replies. 

"'We'll see'?! We can't just sit here while those things, those things that killed Bob, are loose!" Y/n cries. 

"We stay here and we wait for help."

Y/n rolls her eyes and burrows her face in Steve's neck. He sits back and lets her rest on him while he rubs her back. He catches Nancy's eyes, who widen in surprise. He rolls his eyes and looks at Jonathan.

"Did you guys know that Bob was the original founder of Hawkins AV?" Mike says.

"Really?" Y/n asks, perking up.

Mike nods. "He petitioned the school to start it and everything. Then he had a fund-raiser for equipment. Mr. Clarke learned everything from him. Pretty awesome, right?"

"Yeah," Dustin and Lucas respond. 

"We can't let him die in vain," Y/n announces, getting up from Steve's chest and shrugging the blanket off.

"What do you want to do, Y/n?" Jonathan asks.

"The Chief's right on this. We can't stop those Demo-dogs on our own," Dustin says. 

"Demo-dogs?" Lucas asks.

"Demogorgon dogs. Demo-dogs. It's like a compound. It's like a play on words..." he trails off.

"I like it," Y/n says, smiling at him. 

He smiles back proudly in response, flashing off his new teeth.

"I mean, when it was just Dart, maybe... But there's an army now," Y/n says.

"Precisely. His army," Dustin says. "Maybe if we stop him, we can stop his army, too."

"The shadow monster," Mike breathes.

"It got Will that day on the field. It was like a virus, it infected him," Y/n says, piecing things together.

"And so this virus, it's connecting him to the tunnels? To the tunnels, monsters, the
Upside Down, everything," Max says.

Y/n eyes snap up to look at the redhead. "I don't mean to sound rude, but why are you here and how do you know this?"

She blushes. "Lucas explained it to me. So, the shadow monster's inside everything. And if the vines feel something like pain, then so does Will."

"And so does Dart," Dustin adds.

"Yeah. Like what Mr. Clarke taught us. The hive mind," Mike says.

"Hive mind?" Nancy asks.

"A collective consciousness. It's a super-organism. And this is the thing that controls
everything. It's the brain," Y/n explains.

"How do you know that?" Steve asks. 

Y/n shrugs. "I study a lot."

"Like the mind flayer," Dustin gasps. Lucas's eyes widen and he snaps.

"What the hell is that?" Hopper asks.

Dustin slams a book down on the table. "It's a monster from an unknown dimension. It's so ancient that it doesn't even know its true home," he explains. "Okay, it enslaves races of other dimensions by taking over their brains using its highly-developed psionic powers."

Hopper groans. "Oh, my God, none of this is real. This is a kids' game."

"No, it's a manual," Dustin says annoyingly. "And it's not for kids. And unless you know something that we don't, this is the best metaphor-" Lucas cuts him off.

"Analogy."

"Analogy? That's what you're worried about?" Lucas shrugs.

"Fine. An analogy for understanding whatever the hell this is."

"Okay, so this mind flamer thing, what does it want?" Nancy asks, pouring over the book.

"To conquer us, basically. It believes it's the master race."

"Like the Germans!" Steve explains.

Y/n looks at him. "The Nazi's?"

He blushes. "Yeah. Yeah, the Nazi's."

"If the Nazis were from another dimension, totally," Dustin replies, rolling his eyes. "It views other races, like us, as inferior to itself. It wants to spread, take over other dimensions. We are talking about the destruction of our world as we know it."

"That's great. That's great. That's really great. Jesus!" Steve exclaims.

"Okay, so if this thing is like a brain that's controlling everything, then if we kill it... We kill everything it controls. We win," Y/n asks.

"Theoretically."

"Great. So how do you kill this thing? Shoot it with Fireballs or something?" Hopper asks sarcastically.

Dustin chuckles. "No. No, no Fire... no Fireballs. Uh, you summon an undead army, uh, because ...because zombies, you know, they don't have brains, and the mind flayer, it... it... It likes brains."

Everyone collectively glares at him.

"It's just a game. It's a game."

"What the hell are we doing here?" Hopper asks rhetorically.

"I thought we were waiting for your military backup," Y/n shoots. 

"We are!"

"How are they gonna stop this? You can't just shoot this with guns!" Y/n yells.

"You don't know that! We don't know anything!" Hopper responds. 

Y/n slams the table and stands up, tears threatening to spill from her eyes. "We know it's already killed everybody in that lab. We know it killed Bob. We know the monsters are gonna molt again. We know that it's only a matter of time before those tunnels reach this town."

"She's right," Joyce's voice rings out. "We have to kill it. I want to kill it."