Who killed the fuckin' dog?
SHRAPNEL BOULEVARD: Chapter Eight
Steve Harrington x Hargrove OC / Wordcount: 9.3k ➞ (series) Masterlist
Summary: The monster has a name. Will has a message. And Hawkins is running out of time. As the group prepares for the fight ahead, Darcy discovers that surviving the impossible is harder when you dont know where you stand.
Note: yikes sorry it took so long to get this out, this is just a very plot driven chapter and i struggled to make the writing consistent and make sure every character was accounted for. lots of love tho!
The conversation had been going in circles for what felt like forever. Rampant and unforgiving.
Everyone seemed to have a theory. The real answer never came. Silence lingered until it grew stale, smelling like dirt and cold coffee that nobody bothered to touch.
Darcy was quickly discovering there was a very particular kind of agony in waiting for something when you didn't even know what you were waiting for.
Will still lay unconscious in the sitting room, cold and unmoving. Joyce refused to leave his side for more than a few seconds at a time, forever smoothing damp hair back from his forehead or resting trembling fingers against his neck as though checking often enough might somehow change the outcome.
Hopper hadn't stopped moving either. He paced from one end of the room to the other with the restless exhaustion of a man who looked like sleep had become a distant memory.
The younger boys, meanwhile, kept talking. Every explanation only seemed to breed another impossible question.
The Upside Down. The tunnels. The hive mind. The Shadow Monster.
Darcy had long since stopped pretending she understood half of it. At some point the words had stopped sounding like explanations and started sounding like somebody had shoved the entire science fiction section of a library down thor throats until they suffocated from it.
She rubbed absently at the bridge of her nose, trying to force the pieces together anyway. Monsters she could almost wrap her head around.
Alternate dimensions? Psychic girls? A giant shadow creature controlling an underground army through a possessed twelve-year-old?
Her brain simply refused to cooperate.
Across the room, Steve was leaning against the wall with his arms folded, watching the conversation bounce between the boys. Every so often he nodded like he understood, but the expression never quite reached his eyes. His brow pinched for the briefest second before smoothing over again whenever someone looked his way.
He looked exactly how she felt.
Completely out of his depth.
As though sensing her watching him, Steve glanced across the room. Their eyes met for barely a second.
He gave the smallest shrug imaginable.
Your guess is as good as mine.
The corner of Darcy's mouth twitched despite herself.
Good. At least she wasn't the only person silently praying somebody would explain all of this in plain English.
Across the dining room, Dustin suddenly fell quiet.
Darcy looked up almost immediately.
Possibly the first time the kid had voluntarily stopped talking since she'd met him.
His eyes darted around the room before settling on the stack of battered Dungeons & Dragons books abandoned at the edge of the dining table.
Something clicked behind his eyes.
Without warning, he strode across the room, grabbed one of the heavy rulebooks and slammed it onto the table hard enough to make everyone jump.
The crack echoed through the house.
Steve flinched beside her.
"...Jesus," he muttered under his breath.
Darcy bit the inside of her cheek to stop herself smiling. Trust Dustin to announce an epiphany like he was declaring war.
He barely seemed to notice the reaction. He was already rifling frantically through the thick pages, muttering beneath his breath while strange illustrations flashed past in a blur of faded ink.
Hydras. Dragons. Demogorgons.
Almost without realising it, everyone drifted toward the table, crowding around with unhidden curiosity, because this was the first significant thing that had happened in what felt like hours.
Darcy found herself squeezed between Max and Steve, leaning over Dustin's shoulder with everyone else. Steve shifted automatically to make room for her without taking his eyes off the book, their shoulders brushing as they both leaned closer.
The illustration staring back at them made Darcy's stomach tighten.
The creature was vaguely humanoid, its skeletal frame draped in dark robes, but where a face should have been there was only a writhing mass of tentacles, twisting over one another as though they might spill off the page if she looked at them long enough.
There was something profoundly wrong about it.
Ancient and patient. Hungry, maybe.
A chill crept across the back of her neck.
It wasn't that she'd seen it before.
It was the unsettling familiarity of a nightmare, the strange certainty that if she turned around quickly enough, she'd find it standing behind her.
Dustin's voice was quieter now. More certain.
Gone was the kid who debated campaign rules and insisted Three Musketeers were an underrated chocolate bar.
Whoever was speaking now sounded like someone trying to put a name to the thing that had haunted his nightmares.
This was the most serious Darcy had ever seen him.
The easy smile that seemed permanently attached to Steve Harrington's face had vanished somewhere over the last few hours. He wasn't joking to ease the tension or trying to make anybody laugh. He stood with his arms folded tightly across his chest, his eyes fixed on the book as though if he stared at it long enough, it might eventually start making sense.
She wasn't sure which version of him she preferred.
Hopper leaned over the table, staring down at the illustration with open disbelief.
"It's a monster from an unknown dimension," Dustin said, never taking his eyes off the page. "It's so ancient... it doesn't even know its true home."
Nobody interrupted. Even Hopper, despite the exhaustion carved into every line of his face, let him continue.
"It enslaves races from other dimensions by taking over their brains using highly developed psionic powers."
The room fell quiet. Nobody could afford to prove him wrong anymore.
Darcy found herself looking around the table instead of at the picture.
Jonathan's jaw had tightened until the muscles fluttered beneath his skin. Joyce hadn't looked away from Will's bedroom doorway once, as though she was terrified that if she did, he'd disappear again. Nancy stood perfectly still, already trying to fit this new piece into a puzzle she'd been solving for over a year.
Beside her, Steve frowned at the page.
Not the absent-minded sort of frown she'd seen when he'd been wrestling with duct tape or trying to remember where he'd left his keys.
She had the ridiculous urge to lean over and whisper, Do you have any idea what he's talking about?
Somehow, she already knew the answer.
Hopper finally stepped back from the table, dragging a rough hand down his face before scratching at the stubble lining his jaw.
A humourless laugh escaped him.
He gestured vaguely towards the illustration. "This is a kid's game."
"No." Dustin looked up immediately. "It-it's a manual."
He jabbed a finger at the page.
His eyes swept around the room.
"And unless you know something that we don't... this is the best metaphor–"
"Analogy," Lucas corrected.
Darcy watched Dustin close his eyes.
Just long enough to reconsider every friendship he'd ever made.
She glanced sideways at Steve. He'd done exactly the same thing.
When Dustin opened his eyes again, he looked one correction away from strangling somebody with the tablecloth.
"...Analogy?" he repeated flatly. "That's what you're worried about?"
Dustin sighed dramatically. "Fine."
Another tap against the page.
He looked around the room again.
"Analogy for understanding whatever the hell this is."
Nancy stepped closer. Unlike Hopper, she wasn't trying to convince herself this was impossible anymore.
She'd looked monsters in the eye. Impossible had stopped meaning anything.
"Okay..." She rested a finger beside the illustration. "So this Mind Flamer thing–"
"Mind Flayer," Dustin corrected automatically.
Her finger remained beside the creature. "What does it want?"
Dustin almost looked relieved.
Finally. Someone was asking the question he'd been waiting for.
"To... conquer us, basically."
His finger settled against the creature's chest. "It believes it's the master race."
Steve leaned forward another inch, squinting at the drawing as though he could somehow identify it by sight.
Steve blinked. "...Yeah."
He rubbed awkwardly at the back of his neck.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah. The Nazis."
For one long second, nobody said anything.
Darcy bit the inside of her cheek.
She couldn't decide whether Steve had genuinely forgotten the word Nazis or whether his brain had simply short-circuited under the weight of everything else he'd been expected to process today.
Either felt equally believable.
Dustin sighed. "I guess."
He looked back down at the page.
"If the Nazis were from another dimension."
His fingertip tapped the illustration once more.
"It views other races..." His voice grew quieter. "...like us..."
He looked around the table. "...as inferior to itself."
Mike was already putting the pieces together.
His gaze drifted away from the illustration, settling on the dark hallway where Will still lay unconscious beneath a blanket.
"And take over other dimensions."
Lucas folded his arms across his chest. "We're talking about the destruction of our world as we know it."
Nobody argued. The words settled over the room with alarming ease.
A week ago, Darcy would've laughed if somebody had tried to explain the end of the world with a Dungeons & Dragons rulebook. When Eddie had explained the game to her, it sounded so stupid she had scoffed.
Her eyes wandered around the kitchen instead.
A sink overflowing with unwashed dishes. A half-empty pot of coffee that had long since gone cold. Mud drying across Hopper's boots where he'd tracked it over Joyce's lino.
The Byers' house still looked painfully ordinary.
That, somehow, made it worse.
The world, she realised, didn't announce it was ending. It carried on looking exactly the same until one day somebody pointed at a picture in a board game and calmly explained that humanity was about to be wiped out.
Beside her, Steve let out a slow breath.
He rubbed the back of his neck, still staring at the page.
His eyebrows lifted slightly.
"That's... that's great."
He pushed himself away from the table and wandered a slow lap around the kitchen, dragging both hands through his hair before stopping beside the counter.
"That's all..." He shook his head, letting out a disbelieving laugh. "...really great."
Darcy watched him from the corner of her eye.
Not because any of this was remotely amusing, but because Steve looked exactly like someone whose brain had simply reached capacity. Like he'd been handed one impossible revelation too many and had quietly decided to stop processing altogether.
She couldn't blame him. She was dangerously close to joining him.
Nancy reached for the Monster Manual, lifting it into the light. Unlike Hopper, she wasn't fighting the comparison anymore.
She studied the illustration again. "So... if this thing is like a brain..."
Her fingertip traced slowly across the page.
"...controlling everything..."
She hesitated. "...even Will..."
"We kill everything it controls," Mike finished immediately.
"Theoretically," Lucas added.
"Theoretically?" Darcy echoed before she could stop herself.
Lucas shrugged. "I mean... it's still a guess."
"A really educated guess," Dustin muttered.
Hopper reached across the table, taking the manual from Nancy. Despite himself, he was actually reading it now.
He flipped another page. "With fireballs or something?"
"No." Dustin shook his head.
"You summon an undead army–"
Dustin sighed. "Because zombies don't have brains."
"And it likes..." He gestured vaguely towards his own head. "...brains."
The silence that followed was almost painful.
"It's just a game," Dustin finished weakly.
Hopper held his stare for another second before letting the manual fall back onto the table with a heavy thud.
"So what the hell are we doing then?"
His eyes swept around the room.
"I thought we were waiting for your military back-up."
"We are." Hopper sounded exhausted.
Mike stepped towards him anyway. "But even if they come..."
The frustration he'd been swallowing all evening finally broke through.
"How are they gonna stop this?"
He gestured helplessly towards the open rulebook. "You can't just shoot this thing with guns."
"You don't know that," Hopper shot back.
"We don't know anything."
"And we know the monsters are gonna molt again," Lucas said.
"And we know it's only a matter of time before those tunnels reach town," Dustin added quietly.
Outside, Hawkins looked exactly the same as it had all week. Children would still ride their bikes through quiet neighbourhoods tomorrow morning. Parents would still be making breakfast before school. Somebody would probably complain about the weather. Somebody else would be late for work.
Darcy wrapped her arms around herself. It was terrifying how normal the world looked from the inside while it quietly came apart underneath you.
A heavy silence settled over the house.
Joyce's voice drifted in from the hallway, quiet enough that Darcy almost missed it.
Joyce stood alone in the doorway, one hand resting against the frame. She'd been listening the entire time.
Tear tracks still marked her cheeks. Her eyes, however, weren't soft anymore. They were hard. Determined.
She looked directly at Hopper.
For a second, Darcy forgot to breathe. There wasn't any panic in Joyce's voice anymore.
It struck Darcy that grief didn't always hollow people out. Sometimes it carved away everything except the thing that mattered most.
Joyce hadn't stopped being afraid. She'd simply reached the point where fear wasn't as important as saving her son.
Beside her, Steve shifted his weight almost imperceptibly.
She glanced at him. His jaw had tightened, his eyes fixed on Joyce with an expression she'd never seen on him before.
Not the casual admiration he'd shown Nancy earlier, or the protective instinct he seemed to have around the kids.
Like he'd just watched somebody decide they were willing to walk straight through hell if it meant getting their child back.
Hopper crossed the room until he was standing in front of Joyce.
His own voice softened. "Yeah."
His shoulders sagged beneath the weight of it all. "But how do we do that?"
Mike's voice interrupted him.
It was so quiet Darcy almost didn't hear it.
Everyone followed Mike's gaze.
Will. Still asleep beneath the blanket. Silent.
His eyes flickered rapidly beneath his closed eyelids, as though whatever was happening inside his mind refused to let him rest.
"If anyone knows how to destroy this thing..." Mike murmured. "It's Will."
"He's connected to it. He'll know its weakness."
Darcy looked towards the sofa. She still couldn't reconcile the stories with the boy lying there.
Will looked impossibly ordinary. Small enough that his feet barely reached the end of the cushions. Too young. Too fragile.
Whatever was inside him belonged in nightmares, not in someone who should've been worrying about maths homework and scraped knees.
Max stepped quietly beside Mike.
"I thought we couldn't trust him anymore."
Nobody answered immediately.
"That he's a spy for the Mind Flayer now?"
Darcy watched the thought take shape across his face.
Then he looked back at Will.
"...He can't spy if he doesn't know where he is."
The room fell silent again.
Nobody needed convincing. They had all arrived at the same conclusion. Cogs turned inadvertently as the answer seemed to arrive.
Darcy furrowed her eyebrows, the crease between them deepening into something harder to smoothen out.
She understood the logic. She understood the plan. What she couldn't understand was how everyone else had crossed the line so completely.
Only a few hours ago she'd been trying to get Max home before anyone noticed she was gone.
Now they were discussing how to manipulate a possessed twelve-year-old into exposing the weakness of an interdimensional monster, and somehow this had become the most sensible idea in the room.
She looked around at their faces. Nobody seemed to find that strange anymore.
Her gaze drifted to Steve.
He caught her looking and gave the smallest shake of his head, almost as if he was admitting he was just as lost as she was.
For reasons she couldn't quite explain, that made her feel a little less alone.
Maybe that was the strangest part of all.
The house slipped into motion.
Nobody announced a plan. People simply started moving.
Cupboards flew open. Chairs scraped across the kitchen floor. Conversations splintered into smaller ones before disappearing altogether beneath the frantic shuffle of feet. Nobody needed instructions anymore. Somehow, everyone already knew what they were supposed to be doing.
She lingered by the kitchen counter for a moment, watching the organised chaos unfold around her. It was strange how quickly everyone had found a purpose. Joyce was giving orders without raising her voice. Hopper was already thinking three steps ahead. Even the kids threw themselves into jobs as though they'd done this before.
Maybe they had. She didn't know them well enough to come up with a reasonable answer.
Joyce and Hopper disappeared towards the shed out back, their heavy footsteps thudding down the porch steps until they were swallowed by the cold evening air.
Jonathan, Steve and Nancy followed moments later, hurrying towards the cars to gather whatever supplies they could find.
Darcy hesitated before reaching for the nearest unopened box on the counter. She had absolutely no idea what they were building, but standing around while everyone else worked somehow felt worse.
At the centre of the kitchen, Mike tore through the pantry with frantic determination. Boxes, rolls and loose supplies disappeared into his arms as he grabbed anything that looked remotely useful. Duct tape, heavy-duty bin bags, old newspapers.
Across from him, Max sat cross-legged on the floor, methodically wrapping thick strips of silver duct tape around the legs of two wooden kitchen chairs. Every rip of the tape echoed through the room with a harsh screech that set Darcy's teeth on edge.
For a while, nobody spoke.
"...I get why El was your mage now."
Mike froze. The box of bin bags in his hands stopped halfway to the counter.
"Lucas." Max shrugged, never stopping her work. "He told me all about her."
The change in Mike was instant. His shoulders stiffened. Something behind his eyes slammed shut.
"Yeah, well..." He set the box down harder than he meant to. "He shouldn't have."
Mike kept his attention fixed on the supplies instead of looking at her.
"Just because you know the truth doesn't mean you're in the Party."
His voice wasn't angry. That almost made it worse. It was quiet. Controlled. Like every word had been carefully flattened before it reached the surface.
"You do know that, right?"
The atmosphere in the kitchen shifted.
Darcy felt it before she consciously registered it. The room suddenly seemed smaller, the silence pressing against her ears.
She looked from Mike to Max.
Max was trying very hard to pretend his words hadn't landed. Mike was trying even harder to pretend they'd cost him something to say.
Mike didn't even turn around.
Darcy reached for the spare roll of duct tape on the counter and tossed it at him. It bounced harmlessly off his shoulder before dropping onto the floor.
He looked back at her at last.
For a second, Mike just stared.
Steve wandered into the kitchen carrying a stack of old Hawkins Post newspapers, slowing almost immediately as he noticed the silence.
His eyes flicked between Mike, Max and Darcy.
"Mike's being a dickhead," Darcy answered simply.
Then at the roll of tape on the floor.
He nodded once. "Seems like I got here at the right time."
A quiet snort escaped him as he dumped the newspapers onto the table.
Mike shot both of them a deeply unimpressed look.
Darcy only lifted an eyebrow. Steve, to his credit, had the decency to look vaguely apologetic.
Max dropped her gaze back to the chair in her lap, smoothing the rough silver tape flat with her fingertips.
A small, self-conscious smile tugged at the corner of her mouth.
She gave a tiny shrug. "Why would you want some stupid Zoomer in your Party anyway?"
"I'm just saying..." Max's voice softened. "El... she sounds like she was really awesome."
Mike stopped moving. Not just his hands. All of him.
For a moment, the kitchen seemed to disappear around him. The frantic searching through cupboards. The squeal of duct tape. The quiet conversations happening only a few feet away.
He simply stood there, staring at the worn wooden countertop. His fingers tightened around the plastic bags until his knuckles turned white.
When he finally answered, his voice was so quiet Darcy almost missed it.
He drew in a shaky breath.
The words lingered in the air, too heavy for anyone to move past.
"Until this thing..." His jaw worked. "...took her."
Bob's death was still too fresh. The grief hung around the Byers' house like another piece of furniture, tucked quietly into every room. Nobody seemed to know how to walk around it without bumping into it.
Darcy didn't know Eleven.
But she knew what it looked like when somebody lost a person before they were ready.
Mike wasn't angry at Max.
He was grieving. There was a difference. He gathered the supplies against his chest without looking at anybody.
Then he turned and walked out of the kitchen.
Darcy watched his small, rigid figure disappear down the hallway before the silence finally loosened its grip on the room.
Only then did she look back at Max.
Max shrugged, but her gaze never left the floorboards.
Darcy watched her reach for the roll of tape again.
She looked so much younger suddenly. Not the sarcastic girl she'd taken to the arcade.
Just a thirteen-year-old who'd accidentally stepped into somebody else's grief.
Without saying anything, Darcy lowered herself onto the cold linoleum beside her, grabbed another roll of duct tape and started tearing off strips.
She new Max well enough to find the right words.
But sometimes there weren't any. Sometimes sitting beside someone was the closest thing to comfort you could offer.
Around them, the Byers' house continued its strange transformation.
Furniture scraped across wooden floors. Windows disappeared behind newspapers and black plastic. Someone hammered something outside.
Nobody needed instructions anymore.
Everyone had simply found a job.
Maybe because keeping your hands busy stopped your mind from wandering.
Twenty minutes later, Darcy found herself outside in the freezing November air alongside Steve, Nancy and the kids.
Her arms ached beneath thick stacks of old Hawkins Post newspapers, their yellowing pages smelling of damp paper and old ink.
She caught sight of Steve a few feet away. He was losing an argument with a roll of duct tape.
He pinched at the edge with his thumbnail, trying to separate it from itself.
The tape refused. Instead it folded over, stuck to itself, and promptly turned into a useless silver knot.
"...You've gotta be kidding me."
Darcy watched him wrestle with it.
She wandered over, plucked the roll from his hands and peeled away a perfectly clean strip on her first attempt.
"You know..." she said, handing it back, "...they do actually manufacture scissors."
Steve accepted the tape with exaggerated dignity.
Steve looked down at the crumpled mess still clinging stubbornly to his palm.
A laugh escaped Darcy before she could stop it.
A proper laugh. Bright. Unrestrained.
It felt strangely foreign after the last few hours.
Steve looked up at the sound, and for the first time since she'd met him, the corners of his own mouth lifted without effort.
"You've spent the last three hours looking like somebody told you the world was ending."
She stared at him. "...Steve."
He considered that for a moment. "...Yeah."
She laughed again, shaking her head as she handed him another strip of tape.
For the briefest moment, standing in the bitter November cold with newspapers tucked under one arm and Steve Harrington losing a fight to stationery, everything almost felt normal.
Just teenagers around a porch, teasing each other and pretending they weren't standing in the middle of something terrifying.
For a minute, Darcy almost managed to believe it.
Steve was still muttering under his breath about losing a fight to duct tape, the sound was strange after everything that had happened that day, but it was welcome. It reminded her that, beneath the monsters and impossible stories, they were all still just kids trying to convince themselves they weren't scared.
Then the back door opened.
The laughter died so quickly it was almost startling.
Jonathan stepped onto the porch with Will cradled carefully in his arms. Darcy moved without thinking, stepping aside to clear a path.
Will looked impossibly small.
His cheek rested against Jonathan's shoulder, pale against the faded denim of his jacket, his arms hanging limply at his sides. He didn't stir. Didn't react to the cold air or the voices around him. If Darcy hadn't watched his chest rise and fall, she might have thought he wasn't breathing at all.
Nobody spoke as Jonathan carried him across the garden.
Hopper opened the shed door ahead of him, and the sight waiting inside made Darcy's stomach tighten.
The chairs. The ropes. The newspapers.
A few minutes ago they'd all just been jobs. Things to keep their hands busy. Something practical to focus on while they waited.
Now, watching Jonathan carry his little brother toward them, they stopped looking like preparations.
They looked like an admission. This was really happening.
Hopper picked up the hammer.
The first iron bolt disappeared into the wooden floor.
The sound echoed across the garden, metallic and unforgiving, each strike landing somewhere deep in Darcy's chest.
Beside her, Steve had gone completely still. She glanced at him.
His jaw was tight, his eyes fixed on the open doorway of the shed. The easy humour he'd been wearing only moments earlier had vanished without a trace.
For once, neither of them had anything to say.
Max slipped quietly inside carrying the second chair, placing it opposite the first before stepping back again. Nobody acknowledged her. Nobody seemed able to look directly at what they were building.
Under the harsh yellow bulb, Joyce stood with a syringe trembling between her fingers.
Her hands shook so badly Darcy wondered how she was managing to keep hold of the glass at all.
Even so, every movement was painstakingly precise.
She measured. Checked. Measured again.
As though concentrating hard enough on the tiny details might stop her mind wandering to the reason she was doing any of it in the first place.
Darcy felt something tighten painfully in her throat.
No parent should ever have to prepare a syringe for their own child. No parent should have to tie them to a chair.
She found herself taking an unconscious step backwards, retreating into the shadows at the edge of the garden.
Inside, Hopper and Jonathan looped thick rope around Will's wrists and ankles.
Hopper gave every knot a hard, unforgiving tug.
Testing them. Making sure they wouldn't slip.
Nobody looked relieved. The fact that they needed to hold at all was terrifying enough.
Mike moved around the room arranging desk lamps in a tight semicircle, adjusting each one until the light fell directly on the empty chair.
Lucas crawled beneath a web of extension cords, plugging them into a heavy-duty surge protector while Dustin checked every switch twice, muttering anxious little reassurances to himself.
One by one, the lamps flickered to life. The shed transformed before Darcy's eyes.
The warm timber walls disappeared beneath layers of yellowing newspapers. The windows vanished behind black plastic. Sheets of aluminium foil caught the light, throwing harsh white reflections across every surface.
The lawnmower. The gardening tools. The shelves crowded with old paint tins and forgotten boxes.
They were all still there, but the room no longer felt like a place where people stored ordinary things.
It looked like an operating theatre assembled by people who had no idea how to build one.
Clinical. Artificial. Wrong.
Darcy folded her arms tighter across her chest, suddenly wishing she hadn't laughed with Steve only a minute earlier.
Because that tiny moment of normality already felt like it belonged to someone else.
She stared into the room, her arms folding a little tighter across her chest.
"...This is kinda creepy."
Steve wandered over beside her, his gaze following hers into the foil-lined shed. For a long moment, neither of them spoke.
"Yeah," he admitted eventually.
He leaned one shoulder against the doorframe, never taking his eyes off the room. "I miss when my biggest problem was soccer practice."
Darcy looked sideways at him.
She frowned. "...Then why was it a problem?"
Steve's expression didn't change.
"It looked really good on college applications."
She stared at him for a beat before letting out a quiet laugh. "Thats so dumb."
"I'll take that as a compliment."
She shook her head, smiling despite herself.
It was strange how easy Steve made it to forget where they were. Every so often he'd say something so unbelievably stupid that the fear loosened its grip for a second, just long enough for her to remember they were still teenagers.
Only for reality to come rushing back in again.
Soon enough, there was nothing left to build. Nothing left to tape. Nothing left to prepare.
And Darcy discovered that waiting was infinitely worse than working.
The Byers' house settled into an uneasy silence that seemed to press against the walls.
Nobody knew what came next.
Every creak of the old floorboards made heads lift. Every branch scratching against the windows sounded like fingernails against glass.
In the kitchen, Dustin paced endless laps around the island, glancing toward the dark windows every few seconds as though he expected something to come crashing through them at any moment.
Across the hallway, Steve had taken up position with his nail bat resting across one shoulder.
After a while he began swinging it absent-mindedly through the empty air.
The nails caught the light every time it cut through another arc.
Darcy wasn't sure whether he was practising or simply trying to give his hands something to do. Judging by the way his jaw kept tightening, she suspected it was the latter.
Nancy sat curled into the corner of the sofa with her hands clasped tightly together, staring at nothing.
Max sat cross-legged on the rug, her leg bouncing so relentlessly the floorboards vibrated beneath her trainers. Lucas leaned against the wall beside her with his arms folded, trying very hard to look calmer than he actually was.
Eventually, Max broke first.
"If he finds out where we are..." she asked quietly, "...will he send those... dogs after us?"
"He won't find out," Lucas answered.
He sounded convincing enough that Darcy almost believed him.
"Yeah," Max murmured, still staring at her trainers. "But... if he does?"
Lucas hesitated. Only for a second.
"...Judgement Day." Dustin hadn't looked up from the kitchen doorway.
He said it with such complete sincerity that Darcy couldn't tell whether he was joking until everyone stared at him.
A painful silence settled over the room.
"...Thanks, Dustin," Darcy deadpanned. "That really cleared up my anxiety."
"I thought honesty was important in a crisis."
"There are certain occasions," Steve replied, still lazily swinging the bat through the air, "where lying is actually the much kinder option."
Dustin considered that. "...Fair."
The conversation died almost as quickly as it had begun.
Silence reclaimed the house. Outside, the November wind gathered strength, driving handfuls of dead leaves against the windows with dry, frantic scratches.
Somewhere down the hallway, the old house creaked. Everyone looked up.
Darcy realised she'd been staring at the brass front doorknob for several minutes without blinking.
Waiting for it to turn. Waiting for something to happen. Across the room, everyone else was doing exactly the same thing.
The waiting was becoming unbearable.
She almost wished something would happen -anything at all- because at least monsters gave you something to fight.
This just left you alone with your imagination.
Before Darcy could chase the thought any further, the back door slammed open. The crack of it ricocheted through the house.
She flinched so hard her shoulder knocked the edge of the counter, her pulse lurching into her throat. Around the room, everyone spun towards the sound.
Hopper stormed into the kitchen at a near run, Joyce, Jonathan, and Mike on his heels.
"What happened?" Dustin blurted, practically tripping over his own feet in his rush to meet them. "What happened?"
"I think he was talking." Hopper was already reaching across the counter for a notepad and pen, barely breaking stride. "...Just not with words."
Confused looks rippled through the room.
Dustin, Mike and Lucas answered in perfect, unsettling unison.
Darcy looked between the three boys. "...Seriously?"
Four heads turned towards her.
She held up both hands. "I grew up in Southern California, not a naval base."
Steve pointed at her immediately, looking far too pleased with himself.
"See? Thank you. Someone else doesn't know."
Lucas frowned. "You don't know Morse code?"
Steve looked genuinely offended. "I know of Morse code."
"That's not the same thing."
"No," Dustin sighed. "It really doesn't."
For a fleeting second, Darcy caught herself smiling. It was ridiculous, the things people chose to argue about while the world was apparently ending.
Hopper ignored them entirely.
His head was already bent over the notepad, the pen racing across the paper as he muttered beneath his breath.
Darcy drifted closer almost without realising, stopping beside Steve. From there she could just see over his shoulder as Hopper covered the page with dots and dashes.
They meant absolutely nothing to her. Just tiny marks.
Random. Meaningless. She wondered how anyone could look at them and hear language.
Then Hopper stopped writing. He stared at the page. Four clusters sat there in neat rows.
Slowly, he lowered the pen beneath the first set.
Mike leaned over the table first. "...Here."
"Here," Dustin echoed quietly.
The word settled over the kitchen with an unexpected weight.
Darcy frowned. She read it again.
It didn't mean anything. At least, not to her.
"...What does that mean?"
For one long, agonising moment, nobody had an answer.
Then Hopper looked up. Darcy watched the colour drain from his face.
His voice was barely more than breath.
Hopper's eyes never left the dark hallway leading towards the shed.
Darcy's gaze followed his. Towards the closed door.
Towards the boy who hadn't opened his eyes. Who hadn't spoken. Who hadn't even moved.
Somehow, buried beneath whatever had crawled inside his mind, Will Byers had managed to force a single word through.
Just enough of him was still alive in there to reach out.
Darcy felt a cold shiver work its way slowly down her spine.
If Will could still fight back...
Then whatever had taken him wasn't invincible after all.
He was gone before anyone could stop him, boots thundering up the staircase two at a time. A bedroom door crashed open overhead, followed by the frantic sound of drawers being yanked apart.
Seconds later, he came barreling back into the kitchen with a battered silver boombox tucked beneath one arm.
He dropped it onto the island with a metallic CLANG, the entire counter shuddering beneath the weight.
The power cable disappeared from the wall in one brutal tug.
Before Darcy could ask what he was doing, Lucas stepped forward, setting his walkie-talkie beside the speaker with careful hands.
Understanding spread through the room in slow, silent waves.
If Will couldn't speak, maybe he could still send a message.
The first tone burst from the walkie-talkie.
Dustin was already reaching for a fresh sheet of paper, his pen racing across it before the sound had even faded. Beside him, Lucas unfolded a battered Morse code chart while Max held one corner flat against the table, both of them scanning the page with frantic concentration.
Darcy lingered near the edge of the island, watching everyone slip effortlessly into place.
Nobody had discussed this. Nobody had assigned jobs. They simply knew what to do.
She'd never felt more like an outsider.
Nancy uncapped a thick red Sharpie and drew the letter across a blank sheet of poster board.
Another burst of beeps echoed through the kitchen.
Dustin translated. Lucas checked the chart.
The marker squeaked across the board.
The kitchen had become its own strange assembly line.
Will sent the message. The walkie-talkie carried it. Dustin caught it. Lucas and Max translated it. Nancy made it visible.
Everyone else could only stand back and hope twelve-year-olds were clever enough to save them all.
A pause settled over the room.
Nobody seemed to breathe.
Darcy realised her chest ached. She forced herself to inhale just as another frantic string of beeps crackled through the speaker.
The final burst of static came through the radio. Lucas's finger stopped on the chart. His face lost what little colour it had left.
Nancy lowered the marker. The soft squeak of felt leaving cardboard sounded deafening in the silence.
Everyone drifted towards the island. Darcy found herself staring at two words scrawled across the poster board in thick, uneven red letters.
She read them once. Then again. The letters refused to rearrange themselves into something kinder.
Will wasn't asking them to save him. He wasn't begging for help. Somewhere beneath the thing wearing his mind, a frightened twelve-year-old boy had managed to claw his way to the surface long enough to tell them how to stop it.
Not how to save him. How to save everyone else. The thought settled heavily in Darcy's stomach.
She wasn't sure she'd ever met an adult capable of something that selfless.
The words sat between them, demanding to be understood. Before anyone could give voice to what they all knew they meant–
The telephone shrieked to life.
Darcy jumped so violently a startled cry escaped before she could swallow it back. Beside her, Max flinched just as hard, one hand flying instinctively to her chest.
Every head whipped towards the hallway.
The ringing carved through the silence, shredding the fragile calm they'd managed to build around themselves.
He lunged across the kitchen, snatching the receiver from its cradle before slamming it straight back down.
Silence. Darcy could hear her own heartbeat pounding in her ears. Maybe it had been nothing.
"...Shit." Nancy moved before anyone else.
She shoved past Steve, grabbed the phone with both hands, and yanked.
The entire unit ripped free from the wall in a spray of plaster dust. It hit the linoleum with a violent crack before skidding beneath the dining table, severed copper wires trailing behind it like exposed veins.
The only sound left in the room was the uneven rhythm of frightened breathing.
Max looked around at the faces surrounding her.
"...Do you think he heard that?"
The fear etched across every face in the room was answer enough.
Steve swallowed, his gaze lingering on the shattered telephone before drifting towards the dark windows.
"It's just a..." he began uncertainly.
He sounded like he was trying to convince himself more than anyone else. Nobody looked reassured.
"He could be anywhere," Dustin whispered.
The words settled heavily over the room.
Steve cleared his throat. "...Right?"
Darcy found herself turning towards the front windows. The woods beyond the glass had looked empty all evening.
The darkness seemed to have depth to it, as though something unseen had settled amongst the trees, watching the house with endless patience.
A low howl drifted through the forest.
Every muscle in Darcy's body locked. The sound rode the freezing November wind, weaving through the branches until it seemed to circle the house itself.
Closer. Sharper. Max inhaled sharply.
"...Did you guys hear that?"
"Oh God..." Dustin's voice cracked. "Oh God..."
Steve's grip tightened around the handle of his bat. Darcy heard the old wood groan beneath the pressure.
Another roar split the night. This one was so close the windows rattled in their frames.
The glass vibrated. The floor seemed to hum beneath Darcy's feet.
They weren't coming. They were already here.
The back door slammed open.
Everyone jumped. Hopper stormed into the kitchen carrying a twelve-gauge hunting rifle, racking a shell into the chamber before he'd even crossed the threshold.
The room lurched backwards as one, stumbling away from the glass.
Hopper thrust the shotgun towards Jonathan. "Can you use this?"
Jonathan froze. His eyes locked onto the weapon.
"I can." Nancy stepped forward immediately.
No hesitation. No uncertainty. She reached for the rifle, and Hopper paused for the briefest moment before letting it go.
Nancy caught it cleanly. She checked the weight. Adjusted her grip. Brought the stock naturally against her shoulder.
She'd seen Nancy Wheeler with textbooks. A shotgun somehow felt... alarmingly believable.
Right, Darcy thought. New rule. Never get on Nancy Wheeler's bad side.
Beside her, Steve let out the quietest breath.
Hopper slung his own rifle into position, pulling back the charging handle with a sharp metallic CLACK.
Another roar echoed through the trees. So close this time that Darcy felt the vibration in her ribs.
Lucas tightened the elastic on his wrist rocket. Nancy never lowered the shotgun.
Mike stood rooted to the floor, fists clenched so tightly his knuckles had gone white. Dustin was chewing so hard on his bottom lip Darcy wondered if he even realised he was doing it.
Max edged closer to Lucas without seeming aware of it herself.
Only then did Darcy notice something.
Every single person in the room was terrified.
She could see it in Steve's rigid shoulders. In Nancy's measured breathing. In the way Hopper's eyes never stopped moving.
Fear hadn't disappeared. They were simply carrying it with them. Before she realised what she was doing, Darcy shifted sideways.
Until her shoulder rested lightly against Steve's arm.
He didn't look at her. He didn't move away.
The contact lasted barely a second before both of their attention snapped back towards the front of the house.
Neither of them acknowledged it. Neither of them needed to.
The entire room held its breath.
Then an ear-splitting shriek exploded from somewhere beyond the porch.
Max cried out, both hands flying to her ears.
Her voice cracked with panic.
Another scream answered. This one came from the left side of the house. Everyone turned.
Then another sound. Behind the kitchen.
The noises overlapped until they stopped sounding like separate creatures and became something much worse–a presence. Something moving around the house. Something surrounding them.
Circling. Waiting. Testing.
Like a pack of wild, unnatural animals closing in from every direction, searching for a way inside.
Nancy’s eyes flicked toward the ceiling. Her grip tightened around her rifle, her brow furrowing.
“...What are they doing?”
Outside, one of the creatures screamed. But it wasn’t the sound of an attack.
The scream stretched through the night, long and horrible, until it sounded almost human. A dying thing’s final breath. A desperate, broken sound that made everyone in the room go still.
An instant, unnatural silence. Complete.
Everyone held their breath. And then another roar ripped through the darkness.
A wet, violent sound. Something tearing. Something snapping.
Darcy stared toward the windows. Her heartbeat thudded painfully in her ears.
She looked at Steve. Then at the door. Then back at the windows.
“...Do they sound...” Her voice caught. She swallowed, forcing herself to continue. “...different to you?”
Nobody answered. Nobody got the chance.
The living room window exploded.
The sound was deafening. Glass erupted through the room. Splintered wood tore away from the wall as a massive dark shape crashed through the opening, sending everyone stumbling backward.
The creature hit the floor with a sickening impact.
It rolled across the rug, limbs twisting violently, before slamming into the wooden television cabinet hard enough to shake the entire room.
Everyone screamed. Steve moved before he even thought. He threw himself in front of Dustin and Max, raising his bat above his head, ready to swing.
Darcy stumbled backward, her hip hitting the kitchen counter. One hand flew over her mouth, desperately trying to hold back the scream clawing its way out of her throat.
But the creature didn’t move.
Not even a twitch. It lay there. Broken. Its long, pale neck bent at an impossible angle. Its body twisted unnaturally against the floor. A pool of thick, black blood slowly spread beneath it.
“...Holy shit.” Dustin’s voice was barely a whisper.
Max stared at the creature, her face drained of colour.
“Is it...” Her voice trembled. “...Is it dead?”
Hopper stepped forward. Slowly. Carefully. His footsteps were the only sound cutting through laboured breaths.
His boots crunched over the shattered glass as he approached the body. His weapon remained raised, his eyes never leaving the creature.
He extended one foot and nudged its side.
He pushed harder. Still nothing.
“It’s dead.” His voice was quiet.
But the words didn’t make anyone feel better. Because the monster lying dead in the middle of their living room wasn’t a victory.
None of them had killed it.
No one had fired. No one had swung.
Something else had. Something stronger. Something they didn’t understand.
Human footsteps. Outside.
Every weapon in the room lifted instantly. Nancy raised her rifle. Hopper aimed his gun toward the front door.
Steve tightened his grip on the bat. Darcy reached down and grabbed the heavy brass fire poker from beside the fireplace. Her fingers wrapped around it so tightly her knuckles turned white.
Everyone froze. The lock slid open.
The safety chain lifted from its slot, hanging in the air for one impossible second before dropping against the wood.
A pair of battered, dirt-stained black Converse stepped over the threshold.
She lifted her head. The dim living room light caught her face. Short, slicked-back dark curls. Heavy black eyeliner framing sharp, tired eyes. An oversized black leather jacket hanging from narrow shoulders.
And a thin trail of fresh blood running from her nose.
She didn’t wipe it away. She didn’t seem to notice.
The entire room went still.
Hopper lowered his rifle first. The barrel slowly dipped toward the floor. But the expression on his face wasn’t fear.
It was pure, overwhelming disbelief. Like his brain couldn’t process what his eyes were seeing.
Mike stepped forward. Nobody stopped him. His eyes widened.
His voice barely worked. “El...?”
Darcy looked between him and the girl standing in the doorway.
Then back at Steve. Then Nancy.
Nobody looked afraid. Nobody looked confused. They looked like they were seeing a ghost.
Like someone they had spent months missing, someone they had already started accepting they might never see again, had suddenly walked back into the world.
Darcy slowly lowered the fire poker.
Her eyes stayed fixed on the girl. The blood beneath her nose. The impossible entrance.
The way everyone else looked at her. Like a miracle. Darcy frowned slightly.
Mike and Eleven stood in the centre of the room.
They just stared. Like every word they had ever wanted to say was trapped somewhere between them.
The way Mike looked at her was almost painful. Like he was terrified that if he blinked, she would vanish. Like his mind couldn’t decide whether this was real, or just another cruel trick.
He stepped forward. “...El?”
The girl in front of him gave the smallest nod. Barely noticeable.
The hesitation disappeared. Mike crossed the room in an instant. He wrapped his arms around her with such force that Darcy instinctively worried he might actually knock her backward.
But Eleven didn’t move. For a second, she looked like she didn’t know what to do.
Like she had spent so long surviving, fighting, running, that she had forgotten what it felt like to be held.
Then slowly, her arms lifted. And she held onto him too. And for the first time all night, Darcy didn’t see the girl who had walked through the door like something out of a nightmare. The one that everyone talked about like a miracle.
Mike held onto her like letting go wasn’t an option. Like if he loosened his grip for even a second, she would disappear again.
Like the universe had already taken her once, and he refused to let it happen twice.
Nobody behind them moved. Nobody wanted to interrupt. Max stood completely frozen, her mouth slightly open.
Her eyes moved between Mike and Eleven.
Then slowly, almost disbelievingly, she turned toward Lucas and Dustin.
“Is that...?” Her voice dropped to a whisper.
Lucas and Dustin could only nod. Neither of them seemed capable of finding words.
Because what were you supposed to say when someone you thought you’d lost forever suddenly came back? When a person who had only existed in memories and stories was suddenly standing right in front of you?
When Mike finally pulled away, his face was wet with tears. His hands stayed on Eleven’s shoulders.
Like he needed the proof. Needed to feel that she was real.
That she was warm. That she was actually there.
“I...” His voice shook. “I never gave up on you.”
A shaky breath. “I called you. I called every night. Every night for–”
“Three-hundred fifty-three days.”
She looked up at him. “I heard.”
For a moment, he just stared.
“You...” His expression broke. “You were there?”
Mike’s face twisted. Relief.
Pain. Confusion. All of it crashing together.
“Then why didn’t you say anything?”
“Why didn’t you tell me you were okay?”
“Why didn’t you tell me you were there?”
And suddenly, despite everything she had survived, despite everything she had fought through, she looked impossibly small.
“Because I wouldn’t let her.”
The voice came from behind them. Hopper.
Darcy watched as he stepped forward, moving into the warm yellow glow of the living room.
His boots sounded heavy against the wooden floor. He stopped. And then his expression changed. He was looking at her properly this time.
The dark eyeliner. The slicked-back hair. The oversized jacket hanging from her shoulders.
The confidence. The anger.
“What is all this?” Hopper sounded genuinely lost. “Where have you been–?”
“Where have you been?” Eleven’s voice cut through his.
Sharp. Angry. Not loud. But somehow worse.
The room went silent. Everyone seemed to be watching and unable to do anything else.
Darcy watched Mike’s expression change. The realisation didn’t hit him all at once.
It came slowly. Like his brain was trying to reject it.
Then suddenly, it clicked. His eyes moved toward Hopper.
“You...” His voice lowered. “You’ve been hiding her.”
“You’ve been hiding her this whole time.”
Mike looked ready to break. The person who had told him Eleven was gone had known the truth. Had been keeping it from him.
Hopper’s jaw tightened. “...Let’s talk.”
He nodded toward the hallway. Mike didn’t move immediately. He just stared at him. Then, without taking his eyes off Hopper, he followed. The door to Will’s bedroom closed behind them.
Darcy couldn’t hear the words through the thick wood. Only the emotion.
Shaking. Furious. Heartbroken.
Everyone left in the living room stood frozen, unsure what they were supposed to do now.
Because somehow, after all that, Eleven being alive wasn’t the only impossible thing that had happened tonight.
Then Lucas and Dustin moved. They stepped forward. And without warning, they pulled Eleven into a hug. She disappeared between them.
“We missed you,” Lucas said softly.
Dustin swallowed. “Yeah.”
His voice cracked slightly.
“We talked about you like...” He gave a small, awkward laugh. “Pretty much every day.”
Slowly, they pulled away.
Eleven looked at them. And smiled.
“I missed you...” She paused. “Too.”
Dustin grinned. That same ridiculous Dustin grin.
Eleven stared at him. Confused. Then slightly concerned.
“Oh!” He smiled proudly. “Yeah. You like my pearls, huh?”
Before anyone could stop him, he leaned forward. And made the worst sound Darcy had ever heard.
Lucas immediately closed his eyes.
Painfully. Like he was trying to leave his body.
Max stepped forward. For once, she didn’t have a sarcastic comment ready.
She looked at Eleven differently. Like she wasn’t just meeting a person. She was meeting a story. Someone she had heard about so many times that she almost didn’t believe she was real.
“Hey.” Max gave a small, uncertain smile. “I’m Max.”
“I’ve heard... a lot about you.”
Darcy watched Eleven look down at the offered hand. Then back at Max. For a second, she thought she might take it.
Eleven simply walked past her.
Max’s hand slowly lowered.
Darcy winced. She caught it. The tiny flash of hurt that crossed Max’s face before she buried it beneath that familiar mask. That quick, practiced expression that said I don’t care.
Pretend it doesn’t hurt. Pretend nobody can get to you. Before Darcy could say anything, Eleven was already disappearing toward the back room.
Probably to see Joyce. Probably to see Will. Probably to see the people who had been waiting for her.
Darcy stayed exactly where she was. Because, honestly?
She understood maybe half of what was happening.
There were too many names. Too many monsters. Too many pieces of history she had somehow walked into the middle of.
Everyone else knew the story. Everyone else understood what Eleven coming home meant.
Darcy was still trying to figure out who Eleven was.
So she did the only thing that made sense.
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