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yurtletheturtlehenderson · 3 years

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COSMIC - S3:E4; Chapter Four, The Sauna Test - [Pt. 4]

A Will Byers x Reader Series

𝘔𝘪𝘬𝘦, 𝘓𝘶𝘤𝘢𝘴, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘞𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘳𝘶𝘪𝘵 𝘌𝘭, 𝘔𝘢𝘹 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘠/𝘯 𝘵𝘰 𝘩𝘦𝘭𝘱 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘮 𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘯 𝘸𝘩𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘔𝘪𝘯𝘥 𝘍𝘭𝘢𝘺𝘦𝘳'𝘴 𝘩𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘪𝘴 𝘸𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘦 𝘙𝘰𝘣𝘪𝘯, 𝘚𝘵𝘦𝘷𝘦, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘋𝘶𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘯 𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘳𝘶𝘪𝘵 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘴𝘯𝘦𝘢𝘬 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘰 𝘓𝘺𝘯𝘹.

||𝐖𝐈𝐋𝐋'𝐒 𝐏𝐎𝐕||

We shouldn't be doing this. I thought we all agreed? It was too risky putting her in there, even if she is backup. But Y/n insisted.

There were just too many things that could go wrong.

What if the plan didn't work? What if he caught on before he got in the sauna? What if he breaks out?

Everyone seems pretty confident in the plan, and it is a strong plan. But... they don't know the Mind Flayer like I do. They don't know how determined he is.

Especially when he's angry.

"Y/n...?" I wince internally when my voice comes out softer than I wanted.

She looks over her shoulder, away from the huddled party, and steps away with me out of earshot while Lucas finishes up the details. She took my hands in hers and gave them a gentle squeeze, already reading my thoughts.

"I'm still doing this, hon,"

I can't help but sag my shoulders, avoiding her eye and nervously I begin playing with her hands. "You don't have to though,"

"I know," she says. But with one look I can tell she's trying to bury her worry. "But we've got no other choice,"

"Yes, we do. We can wait for more backup. We could finally find Dustin? Get my mom, the chief...?"

I trail off as Y/n gives me a bittersweet smile, tracing my hands with her thumbs. My gut sinks.

"You said it yourself, Will. We need to do this as soon as possible. If it is him, he could hurt someone,"

This time it's her turn to trail off, and finally, I speak with a gentle, countering voice. "Like you?"

She sighs, sagging her head against my shoulder and lazily snaking her hands around my waist in a hug. I hug her back, trying to enjoy this moment. I can tell she is too. It's then I hear her mumble against my shoulder, "I'm too stubborn to die,"

I laugh to myself, hugging her tighter and over her shoulder I see the Party split up. Mike was tailing El, Lucas was most likely out on the hunt for a lock of some sort as he had volunteered earlier and Max stayed put with the binoculars.

Against my better judgment, I pull away and meet Y/n's eye. The look of adoration in them was hard to believe, and it still made my knees weak. Thankful again for her and this moment, I planted a kiss on the crown of her head and she smiled.

"You trust me, right?" She asked, her voice unusually delicate.

I moved my chin off of her head so I could gawk at her, completely appaled.

"What?" But she was serious, and it broke my heart. "Of course I trust you. It's him I don't trust. I know what he's capable of and... I know what he thinks of you."

Y/n doesn't say anything this time. She just looks back at our interwoven hands and then back at me. She shoots me a quick, forced smile that unintentionally told me she was feeling more and more uneasy. But because it was Y/n, she was trying to brave for others. She was putting it aside for the great good.

She shouldn't have to. She doesn't have to. I just wish she knew that.

"Come on," she says, pulling me along after Lucas. "Let's go."

⊹ ⊹ ⊹

We found Lucas in the maintenance shed, digging through multiple boxes. I fell quiet and immediately got to work searching the shelves. Behind me at the door, Y/n hesitated, almost unsure of the silent tension in the room before ultimately shrugging it off and getting to work.

So far, all I was seeing was gardening gloves and other gardening supplies like pesticides, undoubtedly for lawn maintenance in front of and around the pools.

"Uh, Will...?" Lucas asks, shooting a nervous glance between me and Y/n from over his shoulder. "Um, you know about yesterday...?" Lucas asks softly.

Y/n hesitated from beside me for a moment, and in turn, so does Lucas. But he seems determined to make things right.

"It's fine, Lucas," I say, looking up from the box. "You don't have to say anything."

"I know..." Lucas continues, closing whatever lockbox he had found himself in. He was obviously nervous doing this in front of Y/n, but I guess I couldn't blame him. "But it's just... it was a really cool campaign. " he looks between both of us now, earnestly. "both of you did a great job."

He looks back at me, and Y/n shifts by my side, a frown on her face and her mouth in a small 'o' shape.

"And Mike and I should have never-"

"I don't care anymore Lucas," I say, moving on to a new box. "I really don't. We have bigger things to worry about now,

I know he's sorry, but I also know that if I dwell on it any longer I will only grow more upset. And I was already too worried about how this was going to go.

A pile of metal in the next box caught my eye. It was a long rope of steel chains and I pulled it out of the box, showing it to them.

"This should hold him,"

They both nod, looking somewhat relieved. But as I had feared, the matter wasn't being put to bed. Y/n had turned back to Lucas with a quirked brow and an edge in her voice and asked the last question we needed in this moment.

"Mike and you shouldn't have what?"

||𝟑𝐑𝐃 𝐏𝐄𝐑𝐒𝐎𝐍 𝐏𝐎𝐕||

The chain lock on the door undid itself and the azure gate swung open, allowing El to stride inside.

'A fake man' is what she was told to look for, at least that's how the others summed it up when she asked what a "dummy" looked like. Her first answer had been from Max - "easy, we both dated one" - she told El. She had rolled her eyes despite fighting back a small smile. She half expected a rebuttal from Y/n but El had turned her head just in time to see Will pulling her away, and El's shoulders sagged.

She wasn't gonna think about it, or get her hopes up. El was determined to keep her mind on the task at hand, even now as her wide eyes scoured the shelves of many peculiar items. Finally, a flash of bright red caught her eye and she knew immediately why they called it a fake man.

El picked it up off the shelf and tried not to think about how much it creeped her out. Its head, arms, and legs flopped around when she picked it up and suddenly she was filled with aggravation. But it had not been from this dummy. It had been from the one that followed her.

"Hey, I found the breakers," El didn't turn her head, she just grimaced and sighed. The last person she wanted to see now was Mike. "Woah, that thing is super creepy. Let me see it-"

He took it from her arms abruptly when she turned, and she frowned up at him. Mike didn't notice. With a goofy smile, he held it up in his arms like a puppet.

"I think this'll work. Right buddy?" His other hand moved to the dummy's chin, making it talk in a grating high pitched voice. "'Right Mike',"

El was done waiting, and she certainly wasn't impressed with his behavior. She gave him a purposeful, deadpan glare before taking the dummy back and making a break for the door. Alone.

But Mike didn't still didn't seem to take the hint. Why was he laughing and joking, she wondered. Why was he acting like nothing was wrong?

"Hey, El," he calls after her, for once sounding earnest.

Against her better judgment, she turns around.

"I just," he sighs, beginning to fight nervously. "I wanted to say..." he shifts on his feet. "You know when I said Nana was sick?" He took another, plunging deep breath. Here goes nothing, he thought."Well, she wasn't. I lied."

"I know."

El turned to leave, and Mike called out again. "Right, right, right, I just... I think it was important for you to know the context," he adds.

Her eyes tighten in a glare, she was growing impatient.

"Hopper," Mike says quickly. "he went crazy on me. Telling me I'm spending way too much time with you. He made me lie, I mean, you're the most important thing to me in the world-"

"-What if he's right?" El cut in, dropping the dummy on the ground.

"What?"

"Hop," she challenged, stepping forward.

A lazy grin took over Mike's face, a mocking grin, and he laughed dismissively. "Oh, no, no, no. He's just some angry old man who hates joy,"

The girl grits her teeth, reminded more and more of Diana's truth lasso and the Amazon warriors Max and Y/n had taught her about. And it gave her more confidence in her answer.

"But if I only see you," she explains slowly, putting on a facetious tone and jabbing a finger in his shoulder. "and I'm a different species than you, then I should be with my species more."

"What are you talking about?" Mike asks, flabbergasted as El retrieves the dummy from the floor. When she nears the gate, his jaw drops in shock when it clicks. "...Did you spy on me?"

"That's totally against the rules!" He cries, and she heaves the dummy over her shoulders.

"I make my own rules,"

And with that, El had left leaving Mike alone and in shock.

The silence had lasted only moments before a crackle of his walkie startled him.

"Mike? Are you there?"

"Yeah!" He can't help but snap, still much too in his own head.

"Where are you guys?" Max asks from her station at the car.

She hadn't left, nor had she taken her eyes off of Billy since everyone split.

"I'm coming... just hold on a second- Mike!"

Max did a double-take at the walkie when she barely heard the second voice in the background. It sounded like Y/n. But Mike had already shut off his coms. So Max shrugged, setting down her walkie and taking another hesitant look through the binoculars at her stepbrother.

"I hope it's not you," she says under her breath. "I really hope it not you."

⊹ ⊹ ⊹

"Mike!"

Mike stumbled back against the shelves, startled when Y/n came storming in and he nervously closed his walkie.

She looked livid.

Will and Lucas were right on her tail, fearfully and hesitantly trying to persuade or calm her in some way.

"The hell is wrong with you, Wheeler?"

"What?!" He asked, completely dumbfounded.

"You heard me! What the hell is your problem?"

"You tell me! Apparently, I'm messing up everywhere," he exclaims, gesturing after El. "you're gonna have to be more specific,"

"Y/n, really, just let it go. I'm over it-" Will eased.

"-Well, I'm not." She spits, glowering at Mike. "Why the hell would you say that? How could you say that?!"

"Say what...?!" Mike's heart and stomach sunk 6 feet when he met the saddened eyes of Will, and he felt he might hurl. He had been kicking himself since it came out of his mouth, just as he had with his fight outside the mall with Y/n. It was getting harder and harder for Mike not to explode these days, everything instinct seemed to be the wrong one. "Oh..."

"Yeah, oh," she snarls, completely disgusted. "None of us said that to you when El was gone for a year now did we?"

Mike picks his eyes back up off the floor where he had guiltily been avoiding everyone's eye and meets her fiery glare, shifting uncomfortably on his feet. The more and more she looks at him the more he feels like he's standing on hot coals.

But despite her intimidating stature, her voice grew quieter and more intense.

"And you spent all those nights in her fort, testing the channels and calling out to her?When we all thought she was dead. Did we ever say anything so horrible?"

He shifts again, his heartbreaking and anger swelling up in his chest at himself as he recalls what he said to Will. "No, you didn't."

"No, we didn't. Because friends don't do that shit."

"No, they don't,"

"They also don't shit all over their friend, leaving him behind, mocking things important to him either," she says pointedly, now sharing that look with Lucas but it was less severe towards the Sinclair boy. "huh?"

They both nodded, and Will stayed quiet.

-"No,"

-"Huh-uh,"

She turns back to Mike, shaking her head with her arms folded over her stomach. She was still passed but the boy looked well past sorry. And suddenly her face went blank, scaring Mike.

"What?" He asks carefully.

"You drew first blood, metaphorically speaking," Y/n informed, still trying to tamper down her anger. "so you have to apologize. A real one, not a fake one, and not out of defense."

Mike fell silent again, looking between her, Lucas, and finally Will. Before he could open his mouth to speak, she finished.

"Do it when you mean it, Mike. Not because you got caught,"

And then, like deja vu, she was gone leaving him and this time, his friends in silent shock. And with one lingering look, Will had left with her.

⊹ ⊹ ⊹

"Erica, do you copy?"

Erica buckled the helmet under her chin, her head still getting used to the weight of two flashlights and Dustin's walkie headset.

Night had fallen and everyone had locked up, including their very own Scoops Ahoy. With the addition of one Dustin Henderson and Erica Sinclair of course. The girl tightens her backpack over her shoulders and stands ready at the latter.

"Mm-hmm. I copy. You nerds in position, or what?"

"Yeah, we're in position," Robin answers softly, careful not to draw any attention like last time despite the lack of company. "It's It's quiet here, so you've got the green light."

"Green light. Got it." She nods, beginning her ascent. "Commence Operation Child Endangerment."

"Can we maybe not call it that?" Robin plead.

"See you on the other side, nerds." Was her only response and the line went quiet.

Erica had begun her journey into the vents.

⊹ ⊹ ⊹

After several painstaking, hair-tearing minutes the trio finally heard a response.

"Alright, nerds. I'm there,"

"Do you see anything?" Robin asks.

Erica peers through the vents with little interest.

"Yeah, I see those boring little boxes you're so excited about,"

"Any guards?"

"Negative,"

"Booby traps?" Robin inquires.

Erica scoffs as she slips the backpack off her shoulders.

"If I could see them, they'd be pretty shit traps, wouldn't they?"

Steve fights a smirk, but it wasn't hard given his stress level.

"Thank you for that," Robin deadpans.

Erica rears back her legs and with a fearsome cry she kicked out the vent and tossed her backpack out onto the floor. And nary a booby trap in sight. So far.

Her feet collided with the ground and she gave a firm nod.

"I'm in,"

Those words hit Steve harder than anything they had done all week, and he feels suddenly as if a giant weight had been placed on his lungs preventing him from breathing.

"Oh, god," he groaned into his hands.

They were sending an actual child - not to mention a child he barely knew - into certain danger for the sake of reward. Oh, he definitely went too far, this was bad. This was so very bad.

A far-off buzzing pulled his eyes back to the doors just in time to see them swing open. And out waltzed Erica who was waiting for them with a knowing look.

"Free ice cream. For. Life!"

⊹ ⊹ ⊹

A choir of crickets sings into the starless night. The warm breeze blowing in from the east enunciates the sway of the trees and carries with it the smell of chlorine drifting in from the closed pool. The concrete was still wet from today's patrons, and the last of the darkened footprints on the concrete had begun to dry. Including the trail that led all the way into the men's locker room.

Billy stood under the gentle stream of water, allowing the freezing water to soak all the way to his bones. He had been in the shower for at least an hour, trying desperately to quell the fire in his veins but he only managed to subdue it to a small ember.

Finally, he kills the water, and the locker room falls deadly quiet. Billy liked the quiet, he always had. And now more than ever.

Towel secured around his torso, he now stands at and opens his designated locker, and begins to change. His mind wanders aimlessly, anything that wasn't the obvious when suddenly, the silence is first disturbed.

The moaning of the metal door bounced off of the long stretch of lockers with an echoey tin, and Billy bristled.

"Pool's closed,"

Metal cried out to him again, finished by a shuddering clang from the door yet again.

"Hey!"

No answer.

He slams the locker shut so hard the whole row shakes and he takes off down the hall after them in a blind fury.

"YOU HEAR ME?!"

Again no answer, but Billy wouldn't accept it.

"The pool is closed!"

He throws his fists against the exit door, confused as to why it wasn't opening. Unbeknownst to him, a certain brunette was hiding in the shadows across the locker room, playing with the door - and the lock now trapping him inside - all without lifting a finger.

Angered and confused, Billy continues his assault on the door; slamming fist after fist, push after push but there was no give. He was locked inside.

And the lights cut out.

Billy was high alert now. And so was He. Billy could feel him prickle, far back in his mind but he was there. Watching.

Waiting.

"Billy," came a distant, sing-song voice.

"Who's there," he seethes.

"Billy~"

He stalked back around the corner as he echoes the mocking, sing-song voice.

"Who's there~"

More rattling preceded a chilling, squeaky laugh that echoed seemingly from everywhere. Billy takes a chance and rips open the first shower curtain, but finds nothing. The voice calls out again, once, twice. It laughs.

"You think this is funny?" He asks, in a frighteningly low voice.

The voice laughs, once again, in response and hisses another taunt. "Billy! Come and find me!"

He stalks further and further, edging the end of the brick wall as his eyes prowl across the room in search of movement.

"I find you, it is your funeral," he promises.

His eyes lock on the closing door leading to the weight room, and as if reading his thoughts, the voice eggs him on.

"Come and get me! Come on!"

Slowly he maneuvers towards the door, reaching ever so slowly for the handle. And in one swift motion, he rips it open and storms inside, finding no one but himself. At first.

"Billy!" The voice cried again, closer than ever. Another taunting laugh.

But Billy's eyes were dead set ahead on the sauna door, and more specifically the silhouette of moppy hair waiting for him behind the foggy glass window. The corners of Billy's mouth are yanked up in a disconnected smile that never quite reaches his pained eyes.

"Got you,"

His lips curl back into a snarl - an exaggerated smile - as he claps his hands and cackles, marching in for the kill.

He's already ripping open the door, face falling and realizing the truth of it all when he registers the voice clear as day and flatter and angrier than ever.

"Come and get me you piece of shit."

A fake. A goddamn fake made out of a stolen CPR dummy was the only thing waiting for him, harnessed from the ceiling. In a flood of anger, Billy steps forward and grabs the dummy in a chokehold, its rubber head hitting the ceiling with a thud. And that's when he spots it.

The walkie-talkie duct-taped to its chest and still talking to him.

"Hey. Behind you,"

Billy whirls around to find one of the girls from the night before.

El.

"Hi,"

Billy chucks the dummy into the sauna floor, but before he can do anything else, the girl flicks her head with a grunt and he's sent flying into the tile wall. It shatters where his back makes contact and he cries out in pain, falling to the floor in a heap.

"Now!" Mike cries.

The lights return with a sharp click and across the room, the Party emerges from their hiding spot in the locker rooms.

Billy's already on his feet, blood pounding in his ears just from his furious screams as he storms after El. But El is faster. She rakes one clawed hand through the air with a grunt and the door swings shut with a loud bang, where the others got to work.

Y/n had stopped at El's side where she was mostly hidden, for once allowing her best friend to shield her from the man pounding and screaming against the glass like a rabid dog. The others had already secured a smaller metal pipe through the door handle and the pipes attached to the wall, encircling it all with the rope of chains Will had discovered.

"Come on! Come on!" Mike reflexively cried, with nothing more to do but help hold the door closed and watch as Billy atta ked inches from his face.

He could feel the door moving.

At last, the click of the lock reached their ears. "Got it!" Lucas cried.

The four of them scurry back to El's side, watching in horror as Billy descended into madness before their very eyes.

The lock and chains rattled, as did the pipe and with every flinch of the door, the edge in the air grew sharper. Y/n felt a hand squeeze her own and she knew it was Will, and she gave his hand a thankful squeeze. Nobody said anything as he roared in anger, and they all feared what might happen next but not a single one of them expected what did.

His face slowly fell, his screams dying out with it as his expression turned to gasp when he noticed a particular individual.

"Max,"

His voice was a whisper, barely a breath, as he looked upon the girl. Her expression was unreadable, but it didn't take a genius to know she was trying to be brave. He looked - and sounded - betrayed. One by one, her friends look to her, her ocean eyes dead ahead on her brother.

"Do it," she says.

Releasing Y/n's hand, Will runs forward to the controls, commencing the sauna test.

⊹ ⊹ ⊹

The trio, now quartet, stood packed together inside the locked room, peering over the same Imperial Panda box that was identical to the others piling the shelves. Steve handed Dustin's pocket knife back to the boy after splitting the tape. He pries the lid open, popping the remaining bit of tape, and unfolds the cardboard to reveal an unexpected sight.

The four of them peer in to get a better look at the single metal box with one indented handle in the very center. Steve sends them each a curious look before twisting the lid until he felt and heard the satisfying click and hiss of air releasing from the inside. Discarding the lid revealed to all four figures four similar handles inside corresponding cylinders; steam spilling out from all sides.

"That's definitely not Chinese food," Steve says finally.

He makes a grab for one of the cylinders but stops himself, motioning for the three.

"Uh, maybe you guys should, uh, you know stand back,"

Robin shrugs and complies, and Erica steps off the box of Kauffman Shoes she had been standing on but Dustin doesn't move. He just shakes his head defiantly.

"No,"

"Just step back, alright?" Steve says, eyeing the handle while trying to shoo the kid away.

"No,"

"Step back!"

-"no!"

-"seriously!"

-"No!" Dustin cries, growing upset. "If you die, I die,"

The room goes silent and everyone stares at Dustin as he gives Steve a challenging look. And after several moments of silence, Steve concedes.

"Okay," he finally shrugs.

Steve turns back to the handle and draws in an anxious, and unlikely-but-also-not-impossibly last breath, and unlocks the cylinder. Again, it hisses and more and more steam spills out but all eyes were on the glowing green substance in the cylinder Steve now held up.

"What the hell?" Steve gasps.

"What... is that?" Robin can't help but ask.

The billowing sound of grinding gears and squeaking pulleys rang in their ears and they all felt an invisible force sway them on their feet. They hadn't previously thought it possible, but their attention was stolen away from the mysterious glowing substance and towards the room.

"Is that just me or did the room move?" Dustin murmured.

"Booby traps," Erica croaked, for the first time sounding scared.

The room was filled with more and more clicks that only grew louder and Robin snapped into action.

"Okay, you know what? Let's just grab that and go," she says, snatching the cylinder from Steve's hands and begab securing it in Erica's backpack.

Dustin made a break for the panel, where Erica had shown him and wasted no time in pressing, "door open," but nothing happened. Just the empty clicks reaching his ears as he feverishly pressed the button over and over and tried not to panic.

"Which one do I press, Erica?"

"Just press the damn button, nerd,"

"Which one, I-" He gulps nervously, swiping at his sweating brow trying to maintain a level voice. "I'm pressing the button, okay?"

"Press 'open door'!"

"I'm pressing 'open door'!"

-"Just open the-- press the other button!" Steve cuts in, and all four of them begin shouting over one another as they spiral into a frenzy.

-"Guys, just get out of the way so she can press the button!"

"-would you stop?"

"-I'm trying!"

"-Would you let me just do it?! Would you just stop?!"

"Just open the door!"

Pulling a hail Mary, Steve hit every button he could see and a sudden jolt shook the room with the loudest clang they had heard so far. They all stilled; the room falling silent around them apart from the wailing of the gears.

A giant red barricade had unsheathed itself over the door, blocking their only exit and their stomachs dropped. Literally. The room itself was suddenly plunged at a sickening speed, knocking them into the walls and floors with terrified shrieks. As Steve gripped the shelf and the wall, trying to steady himself, his widened eyes fall on the upper wall - or lack thereof - where concrete walls and rows upon rows of lights were rushing past them all confirming to him the worst.

"Oh, shit,"

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

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