(Y/n) eyes flew open as he felt his knees buckle making him fall, he closed his eyes bracing for the impact that never came.

"Woah, woah, woah, calm down. I got you, I got you." It was Steve's voice, when (Y/n) opened his eyes Steve was holding him up with a look of concern a walkman was in his hand as well as a pair of headphones. "Hey, guys! He's alright! He's alright!" He kept repeating before looking back at (Y/n).

"Can you stand on your own?" He asked as (Y/n) nods. "I think so..." He says as Steve takes a step back letting (Y/n) stabilize himself, looking up at the gate he could see that everyone looked distressed especially Eddie who looked just about ready to cry.

"Come on, let's get you out of here," Steve says this time making sure that (Y/n) had gone first, once he stood up from the mattress Eddie ran over to him and pulled him into a tight hug. "You scared the crap out of me (N/n). I-I thought we were gonna lose you too." He says as he pulled away still holding on to (Y/n) shoulders as if he would disappear the moment he let go.

"Yeah sorry, I, uh I didn't mean to." He mutters making Eddie even more worried as he looked into (Y/n) eyes, they were dull and voided of any emotion besides fear. "Alright, come on, we're going to Max's place. You can, you can rest there and then tell us what happened, yeah?" Eddie asked, (Y/n) nods though it was barely visible, as Eddie wrapped an arm around (Y/n) waist and moved the other's arm onto his shoulder.

"Eddie, I can still walk." He says but Eddie shook his head and waited for Max to lead the way.

Considering that the Munsons and Max lived in the same area it didn't take them long to get there the sun was already out and the group all sat in Max's living room.

"Don't rush yourself but whenever you're ready you can tell us, alright?" Steve asked as the group stared at (Y/n) and Nancy. "Um, well, watched all of you go through the gate, and then when I went up instead of hitting the mattress I hit the floor. After the pain had passed I stood up and I realized I was back in my old room." (Y/n) explained biting on his lip as his leg began to bounce.

"Um, I had a cassette player there and it-it turned on blasting music. Then... Then I heard him... I-I heard..." (Y/n) paused staring off into space as he tried not to let any tears slip by. "You heard... dad. Didn't you?" Eddie asked having a small idea of what could have gotten him so frightened, (Y/n)'s nod was simply what confirmed it.

"Yeah, he was yelling and banging on the door. Then his voice changed it got... deeper asking me to let him in. When I refused the door opened and someone was standing there, I-I think it might have been Vecna but I'm not sure. He wanted me to join him, whatever that means." (Y/n) says stumbling over his words as the group looked at each other. "And then he let me go." (Y/n) finished, looking down at the ground trying to calm his racing nerves.

"He let you go?" Dustin asked only earning a nod. "Yeah, I am just as confused as you are bud. He said I'd come to him sooner or later. Whatever that means." (Y/n) adds as Steve looked over at him.

"I think it means that Vecna got tired of waiting, he can't get to Max so he's either trying to find help or he switched targets and is going after (Y/n). Here take this, Eddie already put the tape in it so just keep it close in case it happens again." Steve says handing (Y/n) the walkman before turning to Nancy. "What about you Nancy, did he try anything with you?"

"He showed me things that haven't happened yet. The most awful things." She starts pausing to collect her thoughts and recall the awful memories. "I saw a dark cloud spreading over Hawkins downtown on fire. Dead soldiers. And this... giant creature with... a gaping mouth. And this creature wasn't alone. There were so many monsters."

"An army. And they were coming to Hawkins. Into our neighborhoods. Our homes. And then... he showed me my mom and Holly, Mike. And they... They were all..." She recalls as tears formed in her eyes her voice began to quiver as she tried to keep going but when she could say the words she let them die in her mouth, quickly looking down at the ground, leaving the room silent. "Okay, but... he's just trying to scare you, Nance. Right? I mean... it's not real." Steve says trying to reassure her.

"Not yet. But there... there was something else. He showed me gates. Four gates, spreading across Hawkins, and these gates. They looked like the one outside of the Munson trailer, but... they didn't stop growing. And this wasn't the Upside-Down Hawkins, this was our Hawkins, out home." Nancy explains before the silence filled the room. "Four chimes. Vecna's clock, it always chimes four times. Four exactly" Max says taking the attention off of Nancy for just a second.

"I heard them too." She says as Max shakes her head. "He's been telling us his plan this whole time."

"Four kills. Four gates. End of the world." Lucas jumps in looking over at Max. "If that's true... he's only one kill away." Dustin realized as everyone let the words sink in, if they didn't do something soon it would end in disaster.

"Oh, Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ." Eddie says hiding his face in his hands, (Y/n) moved to wrap an arm around Eddie pulling him closer to him a frown on his face. "Try 'em again. Try 'em again." Steve says looking over at Max, who quickly made her way to the phone, she punched in the numbers and allowed it to ring. But there was no answer and so Max slams the phone back down to hang up.

"Anything?" Dustin asked but Max shook her head. "No. Rang a few times, then went to busy signal." She explained.

"Maybe you punched it in wrong. Try again." Steve insists while Max rolled her eyes at him. "I didn't punch it in wrong."

"Well, I don't know." Steve says shrugging his shoulders, the response clearly annoying Dustin. "Dude, I think she knows how to use a phone."

"I'm just saying, she could've typed it in wrong." Steve continued to insist making (Y/n) turn to him with a raised brow. "If you think that she punched it in wrong why don't you call them?" He asked making Steve look over at him, but Max had already gone up and tried again getting the same busy signal.

"Same shit." She says walking back to the group. "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 explains. "Yeah, but this phone's been busy for, what, three days now? That's not Joyce. No way, something's wrong." Max states, recalling that Joyce was one of the most reliable people they know.

"She's right, it can't be just coincidence. It can't be." Nancy adds as she stood up from her chair and looked out the window. "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 says looking back at them, immediately being greeted by a handful of negative responses.

"Whoa, no, no, no. What?" Steve says shaking his head while Eddie did the same. "No, no, let's think this through," Steve says standing up and heading over to Nancy.

"What is there to think through?" She asked not understanding why no one was seeing her point. "We barely made it out of there in one piece," Steve argued as he looked at her as if she had lost her mind.

"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 insists but it still didn't convince Steve. "Or he'll kill us. The only reason you and (Y/n) survived is because he wanted you guys too! He's not scared of us." Steve says gesturing to the group as a whole, which makes Robin stand up for her seat as well.

"And for good reason. We were wrong about Vecna. Henry. One. Sorry, what are we calling him now?" Robin asked looking over to the rest of the group for some guidance. "One. Vecna. Henry." The group all shouted different names which didn't help Robin as much as she had hoped.

"Right, we've learned something new about Vecna/Henry/One. He's a number like Eleven, only a sick, evil, male, child-murdering version of her with really bad skin." (Y/n) leaned over to Eddie and whispered, "Are we sure she's talking about Vecna, cause it sounds more like she's describing dad." Which managed to crack a small smile from Eddie as he shook his head focusing back on Robin.

"But 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 finished as everyone began to lose any hope they once had. "Then why fight fair?" Dustin asked making everyone look at him.

"You're right, he's like Eleven. But that gives us an upper hand, we know Eleven's strengths and weaknesses." Dustin points out making Erica curious. "Weakness?"

"When El remote-travels, she goes into this sort of trance-like state. I bet the same is true of Vecna." Dustin explains as Lucas began to catch onto what this all meant. "That would explain what he was doing in that attic."

"Exactly. When he attacks his next victim, I'll bet you he's back in that attic, physical body defenseless." Dustin adds, but there was one flaw in the problem which Steve pointed out. "Defenseless? What about the army of bats?" Steve asked pointing to his neck.

"True. We'll have to find a way past them. Distract them somehow." Dustin agreed but didn't offer up any solutions. "And, uh how do we do that, exactly?" Eddie asked about standing up.

"No idea, but once they're gone, he doesn't stand a chance. It'll be like slaying sleeping Dracula in his coffin." Dustin answered making Eddie sit back down in defeat.

"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 argues bringing them back to square one. "Yeah, we do, I can still feel him. I'm still marked... Cursed, I ditch Kate Bush, I draw his focus back to me." Max suggests through the group didn't seem all too happy with that plan.

"Max. You can't. He'll kill you." Lucas reminds her but Max stayed persistent. "I survived before. I can survive again." She claims, taking a small break to collect her thoughts.

"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, stab him in the heart, blow him up with some explosive Dustin cooks up. I honestly don't care how you put this asshole in his grave. Just... whatever it is... whatever you do... try not to miss." She says as a deadly silence sinks into the room, some eyes stared at the floor while others stared off into space, today everyone was sacrificing something and for most of them it would be their lives. "Well if we are really gonna do this we can't go in with just any weapons." (Y/n) says standing up as he looked around Max's living room. "You guys have the Yellow Pages?" (Y/n) asked turning around to look at Max who nods pointing to a nearby shelf.

"Perfect, check this out, The War Zone. I've been there a couple of times, Eddie even came with me once, it's massive." (Y/n) says taking a break to make sure that everyone was still with him. "They got everything you need for killing things."

"You think fake Rambo has enough guns there?" Robin asked making (Y/n) look up at her with a nod. "Is that a grenade? I mean, how is any of this legal?" She continued pointing to the advertisement clearly concerned about where they were going to go.

"Well, lucky for us it is, so... This... This place is just far enough outside of Hawkins. As long as we steer clear of the main roads, we oughta be able to avoid cops and, uh, angry hicks." Eddie jumps in finishing off his brother's explanation. "If we're trying to avoid angry hicks, maybe we shouldn't go to some store called the War Zone," Erica says looking at the boys as if they were out of their minds, which they probably were with the type of week they had been having.

"Normally, I'd agree, but we need the weapons. So I think it's worth the risk." Nancy says as the others agree with her. "But is it worth the time? It'll take all day to bike there and back." Dustin adds realizing how long the journey would be.

"Who said anything about bikes?" Eddie asked looking over at Dustin. "What you got some sort of car we don't know about?" Steve questioned as he looked over at the brothers, who in turn looked at each other before facing Steve.

"It's not exactly a car, Steve. And it's not exactly ours, but, uh... I think it'll do." (Y/n) says as Eddie nods smiling up at Steve. "Hey, Red, uhm you got a ski mask or a bandanna, something like that?" Eddie asked turning to face Max, which pulled her out of her own thoughts.

"I do, but It's only one and there's two of yous," Max says walking over to her room and coming out with the Micheal Myers mask she had used on her first Halloween at Hawkin. "Shit, she's right," Dustin says looking between the two of them as Eddie took the mask in his hand.

"That's not a problem, just get me a cap, a pair of sunglasses, and Eddie give me your bandana." (Y/n) says, Max nods and runs off to go find anything that would fit while Eddie looked over at his brother confused. "Why mines? Don't you have one?" Eddie asked as (Y/n) shook his head pulling the orange bandana out of his right pocket.

"I don't know maybe because orange is bright as fuck and I'll already be drawing attention to myself with both your disguise and mine." (Y/n) explains as Eddie rolls his eyes pulling out his and handing it over. "Thank you." (Y/n) says just as Max walked over with a cap and sunglasses.

"These were my step-dads... He sort of left them here so I guess he doesn't really miss them." Max explains handing them over. "Yeah, that'll do. Thanks kid." (Y/n) says as he put on the cap and glasses, then wrapped the bandana around him so that it rested on the bridge of his nose and covered the bottom half of his face.

"Whenever you're ready." (Y/n) says to Eddie who nods slipping on the mask and making his way to the exit.

The group sneak around using the other houses as cover before they made it to another trailer, Eddie went ahead and looked around the side for a window before opening it and then lifting himself up to get inside.

"That was suffocating," Eddie says as he takes off the mask moving to the driver's seat while the others made their way through the same entrance. (Y/n) rushed to the front as well and locked the door, the kids got comfortable while the rest stood at the front watching Eddie hotwire the car.

"where'd you learn how to do that?" Steve asked before noticing the frown on (Y/n)'s face. "Well, when the other dads were teaching their kids how to fish or play ball, our old man was teaching us how to hot-wire," Eddie explains his eyes remained focused on the set of wires in front of him.

"Well, that is if he wasn't too drunk to remember his own name." (Y/n) mutters. "Now, we swore that we wouldn't end up like he did, but now we're wanted for murder and soon grand theft auto. So, uh, we're really living up to the Munson name." Eddie says as (Y/n) shook his head.

"Oh god no, don't ever say that again." (Y/n) frowned crossing his arms over his chest as he stared out the window just as Robin came closer. "Uh, Eddie, I'm not sure I love the idea of you driving." She says but is quickly shot down by Eddie.

"Oh, I'm just starting this sucker. Harrington's got her. Don't ya, big boy?" Eddie asked leaning closer into Steve's space who looked pretty confused, the sight made (Y/n) crack a small smile as he shook his head. After connecting the two wires the engine roared to life and Steve quickly switched out with Eddie as the owners of the car ran up banging on the door.

"Shit, they look pissed," Dustin says looking out the back window as the owners were still trying to chase them down. "I mean it's not every day you lose your house and car in one fell swoop." Robin reasoned as Steve picked up the speed.

"Hold on! Hold on!" Steve yells as he takes a sharp turn onto the road finally managing to lose the people that were chasing them.

The ride to the War Zone was quiet at the start considering everyone was still calming down from the massive of almost getting caught, eventually, everyone broke out into their own little groups. Nancy sat in the front with Steve, Max sat with Lucas, Robin with Dustin, and (Y/n) with Eddie.

(Y/n) stared out the window in silence watching as the trees rushed past them turning them into green blobs. He had his finger in his mouth chewing on the nail in hopes of calming his nerves.

"So, um, he took you back home?" Eddie asked pulling his brother out of his thoughts his head whipping around to look at him. "Vecna I mean, you said you heard Dad's voice."

"Um, yeah, I mean you heard what the kids told us. He pretty much feeds on the negative, uses it to his advantage or something like that." (Y/n) says with a weak smile. "Mhm, so what did he say to you? I've never seen you that worked up... Even when we were living with him, it scared me." Eddie admits watching as (Y/n)'s eyes darted across the trailer looking at everything but him.

"Um, I don't... I don't wanna talk about it Eds, it doesn't really matter." (Y/n) says praying that Eddie would just drop the subject. "But it does matter, it's clearly bothering you and I've never seen you so out of it before. It's eating you up (N/n), I-I just wanna help." Eddie says staring at (Y/n) as if that would make the other look back at him.

"Well you can help by dropping it Eds, this is something that I have to deal with on my own. You don't need to burden yourself with it." Eddie shook his head as he leaned forward and grabbed (Y/n) shoulders finally making the other look at him. "It's not a burden if we went through the same thing (Y/n), we lived in the same house and saw the same shit, I will understand you (Y/n)."

"I'm not some little kid that you need to keep protecting, I love having you here but I'm 20 it's not your job to take care of me anymore. I mean you spent every year since you were 14 caring for me, you ditched your friends and your dreams just to look out for me." Eddie lets go of (Y/n) shoulders as both of their eyes glaze over with tears, it had been a while since either of them had any time to process the crazy week they had and all that plus their childhood came tumbling down onto them.

"You deserve to be free of this, you deserve to go out and actually live for yourself, so please just tell me about it," Eddie begged as (Y/n) wiped his eyes hoping that the tears would eventually stop as he began to recall his run-in with Vecna. "I'll tell you later, once this whole thing is through, okay? Anything you wanna know, I'll tell you about it." (Y/n) says, Eddie hesitated but nods his head leaning back into his seat as (Y/n) goes back to staring out the window.

The rest of the ride was pretty silent as they grew closer to The War Zone, when they arrived Nancy went inside and took Steve, Max, Erica, and Robin with her leaving the rest of them in the van. (Y/n) let out a sigh as he looked up at the ceiling wishing that something would ease their boredom, but just as quickly (Y/n) looked back down at his jacket and unzippered one of the pockets pulling out the paper he had shoved in there earlier. Unfolding it he let out a groan as the paper practically fell apart in his hands.

"Stupid lake." He mutters to himself as he looked at the pieces of smudged handwriting. "Now I have to rewrite this." He adds taking a quick glance at Eddie, Dustin, and Lucas who were all talking and goofing off not paying much mind to (Y/n).

'Hopefully, I'll have time before we go in.' He thought putting the scraps back into his pocket. After a few more minutes the group began to get impatient, Eddie sat in one of the seats bouncing his leg while tapping on the seat, Lucas was a bit more patient and was sitting down with (Y/n), and Dustin was up out of his seat pacing around and looking at his watch. "What the hell is taking so long?" He asked just as the door had swung open the rest of the group came rushing in with bags of supplies.

"What happened?" Lucas asked turning around to face them. "We gotta go," Steve says throwing the bag down and getting into the driver's seat.

"Your old friends are here," Erica says looking at the brothers before taking her seat, Nancy was the last to enter and once everyone was seated Steve started the car and made his way out of the parking lot.

The crew drove into an empty field and Steve parked the car and everyone piled out to start preparing the weapons. (Y/n) was with Eddie and Dustin who were making shields out of garbage lids and nails. Eddie had just finished putting the last nail's onto his shield as he stood up.

"How's she feeling?" Dustin asked as Eddie thrust his arm into the air as if he was protecting himself from an oncoming attack. "Light. But durable. Deadly. But reliable." Eddie says earning a chuckle from both Dustin and his brother.

"Hear me now. There will be no more retreating... from Eddie the Banished." Eddie says pointing at the sky, the first half of the sentence was done in a deep voice while in the other half, he used his normal voice. "Hey, you're really ready for bat-tle." Dustin jokes as he stood up with his own shield.

"You get it?" He asked but Eddie stood still and kept staring at him. "Bat-tle. B-A-T. No? I thought I had a good one." Dustin says placing his shield down at the same time as Eddie, though what he didn't expect was for Eddie to tackle him. (Y/n) watched with a smile on his face as he watched the boys play around, letting out a small sigh he looked down at the ground before standing back up and walking into the trailer, making sure to take a quick glance at his brother before making his way inside.

(Y/n) began looking around in the cabinets and managed to find a notepad, pencils, and a small box of envelopes, quickly he grabbed them and took a seat at the table. The first letter to write was easy, it was just a simple confession note where he took the blame for killing Chrissy, the next one was a letter that explained how they would spin the story to make sure that he was the one to be found guilty without any doubt, the last one was the hardest.

It was a letter to Eddie, he knew that this mission was pretty much suicide, and whether they made it out alive and (Y/n) took the blame or (Y/n) ended up dying, he knew that Eddie would blame himself and he wanted to try and ease some of that guilt. But it's hard to write a letter that could be used both in case he did die or in case he got arrested but he tried his best.

After a couple of minutes, he finished the letter and sealed it in the envelope making sure to write Eddie's name on it. Just as he sealed the envelope Steve walked in.

"Hey, what are you doing cooped up in here, you know the world might be ending soon. Don't you wanna spend these moments with Eddie?" He asked walking over to the table and taking a seat on the opposite side. "Yeah, I was just about to do that, I just had to get some stuff done." (Y/n) replies with a smile as he collected the notes.

"Oh yeah, doing what?" Steve asked curious at the notes that were in his hand, he could even see Eddie's name on the envelope. "Just writing some stuff down nothing big." (Y/n) says the two fell silent for a bit before Steve stood up.

"Alright then, I'll, um leave you to it then," Steve says turning around not sure how to keep up the conversation. "Steve, wait." (Y/n) calls out making Steve turn back around as (Y/n) stood up.

"I, um, I need to ask you a favor... Could you please keep these safe, I would give them to Eddie but I know he'd look at them right away and then rip them up and throw it straight at my face." (Y/n) explains holding out the papers to Steve. "Um, yeah, sure but don't you think that's a bit extreme? I mean what could you have possibly written down?"

"A confession note, whether I live or die I'm gonna take the blame, I know something like this won't be easy to cover up so if it is necessary I'll turn myself in. You can read the first two but the last one is for Eddie, obviously." (Y/n) explains as Steve nods his head.

"You really care for him don't you?" Steve asked. "Yeah, I mean, I guess we show it more than other siblings but Eddie and Wayne are all I got in this life and I don't plan on letting this affect either of them. Eddie was right I gave up most of my life taking care of him but if it means that Eddie never has to experience what we did when we were little and he gets to have a decent future then I'd give up all of my life if I had to." (Y/n) says as Steve shook his head looking down at the notes before looking up at (Y/n).

"You're a good brother but I think Eddie does have a point, when this is all over you should try living for yourself for once. Trust me it's not as bad as it sounds, especially when you find the right kind of people." Steve looked out the window watching all the kids plus Eddie running around and Nancy talking to Robin. "Yeah, I'll definitely have to try it out." (Y/n) nods as he also turns to look out the window.