chapter xi .
watergate

                          THE FIRST THING SHE HEARD WAS HER OWN RAGGED BREATHING. Her lungs felt like they had been turned inside out and purged of any oxygen. She coughed, choking and rasping for breath. Her balance succumbed to the pain and she hit the ground—her back took the impact. She was sore and battered and broken, but she was pretty sure she was alive, if the four heads looking down on her were any indication.

She was bombarded with a tight embrace from something heavy that had lots of hair—which she quickly realized was Eddie, and it didn't take her long to return the embrace.

He was practically sobbing into her hair, holding every part of her as tight as he could. "God, Val, please don't ever leave again—"

"I'm here," she panted, gripping his arms and exhaling a heavy breath into his chest. "I–I'm still here, Eddie. I won't. I won't leave you."

     Somewhere off to the side, she registered someone who sounded a lot like her foster brother shouting in a very alarmed way and demanding for someone to tell him what the hell was going on. Val moved her head off Eddie's shoulder to see past him; behind Nancy was, in fact, Mason Anderson, holding a baseball bat and screaming for the rest of their attention. His neck was straining from all the shouting he was doing.

     Val swallowed, her brow furrowing—but she quickly relaxed it and winced at the pain it brought. She lifted a hand to her head and felt around for all the injuries she'd sustained from her father. The oddest part was: She was fine. Physically, at least. On the inside, all of her injuries and bruises ached and stung like they were still there, but when she stood frantically and checked herself in the mirror of her car, she was completely unharmed.

"Val, holy shit," Steve was saying as she lifted her shirt to check her gut for any signs of bleeding or bruising. She pretended to ignore the way Eddie swallowed and averted his gaze. "Are you okay?"

"I'm not worried about me right now," she croaked, dropping her shirt and storming over to Mason's distressed frame. She grabbed him by the front of his shirt and balled up the fabric in her fists—ignoring the shouts of alarm from everybody behind her. "What—the—hell—are you doing here?"

     Mason swallowed, panting from his intense shouting. "I came back to—to see if you were still here—"

"Why?" Val demanded furiously. "It's not safe!"

"Then why are you here?" Mason yelled, pushing himself away from her. He gestured at the rest of them with his baseball bat. "Y-you know these guys aren't the right type of people, Val—you know what that freak did to Chrissy—"

Val shoved his shoulders to get him to shut up. "Shut your goddamn mouth, Mason, I swear to God—"

"Mason, she's right," Nancy said, stepping forward to give Val a hand. "You need to leave."

"Wheeler?" Mason asked, his voice at the quietest it had been since he arrived. His eyes glanced around as he finally took a moment to notice who Val was with. His attention landed on Steve, and his eyes widened comically. "Holy shit; what the—"

"Mason!" Val shouted, demanding his attention. "Get the fuck out of here, right now!"

     "It's too late, Val," Steve pointed out. He approached Mason cautiously. "Look, we don't have time to explain everything that's going on right now; but if you go find Max, Henderson, Lucas—"

     "What, Sinclair?" Mason's face contorted. "This is what he ditched us for? He's with you?"

     "We can't fucking explain right now!" Val yelled. "They're on the south side of the lake. Go find them, tell them we sent you, and they can explain it all. If you want to be involved, this is the best way you can be. We have shit to do. Go, Mason!"

     He stared at Val for a moment, his jaw clenched and knuckles white from gripping the baseball bat. "Did you or did you not just almost die?"

     Val blinked rapidly, shaking her head, her chest heaving. "Not important right—"

     "Did you, or did you not?"

     She glared at him with as much rage as she could muster. "Maybe."

     Mason held her glare for a tense, silent moment before taking everybody by surprise and throwing himself at her in a hug. She stumbled back out of surprise. His arms were tight around her body, and after a moment, she returned the embrace, pretending not to be completely baffled.

     After he broke away from the hug, he told her, "Try to stay alive, Val."

     She swallowed, her chin quivering. "I will as long as you do."

     Mason nodded tightly. He gave all the rest of them one more look, then turned and began to head towards the south side of the lake, where Val had said the rest of them were. She watched him go for a moment, then turned around to face her friends.

"Okay," she said, drawing in a shaky breath. She nodded and began to march back towards where they'd docked the boat. "Let's kill this son of a bitch."

     The rest of them shared a wide-eyed glance behind her. Eddie started forward and took her by the arm, turning her back around to face them. He exhaled a light almost-laugh.

     "Woah, Val," he said, glancing back over his shoulder. "You still wanna do this? I mean, you don't have—"

     "I do," she said forcefully. "I do have to. Because now it's personal. Also—I've had to stare at Steve with no shirt on for much longer than I'd prefer to, and I don't want that to be in vain."

     Eddie's lips downturned in an agreeing frown. He nodded. "Yeah, okay, fair." He looked back at Nancy, Steve, and Robin. "Come on, guys, let's go back out."

LOVER'S LAKE WAS EVEN EERIER now that Val had almost died. The fog cascading over the surface of the lake seemed to lure her outwards, and if she listened closely, she could have almost sworn somebody was whispering her name.

Their boat rode in silence, afraid to speak both to Val or around Val in fear of her lashing out. They all knew she was clearly in some stage of grief. Nobody understood what she'd seen when she had been cursed, even through her exhausted recount before they got back into the boat. They all just listened to her with poorly-masked confusion in their faces. She knew they wouldn't understand, but she wanted someone to tell her she wasn't going crazy. Nobody could relate. Only one other person had been through it and lived to tell the tale. Some part of Val ached in a much deeper way than surface pain when she realized that Max had been through almost the same thing as she had.

"Here," Nancy said once they'd rowed out about a mile, breaking the silence. She lowered the compass and looked around at the rest of them. "It's here."

Robin looked to Steve, dropping her oar. "You still up for this?"

He nodded, standing up in his seat and shaking his hands out. "No complaints, right?"

     "Right," Robin said. "Stay safe down there."

     Steve pursed his lips in disappointed agreement. "I'll try." He peered over the edge of the boat, then nodded shortly. "Okay. Be right back."

     "Diver down," Val agreed. She gave him a nod of acknowledgment before he dived out of the boat and into the water with a splash that narrowly avoided the others.

     Nancy rushed to the side he'd jumped off of and clutched the boat, eyes darting around the dark water for any sign of him. Val searched as hard as she could as well, but nothing. It was pitch black down there. She lifted her gaze to the shore of the lake, straining her eyes to see if she could spot any sign of the others or if Mason had found them alright, but it was too dark and too far.

"I thought," Eddie began curiously, drawing Val's attention, "that, uh, you weren't... 'good' with Mason, to put it your way."

Val's jaw rolled in suppressed anxiety. "I'd thought so too. I'm sorry, guys; I had no idea he'd be here."

"Hey, it's alright," Robin said casually. "He seems chill. I'd thought he was kinda... jerk-y. Kinda surprised me that he's not."

"Yeah, you're telling me," Val muttered, lifting her thumb to her lips and chewing on her nail. She glanced to Eddie, some sort of deep, gut-wrenching anxiety eating away at her. Finally, she succumbed, and dropped her hand into her lap defeatedly. "Listen, Munson, I'm sorry for ditching you, and shit."

     He raised his eyebrows, looking to her in surprise. "What?"

     "How we were, like, best friends, y'know," she exhaled, running a hand through her hair. "I just kinda.. dropped you—our friendship—before high school. I'm sorry."

     Eddie managed a slight smile, shaking his head. "Nah, princess, you don't have to apologize. All that shit's over and done with. You just, like, died and came back to life, so I'm not too worried about the past right now, man. And besides, I won you over again, in the long run."

     Val scoffed a laugh, dropping her head and swallowing. "Yeah, whatever." She looked to Nancy, her cheeks warm, and stammered, "Uh, wh—where are we, Wheeler?"

"Closing in on a minute," she replied shortly.

"How long did he say he could hold his breath for?" Robin asked.

"He didn't."

"Yeah, okay," Robin murmured. "He should be back soon."

Suddenly the surface of the water broke and Steve burst out, frightening everybody and drawing a shout from Robin's lips. Steve was panting, his hair sticking to his face and bare chest glistening with water.

"I found it," he said, wiping his eyes. "It's down there."

Robin laughed, relieved. She lifted the walkie talkie to her mouth. "Dustin, you are a goddamn Einstein. Steve found the gate."

They waited a moment for Dustin's inevitable bragging, but none came. Val and Eddie shared a tense glance. Robin just swallowed and set down the walkie.

"He must've turned it off."

"Must have," Nancy agreed. "So, you found it?"

"I mean, yeah," Steve said, grabbing hold of the side of the boat to stabilize himself. "It's more of a snack-size gate than the mama gate, but still, it's pretty damn big."

Before anyone could reply, Steve let out a strangled yelp, and he was dragged back into the water. He popped back up a second later, looking momentarily confused, before being dragged down completely and not coming back up again. The rest of them shouted his name and leaned over the edge of the boat to look for him, but it was no use.

"What the hell was that, man?" Eddie screamed, clambering back into the boat. "Seriously, Wheeler, what—"

"Nancy, what are you doing?" Robin yelled, panicked, watching as Nancy stood up on the seat of the boat and leapt into the water. "No, Nancy, wait—"

"Goddamn it!" Eddie screamed.

Val watched Robin closely, anxious, then shook her head and began to yell for her to stop as she followed Nancy's action. Val and Eddie screamed, but Robin was gone, leaving the pair of them in the boat. They shared a look.

Val stood, ignoring the disbelieving look from Eddie. He began to yell, "No, Christ, not you, Val—" but she had already plugged her nose and pencil-dived into the water. It was a total shot in the dark, seeing as she had no idea what a gate looked like whatsoever, but it became pretty clear when her eyes landed on what looked to be a glowing red rip in the ground. She caught the tips of Robin's feet heading through the gate.

Fuck it, she thought, spreading her arms and forcing herself to sink down to squeeze through the gate. She'd already almost been Vecna's next vicim and still made it out alive. How bad could the Upside Down really be?

hi guys!!!
i hope you're all enjoying the story so far :)
i am so sorry to say this
but this will be the last update for a good two weeks.
i have a trip coming up and im not allowed
to have my phone or any electronics!
sorry to leave the story here for a small hiatus
but i promise i will update as much as
humanely possible when i get back
love you all so much, thank you for all your support <3