╭ ╮
━━━━  " 📂 "

𝙋 𝘼 𝙍 𝘼 𝘿 𝙄 𝙎 𝙀

╰ ╯

THEY HAD NO TIME TO WASTE, and soon enough they were out of the car and collecting their supplies, pulling goggles over their eyes and securing bandanas over their lips and nose. Steve had managed to stumble out of the car with a groan and clutched the door of the Camaro to lean against as he tried to figure out what the hell they were doing - he was certainly more awake and aware than he had been, and he held himself up, head pounding.

"Guys." He murmured, although it went unnoticed as they collected up the rest of the supplies they had brought from the trunk. "Oh, no.... guys." Steve continued with a little less willpower than he intended. That all changed when he saw Mike walk past with the gasoline Dustin had been holding and a coil of rope. "Hey, where do you think you're going? What bare you, deaf? Hello?"

Mike diligently ignored him, working quickly to attach the rope to the front of Billy's care. Sadie began to check everyone's bandanas and tighten them when needed, her own pulled down around her neck and her goggles dragging blonde hair back out of her eyes.

"We are not going down there right now!" Steve was shouting, his voice loud in the quiet of the field but easy to forget about as they put their hastily made plans into action. It was fair to say, as much as it had terrified Sadie considering the amount of damage that had been done to knock Steve out, him being unconscious as they made their way to the tunnels had been a blessing. "I made myself clear! Hey - there's no chance we're going into that hole, alright? This ends right now!"

"Steve, you're upset, I get it." Dustin, the voice of reason in the madness (because Sadie was fussing over how Mike was tying the rope and putting new batteries in flashlights), spoke up. "But the bottom line is, a party member requires assistance, and it is our duty to provide that assistance." He told the older boy. "I know you promised a whole lot of people that you would keep us safe. So keep us safe. Sadie, you got everything?"

"Mhm." She stood up from where she was crouching next to Mike and Lucas, striding over to Steve. "Listen, Harrington, what are you gonna do, let them go down alone? Because we're here now and... bend down."

"What?"

"Lower yourself a bit." Sadie continued, pushing down his shoulders. He did as she asked and stayed still as she secured a bandana around his head, exceedingly careful of his wounds. "I agree with the whole party metaphor-rule-law Dustin mentioned. El requires assistance, which as a given means that Will is saved. As a party, they have an obligation to provide that assistance and besides, they have me so even if they had left you behind they would've had me."

"And you know what you're doing?" Sadie still looked a little blurry to Steve, even when she was standing in such close proximity and making a point of very carefully sliding goggles over his hair. "Hey - careful of the hair."

"We have more to worry about right now." Sadie hummed and watched as his hand of bloodied knuckles and shaking fingers reached for his heart. "Fuck off. Fine, your hair looks fine. And yes, I know what I'm doing, you don't trust me?"

"Of course I trust you, idiot, I trust you more than... well most people at the moment but that's a given." He shut himself up before he started blabbing and Sadie grinned.

"Good. Here's your bat." She turned to the trunk of the car and pulled out a backpack, which had the spiked end of the now familiar baseball bat poking out. She extracted that with great care, handing it over to its owner before  the bag was slung towards Dustin. "We just have to cover our eyes and mouths and follow the drawings and we'll be out in no time. You can walk?"

"Yeah, 'm good." Steve agreed, following behind her as they approached the hole in the ground. He turned to face the rest after peering down it. "Okay, if we're doing this then you're gonna have to fricken listen to me, okay? I'm going down first, Sadie you go last."

He watched as she nodded without question before turning to the rope that Mike had thrown down there moments before. Steve disappeared down the hole with the bat raised and Sadie watched as the kids followed before she herself went down.

And, well, it was safe to say that she wanted to spend a lot more time in the tunnels. It was amazing, well and truly amazing. Because they weren't just tunnels, really, they were a part of one gigantic species that was attempting to infiltrate their world, and the entirety of the system seemed to be alive. The vines that covered the walls seemed as though they were pulsating with the energy of the entire Upside Down through it, like snakes awaiting an attack.

A couple of feet away, Mike was shining a flashlight over his sketch of the map Will had created during the beginning of his possession. "Yeah." He nodded. "I'm pretty sure it's this way."

"You're pretty sure, or you're certain?" Dustin asked.

"I'm 100% sure. Just follow me and you'll know." Mike replied before beginning to follow his own directions.

"Woah, whoa, whoa," Steve called out. "Hey, hey, hey, hey. I don't think so. Any of you little shits die down here I'm getting the blame. Got it, dipshit?" He flashed his torch back towards the others. "From here on out, I'm leading the way. Come on, let's go." There wasn't much of a protest as the others followed. "That means you, Sadie - and before you try it, do not touch the stupid vines."

Sadie's hand drew back. "Yeah." She tried to avert her focus to following the group. "Yeah, I got it." She agreed, although her gaze was still on the side of the tunnel before Dustin pulled her away.

And with that, they set off without much hesitation, travelling through the various tunnels and making sure to point out any potential dangers that could cause harm - root-like features and particularly adventurous vines that weren't attached to the walls like ivy. Steve often shouted back for them to hurry up, with added comments that catered to the curiosity that would sprout every so often in a certain blonde as she headed up the back of the group.

It was, unsurprisingly, a long journey. Particularly because Mike seemed to hold a certain disliking to Steve after he had seen him climb through his sister's bedroom window way too many times before and a certain inability to trust him implicitly given that he hadn't quite experienced what Dustin know knew to be true - rumours that Steve Harrington had gone soft (which was an exaggeration; he had just become way more likeable to people outside of the hierarchy of Hawkins High and much less of a dickhead) and every time Steve asked for directions because he was holding the map there seemed to be some sort of objection to his tone as Mike replied.

However, it didn't stop them and they continued on, through tunnel after tunnel, each of which looked exactly the same as the previous no matter how many corners they took or bends they skirted around. Sometimes they come to junctions and Mike's conviction wavers until Steve says something and he pushes on. So far, it seemed to be a solid system.

They managed to make it to another junction, except this one doesn't have two or three choices in directions but too many to count, feet squelching beneath them and Sadie wandering on ahead with her torch pointed directly down, no longer too bothered to ensure that Max and Lucas kept going - they were always in line anyway.

Their attention was drawn to the ceiling momentarily, where the vibes seemed to come together like the head of a flower, but pulsating like the beat that ran through its stems. "Woah." Lucas breathed out.

"What is this place?" Max asked, her question more rhetorical than anything because they didn't know. Sadie, who had rather an active mind and like to put things together like patterns, felt as though it was some type of organ. She knew that the tunnels were a part of the Upside Down's body, but separately, it was also like its own system; they were looking for the hub, the central integral part of the system - like the brain or the heart. The tunnels were like veins, which connected everything together and every junction that didn't seem to just be capillaries was an organ.

And this was the perfect example of that. She didn't bother to stop and explain it - nobody would be interested in that then - and that was confirmed by the sound of Steve's voice coaxing them to continue onwards once again and she found herself wondering if there might come a time when he would be interested to hear it.

And then there's a scream and her theory doesn't matter because she knows it's Dustin and she turns back, flashlight beam pointing at her brother as he shrieks and splutters because the organ-thing she labelled suddenly opened up and ejected a whole load more of the spores that are floating around them and some got in his mouth.

    Dustin splutters some more, bandana pulled down and spitting something out onto the ground next to him, coughing and choking and.. falling silent. He meekly turned to look up at them. "I'm okay." He admits sagely.

"Dickhead." Sadie nudged his shoulder.

"You serious?" Besides her, Max is shaking his head and on the otherwise, Steve is hauling Dustin to his feet using the straps of his backpack.

"Very funny, man." He says. "Nice, very nice."

"Jesus, what an idiot." Max continued, seemingly to become more worried about Sadie's undying interest in the slightly dangerous things because this time it's her grabbing Sadie's arm and pulling her away from staring up at the culmination of vines.

Dustin's momentary overreaction was the least of their worries on the journey there and eventually, they made their way through another tunnel before coming to a stop.

"Alright, Wheeler." Steve pointed his flashlight up to the ceiling. "I think we found your hub."

It was by far the largest cavity they had found in the tunnels, a circular room with tunnels spouting off with barely a couple feet of gummy Upside-Down wall between them. In the centre seemed to be some kind of object that protruded up from the ground, and had they not begun instantly soaking it in gasoline with the intention of lighting it on fire and getting out there as quickly as possible, Sadie would have been more interested.

But they sprayed the gas up over the walls, the cans used to draw gleaming trails over the ground as they stepped carefully around the hub that Mike had located, drenching it entirely in gasoline. As fascinating as it was, there was the innate feeling of hatred that one could only direct to an inanimate object that had severally offended you burning in Sadie's stomach. She wanted to burn the entire thing to the ground.

And perhaps study the remains after, but that was far from the point. She pretends that she doesn't see Steve staring when Lucas apologises for getting the ends of her jeans and she's smiling because it's fine because it's dark and nobody can really see properly when they're holding a flashlight between their teeth and carrying a large can in their hands.

✧

When they've finished the job they stand back and look at it like they can actually see the progress they've made. They can't, really, not unless the light from their torches hit the ground a certain way and the telltale slither of reflection that showed that it was a little wet. Other than that, and the smell of gasoline that is so pungent it's invaded their bandanas and clothes and Max said something about never-going-to-be-able-to-smell-anything-else-again because it was burnt into their olfactory neurones.

They could only guess that they had done a good job - and it really did smell like it - and once they were done there began a certain adrenaline thumping through Sadie's body as they gathered at the entrance to the tunnel they had come through to get there, all crowded around Steve as he held up the lighter he had graciously donated to the cause.

"Okay, you guys ready?" Steve asked, thumb on the metal.

"Ready." Came the chorus of replies.

Dustin nodded. "Light her up." He ordered.

Steve flicked the top off of the lighter. "I am in such deep shit." He breathed out, as his thumb pressed down and the flame ignited and he threw it into the hub. The effect was instant, a blaze of orange illuminating their faces that froze them momentarily and they lurched backwards away from the burn.

The vines seemed to rise up in a panic, flailing around as they burnt. It would spread quickly, most likely because Sadie had noticed that the surrounding areas were a little dry in comparison to the hole that they had dropped through, and they had to move quickly.

That time they all followed Steve without question, movements hurried and racing away from the heat that clothed them in a sense of calmness for a moment, before they realised what it was and what it could do to them if they waited a moment more.

Travelling back through the cave seemed to be easier as they made their way back, a never-ending flow of curses faking from their lips as they raced away, tripping over roots and grabbing onto each other to steady themselves. They had caused a distraction. They had provided assistance, and now they needed to get out.

There was no doubt in Sadie's mind that there would be problems on the way back; they were racing against Eleven and Hopper, who had no idea they were under there and could only hope they had managed to get the timings right because they had to get to the lab and all the way through it to the gate. Then there were the Demodogs, who would come running as soon as the mother called them back in the face of danger. And there was the potential that the Upside Down was particularly flammable and they were running away from a blaze that could cut them down in seconds.

"This way!" Steve directed, hand clutched around the map before the sound of thudding could be heard behind them and he paused.

"Help! Help!" Mike shouted and they all wheeled around. He had tripped, and now the vines were wrapping around his legs and tightening.

"Shit," Sadie swore, falling to her knees beside him and tugging at the vines, trying to loosen them anyway how. The others joined her, and Steve used the bat and flashlight to locate the ends not currently connected to Mike's legs to hit at them.

Dustin and Lucas pulled him away and Sadie fell back, not needed. Except suddenly, she couldn't really focus on helping Mike anymore because there was a stinging in her knee that was gradually getting stronger. Mike was freed and pulled to his feet as she sank back to sit on the ground which was rocky and hard beneath her.

"Okay - let's go, let's go." Steve pulled his bat back, turning back to the tunnel in front of them. Sadie didn't move. She didn't think she could, her eyes on the tear in her jeans.

"Steve." Her voice wasn't loud enough to cause panic. It was calm, oddly enough. The group didn't seem to notice the urgency. "...Steve."

"Sadie?" He turned back when he heard his name again. A frown could be seen beneath the goggles. "Sadie - where are you?"

"Ouch - down here, dipshits." She hissed.

Several flashlights blinded her all at once. "What are you - okay, holy fuck that is in your knee." Steve breathed out, staring as the entire group saw what had left Sadie unmoving.

He was right; there was a vine that had twisted around her leg and the bud that puckered at the end of it was... attached to her knee. It was in her knee. Holy shit, there was something in her knee. It was in her knee. In her knee. In her knee-

"Not helping, Steve." The sarcasm was mandatory, a way out of showing the pain. It failed miserably, a slew of not-so-friendly language following. Steve was staring. He was, unknowingly, beginning to feel exactly how she had felt as she watched Billy beat him up.

Dustin, however, was in the opposite of the placid, silent state Steve had been shocked into. His hands raised above his head, freaked. "How are you - how can she - we need to get it out of her!" He swore. "Right now! Steve, what do we do?"

The Harrington seemed to spring to life, similar in his panic. "I don't know... I - I.. pull it out, I guess? It can't have gone far in." He spluttered, eyes wide.

"That's going to be infected." Max babbled, suddenly aware that there wasn't much she could do. "It needs to all come out - grazes are dangerous." She had had her fair share, and there was something in her that told her that no amount of cuts she would ever experience could equate.

"It's going to be fine." Sadie hissed, teeth gritted. "I can clean it up when we get out of these - ouch - goddamn tunnels."

"Okay, don't make her talk." Dustin crouched down, trying to seize the vine with his gloved hands and pulling.

"No." Steve shook his head and sat next to him. "No, we do - we need to keep her talking." His eyes flickered over to her, right when her head lulled to rest on her shoulders and her eyes squeezed closed. "Sadie.. tell me a fact. about anything - the moon, what else do you know about the moon, or... or... planets. you said about planets."

"When did you talk to my sister about the moon?" Dustin's voice was high-pitched and squeaky with terror, tugging haphazardly on the vine.

"Stuff about axel prediction." Steve, despite the fact he was currently trying to pull something out of Sadie's leg, managed to keep his tone even.

"It's axial precession, dumbass." Sadie corrected. "But.. ow.. planets.. um.. the Transit of Venus. When the Sun - ow, fucking shit this stupid fucking plant - when Venus passes over the Sun.. typically happens every 243 years.." She interrupted herself with a loud gasp. "With pairs of transits eight years apart separated by long gaps of.... 121.5 years and 105.5 years... It's amongst the rarest of predictable astronomical phenomena... Steve." She choked out, eyes beading with tears.

"Move." Steve pushed Dustin away because the panic in his eyes was far worse; he couldn't help Sadie even if he tried. He scanned the crowd. "Lucas, Mike. Max, hold her up." He instructed, not knowing how or why he knew what to do or if it was going to work but Jesus he had to do something because he couldn't let Sadie die in the tunnels and he couldn't let Dustin end up without his sister.

Lucas and Mike replaced Dustin in pulling at the vines and Steve stood, the bat swinging upwards then coming down with a thud. "And when did it happen last?" He asked, wrenching it out of the ground and repeating his actions, feeling a sense of relief as the vines twitched and chittered at his ambush.

"The last cycle of eight years was in... ow..." Sadie paused as Mike gave another tug. Max held her shoulders a little tighter, nails digging into the skin - something to distract her. "1874 to.. 1882."

"And the next one - Lucas, we've gotta pull it out." He added in a whisper.

"Just hurry up." Sadie managed to hiss out, although she was feeling a little more faint and a little less like she was going to emerge from this with her leg. "The next one is in like.. so we're in 1984.. which is 110 years after the beginning of the last one.. which would make it in.. twenty years. 2004."

"And that one will end in?"

"Oh my god, she can tell you about the Transit of Venus when you get it out of her leg!" Dustin exclaimed his interruption, pacing back and forth beside her as if he knew if he tried to help it would only make it worse.

"We're almost there Dusty-buns," Steve said, bringing the bat down in another hit. Mike and Lucas could confirm it; the vine seemed to be loosening its grip. "Seriously, shut up, we need to focus."

"The gates closing any minute now!" It was evident that Dustin's panic was contagious as the fact spilt from Mike's lips as he pulled even harder.

"Just let Sadie tell me one or two more facts about the stupid Transit of Venus."

"Actually, it's not stupid..." Sadie said, brown furrowed as though he had insulted her. "It is, historically, of great scientific importance as they were used to gain the first realistic estimates of the size of the solar system.. in 1639 - OW!"

They had managed to pull it out with a sickening squeal hint and Steve managed to hit it with the bat one last time for good measure as it retreated.

"Okay, okay, Henderson, you're gonna hold on to my shoulder okay? Me and Max are gonna get you up." Steve's voice was a blur through the pain and Sadie only nodded, her energy spent as she was helped to her feet. "No, no, no, don't put weight on it - there's a good girl. We got you." He reassured her. "Wheeler, get the map."

"Okay." Mike breathed out, gaze turned down to the slip of paper. "We keep going this way." He pointed and they turned, Max and Steve helping Sadie on the way.

But there wasn't even time for them to take a step before one of Sadie's prophesied problems came to light. There was a Demodog, stood several feet from them and once again they froze, unable to do anything.

"Steve," Max whispered as they paused. "Steve, she's bleeding." She added, a flashlight turned downwards. "A lot."

"Yeah, yeah, I can see." Steve could feel a bubble of panic growing in his chest. "Shit - uh." His eyes went back to the Demodog, which only seemed to chitter and growl at them, not coming any closer. Something akin to recognition flashed in Dustin's eyes.

"Dart?" He called out. The creature chittered; whether it was recognition or retracting none of them quite knew, but when Dustin stepped forward from the group without question, they all simultaneously began heckling him to come back. "Shut up!" Dustin called back through their panic. "Shhh. Just trust me, please?"

There was a certain numbness that was coursing through Sadie's leg, the pain still very much there but being diligently ignored for the sake of ensuring her brother didn't end up maimed by his once-pet.

"Hey." Dustin pulled down his bandana. "It's me, it's me. It's just your friend, it's Dustin." His goggles were pulled up as well, pushing his hat back to the point it almost fell off. Steve managed to reach forward and catch it, balancing it over Sadie's head and watching as a dozy smile covered her features. Dustin began to kneel a foot or so in front of Dart, continuing his reassurances.

"You remember me?" He said, listening to the guttural sounds that came from the creature. "Will you let us pass?" Dustin asked, hardly even flinching when the tulip-like head of the Demodog opened up and snarled. Instead, he just nodded contemplatively. "Okay, okay, I'm sorry. I'm sorry about the storm cellar." He smiled, unwarranted affection gleaming through. "That was a pretty douchey thing to do."

Dart continued to make noises however these seemed way more content than before and Dustin reached for his backpack without removing his gaze. "You hungry? Yeah?" He asked, managing to pull the back forward and unzip it. "I've got our favourite. See? Nougat."

"Oh good," Sadie said, rather breathless. "His namesake."

But even her sarcasm couldn't deter Dart, who chittered happily as Dustin unwrapped the candy and held it out, the creature approaching him. "Look at that. Yummy. Here, all right?" He placed it on the floor in front of him instead of putting his hand anywhere near his mouth. "Eat up, buddy. Come on. Come on." He waved his spare hand behind him to encourage the others to pass as the Demodog was distracted, fishing out another chocolate bar as they did so.

Steve and Max managed to get Sadie past without too much problem, her eyes on Dustin and his once-pet as they did so. "There's plenty." Dustin promised. "I've got more." He discarded one other bar in front of him before straightening up, pulling his goggles back over his eyes with a sigh. " Goodbye, buddy."

"Come on, man," Steve said, nodding towards the tunnel they were supposed to head through so that they could leave - the one that Dart had been effectively blocking moments before his candy bar distraction played through. "You're stressing out your sister."

"Steve!" Max hissed. "The blood!"

"Right - shit - yeah. Let's just move past away from the Demodog... and then we can sort out the blood." Steve continued on, Max and Lucas helping him to get her forward a little quicker, despite the constant comments that she would be able to hobble along from the Henderson.

"God, this is not the time to remember the whole blood thing," Sadie muttered, head resting on her arm as it lolled over Steve's shoulder, her hand making a fist around the material of his jacket to hold onto. Steve looked rather concerned; she hadn't particularly said much since her explanation of the Transit of Venus, and he suspected that it had taken quite a lot out of her to even go ahead with that. "You know..." She continued, "how the Demogorgon was summoned. It liked blood... a predator... olfactory bulbs."

Max stared at her, whilst Steve decided to ignore the clearly exhausted and delusional Sadie who most definitely would not say the sort of thing to freak him out like that. Instead, he ducked down and lifted the injured leg so that her foot was resting on his shoulder, and in the half-light of the flashlights around them he tugged off his bandana.

"You don't have to do that." Sadie complained as she watched, Mike having been pushed into the equation by Lucas to take his place. Max was saying something about the whole lot of them being wimps.

"No, I do." Steve insisted, folding the bandana into a long rectangle and placing it over the slowly congealing wound on her leg. He tried to not let it gross him out as much as it would anywhere else; he hadn't been very good with mass amounts of blood since finding out what had happened in his pool, and the lightheaded feeling he had from being punched over and over was being ignored as well - because that would no doubt have created plenty blood.

"But what about-"

Steve already knew what was coming; stuff about the toxic atmosphere and the spores that Dustin inhaled a mouthful of certainly not being good for him. But he wasn't really bothered about that now. "What about your calf getting infected and dropping off?" He finished her sentence before she could and looked up expectantly. "Yeah, wouldn't want that, would we."

"You're such a cocky little shit." Sadie shook her head, sounding closer to herself than before as she stood up straight. "I can walk fine - I'm fine, I swear."

"I'm helping you, Sadie, we have to get out of here quickly or else Eleven - you all call her El, right, that's her name?" Steve paused, before nodding to himself. "Yeah, El. Before El closes the gate and we're trapped in here. "Now let's go!"

And the sentiment seemed to only grow when they seemed to have some sort of earthquake in the tunnels. The gate was closing, and they still had a corner to go before they reached the rope. "Let's go - let's go!" Steve yelled and they moved quicker than they had been before, urged on by the roar of a distant monster and the slowly approaching loud rumble of the Demodogs as they raced to protect their keeper.

"There!" Mike pointed out the dangling end of the rope in the blue light of the tunnel and they raced towards it.

" Come on, hurry up!" Steve got their first, Sadie and Max by his side. The redhead went first, boosted up by Steve's hand as the Henderson hung onto his side. "Come on!" Steve shouted, as another roar could be heard and they got Lucas and Mike to follow, emerging out of the hole.

The sound of the approaching dogs became louder when it was just Sadie, Dustin and Steve. "Oh shit." Sadie swore, feeling a hand secure around her waist and herself and Dustin being pulled back, away from the onslaught of predators.

Her heart was thumping in her ears - it had been since she stood up for the first, incredibly woozy time after she was attacked - but now it was louder, thudding in time to the pounding of oncoming footsteps. Steve raised his bat, Mike and Lucas shouted for Dustin to climb up, shadows could be seen in the distance, the first silhouette turned the corner and then-

Nothing. It was like they were hardly even there, the three of them squishing into one tiny space as the Demodogs raced past them as though the three humans who they would have otherwise attacked acted as nothing but an obstacle on their path. Because they didn't matter, they didn't matter at all. They were going to protect the gate, going to stop Eleven, who was in the midst of hurting it - of closing it.

The ground rumbled beneath them, a combination of the herd of Demodogs rushing past and the closing of the Upside Down's infection on their dimension. They had to get out and fast.

"Come on!" Mike shouted, as the crowd seemed to thin around them and they could focus on getting out again. Dustin went first, being pushed up by Steve and pulled up by the others.

"Steve." Sadie's voice was shaky, uncertain, as she stared up at the distance of rope between them and safety. She didn't know if she could manage to pull herself up, her grasp on his jacket far looser than what it had been.

"Hey - you've got this. I'll give you a leg up, and why do you think I got the four of them up before you? Don't worry." Steve said, and without a word of warning he had picked her up at the waist and lifted her up towards the hole, where one hand wrapped around the rope and the four above had pulled her up and out and she landed with a thud on the ground, exhausted and so, so relieved to feel the cold air on her face, managing to sit up as they got Steve out of the hole.

Lucas and Mike grabbed her hands, pulling her up and out of the small pit that had formed around the hole. They turned to the car, Steve relieving the two slightly too small boys of their duties and pulling Sadie to his chest as he had in the kitchen before.

Before they could take another step, the headlights they had left on to illuminate the sight seemed to grow brighter, blindingly-so. Sadie's mind flickered over an image of Christmas lights from the year before and she knew, as they forced hands over their eyes and turned away from the car, that El was doing it.

She was closing the gate.

And when the lights dimmed and the field fell as dark as it had been before, they knew she had done.

They had saved the freakin world. Again.