NOTHING WAS GOING THEIR WAY

Ever since everyone had met back up at the Byers' house, things hadn't been going as they hoped. In Carla's eyes, it was controlled chaos, but it wasn't like fighting a monster was supposed to be completely controlled, either.  So, maybe the chaos was needed to keep everything in check.

Carla was leaning against the Byers' couch where Will was laying, knocked out and in a hopefully peaceful rest.  Will looked like himself at the moment, with his eyes closed and his breathing controlled.  He wasn't covered in a sheet of sweat like Carla had last seen him, but he was in a hospital gown, telling her something had happened when she was gone.

Jonathan was on the other side, stroking his brother's hair as he whispered his regrets in a breaking voice, "I'm sorry, bud. Sorry I wasn't there. I should have been here." He'd done the exact same thing last year; blaming himself for not being here when Will was struggling.  Carla hated watching him do it, but she understood.  She'd feel the same way.

Nancy loomed over the Byers boy, placing a hand on his shoulder in comfort.  Carla noticed the small action, and came to the conclusion that something had happened to the two during their trip. She was happy for her sister and her friend if something had—Jonathan had been crushing on Nance for a while now, and it showed that Nancy was finding closure after her breakup with Steve.

Hopper's voice rose over everyone in the room, anger fuming within it. "Sam Owens. Dr. Sam Owens. I don't know how many people are there! I don't know how many people are left alive! I am the police! Chief Jim Hopper!"

Clearly, whoever had picked up was weary of his claims that everyone in Hawkins Lab was dying, and that there were tiny monsters rummaging around the place.

"Yes, the number that I gave you, yes." Hopper continued, more calm than beforehand. "6767—I will be here." He then hung up, still rather pissed off as he let out a sigh.

"They didn't believe you, did they?" Dustin spoke up from the Byers' kitchen table where all the preteens had found refuge.

"We'll see." Hopper replied.

"We'll see?" Mike snaps, voice rougher than usual. "We can't just sit here while those things are loose!"

Slightly surprised at the kids rather agitated tone, Hopper answered with a voice full of authority. "We stay here, and we wait for help." Mike fell silent, knowing that arguing would get him no where.

Hopper left the room after he finished speaking, heading down the hall to Will's room where Joyce had been since they'd arrived back at her house.  No one had dared to enter the room after she'd walked inside and shut the door without a word.  It was clear she'd gone in there for alone time, for time to grieve and think over the loss of her boyfriend.  No one wanted to disturb her.

Carla followed after, but instead of entering Will's room, she turned towards Jonathan's instead.  He'd finally left his brother's side, and was now sitting on his bed with Nancy rubbing his back in a reassuring way.  She knocked on the door frame, and when both teens looked up at her, she spoke up. "You mind?"

Nancy seemed to understand and stood up, walking past her sister with a weak smile.  Carla took her spot right next to Jonathan, sitting in silence for a moment.  Her and Jonathan had been friends since elementary school, and they'd become such important people in each other's lives.

Carla would always be there for him, no matter what.  So, after that moment of silence, she spoke up again. "This isn't all your fault, y'know.  Will won't be upset that you weren't here, I'm not sure he was in the right mindset to even notice."

"Doesn't that make it worse?" Jonathan replied, glancing up at her. "When Will—the real Will—comes back, won't he just assume I returned and stayed with him.  It's not like he'd remember anything if this force is taking him over."

"Don't do that to yourself." Carla sighed, "Will won't hold you accountable for anything; siblings don't do that to each other, especially not your brother.  It was better you weren't here, because I promise, it sucked watching him change like that—watching his eyes go from the usual hazel to an unfamiliar brown, his skin get paler per day—it was heartbreaking.  It's hard, watching someone you love change like that, especially in our case."

"What about my mom? I mean, who was here for her?" his voice slightly broke. "And now without Bob, I'm all she has left really.  If Will doesn't return—"

Carla shushed him, "Don't think about that.  It's only going to make you feel worse.....let's talk about something happier." She repeated Steve's words from earlier on in the night, trying to cheer up her friend. Using the same tactic, she brought up her sister. "What happened between you and Nance during your trip? And don't tell me nothing—you've always been a terrible liar.

Jonathan slightly smiled as he recalled the past events, "I don't know—we kind of just....." he trailed off.

"Well, are you together or not for starters?" the Wheeler tried to get him going, get his mind somewhere over than on his brother.

"Um, I don't really know, if I'm honest."

"Well—" Carla crossed her legs, "—do you want to be together?"

The Byers boy gave a nod, "Yeah, I want to be with Nance.  I really like her, and we kissed and all that stuff, but I feel like it's too early to really decide.  Would we just be getting together because she's single and I'm the closest person, or because we actually fit together, y'know?"

"I think she likes you back." Carla smiles, thinking of her friend and sister becoming an official couple.  It would be nice to know that Jonathan had someone, that Nancy had moved on from Steve.  It would help Carla become more secure with showing affection with him when she's there.  "I get how it feels though, when you don't know whether you're making the right choice.  I felt it with Steve a few days ago—"

Jonathan perked up, catching the girl off guard, "So you are with Steve again?"

Carla could just lie and say she wasn't, that she meant when becoming friends again, not anything dating related, but she didn't.  Lying would only make Jonathan more upset when he eventually found out, and what was the point in hiding it anymore? The kids knew already, so it wasn't like no one knew. Plus, Steve loved her and only her, now. There was nothing stopping them from going official, and Carla was sure that telling her best friend—the one person who knew her best—about it wouldn't hurt.

The brunette gave a light hearted smile, "If we're being honest with each other then, yeah, I guess we are together. Not officially  officially, but I want to be together publicly with him, and I know he thinks the same about me."

"Am I the first person you told about you two?" he asks.

"Well, Dustin, Lucas and Max already saw us....but you're the first person I actually told, if that means anything to you." Carla admits, coming  back with an identical question, "Am I the first person you told about Nance?"

Jonathan nods, "Yeah, I haven't really had time to tell anyone else, did I?"

"I guess not." Carla slightly laughed.

"I'm not doubting your choices, but are you sure getting back with Steve is the right idea?" the Byers boy's voice turned more serious, and he looked at her. "I mean, you were really hurt after you guys broke up, are you sure he won't hurt you like that again?"

"You can never be sure, but I don't think so." Carla replies, "Steve's changed, I've changed.  We're both ready to commit, and our feelings were always there.  I think we'll last this time around."

"Okay, but if he breaks your heart again, I'm not stopping myself from beating his ass, again."

"That's fair." the Wheeler nodded, "And if you mess up with Nancy, I swear I will hunt you down Jonathan."

"Yes ma'am." Jonathan laughed.

"Well, I suppose I should go check on those dorks, make sure they haven't done anything stupid." Carla stands up, "Plus, Nancy is probably waiting on you."

"Don't make it weird," he gives her a look, shaking his head.  Carla smiled again before exiting the Byers' room, though she didn't get too far before the group of five from the kitchen rushed right past her, dragging her along to Joyce's room where her brother grabbed Will's drawing.

"The shadow monster." Dustin stated, looking down at the drawing.

"It got Will that day on the field. The doctor said it was like a virus, it infected him." Mike informed.

Max's brows furrowed, "And so this virus, it's connecting him to the tunnels?"

 Mike spoke quickly, "To the tunnels, monsters, the Upside Down, everything."

"Whoa, Slow down. Slow down." Steve looked at the boy with confusion, clearly not understanding anything he was saying.

Mike paused before slowly repeating himself in slower wording, "Okay, so, the shadow monster's inside everything. And if the vines feel something like pain, then so does Will."

"And so does Dart." Lucas adds, understanding.

"Yeah. It's like what Mr. Clarke taught us."

"It's like a hive mind." Carla states, causing her brother and his friends to nod. Despite not knowing how this conversation started, or where it was going, she was quickly catching on to the main point.   Her boyfriend on the other hand, was not.

"Hive mind?"

"Anything connected to it—Will, the vines, the demogorgan's, etcetera—can sense what happens.  It's like a collective consciousness.  If you step on a vine, it'll trigger everything else that's connected, and so on." Carla tried her best to explain what the boys were saying.

"It's a super organism." Dustin states.

Mike points to Will's drawing, "And this is the thing that controls everything.  It's the brain."

Dustin's eyes suddenly lit up, realization hitting him. "Like the Mind Flayer!"

Steve, Carla and Max all looked at the boys, "What?"

Without answering them, Dustin called everyone out to the kitchen, slamming a book on D&D lore in the center of the table.  The entirety of the house—minus Joyce—gathered around it, wondering what the boys had figured out.  Carla stood next to Steve, his hand around her as they leaned down to see what the curly haired boy was talking about.

"The Mind Flayer." Dustin repeated himself once everyone had circled around the table.  The book was flipped to a page that showed an image with the words, Mind Flayer above it, clearly D&D related.

Hopper deadpanned, "What the hell is that?"

"It's a monster from an unknown dimension. It's so ancient that it doesn't even know it's true home." Dustin explained, "Okay, it enslaves races of other dimensions by taking over their brains using it's highly-developed psionic powers. 

Hopper gave an annoyed look, "Oh, my God, none of this is real. This is a kids game."

"No, it's a manual. And it's not for kids.  And unless you know something that we don't, this is the best metaphor—"

Lucas corrected him, "Analogy."

Dustin gave a look, "Analogy? That's what you're worried about? Fine. An analogy for understanding whatever the hell this is."

Nancy butted in, "Okay, so this Mind Flamer thing—"

"Flayer. Mind Flayer." the Henderson sounded out every syllable, causing Nancy to sigh in response.

"What does it want?" Nancy got to the point.

"To conquer us, basically.  It believes it's the master race."

"Like the Germans?" Steve answers, rather confidently, causing everyone in the room to give him a small look.  He knew he'd never been the brightest of the bunch, and being under stress clearly wasn't helping at the moment.

Carla bit her lip, "Do you mean the Nazi's?"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, the Nazi's." Steve replies, slightly flustered by his mistake. 

"Uh...if the Nazi's were from a another dimension, totally." Dustin agrees with Steve's statement and Carla's correction, Hopper holding the bridge of his nose in frustration as they rambled on. "It views other races, like us, as inferior to itself."

Mike adds, "It wants to spread, take over dimensions."

"We are talking about the destruction of our world as we know it." Lucas states the thought looming over everyone in a serious tone, finally bringing it to the discussion.  He wasn't wrong; everyone had been thinking about it.  This Mind Flayer could destroy everything. They had such little information on it that they had little to no clue what they were truly messing with.  To make things even worse, they were going off of a D&D manual.  Who knew how accurate that was?

At the Sinclair's words, a small silence hung over the room.  Steve was the one to break it, exclaiming, "That's great. That's great. That's really great. Jesus." He ran a hand through his hair, turning away from the group.  

Carla turned around with him, running a reassuring hand up his back, stopping at his shoulder and keeping it there.  He almost relaxed at the feeling of the Wheeler's touch, but Carla could still see the despair on his face.  "It's okay, we're all scared right now."

"All of this is just bringing back memories." Steve muttered, placing his fingers through hers.  He placed their interlocked hands to his lips, the back of her hand against them.  Carla nodded in agreement, understanding how he felt.  For her, it brought back everything that had happened last year. "I can remember everything so well.  The demogorgan was there, I saved you there, you bled out right over here...." Steve gestured towards each area of the house as he spoke.

"Shh." Carla pressed two fingers to the Harrington's lips to silence his words. The last thing he should be thinking about was last years events.  It was only going to get him more worried about what was to come, and that wasn't needed. "We're gonna be okay.  You and me are gonna end this thing, and then we're gonna go on a date.  Just think of our date, yeah?"

Steve gave a small nod, "Yeah."

Carla pressed her lips to his cheek for a short moment, before returning back to the table as if she'd never been gone in the first place.  Though she'd only shown her affection for a slim second, it had caught the attention of Nancy.

Now, Nancy had made her assumptions about her sister and the Harrington ever since the party; she'd seen them when walking with Jonathan a few days ago, a little too close to be 'just friends', and the fact that they were together during the salvage yard incident rose even more suspicion... but, this was when she'd finally become aware that they really were something, it wasn't a pastime anymore.

Watching Carla press a kiss to his cheek like that, reassure him with ease did sting a bit—Steve and her broke up mere days ago, and he was already with someone new, aka her sister—but Nancy always had a feeling it would end up this way.  Something was always off during their relationship, and it took a breakup for her to realize it was her sister.  Nancy knew Steve had indeed loved her, but Carla had never left his heart.

Then again, Nancy had moved on.  She'd gotten with Jonathan over their stay at Murray Bauman's place, and it seemed like they'd become something when all of this was over.  So, Nancy supposed she was happy for her sister.   She knew Carla had been holding back her feelings toward Steve their entire relationship, and it probably felt good for them to finally be let out.

Taking her eyes off of Steve and Carla, Nancy cleared her throat and started the conversation back up, "Okay, so if this thing is like a brain that's controlling everything, then if we kill it...."

Mike finishes his sisters sentence, "We kill everything it controls."

"We win."

"Theoretically." Lucas states after Dustin's comment.

Hopper came up and snatched the manual from Nancy's hands, "Alright, great. So, how do you kill this thing? Shoot it with fireballs or something?" He was being sarcastic, but Dustin wasn't taking it.

"No. No, no Fireballs.  You summon an un-dead army, uh, because.....because zombies, y'know, they don't have brains, and the Mind Flayer, it likes brains." Watching as everyone gave him a confused, and unimpressed look, Dustin flatly stated, "It's just a game. It's a game."

"What the hell are we doing here?" Hopper tossed the book back on the table.

Dustin fired back, "I thought we were waiting for your military back-up."

"We are!"

"But even if they come, how are they gonna stop this?" Mike asks, voice rather loud. He was frustrated to say the least, and wanted everyone to hear what he had to say.  "You can't just shoot this with guns."

"You don't know that!" Hopper yelled back, "We don't know anything!"

Mike was quick to fire back, "We know it's already killed everybody in that lab."

Lucas added, "And we know the monsters are gonna molt again."

"And we know that it's only a matter of time before those tunnels reach this town." Dustin finishes.

Hopper was thinking of some reply, but got stopped when a new voice entered the room. The shaky, yet certain, voice of Joyce Byers. "They're right." Everyone turned to face the woman, taking it her emotionless face and ratted hair. "We have to kill it.  I want to kill it."

Hopper came close to the woman, his voice softer as he approached then it had been with the others, "Me, too. Me, too, Joyce, okay? But how do we do that?  We don't exactly know what we're dealing with, here."

"Maybe we don't,  but Will might. He has too." Carla speaks up, nodding towards the unconscious boy on the couch.  If this thing had him under control at times, then Will was bound to know something about it, they shared thoughts, didn't they? "The Mind Flayer is like a parasite.  It goes from host to host, who at the moment, is Will.  It's living in him, feeding off his insights to the real world, but this does have a benefit to us.  It's connected to him, meaning Will know's what it's strengths and weaknesses are and what not.  If we can find a way to get through to Will then maybe...." She shrugged, leaving it as an idea for discussion.

"Carla's right." Mike agrees, walking closer to his friend. "If anyone knows how to destroy this thing, it's Will."

"I thought we couldn't trust him anymore? That he's a spy for the Mind Flayer now."  Max came to Mike's side, crossing her arms as she recalled what they'd said previously.

"Yeah, but he can't spy if he doesn't know where he is." Mike replies with the familiar hint of a plan in his eyes.  Carla looked between her brother and the knocked out boy, knowing exactly what her brother was thinking.  If they put Will somewhere he didn't recognize, the Mind Flayer wouldn't be able to spy through him.

It was worth a shot.  Doing this was the only chance they had at finding out about this mysterious creature.

mara's misc

guess who actually got productive and wrote chapter 13 in a few days time.....me!

this was a really early update, usually i don't post back to back chapters, but i had lots of motivation as i'm so close to finishing this book up.   this chapter is okay, there's nothing too special, but i hope it was good anyway.

the carla and jonathan relationship talk was just necessary.  i loved writing that bc they are my babies and their relationship is one of my favorites.

anyway, i don't know when the next chapter will be arriving.  could be within a week, could be april, idk.  depends on my motivation, (a third update this week would just be wow),   just keep your eyes peeled.

hope you enjoyed <3  see you back with chapter fourteen!