꧁꧂

ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ꜰᴏʀᴛʏ-ᴛʜʀᴇᴇ: ʙʀᴇᴀᴋ ᴍᴇ ᴅᴏᴡɴ

Rushing after Dustin, I called his name, slightly confused on why the boy had chosen now, when it was dark out in the middle of the woods, to run with Eddie.

"DUSTIN, FOR THE LOVE OF WHATEVER GOD THERE IS," I begin. "SLOW DOWN?!" Max didn't let me stop for a breath, though, still tugging me along the 'pathway' that the boy had made for us to follow.

The trek continued before we all found ourselves stopping suddenly. At the side of the lake, with Eddie holding onto Dustin's bag to stop him from falling into it. "Watch your step, big guy." We hear him say.

"Okay, who's swimming?" I ask as we all watched out across the lake.

"Oh, man..." I hear Steve from behind. "You've gotta be shitting me."

"Yeah..." Eddie says. "I thought these woods were familiar."

"Lover's Lake." Robin says, then feeling her nudge me. Oh, if it wasn't for the fact she was closeted-

"This is confounding." Dustin says, now using the big words I hardly understood. Sometimes it was as though you'd need a dictionary on standby to work with him on a school project...

"There's a gate in Lover's Lake?" Max asks after a moment of reflection for the group.

"Whenever the Demogorgon attacked, it always left an opening." Nancy points out to us. "Maybe Vecna is the same way."

"There's only one way to find out, though..." I murmured, then sighing. Of course, my first thought would be me and a few of the others would end up in the lake, freezing cold and getting ready for the fever that we'd catch in the next week, but then Eddie came up with something a little better.

After another small trek along the edge of the lake, we found the boat he'd hidden earlier on before he scouted out Skull Rock. We stared at it for a moment while Steve and Eddie then got to work, moving it along the shore and onto the lake itself. "EASY- I said-" The boy in the yellow sweater looked at Eddie, crouched down next to him. "I said easy, man."

"Yeah, I'm just gonna-" Although Steve offered his hand out to Robin, the girl chose a different way, using the two boy's heads to get across and onto the boat. "Thank you!" She lets out quietly before stepping across.

Eddie followed after the tall girl onto the boat before turning back around and holding a helping hand out for Nancy to take as she then got onto the small rowing boat. It then occurred to me that this was the same boat he fell out of. I don't know why it did, but it then worried me how so many of us were going to fit on such a little thing.

As I went to then step on, Steve stood up in front of me. "What're you trying to do, sink us?" The tall boy asks me, while I raised an eyebrow, glaring up at him. It would be so much easier if I could talk about him having a crush on a lesbian last summer. "No, you guys stay here-"

"Steve," I begin, trying to hold back the urge to knock him into the lake itself. "there is a gate in the middle of Lover's Lake to an ulternate dimension which is the key to me killing Vecna of whom has been haunting and close-to-killing my girl." The words kind of spilled out of me, but I didn't stop. "Please, just let me on the boat so I can get a little bit closer to kicking Vecna's ass."

Steve's eyes darted between me, Max and then glanced over at Nancy, of who shrugged as if to say 'she's made a good point' and that, once again, is why we love Nancy Wheeler here. "Fine..." Steve says after a moment of silence. "But, the rest of you should stay on land." Mother of the year goes to- "Don't want this to sink like the titanic did."

"Do you see any icebergs around?" Robin then piped up, making me smile as I went to step on the boat. I was stopped again, this time by a hand pulling me back onto land and into a kiss.

I melted, right there and then, in Max's hands as she kissed me. I could feel the worry and nervousness radiating off of her. Okay, Parker, maybe we should stay out of trouble, this time...

"Your girl, huh?" The red head asks, pulling away as I dazily stared at her and her lips.

"Yeah, we should talk about that, shouldn't we?" I say in return, causing the girl to just shake her head with a smile.

"Stay safe for me, dumbass."

And with that, and my cheeks a light shade of red, I then got onto the boat with the four older teens. Which I then completely and one hundred percent regretted after I saw who had decided to row us out to the middle; Robin and Eddie.

Now, I would be all for Robin and Eddie rowing us out on a rowboat, in the middle of Lover's Lake, at midnight, but Robin had just seen me kiss Max so she was so going to bring that up to lighten the mood.

"BEDTIME AT NINE, KIDDOS!" She at first shouted over at the other three on land, while I awkwardly sat in between Nancy and Steve.

"So..." Steve begins. "She does like boobies."

I let out an exhausted sigh, head falling into my hands as I did so. Oh dear God. "You're blushing, Park-" Robin begins, and I could practically hear her smiles without opening an eye.

"You know what, Robin-?" I begin, being cut off by Eddie.

"Who likes boobies?" The curly-haired boy asks, eyes glancing between the four of us.

Both me and Max's name were then said by the other three, at different times, while I sat there silently regretting coming on said boatride. I am never going on a boat with Steve Harrington, Eddie Munson, Nancy Wheeler (okay, maybe Nancy again) and Robin Buckley ever again.

As the boat ride continued, with Steve and Robin giving Eddie a quick catch-up on my love life, Nancy kept ahold of the compass that she had been given by Dustin. "WHOA- WHOA, WHOA, WHOA-" She then shouted out after a moment, "slow down. Slow down, guys." I glanced over her shoulder, seeing the compass needle go crazy.

Both Robin and Eddie stopped rowing then, turning around to see Nance holding out the compass in the middle of the boat for all to see. The needle seemed to have a mind of its own, spinning in all directions as if a toddler were messing around with it.

"Guys?" We hear Dustin's voice on the radio but are too busy staring to immediately reply. "Guys, what's going on?" I watch Robin roll her eyes and reach across for the radio. "Come on, guys, talk to me, what's going on?"

Robin pressed the side button of the radio before speaking. "Uh, Dustin, your compass has gone from wonky to wonky with a capital... 'ahhhhh'." Robin says softly, making me smile as I watched down at the compass again. Yeah, that explained it pretty well.

Steve then reached over to his feet, pulling off his shoes and then socks. Ew. Sir, I do not wanna see that. "Steve, what are you doing?" Nancy asks the boy.

"Somebody's gotta go down and check this out." He says, continuing to take off his other sock and shoe. "Unless one of you four can top being a Hawkins High swim co-captain-" Before I can even speak of the four years of swimming experience I had, Steve puts a hand over my face. "Don't say it, Byers." He then stood up on the boat. "It's gotta be me. No complaints, alright?" We watched as he stood near the side of the boat while Eddie then spoke up.

"Hey, I'm not complaining." The other boy in the Hellfire Club shirt says. "I do not wanna go down there..." While Steve pulled off his jumper, revealing an oddly hairy chest, I grimaced and glanced away.

"Steve, I don't wanna see that..." I muttered over to the boy, now looking over at what Eddie was doing. Now, who just carries a carrier bag in his pocket?

"Then don't look." Steve replied back to me. Thanks, Steve, but you make it quite difficult to do with your dramatics.

Meanwhile, Eddie continued to wrap the bag around a flashlight, wrapping a few rubber bands around it to help stop water getting to the light. "Hey," Eddie began, holding his little invention out to the hairy chested boy. "Good luck."

Steve then nodded. "Thanks." Steve then threw his yellow sweater over at Eddie, and I raised an eyebrow teasingly over at Robin, hoping she'd get what I was getting at, here. Well, to say my gaydar was going off on this boat, was an understatement.

And as Eddie then went to go and light a cigarette in his mouth, Robin reached out, taking it from his mouth and flinging it behind her into the water. "Gross." She tells him blandly.

Steve was finally mentally prepared to dive, and just as he went to dive, Nancy then called him. "Steve?" All eyes were on the two of them. "Be careful." The boy then only nodded, turning back and finally, after what felt like forever to get him to do so, diving into the cold lake.

The boat moved around in the water for a moment as we all waited to see some signs of Steve Harrington life again. Meanwhile, Nancy kept an eye on the time with her little watch.

"Nancy?" I asked from the side of the boat, keeping an eye out for Harrington. "time?"

"We're closing in on a minute." The girl replied to me.

I could feel Robin beginning to become more and more nervous as this minute went on. "Okay..." The tall girl beside me let out a shaky breath as she glanced down at the water by the boat. Sure, I mean, I've been underwater for more than a minute, it's fine. He's fine...

The boat continued to bop, side to side when Eddie cleared his throat. When turning my head to look over at him, expecting something to then be said by him, I was jump scared by the other boy in the water, now coming up for air.

With the whole boat rocking even further from side to side, the four of us all jumped at Steve Harrington in the water as if it were some kind of Halloween trick-or-treat jumpscare of someone in a Michael Myers mask.

"I FOUND IT." He tells us as I tried to get my breathing under control.

"YEAH? YOU ALSO NEARLY SENT ME INTO CARDIAC ARREST. FUCK, HARRINGTON..." I shout over at him, trying to breathe, still. I don't know what cardiac arrest is, by the way.

"YOU FOUND IT?!" Nancy asked, less interested in my breathing and more interested in Steve Harrington's findings.

"I found it." Steve repeated, swimming over to the boat and grabbing the side to help himself up. "Yeah, I found it-"

Robin brought up the radio to speak through it. "Dustin, you are a goddamn Einstein." She tells the boy, "Steve found the gate right beneath us." We waited for a reply but got nothing.

"It's more of a snack-sized gate," Steve says to us, notably still not out of what I was assuming freezing cold water, "than the mama gate, but, still, it's pretty damn big." I held back making a joke due to the fact he then just kind of- disappeared into the water. I wish I was kidding, really, but Steve Harrington dove back under the water like it was apart of a horror movie.

"STEVE." With the four of us all shouting his name, multiple times, at different high pitches and horrible keys, we quickly realised that it was no use of shouting his name from the boat. What were we gonna do shout his name back to our world?

"WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT, MAN?" Eddie shouted over Nancy, Robin and my own shouting.

"NOT FROM HERE." I replied to him, still looking over the edge like it was not dangerous.

"NANCY, REALLY, WHAT HAPPENED?!" Robin shouted over at her, meanwhile, Nancy was already about to put one foot over the side. Oh my God this is fucking ridiculous.

"WAIT WAIT WAIT-" All eyes then turned to Eddie as he shouted louder than before (didn't even think that was possible, if I'm being honest). "You're not going in there, are you?"

"Just-" Nance glanced over at me and Robin faces, both probably very different and scared for Steve's life. "wait here."

"NO NANCY-" As we all then shouted for the girl's life, also, we watched as she then took her turn to dive into Lover's Lake.

"GODDAMN IT." Eddie added on, now even more anxious than before. Moments passed between the three of us in silence, while the boat rocked from one side to the other. My brain was ticking over fast as I looked over at Robin as if we were having a telepathic conversation. Are you gonna dive? 'Cause I'll dive if you're gonna dive-

Sitting on the edge of the boat, Robin's head turned over at me, while Eddie insisted that we didn't go like Nancy just did. "Are you sure about this, Park?" She asked, and I scoffed like it was the dumbest question on the planet.

"My girlfriend is on land, probably in great danger if we don't do this dumbass shit." I replied, head tilted. The girl smirked back at me, understanding exactly what was next for the both of us.

"SHE SAID WAIT." Eddie shouted over at us.

"Yeah." Robin says back. "We heard her."

Eddie did his best to come up with a response. "SHE'S IN CHARGE."

The girl beside me smiled. "Are you kidding?" I asked Eddie, trying to stay nice to the new boy of the group. "I'm the bitch in charge." Holding my hand out to Robin, the girl high fived it before we both did it. We leaned back and we dived into the most freezing ass lake I'd ever been in.