{The Dive, Part II}

A/N [from 2022] TW for ~ suggestive language ~ I guess? (i.e. Alice is a big flirt)

This is probably a good time to mention though that I don't write smut, so if you're expecting to see that in this book...sorry haha. I'm a big proponent of the "fade to black." 

🌲🌲🌲

"Quincy, wait up!"

Jonathan followed the older boy into the hallway. Quincy ignored him, speedwalking away.

"Quincy, please—"

"Whatever it is," Quincy said, whirling around with narrowed eyes, "the answer is no."

"Look," Jonathan said, eyes wide and desperate, "I'm so sorry to ambush you like this, especially after what happened last summer. But we seriously need your help. Something's wrong in Hawkins."

Quincy's heart started pounding. He felt transported back to the Starcourt Mall atrium, hearing the crack of fireworks. Smelling burning flesh. Watching Alice get tossed to the ground by the Mind Flayer, unmoving. Seeing Billy Hargrove get impaled.

"The Mind Flayer?" Quincy said in a low voice. "Did he come back?"

"It's something else," Jonathan said. "But it's bad. People have died."

Panic rose.

"Fuck," Quincy said. He rubbed his forehead, feeling a stress headache blossom in his skull. "Have you talked with our friends? Are they okay?"

"We can't contact them," Jonathan said. "These government guys are looking for El. If we reach out to our friends in Hawkins, we're putting them and ourselves in danger."

"So by reaching out to me," Quincy said with a sigh, "you've put me in danger."

Jonathan winced.

"I'm so sorry, Quincy," he said. "But you're a genius with computers! We need you to hack one, so we can find El, and go save Hawkins."

"Find El?! Where is she?"

"That's the question," Jonathan said dryly. "If we knew, we wouldn't need you to hack for us!"

Quincy put his head in his hands and let out a stifled scream.

He didn't want to do this. But he thought of Eleven, alone and away from her family. He thought of his parents, and he thought of his best friends—Robin, Maria, Alice, even freaking Samuel—back in Hawkins, where it was dangerous.

"Okay," Quincy said, after a moment. "Okay, fine. I'll do it. But you owe me, Byers. Big time!"

"Of course!" Jonathan said. "Thank you so much, Quincy. Seriously. Thank you."

They walked back into Quincy's dorm. Mike and Will stood by the door, pretending they weren't just eavesdropping. Quincy scowled when he noticed the long-haired stranger laying on his bed.

"Dude!" Quincy said. "What the hell?!"

"Sorry, brochacho," the boy said. He rolled off the bed and hopped to his feet. "Just needed a power nap after our trip."

"This is Argyle," Jonathan said. "He's my best friend in Lenora Hills."

"And his dealer," Argyle said. "Need some Purple Palm Tree Delight?"

"I don't know what that is," Quincy said, "and I don't want to know." He pulled open a desk drawer and procured a keychain.

"Here's the key to the computer lab," he said. "I have access for homework reasons, not hacking reasons, so we're going to have to keep a low profile. Got it?"

"Got it," the boys echoed back.

"Good." Quincy slung his backpack over his shoulder. "Let's get this over with."

🌲🌲🌲 

Back in Hawkins, Alice and her friends trampled through the woods, trying to find Eddie at Skull Rock. "Somebody to Love" continued blasting from the Walkman headphones around Alice's neck.

Dustin led the group, using his map and compass as a guide. Steve and Alice followed two steps behind, hands intertwined. It would've been a romantic walk, if not for the presence of her little brother and the impending danger.

"Dude," Steve said, "I'm telling you. You're taking us the wrong way."

"It's north!" Dustin said, shaking his map. "I'm positive. I checked the map!"

"You do realize Skull Rock is a super popular makeout spot, right?" Steve said.

"So?" Dustin scoffed.

"Well," Steve continued, "it wasn't popular until I made it popular during my sophomore year. I practically invented it!"

"He's not wrong," Alice chimed in. "Apparently, he had a whole three-step plan and everything. Very methodical. Plus, we were just there last week, and—"

Dustin froze on the spot. For a second, Alice thought he was under Vecna's trance. Ice ran through her veins.

"Dustin?" she said, dropping Steve's hand and shaking her brother's shoulder frantically. "What's—"

Dustin proceeded to fake-vomit loudly and obnoxiously.

"Cut that out!" Alice said, shoving him. "Jesus Christ, Dustin! I thought you got Vecna'd!"

"You're turning his name into a verb now?!" Robin called from a few yards behind, where she walked with Kali and Nancy.

"Here's a hot tip, Alice," Dustin said, ceasing his pantomime. "I don't ever want to hear anything about you, Steve, and Skull Rock. No thank you. Not interested."

"Fine!" Alice said. "But Steve's right. We're heading in the wrong direction."

She veered left, Steve right on her heels.

"Alice, Steve, where are you going?!" Dustin shouted.

"Stop whining and trust us!" Steve said. "Let's go!"

Dustin huffed but followed, falling in step alongside Nancy, Robin, and Kali.

Steve reached for Alice's hand, lacing their fingers together once more. He noticed her hands shaking.

"Everything okay?" he asked.

"For a second there," Alice said, "I thought Vecna got Dustin. And it was like I couldn't breathe. The thought of what happened to Chrissy, and Fred, and Patrick happening to Dustin...god, that'd kill me."

"That's not going to happen," Steve assured her. "We're going to stop him before he gets Max or you or anyone else."

"Vecna got me once," Alice said quietly. "He took most of my powers."

"He got lucky," Steve said, shaking his head. "That won't happen again. Alice, I promise. I'm not going to let anything happen to you."

It was a tall order. Alice didn't know if he could keep such a promise.

"Okay," she said. "Okay."

"Remember," Steve teased, hoping to bring a smile to her face. "We have to stay alive long enough for prom, and canasta."

Alice's lips quirked into a small grin.

"Right," she said. "Canasta. I'd canasta with you any day or night, Steve Harrington."

"Wait," Steve said, an eyebrow raised, "are you actually talking about the card game, or..."

"Oh, you know exactly what I'm talking about," she said. Feeling mischievous, she nudged his ribs with her elbow and whispered: "Remember New Year's Eve?"

Alice could practically see pink hearts dancing across Steve's eyes, like he was some kind of horny, lovesick cartoon character.

"That was a good game of canasta," Steve murmured, gazing off in the middle-distance. "Maybe even our best." 

"What are you two talking about?"

Neither of them had noticed Kali sneak up behind them.

"Card games," Alice said innocently, as if it was the most obvious topic of conversation in the world.

"Ah!" Steve said, recognizing a nearby bush. "We're here."

He dropped Alice's hand to push back some overgrown branches.

"Bada-bing, bada-boom!" Steve crowed. He stepped through into the clearing of Skull Rock, a cocky grin on his face. "There she is, Henderson. Skull Rock. In your face, man! In your stupid, cocky little face."

Dustin, Alice, and Kali followed him into the clearing. Dustin looked around, confusion evident on his features.

"It doesn't make sense," he grumbled.

"Even when it's staring you right in the face," Steve said, "you can't admit it! Can't admit you're wrong, you little butthead."

Eddie, from a hiding spot in a tree branch, leaped to the ground with a wham! The group spun around, relieved to see him.

"I concur," he said. "You, Dustin Henderson, are a total butthead."

Dustin threw himself into the older boy's arms.

"Jesus!" Dustin said. "We thought you were a goner!"

"Yeah," Eddie said, hugging Dustin back. "Me too, man. Me too."

He nodded at Alice and Steve, and then noticed the stranger amongst them. All the color drained from his face.

"Uh," Eddie said, pointing at Kali. "Who is this?"

"Don't worry," Alice said quickly. "She's our friend. You can trust her."

"My name is Kali Prasad," she said. She gave him a once-over. "I hear you are a wanted man. I know that feeling all too well."

The rest of the group joined them in the clearing and greeted Eddie. He kept sneaking glances at Kali, as if he expected her to pull out a badge and gun.

"She's not a cop or a narc," Alice said, exasperated, after she caught Eddie frowning at Kali for the seventh time in two minutes.

"I know!" Eddie said. He crossed his arms. "It's just a teensy bit hard for me to trust new people right now, with the whole fucking town ready to toss my ass in jail."

"To be fair," Kali scoffed, "I do not trust you either."

"Okay!" Nancy said, sensing the tension as the two punks glared at each other. "Maybe we should let Eddie tell us what happened."

And that's just what he did. He described the attack from Jason and his cronies and seeing Patrick get attacked by Vecna, bones crushed the same way Chrissy's had been. The whole time he told the story, he crouched under Skull Rock and tried to enjoy the snacks they brought him.

"When I got to shore," Eddie said, "I tried calling you guys, but my walkie was busted, man. Drenched. So, I did the thing that I do now apparently." He let out a hollow chuckle and forced a grin. "I ran."

"Do you know what time this was?" Nancy asked. "The attack?"

Eddie tossed his ruined watch to Nancy, frozen on the time he fell into Lovers Lake: "9:27."

"Same time our flashlights went kablooey," Robin said.

"Which means what, exactly?" Steve asked, arms crossed.

"That that surge of energy was Vecna attacking Patrick," Nancy said.

"Well, we're one step closer," Robin said. "We know how Vecna attacks."

"And we know where he attacks from," Lucas added.

"So now we need to sneak into his lair in the Upside Down," Max said, "and drive a stake through his heart."

Alice shuddered at the thought of entering that dark, twisted dimension. She'd never actually been into the Upside Down—the time Steve took her brother and his friends there to set fire to the hub, she'd been freezing in the Hawkins Lab parking lot, trying not to die. It was never a place she was too keen on visiting, although its presence seemingly bled into every aspect of life in Hawkins.

While the group tossed around suggestions on how to kill Vecna, Alice noticed Dustin pacing back and forth, back and forth, and staring intently at his compass.

"Yo, Dusty," Alice said, wandering closer to her (deranged?) brother. "We won't need El to open a gate if you don't cut it out. All that pacing is going to tear a hole through time and space."

"BOOM!" Dustin shrieked, startling Alice into stumbling back. He spun back to the group and added, "Bada-bada-boom! I was right! Skull Rock was north!"

"Seriously?" Steve said with a scowl. "You're serious? This is Skull Rock. Okay? You're totally, absolutely, 100% wrong right now."

"Yes," Dustin said, "and no." He held up his compass. "This compass worked correctly when we left the Wheelers'. It worked correctly when we got in the car on Kerley. But it started to slip the further east we went. Now, it's way off. When I was leading us here, I wasn't wrong. The compass was!"

"Perhaps you are using dysfunctional equipment," Kali said.

"Nope," Dustin said. "Lucas, Alice, do you remember what can affect a compass?"

Alice wracked her brain for the answer. She had a flashback to November, 1983, walking through these very same woods with Dustin, El, Lucas, and Mike. She remembered Mr. Clarke and his theory about the—

"The flea!" Alice blurted out. "And the acrobat!"

"The what and the who?" Eddie said with a laugh of disbelief.

"An electromagnetic field!" Lucas said, puzzle pieces falling into place.

"In the presence of a stronger electromagnetic field," Dustin continued, "the needle will deflect toward that power. So, either there's some super big magnet around here, or—"

"There's a gate," Lucas finished.

"But we're nowhere near the Lab," Nancy said.

"Or Starcourt Mall," Alice added. "Well, what's left of it, anyway."

"But what if somewhere there's another gate?" Dustin asked. "A gate we don't know about? It'd have to be smaller. Way less powerful."

"Snack-sized gate?" Robin offered.

"I was thinking fun-sized," Kali said, "like the candy."

"But how?" Steve said, exasperated. "Why?"

"No idea," Dustin admitted. "All I know is something is causing this disturbance, and last time we've seen anything like it, it was a gate. And I hope it is! Because then we have a way to Vecna and a shot to free Max and Alice from his curse!"

He turned and started down the hill.

"Hey, hey, hey!" Steve said. "Eddie's still a wanted man! We can't just go for a hike in the woods!"

"This little steel capsule might be the key to saving Max, Eddie, and Alice!" Dustin said, holding up his compass reverently. He held out his arms and said, "What say you, Eddie the Banished?"

The group turned to Eddie. He scratched his cheek, staring intently at the mossy dirt around Skull Rock.

"I say," Eddie said, "you're asking me to follow you into Mordor—which, if I'm totally straight with you, I think is a really bad idea. But the Shire...the Shire is burning." He stood and puffed out his chest. "So Mordor it is."

With that, Eddie charged ahead, following the ecstatic Dustin deeper into the woods—and then doubling back for the canteen and snacks he forgot.

Alice and Steve waited for him to gather up his things. The former noticed a flash of something white and furry by Eddie's foot, but before she could investigate, it disappeared.

"What's up, Elder Henderson?" Eddie asked, noticing her intense gaze as he turned back. "I got something on my face?"

"Sorry," Alice said. "I just thought...nothing."

As the trio followed the others down the hill, Alice's Walkman began to skip. Through the headphones around her neck, the three of them heard: "Each morning I get up I die a little—die a little—die a little—die a—die a—die a little."

"Your Walkman," Steve said with a frown, trying not to read too hard into the lyrics the cassette froze on.

"This happened at the Creel House too," Alice grumbled. "Let me try and restart the loop."

Before she could, the song changed: "Wasting away again in Margaritaville..."

"Not this again," Alice moaned. She rewound the tape to get back to the beginning of the Queen track. "Forget Vecna's psychic powers. I think Lance is trying to hypnotize me into listening to fucking Jimmy Buffett."

"Ah, Lance," Eddie said. He ducked under a branch. "Dustin talks about him—or, I should say, rants about him—often at Hellfire."

"He's fine," Alice said. "He just likes 'Margaritaville' a bit too much."

She pressed play on the tape: "Each morning I get up I die a little. Can barely stand on my feet!"

"All good now," Alice said, with a sigh of relief. She pulled the headphones over her head and reached for Steve's hand once more, ignoring the lingering sense of unease she'd felt ever since her palm wound reopened earlier that morning. 

{Posted September 19th, 2022; Republished March 26th, 2025}

A/N [from 2022] Maybe "canasta" will be our "always." 

I can't believe I made a TFIOS reference in the year of our lord 2022 LMAO

QOTD: Would you rather play pinball with Quincy or make mixtapes with Alice?

A: Why not both?!?!?!?!?