how to get away with murder

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BEFORE YOU READ )

hey guys, it's me again. it's faye. i know y'all are sick of me and you just wanna read the chapter but i'm here to give you another content warning 😭💀 i was in a silly mood yk? i thought, "hey? why not make this book more fucked up than it already is?" so... here we are. i bet you guys hate me frrr💀💀

you guys know the drill at this point. this chapter contains blood, graphic gore & violence, body dysmorphia, non-consensual situations, death, mentions of death, ted wheeler, ricky maguire being hot, bad vibes, the kids need a break, rue needs a break, eddie munson is mentioned once, ruemax comforting each other, nancy get mad at rue if you squint, moonknight references, dustin still believes rue is the celestial, rucas crumbs, vecna is a little bitch, and this is all emilia's fault. i can't explain it but it just is.

haha that looks like the tags in ao3 ^^

it's a darker chapter than the last one, that's for sure. yeah lol. enjoy.

ove, to Rue, had always been an abstract concept. She knew that it existed, of course. She had seen it in the way couples looked at each other on the street, the way a mother would hold her child in the grocery store, the way friends would lean against each other and laugh in unison when they saw a funny figurine at the thrift store.

And while she's seen it, she's felt it too. Her gift of empathy was also a curse because it made it hard for her to distinguish between her feelings and someone else's. And when she was around someone in love, she was forced to feel it too. It was an overwhelming emotion, and it terrified her.

Rue, of course, has a fondness for stuff. She adored music, her new family, her friends, her clothes and makeup, and her father. But there's a distinction to be made between loving things and falling in love with someone.

She's always tried to deny it, ever since she felt the first glimpses of it, she knew her heart couldn't bear the heartbreak if it ever happened. But no matter how hard she tried to pretend those sentiments didn't exist, to replace them with someone else, to convert them into hatred, it was practically impossible.

All she knew was that she did love her. The moment her heart had broken and cracked and bled at the sight of her nearing the edge of the tightrope, seconds away from death, the moment she'd held her again and known that she would do anything to keep her safe, there was no doubt in her mind that what she felt was love.

And that scared the fuck out of her. More than Vecna closing in on her and her friends. More than the demons that lingered in the shadows. Because she had dealt with each of them before and had skills to help her solve them. But she had no idea how to deal with the feelings she had acknowledged.

"You're staring," The voice of Max Mayfield had torn Rue Newby out of her thoughts. The red-haired girl grinned as she pressed her cheek to her fist, her other hand holding onto a red crayon.

"I don't stare," Rue rolled her eyes and leaned back on her chair, crossing her arms.

They'd chosen to go back to the Wheeler's house and hang out upstairs rather than in the basement. Holly Wheeler had already sat at the breakfast table while her parents congregated around the kitchen island. Karen Wheeler was baking pancakes for at least a dozen people, and the fragrance made Rue's stomach rumble as she suffered from the munchies.

Max raised her brows at Rue's quick remark and looked at her in disbelief. "I can feel you burning holes into my head."

With a scowl, hoping to hide the fact she was embarrassed by being caught, she pointed at the headphones around Max's neck, "Shouldn't have those on? Y'know, to block out Vecna. It would suck if you started floating and slammed against the roof."

Holly, who was sitting by Rue's side and fiddling with her Lite Brite, looks up from her tablet with wide eyes. "Why would she start floating?"

"Floating from happiness!" Rue recovered swiftly, her voice rising to a higher pitch as she turned to face the six-year-old. Rue twisted Holly's blonde hair around her finger before lightly pinching her cheek, smirking as the girl groaned and pushed her hand away. "Ignore me, Holly. I say stupid things all the time." Rue told her, and then she pointed at the Lite Brite. "I like your bunny."

"Was that a stupid thing?" Holly asked.

Rue furrowed her brows in confusion, "What?"

"What you just said. About my bunny? You said you say stupid things all the time, did you mean that about my bunny, too?"

"No!" Her voice cracks as she shakes her head, "No, of course not. Your bunny's cute. It's the cutest glowing bunny I've ever seen- It's... I'm going to stop talking now."

"No, please continue," Max teased, "Listening to you ramble on for hours is music to my ears."

"You're such a..." Rue stops herself, remembering Holly was still at her side. She narrows her eyes at Max, who was grinning at her with teeth and all, and it was hard for Rue to feign her annoyance, "You're such a butt, Maxine."

Max rolls her eyes playfully, her smile widening when Holly snorts at Rue's remark. She puts on her headphones and presses the play button on the Walkman fastened to her hips. Running Up That Hill is blaring in her ears, and Rue can hear it from across the table. Max casts a restless glance at Rue, "Kate Bush is singing in my ears," she hums as she returns to her pages of red scribbled sketches. "Happy, Ruth?"

Rue smiles at her widely, her nose scrunching up, "Very much."

Rue couldn't tell if what had occurred behind the Wheeler's house had been a dream or reality. After mixing cannabis with her prescribed meds that morning, she questioned if it was all a figment of her imagination. Rue had to bite her tongue to keep from asking Max, "Did we really make out or was it just a dream?"

Because her lips were still swollen and the sensation of Max's mouth against her own lingered, she vowed not to say anything. She could still feel the wandering touches burn on her skin, and her fingertips had a delightful sting as she remembered feeling everything Max would let her touch to memorize the curve of her lips and the suppleness of her neck.

It was very much real.

Holy shit.

Rue slaps her palms against her cheeks and rubs them, seeking to calm herself down. She avoids looking at Max because she knows her heart will explode if she does, and she attempts to finish the sketch in front of her.

A part of Rue is still floating around in the air. Kissing Max Mayfield and holding her in her arms again was all Rue had ever wanted for the past three months.

While the other half of Rue stuck to the ground, dreadfully overthinking everything.

Things were less strained between the two after the kisses at the back of the Wheeler's house. But they weren't precisely normal. If there was such a thing as normal.

Max and Rue had never had the chance to be anything more than friends before the fallout, other than stealing kisses behind everyone's backs, and that only lasted two days. They both pretended as though the Battle of Starcourt had never happened. They knew they had feelings for each other, but it was impossible to even consider a relationship after what they'd seen.

On top of that, Rue was still the one who murdered Billy in front of Max. What else could have made things more complicated than they already were?

It was... strange.

They weren't just friends, but neither were they anything more. They teased each other with friendly fire (which is new, but Rue wasn't complaining), and neither of them were brought to tears by the sight of the other. Rue doubted they'd ever get close to discussing what they were until after Vecna was defeated, and she wondered whether everything would fall apart again by the time she returned to Lenora Hills.

The rushing footsteps of Nancy Wheeler and Dustin Henderson into the kitchen startled Rue out of her thoughts. She looks up from the half-coloured sunset drawing in front of her to see two people out of breath and blanched as if they've encountered a ghost. The two of them immediately calm down when she catches their gaze.

"Morning, guys!" Mrs. Wheeler grins at the two, piling the freshly made pancakes on a plate. She frowns, noticing their distressed state. "Is everything okay?"

"Yeah." Nancy puffs out, slowly nodding as Max turns around in her chair. "Yeah, everything's okay."

Mrs. Wheeler hums as Nancy sits next to Max at the breakfast table, "I think it's so sweet that you guys are sticking together like this."

"Could try sticking together in a different house for a change," Ted Wheeler muttered, glancing over his newspaper to glare at Dustin.

The boy stood his ground, glaring back at the man while Mrs. Wheeler placed her hand on his shoulder, squeezing him into a side hug, "You know you're welcome anytime."

"Totally." Dustin nods, "You're like family," he smiles sweetly at the woman as he eyes the stacked pancakes on the counter. Dustin raises his brows and points to the food, "May I?"

Mrs. Wheeler was already one step ahead of him and held a plate in her hands for him to take. "Absolutely."

"Yeah, why not?" Mr. Wheeler grumbles, "Take us for all we're worth."

Cheekily, Dustin grins, "Okay." He says and begins to pile pancake after pancake on his plate, his smile growing and growing as Ted Wheeler stares at him with wide eyes.

"I don't see blood, no torn limbs," Nancy starts as she joins Rue, Max and Holly at the table.

"What?" Rue's heart stutters and skips several beats at her phrase for a split second. She stiffens and gives Dustin a few glances. Rue sees a flash of torn, lifeless people on the floor as she blinks. "What do you mean?"

Nancy glances at her as if it were obvious, which makes Rue even more nervous until she begins to chuckle. "You guys haven't ripped each other's heads off yet." Nancy implies, pointing between Max and Rue. "Should I be worried?" she asks, raising one eyebrow.

"Oh," Rue realizes she's been tapping the green crayon in her fists frantically against her drawing. Now there were green spots all across the sunset sky, and Holly's crayon was about to split in half. Rue sets it down and sighs, placing her hands under her chin. "Yeah, we're- we're cool."

Nancy is pleased to hear this, and she turns away from Rue to look at Max. As she reaches over to the girl and carefully slips the headphones from her ears, her voice softens into something more soothing. "You okay?"

"Couldn't sleep much," Max admits, and there's a faint grin on her face as she looks at Nancy, "People kept blasting music in my ears for some reason."

Nancy apologizes, knowing it was her fault that everyone had taken turns keeping an eye on Max and restarting the mixtape in her ears whenever it ended.

"But, Holly let me borrow some of her crayons." Max's voice is lighter, and she smiles at the youngest Wheeler, "We've been having fun, right, Holly?"

Holly hums, nodding softly as an answer while her attention remains on finishing her bunny. "Mmm-hmm."

Nancy looks down at the pages of red Max had scribbled. She pushes them apart to get a better look at everything and frowns, "Is this what you saw last night?"

"I mean, it's supposed to be," Max shrugs, "I thought it'd be easier to draw it out than to explain it, but... not so much."

Nancy takes a breath and raises one of the drawings. Rue frowns, unable to perceive what was scribbled on the page, and Nancy's eyes have a faint look of terror in them. She sets the paper down once more, mumbling, "Is that...?"

"It was like they were on display or something," Max explains, and she slides the drawing across the table so Rue could look at it too.

Rue rotates the page. She wasn't sure what she anticipated to see, but it wasn't two pillars with mutilated bodies hung from them, tangled between gory vines. Rue returns the drawing to Max, who examines the other sketches.

"And then there was this red fog everywhere," She motions to the other drawings, which all had the background scribbled and covered in red. Max sighs, "It was like a dream. A nightmare."

"Do you think Vecna's just trying to scare you?" Nancy asks.

"With Billy? Yeah. But when I made it here..." Max points to the pillars and shrugs again, "I dunno, something was different. He seemed surprised almost. Like he didn't want me there."

Dustin had joined the girls at the table, seated next to Rue. He places a dish piled high with pancakes, and slathered in syrup on the table. "Maybe you infiltrated his mind," He suggests, "He invaded your mind, right? Is it that big of a leap to suggest you somehow wound up in his?" Dustin begins to theorize, and his eyes light up, "Like Freddie Krueger's boiler room!"

Holly finally looks up from her Lite Brite and glances at Dustin, "Freddie Krueger?"

"He's a super burned-up dude with razors for fingers," He explains, scoffing when he spots Rue take one of his pancakes from his plate for herself. "And he kills you in your dreams."

"Dustin!" Nancy scowls, and when he turns to her cluelessly, she shakes her head disapprovingly. "Seriously?"

"Sorry." Dustin mumbles and glances at Holly, "It's a movie. It's not real." He clears that up and returns to the situation with the drawings and Max's vision. "Just... think about it. What if you somehow unlocked a backdoor to Vecna's world?" He argues, picking up one of the few pages with a blur of colour to it other than red. "Like, maybe the answer we're looking for is somewhere in this incredibly vague drawing." He clicks his tongue and shakes his head, "God, we need Will."

Max scoffs, "No shit."

"Are you guys gonna lie to him to get him here, too?" Rue jests, taking a bite from one of Dustin's pancakes. When the three of them turn to her, sharing guilty yet tired glances, Rue looks down and returns to finishing her sunset drawing, "Sorry, bad joke."

"Well, Rue tried to call home this morning," Max steers the conversation back to its course, "and it was the same busy signal."

"It's been like that for the whole week at this point," Rue adds, "And it's weird because Joyce is usually the one who holds up the line with work, but she's in Alaska."

Nancy makes a face, "Why is she in Alaska?"

"Some job conference, I dunno," She shrugs, "something about the Britannicas."

"In Alaska?"

"Whatever!" Rue throws her hands in the air, "The point is, if Joyce isn't holding the line, it's me. But I'm not there, so I don't know. It's weird."

"Maybe it's Jonathan?" Dustin suggests.

Rue frowns and shakes her head, "I highly doubt that. He only has one friend and Argyle practically lives with us if he's not at work."

"Is this a window?" Nancy asks. She has taken the drawing from Dustin's hands and turned it upside down. She tilts her head, inspecting it closer.

"Yeah." Max nods.

"Stained glass with roses." Nancy points out.

Max leans back on her chair, "Yeah. See? I'm not so terrible after all." She casts a vile look at Rue and Dustin.

Dustin had returned her childish antics by sticking his tongue out and rolling his eyes.

"You should still stick to skateboarding," Rue teased.

"Wow," Max puffs out, "Okay, asshole."

"Well, it helps that I've seen it before..." Nancy begins to browse over the remaining papers. Then she's folding the pages, following the rough edges of Max's awful artwork. After that, Nancy starts to piece them together like a puzzle, forming a ghostly shape of a house. She takes a sharpie from Holly's pencil case and outlines the rest of the house, adding windows until she has completed a grand house.

Rue stares at the puzzle before her in disbelief, and she feels her face scrunch up as she gapes at it upside down. "How the fuck-? Knuckles... butt... uhm-?" Rue begins to mutter random words after Holly had looked up at her when she cursed. Rue shakes her head, "Uhm? What just happened?"

"It's pieces of a house..." Max says slowly.

"Not just any house." Nancy tells them, "It's Victor Creel's house."

She abruptly stood up, surprising everyone at the table as her chair slid loudly over the wooden floor. Nancy turned on her heels, making her way through the kitchen, breaking the ominous tension that had enveloped the small group.

"Where are you going?" Dustin called after her.

Nancy turns around for a split second to inform them that she is waking everyone else up. Max scrambles to her feet, following after Nancy and leaving Dustin and Rue on the breakfast table, bewildered.

"How did she put that together out of Max's blobs?" Rue wonders out loud, her eyes still drawn to the red puzzle of the grand house.

Dustin shrugs, "Beat's me."

Dustin brings his plate with him as the two begin to stand. They enter the kitchen carefully, and their brows wrinkled as they speculate. The first two to emerge from the basement were Ricky Maguire and Steve Harrington. They mumble short 'hellos' to Dustin and Rue as they move past them on their way to the living room. The two teenager's perplexity only grew.

"So, it's the Creel's house," Rue says, "The one where Vecna's first attack is dated back." She glances at Dustin, "Do you think Vecna's still hiding there?"

"Maybe." Dustin mutters and raises his brows before nudging her side playfully, "What do you suppose, Celestial? If we head over there, would it be the correct path?"

Rue shifts uneasily at the headline, and she turns to face forward. She's hesitant to accept she's the divine leader Dustin claims she is because a part of her still believes she's been corrupted, recalling flashes of murder in the back of her mind.

Your time has come. Let us feel your wrath, Celestial. Bring them all to their demise. My fist of vengeance, my fallen angel, you'll lead them all to their defeat.

"In your nightmares," Dustin begins, his voice becoming hushed. He politely reaches for her arm, halting her from stepping further forwards. They face each other, and Dustin has a look on his face that Rue doesn't quite comprehend. "You mentioned seeing a house, correct? Was it anything like this one?"

"I was in the house," Rue tells him, "I don't remember seeing it from the outside. And there's this one room. Just the one... and it's..."