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oopsgracie · 2 years

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get to it

steve harrington x reader

summary: the Hawkins gang are getting some rest after saving Nancy, all camped out in Eddie’s living room. Only, Steve can’t quite catch a break from worrying about them but that’s what friends are there for— to help. Because thats all you two really are, just friends. If anything at all.

warnings: none!! super short, sweet and simple

word count: 2.9k

hurt comfort, sarcastic steve the babysitter and an even more sarcastic m/c (written in second person), slight frenemies to lovers and love confessions with a hint of drama concerning nancy wheeler.

When you wandered inside from the cold, the trailer was quiet— save for Dustin, who’s snores drifted from beneath a knot of limbs and blankets piled on the floor, everyone having collapsed beneath the weight of exhaustion and dragging Nancy back from the clutches of Vecna, not to mention the pressure of protecting life as you knew it from the shadow realm that quite literally rested above your head. It'd been a long day.

That was everyone but Steve, of course, who lingered obstructively in the doorway, leant against the frame like he was almost too tired to support his own weight. If anyone should be sleeping, your eyes wandered to the makeshift bandage coiled around the wound on his stomach, bulky beneath a fresh t-shirt— it was him. It would also save you from an awkward conversation.

But he never did like to make your life easy.

“Almost feels normal, doesn't it?" The usual tension between you was abated by exhaustion on behalf of both parties as you stood tautly next to him. There was that slight metallic twinge of blood that lingered in the air. It clung to Steve like sweat, thick and heavy.

So he laughed tiredly beneath his breath, "You could say that." Staring at your friends, no, your family tangled together on the carpet, the couch, Hell they'd even hauled the coffee table flush against the wall just so they could pack themselves closer together— like sardines in the tin of Eddie's trailer. Like a real sleepover, a normal sleepover. "Almost."

There's a furrow tilled between his eyebrows when his expression twists into something troubled. You watch as he sweeps those eyes carefully across them all, catching like a thread on Nancy. She's curled tightly into herself on the sofa until she's only a girl-shaped bump beneath her nest of blankets, pale and breathing shallowly.

But breathing nonetheless. She was okay.

And reading him was far too easy these days but it still felt intrusive somehow. "You did your job, Steve." It was barely a whisper, but urgently said.

“What?" For the first time, he wrenched his stare away from the gang and centred it squarely on you. His expression was tight. He was as fervent in asking his questions as you were— arrogantly expecting an answer rather than just demanding one.

“I mean— they're all okay." You kept them safe. It sat on the tip of your tongue like lead, something you couldn't quite admit yet. Not to him.

“They're okay." He repeated absentmindedly. The end of your sentence, ‘for now' hung over your heads like a threat, like the gate did. You shifted your weight uncomfortably in the silence, punctured only by a chorus of quiet breathing that rose from your friends.

He still stared at you like that for longer than what was considered societally normal, steadfast and firm, like he was trying to see right through your eyes and into your mind behind them, to decipher your thoughts and unravel your feelings. It was... strange, for lack of a better word, invasive even, but not entirely unpleasant.

You know, probably due to the simple and alarmingly obvious fact he was quite pretty really, startlingly so.

His eyes were gentle, or they would be if he didn't look so bruised up and tired. They were framed by dark lashes any girl would be jealous of, fluttering delicately against his cheeks every time he blinked slowly. You had the overwhelming urge to reach up and graze that cut on his temple with your thumb, the same side of his face that was lit warmly by the gentle glow of a table lamp. But you tore the thought from your mind and turned away abruptly, crossing your arms against your chest like they could protect you from his judgement, and maybe to ensure you wouldn't actually reach out and touch him.

Anybody else, you thought, you can feel that way about anybody else— just decidedly not for Steve 'the hair' Harrington, who'd been a first-class asshole in school. He was clearly an egomaniac who might have changed since senior year, sure, but he was rarely tolerable. And that was if you felt like being generous.

And yet none of that changed the reality of these last few days. Not the person he has been, not the things he’d done.

A reality in which he was suddenly, paradoxically selfless and observant and still frustratingly attractive. One in which he was stood in the same doorway with mere inches to spare, your shoulders brushing, while he studied you like that, with a look that was vaguely familiar. And, ironically, one in which he was more than tolerable— he might even be likeable. What an awful, awful thought.

He tipped his head backward when you smiled stiffly, satisfied, until it collided with the doorframe and he screwed his eyes closed, pinching the bridge of his nose like he had a headache. He sighed shortly. You rocked back on your nikes, considering his pained expression.

“How are you?" It wasn't said kindly exactly, but it was an honest question.

“I'll be fine." His response was automatic and his tone was softer, distracted again by the girl on the couch as she shifted in her sleep. You could let him lie to you if it made this moment a little less fraught with the anxieties of impending death. It could wait for an evening, if only that long.

“Copy that.”

“To tell you the truth i’m more worried about..." Nancy's name died in his throat and drifted over them both like a ghost. But you faltered. There was that soft stare again, the one he gave to you.

You watched him in quiet confusion, for long enough that he must have felt the overwhelming urge to fill that silence— anticipation in its most awkward form.

“It's not like you to be so... you know, empathetic." He muttered through that famous smile, small as it was. "Sure you didn't hit your head back there?" You snorted and shook your head, scuffing your shoes against the carpet so you didn't have to meet his gaze. Again.

“Well, if you're going to die on me tonight Harrington, I don't want you haunting me afterward because I didn't care about your shitty feelings."

“Makes sense, makes sense." He repeats absentmindedly, staring into the dark. He runs his fingers through his hair and your stomach twists. In moments like these you were nothing more than a simple girl— he doesn't have that nickname for no reason. "I think i'd stick around with you anyway."

You turn to him with a bitter expression that seemed to ask 'why?'. Your smile retained a sense of self-consciousness Steve didn't understand, but watching as your face lit up was a lot like staring at the sun— warm and pretty.

“Turns out, I don't completely hate your company," He threw his hands up, "You might strangle me for saying so but I maybe even like spending time with you." You laughed then and every other sound seemed to fade in comparison. "Can you believe it?"

“I mean— it is just a little incredible if you want me to be honest." You smiled, pinching your fingers together until they hovered just a hairs-breadth apart.

“More incredible than an alternate dimension and... monsters and shit?"

It was. It actually was. He had no idea how many nights you laid awake vowing to hate Steve Harrington and his stupid hair until your dying breath— or better, until his. Reconciling that son of a bitch with the boy stood in front of you was... difficult. It was letting that grudge go, something that wasn't as simple as it should be, not like pruning a rotten limb from a healthy tree. It was messy, deep and twisted into your psyche and that stubborn part of you resisted, this decision was friction, burning in spite of every assumption you ever made about him. But ultimately and objectively, maybe moving on was a step in the right direction. Maybe it was healthy.

So you grinned. And shrugged your shoulders, releasing all that tension and the hatred that came with it. A step in the right direction.

“You're not so bad yourself. I s'pose."

“Wow, you really know how to make a guy feel special, you know that?” He raised his hand and pressed a fist against his heart. "Truly heartwarming." His shirt rode up slightly, exposing his makeshift bandage and your face fell just a little, just enough for him to notice and twist awkwardly away.

“You're welcome." But you were quiet, the sentence was almost strangled by that lump in your throat that might be worry.

Nancy sighed. Steve, once again, seemed to panic.

“Hey, can I—" You cleared your throat, "Can I ask you a personal question?”

“We've only been friends for five minutes but..." He must've noticed your earnestness because his eyes soften with concern at the corners, "Sure, go ahead."

“Do you… do you still love her?"

“Are you shitting me?" You seemed... taken aback when he whispered, to say the least, physically backing up and as far away from him as the doorframe would let you. You went so far as to blink at him in complete and utter surprise and your expression soured. “Sorry, sorry." He mumbled sarcastically. "I didn't mean it like that. It's just— it's a big question, okay?"

“A big question?" You folded your arms again, "It was like, five words."

“You know what I mean." That was the sullen expression of a spoilt child sulking, not someone who'd graduated high school. But Steve never really had grown up. And so he frowned, his bottom lip jutted out like a shelf. "And no, by the way."

“No what, dingus?"

“No I don't still love her." Your ribcage tightened, enough to make breathing an effort. But why?

“You're sure?" His eyes lingered on her, thoroughly pensive with baited breath but he seemed to surrender himself to some kind of truth when he turned away, turning back to you.

“Well... no." You wondered why that stung so much, why you felt so defeated.

“No?"

“Not exactly. I'll always love her a little bit— I think. Y-you weren't there the first few times, going through that together— I don't think I have much of a choice except to love her. But..." Way to make a girl feel special, you thought, his words sat in the back of your mouth like a bad taste. You swallowed thickly and nodded anyway, like a friend should— considering that's what you were now and all.

“But not in the way you're talking about." He grew kind of frantic, intense was probably a better word. At the very least a little dramatic. "She's been through so much, you know? But somehow, somehow she's still like a really, truly good person. Like heart of gold type shit. The kind of person you want as a friend, like really want. Like Robin. So... I love her like that, even if we aren't super close— love her like a friend I mean, and I want her to be safe and happy, but... I don't love her."

“Right." You whispered and he shook his head decisively, smiling at his shoes almost smug, infuriatingly so. The impression only grows when he turns to watch you, to consider you— and those micro expressions that betray so many secrets.

“Can I ask you a personal question?" He tilted his head to one side like a puppy, his hair flipping softly with it. You nodded breathlessly, too tired to ask him about that tone, the one that often precedes a difficult question.

“Why do you care?"

Your train of thought seemed to stutter and stop, leaving you to scramble for some kind of answer.

“It's just... cause from the way you look at her, it kind of seems like you two have some unresolved feelings to work through, I guess."

“Hey, hey, slow down." You blinked at him through the half-light. He hesitated. "If there's anyone I have unresolved feelings for it's not Nancy."

“What? I thought you and Robin were—"

The face he made was comical, and maybe insulting if you were Robin. "Oh God no, it's definitely not her either, just... just give me a second okay?"

“Oh— okay." You waited, and he did that thing where he pinched the bridge of his nose again, breathing hard, harder than you were. "Are you good Steve?"

“You remember when you said you didn't care about my feelings? Like five minutes ago?"

“Funnily enough yeah, I do. Why?"

“Right, right so, you never exactly have either, like back in school."

“Back when you were a real asshole, you mean? What was your name again, oh right, King Stev—"

“I'm serious y/n."

“You are? Wow, this has gotta be a first for sure.”

“Yes, I am. And I know I was a total moron, just to be clear, but I sat behind you in home room the whole of senior year. It was the first day of school and I asked if you had a pen I could borro—"

“Classic Steve, no school supplies." You snickered.

“Eat shit." His eyes rolled too as if he could be more sarcastic, "Anyway, you gave me a pencil and I wrote you a note with it. Remember that? It was pink. I asked if you wanted to go catch a movie down at the theatre and you literally threw it back at me in front of like..." He faltered, his adam's apple bobbing not with worry but...shame. "Like everyone."

“You mean that wasn't... a joke?" Regret blossomed like spring flowers in your stomach and you felt a little sick.

“Why would it have been a joke?"

“Steve..."

“Yeah?" His voice was so small, so different and vulnerable. Maybe even a little defensive.

“You tormented me that entire year, forgive me if I didn’t think you had serious intentions.”

“I— I know. And I'm sorry, I was just... hurt. And immature and if i'm totally honest? A little obsessed with you in the least creepy way possible. A part of me just wanted your attention."

“I don't know what to tell you. This is—“

“Well, that's okay. What I was going to say, other than that i'm sorry," He eased gently. There was no warning before he slipped his hand into yours, just a mildly comfortable silence, "Is that I still really like you.”

“You… you used to like me?” You spoke slowly, it simply didn’t seem to register, discordant with that image of him you carefully constructed.

“Unfortunately.”

“And you still do?” He nodded nonchalantly, looking conflicted.

“Yeah, well. I wanted to mention that and the fact you are like way, way more difficult than I thought you would be judging by these last few days." The corners of your mouth quirked upward unwillingly, you turned away to try and hide it but he saw. And he smiled wider. "But you're also pretty damn cool."

“That much has always been obvious, maybe you just weren’t looking close enough." But you stared at him openly, excitedly. And he stared straight back, pleased to be the reason you were happy.

“I’ve always noticed you.” It was so blasé, so like him. “But if you tell anyone, I mean anyone, what i’ve just said, like Robin, or Dustin, or Erica..." You raised your eyebrows and he laughed into the small space between you, "I will feed you to Vecna myself. We will never, I repeat, never hear the end of it."

“He doesn't eat people, Steve."

“Oh yeah? How do you know?"

“Have you been listening to Nancy?"

“I mean—“ He mumbled something softly, staring at your mouth that sounded a lot like “I was pretty wrapped up with you, to be complete honest." But when the corners of your mouth curled upward in a wry smile, he shrugged, suddenly uptight, "Of course I have— hey! What’s so funny?"

“You're a dork Steve Harrington."

“Oh..." He leans a little closer, his voice a little lower. "Really? Is that your type?” Until your chests are almost touching, until your heart is in your throat and you can feel his breath warm against your cheek as he speaks, fervent with ardour and an immature kind of glee.

“Mhmm, maybe." The drop wasn't scary like you thought it would be, it wasn't quick. You didn't find yourself toeing the edge of a precipice and throwing yourself over, you didn't fall into love so much as meet it quietly, in that doorway. It simply planted itself in the back of your mind and you found it taking root, unfurling at the centre of everything.

All you knew when he offered you his hand in the steady glow of that dated table lamp and the company of your friends, is that you took it. And it felt different. And for a moment all that matters existed in that space between you, those inches that separated your sternum from his and his heart from yours. Even in with the windows open and the gate above your head that let in the cold, let in that stifling quiet, he radiated warmth, he radiated light. It spread from your fingertips through the very fabric of your being, a feeling that seeped into your bones and through your defences, right into your heart until it fluttered behind your ribcage. You felt like laughing.

“Now Harrington," You spoke softly, teasingly, right onto his lips, "Get to it."

“To what?" He mumbled, mesmerised by your mouth as it moved.

“One day, you're going to die at the hands of your own stupidity." You muttered beneath your breath only that there wasn't enough space between you for privacy, and he heard every word, still confused, still amazed by you, "I thought you were supposed to be experienced in this by now."

“What are you talking about?"

“Just kiss me, before I change my mind."

So he did, not softly, not slowly but like he'd been starved of affection, his hands finding the small of your back and pulling you closer, his lips slotted against yours like puzzle pieces. He was attentive and careful and rough, he was everything you've ever wanted all at once, he sent your head spinning. Until he pulled breathlessly away.

You blinked at him breathlessly, bottom lip caught between your teeth, warmth reluctantly rising in your cheeks to paint them a pretty shade of pink, “You're still a fool Steve Harrington? You know that?"

He laughed, really laughed, and whispered stupidly, "Only a fool for you."

let me know what you think!! it keeps me motivated :)

more steve content on the way and this is a reminder that my requests are open if there’s anything you want me to write next!! <3

read ‘haunted house’ - steve harrington x reader here

#steve harrington x you #steve harrington x reader #steve harrington #eddie munson #stranger things s4 #stranger things four #stranger things #hawkins #steve the hair harrington #steve the babysitter #nancy wheeler #nancy wheeler x steve harrington #steve harrington x nancy wheeler

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vanweezer · 2 years

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stoncy week: day 7 - secret relationship / “just tell me why you did it!” “because i’m in love with you, okay?”

alternative prompt: coming out

ending this week off with: steve (pre anything) coming out as "subtly" as he can to jonathan & nancy. i loved participating in this! heres to stoncy!

click for high quality/text id in alt text

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dadsbongos · 2 years

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scream

Stranger Things x Horror Movie Collection

American Psycho / Halloween / Scream / Friday the 13th / Fear Street / Jennifer’s Body

7.5K words

warnings - descriptions of wounds/violence (blood n gore n such), aftermath of you and eddie sex, scream au

summary - The day after the horrific slaughter of Barb Holland, a year after the devastating murder of Mike Wheeler and Will Byers.

You’re pulling the gold ‘86 charm around the chain of your class necklace while walking past a couple of cop cars, other hand latched tightly with Nancy Wheeler’s. Reporters and kids seeking their fifteen minutes of fame are found in groves on the parking lot. Nancy tenses seeing Police Chief Hopper leaning against the hood of his car as he surveys the area.

Squeezing her hand lovingly, you’re relieved to spot your boyfriend - waving you over, cartoonishly eager - at the school’s entrance.

“C’mon,” you drop your ‘86 charm and drag Nancy up the stoop into Hawkins High, “forget about Hop, you’ve got an English quiz today.”

“As if anyone’s actually going to do any work today,” Nancy drops your hand when the two of you come to the landing.

Eddie scoops you up into his arms, pressing a loud, obnoxious smooch to your cheek, “I’m so glad you’re here - safe and sound.”

“Eds,” you pinch his arm, “not the right time.”

“It’s fine,” Nancy huffs, though, and anybody could tell that she’s lying through her perfect teeth, “I’m not glass, you know? You don’t have to be so careful around me.”

You could say something nice - “just worried about you”, “it isn’t appropriate”, anything really - but any response could set Nancy off, so you decide it’s best to keep quiet. The three of you go inside to find students excitedly, or morbidly, chattering away about the previous night’s attack at their lockers.

Nancy keeps her head down, arms folded, as you all approach Steve Harrington and Robin Buckley at the girl’s own locker.

Eddie loops an arm over your shoulders and through the worry, you feel delighted at his actions. He grins at you, kissing your temple. He’s a good boyfriend, better than Steve - not that you’re keeping score (you totally are, though).

Steve’s fine, generally.

He greets Nancy now with a kiss and a smile and it works for them. Who are you to throw a fit over it, then?

Robin groans at the affection both of you display and glares into the distance as a boy runs through the hall in a black robe and skull mask, “God, does nobody have any respect for the dead?”

“Robin,” your eyes roll to the girl, “I saw guys doing keg stands the same night that Bob Newby was reported missing.”

Gazes shoot to Nancy in sync, which she notices but is kind enough - or perhaps, tired enough - to let it pass.

“Still, this is the kind of stuff that happens in shitty slashers, not real life,” Robin presses her lips thinly, “I just can’t believe this stuff is still happening.”

“What’s not to believe?” Eddie asks, purely sardonic, “The liver in the mailbox or the big intestine used to hang her from the apple tree out front?”

“Eddie,” you snap, brows drawing tight.

Nancy shakes her head and you catch the way she gives Steve one of her infamous pointed stares. You copy the motion and Steve looks between the two of you, confused.

Clueless “good guy”, Steve’s typical persona. It bugs the shit out of you sometimes. Most times.

“What?” Eddie mutters into your ear as Nancy storms off, maintaining his naivety through your accusatory gaze, “Was I… not supposed to mention that?”

“Yes!” the bell for first-period rings following your exclamation, you sigh at your boyfriend’s behavior but relent when his sweet doe eyes meet yours. You grab him by the lapel of his leather jacket and pull him down into a kiss, “I’ll see you later, nerd. No falling asleep in class, you’ve gotta graduate.”

“Yes, ma’am!” he shoots ramrod straight with a mock salute before waving off Robin and turning towards the opposite end of the hall.

Ms. Hunt’s Spanish 3-4 is not a lax class for tardies, so you loop an arm through Robin’s and begin pulling her towards your shared class.

“Is that true?” Robin fiddles with a lock of hair, one of her many nervous habits, “About the liver and the tree?”

You’re struck silent, mouth opening and closing with no idea of what to say. In a final throwaway, you shrug and toss your hands up in defeat, “Who the hell knows, Robin?”

The both of you pass the Journalism room through the electives hallway, Nancy’s standout profile visible through the slatted window in the door. You feel empathy burn in your chest for your best friend. Nancy’s little brother, Mike Wheeler, was slaughtered only a year ago with Will Byers - the killer was never found and everyone except Nancy can see how that’s affecting her. You see it most especially.

Nancy is like a totally different person now.

There are only ten minutes left until your fourth hour is over and a man in the Hawkins police uniform walks in. He’s chewing gum like the many stereotypical cops before him, eyes scanning the room beneath his shades before he whispers to your teacher.

Ms. Simmons points at you and before she can even finish her sentence, you’re standing, “They need you in the main office, honey.”

“I figure,” you brush past the officer, binder tight to your chest.

You didn’t know Barbara “Barb” Holland incredibly well, but she sat next to you in Ms. Simmons’ Art 1-2. She seemed kind, if a little stiff, it’s a shame what happened to her.

Principal Higgins and Officer Powell are already lining up which students will be called in after you while Hopper gestures towards the empty seat directly across from him. There’s a faint waft of alcohol as you pass him, you set your mind back to that last time you two met. He was questioning you like he’s supposed to be now, back then - a year ago - about the slaughter of Mike Wheeler and Will Byers. Against what your parents always tell you to do, you keep your scorned cheek to Hopper and let passive aggressiveness rot the way you treat him.

“Have you ever heard somebody talk poorly about Ms. Holland?” Jim pulls out a small pad of paper, clicking his pen a couple times and jotting his question.

“No,” you tilt your head, eyes narrowing at the man, “Have you got any leads on the Wheeler-Byers’ case?”

Jim looks at you, raising his brows pointedly, “You know I can’t tell you.”

“So ‘no’,” your eyes go to principal Higgings when he clears his throat sharply. You shrug innocently, returning your gaze to the police chief.

“When’s the last time you saw Ms. Holland?”

“Yesterday at school.”

“Did you see Ms. Holland speaking with anybody suspicious or off-putting?”

“No.”

“Did you see Ms. Holland and Ms. Wheeler speaking at any time within recent history?”

That makes you pull back, face screwing sourly and hands clenching tighter around the binder pressed flat to your lap. You glare fully at Hopper now and he doesn’t back down - he doesn’t glare for the sake of his image, but his eyes are judgmental of you surely. A cigarette tucked behind his ears. You can now faintly see a small stain, brownish-yellow, right in the center near his uniform collar.

“Did Barb talk to Nancy- ?” you laugh hollowly, shaking your head and making a point to ignore the way principal Higgins is staring, wide-eyed, straight into your skull, “Did the friends-since-kindergarten talk? I dunno, Jim, did Mike Wheeler ever talk to your daughter?”

The officer stands, points down at you with his pen, and remains silent. He tosses the possibilities over his tongue, lips pursing - his face is set stern and he shoots a glance at Officer Powell. Powell turns and pretends he isn’t listening, Higgins follows the example.

“I know you’re mad, and that’s fine,” Hopper jabs the pen towards you again, “I really don’t care if you or your friends hate me, but I’m trying to do an investigation here.”

“Should we expect something big?”

He clicks his teeth, looks away, and stands back, “You can hate me, but don’t pretend that I don’t care.”

You push yourself up from the chair, smiling snidely at the officer, “I don’t think I have to pretend, Jim.”

Undeniably petty, but any potential guilt drummed up by principal Higgins’ death stare is killed quickly by the memory of Mike Wheeler. A sweet, if incompetent, boy that played the role of ‘best friend’s little brother’ to perfection; annoying, cynical, but overall endearing. Always trying to impress you and Robin when you two went over because you were both older and cooler.

And Will Byers was a plain and simple sweetheart.

You can’t imagine forgiving Jim Hopper for dropping the ball on their investigation (even if it really isn’t much his fault).

You don’t bother getting a pass from Higgins’ secretary before powering into the hallway.

Hopper is the reason Nancy doesn’t have closure. Hopper is the reason Joyce can’t sleep at night. Hopper is the reason Jonathan leaves town every other week to work with that Murray creep on his brother’s case.

Ducking into the closest girls’ bathroom, you sit against the tiled wall closest to the sinks. Lifting your binder and pressing it coldly against your forehead. The door slams open and you hate how your body jumps, thankfully the girls that come in don’t mention it. Instead, they move straight to the mirrors and begin teasing their pillowed, lifted hair.

You recognize a Hawkins cheer uniform from the corner of your eye, her friend swamped in an oversized romper with beaded bracelets that twist and clink with each turn of her wrist. They ignore you, and you’ve never been so happy to be looked over in your life. At least you are until they start talking.

“Have you heard about Wheeler?”

“Who hasn’t?” the cheerleader’s hands pause as she’s quirking her curls, lips pulling into a pout and she tilts her head, “That girl’s majorly off-putting and psycho - I wouldn’t be surprised if she was the killer.”

You pull down the binder, laying it on the corner of the connected sinks as the other girl speaks, “Well, she did know all the victims so far.”

“Hey,” you snap and they both flinch, eyes wide at your presence, “she’s been through a lot. Why don’t you try losing the people she has? Then let’s see how you act like a normal fucking person.”

You pry open the bathroom door as the bell for second lunch blares, slamming it shut before they can follow you out.

Eddie is nearly laying atop you as your group sits around one of the stray picnic tables outside. He prefers to sit inside with Hellfire - ideally, you join - but if you want to spend time with the friends that are actually your age, he’s not going to bitch and complain. His chin is laid on your shoulders, arms tight around your waist and even though you’re leaning back into his chest, your head is entirely elsewhere.

Steve sits on his own, half-heartedly entertaining a rant from Robin about the trials and tribulations of being in the high school band. Mostly Marky Siles, a flutist, her most hated bandmate.

There’s a hole where Nancy should be and the fact that she’s missing leaves your gut restless. A constant tugging of your nerves. Your eyes refuse to leave their post.

Not until there’s the clicking of boot heels on pavement, then you see Nancy’s bouncy perm and her dress’ skirt flowing in the Hawkins breeze behind her. Her gaze finds you first, then flits to Robin, and she sits between the girl and Steve.

“Where were you?” you don’t mean to sound so accusatory, but you’d be lying to say you weren’t worried by her absence. Eddie’s arms wind a little tighter around you.

Just as her mouth pops open to give her an excuse, the PA system crackles alive and the barely-decipherable voice of your dear principal Higgins creaks out. Steve clasps her hand in his as Higgins announces,

“Classes are out until the person behind Barbara Holland’s attack is caught. We want our students safe. Curfew is nine at night. Be safe and stay indoors as often as possible.”

“I got attacked,” Nancy swallows roughly, eyes darting from Steve’s to Eddie’s to yours. Her gaze falls to her white mary janes, “After talking to Chief Hopper, in the bathroom.”

Which one?

You don’t ask. Nobody asks.

You and Robin share a flit, though, and you can see the question smothered behind her eyes, too.

“You shouldn’t go home alone,” you pat Eddie’s arms and he releases you, standing at your side as Nancy does, “My parents are out for the week, so you can stay with me.”

“Wow, babe,” Eddie pouts theatrically, wrapping an arm over your shoulders, “I’m not allowed over but Wheeler can be your live-in friend?”

“Nancy is actually liked by my parents,” you swat his chest, shooting him a grin. Eddie groans, showy and disingenuous in his apparent agony, before pecking the lips you tease him with.

“Well, you two could stay in the house and do whatever it is you’re planning,” Steve settles his hands on Nancy’s shoulders, leaning in to press a kiss to her cheek, “Or, you could come to House Harrington for an absolutely,” he snaps and points to Eddie, “rocking party.”

“Metal, but good try,” Eddie backs away as students begin flooding out of the school, “You girls want a ride?”

Your head twitches to Nancy but she just walks past you and towards the parking lot.

“Yes,” you snag Eddie’s hand, swinging your conjoined hands as you follow Nancy.

“Be there at seven!” Steve calls after you all. Robin cheers for you all as you go - a sweet gesture, if completely unnecessary.

Nancy turns, walking backward so she’s waving her boyfriend goodbye, “See you at nine!”

Nancy and Steve aren’t the best for each - not a particular person’s fault; simple mismatch. Steve isn’t very good at comforting people and Nancy isn’t very good at getting comfortable. She wraps herself in barbed wire and refuses to hand over the cutters. Well, you and Robin had them, but that’s different.

Steve sighs, heavy and tired, and tilts his head at Robin, “Need a ride?”

“No,” Robin brushes a hand through her bangs, wiping away sweat as she goes, “I gotta run some errands.”

He pauses. Thinks. Nods, “Me too.”

“I’ll be here at 8:30 to pick you two up,” Eddie kisses your knuckles, hanging out of the driver’s window as he wishes you farewell, “Try not to get attacked by any masked creeps, okay?”

“I’ll try,” you brush the bangs away from his forehead and kiss the skin there, “Drive safe.”

“As if,” he laughs when you jokingly death stare, “‘s all I’m saying, baby,” he shrugs and moves back into his seat, “As if.”

“Don’t crash!” you call out again, eyes following his van as it speeds past a couple kids drawing in chalk on the curb.

Your older brother is sitting on the couch, mind melting along to whatever game show he has playing.

“Thought we couldn’t have people over?” he squints at you, wholeheartedly intimidated at the thought of glaring at Nancy.

“What’re you gonna do?” you walk in front of the couch, jabbing the button on the TV to turn it off as you pass, “Call ‘em home? Grow up.”

Nancy is nothing if not polite, and so she gives a tight-lipped smile and silently follows after you to your bedroom. A bedroom you haven’t bothered updating all that much since the first time Nancy walked into your room as a little second-grader. Still fashioned in your old princess pink and purple accent decor. It’s slowly grown back on you since the grunge phase of middle school, but you’re still excited to change it when Hawkins isn’t so… Hawkins, and things are normal.

She settles on your bed before you do, though she immediately curls over the edge of your mattress and wracks her hand under your bed until you hear the sound of her hand meeting plastic. It’s a dull thud, she doesn’t even react. You sit beside her as she pulls out the old purple tub of nail polish that almost seemed to appear from nowhere. One day in seventh grade it just showed up on your vanity and you’d touched it every other weekend when you wanted to put your classmates in shock and awe of flashy colors.

“Really?” you throw yourself back onto the bed so you’re staring up at the fading, peeling glow-in-the-dark stars.

“Why not?” she sets the box aside, picking out moss green nail polish and setting it on your nightstand, “We have some time to kill, don’t we?”

Briiing!

The phone rattles against itself loudly, you and Nancy lock eyes.

“Not much,” you stand first, dashing to the dining room phone and pushing your brother aside when he holds it out.

“For Nancy,” he mutters, intentionally skipping over you as he holds out the phone.

Her lashes bat, brows furrowing, she holds the phone close and stares straight past you, boring into the wall. You watch her face morph from typical ice queen neutral to freezing terror.

Your brother moves as if to walk away, unphased by Nancy’s subtle shifting, but you grab his wrist and shove him towards the kitchen phone.

“I don’t know who you are,” Nancy crosses her free arm over her chest and you move closer, gently brushing a hand over her shoulder, “but whatever you’re trying to pull is coward bullshit.”

You can faintly hear a gravely, rasped voice spewing their nonsense and you shoot a look to your brother - violently pointing at the phone and gesturing for him to pick the damn thing up.

He does so just in time to hear the threat shouted toward your dear friend.

“I’m gonna gut you like a fucking pig, Wheeler!”

Nancy turns to you and you watch her brain tumble for responses, her chest heaves, and her body leans into yours, “Come and get me then.”

The air rings. You watch her swallow thickly.

The front door thuds and bangs on its hinges with the force of its being knocked on. You clutch to Nancy, feeling ridiculous at such an over-dramatic reaction. Your brother flinches at the sound and runs to look through the peephole. Nancy stands rigid though, whether out of fear or expectation - you’re not sure.

Your brother groans and hurriedly yanks the door open to find Jonathan Byers at the doorstep. A brick phone you only see in movies and the hands of busy businessmen clenched in one hand.

Nancy lets your phone drop back into place. You slowly split from her side, but her hand clutches the back of your shirt - holding tight like a leash on a dog.

“The hell’re you doing here?” you try and copy Nancy now - be brave. Bigger than you are.

Jonathan holds up the phone, “I need to see your call list.”

“How would we even get that?” you narrow your eyes at the man, “We need our parents for that and they aren’t back for the week.”

He steps inside and your brother can’t contain his exhaustion at your and your friends’ antics while slamming the front door.

“It’ll be too late then,” he sets the brick phone onto the table and you roll your eyes at his complaints, “Have you gotten any weird calls lately?”

“Yeah, just now,” Nancy crosses her arms, then nudges her head towards Jonathan, “You, too?”

“Yeah,” his stare shifts from her to you quickly, “That’s why I need your list.”

“We can’t get it,” dragging Nancy back to your room by the hand, you shrug and call over your shoulder, “So get over it, Johnny!”

Jonathan doesn’t follow. Instead, he wanders into the kitchen and inspects the phone - still disconnected and strewn on the counter - as if any type of answers will arise there. Nonetheless, your brother tells you he already left for Steve’s house when you go back down to meet Eddie outside.

“Lock up when you’ve convinced your wet blanket to come inside, pretty girl,” Eddie drops the keys to his van in your hand, kissing you sweetly before grabbing his pail of drugs and leaving for the Harrington party.

“She’s not a wet blanket,” he raises his brows at your defense, pausing to toss your words around his head, then shaking with head with a laugh, “She’s not!”

He just laughs some more.

You turn and crawl into the back seat where Nancy is, admittedly, being a wet blanket and crossing her arms with a pout. For someone with a boyfriend inside a luxurious house, she really doesn’t want to get out of the car.

“You know Robin’s waiting for us, right?” you rest your head on her shoulder, blinking up coyly as if to coerce her out of the seat.

Nancy looks - practically glares - down at you, “I don’t want to go to Steve’s party.”

You nod sympathetically, “I know, Nance, but there’s gotta be an upkeep of appearance or else everyone will know you’re secretly still a nerd.”

That makes her smile - just a little, but you take it as success all the same.

“I am not a nerd,” Nancy’s simper is hidden behind another pout as she gazes at you through her lashes, “Not even in secret.”

“Then let’s go in there,” you reach across her lap and pop the door open, “and prove it. Enough pussyfooting, sweetcheeks.”

“Don’t ever call me sweetcheeks again,” Nancy exits the car faster than you, slamming the door in your face as she goes.

You and Nancy find Robin instantly, prattling on and on about what a bad idea this party is. She turns to you two at your approach, arms flying out and taking each of your shoulders in her hands - eyes nearly comically wide.

“Horny teens!” she shakes you and tries shaking Nancy, but the girl stands far sturdier than you, “Horny, drunk teens die in movies! We’re like a goddamn school of minos to Death!”

Nancy ducks out of Robin’s hold, staring down the partygoers that turn up their noses at Robin. You pat Robin’s shoulder and take the hand she’s settled on you, guiding her to the couch where Steve is fiddling - trying to put in a tape to entertain the stoned and drunk teenagers on his couch.

You lean your elbows on the back of the couch, right behind Robin as she sits down. Steve tosses his hands up as the screen comes to life, he turns and points at Nancy, grinning wide and sweet, “Boom, baby!”

The dull metal of Eddie’s chunky rings cling up your back, his hair draping over you as he stands behind you.

“Oh my God,” Robin steals attention again as the spine-tingling credits score to John Carpenter’s Halloween string through the room, “A horror movie? Okay!” she shoots up straight and turns to you all, “Okay. Rules, now. To survive this stupid horror movie, there are rules.”

“What are those rules, oh wise Robin Buckley?” Eddie snickers, leaning his head against yours.

“Yeah, Rob,” Steve moves behind the couch and takes Nancy’s hand, squeezing kindly, “what are our rules?”

She puts up three fingers, “No sex,” the crows groans and ‘boo!’s and Robin shushes them, “no weed,” she points at Eddie, “no alcohol,” she gestures to everybody, “and no saying ‘I’ll be right back’!”

Steve gasps, spare hand flying up to cover his mouth, “Oh- oh my God, I’m… out of beer, I- “ he releases Nancy’s hand and jabs a thumb at his kitchen doorway, “I’m gonna get another beer…” he stares directly at Robin, nearly smashing his face right into the wall, “and I’ll be right back!”

Eddie leans in to kiss your cheek, “What do you say we get out of here?”

“Already, Eds?” you shoot a disbelieving stare at your boyfriend, “We’ve barely got here.”

“Then let's desecrate a bedroom?” he suggests, giggling when you scrunch your nose, “C’mon take back from the one percent.”

“Steve’s parents are not the one percent and banging in their bedroom does nothing.”

“I never said anything about his parents’ room,” Eddie’s jaw drops and he shakes his head, ‘tsk’ing, “You’re a sicko, baby. Twisted and deranged.”

But he’s already stomping up the grand staircase and cooing for you to follow.

Nancy crosses her arms at you and Robin’s gaze is slim.

Sorry, you mouth, then lean close to Robin and nearly sing, “We’ll be right back!”

Nancy and Robin watch you go. Then Robin is watching Nancy wander off as well.

The first thing Steve notices that’s out of the ordinary in the kitchen is a lack of beers in the fridge. The second thing he notices is the phone off its hook. Lying on the kitchen counter and curled over its own chord, he picks up the phone and puts it to his ear. Completely dead. Droning and entirely voiceless, so he returns it and goes into the garage for the beer he knows his dad stores.

He nearly jumps at the sound of the garage door slamming behind him, but he’s grown up with this sound and this door, so he presses on. The fridge door creaks as it opens and Steve can barely hear it over the damn near deafening buzz of this garage refrigerator. But he catches it.

The slam.

Steve yanks himself out from the fridge, a single beer in hand, shoulders drooping at the sight on the doorstep. He points at the figure, cloaked in black with a hokey, grimy skull mask on,

“Take that shit off, my girlfriend got attacked today,” he pauses, shutting the fridge door, “Also just poor taste, man.”

Skull Mask is silent. Comes down from the doorstep and Steve sighs.

“What? You wanna act like a killer?” he tosses up a hand in question, “Want to pretend you’re a psycho?”

Skull Mask nods slowly. Steve rolls his eyes.

“Alright, hilarious. Seriously, go take that off - I don’t want Nancy seeing it,” he turns back towards the fridge, creaking it back open.

The thick steps creep across the concrete. Steve can’t feel the black draping across his back - doesn’t feel the warmth of a body, of malice, behind him. Doesn’t hear his old, dirty, childhood jump rope being pulled free from under a rusted green bike.

Wrapped tight around each palm, Steve stands while the rope is raised. Three beers in hand - one for him, one for Nancy, and one to finally ease Robin’s nerves.

He gags and coughs, beers tumbling from his hand and shattering around their feet as the crusty yellow jump rope rips against his throat. Skin rubbing red and raw, his back hitting Skull Mask’s chest. He claws at the thread but it refuses to tear.

Steve pushes himself against Skull Mask and the two thud onto the floor. He hears Skull Mask wheeze and their grasp slips enough for him to break off. Steve moves immediately, stuttering up to run but a hand snags his ankle before he can make it far. His nose cracks against the floor and he scrambles up, hands claw at his pant legs.

There’s blood dripping down his lips as Skull Mask creeps along his back, their knees cage his waist - hands wrapping tight around his neck. They throttle and squeeze and pull and no matter how he twists and pries, the hands still wrack.

His vision spots, head light and vaguely throbbing in pain. Chest aching and face so numb he can’t feel the blood anymore. Softly, it tingles.

When the world darkens and floats, a hand leaves his neck in favor of tangling through his hair. Steve kicks once. Twice. His body limps. The hand in his hair threads back and his head tumbles forward - loud as bone cracks on concrete.

Steve’s body is tugged to the side. Skull Mask rises to a full stand.

The mask slips off, clenched tight in hand as the robe sleeve wipes sweat from their forehead. A heaving chest, the urge to scream, clutter clearing only slightly in a tattered mind. The mask slips on and they return to the party inside.

Eddie’s hands are soft and loving on the sides of your face, his lips sweet as they whisper praise against yours. His skin still clings with sweat, curls cling to your fingers as you coil them through his hair.

He pauses, reared back to stare at you with soft doe eyes, “I’m worried about Nancy.”

“I am, too,” you ‘hmph’, “Weird for you to bring it up after sex, though.”

“My post-coitus,” he giggles when you grimace, “glow was ruined when I remembered that your best friend’s a basketcase.”

“She’s not a basketcase,” you roll your eyes, Eddie smoothens the wrinkled skin of your glabella with his thumb, “It’s understandable. The way she’s been lately.”

“Manson girl,” he teases and you gasp - genuinely - at the comparison.

“I am not a Manson girl just because I defend my best friend,” your hands settle over his shoulders, fully prepared to finally push him off of you.

Eddie opens his mouth to reply, a cheap joke most definitely, but before he can he’s arching up - trying to wring his body to look back. Your eyes move behind Eddie to see a black-robed figure in a skull mask there - one of the (supposedly) faux spears that hung in the hallway being shoved through your boyfriend’s back.

He pushes you further into the bed and leans up, trying to get you away before the spear can pierce you, too. There’s terror in your throat but it won’t come out, you hold Eddie’s face as he hacks blood and cups a hand over the puckering skin of his chest - where the spearhead is coming out.

He tries shoving you out of bed - to run, to hide, to do something, but you can’t leave. Frozen on the mattress until the head is right below your stomach. Eddie limps in your arms, drooling with blood, and you look up to see Skull Mask roughly pull out the spear from your boyfriend’s back. More blood gushes from the wound - leaking onto your thigh and the bedsheets below.

The blade is held above your head. Its head shakes as you gaze up at it.

You think you scream before blacking out.

Robin looks at Jonathan when he holds a hand out. A joint between two fingers in offering.

The other partygoers have long left since spotting a copless cop car less than a block away. And Jonathan has reeked of reefer since he walked through the door under an hour ago.

“No, I’m good,” Robin shoves his hand back towards his chest, then sits up straight, ready to push herself off the couch, “You’re gonna die if you smoke that, you know?”

“Weren’t you the one…” Jonathan points at Robin with the joint between his fingers, “who said we all die.”

To Dustin - years ago - when he was worrying over Steve’s minor collision on the road. It was the lightest, most modest crash this side of the Mississippi has seen since two bikes smashing handles.

Robin stares down at the man’s hand, his nails are a little grimy and she briefly wonders if he’d been looking through garbage for hints of his brother’s location. She then wonders where Nancy Wheeler is.

Before she can turn and wonder, there’s a crash against the back of her head. Shards shatter and fly around the couch, Robin rocks forward and hits the ground with a thud.

Jonathan shoots up from his seat, he knocks into a side table and pushes aside a chair that clatters as they both fall to the ground.

Black robe and skull mask loom above - the shadows paint them in something horrible. Something terrifying. For all his thoughts and fantasies about what he would do when he found his brother’s killer, he’s completely unable to defend himself now.

You come to, to find yourself sat between Robin and Jonathan. Nancy stands at Steve Harrington’s kitchen counter, a knife spun against the marble surface between her slender fingers.

Jonathan looks like he’s been stabbed straight through the gut - breathless and oozing pain. His brows are to his hairline and he’s shouting.

You’ve been wrapped in a bathrobe - a crimson, velvet affair that you’ve only ever seen hanging in the bathroom. You lock eyes with Robin over Jonathan’s hunched back, like he’s trying to rip himself out of the chair and through his restraints. She shifts and you can tell she isn’t tied down. You see no ropes around her arms or legs.

“Did you do it…?” Jonathan nearly sobs at Nancy, voice raw and rasped.

She looks bored, “Do what?”

Robin stands slowly. Unsurely, until Nancy grabs her by the arm and drags her closer - an arm tossing over her shoulders. Robin feels eyes on her and scratches at her hair, flailing it wildly so that shards tingle against the countertop. She places a shard on her tongue and chews it. Sugar glass.

Nancy tilts her head, “I would never hurt Mike. Or Will.”

“Then why?” Jonathan jerks in his seat, trying in vain to snap himself free, “Why are you two doing this?”

“Us two?” Nancy’s brows knit together, she lifts the knife, gently sitting the back of the blade to her plush bottom lip - pink and glossed, “Just wait till you see the other girl.”

He freezes. Head swamped - slowly, it drains until her words roll in a way that he can comprehend. His gaze instantly clicks to you.

You’re not tied down, either. You sit politely in a robe that doesn’t belong to you.

He’s struck dead silent, eyes following as you stand and move with all the grace of someone without bloody hands. Your arms slide lovingly around Robin’s waist, chin settling on her shoulder but your eyes lock in on Nancy.

He can’t believe it. The call he got. He refuses to believe that any one of you was behind it.

“You’re fuckin’ done, Byers! You and Wheeler! You’re both gonna wind up like your shit-heel brothers!”

But you reach into Robin’s shorts’ pocket and pull out a thick box with a red button on the side. You press it to your mouth and heartlessly say, “Surprise, Johnny.”

Your voice cracks deeply. Slightly uncanny, but undeniably human.

The voice changer clatters to the floor when you drop it, your arm returns around Robin’s waist. Her shirt is soft, almost silky, against your skin and it so perfectly distracts you from the way that Jonathan is hyperventilating. From the way Eddie’s blood was warm on you.

Nancy parts from the two of you and meanders to the kitchen pantry, she grins as her hand wraps around the pantry doorknob.

“Why?” he’s weak. Mind scrambling.

“‘Why?’” Nancy parrots, twisting the knob, “Why?”

Robin stands straight and you two disconnect as Robin holds the knife that Nancy had previously been wielding. Her hands are shakier than Nancy’s. She’s more nervous. Unsure. But then again, so are you.

Nancy yanks open the door and out tumbles police chief Jim Hopper. Battered and tied up and gagged, but most assuredly alive. He tries to scream and it makes you jump. Shivers crawling along your skin.

You’re glad you hadn’t been there when Robin had to get him down.

To hear the big man whine like a young babe hurts, no matter how much Nancy believes he deserves this.

“I’m surprised you don’t get it, Jonathan,” Nancy shakes her head slowly, watching Hopper twist and writhe against his pain, “Really? You don’t think he needs to repent for anything?”

Jonathan shakes his head, as if convincing her will effectively undo what you and Robin have helped with. His mouth opens and closes, gaping and terrified, “Killing him won’t bring back our brothers.”

“Kill him?” Nancy smiles, presses her lips, and shakes her head sharply, “No.”

You and Robin watch her with wide eyes and Jonathan can tell how far away this is from your scene. Although, to be fair, he had no idea this was even within Nancy’s scene. He doesn’t know if you or Robin even knew what you were originally getting into.

“He’s our Skull Mask,” Nancy leans over his shoulder, patting the officer’s chest, “Our ruthless psycho killer.”

Robin has always hated this town. She feels little guilt for forsaking them and their sense of security when they would lynch the three of you for the way you hold one another. You’re the same, but you’re also sensitive. Far too sensitive. Always willing to bend to peer pressure - especially when it came to Nancy Wheeler.

Robin holds up the knife, it shakes and the light dances along the blade as she turns to Nancy.

“Are we…?” she swallows roughly, brows pinching, “Are we really doing this?”

“We don’t have a choice,” you step to her side, brushing against her hip, “It’s too late to go back.”

Nancy pushes Hopper down so he’s on his side. He’s been scratched and beaten. Wounds fresh and, upon closer inspection, sparse. He probably didn’t get much chance to fight back. If he had, the three of you wouldn’t be standing here like this.

Her gaze pierces the both of you. Needles to the skin. But her hand is kind as she takes the knife, her hand steady, and brushes a thumb over Robin’s bottom lip.

“Just let me take the reins for now,” she presses a kiss to Robin’s cheek and you whine in jealousy. She leans over and kisses your cheek as well, “You two did well.”

You didn’t do much. Just playing a role - the best friend to the final girl. If this were a movie, you would’ve been killed in the garage. Or the bedroom with Eddie.

Poor Eddie, you did like him a lot. You try not to think about it now.

But Nancy holds the knife and you remember what you’re supposed to be doing. It’s too late to go back now. You know that. Robin knows that, too.

Nancy crosses the floor to Jonathan and he’s screaming. Loud and terrified. Unready to die. It reminds you of Barb. The way she clawed at your face when your mask fell off. How she wept and shrieked, spittal flying at your face during the worst of it. It stuns you entirely.

Nancy cuts it quick. She grunts at the effort, but manages to lock the blade through his eye. Handle clicking against the hole in his skull, sliver to the brain. His scream dies, leg twitching as she pushes. Your hand latches onto Robin’s, squeezing tight at the sight of what Nancy Wheeler is capable of.

She returns to the pair of you with the knife in hand. Gunk and blood dribbles down the blade.

“We need it to look bad,” Nancy approaches, and though the two of you don’t so much as flinch, both of you feel the urge to run. She bites her bottom lip hard and that’s the only peek of anxiety that either of you has seen from her so far.

You and Robin look at each other. A silent stand-off. She steps out of your hand-hold first. Robin has always been a little braver than you - always had a little bit more of a spine.

Nancy grabs her by the shoulder and the two seem to breathe in sync. Heavy and rich in anticipation. Robin reaches up and clenches Nancy by the arm. You can see her mouth open, ready in protest, but before she gets to speak, Nancy is stabbing her straight in the side. The handle meets her skin, burying just a little too far for comfort.

Robin screams and you run over, holding tight to her as her knees buckle. She cups her wound and stumbles until her back is slammed back into a cupboard, blood darkens her soft, purple shirt. It drips, tainting her pale blue shorts.

Then you feel a hand on your arm, Nancy watches you through dark lashes - her face stern, “I’m gonna make it quick and then you do me.”

You get no chance to reply before she’s jabbing you in the stomach. You fall back, head knocking roughly on the tiled floor of the kitchen. When your eyes manage to pry open in the midst of your anguish, you catch Hopper’s gaze.

You think there’s empathy there.

Like he’s trying to fit you and Robin with a narrative.

Like you’re dying.

You look down at your stomach, blood stains your shirt and you try pressing the wound but blood continues to bubble through the gaps of your fingers.

Nancy hands the knife to a shaky Robin, holding her up. Robin coughs and out flies blood. Her legs shake, face paper pale. You’re hit with the urge to puke, hot and heavy in your gut at the brief thought that she may join the bodies of tonight.

“C’mon,” Nancy’s snapping from worry, but to anybody who knew her less, it could read as frustration, “Hurry up.”

Robin leans her head forward and tries spitting, but it ends as drool on Nancy’s pink sweater. Robin’s eyes are rolling and you can’t tell if it’s annoyance or if she’s too gone to see straight. “Sorry,” but that word is spit in sarcasm and bile, “I’m feelin’ a little woozy here. Forgive me.”

Nancy inhales pointedly but lets it pass as a sigh, deciding to bite her tongue, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Should I do it?”

Robin doesn’t even stand long enough to nod or shake her head.

The knife clatters. Robin lands by your side and you can feel your head growing light. You look back down at your gut.

Red and gushing.

Like you’re dying.

Nancy rushes now. Snatching the knife from the floor and setting it against the wall, running into it. She wheezes and scrambles back - pulling the knife from her skin and pressing harshly on the gash as she drops the knife.

She groans every time she shifts, feeling the skin pull and part in every movement.

You curl into yourself, breathless, while Nancy stumbles to the kitchen phone. You barely hear her wholly frantic voice.

With one hand still held tight to your wound, you reach out and cover Robin where the blood just won’t stop. You feel Hopper’s eyes on you - pity and anger. He knows you two were part of this, but it’s like he’s trying to put a story here. Like you and Robin are victims. Like you and Robin are dying.

“Please, hurry, we’ve managed to tie him and two of my friends are still alive,” Nancy’s words are running at miles per second and you can hear her hyperventilating. You feel her eyes on you, “Please, it doesn’t look good. Hurry.”

There’s another glance of anxiety inside the frame of Nancy Wheeler. She doesn’t bother hanging up before she’s scuttling to you both. There’s blood pooling between the three of you.

Both you and Robin are droopy-eyed and you feel so damn tired. Your hand sprawls along her stomach loosely and the pressure kept over your own midsection disappears. Nancy replaces it.

Or rather, she tries.

And there are tears.

But no sirens.

And Hopper still tries to stand as his narrative of you three washes away like chalk on pavement under rain. He realizes what’s going to happen. He’ll be pinned, and assuming you and Robin survive there’s going to be three (phony) witnesses.

You don’t know when Robin officially blacks out. You don’t quite hear when Nancy starts crying. You don’t see when the police arrive.

You can’t even remember if you were awake longer than Robin was.

1987.

The phantom sensation of your own blood between your fingers, the paranoia of your healing stitch scars ripping open, never quite faded since last year. An exact year.

You pose as roommates outside of these doors, but now - inside - Robin is sitting on the counter, you standing between her legs as Nancy stirs the pot of stew for dinner. Robin tastes like cherry chapstick and it’s easy to pretend none of your ghosts haunt you when she’s stealing your attention.

“Would you two get out the napkins and spoons?” Nancy mocks irritation, but there’s just the slightest quirk of her lips; a minute smile.

You move to the side and Robin hops off the counter, the both of you pressing a kiss to either of Nancy’s cheeks as you walk past her through the kitchen.

It’s faint, then, but most certainly you all hear the sound. The ringing. Tinny and shrill. Your phone rattles as it sings. You and Robin jump, Nancy only casts it a fleeting glance. Robin takes the leap and answers the phone, you only watch.

“Hello?” her eyes flick boredly to a peeling strip of paint on the wall.

You move along, retrieving spoons from the silverware drawer as Nancy requested. You pause when Robin repeats herself. You drop the spoons back into the drawer and approach as she repeats herself once again.

Robin pulls the phone back and looks to you first, then Nancy, she shakes her head, face edging into concern, “It’s silent.”

Nancy grabs the phone and holds it between you all, the three of you crowding around it to hear as breathing begins to echo over the phone. Uncanny and crackled, but undeniably human.

“Speak!” Nancy demands, she squeezes the phone in her hand, it shakes at the force of her grip, “Speak, damn you!”

The breathing gets louder. It crackles again - in a way that makes you three tense. Minds racing before the person on the other side can even follow Nancy’s directions.

“I’m gonna gut you like a fucking pig, Wheeler!”

#eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x you #eddie munson x y/n #nancy wheeler x y/n #nancy x reader #nancy wheeler x steve harrington #stranger things x reader #stranger things x you #stranger things fic #eddie munson fluff #scream au #steve x nancy #robin buckley x reader #robin buckley x you #robin x nancy #robin buckley #nancy wheeler #steve harrington

178 notes · View notes

chrissysfilms · 4 months

Text

In Search of an RP Partner!

Ships I’m looking for (who I prefer to play is in bold!)

Twilight

Bella / Jacob

Stranger Things

Nancy / Steve

Chrissy / Eddie

Harry Potter

Hermione / Draco

Star Wars

Ben Solo / Rey

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xspeter · 11 months

Text

𝐒𝐈𝐋𝐕𝐄𝐑 𝐒𝐏𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒

𝟎𝟎𝟐: “the lucky one.”

reminder that this fic is written like the book, ‘daisy jones and the six’, so it is written in interview format.

m.list ⇦ previous chapter next chapter ⇨

Y/N L/N (lead singer of, "Silver Springs"): Talent isn't always something that comes naturally. Lots of times there's years of hard work that's put into it- but not for me. I was born talented. Everyone knew it too.

This isn't just me having a big head, either. I could fucking sing. Why do you think I was as successful as I was?

Jessie Biles (biographer, author of "Y/N L/N: Wildflower"): You've got a rich, beautiful, teenage girl living in LA in the 70's. She's gorgeous- even as a child, and once you get to know her, you find out she's talented too.

She's born with all the money in the world and access to whatever she wants- artists, drugs, clubs- anything and everything at the tips of her fingers.

But she's alone. She's got no siblings, no extended family. Her parents are so focused on whatever bullshit they've got going on that they hardly notice she exists.

So, she acts out. She starts going to clubs, getting high with older men, starts doing some real illegal shit.

We love broken, beautiful people. And it doesn't get much more obviously broken and classically beautiful as Y/N L/N.

Y/N: I think the first time i went to a club I was thirteen. My parents were having some bullshit business party and locked me in my room.

I was done with their bullshit, so I opened up my window, pushed out the screen, and left.

I was barefoot, cold, and the only place I could think to go was downtown.

Johnny Marcum (owner of 'The Golden Fleece'): The first time that girl walked into my bar, I thought she was the most beautiful thing i'd ever seen.

Now, I didn't know she was thirteen when she walked in there! On my life, I thought she was at least 23. She just had this mature aura about her.

Y/N: The first thing I hear when I step into that dingy bar, is, "Hey, where are your shoes?" *laughs*, like, that's your biggest concern? Everyone can say that I looked so much older than i really was, but they knew.

Anyway, so I sit down at this booth with a couple older men. They're all strung out, and they're buying me drinks, and at some point, one of the men pulls out a baggy full of pills.

I don't remember which one of them offered, but i was in such a bad place that I- I took it, and it just exploded from there. I mean, that was just the start. I started going out at least six times a week after that, and if my parents noticed they sure as hell didn't care.

Johnny: Y/N was at The Golden Fleece pretty much from sunrise to sundown. She'd be singing, dancing, talking, hell some days she'd just come and sit in silence.

A lot of the girls who came walking around town back then were always trying to be something they weren't. skinny, pretty, funny- you name it, they wanted to be it.

Y/N was never like that though. She was never anything except for herself, and I imagine that's why people were drawn to her like they were.

Y/N: Being involved in that kind of life like I was, and at the age that I was, well it taught me about sex and love the hard way.

I remember there was this one night, there was this older guy there. I don't even remember his name but... he took my virginity. We were at the golden fleece and he led me across the street to some random motel to do some lines. Said I was, "The girl of his dreams."

I was drawn to him because he was interested in me. I wanted someone to actually look at me, y'know? I had just wanted someone to see me, and I thought he did.

When he was done he got up, told me to get dressed, and did another line. Then he says, "If you wanna go back down to The Golden Fleece, that'd be fine." I knew he meant he wanted me to leave, and so I did.

I never even saw him again.

Shyla Rode (R&B star): The first time me and Y/N met, we were at a party that some rich old guy was hosting at his house.

Y/N: These men, they'd invite me to these random parties they were having and of course i'd say yes. most the time I just went for the drugs.

Shyla: Y/N was just a baby. She's a baby at a grown up party, and she's got herself involved in some shit she shouldn't even know exists. The men that I saw her with when we met? They were pigs.

Y/N: When I met Shyla, she practically rescued me from this dude who was trying to get me in bed. He was practically dragging me away and I was so high I just let him.

Shyla: The guy had to be at least twenty years older than her. So I walk up to them and i'm like, "Hey, babes, you ready to go?" and she stares at me and her eyes... it was like they were staring through you. Like- like she couldn't even actually see you.

Y/N: I was confused, but I was high, so I shook my head and I said I wasn't ready to leave, but Shyla was having none of it.

Shyla: I grabbed her hand and I said, "I think you are." But she kept trying to push me off her while we were walking and she just kept saying, "No i'm fine! I don't wanna go!"

Y/N: I know I was being difficult.

Shyla: The guy she was with was following us, trying to get me to let her go, and get this- he says, "You can't make her do anything she doesn't wanna do!"

Like, what!? He was literally about to have sex with a minor who was high out of her mind! What does he know about consent? Like, come on. It's laughable.

Y/N: Shyla forced me to leave, and once we got in her car she asked me for my address, but I refused. I said, "Why should I tell you?"

Shyla: When she said that, it took everything in me to not kick her out of my car. But, no matter how hot headed she made me, she needed help.

Y/N: Since I wouldn't tell her where I lived, she just took me back to her place.

Shyla: What else was i supposed to do? She was high, she was barefoot, and she was refusing to let me take her back to her house.

Y/N: The next morning when I woke up, I was sober. I hated being sober. So I get up off the couch and start looking around the apartment for... well anything I could get my hands on. Pills, alcohol, weed- anything.

Shyla: I woke up because someone kept slamming my cabinets, and I walk out and of my room, and there's Y/N, walking around my place like she owned it.

Y/N: I didn't even notice she was up until she yelled, "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

My first instinct was to run, but I didn't. I closed the cabinet, cleared my throat, and said, "I'm hungry."

Shyla: I knew she was lying, but I went with it anyway.

Y/N: She made me some of best pancakes i've ever had. After that I knew this woman was about to be my best friend.

Shyla: I think I became like, almost her mother. I was basically her guardian. She stayed the night at my house for like, weeks at a time.

Y/N: My parents never even noticed I was gone. I mean i'd come back to get some clothes or for whatever I needed, they'd glance at me, watch me leave, and never say anything.

Shyla: During the week, I would be at the studio working on my debut album, so I couldn't watch her, and a lot of the times when i'd get home she'd be higher than a kite.

Y/N: I don't know if I remember a time where I wasn't either high or thinking about getting high. Whenever shyla was gone, i'd go up to The Golden Fleece, do some pills, maybe do some weed or do some coke if anyone had any, and then i'd go back home.

Shyla: Honestly, it was starting to get... exhausting.

Y/N: So, one day shyla comes home and i'm obviously high out of my mind, and she'd obviously had enough of my bullshit.

Shyla: I said to her, "You need to get your fucking act together. If you wanna live here, you're gonna get your ass in school."

Y/N: I was never... good at school, and my parents never paid enough attention to me to know if I was going or not, so when shyla started making me go, I almost moved out.

Shyla: Her grades were always right on the cusp of failing and passing, but I did my best to help her out whenever i could.

It wasn't like she didn't try, either. There were a lot of nights she would be sitting at the kitchen table until the late hours of the night, doing her homework or studying for exams.

Y/N: When I graduated, the only person who showed up was shyla. She was the only person who cheered for me, yet she was louder than all the other families.

Shyla: After Y/N graduated I released my first album and... it was a flop. The record label dropped me, and since that was our only source of income, Y/N was forced to get a job at some roundabout diner.

Y/N: The job at the diner didn't pay enough to keep paying for the apartment we were at though, so we were forced to downsize.

Shyla: Sometimes, when Y/N did the dishes or she was showering, she'd sing this little tune to herself. Sometimes they were songs i'd heard, but usually they were songs she'd made up

on her own.

Y/N: I started to really get into writing my own music. Usually it just a chorus or a bridge. I never really finished a song start to finish.

Shyla: I was determined to get Y/N to do something with that voice of hers, but one thing about Y/N, you can't force her to do something she doesn't wanna do.

She'd really come into herself back then too. s

Stopped letting these men do whatever they wanted with her.

Y/N: I was seeing this guy named Aiden Bower. He was some upcoming solo singer or some shit. But, he definitely loved me more than I loved him.

This one night we're lying in bed and he says, "I don't understand why you don't love me as much as I love you." And I just layed there in silence. I mean, what the fuck do you say to that?

So, once he finally falls asleep, I get this idea for a song. I take out my journal and I write down some lyrics for a few hours, and then I finally fall asleep.

When I wake up he's got the journal in front of him and his guitar in his lap, and he's reading over my songs. More specifically, the one I had written the night before.

He says to me, "You know, you can go professional with a lot of this shit." But I just shrugged him off.

A couple weeks later, I hear my song on the radio. But get this, it's not me singing it.

Shyla: That bastard took her song and never even fucking credited her for it.

Aiden Bower: Look, that never fucking happened. this is why i cant stand Y/N L/N. She spreads all these lies about me. I wrote that song, end of story.

Y/N: It was starting to become a pattern. This one time, i'm having breakfast at this little rundown diner with this director guy. Now, back then I would always order a glass of champagne with my breakfast. But, I was also always tired because i didn't get enough sleep. So I needed coffee, but obviously I couldn't just order coffee cause I was already amped up from the pills I was taking. And drinking the champagne would put me to sleep- you see my problem? So I used to order champagne and coffee together, and at the places servers knew me, i'd just call it an 'Up and Down.' And this guy i was with thought it was hilarious. He says, "I'm gonna use that in something some day." and he wrote it down on a napkin and put it in his pocket.

That's how it was back then. I was always gonna be the inspiration for some man's great idea. But you know what? Fuck that.

That's why I decided to start putting my own shit out there.

Shyla: I was the only one who wanted her to do something with herself- do something with her talent. Everyone else would just make something of themselves with what she had.

Y/N: I had absolutely no interest in being anybody else's muse.

I am not the muse.

I am the somebody.

End of fucking story.

Shyla: Next thing we know and it's 1982 and Y/N's started wearing these big hoop earrings. She never wore shoes either.

Y/N started seeing this guy, he was just like everyone else in LA- trying to make a name for himself, and he drags me and Y/N down to this karaoke bar.

Y/N: He practically begged me that entire night to get up on stage with him. Eventually, I gave in.

It's pretty nerve-wracking. The first time you get on stage in front of all those people, and they're all looking at you like they're expecting you to amaze them.

And it feels so good when you do.

Shyla: She was a fucking natural on that stage. took all the attention away from whatever shit head she was seeing at the time. Around the second chorus, she just let it rip.

Marcus Jennings (lead singer of Amor): When I went up there with Y/N, I had no idea that her voice was that powerful. I’d heard her in the shower before but- on that stage? she was fucking amazing.

She had this incredible voice. Gritty, but never scratchy. It made everything she sang complex and a little unpredictable. You know, i’ve never had much of a voice myself, but you don’t need a voice to be a singer if your songs are good enough- but Y/N? She had the whole fucking thing.

She had the talent of someone who had been practicing for years- decades even- and it was just natural. I was always trying to get her to sing with me, and that was the first night she actually agreed.

I told Y/N, “The biggest thing your songs have going for them is that you might sing them.” But she always hated when people tried to help her.

She yelled at me for a while, and then eventually, she asked me where she should try and play some gigs.

Y/N: I wanted- no I needed to get my songs heard. So I started going around to different karaoke bars, I even did some backup vocals on Shyla’s album that she was working on.

Suddenly, it was like there was so many people trying to convince me to do a demo. All these men wanted to be my manager but I knew what they really wanted. All they saw was this naïve girl that would believe anything they said- but I wasn’t that girl anymore.

There was this dude named Martin Brenner, and he was the only one I could tolerate. Mostly because he was the only one actually interested in my music.

Shyla: Something Martin hadn’t put into account though, was that Y/N couldn’t stand when people tried to tell her what to do.

Y/N: Brenner gave me this song by some song writer I had never even heard of, and he asked me to record a demo of it.

I show up to the studio, I read over the song, I sing it how I wanna sing it, Brenner asks me, “Can you sing it a little smoother?” I said, “Nope.” And I left.

Shyla: She got signed to Upside-Down Records right after that.

Y/N: I didn’t care about the singing. It was the songwriting that I loved. So when Brenner started to try and dictate what I sang and what I didn’t sing- it made me mad.

So, Brenner shows up to my house and he asks for a compromise. I say, “I either sing my own songs- or i’m not signing your contract.”

Shyla: I wish I could’ve seen Brenner face when she said that.

Y/N: He barely even argued with me. I told him what I wanted, and I wasn’t letting up. So eventually, he told me I needed to write some real songs. Not just the half-assed songs I was writing at the time.

So that’s what i did.

ppl should honestly write more books in this format. it’s easy to write and easy to read.

#steve harrington #steve harrington x reader #daisy jones au #band au #daisy jones and the six #eddie munson #stranger things #robin buckley #nancy wheeler #dustin henderson #nancy wheeler x steve harrington

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dindjarinmandalorian · 2 years

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Stancy character posters through the years..

#stancy #steve x nancy #stancyendgame #strangerthings #nancy wheeler x steve harrington #nancy wheeler steve harrington #nancy wheeler #steve harrington #netlfix

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hairstevington · 1 year

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The fact that Midnight Rain fits with Stancy so well genuinely kills me.

Inspired by this post by @slashergirlnancy

🎶My town was a wasteland, full of cages full of fences pageant queens and big pretenders - but for some it was paradise

🎶My boy was a montage - A slow-motion, love potion

🎶Jumping off things in the ocean

🎶I broke his heart 'cause he was nice

🎶It came like a postcard - Picture perfect, shiny family, holiday, peppermint candy - but for him it’s every day

🎶So I peered through a window - A deep portal, time travel, all the love we unravel,

🎶And the life I gave away

🎶Cause he was sunshine/I was midnight rain

🎶He wanted it comfortable I wanted that pain

🎶He wanted a bride I was making my own name

🎶Chasing that fame, he stayed the same

🎶All of me changed like midnight

#this hurts I'm so sorry #I could write a whole essay on this #anyway let's cry together shall we?#nancy wheeler #steve harrington #steve and nancy #stancy #nancy wheeler x steve harrington #stranger things #taylor swift #stranger things x taylor swift #midnight rain #me

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dreamfinder83 · 2 years

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#if you want to laugh at the Stranger Things fandom having a meltdown over Stancy winning a Twitter poll I recommend you check this out #it’s glorious #stancyendgame #stancy #steve harrington #nancy wheeler #stranger things #steve and nancy #steve x nancy #nancy wheeler x steve harrington

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dwobbitfromtheshire · 5 months

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This is how this scene went, right? 😆

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blanziart · 2 years

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Nancy Wheeler <3

#stranger things #st season 4 #nancy wheeler #fanart #stranger things fanart #stranger things 4 #stranger things nancy #nancy wheeler x steve harrington #nancy wheeler x robin buckley #nancy wheeler fanart

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stancylives · 1 year

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Only for you, Nancy Wheeler.

Summary: Steve Harrington and Nancy Wheeler have hated each other since middle school. They find themselves picked for seven minutes in heaven together and everything changes. . .

Warnings: mature themes present

Word count: ongoing, unfinished

Note: This Stancy is a bit different from the version we all know and love. Big time enemies to lovers energy. Also, fake dating. It is SUPER angsty. There are some soft moments, but so far just. . . tons of angst. Steve is a total jerk, and Nancy is still new to having experiences with boys.

#stancy fic #stancy #ao3 #stranger things #stranger things fic #Steve x Nancy #Nancy Wheeler x Steve Harrington #Nancy Wheeler #Steve Harrington #otp: you've always been there #smut #stancy fanfic #Steve Harrington fic #Nancy Wheeler fic

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vanweezer · 2 years

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stoncy week: day 3 - "i can’t be in love with you" or "i'm scared but won’t admit it, so you take my hand"

i wanted to do some cool lines and trippy colors, so here it is! can you tell i struggle w clothes lololol.

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dadsbongos · 2 years

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june 13th, 1986

American Psycho / Halloween / Scream / Friday the 13th / Fear Street / Jennifer’s Body

8.6K words

warnings - descriptions of wounds/violence (blood n gore n such), you and eddie get high, friday the 13th au

summary - On June 13th, 1986, Camp Hawkins Hills is the victim of further tragedy after its poisoned water with roadkill in the tanks, perished foods from ill-storage, and the disappearance of a young camper. Seven are left dead. One injured.

Tammy Thompson wakes up to find that her boyfriend still hasn’t quite gotten them to camp.

“Reilly,” her hair, big and bouncy, smushes against the headrest of the passenger seat, “It was a straight line from Cunningham, baby, how’d you get lost?”

“It’s a longer path than I thought,” he runs a hand through his own hair and huffs. Comically distressed about the situation.

“Then just… hit the gas,” she glares, rather lightheartedly but still apparent.

“No way, my cousin got speed trapped out around here, I’m not risking it.”

“Fine, fine,” Tammy shakes her head, “if I’m late, I won’t call for a whole week.”

Reilly tears his eyes away from the dirt road for a mere moment, just long enough to properly side-eye his girlfriend, “You’re an awful liar.”

She picks at her purple-tinted nails and kicks her feet up onto the dash, shrugging coyly. She bats her lashes at her boyfriend.

Before he can respond, his brows furrow, slamming the brakes. Tammy rocks forward, a knee pressing to her gut with the motion - her gaze flies forward, instantly meeting the body that stands in front of her boyfriend’s car.

They don’t move, though, and she can only vaguely recognize them.

Tammy sits up and pushes herself to half-hang out the window, “Hey! You’re workin’ at the camp, too, right? We’re on our way…”

She trails off when the person only stares.

Reilly and Tammy spare a glance at each other. Reilly sticking his own head out the window, “Are you… feeling alright? Do you need us to drive you somewhere?”

Tammy unbuckles and cautiously gets out of her boyfriend’s beloved Corvette Stingray, her arms fold over one another. Head tilting. She presses her lips, pink lipstick popping when she goes to speak, “Did something happen up there?”

Suddenly, she’s grabbed by the hair and slammed face-first into the hood of the red Corvette. There’s a loud crack and Tammy slips back onto her ass, mud stains her white khakis, shaky hands flying up to cover her nose. Blood leaks from both nostrils and she’s certain it's broken.

“Hey!” Reilly throws his door open and darts out from the seat, but before he can get a good hit in to defend his girlfriend, there’s a knife pulled. The blade embeds right in his gut, twisting.

Reilly tumbles backward, wheezing in pain while Tammy crawls to him on her hands and knees. Blood drips down her lips and onto her white polo.

She’s merely watched as she tries standing with Reilly, her hands desperate as they clutch and tug at his shirt. She’s relentless in her need to get him up - back in the car, she just needs to get back in the car and they’re home free.

The figure is silent. Voyeuristic.

Until they decide Tammy’s suffocated, nerve-wracked sobs are enough.

Her big and bouncy hair is snatched back, head pulled high until she’s practically standing on her knees. Reilly snaps up to try and save his girlfriend, but the gouge in his gut stings like salt to a slug - he screams in agony and terror. Blood gushes from the hole in his stomach as he watches Tammy’s skin pull against a blade.

The slit moves and opens as she screams and crashes.

Resounding numbness comes over Reilly as Tammy’s body falls over his. Her blood smears across his clothes, arms limp around his sides. He can’t be scared when he knows this is it.

No more adrenaline. No more ‘what if?’.

So he squeezes Tammy’s body, neck still leaking onto his chest, to his own as the figure lifts their knife. He clenches his eyes and feels the fear return when he actually realizes this is it. His heart burns, races, thunders, and not even the feeling of his girlfriend between his arms can calm it.

The knife is brought down towards his forehead.

“Where the hell is Thompson?” Steve throws his hands up, looking from his clipboard to your lackluster lineup with your fellow counselors as if ‘Thompson’ will suddenly appear, “Has nobody heard from her?”

You don’t get the whole point of the headcount anyway, Steve already knows that only your bosses, Murray and Joyce, and cook, Jonathan, have left since this morning.

“Thompson?” Eddie looks to you, hands jammed in the pockets of his black ripped jeans.

“Tammy,” Robin lights up from beside you at the name, “new recruit,” you gesture towards the far end of the line, where a new face sits grinning broadly, “She was supposed to come in with Argyle.”

Argyle - a friend of Jonathon’s, though the cook was displeased when his hiring was announced.

“Sorry, bros,” Argyle puts his hands up in defense, “I was at her house this morning but she said someone else was giving her a ride.”

Steve huffs and Nancy steps out of the counselor line to rub his arm sympathetically, she tilts her head, “I’m sure she’ll show up.”

“If not, it isn’t like it matters,” Steve runs a hand through his pampered hair, “We have six counselors, so it should be fine.”

“Fuck,” Robin mutters, lips pulling into a large pout.

“Buck up,” you nudge her arm as Steve and Nancy head to the campers’ cabin to count beds. You continue once Eddie and Argyle wander off, “Country singer girl probably wasn’t the best option for your little lesbian heart.”

“Yeah, but she’s so hot,” Robin groans, “And she tutored me in algebra II.”

“I know, Rob, I know,” you look up at the cloudy sky,

None of you are mentioning the elephant in the room - the way you all have to start camp later than usual because of extra safety precautions - but you can sense it. As the day grows older, lips will come looser.

When you find Eddie alone in the archery range, separating arrows into bins, you don’t have to wait. He immediately speaks his mind, as is usual for him.

“I can’t believe this shit. Opening shop was a bad fuckin’ idea,” he reaches into his back pocket and pulls out a small plastic bag of weed, “But hey, I’ve got treats.”

After last year?

You come closer and snatch the bag, stuffing it back into Eddie’s pocket, “Keep that shit to us, Steve and Nancy’ll go nuts.”

“My bad, sweets,” Eddie returns to organizing the arrows, “Just thought I’d give you something to make you excited about this hellscape.”

You roll your eyes but pat his chest, “Thanks, big guy.”

But really - weed? After last year?

The campers were sent home in the rain on June 13th, 1985. It was a heavy Thursday pour, something akin to needles against the skin - thundering upon the roofs of cabins and buses alike. You and the other counselors were stuck watching the children - just to make sure no heads were missing as they filled the buses. Last thing Murray and Joyce needed was a following incident. Especially Joyce.

A couple of the kids were whining as they were loaded into the vehicles - pouty-lipped and cross-armed as they asked you and Steve, the head counselor, why they were going home. Murray had drilled it into your heads - do not tell the kids anything, so help me God. Joyce was too distraught to so much as look at your lot. Steve told you and the other counselors to say that the water supply was bad.

“Just make up a reason why, they’re kids - they’ll believe whatever you say.”

Nancy and Robin were packing away their belongings while Eddie assisted poor Robbie and Layla - who sprained their ankles in tandem following a bad swing off the tallest dock at the lake - onto the bus.

Jonathan was in the kitchen. You don’t think he’s even packing - just stewing in his misery. Not that you, or anybody else, can blame him. Murray is talking to Officer Hopper, who so graciously lent half the police station for this camper extraction.

Nobody knows exactly where Joyce is. Again, not that you all can blame her.

You feel a burning marble in your throat. Shame and guilt that wells within your stomach as the campers chatter and whine about being forced onto the buses. Nobody told Joyce or Murray where they were during the incident. Everybody agreed to not snitch. Only Hopper knows, and he was sworn to silence.

But the way he looks at you all - so disappointed and despondent - is salt in the wound. It’s sickening.

Jonathan knows, too. Only because Nancy gave it up and spilled her guts under his promise that he wouldn’t tell his mother.

His stares are the worst.

Rain coils through your hair. Dipping into your eyes and clinging along the planes of your face. You can just barely make out the dismal faces of your campers through the buses’ tinted windows.

Steve senses the way you tense, your shoulders scrunching as your arms fold over your chest. He lays a hand on your shoulder, but doesn’t dare look at you. You feel sick.

“I’m gonna puke,” you don’t bother dampening your voice. Only Steve is listening - unless Joyce is behind you and you haven’t noticed.

“Wait till the kids are gone,” Steve soothes the hand down your back.

As soon as the buses were off campgrounds, you’d keeled over and emptied what was left in your stomach from lunch.

You and your fellow counselors were sent home soon after.

Just as predicted, once nightfall hits camp - lips loosen and fears crawl forward.

“I don’t feel good about this,” Robin is shaking her head with so much force that her freshly cut bob whips against her cheeks, “Like. I know I usually don’t feel good about most things, but this is such an awful idea. Putting maggots inside your nose - awful.”

“We get it, Robin,” Nancy squares her shoulders, face knit in cold defense, “We all know this is a bad idea, but there’s nothing we can really do about it, is there?”

“Come on, let’s not fight,” you toss an extra large, neon orange shirt onto your bed from your suitcase, “This summer is going to be hell, but we don’t need to pick at each other like this.”

“That’s so easy for you to say, isn’t it?” Nancy turns to you now, lashes narrowed and lips pursed, “Are you and Eddie going to be actually joining us when the campers are here?”

“Fuck off, Nancy, you and Steve were just as…” you suck in a breath and pick up the shirt Murray assigned you for this upcoming summer, “Forget it, put on your team shirts so we know they fit.”

Each counselor was the designated leader of a certain team. Last year, you had green, but now that vomit-tinted honor has been assigned to the new recruit. Well, the one that was here, anyway.

Tammy Thompson still had yet to appear.

Robin quickly tugs out a violently azure tank top from her suitcase before following you out of the girls’ counselor cabin. Nancy stays behind.

“Look, I didn’t mean anything, you know?” Robin shoves the blue tank top over her thin nightshirt, her eyes wide while staring at you, “Really.”

“I know, Rob,” you twist the bottom hem of your team lead shirt between your fingers, “Just try not to bring it up around Eddie,” you shoot her a glance, “Or Steve.”

“Or Argyle,” she nods to herself, snapping her fingers in remembrance, “He probably doesn’t need to know that.”

“If nobody’s told him already.”

You and Robin push into the mess hall to find the boys already sitting around with a schedule between them. Steve is stood behind Eddie and the newbie, his hands on his hips and a stupid curl hanging over his forehead. The ugliest pair of bright red short-shorts you’ve ever seen is snug on his thighs with a coral red shirt - sleeves cut off - over it. Eddie is snapping a pencil against the wood table, head bopping to the music only in his head.

Eddie’s team lead shirt is an inky black crop top and Argyle has a plain, highlighter green T-shirt. Both are in similarly hideous red shorts.

“Planning jobs, big-head?” Robin pops over to Steve’s side and punches his shoulder, “Don’t forget tradition.”

“Already got him in for shitter duty, big Rob, don’t you worry,” Eddie grins, then jabs the eraser of his pencil into your arm, “How do you feel about dishes?”

“Wouldn’t that be on Jonathon?” you feel your skin prickle at the thought of sharing a workspace with the boy. His stares hurt, practically burning your skin.

“We’re trying to make it easier on him, my dude,” Argyle roughly claps a hand to your upper arm, grinning wide and stupid.

“Why doesn’t Nancy do dishes?” you can feel the glare Steve shoots you and you don’t dare to shy away, “You’re not an idiot, Harrington, everybody can feel their chemistry. Except you, I guess.”

“Because they don’t have chemistry, you’re just trying to shill dish duty,” Steve leans over Eddie’s shoulder and harshly jabs his finger into the paper, “Put her down.”

“Oh, fuck you,” you lean over Argyle’s shoulder and snatch Eddie’s pencil, earning a cartoonishly huffy ‘hey!’ from the metalhead, “We’re not doing this like last year, I don’t want anyone whining about jobs.”

“I can do dishes, brochacho,” Argyle takes the pencil and marks his initials next to the chore, “Me and Jonathon go way back, it won’t be weird to work together at all.”

Nancy comes in shortly after Argyle returns the pencil to Eddie, her baby pink shirt tied up with a scrunchie at her waist. She sits beside where you stand, a small, thin smile comes to her glossed lips and her hand squeezes yours.

Jonathan arrives once the chore chart is plastered upon the counselors’ corkboard (a big, bold FRIDAY. JUNE 13TH, 1986 at the top of the page). A white shirt with the camp logo printed on it covers his heaving chest as he carries in armfuls of groceries. His dark circled eyes, deprived of and starving for sleep, crawl along your lot before he raises his arms to show off the bags.

“Anyone mind helping?”

Eddie and Argyle are the first ones over. The only ones over until Nancy is trailing after the trio to put groceries away. You look at Steve, who’s already watching her, and when he meets your eyes you raise your brows and ‘hmph’ - earning a middle finger from the man.

It still doesn’t feel quite right - being here. Too much time apart and yet entirely not enough. So much history. So many stories. Everywhere you look, he’s still there. Lingering. Smiling and waving and pleading for his life. The idea of Will Byers like that, miserable and helpless, sends a chill over your flesh.

He was a sweet kid. A really sweet kid.

Clung to mommy’s apron as a child and then he clung to you, Robin, and Eddie as a teenager.

“Can smell the outcast on our clothes,” Eddie would say.

And perhaps that was true. It wasn’t that he didn’t like Nancy and Steve, but you could tell he was more at ease around his fellow rejects. The rejects who feel left out even among their friends.

“How do you think the boys will do?” Robin leans against your side, cheek squishing against your shoulder as she looks at you through her lashes, “Without Will.”

You look to Eddie, who’s had the infamous quartet - trio now - as part of his team since they first arrived in the summer of 1980. If anybody could feel their agony as they did, it was him. And Nancy, older sister of their leader, but she was in the kitchen.

Eddie gnaws on his bottom lip, lashes narrowing into the distance, “Let’s just say I’m not gonna give ‘em shit if they don’t participate in activities.”

And nobody would blame him.

“Alright, campers,” Steve calls as the trio returns to the main hall, clapping his hands to catch your collective attention, “Big day tomorrow.”

“You’re being an idiot,” Nancy mutters to her boyfriend, though still grinning broadly. She pops him in the arm playfully before turning to the rest of you, “Really, though, be up early so we can start cleaning for the kids. No excuses,” she points right at you and Eddie, “So try not to fry your brains tonight.”

Eddie flips his fellow counselor off and you fold your arms, glaring at her as you speak, “It would only help us sleep, Barbie.”

“That’s like telling you ‘n’ Ken not to bang your brains out,” Eddie grins when Steve glares at him, tossing an arm over your shoulder to guide you out of the cafeteria, “Let’s go, darling, time to smoke the devil’s sin and bathe in his blood and all that shit.”

“I never said that!” Nancy shouts after the both of you.

“I hate when she says that shit,” you feel free to release these feelings once the doors have loudly slammed shut, “Like it’s our fault.”

“It…” Eddie seems to retract into himself, his arm is still around you but it hovers now - ready to rip away should you say the wrong thing, “I shouldn’t have brought it out. It was barely after lights out and I should’ve fucking known something was gonna happen.”

“It’s not your fault, Eddie,” you watch him step back and up the stoop to pull the boys’ cabin door open, “Seriously, if you’re at fault then we both are - it can’t just be on you.”

“I brought the shit,” he jerks his head towards the doorway, “Get in ‘n’ shut up about it. I don’t wanna think about it anymore.”

A temporary, ineffective solution. Eddie was always thinking - even when it seemed like he wasn’t, he was. Maybe not always about the most important stuff, but the lights were constantly on. And Will Byers’ disappearance was always, always resting up there.

But you grant him enough mercy - or perhaps yourself enough mercy - to not bring it up.

Nancy is quietly rearranging the pantry under dim, flickering kitchen light. Robin and Steve had originally insisted on waiting until she was done so they could walk to the girls' cabin together - but then she reached minute 30 and the two lost patience. Though, to be fair, she didn’t think they’d make it even that long.

Jonathan and Argyle had wandered off with Argyle having come back in only five minutes ago - giggly and red-eyed - for chips.

A can of corn is shoved to the back of a shelf that just barely reaches her chest, more room is made for boxes of oats and Nancy can’t help but internally groan. She really gets to missing her mother’s cooking when summer rolls around and her only food options are what Jonathon feels like making.

Sometimes Joyce brings doughnuts, though. Those are always nice.

Just as Nancy goes to slide a couple of those dreaded oats boxes to the leftmost wall, the kitchen door slips open. It must be ready to storm because the wind howls as it blows through. A chill brushes against her legs and billows the hem of her skirt.

Her shoulders scrunch and Nancy narrows her eyes at the door, but the flickering lights make it difficult to see who stands there.

“Hey,” she can just make out the hair - then the lips - then one final healthy burst of the bulbs illuminates them completely, “I’ll be done soon, I swear. It just…” she shakes her head, permed curls bouncing, “just bugs me when things aren’t where I want.”

Footsteps thud on the kitchen floor as she returns elbow-deep in the pantry.

Nancy isn’t quite used to feeling afraid.

Sure, horror movies send her heart racing and the morning of a test is anxiety-inducing. But she’s never felt such absolute terror - well, except last year. When Will Byers wasn’t in any of the cabins and couldn’t be found within a hundred miles of the campgrounds.

There’s a body behind hers. The heat leaks onto her neck and while Nancy usually doesn’t fret over personal space, this feels new. Odd.

“Back off a bit, will you?” she nudges the chest behind her with a rather gentle elbow. The chest doesn’t move. Nancy turns towards the body, “Seriously, get back.”

A hand comes to her throat and she quickly snags her nails into the person’s wrist. Then claws at their face.

Another freezing brustle of wind crashes over Nancy as she’s lifted up, up, up - her slips come off her feet as she kicks at the attacker. Their hand tightens around her throat, pressing her back into the wall with crushing force.

Just when her vision is beginning to spot and bruise in blacks and yellows, she’s dragged away from the wall and slammed back against it. Then again. And again. And again. And again. And again.

She thinks she can hear her skull split. And she can definitely feel when the blood begins to trickle past her hairline and down her neck.

Blood and stray hairs cling to splintering wood in the pantry entryway, Nancy’s hands fall limp, and with a final hack and kick, the rest of her falls limp, too.

More cold breeze flutters through as the oldest Wheeler’s body thumps onto the wood panel floor like a cinder block. Blood creeps down her curls and flattens, rolling across the wood. Leaking between the cracks.

The kitchen door is slammed shut and locked. Body alone and bloody and cold.

“Billie Jean, I will say,” Eddie blinks at you - slow and stupid - with bloodshot eyes, “isn’t a shit song.”

“Wow,” you muse, wetting your dried lips, “‘s pretty big for you, Eds.”

“I know, right?” he takes a final hit of the joint you’d been passing back and forth before putting it out in his bedside ashtray, “If you tell anyone… you’re dead.”

“As if,” you turn to your side, burying your face into the pillow of Eddie’s bed, “Do you think he’s out there?”

“Don’t,” he points at you dangerously, then lays at your side, “Don’t start that right now.”

It truly isn’t a good idea to start this right now. While you’re both high. Vulnerable. But it’s now, as you’re in a loose head with no ties to your tongue, that you can actually bring yourself to ask.

“But what if he’s…” you pull your head from the pillow, and the tight ache in your chest grows worse, “You know?”

There. Terrified. Cold.

“He’s not,” Eddie looks at you, dead serious for once, jaw tight, “We looked. I looked. Just- “ he sits up on his knees and turns his head away from you completely, “let it go.”

He picks at the curled hem of his crop top and no matter how you angle your head or lean over his thigh, he won’t meet your eyes.

“I looked everywhere for the kid, if he were out there, I’d know it,” Eddie’s voice is soft but undeniably strict. He swallows the lump in his throat, brows knit tightly, “Will’s dead.”

You sit up now, too, your body feeling just a little too slow. A little too slugged. You wrap your arms around his and lay your chin on his shoulder, “‘m sorry for bringing it up.”

But you can’t help the thoughts that creep. The idea that maybe you didn’t look everywhere. Maybe Will is starving, dehydrated, restless.

You bury your head into the sleeve of his crop top.

Joyce still couldn’t look at any of you when you’d all arrived at the campgrounds.

Murray and Hopper were a little more forgiving. Though Hopper wouldn’t allow his daughter back, much to her boyfriend and friends’ dismay, he could at least shake your hands before leaving. Murray could pretend-punch your guts as a surprise attack and grin when you all would huff (his usual behavior).

But nobody blames Joyce for her distance.

You all lost her son. Through pure, unadulterated negligence, you all were at fault.

And that’s what bugs you most about Nancy, when she pretends it was only you and Eddie occupied when Will went missing. It was her, too. She and Steve.

Robin’s fingers pluck through the collection of cassettes Steve brought to camp, brows furrowed, “You listen to music like a douche.”

“Hey,” he guffaws, “hey! You like those bands, too.”

“Yeah, but - like, it’s different when you listen to The Smiths and when I do,” she turns to look at the man as he gathers clothes for a shower, “You’re a bitch and I’m cool.”

“Other way around,” Steve throws one of his old Hawkins High pride shirts at Robin’s head, “I’m gonna take a shower while the freaks are smoking out the cabin, so if you need anything…” he pauses at the doorway and shoots her a sardonic smile, “don’t.”

“Yeah, yeah!” Robin throws the shirt at him while the door slams shut.

Mere seconds later, she can make out the sound of his shower head sputtering to life, then consistent jets of water hitting ceramic walls. Robin searches for something in the cabin to do, but both you and Nancy have hidden your more interesting possessions from her snooping nature. And there’s no point in going through her own things, she already knows what’s in there - no fun.

But what is fun is sparking debate between you and Eddie while you’re both high, so she stretches, fingers reaching high to the ceiling until there’s a soft pop at the base of her spine, and begins towards the door. It creaks as she lugs it open, a cold wind blows over her exposed arms. Chills race up her freckled skin and tingles up her nose.

Hawkins’ nights were hell frozen over, even in a beautiful summer.

Robin jumps, a hand flying over her heart as if to steady it, she groans and glares at the person who dared scare her, “You can knock when you wanna come in, you know?” Robin steps aside and down the stoop, leaving the door open, “It’s just Hair in there right now, so I dunno how much fun you’ll be having.”

Her elbow is grabbed before she can leave, though. The strength of the grip surprises her, eyebrows flying up in shock.

A humorless laugh escapes her painted lips, Robin quirks a brow at her holder, “Do you… need something?”

She’s met with silence.

Cold eyes. Dead eyes.

“You need to let go,” Robin’s quieter than she wants to be, fear shakes her hand when she tries prying away from her holder, “Seriously. I’m gonna scream.”

At that, she’s yanked forward and inside - the cabin door is slung shut. Robin goes to make good on her promise and scream - more genuine than she was originally swearing - but a hand is quickly swiping over her mouth. It presses so tight her teeth begin to ache.

The hand over her mouth squeezes, Robin claws at every inch of skin she can reach. Steady, harsh water hitting ceramic clogs the sound of her whimpering. She chokes on panic and unshed tears, legs kicking as she’s brought up to your bed.

Your bed because you were last to pick and left with the annoying knobby bed posts that creak whenever you shift.

Robin feels her eyes sting as she’s dragged up by the grip on her face and, in a harsh, quick, cruel slam, bashed over the leftmost knob at the foot of your bed. Her head cracks open and she knows she’s bleeding, though it feels numb. She’s tossed onto the carpeted floor and her eyes can barely stay open long enough to notice the kitchen knife in her attacker’s hand.

She whines, a hand going to the back of her head and pulling back to see it smoothed over and dripping in crimson. Robin looks up at the blade as it’s brought down. She chokes on her blood. Sharp and suffocating through her chest. The heart. Blood fills her mouth and leaks between her parted lips, eyes wide.

The knife is pulled out and stabbed down again. Into her stomach, right below her breastbone. With jagged, jerky tugs - the knife slices through her puckering skin.

Inside the bathroom, the water cuts.

Steve holds his eyes shut as he reaches for the towel he’d set out. Patting his face dry, Steve quickly rustles through his hair with the towel and ties it around his waist. It’s quiet as he brushes soaked framing hairs from his face. It’s quiet as he steps out of the tub. It’s quiet as he reaches for his shirt. It’s quiet. Robin Buckley is many things, but talkative and loud are what most immediately comes to mind.

So he abandons his clothes on the granite bathroom counter, feet crossing the cold tile floor to the door. Steve cracks it open enough to stick his head through and screams at the sight.

Robin is sprawled on the ground between her and Nancy’s bed with a kitchen knife through her throat. Her head is turned to the side, hair matted and covered with blood. Stomach gaping and leaking. Blood puddles and runs on the floor below and Steve can’t breathe.

His shock washes away enough for Steve to dash forward, he collapses onto his knees and cradles Robin’s brutalized body. Her blood slips over his skin and Steve can’t breathe.

Robin is useless in his arms, her head lolls back entirely and blood is already drying at her chin and cheeks. It clings to her neck in speckled patches. Her eyes stare wide and dark and sparkless at the moldy ceiling and Steve can’t breathe. It’s brutal. It’s evil.

“Robin- !” Steve manages to catch his breath, one hand smoothing back blood-crusted bangs, and shaking when she doesn’t respond, “Robin, please, Robin - get up!”

Robin’s once blue tank top is dyed unevenly - purple and crimson - it’s shredded at the stomach.

“Robin!” Steve’s hands are red and he knows she’s gone. There’s no chance of his beloved best friend responding to his calls, but there’s something in his heart that makes him hope. Just one more time, she’ll wake up, this will all be over soon. Just one more time.

“Robin…” his ears are ringing with her blood staining the snowy towel at his waist, he doesn’t hear the steps behind him.

Robin Buckley was a lot of things.

She was loud. She was chatty. She was spacey. She was energetic. She was overwhelmingly unhelpful in most cases. She was a terrible listener when something disinterested her. She was lovable and loving. She was his only friend when he and Nancy took a break. She was his Platonic (with a capital ‘P’) soulmate.

And she was supposed to go on a date with Vickie this weekend before the campers arrived.

He doesn’t hear the steps and he doesn’t hear the final click of shoes stopping behind him on the wood flooring.

Robin Buckley was dead.

A grunt rips through the attacker as their knife drives right between the blades of Steve’s shoulders.

His body jerks forward, Robin tumbles out of his arms as Steve tries ripping himself away with a scream. The pain is flashing - hot and blinding - and it ripples down his spine.

Steve can’t even get up, can’t even turn, before there’s a solid kick right in his stab wound. It sends him back to the floor, cheek to cold, hardwood. A shoe cracks against his head, holding him down, before a knife splits through his side. His throat raws while he shrieks. Pain and panic and pure terror rings through the bloodied jabs and up to his lightening head.

Steve tries against the very will of God to push himself up and fight, run, anything to save his own life and rescue those that remain. Who remains? Oh God, is Nancy okay?

Another piercing ram into his side sends all thoughts scattering. And as the pierces grow faster, tougher, more animalistic in their devouring of his flesh, he’s unable to think long enough to plan his next move.

He’s breathless. Numbing.

The attacker rips another hole through his skin and muscle and Steve can’t breathe.

“Did you hear that?” you stand from the bed, sobering as the time drags on. You look through the soft white curtains that hang over the cabin mirror, right at the girls’ counselor cabin, “Am I going nuts?”

“No and no,” Eddie is half-asleep, sprawled out starfish-style on his bed and scratching at his exposed stomach. He yawns, eyes closed and lashes fanned over his cheeks, “You didn’t smoke enough to start hallucinating, so stop trying to freak me out.”

“I’m not trying to freak you out,” your head snaps away from the window and back towards Eddie, face stern, “And if I didn’t smoke enough to hear shit then that scream had to be real.”

“All the more reason to stay inside,” his eyes flutter open and narrow at you, “I’m not walking in on Harrington and Wheeler again.”

“That wasn’t a sex scream, Munson,” you replay the sound in your head and turn away from the mirror completely, not seeing the killer step out of the cabin, soaked in your friends’ blood, “That was, like…”

Agony.

“That was violent,” you whisper, almost as though you’re afraid to admit it to yourself.

Eddie sits up, sluggish and tired, he blinks at you through what remains of his high, “What are you saying?”

“I’m going out there,” you nod resolutely, “We have to call Hopper.”

Eddie watches you as you move to where the emergency ax is held behind safety glass. He watches you smash through the glass with your shoe and haul the heavy weapon over your shoulder.

“I know what I heard, and I’m not- “ you think back to that final night. On the rainiest night of that summer, “I’m not gonna be stoned and useless again. I refuse to do nothing.”

Eddie is used to staying put and running away to keep himself safe. It’s never something you’d judge him for, if he wants safety then you can’t fault him for that, but you’re not going to let it happen like it did last year.

When you heard a camper walk by and assumed it was to use the bathroom. When you heard five more campers walk by. You stayed in bed with Eddie - passing a joint between yourselves and convincing each other that everyone was fine. You stayed in bed while Robin was sleeping hard enough for five people just one mattress over. Joyce never found out, but you lived with that knowledge - and the knowledge that Steve and Nancy were fucking in the other cabin the entire time - for a year. Unless Jonathon or Hopper told her, a violation of their separate promises, Joyce doesn’t know, but you can’t forget.

Will went missing because of your inaction, and you refuse to let it happen again.

Eddie stands up, bites the chapped skin of his bottom lip, and approaches the cabin door, “Alright. Yeah,” he sighs and you can see his fear in the way his body is so unnaturally tense, “Will, this one’s for you.”

The main office is cluttered but you manage to find the phone easily. It sits pretty on Murray’s paper-scattered desk and you run to it like a mouse from a snake.

Your shared path from the boys’ counselor cabin to the office was largely spared of attackers, and your shoulder was left aching from the weight of the unused ax.

But you refuse to let up, dialing the number directly to Hopper’s office. Back when things weren’t tense and it truly was like a big family at camp, you and your fellow counselors enjoyed teasing Joyce for personally pining the number to her corkboard.

Now, you make Eddie keep watch outside the office windows as Murray’s phone rings.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

It picks up, and a voice you’re dreading answers, “Yeah?”

Your heart thrums heavy, mind blanking for the moment. Then he repeats himself, dragging out the vowels in a way you’ve always hated.

“Murray?” you hear Eddie’s body thump against the frame of the open office window, you assume tossing himself onto the wall in that dramatic way he always manages, “Why- where’s Hopper?”

“Going to you,” Murray stresses the word and you can see him blinking at the wall like you’re the idiot, “Where’s Joyce? Get her on the phone.”

“What do you mean where’s Joyce?” the ax burns at your shoulder now, forearm beginning to burn and sore at its weight, “Isn’t she with you?”

“She left to check on you guys an hour ago, I sent Jim because she never called like she was supposed to.”

The drive between camp and the police station was twenty minutes if you went the speed limit and Joyce always did. She should be here.

“You… haven’t seen her?”

“No,” you clench the phone tighter in your hand, throat tight and gut clenching in that way it does before you retch up bile, “why did Joyce come?”

“Huh?”

“Why was Joyce coming?” you can’t find air, too thin and sparse, your arm hurts like hell, “You two were supposed to be out all night,” your knees are weak, they tighten and buckle, “Why was Joyce coming?”

“Oh- “ his reply fails you, the line cuts.

“Murray?” you drop the ax to the ground, that hand already flying to the phone so you can dial Hopper’s office again, “Come on, come on. You’re kidding.”

The line is dead.

Entirely dead.

“Fucking- !” you throw the receiver down and pick up the ax, fighting down rising tears and panic as you do, “Fuck!”

When there’s no question, no worries, no input whatsoever from Eddie, you realize how silent he’s been. You feel sick.

Eddie’s body has thumped against the frame of the open window. Jaw slack and left eye wide. In his right eye is an arrow.

The arrow has run completely through his skull, its head sticking out the back, clunked with blood and brainy mush.

You pull the ax tight to your chest, the wood scratches your neon orange shirt and you feel it like an anchor. The thing tethering you in this office. Heavy as the smooth wooden handle buries in the dip of your chest.

Blood oozes from the wound in his eye and you can already see where the red is drying in his eyebrow.

Sneaking past the body as if it’ll jump back to life, you press the office door open cautiously. After ensuring a clear path, you rush out and to the girls’ counselor cabin. Robin and Steve are still there.

They should still be there.

They’re there.

You stumble back, terror shredding the burning muscles that hold your ax. You crawl backward and slip down the stoop, your head smashes on the dirt floor in your fall. Scrambling, you grab the ax from the cabin’s landing and stand back. Staring through the doorway, you still see them.

Their bodies are obscured only slightly at your position, you can still see Steve laid over Robin at the waist. His sides ripped open and Robin’s head tilted so far back that her now listless and dull eyes are staring straight through you.

Retching, you dry heave the sick that desperately wants to claw its way up your throat. Using the ex as leverage, you push yourself up and run to the last place you saw Nancy. The kitchen door is jammed and that should’ve been a sign.

You should’ve turned away. Should’ve run.

But the blood is pumping in your ears and your skin is numb and cold.

Your arms ache and shake and burn while you swing the heavy ax into the kitchen’s back door. It feels endless and you just want to go home. You wish you never came back. You don’t count the swings, you just know it feels like absolute hell. Eventually, the wood is weak and chipped enough for you to push it through with your bare hand. You manage to twist the knob and pull the door from inside.

God, you should’ve just run.

The back of Nancy’s skull is caved and pulped and forming bruises in the shape of a handprint take place around her neck. Blood stains the pantry doorway and stray hairs stick to the skin patches hanging off the more pronounced jagged edges.

You run now, turning away and towards a campers’ cabin that still has the lights on.

A week ago, Murray and Hopper came around to make sure all the camper-friendly doors with locks on them were removed and replaced.

This cabin is locked from the outside.

You bang on the door with your free hand, urgent and nauseous, ready to ax the damn wood down if whoever’s inside doesn’t answer you in the next two seconds.

It swings open to reveal a lax Argyle and the heavy musk of marijuana. His eyes are bloodshot and narrow, lips split dumb, and teeth on display, “Need some help, my dude?”

“Do you have any idea what’s going on here?” you shove Argyle into the cabin and jam the door shut with your body, back pressed so hard against the wood that you’re going to have indents left behind.

His brows raise, a rigidness hitting his body, “Oh, shit, am I fired if I don’t?”

You turn your head, eyes clenching shut at his words, “How were you locked in here, Argyle?” you stand up from the door, ax still wound tight to your side, “Who locked you in here?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Argyle cards his fingers together and gestures loosely at the door, “Jonathan locked me in here - seemed real urgent.”

“Did he tell you why?”

“Nah, man,” he shakes his head, “Just that I should stay in here. Thought it was, like, a hazing thing.”

“People are dead, Argyle,” you grab his arm and begin towards the door, “We have to go.”

When Joyce is missing and Jonathon nowhere to be found, you can’t risk looking for them. You just have to make it to the van. If the van has been spared of tampering, anyway.

So you lead the way, pushing open the cabin door and holding up the ax. It’s pushing and straining at your arms, but you refuse to let it go. You can’t lose it.

Argyle is hot on your tails, body tense but not nearly as much as yours - whether it be his disbelief or the weed, you aren’t sure. Either way, your body is paranoid and your mind is left reeling as you search the path through cabins to the main gates - where those damned buses took campers away on that rainy night.

It feels like it should be raining now. Like you should be fighting muck and slosh and a figure behind a hockey mask.

You don’t seem to hear the steps behind you. Neither does Argyle. Despite crunching dirt and heavy breathing, you two are oblivious as you cross the path to the camp van.

An ax is held above your head, your chest is rising and falling in little bursts that entirely betray your fear. Your body is shaking. Argyle is no help, but that’s not necessarily new.

The footsteps grow closer as the van comes into sight. Neither of you hears. Neither of you sees. You unwisely drop the ax, right at the last second, and run straight into the driver’s side door - desperately pulling. So desperate, you can’t make out the body behind the tinted window.

Argyle is snatched by the hair, a hand clasping tight over his mouth before he can alert you of the looming danger.

You’re prepared to begin crying by the time you actually manage to haul the van’s door open. But instead of a leather seat, you see beige, satin pants. You stumble back and note the emptiness of your hands - you dropped the ax.

Like an idiot, you went and dropped the ax before you were safe.

The hard, dirt-clodded ground is a terrible landing - the force practically punches air straight out from your lungs, and pebbles lodge deep into the meat of your palms.

Now, you hear the footsteps from behind.

Your eyes crawl up those beige, satin pants and you’re frozen in indecision. Should you run? How do you run? Where could you go?

A hand roots through your hair and tugs your head up and back.

Joyce Byers lays passed out, a rag soaked in what you assume to be chemicals, tied around her face, in the driver’s seat. You look up at the face that looms over you. Cold eyes. Dead eyes.

Bangs cling to his forehead and there’s blood splattered and dried over his skin and clothes.

Jonathan lifts the ax above you. High, high over his head.

Argyle lays on the ground, a deep, gushing ax wound laid right where his eyes are.

Your heart races. Burns. You can’t die. You won’t be torn to shreds by Jonathon’s hatred.

You swing a fist up and right into Jonathon’s groin - he doubles over in a hoarse groan, the ax tumbles to the ground and kicks dirt up around it. Before he can recover, you fly to your knees and push up until you’re racing into the nearby woods.

Jonathan screams after you, you can hear him. You can’t run fast enough. You can feel his blood-and-dirt crusted fingers at the base of your neck, his breath hot on your ear. Toe of his shoes clipping the backs of your own. Twigs and branches snap against your exposed skin - leaves dragging viciously over your face. Like the greenery itself wants you to know that you, and your fellow counselors, deserve this. You all deserve Jonathon’s hatred, but you’re just too scared to die now.

So you continue through the woods until you end up fumbling over a dug-out tree root. Your shoe is ripped from your foot, jammed under the root, as you shriek and tumble.

Mud bubbles from a puddle when you land face-first.

Pushing yourself up, you turn as Jonathon grows closer. Mud clings to your clothes and flesh. The mud reminds you of that night.

The trees climb higher. Moonlight grows tighter. Strangled between the canopy. The ax blade glints, though - blindingly so. Like a mouse to a snake, you cower.

Like Will Byers that night, you can sense your impending doom. The sword of Damocles - Jonathan raises the ax above his head, his foot landing between your legs and splashing mud over your neon orange shirt.

You can’t ask why. You know exactly why.

[FUCK TUMBLR.COM PICTURE LIMITS]

On one end of the hall outside Officer Hopper’s office is you, Eddie, Nancy, Robin, and Steve. On the other is Joyce, Jonathan, and Murray. Joyce is wringing her hands, sobbing hysterically as she rocks. Murray mutters, shaking his head (“Five- five - counselors on duty and not one them. Not one saw him.”), a new hire is surely on their way if the camp is even to be open next year. Jonathan, however, doesn’t shy away from you all - he stares ahead.

Cold, dead eyes.

You and Eddie and trying so hard not to lean that you’re both awkwardly ramrod straight. Eyes split between squinting at the fluorescents and widening cartoonishly so that nobody notices you’re both squinting. Nancy and Steve have untucked shirts and still smell of sweat and Nancy’s overpowering sugary perfume. Robin is only awake because of the current mystery.

You probably should’ve known that Jonathon wasn’t going to let you all go.

If anything, you’re shocked Joyce hadn’t done something herself.

…

Jonathan’s arms jerk up from their position and he swings. With more force than you’ve ever thought was possible for Jonathon Byers, he swings. The shine of the moonlight on his ax slides up, up, and off the metal as it comes down.

You don’t get to see the flashes of your short life, though. Either by angels or your friends, or maybe even that forgiving heart you always admired in Will Byers, there’s a pop. Just as he’s going to give the final push, right into your heaving chest, his chest arches forward.

His fingers split off the ax’s handle and it tumbles until that blade is buried deep in the gash of the ground between your legs - mud splashes up from the impact. Jonathan stumbles back, blood sputters from the middle of his chest and painting his white shirt.

Red and blue lights flash bright on the trees and you can hear the sound of leaves crunching and mud splashing under heavy boots. Jonathan thuds onto his back, clawing at the hole through his sternum, gasping for air and choking on the blood that froths to his lips.

You’re dragged off your ass by Hopper. Carried out from the woods and back to the main entrance, where Murray and two EMTs are standing around a waking Joyce.

Joyce spots you through bleary eyes - you’re smeared in mud and sweat and tears and you’re left clueless as to why she seems so relieved.

She runs to you, pushes her business partner and the EMTs aside to wrap her arms around you so tight that you almost lose oxygen. Her hands pet over the hair that her son had knotted his own hand through not an hour ago.

When the both of you part, Joyce frets over your face, cupping your cheeks and inspecting each exposed slice of skin for injury. Eventually, you settle your hands over her forearms, gently pushing her back.

“Ms.- “ you cut yourself off, hands curling tighter around her arms, “Joyce. When Will… when Will went missing- “

“Honey,” she shakes her head, “I know. Jonathan- “ her eyes flit down to her shoes, then back to you, “I know.”

Hopper puts a hand over your upper back, angling you and Joyce towards the open back of an ambulance. Neither of you is outwardly injured, but anything to get you out of here.

Away from these corpses. Off these bloodied grounds.

You and Joyce are loaded into the back of the ambulance together, her hand tight around yours. Neither of you speaks. Too afraid, too ashamed, too stuck. But this silence is different, no longer stiff and abrasive - now it’s simple. Neither of you has anything to say so you don’t.

Joyce hugs you close to her side and your eyes slowly begin to drift shut. Muscles going lax against her, breathing slowly evening out. Joyce follows your lead shortly after and the two of you are left that way by the EMTs on your sides. The two of you sleep tenderly, calmly, blissfully unaware of the state of Jonathon’s corpse in the woods.

…

“He really killed all these kids and went down to a shot like that?” Officer Powell looks over to his partner, Callahan, as he jots down notes about the scene.

“Kid’s still human,” Callahan shrugs, turning away to find where you and Joyce were led by their boss, “Come on, we should get back to Hopper.”

Powell takes a lingering glance at Jonathon’s blood-speckled, dirt-stained body before following after his partner. Leaves and twigs snapping under their heavy boots as they go.

Clouds slowly gather in the dark, starry sky. Thick and purple under the moon. They begin to weep gently over the camp, sprinkled rainfall that pitifully patters against the cold, pallid skin of Jonathon Byers.

The water is freezing in the Hawkins air.

A finger twitches. A leg jumps. An eye opens to see the worms that have begun inching to the surface.

Jonathan Byers rises, ax in hand, as the rain grows heavier.

#eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x you #eddie munson x y/n #steve harrington x nancy wheeler #nancy wheeler x steve harrington #eddie munson #steve harrington #nancy wheeler #robin buckley #tammy thompson #argyle stranger things #jonathan byers #stranger things x reader #stranger things x you #stranger things fic #friday the 13th au

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dxncingwithastrxnger · 2 years

Text

What if in st5 Steve dies saving Nancy's life and their last interaction is just

"You're an idiot, Steve Harrington"

"And you are beautiful, Nancy Wheeler"

@obeymeh03

@buckysangrylittlething

If I had to have this painful thought, so did the two of you, I'm sorry 😭💀

#purple_strxnger #steve harrington #nancy wheeler #nancy x steve #steve x nancy #steve harrington x nancy wheeler #nancy wheeler x steve harrington #stancy #stranger things #stranger things theories #stranger things theory #st5 speculation #st5 #st5 theory

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xspeter · 11 months

Text

𝐒𝐈𝐋𝐕𝐄𝐑 𝐒𝐏𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒

𝟎𝟎𝟑: “your heart was glass, I dropped it.”

reminder, this fic will be written like the book, so it is in interview format.

m.list ⇦ previous chapter next chapter ⇨

Robin: Something they don't tell you about uprooting your life to pursue a shot in the dark, is how hard it is. Well, actually I think they do. But, you know what i'm trying to say.

Steve: When we made it to LA, our first order of business was finding somewhere to live.

Nancy: The first week we were there, we were sleeping in the van.

Eddie: It was a rough start, but... we put all our money together and we found this house for rent.

Dustin: They say it takes two to make a house a home, but the six of us did it just fine.

Nancy: Once we got settled, everyone immediately started looking for some places to play.

Steve: Lucky for us, there was a place on the strip that was willing to take us.

Dustin: The gig down in the strip... it didn't pay much. And there wasn't a lot of people there to hear us- but it was the strip!

Jon: We played there for at least three months without anything happening. We were living basically pay check to pay check, but Steve was pushing out new music like his life depended on it.

Dustin: At least two times a week he'd say, "How's this sound?" And every time it was fucking amazing.

Nancy: I got a job at this local newspaper doing some photography, but it didn't pay much. With the money we got from the gigs, and the money I got from the newspaper, we were really only making enough to cover the rent.

Steve: One night, we're all at this diner. We were down in the dumps, because it had been six months of us living in LA and we had gotten no where.

Jon: We were barely making rent- I mean I was starting to doubt if I should've thrown away my spot at NYU to pursue this.

Robin: Somewhere in between all our arguing, the topic of name came up. Before this, we'd gone by 'S&E' standing for, 'Steve and Eddie', but last I checked- my name wasn't Steve or Eddie.

Jon: Steve didn't want us to change the name, he said that was how people knew us, but it's not like we had some dedicated fan base or something.

Robin: I don't remember who suggested it, but someone said, "Silver Springs," And... I just fucking loved it.

Nancy: I liked the name a lot.

Dustin: I'm the one who suggested it, actually. And it sucks because I don't even remember the meaning behind it!

Steve: At first I didn't like the name but... everyone else did. And you know, it grew on me eventually.

Jon: After we left and we're all at home, I realize that we don't have any fucking toilet paper. So i'm about to head out and then Steve asks if he can come with me, says he needs to clear his head.

Steve: When we were driving, I realized at some point that... me and Jon never really talked about anything that wasn't related to the band. I lived with the guy and I hardly even knew him.

Jon: Steve never bothered to ask me anything about my personal life. You know, he thought he knew us- everyone in the band- but he didn't. He just knew what we told him.

Steve: It was like... like I was apart of the band but- I wasn't.

Jon: If he ever realized this he never really showed it. I think the deepest conversation we ever had was about my college situation, and outside of that he knew nothing about me.

Steve: Um, anyway, we get to the store and i go inside and grab the toilet paper and some of these chips Robin asked me to grab, and as i'm walking out I look in the car and Jon looks just absolutely gobsmacked.

Jon: Right when Steve walks out, Jim fucking Hopper walks in right behind him. So Steve obviously didn't see him, so I roll down the window and I say, "Jim Hopper just walked into that fucking store!"

Steve: Shit, he didn't have to tell me twice.

Jon: Steve throws the stuff into the back of the van, and then as casually as possible, he goes back into the store.

Steve: I almost let him walk past me. Almost. But I pull myself together and I walked up to him. I said, "You don't really know me, But my names Steve Harrington and... me and my band would really like you to hear our sound.”

Of course he'd probably heard that same exact thing dozens of times but... it was the only thing I could think to say in that moment.

He said to me, "I'm sure I would. But right now, i'd rather hear the sound of my T.V." And he started walking away, but fuck, there was no way I was about to throw this opportunity away.

Jon: I don't know what Steve said but... he got us a meeting with Jim fucking Hopper.

Steve: It was basically just, [laughs], just a lot of begging.

Jon: We went to that store for some toilet paper, and left with hope.

Steve: Our meeting was set for two weeks from the day we met Hopper at the store, so that gave us two weeks to really get our shit together.

Nancy: Steve would be up... all hours of the night. Anything he wrote, he just thought it wasn't good enough.

Steve: I-I was stressed out of my mind! It felt like nothing I wrote would be good enough for him. We only had one shot to impress him.

Nancy: So one night, Steve's got a couple of beers, he's got his guitar on his lap and he's humming out a new tune he'd been working on, and I can just see how frustrated he is. He's running a hand over his face, he's just... he just looked a mess.

Steve: I was working on this song called, "Diamond Water." And no matter how much I perfected it, it just wasn't good enough.

Nancy: I asked him to play the song for me, and he's got every excuse as to why he can't. "Oh, it's not done," or, "No it's not that good," but I wasn't having any of it. I practically forced him to play that song for me.

Steve: She said, "If you can't play a song in front of the woman you love, what makes you think you'll be able to play in front of Jim Hopper?"

Nancy: When he sang that song for me... I think it helped reassure me that I was there for the right reasons. That I could build a future there, I could build a family there.

Steve: She's the only reason I was able to hold my self together in front of Hopper.

Robin: It was so, extremely intimidating being in the same room as a music producer. Especially one as big as Jim Hopper.

Dustin: Steve didn't give us too much time to figure out the instrumentals for the new song he wrote, so I just remember being scared out of my mind.

Eddie: I wasn't worried at all. We were good. We knew we were good. People we played for knew we were good. So why wouldn't Jim hopper think we were good?

Jon: Look, all I remember from that day, was literally almost throwing up the moment Hopper was in front of us.

Steve: Once we started playing, I think we really started to let loose.

Jon: Once we started to play, I couldn't believe I was ever nervous.

Steve: When we were done, Hopper gave us his business card and told us he'd be in touch. Obviously that was a good thing.

Robin: Hopper didn't even lie either. He called us the very next day and asked where our next gig would be.

Steve: Over the next six months, Hopper showed up to every job we had.

Jon: I was happy, but I was a little confused, you know? I mean, he spent six months just listening to us.

Robin: But, finally we have this gig on the strip, and hoppers there per usual, but this time when we finish, he tells us he's got a spot open for us at this recording studio.

Steve: We were finally gonna make an album.

Dustin: It took us one whole week to record an eleven song album.

Steve: Once we got the album out there, things started moving super fast. I mean, a month later we were going on tour.

Nancy: Two weeks before they're set to leave, I find out i'm... i'm pregnant. And, one thing about finding out your newly successful boyfriend has got you pregnant before you're married, is that it is absolutely terrifying.

Steve: Two nights before we leave, i'm packing my bags, talking about whatever bullshit that I thought was cool or important at the time, and Nancy just goes, "I'm pregnant."

Nancy: I didn't know how to tell him, so I just blurted it out.

Steve: I just stood there... I didn't know what to say. Nancy goes, "What're we gonna do Steve?"

Nancy: I had this whole plan. We would get married, buy a nice house with a big backyard, and we'd start a family.

Steve: I knew Nancy wanted to be married when she had our first baby. So, I call up a priest that very same night, find some old tux, and we got married.

Nancy: I got married in white jeans and a white blouse. And I wouldn't have had it any other way.

Steve: We had trusted Eddie to take a photo of us, which clearly had been a bad idea.

Eddie: Look, I was drunk out of my mind, and Steve hands me his camera and he's like, "Take a picture!" So I did, but the picture only ended up being of their bodies. I missed their faces.

Nancy: It's my favorite photo of us.

Steve: And then we were off on our first ever tour.

Dustin: Touring in the 80's? It was... wow.

Steve: We were playing some real nice venues. And we were... going out partying every night after.

Eddie: Back then, we didn't really understand addiction. So when Steve was waking up in the morning and the first thing he was doing was poppin some pills in his mouth, I didn't think anything of it.

Steve: I don't know if there was a time on that tour where I wasn't high. I'd get high when I woke up, i'd be high when we were performing, and i'd get high at the after party.

Nancy: He'd call me, and It wasn't until maybe two weeks in where I started noticing how weird he was being.

Steve: There was this one time I called her, I was strung out of my mind of course, and I apologized for not calling her the day before, and she goes, "Steve, you did call me yesterday."

Nancy: He always just sounded.. like he wasn't really there. His words would slur together, that kinda stuff. But what really made me realize something was wrong, was this one time we were on the phone and I said, "We miss you."

He says to me, "What do you mean 'we'?" And I was... confused. Because, wouldn't you just assume when your pregnant wife says 'we miss you' you'd know she meant her and her baby.

Steve: So, one day, i'm... on the bus, and there's these girls, and we were... you know.

Jon: I felt bad for Nancy- that she was stuck with a douchebag like Steve Harrington. I mean, as soon as he was away from her he was cheating on her.

Steve: I'm not proud of what happened on that tour.

Robin: I told Nancy not to come, but she wanted to surprise Steve. She was starting to show at this point, maybe five months pregnant?

Eddie: When I saw Nancy I thought, Oh, Shit. But I walked out the door as casually as I could. Once she couldn’t see me, I booked it. I figured Steve was either At the hotel or on the bus, and I ran two blocks all the way to the hotel.

I should’ve chosen the bus.

Robin: She found him on the bus. Sometimes I wish I would’ve stopped her, but I knew it needed to come out.

Dustin: I wasn’t there, but I heard she found out when she walked in him getting… oral sex from a groupie.

Steve: It was like I was playing with fire and was shocked when I burnt myself.

I remember Nancy’s face. It wasn’t mad or hurt as much as she was just genuinely shocked. She didn’t even say anything, she just stared at me while I scrambled to get them off of me.

The girls I was with ran out. Not that I blame them.

When the bus door shut, I looked at Nancy and I just said, “I’m sorry.” It’s the only thing I could say, really. That’s when she started to process what she just walked into.

Nancy: I think I said, “Who the fuck do you think you are? You think there’s a woman alive who can treat you better than I do?”

Jon: I was outside talking to some crew guys and I caught the tail end of it. I could see them threw the windshield, and it looked to me like she hit him with her bag. And then the two of them left the bus.

Nancy: I made him shower before I would talk to him.

Steve: I wanted her to leave me. I’ve thought a lot about it and… that’s what i’d been up to. I was hoping she’d cut me loose.

That night, me and Nancy are sitting in the hotel room and I had no idea what to say to her. So, stupidly, I pulled out a bump and she said, “What do you think you’re doing?”

I just shrugged and I remember how stupid I felt, shrugging at a time like that- with a woman like that. This woman is carrying my child, and I was shrugging like a child.

She stared at me, waiting for more of an answer, and I didn’t have one. So she said, “If you think i’m gonna let you fuck up our life, then you’ve lost your damn mind.” And she left.

Eddie: Nancy found me and told me she was going home, she didn’t wanna deal with his bullshit, not that anyone blamed her.

She handed me a letter, asked me to watch him, and said, “When he wakes up give him this.” And I said okay.

Steve: When I woke up I was sick to my stomach, had this- this pounding headache. Robin was standing over me with a piece of paper, and she looked pissed.

I grab the paper and I read it and it says, “You have until November 30 and then you’re going to be a good man for the rest of your life. got it?”

The baby was due December 1.

Nancy: I didn’t wanna accept that he was as low as he claimed to be.

Of course, i’m not saying it wasn’t real. All of it was real.

But that didn’t mean I had to accept it.

Murray: I didn’t real know Nancy, but I understood her. She wanted her baby to have a daddy, so she had to whip Steve into shape. I mean, what’s not to get?

Steve: Like an idiot, I said to myself, Okay, i’ll just take until November 30 and get it all out of my system, and then i’m done.

People pretend that addicts are the worst of the worst, but they’re just like normal people. They love to lie to themselves. And i’m an expert at lying to myself.

Robin: Obviously, he didn’t stop messing with all of it.

Eddie: I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know how to help him or even if I could trust him- and I just remember thinking, I’m his best friend. Shouldn’t I know how to help him?

But I didn’t know.

Dustin: We were all kinda counting down the days until Steve had to get clean.

Steve: [Pauses] We were in Chicago opening up for Mickey Jags, and Mickey was really into snorting heroin, and I thought, Well, I have to try heroin at least once.

That made sense to me. I don’t know why, but I figured it’d be easier to get clean if I tried heroin, which doesn’t even make sense.

Murray: I always tell my people to stay away from benzos and heroin. They don’t kill you when you’re awake, they kill you when you’re asleep.

Eddie: It all spiraled from there. Once he started snorting the shit, I knew Nancy’s note wasn’t gonna mean shit. I tried to keep an eye on him too, tried to get him to stop, but he wouldn’t listen.

Murray: When I found out he was with Jags, I called Hopper, and I said, “We’ve got a dead man walking.”

Hopper told me he’d handle it.

Eddie: Something Steve helped me learn, is that if someone doesn’t wanna stop, then you can’t make them.

Jon: When it got to ten days left, and he started forgetting the words on stage, I remember thinking he would never get clean.

Steve: On November 28, Hopper shows up at our show. He’s backstage waiting for me when we finish our set.

I said, “Why’re you here?”

He tells me, “You’re going home.” and he takes me by the arm and holds onto me all the way until we’re on the plane. Turns out, Nancy had gone into labor.

We land and he drags me into the car and drives all the way up to the hospital, and he says, “Get up there, Steven.”

This whole long journey, and all I had left to do was just walk inside, but I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t meet my kid like that.

Hopper got out of the car and went up there himself.

Nancy: I’d just spent eighteen hours in labor with my mom, and i’m expecting my husband to walk in the door fixed. I know now that that’s not how it works. You can’t just fix people. But, I didn’t know that back then.

When the door opened and it wasn’t Steve, I felt sick to my stomach. Because I knew what that meant.

I was so tired and so disappointed, but I was holding this beautiful little girl that looked just like Steve. I decided to name her Amber.

Right then, giving up on Steve felt easier then holding faith. But I didn’t give up on him. I told Hopper, “Tell him he can start to be a father right now, or he can get his ass in rehab.”

Hopper nodded and left.

Steve: I sat in that lobby for what felt like hours. I felt sick thinking about what I did- what I was doing- but I just couldn’t get myself to go upstairs.

When Hopper finally came down he said, “You’ve got a beautiful little girl named Amber.” I didn’t know what to say.

And then hopper says, “Nancy says you have two choices. Either get your ass up there, or go to rehab. There’s no other option.”

I remember seeing this man wheeling his wife out of the hospital with their baby and I thought, Why can’t that be me?

It wasn’t even that I didn’t want to be with them- with my girls. I wanted to be with them so badly, but I just couldn’t look into that babies eyes and know that I was the shit deal she was stuck with.

So I went to rehab.

Nancy: My mom said, “I hope you know what you’re doing.” And i yelled at her, but deep down, I hoped I did too.

Eddie: Steve entered rehab in December of ‘84. We cancelled the rest of the dates on our tour, and the rest of us kinda went on vacations. Dustin bought a boat with the money we had, and the rest of us stayed at the house. Nancy had moved out and rented this house a couple of blocks away, and we tried to be with her as much as we could.

Steve: I didn’t go to rehab for the right reason. I went because I was ashamed and embarrassed. But, I stayed for the right reasons.

Eddie: The day Steve got out of rehab, I picked up Nancy and the baby and we drove over together.

Now, Amber was probably the cutest baby you’d ever seen. Pink cheeks, this big mop of hair, and these beautiful brown eyes.

There was this picnic table outside the facility, So Nancy and the baby sat down and I went inside. When I saw him, he was wearing the same thing he has been the last time I saw him. We hugged, and you know, I was kinda emotional.

But, I said, “You ready?”

He said, “Yeah,” But he looked a little unsure.

I put my arm around him and told him what he needed to hear. I said, “You’re going to be a great dad.” I don’t know why I never said that sooner.

Steve: Amber was sixty-three days old when I met her. It’s hard, even now to not hate myself for that. But the second I saw her, my god. I just remember thinking, Why did it take me this long to do this?

I had built a family. I did it without the qualities that a father needs to have. And here was this tiny, new person, who had my eyes and hair. She didn’t know who I used to be, she only cared who I was now.

Nancy: I think you have to have faith in people before they earn it. Otherwise, it’s not really faith.

Y/N and the band are gonna meet in the next chapter yall. prepare yourselves.

@brxkenartt @freezaz123

#steve harrington x reader #steve harrington #nancy wheeler x steve harrington #eddie munson #robin buckley #angst #daisy jones and the six #djats au #band au #love triangle #x reader

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