summary;in which sixteen year old summer bradshaw finds herself fighting off a monster from another dimension all whilst mending her broken heart.
warnings;this story may contain explicit language, sexual content, violence, alcohol and triggering topics such as: anxiety, assault, nightmares, blood and death.please read at your own risk.
“THIS IS ALL MY FAULT.” Summer threw her arms up, guilt weighing down on her. “If I didn’t need a ride home then you would’ve been here sooner and maybe he’d be okay!” She’d been pacing back and forth, stressing over the fact that sweet, little, innocent Will had just completely vanishedoff the face of the earth.
“No. If it’s anyone’s fault, it’s mine. I shouldn’t have taken the extra shift knowing Mom was working so late.” Jonathan shrugged his shoulders weakly, guilt and disappointment laced across his face. “Will was depending on mebeing home and I… I wasn’t.” He closed his eyes for a second before slamming his fist down on the coffee table, the loud noise jolting Summer from her thoughts.
She had never seen Jonathan so distraught before and it felt like she was crossing over into new territory within their friendship. Jonathan was never one to truly show his emotions so Summer wasn’t entirely sure how to react other than to let him know that she was there for him.
Joining his side on the couch, she reaches her hand to the back of his head, lacing her fingers through his hair and gently pulls him towards her. His head falls to rest on her shoulder as tears soak up in the fabric of her shirt but right now, she couldn’t care less.
The second her phone call with Jonathan ended this morning Summer had raced over to the Byers’ house as fast as she could. She didn’t care about missing school or getting into trouble for doing so when someone she held very close to her heart was missing.
Will was only a young boy and there was only so much defending a twelve-year-old could do to protect himself against whatever was out there. He was like a brother to Summer and she, along with Jonathan, was willing to do anything to help Joyce find him.
The mother was absolutely frantic about the unknown whereabouts of her youngest son. She’d spent the entire morning ringing up the phone bill, calling every single person she knew in town when she finally gave up and decided to just take matters to the police.
Summer had never seen Joyce so upset either and it was truly heartbreaking. It was then that the sixteen-year-old girl vowed to herself that no matter what she was going to help find and bring that little boy home.
“What about the boys?” Summer questions before springing to her feet. “They would’ve already left for school before Joyce rang around so they probably have no idea that Will’s missing.”
“You think they might know something?” Jonathan’s brows furrow.
“It’s a long shot, but they might,” She shrugs. “They were the last ones to see him.”
Jonathan gives Summer a thoughtful look before digging around in his jeans pocket, pulling out a set of keys and tossing them her way. “Take my car. I’ll stay here in case anyone has heard anything.”
With a nod, Summer rushes out to Jonathan’s car and slides into the driver’s seat. She didn’t have much experience when it came to driving and she certainly didn’t have any good experiences when behind the wheel either.
After all, there was a reason she didn’t have a car of her own, but there was no time to be thinking about that right now.
With an exasperated sigh, Summer starts up the engine and pulls out of the driveway cautiously. It doesn’t take her too long to arrive at the school but after weaving in and out of traffic as she saw fit, she makes it with just enough time to spare before the bell was set to ring, and for the three boys she was after to ride past on their bikes.
“Summer!” Dustin cheered, excited to see the older girl as he drops his bike to give her a tight hug.
It was no secret that Summer and Dustin shared a closer bond than she did with the others, but mostly because he would flaunt the fact every chance he got. Lucas would often tease him about it and reveal his secret crush on her, but Summer didn’t mind. She found it cute.
“Hey guys… you haven’t seen Will by any chance, have you?” Acting as if nothing was wrong, Summer places her hands on her hips trying to play it ‘cool’. “I… I had something important I needed to tell him.”
“I haven’t seen him since we left Mike’s last night,” Lucas shrugs with furrowed brows, the three boys growing a little concerned. “We can tell him for you if it’s so important?”
“Oh, no! It’s not thatimportant.” She rolls her eyes but they don’t seem to be buying it at all.
“Is everything okay?” Dustin queries.
“Yeah. Super. Like I said, just needed to tell him something.” She nods and gives them a thumbs up, regretting her decision to do so immediately.
Summer didn’t like lying to the younger boys, but she didn’t want them to spend all day worrying about their friend either. She also didn’t want to be the one to break the news to them.
“Okaay, then…” Mike drags out the words, swapping weird looks with his friends. “We’ve gotta go, we’re meeting Mr Clarke in the AV room before class. If you see Will tell him to meet us there.” The three of them give her a quick hug before heading for the building.
Talking to the younger boys may have been a dead-end, but there was still one other person Summer could try and talk to. Though, she hated the fact that she would actually have to communicate with this person, the one person she couldn’t stand, she was doing it for Will’s sake.
Summer was willing to put her differences aside for a very brief moment in order to try and find any new information that could potentially help them find the little boy.
Rushing through the crowded hallways of the high school, and ignoring the looks she was earning from her peers, she heads towards a specific locker. But with her mind occupied by a million other things, she loses focus on her surroundings and accidentally bumps into someone leaving the girls bathroom.
That someone being Nancy Wheeler, the girl she’d just so happened to be looking for.
“Oh, Nancy! Do you have a sec?” She asks after recollecting herself.
“Summer! Hi!” The shorter girl says with far more enthusiasm than expected. Her eyes widened as she stared at the other girl and her breathing hitches, almost as if there was something she was trying to hide.
“Anyway, you haven’t seen Will since he left your house-” Summer stops mid-sentence as her eyes fall on Steve exiting the same bathroom Nancy had just come from. Her chest immediately falls heavy as the realisation hits her. It didn’t take a genius to figure out Nancy and Steve had been together and in more ways than one.
“No. I haven’t. Why is something wrong?” The girl pushes, though there was a smugness in her words.
“You know what? I just remembered that I have somewhere to be.” Summer swallowed the hurt and smiled weakly before rushing to the other end of the hallway without looking back or stopping for anyone.
It wasn’t like Summer didn’t know Steve and Nancy had a 'thing’or that they had been spending a lot of time together lately. She just didn’t think Steve was all that serious about her. A fling maybe, but he never snuck into the girl’s bathroom with his 'flings’ and he certainly wouldn’t risk the chance of getting caught.
He was more of a 'the backseat of his car after a movie’ kind of guy, so seeing how he was with the Wheeler girl only pained her. She wasn’t going to try and ruin it for him though, if he really did like her then she was going to respect that. No matter how hard it would be to see him with her the way she had been longing for him to be with herself.
“Sum!” Steve calls out, following her outside the building doors. “Where are you going? Class is about to start.” He continues in her direction, hot on her heels all the way to the parking lot where Tommy H and Carol were performing their morning ritual of pda.
“Oh, Hey! It’s Bummer Summer!” Tommy calls out, a smirk sprawled out on that smug face of his.
Summer resented the nickname he had given her and all because she refused to steal a pack of gum for him, resulting in him telling her that she was 'bumming’ them out. Nancy was like a keg walk compared to these two, they were on a whole new playing field and Summer definitely didn’t want to play. She’d hated them since the moment Steve introduced them all and the feeling was very mutual.
“What do you want, Tommy?” Summer snarls his name with a roll of the eyes but doesn’t bother to actually stop long enough to hear his answer.
“Oh, no, nothing. I just… I didn’t realise that the psycho let people drive his car now? Or that you actually know how to drive without running everything over?” He called out and as much as Summer desperately wanted to punch him in the face for talking about her friend like that, or her poor driving skills, she knew he wasn’t worth the sore fist.
“Summer, would you please stop for a second?” Steve pleads, shoving his way past Tommy and Carol to grab a hold of her arm. He felt guilty about her having seen him with Nancy, especially after spending almost the whole night with her, and needed to make sure she was okay.
“Steve, there is nothing for you to say. You don’t have to explain yourself to me,” Although her mouth was saying one thing, her eyes and frantic actions were saying another. “Who you choose to fool around with in the girl’s bathroom is your own business.”
Steve could see that she was clearly upset, for reasons unknown to him, but he didn’t want to be the cause of it. There was no denying that she was jealous and saddened about what she had seen but she didn’t want, nor need, Steve to know that. Not right now. Not ever.
“Summer, I’m just…” he runs a hand through his hair before pressing his palm to the centre of his forehead. His eyes staring at the ground and then meeting Summers as he suddenly realises that she had Jonathan’s car. His mind began to spin with assumptions as to why she was driving his piece of scrap metal and how exactly she got it. “Hey, why do you have Byers’ car?” His tone changes, almost as if he were accusing her of something.
“It doesn’t matter. I need to go, he’s waiting for me.” She shakes her head and turns to open the car door, only to have Steve push it closed again. His whole body was tense and it angered him that she was ditching school to go be with Jonathan. He didn’t trust the other boy around Summer and he hated the fact that they were so close.
“Why? Are you hooking up with him or something now?” He spat his words harshly, not realising just how hurtful they were until he saw her reaction. Her brows stitched together and nose scrunched up as she exhaled a small gasp, and his hard expression melts, a helpless smile taking its place.
“Are you serious?” She stares bemused at the older boy, appalled by the words that had left her best friends mouth.
“Sum, I…” He opens his mouth at a loss of words, he needed to make things right but didn’t know what to say.
“Save it.” She says through gritted teeth and slides into the driver’s seat, slamming the door behind her.
Summer couldn’t believe the nerve Steve had to just assume something like that as if she was throwing herself at Jonathan. Like she couldn’t maintain an innocent friendship with someone she’d known her whole entire life. What hurt the most was that Steve knew Summer wasn’t like that at all and definitely didn’t want to give herself away to just anybody, she wanted it to be with someone she fully and completely trusted.
Back at the Byers’ house, Jonathan was pacing back and forth waiting for either Joyce or Summer to return with good news. He didn’t want to believe that his little brother, his best friend, was actually missing.
Tears were rolling down his cheeks as guilt coursed its way through his body and he began throwing things around his room. Broken mixtapes laid scattered around the floor, along with ripped up magazines and open books. The pile of clothes on his dresser now sprawled out across the room as he screamed out a few curse words. He blamed only himself for Will’s disappearance and wanted nothing more than for his brother to be home safe and sound.
Letting out another scream a body slammed into him, arms wrapping around his waist and holding him tight from behind.
“It’s going to be okay. We’re going to find him and we’re going to bring him home,” Summer says, her head buried in the bunched up material on his back. He turns to face her, her hand moving to his face to wipe away the tears. “We’ll bring him home. I promise.”
summary;in which sixteen year old summer bradshaw finds herself fighting off a monster from another dimension all whilst mending her broken heart.
warnings; this story may contain explicit language, sexual content, violence, alcohol and triggering topics such as: anxiety, assault, nightmares, blood and death.please read at your own risk.
“ENJOY YOUR NIGHT,” Summer waves to her last customer for the night, her smile dropping the second the middle-aged woman exits the store, and her exhausted features taking over once again.
Working a five-hour shift on a weekday was not how she planned on spending her night.
Her fingertips were stained with black dye from opening plastic bags and her hands were aching from having to pry the cash register open every so often. It certainly wasn’t all it was cracked up to be working in a small convenience store.
Between the low pay and the shitty hours she was given, she regularly contemplated why she even bothered with the job. Summer didn’t need the extra cash, and if it wasn’t for the fact that it got her out of the house most nights, she would’ve quit by now.
The only other perk was that she got to spend more time with her longest and dearest friend - Jonathan.
“Hey, Summer,” The boy called from the opposite register, grabbing the attention of the young brunette. “Could you pass me some more bags? I’m almost out.”
Usually, Summer would’ve given him some smart ass remark telling him to get his own, but with a customer present, she settled for just a smile and took him some from her own stack behind the counter.
“What time do you finish?” She asks once the customer starts to head out of the store and pushes herself up onto the conveyer belt.
“Why? You need a ride?” He raises his brows and cocks his head at her. Jonathan knew all too well that Summer would need a ride home, but he liked giving her shit about it anyway.
Well, that and he didn’t mind having to take her home. Her house was on the way and he’d do just about anything for Summer regardless.
“What about Steve? Doesn’t he usually pick you up when your mom is working?” He asks.
“He does, but lately he’s been hanging out with Nancy Wheeler.” She copies his mocking tone, her smile slowly fading. The thought of Steve hanging out with another girl didn’t sit well with Summer and that was clear to anyone - anyone except Steve.
Even though she’d never voiced it, Jonathan knew that she had feelings for the other boy. He could tell just by the way she stared at him, almost as if her whole world were right in front of her. It was sad really, to know that she had such strong feelings towards him and yet he was so clueless about it. Especially because it was right in front of his face.
“Meet me out the front when you’re done.” Jonathan places a hand on Summer’s knee, his thumb rolling back and forth before giving it a soft pat.
“Thank you.” She smiles weakly, sincerity in her voice and heads into the backroom to grab her stuff.
On the way home, Jonathan had switched off the radio to put one of his mixtapes on. Summer loved his taste in music and was always left wondering how he managed to find some of the bands and artists that he did. They were almost always people she’d never even heard of before, yet she’d never not want to dance along.
The boy’s homemade mixtapes were one of Summer’s favourite things, especially when he’d make them for her.
Drumming her fingers along the dusty dashboard to the beat of the music, the two of them sang at the top of their lungs. There was something about the way Jonathan expressed himself when it came to music that always filled Summer with joy.
He wasn’t the type to put himself out there or leave his comfort zone, but whenever there was music, it was as if he suddenly felt free. Music was his safe haven and he could finally be himself for that short period of time.
“You going to be alright?” He asks as they pull into the driveway, eyes fixated on the dark house. It was safe to say Jonathan felt protective over Summer, he was so used to looking out for her that it wasn’t so much an obligation as it was a reflex.
He didn’t like the idea of a sixteen-year-old girl being left alone in a big house, especially so late at night.
“Funnily enough, I’m kinda getting used to being alone.” She shrugs, the ghost of a smile gracing her lips, but it’s quickly whisked away.
There was an undeniable disappointment whenever Summer was reminded of the empty house she’d go home to every night. At first, her mom was only covering the late shift at the hospital temporarily, but then it just never seemed to stop.
“I’ll see you tomorrow.” Jonathan says in a reassuring way. As if to tell her she was tough enough to get through till the next day.
“If you must.” She rolls her eyes jokingly and kisses her fingertips before placing them to Jonathan’s cheek. Something she had done for as long as she could remember.
At first, it was because Jonathan didn’t want the cooties from her mouth touching him when they were little, but as they got older it just kinda stuck.
Stepping out of the car and into the cool night air, Summer waves Jonathan off. His poorly running vehicle making its way down the street and she smiles in the direction he’d gone, grateful to have a friend like him; someone who genuinely cared and didn’t need to be benefited for doing so.
Growing up together in the small town of Hawkins was practically a guarantee that they’d stay friends throughout the years. Heck, Summer was practically the fourth member of the Byers’ family and they believed so just as much as she did. Joyce thought of Summer as the daughter she’d never had and Will treated her like a sister; bickering and all.
Summer made her way across the footpath, watching her step for the cracks and bumps in the battered concrete as she searched through the irrelevant junk in her bag like empty gum wrappers and scrunched up notes. The extra nonsense made it harder to find her keys, but when she finally feels the cool touch of the metal, she plucks them from the mess and inserts them into the keyhole.
Though, upon opening the door she stops in her tracks as she notices how eerily silent her street had become. There was no loud music playing from the house two doors down, no screaming or yelling coming from the house across the street and no neighbourhood dogs barking at one another.
Deciding to shrug it off, she heads inside as a horrible shrilling sound rumbles out from the woods surrounding her house, causing her to freeze in shock. She scans her environment, eyes searching rapidly for any sort of movement or shadows, but there’s nothing to be seen other than the flickering of a street light.
Not wanting to be at the end of whatever made that noise she closes the door and locks it in every way humanly possible before climbing the staircase to her bedroom.
With a racing heart, she clambers to sit on the end of her bed and takes in a few deep breaths to help calm her nerves. The noise was unlike anything she had ever heard before and it certainly didn’t sound like an animal, but that’s the only logical explanation she could think of.
Shaking the thoughts aside, she rids herself of her work uniform. Letting the scratchy material fall into a heap on the ground and she softly puts on one of Jonathan’s mix tapes to help ease her mind. She dances across the floor to retrieve the long shirt she’d left hanging there this morning but stops once again when a scratching noise is heard by the window.
Usually, it was just the tree branches that hung right outside her room, but when she sees that there is nothing there she becomes confused. Wondering what it could’ve been, she creeps towards it when a tall silhouette jumps out from the side, jostling her from her ‘investigation’ and scaring her half to death.
And yet, what she’s met with is none other than her best friend as he laughs uncontrollably.
“I hate you!” She retorts through the glass before pushing it open.
“I got you so good!” Steve laughs as he shimmies his way through the open space and falls to the floor. “Seriously Sum, you should’ve seen your face.”
“It’s not funny,” Summer pouts, her brows knitted as she playfully hits him on the arm and he rubs the spot as though it actually hurt.
“I was enjoying your little showtoo.” He smirks and shamelessly eyes his best friends, almost bare, body up and down. Blush dusting his cheeks ever so slightly.
Summer lets out a groan and picks up the shirt she had found just before Steve decided to scare her, his eyes not daring to leave her body as she pulls the material item over her head.
“You just going to keep staring?” She rolls her eyes as her head pops through the neck hole.
“You just going to keep giving me something to stareat?” He twitches his brows up and as much as his comments made Summer nervous, she couldn’t let him know that. Nudging him instead and knocking him to the side a little, she makes her way back to the bed and flops down on the cotton sheets she had been longing to be reunited with all day.
“I have a front door you can use, you know?” She sighs, resting a hand under her head as Steve joins her side, his hand immediately falling upon her thigh as his thumb runs back and forth across her skin.
Summer stares at him intently, his brown eyes being one of her favourite things in the world with their warmth and comforting gaze. She loved them. Them and the overwhelming, but nice, amount of affection he showed her. He always knew how to make her feel like she was loved.
“What? And miss you dancing around in your underwear?” He chuckles and Summer smiles, letting out a breathy giggle. Steve loved how comfortable Summer felt around him and he wished he could be the same with her, but every time he let his guard down even the slightest around her he found himself hypnotised by every little thing that she did.
“Will you stay a little longer? I really don’t want to be alone tonight.” Summer’s voice was barely a whisper, wanting to preserve the sanctity of the moment as she nestled herself closer into the older boy.
With his head resting on one of his fists, he gazed down at Summer with a gentle expression before pressing a kiss to her forehead and whispering a simple “Yeah.”
Steve hated seeing Summer this way and he knew that constantly being alone was really starting to get to her, no matter how many times she denied it. He wished there was something he could do to stop her from feeling such things. He had even contemplated staying with her for the whole night, but he knew that he couldn’t.
The seventeen-year-old had a tendency to screw up all the good things in his life. It was something both he and Summer had in common.
Steve knew that if he were to overstep any sort of boundaries that it would only result in regret and he really didn’t want that. For either of them. He couldn’t help the way he felt about her and no matter how bad he wanted to make a move, nothing was worth the risk of losing his best friend altogether.
If only he knew Summer felt the same way.
As the first rays of sunshine arose Summer from her sleep, the first thing she noticed was Steve’s body no longer next to hers. She smiled as she remembered peacefully falling asleep in his arms as he quietly hummed to her.
Steve stayed for a couple of hours after that, watching her in her slumbering state, mesmerised by how beautiful she was. He’d contemplated staying until morning but decided against it, knowing well enough that he shouldn’t.
Summer pulled herself from the sheets and began getting ready for school, stepping into a pair of jeans and a black shirt when she spotted a folded piece of paper sitting on her vanity. Practically skipping over to it, she plucks it up and unfolds it.
Hope you slept well. I snuck out before your mom came home. I’ll see you at school. - S x
Smiling down at the small piece of paper, her heart flutters with happiness as she places it in her bedside table drawer, along with the rest of notes she’d been given from the boy. In that very moment, all Summer could think was that there was absolutely nothing in the world that could bring her down.
At least that’s what she thought before her phone began to ring.
“Hello?” She answered and flopped down on the bed, her legs swinging in the air behind her.
“Summer, it’s me.” She immediately recognised the voice even though it was shaky and laced with a whirlwind of emotions.
“Jonathan, what’s wrong?” Shooting up on the bed, she holds the phone closer to her ear as if it would make him answer her faster.
“You… you haven’t seen Will, have you?” This time when he spoke all Summer could hear was the desperation in his tone.
“No, I haven’t. Why? What’s going on?” Her mind began to race with all sorts of scenarios as there’s a brief pause in the conversation. “Jonathan, please tell me what’s wrong!”
summary;the story of summer and steve and how they navigate through life dealing with heartbreak and loss, all while fighting off inter-dimensional monsters, and trying to be normal adolescents.
warnings;this story contains explicit language, sexual content, violence, alcohol and triggering topics such as: anxiety, assault, nightmares, blood and death. please read at your own risk.
i began this series back in 2018 and have every intention of continuing on with it throughout the remainder of the show. these stories mean a lot to me and i hope you’ll enjoy them as much as i enjoyed writing them. lots of love, sav
summary;in which sixteen year old summer bradshaw finds herself fighting off a monster from another dimension all whilst mending her broken heart.
warnings;this story may contain explicit language, sexual content, violence, alcohol and triggering topics such as: anxiety, assault, nightmares, blood and death. please read at your own risk.
summary;in which the small town of hawkins is in immediate danger and it’s up to summer bradshaw and her friends to save it… again.
warnings;this story may contain explicit language, sexual content, violence, alcohol and triggering topics such as: anxiety, sexual assault, nightmares, blood and death. please read at your own risk.
“STAY BEHIND ME.” Summer stands protectively in front of Dustin and Erica as they watch the Russian soldier swivel around in his chair slowly. Confusion masks his features as he sees the group of American teens and immediately he stands to his feet.
It was obvious that they weren’t authorised to be there, the panic on their faces proving as much so when he reaches for the gun in his holster Robin takes an urgent step forward. She repeats a few words from the code they’d heard, hoping it would give them some sort of advantage but her attempt to help them only leaves the guard looking even more confused than he had at the beginning.
They watch as the man reaches for his gun once again, but before he has the chance to pull it out, Steve lets out a fierce yell and charges at him, tackling him into the desk behind.
Summer’s heart drops as she watches Steve be thrown from desk to desk and although avoiding all blows coming his way, he was struggling to find anything to use as a weapon. The soldier moves to grab him by the shoulder, gripping onto his Scoops uniform with a firm fist, but releasing the material as Steve’s elbow collides with his abdomen and sends him flying backwards.
With the few seconds he had before the man got back to his feet, Steve grabs the phone from the control desk and throws it in the air, catching it in his other hand and smashes it over the Russian’s head in a swift movement. The impact from the blow immediately knocks the man unconscious and he falls to the floor.
“Dude!” Dustin exclaims. “You did it! You won a fight!” He cheers as Steve brushes his hair out of his face and lets out a soft laugh, pleased with himself and what he’d done.
While the others gawked in amazement, Summer pushes past Robin and pulls Steve into a tight hug, his heart pounding in his chest vigorously as it rises and falls along with his panting. The embrace only lasts a few seconds before she pulls away, shaking her head with a hint of a scowl in her features.
“Don’t ever scare me like that again!” She slaps him on the arm hard enough for him to wince and with a sigh of frustration, she pulls him into another hug.
“What are you doing?” Erica asks Dustin from behind as he rushes forward, pulling at something on the guards waist-belt.
“Getting our ticket out of here.” He waves a keycard at her.
“You want to walk all the way back?” She shakes her head, clearly unimpressed with the idea.
“Well, we can hang out for a little bit, relax, have a picnic maybe?” He answers sarcastically and yet another bickering battle between the two of them begins, earning themselves a roll of the eyes from the older couple.
Summer and Steve watch as the two continue to argue back and forth, none of them even realising that Robin had disappeared until she rushes back in a panic.
“Guys, there’s something up there.” She gestures towards a dark hall with nothing but a staircase leading up to a doorway.
One by one they follow Robin’s lead, the walls beginning to glow with an illuminating blue hue and a low pulsing sound fills the air as they get higher. Summer is the last one up the stairs and when she reaches the top everyone had gathered by a set of doors, peering through the glass windows with wide eyes.
Steve turns back to Summer, a solemn expression taking over his features as she slowly, and cautiously, meets his side.
Behind the doors was a small station filled with Russian scientists, confined behind glass windows that peered out onto a walkway. Where people in red and green hazmat suits were inserting the green viles they’d found into a large gun-like machine.
Though it wasn’t the scientists or the unknown machinery that was bothering them. It was what the machine was being used for that ignited the fear within them, because beyond the glass and the room full of scientists was a giant, glowing, tendril infested wall and there was only one reasonable explanation as to what it could be.
“The gate.” Steve and Dustin say in unison, confirming what the three of them had been thinking.
Summer swallows the lump forming in her throat and burrows herself closer into Steve’s side. He wraps his arm around her protectively and when he looks down he sees that her hands had started to shake. Dustin looks up at the two of them, him too noticing the shaking motion and moves his hand to hers, hoping to help ease her nerves as he holds onto them.
Along with Will, Joyce and El, Summer had been one of the most affected by everything they’d experienced and neither Dustin or Steve wanted to see her relapse and go off the rails like she had before. Especially, when she had just started to feel like everything was finally going back to normal.
They watch on as one of the scientists gives a signal to the group dressed in red hazmat suits and they begin to power up the machine. The ground starts to vibrate and a loud thrumming follows as the machine whirs into motion. A bright blue colour grows and eventually shoots out the end, right into the wall.
“They’re opening it.” Summer adds, her voice a bare whisper as if the sound had been stolen from her.
“We’ve gotta get out of here,” Steve demands, pulling Summer away from the door and the others follow suit.
Robin shakes her head and lets out a confused sigh. “I don’t understand, you’ve seen this before?”
“Not exactly,” Steve admits.
“Then what exactly?”
“All you need to know is it’s bad,” Dustin adds. “Like end-of-the-human-race-as-we-know-it kind of bad.”
“And you know about this how?” Robin asks as if she didn’t quite believe them, though she was also trapped inside a secret Russian lair, which she didn’t believe at first either.
As they reach the bottom of the stairs Erica’s face contorts into one of confusion as she looks to the ground, Summer noticing so she follows the girls gaze to see nothing but a small puddle of blood on the floor and no sign of the Russian.
“Um, Steve? Where’s your Russian friend?” The younger girl points to the blood at the exact moment an alarm begins to go off, it’s loud noise blaring throughout the underground facility.
Without a second thought, Steve races towards the door and rips it open to see the soldier he had knocked out limping towards his fellow comrades. All eyes fall on the boy in the sailor uniform when he turns to point back at the door and a group of soldiers start swarming towards it. With their presence now compromised Steve quickly shuts the door as they all yell for him to ‘halt’ and signals the others to run.
The five of them fall into a chorus of curse words as Steve ushers them back up the stairs, their legs moving as fast as they can. Though they’re so consumed with panic that without realising they run right into the station filled with scientists, all of them squeaking around in their chairs as they come face to face with the American teens.
Dustin leads them out the side door and down a small staircase, pushing aside the men in hazmat suits all whilst letting out a string of shrieks. Unfortunately for them, the way he had been running lead them to a dead end with nowhere to go but down the giant hole of nothingness at the edge of the walkway.
“Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit, holy shit!” Dustin pauses, gasping for air before letting out one more. “Holy shit!”
“What do we do?” Summer yells, barely able to hear her own thoughts over the noise radiating from the laser.
The guards start to close in on them, all of whom were holding some type of gun or weapon as they angrily chased after the group.
“Guards! Go!” Erica shouts.
“This way!” Steve yells and runs down another small set of stairs, throwing the scientists out of the way as he does so. Though his escape route is cut off as another group of guards come running in from a side entrance.
“Steve! The bins!” Summer calls out and the two of them shove a pile of metal bins over at them, knocking them to the ground long enough for the group to get passed.
From behind the rest of the guards migrate together, only a few steps behind as Robin wrenches open a door and they all make it inside. Steve slams himself back into it, trying to hold it closed as best he can but the soldiers push back harder. Robin and Summer join his side, the three of them pressing as much strength as they could possibly conjure up against it.
Meanwhile, Erica and Dustin had found a trap door that leads straight to the air vents. “Here, come on let’s go!” Erica calls out.
“Just get out of here! Find Hopper, he’ll know what to do!” Summer shouts, fighting to hold the door closed.
“Sum, you need to go with them!” Steve shakes his head, tensing as the door opens a little bit more.
“What? No! I’m not leaving you!” She retorts.
“They need-”
“I said I’m not leaving you!” There’s a hint of anger in her voice when she speaks this time and even though Steve seems disappointed by her choice, he nods in defeat.
The curly-haired boy stops as he watches the interaction between the couple knowing that there was no prying them apart.
“Just go, Dustin! It’ll be okay!” She turns to him, trying her best to reassure him but the smile she gives him falters for a second as her eyes tear up.
“I won’t forget you!” He calls out to them as he lowers himself into the air duct, guilt washing over his features. Though his words were taken more as a joke she knew he meant it in the most sincere way possible.
“Go!” The three older teens yell in unison and he quickly closes the grate just in time.
The guards throw open the door, the impact sending them to the floor with a hard thud, and they hold the three at gunpoint. One by one they’re wrenched up by the clothing on their backs and though they tried to resist it they were no match for the ten soldiers surrounding them. The fear that had been coursing through them the past twenty-four hours was nothing compared to what they were feeling now.
“Get off of me!” Robin yells, fighting against the grip of the Russians but instead gets shoved harder as they’re lead towards a narrow hall.
“Just do what they say,” Steve whispers to Summer as they get pushed together. Earning himself a shove as one of the soldiers chastises him for speaking but he needed to ensure that Summer wasn’t going to do anything drastic and get herself hurt.
As they reach the end of the hall they come to three doors, one having a small window and a lock that requires a security code. At first, the three of them are shoved into the room with the lock, thrown onto the floor as four guards armed with large guns stood by closely, watching their every move and threatening them each and every time one of them made so much as an utter.
After a few minutes, another guard enters the room and speaks to the other men, looking back at the trio every few seconds, and then yanks them up to their feet. The guards speak for another second, one of them gesturing to the door and then begins to pull Robin along with him.
“Where are you taking her?” Summer shouts and the guard holding onto her arm clenches his fist in her face. Summer winces at the gesture before looking to Steve, his eyes a mixture of anger and fear as he eyes the closeness of the man’s fist to her face.
“Stop! No! Let go of me!” The couple hear from outside as their friend is lead into one of the other rooms, her voice disappearing as the door is shut.
The new soldier looks between the couple, his hand scratching the hairs on his chin and then points to Steve, gesturing for him to be brought along with him.
“No!” Summer screams, tears filling her eyes as Steve is forced to move. “Leave him alone!” She cries out and the guard behind her grabs her by the face, forcing her to look at him. His eyes are wide with anger and jaw clenched tightly, the mere sight of him had Summer trembling with fear.
“Get off of her!” Steve yells, trying to get free as he’s dragged out of the room. “Don’t you fucking touch her! I swear to - get your hands off of her!”
A single tear rolls down Summer’s face and the second the door is closed again she’s thrown back down to the floor, her body landing with a thud on the metal beneath her. She scurries back against the wall, her body slinking against it as two guards stand by, watching her intently.
Not only was she terrified about what the Russians were planning on doing with her but now her mind was racing with what horrible things they were doing to Robin and Steve in the other rooms. The only thing she could hope for now was that Dustin and Erica had found a way out and were getting them the help they so clearly needed.
summary;in which the small town of hawkins is in immediate danger and it’s up to summer bradshaw and her friends to save it… again.
warnings;this story may contain explicit language, sexual content, violence, alcohol and triggering topics such as: anxiety, sexual assault, nightmares, blood and death. please read at your own risk.
“WE’RE OKAY,” Steve whispers into Summer’s ear as the couple crouch together, trying to get a good look through the grate as two Russian men dressed in a set of matching blue suits enter the elevator beneath them.
They speak with thick menacing accents, a cigarette hanging from one of their lips as they start loading all of the boxes into their small truck. Steve places a finger in front of his lips as he slowly creeps back from his position, gesturing everyone to remain quiet as they wait it out when his eyes land on Erica and the green vile she was holding in her lap, an idea popping into his head.
Minutes go by and eventually the Russian men had finished taking what they needed, emptying the room completely, before driving away. Steve waited with anticipation until they had gone far enough not to hear anything before setting his plan in motion. Without any hesitation he jumps to the floor and shoves the vile underneath the elevator door, stopping it just in time before it could fully shut.
“Let’s go.” He instructs, catching Erica’s bag and throwing it under before ushering everyone else down one-by-one.
Erica and Dustin squeeze under, followed by Robin and once they’re in the clear both Summer and Steve drop on their stomachs and start shuffling through the gap as fast as they can. Though the vile held no competition for the heavy-duty door and began to buckle within seconds, the glass cracking in a web-like fashion as the weight becomes too much for it to handle.
From opposite sides of the vile, the couple quickly shares a frightened expression, worried that they weren’t going to make it out in time or perhaps be crushed to death. Steve gets out just as the glass begins to give way under the pressure and Summer, whose arm was still beneath the door, moves to push herself out when her shirt gets caught on a loose screw in the floor.
“Shit!” She panics as the others yell at her to hurry, her throat tightening as she struggles to free the material.
“Grab her legs!” She hears Dustin yell, though she’s too distracted to comprehend it, and before she knows it two hands are wrapped around her feet.
The vile cracks even more and she clenches her eyes shut, bracing herself for the impact, but… it never comes. The door had closed, the loud bang had confirmed that, but there was no sign of pain or a loss of limbs. In fact, she felt fine.
Opening her eyes, she turns over onto her back to see both Steve and Dustin sitting on the ground, chests heaving with her legs sprawled across their laps. Everything had happened so quickly that she hadn’t even noticed them pulling her out, she heard the words and felt their hands around her ankles but she was so panicked about losing an arm that she hadn’t really processed it.
“Holy shit.” She lets out a relieved sigh and lies her head down on the floor for a second, her hand meeting her forehead as the now ripped sleeve of her shirt dangles in her face.
“You’re okay,” Steve confirms as he helps both her and Dustin to their feet, patting the younger boy on the back as a sign of gratitude for his fast thinking.
“Thanks to you two.”
From behind they hear a sizzling sound followed by Robin and Erica’s unpleasant ‘ooh’s and when they turn around they see that the vibrant green substance that was inside the vile, only a short moment ago, was now burning straight through the ground like some kind of acid. Whatever the Russians were doing it had to be huge to be needing such a big load of the stuff, especially considering how much damage just one vile had done.
“Holy shit,” Dustin exclaims quietly, though it wasn’t about the green acid, he was turned away from the group and when they turned to see what he was pointing at they were met with a huge tunnel that looked to go on for miles.
“Well, I hope you guys are in good shape.” Steve shrugs, sarcasm in his tone. “Looking at you, roast beef.” He continues, patting Dustin on the stomach and begins walking towards the tunnel.
Offended by the comment, Dustin looks back to the girls with a discouraged look on his face. “Why me?” He asks.
The group falls into step and after what feels like hours of walking, though it had only been about thirty minutes, they’re still no closer to the end. At least that’s how they felt. They were still unable to see the end of the tunnel and they’d walked so far that the side they’d come in through was gone now too. Completely invisible to the naked eye.
“You have to admit, as a feat of engineering alone, this is impressive.” Dustin points out, admiring the craftsmanship of it all.
“What are you talking about? It’s a total fire hazard.” Steve retorts. “There’s no stairs, there’s no exit, there’s just an elevator that drops you halfway to hell.”
“They’re commies. You don’t pay people, they cut corners.” The younger girl speaks up.
“To be fair to our Russian comrades, I don’t think this tunnel was designed for walking. Think about it, they developed the perfect system for transporting that cargo.” Robin inputs.
“It all comes into the mall like any old delivery.” Dustin continues.
“And then they load it up onto the trucks and nobody’s the wiser.”
“You think they built this whole mall just so they could transport that green poison?” Steve asks.
“I very seriously doubt that it’s something as boring as poison. It’s gotta be much more valuable like promethium or something.” The younger boy states though both Summer and Steve were completely clueless as to what that was and Robin takes it upon herself to explain, though it still didn’t really help.
“You’re all so nerdy, it makes me physically ill.” Erica pretends to throw up, clutching her stomach.
“No, no, no. No, don’t lump me, or Summer, in with them. I’m not a nerd, all right?” Steve defends himself.
“Why so sensitive, Harrington? Afraid of losing 'cool points’ to a ten-year-old?” Robin jokes.
“No, I’m just saying I don’t know jack shit about Prometheus.” Steve shakes his head, though he didn’t seem all that bothered by it.
“Let’s just say school isn’t our strong suit.” Summer whispers to the younger girl while Dustin goes on to correct Steve on his mispronunciation and she lets out a small chuckle.
“But, if they’re building something, why here? I mean, Hawkins. Seriously. Of all places.” Summer catches the tail end of their conversation, her ears perking up at the mention of the Russians building something in Hawkins and what the reasoning would be when it clicks.
Stopping dead in her tracks her mind is overcome with an array of thoughts, all of which lead right back to the Upside Down or the Mind Flayer. Could the awful feeling she’d been getting in her neck be her body warning her that something was wrong, or perhaps sensing that something was… back.
Apparently, she wasn’t the only one having the same thoughts because both Dustin and Steve had stopped walking only a few steps ahead of her and began speaking in hushed tones.
“Do you think the Russians know?” Steve queries.
“About–”
“They could.”
“So it’s connected.”
“Maybe.”
“How?”
“I don’t know, but it’s…”
“Possible.” Summer interjects, their heads turning in her direction and she lets out a long sigh. “I wasn’t going to say anything until I knew for sure, but…” She stops, unsure of how to tell them what exactly had been going on with her.
“Sum,” Steve steps towards her, his hands cradling her own for comfort as his brows meet in the middle with concern. “What is it?”
“Since the night of the blackout I’ve been getting this weird sensation in my neck, right where my…” she pauses, her hand tracing over the damaged skin on her neck before continuing “at first I didn’t think much of it but then it kept happening.”
“Wait, the other night when you felt dizzy, was that…” Steve questions, realisation in his eyes and she nods.
“It happened the second Billy pulled up, but it was also the strongest it had ever been. There was something about him that was triggering this feeling and the way he was looking at me, it wasn’t like him. Hewasn’t like him. It was almost like he was-”
“possessed.” Steve cuts her off. “I noticed that too. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t know what it was and I wanted to be certain, plus I wasn’t going to put anyone else in harms way over it.”
“Summer, we’re in this together. You said so yourself, remember?” Steve refers to what she had said only a few months ago when they had stepped off the bus in the junkyard to fight off what they thought was just Dart. He reaches a hand to the side of her face, his thumb rolling over her skin slowly before he presses his forehead to hers.
“Wait, what if this means that itsback? What if he’s still here? What if he found a new… host… like Will?” Dustin’s words spark Summer’s thoughts and she remembers the day on Weathertop.
“Oh, my god, Will. He felt it too, I’m sure of it. The day we set up Cerebro I felt it and he stopped at the exact same time I did. I tried to ask him about it but I got distracted by Lucas and Max.” Summer closes her eyes in disappointment, how could she have forgotten about Will? Again?
The three of them fall into a silence, their minds racing with the thought that everything they’d done and been through could possibly be happening yet again, except this time worse and they had no one but the Russians to thank for it. The was no way of contacting anyone or letting their friends know that they needed to prepare themselves. They felt useless.
“I’m sorry is there something you’d like to share with the class?” Robins brows quirk up with interest and as they stumble for an explanation there’s a static hissing, followed by a Russian man’s voice.
“Walkie.” The boys say in unison and the five of them settle on their knees as Erica pulls the device from her backpack and hands it to Robin.
She follows along with the words, repeating them with her own Russian accent. “It’s the code.”
“Wherever that broadcast is coming from-”
“It’s close.” Summer cuts Dustin off.
“And if there’s one thing we know about signal…”
“It can reach the surface.”
The group head off into a fast pace, their legs moving as quickly as they could without making too much noise and after a few minutes, they reach the end of the tunnel. Summer moves in front of Dustin and Erica, wanting to make sure they were safe and had a chance to run if needed, and as they turn the corner at the end they almost come face to face with a Russian guard. Immediately they retract their steps and move to hide.
“That was close,” Robin says once it was safe.
“Too close” Dustin adds.
Steve takes the lead, guiding the five of them around a couple more corners, “Relax. All right? Relax. Nobody saw…” his voice fades as they’re met with a large room filled with Russians, some wearing the typical scientist attire and others walking around with guns, who they could only assume were the guards and soldiers.
“Shit.” Summer exclaims quietly and pulls Steve by the shirt behind a large red shipping container, the others following suit.
“I saw it. First floor, Northwest.” Erica whispers.
“Saw what?” Steve asks.
“The Comms room.”
“You saw the Comms room.” He exhales as though he was disappointed for not seeing it himself.
“Are you sure?” Summer asks, wanting to double-check.
“Positive. The door was open for a second, and I saw a bunch of lights and machines and shit in there.”
“That could be a hundred different things.” Dustin rolls his eyes.
Summer looks between the group, all of them staring back as though they were waiting for her say in it all. “I believe her, I say we go with it.”
Steve shakes his head though he wasn’t surprised by her answer at all. They all peer around the corner of the container to where Erica said she saw the room and then Steve finally nods in defeat. “All right. We’re gonna move fast, we’re gonna stay low, okay?”
Slowly and carefully Steve leads the five of them around the edge of the room, hiding behind the large equipment and checking back every few seconds to make sure everyone was okay. They go by completely unnoticed as they reach the last few steps to the door when a Russian scientist walks out, almost catching them redhanded, and he would have too if he weren’t so indulged in his paperwork.
Once the coast was clear Steve runs towards the room, holding the door open for the others and then quietly closes it once they were all inside. Though, they were welcomed with a lot more than they had bargained for when they turn to see a Russian soldier sitting at the desk behind them.
summary;in which the small town of hawkins is in immediate danger and it’s up to summer bradshaw and her friends to save it… again.
warnings;this story may contain explicit language, sexual content, violence, alcohol and triggering topics such as: anxiety, sexual assault, nightmares, blood and death. please read at your own risk.
“WHAT IS THAT?” Summer retracts her hand from the now open box, Steve and Dustin on either side of her, both adorning the same confused expressions. She reaches down and twists the handle, the compartment releasing a hissing sound only to reveal another four smaller handles.
“Well, it’s definitely not Chinese food.” Steve shakes his head, the strands of hair that had fallen in his face moving with it. “Maybe you guys should, you know, stand back.”
“No.” Dustin retorts, stepping in front of Summer.
“Just step back, okay?” Steve continues, only earning himself another ‘no’ from the younger boy. “Step back. Seriously.”
“No! No! If you die, I die.” A small silence falls over the room as Steve stares Dustin in the eyes, contemplating the thought for a moment before simply shrugging.
“But not you,” His brows quirk up at Summer. “You move your butt over there.”
Summer rolls her eyes as she joins Robin and Erica’s side, the three of them watching with suspense as Steve twists one of the smaller latches and the same hissing sound is heard. In a careful manner, he slowly pulls the handle up revealing a large vile filled with a vibrant, bubbly green substance surrounded by a cloud of condensation.
“What the hell?” Steve exhales and as Summer opens her mouth to speak the whole room shudders, followed by a rumbling noise.
“Was that just me, or did the room move?” Dustin says, making sure he wasn’t the only one that felt it.
“Booby traps.” Erica whispers and the same mechanical whirring and movement happens again.
“Okay, we need to get out of here. Lets just take this and go.” Summer takes the vile from Steve and places it gently inside Erica’s bag as the others hide any evidence proving that they were there.
“Which one do I press, Erica?” Dustin asks from the control panel.
“Just press the damn button, nerd.” The younger girl retorts which turns into the two of them bickering.
Steve steps in, his frustration matching the girls’. “Just open the - press the other button.”
Robin and Summer try relentlessly to get the boys to move so that Erica could push the button but to no avail. They couldn’t hear the girls over their own shouting and arguing, their fingers pressing almost every button except the one they needed.
“Guys, stop!” Summer shouts at the same time a large metal door slams shut, cutting them off from the exit completely.
All five of them stare bewildered by their sudden enclosure and the room shakes as an even bigger thud is heard. The lights begin to flicker rapidly, the boxes shaking uncontrollably and an obnoxiously loud whizzing sound begins to envelop them.
Robin helps Erica steady herself, the two of them letting out screams as Dustin falls into the wall. Summer grasps onto Steve’s arm as they fight to hold their balance, the two of them investigating the room when they notice the lights passing the window and only catching a glimpse of each one as they do.
“Oh, shit.” They say in unison, the realisation hitting that not only was the room moving but it was plummeting at a tremendous speed and there was no telling what was going to be there to greet them when they reached the bottom.
Panic immediately begins coursing through Summer and she tries her best to swallow down the anxiety that was clawing it’s way up her throat. She was so terrified by the unknown of what they were being led into that while the others were all letting out ear-piercing screams the best she could do was stand there in absolute silence.
The fear growing inside her had rendered her speechless, tearing away any ounce of sound she could possibly utter and instead replacing it with horrific thoughts.
Her knees buckle beneath her and she pushes herself against the wall, crouching with her head slumped between her shoulders and knees pressed against her forehead. Steve was too panicked to even realise the state his girlfriend was in, let alone trying to keep himself calm as well.
“We’re going down! We’re going down!” He screams, the veins popping in his neck at the intensity of it.
“Yeah, no shit, Harrington!” Robin retorts.
The room falls into a chorus of shouting and fighting, the panicked voices growing more and more frustrated by the second as Dustin starts pushing all the buttons on the control panel again. Erica joins his side and is about to push a button herself when the whirring begins to slow down and the room stops with a loud bang.
Wincing and groaning is all that’s heard throughout the room as everyone tries to recompose themselves. Robin tends to the back of her head where she had hit the shelf, Dustin and Erica had fallen into each other and were now pushing the other away. Summer had been knocked face-first to the ground, and well, as for Steve, he seemed to have received the worst of the lot.
“My groin. It fell on my groin.” He grunts, voice rasping with pain. “Dustin! Get this off of me!”
“Is everyone okay?” Summer pulls herself up using the shelf as support.
“Yeah, I’m great, now that I know Russians can’t design elevators!!” Steve shouts and in a burst of frustration pushes Dustin out of his way, making a beeline straight towards the control panel. Steve had never raised his voice like that at Summer before and she would’ve been offended if the circumstances were different, but considering they were trapped in, what could be, a secret Russian lair, she was willing to let it slide.
“I think we’ve clearly established that those buttons don’t work.” Robin pointed out, letting out a sigh of frustration.
“They’re buttons. They have to do something!”
“Yeah. If we had a keycard.”
“A what?”
“It’s an electronic lock. Just like the loading dock door. Without a keycard it won’t operate, meaning -”
“We’re stuck in here.” Summer almost gasps, the air practically escaping her lungs. “Oh, my god.”
“Just so you nerds are aware, I’m supposed to be spending the night at Tina’s, and Tina always covers for me.” Erica pauses for a moment before continuing. “But if I’m not home for Uncle Jack’s party tomorrow and my mom finds out you three are responsible, she’s gonna hunt you down, one by one, and slit your throat.”
Steve turns towards the younger girl, irritation exuding off of him and he just simply could not hold it in any longer. “I don’t care about Tina! Or Uncle Jacks party! Your mom’s not gonna be able to find us if we’re dead in a Russian elevator!”
His words may have been harsh but they were the reality of the situation and in Summer’s mind they had cemented the fact that there was a possibility they wouldn’t make it out of this. She looked to her boyfriend, a now sorrowful look in his eyes, and she tried her best to reassure him that she was okay with a smile, though her lips deceive her and tremble at the thought.
“Hey.” Dustin grasps everyone’s attention and points towards the roof where there was a hatch in the centre. “What if we climbed out?”
The groups plan to crawl out the top of the elevator and back up to the surface seemed too good to be true to begin with so when the two boys climb out to investigate it’s not so much a shock to find out it was impossible. The entrance was so high up that it was no longer visible to the naked eye.
“What were you saying about climbing?” Steve’s voice echoes up the elevator shaft, further proving that they wouldn’t be able to do it.
After hours spent trying to figure out how they were going to get back to safety or to open the door, Erica and Dustin had fallen asleep on makeshift beds made out of flattened boxes and Erica’s backpack as a pillow, their heads on opposite sides. It had certainly lowered the noise level but even with the newfound quiet, it was nearly impossible to relax.
Robin was sat against the wall next to Steve as Summer sat between his legs with her head resting back on his chest and his on top of hers. The three of them had tried everything they could possibly think of to try and open the door and at this point, they felt like giving up.
“Why don’t you guys get some sleep, I can keep watch for a little while,” Steve whispers, trying his best not to wake Dustin or Erica.
“What about you?” Summer looked up, her gaze barely grazing the front of his face.
“I’ll be fine.” He nods.
“Well, you don’t have to tell me twice.” Robin practically sings before moving towards the corner of the room where it was a lot darker.
Summer exhales as she moves to lay her head across Steve’s thighs, his arm wrapping around her protectively as the other he uses to run his fingers through her hair, but she was too riddled with anxiety to even try to sleep.
“Promise me something.” She whispers and moves to look up at him.
“Anything.”
“Promise that you’ll get them out of here, no matter the cost.” Tears had begun to brim her eyes and soaking up in the cotton of Steve’s shorts as she looked over to where Dustin was sleeping peacefully.
“Only if you promise to do it with me.” Steve brushes the hair from her forehead, his eyes glossing over with tears of his own and then raises his right pinky in the air. “I mean it, pinky promise.”
A short laugh escapes Summer’s lip as she wraps her own pinky finger around Steve’s. “I promise.”
It takes another hour before Summer’s eyes begin to flutter closed and not long after she drifts off to sleep. Steve remains seated against the wall as he keeps watch while the others slept, his eyes growing heavy themselves. He tries to keep himself awake by singing songs in his head and pinching himself every now and then, but sleep soon consumes him as well.
As time passes by and the morning hours begin to approach, Dustin is the first one to arise from his slumber and mustering himself up from the cold floor. He takes the opportunity to climb to the top of the elevator once again except this time with his walkie.
“This is a code red, I repeat, a code red.” He speaks into the small device, his voice echoing throughout the entire shaft. “Does anyone copy? We are innocent children and we are trapped under Starcourt Mall.”
“Somebody please tell him to shut up.” Erica groans from her makeshift bed as the others begin to stir from their sleep too, letting out yawns and groans as they stretch.
“You wanna handle that Popeye?” Robin teases.
Steve, unamused by Robins nickname, begrudgingly gets up from where he and Summer had been asleep and ascended towards the hole in the roof. Summer joined Robin’s side and the two girls watched from below as Steve’s legs dangled for a second.
“The red army has infiltrated Hawkins, and if we are found, they will torture and kill us.”
“Hey.” Steve grunts. “You gotta take it easy on that thing, okay? You’re gonna drain the battery.”
“The mall just opened.” Dustin says before retorting to Steve’s obliviousness. “So someone could be in range.”
“What do you think, Petey the mall cop is gonna rappel down here and save the day?”
“All right, why are you such a cranky pants after getting to spend the night with Summer?”
“What? I spend the night with Summer all the time.”
“Oh, yeah, sure you do.” Dustin mocks.
“I’ll have you know that Summer and I sleep together all the time, thank you very much.” The boy stammers over his words, not realising the second meaning he’d unintentionally given to them.
“Oh, my god.” Summer exclaims. “I’m going to kill him.” Her cheeks flush a dull red with embarrassment as she turns to see both Robin and Erica staring at her. Erica purses her lips and shakes her head with disapproval and just as Robin is about to give her own comment their attention is drawn towards the sound of rushing water.
Running down the side of the elevator they see a yellow-toned liquid and the girls all shudder.
“Can you redirect your stream, please?” Robin calls out.
Summer shakes her head and when she turns back around Erica is trying to smash open one of the viles. “Hey! Be careful!” She snatches it out of her hands.
“We don’t even know what that is,” Robin interjects.
“Exactly! It could be useful.”
“Useful how?” Summer queries, curious to hear what the younger girl has to say.
Erica lets out a sigh before speaking. “We can survive down here a long time without food, but if the human body doesn’t get water, it will die.”
“Well, I hate to break it to you kiddo, but this is not water.” Summer explains, though it was already obvious that the bubbling green substance was not, in any way possible, drinkable.
“No, but it’s a liquid and if it comes down to me drinking that shit or dying of thirst, I drink.”
Summer is about to go into further detail about how the liquid inside the vile would most likely kill her when an electronic whizzing sound is heard in the distance. She and Robin both press their ears towards the door as the sound starts to get louder by the second and Summer jumps up onto the table to warn the guys.
summary;in which the small town of hawkins is in immediate danger and it’s up to summer bradshaw and her friends to save it… again.
warnings;this story may contain explicit language, sexual content, violence, alcohol and triggering topics such as: anxiety, sexual assault, nightmares, blood and death. please read at your own risk.
“THAT KEYCARD OPENS THE DOOR,” Dustin explains. “but unfortunately, the Russian with the keycard also has a massive gun.”
“So, whatever is in that room, in those boxes, they really don’t want anybody finding out.” Summer adds as she leans against the counter, arms crossed over her chest.
Robin shakes her head. “But there’s gotta be a way in.”
“Well, you know….” Steve begins, grasping everyone’s attention. He blows into his sailor hat and sets it down on the table before leaning forward with a slightly intimidating demeanour. “I could just take him out.”
“Take who out?” Robin asks.
“The Russian guard.” He answers almost mockingly, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, but the faces of those around him say otherwise. “What? I sneak up behind him, I knock him out, and I take his keycard. It’s easy.”
“Sweetie, did you not hear the part about the massive guns?” Summer smiles lopsidedly.
“Yes, I did. And that’s why I would be sneaking.”
“Well, tell me this and please be honest…” Dustin steps forward. “Have you ever actually… wona fight?”
“That was one time!” Steve scoffs.
“Twice. Jonathan. Year prior?” Summer goes quiet at the mention of Steve’s fight with Jonathan and the bickering of the two boys is drowned out by her thoughts.
That was the first time Summer had ever told Steve she was in love with him. It was also a time when she truly believed that she had lost him forever. He’d become a bully, an evil shell of the person he used to be.
Though, the fight was mostly caused by her and the only reason Jonathan stepped in was because Steve was bad-mouthing his family, knowing that they held a very important place in the girl’s heart.
Summer tries not to remind herself of those times, repressing the heartache she went through because at the end of the day Steve was no longer that person. He had grown and evolved into a truly remarkable guy. No longer did he care about the judgment of others, nor did he feel forced to live up to anyone’s expectations. Getting the job at Scoops was just the first step to his independence and Summer was glad that she was able to share it all with him.
“Robin? Hey, Robin!” Steve calls after the girl, pulling Summer out of her little trance, as he and Dustin both rush through the side door. “Hey, what are you doing?”
“I need cash.”
“Half of that’s mine. Where’re you going?”
“To find us a way into that room, a safe way, and in the meantime, sling ice-cream, behave and don’t get beat up.” She laughs before rushing off through the crowded mall.
Steve turns to Summer, the two of them just as confused as the other and when they turn to Dustin they find him licking ice cream off of one of the scoops.
“Oh, dude, come on.” Steve groans and snatches it away from him. “Man, not my scooper.” He flips the utensil and swiftly places it back into his pocket.
A half-hour passes before Robin returns, a half-hour spent doing absolutely nothing but waiting around. Summer was glad she had the day off from the hospital but she certainly didn’t expect to be spending it just waiting around. Steve was slinging ice cream as some of the younger girls came in, a couple of them blushing as he served them. Summer even heard one of them whisper to their friend that she thought Steve was a ‘total babe’.
The second Robin walks into the store, they all rush to follow her into the backroom as she spreads out a large piece of paper across the table.
“It’s fascinating what 20 bucks will get you at the County Recorder’s Office.” She smiles proudly. “Starcourt Mall, the complete blueprints.”
“Not bad.” Dustin nods approvingly.
“So, this is us, Scoops,” she pauses and points out their location. “And this is where we want to get.” The three follow as her finger slides across the paper to where the Russians were.
“I mean, I don’t really see a way in.” Steve shrugs.
“There’s not… if you’re talking exclusively about doors.” She flips the top page to reveal another blueprint, a blueprint specifically of all the air ducts running throughout the entire mall.
“Air ducts!” Summer and Dustin say in unison.
“Exactly. Turns out, this secret room needs air just like any old room.” Robin explains as she grabs a marker from the board and then begins drawing a line from Scoops all the way to the secret room. “And these air ducts lead all the way here.”
With Robin’s new revelation it doesn’t take long before the group start investigating the air duct. Steve sets a ladder against the wall and after making sure that it’s secure he slowly climbs it. Summer stood close by to ensure it wouldn’t fall, or that her boyfriend wouldn’t because she knew well enough how accident-prone he was.
“Flashlight.” He requests and Dustin hands him the one from his bag. “Yeah, I don’t know, man. I don’t know if you can fit in here. It’s like… super tight.”
Dustin shakes his head at the older boy as he descends from the ladder. “I’ll fit. Trust me. No collar bones, remember?”
“Uh, excuse me?” Robin interjects, a mixture of confusion and shock on her face.
“Oh, he’s, uh… yeah, he’s got some disease. Chry, uh… it’s chrydo, um…” Steve fumbles over his words trying his best to remember the name.
“Cleidocranial Dysplasia.” Summer adds, running a comforting hand along Steve’s back.
“Yeah, he’s missing bones and stuff. He can bend like Gumbo.”
“You mean, Gumby.” Robin corrects.
“I’m pretty sure it’s Gumbo.”
Summer looks to Robin and shakes her head slightly with a roll of the eyes and the two try their best to hold in their laughter.
“Steve, just shut up and push me!” Dustin yells, his legs dangling out from the small hole and he does so. “Not my feet, dumbass. Push my ass!”
“What?” Steve retorts.
“Touch my butt! I don’t care! Come on! Harder! Push harder!”
“I’m pushing!”
“You’re playing with my legs!”
“I’m not playing, I have terrible footing!”
“Come on!”
Summer meets Robin’s side, the two of them absolutely losing it as they double over with laughter watching the boys try to get Dustin into the air duct, which obviously was not going to work. Summer’s stomach began to hurt she was laughing so hard and her eyes were watering uncontrollably.
“Ahoy sailors! All hands on deck!” They hear from the front of the store and try to regain their composure as they see Erica Sinclair banging on the bell. The two girls settle themselves before turning to one another with a knowing look.
After some convincing Erica finally agrees to sit down with the group and hear them out. It was a long shot but if they could get the small girl to help them get into the secret room then their problem would be solved. Summer had known little Erica for as long as she could remember and she knew that if they were to ask her a favor there would be a price to pay.
While Dustin and Robin are left to try and convince her to help, Steve and Summer rush to make her as many treats as she wanted. Carrying the last of what she’d demanded over to the table she simply pushes the dessert item back with an unimpressed look on her face.
“More fudge please.” She says, the sass multiplying with each word and when Steve doesn’t move, she shoo’s him away. “Go on.”
Letting out a sigh of frustration the couple take back the floats they had made, though they smile passive-aggressively pretending that they weren’t bothered by it at all. When they reach the counter Steve starts pumping chocolate fudge onto the ice cream in an annoyed manner.
“I hope she knows that all this free ice cream is coming out of our tips.” He almost grumbles.
“Don’t worry. It’ll be worth it when she helps us.” Summer reassures him.
“How can you be so sure she will?” He moves the float aside and leans over the counter so that their faces are only a few inches apart.
“Because if she wasn’t going to help us she would’ve left by now. I’ve known Erica for a while, back when I used to babysit, and I know for a fact that little miss thing doesn’t like people wasting her time.” Summer smirks and takes the float, doing a little spin as she heads back to the table.
She slides the float across the table and takes a seat next to Robin as the girl examines the dessert in front of her. She looks at Summer and then back down at the ice cream and takes a large spoonful.
“Ooh! I just got the chills.” She exclaims. “Oh, yeah, from this float not your speech.”
Dustin retracts in his seat, offended by what she’d said though he brushes it off quickly, knowing they had to do whatever was possible to get Erica on board.
“Know what I love most about this country?” She asks after another spoonful of the sugary goodness. “Capitalism. Do you know what capitalism is?”
“Yeah.” The three of them answer together.
“It means this is a free market system. Which means people get paid for their services, depending on how valuable their contributions are. And it seems to me, my ability to fit into that little vent is very, veryvaluable to you all.” Erica points her spoon at the three of them. “So you want my help? This USS Butterscotch better be the first of many. And I’m talking free ice cream for life.”
Now that Erica was on board with the plan, all the group had to do was wait for the mall to close and the Russians to leave before sending her in. They would keep watch on the rooftop and let her know when the coast was clear so that she could sneak in and open the doors. And once they grabbed whatever was in those boxes, all that was left was to get it to Hopper at the station. It seemed simple enough, but then again, nothing was ever that simple in the town of Hawkins.
“Erica, do you copy?” Summer says over the walkie-talkie, as the four of them huddled against the edge of the rooftop.
“I copy. You nerds in position or what?”
“Yeah, we’re in position. Everyone’s gone so you’ve got the green light.”
“Green light, roger that. Commence Operation Child Endangerment.”
“Can we maybe notcall it that?” Robin shakes her head.
“See you on the other side, nerds.”
A couple of minutes go by with no sign of the younger girl and Summer begins to worry. Perhaps sending a ten-year-old into what could be the beginning of a war wasn’t such a great idea and knowing that if anything happened to her it would be their fault only made her panic more.
“What if something’s wrong?” Summer turns to Steve, her foot tapping uncontrollably.
He slides his hand up and down her outer thigh, trying to ease the anxious feeling. “She’ll be okay. Erica can handle herself.”
Another minute of silence passes when a crackle comes from the walkie-talkie. “I’m there.”
“Oh, thank god. Do you see anything?” The older girl asks.
“I see those boring boxes you’re so excited about.”
“Any guards?”
“Negative.”
“Booby traps?” Robin queries.
“If I could see them, they’d be pretty shit traps, wouldn’t they?” This causes the group to laugh and when they look back down Erica swings the doors opens and struts herself out.
summary;in which the small town of hawkins is in immediate danger and it’s up to summer bradshaw and her friends to save it… again.
warnings;this story may contain explicit language, sexual content, violence, alcohol and triggering topics such as: anxiety, sexual assault, nightmares, blood and death. please read at your own risk.
“SUMMER, WAKE UP LOVE.” Helene bangs on her daughter’s bedroom door, the sound stirring her from her slumber. “We’ve got to be at the hospital in a half-hour.”
Summer slowly opens her eyes, letting out a small groan, and the sun streaming in through the cracks of her curtains almost blinds her. Steve’s chest presses against her back with his arms and legs tangled amongst her own and as she tries to remove herself from the bed, his limbs instinctively tighten. He doesn’t bother to open his eyes, but a grin appears on his sleepy face.
Turning over, Summer pulls him into her chest and presses her lips against his. He smiles when she pulls away and tugs her in even closer, causing her to let out a giggle as she returns the embrace.
“Don’t go to work. We’ll both call in sick and stay here forever.” He hums and very slowly blinks his eyes open, the sunlight illuminating the dark brown of them.
“Well, I don’t know about you but my boss is downstairs.” She shakes her head. “And somehow I don’t think she’d buy it.”
“Perhaps I can convince you?” He whispers as his lips graze her ear and he props himself up onto his elbow.
Summer trails her finger along his arm, gliding over his bare chest and stopping just above his waistband. “You could try.” A smirk tugs at the corners of her mouth.
Immediately Steve’s lips meet hers in a passionate kiss, his hands caressing her curves, but it slowly morphs into something tender. Summer knew she had to be ready for work within the next ten minutes otherwise Helene would barge in there and start pushing her out the door, but the thought of leaving Steve after what had happened the previous night filled her with anxious thoughts.
The worst part was that she had no idea how she was going to sort this mess out on her own, but she had to do it alone. She couldn’t risk anyone else getting caught in the crossfire.
“Steve.” His name leaves her lips as his trail down her neckline, and just as he’s about to move even further down the bedroom door swings open, though it’s not Helene that’s standing there.
“Oh my god, I’m so sorry!” Max panics and immediately covers her eyes as Eleven stands beside her, eyes wide as if she’d seen a ghost. “Your mom said you would be up.” The redhead grabs El’s hand and quickly closes the door.
The second the door closes Summer looks up at Steve, his eyes clenched shut and head shaking with embarrassment as it drops between his shoulders, his hair falling into Summer’s face. She thought it was hilarious though and a laugh escapes her as the boy collapses by her side.
“Well, there goes the mood,” he sighs, “and my dignity.”
“Relax. Just be grateful they didn’t actually see anything.” She eyes him up and down before climbing out of from under the covers and rushes to get dressed.
When the couple emerge downstairs, Max and El are sitting on the sofa while Helene drinks the rest of her coffee. Other than the low volume coming from the television there wasn’t much else going on.
“I’ll meet you out front.” Helene grins, clearly hearing about the girls walking in on the couple and being amused by it.
“Hey, sorry again. We didn’t know you two…” Max looks between the couple, eyebrows raised. “were, y'know.”
“We weren’ty'know.” Steve retorts with a scoff though no one was believing it. “Anyways, I’ll see you later.” He gives Summer a quick kiss before heading out the front door himself, scruffing up Eleven and Max’s hair on the way.
“So, what’s up?” Summer sits opposite them.
“We were wondering if you’ve seen Billy at all since yesterday afternoon?” Max shrugs.
Summer perks up in her seat at the mention of the boy’s name. “Why? Did he do something?”
“Just wondering,” Eleven adds, but Summer wasn’t so sure that that was the truth.
“He came home last night around the same time Steve and I did but he looked… off.” Summer shakes her head slowly, images of him flashing through her mind. “I want you both to be careful around him, okay?”
They turn to one another for a second and then eventually agree before heading over to Max’s. Summer felt protective over the girls, especially when it came to Billy, she hated the idea of him being left alone in that house with Max. Regardless of whether or not he had stopped tormenting her and her friends as much.
Summer pushes the thoughts aside and heads to the hospital with Helene, immediately being thrown amongst the workload. She spends a couple of hours or so going around and checking in with some of the patients, making sure they were taking their required meds and whatnot. The rest of her shift she helps Helene, shadowing her for the most part or just taking mental notes, but as the day went on she kept thinking about what Hopper had said.
Being an officer wasn’t something Summer had ever even thought about and though the idea of it was kind of exhilarating she just wasn’t sure how she’d go about it. Hopper would be able to help her out and get her the start she needed, hell he’d be more than happy to mentor her and show her the ropes. The more she thought about it, the more she realised that her heart just wasn’t in it with the whole ‘doctor’ thing but she also didn’t want to disappoint Helene.
“Mr Landon, on the third floor, is refusing to take his meds again. They say they need you up there.” Martha tells Helene.
“Alright, I’ll be up in a second.” Helene sighs. “As for you, why don’t you take a lunch break. Maybe pick us up something to eat from the mall?”
“Sure you don’t need my help with Mr Landon?” Summer’s brows arch.
“I’ll manage.” Helene smiles and then makes her way to the elevator.
Summer waves goodbye to Martha and heads towards the bus stop across the road at the exact moment it turns into the street. The ride isn’t long, arriving there only a few minutes later and Summer makes a beeline straight for Scoops, wanting to see where the others were at with the Russian code.
When she gets there only Robin is present, sitting casually on the back counter with a notepad and milkshake in each hand. “Steve and Dustin went ’spying’.” The blonde rolls her eyes and an awkward silence is quick to fall over them.
“Soooo, have you made any progress?” Summer chews on her bottom lip, shifting uncomfortably on the spot.
“A trip to China sounds nice, if you tread lightly.” Robin purses her lips. “That’s the rest of it. God knows what it means though.”
Summer opens her mouth to speak when she’s interrupted by a knocking sound coming from the door in the back room. Robin lets out a frustrated sigh as she spins on the counter swiftly and jumps off on the other side. Summer follows, through the door, her curiosity getting the better of her.
“Delivery for you.” The man says but something about the name and logo of his shirt throws her off. Robin signs for the boxes and as the man walks away she seems to notice it too.
“Do you think?” Summer cocks her head to the side as they step into the hall, continuing to watch the man walk away.
“The silver cat.” They finally say in unison.
“Holy shit,” Robin exclaims though Summer seems lost in thought before her eyes shoot back up and she grabs a hold of Robin’s hand.
“Come with me!” She says, pulling her back into the front of the store where Dustin and Steve had just walked in.
“Yo, Robin you’re not gonna believe who Dustin thought was a Russian.” Steve laughs, bickering with the younger boy but stops when he sees that Robin isn’t alone. “Sum? What are you doing here?”
“Lunch break. Can’t talk. Be right back.” She quickly kisses his cheek and runs straight to the centre of the mall with Robin hot on her heels. The two reach a bench seat and stand on it to get a better view of their surroundings, though Robin had no idea what exactly it was that they were doing. Summer examines the stores when her eyes fall on Imperial Panda and points. “There! A trip to China sounds nice.”
Robin nods, her eyes widening as she realises what Summer was getting at and starts to search herself. She softly hits Summer on the arm and points to the shoe store on the second level. “If you tread lightly.”
“All that’s left is-” Summer stops herself as both she and Robin catch a glimpse of the large clock hanging on the wall, it’s hand matching the colours of the code and their eyes grow with pride. “-when blue meets yellow in the west!”
“We did it. Holy shit, we actually did it.” Robin exhales.
“Uh, babe?” Steve’s brows pinch together as he and Dustin approach them. “What are you guys doing?”
“We cracked it.” Robin is quick to respond, the two girls towering over them. “We cracked the code.”
“No way!” Dustin exclaims.
“Robin will have to tell you because I’ve got to head back to the hospital.” Summer looks at the other girl, a smile present on both their faces and for once neither of them felt inferior by the other. As it should be.
“I’ll see you tonight.” Steve gives Summer a quick kiss before she speeds off.
Once she’s back at the hospital, bags of food in hand, she finds Helene at the front desk, going over what looks to be a list of medication. The two women are glad to see Summer, even more so because she had food.
Though the happiness is short-lived when the phone begins to ring and the voice on the other end of the line was so panicked that Summer and Helene could hear it a little from where they were standing.
“We’ve got an emergency from a Nancy Wheeler and Jonathan Byers. They say they found Mrs Driscoll eating fertiliser and having some sort of a fit.” Summer perked up at the mention of her friend’s names and Martha hands Helene a clipboard filled with all the information she had just written down.
“Why would an elderly woman willingly eat fertiliser?” Summer’s brows furrow.
“I don’t know but I plan on finding out.” Helene raises her brows, eyes peering over the top of her reading glasses. “Alright, lets get the paramedics out to the farm ASAP.”
It’s not long before the ambulance returns, pulling into the parking space out the front and the paramedics begin wheeling the elderly woman in on a stretcher. She was screaming and writhing against the restraints, it was a terrifying sight to see.
Surprisingly though as the older woman passes by Summer she goes dead quiet and her gaze snaps in the girl’s direction, her eyes locking on her as if she knew exactly who she was despite them never even seeing each other before.
Then suddenly she begins to scream again. “I’ve got to go back!”
Summer’s frown deepened as she watched the woman be pushed around the corner, her wailing getting quieter, but the way she had been looking at the young girl had really disturbed her. Her eyes were dark, just like Billy’s were the night before, both of them giving her the same leering gaze. Though, Summer hoped it was just the fertiliser Mrs Driscoll had consumed that was causing her to spiral out of control and not something too sinister.
summary;in which the small town of hawkins is in immediate danger and it’s up to summer bradshaw and her friends to save it… again.
warnings;this story may contain explicit language, sexual content, violence, alcohol and triggering topics such as: anxiety, sexual assault, nightmares, blood and death. please read at your own risk.
“DID YOU GET IT?” Steve shakes his head in amusement as he watches Summer struggle to free her bag from underneath the passenger seat.
“Almost!” She exclaims happily despite the uncomfortable position she was in. Her face was pressed against the back of the seat and her arm was stretched out as far as it would go, trying relentlessly to unhook the strap from whatever it was caught on.
Steve couldn’t help but laugh at the girl. He’d offered to help but she was too caught up in her stubborn ways and denied it. Instead, she told him that she was perfectly capable of getting it all on her own. Well, that was ten minutes ago, and now even the neighbours were starting to get suspicious.
With one last tug, the leather material finally comes loose and Summer flies back into the seats with a thud, but she was too proud of herself to care about the impact. Climbing out of the car, she slips the bag over her arm and joins Steve’s side, a chuffed smile on her face.
“Remind me to never put my things up on the dashboard ever again.” She huffs, blowing a piece of hair that had fallen in her face only for it to land in the exact same spot.
“Or…” Steve begins, stopping to tuck the piece of hair behind her ear, his hand lingering for a second to caress her cheek and she leans into the warm touch. “… maybe you should stop being such a clutz?”
“Hey, I’m notthat bad.” Summer retorts and playfully slaps him though the guilty smile on her lips deceives her words.
“If you say so.” He chuckles, trailing his fingers down her throat and hooking on the chain that hung loosely around it.
His gaze drops to her chest where the small pendant sat and he takes it between his fingers, rolling it slowly along the pad of his thumb as a small breath escapes him. For such a small object it sure held a lot of meaning to them. It was the first proper gift Steve had ever given her, not to mention it was what had saved her life. It was like their own little lucky charm and the fact that Summer wore it wherever she went comforted him in a way.
Noticing the way he was looking at her, Summer chooses to ignore his previous comment and instead marvels at the boy in her arms. His eyes had slightly glazed over and a vibrant smile tugged at the corners of his lips.
“What are you thinking about?” She whispers and brushes his hair back before letting her hands fall to rest around his neck.
“You.” He sighs, returning her gaze. “Us.”
“What about us?”
“Just how badly I want to…” His words trail off as he slowly inches himself towards her and places a kiss on her lips.
Summer is quick to pull away, but that doesn’t stop him. “Steve, my Mom is right inside.” She protests and he responds, except his words are so muffled against her neck that they’re barely coherent, as he peppers small kisses all the way down the left side and over her scar.
He continues to do so until Summer is laughing, though her giggles don’t last long as a sudden wave of dysphoria knocks the breath right out of her. She pushes Steve away and falls against the car as the tingling in her neck returns for the second time that day, only now it was stronger.
Wide-eyed and confused, Steve scans her features. “Sum, what is it? What’s wrong?”
“I’m fine.” She shakes her head, not wanting him to panic. “I just need to sit for a second.”
And the second the words leave her mouth an unpleasantly familiar car comes speeding down the road with its bright headlights distorting the couple’s vision. The obnoxiously loud roar of the engine sets off all the neighbourhood dogs and a couple of the neighbours peep through their blinds with scowls on their faces. But, of course, it didn’t take a genius to figure out who the asshole was causing such disruption to the quiet street.
Summer watches as the space between her and the blue car gets smaller and smaller, her nerves multiplying as she remembers where she was the last time she’d got the tingling feeling. She swallows the anxiety clawing it’s way up her throat, her gaze swapping between the house across the street and the fast-approaching car in panic.
The possibility of Billy having some sort of connection to whatever it was going on with her seemed far more likely than she personally would’ve preferred but none of it made any sense.
As far as anyone knew the blond had zero knowledge of what had really been going on in the small town of Hawkins. He wasn’t even aware that Eleven existed, thanks to Hopper’s rules, and as for Max, she knew better than to talk about anything even remotely related to it all. So, why was it that every time Summer was near him,or anything to do with him, that her body decided to go off like some kind of an alarm?
“Holy shit.” Steve gasps quietly as the car comes to a stop across the road.
The entire left side of the windscreen was smashed in and spider-webbed like it had been hit by something, or someone, and the exterior was completely scratched up and battered in. It wasn’t news to anyone that the Hargrove boy was a reckless driver, only caring about himself on the roads, but the Camaro was everythingto him, so it came as a shock to see the horrible state he’d left it in.
Though before Summer could even begin to comprehend what had happened to the car, Billy’s door swings open and he steps out. His mere appearance causing the breath to catch in her throat once again. The condition of the car was nothing in comparison to the shape of the boy himself.
His eyes were dark and sullen, black circles surrounding them as if he hadn’t slept in days. His hair was a dishevelled mess, the honey-toned strands in knots and sticking out in every direction. There was grime and dirt all over his clothes, along with other darkly coloured stains and the beads of sweat that had formed on his already clammy skin glistened under the streetlights as they travelled down his body.
It was extremely unlike the boy to leave the house, let alone walk around town, looking the way he was and even more so when he was knownto be quite indulgent when it came to his looks. Never once had Summer ever seen him with so much as a hair out of place and here he was showing up to his house looking like as much of a wreck as his car.
“What are you looking at?” He bellows, staring down the couple after he notices them watching and then turns to walk away. But, he only gets as far as the front of his car when he out of nowhere stops dead in his tracks.
There was something hauntingly terrifying about the way he just stood there, his body stiff and muscles taut under his tank top, and then at an extremely slow pace, he turns back around to face them once again. Except now his eyes were fully trained on Summer, leering at her like she was some kind of prey. There was a darkness in his eyes, unlike anything she had ever seen and that only frightened her, well, more than she already was of him.
Billy’s jaw clenched, and for a quick second, it looked like he was wincing, a pained expression contorting on his face, but it’s gone just as soon as it had appeared. It took a lot for Summer to not take Steve’s hand and run in the other direction, a decision she regrets the second the blond’s head slowly cocks to the side, his eyes grazing the scar on her neck because at that moment she knew something was definitely wrong. Billy knew something.
Summer opens her mouth to speak, to demand that Billy tell her what the hell was going on with him when the front door opens and Helene steps out. “Steve, Summer, dinner is ready.” The couple turn to look at the mother as she swings a dishtowel in her hands and when they look back across the road, Billy is nowhere in sight.
“Well, that was weird… and creepy.” Steve scrunches his face, oblivious to what was really going on and that’s exactly how Summer planned on keeping it. She wasn’t going to risk Steve’s safety, or anyone else’s for that matter. “Hey, are you feeling okay now?”
“Yeah, I think I just overworked myself.” She sighs and they finally head inside where Helene had prepared a late dinner for the three of them like she did most nights when she and Summer both worked the night shift.
After the three of them had finished eating, both Summer and Steve help to clear the table and wash the dishes, something that had become quite regular whenever he stayed for dinner. Which was more nights than they cared to admit. With Steve’s parents rarely ever home, he had to fend for himself, which he hated. So when Helene started inviting him over, he was more than happy to accept, plus it gave the mother a chance to get to know him better.
“Hey, you two,” Helene says entering the kitchen as they put away the last of the dishes. “There’s something I want to talk to you about.”
This peaks their interest and Summer gives Steve a knowing look, though what she was thinking was probably far from what Helene was. “There’s actually something we wanted to talk to you about as well.”
“Alright, why don’t you go first?” The mother says, taking a sip of her wine as she leans forward on the counter.
“Wait-” Steve begins, knowing exactly what it was that she wanted to discuss, and he did not want to be present for it, but Summer shushes him.
“I don’t really know how to say this-” Summer starts and grabs a hold of Steve’s hand which instantly sets Helene off. Her expression changes so drastically that it was hard to tell exactly what she was feeling.
“You’re not pregnant are you?” She blurts out.
“Oh my god, no!” Summer retorts before bursting into a fit of laughter. Steve, on the other hand, remains silent, eyes protruding out of his head at the thought. “Okay, I’m just going to come out and ask.” Summer shrugs. “Would Steve be able to start staying over?”
Helene lets out a sigh of relief. “Is that it?”
“Well… yeah.” Summer looks at Steve, the two of them adorning the same confused expression.
“Sweetie,” She takes her daughters hands in her own. “Did you really think I didn’t know about Steve sneaking into your room at night?”
“Wait, what?” Steve finally speaks.
“Oh, honey, you’re about as quiet as an elephant.” Helene shakes her head and Summer tries her best to stifle her laughter. “That’s actually what I wanted to talk to you about too. I was going to tell Steve to stop scaling the side of the house at night and to just use the stairs for once.”
“Really?” The couple day in unison.
“Look, as long as you two are taking precautions and being… safethen I am okay with Steve sleeping over.”
“You’re the best.” Summer throws her arms around her mother and places a kiss on her cheek.
“Yeah, yeah.” Helene laughs. “Now, I’m going to go to bed. Don’t stay up too late.”
The couple watches Helene as she heads up the stairs, leaving them alone, and Steve immediately hooks his fingers in the belt rings of Summer’s shorts and pulls her closer.
“Shall we head to bed too?” His words are soft and sweet, sending shivers down Summer’s spine and the two quickly race towards her bedroom.
summary;in which the small town of hawkins is in immediate danger and it’s up to summer bradshaw and her friends to save it… again.
warnings;this story may contain explicit language, sexual content, violence, alcohol and triggering topics such as: anxiety, sexual assault, nightmares, blood and death. please read at your own risk.
“JUST BE COOL,” Dustin instructs, giving the group a stern yet reassuring nod. Then in a swift movement, the boy exits the toilet doorway and joins in with the crowd of moviegoers as they leave the cinema.
Taken by surprise of the sudden actions of the boy, the others race ahead to keep up and follow his lead, trying their best to blend in with the rest of the strangers. They even go so far as acting as if they too had just seen the same movie, slowly migrating towards the main entrance.
It was scary, and worrying, to think that the families, friends and couples surrounding them had absolutely zero knowledge of the danger brewing just beneath their feet. The thought alone sent a shiver down Summer’s spine.
Whilst the five of them seemed to camouflage themselves amongst the crowd quite well the brunette still stuck to Steve’s side like glue. One hand tightly clasped in his with the other wrapped firmly around his forearm, nails digging in ever so slightly and leaving moon shapes.
Perhaps she was afraid that if she let go she’d lose him, or he’d lose her, and now that the drug they’d been so kindly injected with was wearing off the girl’s anxious thoughts were beginning to flood back. Filling her mind with paranoia and panic.
“Well, shit, that worked.” Erica shrugs, impressed with the slightly older boy’s plan. As if she had no idea that he was practically a genius.
“Of course it worked. We just have to get on the bus with the rest of these plebes, and home sweet home, here we come.” The excitement was oozing in the boy’s tone as he clapped his hands together. Little did he know that the rest of his plan wasn’t going to pan out exactly the way he was hoping for.
Steve looks down at Summer, a glint of guilt in his eyes, and then takes a nervous step forward. He taps the boy on the shoulder and though he doesn’t stop his feet from moving he acknowledges his friend nonetheless.
“Uh, Dustin. Yeah, we might not wanna go to your house.”
“Why?” The curly-haired boy queries and stops in his tracks.
“Because Steve told the Russians your full name.” Summer accidentally lets the words fall from her lips, earning herself a rather annoyed look from her boyfriend as he gets yelled at by the other boy.
Dustin shakes his head in disbelief and takes in a deep breath. He couldn’t believe that Steve, who had singlehandedly fought off creatures from another dimension couldn’t resist giving away his personal information to some measly Russian soldier. “You’re supposed to resist. Tough it out. You tough it out like a man.”
“Oh, yeah.” Steve nods along sarcastically. “It’s easy for you to say.”
The two males continue on with their bickering while also trying to keep up with the crowd. Nearing the exit a swarm of people were still surrounding them, keeping them moderately hidden as they got closer and closer to their freedom. However, as the last glass doors come into view the crowd begins to scatter into messy lines and at the very front where the lines ended stood multiple Russian guards.
Dressed head to toe in all black, and carrying the large guns Dustin had made a big deal about the day prior, the men searched over every single person, and their bags, as they passed on through. Making sure that they didn’t miss a single soul.
“Hey, um, guys. We have bigger problems right now.” Summer moves a hand out in front of them and causing them to stop so that she can show them what she’d seen.
Over in the distance, a Russian man with hair much longer than Summer’s was speaking to a woman, apologising for the inconvenience and then wishing her a pleasant evening.
Fear ignited within the group for the millionth time that night and they slowly start to head back the way they came without causing a scene, but, unfortunately for them, the man with the long hair spots them mid escape.
Their cautious steps turn into a full sprint, Summer running as fast as her feet could possibly take her whilst making sure both Dustin and Erica remained in front of her. They retract their steps back to the escalator that the mall workers had already shut down for the night and, as quick as lighting, Dustin was sliding right down the middle section.
Erica is quick to follow his lead once again and one by one they too slide down the middle ramp-like section, landing on the floor of the first level and taking refuge behind the counter of a fast-food restaurant.
Summer clasps a hand over mouth to try and quieten the sound of her breathing, the other desperately searching for Steve’s as she buries her head in his shoulder. The smell of his blood and sweat filling her senses as they cling to one another. The five of them crouch together, praying that their hiding spot doesn’t get discovered.
Robin’s trembling lips and shaking hands match Summer’ while Steve and Dustin put on the best brave faces they could possibly muster up. And Erica, well… she was… Erica.
However, the fear gnawing at them only multiplies when a guards voice is heard followed by the sound of footsteps growing louder and louder by the second. From where the young Americans were hiding it was as if the man was right behind them and then a small clicking is heard. Similar to the noise a gun makes and that’s when the five of them knew that they’d been made.
Summer keeps her eyes on Steve, her lips quivering and eyes glassing over. This was it. The look in their eyes sharing a clear understanding as to what was about to happen. They were going to meet their end and at the hands of none other than the Russian men that had infiltrated their country.
“I love you.” The girl mouths, pressing her forehead against Steve’s and then turns to the others. She reaches a hand out to hold theirs, each of them returning the gesture as they braced themselves for the absolute worst.
Steve’s clutches to Summer, his lips pressed to her temple and eyes clamped shut. If this was his last moment on Earth then he wanted to spend it drinking in Summer’s smell, feeling her skin on his, having her warmth suffuse through him.
Another footstep is heard right before the room goes silent and just when the group think they’ve finally met their end the sound of a car alarm rips through the air. Wailing as it flies across the room and a gasp escapes them as the car is thrown into the front of the counter they were hiding behind, followed by the hissing of steam and metal clattering to the floor.
Slowly, and with extreme caution, the group come out from their hiding spot, confusion masking their faces as they see the crumpled mess of the car before them and not a Russian in sight.
A figure standing against the railing on the second floor catches Summer’s attention and she immediately recognised the girl she’d grown to call a sister. With her hair thrown about, heaving shoulders and a small trail of blood trickling down from her nose, El gives the older brunette a small smile.
Joy, gratitude, but mostly relief. That was what was coursing through Summer as she looked up at El, her saviour, her angel. Then from the shadows behind her, faces illuminated by the bright neon store signs, appeared the rest of her friends.
Max. Lucas. Mike. Nancy. Will. And… Jonathan.
Her heart swelled at the sight, tears glossing over her eyes again and spilling out the corners as she smiled up at them. She’d never been so happy to see them and when her gaze finally met Jonathan’s he gave her a small nod. A nod of approval. A nod of pride. A nod of reassurance.
“Jonathan.” She gasps, his name barely audible as it leaves her lips.
The seven of them on the second-floor sprint towards the escalator and slide down the middle section as Summer and the others climb back over the counter they were now stuck behind. As soon as Summer’s feet meet the floor again she steps into a sprint, wanting to get to her friends as quickly as she could.
Although everyone wanted to give the brunette a hug after not knowing where she’d been the past couple of days, they knew exactly who she was running towards. A sliver of jealously sparked in Steve, but he knew better and he most certainly knew that Summer needed her best friend more than anything in that moment.
El, Mike and Will watched as she passed them by in a blur, her short dark hair cascading her face, and before Jonathan could properly prepare himself she’d collided into him, arms wrapping around him and holding him tight. He stumbles back from the impact but quickly regains his footing to reciprocate the embrace. Neither of them said a word, just held each other for a second.
Then as if instinct Jonathan begins to soothe her, knowing just how overwhelmed she gets, rubbing his hand up and down her back comfortingly.
“It’s okay, Summer. You’re okay. We’re okay. We’ll get through this.” His words are muffled in her hair, his other hand wrapped around her neck. It had been weeks since the two best friends had even seen each other, sure, there were phone calls but they weren’t the same.
When the two of them did finally decide to pull away, Jonathan held Summer’s head in his hand for a second longer, looking over her features as she let out a few last sobs, smiling with embarrassment. His eyes grew with concern when he sees the cut on her lip and bruises forming from where she’d been hit by the Russians, but she was more worried about the situation at hand than to let him panic over her injuries.
Besides, Steve was in worse shape than she was.
“You threw that thing like a hot wheel,” Dustin exclaims happily as the others finally join them and he pulls both El and Mike into a hug.
Eventually, all twelve of them had started to gather in a circle and Summer quickly made her rounds, starting with Will, then Lucas and Max and then stopping at Eleven and Mike, where she stood with her arms wrapped around their shoulders and head resting on El’s.
“Thank you.” She whispers to the younger girl and gave her a quick kiss on the head.
“Lucas?” Erica scrunched her face up at her older brother, who too was confused as to why his little sister was there in the first place. It doesn’t take her long before pinning the blame on the others, her fingers pointed at Summer and Steve accusingly.
“True, Yeah. Totally true. It’s absolutely our fault.” Steve shrugged, been through enough in the last twenty-four hours that he simply could not be bothered denying the girls words.
“Wait, I don’t understand what happened to that car.” Robin stepped forward, all eyes falling on her and her completely boggled mind.
Summer smiled and tightened her arm around the girl. “El, here, has superpowers.”
“Are you still tripping from the drugs?” Robin laughed at her former crush, seeing that as the only explanation.
The mention of drugs brews questions amongst the others but before any of them could question it Steve jumps in. “Superpowers. She threw it with her mind. C'mon, catch up!”
“I’m sorry, but who are you?” Nancy asks the blonde, clearly concerned with the fact that they were letting her in on their secrets.
“I’m Robin. I work with Steve.” She answers a little too enthusiastically.
“Summer and Robin cracked the top-secret code.” Dustin points out.
“Yeah, which is how we found out about the Russians,” Steve adds.
“Russians?” Jonathan turns to Summer, brows furrowed and eyes wide. “Wait, what Russians?”
“The Russians!” Steve retorts, waving his arms in the direction they had just been standing before getting wiped out by a car.
Mike too looks at Summer and then back to Steve. “Those were Russians?”
The group, that had now grown to twice its size, fall into a conversation about Dustin being careless with his batteries which then turns into a discussion about the Russians that had snuck into their country and secretly invaded their town.
Summer keeps quiet as she watches everyone converse and even though most of it was being shouted she couldn’t help the smile creeping onto her lips. She was so grateful to be back with her friends, so grateful to see them all just being.
However, the happy thoughts are quickly replaced with an overwhelming feeling of nausea. Her hands grow clammy and small beads of sweat start to roll down her forehead as her body temperature rises. She takes a step back, putting some space between herself and the group. Her movements are slow and cautious, shaky even like there was something incredibly wrong.
Summer takes in a deep breath, trying to steady herself when she sees that El too had removed herself from the group, her actions frigid and lazy. But no matter how shit she felt she needed to make sure that the girl was okay.
“El…” Summer whispers loudly and when El turns to her they both see that they’re in almost the same state as one another but for different reasons.
“It has everythingto do with the gate!” The older girl hears Dustin yell and then it happened so fast.
It was like he had said some sort of a magic word, triggering both Summer and El, because in a flash the two of them hit the floor, their bodies lying lazily on the ground.
summary;in which the small town of hawkins is in immediate danger and it’s up to summer bradshaw and her friends to save it… again.
warnings;this story may contain explicit language, sexual content, violence, alcohol and triggering topics such as: anxiety, sexual assault, nightmares, blood and death. please read at your own risk.
“THAT WAS GROSS.” Summer slurs and wipes away the saliva from her lips, using the back of her hand, before slumping back into the stall wall.
The eighteen-year-old thought that after relieving the contents of her stomach she’d feel better, but, in fact, she felt much worse. The events of the past forty-eight hours had really started to catch up to her now and the dark circles around her eyes only grew deeper as the night went on.
“The ceiling stopped spinning for me. Is it still spinning for you guys?” Robin asks from the stall to the right, her words echoing slightly even though her voice wasn’t loud at all.
“Holy shit. No.” Steve says, bemused as he looks up at the roof, pleased to see that it too had stopped spinning for him.
There were no more swirling lights that slowly began to distort into a rapid mess. No more dizziness and definitely no more weird urges to just laugh at everything.
Summer, on the other hand, was refusing to look up. She instead had curled herself against the wall with her knees pressed to her chest and eyes growing heavier by the second.
“You think we puked it all up?” Steve continues.
“I hope so.” Summer groans and wraps her arms firmly around herself. “Is there any way to test it?”
“Maybe. Hmm… Steve, ask us something.” Robin suggests and then her voice changes into a thick Russian accent. “Interrogate us.”
A small laugh escapes Steve and he strokes his chin with his thumb, thinking of what he could ask that he knew the girls wouldn’t willingly answer the truth to.
“Okay. Interrogate you. Sure. Um… ooh, I know! When was the last time you peed your pants?”
“I don’t remem-” Robin begins to answer but Summer cuts her off before she can finish her sentence.
“Today.” Her response comes out so fast that Robin and Steve are both left confused. A silence falls over the three of them as the new information they had just learnt sinks in a little.
“What?” They eventually say in unison and Steve scrunches up his nose.
“When the Russian doctor started pulling out his bone saw and setting up all his things… a little bit of pee escaped.” The girl answers so casually that small snickers come from either side of her stall. “It was just a little bit, though.” She hums.
Steve shakes his head with a sigh and then leaves the stall he’d been sitting in and peers into Summer’s. “Yeah, I think it’s definitely still in yoursystem.”
She smiles up at him with her weary eyes and half-hearted grin, the sight of her tiresome features filling him with sorrow. His bottom lip even protrudes into a pout and he lets out a small sound of endearment. Even when her hair was messy and had puke down the front of her shirt he couldn’t help but…. love her.
He offers her a hand and then gestures for her to follow him into the next stall, where he sits opposite Robin and waits for her with open arms. Summer gratefully obliges, slowly moving in his footsteps and then sits between his legs with her head rested on his chest. The quiet sound of his heartbeat drummed in her ear, calming her whilst her own beat matched his pace.
“All right, Summer. Your turn.” Robin claps her hands and sits forward. Intrigued to hear what the other girl would ask.
“Hmm.” She ponders. “Who was the first person you ever kissed?”
The question takes Robin by surprise and her face straightens and her lips tighten. “I…umm, I’ve never actually kissed anyone before.”
The couples faces stretch in surprise, their brows raised and mouths forming unintentional ‘o’s.
“I know. I’m super lame.”
“No. Of course not.” Summer grabs her hand, squeezing it gently. “The first guy I ever kissed had braces and it was over a game of 'Truth or Dare.’ Your time will come soon.”
Though Summer’s words had comforted Robin slightly there was a lot more that the girl needed than just a small amount of reassurance. She knew her time would come and that one day she’d get to experience normal teenage memories but she had a secret, a secret that she felt she couldn’t tell another living soul. At least, not until that night.
Steve combed his fingers through Summer’s hair gently, the tips of them caressing her scalp, as she leans back into his chest. She listened as the others continued on with their game, her eyes growing heavy again and the words being spoken began to drown out, but not so much that she still couldn’t make them out.
“My turn,” Robin whispers, now noticing that the other girl had fallen asleep, or at least she thought she was, and takes it as an opportunity to ask a more serious question.
“Hit me,” Steve whispers back.
“Have you ever been… in love?” By now Summer was almost asleep though the words being exchanged were still registering in her mind.
“Yep. Nancy Wheeler. First Semester, Senior year.” The sound of Steve imitating a gunshot is followed by a short chuckle. “At least I thought I was.”
“Oh, my god. She’s such a priss.”
“Turns out, not really.”
“So.. what happened?” Robin pushes the subject more, intrigued by the topic at hand.
“Summer happened.” He heaves a sigh, his hand running gently along her cheekbone as she rests. Of course, he thought she was asleep by now too and wasn’t listening to everything they were saying. She almost felt bad for doing so too.
“What do you mean?” The girl pauses, confusion masking her face. “Haven’t you been friends for, like, ever?”
“Yeah. I guess… I guess that’s why I tried so hard to make Nancy and I work. Why I convinced myself that we were in love… because I was scared. Scared that Summer wouldn’t feel the same way and even after she told me she did, I still messed it up.”
“How?”
Steve scratches the skin just above his brow, all the horrible things he’d said a couple of years ago flooding back, but the worst memories of all were the ones of him holding Summer’s almost lifeless body in his arms. Watching the blood drain from her and gather in the cotton of her sweater. Praying for the first time in his life that she’d make it out alive.
“Steve?” Robin causes him to jolt, snapping him back to reality. “You okay?”
He nods, though it’s not as convincing as he probably thought it was. “Just thinking.”
“About?”
“How much I love her.” He presses a soft kiss to the crown of her head and the ghost of a smile graces her lips before whisking away and she nuzzles into him a little more. “She’s my Suzie.”
“Wait, whose Suzie?”
“Some girl from Dustin’s camp, I guess his girlfriend. To be honest with you, I’m not 100% sure she’s even real.” They both laugh. “But either way, the kids crazy about her and the way he talks about her, it’s like she’s the only person he’s ever loved.”
Robin then smiles but it seems forced and Steve notices the little falter in the gesture, the little twinge in her upper lip. It’s then that he recalls the conversation back when they were stuck in the Russian base where Robin had practically admitted her feelings for him and now here he was talking about how much he loved Summer. He felt bad. Worse. He felt guilty. Even though he had absolutely no reason to be.
“I’m sorry.” He shakes his head. “I shouldn’t-”
“Shouldn’t what?” The blonde cut him off.
“I just- I didn’t mean to make you feel awkward, especially after the conversation back at the base.” He explains but she doesn’t seem to know what he’s referring to. “Y'know about Click’s class?”
“Right.” She laughs to herself for a second. “Do you remember what I said? About me being jealous and, like, obsessed?”
“Yeah.”
“It wasn’t because I had a crush on you. It was because… she wouldn’t stop staring at you.”
“Who? Mrs Click?”
Summer tries her best not to give away the fact that she was still awake but there was a guilt building inside of her, wanting her to open her eyes and tell them both that she wasn’t asleep. She knew that whatever Robin was about to say was not intended for her ears and she felt wrong for listening.
“No.” The blonde takes a deep breath in. “Summer.”
The second the words fall from Robin’s mouth the guilt inside is practically ripping through her and it takes every ounce of willpower to stay still and not give away the fact that she’d heard the girl’s confession. But not only was she revealing a huge part of who she really was, she’d also confessed that she had, or has, feeling for Summer.
“I wanted her to look at me but… she couldn’t pull her eyes away from you and your stupid hair. And I didn’t understand, because you would get bagel crumbs all over the floor. And you asked dumb questions. And you were a douchebag. And— and you didn’t even realise that she was so obviously, head-over-heels, in love with you and I would go home and just scream into my pillow.” Robin’s eyes fall to the 'sleeping’ brunette and then back to Steve.
Summer couldn’t believe what she was hearing. This whole time she thought Robin was fawning over Steve and weaving her way in between them in some sort of scheme to break them up, when in reality she couldn’t have been more wrong. Robin wasn’t staring at Steve in Mrs Click’s class… it was her. The entire time it was her that Robin was crushing on.
“But… Summer’s a girl.” Steve retorts, his brows inching closer together.
“….. Steve.” Robin says softly, her eyes glassed over with fear as she waits for it to hit. Steve was the first person she had ever come out to. The first person she had ever fully opened up to and not only had he not really quite understood what she meant but she was now riddled with anxiety as to how he’d react.
“Yeah?……. Oh.”
“Oh.” She nods.
“Holy shit.”
“Yeah. Holy shit.”
A small silence falls over them as Steve tries to piece the situation together. He could’ve sworn that it was him the blonde was crushing on. Never in a million years would he have guessed that the actual person Robin had a crush on was his girlfriend. Of all people.
“Steve. Did you O.D over there?” Robin asks nervously, worried about him perhaps treating her differently now that he knew her secret.
“No. I just, uh, just thinking.” He shakes his head and then begins to laugh. “I mean, yeah. At least we know you have good taste.”
Before either of them could say another word the toilet door bursts open in an urgent fashion, jolting Summer 'awake’, and in storms both Dustin and Erica. The two of them take in the scene before them, the three eighteen/nineteen-year-olds sitting on a public bathroom floor with smiles on their faces. Well, besides Summer.
summary;in which the small town of hawkins is in immediate danger and it’s up to summer bradshaw and her friends to save it… again.
warnings;this story may contain explicit language, sexual content, violence, alcohol and triggering topics such as: anxiety, sexual assault, nightmares, blood and death. please read at your own risk.
“JESUS, SLOW DOWN!” Steve slurs at Dustin through the wall that was separating them, after having Summer be thrown into him, due to the teen boys hasty driving. However, the boy wasn’t so much concerned about the three young adults getting a few scratches as he was about trying to get them out of the secret Russian base alive.
“Are you tryingto kill us?” Summer queries with exaggeration and dramatically flicks back the hair that had fallen in her face.
Robin shakes her head and heaves a sigh. “Yeah, what is this, like, the Indy 500?”
Everything from the moment Dustin and Erica had rescued the trio, from the room they were being held captive in, to the three of them now flailing around in the back of the transport carriage, was pretty much a blur. The only thing Summer could really recall within those two moments was the five of them running while angry Russian soldiers chased after them.
“It’s the Indy 300.” Steve corrects the blonde and screws up his face, unimpressed with the ‘knowledge’, or lack-there-of, of his new friend who claimed to be a genius.
Though, the two of them end up in a lazy argument about which of them was right, and which of them was wrong. Bickering like a bunch of children when Summer decides to interject the conversation with her own answer.
“How about we just say a million?” A small silence follows her comment and then out of nowhere the three of them burst into a loud fit of laughter. Throwing their heads back and all.
From the front of the vehicle, both Erica and Dustin swap confused, yet extremely concerned looks with one another as the boy steered the truck through the underground base and back to where they had accidentally entered it. Though, too worried about what was going on with his friends, his attention diverted for a second too long, he doesn’t see the two large metal containers that he was fast approaching.
“Dustin, watch out!” The young girl shouts and he quickly hits the breaks, though he still drives right into the containers and collides with a small light post.
A chorus of grunts come from the back as the three young adults smash into the cage wall, Summer now strewn across Steve and Robin as their heads crash into the grated steel.
“You guys alright back there?” The curly-haired boy asks though all he gets is a muffled response of groans before exiting via the side-door and racing to the back to unlatch it.
Immediately, he and Erica start rushing for the trio to get out but when they don’t move their impatience only grows stronger. Erica screams at them, clapping her hands angrily while Dustin reaches to help them out.
Summer clambers out of the carriage first, Dustin helping her to hurry and she regains her balance leaning on the side of the vehicle. Her head spins slightly from the drug still coursing through her bloodstream but pushes on to follow Dustin over to the 'elevator’ after he forcefully yanks Steve out and lets him fall to the floor, leaving him to tumble behind the group with Robin in tow.
“Here goes nothing.” The boy heaves a quick sigh and scans the keycard he’d swiped from the Russian guard Steve had taken out. Well, at least they thought he had.
Nevertheless, the screen flashes a green hue and unlocks, allowing the five of them to hurry inside. Summer and Steve stumble into one another as Dustin locks the security door behind them and the elevator whirrs to life. The couple cling together as the room gradually begins to move upwards, the lights passing by at a much slower pace than when they had come down, but growing faster by the second.
As the speed starts to quicken, making it a little easier to stand still as they flew back up to the surface, Steve finds a trolley that the Russians had used to move the boxes and jumps onto it, ignoring the protests coming from the younger boy and girl about hurting himself.
Robin, who is highly amused by the boy’s actions, grabs a hold of the handle to keep it steady and laughs along with him. “Hey! You look like you’re-”
“Surfing!” They finish the sentence in unison.
“Oh, my god! I want a turn!” Summer exclaims, clapping her hands excitedly and steps onto the trolley with Steve, the two of them holding onto the railing, as well as one another, for support.
“You’re a natural! Look at you!” Steve laughs and then moves to applaud his girlfriend, not realising that he’d let go of the railing until it was too late and he crashes to the floor, smashing into a pile of boxes as he does so.
“Wipeout!” Robin points at the shaggy-haired boy, chuckling at him.
Dustin meets the older males side and checks over him with worry, even presses his hand to his forehead for good measure. “He’s burning up.”
“You’re burning up.” Steve mimics and lets out a soft laugh while the boy tries to check his pupils, widening his eyes with a gentle force and fighting against his objections.
“And his pupils are dilated.”
“Maybe he’s drugged.” Erica shrugs.
Dustin looks to Summer and Robin, who are giggling together in the corner over absolutely nothing, and then back to Steve, heaving an annoyed sigh.
Steve softly reaches up and touches the boy’s nose, letting out a 'boop’ sound, completely unaware of the struggle he now has to deal with trying to get all three of them to safety. Dustin didn’t want to believe that they were under the influence but it all added up perfectly. They had all the typical symptoms.
“Steve, are you drugged?” He slaps his friends face lightly.
“How many times, Dad? I don’t do drugs.” Steve slurs and hits the top of the boy’s hat playfully. “It’s only marijuana.”
“This isn’t funny, okay? I need to know what they did to you. Are you gonna die on us?” He asks but only gets another 'boop’ to the nose.
“Oh, Dustin.” Summer moves to sit with the boy, wrapping her arm around his shoulders lazily. “We’re all going to die… someday.” She shrugs so calmly that it was almost scary how nonchalant she was acting.
The curly-haired boy, who was growing more and more frustrated by the second, turns to Steve once again. “They’re gonna be looking for us up here, so I need you to tell me where you parked your car.”
“Oh, can we make a pit stop at the food court?” Steve suddenly perks up.
“I would killfor a hot dog on a stick,” Robin adds.
Summer nods along, her excitement matching their own. “I want fries. Lots and lots of fries.”
“All right. Yeah, good. Yes, you can have as much food as you want, but only if you tell me where your car is parked.”
“Uh oh.” Steve mumbles.
“Uh oh?”
“The car’s off the board.”
“What?”
“They took the keys.” Steve turns out his pockets, revealing that they were in fact empty. “The Russians, they took the keys. Like, forever ago. That’s a bummer, right?”
“I thought I was a bummer.” Summer’s brows furrow and her lips meet in a pout, causing the younger boy to groan at the exact same time the elevator comes to a stop.
Dustin instructs the group to gather by the door and goes to stick his head out to ensure that the coast is clear and safe for them to leave but Steve pushes straight past him and out into the cold night air.
“Oh, my god, that tastes so good!” Robin cheers and sticks her tongue out, lapping up the nothingness. “Summer, Steve, can you taste the air?”
“I taste it! I taste it!” Steve sticks his tongue out and then cups Summer’s face in his hands playfully, encouraging her to do so too.
However, their little moment is interrupted when the gate they had planned on leaving through opens up and two guards with large guns start running towards them. They call after the American teens with the same thick accents as the guards down below, ordering them to stop but Dustin and Erica manage to pull the older three to safety via a side door.
“Where are we going?” Erica shakes her head as they follow Dustin through the back halls of the mall, the halls that only employees were granted permission to enter.
“Just trust me.” He nods and leads them to another door, a door that kind of looked familiar. “Okay, all clear.”
One by one they exit the back halls and find themselves in the movie theatre. Summer hadn’t really been to the theatre before, she preferred going to the drive-ins with Steve rather than sitting in a crowded room with a bunch of strangers.
Quietly and inconspicuously, trying to avoid as much attention as possible, they make their way down to the front row of the cinema where there were three available seats.
“These seats are way too close.” Summer whines as Dustin orders the trio to sit.
“Dude, these seats blow.” Steve throws a piece of popcorn at him.
“Then don’t watch the movie.”
“We wanna watch it!” Robin whispers.
“Then watch it!” Dustin says a little too loud and the man sitting behind them shushes them, causing Summer, Steve and Robin to do it back. “Whatever you do, just don’t… go.. anywhere.”
“Fine, dad.” Steve throws another piece of popcorn at the boy before he walks away.
A few minutes go by and the three of them start finding it hard to concentrate on the movie at all. Summer plucks a piece of popcorn from the box and throws it in the air in an attempt to catch it in her mouth but misses. Steve catches on and he too tries to do the same thing, managing to catch the piece but having it fall out. The couple laughs together and get shushed again but continue to throw the popcorn anyway. Robin, however, had started tapping her feet impatiently on the floor and was fidgeting with her hair when she strikes forward in the seat.
“I’m bored. Let’s sneak out.” She whispers, a giggle escaping her as the couple agree, pressing their fingers to their lips trying to be as quiet as possible.
The three of them tiptoe back out of the cinema the way had come and wander around for a moment before stopping at a drinking fountain. Steve practically throws himself at it and devours the water that sprayed out.
“That’s amazing.” He pulls away long enough to say before returning to it.
“So, like, I wasn’t totally focused in there or anything, but… I’m pretty sure that mom was trying to bang her son.” Robin says.
“Wait, wait, the hot chick was Alex P Keaton’s mom?” The boy screws up his face.
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure.”
“But they’re the same age?”
“That’s only because he went back in time.” Summer joins in, moving Steve aside so that she too could have some water.
“Then why is it called 'Back to the Future’?”
Summer pulls away from the water to answer Steve’s question. “He has to go back to the future because he’s in the past. So, the future is actually the present, which is histime.”
“Wait, what?” He shakes his head confusingly and has another drink from the fountain.
“No, no, it’s my turn. You’ve had enough.” The blonde shoves him to the side and then sighs contentedly as she drinks.
Steve wanders over towards the centre of the foyer, his eyes catching the lights that were illuminating the room as they glow above him and he lets out an exasperated 'wow’.
“Hey Sum, you gotta check this out.” He calls the girl, pointing up at the roof and she joins his side. “Check this… this… the ceiling, it’s beautiful.”
“Oh wow.” She giggles. “Robin, come look!”
The blonde takes her spot beside them and begins to spin in circles as she too stares up at the glistening lights. Though the longer the three of them looked at them the more distorted they become, eventually swirling together in a spinning mess and an array of grunts escape them. Their stomachs begin to twirl and rumble as an awful feeling crawls its way up their throats and then just like that they’re running to the toilets, throwing open the stall doors and relieving themselves of their stomach contents.
summary;in which the small town of hawkins is in immediate danger and it’s up to summer bradshaw and her friends to save it… again.
warnings;this story may contain explicit language, sexual content, violence, alcohol and triggering topics such as: anxiety, sexual assault, nightmares, blood and death. please read at your own risk.
“ARE YOU GUYS OKAY?” Summer’s words come out in a mumbled slur, her eyes fluttering open as if she were in some sort of a heavy daze and she slowly returns to her previously conscious state. She takes in a deep breath and as she releases she slowly lulls her head back against Steve’s, staring up at the bright lights that hung above them.
“Honestly, I don’t really feel anything,” Steve answers, his voice a hushed tone, which was very unlike his usual upbeat-self. Though, given the circumstances, it was pretty understandable why he was a lot quieter than he was the majority of the time. “What about you, Robin?”
The couple both turn their heads to the blonde girl, her arms growing tiresome as they hung above her head lazily and she lets out a frustrated sigh. “I mean, I… I feel fine. I feel normal.”
“Yeah, I feel — I feel fine.” Steve agrees before letting out a hearty chuckle, his hair bouncing slightly and tickling at Summer’s olive skin. It was a nice feeling. A comforting feeling. And not even the sweat that had coated his brunet locks was going to make her turn away, because, in reality, who knew what the Russian’s were planning to do with them. So instead she nuzzles herself as close to him as she possibly could, not wanting to take any second she may have left with him for granted.
“Y'know, I kinda feel… good.” He smiles.
As Steve continues to chuckle at himself Summer begins to feel a bit funny, a sensation she could only compare to the few times she had got high with Steve while his parents were away on business trips, and like a virus, the boys laugh becomes contagious. At first, it starts out as nothing more than a reaction to his sudden burst of happiness, eventually turning into something more uncontrollable, but both Summer and Robin find themselves bursting at the seems with giggles.
After a few minutes, Summer shushes the other two and swings her head back to lean on Steve’s shoulder. “I have a secret. A good secret.” She giggles again. “I feel… really good and I reallylike it.”
Both Steve and Robin choke back their laughs but it becomes too much and they let it out, the breath escaping their lungs as they do so, causing their sides to ache. The stress and panic that had been gnawing at the three of them only moments ago had now vanished as the substance that they had been injected with riddles its way through their bloodstream.
“What morons. They messed up the drug.” Steve points out, though perhaps what they thought was a mistake wasn’t one at all. Maybe, just maybe, what was happening to them was exactly what the Russian’s had intended all along.
“They messed it up! Morons, hey morons!” Robin yells mockingly.
Then completely out of nowhere, like a wave crashing hard against the shoreline, Summer’s breathing begins to fasten as the realisation that something was definitely wrong with them hits her. Her smile fades a little, her laugh dying down with it, and for a second her features are taken over by the fear inside before her smile quickly whisks it away like it hadn’t happened at all. She tries to fight the urge to laugh along with the others but whatever was in her system was doing a damn good job of making sure that that wouldn’t happen.
“Guys, something is wrong.” She cries out but both Steve and Robin were too carried away yelling at the Russians to pay her any mind.
The girl’s worries don’t get far before she’s interrupted by the sound of a buzzer. Seconds later the door opens and the officer from before enters the room once again with the tall doctor in tow. The two of them stand up straight with their demeaning smiles and narrowed eyes, staring down all three of the young adults seeing that they had indeed succumbed to the side effects of the drug and were ready for yet another interrogation.
Dr Zharkov gives the officer a small nod and then strides towards the trolley in the corner of the room where he puts down the bag in his hand and begins prepping multiple tools that Summer could only assume were going to be used to hurt her and her friends.
“Would now be a good time to tell you that I really hate doctors?” She laughs nervously with a slight sarcastic hint to her tone, though the intention wasn’t to do so. It had just slipped out and she regrets saying it the second she sees the man in the long white coat pull a large knife from the bag and place it down with the other contraptions.
The officer then circles the couple before stopping in front of Steve. “Let’s try this again, yes?” He says but the boy was too distracted playing with his bottom lip by gliding his tongue back and forth across it that he hadn’t really noticed the man before him. “Who do you work for?” He demands.
“The Scoops.” The boy chuckles innocently, clearly amused with himself and his answer, for whatever reason. “Scoops. Ahoy.”
The Russian man grows irritated quickly and lets out a deep breath. “How did you find us?”
“Totally by accident.” The responses being given certainly weren’t meeting their satisfaction and the officer turns towards Dr Zharkov, retorting something in his natural language. The doctor then shrugs his shoulders and looks to Summer, then Steve, and plucks some sort of pinching device from his… ‘collection’.
“Ooh, what’s that shiny little toy?” Steve laughs, again, oblivious to the drastic measures the men were willing to go to get answers out of them and the amount of pain he was about to endure.
As the doctor approaches him, he moves to grab Steve’s hand and places the pair of small plier-like tweezers around his nail. And, of course, as any rational human being would, Steve lets out a chorus of panicked yells when he realises what was happening.
The pleads become too much for Summer to bare, let alone the actual thought of her boyfriend getting hurt, and she throws her head back before screaming exactly what she knew they’d want to hear. Giving them a reasonable explanation and hoping that they’d leave the boy alone. “We found a code! There was a code!”
Intrigued by what he had heard the man circles back around, this time stopping in front of Summer with his hands crossed firmly behind his back. “Code. What code?”
“The week is long. The silver cat feeds when blue meets yellow in the west.” She admits and then laughs softly to herself. “You idiots broadcast that stupid shit all over Hawkins and wecracked it in a day! You really thought you were going to get away with it all, didn’t you? Well, let me tell you something. Whatever it is that you’re hoping to find on the other side of that gate, it isn’t going to be pretty. And it sure as hell isn’t going to help you do your dirty work.”
“What do you know about the gate?” His head perks up at the girls’ words.
“More than you ever will.” Summer snarls.
He opens his mouth to speak but stops when his eyes graze across her neck, seeing the scar that was so prominent he wasn’t quite sure how he hadn’t seen it until now. “What is that?”
Panic immediately courses through her, the same way it did every other time someone new asked about her scar, but she especially wasn’t too keen on the idea of having to tell a Russian officer who had snuck his way into America and infiltrated her hometown that a creature from another dimension, the one behind that wall, had attacked her and almost killed her.
So when she doesn’t answer he reaches for her face and forcefully moves it to the side revealing the full damage done to her neck. Both Robin and Steve grow angry and demand he release her but the man ignores them and continues to marvel at the scar like it were some kind of trophy.
“Get off of me!” Summer yanks herself from his hold and lets her hair fall back into place, the scar securely out of sight once again.
“Where did you get that scar?” The man questions.
“What does it matter? The only thing you should be worrying about is the fact that we cracked your code and now people know you’re here.”
“Who knows we are here, bitch?”
“Uh, well, Dustin knows,” Steve interjects.
“Hey, Steve,” Robin says calmly and shakes her head when he looks at her, but he doesn’t seem to understand what she’s trying to say.
“Yeah, Dustin Henderson, he knows.” He continues.
“Steve!” The girls shout in unison, baffled by the lack of self-control he had over his own mouth.
“Dustin Henderson.” The younger boys name rolls off of the Russian’s tongue. “It is your small, curly-haired friend, yes?”
“Oh, curly-haired. Great hair. Small. Kind of like a 'fro. Yeah.”
“Where is he?”
“Oh, he’s long gone, you big asshole.” Steve laughs right in the man’s face. “And he’s probably calling Hopper and Hopper’s calling the US Calvary. They’re gonna come in here, commando-style, guns a-blazin’, and kick your sorry asses back to Russia. You’re going to be two pieces of toast.” He snickers, ending his little speech, the smart-ass smile on his face not budging one bit.
The officer’s eyes squint with rage, anger suffusing through him as he contemplates whether to believe Steve or not. Of course, he didn’t want to, but he couldn’t help but feel slightly threatened by the idea of being caught. Though, he couldn’t let his authoritative presence falter. He had a small army of men to lead and he needed to be smart about it.
So he bites back the anger and replaces his scowl with a passive-aggressive smile before standing tall, straightening his uniform and saying “Is that so?”
“Mmm, yeah,” Steve says proudly, Summer and Robin giggling at his response. The drug was still coursing through them strongly and manipulating their behaviour, making it almost impossible not to want to giggle along helplessly.
On the other hand, if it weren’t for whatever they’d been injected with then Summer would most likely be an absolute wreck by now and possibly be having some sort of mental breakdown, which wouldn’t be of help to anyone.
While the three young Americans continue on with their little fit of laughter, the officer begins to join in, though of course, his intention was to mock them. He looks to Dr Zharkov, who is practically emotionless, and just as he is about to open his mouth to speak an alarm begins to blare throughout the facility. An alarm not unlike the one that had gone off when their presence in the secret underground base had been compromised.
From outside the door, soldiers could be heard yelling and frantically running around, which causes a panicked expression to spread across the two Russian men’s faces. Even more so when Steve give them a shrug as though to say 'I told you so’ and licks his bottom lip with amusement.
The officer grunts something to the doctor and then moves to take his leave from the room, stalking towards the door as a crowd of soldiers standing there waiting on the other side. The trio watch as the shorter man disappears amongst the crowd, though they could still hear him barking orders, even after the door had shut again.
“Hey, Mr doctor, sir,” Robin whispers to Dr Zharkov but he doesn’t seem phased at all by it, ignoring her completely. “You think you could loosen these cuff thingys a little? They’re kinda cutting off my circulation.”
It’s only seconds later when the door swings open and a couple of familiar faces come running in. Summer only manages to catch a small glimpse of the pair but she’s overwhelmed with joy when she sees Dustin. Though the boy was too busy charging at Dr Zharkov with some sort of an electrical prod in hand and rams it into the man’s stomach, sending him back into the wall and they all watch as he crumples to the floor, smoke sizzling from the now charred circle in his clothing.
“Hey! Henderson! That’s crazy. I was just talking about you.” Steve begins happily, his voice turning into a soft mumble and the boy immediately tends to the shackles and restraints holding the trio in the places.
“Dustin!” Summer exclaims, never having been so happy to see the younger boy in her life and once he and Erica had freed both Steve and Robin he stands in front of Summer, tugging and loosening the cuffs around her hands before looking at her with all seriousness.
summary;in which the small town of hawkins is in immediate danger and it’s up to summer bradshaw and her friends to save it… again.
warnings;this story may contain explicit language, sexual content, violence, alcohol and triggering topics such as: anxiety, sexual assault, nightmares, blood and death. please read at your own risk.
“WE WERE SO CLOSE.” Summer exhales, with her eyes clenched shut, trying to hold in the various emotions coursing through her. How could she have let this happen? She thought. How could she have let the key to their freedom fall from her grasp so easily?
Every ounce of hope the trio had of escaping the secret Russian facility was long gone now and the harsh reality had started to settle in.
Blood rushes to the couple’s heads, a side effect from the uncomfortable position they were in. Summer’s arm was starting to numb, a tingling feeling working its way down to her elbow, not unlike the feeling she’d been getting the previous few days, and the wetness of her eyes had begun to spill over the edge.
A sniffle escapes her as her shoulders shake from the sobs, betraying her in her attempts to hide the extent of how frightened she truly was. Summer was an emotional person, everyone that knew her well enough knew that, and sometimes her feelings simply got the best of her. It was both a blessing and a curse; it showed she cared but sometimes depicted her to be weak and irrational.
The brunette blamed herself, and only herself, for this. For allof this. She could’ve told Dustin from the start that it was too dangerous to go snooping. That they should’ve just gone straight to Hopper. Perhaps instead of living what could possibly be their last moments alive, they’d be spending their night with their family and friends, celebrating their country whilst watching fireworks and riding the carousel at the fair. Eating fairy floss and winning stuffed animals.
“Sum, hey, it’s okay.” Steve tries to reach for her but fails, his restraints not letting him move in the direction he wanted. “Don’t cry. Please.”He pleads. All he wanted was to hold her, feel her in his arms and reassure her that they’ll be okay. He wanted her to know that he was going to protect her so long as his heart was still beating.
With a hint of guilt, he bangs his head on the cold ridged floor and the room falls silent, an abundance of horrific thoughts of how the Russians would ‘get rid’ of them swirling in their minds. The quiet remains for a few minutes and only breaks when the blonde starts to snicker. Her small snorting noises filling the air.
“I’m sorry.” She tries to say but her laugh muffles her words, rendering them incoherent.
Both Summer and Steve turn their heads upwards at the girl, both sets of brows inched together. They couldn’t believe what they were seeing and hearing.
“Are you laughing?” Steve scrunches his face, the whole thing disturbing him a little. Who in their right mind has a laughing fit when they’re most likely about to be murdered by Russian soldiers?
“I’m sorry! I’m sosorry. It’s just… I can’t believe I’m gonna die in a secret Russian base with Steve 'the hair’ Harrington and Summer Bradshaw. It’s just too trippy man.”
“We’re not gonna die. We’re gonna get out of here, okay? I promised. Just— you gotta let me think for a second.” Steve’s forehead creases as he tries to come up with some sort of plan, some way to get them back home and safe but his thoughts are interrupted once again by the blonde.
“Do you guys remember, um, Mrs Click’s Sophomore History class?” Her voice shakes a little with nerves but her question certainly intrigued them.
Summer recalls it immediately, memories of her and Steve popping into her mind. For Steve, it takes a little longer for him to remember and when he does a smile pulls at the side of his lip.
Like Summer, Steve wasn’t that great at school but he got by just the same. It was no surprise when he would get called upon for talking in class or not finishing the required work on time, but Mrs Click’s class was different. If it weren’t for that class then Steve might never have befriended Summer, or in retrospect, found the love of his life.
For years Steve had only known Summer as 'the quiet girl that hung out with Jonathan Byers’, never really giving her so much as a second glance. It wasn’t until they were seated next to one another that he’d noticed how beautiful and intriguing she really was. Even under her baggy clothes and long brown hair that most of the time obscured her eyes from his view. From that day onward Steve made it his primary mission to befriend her because, as intense as it had sounded, he couldn’t live a life without her once she was in it.
“Mrs Clickity-Clackity. That’s what us band dweebs called her. It was first period, Tuesday’s and Thursday’s so Steve was always late.” Robin continues on when neither of the couple responds, too caught up in their own thoughts, though they were confused as to where exactly she was going with it.
“You always had the same breakfast. Bacon, egg and cheese on a sesame bagel. I sat behind you both two days a week for a year, watched your friendship bloom and saw how Summer crawled her way up the food chain to sit with you. Mister Cool and Miss Perfect. The King and Queen of Hawkins High themselves. Do you even remember me from that class?” The couple remains silent, the hurt in her voice becoming more prominent with each word and she lets out a hopeless chuckle. “Of course you don’t. But Steve, you were a real asshole, you know that?”
“Yeah, I know.” Steve sighs, agreeing to the statement with disappointment in his tone.
“But it didn’t even matter. It didn’t matter that you were an ass. I was still… obsessed with you. Even though all of us losers pretend to be above it all, we still just wanna be popular… accepted, normal.”
Summer felt bad for the girl, even with her confessing that she may or may not have had feelings for Steve. She knew what it was like to be in the shadows, to not be noticed by those around you and while she managed to escape that, Robin was still living it.
The brunette didn’t say a word, mostly because she couldn’t muster up anything that wouldn’t come out the wrong way. While she was all well and good with the girl now it did annoy her a little to know that she was right about all glares Robin shot her way in Mrs Click’s class. Summer wasn’t mad, in fact, she felt sorry for the girl and a twinge of guilt builds up in the pit of her stomach as she waits to hear her boyfriends response to it all.
“If it makes you feel any better, having those things isn’t all that great. Seriously. It just baffles me. Everything that people tell you is important, everything that people say you should care about, it’s all just…” Steve pauses and lets out a small chuckle before continuing. “…Bullshit. But I guess you gotta mess up to figure things out, right?”
“I’ve definitely learnt so.” Summer adds, a solemn feeling settling over her.
“Hell, I’ve made some of the worst mistakes of my life in the last couple of years. I lost sight of what was important to me and all because I felt the need to prove myself to people I thoughtwere my friends. I didn’t even realise those I was hurting along the way.”
“I get that. I feel like my whole life has been… one big error.” Robin shakes her head and the couple laugh before agreeing.
“At least it can’t get any worse than this.” Summer shrugs, her hair falling in her face from the movement and she lets out a disappointed sigh. “You know, I wish we’d known each other in Click’s class. It would’ve been nice to have someone else to pick on Steve with.”
“Okay, I deserve that.” The boy laughs softly. “You probably could’ve helped me pass the class. Maybe instead of being here, I’d be on my way to college right now.” His words come out full of regret and his eyes shift into a state of despair.
College was a touchy subject for the boy, and Summer, and as selfish as it may have seemed, a part of her was relieved that he hadn’t gone off to college yet. Granted she knew how much it meant to him to prove to his father that he was more than a good-for-nothing freeloader.
He truly wasn’t given enough credit or the appreciation he deserved and if his father knew the things he had done, his sacrifices and the part he’d played in saving the world, on multiple occasions, then perhaps Steve wouldn’t feel so hopeless in the older man’s eyes.
“And I would have no idea that there were evil Russians’ beneath our feet, and I would be happily slinging ice cream with some other schmuck.” Robin continues.
Summer’s face contorts into a look of realisation before quickly fading away, a wave of sadness hitting her. “I’d be contemplating ways to tell my mom that I no longer want to continue on with my internship at the hospital and that, thanks to Hopper, I think I really wanna join Hawkins PD.”
“Wait, what?” Steve retorts, bemused by what he was hearing his girlfriend say.
“Yeah,” she smiles, though it didn’t hide the disheartened feeling gnawing its way through her because that dream wasn’t even an option anymore. “He told me I’d be great, even said he’d help me… but none of that matters anymore. All I know is that if this - if we… never get out of here, I’m glad to be stuck down here with the two of you.”
Tears had started to fill Steve’s eyes. For as long as he had known Summer she’d been contemplative and unsure of who she was and who she wanted to be. Never knowing what would come next for her and now,just when she figures it out it’s all going to come to an end.
Sure, the idea of her being a cop was unsettling, knowing that she’d be putting herself in harms way, constantly sacrificing herself to protect others, but then again, that’s exactly what she’d spent her life doing.
“I gotta say, it was fun while it lasted.” Steve sighs.
Summer opens her mouth to speak when a buzzer goes off and the main door opens once again. The smaller officer begins to chuckle in a menacing manner the second he sees the couple sideways on the floor, their attempts to escape amusing him greatly.
“Where were you two going?” He clicks his tongue again and orders the soldiers to prop them back up. “Try telling the truth this time, yes? It will make your visit with Dr Zharkov less painful.” He pushes down on the wound on Steve’s chin and the boy winces from the pain.
The man in the long white coat steps to Steve, a large needle in hand and his eyes grew wide with panic. “What is that thing?”
“It will help you talk.” Dr Zharkov says and advances on the boy.
“Did you even clean that thing?” Steve screams, only getting louder when the needle pierces into his skin. The second the piece of metal leaves his neck his head droops down and he goes quiet.
“What did you do to him?” Summer says angrily but her words fall on deaf ears as the doctor returns to his table and picks up another needle.
Robin starts to kick her legs before he even gets close to her. Two soldiers move to hold down her legs, another pushing her head to the side to expose her neck and she too is injected, her head falling the same way Steve’s had.
Again, Dr Zharkov heads to the table, picking up the last vile attached to a needle and gives it a quick little flick. Summer watches in horror as he strides her way, hostility in his step as he meets her side.
“Get away from me with that thing!” she screams but nothing was going to stop that serum from entering her bloodstream and her head drops between her shoulders just the same. The room begins to dim and eventually… it goes black.
summary;in which the small town of hawkins is in immediate danger and it’s up to summer bradshaw and her friends to save it… again.
warnings;this story may contain explicit language, sexual content, violence, alcohol and triggering topics such as: anxiety, sexual assault, nightmares, blood and death. please read at your own risk.
“STOP, PLEASE!” Summer pleads, her voice hoarse and knuckles split with blood as she bangs against the door. She heaves a sigh, letting out a few ragged breaths and softly rests her head against the cool metal. It was hard trying to keep calm when all she could hear were the violent groans coming from her boyfriend’s mouth as the soldiers laid into him in the next room.
It was killing Summer having to listen to the pain and torture the boy was enduring all whilst she hadn’t so much as a scratch beside the self-inflicted cuts across the back of her hands.
There were times where the room would go silent and she’d get her hopes up thinking it was over only for it to continue on a few seconds later. Steve was strong, Summer knew that, hell he’d singlehandedly fought off monsters from another dimension, but being wailed on by multiple professionally trained Russian soldiers was far different than any of the fights he’d encountered before.
As Summer peels herself away from the wall and prepares to hit it again, a loud beeping sound goes off and the main door opens up revealing two guards. They step inside, pulling along Robin, frustration and anger radiating off of her as she fights against their hold. An array of curse words leave her mouth, which seems to annoy the men and in retaliation, they harshly throw her to the ground.
Summer watches as Robin tumbles across the floor and races to help her. Guiding her to sit up and as she tries to remove the restraints from around the girl’s wrists the guards start barking orders at her. They gesture for her to move away, using their guns in a threatening manner, and when she does they fasten a pair of leather cuffs around her wrists too.
In doing so Robin sees the bloody mess that Summer’s knuckles had become and though the blonde doesn’t say anything her gawking eyes don’t go by unnoticed. Summer heaves a sign and nods toward the side door where some of her blood had smeared across the metal in her failed attempts to breakthrough.
“Steve’s in there.” She pauses for a second. “What about you? Are you okay?”
“Well, other than the shitty hospitality, yeah, I’m fine.” Robin huffs at the same time a loud groan is heard followed by dead silence. “Is that…”
Summer nods, a somber expression casting across her face and her head sinks down, lip trembling slightly. “It’s been going on for hours.”
“Hey, he’s going to be okay.” Her voice is a hushed tone as she tries to reassure the brunette. “He pinky swore that we were getting out of here together, no matter what, remember?”
The ghost of a smile graces Summer’s lips but it’s gone just as fast as it had appeared, her expression faltering as the side door finally begins to open. The girls’ attention immediately falls onto the unconscious boy being dragged carelessly towards them.
Steve’s head drooped between his shoulders as blood covered his now swollen face, crimson droplets falling onto the white collar of his Scoops Ahoy shirt. His hair was a dishevelled mess, sweat soaking the chocolate brown locks and causing them to curl. They watch in horror as he’s roughly thrown to the ground, his body limp from the state he was in.
“Steve? Steve! Baby, please wake up!” Summer cries out, struggling to get to him with her new restraints, but there’s no response from him at all. “What did you do to him? WHAT DID YOU DO?” She screams at the shorter man adorning a slightly different uniform to the other guards, though she hadn’t really noticed at the time, and out of nowhere the back of his hand collides with the side of her face.
“WHAT THE HELL!” Robin shouts and tries to shuffle towards her but is grabbed by guards before she can.
A seething pain instantly starts emanating through Summer’s cheek and as she writhes in pain for a moment, the shock of the blow consuming her, she too is grabbed by guards. Though while Robin gets tied to the cabinet against the back wall with her arms dangling above her aimlessly, Summer is forced into a chair.
One guard begins wrapping a rope around her body while another picks Steve up and shoves him into a chair behind her, their backs against one another as they’re bound together.
“Get your hands off of him! Get away! Don’t touch him!” Summer snarls, tears brimming her eyes and the ropes dig into her chest as she pulls against them.
The shorter Russian man, the officer of this whole operation they were running, slowly paces in front of her. A pleased smirk on his face as he stares down the now contained brunette and clicks his tongue a couple of times. There was nothing Summer hated more than an entitled male. Especially after her experience with Billy the year prior.
“Steve? Come on, please, wake up.” She pleads once more, throwing her head back in frustration.
“I think your friend needs a doctor.” The officer says, the first English words she’d heard from any of the Russian men leaving his mouth. “Good thing… we have the very best.”
The anger building up inside of Summer becomes too much for her to handle and she spits in the mans face, a decision she knew would have consequences, but she needed to show that she wasn’t scared of them. And that she wouldn’t stop fighting.
With a disgusted grunt, he wipes away her saliva and leans in closer. “You are going to regret that, bitch.” And for the second time, the back of his hand meets her face, sending her head to the side in a fast motion.
“You bastard! Get away from her!” Robin shouts and tries to pull free of the ropes binding her hands to the cabinet.
There was no doubt that the second hit would leave a mark, and as the taste of blood enters Summer’s mouth, she knows she’s right.
Satisfied with himself the officer exits the room, guards following close behind and leaving the two girls to their own devices. Immediately they try to set themselves free but there was no hope of doing so without any help. The bindings were far stronger than they looked and practically impossible to get off.
Out of pure frustration, Robin begins to shout for help, not that she really believed anyone was going to hear them. All the while Summer was scanning the room vigorously for anything they could use to get out when she spots a pair of scissors on the table next to where Robin was sat. She didn’t want to get her hopes up but it was exactly what they needed to escape and find the others. The only problem; they were out of reach.
“HELP! ANYONE, PLEASE HELP US!” Robin shouts one last time, growing more impatient by the second and angrily yanks her hands down at the rope, but just like every other time it doesn’t budge.
“Hey, would you stop yelling?” A voice mumbles, catching both girls off guard but instantly filling them with relief.
Summer lets out a small gasp, grateful to hear the voice of her boyfriend even if it was possibly for the last time. “You had me so worried. Are you okay?” She sniffles.
His head wobbles a little, still stirring from his unconscious state. “My ears are ringing and I can’t really breathe, my eye feels like it’s about to pop out of my skull but, you know, apart from that, I’m doing pretty good.” He widens his eyes in an attempt to wake himself up properly as a soft laugh musters from the two girls, glad that the brunet was okay. “Wait, I heard screaming. Sum… please tell-”
“Oh, my god, no, I’m fine.” She semi-lies in an attempt to keep him calm and rests her head against the back of his shoulder. “I was screaming for them to stop hurting you.”
He closes his eyes for a second as a wave of guilt washes over him, though he had no reason at all to feel at fault for her panicking, and when he opens them he sees the smeared blood on the door. “Is that… your blood?”
“Yeah, note to self…. don’t try to beat down a thick metal door with nothing but your bare hands.” She lets out a soft laugh.
Robin’s eyes dart between the couple, watching the conversation unfold and waiting to hear whether or not Summer was going to tell Steve what the Officer had done to her. Either way, he was going to know the second he saw the cut on her lip and the bruise forming around it.
“Summer…” Steve sighs. It was rare that he used her full name opposed to her nickname and that set her on edge a little.
“I’m fine, I promise, okay?”
“Did they touch you?” He presses.
Summer heaves a sigh, she wasn’t even sure why she was so afraid of telling Steve that they had but he was going to find out anyway. “When they brought you in I started shouting at them and that little officer guy backhanded me. And then again after I spit in his face.”
“Fuck, Sum.” He grits his teeth. “You can’t - you need to be careful.”
“I was just - I was trying - I had to protect you.” The boy falls silent. It was endearing to know she’d risked getting severely hurt to protect him but he was worried that they’d retaliate even further and hurt her worse.
“I’m fine, by the way, a few shoves and scrapes on the knees, but I’m fine.” Robin tries to break the ice and succeeds as both Summer and Steve smile at the girl.
Steve wasn’t all that worried about himself and though his main priority was Summer’s safety and whether or not the foreign men had hurt the girl he loved he, of course, was still worried about the wellbeing of his quirky new friend as well. He manages to turn his head enough to see the blonde tied up on the floor next to them, ignoring the agonising thumping as he does so.
“Also, the good news is that they’re calling you a doctor.” Robin chuckles from the floor beside them.
“Is this his place of work? I love the vibe. Charming.” The boy says as he takes in their surroundings, wincing from the small laugh that escapes his lips.
“Hey, Steve, you see that table over there to your right?” Summer gestures in the direction of said table but the brunet turns the other way mistakenly. “No, your other right, babe. And you see those scissors?” He hums in response.
“Wait, there’s scissors?” Robin shoots up, her posture straightening with hope.
“Yeah. I’m thinking that if we move at the same time, we could get over there.” Summer reveals her plan and the other two nod in agreement.
“I can kick the table and knock them into Steve’s lap,” Robin adds, earning approval from the couple.
“And I can cut the binds,” Steve says proudly before letting out an amused sigh. “Those morons. They left scissors in here?”
“Okay, ready, on the count of three, we’re gonna hop.” Summer instructs her boyfriend and the two ready themselves.
“Hop on three, good, we’ve got this.” He encourages.
“All right. One, two, three.”
Robin watches with anticipation as the two of them smoothly hop closer towards the table, landing with a bang but nothing loud enough to startle the guards outside and a sigh of relief escapes her. Summer revels in their accomplishment for a second before they hop again, getting even closer to the table. Closer to getting out of the hell hole they were in.
“Holy shit, this is gonna work! You’ve got this!” She lends them her support as they ready themselves once more.
“One, two, three!” The couple says in unison but it seems that they celebrated too early because rather than hopping closer to the table the two of them fall to the floor with a thud, letting out an array of groans as they writhe in pain.
“We almost had it.” Summer says through gritted teeth, disappointed in herself and hits her head on the floor out of anger, a range of curse words following right after.
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Summary: You’re finding it harder and harder to resist Steve.
A/N: Part two ya’ll! I’m pretty proud of how this turned out. I know it’s A LOT shorter than part one but I think I like it like this. I appreciate everyone’s feedback and support - I love hearing from you guys! :D Keep telling me what you guys like or don’t like, I love it.
Not my gif, credit to the owner
Monday morning rolled around and you were still all torn up.
Steve had really screwed everything up, and despite the fact he called to apologize, you were still angry. You were angry at him for not controlling his temper, you were angry at Tommy for being such a jackass, but mostly you were angry at yourself for letting your guard down. You knew better than to let Steve in, to fall for him. Yet here you were, having spent the entire weekend thinking about him, and you felt like someone had ripped your whole body in half.
You found Nancy and Jonathan before class, standing by their lockers. “Hey, Y/N,” Jonathan said. You handed him his coat, which you’d forgotten to give back Saturday night.
“You doing okay?” Nancy placed a hand on your shoulder, and you nodded. “I feel so awful about Saturday- all your hard work.”
They didn’t know about Steve and what almost happened in his car before the dance. “Yeah.” You said, pushing down any feelings you may have had about it. “But it’s fine. It’s over. No use crying over spilled milk.”
“You sound like my grandmother,” Jonathan teased, bumping you in an attempt to cheer you up. You smiled at your friends gratefully.
“Thanks for giving me a ride home, by the way,” you said, holding on to the straps of your backpack.
“Are you kidding? We wouldn’t abandon you at Homecoming from Hell. That’s what friends do, Y/N,” Nancy said, and the two of you smiled at each other.
“Plus, I doubt Steve could even drive. Did you see that black eye Tommy gave him?” Jonathan asked. Nancy smacked his shoulder. “What?” He asked in defense.
“It’s fine,” you said, shaking your head. “I don’t care. He was just a homecoming date, right?”
“The two of you seemed pretty close before everything hit the fan,” Nancy pointed out, debunking your thesis.
Your cheeks got red. You opened your mouth in protest, but you noticed Nancy and Jonathan weren’t looking at you anymore. You followed their gaze, turning around to look at the end of the hallway. There Steve was, walking in through the double doors and looking around. Looking for someone.
Looking for you.
His stupid, idiotic, handsome face was all torn up. He had a black eye, and his upper lip was all busted. A cut on the side of his face. He looked like someone had set him on fire, and you couldn’t help but feel bad for him. Your heart started racing again, like it always did when you saw him.
And then he saw you, across the crowded hallway, and you panicked. And just like Sunday morning, you ran. You darted in between Nancy and Jonathan, and pushed past all the people gossiping, feeling your eyes fill up to the brim with tears because you were so confused, so hurt and angry and fluttery and you hated it. You hated Steve for making you feel this way. You just ran and ran until you went outside, in the cold, not even caring that it was freezing and you didn’t have a coat. You finally stopped under the bleachers by the track to catch your breath.
Breathing heavily and feeling all the panic rise and fall in your chest, you sunk down into the gravel, shoving your backpack off your shoulders and burying your face in your hands. Hot tears fell down your cheeks, and you obsessively wiped them away, refusing. Not admitting they were there.
Why were you so emotional? Why did Steve make you feel so strongly? Why did you constantly feel like you were in an alternate dimension around him, and why did it scare you so much?
You didn’t know how long you’d been sitting there, but you snapped back to the present when you heard footsteps crunching in the gravel. You moved your hands from your face and saw Steve, standing with the sunlight right behind him, holding your coat in one hand and a bouquet of flowers in the other.
“Y/N? Are you okay?” He joined you on the ground, sitting next to you and placing your coat on your shoulders.
You wiped your face again. By this time your tears had stopped. You looked at him - god, Tommy had really done a number on him. It made you angry to think of someone hurting Steve’s face like that. Steve’s face was like a precious piece of art. To see it all torn up was… heart wrenching.
Instead of answering his question, you asked him one. “Does it hurt?” Your voice was small and soft and vulnerable. And you hated it but you were too tired to care.
Steve shrugged. “It did at first, but now not so much. Only stings when someone touches it. Killer headache, though. Like, absolutely killer.”
You tangled your hand in your hair, biting your lip for a second. You didn’t say anything.
Steve presented the bouquet of flowers to you. “These are for you.” Petunias and baby’s breath. “I’m really sorry, Y/N. About everything.”
You took the flowers, and looked at them for a few moments, contemplating your options. Your eyes flickered from the flowers to Steve, then back again. You were tired of all this inner conflict, arguing with yourself and giving yourself reasons not to give in. It was okay not to have self-control sometimes, right?
You took in a deep breath, and looked at Steve again. He was staring at you, waiting for you to do something- say anything. “I never asked you to defend me.” You said quietly, running your fingers over the petunia petals.
“I-I know,” Steve said, inching closer so your hips touched his. He was warm and his body was magnetic. “I know you didn’t. But I… I had to. Tommy was being such an asshole, and he pissed me off, and-“
“Why do you care what people say about me?” You cut him off, your voice still quiet. You didn’t sound angry, just confused. “I know we had that… that moment in the car, but you don’t know me. Your Nancy’s ex-boyfriend. You’re a popular senior on the basketball team with a big reputation and-“
“I like you, Y/N,” Steve cut you off, chuckling slightly. “Why does it have to be more complicated than that? I think you’re smart and beautiful and really cool, and maybe I don’t know you very well, but I know enough.”
You stopped, realizing your breathing was heavy again. “But Nancy…?”
“Nancy and I are fine. We’re friends. We had a relationship and it was an important part of my life, but it’s been two months and I don’t miss it. I’ve moved on, and so has she. Can’t you just give in a little? I know you feel something too.”
He was right, and you hated that he was able to read you so well.
You felt this big lump in your throat. You knew that if you tried to talk, you’d just burst into tears again. So instead you moved, shaking the gravel, and buried your head in Steve’s chest. His arm wrapped around your shoulders and you felt warm and safe, and all that panic faded away. “You’re right,” you said, speaking into his chest, your voice muffled like on a bad radio. “I do feel something.” You lifted your head slightly to look at him, and so he could hear you better. “I do, and it scares the shit out of me, Steve.”
“What are you so scared of?” He asked quietly, his other hand brushing your hair out of your eyes.
“I-I don’t know,” you mumbled. “Getting hurt, I guess. Screwing things up with Nancy. Falling for you and you turning out to be exactly like they said you were.”
“I’m not that guy anymore,” Steve said, looking into your eyes. “I’m different now, and for the better. We’ll take things slow, if that calms your nerves.” You nodded, and a small smile rose to his lips. “Yeah? So you want to…? You want to give this a shot?”
You nodded again, and the smile on his face grew twice in size. “I promise we’ll take it slow then, yeah?” he reassured you.
You bit your lip, sitting up so your head was parallel with his. “Maybe not too slow.” You whispered, leaning forward and finished what you started Saturday night. Your lips met his, soft and slow, and your arms wrapped around his torso. The two of you held each other and kissed for a few moments, breathing each other’s air and letting your hearts beat as one. Finally you pulled away, an inevitable and unstoppable grin on your face.
“Wow,” Steve said, breathless. You nodded.
“Yeah,” you agreed.
A/N: If anyone wants to draw that last scene I would LOVE to see it. I have no artistic ability but I want to see your interpretations. What are your favorite lines from this and part one? I love hearing stuff like that and fan art would be amazing! Also, if you want me to tag you in any future parts, inbox me! I will ONLY be tagging people who inbox me on it.
Summary: You’re in charge of homecoming but you don’t have a date.
A/N: OK, honestly I’m so proud of this you guys. It was like ten pages on a google docs. I hope you like it. I know a lot of people want a part 2 to twist of fate, and that will most likely happen pretty soon! But I want to do this as a series as well so we’ll see. Anyway, hope you all like it. I love the feedback, by the way, so tell me what you think!
Gif is not mine, belongs to the owner.
The sound of the phone ringing woke you up. Startled, you ran a hand through your hair and looked around before registering where you were. Home. In bed. Things were normal again, right?
Wrong. It was two a.m and the phone was ringing. Why did your parents agree to get you your own line? You quickly flicked on your bedside lamp and then picked up the receiver. “Hello?” You mumbled barely coherently, slowly sitting up in bed.
“Y/N?” It was Steve. You could tell by the way he pronounced your name. Just slightly different than everyone else did. Like it had more meaning coming from his mouth.
You let out a long yawn. “Yeah, Steve. It’s me. What’s going on? Why are you calling me at-“ you glanced over at the clock on your night stand. “Two thirteen in the morning?”
“I haven’t been able to sleep at all,” he said, and you could hear the tiredness in his voice, all groggy and deeper than usual. “Let me apologize. Let me make it up to you. I fucked up, okay-“
“Fucked up is putting it lightly,” you cut him off, your words sharp like daggers. “I don’t want to talk to you about it. Especially not now.”
Steve sighed on the other line. You could almost picture him running a hand through his hair. You hated that you knew him that well. “Go to sleep, Harrington,” You said, and didn’t wait for a response before hanging up the phone.
You tried to go back to sleep but your mind kept drifting back to a few days ago, when everything starting going to shit.
It had started on Monday.
You had been sitting at lunch with your two best friends, Jonathan and Nancy. You and Nancy had been really good friends since you moved to Hawkins back in November. When she started going out with Jonathan and you got to know him, the two of you started getting along really well - in a platonic way, of course. It was always the three of you, and though you knew Jonathan and Nancy liked have couple alone time, they also enjoyed hanging out with you. It was nice not being the third wheel even though you totally were the third wheel.
“So you’re telling me that you think Cyndi Lauper is better than Joy Division?” Jonathan asked, looking at you in disbelief, and, frankly, disgust.
“No, that’s not at all what I’m saying,” you said, sharing a glance with Nancy. “I’m saying that I think kids at the homecoming dance will like Cyndi Lauper better than Joy Division. I personally love Joy Division. But it’s an acquired taste, Jonathan. You have to admit that.”
You had all sorts of papers sprawled out on the table in front of you. You were in charge of planning the homecoming dance this year, and the set list was one of the most important aspects. You had to make sure to play stuff everyone would want to dance to. Otherwise they would just leave the dance. And while you loved Jonathan’s taste in music, it was not the same stuff everyone else liked.
“I thought you weren’t going to go,” Nancy pointed out. You nodded in agreement.
“Well I wasn’t. But I started to maybe consider it if Y/N was going to play Joy Division,” Jonathan defended himself.
“One song,” you said, scribbling something down on your list. “And you have to stay until the end.”
“Five songs,” Jonathan tried to negotiate.
“I have to play what everyone else wants to hear, Jonathan,” you rolled your eyes. “Two songs. Final offer.”
Jonathan just rolled his eyes and frustratedly stabbed a green bean through his fork. “Whatever,” he mumbled as he shoved the food in his mouth. Nancy hit him on the shoulder.
“Be nice,” she said, and he made a face at her. “And we’re going to the dance. Y/N is putting in a lot of hard work to make it fun. Plus, you look cute all dressed up.”
“God, you guys are adorable,” you said sarcastically. “Like really, my heart can’t take it anymore.”
Jonathan swallowed and shook his head. “Whatever, Y/N. You’re gonna be in an even mushier relationship someday, and you know what? I’m going to make fun of youwhen that happens.”
In response, you mimed shaking a magic eight ball, and turned it over to see the answer. “Hmm, outlook not so good, Byers.”
Nancy snickered.
“Why do I always feel like the two of gang up on me?” He asked even though all three of you knew the answer.
The subject of you not having a boyfriend was not addressed again until later that week, on Wednesday. You and Nancy were on your way to biology II, admiring the posters you spent all last night slaving over to advertise for homecoming.
“They really do look great,” Nancy said, smiling over at you.
You were proud. They did look great. People were paying attention to them. Your hard work was paying off. As you walked into bio, you passed a poster that said Do you have a date yet?
“Do you?” Asked Nancy as you set your books on the desk.
“Do I what?” You asked, not picking up on it.
“Do you have a date yet?” She quoted the sign, sliding down into the desk.
You shook your head. “No,“ you said casually, shrugging your shoulders. “I was just going to go by myself.”
Nancy looked at you like you were an idiot. “What?” You asked, furrowing your brows.
“Unacceptable!” She exclaimed, banging her hand on the desk for emphasis. It was then your turn to look at her like she was an idiot.
“It’s perfectly acceptable,” You retorted, opening your textbook to the chapter you were on. “Girls go to dances alone now, it’s fine.”
“No, I want you to have a date- hey, what about Steve?”
“Steve Harrington?” You said, nearly choking on your own saliva. “As in your ex-boyfriendSteve Harrington?”
Nancy scoffed. “We ended on good terms. We’re still friends.” She waved off the detail like it was nothing.
You didn’t feel the same way.
“I can’t do that. That’s too weird.” You hadn’t actually met Steve before- seeing as you moved to Hawkins just after he and Nancy broke up. You had seen him before, and knew abouthim, but never held a conversation. He was in the grade above you, and sporty and popular. He wasn’t in your circle and you certainly weren’t in his. Plus, he was your best friend’s ex - talk about weird. And he-
“I can see the gears turning in your head, Y/N,” Nancy interrupted your thoughts, and you snapped back into reality. “It’s not like you’re getting married to him. It’s just homecoming.”
“How do you even know he needs a date?” You asked, hoping that point would end the conversation.
“He told me he wasn’t going because he didn’t have one.” Nancy said, and when you looked at her weird, added. “We’re still friends. We talk every once in a while. What? Is that weird?”
“DoesJonathan know about this?” You asked, hoping to switch subjects. Nancy caught you in the act.
“Yes he does, and he’s fine with it. He and Steve are on relatively good terms, too, so stop trying the change the subject. You’re going to the dance. With Steve.”
And before you could protest any longer, the bell rang and class began.
You were hoping that Nancy would just forget that whole discussion never happened, but by the time lunch rolled around that same day, it was still the hot topic.
“So you’re going to the dance with Steve?” Jonathan asked, a teasing smile on his face.
“No, I never agreed to th-“
“Yeah, she is,” Nancy said, cutting you off. She looked at you sternly. “You’re not going to homecoming without a date, Y/N. That’s lame.”
“How do you even know he wants to go with me?” You asked, crunching down on a baby carrot in frustration.
“I guess I don’t,” Nancy said, biting her lip. She looked around the cafeteria. “But there he is now-“ she pointed, then shouted her next words, “Hey, Steve!”
The long-locked king of the basketball court whipped around, raising a brow in Nancy’s direction. He finally spotted Nancy waving him down, and sauntered over to the table, a cheeseburger from the lunch line in one hand. “Hey Nance, Byers.” He greeted each of your friends, then looked at you. “New girl.”
“This is Y/N,” Nancy said, nudging your foot under the table. “She started in like November, right?”
“Yep. November,” you said, nodding in agreement.
“Well, then I wish you a two-month late welcome to Hawkins,” Steve said, smiling at you in a friendly manner. You met his smile, but yours was awkward and forced, not charming and natural like his. He took a bite of his burger.
“Thanks,” You said, smiling. He was nice, but you didn’t want to go to homecoming with him. First of all you barely knew him, and secondly, no matter how many times Nancy insisted it was alright, it was still weird to you.
Nancy jumped in after a few moments of deafening, painful silence. “So anyway, Y/N needs a date to homecoming. You said you needed one too, right Steve?”
You gave Steve pleading eyes, as if you were begging him not to go along with this. You had accepted the fact that Nancy had weaseled her way into the situation and there was nothing you could do to stop it. But maybe there was something Steve could do.
Steve didn’t catch on to your hints. “Yeah, I do need one.” He looked from Nancy to you. “Did you want to go with me? Just as friends, of course.”
“Yeah, as friends,” Nancy added.
Jonathan, Nancy, and Steve all stared at you and you definitely felt the peer pressure. After a sharp inhale, you smiled unwillingly at Nancy. “Fine.” You looked back up at Steve, who was mid-burger right then. “Sure. Yes. I will go with you. As friends.”
So the plan was made. The homecoming game was Friday night, and the dance was Saturday night in the gym. While most girls in Hawkins would be spending Saturday getting their hair done, doing their nails, and last minute touch ups on their dresses, you would be helping decorate the gym and coordinating everyone else who was helping out. The dance started at seven, and you planned on being done decorating at five, which gave you a solid hour to get ready before dinner with Steve, Nancy, and Jonathan at six. Steve was going to pick you up and take you home. Talk about stressful.
While you were kind of irritated with Nancy, you also felt rather grateful towards her. She found you a date for homecoming, and she had been right. Girls who went alone were lame.
You spent all Saturday stressing out about streamers and balloons, and then sped home to get ready for the dance. The boys’ basketball team had won the game the night before, thanks to Steve, the team captain. You had gone to the game with Nancy (Jonathan had stayed home because he was a loser), and you remembered watching Steve running down the court. Once or twice, you could have sworn he looked right at you after making a basket. Why did your heart race when that happened?
Anyway, after decorating Saturday morning and afternoon, you went home and got ready, curling your hair as fast as you possibly could and rushing through your makeup routine. You had this gorgeous dark blue dress with black polka dots on the bottom hem and shoulder pads, you felt so cool with it on. So you wore that and some cute shoes. Seeing as it was January and freezing outside, you also slid on a coat.
Steve pulled up to your house at six on the dot, and rang the doorbell. You ran past your dad, who insisted on answering, and cut in front of him to open the door. “Hi,” You said, slightly out of breath. Steve looked really nice. Sport coat, dress pants. Your heart was racing again and you begged it to stop.
He opened the car door for you and brought you flowers, and was a total gentleman during dinner. It was so strange. From what you knew of Steve, he was a good guy, but Nancy must have been leaving out some kind of detail. Though she claimed she only broke up with him because she loved Jonathan more, you knew there had to be something wrong with him. So you were cautious and you looked for it. So far, nothing.
“So you were working on the decorations pretty much all day, huh?” Steve asked. You were in the car with him now, driving from the steakhouse to the school.
You nodded, fiddling with your wrist corsage. “Yeah, it was a miracle we got done before five. But it looks really good, I think. I’m excited to see it in full effect.”
“You like stuff like that? Planning events and organizing and decorating?” He asked, turning the radio down to a low hum so that the two of you could talk.
“Yeah,” you said, smiling at the thought. “Yeah, I do. I’m not a hundred percent sure yet, but I think I want to be a party planner or an event coordinator when I graduate. Could be fun.” You were both quiet for a beat. “What do you want to do?”
“After I graduate?”
“Yeah, you’re a senior, right? Do you have any ideas?”
Steve was silent. You looked up at him and saw he was shaking his head. “No, I really don’t. To tell you the truth, I’m kind of freaking out about it, too, because I… I have to figure something out, like, now, right?”
You could tell it was a touchy subject. “Well, it wouldn’t hurt,” You offered him a playful smile. “But you’ve still got some time.”
“We graduate in June.”
“Yeah, but you could take a year off. Do some travelling, self-discovery. Figure out who you are and what you want. No one is saying you have to know right away.”
“My dad is,” Steve said, turning into the school parking lot. “He wants me to have a plan, to know exactly what I want to do and where I want to go to college and where I want to live and who I want to marry and where I want my dead body buried. He’s nuts.”
You frowned slightly, and noticed that he was getting worked up over it. He put the car in park, and you placed your hand on his on the center console. Sparks shot through your veins, and you turned your head to look into his eyes. They were this deep, endless brown. Like a forest you could get lost in forever. You couldn’t help yourself. You wanted to get lost forever.
“Y/N…” Steve’s voice was low and unsure, and you could feel it. You felt the same way- unsure. But at the same time…
It felt so right.
“Steve…” Your voice paralleled his, and you felt his breath on your skin. Goosebumps. You leaned in slightly, knowing what was about to happen, and letting it.
His lips touched yours for half a second before there was a loud BANG on the windshield. Instinctively, you pulled away, looking through the glass to see Tommy H, supposedly one of Steve’s friends, laughing at the two of you’s startled expressions. Like, cackling. Ridiculously.
Your face turned bright red, and you all of a sudden felt really embarrassed and uncomfortable. So you took in a sharp breath, and opened the car door despite Steve’s protests. “Jesus Christ, Steve. If you’re gonna put the moves on a girl you should do it somewhere more private!” Tommy was shouting as you got out of the car. You felt red-hot humiliation light up your face, and turned on your heel to go inside.
“Tommy, why are you such an asshole?” You heard Steve say, but you didn’t turn back. You heard the car door shut and footsteps running towards you.
Steve had caught up with you. “Y/N, I’m sorry, okay? He’s just an idiot, and I-I didn’t mean for-”
“I know,” you stopped walking, turning to face him in the freezing cold. You’d left your coat in his car. “I know you didn’t mean to. It’s fine, okay? I’m just embarrassed, and I’m freezing, and I want to go inside, okay?” Your voice was shaky and on the verge of tears. You couldn’t believe Tommy had seen the two of you, and your almost moment. He was going to tell everyone about it, wasn’t he? God.
“Okay, yeah. Let’s go in.”
The gym looked amazing. You were so proud of all your hard work. The theme was Starry Night, so there were silver streamers and balloons all over the place. The art club had worked on a really pretty backdrop for the pictures, and it all just looked so good. Everyone seemed to already be dancing, and you could help but feel happy, despite all that drama in the parking lot, that people were having a good time.
“Wow, Y/N, this looks incredible,” You heard Steve say as you walked in. He placed a hand on the small of your back, and you let him.
“Thank you,” You felt the mood change, and you were grateful for it. Steve was really sweet, and you wanted to enjoy this night with him and your friends. This whole night was your baby- you’d organized and coordinated the whole thing and you really wanted people to enjoy it.
You spent the next hour or so dancing with him and Nancy, dragging Jonathan in as well. It was fun, and for once in your life you started to feel accepted, like you belonged there, on that technicolor dance floor with these people. Your friends. You were actually a part of this little group, and you liked it. For a moment, you even imagined what it would be like to be with Steve. It made you feel all warm and happy.
A slow song came on, and Steve asked you to dance. You nodded, and his hands found your hips. Your two bodies melted into one, swaying in time to the music. You were breathing the same air as him and you had no complaints. You closed your eyes and took it all in. Nothing could ruin this. Nothing at all.
“Looks like good ol’ King Steve found himself a new whore.”
Well, maybe that could.
You opened your eyes to see Tommy H and his girlfriend, Carol, pointing at the two of you and laughing. Your face got bright red and you took a step away from Steve, frowning.
“Hey, shut up, Tommy. Why can’t you just stay out of it?” Steve retorted, his face growing hard and stern.
“We just wanted to see you and the New Nancy,” Carol chimed in, and Tommy laughed. It was clear they were buzzed.
People were starting the stare, and you felt a lump start to grow in your throat.
“Just go away, before I have to do something we’ll both regret.” Steve threatened.
You jumped in, stretching an arm to block him from doing God knows what. “Steve, it’s fine-“
“No, it’s not fine,” Steve interrupted, looking down at you then back at Tommy. “He’s an asshole and he needs to learn his lesson.”
By this point everyone on the dance floor was staring, watching with anticipation.
“What are you gonna do ‘bout it, Harrington? You’re too big of a pussy to defend your new little slut.” Tommy taunted. “Hell, I-“
That was when Steve launched himself at Tommy, tackling him to the ground and throwing a hard punch. The crowd gasped, and all of a sudden kids started cheering “Fight! Fight!”
Tommy and Steve rolled around on the ground, each throwing punches and kicks and shouting at each other, and you stood there, heart racing. What were you supposed to do? You didn’t ask Steve to defend you- you weren’t his girlfriend.
They rolled around and eventually ran into the snack table, knocking the whole thing over. Punch and cake slices and chips flew everywhere, and some kids even cheered. The snack table collided with a cardboard pole holding up a bunch of streamers, and soon all your pretty stars began raining down, until your Starry Night turned into a meteor shower.
Two teachers eventually broke the fight up, and dragged both Steve and Tommy away to be lectured or punished or whatever.
“Oh, my god,” you muttered, watching all your hard work crumble around you. You were filled with absolute rage. Your eyes filled with red-hot tears, stinging as they ran down your face.
Nancy and Jonathan found you in all the chaos, and dragged you out of there before you screamed at someone. You were outside, walking with them towards Jonathan’s car, silently crying.
“Where’s your coat?” Nancy asked, an arm around you comfortingly.
“Steve’s car,” you managed to sniffle out, running a hand over your face. You were shivering, so Jonathan took his off and gave it to you. Thank god you had your friends, because you probably wouldn’t have been able to make it home.
Jonathan and Nancy drove you home and you sat in bed, still in your dress, staring at the wall and replaying all the events of the evening. You and Steve almost kissed. You and Steve dancing and holding hands, and he was so sweet until he ruined everything. You’d never asked him to defend you, never asked him for anything. He was trouble and you knew it the whole time. Why couldn’t you have just listened to your instincts? Because now here you were, sobbing and screaming into a pillow because you couldn’t decide if you were angry or heartbroken
It was six a.m. You had only slept a little. Forgiving Steve was on your mind, but you couldn’t decide if you wanted to forgive him or if you just wanted to go back to the car, and kiss him for real.
You threw on some tennis shoes, sweatpants and a hoodie, and snuck out the back door. You needed to do something- laying in bed crying about it wasn’t helping a damn thing. So you jogged down the street and when that didn’t help, you kept going. Your hair was still curled and your makeup all smudged - you looked like a melted clown - but you didn’t care. You just needed to think.
So you ran, and you kept running. Most people were in church or at an early breakfast or even still asleep, and you couldn’t bring yourself to care. You just kept running.
Finally, you stopped to catch your breath, in front of some random house. You took in the scenery for a moment, and realized you recognized the car in the driveway. Steve’s. And for a moment you thought maybe you were supposed to end up here.
But you shook the stupid thought away and you kept running.
Summary: After years of silence, you and your ex-best friend Steve start talking again.
A/N: Hey guys! This is my first Stranger Things fic, but I just had to write it, yanno? This will probably be a series if the first part gets a good reaction. Gosh Steve is so dreamy. Drop requests in my inbox if you have anyyy. I LOVE FEEDBACK, so gimme some!!!!
Also, gif belongs to owner.
You had been Steve Harrington’s across-the-street neighbor your entire life. You grew up riding bikes with him up and down the street, swimming in his pool on hot summer days, and sneaking out after bedtime to tell scary stories and catch fireflies. You were inseparable for the longest time- your parents and his even joked that you’d grow up and get married one day.
But Steve was a year older than you, so when he moved on to middle school while you were still in fifth grade, you grew apart. It wasn’t heartbreaking or anything- it happens. Kids grow apart. By the time you caught up with him in high school, his reputation as King Steve had been built. He was popular, dated all kinds of girls, captain of the basketball team, and had parties nearly every weekend his parents were out of town.
You weren’t like that. You hated big parties. You thought the concept of getting sloshed and screaming all night was idiotic (though you’d never done it before). You focused on your schoolwork, joined the school newspaper and yearbook staff. You and Steve didn’t run in the same circles hardly at all. Occasionally you’d chat in the hallway, but it was never anything important. You interviewed him once for an article regarding the basketball team. He stopped by with a casserole for your mom from his mom. Nothing crazy.
Last you’d heard, Nancy Wheeler had dumped him, after nearly a year of going out, for Jonathan Byers. But it didn’t make any difference to you. You had no feelings for Steve.
But then your car broke down.
“Radiator’s shot,” Said your father after hanging up the phone from his call with the mechanic. You stood in your living room, arms crossed in frustration. You had barely made it home from school today before your car sputtered out and died in the driveway. “Paul says he can’t get the parts for another two weeks.”
You frowned and let out a sigh. Your mom, who stood next to you, placed a hand on your shoulder. “It’s going to be fine, sweetie,” She said, then looked at your father. “So how is she going to get to school then, Rob?”
“I can’t take her,” Dad replied - you hated it when your parents talked to each other like you weren’t in the room - “I have to be at work at 7:00.”
The three of you stood there in silence for a moment, all thinking, until your mom spoke up. “Oh, I know! I’ll ask Joanne if Steve can take you!” She grabbed the phone and dialed before you could even say anything.
“Wait, Mom,” You said while she waited for Mrs. Harrington to answer. “Don’t- that’s embarrassing. Steve doesn’t want to drive me to school. He’s-”
Your mom put a hand up to silence you.
“Shh. It’s not like it’s a huge inconvenience, Y/N,” she said, “He lives across the street. You go to the same- Hi, Joanne!” Mom’s voice went up an octave when Mrs. Harrington answered.
Your cheeks turned red just listening to one end of the conversation. You and Steve hadn’t had a real conversation since you were eleven years old. He didn’t want to roll up to school and have you, literally the biggest dork in the world, get out of his car.
These dark thoughts proceeded as your mom continued her conversation, and after a minute or two, hung up the phone. You and Dad looked at her expectantly.
“She says Steve would be delighted to take you to school. See? I told you there was nothing to worry about.” She said.
“Delighted?” you repeated incredulously.
“Well, maybe I flourished a little,” She admitted, grinning like there was nothing wrong at all. “Anyway, he’ll be out front at 7:30 tomorrow. He has basketball practice after school until five, so you need to sit in the gym until he’s done so he can come get you.”
“What-”
“Y/N, he’s doing us a real favor by driving you back and forth. You can wait. It’ll give you some time to do your homework, read, whatever. You’ll be fine.”
Shit.
It was January. School had been back in session from winter break for about a week, but it was still freezing outside. You stood out at the edge of your driveway all bundled up- heavy coat, gloves, scarf, hat, etc, at 7:30, waiting for Steve to come get you. It was so cold you could see your breath when you exhaled.
Where was he?
Finally, a car pulled up to the curb, and the passenger’s window rolled down, revealing good old Steve Harrington with his hands on the wheel. He looked at you, all bundled up, and raised a brow. “You look… warm.”
You got in the car without a reply. You had no intention of making any conversation with Steve- he was just giving you a ride. There was no reason for awkward small talk- this was nothing but temporary, neighborly favor. After buckling up, Steve pulled off. The air was stiff between the two of you, and there was nothing you could really do about it, even if you wanted to. The plan was to power through the World’s Most Awkward Car Ride, then move on with your day. After thirty seconds of agonizing silence, Steve finally turned on the radio. Thank god, you thought, leaning your head against the back of the car seat. The music helped - gave you something else to focus on.
That first car ride was completely silent until you arrived to school. As soon as Steve put it in park, you grabbed your backpack off the floor and rushed to get out. “Hey, wait,” he said abruptly as you started to stand up. You looked at him, eyebrows raised. “Practice gets over at 5. Meet me back here then, yeah?” You nodded, then without another word, got up and went inside.
School was a blur. All you could think about was Steve. You convinced yourself it wasn’t for any other reason than you being traumatized after that awkward car ride. You convinced yourself it couldn’t be for anything else. You tried to focus on your assignments and note-takings and projects, but it was difficult. Your mind kept going back to Steve, and how awkward the ride home was going to be. You hated your car for breaking down.
After the final dismissal bell rang, you reported to the gym to sit and watch Steve’s practice. You made yourself as comfortable as possible on the hard wooden bleachers, opening your calculus book in your lap and starting your homework. A few minutes later, the team strolled out of the locker room, all shorts and shirtless, goofing off the way teenage boys do. The coach called their attention, and started off with drills. You would look up every once in awhile, but for the most part just focused on your schoolwork.
About a half an hour later, you had all your homework done, and nothing to occupy your time. In your rush this morning you’d forgotten to pack a book or your Walkman, so basically you were forced to watch their stupid practice. They were doing some sort of shooting exercise, passing the ball to each other and running up and down the court, taking shots and other basketball terms. It was all very boring, but it was all you had. You kept your eyes on Steve, finding it kind of endearing how into it he was.
“Hey, Harrington, looks like the president of your fan club decided to show up,” You heard one of the other boys shout during a water break. The boy pointed at you, and a handful of others laughed. Your face turned slightly red, and you looked down, trying to ignore them.
You heard Steve’s response. “Shut up. I’m giving her a ride home- don’t be a dick, Jacob.”
The practice ended, and you waited in the hallway outside the locker room. He walked out after a few minutes, his long locks slightly wet from either a shower or sweat- you couldn’t tell.
“Hey, Y/N,” He said, slinging his bag over his shoulders. You gave him a thin-lipped smile, and the two of you started the walk to his car.
“So what happened with us?” He asked after a few minutes of silence.
“What?” You asked, furrowing your brows. He opened the door for you, and you walked out into the brisk cold.
“You know, us,” He repeated, looking over at you. The wrinkles in his forehead were adamant and demanded an answer. “We used to be really close, Y/N.”
“Yeah, when we were, like, eight,” You said, shrugging. “Now we’re not. You went off and did your whole thing,” You made a gesture with your hand. “And I did mine. No one said we had to be best friends forever.” You offered him a small smile in condolences.
Instead of dropping it, Steve stopped in his tracks. “Wait,” he said, shaking his head slightly. “What ‘whole thing’?” He asked, mimicking the gesture you had made. Was he offended?
“I mean…” You trailed off. “I don’t know, your thing, you know? The whole popular, dating girls, going to parties thing. I don’t know.” You kept walking and Steve followed you.
“And that’s why we stopped being friends?” he asked.
“I guess so,” You said, shrugging again like it was no big deal. And it wasn’t, right? And why was Steve so adamant about finding out what happened? Why did he care so much?
The two of you trekked up the little hill to reach the parking lot, and Steve’s car sat there, waiting for the two of you to get in and end this little adventure. Steve didn’t say anything, and neither did you. Nor did either of you make any move to get in the car. You just stood there, by the passenger’s door, looking at him while he was looking at you.
“Well that sucks,” Steve said after a while. You looked at him, puzzled. “It does, it sucks,” He went on. “I wish you would have said something. I thought you were mad at me or something. I missed hanging out with you, Y/N. Now I feel like I don’t even know you anymore.”
“Yeah, well, we’re different people,” You said rather blatantly. Steve looked at you like he was slightly offended. “Well, we are,” you pointed out, getting in the car. He followed your movement. “You’re the jock with the history and I’m…” You trailed off, hands hovering over the seat belt.
“You’re what?” Steve prompted you to finish. He put the keys in the ignition.
“And I’m not like you, Steve.” You said, buckling in and refusing to look at him the rest of the way home.
The next morning Steve was at your house a half-hour early, and rang the doorbell about a thousand times until you answered it in your pajamas - a tank top with no bra and an old pair of your dad’s flannel pants. “What?” You demanded, arms crossed over your chest and bed head blowing from the freezing air creeping its way inside. You had literally just woken up five minutes ago, and ‘morning person’ was not on your list of attributes.
“Good morning, sunshine,” Steve grinned, his hair blowing in the freezing cold air. You step aside so he could walk in, mostly so you could shut the door. “I”m going to take you to breakfast. Go get dressed.”
“What?” You repeated, eyebrows furrowing so deep you almost struck oil. “No. I’m not going to breakfast with you.” You flat-out refused. Mornings were for coffee and contemplation, not going to breakfast with boys you barely knew anymore.
“Come on, pretty lady,” He teased, flipping a fly-away piece of your hair. You took a step back. How was he so cheerful? First of all, it was seven in the morning, and secondly, you had been kind of harsh to him the night before. He should be furious with you, or at least passive-aggressive. “Let me take you to breakfast. I’m not going to stop talking until you agree to it. Did you watch the basketball game on TV last night? Wow, those Los Angeles Lakers are pretty basket-tastic, huh? I just made up that word just now, it’s a combination of-”
“Fine!” You exclaimed, your eyes growing wide. He grinned again. “Give me five minutes. You’re such a child.”
He took a seat on a chair in the foyer, and you rolled your eyes before marching back upstairs to your room. Quickly you changed into a sweatshirt and jeans, put on a thin layer of makeup, and pull your hair into a ponytail.
You walked back downstairs to find Steve no longer sitting- instead, he was looking at the pictures on the wall in the living room. He was looking at one of you and your old dog, Trixy, before she died a few years ago. You were a freshmen in that picture, kneeling next to the dog in the backyard. Steve hadn’t noticed you standing in the doorway yet, so you took a moment to just study him. He was so different now. You thought he was cool, smooth King Steve. You’d thought for years that he was really intimidating, completely opposite from the boy you played house with growing up. But maybe now he was reverting back to that little boy. Maybe now he was coming down from his rebellious teenager phase and learning how to see good in things again. It was weird looking at him like this- he didn’t know you were there so it was like seeing an animal in its natural habitat.
You cleared your throat after a few moments, and he turned around, cheeks slightly flushed. “Ready?” He asked, taking his keys out of his pocket and twirling them around his finger. You nodded.
“I guess,” You muttered, following him out the door.
You thought he was going to take you to Benny’s (which reopened over Christmas - someone had bought it and it wasn’t nearly as good) or that one restaurant downtown. But then Steve started driving towards the Interstate, away from town. “Where are we going?” You asked, eyebrows furrowed.
Steve looked over at you for a moment before moving his eyes back to the road. “I’m taking you to breakfast,” He said, like there was nothing weird about the fact that they were leaving town.
“No, you’re abducting me,” You retorted, looking at him like he was a psychopath. “We can’t leave town to get breakfast, we’re going to miss school.”
“You don’t think I know that, Little Miss Honor Roll?” Steve glanced over at you again. Why did your heart race a little faster when that happened? “We’re not going to school, genius.”
“I didn’t agree to that,” You said, crossing your arms over your chest. “Turn the car around, Steve. I can’t skip.”
“Yes, you can,” He insisted, smiling at you for a second. “For once in your life, give in to a little peer pressure, yeah?”
You rolled your eyes. “What are you going to say when they call our parents?” You asked.
“They won’t,” He said. “I called the school twice - pretending be either of our fathers and said we were sick. They won’t be expecting us today- I like that sweatshirt, by the way. Your dad go to IU?”
“No, I want to though,” You said, glancing down at the Indiana University logo on your sweatshirt. You shook your head, realizing he was getting you off topic. “You pretended to be my dad on the phone?”
“Yeah, wasn’t hard.They should really be careful, someone’s going to abuse how easy it is to fool the receptionist one of these days.”
“You’re an idiot.”
He drove to Terre Haute, which was a bigger city about twenty minutes from Hawkins on the highway. You listened to the radio on the way there and didn’t talk much. It wasn’t nearly as awkward as it was yesterday. And you actually felt… comfortable. It was strange, but seemed kind of natural, actually. You and Steve. Hanging out like you used to. Well, not exactly like you used to, because you weren’t eleven anymore. But similar.
Steve picked this little diner near a truck stop area and you found a little table in the corner, sitting across from him and looking at him studiously. He was so weird. Did he hit his head?
“So, you’re not mad at me?” You asked after the waitress took your drink order. Steve looked up from his watch. “About last night?” You pressed. “I was kind of a bitch.”
“No,” He shook his head, his hair bouncing along. “You weren’t a bitch. You were honest. And it didn’t kind of hurt, but at the same time, it was refreshing. Not many people just give it to me straight, you know? Sometimes I feel like people are walking on eggshells around me so much and I just like it when people are just straightforward and honest.”
“Right,” you shook your head. He really was an idiot. You didn’t know how to talk to him. “So this isn’t just some plot to get me alone so you can murder me?”
“Nah,” Steve shrugged, flashing you a thin-lipped smile. “I just wanted to hang out with you. Yesterday made me realize how much I missed. How much I missed and how much I missed you.”
“Missed me?” You repeated, feeling your heart start to thud. “That’s dumb. You didn’t miss me. We were just kids then.”
“You were my best friend for like ten years, Y/N,” Steve said. “I missed you. Yeah. I did. Deal with it.”
The rest of breakfast was catching up. He told you how he got into basketball and asked you questions about the school newspaper and what you were interested in. He said what he was interested in and talked about his breakup with Nancy and how it never actually happened. She’d never even said anything to him about it, just started dating Jonathan like nothing even happened with Steve. You felt bad for him, but he seemed like he was alright now. He was laughing and making jokes and being a goofball. And you started to agree with him - you missed him. And that scared the shit out of you.
Christmas break is a fucking nightmare for everyone; Billy has run away from home, Steve’s trapped with his parents. But probably worst of all - they’ve had nothing to do with each other.
The Party, Nancy, Jonathan and Steve get an unexpected visitor. Billy intrudes on Steve’s castle of solitude after a particularly rough night with Neil.
Hawkins holds secrets, the kind that conquer and divide. When Billy barely survives the attack of the Mind Flayer on that fateful hot Fourth of July, he is left blinded and scarred in more ways than one. As Hawkins settles back into a new normal, Steve makes a spur-of-the-moment decision to offer his friendship to the one person who he feels might need it most: Billy Hargrove. Though the darkness of the Upside Down may try to rip people apart, sometimes it’s the thing that brings them together.
Hello folks! I’ve been working on this fanfic for quite a few months now, and I’m finally done! It’s completely written and is going to be about 22 chapters! I can never do anything halfway, so I also drew a front and back cover for this fic, complete with playlist, which will function as the chapter names! I’m gay and love playlists!
The themes this story tackles are forgiveness, growth, and love— and it focuses on many different relationships aside from the main pairing. There’s lots of sibling growth between Max and Billy, and I tried to bring a lot of the background characters forward, giving them some life and to enrich the world a little bit.
The first two chapters cover seasons two and three, with a few scenes added in. From chapter three onward, it’s all fic baby! I’ll be updating frequently, I just gotta give each chapter one last dusting before I post!
You can access the story by clicking on the title above, or
prudence sinclair hargreeves and the universe created for her AS WELL as carrie “011” and the universe created for her AND princess porcelain’s universe have been moved over to @bbrowningbooks for PERSONAL REASONS so if you want to read their stories and see edits for their respective stories follow @bbrowningbooks
Synopsis: A reader insert where the reader is Mike’s oldest sister, who has already graduated and works at the police station. She has always been infatuated with Hopper, and he seems to be quite taken with her as well. This part takes place in season 1 episode 5
Word count: 4.2k+
Warnings: swearing probably. Talk of funerals and dead bodies. A character learns how to shoot a gun, in probably too much depth. My bad writing/different writing styles from different times I added to the chapter. Age gap relationship. And eventual Stranger Things canon gore.
A/n: It has been a very long two years since my last update. I was honestly so uninspired because the show wasn’t on and I wasn’t getting any new content. Besides that, I was busy with school and life, as well as not knowing how to end this chapter. But here it is. Let me know if you no longer want to be tagged in this, or if you’re new and want to be added to the taglist. I’m already a few paragraphs into part 5.
After a restless night, I barely slept a wink because I was too busy thinking about the Byers’ and Hop, my alarm goes off informing me that it’s time to get ready for the funeral. Will’s funeral. A part of me keeps thinking that he’s not actually dead, especially since Mike seems more anxious than upset as he fidgets at the breakfast table.
I put on my black dress and heels in a blur, not even registering that I’m going through the motions until I’m standing fully dressed in front of my mirror. Mike comes in a few minutes later and asks me for help with his tie; dad was choking him and he says it still doesn’t look right. Very few words are exchanged throughout the family this morning, everyone is just going through the motions.
The funeral is a bit better, I have to help Jonathan with his tie too. I stand behind his seat, hand resting on his shoulder as the Priest speaks, and I glare at Lonnie as he tries to act sad that Will is ‘dead.’ Mike, Dustin, and Lucas are whispering amongst themselves, further fueling my theory that they know something about Will that they aren’t telling me.
As the service continues I start to glance around the crowd in hopes to find Hop, we didn’t part on good terms last night but he said he’d be here. As much as I hate to admit it, especially if all of this is fake and Will is still alive somewhere, I need Hop. I need him by my side, intertwined pinkies, or wrapped up in his side as he speaks soothing words, even if he doesn’t believe what he’s saying and just reiterating the fake reassurances that my mom has told me a thousand times already.
He’s still not here by the end of the service, making me extremely anxious that something did in fact go wrong last night. The nerves in the pit of my stomach are wound so tight that I feel like I’m going to vomit. After the line of people telling the Byers’ the cookie cutter ‘I’m sorry’s,’ and the ‘if there’s anything I can do’s,’ I walk over to Joyce and Jonathan to see if they’ve talked to Hop at all.
“Have you guys seen Hop?” I ask Jonathan and Joyce quietly, trying my hardest to ignore Lonnie.
“Hopper is a no good drunk, you’d do better without him in this town,” the man I was attempting to avoid rolls his eyes at me.
“Oh fuck off Lonnie!” everyone still at the gravesite turns to look at me with shocked expressions, except Jonathan who’s trying not to laugh. “Go back to your cheap whore.”
“(Y/N) (Y/M/N) Wheeler!” mom says sharply from behind me, Mike is audibly laughing.
“We were all thinking it!” I defend, crossing my arms over my chest.
“Someones got a crush on Jim, huh?” he gives me a sickening, sleazy, smile that I just want to slap right off his face. “I thought my son would have found some courage and asked you out by now, no other reason to keep you around.”
“Hopper is my boss, I work with him at the station,” I’m seething. Who does this man think he is talking to me like that? “Jim Hopper is a surprisingly thoughtful boss who is good at his job, and someone I respect very much. And, for your information, Jonathan and I are best friends. Neither of us has ever felt anything more for the other. And Lonnie, we both know that whenever you get whatever it is that you want, you’ll be tearing out of Hawkins with no regard for Joyce or Jonathan, so quit acting holier than thou and just leave.”
I swiftly turn on my heel and head to the car, thankful that I drove seperate from my parents this morning; I took my mother’s car and the other five took my father’s. My heart is pounding, I can hear the blood pulsating in my ears as I start to drive away from Lonnie, from a possibly fake body, and away from Jonathan without properly talking to him. I can always go see the latter later tonight and talk with him then. I’m racing down the streets of Hawkins like a bat out of Hell, finally coming to the edge of town where Hop’s trailer is located.
Pulling up to his trailer I’m shocked to see him outside looking around in circles, the barrel of his gun pointed towards the sky. He looks like hell; messed up hair like he just rolled out of bed, his cream colored henley has sweat stains around the collar, in his armpits, and down the back. He has a crazed look in his eyes, he looks traumatized.
I jump out of the car with no regard for my well-being, he isn’t right in the head at the moment and he could very well shoot me thinking I’m the bad guy. Lonnie’s words are still fresh in my mind; maybe Hopper went to bed drunk and high on too many of his pills. No! Snap out of it, he’s not like that. He hears my footfalls crunching on the gravel; he whips around pointing his gun at me.
My hands immediately go up in the air in surrender, I need to be careful about my next actions. My eyes widen as he keeps the gun up longer than I thought he would. All of a sudden he seems to snap out of it realizing it’s me and not some threat. He looks at me guilty as he lowers the weapon.
“(Y/N)?” he asks, his eyes and voice telling me that he’s unsure that I’m actually real.
“Yeah, it’s me,” I try to soothe him like I would a wild animal. My voice is soft and I slowly step closer to him, hands outstretched and palms facing towards him so he knows I won’t attack. “You weren’t at the funeral, I came to make sure you were okay.”
“I missed the funeral?” he asks, still confused and disoriented. I slowly, gently, reach forward and take the gun from his hand. He doesn’t protest, pushing the weapon into my palm once he realizes what I’m doing.
“Yeah you did,” I take a careful step back, heels sinking into the dirt under my feet. “I was worried because of where you went after you dropped me off last night. I was scared you were hurt, or worse…” I trail off at the end, not wanting to admit out loud that deep down I was worried that Hop got killed last night.
My words seem to remind him of why he was outside with a gun in the first place, he takes off running back inside without a word. I follow him in confusion, he’s tearing apart the living room as I walk through the door.
“Hopper, what are you doing?” I ask in horror, Lonnie’s words run through my head yet again. Is it possible that Hop was on a bender before he went to sleep and he was still drunk when he woke up?
Instead of responding verbally, Hop takes two long strides across the entire living room area to get to me, putting his hand over my mouth so I can’t talk again. He puts the index finger from his free hand to his lips as a sign for me to stay quiet, before pointing around the room. I frown as he leaves his hand on my face for a few seconds too long.
I watch as he finally pulls back, observing him tearing apart the cushions for his couch and pulling his phone apart piece by piece. I glance around the room, noticing the spilled pills on his coffee table. Frowning, I set Hop’s gun on the table and put his pills back in the bottle as well as tidy up the empty beer cans strewn on it.
Hop rushes to the bathroom as I start to tidy up the mess he created in the living room. I can hear him taking apart the light fixtures in there and my worry for his sanity starts to grow. I sigh and sink down onto the ground, the living room is a mess and I don’t have the heart nor the energy to continue cleaning. First we bury Will, or whatever that was, and now Hop’s losing it, how can this day get any worse? I bury my head in my hands as I hear him rush from room to room, tearing them all apart.
Hop comes back into the living room like a hurricane, tearing apart anything he missed the first time around. I let out a squeak as he throws a light bulb to the ground, it smashes into a million pieces less than a foot away from me. I don’t want to make it worse and get in the way; but I also don’t want him to hurt himself as he destroys his home.
The last thing untouched in his entire house is the ceiling light in his living room. His shoulders are tense as he unscrews the bolt to take off the glass covering the bulbs. My eyes widen in shock as he pulls down a listening device, or more commonly known as a bug. What the hell did Hop get himself into last night? Hop grits his teeth in an angry sneer before grabbing a book he threw from his room, and smashing the bug repeatedly until there was no way it was still functional.
“Hop?” I finally dare to ask, raising from the floor carefully avoiding the broken lightbulb. “What happened last night?”
“I went back to the morgue,” Hop runs his fingers through his hair, pulling briefly on the ends. “I-I cut into the body, and it wasn’t real. It was stuffed just like a teddy bear, or some shit.”
“Oh my god,” I murmur under my breath, not expecting to get a response from the man in front of me.
“So then I snuck into Hawkins lab, got pretty far too,” he continues with his story like I didn’t interrupt. His eyes keep darting around the room like he’s expecting something to hop out at him. “I found a room with a stuffed animal and a kid’s drawing on the wall. The basement- the basement had weird white things floating in the air, there were vines growing out of a glowing hole in the wall. I was surrounded by men in white hazmat suits, next thing I know I’m waking up on the couch; my pills are spilled on the table with lots of empty beer cans that I didn’t drink.”
“Will’s still out there, probably in that glowy viney thing,” I cover my mouth, suppressing a sob. I’m not sure what’s worse; Will being dead, or him still being out there and being held somewhere in Hawkins lab. “We’ve gotta save him Hop, and I’m not letting you do anything by yourself again. I’m not having you die on my watch, not when I can be there to help you.”
Hop is opening his mouth to protest you helping him, you can tell by the scrunch of his face he’s not thrilled with your idea, but tires on the dirt path outside stop him. He yanks me away from the window, grabbing his gun off the coffee table, he pushes me behind him and away from danger. Two pairs of footsteps clomp down on the stairs leading to the front door, and Hop rips the door open before the people can knock.
“Hello? Whoa! - Hey!” Callahan exclaims when Hop steps out of his trailer, gun in hand.
“Jesus, Chief,” Powell looks at Hopper warily. “You all right?”
“What are you doing here?” Hop’s body is positioned just so that someone would have to be looking intently into the trailer to notice me behind his back.
“We tried calling but,” Powell’s voice trails off at the end.
“Yeah, phones dead,” Hops voice is gruff and his answer clipped. I can tell he wants the two idiots on his front porch to leave, so he can continue to talk to me about what happened and where to go from here.
“Whoa, (Y/N), what are you doing here?” a shiver crawls up my spine as Callahan gives me a once over. Hop subconsciously- or consciously, I’m not quite sure which- moves in front of me completely to block Callahan’s pervy gaze.
“Hop wasn’t at Will’s funeral, so I came by to check on him,” I push Hop out of the way and step beside him on the small porch, shutting the front door behind me. It would look a lot worse, and far more suggestive, if Hop was hiding me from view. This way it looks like we aren’t hiding anything- hiding me being there- well, except hiding the torn apart living room from the two doofuses.
Both Callahan and Powell give me disbelieving looks, Powell more so because he saw the way I was with the librarian who slept with Hop the other day, but neither of them voice their opinions on the matter. Instead Callahan starts telling Hop why they showed up in the first place, two more people in town are missing. The naive men in front of us think that everyone’s on edge because of Will’s death, but Hop and I are both thinking that it has to do with whatever is happening at the lab.
“You go back to the station,” Hop tells the men to go back to the station once he finds out that the men went hunting near Mirkwood. My heart stuttered a bit hearing Hop himself call it that, it makes me wonder if I’m rubbing off on him, or just the boys and this case. “(Y/N) and I will look into this.”
“Are you sure?” Callahan looks awkwardly between Hop and me. I assume he’s unsure if he wants to leave me alone with Hop, especially with how wild and out of it the Chief looks to an outsider.
“Yeah, leave it,” Hop insists, pushing me slightly as a way of telling me to open the door.
“Oh, hey. Uh, they found Barbara’s car,” Callahan continues before I can open the door.
“What?” Hop and I ask at the same time, blood draining from my face.
“Barbara Holland’s car, seems she ran away after all,” Powell adds, finishing the revelation for his partner. “Staties found it late last night at a bus station.”
“Funny, right?” Callahan adds, almost seeming to catch on that something is majorly off. “They keep doing our job for us.”
“Funny, right,” Hop and I say at the same time, this time he’s more forceful with shoving me towards the door. I quickly open it and he guides me inside, slamming the door shut behind him, putting distance between us and the prying eyes of our dense coworkers.
Once the door shuts I start to clean up the living room again, sighing at the knife made rips in the apoulster of his couch, too long for me to even consider sewing back up for him. I know he was freaking out, but there’s literally a zipper right there in the back, he could have used that instead of stabbing them. While I sweep up the broken light bulbs and try to salvage anything he threw across the room earlier, Hop focuses on fixing his phone, even going as far as to duct tape the mouthpiece back together.
Once the living room is clean, or as clean as I can get it at this particular moment, I head to the bathroom to clean that up too. I avoid his bedroom though, I know how private and personal someone’s bedroom is, that’s why I threaten Nancy and Mike anytime they go snooping through mine. By the time I’m finished in the bathroom Hop has the phone fixed and is using it to call someone. Normally I wouldn’t snoop, he deserves his privacy, but my feet feel frozen in place when I hear a woman’s voice coming from the other side of the line.
“I know, I know, I know I shouldn’t be calling you,” Hopper sighs into the phone, playing with the bracelet he made from Sara’s hair ties. “I just wanted to…I just wanted to say that, um…even after everything that happened, I don’t…I don’t regret any of it. And those seven years, they were…everything to me.”
My heart breaks at his words, and it continues to break for him when his ex wife asks if he’s been drinking again. I didn’t know my heart could ache for him anymore than it already did, not until I see Hop’s body tense when he hears a baby start crying from the other end. She’s moved on and he hasn’t. She gets a second chance at that happily ever after bullshit, and Hopper is the Chief of Police in a small town that seems to be overtaken by some crazy powerful and dangerous outside enemy that isn’t afraid to kill anyone in it’s way.
“You know what, actually, I have been drinking, I’m sorry,” I frown as he starts to shut her out, it’s like I can see the walls he’s built over the years start to be reinforced. “Just take care of yourself, okay? Say hi to Bill for me.” Hop slams the receiver down, hanging up on his ex wife before she can respond, setting the phone on the coffee table in front of him.
“Hop,” I sigh, holding my dress in place as I slide down the dividing wall between his kitchen and living room next to him.
As soon as my butt touches the ground his phone starts to ring, I glance between him and the aforementioned phone wondering if he’ll pick it up. He doesn’t, he makes no move to answer it, just letting it ring. He does, however, slide his left hand across the floor and close to my right one. Hops left pinky lifts off the ground, hooks around my right one, our hands resting on the floor with our pinky’s tightly entwined. We sit like that for what feels like a long while, at least twenty or thirty minutes. I start to wonder how many times Hop’s ex wife would have called had he not ripped the phone from the wall after the second unanswered one.
“How ‘bout I teach you to shoot,” Hop turns to me, I can’t quite read the emotion in his blue eyes, but it’s almost like they’re pleading with me to say yes. I nod back and he stands, pulling me from my seated position.
“Should I take my heels off?” I glance down at by black pumps while Hop digs the empty beer cans, the ones the people from Hawkins lab left strewn about his coffee table, out of the trash.
“Yeah, you’ll need good balance,” Hop heads for the door, beer cans cradled in his left arm, grabbing his firearm off the coffee table with his right hand as he passes it.
I take off my heels as I start to head towards the door, tossing them carelessly behind me in the general direction of the ruined couch. Rushing in front of Hopper, now barefoot, I open the door for him so he doesn’t have to worry about shifting the beer cans around and possibly dropping any. I follow him out the door, towards the back of his trailer and the pond behind it. Hop drops the beer cans on the grass, grabbing one and setting it on a stump of wood, the gashes on the top of the wood lead me to believe that he uses this stump to chop wood.
Hop hands me his police issued handgun, stepping behind me once I take it. Instinctually I wrap both of my hands around the handle, my dominant hand resting slightly higher, trigger finger on the side of the barrel. I have this much knowledge of holding a gun from observing Hop, for far too long, any time he has his weapon drawn. Hop gently kicks my right foot out so my feet are shoulder width apart, I move my dominant foot forward a tad, raising my arms in front of me.
“‘Kay, now use the little bump out on the top as a guide,” his hands rest on my shoulders, before sliding down slightly to help me aim. “Line it up with the beer can and pull the trigger.”
I take a deep breath, anchoring myself to the ground for the blowback, pointer finger moving to the trigger and pulling it. I didn’t anchor myself well enough, falling back into Hop’s chest slightly. I’m too embarrassed from this new position to hear the sound of metal ripping through tin.
“You did great kid,” Hop whispers into my ear, sending an involuntary shiver up my spine, a shiver I can’t hide from him since we’re still pressed together. Hop slides his hands from my upper arms to my forearms, pushing slightly to lower the gun towards the ground.
“Oh my god! I did it!” I screech louder than intended when I look up to the empty stump. The can is behind the wood, a bullet embedded in the center of the logo, I hit the target on my first try!
I set the gun on the ground, turning, and jumping into Hop’s arms. My arms are tightly wrap around his neck, and his easily slide around my waist. He holds me close for longer than necessary, but not nearly long enough for my liking: every touch from Hopper is like an itch that can’t be scratched, every time I think I’ll be satisfied but it always leaves me wanting more.
Once Hop unwraps himself from my hold, he moves to put another beer can on the stump. This time he stays off to the side, I’m left wondering if the hug is the cause of the new position or if Hop just wants me to try alone. We go through ten more empty beer cans, I hit every single one on the first try. Hop also teaches me how to load the clip and the gun, as well as unclip it and put the safety on.
After Hop finishes teaching me how to protect myself, he grabs my heels when he goes inside to grab one of his coats and hat, and I grab his police department jacket from my car to wear. After grabbing the aforementioned things we get into his truck to warn Joyce that her house may be bugged too, and to let her n\know that Will is probably alive somewhere lost and confused.. Hop keeps glancing my way the entire car ride, and I just nervously play with the hem of my dress. I really don’t want to see Lonnie again, and I especially don’t want him to see Hop. If Lonnie says one bad thing to Hopper in front of me, I may just deck him.
Once we pull up to Joyce’s house, Hop finds an old takeout menu in his car and grabs the pen sticking out of my jacket pocket to write a note telling Joyce to be quiet. Hop finally opens his door and I practically sprint out of my side of the car, having forgone putting on my shoes, and up to the Byers front porch. I’m pounding on the door before Hop has closed his own car door.
“Go away Lonnie!” I hear Joyce yell from inside the house. I wonder if Joyce has kicked Lonnie to the curb again, finally, as I continue to aggressively pound on the door. Hop joins me on the front porch just as Joyce rips the front door open. “Seriously? I am going to murder-”
Hop and I hold our fingers to our lips to shush an ax wielding Joyce, in Hop’s other hand he’s holding up the old take out menu with the message written on it. Joyce looks confused and a little scared at our random appearance on her doorstep, but she doesn’t fight us when Hop pushes his way into the house.
“Oh Jesus,” Hop grumbles while I let out a quiet ‘shit’ at all of the Christmas lights hanging in the Byers’ house.
Hop and I get to quickly unscrew every christmas light, thank God he’s being a lot more calm about it here than at his own place. After what feels like hours Hop unscrews the last light bulb only to find that there were no bugs planted in the Byers’ house. The two of us let out a large sigh as we plop down right next to each other on Joyce’s couch. Hop’s knee rubbing up against mine is all I can think about as he explains what happened to him the night before. I do start to tune back into the conversation when Hop tells Joyce that she was right all along.
I don’t think I have ever seen Joyce more happy than she is at this moment, at least two people believe her and now there’s undeniable proof, at least to the three of us, that Will is still alive. Joyce pulls me up from the couch and into a bone crushing hug, the hope and joy she’s radiating is infectious.
A/N- This is the first chapter and my first Stranger things rewrite!! I really hope you guys liked this chapter because I’m actually happy how this came out!!
Warning- LONG chapter, swearing, mentions of drinking, SLOW BURN!!
Pairing- Steve Harrington x Hopper!reader, Billy Hargrove x Hopper!reader (you’ll see)
Episodes- 2x01, 2x02
(Let me know if you want to be tagged)
—
Hawkins, Indiana
Shit place, okay people. As far as you can remember anyway; the only person you really like is your best friend Jonathan Byers, he’s the only person you’ve spoken to over the years after you left, which has been long.
The last time you came here was for a visit, not a pleasant one at all though, it had been for your step sister’s funeral. You didn’t know her much but you knew her enough to know you loved her. Even if you and her weren’t all that close thanks to the distance that kept the two of you apart.
Now, after her death, there wasn’t any desire or want in your mind to come live at Hawkins. You didn’t want to be the new kid at school now that you were already a Junior in high school.
It was a silly reason, stupid really, but it was one of them.
I’ve been sitting on this for a while BUT i recently hit 2,000 followers which is fucking BAFFLING and AMAZING and I wanted to do a lil thing to celebrate!
So, lets do a fic giveaway!
I am going to choose two people who REBLOGthis post to win a fic and a moodboard!
The fic will be between 1.5-3k words and (within my limits) whatever you would like to read! The moodboard can go with the fic or be for your own fic, or a separate headcanon or idea.
Everybody who reblogsthis post will be entered! I will pick two winners onFriday, November 19 at11:59 pm PST.
(Each account only gets 1 entry so if you reblog multiple times from the same url, I’ll only put you in the random picker one time. And yes I’ll be using a random picker to choose the winners so don’t worry it’s anyone’s game.)
Summary:After moving from New York to Hawkins, your life is changed by a handsome police chief, a mysterious girl and a realm that is beyond the boundaries of normality.
Warnings:some swearing
A/N:Sorry it’s been a while since the last update but thank you all for being patient and understanding! I hope you enjoy! ❤️ (plus- bless Steve )
You left the cabin obscenely early the next morning. You had fallen asleep on the chair in El’s room, it was surprisingly comfortable. You left a note for El and another for Jim, although Jim’s note was very short and to the point; ‘Gone back to my brother’s to get organised for work.’ You were still mad at him.
Reaching the house at around half seven in the morning, you headed in for a quick shower to wash off the sweat you had built up while walking back to town. Half an hour later, you were ready and downstairs pouring out a cup of coffee for yourself. You let out a long sigh and plopped yourself down on one of the stools by the kitchen island. “Hello?” You heard a groggy voice called out.
“Just me,” you took a large gulp of coffee and looked over to Steve “No offence but you look like shit.”
“So do you,” Steve dismally replied and placed down his half eaten bowl of dry cereal and his coffee. You reached across and felt the cup, it was cold.
“You want a fresh cup?”
“No,” he bluntly said and sat down across from you and downed what was left in the cup, grimacing when he tasted the bitter grounds at the bottom.
You raised a brow “What’s the matter?” He took a long time to reply, you could see his eyes getting glossy. He mumbled back 'nothing’under his breath. You intervened, you knew how he was feeling “You don’t have to talk about it ,but all I’m saying is eating dry cereal and drinking cold coffee isn’t going to help mend a broken heart.” Steve slowly looked up to you “Trust me, it isn’t a good coping mechanism. Neither is eating a pint of ice cream for that matter.”
Steve sighed and used his finger and thumb to rub away the tears welling in his eyes “She said it was all bullshit…Nancy, she-” he sniffled and wiped away a tear on his cheek with the back of his hand “Sorry,” he apologised.
“Steve, stop, never- and I mean it- never apologise for crying. C'mere,” you opened your arms and he happily accepted the hug “You don’t have to be so tough all the time, sweetie.” He pulled back and nodded tentatively “What time does your first class start?”
“Uhh ten thirty, why?”
“C'mon we’ll go to the diner before your first class starts, my treat! I don’t have classes until this afternoon.” You smiled and ruffled his hair “Go grab your things and we’ll get going.” He grinned and rushed up the stairs and grabbed his schoolbag and jacket. You grabbed your car keys and tossed them to Steve when he came down the stairs “You can even drive old blue out there today.”
“What?!” He ecstatically jumped on the spot “Yes! Thank you, Aunt Y/N!” You smiled and followed him out to the car. The radio was playing but you quickly turned the station when a certain song came on. Steve let out a small snort of laughter under his breath “What? You don’t like Billy Joel?”
“It’s not that I don’t like him, I love that song it’s just…” your words fizzled out and Steve raised a brow. “It’s a special song for Jim and I. We kinda had a fight last night. That’s why I came back so early.” Steve pulled up to the diner and you sent him a small forced smile “Lets eat, buddy!”
You let him get whatever he wanted, you always were a pushover with him. “Mom called last night before I went out. She said they’d be another week or so- Dad is trying to close a deal.”
“Well he’s stubborn enough to stay and get what he wants, regardless of how long it will take.” You took bite out of your waffles, Steve got pancakes with bacon and maple syrup- which he demolished. “So, you wanna talk or…?”
Steve looked up from his cup of coffee to you “You’re so worried about other people that you don’t take a minute for yourself. I should be asking you if you wanna talk.”
You shrugged a shoulder “Because I’m fine.” Steve didn’t look convinced “Really, I am.”
He hummed, unconvinced and continued finishing his breakfast. You mindlessly played with the last remaining crumbs on your plate with your fork. Steve could tell you were upset. He looked around and stood up, you assumed he was just heading to the bathroom but instead he went to the jukebox and picked a song.
Your ears picked up the recognisable tune of 'Old Time Rock and Roll’ and Steve slid back to the table, catching your attention. You raised a brow when he picked up his fork and began singing into it. You let out a loud laugh and the other diners glanced around and smirked at your nephew as he tried to reenact Tom Cruise’s infamous dance routine from Risky Business. He loved that movie. Steve held out his hand and you took it, standing up to dance along with him. The two of you danced around and sang along to the song. When the song finished the four other patrons, the waitress and the cook all clapped and whistled.
“Thank you,” you smiled and put a hand on his arm before extending your arms to give him a hug.
“Do we have to hug?” He asked like he was a kid asked to do a chore.
You tightly smiled and shook your head “Yeah, we do.” You wrapped your arms around him and he let out a loud groan. “I’m gonna hug you for even longer now,” you chuckled in his ear. You eventually pulled back “Come on, you’ve got class soon and I’ve got to get organised for my classes this afternoon.”
Steve drove to the school “You needing a ride home later?” He asked.
“Uhh…I don’t think so. I’ve got paperwork to do. I’ll either head back home or go to Jim’s” You both got out and he grabbed his things. “I’ll call you from a payphone or something and check in.” You knew how much Steve valued his independence, he wanted to prove to your brother that he could be responsible. Unbeknownst to Steve, you always kept Stuart and Deborah in the loop.
“Okay, I gotta go and get changed for gym class. See you later Aunt Y/N, and thanks for breakfast.”
“Anytime kid. Thanks for cheering me up.” you both went your separate ways. You had just made it to the door when you realised you left one of your bags in the trunk of the car so you jogged over to the gym hall and waited for Steve. “I need the keys, I’ll be two minutes! Tops!” Steve sighed and went back to the locker room again. “Sorry about this, coach.” You thinly smiled at the man with a whistle between his lips, it fell out when he smiled back.
“Ah,” he blew a raspberry and waved his hand while walking away to grab a basketball “These things happen.” Steve came back with the keys and you quickly grabbed your things out of the car before going back to the gym and handing your nephew the car keys back.
You heard a low whistle from behind you and you turned on your heel with a raised brow. “Well, well, well…no one told me the king knew a princess…” your face contorted.
“Excuse me?” You glared at the boy with messy hair.
“They call Steve the 'King’,” he clarified, using his fingers as quotation marks when he said the word king.
You rolled your eyes and glanced at Steve “Jesus, I’ve heard it all now…” You moved your bag up your shoulder and pat Steve’s arm “See you later.”
“Maybe you’ll see me later, Miss Harrington. You could teach me a lesson…” the boy blatantly flirted.
You forced a smile “Sorry to disappoint you but I’m way too old for you and already spoken for.”
His brows furrowed “Oh yeah? Well I’ll kick his ass into next week! Who is this asshole?”
“He’s the chief of police,” that put him in his place and the blood drained from his face while shock set it. You walked out the gym hall with a smirk on your face and headed to your classroom to set up for your class.
•••
“Okay, class dismissed. Remember homework is due tomorrow and I’ll need the permission slips for our class trip to the museum next week by the end of this week. Have a great night everyone!” You stood by the class door and smiled at each student. You noticed Dustin almost wrestling with his backpack. “You alright there?”
“Y-yeah!” He forced a smile and quickly walked out.
You raised a suspicious brow before saying bye to Will, who was trailing behind. You noticed him looking quite sheepish “Hey, Will. How are you?”
He nodded “Good, thanks Miss Harrington.” You thinly smiled and watched him and the rest of the group scurry off to the A.V room.
You returned to your desk and got on with some paperwork. A little while later, you heard a knock on the classroom door. Not bothering to look up from the papers you were marking, you called the person in “Can I help yo-” you cut yourself off when you glanced up and saw Jim standing there with a sorry look on his face “Oh…” you returned your eyes back to the papers you were working on “It’s you.”
You could hear his chunky boots approach your desk, his looming figure towering over you. He placed an apple in front of you and you stopped moving your pen for a moment to look at it before continuing with writing. “With me, the chief of police, eating my weight in doughnuts daily and now giving a teacher an apple you could call me a walking cliché, huh?” He tried to crack a joke but failed miserably.
“I could call you lots of things at this moment in time…” you mumbled and kept your eyes firmly on the work in front of you.
Jim sighed “Please don’t be like this…I’m sorry.”
You finally looked up to him, placing your pen down on the table a little harder than you intended, making him flinch at the sharp noise “It’s not me you should be sorry too!” You pinched the bridge of your nose “I can deal with a lot of things, Jim.” His gaze fell to his feet “But El,” his head snapped back up “She’s a young girl. She’s a teenager with hormones and emotions and so many feelings! She’s been through so much. You’ve got to understand that she doesn’t know any better. You’re trying to teach her and I know that, I know you’re doing your best but be patient with her. You know promises are the only thing she relies on and yesterday you said c-o-m-promise. Promise.Key word there, Jim.” You sighed and shook your head “The two of you have a lot to learn.”
Jim let out a huff “Why are you always right?”
“It’s a gift,” the corner of your lip tugged upwards “But seriously, apologise and I know for a fact El will apologise too.”
You stood up and and walked around to Jim, he wrapped his arms around your waist and you leaned up slightly to wrap your arms around the back of his neck and perch your chin on his shoulder “Thank you,” he pulled back slightly to take a good look at your face. Jim leaned forward and pressed his lips to yours once, then twice and then kissed you a little longer the third time. “Listen…I gotta do some stuff later so I might not be back for dinner,” he rubbed your arms “I guess you can bend my rules a little and let El have Eggos before dinner.”
“You trying to sweeten her up?” You raised a brow and he shrugged, biting on his lower lip and bobbing his head from side to side.
“Well….” he drawled out “Eggos could help my cause.”
You smirked and shook your head “Alright, alright…But I’m not the middleman here!” You stood back and pointed your finger at him.
“Course not,” he pressed a light kiss to your forehead “I’ll see you later.”
“Bye…” your eyes followed him out the door “Thanks for the apple…and the view…” you playfully added and Jim walked with a little spring in his step knowing you were checking him out.
“You’re welcome!”
You finished up your marking and headed home for the day. You wandered through the corridors that were leading you to the exit but stopped when you noticed a body whizz passed you at the end of a corridor. You swore it was Lucas. You turned the opposite direction of the exit and eventually made your way to the hall where you could hear voices.
What you saw shocked you.
She was never supposed to leave.
“El?” You quietly called out her name and you could see her freezing like a deer in headlights. She slowly turned around and had a very guilty expression on her face. You didn’t know what to do, you were so taken aback by seeing her outside. Jim would be furious. “Sweetie, we have to go,” you hastily made your way towards her “It’s dangerous.”
“Mike,” she pointed and you glanced up seeing him with Max who was on the floor. You were wondering why the group were still in the school floating around the halls.
“Come with me,” you took her hand and lead her to your classroom. “We can’t stay for long,” you shut over the door and headed to Mike’s desk. You only hoped that he had left what he had been writing. You noticed him scribbling something down during his free time- you assumed it was a note for El. You fished through his books and papers- and bubble gum wrappers. “Yes!” You took out the folded up note and sat down on Mike’s desk. “He wrote this for you…do you want me to read it to you?” El nodded, coming up and standing next to you, lacing her arm with yours. “'Dear, El. I miss you. It’s not the same and it’s super boring. Dustin and Lucas said that I’ll eventually accept not having you around but I don’t think I ever will. I think you’d like our friend Will, I’ve told him all about you. Miss Harrington said I should write to you. I hope I get to show you this letter someday. I miss you, from Mike.’”
You glanced down to the curly haired girl beside you and noticed her eyes becoming glossy. You sighed and wriggled your arm out from hers so you could give her a hug. “Thank you,” she groggily whispered and blinked away her tears.
“You’re welcome, sweetie.” You put back Mike’s note for El “We need to get back, it’s quite a walk but I’m sure you know that now,” you managed to laugh and El cracked a smile. “Let’s get going.”
You walked back to the cabin with El, mainly going through the woods so no one would see you. That meant the journey took longer than usual and by the time you reached the cabin it was dark. The lights were on and there was a small orange glow coming from the tip of a Camel cigarette.
“Oh shit…” you uttered under your breath.
Jim was back before he both of you and he didn’t look happy.
——————
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