#jonathan's gonna be gutted when they finally meet up again and sees her and steve together again :(((

[reineyday]

just finished stranger things s4 (vol 1 lol) and like, a big hand to jamie campbell bower good job bro 👏👏👏

[upsidedownwithsteve]

CAMP UPSIDE DOWN PART ONE

Steve Harrington x fem!reader[33K] summer camp, broken kayaks, too much tension and that boy you hate. an enemies to lovers camp counsellor story.

She drives me crazy and I can’t help myself.

By week four, you were in need of a break. And when a scheduled day off of yours finally aligned with Robins, you wasted no time in organising some time out of camp. A small trip to another nearby lake, one without yelling kids and sun bleached kayaks. 

The sun was high, the air was warmer than ever and the promise of a day in the water sounded like magic. You wanted green lakes, blue skies and roads lined with trees. You wanted the mountains in front of you and the camp in the distance for a few hours, music that you got to pick, and a bikini that wasn’t uniform regulated. 

You’d packed a cooler, cans of beer that Jonathan had snuck into camp for you both, sandwiches from Bob and you a pile of junk food that would go great with the joint Robin had been tasked from getting from Eddie. 

You didn’t expect your friend to meet you at the staff parking lot with the boy in tow, grin sheepish and her baseball cap jammed backwards on her head. 

“Hey, Munson,” you greeted easily, if not a little confused. You stood by your car, cooler at your feet, looking between the pair. 

Something suspicious was going on and it tugged at your gut. 

“Mornin’ sweetheart,” he smiled, eyeing up your car like it was being evaluated. “Yeah, I don’t think this gonna fit us all, y’know.”

You turned, wide eyed to Robin and she flushed before kicking at a stray rock. 

“Come again?”

Eddie grinned, slapping a hand to your shoulder before gesturing to Robin. “Buckley invited us to join you both. She said music, swimming and food, and I was all, how could I say no to that?”

But you weren’t really listening to much else the boy said, the summer turning warmer around you because all you could focus on, all that seemed to matter was:

“Us?”

But then another bag was being dumped beside yours, the smell of cedar and mint and boy filling the air and you didn’t even bother looking before you were shaking your head at Robin. 

“No.” You stated, deadpan. “No, no way.”

Steve grinned, leaning against your car like he hadn’t a care in the world and he tilted his head towards Robin and Eddie, rolling his eyes as he said, “see?”

It was unfair that he looked good, soft jeans that weren’t as tight as the ones he usually wore, the knees worn and ripped from time. But in the time that you spent observing him, eyes trailing up and down the tall length of him, you didn’t notice how Steve did the same to you. 

Not that it mattered. ‘Cause you went back to glaring at Robin, palm thrown out to gesture at Steve and you didn’t really care that the back of your hand rapped against his chest. 

“Ow,” he muttered. 

You ignored him. 

“Why is he here?“

You didn’t care that it sounded like you were whining, voice petulant if not a little panicked because the idea of spending an entire day at a lake with Steve Harrington filled you with a cacophony of emotions. Your stomach tumbled, twisted, dipped. 

Instead of Robin answering, Eddie raised a hand like he was a kid in a classroom, smiled all soft and warm at you. 

“‘Cause I am.“

You groaned. It was extremely difficult to be mad at Eddie Munson. 

“I need out of this camp just as much as you do, princess,” Steve scoffed, “Henderson keeps going on about someone called Vecna and how he needs a bard.” 

“Well, take your own car!” You grumbled, toeing at the backpack he’d dropped by your feet. It felt heavy, cold with the cans of beer that were shoved inside. “Find another lake, preferably far from ours and deep enough so that no one will be able to find your body.”

“Charming,” Steve snarked, but he was already peering into your car windows, a frown on his face. “Yeah, no, my car needs an oil change and the nearest mechanic doesn’t open ‘til Monday.”

He pulled at your back door, ignoring your squeak of protest and you burned when a cassette or two fell out, followed by one trainer and an empty Gatorade bottle. 

“Jesus Christ, I’m not getting in this.”

You shoved at the boy, your shoulder nudging his until he relented and moved aside, letting you slam the door. You narrowed your eyes at him, annoyance already simmering in your chest, an all too familiar feeling. 

“As if I’d let you,” you huffed, “besides, the seatbelts don’t work in the back.”

“Have I told you recently that your car is a piece of shit?”

You glared at Steve, overly aware that you were once again standing far too close to each other and that you most definitely had an audience. You didn’t really have an argument, you knew your old car was lacking in several areas. Speed, reliability, cleanliness, maybe. 

“Not everyone’s daddy can buy them a shiny BMW, Harrington.”

“Don’t act cute,” Steve tutted, “I bought that car myself.”

You rolled your eyes before pushing away from him, shoulders nudging once more in a final act of defiance. The birds were singing, the morning was bright and you were already far too angry for what should have been considered healthy. 

But then Eddie was clapping his hands together, still grinning wide beside Robin and he jabbed a thumb over his shoulder, gesturing towards the old van that was parked at a weird angle beside the trees. 

“Guess I’m driving, huh?”

The minute the bags were loaded in the back of Eddie’s van, Robin rushed to the passengers door, hopping into the seat with a grunt and grinning as she hung out the open window. 

“Sorry, lover boy,” she called to Steve, eyes innocent except for the wicked flash of a smirk across her lips. “I get travel sick.”

“That’s a damn lie,” you glared at her, wondering how this morning had gone to shit so quickly. 

The temperature was climbing as the early hours slipped away, the sky turning from pink to lilac, blue around the edges and the sun coming through the canopy trees was brighter and stronger than before. You could hear the kids in the mess hall, the smell of breakfast and the buzz of conversation. 

Eddie stood between you and Steve, far too amused as the back doors of the van sat open, the shag rug carpet and mismatched cushions waiting. Steve looked at you and back into the truck, eyes wary, like he was weighing up his options.  

“I could drive, man,” Steve offered, hands shoved into his pockets and trying to avoid your gaze. 

You scoffed, unsure if you were relieved or offended that he didn’t want to spend the hours drive with you, trapped in the back together. 

Eddie tried to smother the smile he couldn’t help but give him, fist pressed to his mouth and he levelled the other boy with a mirthful stare. 

“Really? I thought you hated driving my van?” 

Steve didn’t know what to say. 

“I mean, you can if you want,” Eddie told him, his voice all caramel soft, he sounded like he was goading Steve when he turned to you, all sticky sweet smiles, “I don’t mind riding with Hawkins here, I’ll keep you right when the road gets bumpy.” He winked and offered his keys to Steve, silver dangling from a ringed finger. 

The only sounds came from the forest. 

Then, a sigh, rough and low, before Steve pushed past Eddie and his outstretched hand, the keys jingling as they went ignored. 

“Doesn’t matter, your clutch is fucked,” Steve clambered into the back of the van, gaze steady on the floor as he threw himself down onto a beanbag, ignoring Robin’s snickering. “It’s annoying as shit.”

Eddie grinned. 

The drive was silent for the most part, at least for the first twenty twenty minutes. The road out of camp took you through the forest, past the river that led to the lake and when the cabins were too far away to see, you finally relaxed. 

Until Robin made a fuss of finding some music that wasn’t Black Sabbath or any other band she’d declared migraine inducing, and finally she held up a cassette with a small noise of triumph. 

“Prince, Eddie? Didn’t peg you as the type,” she told him coyly whilst Steve snorted from the back beside you. 

“Hey now, Prince is perfectly acceptable,” Eddie argued, the tips of his ears turning red under his curls. “I am a man of mixed taste.”

“Sure you are,” Robin placated as she slid the tape into the player.

The roads were becoming less smooth as you neared your destination, favouring smaller, forgotten lanes as you passed the bigger lakes, flashes of blue and green flying past the small window in the back. 

The journey became more bumpy as you all turned off into a track that took you through a part of a forest, the van manoeuvring itself over overgrown roots that interrupted the trail, a too big rock making the truck shake. And as the opening guitar riff of Prince’s ‘Kiss’, started to play, you were sent into Steve’s side, the van bouncing with Eddie’s efforts to get you all to the water's edge. 

You scrambled to right yourself, moving away from the boy as if you’d been stung and the sudden proximity was jarring. You’d managed to spend the majority of the journey on either end of the van, backs pressed to the metal sides and you’d only just moved into the middle so you could lean over the front bench to take a handful of M&M’s from Robin. 

But the jostle of the drive meant that you landed on Steve’s lap, clumsy and in no way meant, but your back was suddenly pressed to his chest and out of instinct, his hands caught your waist before your head could jerk back and slam into his nose. 

‘I just need your body, baby, from dusk 'til dawn…’

“Fuck,” you whispered, desperate to not draw attention to the position the two of you were in, but Robin was snickering and Eddie caught sight of you in the rear view mirror and he let out a low whistle. 

“Christ, kids, at least wait until Robin and I are out.”

“Fuck off,” you and Steve both snarled, voices mixing as you shoved away from each other. 

The rest of the drive went like that, no matter how much you and Steve tried to cling to opposites of the van. The road got rougher as the lake came into view, blue green water meeting bluer skies, the beginnings of mountains and forests lining its edges. 

Your shoulders brushed with Steve’s, hips bumping, hands falling onto tops of hands, pinky fingers grazing as you both tried to stay upright and by the time the van parked up beside a sandy dip in the grass, you were both burning with the exertion of the journey and all the casual touching. 

Steve burst out of the van before anyone else, the engine not even switched off and the back doors brought in fresh air, bright sun and the smell of pine. 

The lake was on the smaller side, no jetty’s to tie a boat to, no long stretches of beach that became home to little kids and their buckets and spades. In fact, the four of you were the only ones there. The silence was dizzying, the views almost too pretty, and it was complete bliss before Eddie jumped out of the driver’s seat and grinned. 

He threw his hands up, his head back, messy curls tumbling as he let out a loud whoop, a noise that bounced off of the cliffs before the forest on the other side of the water swallowed it whole. 

You smiled properly for the first time that morning, Robin on your left, Steve on your right, as you all watched the city boy tear off his shirt, jeans abandoned on the way before leaping into the shallow water. 

The day went like that. 

Genuine happiness from four twenty somethings that were just trying to do enough to get by. You knew your co-workers loved Camp Upside Down as much as you did, it’s why you all returned summer after summer. But there was something different about being able to stretch out along sand, Robin’s head resting on your bare stomach ‘cause you’d pulled your shirt over your head the minute you’d lay down. 

Your unbuttoned shorts showed off the edges of a cherry red bikini, something you weren’t allowed to wear during work. The boys splashed in the lake, the campfire burned and you’d even reluctantly shared your lunch with Steve - half of your sandwich for some of the potato salad he’d managed to scrounge from that day's lunch prep. 

It was the burn of the sun and cool lake water, sand between your toes, stolen towels from camp, the smell of smoke and the taste of lukewarm beer. It was quiet, it was loud, it was the crackle of Eddie’s van stereo flooding out from its open doors, it was power naps with your cheek pressed to your bundled up shirt, watching Eddie throw himself from tree branches, laughing until your stomach hurt and it was not arguing with Steve Harrington. 

Not really. 

Not like before. 

And when Eddie retired to the back of the van to close his eyes and get out of the sun for a bit, Robin swam back to shore and got herself comfortable in the sand, a sketch pad in one hand and a case of pencils at her still wet feet. 

It left you and Steve together in the lake, deep enough that your feet couldn’t touch the bottom and you swam lazy circles around each other, floating on your backs, water lapping at your ears and your chin tilted up to the sun. 

It was nice. It was easy. 

Every now and then, the lake pulled you both closer, bobbing on what little current there was until your outstretched fingertips brushed the boys and you were both startled from whatever daze you’d fallen into. 

Eventually, you couldn’t find it in you to care too much, not when it happened again and again and again. Maybe it was the weed, maybe it was the heat, maybe you were just too lazy. But it’s how you found yourself shoulder to shoulder with Steve, bare legs brushing, skin slick with lake water and leftover sunscreen. 

You kept your eyes closed when you finally spoke, like it would make you braver, like you could keep your words a secret. 

“Why do you hate me?”

There was a pause after you spoke, a dead space in the water between you both and you could feel that Steve had opened his eyes. The water moved, splashed at your cheek and you felt his head turn, his gaze on you. 

“Who said I hate you?”

The tips of his fingers were still brushing yours. 

You laughed and it sounded nervous, a soft noise of embarrassment, like a girl with a crush. You didn’t know how to feel about it. 

“You argue with me about everything, you look like you wanna kill me every time I open my mouth near you and you’re constantly finding new ways to wind me up.” You told him casually, like it was nothing new, like it was normal. And it had been, for as long as you could remember. “I’d say that insinuates an annoyance, at least.”

“That’s awfully presumptuous of you, princess.” Steve smirked, “what if arguing with you was the best part of my day, huh?”

His reply made your eyes flutter open, heavy as if you’d been pulled from sleep, from a dream and the sudden reality of your situation made you dip further into the lake, your legs pulling you down and your feet kicked to keep you afloat. 

Steve mirrored you, easily treading water as the surface swallowed half his face, his eyes impossibly golden as they stared back at you. You were a foot apart, maybe two, and you realised rather quickly that you missed the closeness of him. 

“Don’t lie,” you scoffed but there was something about the way Steve was looking at you that made you feel doubtful. “What’s next, pulling my hair at recess?”

Steve laughed, a genuine burst of amusement from his lips that didn’t sound sarcastic for once. He let himself fall back, the water lapping at his shoulders and he grinned at you, the soles of his feet brushing up against your thighs, just for a second. 

“I dunno,” he looked a little pink around the cheeks, his smile nothing short of scandalous. “Would that do it for you?”

Your mouth fell open. 

This was a fight that you weren’t sure you could win, his teasing words no longer a taunt, the conversation no longer an argument. Steve looked at you with the same fire he always had though, a challenge in his eyes that you desperately wanted to rise to. It wasn’t really a fight, no, not anymore. 

But you still wanted to win. 

“Guess you’ll never know,” you shrugged, smug when Steve grinned wider. 

—————

The drive back to camp was a world away from the journey in the morning. You climbed into the back of the van with Steve without argument, all four of you soft and lazy from a day under the sun, hours treading water, throwing your tired bodies from small rocks and cliffs. 

The sun had warmed the truck, the air smelling like boy and coffee and a little weed, and you were slack as you fell into the cushions, not really caring that your foot was pressed against Steve’s thigh. 

Robin turned the radio on, the tinny crackle of static making the music seem softer and Eddie hummed along as he drove, the trees outside creating dappled shadows across everyone’s sunburnt skin. 

It was nice, it was peaceful. 

Your hair was still damp, your skin smelling like sunscreen and the lake, lemonade and cheap beer on your tongue and you didn’t really care when the rough road out of the forest sent you bumping into Steve’s side again. 

His hand caught your waist to steady you, a wide, warm palm on bare skin because you hadn’t bothered to button your shirt back up, the sides hanging open on your shoulders, the bright red of your bikini a reminder of the day spent in the water. 

Your shared conversation in the lake hung in the air as Eddie drove you all home, the long haired boy and Robin oblivious to it. But it fizzed in the back of the van like a firework waiting to pop, the anticipation of wondering what colours would fill the air when it did. It felt like the slow climb to the top of a rollercoaster, it felt like the night before a storm, it felt like what if?

When you arrived back at camp, dinner was over and the kids were lingering, heads tilted to the sky that was uncharacteristically dark, navy clouds looming overheard with the threat of rain. You’d left the sun behind, hanging over a different lake, along with a different side of yours and Steve’s relationship. 

You didn’t know what to say when the four of you clambered out of Eddie’s van, Robin and the other boy talking happily about music and Robin’s sketches, rucksacks over their shoulders as Steve awkwardly handed you the empty cooler. 

You mumbled a thanks, suddenly shy and you stood at the back of the van, waiting to see if Steve would say something, if you would be brave enough to say anything. 

But then the sky split, the clouds crashed and rain tore down on the camp. 

You all scrambled under the canopy of the trees, yelling swears between laughter and the sound of the kids screeching was drowned out by the rumble of thunder, the on-shift counsellors telling everyone to return to their cabins. 

No one really said goodbye, the rain making you all run to your bunks, the day ending without so much as another shared glance. So you tripped through the trees with your hair plastered to your forehead, laughing when Robin stumbled in mud and shrieked. By the time you both made it home, you were giggling on the porch, skin soaked, shirt and shorts sticking to you and Robin was wide eyed. 

“Wait! I’m going to Vickie’s!” She almost shouted, barely heard over the roar of the rain, the rumble above. 

You laughed, incredulous as you watched her run back out into the downpour. 

“You’re what?!”

“Vickie’s cabin!” She called back, “no one’s gonna care where everyone is when we’re all stuck inside!”

And then she was gone, probably for the night, you assumed. 

That’s why you were surprised when there was a knock on the door fifteen minutes later, the rain still falling, the day turning to night quicker than normal as the clouds stayed heavy, the forest dark. 

Everywhere smelled like damp moss and pine, wet bark and the lingering smoke from the campfire that had long been ruined. You’d only managed to drag a brush through your hair, the strands tangled and partly dry, your shorts uncomfortable on your skin and your shirt hanging off one shoulder. 

You answered the door, not sure who to expect, not sure why Robin would be knocking, why anyone would be out in this weather. 

When you saw Steve standing there, you realised that the boy hadn’t even been an option. Surprise coloured you, mouth falling open at the sight of him on the porch, drenched, shirt sticking to him, almost translucent and his hair a wet riot. 

He was holding a blanket, the soft knitted one you’d taken from your bed to use on the beach that day. It was half soaked from where he’d hidden in under his arm, running through the rain from his cabin to yours. 

You stared, shocked. 

“I think, uh, I think I shoved this in my bag by accident.”

He was yelling over the dim of rain, the world noisy around you both, the forest creating chaos, a whole other kind of fight. It was waiting, it was wondering if you were going to join in. 

“It couldn’t wait?” You cried back, completely bemused by Steve’s decision to come over for nothing more than a stupid blanket. 

But the boy was struggling to respond, shoulders shrugging, cheeks pink and looking a little wild. Thunder grumbled above, the trees swayed and a drop of rain slid down Steve’s cheek, rolling over the curve of his lip. 

“Yeah,” Steve replied, voice too honest, “it probably could’ve, yeah.”

It happened like the storm, the slow roll of electricity over your skin, a building in the atmosphere, something in the air that told you that something big was coming. 

And Steve was still standing there, chest heaving like he couldn’t catch his breath, and neither could you when he was looking at you like that. 

Rain soaked shirt, brown hair sticking to his forehead and falling into his eyes, all flushed cheeks and parted lips. 

“Was that everything?” You asked, voice almost too quiet to be heard over the sound of thunder above, the sky goading you, telling you to say something else.  

“Uh, yeah, yeah,” Steve said and it sounded like a lie, it sounded too sweet. “Maybe? I- I don’t know.” 

You swallowed, chest bursting, heart pounding, ‘cause it felt like you were supposed to be waiting for something more, something spectacular, something that you were supposed to give into a long time ago. And then:

“Christ, fuck it-”

He was crashing into you, arms tugging you into him rather than wrapping around you and you let him, Jesus fucking Christ, you let him, a gasp that sounded like a moan falling from your lips as he kissed you. 

Your hand was fisted in the front of his shirt, the other tugging into his damp hair and the sounds he made against your mouth were obscene. Nothing about this was gentle, nothing about Steve was soft. He was pushing you both backwards, into the cabin and out of the storm with his hands gripping hard on your waist, crescent moon marks left on your skin and it was sinful, it was too good, it wasn’t enough. 

You pulled where he pushed, tugging him into you, the door slamming shut and the rain pounding in the wooden roof. The kiss was messy, heated, another fight you both wanted to win. 

It tasted like the storm, like mint and the woods and Steve, and it said: fuck you, fuck me, I don’t hate you at all. 

It was a kiss that was wildly different to the one you shared at the gym, the one with an audience, a kiss that was supposed to be nothing more than a dare. This kiss was all teeth and tongue, wandering hands that grabbed at exposed skin, pulled and shoved shirts out of the way so you could touch and touch and touch. 

The lack of sun outside made the cabin a little darker, the small light by your bed casting nothing but a weak glow and moody shadows, perfect for hiding feelings in. You pulled Steve into the room, clumsy feet tripping over a shoe or two, the strap of a bag, the blanket that he dropped to the floor in favour of holding you. 

No one spoke, not apart from letting out hushed curses, swears that sounded like prayers, unholy noises that came from the back of your throats, whines and begs that came from years of tension. 

Robin's notebook hit the floor, pencils and pens rolling with it when you stumbled into the desk and Steve grabbed the backs of your thighs, hauling you onto it. He was licking into your mouth with a greed you’d never experienced before, a hand on your cheek, telling you to tilt your head this way and that so he could kiss you deeper, kiss you filthier. 

It was fun to fight back a little, grabbing at the hair at the nape of his neck in return, fisting it in your hand and pulling until he groaned for you, lips faltering against your own and attacking your neck instead. 

Your legs were around his waist and you weren’t sure how it happened. You knew you didn’t mind, you didn’t care, not anymore. Because Steve’s hand was curled around your knee, hiking your leg further up his hip so he could move into the space between your thighs. 

The sounds you were letting out were a little pathetic, small sighs and whines, asking for more without saying the words and all you could do was pull the boy into you and open your mouth for him when he used his thumb to tug at your bottom lip. 

He kissed you like he wanted to argue about it afterwards. 

“Shit,” you gasped, eyes rolling back when he rocked into you, body pressed against yours, all wet clothes and rain damp skin. “Steve.”

The groan that ripped from his chest was absolute sin, lips leaving yours to press his face into your neck, his hands flexing on your hips. 

“Say that again.”

You were confused until you realised that you weren’t sure of the last time you called the boy by his actual name. No Harrington, no wonder boy, no asshole, no douchebag. 

At least, not right now. 

It made your head swim, the hold he had on you, literal and figurative, because for the first time in your life, you did as the boy asked. 

It was a whimper against his ear, mouth moving deliberately against the shell of it, all dirty and coy. Your lips brushed his earlobe, your hand cupped his jaw and you canted your hips into his, just the once. 

“Steve.”

A dam burst and you couldn’t help but appreciate how gorgeous Steve Harrington looked when he lost all the composure he liked to pretend he had. 

“Oh god, holy shit,” he was back on you, all lips and tongue and teeth and hands, “you sound so fuckin’ pretty, so good, fuck.”

You whined in response, a high, keening noise that you didn’t even recognise but you were on fire, burning in all the places that his lips touched. You weren’t gentle with each other, hands grabbing, tugging, getting as close as you possibly could and you needed more, now. 

“Steve…” 

He moaned again, whispered your name back to you like a prayer and god, he was right, it sounded so good coming from his lips like that. 

“What d’you want?” Steve asked, low and rough, his lips on your neck, skating across your pulse. “What d’you need, huh? Tell me.”

You wanted everything, all of it at once. You wanted his lips, his tongue, his mouth, you wanted his hands, you wanted him naked, you wanted him under you, above you, against you. You wanted his noises, you wanted to make him moan, to make him swear, to make him throw his head back and call out your name. 

You wanted him. 

You wanted Steve fucking Harrington. 

Instead you said, “-want more, need more.”

Another groan, a disbelieving sound, one that you shared with him, because Steve was running the flat of his palm across your throat, fingers curling briefly before they splayed out and ran the length of your body. 

They trailed down your chest, down between the thin, red straps of your bikini, between the open sides of your shirt and they landed on the still wet band of your shorts, a finger tapping across the button. 

“D’you want me to touch you?”

Jesus Christ, you couldn’t stand it. You squirmed on the desktop, legs tightening around the boy’s waist to gain some much needed friction but Steve moved his other hand to your thigh, holding you still. 

“C’mon baby, use your words,” Steve murmured. “You’re usually so good at that.”

Baby. 

It shouldn’t have made your heart stutter, it shouldn’t have made you wetter than you already were. But it did, fuck, it did. 

You leaned back, hands on the table and chest heaving, your shirt sliding from your shoulders and your head hitting the wall. You stared at the boy through your lashes, lips parted and glossy from his kisses. 

You looked wrecked and Steve fucking adored it. 

“Touch me,” you wriggled again, hissed when he tightened his hand around the curve of your thigh, a delightful sting on your skin. “Steve.”

He huffed out a laugh then, mixed with a moan, and he smiled at you, sticky sweet. “Say please, princess.”

Absolutely not. 

“In your dreams, Harrington,” you gasped out, a laugh lacing your breath. 

‘Make me,’ is what you meant.  

Steve tsked, grinning. “So stubborn,” he said. 

‘Challenge accepted,’ is what he wanted to say. 

And then you were kissing again, deep, slow passes over each other’s lips, teeth catching, tongues soothing and the boy swallowed every moan and gasp you gave him. His hand found your neck, cupping it to move you the way he wanted, head tilted so he could kiss you even harder. 

Steve kissed like he argued, like it was his favourite hobby, like he wanted to have the last word, steal the breath from your lungs and leave you shaking. 

His fingers tangled in your hair, tugged a little mean when you nipped his lip almost too hard and you surprised even yourself with the sound that left your mouth. 

Steve pulled back from you, just a little, just so his nose brushed against yours and you could see the dark glitter of his eyes. 

“Well, would y’look at that,” he murmured and his voice was tougher than you’d ever heard, sticky honey and a storm, “I guess you do like that.” 

You were reminded of your conversation in the lake and you flushed, hating the smug expression on the boy’s face, hating that you liked it even more. 

Steve was real fucking pretty when he was proving you wrong. 

But you didn’t say anything, didn’t give him the satisfaction of an argument, you just just shoved him backwards, following the way he stumbled until you were pulling him back into you, pushed onto your toes so you could catch his jaw with your hands and press your lips back to his. 

“You’re insufferable,” you told him between kisses, voice too breathy to carry any real heat.

“Yeah?” Steve shot back, grunting a little when you pulled at his shirt, his arms flying up so you could pull it off of him. He stood, shirtless, chest heaving and gazing at you like you were something to eat. “I could say the same about you, sweetheart.”

And then he was turning you, walking you backwards with his mouth on your neck until your body hit the wall and his fingers were back on the button of your shorts. 

He sucked a bruise on your throat, all pretty and sharp, lilac on your skin and he nosed at it, humming thoughtfully. 

“Say please,” he told you again, a finger dipping into the denim, scratching soft against the red edge of your bikini. “Be nice for me, princess, huh?”

It was dizzying, his words. His touch. His breath on the column of your throat, his hair brushing your jaw. 

Another kiss, sweet and soft, jarring in the way he held you to the cabin wall, body hard and solid against your own. His thumbs pressed circles into your hips, soothing and a silent reminder that you could stop this whenever you wanted. 

“If you’re nice to me, I’ll be nice to you.”

It was too sweet a deal to say no to. Especially when Steve was looking at you like that, like he wanted to give you the world, like he’d been waiting an age just to touch you like this. 

So you let out a huff, more whimper than protest and your hands fell to his jeans, damp with rain and tight for other reasons. You cupped a palm over him, hard and thick inside the denim and you were close enough that your lips brushed over Steve’s when you spoke. 

“Please,” you whispered. 

He was popping the button on your shorts before the words left your mouth, groaning and canting his hips into your hand as if he couldn’t help himself, as if this was all suddenly too much. 

You slipped your shirt from your shoulders, the wet smack of it hitting the floor as you both toed off your shoes, a different trainer hitting a different corner of the cabin, patience gone as Steve slid the flat of his palm down the curve of your tummy, fingers reaching into your bikini bottoms to find you slick and ready for him. 

“Oh shit,” you both gasped out together, your hands flying to grip Steve’s shoulders, nails digging into the muscles there as his fingers dragged through your folds, thumb finding your clit, his middle digit easily sliding inside of you. 

“Jesus christ, sweetheart,” Steve groaned, eyes falling shut as he leaned into you, forehead to yours and his free hand pulling at your knee, hitching your leg back to his hip so he could push his finger into you a little easier. 

It was a slow drag, a white hot burn that had you clawing at him, already teetering. It was almost embarrassing, almost. It would have been if Steve wasn’t rutting against your hip, desperate as you were, looking so, so pretty and wrecked. 

“D’you always get this worked up when we argue?” 

You thought he was joking, and you were about to tell him off, the bite of your response on the tip of your tongue, but your body had other ideas. You clenched down on him, involuntarily, hips stuttering at his question and he swore into your mouth, delighted. 

“Fucking hell,” he moaned, another kiss, quick and dirty, “you fuckin’ do, don’t you?”

“Of course you’d run your mouth,” you snarked, but still, you tilted your head back for the boy, just so he could suck another kiss onto your throat. “Why am I not surprised?”

He grinned against you, all teeth and curled his finger into you, hitting a whole other spot. Another hot drag, slipping out of you before he pushed back in again, two fingers moving a little faster, his thumb running circles. 

“Somethin’ tells me you like it,” Steve told you, smug. 

And god you did, you really fucking did. 

You didn’t satisfy the boy with an answer, you just whined, pressing your lips back to his as you chased the high you were desperate for. Steve seemed to catch on pretty quick, surprisingly in tune with the way your body was reacting to him and he curled his fingers in and out of you a little quicker, mouth hovering over yours, noses bumping, panting softly. 

“I’m gonna come,” you told him, your hands buried in his hair. “Steve, fuck!”

His hand that was still gripping your thigh was the only thing holding you up, Steve’s body pinning you to the wall and was smiling, victorious as you tightened around him, your face pressed into the crook of his neck as you came, soft sounds falling from your lips. 

“Aw fuck,” he hissed, “that’s it, there you go princess.”

The boy coaxed you through it, murmuring soft, sweet praises, telling you how pretty you sounded when you came, how good you felt around his fingers. It was too much and it wasn’t enough. And when you shrugged off the hazy warmth of your orgasm, you were quick to move into Steve, lips back on his as he slipped his hand from your shorts and grabbed at your waist.  

You walked him backwards, in charge now, smiling against his mouth when he groaned into you. 

The backs of Steve’s thighs hit your bed and you pressed one more kiss into him, a little mean when you nipped at his bottom lip and then shoved him. There was a satisfaction in watching him fall into your mattress, eyes shocked, lips parted and before he could say anything, you hooked your thumbs into your shorts, pushing the denim down your legs. 

The cherry red bikini was the only thing you had left on, the straps of it slipping down your shoulders, the bottoms cut high on your hips. You waited to feel the rush of insecurity, the self conscious need to shy away and cover up. 

But Steve was staring at you with a slack jaw and flushed cheeks, eyes roaming greedy over bare skin and all the places he could get his mouth on, and that nervous feeling? It never came. 

“Pants off, Harrington,” you told him, voice a little too breathy to sound demanding.

He smirked, pushed onto his elbows so he could tilt his head up to meet your gaze. “Always knew you’d be bossy,” Steve murmured and you warmed at the notion of him thinking about this, about you, like that.  

“I’m not bossy,” you argued, but then you were on him, straddling his lap in a way that made Steve lose his rebuttal, his argument slipping from his lips as his hands found your waist again. 

You pushed him back into your pillows, hands flat on his chest and overwhelming need to make him fall apart like he’d done for you taking over. 

“I didn’t say it was a bad thing, princess,” Steve grinned, tongue caught between his teeth as he gazed up at you through messy hair. 

But his smirk slipped from his hips when you settled over him properly, nails pressed into his bare chest as you rocked your hips a little. Steve groaned, loud and unabashed and you think you kinda adored how loud he was about it. 

His palms kneaded at your hips, a push and pull that told you ‘holy shit, stop’ and ‘fucking hell, do that again.’

Your fingers shook as you popped open the button of his jeans, hands tugging at the waistband, sneaking under his boxers to find him hot and hard for you. Steve sucked a breath through his teeth, looking a little wild underneath you and his hand shook like yours did when he grabbed at your wrist. 

“This is gonna be over way too quick if you keep doin’ that.”

His voice was all rough honey, sweet to your ears, low enough to make your thighs clench around him. 

“D’you have a condom?” you rushed out in a sigh, ‘cause you were desperate now, brows knitted together with impatience and Steve tapped at your hip, silently asking you to shift back. 

You moved, bottom lip tucked between your teeth as he fished his wallet out of his pocket, hands fumbling with the leather until he pulled a silver foil square out of the back.

“Is that-?”

Steve grinned, all teeth and cheekiness, eyes sparkling. “The one Murray threw at us? Yeah.”

You didn’t know whether to laugh or shove at the boy for his smugness, so you did both. A huff of breath falling from your lips, a hand pushed to Steve’s chests in a poor attempt at a scolding and then he was pulling you down with a hand around the back of your neck. 

“Were you hoping to get to use it?” You asked, eyes fluttering closed when Steve hooked his fingers under the straps of your bikini. “That’s awfully presumptuous of you, Harrington.”

But Steve just hummed, unphased by your teasing when he had his lips on your collarbone, pressing a line of kiss to your breast. 

“Seemed symbolic, no?” 

And then you were on your back, tucked under the boy with his elbow pressed to the pillow, his other hand trailing up and down your waist, taking in soft skin and new freckles and scars, mapping out the scar on your knee, the bruise you got from helping El do a cartwheel on your hip.

You looked up at him then, time slowing with his movements, all soft hands and softer eyes and oh my god, this was Steve fucking Harrington. You weren't ready to admit what this meant, not yet, you weren’t ready to realise what this was. 

So you reached up between your bodies to tug at his jaw, fingers spread out to tap at his chin, thumb on the plush curve of his bottom lip.

“You gonna kiss me or what?”

“Don’t tell me what to do,” he huffed and he tried to look annoyed, he really did but Steve kissed you anyway, heat flooding you both, the rain battering louder on the roof as you pulled at his jeans, pushing them down his hips.

“I- god, shit,” Steve was mumbling, voice cracking at the feel of you under him, against him, body squirming for friction, for him.

You pushed at him, lips still moving against his, giving him all your soft noises, rolling you both until you were on top again, precariously close to the edge of the bunk, sheets rumpled.

“Of course you wanna be on top,” Steve snarked, but he couldn’t hide how his eyes were glassy, how needy his hands were as they tugged at your bikini and you laughed as you raised your arms for him, letting him pull the swimsuit off. 

You’d never felt more powerful when you smiled down at him, saccharine sweet. “Don’t you like it?”

Steve was speechless. Just for a second or two, at least. 

“Yeah, I really fuckin’ do,” and oh, his voice sounded too sweet, a little broken and wild, all husky just for you. 

Everything snapped, the tension, the waiting, the storm outside. The foil packet crinkled as Steve ripped it open and the air fizzed when he rolled it onto himself, tip already leaking at the sight of you waiting for him.

Neither of you had the patience to allow you to move off of him in order to take your bikini bottoms off, neither of you wanted to stop touching for that long. There was a new found desperation when Steve sat up, back against the headboard as you crowded over him, gasping and sighing into the mess of his hair when he pulled your bikini to the side, swiping his fingers through you. 

“So wet,” he whispered, lips pressed to your chest, teeth grazing skin, kisses pushed to every part of you he could reach. “You hear that, babe? How wet y’are for me?”

You were on fire and yes, yes you could. It was obscene in the best way, intense and a little dirty, and you watched in awe when the boy pulled his fingers away from you, sucked them into his mouth instead and soothed your responding whine with a pet to your hip.

“Shit, shit, shit- Steve.”

“I know, I know,” he cooed, voice far too soft and gentle, and Jesus, he was still trying to tease you. “Tell me what you want, yeah?”

But then the charade fell when you sat up and slipped over him, hard tip nudging against you before you blew out a breath, groaning as you took him all.

“Oh fuck, oh fuck,” he was clawing at you, hands pushing at your hips to make sure you didn’t move just yet, eyes clenched shut as his forehead fell against yours. “Oh good girl, good fucking girl, princess.”

That did it for you, that little gush of praise and it had you clenching around him, making you both moan. You rocked your hips, once, twice, against Steve’s tight hold until eventually he helped you. Strong hands lifted you up and down over him, the slick, hot slide of the boy making you dizzy.

He whispered your name, moaned it, gasped it out on a hot breath that fell across your cheek and you pushed a palm to his jaw, held his chin in your hands to make him look at you and you felt the boy throb as you did it. 

“My name sounds so pretty when you say it,” you murmured, repeating his previous words back to him and he groaned and laughed, hips canting up into yours with a snap.

The bed was moving against the wall, a dull thud, thud, thud that was hidden by rain and thunder, but Steve still grinned when you moaned louder than ever, his hand pushed to your mouth to muffle your sounds.

“So noisy, huh?” That taunting tone was back, the one that made you press yourself down onto him a little harder, deep enough to make him gasp and grab at your waist. “Oh, you’re too sweet, you know that? So pretty - you know just how to get me all wound up, don’t you?”

You moaned, soft and sweet, to pent up to argue back but you moved a little quicker, made Steve’s head fall back, neck taught and fingertips bruising on your thighs as he kept you spread open for him. 

You pulled away from his hand, breath hitching as he twitched inside of you and you mouthed at his throat, lips pressing a scattering of messy kisses there and you trailed them to his ear. 

You hummed, a happy noise that came from the back of your throat and you wound your arms around his neck, fingers threading through his hair. 

“You close, hmm?” You gasped, chest pressed flush to the boy’s and you both rocked your hips, a dizzy mess of desperate movements. “Huh, Steve? Are you goin’ to come for me?”

The boy realised your game and he huffed out a laugh, groaning as he tucked his face into your neck, smelling rain and leftover sunscreen, letting you take your hands through his hair, tugging a little when you wanted him to slam his hips up into you. 

His hand found its way between your bodies, slick with sweat and rain, thumb running perfect, little circles over your clit as he forced you into the same breathless high that you were pinning on him. 

“Christ, yeah,” he grunted, voice shot, every word tumbling into the next, “come w’me? Not gonna last much longer, y’feel too good.”

His voice was a shot of whisky, caramel and sticky sweet when he spoke into your skin, a hand roaming up and down the expanse of your bare back, tongue laving over a nipple, sucking bruises into the dip between your breasts. 

You can’t remember a time you had ever felt so needy, it was startling, it was electrifying. 

“Steve, Steve, Steve,” you sounded wrecked, and Steve adored it. “Harder, fuck, harder, I’m close-”

Amazingly, Steve was so much more agreeable when he was buried to the hilt inside of you, hands pressing bruises to your hips as he slammed up into you, meeting your thrust for thrust as everything came to a high and you crashed into it together. 

“Awh shit, that’s it, there you go sweetheart.”

The boy whispered your name when he came, hips stuttering, mouth pressed to yours as he held you still, your limbs twitching from the aftershocks of it all. Steve petted at your thighs, hands all soft and shaky, forehead pressed to yours as you both panted, trying to catch the breath the other had stolen.

The rain had stopped when you clambered off of his lap, Steve helping you move on your shaky legs as he tied off the condom and tossed it into the bin near your bed. The birds were chirping again when he lay down beside you, both of you half naked, clothes rumpled, hair misbehaving, shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip.

The clouds were lifting, the room not as dark, a stripe of sunlight filtering through the gap in the curtains, gold cutting through the shadows. There was a drip, drip, drip of leftover rain on the porch, the soft gasps from both of you, sheets tangled at your feet. 

Quiet passed over you both, skin still tingling, lips feeling bruised from each other's mouths, the taste of Steve Harrington and rain still on your tongue. 

I can’t get any rest, people say I’m obsessed. 

The last week of summer camp went by in a slow roll. Like the way a camcorder stuttered over its film, lazy and with a soft crackle, memories trapped between sunspots and dust. 

Days passed without you being able to see much of Steve, Hopper finally making good on his promise as he kept you both apart, Steve sharing lifeguard duties with Billy and you co-ordinating crafts with Nancy.

The kids kept you all busy, the last few days bringing a new buzz of excitement as the thought of returning back home, to school, to reality, set in. You helped Will finish his painting, watched with pride when he presented it to Will, the other boy awed. Nancy settled arguments between Max and Lucas, raising her brows at you in amusement when you told her that they were fine, they were both just too stubborn. Steve finally taught El how to swim and when Robin caught Dustin and Suzie sharing a shy first kiss behind the old bike shed, she didn’t have it in her to tell them off.

In fact, you didn’t see Steve until three days after the storm, trailing out of Hop’s office after a surly looking Billy, both of them sporting bruised faces and cut lips, Steve’s hair messier than usual and Billy’s red lifeguard shirt was ripped at the collar.

He glared at you as he passed, blonde hair mussed and blue eyes cold, as if somehow, his black eye was your fault. But you didn’t worry yourself over Billy Hargrove’s sour mood, your feet quickly carrying you over to where Steve was.

Catching Steve’s elbow in your hand didn’t feel anywhere as near as unnatural as it did a week ago, your touch almost too casual on him. It shouldn’t have been a big deal, your hand on his bare arm, not really, not after that night.

But you hadn’t spoken about it since, you hadn’t touched, hadn’t pressed your lips back to his. So now, the feel of your palm curled around his elbow had you both burning. Steve stared at you, eyes flickering to where you held him and you swallowed hard, told yourself to be brave and you didn’t let go. He didn’t pull away either. 

“Hey,” your voice was a soft murmur, the low buzz of the kids in the mess hall almost drowning you out. “Are you okay? What happened?”

You were frowning as you took in the bruise at his temple, shades of lavender and navy creeping towards his eyebrow, a cut on his lip that was red with dried blood, his hair falling over his eyes like he’d been thrown around. 

Steve shrugged, eyes glancing back towards the door of Hopper’s cabin, scowling when he saw that Murray was at the window, watching you both with a mug of coffee to his lips, hiding his grin. Steve took your hand in his, gesturing to the old gym and you would’ve followed him even if his hand wasn’t pulling you along behind him.

Once you were both hidden from the rest of the camp, bodies pressed into the cool shadows that the side of the old building brought, Steve turned to you, a hand still tangled in yours, the other finding the dip in your waist, just because he could. His touch brought shivers to your skin, a feeling you still weren’t used to and you found that you didn’t hate, not at all. 

If anything, it made you braver, urging you to take a step closer, your hand taking his chin in your grip as you tilted his head up to the sun, the bruise catching the light and you made a soft noise, a quiet hum. Steve let you push and pull at him, the start of a smile on his lips that you were sure he’d normally try and hide from you, but his fingertips were curling into your staff shirt, pushing it out of the way until his skin found yours and your breath hitched.

 “Billy?” You asked, careful.

“No, I’m Steve,” he joked but it was weak, his smile too tired and you huffed, catching his gaze with a stare he knew too well. 

It was no secret that Steve and Billy had never seen eye to eye, Steve took genuine offence to the way that Billy treated the kids, too harshly and with rough words, rolling his eyes if they ever got upset, laughing when he managed to scare them. 

But it had never come to a head, fist staying clenched by sides and jaws clenched, but Steve tended to try and stay out of fights - for the kids sake if anything. 

And you knew that, knew the boy better than you thought, years of living in the same small town, summers spent in the same warm forest making you pick up more than you realised about Steve Harrington. 

“What happened?” You asked again, still quiet. 

Your thumb ran over the cut on his lip, gentle and if Steve wasn’t in pain, you probably would’ve smirked when he shivered at your touch. 

“Jus’ Hargrove talkin’ shit,” Steve grunted, voice rough as if he’d been yelling. Knowing Hopper and Murray, he probably had been. “It’s fine, m’fine, princess.”

The pet name carried so much more affection than it had before, warming you to the bone, skin tingling, cheeks flushed. 

You frowned, lips pouted, unperturbed when you dropped your hand from Steve’s jaw and it landed on his shoulder instead, the two of you swaying slightly together, not all that used to touching just yet, but enjoying the closeness nonetheless. 

“You don’t usually let him get to you,” you huffed, brows still knitted together and you were somewhat annoyed at yourself for not being there to break the boys apart. Steve had proved himself capable of listening to you now, and you were not above using it to your advantage, especially if it kept him out of the way of Billy’s fists. 

Steve just looked at you, eyes all soft, brown sugar and honey, shrugging with a small smile, like he was keeping a secret. 

“Stranger things have happened, haven’t they, sweetheart?”

You stared at him, lips parted, wondering if this was another taunt, a tease, the start of an argument, because neither of you had had a chance to talk about what had happened in your cabin that night. You’d both woken up tangled together, bodies lazy and tired, the moon in the sky outside and Robin thankfully still gone. You had wrapped yourself in the sheet that smelled like Steve as you watched him get dressed, cheeks warm and nerves fluttering at your chest. 

Neither of you had spoken, but he smiled all soft and bent down to kiss you before he left, his lips yielding on yours, a small noise of something huffing from him as he let you cup his jaw, holding him to you a little longer. The fight seemed to have left both of you, too slow and sleepy to pretend anymore. Steve had traced the bruise he’d left on your neck, pushed your still messy hair from your forehead and kissed there too before he left, the cabin door closing softly behind him. 

So you were waiting for a snarky comment, a dismissal, an argument, maybe. But Steve grinned and squeezed at your waist, fingers still brushing warm underneath your shirt and then the bell rang, signalling the end of dinner and you both startled, jumping apart, despite being hidden.

“Steve-” you stopped, laughing embarrassed when Steve said your name at the same time. “Uh, you first,” you told him, achingly shy all of a sudden.

“Do you- uh, you think you could meet me later? By the lake?” Steve asked, squinting at you like he too was suddenly feeling awkward.

You felt like a teenager standing at her locker between classes, the school hall empty and your heart in your throat. You grinned, tried to hide it by ducking your chin to your chest, an already scuffed trainer kicking at the twigs by your feet.

“Are you asking me on a date, Harrington?” Your voice was all soft teasing, warm like the summer and it made the boy smile, cheeks pink, eyes rolling with affection, not annoyance. 

“No,” he scoffed and you heard the lie there, heard the warmth. “Shut up.”

You laughed, snorting softly in a way that made Steve grin even harder, both of you feeling uncharacteristically giddy in the presence of the other, and god, you couldn't help but think about how the boy had dragged you into his lap, half naked and desperate. 

“I hate you, remember?” Steve whispered it, moving a little closer, a hand playing with a stray lock of hair, knuckles brushing against your cheek. 

You hummed and nodded, brows furrowed and lips pursed as if you were indeed, remembering. You remembered how the boy tasted, how he felt, how wild he got for you when you tugged his hair and bit down on his pretty bottom lip. 

So you pushed softly at his chest, all strong muscle and warm skin underneath his faded staff shirt and you looked up at Steve through your lashes.

“Yeah, I remember,” you murmured back.

And then the sounds of the kids spilling out of the mess hall finally got too loud, the evening hardly over and there were jobs still to do. You both heard Eddie announce that week's dungeons and dragon’s meeting, a crowd of the kids cheering, Nancy corralling others to the campfire, s’mores and storybook in hand. You had promised Max that you’d swap some mixtapes with her, the redhead and El both at your side during lunch, brandishing old Madonna and a double cassette of Kate Bush that Max said she was sick of listening to.

“Eleven o’clock?” Steve asked, hand brushing down your arm, any excuse to touch you before his palm curled warm around your elbow. “Where the old boathouse used to be?”

You nodded, relishing the last touch before he left, hand in his hair as he walked back out to the chaos of the camp, meeting Dustin on one of the walkways and ruffling the young boy’s curls. You waited until Steve had disappeared into the woods, following the trail that led to where Eddie was setting up his wizard game.

It didn’t take long for you to settle yourself onto a fallen log beside Robin, cheek leaning on her shoulder as Suzie settled herself by your feet, leaning on your legs as El tucked herself into the other side of you. The kids were all enraptured by Nancy, the small crowd lit by the glow of the fire as the girl told stories of three headed dragons and kids with superpowers, little girls and boys who were all strong enough to defeat monsters and nightmares.

And then when the fire was starting to burn out, the night darker, the kids sleepier, you swapped your old tapes with Max’s, sending the girl back to her cabin happier than before. The rest of the camp followed the trails into the shallow parts of the forest, the moon filtering through the branches as they tumbled into their bunks, all smelling like smoke and with marshmallow stickiness on their fingers. 

Nancy waited until Robin had been pulled away by a disgruntled Mike, Will on their heels as they claimed they needed an impartial party in order to settle a game debate, Eddie too busy laughing to indulge the boys.

“So,” Nancy murmured, shoulder nudging yours, “you heard about Steve and Billy, huh?”

You panicked at the mention of the boy, a small surge of ‘oh god, she knows’, before you remembered the bruises, the fight that Steve never explained to you.

You blew out a breath and shrugged, suddenly feeling like it was too hard to play normal, like Nancy would look at you and know, like she’d notice the lavender bloom on your skin, hidden by your shirt collar. 

“I mean,” you started, voice overly casual, “I knew they tried to beat the shit out of each other, but I dunno why.”

The girl looked at you through frizzy bangs, brows raised and hidden behind her fringe. Her mouth fell into a little ‘o’, surprise colouring her features before she smiled, knowing.

“You don’t?” You shrugged again, following Nancy’s lead as you both made your way around the now empty logs, gathering up chocolate smeared paper plates and forgotten sweaters. The fire simmered between you both, the burnt out logs still glowing and smoking, the faint sound of Hopper’s records playing from his open office window filling the air. 

“Hargrove was being his usual self, a complete dick.” 

You snorted at Nancy’s words before she continued, still smiling. 

“But then he started talking about you,” the girl said, lips twisted, eyes gazing at you. “Kept asking Steve if he thought he should make a pass at you, some disgusting comment about how easy you’d give it up.”

You screwed up your face, unimpressed but unsurprised by Billy’s words and you were standing still, feet planted as you waited for the rest of the story. 

“Guess he finally pushed Steve too far, ‘cause before any of us knew it, he flew for Billy, fist straight to his face.”

Your jaw dropped, lips parted, eyes wide. “Oh.”

“Yeah,” Nancy huffed out a laugh, “took Eddie and Hop to break them up, Steve was really gunning for him. But I guess, I can’t really blame him, Billy was still running his mouth even after Steve rattled his jaw.”

“Huh.”

You were speechless.

“I know, right?” the girl smiled and she walked around to take the stack of plates you’d collected, looking at you with the air of suspicious interest that only Nancy Wheeler could manage. “Has, uh, anything happened between you two?”

You baulked, eyes ever wider and you wondered if Hopper’s music was loud enough to cover the thumping of your heartbeat. You laughed, forced, pulled your brows together and scrunched your nose. “What? Who?”

God, you’d never made it as an actress. 

“You and Steve,” Nancy replied lightly, settling another inquisitive stare on you. She seemed to be searching your face for clues, for hints. “You’ve been getting along better lately, no arguments.” She grinned, sharp, “it’s been quiet.”

You barked out a laugh, nervous and shy, because she was right, of course she was right, Nancy was always right, she just didn’t need to know the reason why. 

So you shrugged again, feeling warm, wondering if you needed to blame the leftover heat from the fire for your flushed appearance. “Yeah, uh, I guess Hopper finally decided to keep us apart.”

Your words sounded scripted, the lie sounded thick and it tasted weird on your tongue. Nancy smiled at you like she knew everything. But she nodded, soft and placating as she sighed and picked up another sweater, chocolate stained, and a hat that looked like Dustins. 

“Yeah,” she agreed, “I guess.”

----------

Robin was already asleep as you pushed your feet back into your shoes, your friend snoring softly from her bunk, hair covering her eyes, lips pressed into a pucker with her face squished to the mattress edge.

The rest of the camp was somewhat quiet, the hushed conversations coming from some of the open cabin windows, torch lights shining out of cracks in the curtains, whispered stories and secrets lingering in the still warm air. Hopper’s cabin was illuminated in the distance, music still playing softly, the backlit figures of the camp leader and Joyce sipping wine over the desk. 

You passed Eddie as you walked towards the lake, sticking to the shadows off of the path, converse crushing pinecones and the boy was leaning over the edge of the railing of his porch, a sneaky joint hanging from his fingertips, the tip glowing a dirty red in the dark.

He caught your gaze, grinned wide and toothy as he raised a hand in a lazy wave and you felt too warm knowing that he was well aware of his own missing bunkmate. Did he know? Did Steve tell him? Did you mind?

“Late night rendezvous, Hawkins?” Eddie whispered, head tilted to look at you teasingly. You flipped him off and he chuckled, low and throaty. “Don’t argue too loud now, you don’t wanna wake the kids.” 

And then he winked, stubbed his joint out onto the railing and padded back into his cabin, barefoot and ready for bed. 

The camp was darker without the campfire lighting up the main square, the tall trees blocking out most of the moon, the stars white dots between indigo clouds. It got brighter as you neared the lake, skirting the edges of the beach before you waded through the longer grass, the messier part of the waters edge that no one was usually allowed into.

Wildflowers and weeds brushed your bare shins, your pyjama shorts not doing enough to keep you cool, even in the night. The summer lingered in the air, on your skin, leftover sun kissing at your cheeks, your shoulders. Or maybe it was the anticipation of what was waiting for you on the other side of the lake, who was waiting for you.

So you moved a little faster, crickets chirping in the longer grass, cicadas buzzing from the forest you’d left behind. The moonlight danced off the surface of the lake, the water silver, the air fresh and sharp. Everything was pine and cedar, damp moss and old smoke. 

And then Steve was sitting in a clearing in the bush, bare feet dipped up to his ankles in the water, jeans rolled up as he sat on the remnants of an old dock, half of it destroyed by weather and time with the bare bones of the boathouse behind it. 

Steve looked up as you approached, hiding his smile by looking back out at the water and he shuffled along the old boards a little, letting you sit down next to him. You pulled your shoes off like he had, tucked your socks inside so you wouldn’t lose them and you sighed when the cool water licked across your feet. 

You wish you could say the silence was comfortable, and it was, in a way. The night wrapped around you both like a warm blanket, familiar in a way that only the camp was, smoke and mountain air, fresh water and cedar. 

But there was something buzzing underneath it all, an electrical current that carried tension and questions. It fizzed, it crackled. It was stolen glances from under lashes, hands curled around the edge of the dock, close enough for pinky fingers to brush. It was the promise of another kiss, the flushed cheeks of remembering that you had kissed. It was the boom, boom, boom of a nervous heart, that sticky feeling of not being able to swallow properly. 

Your shoulders brushed, hands grazed, breath hitched and chests burned. There was a smile on your lips that you were trying to hide, the kind that made your cheeks ache, biting your tongue to stop the sheer giddiness of it all. 

“D’you still hate me?” Steve asked, and he sounded like you felt, that hidden smile in his voice, rosy around the edges, the sunshine boy in the middle of the forest. 

You laughed, soft and on a huffed breath, chin tilted down so you could watch the way your toes trailed patterns in the water, the way the lake looked like ink underneath you both. You thought about his question, about how you would’ve answered it a week ago, how you wanted to answer it now. 

You realised then, that despite what had occurred in that small space in time, the answer would have been the same. 

“I’ve never hated you, Harrington,” you told him and his surname sounded so much nicer now, an endearment on your tongue instead of a curse. “Not really.”

Steve glanced at you from under his lashes, brown eyes looking black in the night, the shadows on his face blue and the bruises from Billy looking darker than before. 

He smiled, lips curling a soft line, dimples appearing and he looked adorably shy. He nudged you, shoulder bumping your own. 

“I don’t know if I believe that, princess.”

You knew he was joking, at least you were sure he was. But you guessed that such a statement required an explanation. So you inhaled the mountains, the forest, the lake and Steve in your lungs, before blowing it back out with all your pride. 

“I was always jealous I guess,” you shrugged, eyes on your hand, fingers playing with an old knot in the wooden board you sat on. “You always seemed to get what you wanted. You were so popular, everyone liked you. Even the teachers.”

“Kinda immature, I know,” you flushed, bottom lip tucked between your teeth. “It just seemed like everything I wanted - everything I worked so hard for - was just handed to you.”

You snuck a glance at the boy, knowing that your words were unfair. Steve wasn’t stupid, he did well in school, well enough to get good grades and get away with being too cheeky every now and then. 

“I know that sounds harsh and- and I’m sorry that I always spoke shit about your dad,” you cleared your throat nervously. “About your family, your uh, financial situation… that was never very nice of me.”

It wasn’t a secret that you didn’t live in a house that was as big as Steve’s, or that through middle school, your mom worked two jobs. But you were happy and it wasn’t Steve’s fault. You knew that. You’d always known that. 

But the boy only nodded, a knot between his brows and he moved closer until his knee knocked against yours as if he was telling you it was okay. 

“No, uh, you’re right,” Steve whispered. He was frowning, like he had only really come to this realisation then. “You’re right, about my dad.”

You didn’t want to be. 

“He’s not really around, you know? Neither is my mom. There’s always business meetings, trips out of town, out of state.” He laughed, humourless. “Which is why we stay in that nice, big house, I know but-”

Steve swallowed, face twisted in sadness and frustration and you ached to reach out and smooth away the lines there, the furrow on his forehead, the downturn of his lips. Somewhere in the distance, something small splashed in the lake. 

“-but they’re just never around. They never were.” He looked at you, smile sad, eyes sadder. “My dad’s just an ATM. He’s a cheque, a couple of numbers after a report card.”

“Steve…”

He didn’t want your sympathy you realised, he didn’t want pity. But he didn’t brush you off when you lay your hand on his leg, rough denim under your palm, just above his knee. 

“My mom was the same, pizza money on the counter, a couple of hundred dollars for the weekend when I was fourteen and they had to go to Memphis -no, Minnesota - I can’t remember. But I was alone the whole week.”

“That’s horrible,” you told him. Your statement was simple, an understanding, a fact, and Steve liked that your voice didn’t soften for him, it didn’t change. 

“Yeah,” he agreed, nodding and pulling the hand that was on his knee into his own. Your fingers tangled with his and your tummy flipped at the roughness of his palm. 

“I hated when he pulled that shit, you know? The science fair?” Steve scrunched his nose in annoyance. “He didn’t even stay for the results, to watch me get a prize. He just paid and left.”

Your hand squeezed his a little tighter. 

“Your parents were always there,” he murmured and his voice warmed. “I remember in fourth grade, when we changed classes and you were so nervous, your mom was there giving you a hug and your dad was taking photos even though you were crying.”

“I wasn’t crying,” you huffed, voice breathy because you were embarrassed by the memory, shocked that Steve remembered. “You noticed me?” You couldn’t help but ask. 

He only hummed, still smiling, both of you leaning into the other more than before, letting the boy take your warm weight as you accepted his. 

“I always noticed you,” he said and his sincerity was life altering. “You just drove me crazy.”

It didn’t sound like a bad thing, when he said it like that, when he was looking at you the way he was.

“Did you always hate me?” 

Steve grinned, shaking his head as he looked out onto the water. “Never did, princess, I told you that already. I guess I was jealous of you too, huh?”

You were shocked, lips parted, heart heavy. But then you shook your head, thinking of something else to say to clear the weight in the air because you didn’t want to think of fourteen year old Steve in that big house all alone anymore. 

“I work here to save for college,” you told him, like it was supposed to be a secret, like Steve hadn’t heard you talk to Dustin about it before. “My grades weren’t quite good enough to score me a scholarship so-” you trailed off, gesturing uselessly to your staff shirt you were still wearing. 

“I failed my Chemistry exam,” Steve told you in return, voice unaffected. “Then I told my dad I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to go to college, that I didn’t have a clue what I wanted to do.”

You turned to look at the boy, traced the lines of his face with careful eyes, the slope of his nose, his jaw, the curve of his cheek. 

“He cut me off,” Steve said simply, “we don’t really talk anymore. So I’m tryin’ to save up for my own place.”

“In Hawkins?” You asked, because nothing else seemed to matter. 

“Anywhere,” Steve answered. “Where d’you wanna go to college?” 

“Anywhere,” you told him and it felt like a confession. 

His smile was blinding. 

—————

Steve kissed you behind your cabin, the forest your only audience. He pressed you into the wet wood of the wall, just like he had done the days before, rain on his skin and his lips on your neck. 

But this felt like a first kiss, it felt like the first time. No one dared you to do it, no fight or challenge in either of your bodies and it made you melt against him all slow and soft, butterflies in your stomach, your heart in your throat. 

It still felt new, it felt like a crush, like something to wake up and look forward to in the morning, like the first day of summer, the morning before camp began. 

Steve kissed you lazy and deep, like he had all the time in the world, like he wanted to swallow you whole like then night. He tasted like mint toothpaste and soda, the fizz of it making you buzz, cherry and sugar on your tongue. He brought his hand to your cheek, fingertips pressing gentle to your skin, his thumb soothing over the sting of his teeth on your bottom lip.

It made you push up onto your toes, chasing his mouth, your hands in his hair and making him bend down for you, sighing all happy like he didn’t care you were telling him what to do. 

He kissed you like he wanted to keep you. 

It was hard to pull away from each other, even when the rest of the camp was asleep and the night was drawing into early morning. You craved the touch of the boy you’d always kept at arm's length, amazed at the way you responded to him so easily, so desperately, like your bodies were both yelling at you, asking ‘why weren’t we doing this all along?’

You wanted to tell him your secrets, you wanted to share your summer. You wanted to ask what this meant, but you were too scared, maybe still too full of pride and the idea of going back to Hawkins and being rejected was too much to bear. 

So you took the stolen kisses behind the cabin, hands touching bare skin under shirts, edging just shy of being scandalous, the sounds of your soft breath mixing with Steve’s and it was dizzying. 

It was enough for now. 

You went to bed with one more kiss still fizzing on your lips, a new mark pressed on your neck, hidden under hair and matching the one you had given the boy. Steve watched as you walked into your cabin, footsteps soft and the shy squeak of the door made you both cringe but Robin stayed asleep. 

You waved goodnight, eyes tired but your heart still thumping, and when Steve raised his hand in response, a smile on his face that had the shadow of shyness, you wanted to squeal. 

It was ridiculous, this giddiness, this new feeling for the boy you’d known for so long. It wasn’t all that different though, being pressed up against Steve Harrington as he kissed the breath from you. He still made you wanna bite back, kiss him harder than he’d kissed you, a sense of a challenge lingering around you both at all times. 

It just felt more fun now. 

—————

Hopper seemed almost disappointed that he hadn’t managed to collect more damage money from you and Steve. There had been a mason jar sitting on his desk from day two, a haphazard sticker on it with the words `therapy savings' written in sharpie. After the kayak incident, there had only been a few more dollars stuffed into it, some loose change for snarky comments made at meetings and one green M&M that Eddie had managed to throw into it from across the room. 

But the camp was still standing after another year, the buses and cars of parents littering the spaces between the cabins as the kids dragged out too big duffel bags, yelled about lost games and forgotten socks. 

Some kids lined up to hug you goodbye, El and Will sniffling softly into your t-shirt as your own tears fell into their hair, your arms wrapped tight around them. You’d see them next year, like you always did, when they were older and taller and less likely to throw themselves into your arms in greeting. 

Dustin told you all about a radio he was building, something that would allow you to chat to him through the school year and he was handing you a scribbled note with all the best walkie talkie brands on it and numbers for different frequencies. He let you mess his curls one more time, his grin wide and his cheeks pink. 

Lucas and Mike helped you load your bags in your car, despite their parents standing waiting with smiles on their faces. You pestered them both into a hug, both of them pressed to a shoulder as you told them to be good and stay out of trouble. 

Your voice didn’t really crack until Max appeared, Walkman around her neck and another cassette in her hand. She tried to look casual about it when she handed it to you, a piece of tape stuck to the front with the words ‘love from Max’ written on it. 

“Maxine,” you gasped, all faux shock and she rolled her eyes. “You made me my own tape?”

The girl shrugged, one hand pulling at the end of a braid as she scowled, trying to keep the pink from her cheeks. 

“It’s no big deal,” she muttered to the ground, “your taste in music needed expanding.”

She said it huffily, but she meant ‘I’ll miss you.’

“Thanks kid,” you whispered, throat tight, eyes glassy and you nudged your shoulder into hers. She pressed her head to your arm in lieu of a hug, saving that one show of rare affection for Lucas instead. 

Then she was gone, along with the rest of the kids, and the camp was finally quiet again. 

Billy picked up his wages and left without saying goodbye to anyone, duffel bag dragging on the ground as he grabbed a greyhound out of Indiana, face still mottled with bruises from Steve’s fists. 

Robin left with Eddie, the boy telling her that he’d drive her home instead of her having to share the same fate as Billy, shoved on a bus during the high heat of the day. She didn’t take much convincing when Eddie jumped into the driver seat and started blaring Prince from the radio, curls messy as he grinned at her. 

“C’mon Buckley, you can’t say no to me.”

And she didn’t. 

They boy hugged you tight before they left, Robin promising to write, promising to visit and Eddie lifted you off of your feet, crushing you to his chest as he whispered in your ear, “look after my boy, huh?”

They left in a plume of dust and dirt, the sound of ‘purple rain’ trailing behind them. 

Nancy and Jonathan were next, the girl doing one last round through the cabins, arms full of forgotten drawings, a lone teddy, seventeen odd socks. Then she hugged you, eyes fond, leaving with her boyfriend for a week's holiday in his hometown before promising you that she’d catch up with you back in Hawkins before college started. 

It left you and Steve alone in the staff parking lot, sun shining, blue skies, green forest and birds chirping. 

He was leaning against his car, arms crossed like the way he was looking at you was no big deal, smile all soft and familiar now, like that’s the way he’d always looked at you. 

Maybe it was. Maybe you’d never noticed. 

You pressed your hip into your own car, eyes full of trouble as you gazed at him expectantly. Steve raised his brows, smirked like he wanted to argue with you, like he wanted to kiss you. 

“Race you home?” He asked and god, his voice was honey, sweet and warm, capable of stopping you in your tracks. 

You laughed, patting the hood of your old car affectionately before telling him, “nah, my car is slow as shit.”

Your callback to his own words at the beginning of camp made him bark out a bright laugh, genuine amusement in his eyes and he shook his head, lips twisted. 

“Glad you can finally admit it, princess.”

You wondered if this was a goodbye, if this was it. You wondered if you were supposed to talk about what had happened, if this kiss you shared behind your cabin meant the same to Steve as it did to you. If you were supposed to go back to sharing the same town and calling each other names like you hadn’t been on top of him. 

So you waited, a beat of silence, a roll of summer washing over you both. The breeze picked at both your hair, stray stands blowing across lips and mouths and you sighed, soft, wanting. 

“Uh, there’s um,” Steve was scratching the back of his neck, eyes fond on you, smile all nervous. “There’s this diner in Lowell, they do a pretty good burger.”

You grinned, happiness beating out of you like the fucking sun. 

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah,” Steve called back, grinning just like you. He looked pretty, softer than you once knew him, all wild curls and caramel eyes, new freckles on his nose, the bruise you gave him faded on his throat. “D’you wanna stop for lunch?”

You could’ve sworn the only sound in the forest was your heart. 

“Are you asking me out on a date, Harrington?”

You waited for the scoff, the teasing, the taunt. You were so used to the quick, sharp bite of a reply, that when he shrugged all slow and lazy, head tilted to look at you from under his lashes, you were surprised. 

“Yeah,” he told you again. 

It was such a simple reply. One word, so sincere, heart stoppingly sure. 

You ducked your head, hiding your grin, your flush, the way your eyes must’ve been glittering. It felt a little magic, a little manic, that feeling of something new.

It felt like a first kiss, a boy touching you during a thunderstorm, like the taste of rain, the smell of campfire smoke. It was all Steve fucking Harrington. 

So you nodded, took a breath, took a chance, grinned and opened your car door. 

“I’ll meet you there.” 

-----

Ko-Fi ♡

[lesbianrobin]

What do you think are the good and bad aspects of each season of ST?

ok 1. thank u for this question omg and 2. this answer may or may not be a mess, but either way it’s long (almost 7k words lmao) bc i’m insane, which is why it’s under a cut. it’s still by no means an exhaustive list but these are the things that just kinda came to mind.

also i realize you asked “good and bad” and i wrote this whole post as “strengths and weaknesses” which um. is not Exactly what you asked. but close enough <3 i also ended up including a lot of au ideas ksjdckmn bc like i personally hate when people say a certain plot or whatever was bad without suggesting anything that could have improved it yknow so whenever possible i tried to provide Some idea for fixing the issues i had with the show!!

season 1

strengths (this is probably gonna be the longest section but that’s because a lot of these strengths also apply to s2/s3 by default)

nostalgia and authenticity

this one’s pretty simple, but i think that season one did a good job of blending classic eighties media homages (such as the many many e.t./el parallels) with explicit pop culture references (such as mike’s yoda impression, mentions of the x-men, etc) to create a show that’s essentially dripping in early eighties nostalgia without it feeling too forced. before st, i think the most popular depiction of the eighties in mainstream media was that overly exaggerated neon scrunchie aesthetic from the mid to late eighties, and it was usually done in a comedic sense first and foremost. st took a different approach, instead focusing on the early eighties, a time that’s often ignored in favor of going either Full Seventies or Full Eighties, and i think that this choice likely resonated with adults who lived through the eighties and hadn’t yet seen something that felt quite so accurate to their own adolescence. a lot of young people who watched st were totally unfamiliar with this period of time, unfamiliar with books/movies like “stand by me” that st borrows from heavily, and i think st lent more seriousness to the eighties than most young people had experienced so far, and this was refreshing and interesting!

the use of dnd in the show is also quite genius in a way i’m not sure i can articulate?? it isn’t something Everyone would have played at the time, but it’s something that existed within a different context back in the eighties than it does today, and it really lent a sort of authenticity to the naming of the show’s sci-fi elements. like, of course these kids would name parallel dimensions and monsters and superpowers after these similar things in their favorite game! it just feels so real and it grounds st in our reality moreso than you might expect from the typical sci-fi or horror universe.

utilization of existing tropes

almost every single character in st clearly originates from some popular trope. the plot itself is riddled with classic eighties movie tropes. almost every single element of stranger things can be clearly traced back to some iconic eighties film or just to, like, overused horror/sci-fi/mystery/coming-of-age movie tropes in general. this might sound like a bad thing, but it really works in st’s favor! starting off with familiar tropes gives st the ability to easily create a lot of complexity and make a big impact by selectively deviating from those familiar, comfortable tropes!! while el’s whole plot, hopper’s character, etc, are all examples of this in action, i think the steve/nancy/jonathan plot is the greatest example. even from the start, the fact that good girl barb dies while nancy is off having sex with her asshole boyfriend is an incredibly thorough inversion of the most well-known horror movie trope in the book. how often do girls in horror movies have sex for the first time, walk home alone in the dark of night, and live to tell the tale? nancy and jonathan’s dynamic at first glance is a sort of classic “good girl meets boy from the wrong side of the tracks, discovers he’s actually got a heart of gold” thing, but instead of following this well-trodden path, st diverged. nancy is brash, impulsive, and at times downright insensitive. jonathan is angry, bitter, and actually a bit of a creep at first. while they have the capacity to emotionally connect and support one another, they can also bring out each other’s darker side, which is not what we’ve come to expect from that initial tropey dynamic.

in addition, steve, the popular rich asshole boyfriend, is actually... a human being! unlike the cartoonishly evil jocks that we’ve come to expect (especially from eighties movies), steve has complexity. despite his initial immaturity and selfishness, he’s also kind to barb, he backs off when nancy says no, he’s gentle and sweet when they sleep together, his first big Dick Move of the season is in defense of nancy, he realizes the error of his ways after the fight and does what he can to fix it, he’s worried about nancy when he sees that she’s hurt at jonathan’s house, and to top it all off, he ends up saving both nancy and jonathan’s lives when he could have just walked away, and the three of them all work together to fight the demogorgon. like... steve began as the most stereotypical character of all time, and by the end of the season, he had one of the most compelling and unique arcs among the whole cast!

finally, at the very end of the season, instead of dumping steve for jonathan as expected, nancy ends up getting back together with steve, and they’re both on friendly terms with jonathan. i realize that i just kinda. summarized s1. but my POINT is that i don’t think the dynamics between the monster hunting trio would be nearly as fun and interesting had the characters of nancy, steve, and jonathan not been set up to follow certain paths that we already had charted in our own heads. like, within the first couple episodes of s1, it’s pretty obvious that nancy and steve are gonna break up, nancy will get with jonathan, and steve will either die or go full evil or just never be seen again. like, duh! you’ve seen this story a million times! you know that’s how it’s gonna go! so, when the story DOESN’T go that way, the impact of each character’s arc and the relationship dynamics become stronger due to their unexpected complexity and authenticity. 

distinct plotlines separated by age group

this one’s rather obvious, but the way that the adults in s1 were essentially in a conspiracy thriller while the teens were in a horror flick and the kids were in a sci fi power-of-friendship story and all three converged at the end... wow. brilliant showstopping etc. not only was it just really well done and unique, it also gave stranger things near-universal appeal. like, there’s genuinely something for pretty much everyone in season one!

casting

obviously this applies to every season sorta by default, but when i think about what made season one So successful, i always think about the cast, and not just winona ryder. yes, she’s absolutely amazing in the show and it’s very doubtful that st would be as big as it is today without her name being attached to it from the start!! however, i think the greatest determining factor in st’s success is the casting of the kids, particularly millie bobby brown. like... el is just absolutely incredible. she’s amazing. this has all been said many times before so i won’t harp on it, but millie and the other kids are all So talented and charismatic and i think their casting has been instrumental to the show’s success.

strong visuals

the way that multicolored christmas lights which have been around for decades are now kinda like. a Stranger Things thing. jesus christ. those lights are probably the biggest stroke of stylistic genius on the show.

atmosphere and setting

this is probably like. the least important one here for me sdjncdsc because i think s2 and s3 both had like Even Better atmospheres and shit but s1 was good too and it laid the groundwork!! i know a lot of people would have preferred st be set somewhere more Spooky with lots of fog or giant forests or whatnot, and while i do enjoy thinking about alternate st settings and how they might alter the vibe, i think hawkins indiana was a good choice. as the duffers have said, placing stranger things in a fictional town allows them more flexibility than if they’d gone with their original plan of using montauk, new york. besides that, i think the plainness and like... flatness... of small-town indiana just Works. like, the fact that hawkins is never really scary on the surface is a big part of the horror in the lab’s actions and their impact. hawkins isn’t somewhere that people just disappear all the time. it isn’t somewhere known for strange occurrences (prior to s1, that is). it isn’t somewhere shrouded in mist and secrecy. hawkins on its surface seems like the sort of place with no secrets and nothing to fear, and that’s the point! the lab is out in the open! it’s right there! everything is so close to the surface, yet so far out of the public eye, and i think that really works.

the byers family’s whole deal (specifically the joyce/jonathan dynamic)

this is going here bc i miss it so bad in s2 and s3. i’m not one of those people who believe The Byers Are The Whole Point of the show, because st is and always has been an ensemble, and el, hopper, and the wheelers are just as instrumental to the plot as the byers, but ANYWAY, i do think the byers were one of the most interesting aspects of s1. joyce’s difficulties with supporting her sons as a poor and (implied mentally ill) single mother, jonathan’s stress as a result of having to earn money, care for his brother, and keep the house in order when his mother is unable to do so, and the resulting tension between them when will’s disappearance and supposed “death” brings the situation to a tipping point? holy shit! it’s so good! that argument after they see will’s “body” is just incredible and gut-wrenching. their relationship feels so real and messy and i think it’s just... good. also winona ryder REALLY acted her heart out and she carried a lot of s1 which i think people often forget to mention so i’m saying it here.

weaknesses

pacing/timing

ok so pacing is probably going to go in each season’s weaknesses, to be honest, because i think they all had a blend of some good and some bad pacing. good pacing is invisible pacing, though, so i probably won’t be putting it in any of the strengths sections and will only be focusing on it in the weaknesses. i’m also probably not going to talk about weird day/night cycle things, just because i don’t want to get nitpicky on timelines because that would require going back and rewatching things to double check timing which i don’t wanna do at the moment lmao. anyway, when i think of bad pacing in season one, i primarily think of two things: nancy’s little trip into the upside down and subsequent sleepover with jonathan, and the sort of staggered nature of the climax in the final episode. the latter is simple so i’ll explain it first: while i understand that each group’s respective climax is like part of a chain reaction and that’s why each big moment happens separately and at different times, i think that st is strongest when the whole group is together, and i think that makes the stakes feel higher too, so i’m not In Love with the way s1 separated everyone and gave each group their own climax. 

okay, now on to the nancy/upside down thing! idk if i’ve ever talked about it before, but i think the worst decision made in s1 by far is the inclusion of nancy’s brief trip into the upside down, wherein she dives headfirst into another dimension with absolutely no backup, watches the demogorgon chow down, freaks out and runs around for a minute, and then leaves. like... what the fuck? even putting aside what an idiotic decision this was (because i do think nancy’s tendency to rush into things headfirst is an intentional and consistent character trait), it just kind of destroys any remaining suspense surrounding the demogorgon and the upside down, and it accomplishes basically nothing besides scaring nancy enough to have jonathan sleep over, which is lame. i will break it down.

like, first of all, nancy just getting to waltz in and out of the upside down and get a good, long look at the demogorgon makes the entire thing far less mysterious, and by extension far less scary. like... before this scene, we the audience haven’t got a good look at the demogorgon. we’ve seen its silhouette briefly and we’ve seen a blurry picture of it, but nothing more, and i think that is far more effective at building fear than this jaunt nancy goes on which gives us a full view of the thing and makes it into less of a horrifying nightmare and into more of a humanoid animal. like, maybe this is just me, but i found the demogorgon far less intimidating after that scene than before. it also lets nancy and jonathan know For Sure that they’re right without providing any crucial information that they need to fight the demogorgon (aka it’s unnecessary to the plot), which removes a very compelling story element (the faith nancy and jonathan need to have in order to keep going against a vague and poorly understood enemy, the doubt they might have about each other and their own sanity, the possibility that they might be wrong, the trust they need to have in each other) a bit earlier in the plot than i believe is ideal. at the end of episode 5, nancy goes into the upside down and jonathan doesn’t know where she is and it’s intense!!! you’re thinking like, oh fuck, not only is nancy missing and fighting for her life now too, jonathan might be implicated in her disappearance!! some people already think he’s the one who killed will and people know that he took creepy pictures of barb and nancy before they both disappeared, maybe this is gonna cause some serious problems for him!! maybe nancy will find will in the upside down and she’ll help him survive!! fuck, maybe she’ll actually die!! this is huge!! and then episode 6 starts and they’re immediately like oh nevermind jonathan found the tree and got nancy out and she’s fine. my point with all of this is that nancy entering the upside down could have done A Lot in the grand scheme of the plot, but all it did was just... get jonathan to sleep over so he and nancy could have some awkward romance moments and steve could see them together and pick a fight. which could have honestly happened at Any point while nancy and jonathan were working together to hunt down the demogorgon, without ruining the demogorgon’s and the upside down’s mystique. so yeah <3

weird behavior and dumbass decisions that make no sense (aka the whole camera thing)

gonna go off about the teen plot again sorry but: why was nancy so unbothered and quick to forgive jonathan for taking those pictures? girl what the fuck are you doing? why wasn’t that a bigger deal? why was jonathan’s motivation for doing it so weak and why did they just kind of forget about the whole thing? why did nancy TRACK HIM DOWN AT THE FUNERAL HOME while he was PICKING OUT HIS BABY BROTHER’S CASKET to be like hey can you tell me what’s in this creepshot you took? it’s insane. it’s so insane. i mean i think the funeral home thing is hilarious and i don’t mind it being in the show necessarily but like my point here is that i think a lot of character decisions in s1 just kind of.. happened because they Needed to happen for the plot. like, they wrote this plot that required jonathan to be secretly taking pictures of the party and required him and nancy to work together after seeing something odd in the pictures, but they didn’t like... really consider what that event would mean for their characterization and relationship. the whole thing was sort of just dropped with minimal discussion and i think it did both nancy and jonathan’s characters a disservice and was really mishandled.

lighting and saturation/color grading

i am literally begging horror/sci-fi shows to let me see shit. i GET IT okay i understand that when you’re doing cgi effects it helps to keep the lights down and i’m not mad at any of the lighting in the demogorgon/upside down scenes!! i’m really not i think the demogorgon scenes in s1 all look sick!! but like... dude. the colors. where are they. why does everyone look like a vampire. i know blah blah this was probably an intentional stylistic choice intended to mimic film at the time blah blah but dude a lot of old movies are very colorful!! please just let people have color in their faces so everyone doesn’t look like a sheet of paper!!! also i’m white and not a professional lighting designer so yknow grain of salt but i think lucas was kinda poorly served by the lighting sometimes in s1. not Hugely so, not to the degree that i’ve seen poc be poorly served by lighting in other shows, but there were some times where it felt kinda like the lighting setup was just not designed with darker skin in mind. 

horror

i just personally don’t find s1 very scary like... ever. i don’t think they were really Trying to be extremely scary yknow so i’m not counting this as a big deal, but i do think that each season has improved on the horror aspects. i think s1′s horror lies more in the mystery and the unknown than in what’s seen onscreen, and as i’ve said already, i think s1 kind of fumbled that suspense ball.

season 2

strengths

the possession plot

i’ll warn u rn this whole s2 strengths section is probably gonna be really short bc idk like. how much there is to really say i feel like it’s all so self-explanatory skjncmn. anyway yeah the possession plot!! eerie as fuck, and noah OWNED. so did winona tbh and finn and sean etc but like. noah. wow! i think the possession plot helped the show maintain a good amount of tension and suspense throughout the season, and a lot of scenes with possessed!will are flatout disturbing to watch. in a good way. i think the mindflayer and will’s possession were far more genuinely frightening than s1′s demogorgon, and it provided a new layer of depth and intrigue to the antagonist besides just “bad monster want eat people.”

tone and aesthetics

halloween season... literally halloween season. halloween season. that is all.

actually i will elaborate a bit and just say that i think s2 did a good job of having the sort of foreboding vibe that s1 was often going for, but without the annoying darkness and desaturation. so points for that.

also st2 is like one of the best Autumn pieces of media ever like it just. like steve and dustin on those train tracks with the fallen leaves all around them.... god. god the vibes are unparalleled. all of the halloween stuff also really contributes to the nostalgia st runs on yknow it makes you think about childhood and trick-or-treating and you kind of get transported like damn... i remember going to the rich neighborhoods to score the good candy..... idk i just think the whole thing is incredibly effective. 

“babysitter” steve

by sending nancy and jonathan off together, the show created a problem: what to do with steve? this problem pushed them to create the unconventional and unexpected duo of steve and dustin, and the world is so much brighter for it. seriously though we all know steve and dustin are great i don’t need to argue that point. all i’ll add is that i think allowing steve to grow in this way, serving as a mentor figure and becoming genuine friends with someone so unexpected, really took the originality of his character to the next level. no longer content just to defy his archetype, in s2 steve begins branching out in ways that never would have been considered in s1, creating an incredibly complex and interesting person from the sort of character that most shows would have simply written out or killed off for convenience’s sake. and it works and steve and dustin are such a joy to watch and i love them. <3

the lucas/max plot

so first of all max mayfield is the most perfect baby girl on god’s green earth and idk what i would do without her but anyway. i think lumax is the best romantic relationship in the show and not just because they’re the only ones with like an age-appropriate approach to the whole thing. it’s also because their relationship accomplishes more than just putting the two of them in a relationship!! lucas and max spending time together motivates billy to do his evil shit, providing more conflict in the narrative, and it also helps establish max as part of the group in a relatively natural way while giving both her and lucas a great subplot. lucas (and dustin) has a crush on the new girl, they start spending some time together, and lucas ends up needing to decide whether he’ll keep the secret of the upside down and lose her, or risk both of their lives by telling her the truth. that’s a pretty big, character-defining decision that he gets to make!! max has to choose whether to trust this boy she barely knows and endanger herself, or to walk away and stay safe, yet another great character-defining choice that also contributes to the sense we get as an audience of max as somebody who’s incredibly lonely and desperate for love and connection. this post is way too long already and i have a ton more to say so i’ll stop now but yeah i think lumax really Works in the show without ever distracting or detracting from the overall plot and narrative in the way that some other ships (coughjancycough) often do.

balance between the normal and abnormal

s2 i think did a pretty solid job of melding daily life with more fantastical sci-fi horror elements. i enjoyed seeing so much of the kids at school in the first few episodes!! you really get a strong sense of where they’re at in life, what their daily lives are like, and you get a sort of gradual shift into madness that makes everything feel more grounded than i think it would if they had just leapt straight into the horror shit, yknow? 

the el and hopper dynamic

go back and rewatch s2 and tell me that’s not one of the most moving portrayals of parenthood and trauma and growing up that you’ve ever seen. you can’t. or well you can but i won’t listen. i really can’t imagine stranger things without el and hopper’s relationship, and it’s my absolute favorite part of s2. their whole dynamic is so beautiful and complex, and gives them each amazing personal arcs in addition! the black hole scene is literally one of the show’s greatest moments of all time. any given scene between the two of them in s2 is just guaranteed to be heartwarming as well as heartbreaking, and i think that makes for an incredible show.

weaknesses

flashbacks

okay this applies to Every season they All have too many flashbacks but in s2 specifically... please stop showing me shit from season one. i watched it. i know what happened. you don’t need to spoon feed everything to me!! flashbacks can be a really helpful way of delivering information to an audience, but st has a bad habit of not only being kinda demeaning in how often they flash back to shit that the audience already knows, but they also have a bad habit of using flashbacks almost as a crutch to avoid having to deliver information subtly and naturally. 

you know i gotta say it... the lost sister

this is so sad. the lost sister really is like a great concept for an st episode, and i’m not mad about the idea of st taking a break from the normal action to focus on one story for a full episode, but the execution of it was just dreadful. kali and her crew feel very over-the-top and stereotypical, and its placement in the season totally kills the tension and excitement that was built in “the spy.” 

i think the lost sister honestly could have gone over far better, even with the stereotypical fake-feeling gang kali has, if they had just swapped it with “the spy” like... ok, the end of episode five has el setting off to find kali and will collapsing on the ground seizing. right? imagine if, instead of immediately following will to the lab, we’d followed el. we don’t know what’s happening with will, but it’s a very simple cliffhanger that leaves us on edge without making us feel cheated by the show cutting away. we follow el on her little journey, everything happens much the same as canon, and then at the end, el sees hopper in scrubs. she sees mike, screaming, sees that they’re both in danger. holy shit!!! what the fuck!!! what’s happened since we left will seizing on the ground??? we feel el’s fear and confusion. she decides to go home. and then... boom. “the lost sister” is over. now, we rewind, right back to will seizing on the ground, and “the spy” commences. we learn how they got into the danger that el saw in the end of “the lost sister,” and we sit on the edge of our seats all through “the spy” and “the mind flayer,” KNOWING that el is on her way back to save them but not knowing when she’ll arrive!! idk i don’t think that would have necessarily saved lost sister but i think it may have alleviated some of the issues that i and many others have with it, timing-wise.

the nancy/jonathan sidequest

once again, the idea of nancy going off on her own little mission to find justice for barb after s1 is like. amazing. genuinely i love that plot for her and i can’t imagine anything better for her to have focused on in s2. unfortunately though i think her and jonathan’s little trip to see murray was just kind of... lame. the whole thing just felt like an excuse to get the two of them alone together, yknow? which is fine i guess people contrive all sorts of situations to get characters alone together for romance reasons but in this case i think it just really doesn’t work for me because of what it’s juxtaposed with. like, will is POSSESSED, and jonathan is just off on a mini road trip and sleeping with his bestie, and jonathan never seems to communicate to joyce/will that he left town, and joyce never like... thinks to tell him that will is like sick and fucked up and they’re looking at him in the lab??? like it’s so weird i know joyce always forgets about jonathan when shit’s happening with will but jfc you’d think at some point in that like... 72-ish-hour period where jonathan was out of town she would have thought about him. like at least once. maybe i’m forgetting something and she mentioned him sometime and i missed it but even still, i hate the juxtaposition of nancy and jonathan just like cheers-ing at murray’s place and sleeping together and whatnot while everyone else is dealing with possession or trying to hunt down dart yknow? it feels really boring in comparison and i think it could have been done far better. like it was SO insanely easy for them to get into the lab and get an admission of guilt and escape with it!! i think it might have been a lot more engaging if maybe someone from the lab tailed them to murray’s place and they had to like lose the tail and race to get the recording out to as many news outlets as possible before they got caught, or something like that. the tension in their plotline is completely resolved in episode four!! episodes five and six are just them screwing around and addressing envelopes. while there were a lot of strong ideas in this plotline (i really enjoy nancy going out of her way to get justice, and the fact that they have to water down the story to make it believable), i just think the focus on nancy and jonathan getting together hindered it a lot without adding a ton to the plot or their individual characters.

season 3

strengths

starcourt mall as a setting

while i don’t think the mall was utilized quite to its full potential (something i could make a separate post about if anyone’s interested), i do think that starcourt was a genius addition to the series. i’ve said this before, but building a new mall is a literal Perfect in-universe justification for a significant leap forward in fashion and aesthetics, and it provides a great location for characters to just... be characters. idk how else to articulate this i just think that the mall is a great setting to let people interact with each other and to bring people together who may not have been otherwise (i.e. scoops troop). not to mention how sick it was to see the mall get wrecked toward the end kdjncdkm like they were able to do so much more with the mall in terms of like The Finale than they could with just the byers house or the cabin or the school or even the lab. i love all the back tunnels they run through it’s such a fun like acknowledgement of how this glitzy eighties mall is just a real place where employees get shipments and take out the trash and shit idk it’s all about the perfect facade and what’s hidden what’s underneath what’s hiding in plain sight etc etc i’m just saying words now. anyway. 

willingness to experiment and go against expectations

gay robin. neon aesthetics. giant fucking meat monster. i know some people hate both the neon and the meat monster but i personally think they were kind of amazing and like. yknow regardless of personal tastes i think it’s impossible to deny that s3 had a lot of incredible visuals, and they’re all visuals that just wouldn’t have been possible if the show were too afraid to stray from its s1 aesthetic. robin being canonically gay (and her resulting friendship with steve) and the season’s striking visuals are two things that most everyone (besides like homophobes skjncdknm) can agree were great, right? and they were both departures from where the show began and what we all expected!! so yeah i think while some of the experimentation in s3 wasn’t ideal it was also that experimentation that allowed for some of the season’s strongest elements to come about.

the hospital sequence (and the season’s action/horror scenes in general)

this one is fairly self-explanatory. while they may have underutilized the “body snatching” element of the season, the hospital sequence with nancy and jonathan fighting off their possessed bosses did an amazing job of building tension and creating a genuine sense of really intense and personal danger.

in general i think that s3 melded action and horror rather well, particularly in the sauna test, the hospital, and when the mindflayer busts through the roof of hop’s cabin. horror can come from many things, and in this case, st elicited horror largely from the feeling of helplessness, and it was really effective for me personally. i think it worked better for me than s1′s brand of horror because it doesn’t rely so much on a lack of knowledge or a sense of suspense that inevitable disappears upon a second viewing.

the body horror we got in s3 was also really fun! that’s it i just think all the blood and guts and slime were fun and i would like more of them. once again, the impacts of body horror are less dependent upon the viewer being in the dark or unsure as to what’s happening, and as such i think it tends to be a little more effective at eliciting reaction in the long term.

timing and mechanics of the battle of starcourt/finale

i think the battle of starcourt is just fucking awesome, and beyond that personal opinion, i think it’s the most high-stakes and intense finale of all three seasons, and this is for two main reasons! 1. el is out of commission, and 2. (almost) everyone is in the same cental location. this means that (almost) everyone is in danger all at once, and they are all working together at the same time to fight the same threat. s1/s2 have their groups more fragmented for the finales, and while i understand why in each case and i wouldn’t call either season’s finale necessarily weak, i do think the centralized nature of the s3 finale just Works on another level. in s1 and s2, large segments of the cast are already perfectly safe by the time el dispatches the primary threat. in s3, however, everybody save for dustin and erica is still in danger up until the last moment, and el is seemingly (you can def debate how much power she still had in her when she peeked into billy’s mind and whether the memory broke the mindflayer’s hold on him or if she was actually controlling him to some degree) completely vulnerable. this increases the tension and raises the stakes, making the finale a real crescendo to fortissimo as opposed to a series of little mezzo forte moments. i hope everyone reading this knows music idk how else to phrase that my brain is stupid.

emphasis on friendship and adolescence (but in a different way than s1/2)

this is definitely a controversial one but i think that s3 really did like... show a side of friendship that had been more or less unexplored thus far in the show. el and max were amazing, and i think it’s really nice that we got an opportunity to see the kids have some growing pains as well as see them support each other through Normal Adolescent Stuff like boyfriends and breakups instead of just like. death and trauma. this is maybe just a personal preference, but i think it can be really enlightening and provide a lot of depth when you get to see how characters respond to normal everyday conflict and not just how they respond to giant world-ending conflict!! letting el use her powers for goofy teenage shit like spying on boys and messing with mean girls at the mall is not only fun for her and the audience, but it also really emphasizes just how much those powers are a part of el, making it that much more devastating when she loses them at the end of the season. 

weaknesses

tonal dissonance

so this is like. obvious. but it must still be said! i won’t go on and on about it since we all know this so i’ll try to like talk about it from an angle people don’t usually? anyway. it seems to me like they were maybe a little worried about s3 being too dark. while the choice to really lean into humor was definitely driven by the sorts of eighties teen films from which s3 drew inspiration (like fast times at ridgemont high), i think it was also done in an attempt to alleviate the more troubling implications of some events in the season, particularly the russian bunker plot. like, yeah, st can be incredibly dark, but if they’d played the whole “children being stuck inside of a foreign military base, tied up, tortured, and drugged” thing completely straight without the humorous elements that exist in canon, it had the potential to be like... disturbing on a new level. steve and robin don’t have powers like el yknow their kidnapping/torture doesn’t have any sci-fi elements to sorta soften the blow. they’re just innocent teenagers being brutalized and traumatized by grown men. so anyway yeah i think maybe the writers were concerned about this storyline coming off as too dark and they wanted it to be a little more whimsical but they ended up pushing way too hard in that direction and creating extreme dissonance at times. this goes for joyce/hopper/murray/alexei too, but to a lesser extent. i think the ridiculousness in that group felt a lot more like... realistic. but still. 

newspaper plot

once again i feel like i don’t even need to say this skjdncmn we all know it was insane how the show basically ended up delivering the message “while misogyny is a serious problem poverty and classism are not” and i’ve said it on this blog a million times so i don’t need to repeat myself. i’ll focus on another weak point of this plot: the fact that it completely separates nancy and jonathan from everyone else. once again, the show’s preoccupation with j/ancy held them back! like... can you imagine a version of s3 where nancy and jonathan both worked in the mall? i have a lot of ideas about this possible au and like how the plot could play out differently if they worked in the mall but first of all it’s just more realistic, second of all it further utilizes the mall as a central setting, and third of all, it would bring everyone together. as it is in canon, nancy and jonathan were unnecessarily isolated from the rest of the group, and this isolation was detrimental to both of their characters. like, they only ever get to interact with each other! if they’d gotten summer jobs in the mall, they could have had more interactions with the kids/steve/robin, and they absolutely still could have had a similar argument! maybe in this case, nancy notices the rat thing (or something else odd) herself when taking out the trash behind the mall, and she wants jonathan to ditch work with her to check it out bc she thinks it may be related to the lab. jonathan doesn’t want to ditch work because he needs his job, nancy argues that they’re working shitty mall jobs anyway and who cares if they get fired, and we get more or less the same thing as s3 without the cartoonishly over-the-top misogyny. i mean honestly i think the rat shit could have been cut entirely it didn’t rly... accomplish much of anything. in my opinion. like imagine s3 without the rat plot you literally would not be missing anything except it would be more surprising when the dudes melted into goo at the hospital. so yeah i think it would have been better if nancy and jonathan had jobs at the mall, weren’t isolated from everybody else, and were maybe absorbed into the party’s plot or the scoops troop’s plot from very early on, allowing them to interact with more characters and have a less... dumb.... plot. like god splitting up nancy and jonathan between the party/scoops troop would have been So Much better i just. sdkjcnksdmn anyway yeah.

briefness of group reunion/separation of groups

remember in s2 at the beginning of “the gate,” where mike and hopper had a confrontation and max and el met for the first time and el hugged everyone and steve and nancy had their sad little moment together outside... where’s that energy? obviously the s2 reunion wasn’t that long either, but it made space for some significant emotional moments to take place. s3′s reunion had some hopper/el/mike resolution, but besides that... there was nothing, really. i just think that the whole group getting together in s3 was SO exciting and powerful the way they did it (with both the scoops troop and the adults having their own Big Moment reconnecting with team griswold family), but the emotional potential was more or less squandered. 

i also think in s3 at times they were really stretching to keep everybody separated even though it made no sense. and like... in s1 the separation worked bc nobody else knew that (x group) was experiencing weird shit too, and beyond that, each group (as i mentioned in the s1 section) was sort of operating within their own genre and bringing something unique to the season. they’ve stopped doing that though! now, the groups aren’t separate bc each plot is tonally/structurally different, the groups are just separate bc... they need to be, because it’s a big ensemble cast and you can’t just have them all be together for a whole season or it would be way too difficult to coordinate things and keep the show dynamic. all this is to say that i’m excited for s4 because the location differences make it so there’s a Reason for each plot to be separate at the beginning, and i think that’ll work better.

general ridiculousness

i dont mean like i think it’s bad that they made jokes this is just me lumping in all the dumb shit like hopper not worrying about el and not wanting to check on the kids, him and joyce bickering long after they both know they and their children are in danger, max seemingly forgetting that billy is a racist abuser, etc etc. i think many of these are just a symptom of the show 1. trying desperately to keep the groups split up a certain way even though it may not make any sense, and 2. trying to fit into a certain genre/trope mold when their actual characters are more complex than the tropes they’re imitating. this is so fucking long already i am not gonna elaborate further rn but i trust u all know what i mean.

soooo... yeah, that’s about all! i mean it’s not all there are definitely many more things i could talk about and i know i focused sorta disproportionately on the teens which is my bad :/ but i’m done for now. thank you for asking, and apologies for the delay in responding!! i’m sure some people reading (if anyone read this far) will disagree with some of what i’ve said and that’s alright like i’m not The Authority on st or anything i’m just trying to talk about like my own thoughts yknow? so yeah luv u all i hope someone enjoyed reading this!!

[sh1tbird-shantytown]

Just had an idea, what if s2 was Billy figuring out about the three teens that no one will talk about. And why the prettiest boy he's ever met has gigantic claw marks on his shoulders.

Tommy noticed them, Billy saw him side glance the marks a few times but never bring it up. It was concern and confusion that made Billy’s gut churn, unprecedented emotions based on how roughly they’d been treating Harrington for the last four days, but worry nonetheless.

Billy wanted to reach out and touch them. The almost jagged lines. Like a large cat had jumped him from behind and tore up his shoulders by trying to bring him down. Scars that were mostly healed, leading all the way down just past his shoulder blades.

Tommy set his soap back and didn’t meet Billy’s eyes, “Thought you ditched boy scouts, Harrington?” Billy clenched his fists and tried not to reach over and sucker punch the idiot in the gut.

Steve was all dewy eyed to the point that Billy felt the need to…touch. He lifted a finger. Steve refocused on the two around him and chuckled humorlessly. But gave no other response. Billy made sure to narrow his eyes enough that when Tommy reopened his mouth, it immediately shut again.

-

Steve wasn’t at school the next day. In english, Billy couldn’t help but blame Tommy’s thoughtlessness. Nancy sat next to him with a   medical gauze around her forearm and bags under her eyes. Billy didn’t waver when she caught him staring.

“What do you want, Hargrove?” her voice didn’t steel as much as it usually did.

“Where’s Harrington?” he demanded, almost asked to leave the room after hearing how obvious he sounded.

Nancy raised one of her brows and set her book down, “He’s—” she looked down at her papers. “Just keep to yourself, Hargrove.” He checked the teacher talking to a girl in the front of the room and leaned toward Nancy more so he could speak lower.

“Either you tell me now or I find out sooner or later.” Nancy didn’t lift her chin. “Was it a fight? Did Harrington try to get friendly with the wrong sort again?” He didn’t miss the way Nancy’s fists clenched. “I heard you messed him up a bit last year. Your new boyfriend get too rough or somethin’ again?”

She hunched her shoulders and Billy tilted his ear towards her, “Don’t you dare bring Jonathan into this.”

Billy smirked, “Touchy subject. So,” he looked between her scowl and her brimming tears, “Who was it then? ‘Cause I’m pretty sure Steve has perfect attendance. He wouldn’t just skip unless something was wrong, his language grade is bad enough.”

“Don’t talk about him like that.”

“I’m just stating a fact.”

Nancy pointed her thin finger at him, “And stop talking like you know him. You don’t know shit. You don’t know what he’s been through or about the monsters that hurt—” She abruptly cut herself off and looked down. Like her mess up was nothing.

But Billy got the gist.

-

Neil went to bed at exactly 10:30 PM every night. That gave Billy approximately nine hours to leave and return.

He left and prayed in curses as he rolled down the street in the dark. Drove all the way to the Harrington house and tried to ignore the shadows as he ran to the front door.

“Open up, Steve!” The door opened less than a minute later. “Why don’t you tell me about anything? Nancy is really bad at giving information and she’s also really bad at keeping her mouth shut, so we’re never telling her about whatever this is for sure.”

“What are you saying, Billy?”

Billy didn’t have an exact answer to Steve’s question. All he knew was that Steve had a nasty cut along his jaw and he limped as he walked through the foyer.

“Was it the shadow things that did this to you?” Steve was brighter than he was perceived, he knew people. And he knew Billy just as much as Billy knew him, maybe even better. He didn’t have to explain things to Harrington.

“When did you see?”

Billy hesitated and then leaned down to pull up his pant leg, revealing the fresh scar by his ankle, “Something grabbed me the other night. Figured the police wouldn’t know what the fuck to do. So…” he shrugged and quieted as he saw Steve nodding.

Harrington started pulling up the hem of his shirt, “We’ve somehow managed to keep this crap under the wraps, it’d be a shit show if we lost it now. Hopper would have our heads.”

Billy followed the shirt as it was strewn over an accent table. He closed his eyes and looked away. Steve’s shoulders were dark, raw pink. Reflections of the old lines were re-etched, something out of a horror movie. He caught more in the mirror above the table by accident and pressed his lips together. The pretty, pale expansion of Steve’s mole spotted back was ruined by even longer rips. Some were badly covered in band-aids while others looked haphazardly stitched together.

“Nancy’s hands shake a lot when she’s under pressure.”

Billy sucked in a breath and straightened up, Steve looked unsurprised at his reaction. He could see him trying to offer a consoling smile, but it landed flat as he shivered in the cold draft of the house.

Billy panicked a little and stepped forward to finally touch, “Common, I’m gonna take care of you, Princess.”

[harringrovetrashrat]

Intercrurral prompt: Billy’s been harassing Steve all year, and it’s taking everything Steve has not to think bisexual thoughts about the guy he HATES. But one night, wrong place and wrong time, where they run into each other in the woods while Steve is on demodog patrol and Billy is escaping a bad run-in with Neil. Things boil over - the biggest imagery I have is Billy harshly whispering in Steve’s ear “Tell me you want this. TELL me you want ME.”

Okay, okay, okay

Here we GO.  Alright.  It took me a moment to find just the right way to do this, but I finally got it.

And it somehow ended up over 3k, whoooops. Let’s hope the read more actually works this time lol

TW for one use of the f-slur and misogynist language from Billy.

--

Steve ran a hand over his face as he stomped through the trees.  The cold February air bit at his skin, made his nose run.  Steve sniffed for what felt like the millionth time, still unable to stop the jittering in his bones.  He couldn’t go home.  Things felt too still, too quiet tonight.  Something was going to happen.  Steve could feel it.

He twirled the bat again, stretching out his fingers.  The trees were dark against the snow, the cloudless night allowing the moon to shine in through breaks in the trees.  Steve bit his lip, thinking about the day.  It sent a spike of warmth to his gut and he frowned, annoyed with himself.

It wasn’t much different than normal.  He spent the day tailing after Nancy and Jonathan, ignoring Tommy when he passed him in the hall, and trying to keep his dick to behave whenever Billy pressed up against him.  Or pushed him.  Or teased him.  Or fucking looked at him, jesus.  Steve had a problem and he really didn’t want to have it.  He’s looked at guys before, done stuff before, but of all fucking people, his dick had to be interested in Billy fucking Hargrove.

He’d prefer his dick be interested in Jonathan.

There was a snap from a few meters ahead in the trees and Steve froze, all thoughts exiting his brain.  His blood pumped through his veins and his pulse skyrocketed as he adjusted his grip on the bat.  He quietly made his way forward, looking through the brush for anything weird.  Anything slimy.  There were some dark spots on the ground that Steve followed, panic clawing its way into his chest.

“Fuck!” He heard someone hiss.  The sound came from in front of him and Steve relaxed minutely.  It wasn’t demodogs.

That didn’t mean there wasn’t still a threat.

Steve did his best to make sure his shoes didn’t crunch too much in the snow as he approached a clearing.  Someone was sitting on a log, hunched over on themselves, but they looked human enough.  There wasn’t any weird smell, nothing too obviously weird, so Steve lowered the bat.

“Hello?” The person on the log jumped, standing and whirling around, fists up and ready.  Bruised as well.  Which was why Steve wasn’t surprised to find himself looking at Billy Hargrove.

A messed up Billy Hargrove.

He had a black eye and a bloody nose, with what looked like a small cut at his hairline.  Steve kind of wished he hadn’t said anything.  Billy relaxed minutely, face scrunching into a sneer.

“Harrington?  What the fuck are you doing out here?  Mommy and Daddy playing house?” Steve ignored the sting, flaring his nostrils as he flexed his hand around the bat.  Billy’s eyes darted down before widening.  “What the fuck?” His voice lost it’s teasing edge, verging into actually scared.

“Oh,” Steve said, not wanting to drop the bat in case he needed it.  For whatever reason.  “Just-- On a walk.”

“On a walk?” Billy droned, unimpressed.  “Really?  Do you think I’m a fucking idiot?” Steve bristled and whatever was in the air that night pressed him forward, made him confrontational.

“Maybe,” he replied.  Billy tensed up, nostrils flaring as he grit his teeth.  “Smart people don’t come out here at night.” Billy barked out a mean laugh.

“S’Why you’re out here then, huh?” Steve stopped a few feet away, slinging the bat over his shoulder.  Now that he was closer, he could see that Billy’s cut was still bleeding.  Could see that his wounds were fresh.  That he was shaking.

“Seriously,” Steve said.  “The woods around here aren’t safe.”

“Safer than other places,” Billy grumbled angrily.  He looked up at Steve, eyes sharp.  “If they’re so unsafe, why are you out here for a walk?” Steve’s mind went blank as he grasped for a reason.

“I-- Well, I mean--”

“You out here meeting some fag lover?” Billy said, smile sharp and mean.  Steve clenched his fist, cheeks going ruddy.  Billy tilted his head, pushing his cheek out with his tongue.  Steve couldn’t help the way his eyes were drawn there.

“No,” he replied, stony.  “Honestly just out for a walk.”

“Really?  You and Creep Byers don’t meet up when Wheeler’s being too much of a bitch?” Steve gripped the bat tightly, scowling.

“Don’t call her that,” he snapped.  Billy snorted, hiding a grimace, and rolled his eyes.

“She left you, man,” he said.  “And you follow her and her new boyfriend around like a fucking lost dog.” Steve felt his cheeks heating up again, felt a blush creeping down his neck.

“Fuck you,” he said.  “It’s called having friends, ever heard of it?” Billy sneered, getting up into Steve’s space.  It made it a little hard to think, having him this close.  Close enough that Steve could see where Billy would freckle in the sun, how blue his eyes were, could fucking smell him.  He pushed the thoughts down, ignoring the heat in belly, just from having Billy close.  Stupid dick.

“You think you’re so above everyone, everything, don’t you?” Steve rolled his eyes, letting the bat fall to his side.  Billy wasn’t a threat, not really.  Not worthy of the bat at least.

“What’s your issue, man?” Steve asked.  Billy shoved him a little, making Steve take a step back.

“You’re my issue, Harrington,” he snapped.  “And I told you to fucking plant your feet.”

“What the fuck did I ever--”

“Your fucking existence fucking pisses me off!” Billy shoved him again, harder this time, and Steve let out a grunt, dropping the bat.  “You’ve got a fucking family that gives a shit, you’ve got fucking money, you’ve got fucking everything, and you--” Billy punctuated each reason with a shove, pushing until Steve was back up against a tree.  When he cut himself off, something flashed over his face.  Worry, fear, Steve wasn’t sure, but it was gone as soon as it was there.  “You, Harrington, just piss me off.”

“You don’t know shit about me, Hargrove,” Steve snapped, trying to push him off.  Billy pushed back, pinning him against the tree.  Steve let out a grunt, freezing up as Billy’s pressed up closer, getting into Steve’s face.  This was… dangerous.  Steve was already chubbing up in his pants and he swallowed thickly, giving some more frantic shoves to Billy’s shoulders.  “Fucking get off,” he said, voice high and pitchy.  Billy sneered, shoving Steve to the ground, standing above him.

“You’re such a fucking pussy,” he sneered.

“At least I’m not some fucking violent freak,” Steve said, sharp and cutting and cruel.  It’s what he wanted to be, in that moment.  Billy did that to him.  Brought out the King Steve who was mean, alone, and hurt.  And the words worked.  Billy snarled, jerking Steve up off the ground.  Steve grabbed at Billy’s hands, stumbling.

“Fuck you,” Billy hissed.  He gave Steve a shake, shoving him into another tree, slamming a hand next to his face.  Steve’s chest heaved with anxiety and, unfortunately, arousal.  He kind of had a thing for being manhandled.  At least, being manhandled by Billy.  The blonde pressed close, hurt shining in his eyes behind the fury.  It threw Steve for a bit of a loop.  “Fuck.  You.” Billy repeated, voice wobbling.  He pushed at Steve, pressing him up against the tree, before pausing.  His eyes widened and Steve flushed.  It was bound to happen, but Steve had held out some childish hope that Billy wouldn’t notice he’d been sporting a boner for a little while.  “What--”

“You’ve made your point--” Steve tried, tense as he tried to sink into the tree.

“Are you hard?” Billy asked.  Steve swallowed and closed his eyes, wishing the world could swallow him up.  “Seriously?”

“I’m not talking with you about this,” Steve squeaked, trying to move away.  Billy pinned him even more against the tree, sliding a leg between Steve’s thighs.  He let out an involuntary whimper.

“You are,” Billy said, almost with wonder.  Steve opened his eyes, meeting Billy’s blue ones.  They were calculating, stripping him down, and it made Steve shiver.  Billy’s tongue flicked over his bottom lip and his mouth curled up at the side.  “Is it from the lack of pussy?  Not enough girls begging to wet your dick?”

“Why are you so gross,” Steve breathed, closing his eyes again.  “It’s not-- Just drop it--”

“Oh, so you only get like this,” Billy trailed a finger over Steve’s clothed dick, making him let out a choked cry, “For me?” Steve’s eyes snapped open and Billy grinned.  There was something hungry in his eyes that made something hot curl through Steve, made him breath a little harder.  But, well, this was Billy.  He was probably fucking with him.

“Fuck off,” Steve breathed out, finding it hard to control his voice.  He tried to push at Billy’s shoulders, tried to avoid those piercing eyes, but Billy caught his face in one hand, making Steve look at him.  He slowly pushed his thumb into Steve’s mouth, pulling it open.  The salty taste of his skin on Steve’s tongue made him breathe harder, chest heaving, pupils dilating.

God he was gonna get the shit beat outta him for this.

“I thought I was,” Billy began, trailing off.  He pulled his lower lip into his mouth, tongue peeking out as he looked in Steve’s eyes, at his mouth, still open and panting.  Gripped Steve through his pants, making his legs tremble.  He was grateful for the tree behind him, that was for sure, otherwise he might have stumbled from his legs turning into jelly.  Steve’s chest heaved, nervous and aroused, and Billy exhaled heavily through his nose.

“Thaw yoo were wha?” Steve asked, breathy and mangled from Billy still holding his mouth open, thumb pressed against Steve’s tongue.

“The way you look at me,” Billy said, eyes heated now, hungry, almost rabid with want.  “Thought I was imagining it.  But this,” he rubbed over Steve’s erection again, making him tremble, “Suggests that maybe I wasn’t.” Steve stared at Billy, dick throbbing.  Billy licked over his bottom lip, almost unconsciously.  His eyes flicked down to Steve’s bulge, a weird groan escaping him.  It made Steve’s dick twitch in his jean almost painfully.  Billy’s eyes widened and his eyes snapped back up to Steve’s.

“‘illy,” Steve tried, still unable to speak clearly with that thick fucking thumb on his tongue.

“God,” Billy groaned, shaking again, but with restraint.  Like he was trying not to touch Steve more than he was already.  “You’re so fucking-- You want this, don’t you?” Steve tried to shake his head, to deny the fucking obvious truth.  “You want my dick in your mouth?  Stretching those pretty pink lips?” And god, Steve did.  He’d never had a dick in his mouth but god, did he want.  He nodded, weakly.  Billy tsked, pulling Steve’s mouth open more, until it almost hurt.  His dick shouldn’t have liked it as much as it did but, well.  “No no, Harrington,” Billy crooned.  “Use your words.” He leaned in, lips brushing against Steve’s ear as their bodies pressed together.  Steve couldn’t feel the cold, couldn’t feel anything but the heat of Billy’s body pressed against him.  Of his erection pressing against Steve’s thigh.  Fuck.  “Tell me you want this,” he hissed, breath puffing against Steve’s ear, sending goosebumps across his body.  He gave a full body shiver, could practically feel Billy’s grin against his lobe, a wet tongue slowly following the shell.  Steve felt like he couldn’t breathe and he never wanted it to stop.  “Tell me you want me.”

“‘uck , ‘illy,” Steve wheezed, arching his back so their hips ground together, eliciting a moan from himself and a hiss from Billy.  “Ye, ye, p’ease.” Billy’s hand fell out of his mouth, one hand gripping Steve’s hip as the other made quick work of his belt and zipper.  There was a damp spot on the outside of his jeans, the inside of his underwear sticky from where he had been steadily leaking, and Billy’s sharp inhale made Steve groan.  Billy looked at him, eyes hazy with lust as he licked his palm, maintaining eye contact as his gripped Steve’s dick, freed from the confines of his clothes.  Steve’s eyes fluttered closed and his mouth opened in a silent gasp as he tilted his head back, thunking against the tree.  “Fuck,” he whined, hands gripping Billy’s biceps.

“I fucking knew it,” Billy hissed, leaning to press open mouthed kisses to Steve’s neck.  The heat of Billy mixed with the cold, harsh air, drove Steve fucking mad.  His head was foggy, filled to the brim with Billy.  “Every time I shoved you, fucking every time I looked at you, I could see it.” Steve gasped as Billy latched onto his neck, biting and sucking.  It was so different than anything Steve had experienced, even with the guys he’d fooled around with.  Billy was rough, yet somehow still gentle, still attentive.  His hand was slow, leisurely stroking Steve and swiping the head with his thumb.  Steve wasn’t sure he’d still be upright if it wasn’t for Billy holding him up against the tree.

“See what?” He gasped.

“That you wanted me,” Billy replied, breath hot against Steve’s neck.  “Wanted me to shove you, touch you.” Steve was dripping, shaking as Billy teased him.  “You know how long I’ve wanted to do this to you?” Billy whispered against Steve’s skin.  Steve shook his head, unable to make his voice work.  “Since that fucking party.  Wanted to fucking claim you.” Steve found that he really, really wanted that too.

“Then do it,” he rasped, one shaky hand coming up to tangle in the hair at the nape of Billy’s neck.  Billy’s hand faltered before pulling away.  Steve whined, head tilting back down to look.  Billy looked almost feral, eyes wild and face flushed.  He made quick work of his jeans, pulling out his cock, angry and red and hard.  Steve’s mouth fucking watered.  Billy held his hand up, the one slick with Steve’s precum, and ordered,

“Lick.” Steve didn’t need to be told twice.  He ran his tongue over Billy’s hand, getting it wet and spit slick.  Billy watched, breathing hard through his nose, before he pulled his hand away, using the other to turn Steve around.  “Pants at your knees, pretty boy.” His voice was low, husky, and Steve would do whatever he said.  He could feel it, the need to obey.  He’d never wanted to just let someone have their way with him, use him, but he found himself imagining Billy, relaxed as he ordered Steve to please him.  He shuddered at the thought.  Steve shimmied his jeans and underwear down, leaning against the tree and looking over his shoulder.  Billy was stroking himself slowly, letting drool spill down his tongue and onto his dick until is was wet, dripping with saliva.  Steve groaned.

“I’m not--  I’ve never--”

“Don’t you worry,” Billy said, hands gripping Steve’s cheeks as he squatted, pulling them apart.  “When I fuck you, it’s gonna be thorough.  Gonna open you on my fingers until you beg for me to stuff you with my cock.” And then he licked a hot, wet stripe from Steve’s perineum all the way up to his hole, circling the rim.

“Oh holy shit,” Steve cried, hips jerking back.  He felt Billy’s chuckle against his skin.  He lost himself in the sensation of Billy’s tongue, his mouth, licking and sucking at Steve’s taint and thighs until they were slick and wet.  The sound he made, primal and needy, when Billy stood, almost made him embarrassed.  He was too horny though.

“Clench those thighs for me, King,” Billy said, pressing a kiss to one of Steve’s back dimples.  Steve shuddered, but did as he was told.  When he felt Billy’s dick slide against the crease of his legs, he gasped, fingers clenching against the bark of the tree.  The head of Billy’s cock slowly pushed in, gliding through the spit, now warmed by Steve’s skin.  It was veiny, thick, and velvety soft against the meat of Steve’s thighs.  When the tip brushed against the back of his balls, Steve whimpered, biting his lip.  Billy’s hand was tight, bruising against his hip.  The other came and pulled Steve’s hair, tilting his head back so he couldn’t hide any noises.

“Please, please, please,” Steve rambled, mind blanking out except for Billy.  The feel of him between his thighs, the smell of his cologne, fuck, even the rough denim of his jeans against the back of his thighs.  He didn’t even know what he was begging for.  Billy let out a long, rumbling groan.

“Jesus fuck,” Billy said, voice sounding as wrecked as Steve felt.  His hips snapped forward, slapping against Steve’s thighs and ass, and Steve gasped, fingers painfully gripping at the tree bark.  He hadn’t expected it, but the glide of Billy’s dick against his thighs was incredible.  The way the head tickled the back of his balls, the way he could feel Billy’s dick leaking precum, sliding it around as he made Steve’s thighs slicker and slicker.  Steve clamped them as tightly as he could, getting an aborted moan for his efforts.  He grinned as Billy moved faster, hips slamming against Steve, forcing high pitched moans out every time.  “Look at you,” Billy rumbled.  “So fuckin’ pretty like this, Harrington.  Bent over like the needy little bitch you are.” Steve should have bristled at the words, should have pushed Billy away, but something inside him went white hot in pleasure.  Made his cock drip.

Like most things Steve was discovering about himself, it came down to Billy.  If anyone else tried it, he’d hate it.  But, fuck.  Billy made it sound like the best thing in the world.

“Yeah,” Steve breathed out.  “Fuck yeah I am.” Billy let out a sound that made heat burst in Steve’s groin, brought him even closer to the edge.  His hips shuttered, moving wildly until he slammed himself against Steve, curling down and pressing his forehead against Steve’s back as he came.  Steve moved one hand down, jerking himself off almost painfully fast.  The feeling of spit and cum, warm against his skin, cooling rapidly in the air, was almost too much.  Billy moved to pull away but Steve whined, making him stop.  “Just--  Stay there.”

“Jesus,” he heard Billy whisper.  And like that, Steve came, painting the tree in white stripes of spunk.  He cried out, loud where Billy had been quiet, muffling his sounds.  Steve was loud, he knew that, but he reached obscene levels as he trembled, orgasm making him nearly black out.

They stayed that way, panting as their sweat rapidly cooled.  Billy finally pulled away, hands leaving Steve and he missed the feeling immediately.

God he was so fucked.

Steve didn’t turn around as he caught his breath, shakily using the tree to stand erect.  He pulled up his jeans, not bothering to clean up.  Wasn’t sure he wanted to admit to himself that he wanted the feeling of cum and spit sticking to his skin, dampening his jeans and underwear, dirty and so fucking hot.  When he turned around, Billy had his back to him, the sound of his zippo clicking loud in the wake of what they’d just done.

“Uhm,” Steve began, because, like, where do you go from here?

“We can keep this under wraps,” Billy said, back still to Steve.  He let out a cloud of smoke, thicker in the cold air.  Steve noticed the tension in his shoulders, in his voice, and he swallowed, wondering if he’d fucked up.

“Yeah,” Steve said, fingers twitching nervously against his thigh.  “But uh,” he took a sharp inhale, forcing the words out, “My parents aren’t usually home so, you know, if you ever wanna like, let off some steam--”

“Aw, Harrington,” Billy teased, finally turning around.  “You like my dick that much?” Steve wasn’t sure what it was, but something told him he needed to be honest.  To tell the truth, or Billy’d run and never look back.

“Yeah,” he replied, honest.  Billy’s eyes widened and his mouth went a little slack.  But the attraction and want that shone in his eyes let Steve know he’d made the right choice.  “Maybe next time you can let me choke on it.”

[heylookafanfic]

Pairing: Joyce x Mall Gang x Byers! Reader

brief summary: You and the gang are fighting the Mindflayer in the mall but things take a unexpected turn for the worst.

word count: 1.7k words requested: Nope, original! (send in those requests!) warnings: death, finding out a loved one is hurt, mentions of blood, injury, cursing, losing consciousness

You, Mike and Max had stayed behind at the mall to take care of El after an impromptu open leg surgery to get the mini-flayer out. Joyce and Hop were off to turn off the portal to the UpsideDown. Dustin and Erica went to contact Suzy. Lucas, Will, Jonathan, Nancy, Steve, and Robbin were out, driving the MindFlayer as far as possible from town. That is, until it made a u-turn and head back to the mall.

The three of you were walking out to the parking lot, supporting El in-between Max and Mike.

“What the hell does this thing even look like?” you asked Mike

“It looks like a spider but a million times bigger” he responded

“It’s bigger than the one at the hospital?!” Max asked

“Yeah” Mike said

El let out a groan

“We’re almost there El. I promise we-”

Suddenly, Billy emerged from his burning car and spotted you.

“Shit, go, go, go, go!!” Mike panicked

You all ran back into the mall, trying to find a safe place to hide.

“I’ll hold him off” Max said

“No! I’ll do it!” you said

“What?! No! Nobody’s leaving!” said Mike

“Don’t fight me on this. Max, stay with them and keep going!” you said

They pause and give you a concerned look

“GO!” you shouted

Just as they got out of view, Billy burst in. He was eyeing you down yet, you didn’t break eye contact. You were scared but you sure as hell wasn’t gonna let to show.

“Where are they?” he growled

“Go fuck yourself Hargrove” you spat

Grabbing you by your throat, he slammed you against the wall and your head hit first, making a loud thud as you fell. Luckily, it wasn’t enough to make you unconscious. Brushing yourself off, you ran and attempted to drop kick him. You might as well just kicked a pile of cinderblocks because that’s what it felt like. Billy wasn’t phased by it and kept walking toward the kids. You ran out the back door and into the parking lot.

“Y/N!” a voice yelled

You turned around to find Lucas, Will, Jonathan, Nancy, Steve and Robbin. They caught up with you, arms full of fireworks and jogged into the entrance of the mall.

“What happened to your plan?” you asked

“Mr. Mindflayer decided he wanted to come back” Lucas said

“What do we do now?”

“We got a plan but it may or may not work”

“Okay? What is it?” you ask

“How far can you throw?”

Suddenly, Max and Mike shot out of Scoops Ahoy in a panic.

“Hey! Up here!” Max shouted

Everyone ran up the flight of stairs, meeting the two.

“Where’s El?” Jonathan asked

“Billy took her!”

“What?! I thought you were with her the whole time!” said Steve

“We were but he nearly killed us for her” said Mike

The ground began to shake. Will looked up at the glass ceiling of the food court.

“GO! GO! GO! GO!” Jonathan yelled

Armed with fireworks, the gang took position on the top level of the mall, hiding behind trash cans, store signs, and plastic plants for cover. The MindFlayer is here and boy is this going to be one hell of a story to tell after it’s dead and gone. The monster that overtook lil ‘ol Hawkins, Indiana was live and in the flesh. Hearing it’s ear shattering wails, you take a deep breath in. Steve looked at you from his hiding spot.

“You okay Y/N?” he mouthed

You were still a bit disoriented from hitting your head but, you didn’t want to sit this one out. You exhaled and nodded.

He gave you a thumbs up and waited for the cue.

El was inches away from being MindFlayer food and tensions were high.

Steve counted.

One.

Tw-

“FLEE THIS, YOU UGLY PIECE OF SHIT!” Lucas yells as he chucks a lit firework at the monster

It explodes and knocks the MindFlayer off balance and into a support beam.

Everybody beings throwing their fireworks one by one. From firecrackers to Black Cats, the monster takes a bit of damage but, not enough to kill it. This was your first encounter with the mindflayer but, if it meant saving the world from complete destruction, you might as well give it all you got. You have a limited arsenal of explosives and so does the rest of the gang but it seemed like this battle went on for an hour. Nothing seemed to work and soon enough, everyone was yelling “I’M OUT!!”. You and Robbin  were the only two that still had a few left and suddenly, an idea came to mind. If you could get one into its mouth, that’d probably kill it. Not the brightest idea but it was worth trying. You sprint over to her and take the largest firework, leaving the rest of your ammo.

“What are you doing?” she shouted over the noise

You ignored her and dashed towards a spot behind the Flayer on the first floor. If you could get close enough to it, it’ll turn around, you could take your shot and get the hell out of there before Flayer guts could get on you.

“I’M OUT!” Robbin yells

That’s your cue.

You whistle and it’s loud enough to get it’s attention. It turns around and roars as you throw the last explosive. It lands in it’s mouth and detonates. There’s a eery silence. Is it over? Did you deliver the final blow that saved the world?

No.

The Flayer flings one of its legs at you, sending you flying into the counter of one of the restaurants.

You’re out cold. All you remember is seeing its leg and everything turned to black. It’s all over isn’t it? Well, at least you died a hero. Are you a hero? Oh no, mom. Mom almost lost Will but now you? This wasn’t how it’s supposed to end. Mom, Will, and Jonathan are going to live their lives without you forever and all because of a goddamn alien thing? Shit, shit, shit.

After your mom closed the portal to the UpsideDown thus, killing the MindFlayer, everyone ran downstairs and rushed to El and you. El was had bumps and bruises but wanted them to tend to you. Max grieved over Billy’s body and El held her tight as she sobbed.

Your brothers, Steve, Robbin, Nancy and Mike pulled your body from the rubble and Will yelled for you. Nancy held him back from seeing the aftermath.

“Y/N?! Oh my God! Wake up! Come on!” Johnathan shouted

“Joyce?! Hop?! Dustin? Anyone, come in!!” Mike shouted over the walkie talkie.

“This is Joyce, is everyone okay?” your mom replied

“Miss. Byers, we need you ASAP! Y/N’s down and it’s bad!”

“Wait, wait wait. Who’s down?!” Joyce panicked

Jonathan took the walkie talkie form Mike

“Y/N!! Y/N’s DOWN! MOM HURRY!” ——–

Feeling hands grab your shoulders, you thought that an angel was probably pulling you up to heaven. Well, it’s been nice Earth.

“Y/N?!”

You couldn’t see anything but you most definitely heard a voice yelling your name

“Y/N?!”

There it goes again. What the-.

“They’re not waking up!” another voice said

Out of nowhere, you heard a comforting voice

“Y/N? It’s mommy. Oh no, baby, please come back to mommy. Please”

Mom! You can hear her but you can’t see her. You can feel a heaviness on your chest. Ow! Hey! Now, it really hurts.

You open your eyes just enough to see light. You can see big blobs but you can’t make them out.

“Hey! There they are!” Robbin said

She had been doing CPR on you for the past 3 minutes

You tried to sit up but a hand gently pushed you back

“No, no, no. Don’t move” Jonathan said

A groan escaped from your mouth. You feel something rub across your hand repeatedly. With the eye that wasn’t swollen shut, you looked at you hand and saw your mom. She was crying tears of relief and rubbed her thumb across the back of your hand.

“Sweetheart, can you hear me?” she asked

You could hear her alright. Everything was awfully loud and sounded like a plastic bag was over your head.

You just squeezed her hand with what little strength you had in you. She smiled and kissed your forehead.

“Mom, they’re losing a lot of blood” Jonathan worried

You looked down at your stomach and blacked out again from the sight of the deep gash. — Waking up to the clean smell of an ambulance was nice. What wasn’t nice is being hooked up to tubes and wires.

You opened your eyes again and saw Joyce and 2 paramedics staring at you.

“Mom?” you said reaching for her

“Don’t move sweetheart. We’re almost to the hospital” she said

Someone was missing. Hop. Hop was missing. He’s been like a father to you since your dad left. He was always there for you and you can’t imagine him not being by your side in a situation like this.

“Mom, where’s Hopper?” you said in a hoarse voice

Joyce took a shaky breath

“I’m so sorry”

“Huh? No! Where is he?!” you cried

“He didn’t make it baby” she said

It took you a while to process the news. It wasn’t enough time because by the time you were rushed through the ER doors, the nurses put you under again for surgery.

—-

You woke up for the 3rd time and everyone was in your post-op room.

“Hey hero!” your big brother said

Everyone said their greetings to you.

“Hey badass! I heard what happened” said Dustin

“I heard you kicked the MindFlayers ass right before you got sucker punched by it” said Erica

“Erica!” Lucas reprimanded his sister

Things got quiet when Will came to your side.

“Don’t leave us again, please”

With Will being the baby of the family, you always made promises to him. Pinky promises started back when he was 5 and ever since, it stuck.

“I pinky promise” you said

Your voice was still hoarse but at least you can talk in full sentences. You saw El in the corner of the room.

“El” you said

She came to your side

“Is it true?” you asked

She gave you the saddest eyes.

“yes” she nodded

You sighed. The room got quiet when Joyce walked in.

“We’ll give you two a minute” Nancy said ushering everyone out

As soon as everyone left, Joyce kissed your forehead and you cried. She held your hand and cried with you. Things would never be the same in Hawkins. Especially without Hop.

[winters-blue-children]

The worst monster Billy knows is the one inside himself. It lashes out like a wild, raging animal. In the aftermath, compulsive and guilt-ridden, Billy has to face a few hard truths.

Harrington couldn’t possibly hate him as much as he hates himself.

AO3 / Ch 1

Harrington doesn’t show up at school the next day. Billy tries not to make it obvious that his eyes roam the hallways for that familiar mop of perfectly coiffed hair. The guy’s just taking the day off to recuperate. Not a big deal. Nothing’s wrong, he tells himself.

He refuses to let the worry show. He’s got to keep the arrogant, hot-headed mask on his face. But a nagging feeling gnaws in his gut, giving him no peace. He sighs and rubs his forehead as he turns the corner on his way to class.

In the midst of his distraction, Nancy Wheeler strides up to him.

He stumbles jarringly to a stop when the girl steps directly into his path. But he recovers quickly with a haughty glare.

“What do you want, Wheeler?” He growls, definitely not on edge because Harrington’s ex-girlfriend suddenly wants to talk when she hadn’t uttered a word to him since his arrival in town.  

Somehow she doesn’t seem intimidated. “I know what you did to Steve,” she says, her voice stern in a way that reminds him too much of the way his mother reprimanded him as a child.

Behind her, Jonathan Byers leans anxiously against the lockers, ready to intercede if needed.

Billy scoffs, an arrogant smirk on his lips. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Wheeler.” He shrugs casually, refusing to let even a hint of guilt falter his mask.

“Stay the hell away from him.”

Billy swallows, uncomfortably aware that they’re getting stray looks from their fellow classmates. “What the fuck do you care? You’re not his girlfriend anymore,” he nods his head towards Byers. “Don’t you and your freak boyfriend have better things to do?”

“Steve’s a good guy,” Nancy says, her voice low as she glares daggers at him. “And he doesn’t need someone like you fucking his life up.”

Billy keeps his gaze resolutely casual. “Does Harrington know his little princess is saying such kind words on his behalf? I didn’t realize he needed a bitch to stand up for him.”

Nancy bites her lip. She doesn’t back down. If someone held a gun to his head, he’d admit that the princess has more gall than her slender appearance would suggest.

“You don’t scare me.”

Billy smirks, tilting his head to side. His lewd glance down her front makes a muscle twitch in her cheek. “Is that so?”

She takes a step closer to him. “There are things that keep me up at night,” she says, her voice low and dangerous. Her nostrils flare as he glares at her, and she glowers back with everything she’s got. “There are monsters in the dark that terrify me. But you? You’re nothing. You’re just a sad little boy who feels better by making others feel small.” She shakes her head, looking at him as if he were a bug under her shoe. “You’re nothing, Billy Hargrove.”

Billy stares, his breath hitching in his throat as she takes a step back.

“Stay the hell away from Steve.”

She turns on her heel and walks away, books held under her arm like a good little school girl. Byers barely spares him a glance as he follows her retreat like a dog.

Billy shudders a heavy breath as he watches them go. He growls, anger flooding his veins. He’s only just lost them in the crowd of students before he turns and throws his fist into the closest locker. He hisses at the pain in his cracked knuckles as the dent left in the metal mocks him in all his pathetic agony.

There are gasps and stares all around him.

He ignores them all.

~

Despite how he tries to tell himself he doesn’t give a flying rat’s ass, Billy looks around the parking lot for Harrington’s car. The familiar maroon Beemer worth more than his parent’s shit house sits parked in the same spot that it was left the day before.

Billy chews on his bottom lip, looking around aimlessly before sighing at his own miserable self-pity. He’s definitely not thinking about Harrington. And he’s definitely not going to drive to the guy’s house to check on him. How did this pretty boy turn him into a pathetic pining vat of self-hatred? Harrington invades his thoughts like an infection. A sickness. His father would throw a fit if he knew.

He strides across the parking lot towards his Camaro.

Tommy grins at him as he walks past, reaching out to tap his arm. “Hey, dude! A bunch of us are gonna-”

“Fuck off,” he spits harshly. He doesn’t bother to appear amicable. It’s all bullshit anyway. A shit head like Tommy isn’t worth his time. From the moment the guy glommed onto him, jumping onto his new popularity, Billy knew the guy was a piece of shit.

He only tolerated it because Tommy had a grudge against Harrington. And it was always about Harrington.

He pulls out of the parking with the harsh screech of tires, rock music blasting through the speakers. Though he doesn’t turn in the direction that would take him to rich boy’s house. He turns left and slows down as he pulls into the pick up lane of Hawkins Middle.

He searches out a familiar head of red hair, turning down the music as he approaches.

Max’s eyes narrow when she sees him pull up next to her.

“Where’re you going?” He calls out through the open passenger window.

“None of your business,” she says gruffly. “I thought I told you to leave me alone.”

Billy sighs, his breath stuttering in his throat as he leans further across the center console. “I’m your brother,” he says carefully. “It is my business.”

She stares at him like he grew another head.

“I’m going to the arcade,” she finally states.

Billy pauses. “With your friends?” He asks, his voice softer.

Max raises an eyebrow, daring him to protest.

“Do you want a ride?” He asks reluctantly.

Max squares her shoulders as she glares. “Fuck no,” she spits. “I’d rather walk.”

Billy waits until she’s stormed away from his car before his shoulders drop and he sags against the seat, feeling like he can’t breathe.

~

A miserable night of weight-lifting and chain-smoking fades into a dull morning, tracing familiar steps in the shit school of a town he feels trapped in.

A welcome voice in his ear stifles his motions as he trades books in his locker.

“Hey.”

A brief moment of relief lightens the tension in his chest when he sees Harrington standing by his side. His heart leaps into his throat. It’s a mirror of their moment just two days before. Billy tries not to get too worked up over it.

“Lookin’ better, Harrington.” The other man’s eyes are a bit brighter. The bruises have faded a bit.

Steve shrugs awkwardly. “Yeah. I feel better.”

Billy cocks his head to the side. “What do you want?”

Harrington shifts on his feet before he responds. “Um, look my memory’s a bit hazy, but… I just wanted to say… I appreciate what you did the other day. You know… taking me home and all?”

Determinedly, Billy keeps a smirk on his face. “Don’t mention it, Harrington. You were a bit out of it. I just wanted to get you into bed,” he leers with a wink.

Steve stares for a moment before he finds the words to speak. “Right,” he says uncomfortably.

“Don’t get used to any special treatment, King Steve,” he scoffs. “I’m just here to take you down a few notches.”

There’s a tense moment of silence between them before Steve sighs and shakes his head. “Why do you have to be such a dick?”

The blunt disappointment leaves Billy frozen in place. The ache in his chest shudders heavily as the other man moves to leave.

“Whatever,” Harrington mumbles as he lets out a tired sigh. “I just wanted to say thanks. Fuck me for tryin’, right?”

His lungs feel choked for air. The other man is already walking away when Billy grits his name through his teeth. “Harrington.”

Steve sighs again as he turns back. “What?” He asks wearily.

Billy bites his lip. The hardest part is meeting Steve’s gaze. He can’t quite read his face and the terror of the moment hits him where it hurts. “What are you doing after school?” He finally asks.

Steve frowns. “Fuck if I know,” he mutters. “Working on the project for Benson’s class?” He adjusts the strap of the bag over his shoulder and gives him a suspicious look. “Why?”

Billy breathes heavily. “You wanna hang?” He asks softly.

Steve’s gaze softens. “Honestly… I could use a drink.”

He feels the stress drain from his shoulders. He grins gently as the atmosphere between them lightens. “You sure you should be drinkin’ in your condition?”

Steve laughs softly. “Thanks for the concern, but I think I can handle it.”

“I’m not carrying your ass home again.”

Steve gives him a searching look and finally smiles. “Meet me by the quarry after school. Four o’clock. I’ll bring the drinks.”

Billy’s mood somehow improves significantly afterwards.

~

Billy sits by the rocks, a cigarette hanging from his lips when Steve’s car pulls up next to the Camaro. The calmness of the water does little to steady the thunder raging in his chest. But he thinks he hides his nervousness well.

“Where’d you get the beer, Harrington?” He asks as the other man sets a six pack of cans between them.

“Fred’s.”

“Fake ID?”

“Owner knows my dad.”

Billy sneers as he pulls a can out of the six pack rings, helping himself. “Why am I not surprised? King Steve’s got connections all over town.”

“Fuck off,” Harrington mutters as he cracks open his own can.

They settle quietly, an ample amount of space between them as they look over the water. Billy swallows a heavy gulp of beer. It tastes a lot better than any beer he’d had before. It’s good shit. 

How typical of the golden boy. Perfect King Steve with all the money and all the girls fawning over him. His whole perfect life handed to him on a silver platter. Billy struggles to keep the envy at bay.

“You come here often?”

“Not really,” Steve shrugs. “It’s nice though. Quiet.”

Billy scoffs. “I bet you bring tons of chicks out here. Don’t get any ideas, Harrington. I’m not gonna suck your cock like one of your sluts.”

“Don’t be a dick,” Steve mutters.

“Am I wrong?” Billy throws back, because hostility is all he’s ever known. “Oh wait, that’s right. I forgot. You don’t run the place anymore, not since I got to town,” he laughs cruelly. “Bitches not trippin’ over themselves to suck your dick anymore.”

“Why do you do that?” Steve grimaces, sending him a harsh glare. “I never… I never ran the place.”

Billy clicks his tongue. “Not what I heard, Harrington.”

“Well, you heard wrong. Maybe if you actually took the chance to get to know me, you’d see things differently.”

Billy swallows. “Why the fuck would I want to do that?” He mutters softly. “You turned bitch.” He sneers at him over his can. “And I only like bitches eager to suck my dick.”

Harrington’s glare is hard and steady. “Why are you so angry all the time?”

Billy freezes. That hits him in the gut. The question is pure torture. It makes him feel hollow… and scared. Less than. It makes him hate Harrington just a little bit more. 

“They were never really my friends, you know?” Steve offers at his silence.

He looks away wordlessly, hoping the water would give him some serenity that would steady the pulse in his chest. The beer helps. He takes another drink.

“Bunch of assholes,” Steve mutters. “And now you’ve taken them off my hands. Congratulations.” He bumps their cans together and Billy grits his teeth in frustration.

A moment passes before Steve speaks again. “Why’d you even want to hang out if you were just gonna be a dick about it?”

“Why did you agree?” Billy hisses back.

“Because…” Steve sighs and shrugs, his voice trailing off. “Because I thought there might be more to you,” he says honestly.

Billy frowns. “More?” He echoes.

“Yeah, more. I thought you might be more than just an asshole.” Steve mutters. “It’s not like I’ve got a ton of people I like to call my friends. Those guys… the ones I used to hang out with… they’re dicks because their lives are miserable. They liked me because of… the big house, the car, the money, the… I don’t fucking know what they saw in me-maybe they just hung out with me because I could get them booze every weekend. Fuck. I don’t know, maybe I was hoping you’d be different.”

Billy grimaces but can’t seem to bite his tongue. “Poor little rich boy and all his problems,” he sneers softly. “You tryin’ to make me feel sorry for you, Harrington?”

“Don’t put words in my mouth,” Steve mutters under his breath. “That’s not what I said.” He takes a slow breath and a drink. “Why do you do that?” He eventually asks after setting his can down.

“This town sucks,” Billy shrugs. “Gotta find something to do.”

“Yeah, you have no fucking idea,” Steve mutters.

“Something you’re not telling me, Harrington?”

Steve gives him a knowing glare. “Be grateful you don’t know.”

Billy watches him for a long moment as Steve’s eyes trail along the water. It’s a long moment before he can tear his eyes away to the scenery that he’s loathed to admit isn’t nearly as appealing.

“Sorry about your face,” he eventually mutters.

Harrington looks at him with genuine surprise. “An actual apology,” he jests. “From Billy Hargrove. Never thought I’d see the day.”

“Don’t get used to it,” Billy growls, but there’s a hint of a smile that tugs at the corners of his lips. “Maybe your life isn’t so perfect,” he says casually. It’s a welcome thought that he and King Steve might actually have something in common.

“Not even close.”

“Are we having a real heart-to-heart, Harrington?”

“Isn’t that why you’re here?” Steve turns to him with a grin. “You know, I’m kind of getting tired of you walloping on me,” he jokes lightly.

Billy scoffs and straightens stiffly. “Just wanted to see King Steve the golden boy taken down a notch or two.”

Harrington studies his face silently, and Billy nervously shuffles under the heaviness of the gaze.

“I don’t believe you,” Steve finally says.

Billy sneers. “Come on, admit it. The princess running off with the school freak. That’s gotta hurt.”

“Don’t call him that.”

He raises a disbelieving eyebrow. He can’t for the life of him understand what Wheeler sees in the older Byers brother. She dumps the popular guy for the school pariah? He thought she was supposed to be smart.

“He’s been through things that would make you shit your pants,” Steve says lowly. “You don’t get to talk shit on that.”

Billy shrugs. A lost brother that turned up fine a week later? Sounds like a regular fucked up suburban family to him.

“Kind of makes you rethink your own perfect home life, huh, pretty boy?”

Steve shakes his head. “Never said my life was perfect.”

Billy raises an eyebrow, but he lets the other man continue. “Trouble in paradise?” He goads after a moment of silence.

“Just…” Steve lets out a heavy breath as his head drops back. “Just feeling a bit lost lately, I guess.

“King Steve at a loss,” Billy mocks.

“Why do you do that?” Steve asks, but there’s a small grin on his lips that causes a flutter in Billy’s chest. “Give me shit all the time? King Steve this and King Steve that. It’s getting kind of old.”

“Maybe I’m just jealous,” Billy admits. He can’t blame it on the alcohol, he’s only had one beer. It must be the view. “The perfect little golden boy, who’s had everything handed to him on a silver platter.”

“What, so I don’t get the right to complain?”

A familiar anger rises in him. “No,” he growls through his teeth. “No, you don’t.”

Steve crushes his empty can between his hands and reaches for the pack. He grabs another and holds it out. Billy silently takes it from his hands.

“My parents are alright,” Steve admits. “Just lonely, I guess. They’re not around much. But… all things considered… they’re alright.”

Billy’s hands tremble as he downs half of his fresh beer instead of offering a response.

“You know, you pick on me like a kid pulling on some girl’s pigtails on a playground,” Steve laments casually. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you’ve got a bit of a crush on me.”

“Lightweight,” Billy growls at him. “You must be missing that bitch Wheeler more than I thought.”

“Don’t be crude.”

“Did you love her?” Billy asks carefully.

“Yeah,” Steve eventually says after a slow drink. “Yeah, I did. I still do.”

Billy tries not to acknowledge the jealousy he feels in his gut. The feeling makes him want to hurl and he knows it’s not because of the beer.

“Must make you angry, right?”

Steve shrugs. “At first, sure.”

Billy turns to him. “But not anymore?” He asks curiously.

“She doesn’t love me,” Steve says simply. “You can’t make someone fall in love with you. And as much as I want her to… I… I just want her to be happy. If Jonathan makes her happy, then-”

“The freak?” Billy asks incredulously. He can’t comprehend why Wheeler would choose that son of a bitch over Steve. They’re a pair of perfect idiots now.

And yet Steve is head over heels, hung up over this nerdy, brainiac moron.

You can’t make someone fall in love with you.

The words echo in his head. Like driving a spike into his heart. 

“What’s so great about this girl?” Billy finally asks. “If you ask me, you could do a lot better. A chick with bigger tits for sure.”

“Goddamnit, you are such an asshole!” Steve punches him in the arm as Billy bursts out with obnoxious laughter.

Steve grins softly as they quietly settle.

“She special,” he says as his eyes glaze and he gazes out at nothing. “She listens,” he adds after a moment. “She… she knows me, I guess. I know that sounds dumb, but… that’s how it felt when we were together.”

“She knows you?” Billy echoes, raising a skeptical eyebrow. “Sounds gay, Harrington.”

“Yeah,” Steve mutters softly, rolling his eyes. “And she wanted someone else.”

“That doesn’t make you mad?” Billy growls. “That doesn’t piss you off?”

“Well, sure I’m mad,” Steve shrugs. “I mean, I was angry, at first. But… I don’t know, man, it feels like I don’t even know who I am half the damn time… I can’t really blame her, you know?”

No. Billy doesn’t understand. He doesn’t get it. “Sounds like you’re having an identity crisis,” he mutters, shaking his head.

“No worse than you,” Steve quips. “Is that why you wanted to hang out?” He asks, looking up at him.

Billy hesitates. He swallows the lump in his throat. “I’m nothing like you,” he finally says.

Harrington doesn’t believe him. “Why are you so angry all the time?” He repeats his earlier question. “Must be exhausting.”

“I like it,” Billy growls, his voice steely and dangerous. “I like being angry. People piss me off and I get to break things.”

“Like my face?” Steve raises his eyebrows. The fading black eyes glint painfully in the orange light of the setting sun. “Dude, you gotta find a better way to release your frustrations.”

Billy thinks about the skateboard held together with duct tape sitting in his sister’s room.

“What the fuck am I supposed to do?” Billy spits. He scoffs and shakes his head in frustration. “We can’t all be like you, pretty boy.”

Steve snorts and looks away. He takes a drink and Billy steals the opportunity to study him. He watches the way Steve’s adam’s apple bobs when he swallows. His stomach turns over in his gut.

“What do you do, huh?” Billy asks, his voice rough as he tries to dispel the silence. “When you get angry… what does King Steve do?”

“I get angry,” Steve says softly, his eyes drop to his lap.

“Yeah? And?”

“And… and I bullshit, apparently.” He lets out a bit of a self-deprecating laugh as he stares out into the water. “I don’t fucking know… I just… pretend like it’s not real.”

Silence follows.

“I get scared too.” Steve shrugs and picks up a pebble, forcefully chucking it into the water. “I just… ignore it… ignore all of it until I can’t anymore. Coward’s way out, I guess.

“You get scared,” Billy scoffs in disbelief.

“Of course I do.”

They don’t speak for a while. Billy doesn’t know what to say in response. And apparently, Steve has nothing more to say on the subject. They sit quietly, drinking their beers, watching as the sun slowly sets on the horizon.

Neither of them thought suffering the other’s company would be as easy as it is.

The chill in the air grows harsher. Billy finishes his last beer and turns to the other man. He reaches over and presses his thumb into the cut on Harrington’s lip.

“Hey, fuck off!” Steve gasps. But there’s a grin on his lips that must hurt when it stretches the cut.

“Pretty boy,” Billy chuckles. “You look better with your face beaten and bruised. More like a man.”

“Fucker,” Steve mutters under his breath. He glances at his watch and sighs at the time. “I gotta head out.”

Billy’s heart sinks in his chest, knowing that it’s about time he head home himself.

Steve slowly climbs to his feet, groaning at sore joints cracking from being in the same position for too long. “You can fix it, you know,” he offers, staring down at the other man who had yet to move.

Billy freezes, painfully aware of how he must look like a deer caught in the headlights. “W-what?”

“With Max,” Steve says softly. “I know she’s pissed at you, but… make an effort. Show her you’re more than just a douchebag. She’ll come around.”

“What the fuck do you know, Harrington?” Billy lets the anger seep into his voice.

“Whatever,” Steve shrugs and shakes his head. “I’m just tryin’ to help, dude.”

“Well, don’t.”

Steve nods, wiping his palms against the denim on his thighs. “Noted,” he says tersely. “I’ll see you in school tomorrow.”

He picks up their empties and walks away before Billy has the chance to formulate a response.

Steve’s driven off and gone before Billy realizes the only thought in his head is perhaps Harrington might be the most special thing that’s walked into his life since he showed up in Hawkins, Indiana.

[mell-bell]

strange how my heart found you (when I least expected it) - Chapter 1 - Jonathan Byers x OC

strange how my heart found you (when I least expected it)

Jonathan Byers x Original Character

Words: 1461  

Series Summary: Five was a weapon. She killed, stole, and spied for Brenner for years. Until she escaped. But not before breaking the youngest and lastest experiment, Eleven, out of the lab. Who knew their escape would lead them to the first family’s they had ever known? Who knew it would lead her to Jonathan? But with Brenner on her tail, can she keep them safe? Can she keep Eleven safe? Can she stop being the monster she believes herself to be? She can’t seem to escape her past no matter how hard she tries. 

Chapter: 1/10

Author’s notes: IM BACK! I’ll be updating my others stories soon I have multiple chapters in the process rn and expect one up tomorrow (Darcy x Bucky). Anyways I watched Stranger Things for the first time and fell in love soooo expect much of Jonathan and Steve and I just had to write this because it wouldn’t get out of my head....Alright so for the sake of this story I’m aging up Jonathan to his early 20’s so when Will went missing he had already graduated from community college that previous May and was working to save up money to get his Bachelor’s but he dropped out of work to focus on Will and all that drama soooo yeah he’s like 22 and the original character is also around 21.... anyways hope you enjoy!!!!! 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Prologue: (last episode of season 1)

“Fi!”  

Five swung around, her eyes meeting Jonathan’s as he rounded the corner of the hallway. She offered him a weak smile and he took a step towards her, his eyes lighting up in hope, but she shook her head and took a slight step back. Jonathan’s brows furrowed in confusion before he glanced down the hall past Five. She could see the moment he realized what was about to happen, his eyes grew wide and he began running. But he was too far away.

Five turned back around, trying to ignore Jonathan’s heavy footsteps behind her. She knew what she had to do. Taking a shaky breath, she squared her shoulders and started down the hall, her body moving almost mechanically.

“No!” Jonathan’s gut-wrenching scream felt like a hot knife shoved into her core. And against her will, she threw one last look at him and watched as Hopper appeared. He quickly catching up to Jonathan and yanked him back. Jonathan fought against Hopper’s tight grasp, pulling desperately at the arms wrapped firmly around his chest. The two men slammed to the ground, Jonathan’s eyes never wavering from Five’s. Her heart sunk, and for the last time, she forcibly pried her eyes away from his, knowing that she would never see him again.

Five’s feet continued to walk forward even though every bone in her body was screaming to turn back. And when she reached the end of the hall, she lifted her head, her eyes meeting papa’s cold ones. His mouth was curled into a vicious smirk and he held out his ghost white hand to her. Her last thought was of Jonathan’s eyes before everything went dark.

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Chapter 1: (last episode of season 2)

The demo-dog’s screams grew closer and everybody took their positions facing the front of the house. Jonathan’s hands shook and he stepped in closer to his mother, placing his body slightly in front of hers. The house shook as one of the creatures slammed into the porch and everyone stumbled back a step.

Jonathan through a glance at the people surrounding him. His family. Their own shaking hands tense around their weapons. Ready for the fight about to befall them.

The growls were bone-chilling and Jonathan could hear them circling the house, their bodies slamming into the outer walls repeatedly. He closed his eyes remembering the last time he had fought one of the creatures. Him, Nancy, Steve. They could barely kill one. How would they take down dozens? A loud screech shot through the room, shaking Jonathan out of his memories. And then all fell silent.

Jonathan stepped forward, pushing his mother further behind him as his eyes fixed on the window.

A beat.

And then two.

Nancy took a step forward, Steve swung his bat, and just like that everything exploded. The window in front of them shattered a demo-dog flying toward them. A collective shout shot through the room and everyone circled around, aiming their weapons at the creature on the ground.

“Holy shit.” Dustin wheezed.

“Is it dead?”

Hopper walked over slowly, his footsteps hesitating as he reached the body. He nudged it with his foot and there was a collective sigh of relief when it remained motionless.

However, that relief was short-lived as the door behind them creaked. Everyone whipped around with panicked looks, their weapons settling on the door. A loud click sounded, as the lock flipped up. The chain on the door slowly slide off and everyone gripped tight to their weapons. Jonathan swallowed deeply as the door swung open.

“Eleven?”

Mike pushed through the group of people and met Eleven in the middle of the room. And while everyone’s gazes settled on the kid’s reunion, Jonathan’s gaze turned away as he caught sight of something in the doorway.

He froze, not willing to believe his eyes.

“Fi?” His voice cracked. He felt as if all the air had left his lungs. And when he tried to speak the words seemed to get caught in his throat. His mind couldn’t still be playing tricks on him, could it? For months, months, after Five had disappeared, he had seen her everywhere. Day after day after day until one day he had finally shut down and accepted she was never coming back.

The woman in question froze at the sound of his voice but didn’t turn to face him.

Jonathan’s heart raced, yet he remained frozen as if his body had forgotten how to move. All he felt were his fingers twitch as if they longed to reach out and touch her as if they remembered the feel of her skin.

“Fi.”

His gaze was locked solely on the woman in front of him. She turned toward his voice, but her head remained angled down toward the ground, refusing to look up at him. She looked different. Older. More hardened. Covered in dirt and debris. But still the same.

He cleared his throat and spoke a little louder, “Five.”

Five shook her head, reaching her hands up to tangle her fingers in her hair as her face scrunched up in pain, and she took a step backward. Her movement seemed to break Jonathan out of his trance and he pushed past the people around him and stopped no more than an inch away from her.

His hand lifted up and he hesitantly reached out to touch her arm, but the second his fingertips touched her bare skin, she flinched back, her arms dropping from her head to wrap around herself for protection, and he pulled back as if she had struck him.

“I’m sorry- “

Five’s head snapped up, her eyes finally meeting Jonathan’s. His breath caught as her green eyes locked with his. But they were dark. Haunted. Looking at him, but not truly seeing him. Seemingly trapped in the memories of her past.

So much like she had been when they had first met.

He remembered the nights when she would sit motionless on his bed. Her eyes dark, her breathing shallow. It had only been a year ago, but it felt as if it had been centuries since he had last seen her.

Those nights had been excruciating. Trapped within her memories, with no way out. Jonathan would sit with her for hours. Not talking. Not touching. Barely moving. And together they worked through it as one.

Over time, the episodes had gotten fewer and farther between, until they had stopped altogether.

Jonathan’s heart dropped as Five’s eyes flashed, the fight within her mind visible on her face. He ran a hand down his face as his mind immediately raced to all the horrifying things she had gone through to cause this once again. Jonathan closed his eyes, willing the thoughts away, before focusing back on the woman in front of him.

“Fi? It’s me. It’s Jonathan. Your Jonathan.”

Her eyes remained locked on his and she nodded. She took a deep breath and dropped her hands down to her sides. A bit of a spark appeared in her eyes and Jonathan began to smile. But before he could speak, she let out a groan and grabbed her head, her eyes squeezing shut as if pain shot through her head. She repeatedly shook her head and Jonathan could do nothing but stand there and watch with concern. 

Suddenly, Five’s hand shot out and latched onto Jonathan’s shirt and she flattened her hand out over his heart. Jonathan closed his eyes and slowed his breathing, listening as she began to match his rhythm. After a minute, she pulled back and Jonathan opened his eyes, his gaze roaming over her face, recognizing the features he had long ago thought he’d forgotten. And not a second later, Five opened her eyes. Her speckled green eyes looking back at him, the gentle spark, that always sparkled when she got into mischief, re-igniting as they met his.

“Jonathan?” 

Jonathan’s face broke out into a smile as he nodded. His hand raised again and he placed it against her face, she leaned into it as his thumb brushed across her cheek. 

Her mouth quirked up into a gentle smile and without any warning she all but threw herself at him, wrapped herself around him, her arms tight around his neck, her head burying against his neck. His arms snaked around her back, gripping tight to her shirt, willing her to be real. Willing her not to be a figment of his imagination. Willing her not to vanish right before his eyes.

His nose nudged against her ear, “Where have you been? Are you okay? What did Brenner do to you?”

Five just shook her head and Jonathan just held her tighter, knowing that whatever happened they would get through it together.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Author’s notes: Soooooo I’m not 100% sure how I’m gonna write the rest of this now but I couldn’t get this story off my mind until I wrote it soooo I’m either gonna start with season one and go on from there or just continue after season 2 and do flashbacks...also I have like forty other stories going right now so updating will be sporadic at best because school is kicking my ass and I haven’t written in what feels like years 

[anchorarcade]

Congress Is Barely Functioning, But Its To-Do List Keeps Getting Longer

http://ryanguillory.com/congress-is-barely-functioning-but-its-to-do-list-keeps-getting-longer/

Congress Is Barely Functioning, But Its To-Do List Keeps Getting Longer

First Read is your briefing from Meet the Press and the NBC Political Unit on the day’s most important political stories and why they matter.

Congress is barely functioning, but its to-do list keeps getting longer

WASHINGTON — Last week’s actions by President Trump to decertify the Iran deal and end key Obamacare subsidies only lengthened the to-do list for a Congress that hasn’t achieved much during the first nine months of the Trump Era.

Due to Trump’s decertification of the Iran deal, Congress now has 60 days to reinstate sanctions against Iran, or to modify the law that governs congressional oversight of the deal;

Lawmakers will see if they can try to shore up the Obamacare markets (though Democrats doubt Trump would ever sign such legislation into law after his previous actions to break Obamacare);

In two months, Congress will again have to pass legislation to keep the government open (with Trump’s border wall being a major snag to get 60 votes in the Senate);

Congress also is considering what to do with the DACA program, which Trump rescinded (and the border wall again is a thorny issue here);

And the GOP is still eyeing tax reform as its major legislative item for the remainder of the 115th Congress.

This would be a daunting list for even the most functional and productive of Congresses. But for this Congress — whose top achievements have been rolling back Obama-era regulations, VA reform and passing ceremonial bills (like the Bob Dole Congressional Gold Medal Act) — this is the equivalent of running a marathon when your previous longest race was just a 5K.

And to govern, Trump and congressional Republicans have to make a choice: Do they try to pass this stuff through their narrow Senate majority (where they can afford only two GOP defections)? Or do they bargain in good faith with Democrats?

The former route didn’t work so well with health care, and the latter seems even harder given the current politics in DC.

By the way, President Trump has lunch with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell at 12:35 pm ET, and this comes after former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon fired off this warning to McConnell and establishment Republicans: “There is a time and season for everything, and right now it’s a season of war against the GOP establishment… Yeah, Mitch, the donors aren’t happy. They’ve all left you. We’ve cut your oxygen off, Mitch.”

Why Trump decertifying the Iran deal was such a big deal

“If America would overturn a pact it made to the rest of the world … how can it retain the reputation of a great power?” Don’t miss the New Yorker’s Evan Osnos writing about Trump decertifying the Iran deal: “Gutting a deal that Americans conceived, brokered, and secured would undercut decades of U.S. leadership on non-proliferation.”

More: “Decertifying the Iran agreement would fracture the United States’ credibility among its original partners in the deal. It would open a rift with China just as it is weighing whether to join the United States again, this time in negotiating with North Korea. Global Times, a state-backed Chinese newspaper, has asked, ‘If America would overturn a pact it made to the rest of the world, solely because of a transition in government, how can it retain the reputation of a great power?’”

On “Meet the Press” yesterday, UN Ambassador Nikki Haley said, “I think right now you are going to see us stay in the deal.” She added, “What we hope is that we can improve the situation. And that’s the goal. So I think right now, we’re in the deal to see how we can make it better.”

Steven Bannon on Trump cutting off those Obamacare subsidies: “Gonna blow those exchanges up, right?”

“The White House said it was acting on the recommendation of the Justice Department — that it was canceling illegal federal subsidies that helped sustain the Affordable Care Act. President Trump said what he was doing would hurt the insurance companies only,” the Washington Post’s Aaron Blake writes

“But former top Trump White House aide Stephen K. Bannon told a very different tale this weekend. And it will confirm what every opponent of the move already suspected: that Trump was trying to cause Obamacare to fail. In the midst of playing up Trump’s accomplishments Saturday at the ‘Values Voters Summit’ in Washington, Bannon turned to Trump’s controversial Obamacare executive order the day before. ‘Then you had Obamacare,’ Bannon said. Trump is ‘not gonna make the [cost-sharing reduction] payments. Gonna blow that thing up. Gonna blow those exchanges up, right?’”

On “Meet the Press” yesterday, Ohio Gov. John Kasich criticized Trump ending these subsidies. “What I don’t understand, Chuck, is what are they doing?” he said, per NBC’s Kailani Koenig. “Are they just passing these things and people are praising what the president did because of politics? I mean, do they understand the impact that this has on families, on people?”

Once again, Tillerson doesn’t deny he called Trump a “moron” :

Appearing on CNN yesterday, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson didn’t deny he called President Trump a “moron”:

CNN’s JAKE TAPPER: Is it true? Did you call him a moron?

TILLERSON: Jake, as I indicated earlier when I was asked about that, I’m not going to deal with that kind of petty stuff.

I mean, this is a town that seems to relish gossip, rumor, innuendo, and they feed on it. They feed on one another in a very destructive way.

I don’t work that way. I don’t deal that way. And I’m just not going to dignify the question.

Trump gets subpoena for all documents related to sexual assault allegations

Given the Harvey Weinstein news, this Buzzfeed story is bound to raise eyebrows: “A high-stakes legal showdown is brewing for President Donald Trump, as a woman who said he groped her has subpoenaed all documents from his campaign pertaining to ‘any woman alleging that Donald J. Trump touched her inappropriately.’ The subpoena — whose contents have not been previously reported — was issued in March but entered into the court file last month. The White House did not respond to a request for comment, nor did Trump’s attorney.”

“Summer Zervos, a former contestant on the Trump’s reality TV show The Apprentice, accused Trump of kissing and grabbing her when she went to his bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel in 2007 to discuss a possible job at the Trump Organization. After Zervos made the accusation last October, just weeks before the election, Trump denied her accusation and called it a lie. She responded by suing him for defamation. As part of that suit, her lawyers served a subpoena on his campaign, asking that it preserve all documents it had about her. They also asked for ‘all documents’ concerning other women who have accused Trump of groping them.”

Ed Gillespie on Trump: “I don’t know the president”

The New York Times’ Jonathan Martin on Virginia’s gubernatorial race with less than a month to go: “Ed Gillespie, the Republican nominee for Virginia governor, deployed just about every tactical evasion he had learned from a lifetime in politics as he dodged questions about President Trump. Then he finally flashed irritation.”

“‘I don’t know the president,’ Mr. Gillespie said in an interview at his headquarters here when asked whether he thought Mr. Trump was ethical. ‘I’ve not met him.’ If Mr. Gillespie is exasperated with persistent questions about Mr. Trump in the only Southern state that the president lost last year, his Democratic opponent in the governor’s race has his own problems. He is being whipsawed between his instinctive pragmatism and his party’s passion.”

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Congress Is Barely Functioning, But Its To-Do List Keeps Getting Longer

http://ryanguillory.com/congress-is-barely-functioning-but-its-to-do-list-keeps-getting-longer/

Congress Is Barely Functioning, But Its To-Do List Keeps Getting Longer

First Read is your briefing from Meet the Press and the NBC Political Unit on the day’s most important political stories and why they matter.

Congress is barely functioning, but its to-do list keeps getting longer

WASHINGTON — Last week’s actions by President Trump to decertify the Iran deal and end key Obamacare subsidies only lengthened the to-do list for a Congress that hasn’t achieved much during the first nine months of the Trump Era.

Due to Trump’s decertification of the Iran deal, Congress now has 60 days to reinstate sanctions against Iran, or to modify the law that governs congressional oversight of the deal;

Lawmakers will see if they can try to shore up the Obamacare markets (though Democrats doubt Trump would ever sign such legislation into law after his previous actions to break Obamacare);

In two months, Congress will again have to pass legislation to keep the government open (with Trump’s border wall being a major snag to get 60 votes in the Senate);

Congress also is considering what to do with the DACA program, which Trump rescinded (and the border wall again is a thorny issue here);

And the GOP is still eyeing tax reform as its major legislative item for the remainder of the 115th Congress.

This would be a daunting list for even the most functional and productive of Congresses. But for this Congress — whose top achievements have been rolling back Obama-era regulations, VA reform and passing ceremonial bills (like the Bob Dole Congressional Gold Medal Act) — this is the equivalent of running a marathon when your previous longest race was just a 5K.

And to govern, Trump and congressional Republicans have to make a choice: Do they try to pass this stuff through their narrow Senate majority (where they can afford only two GOP defections)? Or do they bargain in good faith with Democrats?

The former route didn’t work so well with health care, and the latter seems even harder given the current politics in DC.

By the way, President Trump has lunch with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell at 12:35 pm ET, and this comes after former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon fired off this warning to McConnell and establishment Republicans: “There is a time and season for everything, and right now it’s a season of war against the GOP establishment… Yeah, Mitch, the donors aren’t happy. They’ve all left you. We’ve cut your oxygen off, Mitch.”

Why Trump decertifying the Iran deal was such a big deal

“If America would overturn a pact it made to the rest of the world … how can it retain the reputation of a great power?” Don’t miss the New Yorker’s Evan Osnos writing about Trump decertifying the Iran deal: “Gutting a deal that Americans conceived, brokered, and secured would undercut decades of U.S. leadership on non-proliferation.”

More: “Decertifying the Iran agreement would fracture the United States’ credibility among its original partners in the deal. It would open a rift with China just as it is weighing whether to join the United States again, this time in negotiating with North Korea. Global Times, a state-backed Chinese newspaper, has asked, ‘If America would overturn a pact it made to the rest of the world, solely because of a transition in government, how can it retain the reputation of a great power?’”

On “Meet the Press” yesterday, UN Ambassador Nikki Haley said, “I think right now you are going to see us stay in the deal.” She added, “What we hope is that we can improve the situation. And that’s the goal. So I think right now, we’re in the deal to see how we can make it better.”

Steven Bannon on Trump cutting off those Obamacare subsidies: “Gonna blow those exchanges up, right?”

“The White House said it was acting on the recommendation of the Justice Department — that it was canceling illegal federal subsidies that helped sustain the Affordable Care Act. President Trump said what he was doing would hurt the insurance companies only,” the Washington Post’s Aaron Blake writes

“But former top Trump White House aide Stephen K. Bannon told a very different tale this weekend. And it will confirm what every opponent of the move already suspected: that Trump was trying to cause Obamacare to fail. In the midst of playing up Trump’s accomplishments Saturday at the ‘Values Voters Summit’ in Washington, Bannon turned to Trump’s controversial Obamacare executive order the day before. ‘Then you had Obamacare,’ Bannon said. Trump is ‘not gonna make the [cost-sharing reduction] payments. Gonna blow that thing up. Gonna blow those exchanges up, right?’”

On “Meet the Press” yesterday, Ohio Gov. John Kasich criticized Trump ending these subsidies. “What I don’t understand, Chuck, is what are they doing?” he said, per NBC’s Kailani Koenig. “Are they just passing these things and people are praising what the president did because of politics? I mean, do they understand the impact that this has on families, on people?”

Once again, Tillerson doesn’t deny he called Trump a “moron” :

Appearing on CNN yesterday, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson didn’t deny he called President Trump a “moron”:

CNN’s JAKE TAPPER: Is it true? Did you call him a moron?

TILLERSON: Jake, as I indicated earlier when I was asked about that, I’m not going to deal with that kind of petty stuff.

I mean, this is a town that seems to relish gossip, rumor, innuendo, and they feed on it. They feed on one another in a very destructive way.

I don’t work that way. I don’t deal that way. And I’m just not going to dignify the question.

Trump gets subpoena for all documents related to sexual assault allegations

Given the Harvey Weinstein news, this Buzzfeed story is bound to raise eyebrows: “A high-stakes legal showdown is brewing for President Donald Trump, as a woman who said he groped her has subpoenaed all documents from his campaign pertaining to ‘any woman alleging that Donald J. Trump touched her inappropriately.’ The subpoena — whose contents have not been previously reported — was issued in March but entered into the court file last month. The White House did not respond to a request for comment, nor did Trump’s attorney.”

“Summer Zervos, a former contestant on the Trump’s reality TV show The Apprentice, accused Trump of kissing and grabbing her when she went to his bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel in 2007 to discuss a possible job at the Trump Organization. After Zervos made the accusation last October, just weeks before the election, Trump denied her accusation and called it a lie. She responded by suing him for defamation. As part of that suit, her lawyers served a subpoena on his campaign, asking that it preserve all documents it had about her. They also asked for ‘all documents’ concerning other women who have accused Trump of groping them.”

Ed Gillespie on Trump: “I don’t know the president”

The New York Times’ Jonathan Martin on Virginia’s gubernatorial race with less than a month to go: “Ed Gillespie, the Republican nominee for Virginia governor, deployed just about every tactical evasion he had learned from a lifetime in politics as he dodged questions about President Trump. Then he finally flashed irritation.”

“‘I don’t know the president,’ Mr. Gillespie said in an interview at his headquarters here when asked whether he thought Mr. Trump was ethical. ‘I’ve not met him.’ If Mr. Gillespie is exasperated with persistent questions about Mr. Trump in the only Southern state that the president lost last year, his Democratic opponent in the governor’s race has his own problems. He is being whipsawed between his instinctive pragmatism and his party’s passion.”

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