ani🎱 @clarksgf - Tumblr Blog

a million little times (that's the things about illicit affairs)

prologue: "born from just one single glance"

pairing: steve harrington x fem!reader

chapter summary: when you first met steve harrington, you had no interest in him, but once you get to know him, you can't help but form a bit of a crush on him, and as the years go on, that crush seems to grow into something more. the only issue? steve is four years older than you.

chapter tags/warnings: there are no romantic interactions between steve and the reader in this chapter other than her crush on him. age gap (4 years), stranger things seasons 1-5, mentions of blood and violence and death, unrequited love, underage drinking, alcohol, hospitals, lil childhood crush, references to bad relationships with parents, uhh monsters and kidnappings and basically everything that happens in the show butttt a few things change. el lives!! references to henderhop and byler (which will be canon later idgaf). steve has no romantic interest in the reader when she is a minor. that’s weird as fuck.

word count: 19.4k

series masterlist , spotify playlist

–

The first time you met Steve Harrington was in Hawkins Memorial Hospital.

It was July 1976, you were five years old, almost six, he had just turned 10. He had fallen off of his bike and broken his arm, and you were waiting for your dad to come pick you up while your mom started her shift as a nurse.

You and Steve had been sitting next to each other in the Emergency Room, his arm in a brand new cast, and you swinging your legs over the edge of your seat.

You had spoken to him, asking if his arm hurt or what happened, and Steve had told you.

Neither of you remembered that moment, but when you think about the first time you met Steve Harrington you still think about Hawkins Memorial Hospital, but for a different reason.

The night of November 12th, 1983, or maybe it was the early hours of November 13th, your friend Will Byers had finally been found after spending a week trapped in a dark, alternate dimension you and your friends had dubbed ‘The Upside Down’.

You were 13 now, the oldest of the party (beating Lucas by a whole 4 months), and Steve was 17.

After you had spent the night chased by government agents, and evil scientists and literal monsters, and after you had watched your new friend Eleven – El – die.

You and your friends had been cramped into the hospital waiting room, hoping to see Will when he woke up. Lucas and Dustin had been passed out, leaning on each other, and your head was on Dustin’s shoulder as you slept too.

Steve Harrington was also in the waiting room, sitting between a snoring Ted Wheeler and the door. His face was bloody and bruised as he stared at a blank spot on the floor ahead of him.

At this point in time, you didn’t know Steve. You knew of him, that he was a douchebag high schooler, that people called him ‘King Steve’, and that he was dating your friend Mike’s older sister, Nancy.

That night is when you think you met Steve Harrington for the first time.

You didn’t see him very often after that, maybe a few times at the Wheeler household when he was hanging out with Nancy and you were there to play D&D in the basement with your friends, sometimes you’d both be seated at the dinner table, but that was about it.

You didn’t really care about Steve then, he was just some guy – an asshole – who was dating Nancy, and nothing else.

That is, until the beginning of November, 1984. Just days after Halloween, after meeting Max Mayfield for the first time, and after Will’s episode on the field at the school.

You’ve always been closer with Dustin and Lucas than you have been to Mike and Will. In fact, out of all of them, you always considered Dustin to be your best friend.

That might be why you answered his code red that morning, while Lucas went out to try and recruit Max, the new girl, into your party. You were all for Max joining your party, you thought she was cool, and it would’ve been nice to have another girl around.

You ended up helping Dustin scrub blood out of the shag carpet in his bedroom, and helped him bury his now-dead cat after Dart, the slug-like creature Dustin had found in his trash, had turned out to be a baby Demogorgon.

Nobody else was answering the call, so you and Dustin headed to the Wheeler house to try and find Mike, or maybe even Nancy, but neither of them were home.

And when the two of you turned away from the front door to head back to your bikes, Dustin muttering obscenities under his breath, you watched a familiar BMW pull up outside the house.

Enter Steve Harrington. Again.

A bouquet of roses in one hand, running the other through his perfectly styled hair, now walking across the Wheelers’ front lawn and towards the door.

Was it fate? No, just convenient timing, but the next night your perception of Steve Harrington would entirely change for the rest of your life.

You had watched him walk down the steps to Dustin’s cellar, nail bat gripped in his hands, and your first thought was that you hadn’t realized how brave Steve Harrington actually was.

And the next day you had followed him down a set of old rail road tracks, dropping chunks of raw meat onto the ground and listening to him giving Dustin horrible advice on girls. At one point, he had even turned back and asked for your opinion, only for you to totally disagree with what he was saying, but he brushed you off like it was nothing.

Soon, once Lucas and Max had joined you in the junkyard, the five of you set up an old bus as your base of operations, and after that you were hiding inside.

Lucas and Max were up on the roof, keeping watch, Dustin was pacing angrily; he was mad about Lucas telling Max everything and letting her tag along, and you were sitting on one of the old bus seats with your arms crossed to your chest, watching Steve flick his lighter open and closed.

He was cool, you could admit that now. Sure, he still seemed like a douchebag, but after spending literally all day with him, you had come to find Steve wasn’t as bad as you had thought.

And he was kind of… cute. He had nice eyes, and a nice nose, and the moles littering his face were just the cherry on top. And not to mention his ridiculous, but somehow attractive hair that you had recently learned he styled with Farrah Fawcett’s hairspray. Plus, he was charming.

He looked up at you, catching you staring, and gave you a smile. Your eyes darted down immediately, face heating up quickly out of embarrassment of being caught.

“You good over there, kid?” He asked, calling out across the bus. You just nodded in response, avoiding his eyes.

That nickname would stick around much longer than you’d have liked.

And once Dart and the other Demo-dogs had started to arrive, and they weren’t taking the bait, Steve tossed his lighter to Dustin, telling him to “get ready,” and you watched him go outside with that nail bat, using himself as bait.

“He’s insane.” Max had stated, and you had silently agreed.

“He’s awesome.” Dustin had said with an awestruck expression, and for some reason you agreed with that too.

Dustin had clearly begun to admire Steve as a kind of role model, while in that moment, as you watched a number of Demodogs surround him swing at the monsters after you and your friends, you were beginning to admire Steve in a different way.

When he had run back to the bus, several Demo-dogs were right on his tail, and you had all screamed at him to run faster until he was eventually launching himself into the bus.

He pushed you all to the back of the bus, away from the monsters clawing at the door, and you were the one to make it to the ladder at the back of the bus, and the moment you looked up at the hole and saw a Demogorgon looking down at you, you screamed loudly.

“Out of the way! Out of the way!” Steve had yelled and Max yanked you back with her own shriek of fear, having seen the monster for the first time. Steve forced his way in front of you all, pushed you behind him, and raised the bat threateningly, ready to swing at the Demogorgon again. “You want some?! Come get this!”

And in that moment, right there in that rusty old bus, you fell in love with Steve Harrington.

He had jumped in front of you with nothing but that nail-studded baseball bat to protect you all, he had pushed you behind him like it was nothing, like it was easy.

For the rest of that night you were practically glued to his side, not close enough for him to notice, but lingering close enough that he was always nearby. Whatever room he was in, you weren’t far behind him.

From your walk to the lab, where you met up with Nancy and Jonathan, and soon after Chief Hopper, Joyce, Mike and Will, all the way to the Byers’ house, where you discovered that Will was possessed by the shadow monster he had seen and was somehow connected to the monsters, like a hive mind.

You and your friends made the connection between the shadow monster and the Mind Flayer, which Dustin then explained to the rest of the group, and soon after you, Dustin, Lucas, Max, Steve and Nancy waited inside while the others tried talking to Will in the newly disguised shed.

You sat on the couch, watching Steve as he practiced swinging his bat in the middle of the living room. You tried not to stare, really, but your newfound crush was hard to ignore. But then, awkwardly, you glanced over to Nancy.

Right, she was Steve’s girlfriend. Or… ex-girlfriend now? You weren’t sure, but all you knew was that you immediately felt guilty and you cast your eyes down to stare at your shoes instead.

When the Byers’s phone rang not once, but twice, and Nancy ripped it from the wall and threw it across the room, everything got hectic immediately.

The others came rushing back inside from the shed, weapons were distributed, and as Steve raised his nail bat, he pushed you behind him again so you were standing beside Dustin.

When the dead Demo-dog came flying through the window, shattering the glass, you all jumped back, and when El walked through the front door, relief flooded through your body immediately.

Her hair that had once been shaved was now slicked back, she was wearing dark clothes, converse and cuffed jeans, and had dark eye makeup on her face.

And when Hopper took a yelling Mike down the hallway to Will’s room after it came out that the Chief had known where she was for the entire last year and hadn’t said a thing to anyone.

But then she walked over to you, Dustin and Lucas, hugging the boys first and even touching Dustin’s teeth, which had only just grown in, before she walked over to hug you next.

“I’ve missed you so much.” You told her and she hugged you tighter.

“I missed you too.” She said before pulling back and smiling.

Max stepped forward to introduce herself, giving a polite smile and holding out her hand, but instead of greeting her back, El brushed her off and walked away, towards Joyce.

Max turned to look at you, hurt evident on her features, and you watched El walk away.

“Did I do something wrong?” Max whispered to you and you frowned.

“I don’t… No, I don’t think so.” You told her and pat her shoulder.

Then soon after Hopper and El left to close the gate, and Will was taken by the Byers’ and Nancy to try and separate him from the hive mind, which left you and the rest of your friends alone with Steve once more, which was fine until Billy showed up.

Billy Hargrove was Max’s older step-brother, and he was a total piece of shit. Steve had gone outside to try and get him to leave, and Billy had just shoved him to the ground before bursting through the door, but instead of going for Max, he went for Lucas.

You and your friends were all shouting at Billy to stop as he slammed Lucas against the wall, threatening him, telling Lucas he was “So dead.”

And that’s when Steve stepped in and punched Billy, and for a moment things were looking up. Until they weren’t and Steve ended up getting his face pummeled in by Billy, who Max knocked out a moment later with a needle of whatever Hopper had used to knock Will out earlier.

“Shit, shit, shit, what do we do?” Dustin exclaimed, looking down at the two unconscious 18-year-old boys lying in the middle of Joyce Byers’s living room.

“We have to get to the tunnels,” Mike decided immediately. “To help El.”

“What about Steve?” You spoke up, gesturing down to him and his swollen face.

“What about Steve?” Mike repeated, giving you an unbothered look.

“Well, we can’t just leave him here, Mike, look at him.” You pointed out, and the five of you stared down at his bloody face, bruises already blooming on his skin beneath the red liquid.

“She’s right.” Dustin backed you up immediately. “Besides, he just saved Lucas, we can’t just leave him here for Billy to probably murder when he wakes up. Or what if he chokes on his own blood or some shit?”

Mike groaned loudly, rolling his eyes and looking down at his older sister’s ex? boyfriend. “Fine, whatever, we can bring him.”

“Yeah, but how are we even going to get there? It’s not exactly like we can just walk to the farm.” Lucas asked and Max spun on her heels quickly, walking over to Billy and digging through the pockets of his jeans before pulling out his car keys.

“I’ll drive.” Max said, holding the keys up and dangling them from her fingers.

“What? No!” Mike scoffed. “You can’t drive!”

“I’ve driven in a parking lot before, and I can guarantee that’s more than any of you.” She pointed around at the rest of you. “Besides, Steve clearly can’t drive because he’s practically dead.”

Dustin took off running down the hallway.

“Dude, where the hell are you going?” Lucas yelled after him.

“I’m getting medical supplies!” Dustin had shouted back.

You and Dustin were stuck cleaning up Steve’s face to the best of your abilities while the others scrambled around the house, collecting items they said you needed to go into the tunnels and light the ‘hub’ on fire.

Mike made a map based on the drawings taped to the walls, you all put pairs of gloves and masks in the trunk of Billy’s Camaro before you and Dustin hauled Steve into the backseat.

The car was extremely cramped, Max taking the driver’s seat, much to Mike’s chagrin, and Lucas took the passenger seat beside her to navigate with a map of Hawkins.

You, Dustin and Mike squashed into the backseat, and Steve was pulled between you and Dustin, though he was mostly lying on your laps due to the lack of space. At the time you had been extremely thankful that the car was dark, because your face was burning just due to the minimal contact.

After that, the night faded into a blur of chaos. Steve woke up, screaming frantically about Max driving, sounding so terrified that you were surprised he didn’t jump out of his skin, while Mike snapped at her from the backseat. Dustin was doing his best to comfort Steve while Lucas shouted directions at Max over the noise, screaming at how sharply she turned the corner into the farm.

You were frozen in your seat, stiff as a board, because in his panic Steve had grabbed a hold of your arm and now your heart was beating a mile a minute.

Then came the tunnels, dark, slimy, filled with spores from the Upside Down, and monsters from the very same place. Once you had made it to the hub with little-to-no trouble and doused it in gasoline, Steve tossed in his lighter and lit the place up.

You all raced back to the exit while Demo-dogs chased you all down the tunnels. Steve had lifted Max, Lucas and Mike up and out of the hole before the monsters came bounding around the corner, heading right towards you.

Steve’s arms wrapped around you and Dustin instinctively, and you had squeezed your eyes shut out of fear for your life.

The Demo-dogs just ran right by the three of you, and once they were gone, you all let out relieved breaths.

“You okay, Henderson?” Steve asked, patting Dustin on the shoulder and he nodded. Then he looked at you. “You good?”

Steve hoisted Dustin up first, and Mike and Lucas pulled him up and out of the hole. Then Steve turned to face you.

“Alright, your turn, kid.” He had said, and all you could do was nod before Steve was grabbing your hips to help lift you out of the hole, and butterflies had swarmed in your stomach.

You felt ridiculous. All this for some stupid crush on Steve Harrington? You had to be out of your mind.

Surely it must’ve just been because of the situation over the last few days, and once everything went back to normal, you’d see Steve less and this crush would fade, right?

Wrong.

Suddenly, Steve was everywhere. Since his breakup with Nancy (which you had confirmed a couple weeks later when Will mentioned something about her and Jonathan definitely being together) Steve clearly had a lot of time on his hands, because now he was always hanging out with Dustin.

And because Dustin was your best friend, that meant you saw Steve a lot more than you would’ve liked. And that crush didn’t fade, not even a tiny bit.

By the time December of 1984 rolled around, Hawkins Middle School’s annual winter dance, the Snow Ball, was here.

You had been excited for the dance for weeks, it was an excuse to go out and dress up with your friends for a night, and maybe you hoped a boy would ask you to dance.

You had seen Lucas and Max grow closer, and Mike and El seemed to have something going on, and you wanted something like that too. And, besides, a boy your age asking you to dance might’ve helped you get rid of this stupid crush on him.

But it turned out that the boys at the dance weren’t the people you should’ve been worried about, because not even five minutes after you had arrived, feeling good about yourself and excited to see your friends, Stacey Albright cornered you.

–

Steve watched Dustin walk into the gym with an unfamiliar sense of pride; the smile that sneaks its way onto his face shows as much. He watched Dustin talking with Mr. Clarke, like a proud big brother, before his eyes betrayed him, his gaze slipping past Dustin and landing on Nancy.

Nancy, his now ex-girlfriend, was inside the gym, volunteering at the middle school dance because that’s the kind of person she was.

Steve’s eyes softened, but the smile he had had already disappeared from his face. He only stared for a moment, just a couple of seconds, before he forced himself to start the car and drive away so he could spend the next couple of hours alone before he had to come back and pick Dustin up.

But Steve only drove a few feet away before he stopped again, because as he turned to drive around the side of the gym, he spotted you.

You were sitting on the curb in your dress, knees brought up to your chest, and from where Steve was it looked like you were crying. Steve’s brows scrunched at the sight, why aren’t you inside with the others?

Steve parked not too far away before exiting his car, brushing his hands on the front of his red sweater, before he approached you.

Your eyes were glued to the ground in front of you, your shoulders shaking as your body was wracked with sobs, your chin buried in your arms that sat atop your knees. The sight made Steve frown.

“Hey, kid.” Steve spoke up and you jumped, your head snapping up so quickly Steve thought you were going to get whiplash. “Sorry– didn’t mean to scare you. What are you doing out here?”

You shrug half-heartedly, looking away from Steve and down at the ground, sniffling as you brought a hand up to your face, rubbing your eyes.

“I’m fine.” You told him and Steve let out a snort.

“Yeah, I’m not buying it.” He dropped down onto the curb to sit beside you, and your eyes went wide as you watched him do so. “What’s going on?”

“It’s dumb.” You muttered, still avoiding his eyes.

“It can’t be that dumb if it’s got you out here crying instead of being inside and having fun with your friends.” Steve pointed out and you sighed, still not looking at him. “Come on, kid, talk to me. What’s wrong?”

“Just… some girls.” You mumble, and Steve’s frown etched itself deeper into his face. “They were saying stuff.”

“What kind of stuff?”

You didn’t reply, instead you crossed your arms across your chest and curled further into yourself.

“Sometimes I just wish I was normal.” You said, and Steve paused.

“You are normal.” Steve said and you scoffed.

“No, I’m not.” You stated. “I’m a weird nerd and I’m ugly, and my dress looks ugly and no boys are gonna dance with me, I shouldn’t have even come to this stupid dance.”

For a moment, Steve didn’t know what to say. He knew how to talk to the boys, because he used to be a 13-year-old boy, but you? That was some new territory for him. But he found the words soon enough.

“Don’t listen to those other girls, they’re just jealous.” Steve stated. You immediately opened your mouth to protest, but Steve cut you off. “You’re way cooler than those other girls. You’ve fought interdimensional monsters.”

“You did most of the fighting.” You mumbled, but Steve waved you off.

“That’s besides the point.” He said. “If those other girls are being mean to you, they’re just lame.”

“This dress is lame.” You muttered back, flicking at your skirt.

“No, it’s not. You look pretty.” Steve complimented and you finally looked over at him.

“You really think so?” Your voice was quiet, but your eyes were wide and locked onto Steve as your tear-stained cheeks flushed.

“Very pretty.” He told you with a nod. “Too pretty to be sitting out here and crying while all of your friends are inside and probably wondering where you are.”

“But what if nobody wants to dance with me?” You asked Steve, tears still brimming in the corners of your eyes. “That’s what Stacey said would happen.”

“Well Stacey sounds like a bitch.” Steve stated bluntly, causing a giggle to escape your lips. “And if no boys want to dance with you, it’s because middle school boys are dumb.”

“I can’t wait to go to high school.” You said, and Steve chuckled.

“Yeah, well, high school boys are pretty dumb, too.” He said with an exhale, gesturing to himself. “But trust me, kid, one day you’re gonna find some guy who loves you for all those things you don’t like about yourself, and those girls are probably never gonna find something like that.”

“What makes you so sure?” You asked Steve, more curious than anything, but still soaking in every word.

Steve just shrugs. “Because you deserve it.”

You stared at him for a moment. You had stopped crying by now, and Steve took that as a small victory as you gave him a small smile.

“Thanks, Steve.” You sighed and Steve stood up, offering you his hand.

“Come on, let’s get you inside to your friends.” Steve said and you took his hand and let him lift you to your feet. You brushed off your skirt, frowning as you wiped your cheeks, and you nodded.

But you didn’t even make it around the corner before you froze at the sound of Cyndi Lauper’s Time After Time flooding out from the gym.

You spun around to face Steve again.

“I can’t do it. Nobody’s gonna dance with me.” You stated. “I don’t even know how to dance.”

“It’s easy.” Steve shrugged, then he offered you his hand again. “Come on, I’ll show you.”

“Steve, you don’t have to.” You told him, eyes full of panic, but he brushed it off.

“I need practice before prom anyway, if anything you’re doing me a favor.” He said, making you chuckle. “Here, put your hands on my shoulders.”

That night Steve Harrington became the first boy you had ever danced with, in the dark Hawkins Middle School parking lot in the middle of a cold December night.

That night you also knew you were completely screwed, and no boy your age would ever stand a chance, because you were absolutely head-over-heels obsessed with Steve Harrington.

–

The new year came quickly after that, and with 1985 came a brand new mall in Hawkins called Starcourt Mall, and after you and your friends officially finished middle school you were all spending almost every day of the summer there.

Well, all except Dustin, who went off to summer camp in the beginning of June. But the rest of you were spending your days outside riding your bikes or going swimming in the day before heading to the mall in the evenings.

And your favorite part of each trip to Starcourt, by far, was when you’d visit the little ice cream shop, Scoops Ahoy. Sometimes it was just for a snack, and sometimes it was to sneak into the movie theater for free.

The reason didn’t matter to you, because you were just happy to see Steve. He had gotten a job at Scoops Ahoy for the summer, which meant every time you went there, he was standing behind the counter in a cheesy sailor’s costume that he somehow still looked good in, hat and all. You were sure your face had flushed with heat the first time you had noticed his chest hair peeking out from beneath the shirt of his uniform.

There’s only one thing you didn’t like about seeing Steve at Scoops Ahoy, and that’s when he flirted with almost every girl his age who crossed the counter. He didn’t score a single date, not in that uniform, but it still hurt.

It made you wish that you were just a few years older. It made you think, if I was his age maybe he’d actually return your feelings.

And the thing was, Steve didn’t have a clue.

He greeted you casually, smiling at you or rolling his eyes like he did with all of your friends. A part of you was upset, but another part of you knew it was for the better.

Steve had just turned 19 that June, and you were turning 15 in September. He had graduated high school, and you were only just about to start when the summer was over.

Realistically, you knew it wouldn’t work, and you knew it would be just weird if Steve actually liked you back at that point, but it still felt like a curse.

–

The night before Dustin came home from Camp Knowhere, you and your friends wanted to go see Day of the Dead, which meant you had to sneak in. And sneaking in meant seeing Steve.

It’s not that you purposefully dressed up just because you’d be seeing Steve for what was probably one minute at most, but you might’ve been dressed just a little bit nicer than usual for a trip to the movies with your friends.

Of course, you, Lucas, Max and Will all ended up waiting outside the mall for Mike to arrive from his usual daily visit to El at Hopper’s cabin, which meant your friends had plenty of time to analyse your outfit–specifically Max.

“Why are you dressed up?” She asked you suddenly, cutting off Lucas and Will’s complaining about Mike’s tardiness, and you scoffed.

“I’m not, these are my regular clothes.” You weren’t exactly lying, but you weren’t telling the whole truth either.

Max’s eyes narrowed at you, but Lucas shrugged from beside her. “I think she’s dressed normally.”

“Thank you.” You said to Lucas, but Max just raised an eyebrow.

“Right.” She nodded slowly, and a moment later Mike arrived.

“You’re late.” Lucas had stated with crossed arms as Mike jumped off off his bike.

“Sorry!” Mike replied, but he didn’t seem to mean it.

“Again.” Lucas emphasised.

“We’re gonna miss the opening.” Will added.

“Yeah, if you guys keep whining about it.” Mike said as he put his bike in the bike rack. “Let’s go!”

“‘If you guys keep whining about it. Nyeh-nyeh-nyeh.’” Lucas imitated Mike and you had snickered.

Then as you walked through the mall, Lucas complained about and mocked Mike for spending so much time with El and not the rest of you. It made you and Will laugh.

As you and your friends pushed your way down the escalator and towards the food court, bumping into a bunch of people as you went, your stomach began to flip with excitement.

You all made it to Scoops Ahoy and Steve was nowhere to be seen, instead his co-worker Robin was behind the counter. You thought Robin seemed cool, from what you had seen she was funny, sometimes a little blunt, but you liked her. You just hoped Steve didn’t.

Mike smacked his hand down on the bell on the counter several times, despite the fact that Robin was right there. She sighed and called out, “Hey, dingus, your children are here!”

And then the window on the back wall slid open and there was Steve in his sailor uniform with a scowl on his face as he looked over your group.

“Again? Seriously?” He asked, but instead Mike just rang the bell once more. He groaned, but ushered you all over.

He held the door to the back room open for you all, Mike and Will entering first, then Lucas and Max, and you were pulling up the rear. You smiled up at him as you passed him.

“Hi, Steve.” You greeted quietly and he sighed, but put on a smile.

“Hey, kid.” He said, letting the back door swing shut before he headed to the front of the group to open the door to the delivery tunnel out the back. He peered out through the peephole to make sure nobody was around before ushering you all out the door and into the hallway. “Come on. Come on.”

While your friends all pushed in and walked ahead, you gave Steve an appreciative smile. He didn’t pay any mind, instead just looked pretty stressed out as he called out after you all.

“I swear, if anyone finds out about this–” He would say the same thing almost every time, because he was worried about losing his job, but he knew your friends wouldn’t give up until he let them through.

“We’re dead!” You all chorused and you waved to Steve before following your friends down the hallway.

Steve closed the door with a heavy sigh and walked through the Scoops Ahoy back room before he made it behind the counter again, only to find his co-worker Robin already staring at him with an amused smile.

“Oh, what now?” He groaned and she chuckled.

“That little girl has a crush on you.” Robin stated and Steve stopped in his tracks, his blue Adidas sneakers squeaking against the tiled floor.

“What? Who, Max?” He asked, confused. “I’m pretty sure she’s actually with Lucas again right now, so you’re definitely wrong.”

“Is Max the redhead?” Robin asked and when Steve nodded she sighed. “Well, I’m not talking about her, I’m talking about the other girl.”

Steve said your name, and now looked even more puzzled, his brows drawing inwards as he looked at Robin. “No, she doesn’t.”

“Uh, yes, she totally does, dingus.” Robin chuckled, shaking her head. “God, you really are oblivious.”

“Um, no, those kids all see me as, like, I don’t know… A babysitter, older brother type, you know? I’m their friend.” Steve explained, like Robin was maybe just missing something. She was completely unaware of the trauma bond that had formed between the group over the last two falls. “She doesn’t have a crush on me, okay? She probably just thinks I’m cool.”

But, of course, Steve was wrong and Robin was absolutely right, because you did have a crush on Steve, which is what Max had been making fun of you for quietly as you walked through the delivery tunnels.

“You totally have a crush on Steve!” She had whisper-shouted to you at the back of the group with a giggle and your cheeks flushed with warmth.

“No, I don’t.” You lied. “Shut up.”

“That’s why you got all dressed up!” She realized and you shot her a glare.

“Shut up, Max, before the others hear you.” You hissed and she snickered.

“I knew it.”

When you had successfully made it into the theatre, you had split off to the few empty seats in the room. Max and Lucas ended up in the row in front of you, Mike and Will

The movie had been fine, except for the fact the power had cut out completely only a few minutes in. But it wasn’t just in the cinema, it wasn’t even just Starcourt Mall, it was the entire town of Hawkins.

When the power came back and the movie continued to play, the entire theater cheered before falling back to a regular silence and the rest of the night went on just fine. Completely normal, unlike the rest of the week would turn out to be.

–

The next day you and your friends surprise Dustin at his house once he returns from camp, and Lucas ended up with hairspray in his eyes.

Finding out that Dustin had somehow scored a girlfriend he deemed ‘hotter than Phoebe Cates’ in his three-week-long science camp was a shock to not only you, but the rest of your friends too.

But that wasn’t as much of a shock as what you and Dustin heard on his super radio, which he had named Cerebro in a true X-Men fan fashion.

You had all spent the entire afternoon lugging Dustin’s radio equipment up the tallest hill in Hawkins, one your friends called Weathertop, because he wanted to introduce you all to his girlfriend, Suzie.

But as the day turned into night and Suzie was nowhere to be heard, your friends had slipped away one-by-one. First Mike and El, who had ditched you before even making it up the hill, then Lucas and Max who left once nightfall had hit. Will stayed the longest, but once it started to get too late he left too, suggesting you all play Dungeons and Dragons the next day.

You stuck around, mostly because you had noticed the way Dustin had seemed to deflate as each of your friends left, and you wanted to know if his girlfriend was real or not.

“Guess it’s just you and me, huh?” Dustin had said and you just nodded at him in the dark as he repeated the prase, “Suzie, do you copy?”

By the end of the night you still hadn’t heard from Suzie, but you and Dustin had somehow intercepted what sounded like a secret Russian communication. Which led you to Scoops Ahoy the next day.

Dustin, of course, had wanted to see Steve and complain about how everyone else had ditched him the night before, but he also wanted to recruit him because overnight he had somehow gotten the idea that if you were to translate the Russian phrases he had recorded off the radio, you’d all become ‘American Heroes’.

The thing is, though, Dustin wanted to tell Steve all of this alone, which meant while they were talking in a booth in the back corner, you were leaning against the front corner, shooting them glances.

Robin was behind the counter, serving customers and wiping down benches, while also watching you. And after calling out to Dustin, making fun of Steve, she turned to you.

“So…” She said your name and you looked up. “That’s your name, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.” You replied and she nodded.

“Cool. So, uh, how long have you had a crush on Harrington over there?” She asked and your cheeks immediately flushed with warmth. Your fingers pinched at the chain of the necklace hanging from your neck, fiddling with the charm.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” You lied. 13-year-olds aren’t the best at lying, and Robin very clearly saw right through you. “He’s, you know, old. And dumb. And hairy.”

Robin snickered and you looked down at your shoes. “Right.”

“I would never like him, okay?” You defended weakly.

“Like who?” Steve’s voice came from behind you and you froze, eyes going wide.

“Nobody.” You muttered and he raised his eyebrows. Dustin’s eyes locked onto yours and he stared you down like he was trying to read your mind. “Seriously, nobody.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever, kid.” Steve teased and Robin glanced at you with amusement evident on her features. Then he nodded for you to follow him and Dustin to the backroom of Scoops Ahoy.

That’s where you spent the rest of the day, translating Russian phrases that seemed to be utter nonsense. Not a single word seemed to correlate with one another, and yet you had ended up translating a few sentences anyway.

Then, as you left Scoops Ahoy that night, you had all debated whether or not ‘The week is long, the silver cat feeds when blue meets yellow in the west,’ was a secret code of some kind.

And then Steve worked out that the music in the background of the recording, something the rest of you had chosen to ignore, was in fact coming from a mechanical horse from inside of Starcourt Mall.

Then Robin left on her bike, while Steve waited in his car, watching to make sure you and Dustin were alright riding your bikes home.

When you were gone, riding your bikes side by side, Dustin spoke up. He offered for you to stay the night at his. He knew you didn’t want to go home, not to your parents who fight every night. You took him up on the offer.

The next day, you and Robin sat around at Scoops Ahoy trying to crack the entire code you had finished translating while Steve and Dustin searched the mall for any signs of ‘secret Russians’.

You sat cross legged on a countertop in the back room, the straw of a milkshake between your lips while Robin mumbled the same words over and over, staring down at a notepad.

Robin cracked the code that same day, and that night was the night you found the secret room in the back of the mall, guarded by what your group had now confirmed to be ‘Evil Russians’.

But, of course, finding the room wasn’t enough and then you needed to find a way in, and after Robin bought blueprints to the mall and roped Erica Sinclair into the mix, you made it into the secret room the next night.

Upon opening a box that was labelled for the mall’s Chinese restaurant, you all found something that absolutely wasn’t Chinese food. Once Steve had pulled out a glass cylinder of some kind of mysterious, green liquid, the secret room had began to move.

That was when you found out the room was an elevator.

The next couple of days were a blur. You were all stuck in that elevator overnight, you had to spend the night listening to Steve and Robin talking the entire time while your chest burned with jealousy.

But the rest of your time in that dark, underground base was worse. So much worse.

You had spent almost all day walking down a painfully long hallway, arguing about the design of the base, who was and wasn’t a nerd, and whatever the hell that mysterious, green and acidic liquid was. There was even one small moment where you, Dustin and Steve had all shared looks and debated quietly whether or not the Russians knew about the Upside Down.

Then you made it to the main part of the bunker which was crawling with soldiers and scientists. You made it up to the comms room and watched Steve fight and successfully knock out one of the Russian soldiers.

While Dustin celebrated and Steve smiled proudly, pushing some of his floppy hair away from his face, you had struggled to tear your eyes away from him. That was, until Robin found something at the top of a set of stairs.

It was a giant machine, and that machine was opening a gate. A gate to the Upside Down.

You couldn’t even explain anything to Robin or Erica because a moment later the five of you were sprinting down hallways and running around corners while Russian soldiers chased you until Steve and Robin had yelled for the three of you to leave them behind and escape into the vents.

You, of course, had been extremely hesitant. You didn’t want to leave them, and neither did Dustin, but they were busy trying to hold a door shut and get the rest of you out of there to follow you.

Erica went in first, then you had forced yourself to follow her before Dustin joined you in the vents and you crawled away having to listen to the sound of yelling in Russian behind you, because Steve and Robin had been caught.

Your time in the vents might’ve been worse than the elevator or the hallway, because now you were terrified. You had no idea if Steve and Robin were okay, or even alive. You had no idea where you were or how to get out of the bunker.

While Dustin explained everything to Erica, about when Will went missing and the Upside Down, and the two had an entire long conversation about My Little Pony, you were silent, only chiming in a few times to add to Dustin’s story. Erica had believed it all, except for the fact that Lucas was there, which was apparently hard for her to believe.

Once you had made it out of the vents and found Steve and Robin, they weren’t in the best condition at all.

You had gasped upon running into the room to find his face beaten black and blue, blood coated his face and his uniform and his eye was swollen shut. Robin looked better, shaken but unharmed for the most part.

Dustin had taken out the doctor in the room and the three of you had hurried to untie the older teens. The only issue was that Steve and Robin weren’t acting right.

They were giggling, a little hyperactive, whispering to one another, laughing hysterically at things that weren’t even funny, and just acting nothing like themselves.

You were the one to come to the conclusion that they were drugged once you were all back in the elevator, this time heading up. You had just watched Steve tumble to the ground after pretending he was surfing on some kind of delivery cart.

Dustin had checked and found his pupils were dilated and his eyes were a bright red. Though neither of them would give any of you a straight answer.

After getting out of the elevator, you had made it maybe ten feet away from the doors before two Russian guards were running towards you.

“Shit!” You and Dustin had yelled and shared a look before ushering Steve and Robin towards a door by your side.

“Why are we running?” Steve questioned and you had grabbed onto his arm to pull him into the delivery tunnels you would use to sneak into the cinema, and despite everything going on your stomach had fluttered at the contact.

Hiding in the cinema was easy. There was a late night showing of Back to the Future playing and you had forced Steve and Robin down into front row seats. You, Dustin and Erica had found more seats, but a moment later you and Dustin had headed up to the projection room with his walkie to try and get into contact with any of the others.

Luckily, you had managed to get into contact with Mike.

Unluckily, you had barely been able to tell him anything before the audio cut out and Dustin’s walkie ran out of battery.

He turned to face you with a desperate expression.

“Do you have yours?” He asked and you shook your head before pausing. “What about more batteries?”

“Wait–” You had realized and your face lit up as you met Dustin’s eyes. “I think my walkie is still in the backroom at Scoops.”

“Does it have battery?” He questioned you.

“I mean, it should do. It hasn’t been used in like a day.” You pointed out and Dustin shrugged. “Do you think we’d be able to get down to Scoops without getting caught?”

“Do you know the way through the tunnels?” He asked and you nodded.

“You have no idea how many movies Steve has sneaked us into, dude. Yeah, I know the way.” You stated before you both jumped up and hurried back down to the front row to find Erica.

The only issue was that now Steve and Robin weren’t in their seats.

After some searching, you had found them in the women’s bathroom, sitting on the dirty floor of the same stall, facing each other and laughing.

While Dustin scolded the pair for running off, you were trying your best to push down that disgusting feeling of jealously that swirled in your stomach.

The rest of the night was a mix of running from both Russian soldiers and a giant flesh-like version of the Mind Flayer, arguing with the rest of the group once you had all reconvened and shared what you had each discovered.

There was blood, you had to hold El’s hand tight while Jonathan had sliced her leg open looking for something that had been moving inside it. There had been singing, when Dustin had somehow come into contact with his girlfriend Suzie and you and Erica just had to sit on the grass beside him and watch. There had been fire, after the others had used fireworks to attack the Mind Flayer they had unintentionally set the entire mall on fire.

And there had been tears, because when they were down in that Russian bunker to close the gate that had been opened, Hopper had died. And Max’s step-brother Billy had been killed by the Mind Flayer right in front of her.

But, for the most part, everyone was okay. Some bloodier than others, some suffering a little more trauma than before, but okay.

Once he had gotten his keys back, some American soldiers had recovered them from the Russian base, Steve had driven you, Dustin and Robin back to his place.

The Harrington house was large, and empty. Steve had made some excuse saying it was to make sure the drugs wouldn’t kill him and Robin in their sleep, saying something else about how he had accidentally given the Russians Dustin’s full name, but you had a feeling he just didn’t want to be alone, not after everything that had happened.

The four of you had crashed in his living room, Steve covering the sofas and large wooden floor in a collection of pillows and blankets before you all practically passed out, sleeping in until late the next afternoon.

–

El and the Byers’ moved three months later, not long after you all started high school. Saying goodbye to your friends before they moved to California wasn’t easy for any of you, especially not for Mike, but you all pushed through.

High school was different. You, Dustin, Lucas and Mike had a rough start, but soon you joined a D&D club called the Hellfire Club, led by a senior named Eddie Munson.

Eddie was great, despite being older than most seniors due to being held back for several years. He was cool, he was funny, he had a band and he loved D&D.

Steve, unlike the rest of you, didn’t like Eddie very much. He would make vague comments here and there whenever Dustin mentioned him in passing, or when Mike talked about Hellfire, or when Lucas told him a story while the two practiced basketball.

High school was very different from middle school. While, at first, you and your friends had fallen into your usual places at the bottom of the food chain, that didn’t last long for some of you.

Lucas had made it onto the basketball team, though he had been riding the bench all year, which had already given him a bit of a boost when it came to terms of friends.

Mike and Dustin didn’t seem to care about popularity, rather embracing the fact that you were all nerds and geeks thanks to Eddie’s ‘guidance’.

Max still sat with you guys sometimes, hung out occasionally, but she had started to isolate herself from everyone. She had been struggling mentally, mostly due to her step-brother’s death, something she only ever told the school therapist and, well, you.

You weren’t quite sure what had happened to you in high school, or what had happened to your peers, because the bullying from other girls had diminished, and now they actually talked to you in the hallways, or sat with you in class, or paired up with you for projects.

It was different, but it was nice.

Though, sure, there were still times where they’d judge your friends, or some of your interests, like D&D, but you’d much prefer they make fun of the fantasy game you played with your friends than make fun of you.

Your first year of high school started off fine, great even, up until Spring break.

That’s when shit really hit the fan.

The last day of school before break was the last day of the Hellfire Club’s D&D campaign against the cult of Vecna, but it had coincided with Lucas’s basketball game. You had wanted to go and watch, but Eddie was already pissed enough that Lucas would be missing Hellfire, and you didn’t want to get on his bad side.

So you instead recruited Erica to be his substitute for the night, though you felt bad for missing your friend’s game, especially when you found out he not only actually had a chance to play, but had scored the team’s winning shot.

But the break itself was worse.

Mike had gone to California to visit El and Will, while you, Dustin and Max spent the first day of your break finding out that a Hawkins High student, Chrissy Cunningham, was found murdered at the trailer park Max lived in – specifically in Eddie’s trailer.

But Eddie himself was nowhere to be found, Max had seen him fleeing the scene in fear the night before, speeding out of the trailer park faster than she had ever seen him drive before.

So, of course, you, Dustin and Max had ended up in Family Video, where Steve and Robin had been working since about October, since the Byers’ had left town.

Your group debated on whether or not Eddie was capable of murder, Steve being the only person to really think he was, while proceeding to use the three phones inside the video store to call Eddie’s friends in an attempt to track him down.

You were helping your friends, of course you were, but you couldn’t help but sneak longing stares over at Steve as he ‘attended to the customers’, and flirted with any girl his age that walked through those glass doors.

But you pushed down those feelings of jealousy and disappointment you had grown familiar with and did your best to focus on the task at hand.

Still your eyes would betray you and flick towards Steve every so often, taking him in. The way his green vest stretched over his shoulders, the chest hair sticking out from the open top buttons of his polo shirt.

You’d watch him drag his hands through his hair in some kind of pathetic attempt to impress a girl who turned out to have a boyfriend and mourned the fact that you’d never be able to have him.

Eventually your friends managed to track Eddie down to the house of a drug dealer named ‘Reefer Rick’, and once you found him there, wide-eyed, shaking and terrified, Eddie told you all about what had happened with Chrissy.

How she seemed to be in a trance, how she floated into the air with her eyes rolled into the back of her head. How each of her limbs snapped and broke violently before her eyes popped from her skull and her body crumpled to the ground right in front of Eddie.

You, Dustin and Eddie then noticed the similarities between Chrissy’s trance and being under a spell or a curse. Specifically, Vecna’s curse. The same dark wizard you had just finished fighting in your Hellfire campaign.

You and your friends spent the next days doing your best to keep Eddie hidden from the police, bringing him food deliveries when you could, while also doing whatever research you could to find out what, or who, Vecna was, and why he was going after Hawkins High students.

After the second murder, a boy from the school paper named Fred, Nancy Wheeler joined your small group and you had to pretend you weren’t jealous whenever Steve looked her way, his eyes softening. When he practically jumped at the opportunity to go with her to follow a potential lead, only to end up pissed off when Robin went with her and he was stuck ‘babysitting’ you, Dustin and Max.

But then you found out Vecna was going after Max next, and suddenly everything was scarier. When you watched her float into the air just moments after Lucas had slipped her headphones over her ears, you thought she was going to die.

You had grabbed onto Steve’s arm out of fear, staring up at your friend as you all screamed her name, begging for her to come back down to the ground and out of that trance she was stuck in.

And she did, Max fell to the ground with the rest of you and Lucas cradled her shaking body in his arms, holding her close to his chest as she struggled to catch her breath.

After Nancy and Robin found out that Victor Creel’s family might’ve also been killed by Vecna, and Max had seen an old, broken house when she was in Vecna’s mind, your group went to the old abandoned Creel home to search for clues.

After Max found an old grandfather clock identical to the one she had seen in her visions, and Steve had suggested that Vecna could’ve been a clockmaker, you all split off into groups to explore. Robin and Nancy went together, Max and Lucas, which left you with Dustin and Steve.

Steve didn’t seem too thrilled, letting out a loud sigh and complaining about always being grouped with Dustin.

It made you frown, disappointment flooding your body. First you had been watching him make eyes and flirt with Nancy for the last couple of days, and now he was acting like being grouped with you and Dustin was a chore.

You were quiet as the two boys argued, Dustin quoting Sherlock Holmes and Steve not understanding a word before Dustin wandered off, and you followed behind.

Nobody really found anything in the house, but at one point while crossing the upstairs hallway you caught a glimpse of Steve and Nancy standing a little too close together while she smiled up at him. That was enough to dampen your mood for the rest of the night.

You knew it shouldn’t have mattered, there were more pressing issues going on at the time – like the fact Max had almost died and Eddie was being framed for murder – but you just couldn’t shake the jealous feeling away.

That night, after your flashlights had all blown up, you spent the night staring at the ceiling and replaying the way Steve had looked at Nancy over and over again.

It had just made you feel ridiculous. You needed to move on, find someone your own age, someone who could actually return your feelings and give you that love you craved so much. So you decided that you would, that tonight was the last night you would care about Steve Harrington and after that he would go back to being nothing more than a friend.

And then you saw him the next day, wearing that yellow sweater with a wide smile on his face, offering you Pringles in the back of Nancy’s station wagon, and you tried so hard to ignore the way your stomach fluttered when his big, brown puppy dog eyes met yours.

The fact that Vecna had killed another teenager – a boy from the basketball team named Patrick – the night before helped keep you distracted, but when you and your friends were walking through the woods in search of Eddie, following Steve and Dustin as they argued while leading you all to ‘Skull Rock’, you were left alone with your thoughts.

Of course, it wasn’t that long before Steve had found Skull Rock and began rubbing it in Dustin’s face that he was right and your best friend was wrong and you had found Eddie.

While Eddie ate the food you had all brought for him and he recounted the previous night’s events, including when Patrick was lifted into the air in the middle of Lover’s Lake and had each of his limbs snapped one by one, Dustin paced back and forth while staring down at his compass.

That was, until he yelled out a very loud, “Boom!” That echoed through the woods before he pointed at Steve. “Bada boom.”

Steve, naturally, was confused, as were the rest of you, before Dustin began spouting off about how Skull Rock was North once more, which made Steve roll his eyes before he started to argue back.

Then Dustin told you all that Skull Rock in fact was North, and his compass had been leading him in the wrong direction, which then made him point towards you and Lucas, making you recall a piece of information you had learned back when you were 13 and had just learned about El and the lab for the first time.

“Do you guys remember what can affect a compass?” Dustin had asked, and it was like a lightbulb had gone off in your head.

“An electromagnetic field.” You and Lucas both answered, like the memory of that information had just resurfaced for the first time in years.

While the others in the group were confused, you were starting to understand what Dustin was getting at. There was likely a gate somewhere nearby, much like when your compasses had deflected towards the lab back in 1983.

The rest of the afternoon was spent following Dustin and his compass through the woods as the sun set and darkness fell over Hawkins, and eventually his compass had started going totally beserk and he started running.

Eddie managed to grab him by the shoulder and stop Dustin from falling right into Lover’s Lake, which was where the compass had led him, which meant the gate was likely somewhere… inside of it.

The older teens all ended up on a rowboat with Dustin’s compass, leaving you, Dustin, Lucas and Max on the shore, watching them with a pair of binoculars.

“Wait, wait, wait. They’re stopping.” Lucas said suddenly, holding the binoculars to his eyes while hitting Dustin in the chest. “What are they stopping for?”

Dustin scrambled for his walkie. “Guys, what’s going on? Come on, guys, talk to me, what’s going on?”

You and Max had been standing off to the side, a little further back, whispering to each other, but your attention had been stolen once the boys had started to speak.

“Uh, Dustin, your compass has gone from wonky to wonky with a capital, ‘ahh!’” Robin’s voice crackled through and you had sighed, disappointed that you were all sidelined and forced to stay on the shore.

A few more silent moments passed before Lucas let out a disgusted groan.

“Ugh. When’d Steve get so hairy?” He asked and Max’s head snapped towards you with a wide smirk on her face, making your cheeks heat up as you whispered for her to stop.

“Right? I keep telling him he needs to tame that jungle, but he claims the ladies dig it.” Dustin explained and the boys each made a face before you stepped forward and reached for the binoculars around Lucas’s neck.

“Pass me those.” You said and he shot you a confused look before you took them right from his hands and peered through them yourself, getting a look at a very shirtless Steve Harrington in all his glory.

Lucas and Dustin shared confused looks for a moment before Dustin made a sound that was half a scoff, half a surprised yelp before asking, “Dude! What the hell?”

You just gave a shrug and watched as Steve dove into the lake, disappearing beneath the cold, dark water, and you handed the binoculars back to Lucas.

However, you and your friends didn’t get to see the outcome of the dive, because only a few moments after Steve dove in, you and your friends were lying on the ground and hiding behind a log because the cops had arrived.

Robin’s voice crackled through on Dustin’s walkie, saying Steve found the gate, but none of you paid any mind as he switched the walkie off and you stayed hidden for a moment more. And in order to keep the cops away from Eddie, Max jumped up and yelled for the cops to follow her.

Of course, you all got caught, and an hour later the four of you were cramped onto the couch in the Wheelers’ living room, surrounded by cops and your parents.

You had shrunk into the sofa at the sight of both your mother and father in the same room, but this time their anger was directed at you and not each other.

After some questioning, where you all lied in response to almost every question, you explained everything that had been going on to Erica, and she was the one who noticed the blinking light in the dining room, morse code that Dustin translated spelling out S.O.S..

Communicating with Steve, Nancy, Robin and Eddie in the Upside Down using Holly Wheeler’s lite-brite seemed crazy, but what was crazier was sneaking out of Nancy Wheeler’s bedroom window and running away from the cops, Erica popping the tires of the police cruiser before the now five of you rode your bikes across town to Eddie’s trailer.

There was a gate on the ceiling, and Dustin used a broom to break open the red, fleshy gateway to reveal the Upside Down on the other side. A moment later, Steve appeared above you, standing in the same place you were, looking up – or down – at the rest of you. Nancy, Robin and Eddie followed suit and you all waved happily, chuckling at the absurdity of the situation, before you were dragging Eddie’s mattress out of his bedroom to use as a landing pad to help the others through the gate and back to your world.

Except that proved difficult when after Robin and Eddie had crossed over, Nancy ended up in a trance much like Max and the rest of you searched Eddie’s trailer for any music that could help her while Steve stayed with her in the Upside Down, cupping her face and shouting for you all to hurry.

But Nancy got out of the trance on her own, and once she explained to you all what had happened, what she had seen, what Vecna – or Henry Creel, Number One – had shown her, to say you were terrified would be an understatement.

The end of the world. Hawkins on fire, everyone dying. Four gates opening up and spreading across Hawkins, splitting the Earth open.

Hearing that was enough to stop you from thinking about how Steve was sitting just a couple of feet away from you, completely shirtless except for Eddie’s denim vest he had started wearing at some point in the Upside Down.

So your group started coming up with a plan, Vecna wanted to kill four people, so Max would offer herself up as bait. Then, you’d strike.

Naturally, Eddie suggested getting weapons and gear from an army surplus store known as ‘The War Zone’, but it was too far for you to bike there. So Eddie hotwired his neighbors’ motor home and had Steve drive the damn thing there.

Halfway there, you had been sitting at a table in the back with Dustin, but your eyes kept drifting over to Steve driving the RV, and Nancy in the passenger seat talking to him with a soft smile. And Steve would turn and look at her with an expression you could only describe as pure longing, maybe even love.

And he told her a story about his dream for the future, about driving around in a Winnebago with five or six kids of his own, and then he looked at Nancy again. Suddenly you wanted to sink into the floor and never come back.

At the War Zone, you had to stay in the RV with Eddie, Dustin and Lucas as members of the Hellfire Club who were currently being hunted like the Salem Witch Trials, and obviously one of you had been framed for several murders in town. All of Hawkins believed you to be devil worshippers of some kind.

After your friends bought half of the store and then had a brief run in with Jason, Chrissy’s boyfriend, and the other members of the basketball team who were currently hunting you all down – especially Eddie – Steve, now dressed in a leather jacket and a camo shirt, pulled the RV off onto a field where you all began preparing your weapons.

You sat beside Max and Nancy on some old milk crates as Nancy sawed off the end of her new shotgun. Max asked her if it was legal for her to do so, and Nancy replied with something about it being a felony. You were distracted, yet again, by your overwhelming crush on Steve.

He was sitting with Robin in front of the Winnebago, filling bottles with kerosene to make their own flaming molotovs. And you kept glancing his way, then practically staring.

Then, at one point, he looked up and glanced your way. Your eyes darted away immediately and you turned your body to face Max, unaware that Steve hadn’t even noticed you staring because he had been looking at Nancy.

Max chuckled at you and immediately began with the teasing again, some comment about you drooling or making ‘heart eyes’ at Steve. You shushed her, but it was too late because Nancy, Steve’s ex-girlfriend who he had been flirting with over the last several days straight, had heard her.

Your face flushed with warmth and you looked down at your shoes on the grass, then shot Max a harsh glare when you thought Nancy wasn’t looking. But, of course, she still was, and even huffed out a little laugh.

“It’s okay,” She told you, her lip quirking up slightly as she said your name, and your attention was all hers a moment later. “I mean, I was the same once upon a time. Had a big crush on Steve, obviously you knew that because we…”

“Nancy.” You groaned, covering your face with your hands out of embarrassment, and Max had immediately started saying something about you being ‘in love with Steve for like two years’.

You should’ve been used to her teasing by now, it was stupid and you knew it. It was just some dumb teenage crush. But you had slowly began curling into yourself, your arms wrapping around your body as your thoughts and insecurities took over.

You weren’t sure if it was about Steve, or just about craving that kind of attention. Craving love and a relationship, much like you had seen and heard from your friends.

Max and Lucas, Mike and El, Dustin and his long distance girlfriend Suzie, hell, even seeing Nancy with Jonathan. It felt like you were missing out on something that everyone else was allowed to have.

Your friends were all growing up and getting these experiences you could only dream of, like having a first kiss, or dancing with a boy who actually liked you and wasn’t just trying to comfort you when he found you crying on the curb outside the Middle School gymnasium.

So you lived vicariously through teen romcoms and stories from other girls in school, fantasizing about the moment a boy would actually show that kind of interest towards you. To want you, to love you.

And Steve… Steve was older. He was cool, he was good looking, he was funny, he had that charm you had seen him use to ask girls out on dates at Family Video while you were browsing for the closest thing you’d ever get to a relationship, aka. Star Wars, where you’d watch Han and Leia and sigh to yourself, or some cheesy movie where the guy pines after a girl for years and then finally wins her heart.

But Steve was also the first boy who had ever said that you looked pretty, and he was the first boy who had ever danced with you. And he was the first boy you had ever had a crush on that had lasted longer than a couple weeks.

All of it together was just enough to make you crave it so badly. Crave that experience of a relationship and that feeling of love.

And of course the only boy you had ever really liked had absolutely no chance of liking you back. Not in a million years.

“Can we just drop it please?” You asked and while Max nodded, Nancy gave you a sympathetic look that made you want to crawl into a hole and die.

So that night you were dropped off at the Creel House with Max, Lucas and Erica, and after stepping off of the dead silent Winnebago, you turned back and looked at Steve, eyes full of fear. He was watching you all as you left, and when he saw you looking back, he nodded at you, telling you to go on.

You did. You followed your friends into the creaky, old, crumbling house as the sun set, unaware of just how badly the night would end.

It started off okay, walking around the house only in socks, using lanterns as light and communicating using notepads to avoid making any noise that could potentially alert Vecna to your positions, and soon you and Erica had been hurrying outside as phase 2 initiated, to signal to the others in the Upside Down when you were going into phase 3.

That’s when shit went downhill, because then Jason and his jock friends showed up. One of the basketballers, Andy, chased you and Erica away from the playground before he tackled you to the ground and pinned your arms behind your back.

You had been struggling against his grip until Erica managed to push him off of you and kicked him right in the balls, and Andy curled into himself, his hands grabbing at his crotch as he groaned in pain.

Then you and Erica had sprinted back into the Creel House, where Jason had headed when Andy went after you. The attic door had been locked once you reached it, but the two of you had managed to break it open and make it up to where Lucas and Max had been.

“Lucas!” Erica called out her brother’s name and you froze at the top of the stairs because Lucas was sobbing on the ground with Max pulled into his lap. Her limbs were snapped, twisted abnormally out of place and sticking out in directions that they shouldn’t, and her eyes were glazed over in a pure white, blood dripping down her cheeks.

Lucas had spun around immediately to face you both, screaming out, “We need a doctor! Call an ambulance! Hurry! Call an ambulance!”

And when Erica had rushed back downstairs, likely to find a neighbor or the closest possible phone, but you were completely stuck in place, staring at the girl you had grown up with, one of your best friends, as she sobbed in her boyfriend’s arms telling him that she was scared and that she wasn’t ready to die.

You were crying, your body shaking uncontrollably as you stumbled over to them, trembling as you dropped to your knees and practically begged her not to slip away.

“Erica, help!” Lucas shouted out, his voice so full of pain that you couldn’t breathe as you sobbed, gripping Max’s hand in yours as you pleaded with her to stay. But it didn’t work. Max died in his arms.

And then the Earth split open, a gate forming and growing. Lucas pulled Max away and you both scrambled to the side, watching as the gate ripped Jason in two and continued to spread further away from the Creel House and through Hawkins.

Then, after over a minute had passed, Max’s heart had started beating again, just enough that she was still alive. But Eddie wasn’t so lucky, he had died in the Upside Down, sacrificing himself to save Dustin.

Three days later, Max was in a coma in Hawkins Memorial Hospital, Mike, Will, El and Jonathan all arrived in Hawkins again, and you were helping Dustin, Robin and Steve volunteering in the post ‘earthquake’ aid and suddenly not having a boyfriend, or your crush not liking you back, didn’t feel like as a big of a deal as it had before.

And, somehow, life managed to return to normal after that. Well, something close to normal.

Hawkins was now under a government mandated quarantine, where the military crawled around every inch of the town, keeping you blocked off from the rest of the world.

You and your friends were starting your junior year in high school, except for El, who was hiding from the military, and Max was still in a coma and had been for the entire 18 months that had passed.

The crawls were new. Every couple of weeks Hopper would sneak into the Upside Down with the military through the massive gate in the middle of Hawkins, right at the library, and would search for Vecna while Dustin and Steve tracked him from your side and Mike and Lucas kept watch from the nearby church.

But after 18 entire long months, you found nothing. Not even the slightest hint that Vecna was anywhere near, and after over 30 crawls it was like the entire Upside Down had been searched from top to bottom and absolutely nothing was found.

Not until what would be later known as your last crawl, the one where Dustin didn’t show up and you were thrown into the Squawk van with Steve and had to practically beg for Jonathan to come along for ‘help’ when really you didn’t want to be left alone with Steve.

Your crush hadn’t faded, despite the fact that you didn’t see him as often as you used to. Not when Dustin was acting differently and seemed to be avoiding him half of the time. But you listened to the WSQK radio broadcasts every day, mostly for Robin’s DJ-ing and to listen out for any hidden codes about crawls, but also because you knew Steve was the one behind the station’s many sound effects in the background of the broadcasts.

You were now 17 years old, almost an adult, and you hadn’t gotten over the crush on the guy who was basically your best friend’s older brother that had formed back when you were 14. You still had absolutely no experience in anything even slightly romantic, and it was killing you.

But the crawl in the Squawk van had been even more awkward with Jonathan around, because then they argued about Nancy, of course they had, while you sat in the back of the van awkwardly while thinking about Hopper’s signal, which you had lost when the van broke down.

At one point, Steve had spun around to face you, gesturing to Jonathan and asking why you had brought him along because, “Byers is a total buzzkill’. Jonathan had rolled his eyes and called Steve a name, and Steve had mumbled a bland insult back, and it almost felt like you were at home, listening to your parents doing anything but getting a divorce.

Just seconds after Steve had managed to get the van running again, finally, Dustin showed up. His face was completely busted and he had blood leaking from his nose and down his chin.

That just resulted in another argument, this time between Steve and Dustin, while you searched for Hopper’s signal again, only to come up with nothing, other than a strange noise Dustin had brushed off as nothing important because it wasn’t Hopper.

That same night, Holly Wheeler had been taken from her own home by a Demogorgon and her parents had been attacked and had almost died. El had followed the monster into the Upside Down to try and catch up to them and save Holly.

Sometime early the next morning, long after the sun had risen, you had arrived back at the Squawk, where Will then explained that he had a connection to the hive mind again, and to Vecna, and he knew that Vecna was going after another kid from Holly’s class next, a boy named Derek Turnbow.

Mike and Nancy shared the information they had learned at the hospital, that Vecna had stalked Holly long before she was taken, but had appeared as Henry and pretended to be her friend, not someone to be afraid of.

So then you were all coming up with a plan to try and save Derek, and this plan involved drugging and kidnapping the kid and his entire family.

Lucas and Mike recruited Erica, because her best friend Tina was Derek’s older sister, meanwhile you were on the McCorkle farm watching Dustin destroy Steve’s car by affixing the telemetry tracker to the top of the Beamer and crushing Steve’s heart.

You couldn’t help feel bad for him and the way he frowned for the rest of the afternoon, wincing every time he caught a glimpse of the car.

That night, the plan went well. The Turnbow family were all successfully knocked out by the pie Erica made using benzos that Robin and Will stole from the hospital, and while Joyce, Robin, Will and Erica took the family away to the farm, the rest of you set up traps around the house in preparation.

Watching Steve use a chainsaw to cut open a giant hole in the living room floor might’ve been the highlight for you, well, until you had helped him set up a trap outside Derek’s bedroom door using some wood planks, nails and a trip wire. Once the trap had been set, Steve had given you a high five that had genuinely sent a jolt of electricity through your body and a smile etched itself onto your face.

When the Demogorgon arrived in Derek’s room, only to find a dummy in his bed instead, it was your and Lucas’s job to pelt the thing with water balloons filled with acetone so it was guaranteed to catch a flame once Jonathan threw a flare at it.

Once the Demogorgon flipped using a small gate it had made in the living room, Nancy and Jonathan rushed outside to join Steve and Dustin in the Beamer as they chased the Demogorgon, hoping it would lead them to Holly.

Later, when you, Mike and Lucas made it to the farm on your bikes, telling the others about how you saw soldiers loading Debbie Miller and a bunch of other kids Holly’s age onto a bus, Dustin, Steve, Nancy and Jonathan were nowhere to be found because Steve drove his car through a gate and right into the Upside Down.

Will told you all about what he had learned in the hive mind, how many kids Vecna wanted to take, and now the military had all of those kids in one place in an attempt to protect them. But you and your friends knew the only way to really protect them was to get them out of Hawkins and out of Vecna’s reach, which meant it was time to make a new plan.

This time, Robin made it, basing her entire plan on the film The Great Escape. But there were a few key pieces of information you needed. How would you know where the washroom was to know where to dig up from the tunnels below Hawkins? How would you know which kids were even being targeted by Vecna?

Mike’s solution was to send Derek Turnbow, the kid you had managed to save, into the MAC-Z and into the barracks with the other kids.

And the plan had almost worked, until a burst pipe led to you all getting caught before you had gotten all of the kids out and into the tunnels. Robin and Lucas took half the kids to Murray, but the rest of you were captured by the military.

Of course there was arguing, a fight started to break out after one soldier hit Derek on the back of the head, both you and Mike immediately jumping in to defend him, but everything stopped when Will fell to the ground.

Joyce rushed over immediately while you and Mike stayed with the kids, who were absolutely terrified. Will could sense the hive mind. Demogorgons were coming for the kids.

They burst through the plates and immediately began attacking the soldiers, who were shooting at them left and right. Gunshots filled the air, echoing through what should’ve been a quiet night, and flames burst around the military base.

You hadn’t really realized how much you had grown up over the last few years until you and Mike were leading the group of kids around the base, protecting them from the monsters, shielding them the same way Steve, Nancy and Jonathan used to do with you and your friends.

But it was all for nothing, because the Demogorgons took the kids in the end. Vecna himself had come through the gate in the MAC-Z and when a blast of flames sent you, Mike and the kids flying back, you were knocked out.

When you came to, Mike was pulling you to your feet, only for you both to flinch back when a Demogorgon jumped towards you.

You had raised your arms to cover your face in a weak attempt at a shield, but no impact was made. The Demogorgon had frozen midair, and how? Will had his arm outstretched towards it, keeping it frozen in the air, using his own powers to stop the Demogorgon.

You were absolutely bewildered, your mouth falling open in surprise, having to blink a few times just to confirm you weren’t still unconscious and that this was actually happening. Mike, on the other hand, was staring at Will in absolute awe.

Will lifted the Demogorgon into the air and snapped its limbs one by one before snapping its neck, similar to the way Vecna had killed Chrissy and the other teens, and had almost killed Max the year before. When its body crumpled to the ground, Will fell to his knees and wiped the trickle of blood that had formed under his nose.

Beside you, Mike had started to smile. The look on his face wasn’t something you quite knew how to describe at the time, but looking back later, you knew that was a look of love.

Back at the Squawk, the group had to come up with yet another plan to be able to find the others in the Upside Down and come up with a plan, because Lucas was sure Vecna’s plan to end the world was going to take place on November 6th, and that was just a day away.

Both Lucas and Erica came up with two separate plans, Erica’s involved creating a new telemetry tracker and finding Mr. Clarke and getting him to help, while Lucas wanted to Frankenstein one of the dead Demogorgons to link Will back to the hive mind.

You ended up going with Erica and Murray to find and recruit Mr. Clarke to help you, and it didn’t take much once you told him Dustin was in trouble and you needed his help.

The four of you spent all night recreating the telemetry tracker until you tracked Dustin’s location to Hawkins Lab, though, in the Upside Down. Of course, Mr. Clarke didn’t know that and assumed he had left or something similar.

The others had arrived not long after, and when you saw El, you moved forward to hug her, glad that she was home safe and no longer in the Upside Down, even if Dustin and the others were still stuck.

“Mr. Clarke, thanks for the assist.” Mike spoke, walking forward to shake your former teacher’s hand as you stood by his side again.

“Don’t thank me yet.” Mr. Clarke had replied. “We successfully trilaterated Dustin’s position here, to precisely where I stand now.”

“But by the time we arrived, he was MIA.” Erica continued.

“Well, he wouldn’t be precisely here. He’d be under.” Robin pointed out, crossing her arms, and you nodded along.

Mr. Clarke tilted his head in confusion as he looked at Robin. “Sorry?”

Mike’s head then snapped towards you. “You didn’t tell him?”

“Told me what?” Mr. Clarke asked you.

“It… slipped my mind?” You excused, speaking to Mike, but your attention was stolen a moment later. “Oh, my god.”

“Holy shit.” Erica spoke from beside you as her gaze also landed on Max, who was being wheeled towards you all in a wheelchair, but she was very much alive and no longer in her coma.

“Holy shit.” Max echoed and your face lit up as you let out a surprised chuckle.

“Max!” You hurried over and she grinned as you crouched down to hug her, but the moment was cut short by Murray yelling that he got Dustin’s signal on his walkie and you all rushed down to his level.

After a brief conversation about Holly was shared between Mike and Dustin over the walkies, El ripped up one of the plates covering the rifts in the ground and you all, except for Lucas and Max, went into the Upside Down.

You were all calling out the names of your missing friends while you were trying to take in the fact that you were in the Upside Down for the very first time before you heard Dustin calling out your name, and then Mike’s. You both rushed towards him as he barrelled over.

“Jesus, it’s good to see you guys.” He sighed in relief, throwing his arms around you both and hugging you tight.

As you hugged him though, your eyes drifted to Steve as he approached behind him, standing off to the side from Nancy and Jonathan. It took a moment for you to notice how miserable they looked, and another moment for you to realize that Holly wasn’t with them like you had thought.

Turns out Vecna had pulled her into the literal sky and she had disappeared into the clouds. And you and your friends needed to save her before Vecna likely ended the world on that very same night.

So you all went back to the Squawk to share new information and come up with the final plan to defeat Vecna.

Dustin stood in front of you all with a black marker in hand, drawing on the glass windows of the recording booth as he explained something he had learned in the Upside Down version of Hawkins Lab.

“We’ve always the Upside Down was another dimension opened by Brenner, but it turns out it’s actually a bridge.” Dustin added two long lines to his diagram, representing the bridge. “More specifically, an interdimensional bridge that rips through space-time. It is wildly unstable, but held together by exotic matter, which we found dead center right above the lab. In theoretical physics, they call this type of bridge a–”

“Wormhole.” Both Erica and Mr. Clarke finished in sync, and Dustin pointed at them. You shared a glance with Max, who was sitting beside you in her wheelchair.

“And this wormhole connects Hawkins to here, another world that I’ve coined the Abyss.” Dustin explained.

“Any particular reason?” Robin asked and Mr. Clarke leaned forward in his seat.

“A realm of pure chaos and evil.” He spoke and Robin looked towards him.

“I’m sorry?”

“D&D.” You, Mr. Clarke, Erica, Mike, Will, Lucas and Dustin all answered at once.

“Jesus Christ.” Hopper groaned.

Dustin went on to explain how he believed the Abyss was the true home to the Demogorgon and the Mind Flayer and all of the monsters, and that Henry Creel had been sent there by Eleven years ago, before Dr. Brenner had her find him and created the bridge between the two worlds.

That had explained a lot over the last few years, like why every single crawl had come up empty, because Vecna hadn’t been in the Upside Down, he had been in the Abyss.

Will came up to the conclusion that the reason he was taking kids like Holly into the Abyss was because the minds of children were weaker and easier to mold, like he had done with Will himself, and he was going to use them to amplify his abilities and move worlds. To draw the Abyss and Hawkins closer and merge them together.

Will jumped forward to draw something on Dustin’s diagram and you shifted your body away from Max, who had just been talking, to then face him. In doing so, your arm brushed against Steve’s leg, and you muttered a quiet apology but didn’t look up at him where he was sitting on the back of the couch you were seated on.

Then you were working out a plan to get up to the Abyss to try and stop Vecna before he could draw the worlds together.

After Hopper’s first suggestion of a helicopter, which then resulted in the rest of you telling him that it wouldn’t work, and a rather crude comment about Steve made by Robin that made your eyes go wide, Steve himself was the one to come up with the plan.

He had jumped up from his place on the couch beside you and you had watched him as he walked a few steps away, then stopped, his brain clearly moving faster than his mouth could before shouting that you wouldn’t need a magic bean to make a beanstalk and climb up to the Abyss like some fairytale.

His idea was to use the Squawk radio tower in the Upside Down as a way into the rifts, letting Vecna draw your worlds together just enough that you could all make it inside before El would stop him from drawing them closer.

It was genius, and while the others added a few more small details to help, Dustin was the one who finalized it, suggesting for you all to leave a bomb at the exotic matter that would detonate when you left the Upside Down and destroy the bridge for good.

Then everyone was gearing up, dressing in old combat gear, gathering weapons, and Mike built the detonator for the bomb using a record player and a minifigurine.

You sat with Lucas on a table in the basement as he adjusted his giant slingshot, a great improvement from his old Wrist Rocket he used against the Demogorgon when you were younger.

You were filling more water balloons for him with the flammable liquid inside the unlabelled canister you had found in the Squawk basement, but every so often you’d glance over to Steve in that same leather jacket he had worn the first time, the material stretching along his shoulders, and a backwards cap on his head, a small tuft of hair sticking out from the front, as he walked away from the cabinet in the corner that usually held the weapons, specifically the guns.

He held a small handgun until Nancy approached him, questioning whether or not he had used a gun before. Of course, he hadn’t, and you forced yourself to look away, only to find Lucas smirking at you.

“What?” You asked.

“You’re, like, in love with Steve.” He whispered with an amused laugh and you shushed him.

“Shut up, no I’m not.” You scoffed, then glanced towards Steve again, watching him follow Dustin through the basement before you met Lucas’s eyes again and saw he was still smirking. “Shut up.”

Getting into the Upside Down was the easiest part of the plan. Murray’s huge Bradley’s Big Buy truck was large enough to hold all of you as it charged into the MAC-Z right through the front gate, and Hopper took down any soldiers shooting at you from the inside, having sneaked in through the tunnels like he would before a crawl.

Nancy and her rifle climbed up the ladder in the middle of the truck and stuck out the hole at the top, where a Demogorgon had ripped the metal open, only to rain fire on any other soldiers around trying to stop you.

Once Hopper was inside the truck and the truck had successfully made it through the MAC-Z gate, the ride got a little bumpier.

“Jesus Christ.” Steve wobbled on his feet a little from beside you.

“Everybody alright? Everybody okay? You alright?” He asked Steve, who nodded, before looking around and asking the others. “Everybody alright?”

Steve looked down at you, where you looked a little shaken as you blinked a few times, and his face scrunched into one of concern.

“You sure you’re okay, kid?” He asked and you looked up, eyes going wide when you realized he was talking to you, as if it were something out of the ordinary.

You nodded before forcing yourself to speak. “Yeah. Thanks, Steve.”

Then he had reached over and patted your shoulder for just a moment before leaning back against the wall. He smiled at you, and you returned the gesture, though you had a feeling you were blushing before you looked to your other side and reached for El’s hand.

Once you reached the lab, Hopper, El, Murray, and El’s ‘sister’ Kali all left the truck, and Steve moved to the front to drive the rest of the way to the Squawk.

You hated the climb up the ladder on the tower, you weren’t the biggest fan of heights, and once you had made it up to the top, you, Lucas and Dustin all stood together and stared out at the Upside Down Hawkins skyline.

“It’s pretty damn spectacular.” Dustin had commented, bumping your shoulder with his.

“Yeah,” You agreed breathlessly, staring out at the dark, yet amazing parallel to your hometown. “It is.”

“It’s almost too bad we have to blow it all up.” Lucas added and you had glanced his way.

“Is it though?”

It wasn’t long after that when you could hear, and see, the Abyss as it descended towards you all, and the plan seemed to be going okay until Lucas noticed that the top of the tower wasn’t lining up with the rifts, which only meant bad news.

El wasn’t able to stop the Abyss fast enough and the planet above you came into contact with the needle, snapping it off.

You all jumped out of the way as it fell, gripping onto the edges and each other. The needle broke off one end of the tower’s railing, and it took Steve with it.

Both you and Dustin shouted his name, watching as he dangled from the edge of the tower, only gripping on with one hand. If he slipped, he would fall and die.

And then he did slip, and he fell. But not far enough, because Jonathan caught him. He grabbed onto Steve’s hand and pulled him back up onto the tower, saving his life.

The moment he was back on the platform, Dustin charged forward and pulled Steve into a hug. You had almost wanted to follow him, but instead hugged Robin, who was sobbing in relief that she hadn’t just watched her best friend fall to his death.

The Abyss was strange, it was almost like a desert. A vast, empty desert. It seemed too empty, and too quiet, but eventually you found where Vecna was keeping the kids, inside of a ginormous spider-like monster. The Mind Flayer in a much larger, physical body.

And while El fought Vecna inside of the thing, you and your friends attacked the monster from the outside, shooting it, stabbing it, lighting it on fire, until it eventually collapsed to the ground.

Nancy was the first to rush inside in search of Holly, and the rest of you joined her a moment later, Mike rushing forward to reunite with his sisters. The rest of you helped the other 11 kids from where they were up in the spires on the wall. They were all confused, and dirty, covered in some kind of slimy residue as Mind Flayer particles expelled themselves from their mouths.

As you helped a young girl brush herself off, telling her you would help get her home, you could hear gurgling coming from somewhere nearby. You turned to see Vecna, though impaled on a sharp spike of some kind, was still alive.

Joyce dealt with him, decapitating him with her axe. The moment you watched his head tumble to the ground, rolling for a moment before coming to a stop, it felt like a weight was lifted from your shoulders immediately.

Soon you were all heading back home, having climbed back down the radio tower and all cramped into the back of the bus. Steve and Robin were in the front, and you were squashed between Dustin and El as you all talked, almost celebrating the fact that you had won.

Everything descended into chaos when you returned through the gate. The tires of the truck were flattened by spikes and everyone was hauled from the vehicle by soldiers in a flurry of chaos.

You were pressed against the side of the truck, El to your left and Mike to your right, as soldiers surrounded you all. There was yelling, arguing as soldiers patted you all down and searched you all.

Dr. Kay approached El, who glared in response, wincing at the loud radio feedback sound coming from the speakers around the base.

But then the bomb went off inside the Upside Down, and everyone watched the wind whipping around inside as the buildings collapsed and then… it was gone. The gate disappeared, leaving nothing but the crumbling destruction of the library.

After that, you and your friends were all brought in for hours of questioning by the military and Dr. Kay, asking about Henry, El, Kali, the Upside Down, the Demogorgons, why you had taken the kids, why you had gone into the Upside Down. They asked you about everything from the moment Will went missing and you found El in the woods to that point in time where you were being interrogated.

And, eventually, you were all let go and expected to go on with your lives like normal. With the Upside Down gone and Henry dead, El had lost her powers again and now the military had no reason to be after her, not after everything had gone down and she had stopped Vecna.

While it did take a long time, eventually things did get back to normal, as much as they could’ve at least.

–

The morning of your high school graduation you woke up with more energy, and more anxiety, than you had had in a long time.

You went through your morning routine like normal, waking up to a silent house because neither of your parents liked being around each other, or you, before getting dressed.

You had nothing to do all day before graduation, no boyfriend to celebrate with, no family around who wanted to take photos of you. You had the day to yourself.

So you turned on the radio and sat down on the couch with a book, listening as Robin Buckley presented the Squawk’s morning broadcast for the first time since Jimmy ‘Fast Hands’ Lee had returned to Hawkins and she had gone off to college.

At least that was something you could look forward to – college. You couldn’t wait to get out of Hawkins, to do more with your life. You were going to study to become a teacher, something you had wanted to do probably since middle school when you and your friends had all idolized Mr. Clarke.

A burp sound effect playing at the wrong time caused you to look up at the radio for a moment, brows furrowed before a whip cracking sound effect played and Robin’s voice came in.

“There we go. Sorry about that. My partner in crime ditched me.” Robin explained and your face fell for a moment. “But, well, as far as excuses go, he had a pretty good one.”

She was, of course, talking about Steve, who now coached the middle school baseball team. He was the only one of the older teens that hadn’t left Hawkins to go to college when the quarantine had been lifted.

At the mention of Steve, your stomach had flipped uncomfortably. 18 months had passed, and while your crush hadn’t faded, something had happened that now just made you feel guilty for liking him.

Steve had a girlfriend now, a woman named Kristen who he had been dating for a couple of months by this time, and it killed a part of you every time you thought about it.

But that was another reason why you were excited to get out of Hawkins, you would leave Steve behind, maybe meet a guy at college and finally move on from your dumb crush and have a relationship of your own.

That afternoon after you made it to the graduation, everything felt too real. You stood with your friends, dressed in your orange caps and gowns as guests all took their seats, and then the music played, queuing you all to take your seats so the ceremony could begin.

As you walked to your seats, lined up alphabetically like you had rehearsed, you looked around the bleachers to see who you could recognize.

There was Jonathan filming the event off to the side, Joyce, Hopper and El, the Wheelers (including Nancy), Lucas’s parents, Dustin’s mom, Mr. Clarke and Murray, Robin, and Steve.

He was dressed in a suit with a pair of sunglasses on, but as you all walked out, his head turned away from Robin to watch you all. You raised a hand and gave a small return, and he grinned, both him and Robin waving back and you smiled, looking down at your shoes before taking your seat.

Dustin’s valedictorian speech started off normal, he mentioned how he had wanted a normal childhood, but that didn’t really happen, due to obvious reasons. He went on to mention D&D, talking about bad chaos and good chaos. He mentioned making friends with people who were never supposed to be his friends, and how he had seen the same happen to others. He talked about how he was now a better person because of his friends.

But then, towards the end of his speech, something shifted. He called Principal Higgins a square, took off his robe and ripped open his shirt to reveal a t-shirt reading ‘Hellfire Lives’. You cheered loudly for your friend, and so did the others as he went on to say, “Screw the school. Screw the system. Screw conformity. Screw everything and everyone trying to hold you back and tear us apart, because this, this is our year!”

And as you all cheered for him, Dustin snatched his diploma from Principal Higgins and flipped the old man off, just like Eddie had said he would your freshman year.

After the ceremony, you and your friends ran through the sea of orange robes to find him.

“Dustin!” You all called out upon spotting him and the four of you hugged him tight.

“You’re a madman. You’re an absolute madman.” Mike said first as Dustin shook his shoulders with an excited laugh.

“Higgins totally shit his pants.” Lucas added with a laugh.

“Yeah, what’s he gonna do, expel me?” Dustin asked.

“You’re crazy.” Lucas told him, but before the conversation could continue, a voice cut in.

“Hey.”

You turned to see Stacey Albright, the same girl who had once teased you at the Snow Ball, approaching you, Dustin, Lucas, Mike and Will.

“Hey, Stacey.” Dustin greeted her with a grin and an attempt at speaking casually, but your smile fell just a little.

“I just wanted to say what you did up there was pretty badass.” She complimented Dustin, and for a moment you thought she wasn’t going to be serious. But, then again, everyone had matured since middle school.

“Oh. Thanks. I was kind of just going for like a bit of like a Belushi thing. But if he was like in a Hughes film.” Dustin scratched his eye and you shared a glance with Will, who was standing to your left. “But I don’t know. Does that make sense?”

“Yeah. No, totally.” She told him and there was a bit of an awkward pause where she went to turn around and walk away.

“Why did I say that?” Dustin whispered to you and you shrugged, but then Stacey had turned back.

“Hey, so I’m having a party later tonight. You guys should come.” She told you all, then made direct eye contact with you and smiled. Not in a teasing way, but more genuine. You did your best to smile back before she walked away.

“Did that just happen?” Dustin asked Will the moment she left, and the boy chuckled in response.

“Should we go?” Will asked, looking around the group, his eyes lingering on Mike.

“Is that rhetorical?” Lucas asked back, because the answer was obvious.

“No. Screw that. I got a better idea.” Mike stated.

His better idea had been a D&D campaign, and so the seven of you – You, Dustin, Lucas, Mike, Will, El and Max – all cramped around the table in Mike’s basement to play D&D until dinner, laughing and reminiscing about the last six years of your lives and the chaos you had all survived.

But after dinner?

“We still have time to go to Stacey’s party after this.” Lucas had said first, checking his watch by the Wheeler family’s front door.

“Oh, my god, please.” Dustin clamped his hands together and gave Mike his best puppy dog eyes. “Come on, dude, let’s go.”

Mike rolled his eyes. “Seriously?”

“Come on, Mike, don’t be a party pooper.” Max had teased, making El giggle from where she stood by Dustin’s side.

El and Dustin had gotten closer over the last year or so, after she and Mike had finally broken up for good. She had, obviously, been very behind on school, and was currently a grade behind you all, having to take summer school to catch up, but Dustin had been tutoring her and helping her with any subjects she had been struggling with, and now sometimes she hung out with Dustin more than you did.

Another recent development had been with Will and Mike. About a year ago, Will told you, Dustin, Lucas, Max and El that he was gay. He said he had only told his mom, his brother, Mike and Robin before that. Now, Mike hadn’t told you anything, but sometimes you caught the two of them sending each other glances across the room like they were the only two people around.

Will turned to face Mike. “Yeah, Mike, come on. It’ll be fun.”

Then Mike sighed, dropping his head back with a groan before throwing his arms up in the air in front of himself. “Fine.”

You had all walked to the party at Stacey’s house, and once you arrived she, as well as many others, were happy to see you all there.

It was like years of bullying and cliques and labels in school didn’t matter anymore, and that felt weird. It looked like the entire senior class was there.

Kids were high-fiving Dustin as they passed him, complimenting him on his speech loudly, raising their voices to be heard over the thumping bass of the music practically vibrating the house.

You and your friends decided to just let go and have fun; talking to people you usually wouldn’t, drinking alcohol, drinking a lot of alcohol. At one point you and Dustin had started teasing Lucas and Max as they made out in the corner of the room, only for Lucas to let go of Max and start chasing Dustin through the house, leaving you, Max and El bursting into a fit of laughter in the corner.

But the later into the night you got, the more drunk you had all become, and eventually you were all collapsed onto a couch together, El giggling as she played with Dustin’s curls while Max rested her head on your shoulder, her legs thrown across Lucas’s lap. Mike and Will were sitting just a little too close for it to not mean anything by your other side.

Then someone mentioned being tired, someone else started to get sad about the fact you would all be going away to separate colleges soon, and then you were all debating who to call to pick you up.

Will called Jonathan first, who said he could come pick up his brother and sister and one other person, which ended up being Mike.

You, Dustin, Lucas and Max had to find a different ride home, so Dustin went to make a call.

–

Steve had gotten home a couple of hours earlier after making plans to meet up with his friends in Robin’s weird uncle’s house in Philadelphia once a month, and he had been stretched out on the sofa, his arm around Kristen, his girlfriend, as the two of them watched a movie together.

When his phone rang, he furrowed his brows in confusion before getting up and crossing the room to pick it up, assuming that maybe Robin had left something behind in his truck earlier.

Instead he found Dustin on the other end, his words slurred slightly as he asked for Steve to come pick him up.

“Are you drunk, Henderson?” Steve asked, crossing one arm around his torso as he leaned back against the kitchen counter. Kristen had poked her head out of the living room to see what was going on, and he waved her off.

“Pfft, not even. Just, like, a little.” Dustin replied, though his words said otherwise.

“Alright, bud.” Steve chuckled, shaking his head. “Where are you?”

“What’s the address?” He could hear Dustin ask someone else on the other end before he recited Stacey’s address. “Oh, and can you pick up the others too?”

Of course, Steve couldn’t fit four teenagers into his truck, which meant he had to borrow Kristen’s car to go pick you all up, and when he arrived at the address he found the four of you seated on the curb, the party still going on in the house behind you.

Dustin was already half passed out, leaning against Lucas, but he grinned when Steve approached.

“Steve!” He cheered before nudging you and tugging on Lucas’s arm. “Guys, Steve’s here!”

“Steve!” The rest of you chorused the cheer, your face lighting up immediately, and Steve laughed before offering Dustin a hand to lift him up.

While Dustin, Lucas and Max all piled into the backseat, you were left with the passenger seat. And while your friends passed out almost immediately, all leaning against each other as they snored softly in the backseat, you were wide awake.

Something by Queen played on the radio, faint but still clear enough for you to understand every word Freddie Mercury sang as Steve tapped along to the beat on the steering wheel.

“Thanks for picking us up, Steve.” You spoke, half mumbling, as you shifted in your seat, no longer staring out the window and now facing him.

Steve shrugged. “No problem. You know I’d do anything for you guys.”

You hummed before looking around the car. “This isn’t your truck.”

“Nope.” Steve agreed, taking a look around himself. “It’s, uh, my girlfriend’s car.”

“Right.” You had replied, then sunk back into your seat, your eyes fluttering shut a moment later. Steve exhaled out his nose lightly in a gentle laugh.

He glanced over at you, then to your other friends in the rearview mirror before you spoke again.

“I love you, Steve.” You stated, still half-asleep, but your voice was clearer than it had been before.

He smiled, flicking on his blinker as he turned a corner on the dark, empty streets of Hawkins. “I love you too, kid.”

“No.” You had sighed, and Steve glanced your way again, watching how each street lamp illuminated your face for a few seconds as he passed them. “I mean, I love you like… like how you love Kristen.”

He stopped completely, the car slowing slightly, and he frowned as he looked your way again, one eyebrow raised. You what?

“You love her, right?” You asked and Steve coughed awkwardly.

“Well, yeah.”

“Good. She’s nice.” You mumbled. “You deserve that.”

Steve didn’t know how to reply. He had never felt so awkward in his life as he glanced your way.

“You don’t love me.” He told you, like he could decide that. Like saying that erased any feelings you might’ve had for him.

“Yes, I do.” You sighed again, turning to face the window again. “But, it’s fine. I get it. And I’m glad you’re happy, and once I go to college I’m gonna find a boy and he’s gonna love me and I’m gonna forget all about you, so it’s fine.”

And then you went silent for the rest of the car ride. When Steve pulled up outside of Dustin’s house, you shot him a kind smile, thanked him, and left the car like nothing had happened, waking Dustin up before the two of you headed off to the front door with nothing more than a goodbye.

And Steve sat there for a moment, watching the two of you make it into the house before he just stopped, thinking over the interaction he just had with you, extremely confused, because you were in love with him? Since when had you loved him?

The next time he saw you was a week later at one of his baseball games when you and your friends had all shown up to watch.

You were acting like nothing had happened, teasing him with Max like normal, laughing with your friends, acting like you hadn’t drunkenly confessed your love to him a week earlier.

Naturally, Steve assumed you were too drunk to remember the interaction. Hell, he assumed the entire interaction had only happened because you were drunk, because Steve didn’t think you loved him.

But you did love him, and you didn’t forget about the interaction.

Neither did Steve.

–

a/n: holy shit this was wayyyy longer than i had anticipated uhhh no wonder it took me literal months to write omfg. anyway the rest of the series is set in 1993, and the next chapters will be shorter i swear. um, i hope you liked this and the few changes i made lol. i’m excited for this series!!

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