chapter 1
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Starcourt Mall hums like a neon-lit beehive, music echoing from every store, crowds pressing together in the cool air-conditioning, perfume and popcorn mixing into one strange but comforting summer smell.
Dolores Avery steps inside, parking her pastel bike with the many stickers she's acquired over the years pasted on the sides. Her dull green dress that she had taken out of her mom's closet clashes wonderfully with the mall's bright geometric patterns. She adjusts her oversized glasses and pushes a curl behind her ear.
It had been a slow morning at Family Video, the little rental shop in town that's taking a beating thanks to the shiny new Starcourt Video kiosk upstairs. She had worked there since she was 14. It was her first and only job she's had, and she really loves it there. With the new mall in town her boss had been sighing dramatically behind the counter for weeks, but he was certain that it would eventually fail and everyone would come running back to his treasure.
"Go take your break," he had said, waving a hand at her, she was fixing up her favorite part of the store, the musical section. "Maybe you'll learn something from our corporate overlords."
Dolores didn't need to learn anything. She just wanted to see her friends. Steve and her had reconnected since his abrupt visit last November, calling almost every day. When Steve got his new job at the ice cream show in the mall, she's come very frequently. Steve's co-worker, Robin Buckley, who coincidentally is in her English class at school, is a wonderful girl that Dolores can't believe she hasn't talked to more than a hi before. Now because of her frequent visits at their place of work they have clicked and deeply enjoy each other's friendship.
She winds her way past neon signage and laughing teenagers until she spots the familiar sight: Scoops Ahoy.
Robin is behind the counter, elbows propped on the glass, chin in her palms, looking utterly bored. Steve Harrington is attempting to stack sample cups into a little pyramid, failing spectacularly. Every time he gets to the eighth cup, the whole thing collapses. Dolores grins.
Robin spots her first, her whole face lighting up. "Lora!" she yells across the food court. Steve startles so violently he knocks the cup tower over again, hands flailing in protest.
Dolores walks up, leaning her folded arms over the glass. "Hi, Robin. Hi, Stevie."
Steve tries to recover his dignity, straightening the nautically offensive hat on his head. "Dee! Hey. Hi. You're... early. Or late. Orā" He clears his throat. "Hi."
Dolores smiles softly. "Slow day over at the video store," she says. "I figured I'd come visit my favorite sailors. Arrrg," she adds, crooking her arm toward her face in a pirate impression.
Robin leans forward conspiratorially. "Thank God. If I had to watch Harrington try to build one more Cup Tower of Doom, I was going to walk into the ocean. And by ocean I mean the water fountain."
"It's harder than it looks," Steve mutters.
Dolores tilts her head. "Is it?"
Steve raises his eyebrows, inviting her to try it for herself.
She steps around the side counter, gently pushes his hands out of the way, and begins building the tower with quick, delicate movements. Robin raises her eyebrows. Steve watches like she's performing a magic trick.
Dolores places the eighth cup. Then the ninth. When she finishes the perfect little pyramid, she dusts off her hands.
Robin lifts both hands like a referee. "And the crowd goes wild!"
Steve stares at the cups, then at Dolores. "...How?"
"You just have to be gentle," she says, smiling with that soft brightness he knows too well. "And patient." His gaze lingers a little too long.
Robin coughs loudly. "Harrington, you're staring."
"I am not." He absolutely is.
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Robin had slipped out, citing a desperate need for a cinnamon-sugar pretzel. The bell on the counter was silent, leaving just the hum of the freezers and the mall's music.
Steve leaned heavily on the glass counter, his chin resting on his hand as he watched Dolores meticulously reorganise the melted samples back into neat little rows.
"You're unnaturally good at this," he mumbled. "It's like you were bred for service industry perfection."
Dolores chuckled, not looking up. "I just like things tidy. It makes sense, you know? Like organising the tapes at the place I've been working at for three years. Everything has a place."
Steve sighed dramatically, running a hand through his hair, mussing the nautical hat in the process. "Tidy. Yeah. My life is the exact opposite of tidy right now. Everything is just... collapsing."
Dolores finally stopped, her expression soft with genuine concern. "What's collapsing, Stevie? Is it the ice cream machines?"
"No, not the machine," Steve interrupted, leaning closer, dropping his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "It's everything. It's... dating. My luck. My general joie de vivre." He flailed a hand. "Look at me. I'm King Steve, right? But I haven't been on a decent second date in, like, eight months. It's brutal." Without releasing he had been failing without trying, maybe he didn't want to go out on dates with anyone except for someone particular.
Dolores tilted her head, her breathing sharpening. Trying to be supportive while still feeling her chest tightening. "But you're such a nice person, Steve. I don't understand."
"Nice is apparently the new boring," he muttered. "What am I doing wrong?"
"Maybe you're trying too hard to be something," she suggested gently. "You spend a lot of time worrying about being 'King Steve,' or being 'charming.' But you don't need a strategy."
Steve stared at her. "I don't need a strategy?"
"No," she said, leaning her arms on the counter and smiling that soft, genuine smile that made his chest feel strangely light. "When you talk about the kids, or when you complain about Robin, or even when you were building that impossible cup tower," she laughs, "you are so completely yourself. That's when you're charming."
She paused. "I think people just want someone to be themselves. Not a character. Don't worry about the second date before you've enjoyed the first. And maybe," she added, "find someone who doesn't care if you're a King or a Scoops Ahoy sailor. Just someone who likes you just for who you are."
Her eyes drifted down to the samples, and she brightened. "Oh! I should try the Pralines 'n Shame before Robin gets back. Can I?"
Steve, momentarily derailed from his existential crisis by her proximity and her sincere sweetness, just managed to nod.
"Yeah. Sure. Have... have all of it."
As Dolores eagerly scooped a small sample cup of the Pralines 'n Shame, Steve leaned back on the counter, his heart doing a slow, heavy thump against his ribs.
She is literally everything hes looking for.
The realisation was a punch to the gut. He is a complete idiot.Ā
He looked up just as Robin sauntered back through the entryway, clutching a huge cinnamon pretzel.
Robin took one look at Steve's dazed expression and Dolores's happy, focused concentration on her ice cream sample.
"Harrington," Robin said, chewing loudly. "You're staring again. And you look like someone just told you the answer to the test, but you can't figure out how to write it down."
Steve sighed, running his hands over his face in defeat. "It's worse than that, Robin. It's so much worse than that."
Dolores, delusional to the conversation that Robin and Steve are having adjusts the cup of ice cream in her hand. "I have fifteen minutes before my boss thinks I defected to the mall, and betraying him. Do either of you want to take a quick stroll."
Robin is already out from behind the counter. "Yes. We are leaving Harrington to die on this ship." She takes ahold of Dolores's arm and pulls her towards the shops entrance. She pulls up two fingers towards her forehead to salute her co-worker.
"WOAHāwaitāwhat?" Steve sputters.
Robin moves her hand down to grab Dolores's hand dramatically. "Come on, Lora. You, me, and ten minutes of freedom."
Dolores laughs as she lets herself be pulled away. "Steve can handle it. Right, Stevie?"
Steve points at them accusingly. "If a child vomits on this floor while you're gone, I will leave it for you to clean up."
Robin calls back without turning around, "But you wouldn't let that happen. Would you captain?"
Dolores glances over her shoulder. Her smile is soft. "We'll be back in 10 minutes. I promise."
Steve stops mid-breakdown. "...Yeah. Okay." He put his hand out of the counter glass, hand suddenly slipping. Trying to play it cool. Ultimately failing. "I meanācool. Whatever. No big deal."
Dolores's cheeks flush as she disappears around the corner with Robin.
Steve sighs, watching her go.
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Oblivious to passing Robin and Dolores on their very 'scenic' walk Max, Will, Mike, and Lucas approach the mall entrance like a miniature hurricane. They were on a mission.
Max slams her hands on the counter. "Okay. Move."
Steve still caught in his new discovered reality blinks. "Move what?"
"You," Mike says flatly. "We need to get behind the counter."
Steve nearly chokes. "No. Absolutely not. You cannotā"
Lucas interrupts, "Shortcut to the movie theater. Duh."
"Shortcut?" Steve repeats, horrified. "Through here? No! I don'tā"
"We're coming through, Steve. Dolores says it's okay," Max says with a smug grin.
Will looks like a walking question mark and opens him mouth like he is about to object, but Max gives him a sharp glare.Ā
Steve's face goes pale. "SHE DOES NOTāwhen has she let you through here? She doesn't even work here. Wait hold on, stop using her as an excuse for everything!" Now Will gets it.Ā
Before he can finish, the kids slip through behind the counter, completely ignoring him, weaving around ice cream machines. Steve flails in protest. "HEYāNOāSTOPāYOU CAN'Tā"
They vanish into the back hallway like gremlins, leaving Steve staring after them, shoulders slumped. The door bangs shut. The cup tower wobbles in sympathy, and collapses.
Steve groans. "Perfect. Perfect day."
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When Dolores and Robin return, still laughing over some private joke they would never let Steve in on. Robin nudges Dolores with her elbow.
"You really are the only one who can make him look like a five-year-old with a Lego set," she whispers, smirking.
Dolores chuckles, brushing a curl from her face. "Some of us are just naturally gifted in delicate engineering."
Steve waves weakly from behind the counter, already halfway through attempting to rebuild his cup pyramid. "Hey, dee. Have you let the kids into the back while i wasn't looking? Because they just came in here demanding I sneak them into the cinema." he calls.
"Um. No I have not. But you should let them. No harm, no foul. As I like to say." Dolores replies, grinning.
Robin who looks like a proud mom says, "They are smart little children. They know if they bring her up, Stevie here will let them do anything." She steps beside steve putting her hand on his defeated shoulders.
Steve doesn't confirm or deny, he just let's out a defeated sigh and makes very obvious eye contact with Dolores.Ā
A sharp, high-pitched screeeech ripped through the quiet atmosphere, instantly replacing the tension. Robin immediately grabbed the small, unauthorised radio she kept behind the counter. It was crackling with a bizarre, rhythmic noise. "It's doing it again," Robin muttered, tapping the casing. "It's consistent."
Dolores stepped closer, drawn by the sound. She frowned, her head tilted, listening. "That's not just static," she said softly. "It sounds... compressed. Like when you try to cram too much onto an old cassette tape. But those rhythms... they're intentional."
Robin's eyes widened. "Exactly! You deal with analog mediaādo you think it could be a code, masked by the compression?"
"It's too fast for traditional Morse," Dolores countered, pressing her ear to the speaker. "But those timed keys... they remind me of the electronic scores for some of those old Soviet films I catalogue. Very precise. Very... not-random."
Robin let out a triumphant gasp. "Not-random! So it is a message."
As Robin and Dolores dove into a flurry of excited, intellectual back-and-forth about signal masking and analog technology, Steve felt a deep mix of adoration and defeat. He looked at Dolores, realising she was easily the smartest, kindest, most interesting person he'd ever met.
"You know," Steve said quietly to her, forcing himself to break away from the radio talk. "You're right about the dating advice. I think I'm just going to stop trying for a while. It's too much effort. I'll just focus on... important things."
He let his eyes linger on hers, making the implied subject of "important things" perfectly clear.
Dolores's heart fluttered, and she quickly looked away, running a hand through a stray curl. She suddenly felt clumsy and overheated.
"Shoot" she coughs out, looking at the big clock on the wall, "I should probably head back," she mumbled, adjusting the strap of her bag. "My boss will have my head if I'm gone any longer. Wait- can I bring something back for him. Pretty please with a cherry on top."
"Good idea," Steve managed, watching her every movement.
She says her goodbyes, and just as she's made it out toward the exit, the lights flicker once, twice, and then snap off entirely. A collective gasp rises from the crowd; music screeches to a halt, and neon signs blink in confusion. The mall plunges into darkness, leaving only the soft glow of emergency exit lights and the occasional blinking fire alarm.
"Oh...uh...okay," Dolores murmurs, clutching her bag and ice cream a little tighter.
The hum of whispered complaints, shuffling feet, and distant alarms surrounds them. Dolores squints at the emergency lights, trying to make out shapes in the semi-darkness.
A few tense moments later, the lights flicker again, returning in a bright, cheerful wash. Neon signs blaze, music resumes, and the smell of popcorn and pretzels feels oddly comforting after the brief chaos. Teenagers cheer, clapping each other on the back, and Dolores lets out a sigh of relief.
She walked quickly out to her pastel bike. As she tried to balance the ice cream tub in one hand and swing her leg over the frame, her hand brushed the handlebars. The small metallic pin on her dress collar, a blue circle pin with the words "funky and chic," felt a sharp, brief tug, almost pulling itself toward the steel. It was just a weird, static-y flicker, but it made her pause.Ā Magnetic interference?Ā The thought of her damaged tapes flashed through her mind. She shook it off, attributing it to the weird power surge, and successfully balanced the ice cream as she rode back toward town.
By the time she reaches Family Video, her boss is tapping his foot impatiently behind the counter, muttering about late returns and overdue tapes. She braces for a lecture, but instead, he merely glances at her, one eyebrow raised.
"I...uh...brought ice cream?" she offers awkwardly, fishing into her bag.
He squints at her suspiciously.
"Ice cream. I got ice cream." She sings and hands him a small tub she picked up on the way back.
He examines it carefully, then scoops a small spoonful. His expression softens. "Ice cream, huh? Well... I do love ice cream. What flavour"
"Bubble gum." Dolores exhales, relief washing over her. "Thought you might like it."
He takes another bite, nodding approvingly. "Not bad, Avery. Not bad at all."
Robin, back at Scoops Ahoy, looked at the defeated figure of Steve Harrington, who was still staring at the exit. "You are a disaster, Harrington. She's worried about VHS tapes, and you're worried about whether or not you should marry her."
"Shut up," Steve whispered, but his eyes were still on the exit, hoping for one last glance of Dolores Avery.
įÆāš ĖĖĖ deacon blues by steely danĀ įÆāš ĖĖĖ
