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015. 𝘀𝘂𝗱𝗱𝗲𝗻𝗹𝘆 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘄𝗮𝘀 𝗱𝗶𝗳𝗳𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗻𝘁 —
𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗻𝗲𝗱 𝘂𝗽𝘀𝗶𝗱𝗲 𝗱𝗼𝘄𝗻.
“𝐒𝐇𝐄’𝐒 𝐀𝐖𝐀𝐊𝐄 — 𝐇𝐄𝐘, 𝐇𝐄𝐘, 𝐒𝐇𝐄’𝐒 𝐀𝐖𝐀𝐊𝐄!” A familiar voice was shouting.
The words started out as muffled, drowned out, and sort of blended together as they played through her ears. Only the outline of the words could be hurt as audible hums, blending together into one fading melody. Her eyes were in small slits, slowly peeling open with confusion pounding on them and tremendous ache. There was light coming from somewhere, but with every little second her mind was turning with tiny slips of reconnaissance, and soon, she realized her head was pounding. So first, she’d heard the voices, and then there was a streak of light in a big golden fog, and now her head had a heartbeat. Then she could suddenly hear that heartbeat in her ears.
For a few seconds, she thought she was in heaven. That she died. That she was dead. That her prayer she’d made in the shed worked in a different way.
But when the streak of light from the light fixture overhead became less blinding, and her senses were absorbing the things around her— she blinked as her sight slowly came back. And the first thing she saw as objects took their forms in foggy lines, was a head of hair— but a double image. Leaning over her, her tired and paining eyes made out the strands of hair, and an identifiable swoop that she knew too well.
It was only a matter of seconds before the double imagined aligned, the two heads became one head, and suddenly she realized that Steve was hovering over her face.
“Yeah, yeah, she’s awake,” his lips were moving, and she could sort of hear what he was saying now. “She’s awake,”
For a second, she didn’t move, she just stared up at his face that was now fully in place and until the ceiling looked like the ceiling behind his hair. She laid there for a moment, feeling the noise enter her ears as clear words, no longer muffled.
So she wasn’t in heaven, and she wasn’t dead. She could tell by the wallpaper and the cushions of the couch that she was still in the Henderson home, in the living room, was it? Her head had a heartbeat that she could hear in her ears, that clouded her judgement for a few minutes as she took in her surroundings. Slips of recollection were entering her mind, that made her throat dry.
“Hey, can you hear me?” Steve said, softly. And maybe her brain was still foggy, it was definitely still foggy, but she could’ve sworn that his voice was concerned— and genuinely concerned. She looked around his face, to his eyebrows that were tightly knitted together with that concern.
That’s when she realized that his hand was on her shoulder, his thumb grazing the skin of her collarbone. His fingers were on her shoulder with the tips of them in her hair. His other hand was on her forearm, which was resting on her stomach, his grip delicate but firm— with his fingertips brushed on her abdomen. And his knee was pushing down on the couch cushion beside her thigh, his back hunched over to hover.
“Oh, thank god,” she heard Dustin’s voice approaching, sounding majorly relieved. “Thank you, God,”
Lori swallowed, feeling Steve’s hands move with her body as she did, her eyes looking around the ceiling, to distract herself from the fact that she’d never been this close to Steve before. But still, her eyes found their way back to him, and he too, now looked relieved.
“Huh,” she said, and the words hurt her throat from the way they came out. Her voice had a rasp, and sounded painfully scratchy.
“You can hear me, right?” Steve said, still hovering and still with his hands on her. He narrowed his eyebrows.
“Yeah,” she said, distractedly, her voice low. She swallowed again, her throat paining. “What— happened,”
She slid her arms on the couch and used all of her force to push herself up from her elbows. Her body ached. Her face rose to be close with Steve’s, but she was looking around at the couch, the eggshell curtains and the carpet, her mind cloudy with entering information.
“Whoa, whoa, relax,” Steve said, calmly. He stopped her with his hands, sliding one from her shoulder to the side of her arm. “Just sit down for a minute, just relax, okay,”
Lori locked eyes with him for a moment, and even through her clogged brain she could tell that he cared in his eyes, even just a little bit. She was sitting up on the couch, her legs outstretched before her.
“How did you get here,” she said, her voice low. Her usual tone of attitude was gone, she didn’t have the energy to include it.
He stared back, shifting his eyes from hers, down to her chin, and back up. He didn’t answer because she looked away then, and it seemed like it’d been more of a rhetorical question or her speaking her thoughts out loud.
She slowly trailed her eyes around the room, looking over Steve’s shoulder to the coffee table. There was a bowl on the table with water in it, and a rag thrown beside it. The rag was stained with dirt. She looked down to her legs, stretched out on the couch cushions. Her knees had dirt on them, and the bottom of her shirt had some too.
“Oh my god, what the hell happened,” she winced.
She looked to where Dustin was standing behind Steve, his cap on his head and another rag in his hand. He still had a relieved smile on his face.
She was slowly remembering bits and pieces as the minutes went on, but her head was pounding so hard she could hear it heavier now in her ears. She rose her arm, Steve’s hand falling from it and landing on her leg for a brief moment, and she placed a hand on the side of her head, wincing again.
The only thing that stood out in her mind, was the image of that monster. The one she’d seen in his room with the bloody teeth and gaping mouth. That was what she remembered most.
“Do you remember anything?” Dustin was eager to know, his voice worried. “Please tell me you remember who I am. Do you remember who Steve is? You’re in my hou—”
“She only passed out— she didn’t get a concussion, dipshit,” Steve glanced back at him, his face dumbfounded. “She doesn’t have amnesia. I don’t think.”
“Passed out,” Lori looked to Steve for clarification, her eyes fixed to his.
“You’ve been out for a while,” he answered, calmly. His eyes held an honest look. He took his hands away from her and bent his knees, now crouching on the ground in front of the couch. He left his hand on the cushion beside her leg. She’d never heard him sound so soft before. “Do you remember anything? Anything at all,”
“Kinda,” she said, her voice groggy, her eyebrows narrowing. “How long was I out for.”
At this, Steve looked down, sighing. Dustin formed his lips in a tight line, and looked away.
“What? How long was I out for,” she urged, her eyebrows narrowing at their reactions.
Steve craned his neck back, turning to look at Dustin blamefully. Dustin swallowed, now seeming nervous.
“How long,” she persisted, her voice rising a bit. “Fuck, my head hurts,”
“Here— I got you some Tylenol,” Steve took notice of this, and reached behind his body to the coffee table, where he grabbed the bottle of said-pills. “It’ll hurt for a while. You ever passed out like that before?”
“No, I dunno,” she said, her voice confused. “Do I have a concussion.”
“I don’t think so,” Steve answered, looking at her head. “You’ll have a bump there for a bit, and there’s a scratch on the side of your face but we cleaned it up,” he rose his hand and grazed the spot he was talking about, his finger just barely touching her skin.
She looked at his face, but looked away when his eyes met hers. His hand fell slowly.
“Do you remember what happened before you, uh, fell…” Dustin stammered, avoiding the question, “Over?”
She grabbed the bottle he handed her and opened it, shaking two pills into the palm of her hand. Steve was now holding a glass of water, waiting until she grabbed it from him and took a swig. She swallowed the pills, wincing hard.
“Like… anything?” Dustin was still looking at her.
“Last thing I remember,” she said, swallowing another sip of water. “Was standing in your fuckin’ shed.” she darted her eyes to Dustin, glaring.
“So you didn’t forget.” he said defeatedly. “Shit.”
“I told you she wouldn’t,” Steve looked at him, reproachfully.
“Do you know why we were in the shed?” Dustin went out on a limb, speaking delicately. “Please tell me you don’t remember.”
Lori rolled her eyes, “Yeah, I completely forgot about the fuckin’ monster I saw eating your cat, Dustin,” she said, her voice painfully sarcastic. “You can’t forget bullshit like that.”
“God damnit,” he cussed.
Steve shut his eyes in a tight blink.
“Where is it,” she said, her voice lower. “That thing.”
“In the cellar,” Dustin told her. “You hit it into the cellar.”
“I hit it into the cellar?” Lori asked, sounding like she didn’t believe it.
“Yes.” Dustin nodded firmly. “With a baseball bat.”
“Nice,” Steve’s lip pulled up into a small smile.
“Someone get me a bottle of whiskey,” Lori rubbed her forehead at this news, and at the thought of the creature. “No — two bottles.”
Steve cleared his throat.
“How the hell’d you get here,” she said to him, asking again. “And what time is it?”
“It’s late,” Steve said, his voice remaining calm. “And Dustin found me on my way to Nancy’s.”
She didn’t want to ask about Nancy and if he’d followed through with the plan and if they were together again. But by the grave undertone of his face, she assumed it didn’t happen.
“And you came here,” Lori said slowly, “Because I passed out? Or do you guys know something I don’t.” she said.
“Well, for you, yeah,” he said, sort of uncomfortably. “But, uh…”
He looked to Dustin hesitantly. Dustin’s lip tilted downwards.
“Holy shit, you guys know something that I don’t,” Lori sat up straighter, taking notice of their dodgy expressions. “Steve, do you know what that was? That… thing?”
He didn’t answer at first. But not answering was enough of an answer in this situation.
“You do know!” Lori realized this. Her expression hardened. “Oh my god, this just keeps getting worse!” she laughed with disbelief. “How do you know!”
“Look, Philbs,” Steve tried to start softly.
Lori looked to the window. Then she turned her head back. “How long was I out for.” she ordered, sternly. “I’m not asking again. Oh my god my head hurts,”
Her head was hurting from the impact on the ground, of course, but also because too much information was racking her brain at once. Steve knew about the monster in Dustin’s room. And by the look on his face, it seemed that he already knew, long before today. This wasn’t a surprise to him. And that freaked Lori out.
She remembered that when everything happened, it had been day time. Now, there was no light spilling through the curtains. It was dark out.
Dustin exhaled, as if to prepare himself. She looked at him with urge, widening her eyes for answers.
“Since this afternoon.” he admitted, regretfully.
“What?” Lori blinked at those words. “What!”
“Okay, let’s just relax,” Steve said, cautiously. He reached for Lori’s arm, but didn’t grab it.
“You left me here — passed out — for several hours?!” her voice got loud, really fast. She was outraged. “Are you crazy! I could’ve been dead!” her eyes bled into Dustin’s.
“Well — I, I checked your pulse every five minutes, and, and, I made sure you were still breathing!” he defended himself, putting his hands out. “I didn’t just leave you here to die, Lori! You’re my only cousin for god’s sake!”
“I was unconscious!” Lori shouted, bewildered.
“I carried you inside!” he shouted back, as if that was a notable factor. “I just didn’t want to wake you up, for the sake of — well…” he paused, looking at her. “Me.”
“You’re lucky my head is pounding—” Lori shouted to Dustin. “If I was in good health, your ass would be grass, Hagar! And I mean that!”
“I told you she’d get hostile!” Dustin pointed to her, and spoke to Steve.
“I cannot believe this right now!” Lori scoffed. “What is with you people,”
“Hey,” Steve said, offended.
“And you!” Lori stared at Steve. “What do you know about this — about that fuckin’ thing — what have you not been telling me, every time I asked about this town!”
“Listen, Lori,” Steve said, delicately. He almost never used her real name. “I can explai— he can explain,” he glanced to Dustin. “We’ll explain.”
“Yeah? When,” she said, seriously, as if she believed they would never tell her. “This is batshit,”
Steve stood up, slowly, and turned around. He looked at Dustin with an expression that only they knew the meaning of — which asked the question: should we tell her about Dart escaping through the cellar? They were both thinking the same thing. They’d already been down there while Lori was asleep, and saw that a tunnel had been made by the baby demogorgon. They had a conversation based on whether they needed to tell Lori about everything — Will, Eleven, the upside down, the demogorgons, and her their involvement in it all. The answer was yes. Unfortunately. They would be condemned for telling her, but they couldn’t just leave her in the dark after what she saw.
But now they had to decide when it would be right to let her know that Dart, the creature, had escaped and could possibly be en-route to wreaking havoc on the entirety of Hawkins.
Dustin nodded. Steve narrowed his eyebrows, to ask if he was sure. Dustin nodded again.
“Okay, Lori, you have to listen closely,” Steve said, as he turned around. He knelt on the floor in front of her. “And you have to promise, okay, you have to promise me something.”
He was looking at her with a certain seriousness that she’d never seen before. He wasn’t just stern. And he’d used her name again, this time with a different undertone that meant this was important — way more than important. The look in his eyes meant that this was different — this, what they knew and were about to tell her, was something extremely grave. That there was no turning back once she knew.
She stared back into his eyes, suddenly feeling like maybe she shouldn’t know. But her curiosity got the better of her, like it always did, and the anger from unanswered questions and fear in her body was entirely consuming — she needed to know.
She nodded, very slowly.
Steve let out a long, heavy breath, and then he spoke. “You can’t tell anyone about this.”
“So, you’re meaning to tell me,” Lori said with a shaky breath, repeating it for the fifth time. “That there’s a demogorgon running loose around town,”
She was sitting in the passenger seat of Steve’s car, her head against the window and his eyes focused on the dark road ahead.
They’d told her.
Half of everything. In Dustin’s living room, they told Lori Philbin what she needed to know about Hawkins and the creature she’d beaten into the cellar. They left out the parts with Eleven and the details about Nancy and Jonathan— saving that information for another time because they feared her brain would quite literally explode. And it almost did, for that matter. She sat on the couch, listening to the story about Will Byers and the Upside Down, absorbing every little bit of information that her brain could allow in that moment. They told her the story of how he’d gotten trapped in some sort of underworld, a different dimension, and about the creatures that followed him through it. They told her that there was more to everything, and they would explain the rest if she agreed to go with them on the next phase of the plan— which was the next day.
At first, she thought it was all a hoax. For a moment, she thought that her assumption about Hawkins being weird, was just maybe the fact that its town was full of psychopathic people, that maybe they were all in some sort of cult. But then she’d thought of what she’d seen — the thing in Dustin’s room. They weren’t talking gibberish, it wasn’t a story, it wasn’t a hoax, it wasn’t just a big fat prank. It was real. And she knew that deep down with revelating certainty, and grave realization.
And she had sat there on the couch, listening to the stories as her body sunk into the cushions. It was mind boggling, overwhelming, and insane. Truly, utterly, insane. But she believed it. She had to believe it. She didn’t want to think about what would happen if she chose not to believe it. This town was a shitshow — she’d felt it on her first day in town, that something was off. Way off. And now she knew why. She just didn’t think it could be so insane.
But they told her. And now she was left with the thought of a baby demogorgon — she hated saying the word — running around the undergrounds of Hawkins.
Suddenly everything was different.
Steve turned the car, and pulled into his driveway. He let go of the gas pedal put the car in park, and pulled out the key.
Lori was leaning her head on the window, still. “This is all too much.” she said, her voice low.
“You sure you’ll be okay on your own,” Steve said, turning his head to her. He looked at her with a sort of sad expression — sympathetic that she had to go through all of that, from seeing Dart firsthand, to passing out, and finally learning the truth about Hawkins. “I have a spare bedroom, if you want it,”
She shook her head and swallowed. “My mom is home,” she said, referring to the fact that she wouldn’t be alone.
“Okay,” Steve said, his voice soft. “Look, Philbs, tonight you should just get some sleep, okay?” he turned to face her. “We’ll see about tomorrow.”
All she could do was nod.
He stared at her for a moment longer, and then pushed open his door and stepped out. She was staring at the floor as she did the same. Her head wasn’t pounding as much now, but her stomach was twisting. She stepped out of his car and closed the door.
He walked around the front end of his car, slowly making his way over to her, stopping at a two feet’s distance.
Something shifted in her, between the time she was sitting on the couch and now, in his driveway. Her stomach was twisting, and suddenly she didn’t feel like screaming or yelling about how outrageous it all was. It was all just too much. She was overwhelmed.
Steve didn’t say anything, just stood in front of her with his hands in his pockets, watching.
“Look, Harrington,” she looked down, somehow feeling the words getting caught in her throat. She never stammered— frankly the last time she ever hesitated on what to say was when she’d learned about her father’s departure.
Steve noticed this, but didn’t make it obvious, and looked at her in depth. She was looking at the ground, and sort of shivering. Maybe she was cold, he thought, with only her jacket on, or maybe she was nervous. Lori Philbin being nervous? Absolutely not.
“I just,” she stammered, feeling her throat wither, “Look— I’m not a pussy or anything,”
She was confused at the tone of her own voice— weak and quiet. She twisted her face. She wasn’t trying to sound so weak, not at all. She just couldn’t help it.
“But that was a lot of shit back there,” she was still staring at the ground, half of her body still in shock and the other half completely bewildered with scales of fear. “And I know I seemed fine back there, and I don’t know what’s happening to me right now,” she said, narrowing her eyes at the pavement. “I don’t know what’s happening to me right now,”
“Lori,” Steve took a step forward, his voice soft.
“And I’m no pussy,” she repeated the derogatory phrase, really only speaking to herself. As if she only had to speak to herself.
Now Steve could see it. Her hands were shaking and under his driveway light there were small tears in her eyes. He wondered if he was seeing things, if he was just imagining Lori Philbin almost crying. To him. In his driveway. He realized that she’d never really been emotional like this.
She swallowed, and noticed the tears in her own eyes. “I’m not a pussy—”
He cut her off as he extended his arms, wrapping them around her shoulders.
He pulled her body close to his, so that her head was touching just below his chin, and his hands found her upper back. The second her head touched the material of his jacket, there were small sobs that could be heard— Lori was crying and she didn’t really know why. She wasn’t a pussy— as she kept repeating to herself in her head, over and over— but somehow she was standing in King Steve’s driveway, in his arms, crying.
Something about the whole day’s events were bubbling and withering, causing this rush of wildly unexpected emotions from a girl who so-hated feelings to begin with. Something about the sheer realization that Hawkins wasn’t a normal overlaid town like she’d assumed— but more the confirmation of that gut feeling she had on her first day. Something was wrong with this town, she had subconsciously noted that since her beginning. But now it was confirmed, and she saw it with her own eyes.
That thing, that slimy, terrible, fearsome thing was painted in the front of her mind like the remembrance of a bad grade. The images of it scattered every corner of her brain, it’s mouth open and filled with teeth, it’s eyes gaping holes, and it’s body— crunched and hunched over like roadkill if roadkill could still walk. The beady eyes stared at her with yearning and rage, through the boards of the shed, ready to make its move. The stories played over and over in her head.
Lori Philbin wasn’t afraid of much. Her list of fears consisted of the unmentionable family status and her father, and thumbtacks. But now she was afraid of much, much more, in the span of a day. And that was scary, really, really scary. The images of that creature caused her new agony. And then there was the fear for Hawkins itself, and all the stories she heard that night.
Just standing in the arms of King Steve caused her fear.
Lori sniffed, ready to let go, “I’m no pus—”
“Shut up, Lori.” Steve whispered. For her own good. “Just shut up, for once.”
And so she did. For the first time in her life, Lori didn’t fight back at the order shoved down her throat, she didn’t clamor or state her opinion of the matter. She barely moved, just stayed standing in his arms, with tear stains on his jacket, and the night wind brushing past them on the driveway.
𝙅𝙐𝙇𝙄
FAVE CHAPTER
GAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
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