𝐖𝐎𝐕𝐄𝐍. ˢᵗᵉᵛᵉ ʰᵃʳʳⁱⁿᵍᵗᵒⁿ ¹ - 019

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019. 𝗺𝗮𝘆𝗯𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲’𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀 𝗶’𝗱 𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗼
𝗴𝗲𝘁 𝗼𝗳𝗳 𝗺𝘆 𝗰𝗵𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗯𝗲𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗽𝗼𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗯𝗹𝘆 𝗱𝘆𝗶𝗻𝗴.

“𝐒𝐎 𝐃𝐎 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐘 𝐔𝐒𝐄 𝐅𝐀𝐑𝐑𝐀𝐇 𝐅𝐀𝐖𝐂𝐄𝐓𝐓 𝐒𝐏𝐑𝐀𝐘?” Lori asked, her voice low.

She turned her head to look at Steve, his face slightly obscured in the darkness. Light had fallen, and they were sitting underneath the celestial sky on top of the school bus— behind the rows of tires. She was sitting with her legs crossed, her elbows propped up on the tire in front of her, and her chin resting in her palms to stare out into the dark. Steve was a foot or so next to her, cross-legged and binoculars resting on his lap. Both of them faced the fog.

It was quiet, apart from the habitual night sounds that filled the extremities of white noise. The kids were below them, sitting in the disheveled seats of the bus, but not talking. Just waiting. The junkyard was eerily silent, pervaded with hazes of fog that veiled the grass, and the air smelled of mist and left a slight condensation on the skin— hardly noticeable. When she opened her mouth, it left behind a taste of water on her tongue: a calm, tranquil water.

If Lori hadn’t known better, she would’ve said it was a beautiful night. With the fog and the speckles of stars overhead, it was a pretty sight underneath the hidden moon. But because there was the omnipresent feeling of danger, the lingering sense of fear that hung heavy in the groggy air, it all felt painfully eerie.

Steve’s head fell back. “Yeah, Philbs— I do.” he said, with a sigh.

Lori’s chest pattered in a small giggle. “Cool.” she said, with a tiny smile.

Steve looked over at her, maybe turning his head a bit too fast. “What?” he said, and then he leveled his voice. “That’s it? What about bullying me, or making fun of me,”

“Please,” she said, her smile growing slightly. She kept her eyes on the fog. “I don’t have the energy for teasing. At least not right now, you know that.”

He pressed his lips together and stared at the side of her face.

“I bet that’s what you expected, though,” Lori said, her voice calm and quiet against the tranquility.

“I don’t really know what to expect from you anymore,” he said, with such painful honesty that it came out humorous. “If I’m honest.”

“Good,” she said, and glanced to him. “That’s how it should be.”

His lips turned up in the tiniest grin, but then he shook his head and looked away, out into the fog. “Last week I would’ve expected you to grill me every day about it,” he let out. “No, scratch that, every second.”

“I probably would’ve,” she said, popping her bottom lip out.

He didn’t have the courage to ask “what’s changed”, but that question still lingered in the air without even being said. He grabbed the binoculars and scanned their perimeter to not think about it.

Lori opened her palms, looking down at them in the darkness. She trailed her eyes around her fingers, and landed on her index— stopping where the tiny dot was. The tiny scar that she’d gotten years ago from the thumbtack. She wondered how the scar was even visible in the darkness, but there it was, the tiny circular dot that she looked at almost everyday. Almost everyday she looked at the scars on the bottom of her foot, in the triangular dotted pattern— and the singular one on the pad of her finger. She didn’t really know why she did, it was just a habit.

“What are you looking at?” Steve asked, calmly.

Lori noticed he’d lowered the binoculars and was looking at her. Or, looking at her hand.

“Oh,” Lori said, letting out a breath. “Just a scar on my finger,”

“From what,” he spoke, their voices low against the silence.

They heard Lucas say something below them, and then Dustin’s voice. Then nothing else.

“Funny story, actually,” Lori let out a small laugh. “That I’ve never actually told anyone, now that I think about it,”

He looked at her, nodding.

“When I was in fourth grade, some kid dropped thumbtacks on the ground,” she said, rolling her eyes. “And I stepped on them.”

“Like, they went in your foot?” he narrowed his eyebrows.

“Yes.” she said, shortly. “Then a year later, it happened again. But on my finger.” she rose her finger and extended her arm towards him, the pad of her finger right to his face. “See, right there,”

He scoffed at that mannerism, and then he squinted his eyes to see in the dark. When he had no luck with that, he delicately wrapped his hand around her wrist. He tilted her hand in a direction that shed a little bit of light on her finger from the moon overhead. His fingers were soft on her wrist, and his eyebrows were tightly knit.

“Right there?” he asked, his voice quietly. He pointed to the dotted scar, with his other finger— their skin just barely touching.

“Yeah,” she said, with a small nod.

When he looked away from her finger, he caught her eyes and decided he should let go of her wrist. His hand slid off her skin, and landed back on his lap as she retracted her own carefully.

“I have three on the bottom of my foot, too.” she said, and pressed her lips together.

“Hm.” he said. It wasn’t like an uninterested ‘hm’, it was an impressed, cool kind of ‘hm’.

“Fucking hate them.” Lori grimaced. “Thumbtacks.”

“Is that why you were so scared of my bat,” he asked. “Like, my bat?”

“Yeah. But I’ve made peace with it now. Sort of. Not really, but.” she said, staring down at her finger as she held it with her opposite hand. “Only because it’s helped you kill one of those things before.”

He laughed stiffly.

“So you really did kill one of them?” Lori turned to look at the side of his face.

He nodded, with a grave look that showed he was thinking about the time he did.

“Was it… scary,” she asked, her voice lowering.

Slowly, he nodded, and looked down. “But it was bigger.” he said, his voice rough. “This time it’s small.”

Lori nodded hesitantly, biting on the inside of her lip. As she thought to herself, she thought of the fact that they were talking, just them, in a quiet place — just like when they talked on docks.

“Is this another one of those conversations?” Lori suddenly asked, and turned to look at him.

“What conversations,” he asked, and grabbed the binoculars in his lap.

“Where it gets all… you know,” she said.

“You can make it meaningful it you want,” Steve said with a shrug, as he squinted his eyes into the binoculars. He thought of their talk by the lake.

“I dunno,” she said, tracing her finger along the seam of her jeans. “On the subject of the demogorgon, I just can’t help but think, like, if we die tonight, then—”

“We’re not gonna die.” Steve took the binoculars away from his eyes.

“Yeah, but if.” she said carefully. “If we do, then maybe there’s things I need to get off my chest.” her voice sort of fell quiet.

He dropped the binoculars into his lap, and a smile grew on his face. “Shit, are you catching feelings for me, Philbin?—”

“That is not what I meant.” she shut it down too quickly, even though she knew he was just joking. She grimaced. “Gross.”

“Ouch,” he said, with a small laugh. And then it hit him — Nancy slid into his mind.

His face went grave, and the smile sort of fell as he reached for the binoculars, this time much slower. Lori tensed her jaw and stared forward.

“Alright, well,” He said, as if starting a new subject. “I’ve been thinkin’ about something for a while,” his voice kind of trailed off.

“Don’t tell me you’re catching feelings.” Lori’s eyes rolled.

“Never,” he replied, not adding another thought to it because he didn’t want to risk even thinking about it. His voice came out in a tone that sounded like, ‘why would you even say that?’. “That’s gross.”

“Good.” Lori said, but her voice came out coarsely.

“Remember when you said you like to have a reason for everything?” he asked. “When we were talking about that glass heart shit.”

And it sort of shot to her stomach, that he remembered even a little bit of their conversation on the docks. She didn’t really know why she’d been assuming he didn’t remember, when clearly it had been something different. And then it got her thinking about the fact that she remembered every little bit of it, when usually she didn’t like to dwell.

“Yeah,” she said, shortly. She leaned forward more, crossing her arms on the tire and placing her head on them— her chin propped up so she could look out.

“You never said why,” he said, his head turning slowly as he scanned the junkyard. “So, why?”

“I don’t know. It just feels better that way.” she said, her eyes tiptoeing down the shape of her arm, shrugging. “When there’s no reason, I guess it just makes me, I don’t know.” she stopped, searching for words. She knew what she wanted to say, but wasn’t sure if she wanted to say it.

“Mad?” He said, quietly

She turned to look at him, resting the side of her head on her arms now. “Yeah.” she said.

He nodded.

“Funny you bring that up, actually,” she said. And it was clear now, that this subject was what she wanted to ‘get off her chest’. “Remember when I was pissed about my cassette?”

His chest rose in a small laugh. “Yeah.”

“When I thought you stole it?” she looked at his eyes. “I actually wasn’t mad about the cassette all that much— no, I was— but it wasn’t my main source of hatred.” she admitted.

Steve narrowed his eyebrows.

“And don’t let this go to your head, Harrington.” Lori warned, her voice going serious. “I’m only saying this because we might die tonight, okay?”

He nodded.

“I guess I just wanted any reason to dislike you so bad that that’s what I went with.” she said, her eyes now looking at anything but his.

“Why did you want to dislike me,” Steve asked. And his voice was quiet now, he wasn’t speaking with his usual tone of voice. Because he knew, to some extent, that she was really admitting something. Something big.

Lori swallowed, shut her eyes, and took in a large breath. She turned her head away, her chin now pointed to the fog. And then she said it. “Cause I was scared of what could happen if I didn’t.”

It was quiet after those words. Steve stared at the side of her face, letting her words hit him right in the gut. He didn’t know what that meant at first, but within a second, he suddenly knew with painful certainty.

It was even more quiet after that. Silence seemed to befall them, and everything around them was swept up as well— the world entering a quiet, contemplative, and harrowing mood. The crickets stopped chirping, or at least it seemed like they did as her words echoed softly in the air and consumed every bit of useless white noise— so what she said could be at the forefront of their minds. Her words stung like a bee to his ears, and clung like acid to his skin, leaving his mouth unbearably dry and unable to form words just yet. His tongue pricked with a certain taste and suddenly felt intolerably out of place in his mouth.

He loosened the grip on the binoculars, shaking it out of his conscience and telling himself that she could be meaning something else. Steve was dumb sometimes, but he sure as hell wasn’t an idiot. And especially when it came to Lori Philbin, who he was learning more about every single day, he knew sometimes the things she said had double meanings. But at the same time, he knew that she was enigmatic enough to hide meaning behind something else.

Lori, after letting the words fall from her tongue, felt her stomach clench into a big fat knot. And she didn’t like feeling so unsettled, so she did what she always did. She swallowed. “I mean, I do that with a lot of people.” her voice came out coarse, and remained leveled. “I guess.”

And there it was, Steve thought. There was only one thing he could do now— decide whether she was sugarcoating something or if she was really telling the truth. And then he reminded himself that Lori wasn’t something to be decided.

“Yeah.” he said, forcing the word out. He looked down at his hands and then back out.

“And I was so mad about everything else on top of that,” she said, slowly, “That maybe I took the cassette thing a little far. And yeah, it’s crazy— Lori Philbin admitting her wrongs—” she did bunny-ears, mocking him for something he would say. “But.”

“What d’you mean by everything else,” Steve spoke, finding words now. His voice was delicate. “I mean, other than…” he said, leaving that open, and she knew he was referring to her parents’ divorce.

She looked down at her hands, and one thing came to mind. “Y’know that pumpkin patch? The one people said was poisoned?” she looked over at him. “It was all in the papers, some feud between farms, or something.”

He slowly nodded, and caught her eye under the dim moonlight.

“Did Dustin tell you about it?” She asked.

Steve combed back through his memory. “I dunno. Probably,”

Lori looked out into the fog. “It’s not confirmed— but I know now that it has something to do with all this…” she waved her hand lowly. “shit.”

“What do you mean, like, the demogorgons?” he sat up straighter.

“Something. Or whatever you guys call the other realm,” she said, sort of weirdly. “The Upside Down. I don’t fuckin’ know.”

He contemplated on this, leaning back on his hands.

“I kept looking at that damn pumpkin patch. Every time I was near it.” she let out. “Any time I had the opportunity to see it, or ask questions, I asked questions. I went there once, before Tina’s party,” she glanced to him briefly. “Jim Hopper found me. Told me to go home.”

Steve looked at the side of her face.

“Why would he tell me to go home, I thought. For days. It racked my brain. I hated that— being told what to do.” she admitted, her voice calm. “I knew there was something wrong with it, something other than poisoning. I don’t know, something in me just knew it wasn’t normal— that nothing about Hawkins was normal.”

He nodded, for her to continue.

“And nobody believed me.” she said, with a certain pique. “Or, I guess I know now that nobody could tell me the real truth, so they played it off like I was delusional or something. But it’s such a shitty thing, it really is, to have people not believe you or listen to you. That goes for everything— but it hurts more, especially more, when it’s concerning the town you live in. Even if this town is a shithole.”

Steve understood this. It was often the experience he got at home, with his own parents. “I get it.”

With a soft glance to him, she continued. “But I knew something was off. Way off. And I guess it’s just insane to know that I was right all along.” she said, swallowing. “What was I waiting for? To be wrong? That would’ve made me even angrier. I wanted to be right so bad, and now I guess I got that.”

“And how does it feel?” he asked, delicately.

“Overwhelming.” she said, surely. “Like I can’t think straight anymore.”

He swallowed, and looked at her with an expression that showed he knew what she was feeling.

“And I’m telling you this, Harrington, not just because I need to get things off my chest before we possibly die,” she paused. “But also because if something happens out there, to you, to me, to Dustin…” she trailed off, referring to the plan they were about to endure. “I don’t know if I’ll be of any help. This is all just, a lot. I don’t know if I can take responsibility or be a fucking hero.”

“You don’t have to be a hero, Philbs,” he said, softly. “But, c’mon, give yourself some credit. You hit Dart into the cellar,”

“I don’t even remember doing that.” she looked over at him, honestly. “There’s a reason I passed out after I did it. Like a fucking puss—”

“Hey.” he said, stopping her before she could finish that sentence.

Both of them remembered how that word echoed in the air, before he’d wrapped her in a hug the night before. It lingered in the air between them now.

“Sorry.” she said, lowly. She barely ever said sorry.

“I mean, you did it for Dustin, right?” Steve said, returning to the subject. “Something came over you in the shed. What was it.”

“I don’t even know.” she swallowed. “And I don’t know if I can… channel whatever it was, again. And I’ll admit, now and only right now, that I’m too scared shitless to take the fuckin’ risk.”

Steve recognized that she was too scared shitless to admit the fact that she cared for Dustin, too. He knew that she hit Dart into the cellar to save both of them. She just didn’t want to admit it.

It became quiet after those words. The crickets were chirping again now, and the leaves ruffled in the trees.

Lori let out a shaky breath. “What if things don’t go according to plan, Steve.” she said, quietly.

“You already asked this.” he answered, calmly.

She looked over at him, “Yeah, but this time I really mean it,” she said, her voice dropping. “This is scary shit, Harrington. And I don’t find a lot of things scary.”

He looked back into her eyes, softening them a little bit. “It’ll be okay,” he said, his voice almost as low as a whisper. “I’ve done it before, and look at me now, I’m perfectly fine.”

She looked from his eyes to his hair, to his chin and swallowed. He was right, he had done this before. He’d fought a bigger demogorgon than this one, and he made it out alive. There was no reason to believe this wasn’t going to go the same way.

“I hope you’re right.” she said, looking down at her hands. “This is the only time I’ll put my faith in you, Steve Harrington.”

He let out a breath, “Is there anything else you wanna get off your chest?”

Slowly, she shook her head as she traced the hem of her jeans. “I don’t think so.” that was probably a lie.

Steve couldn’t help but stare at the side of her face. There was things he could say— about how the plan with Nancy probably wouldn’t have worked out, maybe that the necklace really was pointless, or maybe that the drive home from Evansville was one of the best moments he could recount in his life. But he didn’t say anything. He felt like he couldn’t, as her words lingered in the air from before, and the image of his arms around her body became the forefront of his thoughts.

He stared at the side of her face in the dark, only illuminated in the slightest way by the moon above. And suddenly he was back in that moment at the jewelry shop, when she’d put the necklace on. He was staring at her now, the same way he did then. Only this time, the lingering thought of danger was upon them, and she’d been talking about things she needed to get off her chest before possibly dying.

He knew they weren’t going to die. He knew that. He also knew that this was not the moment to place his hand on the roof of the bus and turn his shoulders to face hers.

A few quiet moments passed, and then Lori, at her own, realized that she’d never asked if he had anything he wanted to say. So she gathered the word, and tilted her head back up to look at him, but he was already looking at her. She paused from the look of his eyes in the moonlight.

And then, as if everything else suddenly didn’t fucking matter anymore, he was leaning in.

    His eyes were having trouble deciding where to land, on her eyes or her lips as he inched his torso closer to hers. And she was having trouble realizing why she was doing the same exact thing. Their faces inched closer to one another, in a painful game of who could break first.

Just as her eyes fluttered closed, a thud rang out below them. “Hey, lovebirds! Your shift is up!” Dustin shouted, through the emergency exit of the bus.

Steve’s body tensed in a groan, and he pulled himself away from her immediately, his eyes shutting hard.

    This was when Lori realized what was happening. Quickly, she coughed, and shot her eyes open— instantly looking away from him. Him, who she was about to… kiss?

No way.

Lori stood up, brushed off her bottom and headed straight for the ladder. She cleared her throat and avoided his eyes. Steve watched as she did, feeling all the same as awkward and unsettled by what was seconds away from happening. He watched as she made her way quickly down the ladder, her head low to not look at him.

Feeling his heart beating hard against his chest in a crazy jumble of adrenaline and emotions, he reached for the ladder and climbed down too. At the bottom, he stopped and stared at Dustin.

“What is your issue, Henderson.” he said, his voice low so Lori wouldn’t hear— even though she was already walking to the end of the bus.

“That’s my cousin, Steve.” Dustin said with a tilt of his head, offended. As if it would be gross for Steve to… gag, kiss his cousin. “Weirdo.”

Steve rolled his eyes and turned away, glancing briefly to Lori at the other end of the bus who was sitting down and pulling her backpack off her shoulders. With a long breath leaving his lips, he pushed the thought of kissing her out of his mind completely, as if it didn’t almost just happen, and sat down with a huff.

Lucas was climbing up the ladder now, flashlight and binoculars in his hands for his shift.

Lori pulled her backpack off her shoulders and sat it on her lap. Her mind racing uncontrollably, she unzipped it and reached in for the notebook she’d brought with her.

The only thing that could be heard after that was the sound of Steve clicking his lighter, and Dustin pacing.

“So, you really fought one of these things before?” Max asked, sitting across Steve.

He nodded, slowly. Lori scribbled words onto her paper.

“And you’re, like, totally, a hundred percent sure it wasn’t a bear?” she said, skeptically.

“Shit. Don’t be an idiot, okay? It wasn’t a bear,” Dustin cut in, speaking harshly. “Why are you even here if you don’t believe us. Just go home.”

She gawked for a minute, and then rolled her eyes and stood up. “Geesh. Someone’s cranky.” she stepped for the ladder. “Past your bedtime?”

Steve whistled but didn’t make a sound, and they watched as she climbed up and out of sight.

“That’s good. Just show her you don’t care,” Steve said, impressed.

“I don’t.” Dustin said, grimly.

Steve winked at him.

“Why’re you winking, Steve?” Dustin said bitterly. “Stop.”

Steve turned his attention away and flicked his lighter closed. He didn’t want to look at Lori, but his eyes were naturally drawn in her direction.

Dustin followed his gaze. “What’re you writing, Lor?” he asked, still pacing.

Lori swallowed and didn’t look up. “My will.”

Dustin laughed lightly, and Steve let out a scoff. As if he didn’t just want to kiss her two minutes ago.

The bus fell quiet, an uncomfortable silence as she scribbled in her notebook, Steve clicked his lighter, Dustin paced, and Lucas and Max talked on lookout. Lori found that it would have been peaceful, cool even, if interdimensional slugs weren’t about to wreak havoc on them. And even though she was waiting for it, her heart still fell to the bottom of her ass when an ear-wrenching, inhumane shriek erupted in the very, very near distance.

𝙅𝙐𝙇𝙄
literally. fucking. screaming.
my heart has exploded

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