I think y'all will be pretty happy with this one.
Just barely hit 5,000 words and it's good.
Also, happy December peeps!
:D
(Alternatively titled: Big Stuff, Important Stuff in my Doc Manager)
Christmas break passes in the blink of an eye.
Zara comes back after the weekend and makes the break insufferable, but only when she's at home, so she spends most of her time working or at the library. Work is better though. The hustle-and-bustle of people who are too lazy to cook or who just want to go out to celebrate keeps her too busy to think about anything. She's thankful for it. Thinking would be bad right now.
Her mind has been going to very dark places lately.
She wants to stay out of those dark places, so she works and reads and draws and takes care of 'Mother', anything to distract herself.
But, of course, the world just keeps finding ways to fuck with her...
It's New Years Eve and she's officially homeless.
It started with one comment, muttered under her breath, so quiet that Zara shouldn't have heard it. But the old woman isn't deaf. She heard it loud and clear from across the Goddamn room. Now, the hag didn't get up at all but she did lay into her 'daughter' from her place on the couch, yelling towards kitchen at the top of her lungs.
And that little fight got out of hand way too fast.
Zara said something -she can't even remember what it was anymore- and it was enough to get her riled up. So riled up that she started throwing things. Every nick-nak, wall decoration, framed picture, or dirty dish she could get ahold of. She kept up the attack just long enough to get to the bedroom and slam the door, then packed her duffle bag to the brim with everything she thought she would need; including her special collection of sketches and a few other keepsakes.
The bedroom door opens and she pushes past the tiny woman who is throwing profanities at her like it's going out of style. She's unfazed, simply stomping out of the trailer and slamming the door behind her.
"Leave now an' ya ain't comin' back in, ya hear!?" Zara yelled out the kitchen window, her heavy Southern accent suddenly very prominent.
"Fine!" She screams back and flips her the rudest of her five fingers, "Go to Hell!"
That whole thing might have been a big mistake though, because now she's sitting on the side of the road, cold and wet, at ten o'clock on New Years Eve. She spends a long time regretting every decision she's ever made in life while she tries not to cry.
She's been here before. Out in the cold with nowhere to go and a long walk ahead of her. She just can't seem to stand up and use her fucking feet. She almost doesn't want to bother. Maybe she could just wait here until she freezes to death. Sure, it's a dark thought, but she's cheated death twice now. It could always happen a third time.
Or she could just give the damn reaper what he wants.
She shakes her head. No, that's giving up and she can't give up. She wont. She's not supposed to go see Grandfather yet.
She keeps sitting there, just not while waiting for her untimely death. She's planning, coming up with a strategy, trying to come up with a place she could stay. She should have made friends after all. If she had, she might've been able to crash at their place for a bit. And maybe have someone to talk to about all this bullshit.
Well, she kind of does, but that's all in one-sided notes with stupid, creepy sketches as compensation.
She groans, dropping her head into her hands.
"I'm such an idiot..."
She sits like that for a few more minutes, constantly sniffling and wiping her nose with her sleeve. Her mind goes back to the darker thoughts, pulling them out to taunt her with, when she's pulled out of her own head by the headlights of an approaching car. A face full of bright light gives her vision little dark spots, her arms going up to shield her face just a few seconds too late. She lets out a string of curses as she blinks away the dots.
The car stops in front of her across the road.
Why the fuck does Steve show up whenever she feels like shit?
"Hey, you okay?" He shouts over the sound of the engine.
She stands up, clutching the dufflebag's strap tightly and nodding.
"Fine." She lies, then adds: "Cold." with a shrug.
She refuses look up at him through the whole exchange. Mostly because she still feels like a guilty creep, but also because she's a little embarrassed to be seen the way she is in this moment; looking like a drowned rat. Make-up running down her face and red eyes from crying.
He doesn't care about any of that. He's more concerned about her freezing to death or being hit by a car, maybe even abducted by some old pervert and/or murderer.
"Need a ride home?"
Her head shoots up to finally look at him, surprised and freaking out because, 'yes I need a ride' but also, 'just not the person I'm basically stalking'. He looks at her expectantly, waiting for an answer, looking not-at-all impatient. He's must be a fucking saint nowadays.
Then she registers the entire message and shakes her head, "Home's no good."
"Oh, uh, then... need a ride somewhere else?"
Without a second thought she nods, "Thanks."
No! Shit! Why would you say yes!? she internally screams at herself as she dumps her bag in the back, then climbs into the passenger's seat.
The drive is spent like most of their interractions: in relative silence. The only noise being the best-of-the-worst pop music the radio is currently spewing. She hates it, but she wont say anything about it. And whenever it crackles into static she catches Steve flinching from the corner of her eye. It would be entertaining if she wasn't so tightly wound at the moment.
"So, um..." he starts, "What's your name?"
She looks over at him, trying to keep her expression neutral. But he's being a responsible driver right now, so he doesn't look back at her. Her silence is enough to get him into 'nervous ramble mode'.
"I mean, we've talked a few times and you don't seem to hate me, but that whole 'running away' thing on Friday was pretty, um, confusing. Do I scare you or did I do something to you back in my Asshole Steve days?" He laughs nervously, as if he's trying to make himself feel better by making it sort of a joke. "I wouldn't blame you if you hate me after all that. I was... I was the worst."
"Billy is way worse than Asshole Steve." She tells him.
He gives a small smile, eyes still on the road. "Yeah he is."
He doesn't realize she never answered the question of her name, and he doesn't seem to have connected her to the drawings. Which is nice in a way but also proves just how dense he can be sometimes.
"What, uh, what happened?" He asks with a quick glance at her, "You don't have to tell me, it's really none of my business! I'm just curious..."
This time she's the one to laugh; a small, airy chuckle that catches his attention.
He's such a dork when he interracts with people lately, it's pretty cute.
She folds her hands in her lap and stares down at them with a simple, "Got kicked out."
"Fight with your parents?"
"Yeah." She sighs.
He nods, and they go back to having the radio act as the only sound between them.
She discreetly looks at him from her peripheral, trying to make out the expression on his face, watching the street lights come and go across his features. She wishes she could pull out her sketch book to capture the moment, but it's in her bag which is currently in too awkward of a place to reach for while buckled in. Also, she doesn't feel like showing him that she's his artistic stalker yet. No, she'll keep this in her head until she has a moment alone.
Why is he so... pretty? she wonders briefly, followed by a panicked stream of: No, no, no, no! Shit, what is wrong with you?! Stop that!
"Do you have somewhere you can go?" He asks suddenly.
She mumbles a far-too-quiet "No," and shakes her head.
"Then do you maybe wanna come to, uh, my place?"
She turns, eyebrows raised in question and asks "why?".
He shrugs, "It's just me and my little brother, and it's New Years Eve. Do you really wanna be alone when the ball drops?"
"I don't really mind." she says, then smirks as she asks: "You don't wanna be alone, huh?"
He sputters for a moment as he tries to piece together a lie, even though it's painfully obvious that it's the truth. He gets nowhere with his lie, opting to stay silent, but that only lasts for a minute.
"Okay, fine." he sighs, "Yeah, I don't wanna be alone, and I'm pretty sure my brother is at a friends house tonight."
She nods, just happy that he confessed instead of staying quiet.
"But the other thing is: I don't really wanna leave you out in the cold. It's just cruel."
"Awe, what a sweetheart." She teases and instantly regrets it.
Where the fuck did that come from?! she asks herself harshly.
"Thank you. Trying not to let Asshole Steve back out, ya know?"
"I'm sure that Steve is dead." She assures him.
He laughs, and she feels a little less horrible about being such a creep last week. She even considers saying 'Hey, guess what! I'm your stalker that drops sketches in your locker and car! Isn't that awesome?' and it's all because of his damn laugh! That stupid, adorable laugh...
She feels extremely stupid the second that thought pops up.
Yeah, no. None of that is happening any time soon.
"So, you wanna join me?"
"You don't even know me..."
He shrugs, "Does it matter? We kinda know each other. You even know my name."
She rolls her eyes and smirks, "Everyone knows your name."
"C'mon," he whines dramatically, "Let's be miserable together."
It's a tempting offer but she has to say-
"Okay."
-No... She was supposed to say 'No'.
Too late now.
"Sweet. From Injury Buddies to Detention Partners and now Sad Holiday Friends. This is great."
His fake excitement and genuine happiness causes her to full-on grin, his emotions -whether real or fake- are apparently very contagious. Not that she's complaining! In fact, she likes the feeling.
It's not long after that, that they're pulling into the driveway of Steve's house. He parks, turns to her and says 'welcome to Castle Harrington' sarcastically. And he's right. It is basically a Goddamn castle.
Okay, so it's actually a just a really nice rich-person house, but it's like the modern version of a castle. Big fancy front door, lots of extensions off to the side, a big garage, gorgeous front lawn and garden. When she gets inside it's hard to process just how fancy it all is, but she's mostly distracted by the pool she finds through the glass door that leads to the backyard. Steve looks outside too, but he seems pretty uncomfortable when he sees the pool.
She decides not to ask if she can go for a swim.
"You can, uh, get comfy or something. I'll be right back."
She nods, but he's already running upstairs so he doesn't see it.
She drops her bag by the couch and just... kind of stands there. She doesn't know how to 'get comfy' in this fancy-ass house. It makes her feel too dirty; like if she sat on the couch it would go from that nice cream colour to a nasty dark brown just from the contact, or like just by standing there the floor might start to rot. She shouldn't have come here. Just being in this house makes her think awful thing. Not about Steve or his family, but about herself and her family.
And her family from before.
She shakes her head.
Not tonight, fuckers! she internally growls, You wont ruin another okay night for me.
There's a loud bang, then yelling and more loud thumps followed by even more yelling. She has no clue what's going on but she feels like she should check it out. Help solve it, maybe. She runs up the stairs, following the noise to one of the many rooms, where she finds Steve arguing at the threshold of a bedroom -probably his own- and when she peers in she sees the main antagonist of everyone in Hawkins Middle. That damn Troy kid.
The little shit has a bunch of papers in his hands and a cruel smirk on his face, while Steve looks furious with his hands balled into fists at his sides. They're arguing about 'personal space' and 'weren't you supposed to be somewhere else tonight?' and 'who's the chick?'.
Oh, he means me, she thinks.
Steve turns and gives her a very apologetic look, then turns back to the kid she assumes is the brother he mentioned in the car. Poor Steve...
She steps closer only so she can see what has Steve's panties all in a twist.
Oh...
Troy went through one of Steve's drawers and apparently found the 'gifts'.
Oh shit...
"Why do you even keep this shit?" the little fucker snarkily asks, "It's pretty creepy."
When the kid laughs, she feels her face heat up. She's sure she's the colour of a tomato right about now.
"Shut the fuck up." Steve growls.
Those are some of the only things that have made him feel better since the shit-storm that lasted a little under two years, and he won't let his shitty little brother call them all 'creepy'. They aren't creepy! They're... Well, he can't think of a word right now, but he's sure he'll come up with something later.
"And they aren't even good." he sneers, "Just... scratchy."
"Seriously, shu-"
"And these letters? Oh my God..."
Troy starts to read the letter she left in his car after the dance and she visibly curls in on herself a little bit. He only gets through a couple sentences before he starts laughing.
"The creep won't even give you their name, dude. They're obviously fucking with you!"
That's when she snaps. She's never felt so humiliated and angry and just... hot. Hot in a bad way. She pushes past Steve, stomps over to the kid and snatches the pages from his hands so fast that he's left gawking at her. He looks a little scared too.
Good.
Be afraid, be very afraid.
"You know what, you little shit?!" she almost screams, "Get the fuck out before I throw you out a Goddamn window!"
She knows that Steve is probably gawking at her now as well but she's a little too preoccupied with making sure she doesn't come through on her threat of physical expulsion from the house via Steve's second floor window. The kid doesn't move, apparently glued in place. Then the fear disappears from his face and he goes back to being a dipshit.
"Awe, did I offend you?" he sneers.
She doesn't answer, just glares at him.
"Seriously bro, why do you always bring the crazy chicks home?" He asks, peering around her to smirk at Steve.
"Wh-"
"First Wheeler, and now this?" He gestures at her.
"Nancy isn't crazy!" Steve shouts, "And neither is-"
"She's crazy enough to go for Byers."
Troy seems a little too pleased with himself.
Steve stands at the doorway, too angry to say anything back.
She leans down so she's at Troy's eye-level, glaring as she says:
"I should really find whoever broke your arm last year and thank 'em. Give 'em a 'thank you' basket and some flowers. Maybe ask 'em to do it again. I'd pay them for it." she gets just a little closer, "Maybe they could break your jaw while they're at it..."
The fear comes back to his face and he tries to hide it, but fails miserably.
"Who should I see about that, exactly?" She asks him in a low, hopefully menacing, tone.
"Don't all you freaks know each other already? You and that freak probably do." he replies, "Or are you a 'creep', like Byers? Drawing creepy shit like that!" He points at her hand, the one holding all the pictures and notes.
She freezes up, and wonders for a second why this small asshole of a child is better at putting two and two together than his big brother.
He understands why she's angry at him for all those comments. She was insulted, personally, because she drew and wrote all of those.
Welp, no turning back now!
"It's not 'creep'-" sure it is, "-or 'freak'-" actually that works too, "-or any other name you feel like using. It's- Well, it's none of your fucking business actually." She steps away from him and motions to the door, "Kindly get the Hell out and go to your minion's house already. The big kids want a stress-free New Years Eve. That means 'no prepubescent shitheads'."
The two older teens walk him downstairs like he's a prisoner being escorted to his cell by guards.
"It's my house!" he defends.
Steve puts his hands on Troy's shoulders and starts pushing him towards the front door, "Not tonight."
"I'll tell mom!"
"Yeah, you do that. I don't really care at this point."
"You can always blame the 'Gypsy'." She jokes, pointing to herself with her thumb. "Everyone does."
He laughs through his nose as he opens the door, then pushes his little brother outside, pausing for a second before tossing him a jacket. The door slams shut and Steve sighs as he leans his back against it, then he looks at her and-
Fuck, he doesn't look very happy right now...
"So, uh-"
She rubs the back of her neck nervously, searching for the right words to explain anything he most definitely heard while she was fighting with Mini-Harrington.
"They were totally creepy, weren't they?!" she cries suddenly.
The guilt and embarrassment and every other bad things she's feeling in that moment weigh her down so much that she drops. Crouches down right there in front of him. Covers her face with her hands as a warm redness spreads from her neck up to her ears. She knows she looks like any of the red fruits that exist right now.
Steve laughing isn't helping because now she's red for two very different, but still embarrassing, reasons.
He's laughing at me! Is it angry laughing? Sad? Does he find the state I'm currently in amusing?! Why is he laughing? Oh God...
Her panicked thoughts spiral until she senses him standing in front of her before he crouches down too. She peeks through her fingers at him and oh look, there's the smile she likes so much.
"They weren't creepy." he tells her, "The first one made me feel a lot better, actually."
"OhthankGod." she whispers.
"And the second one made the Dragon-loving dorks really happy."
"This was all so stupid! I'm so so so sor-"
Without warning he wraps his arms around her. She stops breathing for a few seconds, scared for a bunch of dumb reasons and shocked by the physical contact; something she hates with a passion. He doesn't pull away when he says it's fine, really so it ends up muffled by her shoulder.
"And the last ones?" she whispers.
"I'm sad to say... I'm the one who gave Dustin the hair advice." He says with a short, breathy chuckle. "And you really nailed Jonathan and Nancy."
"You told him to do that?" She asks incredulously, pulling back from the hug to give him an over-exaggerated look of how could you. "You? Mr Perfect Hair Steve?"
"Not the style, just what to use." He explains, "I didn't have the heart to tell him it looked weird."
"You're such a mom!" her head falls back as she barks out a laugh.
The extra weight to her backside sends her tumbling down onto her ass, then sprawled out on her back. She didn't even try to catch herself, she just went with it.
"I am not a mom!" he argues.
"You can be." she retorts from her place on the floor, "I've seen it."
"I'll bet."
She swallows the lump of nervousness in her throat, "You really aren't creeped out?"
When he takes a minute to think she can feel the panic rising in her chest again, but he kills it with one small sentence.
"It was sweet."
Her face goes back to being Pits-Of-Hell hot.
This boy will be the death of her, she swears it.
After she borrows his shower and changes her clothes they spend the hour or so before midnight on the couch, watching dumb TV shows and eating anything they can get their hands on. That includes two pizza's Steve ordered while she was showering, a tub of ice cream she'd never heard the flavor of before, and a couple packs of Jiffy Pop she expertly made.
She's pretty sure food hasn't tasted this good in a long time. At least, not since the last 'family' meal she had with her Grandfather.
They talk and laugh and watch the clock together.
"Oh yeah!" he turns to face her so fast that he's almost a blur, "What's y-"
"Lilith." she interrupts, "It's Lilith."
His smile is so wide and so bright that she jokes about it blinding her. When he calls her name 'nice' and 'pretty' she feels like steam is rising off her face, maybe even shooting out of her ears. After that, Steve zones out on an episode of Family Feud and she takes the opportunity to draw him again; this time looking serious as he stares ahead. He doesn't notice her in the slightest, answering one of the questions the host asks and when it turns out to be right, he celebrates quietly but excitedly in his seat.
She giggles, why didn't I do this sooner?
"What's so funny?" he smirks, looking at her from the corner of his eye.
"You."
"How, exactly?"
She shrugs.
"Pfffft, whatever."
"Twenty minutes." she reminds him.
"Should we even bother watching the drop?"
She shrugs again, "Your choice." she tells him and continues drawing.
"What are y-"
"You."
He leans over so he can see what she's done so far, "I look pissed."
"You look focused."
They say nothing to each other for a minute or so before he asks: "Why me though?"
She wasn't prepared for that question, so she doesn't exactly have an answer. The first sketch just kind of happened out of the blue, the second sketch after she thought tracking his healing process would be an interesting challenge, and the rest followed like that.
The first one she gave him was one she did while he was chatting with the kids at lunch last month. His face had almost completely healed by then, his bruises barely visible from where she was sitting at the time. She thought he looked like an action movie protagonist during the epilogue, where everything is back to normal and they're about to wrap-up the whole film. He looked 'heroic' and that's what she told him, in a way.
I'll continue to assume your busted face was the result of some heroic act, she'd written.
"Because you're interesting." she tells him without looking up from the page.
"That's it?"
She nods, then flips back in her sketchbook a few pages to find the sketches she did of his face while he was healing and hands it to him, scooting closer so she can flip the pages for him; she doesn't exactly want him looking through the entire thing.
"This was the first week."
He flinches and grimaces as he looks over just how bad it had been. Looking at himself in the mirror was one thing, but seeing it in black and white, in her art style, made it seem so much more painful.
"This was the week after that."
Okay, this one isn't so bad. His eye was able to open again when she drew it, and his bruised face had lightened up a little bit. It still looked pretty bad though.
"This was the third."
Ah, mostly back to normal at that point. It looked like he'd taken a single punch to the face, instead of a collection of them accompanied by a plate smashed over his head, all coming together to cause that horrible concussion.
"What about the week I was totally healed?" He asks, smirking when he sees her cheeks turn pink.
She gets up and walks over to her bag, digging through it until she lets out a quiet 'ah-ha' as she pulls out a plastic folder. It's blank. No label, no picture, nothing. But it's full of stuff.
The drawings inside are amazing.
She shows him the important ones first. The sketch of the fourth week where his bruises were finally gone and he looked like him again, the special one of Nancy and the other special one of Jonathan, Hopper asleep at his desk -"Don't ever show him this!" he warned through a fit of laughter- the sketch of her Grandpa with added wrinkles.
There are others in there as well. Sketches that aren't as special but that she still wants to protect. The one she did of Nancy's little brother dancing with the girl who made her hair stand on end, the one she drew of Barb's face from memory only, the stray cat that stopped coming around her place last week, a half-finished family portrait type-of-thing of faceless parents and a faceless older brother with a little girl wearing a sour expression in the center of it all.
He laughs at her sad excuse for a tree.
"Hey," she smacks him on the arm, "it was my first try!"
At ten minutes until the ball drops, they watch the tail end of a Looney Toons episode because there's nothing even remotely exciting to do until the main event.
With two more minutes until midnight they flip the channel to the Ball Drop Ceremony just for the Hell of it and settle down with the rest of the popcorn. Nothing is said, but it's not the awkward or uncomfortable silence that used to pass between them. Now it's comfortable, pleasant, enjoyable even. This kind of silence could last forever and they wouldn't care much.
The waiting is boring, but then the apple-shaped ball finally makes contact with the giant 1985 neon light on the roof of the building and everyone on the screen cheers, the two of them exchanging the traditional 'Happy New Year' as well. She knows there's another tradition that most people follow through on, but she's too shy and doesn't know how he might react.
So she leans over to give him a quick peck on the cheek before sitting back down, her own cheeks flaming hot.
He gets this look, as if he's been slapped right across the face, and she bursts into a fit of unladylike laughter at the sight. Both of them are red now, and laughing, and happier than she thinks either of them have been in a long time.
He invites her to stay the night using the excuse of 'it's too cold and dangerous for you to spend the night out there all by yourself' and she argues that she can definitely take care of herself, but he insists and she ends up giving in a little too easily. Probably because he kept giving her that smile whenever he tried to convince her.
She'll always give in to that smile.
Please excuse the dumb way she ended up telling Steve she was the artist.
It was extremely stupid, wasn't it?
Well, excuuuuuuse the Hell outta me for writing dumb shit at 2 am when I haven't slept in almost a full day!
No wait, it's 4 am...
Fuck.
Excuse me as I go drop face first onto my couch and sleep with my only friends: my dogs.
Bye-bye~
