1. Obviously, I don't own anything from Stranger things. Just Jo.
2. I want to make sure everyone understands that the mentions of bullying and some words used towards Jo are NOT things I agree with or would ever approve of saying to anyone. I do, in fact, actually have Tourette's, so a lot of what she does will be based off my own day to day tiks. If anyone is uncomfortable with reading about bullying associated with this disorder, please do not read! I don't want to upset anyone with this.
STEVE
Steve leaned against the back counter, waiting for Dustin to show up while Robin did some stocking in the back. He wondered if Ainsworth was gunna show up again, considering she had the last three days in a row. Which was weird, really. No one else had shown up three days in a row- besides Dustin, of course, who was trying to track down evil Russians- just to get ice cream. A little voice in the back of his head, where his ego and swagger lived, whispered, Maybe she wasn't coming for the ice cream...
Steve shook his head and almost laughed at himself. Nah. No way.
"What's got you using your head so much, dingus?" Robin asked, popping up through the window he was leaning in front of.
Steve jumped slightly but tried to play it cool, shrugging his shoulders. "Oh nothing, just waiting for the kid to show up."
Robin raised an eyebrow playfully. "Which kid?"
"Uhm. What?"
She rolled her eyes and crossed her arms on the counter. "Henderson or Ainsworth? They've both been coming a whole lot recently..."
Steve frowned. "Yeah, so? She probably won't come by today again. Four days in a row of ice cream is a lot. Besides, I thought girls were all self-conscious about their figures and shit."
Robin snorted, "As if you aren't?" She waved that topic away with her hand in favor of her original goal. "Anyways. You're pretty dense for someone who used to be such a lady killer, you know that?"
Now Steve was starting to get offended. He wasn't dense, and he sure as hell was still a lady killer, thank you very much! "What's that supposed to mean?" He asked.
"Look. I'm not really friends with Ainsworth, but this is still technically breaking "girl code" or some bullshit, so we never had this conversation. Got it?" She said, making finger quotations around the mention of girl code.
Steve, totally unaware and slightly uncomfortable with where the conversation was going, motioned for her to continue. "Yeah, sure, whatever."
"She's totally crushing on you, dude."
"What? No way!" Steve said in shock, leaping up from his relaxed position. "Didn't we just agree two days ago that she'd never go for me cause she's got- got... class, or something!"
Robin looked at him as if he had just figured out the sky was blue. "I was fucking with you, dipshit. I can't believe you didn't notice."
"How was I supposed to notice?! She comes here, gets ice cream, we barely make small talk, and then she leaves!"
The bell rang, and Steve turned towards the counter with a frown. Now was so not the time!
"Go sling ice cream, lady killer," Robin said. "We'll talk more later."
JOHANNA
God, she was so fucking tired. She didn't even bother going home to change before heading over to the mall, knowing if she walked into her room she'd end up falling right on her bed and taking a long ass nap. She had barely gotten any sleep the night before, and had been up and working since five o'clock in the damn morning.
So there she was, rolling up in her baggy overalls, Bradley's red and black collared shirt, and dirty old white sneakers. She walked into the Scoops Ahoy parlor just as Robin pushed through the swinging door and came running towards her.
"To find a way into that room, a safe way. And, in the meantime, sling ice cream, behave, and don't get beat up. I'll be back in a jiff."
Jo watched Robin run out of sight with brows raised before looking back at Steve and Henderson.
"What's this about not getting beat up?" She asked, walking up to the counter.
Steve sighed, waving his hand around in a 'I don't really have a fucking clue' manner, before noticing Henderson licking the ice cream off his scooper.
"Oh, dude," Steve snatched the scooper back from Henderson as if it was his most precious possession. "Come on, man. Not my scooper." Jo expected him to throw it in a sink or something, but instead he just twirls it over his fingers and slings it back into the holster at his hip. She nearly laughed at the way he treated it like a gun.
"You're going to wash that, right?"
Steve's head snapped back towards her, and a light blush darkens his cheeks. "O-Oh, yeah. Of course." He laughed awkwardly, "Why wouldn't I? That'd be disgusting..."
"Right..." She waved energetically at the two, to which Henderson waved back before seemingly realizing she hadn't meant to do that, and quickly looked at something else with too much interest. "I think I'll just get a cake batter shake today, thanks."
Steve nodded as if he thought that was a good idea as well, and went to make her drink.
A couple hours later, and Jo was still sitting in the booth she claimed for herself, summer homework spread all around her on the table. She can't often get a lot of homework done at home, what with her mother always bugging her to do some dumb shit around the house, so she took this opportunity to try and get ahead.
She reached for her milkshake, bringing the straw up to her mouth, but only received disappointing empty noises from the cup. She sighed and looked up towards the counter to see if Steve was busy or not.
He was definitely busy.
Her jaw dropped as she watched Steve stand on a ladder, the bottom half of Henderson hanging out of what was probably an air duct, while Steve grabbed his legs over his shoulder.
"I'm just gonna shove you, ready?" Steve asked, his voice just barely reaching Jo. Quickly, she got up and headed to the counter behind a younger, dark skinned girl with braids in her hair. Steve counted down before asking if it worked.
"What the fuck are you doing to Henderson?" She asked as the little girl in front of her obnoxiously attacked the bell on the counter.
"Ahoy, Sailors! All hands on deck! Ahoy!"
Robin turned around to look at the two girls standing in front of the counter. "Hey," she said suddenly, coming around to the front. "You think you could fit in the air duct?"
Jo knew she was talking to the younger girl in front of her, with her hands placed on her hips, but she couldn't help responding herself.
"Uhm, what? I'm sorry, what the hell is going on back there?" She clicked her tongue a couple times, like one does to call a cat.
Robin looked over her shoulder at the two boys- Henderson had been pulled back out- who were watching with wide eyes.
"It's, uhm..." Steve trailed off, looking quickly at Henderson for help.
"A top secret operation!" Henderson cried.
Jo cocked her head and crossed her arms. "A top secret operation that you're inviting some random little girl into?"
"She's not random! That's Lucas's little sister!" The same kid argued back.
"Maybe if you don't want people to see your 'secret operation,' you should close the shutters. Come on, I'm in."
Jo stood against the wall in the backroom of Scoops Ahoy while Erica climbed up the ladder and peered into the air duct with a flashlight.
"Hmmm," the young girl said as she thoroughly inspected the tight space.
"Bop bop," Jo jerked, her head lightly bouncing off the wall behind her. Steve glanced her way for a moment, looking a little worried.
"You alright?"
Jo blushed and nodded. "Fine."
Erica loudly climbed down the ladder, sassily handing the flashlight back to Henderson.
"Yeah, I don't know," she said, her young voice exuding so much arrogance for such a small child.
"You don't know if you can fit?" Henderson asked.
"Oh, I can fit. I just don't know if I want to." She replied.
"Are you claustrophobic?" Robin asked.
Erica snickered, "I don't have phobias."
"Okay, well, what's the problem?" Steve asked, splaying his hands out in the air.
"The problem is, I still haven't heard what's in this for Erica," she said, crossing her arms.
Jo rolled her eyes, leaning her head back to look at the ceiling. "Pretty dots." She realized that they were looking at her again and she blushed. "Look at me, bitch! Sorry." She blushed harder and looked away. She really hated that one.
Steve slightly chuckled and patted her shoulder as he walked by. Apparently they had started to come to an agreement with Erica. Jo waited as the two younger kids passed by and followed behind Robin. Steve pulled out his scooper- which Jo never actually saw him wash- and started dishing out all the desserts Erica was demanding. The young girl went and took a seat at a table of her choosing, and Robin took over for Steve, who became the runner back and forth to the table.
"So," Jo started, walking over to Robin. "What exactly- whoo whoo- is going on here?"
Robin glanced at her quickly through the corner of her eye and sighed. "Well, it's kind of... Stupid sounding, honestly." She motioned over towards Henderson and continued. "He came over one day, he and Steve sat in the corner booth and did some catching up, and then I find them in the back room listening to a tape recording in Russian, trying to translate it to English. I jumped in to help them, and... Here we are."
"So the code you were talking about yesterday, that's what was on the recording?" Jo guessed. She cringed and shook her hand up by her ear.
"Yeah. They're hiding in the mall. That's why we need to get Erica to go through the vents- we found the secret room they're hiding shit in, but we can't get in through the front door, obviously."
Jo nodded. "Ok. I guess that makes sense."
Steve came and grabbed the banana boat Robin had just finished, and brought it over to Erica before sitting down across from her.
"More fudge, please." The girl said. "Go on." She waved her hand at him in a 'shoo' motion.
Jo shared a look with Robin. "I don't even know if this is worth it."
