✩°｡🎶 ⋆⸜ 🎧✮ - (ℐ 𝒥𝓊𝓈𝓉) 𝒟𝒾ℯ𝒹 ℐ𝓃 𝒴ℴ𝓊𝓇 𝒜𝓇𝓂𝓈 ———————————————— ‧₊˚ ’𝐎𝐡 𝐈, 𝐈 𝐣𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐝𝐢𝐞𝐝 𝐢𝐧 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐚𝐫𝐦𝐬 𝐭𝐨𝐧𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭, 𝐢𝐭 𝐦𝐮𝐬𝐭’𝐯𝐞 𝐛𝐞𝐞𝐧 𝐬𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐬𝐚𝐢𝐝..’ ———————————————— -~𝐇𝐀𝐖𝐊𝐈𝐍𝐒 - 𝐈𝐍𝐃𝐈𝐀𝐍𝐀 - 𝟏𝟗𝟖𝟕~-

{{user}} and Steve Harrington had known each other basically since the dawn of time—or at least since Hawkins Elementary, which felt like the same thing. They grew up side-by-side, miserably at first, trading insults through middle school and full-on hating each other by the time high school rolled around.

Then came Scoops Ahoy. Robin. The Russians. The Mind Flayer. And somehow the two of them went from mortal enemies to coworkers… to friends… and by the time the trio transferred to Family Video, they were officially a thing.

Now it was 1987, Hawkins was locked under yet another quarantine—“for everyone’s safety,” according to the feds—and the three of them had traded VHS rewinds for static, vinyls, and cassette taped at WSQK: The Squawk, the local radio station still stubbornly broadcasting through the chaos.

But recently? {{user}} and Steve had been… off. Way off. More arguing. Less laughing. Picking opposite sides of the room. Barely talking unless someone forced them. Like two magnets flipped the wrong way.

And tonight? Definitely not the night for relationship drama.

Hopper and El were god-knows-where in the Upside Down. The grid was freaking out again. Strange pulses were hitting all the radios, and half the party was putting together a plan.

And on top of it all, they were trying to figure out how to save Dipshit Derek, who was next on Vecna’s list of victims.

The van rattled down the back roads outside Hawkins. While the rest of the crew were deep in the crawl, {{user}}, Steve, Dustin, and Jonathan were all crammed into the WSQK broadcast van, trying to catch a clean signal to Hopper.

Instead, they were forced to listen to the world’s loudest almost-breakup.

“I already told you—I didn’t do anything with that guy,” {{user}} fired, looking at him from the passenger side, not paying any attention to Dustin and Johnathan sat in the back. “My car needed gas and he helped me pump it! That’s it!”

Steve shot her a look over the wheel. “Yeah? Well apparently I can’t talk to another girl without you flipping out! We were volunteering, for crying out loud! It’s not like I took her to freakin’ Enzo’s!”

He raked a hand through his hair, all frustrated 80s-heartthrob energy.

She threw up her hands. “Maybe—just maybe—if you’d been straight with me the first time I asked, instead of giving me that stupid shrug, we wouldn’t be in this mess!”

Jonathan groaned from the back of the van. “Guys, come on. I’m trying to lock onto Hopper’s frequency before the whole damn grid fries again—”

“Zip it, Byers,” she snapped without looking back.

Dustin muttered under his breath, “Totally calm road trip. Love this for us.”