𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐓𝐖𝐈𝐍; steve harrington

ᵗ ʰ ⁱ ʳ ᵗ ʸ ⁻ ᵒ ⁿ ᵉ

June 29th, 1985

AVEN WOKE UP THAT MORNING with a fright. After the blackout throughout Hawkins the day prior, the girl had been sent back to her never-ending spiral. She had been improving, slowly letting the traumatising events of the past go, until the lights went out. It threw all of her progress out the window. The lurking dimension haunted her, and she could do nothing at all about it.

One thing the girl knew would distract her was her good pal Dustin. The teen was returning from his scientific trip at Camp Know Where later that morning, so she was excited to hear about all of the creative inventions and machines he'd created during his time away. Although it didn't particularly interest her, it was something that would easily distract her from the monsters scratching at the inside of her mind.

When she finally stepped out of her room, she took note of the eerie silence floating throughout the deteriorating house. The door opposite her, Max's room, had been thrown wide open and left resting against the wall, presenting her rather tidy and colourful teen bedroom. Aven could already tell the girl wasn't home, eyeing the empty spot where her prized skateboard usually sat being enough to figure the simple question out.

The only person she did know was home was Billy, due to the ignorant, navy blue car still parked on the front lawn of the Hargrove residence. She knew it wouldn't be long before he took off, however, since he was usually at the local pool early in the mornings to get a head start. Aven could tell how much he loved his job just by the way he acted in the mornings. He would never stop talking about it.

"You want a ride?" Billy asked as he walked down the hall, scaring the girl who was standing - dazed - in her bedroom doorway. She blinked a few times, mustering the voice to reply with confusion, as the boy with the curly mullet strode right past her.

"Are you offering?" She queried with a laugh, quickly trailing after her older sibling as he made his way towards the kitchen counter. She jumped onto the benchtop beside him, swinging her legs and gripping onto the edge of the cold surface as she bit back a grin. "Is the Billy Hargrove offering to take me to work?"

"Yeah, yeah. Don't get used to it,"  he mumbled as he picked up his keys, but Aven saw the small glimpse of a smile tugging at the corner of his lips. Smiling to herself, she realised there was a chance the boy she grew up with in California was still in there, somewhere, and it wouldn't be that hard to get him out.

𖨆✫᯾☏︎᯾✫𖨆

"So, you're telling me . . . your brother, the Billy Hargrove, offered to drive you somewhere, which was out of his way, and he was smiling about it?" Atlanta questioned with disbelief. She was standing beside Aven, arms thrown wide with incredulity, as the girl on the ladder sticking up posters nodded with a grin.

"I don't know what's gotten into him, but I'm not complaining," she shrugged as she plastered up the last picture before carefully climbing down the ladder, stepping onto the ground with a smile. She turned towards her friend, about to say something else, before something entirely different came out of her mouth. "Hopper?"