Stare. [Steve Harrington x Reader]

Chapter Five: Too Stubborn to Die

Tuesday, July 2, 1985

It had only been a couple of minutes, but it felt like we had been free-falling for hours. I had my eyes squeezed shut as I held onto the metal shelves behind me for dear life. The air whooshing as the room fell mixed with the sounds of our screaming.

"Shit! Shit!" Dustin screamed. I opened my eyes again out of sheer will. I saw him fumble over to the control box again.

"We're going down! We're going down!" Steve yelled. I looked over at Steve, who was holding on to the table in front of him.

"Yeah, no shit, Harrington!" I yelled.

"Why don't these buttons work?!" Dustin yelled as he continued to press the buttons, still to no avail.

Steve and I continued screaming since that was the only thing to do that made sense right now.

"Press the button!" Erica said, stumbling over to Dustin.

"What do you think I'm doing?!" he yelled at her.

"Come on, press something! Just press the button!" Steve yelled at both of them.

"Just press the goddamn button!" I screamed, squeezing my eyes shut again.

Dustin started screaming, and Erica yelled, "Push it!" Dustin aggressively hit all the buttons, and the elevator came to a halt suddenly.

I fell to the ground, hitting the back of my head on the shelf on impact, and so did everyone else. I let out a groan as I held the back of my head. Jesus.

"Oh! My groin." I heard Steve say. "It fell on my groin." I had the urge to laugh, but the pain from my head was stopping me from doing so.

"Dustin!" Steve yelled. I sighed, looking over at Steve, who had a box on top of him. "Get this off of me!"

Dustin walked over to Steve, pulling the heavy box off of him. "I can't move." Steve groaned.

"Is everyone okay?" I asked, blinking as I pulled myself up to lean back against the metal rack.

"Yeah, I'm great, now that I know that Russians can't design elevators!" Steve shouted as he got up from the ground. He pushed Dustin out of the way, walking over to the buttons.

I got up from the floor with a grunt. "Steve, I think we've clearly established that those stupid buttons don't work." I said to him, walking over to Erica.

"They're buttons. They have to do something." He yelled, turning around.

I put my hands on my hips and stared at the control pad. It had five buttons on it that were lit up and next to the box was...a place to slide a key card. Maybe that was why we had been free-falling into the earth, because we didn't have a key card. I sighed. "Yeah, if we had a key card." I noted to him, pointing at the card reader on the wall.

"A what?" He questioned, looking back over his shoulder at me.

I walked over to him, showing him the reader. "It's an electronic lock. Same as the loading dock door. If we don't have a key card, it won't operate meaning-" I explained.

"We're stuck in here." Dustin said, finishing my sentence.

"Yeah." I nodded as I looked back at Steve. He carded his hands through his hair before shutting the panel's door.

"Just so you nerds are aware, I'm supposed to be spending the night at Tina's..." Erica started as she pointed a finger at Steve and I. I rested my hands on my knees and Steve leaned on the box that was still somehow open on the table. We both sighed.