Teenage romance is already difficult enough to navigate.
But when the one you love doesn't love you back? That's the worst pain of all.
STRANGER THINGS | NANCY WHEELER
seasons 1-2
┌─────── •✧• ───────┐ CHAPTER FOUR a secret to the grave └─────── •✧• ───────┘
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( holly, jolly, pt. i )
• °:.☆ . ₊°• ☆ . ° .• °:. *₊ ° . ☆
SNAP, SNAP, SNAP.
"Hey."
Snap, snap, snap.
"Hey, Fairer, wake up."
Snap, snap—
The voice sounds distant and kind of distorted, like her ears are plugged. But then, by the second sentence, it's like a sonic boom resounding in her ears, reverberating from eardrum to eardrum in a cacophony of noise.
"Fairer, come on. Wake up!"
A bright flash illuminates the darkness behind her eyelids, sending a sharp burst of pain to her brain. She turns her head sideways in an attempt to bury her face into her sleeve and whisk herself away into the comfort of slumber again. But then her stomach churns at the movement and she heaves a pitiful groan.
"Oh, no. Don't you hurl on my parents' rug. Get up."
Laura slowly blinks her eyes open. They feel like the heaviest weights in the world, reluctant to respond to her body's order to rise, peeling apart like they'd been glued shut to reveal blurry shapes in front of her. She winces again at the brilliant light pouring in from a nearby window. It illuminates the figure standing above her as she blinks, struggling to clear her vision.
"Yeah, that's it. Wakey wakey. Up and at 'em."
The person is Steve Harrington, Laura realizes when her vision finally clears. He's already dressed in a polo shirt with pastel stripes, gray pants, and a dark blue jacket. As always, his brunet hair is mussed to perfection, complete with one section falling over his forehead like a goddamn Disney prince.
She isn't sure if it's the sight of him or the abrupt swimming of her gut that has her slapping her hand over her mouth when her stomach tries to upheave itself.
"Oh, no, no, no, no—!" Steve's protests cut off when Laura scrambles to her knees and vomits into the potted plant beside the television. His arms raise over his head in dismay, a cringe on his face as he watches. "Okay, well, at least it wasn't the rug. But seriously, get up. School starts in, like, two hours."
School. What?
As Laura pauses with her face still inches from the soil of the ruined plant, struggling to recuperate, she starts to put the pieces of last night together. Nancy's stubborn refusal to listen to her and Barb, despite bringing them along to keep an eye on her. The argument with her and Steve. Steve pointing out that Laura isn't Nancy's girlfriend. Drinking anything she could find. And then... nothing.
