Don't Panic - B. Hargrove

SEVENTEEN

Making a plan was easy, but getting Jonathan or Hopper on the phone was absolutely impossible. So, David, Steve, and Dustin found themselves alone with the problem. The plan was simple: The following day, Steve and David had gotten three buckets full of meat from the butcher, claiming to make stew for a family dinner.

Luckily, Steve wasn't in the position of having to worry about money or causing suspicion, so that went pretty smoothly. Then they packed the buckets and Dustin and drove outside the town. During the drive, Dustin called out to his friends via radio and eventually managed to get Lucas to answer.
The boy promised to assemble some backup, and with that, they moved on to the most essential part of how to catch a monster: placing the bait.
The three teens walked along the old train tracks, each of them carrying a bucket and throwing meat pieces around like confetti at a parade.
For David, the bright yellow cleaning gloves didn't help much with the nauseous feeling of touching rare meat, and he was busy keeping himself from throwing up while clinging close to his best friend. Dustin had just told the two the story of how the catastrophe with dart started, and Steve was frowning to himself while his brain was processing the information.
"So let me get this straight..." he spoke up, and David glanced at him briefly, the back at the meat that hit the tracks with the most vomit-worthy smacking sound, allowing himself a silent gag at the sensation it was causing him.
"You kept something you knew was probably dangerous to impress a girl who... who you just met?" Steve asked, gesturing over the hem of his bucket.
"All right, that's grossly oversimplifying things." Dustin immediately tried to protect himself. But Steve wasn't done with him yet, and David agreed that Dustin deserved that embarrassment he was most likely feeling now.
"I mean, why would a girl like some nasty slug anyway?" Steve pointed out lazily.
"I would have liked it," David mumbled to himself.
"An interdimensional slug? Because it's awesome." Dustin begged to differ, and David had to agree with him on that.
The pure thought of the tiny creature was exciting enough.
"Well, even if she thought it was cool, which she didn't, I... I just... I don't know. I feel like you're trying way too hard." Steve shook his head at the younger boy, unintentionally hitting David with a meat cube.
"Not everyone can have your perfect hair." Dustin huffed, not daring to look at Steve.
The older boy snarled.
"It's not about the hair." Another cube hit David in the chest.
"Well, it's certainly not your IQ! Watch your throw!" the boy impulsively told him off.
"Ouch, Doodle." Steve glared at him; then he returned to his conversation with Dustin.
"The key to girls is just... Just acting like you don't care." David rolled his eyes at that statement from a boy who was about to gift a girl roses just yesterday.
"Even if you do?" Dustin asked big-eyed.
Steve nodded in affirmation.
"Yeah, exactly. It drives them nuts." "Then what?"
"You wait until... Uh... until you feel it." David peeked up at that, interested in what Steve was about to explain.

The boy briefly glanced back at David, then he started: "It's like before it's going to storm, you know? You can't see it, but you can feel it, like this, uh...electricity, you know?"
"Oh, like in the electromagnetic field when the clouds in the atmosphere..."

Steve threw another, now desperate glance at his friend, but David kept minding his business.
Yet, he was fascinated by how well Steve had managed to describe the sizzle he had felt when Billy had kissed him...this wasn't the time to think about that, though.
They had a mission. He didn't follow how Steve tried to explain this 'sexual electricity,' how he called it, any further but let his thoughts run wild about their hunt. He only snapped back when Steve loudly declared: "No, whoa, whoa. Slow down, Romeo."

"Sorry," Dustin mumbled awkwardly. "Sure, okay, some girls, want you to be aggressive. You know, strong, hot and heavy, like a... I don't know, like a lion."
"That's the most stupid thing I've ever heard you say," David muttered, loud enough for Steve to hear and snap around.
He hated how perfectly the boy had summarized Billy and how David caught himself liking exactly those attributes about him. It was stupid. "Whoa! Zip it, Byers. What do you know about girls?"
"Enough to know you're an idiot." David returned.
"Woah!" Steve called out, pointing at him, which looked ridiculous with the gloves.
"Without me being an idiot, you wouldn't have a job."
"Actually, you're not the only one I'm tutoring anymore," David shrugged, distracted by thinking about his dumb crush but immediately noticed the mistake he'd made.
Steve tilted his head at him.
"Yeah? Who else?"
Of course, he needed to ask that. David averted his gaze to the floor, hand grabbing into his bucket. The feeling of the meat between his fingers was more comfortable than the situation he'd maneuvered himself into.
"You'll hate it." he tried to dodge the question, what was another mistake as he never did that.
Especially not to Steve. So the other boy frowned at him, mercilessly staring him down until he got the honest answer, well aware of how much David hated it. He knew him just a tad too well.
"Fine. Don't freak." he huffed.
"Why should I freak?" his best friend questioned, raising one eyebrow in suspicion.
"Because I'm tutoring Billy Hargrove," David yelled out in hopes it would equal a bandaid and hurt only for a second.
Steve gawked at him, brown eyes wide in shock that was written all over his face. David knew exactly what he was thinking and also what he would think if he knew the complete story.
"What? That asshole?"
"He asked, and you know I can't say no." David squirmed under his gaze, having never felt that uncomfortable around Steve in their entire friendship.
"That's mental. You're completely mental." Steve violently shook his head. 
"And I thought you were supposed to be the smart one." 
"You don't get it," David mumbled, hurt by the other's words.
Without letting Steve respond, he walked past his friend to join Dustin instead. The boy was better company anyway.
"His hair is all Fabergé organics," he told the boy after a few silent steps, and Steve gasped in the background. "What?" Dustin asked, very confused. " His perfect hair. He puts a ton in there. Shampoo and conditioner. And when his hair is damp... and he gets a full-on existential crisis if it's still wet, four puffs of the Farrah Fawcett spray. That's his secret."
"You're a traitor, Doodle. A traitor." Steve called him, but David didn't care. That was for calling him mental. "Farrah Fawcett?" Dustin asked Steve with a cruel little smirk plastered on his face.
"You tell anyone, and you're grass. You're dead, Henderson!" Steve told the younger boy.
"He thinks she's hot," David said maliciously.
"She is!" Steve called out, ready to defend that opinion.

They kept bickering like siblings until they reached the junkyard Dustin had told Jim about and what was about to be the stage for their performance. The three boys eyed it, Steve finally wearing his shades in the sun as he sighed.
"Oh yeah. Yeah, that will do. Good call, dude." David watched Dustin's face light up at the praise from his new role model, and with a huff, he continued the trail of bait across the yard. As he dumped the rest onto a pile in the middle, Lucas and a girl approached, who immediately smiled at him.
"Who's that?" Steve asked, eyeing her suspiciously, then watched as Dustin's face dropped at seeing his friend with the girl.
"Max Mayfield," David told his friend, not even assuming that Dustin's reaction could be one of jealousy until Steve wiggled his eyebrows at him. "So, you believe them?" Max asked as she stopped in front of David, eyeing the meat in front of him.
"What do you mean?" he asked, puzzled.
"The monster thing." she specified, her eyes watching him curiously.
"Oh yeah. I do." David responded to without a single doubt. Of course, he believed Dustin.
He'd seen the shredded skin and horror on his face. 
"Hey! Doodle! Help me out?" Steve called out right before she could ask another question, and David hurried to help his friend carrying a thick metal piece they would use to build an old school bus into a fortress.
There was more than enough scrap metal lying around to bring David's technical drawings to life.
He'd had roughly calculated how thick the walls needed to be, relying on his experience and a book about tanks in WW2 his father had left behind, and so  they were ready to strike by dawn.