𝐙𝐄𝐑𝐎 ★ steve harrington²

𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐒𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐄𝐍 : earth to steve

𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐃 𝐂𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐓 : 3.1k

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𝐀𝐒 𝐈𝐓 𝐓𝐔𝐑𝐍𝐒 𝐎𝐔𝐓, 𝐒𝐀𝐃𝐈𝐄 𝐇𝐀𝐖𝐊𝐈𝐍𝐒 𝐖𝐀𝐒 𝐍𝐎𝐓 one of Diana's friends that she wanted Owen to meet. Even worse, Sadie Hawkins was a school dance – a function specifically made to turn gender roles on their head and cause total teenage chaos. Owen had to learn this the hard way when Diana woke her up one Saturday morning to go dress shopping. But with the excitement on her face and in her voice, Owen didn't have the heart to tell her that Steve wasn't actually her boyfriend and had no intentions of taking her to some school dance.

Ultimately, this lack of communication ended with the pair shopping at the one women's clothing shop in downtown Hawkins, sifting through the only dress options for miles. "What about this one, huh?" Diana pulled a white mass of tulle from the rack, spinning around to show it off. Owen's nose immediately scrunched in disgust, having no interest in wearing what looked to be a twenty-year-old wedding dress to a high school dance.

"Okay, noted..." Diana grumbled, doing her best to slide the poofy dress back onto the rack. Astonishingly, her spirit for shopping went entirely undeterred by Owen's nonstop pickiness. Every subtle shake of her head or furrowed brow just sent Diana right back into the mix of fabrics, in search of the perfect Sadie Hawkins dress.

It took a couple more tries before she plucked out the first dress that didn't instantly make Owen's face screw up in rejection. That was a win in itself, as least as far as Diana was concerned.

The true blue, shimmery material and shorter skirt gave the dress the most modern feel that the two had seen all day, making it a gem amongst the dated designs that had flooded the storefront. Though, the gaudy bow made of the same iridescent material sitting directly upon the chest did leave Owen with a few concerns.

Diana could see the way the younger girl's face began to morph skeptically the longer that she studied the dress. So, before Owen could flat-out deny the option, she was reaching out to drag her towards the dressing rooms at the back of the store. "Just try it on! I've got a really great feeling about this one, okay?" she promised with an unmoving grip on the teen's forearm.

Before she could really protest, Owen was being shoved into a dinky room hidden behind a flimsy curtain, alone with the bright blue dress. She sighed as she glared down at it, trying to decide if it was even worth undressing. Eventually, she chose to just appease Diana for the time being, her jeans collapsing into a heap on the stained carpet, along with her shirt and shoes. She unflatteringly shimmied the dress up her thighs, reaching around to zip it up as best she could.

Owen tugged the zipper into place, then blinked at herself in the dusty mirror, twisting and turning every which way to get a full view of herself in the dress. She could see the ripple of her exposed collarbones peeking from over the dress's neckline, the long strands of her fiery hair tumbling over her shoulders and back.

And as strange as it was to admit, Owen couldn't help but feel... pretty the longer she contemplated her reflection. She struggled to remember a time in which she felt such a way, having always been in her father's and brothers' hand-me-down clothing — or perhaps, if she was lucky, she got to don their late mother's more eclectic style. For lack of better words, Owen had never been given the opportunity to find a style that was hers. So, it felt divine to finally wear something that felt like it would belong to a normal teenage girl.

"Everything okay in there?" Diana called out apprehensively. On the other side of the curtain, the bottle-blonde picked anxiously at her cuticles, hoping and praying that this dress would work. They were starting to really scrape the bottom of the store's barrel of dresses and she wasn't sure if they could find another nearby clothing store on such short notice.