My Significant Bother || Steve Harrington × Reader

Trick or Treat, Freak

(Also includes, "The Pollywog")

"I've got to be at the police station after school, you're taking your bike right?" I asked Dustin. "Yeah. You'll be back for trick or treating right?" He asked  "Definitely." I said. "I'll meet you at the Wheelers." "Dressed as Dana Barrett?" Dustin asked. "Yes dressed as Dana Barrett!" I replied.

~•~

After school I arrived at the police station. "Hey Hop." "Hey kid." He responded as I walked up to him in the parking lot. He looked at the truck next to him before lifting up the tarp revealing a bunch of moldy pumpkins. "I'm gonna throw up." I gagged as the smell of rotting pumpkin filled my nostrils.

We went inside. "We have someone claiming someone poisoned their crops." We were informed. We sat down with the farmer and talked to him.

"So, you're telling me that Merrill poisoned your farm, because he thinks you poisoned his, which, of course, you didn't?" Hopper remembered  "No, sir. And I got me an alibi the night he accuses me. My Jenny and her boys were in town. I was with them all night." "Did you actually see Merrill?" I asked. "No need. That man done lost his mind. Went around slandering me, threatening all sorts of madness." The farmer explained  "A pumpkin conspiracy." Powell said. "Hawkins' very own Chinatown." Callahan said. "Merrill threatening to do something and him actually doing something are two very different things." Hopper said. "You got a better explanation?" "Cold weather." He suggested. "It's October.." "Yeah, it's a cold one."

"You see these hands?" "Yeah." "You know why they look like that?" The farmer asked as he showed us his hands. "Because you're old?" I asked. Hopper nudged me. "You're damn straight. And I've been doing this a long time, Chief. A long time." He said as he averted his attention back to Hopper. "And I ain't never seen anything the likes of this. None of us have."

"None of us?" Hopper asked. "Merrill didn't just hit me last night. He hit damn near everyone." "What are you talking about?" I asked as I leaned in. "Jack O'Dell, Pete Freeling, Rick Neary, the Christensens.
All of their crops, dead." He explained. Hopper and I exchanged a look. "Give me those names again." I said as I grabbed a pen and paper.

~•~

"Could you show us your farm?" Hopper asked. The farmer gladly complied and the next thing I knew I was following the Cheif's car driving to some farm.

When we got there, I looked out the window to see a bunch of crops dead with hundreds of fruit flies around them. When I got out of the car the horrific odour hut my face.

We walked over to the pumpkins while Callahan and Powell went to the other crops. "Now, you tryin' to tell me, with a straight face, cold did this?" The farmer said as Hopper crouched down to get a closer look. "How far does it go?" I asked. "This way." The farmer said as he showed us where the rotting stopped.

Hopper touched a tree, the goo attached to his glove as he lifted his hand off. "Hey, Chief, you copy?" Hopper's walkie went off "Uh..." Hopper said as he struggled to get the goo off of his hand, he grabbed his walkie. "How's it looking over there?" He asked. "Like a giant pissed all over Jack's bean field. Smells, too. It smell over there?" Powell asked. "Uh, yeah, little bit. Listen. I want you guys to track the rot, see how far it goes. Just, uh, mark anything that's dead." He said a she looked at me.

"That's gonna take some time." Powell responded. "So take it. And, look, we don't know what caused this. Could be poison.
So don't touch anything without gloves." He said a put his walkie back in his pocket.

"You got any marking flags?" Hopper asked me. "Yeah, I'll go get them." I said as I walked back to the car to retrieve the little yellow flags.

We began sticking them in the ground where the ground where the dead crops were.