Flipped: A Steve Harrington Enemies to Lovers

Dear Billy

Your lungs are on fire as you sprint into the school, Robin and Nancy by your side when you burst through the glass doors so hard you wonder if they'll shatter into a million pieces.

The walls of the halls you once roamed swallow the echoes of your feet pounding the ground. You follow the ghostly sound of voices, beckoning you from the shadowy distance.

Finally, the voices grow louder, and you see them. Their faces have grown etched with the lines of fatigue since you last parted ways earlier that day, haunted by their findings. Max, in particular, is as white as a sheet.

Before you can even share what you and the girls recently discovered, about the Creels, Max leads you into a hallway.

"It was here," She points. "Right here."

"A grandfather clock?" Dustin frowns.

"It was so real." She insists.

A grandfather clock. She says she saw a grandfather clock. She describes how its mechanical corpse was firmly embedded on its side in the wall, eaten up by cracks in the plaster.

You can't help but ask, "So, did you hear the ticking first, or see the clock?"

She casts you a concerned look, the slight pinching of her brow saying you let slip one detail too many. How could you know about the ticking? She didn't mention it, so how could you know?

You know because it was dominating the room with the heavy tolling of its swinging pendulum, the moment you set foot in the building.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

You know because you heard it the other day, collecting your gun from the station.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

You know because it was there at the basketball game the night Chrissy died.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

But they can't know, that you know. Not just yet.

"I... heard it..." Max eventually answers, her stare so heavy it makes your gut flip and you shrink back a little behind Steve.

She returns to the now empty wall, which shows no trace of any clock being left behind.

You steal a glance at your boyfriend stood silently by your side. It's still raw between you both. But whatever's going on, your fighting, is an insignificant speck compared to what horrors you now face. Together.

His beautiful dark eyes are characteristically big and sad when they meet yours, and he brushes your wrist with his hand.

Max, continues to think out loud.

"It was like I was in a dream. And then I found it, and I got closer, and then... I woke up." She describes.

"It was like she was in a trance or something." Steve adds, and you let him brush your wrist again, this time, actually latching on and holding his hand.

"And then you just sort of, snapped out of it?" You press. "And the ticking stopped?"

Again, Max locks her gaze with yours.

"Right..." She nods.

That sounds familiar, too. Like the moment you take notice of it, it disappears.

Steve raises you an eyebrow.

"How could you know that?" He questions, and you drop his hand.

You run your fingers through your hair, forcing a breathy, exasperated huff.