Tell me, how does it feel to have my teeth in your heart?
⋆ ˚｡⋆౨ৎ˚
steve harrington x fem!oc
stranger things ╱ season 2-5
cross posted on ao3 by cosmiclovrs
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CHAPTER EIGHTEEN Fast Times at Hawkins High
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December 1984.
LIFE WENT BACK to normal after El closed the gate. At least, as close to normal as it could get for Rhiannon. November had come and gone. It was a harsh winter. Snow fell in droves. The town was stuffed under a dense, white carpet. People held their breaths and waited for something to happen so a fresh wave of news could sweep through the streets. The air carried a stagnant gloom that would never go away no matter what time of the year it was; maybe it was the collective realization that their town had its fair share of tragedies and dark secrets. It hadn't done the peaceful neighborhoods any good to know the truth before, and now they had no choice but to face it.
Because Hawkins — once a place of picket fence dreams and clean-cut lawns, the perfect setting to paint on a postcard and add a loopy handwritten Greetings From Indiana! — was thrown into the national spotlight after Nancy and Jonathan's incendiary tape exposed the lab, blaming them for Barb's death under the narrative of a chemical leak. Investigators even found them at fault for the disappearance of a college student named Chad, whose car was found in the forest near the grounds...
But any shot of normalcy meant moving on. Going through the motions of a regular routine.
And honestly, this was Rhiannon trying.
A helix of light spilled in through the frosted window, casting soft, yellow hues across the kitchen. Birds sang through the cadavers of trees that stood arched and bare in the cold. The forest in the mornings was one of the nicest things about the cabin, the first being El and her dad. Rhiannon sat at the table, her fingers looping ribbons around the ends of her braids, the crackle of the radio filling the room with some easy-going Eagles song as the smell of breakfast drifted from the stove.
