One

Chapter Two: Trick or Treat, Freak

   Halloween, Phina's favorite day of the year. She already had her costume laid out for tonight, last night, this year, she was going as a witch. She just couldn't wait. She had agreed to go Tina's party tonight, after a little persuasion from Nancy, her original plan was to go hangout with Jonathan and the kids, but, she had a feeling that he'd show up anyway.
Since the high school didn't allow costumes, Phina decided to go a little all out with makeup. She had a dark red smoky eye, and matte black lipstick. She wore a black crop top the created an upside down star on her chest with her leather jacket thrown over it and black skinny jeans, if she couldn't wear her costume to school, she would get as close as she possibly could to it during the day.
As she walked down the stairs she heard her mother pestering Mike with photos. She let out a chuckle when she heard Mike groan.
"All right that's the last one," he tells Karen.
"No, just one more," she tells him, "come on, please?"
Phina gets to the bottom of the stairs and turns to look at them, smiling widely at her little brother. He looked cute in his little Ghost Buster outfit.
"Oh Phina! Come stand next to Mike," Karen orders her.
Phina doesn't argue with her, skipping over towards Mike. He looks at her outfit and shakes his head.
"What," she asks him with a little smile.
"Don't you think that's a little," Mike ponders, "revealing?"
Phina laughs, "oh don't you go all over protective brother on me."
He smiles at her and they hear the click of the camera. Phina smiles widely and pulls Mike into her side suddenly, causing him to laugh as he almost falls over. Karen takes another picture of the siblings, laughing.
Mike tries to find his balance again, "can I go to school?"
"Ok, wait," Karen holds up the camera again.
Mike gives her an exasperated look. Phina smirks at him, pinching his side so he jumps, laughing. Click.
The picture is Karen's favorite, Mike and Phina we're looking at each other, laughing, Mike holding his side where Phina pinched him. It was the perfect picture.

   When Phina got to school, she got more stares than usual. Underneath the heavy weight of their eyes, she did not buckle, she held her head high, even more confident. As she passed by, boys would stare at her, and girls would glare. She was the freak of Hawkins, an outcast, a loner, but no one could say she wasn't attractive, no one.
   As she passed by him, Billy looked her up and down multiple times, ignoring the girl he was with at the moment. If she wasn't already on his list of girls he wanted to get with, she was now, and she was definitely at the top.
   On the other side of the parking lot, Steve leaned against his car, glaring at every boy in sight. His anger rises up significantly when Billy lays his eyes on her, and he almost wants to go over to her and zip up her jacket, but he knew that would get him to the nurses office faster than he could even blink, or even to the morgue.
   Billy pushed off of his car, leaving the girl he was with, he had already forgotten her name, to walk up to Phina. He got up next to her and reached to put his arm around her shoulder.
   "I'll rip your arm out of its socket if you touch me," she said, not even turning her gaze towards him.
   "Hm, fiery, I like it," Billy smirks, letting his arm fall down to his side.
   "If you like fiery, I'll set you on fire, now leave me alone," she snaps, stopping to turn and glare at him.
   "Now why would I want to do that," he smirks, looking down quickly and back up, "when I could stay here and admire those curves you got showin' there."
   His eyes, again, go down to her chest, then her waist, slowly coming back up to her eyes. When he does, he's met with her emerald eyes glowing in rage, a living fire lit inside of them. It unnerved him, his smirk faultering.
   "Listen here asshole, I'm not some easy chick that'll let you get into my pants with some lewd complement about my body," she growls, "if you want that, go find Carol."
   Billy steadies himself, regaining his confidence, "you're right, you're not easy, but I'm a guy that's always up for a challenge."
   Phina steps a little closer to him, "I'm not some prize to be won."
   "I'd say you're a prize, especially in those jeans," he licks his lips.
   Phina's glare deepens again, her fists clenched, her nails digging into her palm. Her eyes began to glow, the golden circle around her pupils brightening a little. Billy felt heat start to radiate off of her.
   "Fine Hargrove, if you want me, come and get me, but I can guarantee you will come back in a body bag," she basically spits at him, the air around her growing warmer.
   Suddenly, she's being pulled away, by none other than Steve Harrington. Billy, stood completely shell shocked, her threat hitting him deeply. He knew she meant it, and something told him, she could very well kill him.
   "Let me go Harrington," she snapped.
   Steve glares at her, "once you cool off you hot head."
   He puts emphasis on the word hot, her powers. Her temper was triggering her fire, and the entire school almost just got a show. She lets Steve drag her off towards the school. People parting ways to let them through. He held strong onto her bicep, not trusting her to walk on her own, not trusting that she might go actually kill Hargrove. He finds an empty classroom, and pulls her inside quickly. Once the door is shut and locked, he lets go.
   "What was that," Steve asks her incredulously.
   Phina's temper flares again, "I don't like be looked at like a piece of meat waiting to be eaten."
   He gives her a look, "why didn't you just walk away?"
   It's her turn to give him a look, "I don't walk away from a fight, you know that better than anyone else Harrington."
   He nods, his eyes traveling down to her clenched fists, "shit Phina! You are bleeding!"
   She jumps a little when he shouts, looking down at her hands, slowly starting to feel the pain in them. There was dried blood on her fingers.
   Steve grabs her left hand and slowly pulls her fingers open, stopping when she winces. Four little cuts now adorned her palm. The bleeding had stopped by now, the little wounds beginning to scab over already.
   "Holy shit Phina," Steve whispers, "wait here."
   He gently lets go of her hand, turning towards the door and rushing out. She still feels the warmth of his hands on hers. She sits on the counter, and crosses her legs, waiting for Steve to get back like he told her to do.
   When he does, he holds a wet paper towel and a few dry ones. He doesn't say a word, just holds out his hand towards her. She lifts up her hand and he gently grabs it, bringing the wet towel up to clean the blood off her fingers, and then moving towards the actual wounds. He touches the towel to the first little cut and she hisses in pain.
   "Sorry," he whispers.
   She shakes her head, "it's ok, just a little sting."
   He continues to clean the wound, apologizing every time she winced, which resulted in her telling him to stop apologizing while chuckling at him. He switches to the other hand and repeats the whole process.
   "I can't help it," he laughs, "I don't like hearing you in pain."
   She falters a little bit, not ready for that answer, looking down at her lap. He falters too, an awkward silence falling over them. This was new to them, the friendly conversation. They had always been at each other's throats all the time, and now? Everything had changed, feelings developed.
   "You still have that," he asks.
   Phina looks up at him, "what?"
   He points to the base of her neck, underneath her dramatic Witchy necklace, where the emerald flame sat, "that, you still have it? I would have though you would have thrown it away."
   She reached up and grabs it, a small smile lighting up her face, "no, I actually like it, a lot. I haven't taken it off since I opened the box."
   "Really," he asks, actually surprised.
   "Yeah," she whispers, looking down again.
   Her hair falls in front of her face. She twirls the charm between her fingers, keeping her eyes down so that they won't meet his. He almost lifts his hand, to push her hair back, to lift her face so he can see her again, but one thought stops him in his tracks. Nancy.
   The bell rings and Steve takes a step away from her, finally aware of how close he had been standing to her. She looks up at him, her emerald eyes for once, not fiery. They were calm, and for the first time, he sees past the fire. The gold is no longer the burning fire, but a ray of morning sunlight. Inside the emerald, just outside of the gold, little specks of blue water shimmer in the sunlight. The emerald was not a fire, but a summer forest, dark and light, warm and cold, ever changing. Then, surrounding it all, was a thin circle of the night sky.
   "We should get to class," she whispers, wanting to squirm under his heavy gaze.
   "Yeah," he whispers back, "we should."
   Then, reality came back, and she knew, they would act as if this conversation never happened. That they had not spent minutes gazing at each other, analyzing each other's features. No, they would go back to glares and hateful words, to hide. To hide the feelings that they shouldn't feel, but do.

-1690 words-
A little Steve and Phina moment for you guys. Again, very oc chapter, but once we get to the Halloween party, we'll see more of the canon stuff. I promise.
-Morgan