It's Us Crew Oneshots

Dusty Night (Part One)

The following follows a similar, if not exact, scene from the show Stranger Things 3, episode 7
***

It was quiet along Hartsberry Road. Crickets chirped softly in the bushes, street lamps lighting up the cool, summer night, as even the moon didn't provide enough illumination. The light smell of air pollution hung on the wind, masked over the scent of humid breezes and dampened fog. A pair of headlights cut through the blackness covering the road like a knife, two beams of yellow light slicing along the road and through the translucent fog that hung over the land. The car's window slid open momentarily, a stream of cigarette smoke puffing out through the slit. The person in the driver's seat twirled his Marlboro cigarette around in his fingers and shoved the butt of the cig onto the car seat. He tossed the butted cigarette out into the night, feeling the cool, evening air brushing against his pale skin before eventually rolling up the window.

A young woman with silver hair sat in the backseat, shuffling through blueprints as the man beside her spoke rapidly and in a language neither person in the driver or passenger's seat could understand. Yet, the woman nodded after every sentence the foreign man spoke, understanding every word and translating the French to English for her two male friends in the front seats. The odd-tongued man ruffled his red-dyed hair before pulling out a pen from his red-and-white suit pocket, pointing at one of the papers in his hands with the capped side of the pen. He spoke once more, and the woman nodded.

"What's he saying, Dashlie?" inquired the driver of the silver saloon, his red eyes flickering to the overhead mirror and gazing at the two in the back. The fair-skinned woman raised her head, her own two, red eyes staring back at him.

"Well, Dick, if you'd be patient," started the woman known as Dashlie, "DDawn said the gateway is located under the mall. The base is swarming with soldiers. In order to close the gate, you'd need to get by everyone and reach the control panel. The keys are two-man keys; you'd need two people to go to the gate and lock them. And... yeah, that should shut the gate down and stop all this."

The shorter man in the passenger seat sat up, his amber gaze and freckled face reflecting in the moonlight as he glanced back at Dashlie and shrugged. "Alright," spoke the dark-skinned man, "sounds simple enough."

Dick glanced at the younger male in the passenger seat, an incredulously discontent expression falling over his face. "Don, did you seriously not hear the part where DDawn said the place was heavily guarded?" grumbled the bearded man. Don shrugged once more, absentmindedly placing a strand of his ginger hair under his gray beanie.

"Well, yeah, but there has to be a way in," said the man, leaning against the window and looking out at the shadowed forest past the streetlights. Dick scoffed at his remark.

"Yeah, our military," he said, sandpaper-y voice raising in muffled agitation.

"Who are coming!" Don noted, turning back to his friend. This time, the raven-haired man let out a louder, much more sarcastic chuckle.

"Well, I doubt they're coming anymore because you yelled at them like it was a parent-teacher conference and then you hung up on them!" Dick pointed out, subtly shouting and gripping harder onto the leathered rim of the steering wheel. "So, we don't know what the hell's going on because now we're- wait, wait!- What are we doing?" Once again, Dick cackled satirically, and Don crossed his arms and sunk down in his seat, turning away and scowling. "Ohhh! Wait, that's right! We're on our way to rescue our friends from the big, bad, Fourth of July celebration!"

Don shot up and hit the side of his seat, gritting his teeth and shooting a glowering gaze at the driver. "You know what, if you can't handle this, then just turn around and drop me off first!" he shouted frustratedly. The two people in the backseat shifted into the shadows and watched the scene unfold.

Dick loosened his grip on the steering wheel and raised his shoulders, glancing at the thorn in his side seated in the passenger seat. "What are you gonna do? You gonna walk back to Hardlanding?"

Don's anger surged, shouting over Dick's voice and echoing in the car as he slammed his fists on the dashboard. "I will do anything if it gets me away from you!"

At this, the woman in the backseat appeared out of the shadows, breaking up the fight and rubbing her temples as she cried, "Children! Children! Children!" The two men in front of her glanced back for a moment, rage still bubbling under their skin. Dashlie looked between the two of them in turn. "This interminable bickering was amusing at first, but it's getting very stale and we've still got a long drive ahead of us." She gritted her teeth and gave a breathy laugh, hitting the back of Don's seat. "So, why don't you two cut the horsesh*t and get to the part where you admit your sexual feelings for one another?"

"WOAH!" Dick yelled, nearly swerving as he was hit by that curve-ball. Don turned around in his seat to face Dashlie, eyes burning.

"YOU ARE WAY OFF BASE, BUDDY!" shouted Don, and Dashlie laughed, pushing his stupid head out of her face.

"Ohh! Spare me, spare me, spare me!" cried the young woman once more. She rolled her eyes and leaned forward more to look at Don and scrunch her face up at him. "Yes, Yes. He's a brute, I know, probably reminds you of a bad relationship." She gave yet another chuckle. "And gosh, you'd really like a nice man to settle down with, but admit it! You're really curious to know what he's like in bed!"

Dashlie pursed her lips as Don's face went red, the young man opening and closing his mouth heatedly as he searched for the right words to say that wouldn't end up with his fist in the face of his female friend. Before he could even manage to utter a word, though, Dashlie moved closer to Dick and narrowed her eyes at him. "And you! Hah," she said, making her friend glance at her distastefully. "Well you're just a big, big manbaby who'd rather act tough than show his true feelings, because the last time you opened your heart, you got hurt!" The woman leaned closer to his face, the smell of cigarette smoke hanging on her friend's cardigan. "Owie."

She drifted away from Dick and swung her posture to lean back, rubbing her temples once again in hopes of making her pounding headache go away. Dashlie gave an exhale of tired amusement, shaking her head and continuing, "And now, rather than admit these feelings, you're dancing around one another with this mind-numbing and frankly boring mating ritual." She leaned forward once more and heaved an exhausted sigh. "So, please, for my sake, either quit your bickering or pull over, tear off those clothes, AND GET IT OVER WITH ALREADY!" The woman kicked the back of their seats furiously, throwing herself back into her own seat finally and huffing.

Silence fell over the night once more, but it was only for a couple of seconds. Perplexed, the young man seated beside Dashlie glanced at her, his ears unfamiliar with the English words that had been thrown around inside the car. "Ca c'était quoi?" questioned DDawn. Dashlie gave a short laugh and fixed her gaze on him.

"Je leur ai dit qu'ils devraient faire l'amour," replied the woman as she tried to hide an amused smirk. DDawn raised his eyebrows, his gaze darting to Don and Dick in front of him for a moment before he looked back to Dashlie.

"Ils n'ont pas fait l'amour?"

The woman was quiet as she paused for effect. Finally, Dashlie smiled and shook her head. "No," she answered.

Once more, a fleeting moment of quietness blanketed the night as DDawn and Dashlie stared at one another. Then, both of the two bursted out into snickers that soon turned to chortles. Don glanced at Dick in hopes of sharing his flustered confusion over what just happened, but the taller man refused to take his stormy gaze off the road. Don sat back in his seat, retreating into his jacket for comfort as he watched the streetlights disappear past the window, the power lines dipping and rising in the distance ahead of the car. The only sound that remained after DDawn and Dashlie's amused laughter faded away was silence that grew close to the company of the music the crickets played in the bushes. It was peaceful if not given the circumstances.