Stranger Things - Steve Harrington X Reader

Episode 5: The Flea And The Acrobat

We come home that night to Lonnie and Mom snuggled up on the couch.

"Hey, kids." Lonnie sits up as Mom pulls her blanket tighter around herself.

"What's going on?" Jonathan asks with furrowed brows.

"Your dad's, uh, gonna stay here tonight. O-on the couch." Mom explains.

"Yeah, I'm here as long as you need me, okay?" Lonnie says.

"We don't need you." I mutter under my breath as Jonathan inspects the brand new hole in the wall.

"What happened?" Jonathan asks as he turns back to the two on the couch.

"Don't worry about that." Lonnie says unhelpfully.

"Mom... that thing you saw before, did it come back?" Jonathan asks as he steps closer to them.

"Jonathan, that's enough." Lonnie shuts his question down causing me to roll my eyes to him thinking he can control him.

Jonathan glares slightly at Lonnie. "Can we talk? Alone?" He asks his father and they both leave to his room.

I sit on the couch beside Mom. "What happened to the wall?" I ask, still wanting to know the answer. Mom sighs and shakes her head and says nothing causing me to sigh as well. "Why is Lonnie here?"

"For the funeral tomorrow." Mom says simply.

I roll my eyes. Lonnie never cared about Will one bit. I think he's here out of attention and his own gain. I won't say it out loud though, knowing I'd just start an argument about it.

...

It was the next morning and we were getting ready for the funeral. I wore a white turtleneck, black jacket, and black slacks along with black flats. I never liked dresses so I don't own any. I'd rather be comfortable than pretty. I brush my hair and make it look neat before I go outside and get in the car.

...

"Fear not, for I am with you. Be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you. Yes, I will help you. I will uphold you with my righteous right hand." Pastor Charles reads from the bible as we are gathered around Will's grave. The family members sit on the chairs. I sit between Jonathan and Mom. Mom just looks completely out of it. I mean, who wouldn't be after they just lost their child?

I tune the Pastor out and just pick at my nails and wait for it to be over. I look up at Will's friends, Mike, Lucas, and Dustin. They don't seem to be very sad about his 'passing'. I wonder why.

Afterwords, Nancy, Jonathan, and I sit beside a few graves, leaning up against a fence that gates them and talk about the locations of the possible sightings.

"This is where we know for sure it's been, right?" Jonathan says as he points to a location on the map.

"So, that's..." Nancy points at the place Jonathan is pointing to.

"Steve's house." I finish with a nod. "And that's the woods where they found Will's bike and... that's our house." I point at two separate locations. All three are fairly close to each other.

"It's all so close." Nancy points out.

"Yeah. Exactly." Jonathan nods. "I mean, it's all within a mile or something. Whatever this thing is, it's... it's not traveling far."

"You want to go out there." Nancy concludes as they look at each other.

"We might not find anything." Jonathan says.

"I found something." Nancy retorts before she looks down. "And if we do see it... then what?" She looks back up at us.

"We kill the sonovabitch." I finalize.

...

We go to Lonnie's car and steal his pistol and ammo out of the glove box before we leave. We take Nancy home so she can get ready while we go home and get ready as well. Jonathan leaves to go practice shooting with the pistol and I go fine a weapon for myself.

I search the shed for anything, but find nothing. I go around the front and hear Mom and Lonnie arguing and suddenly Lonnie angrily walks out of the house with his bags. He looks at me and all I do is flip him off. He curses under his breath before getting in his car and leaving.

I find the ax that Mom used to put that hole in the wall, I heard from Jonathan, on the front porch. I pick it up and check it's heft before swinging it experimentally. I nod. This is my weapon of choice.

Jonathan comes back with Nancy. I smile slightly as I watch them talk. They approach me.

"You ready?" I ask as I swing the ax over my shoulder.

"Ready as we'll ever be." Nancy replies.

We walk into the woods for a while, looking out for anything. I stay ahead of them as they converse behind me. I look around for any clues.

Suddenly, I hear them start arguing about something. I stay out of it, not wanting to be involved in their drama. Eventually they stopped and walked in silence until nightfall. We turn on our flashlights and continue looking until we hear some kind of whimper. We walk closer to the sound to find a mutilated deer that was still alive and whimpering in pain. We crouch down next to it.

"It's been hit by a car." Nancy points out as she gently touches its neck. She pulls back and shakes her head sorrowfully. "We can't just leave it." She looks back at us before we look down at the gun in her hand. She looks at the deer sadly, not able to bring the gun up.

"I'll do it." I offer. "With the ax. Its quieter." I mumble as I stand and walk to the deer's head and they step back.

I crouch down and stroke its head comfortingly before standing again and raising the ax. Before I can bring it down though, something drags it into the bushes. We jump back with a yelp from all three of us.

"What was that?" Nancy whispers. We follow the blood trail until it disappears. "Where'd it go?"

"I don't know." Jonathan answers with his gun raised and me with my ax raised just in case. "Do you see any more blood?"

Nancy looks around. "No."

We continue searching the area until I look around to see Nancy is nowhere to be found.

"Jonathan. Where's Nancy?" I call to him. He looks at me before looking around until suddenly we hear Nancy's echoed scream through the woods.

"Nancy!" Jonathan calls and runs towards the scream with me following. We find Nancy's stuff on the ground. "Nancy? Nancy, where are you?"

"Nancy?" I call to no avail.

We continue searching and calling her name, but she's nowhere to be found. Where in the hell did she go?

*1131 words