King Of Hawkins High[Stranger Things Fanfiction]

Fourteen

For the last four or five days- he'd lost count- all Steve had been thinking about was Nancy.

'I'm an idiot. Truly an idiot. I didn't give her time to explain, she was drunk, I didn't drive her home, I didn't drive her to school, I didn't do anything remotely helpful!'

During classes he'd been thinking about some way to apologize. During lunch he'd just sat in silence, wondering why she'd been skipping school. He hadn't seen her since their talk, and he honestly wasn't sure what to do anymore.

Steve drove up to Nancy's house in a hurry. He'd thought over what he was going to say one thousand times, but still couldn't manage to get it to sound right. He got out of his car, flowers he'd bought for her in hand, and ran through his 'speech' of sorts again.

"Listen... I've been thinking..." He muttered to himself, speedwalking across the Wheeler's lawn. "I love you. I'm sorry. I'm sorry? What the hell am I sorry for...?"

"Steve," one of Mike's friends, Dustin Hederson, was also at the Wheeler's house for some reason, and walked up to him. "Are those for Mr. or Mrs. Wheeler?"

Steve stopped walking and looked at the flowers, "No," he replied slowly.

'And why are you asking exactly...? Do I even remember your name...?'

"Good," Dustin took the flowers and headed for Steve's car.

"Hey. What the hell?" Steve hurried after him. 'You can't just do that, little shit!'

"Nancy isn't home," Dustin said.

"Where is she?" Steve asked. 'Well. Shit. She wasn't home? Wasn't at school... Then where was she?? '

"Doesn't matter," Dustin replied. "We have bigger problems than your love life." He opened the passenger door. "Do you still have that bat?"

"Bat? What bat?" Steve didn't understand what was happening. He just stood there on the Wheeler's lawn, staring at Dustin with utter confusion.

"The one with the nails?" Dustin said as if it was obvious, which, it kind of was.

"Why?" Steve frowned.

"I'll explain it on the way." Dustin got into Steve's car.

"Now?" Steve asked, hurrying to his car. He was bewildered. 'Why am I taking orders from a twelve year old?'

"Now!" Dustin said impatiently, slamming the car door.

~ ~ ~

"Wait a sec. How big?" Steve asked, out of nowhere, hand on the steering wheel and Hammer to Ball playing on the stereo.

"First it was like that," Dustin held up his finger and thumb. "Now he's like this." He held his hands about two feet apart from each other.

They had been driving for a while now. They had to leave the Wheeler's house to go to Steve's to get his bat, then drive back to Dustin's house. It took them until nightfall to do so because Steve's house was very far away from Dustin's, yet Dustin's was so close to the Wheeler's. It made no sense if you thought about it hard enough.

Steve sighed. "I swear to god, man, it's just some little lizard, okay?"

"It's not a lizard,"

"How do you know?" Steve frowned.

"How do I know if it's not a lizard?" Dustin asked, incredulously.

"Yeah, how do you know it's not just a lizard?" Steve shook his head.

"Because his face opened up and he ate my cat,"

'...Okay. Point: Dustin. Lizards did not eat cats. As far as he knew. Which he did know that much about lizards. They didn't eat cats. Anyway...'

They soon arrived at Dustin's house, and Steve got his bat to follow Dustin to wherever this 'weird-not-lizard-thing' was. Dustin led him to their underground storm shelter, and Steve shone his flashlight on the chains that were keeping it closed.

Steve bent down a little to listen in on anything happening in the shelter, "I don't hear shit."

"He's in there," Dustin shrugged.

Steve hit the doors lightly with the nailed bat, then when nothing happened, he hit it harder with a full swing. He turned to Dustin after nothing happened, "All right, listen, kid. I swear, if this is some sort of Halloween prank," he didn't exactly realize that he was shining the flashlight directly into Dustin's face. "you're dead."

"It's not,"

"All right?" Steve frowned. 'God. At least I'm not missing out on apologizing to Nancy, because, apparently she's gone.' He sighed.

"It's not a prank," he said with closed eyes. "Get it out of my face."

"You got a key for this thing?" Steve shone the flashlight breifly on the chains.

Dustin tossed him the key to the chains, and Steve handed Dustin the flashlight so he could point it at the doors. Steve unlocked the chains and pulled them off of the handles, then opened the doors one at a time. Once they were open, Dustin shone the flashlight into the shelter.

"Let me see that," Steve muttered, taking the flashlight from Dustin and searching for the weird lizard.

"He must be further down there," Dustin said when they didn't spot it. "I'll stay up here in case he tries to escape."

Steve turned to look at Dustin incredulously, then shook his head and sighed. He was really about to go down there, huh? He slowly stepped down the stairs and into the empty concrete shelter, then went to the middle of the room and turned on the simple light bulb hanging from the low ceiling.

He spotted something that looked like a dirty plastic bag covered in meat on the floor, and picked it up with the tip of the bat. He realized that it was probably shedded skin from the lizard. He knew that much about lizards. But then, he spotted something worse.

"Steve?" Dustin asked from the top of the staircase. "Steve, what's going on down there?"

Steve went to the bottom of the staircase, once again failing to notice that he was shining the flashlight firectly into Dustin's face. "Get down here," he said, firmly.

Dustin came down the stairs and Steve illuminated the shedded skin with the flashlight.

"Oh, shit." Dustin muttered, staring at it.

Then Steve shone the flashlight to the corner of the room, where a hole had been dug through the concrete walls, then tunneled through the dirt. Dustin's weird lizard thing has escaped. Great.

"Oh, shit," Dustin said as they crouched down beside the hole. "No way. No way."

The tunnel went on for a while, seemingly forever, and there was no telling where it could've gone. They'd just lost it.

"Yeah. Shit." Steve looked down the tunnel, sighing. 'God. I can't back out now... Are you kidding me.'