PRETTY SICK!
— allen street ☆

Hawkins never slept. Not in the sense that Vegas or New York never slept, but in a much more homely sense — people spent their sleepless nights in the arms of another sleepless individual, or they hopped fences with their friends and avoided the blinding flashlights that belonged to the Hawkins PD. Late night car rides were a crucial piece to the restless town, once you were too tired to hide from the cops, but not tired enough to sleep. Steve and Angie did it often when Steve got his license.

It felt nostalgic to be back in his brown BMW, the one his dad gifted to him for his 16th birthday as a "Sorry for neglecting you, here's a car." type of present. He was so excited to drive it around, he always let Angie sit in the front with him, though he claimed she would need a booster seat or else they would get pulled over. Angie used to get so mad.

Used to. Instead of half-hearted bickering, or screaming to whatever music Steve had — they sat in silence, except for the sound of Angie puking her guts out into a bag that he'd given her, or the occasional sniffle that came from Steve, which Angie pretended to not hear. Her head lolled to the side and stared out of the passenger window, and she blinked slowly as she watched the houses fly by. The window was partially open, and it whistled as they whizzed past Angie's neighborhood and onto the main road of Hawkins.

Confused, she looked at him and frowned. "I'm getting you something at the gas station," Steve answered before she could ask. "I don't want you to faint when you wake up tomorrow, or if you forget to eat or something."

"Thanks," Angie muttered, breathy and groggy from the alcohol. She winced and lifted her hand to her eyes as the bright buzzing lights of the gas station came into view. Her head spun unpleasantly, and she opted to sit out on the curb instead of making the treacherous trek into the gas station, which stood a measly few feet away.

The cool concrete against the bottom of her butt and thighs made her shiver, tucking her arms around herself. She wished that she toughed it out and went inside with Steve, it didn't help that she felt like something lurked around every corner, like a serial killer or kidnapper or something more inhuman. Her lips twitched downwards for a moment as she thought about all of the people that disappeared out of thin air, and how each of them appeared to be gone in a matter of minutes.

She worried, sometimes, that she would be next, or sought after for some reason. Her family rarely cared enough to check in on her, so she knew if she went missing, it would take a few school absences for anyone to catch on — that scared her to no end. Someone could take her across the country and they wouldn't know until it was far too late. Which, luckily, would change once Pete came back and got rescued from where he was taken.

He was going to come home, and it would all go back to normal again.

"Ange," Steve spoke quietly as he shook her by the shoulder, gently, of course, knocking her out of her thoughts. He held out a lemonade, a bottle of water, and a package of powdered donuts for her — her favorites. "Save the lemonade for tomorrow morning, okay?" He patted her head gently as he sat down next to her. The brown in his eyes looked a little darker, distracted or saddened? Angie couldn't tell.

The blonde nodded in acknowledgement and broke into the doughnuts, savoring the flavor of the sugary treats like Steve had given her something gourmet, even shutting her eyes as she chewed slowly. "We're both really stupid," Angie finally spoke, letting her head fall against Steve's shoulder

He chuckled, albeit confused. "What?"

"We stopped talking even though we're like, the bestest friend of like — literally ever," she told him matter-of-factly and held out a doughnut for him, "Alone, we're like, sad puppies. We're better as a pair, y'know? So. We're really, really stupid."

Steve took the doughnut and glanced at her, and he smiled — but something inside of him looked guilty as he patted her shoulder and nodded. "Yeah... I don't know what we were thinking, Chicago. It's probably something in the water."

"Gave us brain worms," she tittered and glanced back at him, meeting his eyes for what felt like the first time in a lifetime.

"Brain worms," Steve repeated quietly, glancing at her and then onto the pavement, a faint smile plastered on his lips.

Angie thought his eyes were hard to ignore, pools of deep brown that looked golden in the light, but he always insisted they were just plain dirt-colored specks. Her lips came together into a line as she saw that they held a kind of melancholy that she'd never seen before, at least from the usually boisterous Steve Harrington. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," Steve replied, but it sounded like a reflex because he sighed and shut his eyes afterwards. "Nancy, just... she — she said our relationship was bullshit and apparently she doesn't love me? I thought... I mean - yeah, I thought things were good between us. She's been distant, I guess I just assumed it was the stuff with Barb making her sad, and she needed help to... to move on and stuff. But... I'm just bullshit to her."

So, Steve basically got his heart ripped out and stomped on at a shitty house party — in a Halloween costume, by Nancy Wheeler of all people (Angie had a few nuances with the girl). She could see the tears brim in his eyes as she imagined that the conversation they had replayed in his head. Angie couldn't find the words to comfort him without dissing Nancy too harshly, so she spoke through her actions instead. Without a moment's thought, she wrapped her arms around his torso and squeezed him tightly.

Slowly, his arms snaked around her and he sighed, almost in relief, as he rested his chin on top of her head and looked out into the darkened street. They didn't say anything for a while.

"Steve..." she started without knowing where she would finish. "You aren't bullshit. And if Nancy can't see that, then it sucks for her 'cause I've known Steve Harrington a lot longer, so I know you can't be bullshit. It just isn't even possible."

He paused for a moment, his brows knitted together deeply — Angie thought she said something wrong, for a split second, but he quickly pulled her closer and shook her left and right in a bear hug. "We really are a couple of idiots," the brunette chuckled as she shouted out in surprise.

"I know," she replied with a smile, and Steve let go of her.

"I have a question for you, now."

"Hm?"

"Hargrove? Really?" he asked, his voice incredulous while he pushed his hair out of his face with his sunglasses. "That tool is going to call you? C'mon, Ange, he's all denim and - and bleh." Angie rolled her eyes at his ridiculous expressions. "I'm serious, Ange. He's... a total douche, I have a radar for that kind of thing."

She sighed and shook her head. "I think you guys are just having like — a testosterone induced dick measuring contest or something. Guys do that all the time, especially sporty jock guys. It's like, second nature, you don't even realize it's happening."

"Just be careful, that's all I'm trying to say," Steve replied and glanced at her, "You don't need some douchebag breaking your heart." She thought it was sweet — almost... until she remembered that he was also a douchebag who broke hearts just a year prior. Angie appreciated Nancy's no-nonsense attitude for the sole reason that she managed to change Steve Harrington for the better.

If she was being honest, Angie used to have a crush on Steve in freshman year (who wouldn't? Steve's a heartthrob!), it's not like she tried to hide it, either. Tommy loved to tease her about it, especially around him when he knew that Steve couldn't be assed to pay attention to their bickering, just to scare her. The young blonde got over it within a few weeks as she watched him flirt with any attractive girl he could get in earshot, despite the fact that he was bad at it, at first. Steve only coined the nickname "The Hair" Harrington during his sophomore year, when he learned that he could get a leg up on other guys using personal hygiene.

Angie used to hold the fact that she showed him the ropes of hair with honour. But, by now, he might've known more than her.

"Thanks, Steve." She smiled softly in recognition that she was listening to what he had to say, but not that she would heed his warnings unless Billy gave her a reason to. The blonde yawned and leaned against Steve, suddenly feeling extremely drowsy as she did so. The alcohol started to take it's effect.

He glanced down at her, then lifted her up with her arm slung over his shoulder, "Let's get you home, alright?" Angie nodded sleepily and felt her eyes flutter shut as he sat her down in the passenger seat and buckled her, "Night, Ange."

𓆩♡𓆪

The 'It' guy. The Hair. The King of Hawkins.

As long as Steve remembered, he had it all, anything a teenage boy like him could want: money, a big house with a pool, popularity, any girl he could dream of in the tiny town of Hawkins, Indiana, and importantly, a best friend that people would kill for: Angelica Bell.

He didn't know when they became a duo, but people found it odd to see them apart rather than together — like someone missing a shoe out of a pair or something stupid like that. They held the title of 'best friends' with pride; people liked to think that there was something more going on, though, even if there wasn't.

Like he said, Steve had it all.

He reigned surpreme over their stupid small town high school, where boring people did boring things — minus him, of course (Steve never did anything boring.). And maybe he never made it to the top of his classes, or even close to the average of his classes, but his life was good for the most part. His asshole dad left him alone, his mom stayed too preoccupied keeping his dad's pants up to care about what he did.

So life was good.

— Until it wasn't.

The stupid party he threw ( - what kind of idiot throws a party on a Tuesday?) flipped everything upside down, literally. Barbara Holland went missing and died during it, hell — while he was in the middle of the devil's tango with his soon-to-be girlfriend; and rumor had it, poor Pete Bell had a similar fate, though Genevieve Volkova refused to confirm nor deny it to him, despite the fact that she definitely told Nancy.

He knew the truth, obviously, he might not have been the brightest bulb, but he knew that when Pete didn't come back with Gen or Will, he was gone.

It ate at Steve. It ate at him and it gnawed at his insides every time he had to force himself to look Angie in the eyes. Especially when she gave him that look, the one where her brows crinkled and her eyes got extremely wide as she glanced up at him with the slightest frown. It felt like being forced to lie to her, about something that she deserved to know!

Steve couldn't even process his own grief over the man (they spoke often, Steve would have even considered them friends.) as he tried to avoid his increasingly skittish best friend, for both of their sakes. Because maybe he felt bad about keeping such a big secret from her, but he also couldn't risk getting her dragged into such a huge predicament.

The people eating monsters.

The Demogorgon. They called it.

Steve Harrington was big, he was brave, he needed to tough it out for his girlfriend and the town — but, God, was he scared. Every day he feared that it would come back again, and every day he feared it would hurt the people around him for a second time. He couldn't let it spread any further; but people said it was gone for good, they knew this because it took that little lab girl with it.

So, when he found himself staring blankly into the cork board on Angie's wall, he felt his stomach lurch and his hands become clammy. She'd been digging.

Red string connected newspaper clippings, files, and countless photos of areas, people, and things. Each of them strung around the board so tightly, he wondered if Angie had connected them until her finger went raw and her eyes could barely focus; they all came back to a map, one with the lab in the center.

A part of him wanted to rip it all down, to destroy her work and to rid her of every thought she had about finding her brother, and a side of him screamed to tell someone about what she was doing. He couldn't let her get arrested though, or hunted by secret government agents and possibly (probably) killed, and Steve knew she always kept copies of everything important she did, and maybe... selfishly —

He wanted her to find the truth.

A weight would be lifted from both of them, he imagined, as Angie would get closure and he would be freed from the burden of knowing what really happened to Pete that night. And Steve, well, he'd be able to meet her stormy blue eyes again without the feeling of guilt-fueled word vomit creeping up his throat. So, against his better judgement, he left it alone. He left it alone and pretended he never saw anything. It was over, wasn't it? So Angie finding out past events wouldn't do anything besides clear the air. Right?

Nothing bad could happen. Right?

But what did Steve know, he was "bullshit" anyway.

—————
——— AUTHOR'S NOTE
writing from a pov that isn't
my characters is so hard tbh
so bear with me if it's boring
slash bad LOL

i think this is one of the shorter
chapters?? im not really sure
since i lost track lmfao. but i
love steve and angie i have to
squeeze out stangie scenes for
all they're worth 😈😈

also angie will say the randomest
stupid shit you've ever heard and
steve will still be like:

they're so obnoxious and cute i
want to smush their faces together
already.

i hope you liked the chapter! vote
and comment bc i love seeing ppl
interact 😄😄

PRETTY SICK!
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