fast car | STEVE HARRINGTON [2]

14. jesus? is that you?

UNBEKNOWNST TO STEVE AND ROBIN, who were splayed out next to the respective toilets they hurled their guts up into, the rest of the group had been frantically scouring the mall in search of the duo. But the idea of being chased by Russians was the last thing on their minds at that point, as Steve and Robin were more focused on getting a handle on the dizziness that led them to be so violently sick.

"The ceiling stopped spinning for me," Robin admitted, breathing a sigh of relief as she stared upward, "is it still spinning for you?"

"Holy shit," Steve commented, following her direction and leading his gaze to the plain white roof tiles. "No. You think we puked it all up?"

"Maybe," was her answer, the girl's legs resting against the door to the stall she had chosen. "Ask me something. Interrogate me."

"Okay," Steve chuckled, leaning further against the toilet. Hygiene was the last thing on his mind. "When was the last time you peed your pants?"

"Today," Robin answered, so abruptly and without hesitation that Steve recoiled in shock. "When that Russian doctor brought out the bone saw, just a little bit though!"

"It's definitely still in your system," he laughed, a swell of giggles emerging in the two of them once again although this time he was convinced it'd have happened regardless of the drug.

Shifting so she could lean against the tiled wall instead, Robin shuffled backward and rested her head against the cool ceramic behind her. A moment of silence fell between them, that the blonde felt the need to fill with something that had been on her mind all day.

"While we're still very obviously drugged," she snickered, rubbing the tip of her nose with her palm to get rid of an itch, "I may as well go balls deep and tell you all my little secrets."

"Ooooooh," Steve whooped, confused by the suddenness of her claim but also somewhat intrigued. "Tell me all, I'll be your therapist."

"I don't need therapy!" She shouted in protest, kicking her converse-clad foot against the wall dividing their stalls. "But basically, all I had to say was that I actually knew you in high school. I pretended I didn't when we first met, but I suppose it was pretty obvious everyone in town knows King Steve."

"'King Steve'," he winced at the old nickname. It felt like a decade since he was the kind of guy that reveled in the acclaim, but really it was only around a year or two before. Steve wasn't sure what changed who he was as a person more - the events that had taken place in the Halloween of 1983 or the arrival of Ringo Wheeler. "And what did you think of me then?"

"I thought you were a jackass," she burst out laughing at the following sound of the thump of his hand against the stall. "It's true! I used to mock you behind your back, you were every single jock stereotype rolled into one incessant human being and I hated how everyone fell at your feet, while no one knew I existed."