Love Is A Battlefield (A Stranger Things/Steve Harrington Fanfiction)

Chapter Twelve: Deer in Distress

After a tearful goodbye from my Dad, who was off to do God knows what, I met up with Nancy and Jonathan earlier than planned, both of them now armed with a gun and a baseball bat, and we started our trek through the woods. I led the way, scanning the ground for openings and they, who had spent all day together at this point, sparked up a conversation.

"You never said what I was saying." Nancy said.

"What?"

"Earlier. You said I was saying something and that's why you took my picture."

"Oh, boy." I said.

"What?" Nancy called up to me. I shook my head, glancing around.

"Nothing it's just..." I trailed off before looking back at them. "I think I know the answer to this question and I don't think you're going to like it." They both furrowed their eyebrows at me. "Go ahead and tell her camera man." I faced forward again.

"Oh, uh...I don't know. My guess...I saw this girl, you know...trying to be someone else. But for that moment...it was like you were alone, or you thought you were and you know...you could just be yourself." I bit my lip.

"That is such bullcrap." She said.

"There it is." I chorused.

"I am not trying to be someone else." They stopped walking so I did too, turning to look at them. "Just because I'm dating Steve and you don't like him-"

"What's to like?" I asked.

"You know what? Forget it. I just thought it was a good picture." Jonathan stalked past me and I fell into step beside him.

"He's actually a good guy."

"O-ok." Jonathan said. We both shared a skeptical look.

"Yesterday, with the camera...He's not like that at all." I raised my eyebrows at her.

"Really?" I asked. "He's 'not like' what he did?"

"He was just being protective."

"Yes, like he was when I told him that throwing a party in the woods when a kid's gone missing is dangerous, and that someone was gonna get kidnapped, and he said 'I should feel right at home'." I pointed out. She paused.

"He said that?" I nodded.

"Your boyfriend might be good to you, and around you as much as he can, but when you're not looking, he's no better than Tommy and Carol. From the sound of it, he displayed that with the whole camera thing." Jonathan nodded in agreement.

"Oh, and I guess what you did was ok?" She asked him.

"No, I...I never said that."

"He had every right to be ticked off-"

"Ok, alright. Does that mean we have to like him?" I nodded in agreement.

"No."

"Listen, don't take it so personally, ok? I don't like most people. He's in the vast majority." He started stalking away again.

"You know, I was actually starting to think that you were ok." Nancy told him.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I was thinking, 'Jonathan Byers, maybe he's not the pretentious creep everyone says he is'."

"Guys, come on." I started, looking around.

"Well I was just starting to think you were ok. I was thinking, 'Oh Nancy Wheeler, she's not just another suburban girl who thinks she's rebelling by doing exactly what every other suburban girl does...until that phase passes and they marry some boring one-time jock who now works sales, and they live out a perfectly boring little life at the end of a cul-de-sac, exactly like their parents, who they thought were so depressing, but now, hey. They get it." He walked past her, continuing further into the woods while Nancy and I just stood there for a second.