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

Chapter Twenty-Two: All The Best People Are

I left school at lunch time, heading over to the lab, where I found My dad already there waiting for me.

"Hey." I greeted, hoisting myself up to sit on the hood of his truck while he leaned against it.

"Hey. Joyce'll be here any second with Will." I nodded. "You ok?"

"Are you gonna ask me that twenty more times today, or will this morning's answer suffice?" I shot back, looking up at the lab building.

"Sorry, my bad. It just looks like you have something on your mind, thought it might be about last night." I shook my head.

"That should be what's on my mind, but it isn't." He furrowed his eyebrows.

"What is on your mind?"  He turned towards me, leaning his elbow against the hood.

"Nothing. Its not important."

Luckily he didn't have to opportunity to press it any more, because Joyce's car pulled into the driveway, and she and Will got out of it.

"Hey buddy." Dad greeted.

"Hey." I walked over, wrapping an arm around Will's shoulders and leading the way into the building.

"So you saw it too?" I asked. He looked up at me. "The Upside Down, the red storm." 

"Yeah. You saw that?" I nodded.

"I'm sure its probably nothing. You and I have shared trauma, it'd only make sense that we had similar after-effects. Don't worry about it." He nodded, looking down at his feet. "Just a word of advice?" He looked up at me again. "You ever need someone to talk to...someone who understands first hand, and isn't going to talk to you like you're made of tissue paper," He chuckled, "You tell your Mom to call me, ok?"

"Ok. Yeah, I Will." I nodded, ruffling his hair like I often did with Eleven.

"Yeah, I know you're Will. I'm Riley, we've met before remember?" He shook his head, chuckling.

"That's awful."  I smiled.

"What do you mean? That's comedy gold right there."  I turned around, flashing Joyce a smile in greeting. She smiled too and mouthed:

'Thank you'.  I nodded, turning to face forward again. I knew she was thanking me for kind of distracting Will from the reason we were here, joking around and being stupid. But she didn't really need to thank me. Will wasn't the fragile little kid that everyone thought he was. If that was the case, he wouldn't have made it as long in the Upside Down as he did. 

~~~

Every time Will and I ever went to the lab, which they'd insisted on us doing since we'd both spent pretty unbelievable amounts of time in a place with a supposedly toxic atmosphere, was pretty simple. They'd weigh us, do a simple check up, inject us with something that I'd still yet to identify, and hook us both up to a machine that studied our brainwaves and charted them.

Typically, we'd done this separately, in separate rooms, but this time, since we'd both seen exactly the same thing, they put us in a room together, side by side. I uncomfortably picked at the hem of my hospital gown, and thought of the fact that for practically Eleven's entire life, this was all she wore. It must've been incredibly de-humanizing.

"Riley, Sir Will! How are ya?" Dr. Sam Owens greeted, causing Joyce to perk up from her spot beside Will, while Dad leaned on the wall across the room. "Mom. Pop. Let's take a look, see what's going on here." He pulled his swivel stool to rest in between our chairs. "Will I see you've shaved off a pound since we saw you last. Must be making room for all that Halloween candy. What's your favorite candy? Dessert Island Candy, if you had to pick one?"