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

Chapter Thirty-Seven: Not Giving Up Yet

We al immediately got to work cleaning out the shed, and Nancy, Steve and I were now in the process of stabling up cardboard and tarp to cover up the walls. I was across the room, putting up tarps when Nancy decided to break the silence.

"Hey...What you did, um, helping the kids...that was...really cool."

"Yeah. Those little jerks are real trouble, you know?" He said, stepping up onto the step ladder.

"Believe me, I know." She said. "So um...I know this is the last thing that's important right now, but I just gotta ask..." She turned around, looking at both of us. "Are you guys a thing now?" My eyes widened, and I turned around to look at her.

"Nancy..." I started.

"No, its ok! Its perfectly ok, I'm not mad, I'm just...curious? I guess?" I looked up at Steve, unsure of what to do.

"Um...yeah. Yeah we're...a thing." She nodded. "Are you...are you and Jonathan a thing?"

"Yeah...kind of." She said. 

"Is this gonna be awkward?" I asked. "Because if we survive this, I was kind of hoping we'd all still be able to hang out."

"I don't think it will be awkward, I think...I think we're both pretty happy with the current situation, right?" Steve asked her. She nodded.

"Happy with the situation, yes...not Happy with the way that it happened. I am so sorry about everything that happened on Halloween, and the day after. It wasn't cool." He shook his head.

"Its cool. We're all cool." Steve said, glancing between us. She nodded, looking between Steve and I as well.

"Great. Good." We all turned around and continued to put up the tarps, unsure of where to go from here. Even if we'd kind of talked it out it still felt...super awkward.

~~~

Soon we were all gathered in the shed, covering ever spare inch in sheets, cardboard, tarps, paper from the trash, tin foil, anything that we could find to hide our location. Even Joyce's kitchen chairs were covered in cardboard and duct tape to shield it from Will's view.

Once it was ready, Jonathan carried Will outside and we tied him to the chair. We set up super bright lamps to further shield his view, and Joyce had the sedative she'd stolen from the lab at the ready.

Then the rest of us went inside, leaving only Dad, Jonathan, Joyce, and Mike to talk to him. I walked into the living room, where  Steve was swinging the bat around. I crossed over to stand in front of him, far enough away that he wouldn't hit me. He stopped swinging.

"You really think this is gonna work?" He asked. I nodded.

"I hope so." I walked over to the couch, sitting down. Steve sat down beside me. "It has to, otherwise, I don't know what we're gonna do, but..."

"But?" I sighed.

"I can't shake the feeling that it should be me in there." I said.

"Riley..."

"I still stand by the fact that all of this is my fault." I said. "If I had just told my Dad what happened when I came out of the Upside Down, we could've taken precautions, and Will would have never have gotten taken. And in the field, when that thing got him, he's just a kid. How could I have been stupid enough to not make sure he was behind me?"

"You have to stop this." He said. "You can't keep blaming yourself for everything. If you do that, you're just gonna be miserable and guilty for the rest of your life."

"Its true, isn't?" I asked. He shook his head.

"Riley...look the fact of the matter is, you can't spend the rest of your life thinking about what could have happened or what should have happened. What happened...happened, and there's nothing we can do about that now except try to move on and be happy." I leaned back against the back of the couch, biting my lip. He leaned back against the couch too so that both of our heads were laying on top of it. I turned my head to meet his eyes. "You deserve to be happy. You got out of that place alive, you have enough trauma without adding guilt on top of everything else."