Ask the Lonely chapter one
Slowburn Steve Harrington x Henderson!Reader
Summary: Y/n debates going to a Halloween party, goes to a cabin in the woods, and what’s in the trashcan?
Warnings: swearing, poor writing, typos
A/n: the first chapter! This chapter might be a little choppy, I just wanted to get all the relationships established and get the ball rolling. The next chapter will be better!
Eyes drooping, you lean over the counter and prop your head up with your hand; eyeing the toaster as you wait for your toast to pop up. You could feel yourself nodding off, no matter how hard you tried to keep your eyes open. The sound of something hitting the floor causes you to jump. You turn and see Dustin zipping up his backpack before joining you in the kitchen.
Just as you’re about to greet him, the toaster pops, causing you to jump, again.
“Awfully jumpy today,” Dustin says, grabbing a cereal box.
“How was the arcade last night?” You ask, pulling the jelly from the fridge.
“It sucked! Someone named Mad Max beat all our top scores, even on dig dug!” Dustin tells you.
You scrape the jelly onto your toast, “Don’t you guys have high scores on just about every game there?”
You glance at the clock, “oh shit, shit, shit, we gotta go,” Dustin looks down at his watch before gobbling down the rest of his cereal.
The Hendersons are a punctual family, except when it comes to getting to school on time. The Hendersons are certainly not morning people, thus making not being late to school an extreme challenge every morning.
“You’ll have to bike home today; I won’t be home until late.” You tell Dustin, struggling to get your shoes on.
“Are you hanging out with Eddie? Can I come?” Dustin grabs his backpack off the floor, and you push open the back door. “No, not Eddie, I’m having dinner with Barb’s parents again.”
“Tell me if you see a spot,” you tell Dustin as you pull into the parking lot.
“There’s one, right next to Steve,” Dustin points to the empty spot next to Steve Harrington’s car.
You can see him and Nancy Wheeler sitting inside. You honk the horn as you pull in, giving them both a wave. You grab your and Dustin’s backpacks from the backseat as Dustin pops your trunk and grabs his bike.
“Got everything?” You ask him. He nods and throws his backpack over his shoulder, you shut the trunk.
The school bell rings, “ok time to go,” you mumble as you knock on Steve’s back window causing them both to look up at you. You point to your watch, rushing them to wrap it up.
You and Dustin both turn your heads to see Dustin’s friends waving at him from the middle school.
“See you later!” Dustin calls out to you as he runs towards his friends.
“Hi y/n!” You hear them all shout.
“Have a good day!” You call back, waving to the group of kids.
You hear a car door slam behind you and see Nancy stepping out, “good morning, Y/n,” you give her a smile and watch her hurry to the school doors.
You and Nancy didn’t have much of a friendship, if anything you were friends by association.
You didn’t blame Nancy for Barb’s death, I mean, how could you? You weren’t there, you didn’t know what really happened, you were just speculating. If anything, you were just as much to blame as Nancy. Barb called you before she left for Steve’s to tell you how much she didn’t want to go. She wanted you to help her get out of it, but you didn’t. You encouraged her to go, despite knowing how Tommy and Carol would rip her to shreds, how Nancy would stop paying attention to Barb the second she saw Steve, how miserable it would be for Barb, but you let her go.
So now you and Nancy share the guilt and the blame.
You watch Nancy wave over to someone; your eyes flicker over to see Jonathan Byers running to catch up to her.
A car pulling into a spot a couple spaces away, a new car that you’ve never seen before, draws your attention away. The door opens and a guy who surely, you’ve never seen before, steps out. You watch him take a drag from his cigarette before throwing it on the ground and stomping on it with his shoe.
Steve shuts his car door and comes over to join you, “who is that?” He asks.
One of the hottest guys you’ve ever seen.
“I have no idea,” your eyes stay fixated on the mystery man, “I’ve never seen him before. Trust me, I would remember that face. Jesus, look at him.”
You feel Steve straighten up beside you, “I guess, I mean he’s not that good looking.”
Smirking, you look up at him, “keep your head up Harrington, don’t want that crown slipping off.”
Steve rolls his eyes and scoffs. Chuckling, you tug on his sleeve, “come on pretty boy, if we stare any longer, we’ll look creepy.”
Steve Harrington becoming one of your closest friends was never thought to be in your cards at all, in fact, you absolutely despised him up until a year ago. And now? You wouldn’t trade your friendship for anything.
You and Steve were the last two to leave the classroom. There was a lot of buzz going around about Tina’s big Halloween party. Nearly everyone was talking about it. Steve managed to get ahold of two invites.
“You’re going, right?” Steve asks, handing one of the papers over to you. He removes his sunglasses from the top of his head and puts them on.
“You are so embarrassing,” You skim over the page, “come and get ‘sheetfaced?’ Hard pass,” you crumple the paper up and toss it into the nearest trash.
“Wha- come on,” Steve holds up his hand, causing you to stop walking, “don’t tell me you’re going to spend Halloween night with your brother.”
You open your mouth to respond but Steve spots Nancy and Jonathan coming down the hallway and B lines towards them. Steve spins around calling back to you, “just come! For me!”
Rolling your eyes, you follow closely behind him.
Steve runs up behind Nancy, picks her up, and spins her around, “I’ve missed you,” he tells her in between kisses.
“It’s only been an hour,” Nancy says, playfully smacking him.
You look over at Jonathan and pretend to gag, making him smile. You return the smile then glance back towards Steve and Nancy, who have seemed to have forgotten you two were still there. You look back at Jonathan and mouth “let’s go.” He nods and you two head off to next period.
“How’s Will doing? Dustin told me someone beat all their high scores at the arcade,” you ramble on, “oh my god and have you seen their cute little ghostbuster costumes?”
Jonathan lowers his voice as you two keep walking, “he’s, I don’t know, I mean, I thought he was doing better,” he keeps his head down, “but lately it’s like, I don’t know, I can tell something’s wrong.”
“I mean, we are coming up on the,” you searched for the right word, “anniversary?”, sure, that works, “I think we’ve all been a little on edge,” you lean in closer to Jonathan, “I keep getting a bad feeling, like, it’s- “
“Not over?” Jonathan asks. You nod.
“But I’m sure we’ll be fine,” you reach your class and stop walking, “and if we need to, we can always just kick the monster’s ass again.” You wink at Jonathan and give him a wave before heading into class.
Lunch was tricky. As much as you wanted all your friends to sit together at one table, this was not possible. Jonathan never wanted to sit with Steve and Nancy and to be honest you were starting to feel the same way. Something about having to sit and watch the two of them make out and be all lovey dovey while you eat lunch makes you gauge your eyes out.
So, you and Jonathan would sit together at a table alone, with the occasional appearance from your best friend, Robin Buckley.
You plop your tray down on the table across from Jonathan and take a seat. You notice Jonathan’s hand is on top of a party invite
“Don’t tell me you’re thinking about going to that,” you point at the invite.
“No, no, absolutely not,” Jonathan shakes his head, “Nancy’s wanting me to go.”
You give him a knowing look, “oh, I see. Nancy wants you to go,” Jonathan shoots you a glare, “Just teasing, relax.” You spot Nancy and Steve across the cafeteria. Steve catches your eye and sends you and sends you a wave.
“What about Steve?” Jonathan asks, pulling your eyes away from the boy.
“Didn’t he ask you to go?”
You hum, glancing back down at the party invite.
“Should we- do you, want to, maybe go? To the party?” You look up at Jonathan.
You sigh, “well I’m only going to go if you go.”
“What about the boys? We told them we’d take the trick or treating.”
“Jonathan, get serious. No middle schooler wants to go trick or treating with their older siblings, it’s lame.”
You and Jonathan both agreed to stay at the party for at least 30 minutes before dipping out.
As you turn the key in the ignition, a knock on your window startles you. You look up and see Steve. You roll down your window, “Jesus Christ, Harrington. You scared the shit out of me.”
“Sorry, Henderson,” Steve grins at you, “I was just gonna ask if you wanted to ride with Nancy and I to the Hollands tonight?”
“I actually can’t make it tonight,” you started racking your brain for a good excuse, “I, uh, Eddie is coming over for dinner tonight.”
“Eddie Munson? Eddie the freak Munson? Is coming to your house for dinner?” Steve had a bewildered look on his face.
You nod. Not wanting to be bombarded with questions, you start rolling up your window, “ok, well, I gotta go. Bye,” you wave with your other hand.
You’ve gotten fairly good at stretching the truth when you needed to. Truth be told, you were on your way to a cabin in the woods to eat dinner with the Hawkins chief of police and a girl who has superpowers.
But you couldn’t tell people that.
It has been almost a year since she, or so it was to be believed, disappeared. That was until one day in early January, you got a call from Chief Jim Hopper, asking for your help. You still aren’t quite sure what happened or how the chief found her, you found it best not to ask too many questions. Hopper had an old cabin out in the woods that the three of you fixed up and turned into a home for Hopper and El.
You went over there a few times a week, just to visit and keep El company. It was extremely hard, not being able to tell anyone, especially Dustin. But it was for her safety, and you wanted nothing but for her to be safe.
Lately, there has been a tension in the air. Eleven is getting tired of never being able to leave. You can’t blame her. Hopper keeps saying soon but who the hell knows how soon.
The first thing you notice when you arrive at the cabin is that Hopper’s chief car is not there.
You step carefully over the tripwire and go up the creaky stairs. You knock the “secret knock” on the door. You hear the lock on the door click and the door swings open. You step into the cabin, dropping your backpack on the floor.
“Hi El!” You speak. You slip off your shoes and your coat.
Eleven comes out of her bedroom. She smiles when she sees you and comes over to give you a hug.
“No Hop, huh?” You ask her. She nods.
Still, not much of a talker.
“Well, should we start cooking? That way it’ll be ready when he gets here.”
Hopper knocked on the door at a quarter past 8. You and Eleven had the table set already and were sitting, waiting.
“Late,” Eleven tells Hopper the second he walks through the door.
“Yeah, yeah, late. I should’ve signaled.” Hopper takes off his coat and comes over to the table.
Due to Eleven’s minimal vocabulary, you and Hopper did most of the talking.
You never had a father figure growing up. Your dad left your mom when he found out she was pregnant with Dustin. You hear from your dad on holidays, and he used to visit. That was until he thought it would be a good idea to bring his new wife, along with her two kids to Hawkins. That did not go over well. Your mom stopped inviting him since.
Hopper has turned into the father you never had.
You got home a little after nine. You reached into your backpack, feeling around to try to find your house keys.
A clanging sound coming from the trashcan startles you. You whip your head around and pause for a moment, staring at the trashcan.
You go back to searching for your keys, a little more frantically this time.
Another noise from the trashcan causes your heart to race.
That was not a raccoon noise.
The trashcan rattles again.
“Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me,” you keep digging for your keys.
The sound of the door unlocking pulls your attention. Your mom opens the door, “I thought I heard you out here.”
“Couldn’t find my keys,” you tell her as you push past her.
You drop your backpack and rush over to the kitchen window, pulling the curtain back. Your eyes scan over the backyard and the driveway. Your eyes land on the trashcan, you stare at it for a moment before deciding it was just your mind playing tricks on you. Shutting the curtain, you make your way to your bedroom.
The light above the trashcan flickers.