Mar 2
ao3 edging so bad im getting flashbacks to friends no thanks best friends 💔
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from T1
seen from United States
seen from Iraq
seen from Japan
seen from United States
seen from Ireland
seen from Egypt
seen from Japan
seen from Australia
seen from Germany
seen from Peru
seen from China
seen from Canada
seen from China
seen from China
seen from India
seen from United Kingdom
seen from United States
ao3 edging so bad im getting flashbacks to friends no thanks best friends 💔
STORMS 8
hopper!user established relationship with Steve user is referred to as “Blondie”
pt.7 pt.8📍 pt.9
Three days after the park, Dustin Henderson shows up at Starcourt with a radio the size of a small appliance and the energy of someone who has been waiting his entire life for this moment.
You’re there because the mall is air-conditioned and the cabin isn’t and Hopper has been hovering in the particular way he does when he’s worried but won’t say so, which means you needed to be somewhere that wasn’t twelve feet away from him.
You’re eating a pretzel on the bench outside Scoops when Dustin appears.
“Oh good,” he says, like he was looking for you specifically. “You’re here.”
“I live here apparently,” you say. “What’s happening.”
“Something incredible,” he says. “Possibly.”
—
Steve leans out from behind the counter when you both come in.
“Why do you have that?” he asks, looking at the radio.
“Because I’m a genius,” Dustin says, already setting it on the counter with the particular reverence of someone handling something precious.
Robin materializes from the back room, takes one look at the setup, and says “absolutely not” before she’s even fully through the door.
“You haven’t heard the pitch,” Dustin says.
“I don’t need to. You have the look.”
“What look?”
“That look,” Robin says, gesturing at his entire expression.
“The one where you’ve decided something is happening and you’re just waiting for the rest of us to catch up.”
Dustin points at her. “That’s accurate, actually. Here—” He fiddles with the dial.
“Just listen.”
Static.
More static.
And then — underneath it, threading through —
Something that is not static.
A pattern.
Almost musical.
Repeating at intervals just long enough that you keep thinking it’s over before it comes back.
You set your pretzel down.
“What is that?” you question.
Dustin looks at you with barely contained triumph.
“That,” he says, “is a coded Soviet transmission bouncing off a military satellite.”
Silence.
“Sure,” Steve says.
“I’m serious—”
“Dustin—”
“Steve, I did the math—”
“You did math?”
“Yes, I did math—”
“Okay.” You hold up a hand.
Both of them stop.
“Start over. Where did you pick this up?”
Dustin pivots to you immediately, apparently deciding you’re the more receptive audience.
“Cerebro,” he says. “My radio setup. On the hill. I built it—” He pauses.
“While you were — anyway. I built it. And last night I picked this up.”
You lean closer to the radio.
The pattern again.
Under the static.
Insistent.
“It’s Russian,” you say.
“Yes.”
“Do you know what it means?”
“No idea.”
You look at Steve.
He looks back at you.
Something in his expression shifts — the Scoops Ahoy part of him receding slightly, the other part coming forward.
The part that has seen enough to know not to dismiss things.
“How sure are you that it’s Russians?” he says to Dustin.
“Very,” Dustin says. “Like — very very.”
Dustin pulls out a Russian — English dictionary.
Robin is leaning on the counter now, arms crossed, studying the radio with the expression of someone trying not to be interested and failing.
“Play it again,” she says.
—
You’re all crammed in the back room of Scoops Ahoy, Steve’s pacing eating a banana that’s supposed to be for banana splits.
Robin listens and scribbles and listens again, and you watch her the way you watch the pool — steady, patient, waiting for the thing underneath to surface.
She cracks it.
Well, kind of.
She translated the first sentence
“The week is long.”
By the time evening rolls around she’s translated the entire tape
“The week is long. The silver cat feeds. When blue meets yellow in the west”
She looks up from her notebook with wide eyes and says “okay so I think Dustin might actually be right” and Dustin makes a sound that suggests he has been waiting his entire life for Robin Buckley to say those words.
“It’s a language thing,” she says. “The words — it’s not random, it’s structured. Like it’s meant to be decoded.”
“By who?” Steve asks while locking the gate of Scoops.
“Someone who was listening for it,” you say.
Everyone looks at you.
“There’s no way that’s right” Steve mumbles to Dustin.
“It’s right.” Robin yells while trailing head of the group.
“Honestly, I think it’s great news,” Dustin shrugs.
“How is that great news? I mean, so much for being American heroes. It’s total nonsense.” Steve argues.
“It’s not nonsense it’s secret code. Like super secret spy code.”
“Thats a total stretch, dude.”
“I don’t know is it?” You mumble.
“You’re buying into this, Blondie?” He groans.
“I mean if we do entertain that it’s Russian spy code— why would anyone mask the true meaning of their message unless the message is somehow sensitive?” Robin says like it’s common sense, which it usually would be. But not with Dustin and Steve.
“Evil Russians!” Dustin yells. The sound travels through the closed mall.
“I can’t believe I’m agreeing with this strange child, but yeah, totally evil Russians”
Steve stops walking.
So do you.
“What are you doing?” You mumble, Dustin and Robin turn around when they realize you aren’t following anymore.
“It’s a quarter. I need— shit— do you have a quarter?”
“Are you tall enough for that ride Steve?” Robin mumbles.
“Quarter!”
You quickly grab a quarter from your back pocket and toss it to Steve.
He slides it into the “Indiana Flyer Horse”, a familiar song makes it way through the dimly lit mall.
“You need help getting up little Stevie?” Robin teases.
“Shhh!”
Dustin giggles.
“Shut up!”
“Holy shit the music.” you mumble.
“The music!” Dustin grins, getting the recorder out of his back pack. He plays the tape, the same eerie song in the background of it.
“It’s coming from inside the mall.” You mumble.
Robin nods back.
Steve is still looking at the mall with the expression of someone who has learned that terrible things like to hide in plain sight.
“So we’re doing this,” he says. Not quite a question.
“Seems like it,” you say.
He exhales.
“Cool,” he says. “Cool cool cool.”
—
“Can I say something?” Robin asks.
“You’re going to either way.”
She almost smiles.
“Fair.” She resumes walking. “You’re good at that. The thinking-out-loud thing. The — connecting pieces.”
“I had a lot of time to practice,” you say. “In the Upside Down. You learn to read patterns or you don’t—” You stop.
Robin waits.
“You just learn to,” you finish.
She nods, not pressing it.
That’s something you’ve come to appreciate about Robin in the weeks since you met her.
She has a specific skill for knowing where the edge of a thing is and not pushing past it.
“The mall theory,” she says. “You got there fast.”
“It made sense.”
“It did,” she says. “I’m just noting it.”
You look at her sideways. “Why?”
She shrugs. “Because you’ve been here two months and half the time you look like someone doing math on their own face and the other half you look like you’re holding something underwater.” She tilts her head.
“Tonight you just looked like normal.”
You consider that.
“Is that a compliment?”
“It’s an observation,” she says. “But yes.”
—
The group splits, but Steve walks you out to your car. Well— Hops old car that your borrowing.
The mall parking lot is mostly empty now, the summer evening dim and warm over the asphalt.
“So,” he says.
“So,” you say.
“Soviet radio transmission.”
“Apparently.”
“In Hawkins.”
“Where else?”
He huffs a small laugh.
You reach your car. Turn around and lean against the door.
“You okay?” he asks.
He always asks. You’ve noticed he’s been asking in a way that’s quieter since Tuesday.
Less like a check-in, more like something he genuinely needs to know.
“I’m better today,” you say honestly.
He nods.
“Me too,” he says.
You believe him.
“Steve.” You look at him. “Whatever this is — the transmission, the signal, whatever we’re walking into—”
“Yeah.”
“We’re going to need to be able to work together.”
He meets your eyes. “I know.”
“So whatever else is—” You gesture vaguely at the space between you. “It stays there. While we figure this out.”
“Agreed,” he says immediately.
“Okay.”
He puts his hands in his pockets.
The dim light is doing something unfair to his face.
“Okay,” he says.
You get in your car.
He stands in the parking lot and watches you pull out and you don’t look in the rearview more than once.
Twice.
You look twice.
—
The cabin is warm and Hopper has made spaghetti, which means he was worried and cooking is what he does with it.
You sit at the table and eat and let him refill your glass without asking and tell him — carefully — that you spent the afternoon at the mall.
“With Harrington,” he says.
“And Robin. And Dustin.”
He twirls spaghetti. Says nothing.
“Something’s going on,” you say.
He looks up.
“I don’t know what yet,” you say. “But something.”
He holds your gaze for a long moment.
Sets his fork down.
“Tell me,” he says.
So you do.
And across the table, Hopper listens with the expression he gets when something has his full attention — still and focused and already turning it over — and outside the windows the summer dark comes in soft and close —
and for the first time in weeks, your mind is pointing outward instead of in.
It feels like relief.
@lcversvoid @stoneyggirl2 @tjthetyrant @cheetoscmj @mads-writes-vibes
DUDE
He is seriously telling us he is going to set to play Dr. Brenner on Stranger Things. A spinoff would not be called Stranger Things.
He is the troll to end all trolls.
Working on some fruity four art rn
BYLERRRR + Mr. Whatsit and Steve
your dasher is here!
THIS IS SO RANDOM AND MOST LIKELY ILLEGIBLE
IM JUST THINKING.
WANTING TO GET A GAGE,
YES OR NO TO IF YOU WOULD READ THE FIC IF I ATTEMPTED TO CREATE SMTHING SHORT & CONCENTRATED BASED ON THESE PRINCIPLES?
Yall hating on Mike Wheeler but that me…