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The last day of camp is always bittersweet.
Granted, there are sessions that are more sweet than bitter (the one at the beginning of the summer, with Troy and James, comes to mind), but this was actually a good one. Steve got real lucky with his group these last two weeks; everyone got along with everyone else. Of course, he had high hopes as soon as Jonathan told him his and Nancy’s little brothers were going to be in Steve’s cabin, which he somehow knew before the official assignments were released. Steve suspects he may have edited the list himself, off the books, but he’s not gonna look a gift horse in the mouth because the boys were great. And they got awesome cabin mates, too. Dustin and Lucas were down for anything Steve threw at them, and by the end of the two weeks, the four boys were fast friends. Dustin in particular wormed his way right into Steve’s heart, the little shit. He still isn’t sure how the kid pulled it off.
“Oh, that’s my mom!” the camper in question says, shading his eyes against the sun and squinting at the cars pulling in to pick up their kids. He turns quickly, curly hair bobbing with the movement, and throws his arms around Steve’s torso. Steve lets out a startled “oof” but hugs Dustin back.
“Alright, kiddo, it was awesome to have you here but it’s time to go,” Steve says, attempting to ruffle Dustin’s hair before he ducks away. Damnit, unsuccessful again.
“Have fun!” Dustin calls as he runs to his mom’s car.
“Be safe!” Steve shouts back, waving at the car until it pulls out of the parking lot.
He feels a presence at his shoulder before he even turns around, but he knows exactly who it is. He and Nancy, as the current longest serving counselors at Hawkins Summer Camp besides Tommy and Carol, have forged a bond few can match. They’ve just about managed to convince the rest of the counselors that it includes telepathy.
“Last one?” Nancy asks.
“Yep,” Steve replies, popping the “p” obnoxiously. “Now the real work can begin.”
They stare at each other for a moment before Nancy turns and dashes up the hill behind them, leaving Steve in the dust.
“No fair!” Steve yells, sprinting behind her. “That’s a head start and you know it, Wheeler!”
“Not my fault you were too slow to catch on!” She laughs as she says it, and soon Steve’s laughing too, struggling to continue moving even though his cabin’s literally a few steps away. He sees Nancy disappearing into hers just as he’s stepping through his door. Hah. She may be smarter by miles, but he’s still faster.
Besides, he’s got the next part down to a science. Because it’s a sleepaway camp and the counselors are paid to be there literally all summer, it’s their responsibility to get the cabins cleaned up and ready in the few days between sessions. This is a little different, since it’s the last session of the summer, but it starts the same. Steve’s been doing this long enough to be able to strip four twin beds in just over thirty seconds. (Robin timed him once. It was a race between him, Nancy, and Jonathan. Steve won by a landslide.) And, unlike Nancy, who actually has a laundry hamper that she uses to tote clothes back and forth from the main cabin, Steve just piles everything inside one of the fitted bedsheets and runs.
By the time Nancy skids into the laundry room, panting and determined, Steve’s leaning back against the wall, arms crossed over his chest to disguise how he’s still breathing heavily himself. All four washing machines are currently occupied by roughly equal portions of sheets and pillowcases. That was the first lesson Steve learned as a counselor: the machines break if you try to wash two sets of sheets at once.
“Damnit,” Nancy mutters, then louder, “God damn you, Steve Harrington!”
He just chuckles, and she shakes her head as she smiles. There was a time when Steve would have been scared half to death hearing those words out of Nancy’s mouth, but it’s long past.
Just then, footsteps echo from down the hall, heralding the approach of none other than Robin. “Steve, my man!” she says as she walks right past Nancy to give Steve a bro hug, knocking their fists together in what could almost be considered a fist bump.
“Robin, my dude!” he answers, returning the fist whack with more enthusiasm than is probably warranted. He tries to ruffle her hair but she skips out of his reach, wrapping her arm around Nancy’s waist with a smug grin. He’s now oh for two. Great.
“I feel betrayed,” Nancy complains, despite the fact that she’s now leaning fully into Robin’s side. “What does Steve have that I don’t?”
“Bro status,” he and Robin answer in synch. It’s enough to make Nancy laugh, and Steve’s heart fills with warmth at the beaming grin Robin’s sporting.
“So I see you got here first,” she says to Steve, gesturing vaguely toward the hamper of sheets that Nancy dropped on the floor at some point. “What’s the damage?”
“Well, nobody drew on the walls with Sharpie this time,” Steve muses, hand on his chin, “so it probably just needs a good sweeping and I’ll be home free.”
“My girls were wonderful,” Nancy brags, as though both Steve and Robin didn’t know that already. Steve and Nancy’s cabins always end up spending a lot of their free time together, since it’s the only time Steve gets to talk to Nancy (except when they all sneak out of their cabins in the middle of the night to light up with Jonathan). And in the last couple of years, Robin’s been joining them more and more often. Steve didn’t get to know her kids that well, but Nancy’s somehow integrated themselves into his cabin. It was great to see Jane and Max put the boys in their place, and hilarious when it came to Lucas bickering with his sister. Seriously, Steve could watch that shit all day. What was even better was the sheer multitude of arguments Erica won, despite being the younger sibling.
Robin plants a kiss on the top of Nancy’s head before pulling away gently. “I’ll go sweep your cabin for you, babe,” she says, and Nancy smiles gratefully. “Steve, you’re on your own.”
“Hey!” he shouts indignantly. “What does she have that I don’t?”
“Girlfriend privileges,” Nancy and Robin reply in unison. Steve gives Robin’s retreating back the finger as she leaves the room. After a moment, a pale hand comes back around the doorway, flipping Steve off.
Ah, the love shared between fellow counselors.
* * *
“I am going to miss those kids, though,” Nancy says, swirling her straw around her glass of lemonade.
They’re all sitting at one of the picnic tables in the pavilion, her, Robin, Steve, and Jonathan. It’s Jonathan’s fault they’re still there; on the last day of camp, the counselors are allowed to leave whenever they finish cleaning their cabins, but his sheets are still in the dryer and, for whatever reason, the four of them have established what essentially boils down to a suicide pact wherein none of them can leave until everyone’s ready to go. Steve has never benefitted from this clause in the Camp Counselor’s Guidebook, since he’s consistently one of the first people done, but he figures he can probably use it to cash in some favors down the line.
“Yeah,” Steve sighs. “I’m gonna miss the little brats too.”
“Ohoho!” Robin chuckles with far too much glee. “He called them ‘brats’! You must have really liked these ones. I don’t think I’ve ever heard you refer to a group of campers as anything other than ‘little shits’ or ‘motherfuckers’ since I started working here.”
“Yeah, yeah, laugh it up,” Steve says. “The only reason I didn’t is because I know Nancy and Jonathan would each kick my ass if I called their little brothers ‘motherfuckers.’”
“Damn straight,” Nancy says as though she isn’t currently melting into Robin’s side. Jonathan doesn’t have to say anything. They all remember, or at least have heard stories about, the time Tommy of all people had to pull them apart Steve’s second summer working at Hawkins. But that’s water under the bridge now.
“Hey, Harrington!” a new but familiar voice booms. “Enjoying being president of the Geek Squad, I see.”
Yeah, Steve might miss the kids, but he’s not going to miss this.
“Sure am, Billy,” he says, looking up at the chiseled fucking Adonis statue striding toward their table. “Why don’t you join? You could be the secretary, I’d love to have you working under me.”
Robin gags exaggeratedly next to him, which Steve supposes is fair, but Billy’s eyes light up. “Someone’s got some fire today!” he crows. “Speaking of which, what say you and I go set fire to Hopper’s office? You know, as a little goodbye present.”
Steve scoffs. “So you can implicate me in the resulting arson case? Thanks, but I’ll pass.”
“Dunno what all this ‘King Steve’ business was about,” Billy fires back. “You’re not much fun, you know that, Harrington?” He moves on before Steve has a chance to reply, turning to Nancy. “How was my shitbird sister, huh? She treat you nice?”
“Max was a pleasure to have in class,” Nancy says, her voice the kind of saccharine that makes Steve’s blood run cold. That’s her “I could drag you to hell and back” voice. Steve should know. He’s seen it happen.
But he loses track of that conversation, focus returning to Billy saying he isn’t fun. Something about the guy pushes his buttons. It’s almost like he’s doing it on purpose, just to Steve specifically, and has been since the beginning of the summer. If it were anyone else Steve would let it go, but he finds himself rising to his feet behind the table and leaning forward so he can stab a finger intimidatingly toward Billy’s face. “Hey, who was the first person to agree to your little night swimming adventure last session?”
“Tommy,” Billy says without missing a beat, smirking just a little.
“Okay.” Steve regains his footing quickly; he honestly shouldn’t be that surprised. “Who was the second person?”
“Heather.” Billy crosses his arms over his chest, smirk growing wider, and Steve falters a little.
“Fucking hell, really?” When Billy just nods, Steve narrows his eyes at him. “Alright, but I came.”
“I’m sure you did, pretty boy.” Billy winks and Steve feels himself flush all the way down his neck. Fuck. It’s not as fun when the jokes are being made at his expense.
Their eyes remain locked for a few more seconds, Billy’s eyebrow raised in a challenge while Steve calculates just how likely it is he’ll actually get murdered if he jumps the table and punches him in the nose. Then a throat clears to Steve’s left, and he remembers they’re not alone.
“I hate to interrupt this weird-as-fuck mating ritual,” Robin starts, and the faintest spots of color bloom high on Billy’s cheeks. Huh. “But Jonathan, I think your laundry is ready.”
“I’ll come help you with it,” Nancy rushes out, practically vaulting over the bench she was sitting on. Steve watches the three of them traipse down to the main cabin before turning back to Billy.
“Well, guess that’s my cue,” he says, straightening up slowly and stretching his arms over his head. He thinks, for a moment, that Billy’s eyes drift to his stomach when his shirt rides up, but before Steve can even hope to confirm, Billy’s got that easy, infuriating grin back on his face.
“Are you sure you don’t want to give this place a proper sendoff? We could put one of the canoes on the lake and shoot flaming arrows at it, Viking-funeral style.”
The scary thing about that idea is that they could absolutely do it. The canoes are right down by the beach, and the archery equipment is locked away for the summer but Steve knows where the key is. Tie a little cloth to the arrowhead, dip it in the bottle of whiskey Steve definitely hasn’t had stashed in his bag all summer, and boom! Weapon of questionable legality. It’s so easy to imagine, actually.
The scarier thing is that, for a moment, Steve seriously considers it.
But something on his face must read as a rebuff, because Billy shrugs and says, “Your loss,” like Jonathan did when Steve refused to try the new strain of weed he’d gotten his hands on. Steve rolls his eyes at that, reminding himself that he absolutely hates Billy and does not want to spend any more time with him.
“Enjoy your last few days of summer,” Billy says, clapping him on the shoulder as he walks past. It sounds like a threat, distracting enough that Steve almost doesn’t feel the slight pressure against his back pocket. He whirls around, fully prepared to curse Billy out, but he’s already yards away, whistling through his teeth with his hands shoved into his own pockets. Steve watches him go, hand drifting absently to the pocket Billy just violated. He’s not sure what the point of it was until his fingers close around a scrap of paper. When he pulls it out, he has to admit he’s surprised by what’s on it. There, in clear, neat print, reads 317-555-0806. There’s no name. Steve is pretty sure Billy knows he won’t need one.
“What did he say to you?” a voice asks at his shoulder, and he jumps, startled by Robin and her unusually silent approach.
“Nothing,” he says, hurriedly stuffing the paper into his other pocket. “Just, uh, just goodbye.”
Robin hums, looking unconvinced, but she doesn’t comment. They watch as a blue Camaro peels out of the now sparse parking lot, engine revving obnoxiously as it goes. Steve rubs the paper in his pocket between his fingers. There’s no way in hell he’s going to call that number. In fact, he’s going to throw it away as soon as he gets home. Yup, it’s going straight in the trash. End of story.
(Steve does not throw it away.)